Good and evil... do they exist?

[Seditious]

Of course we're morally permitted to do whatever we happen to do if determinism is true, because it would make no sense to make normative claims at all if nobody has a choice in what they do. This does not mean that we would in fact do whatever we wanted to do or that it wouldn't be prudent to disallow people from doing whatever they want to do. Furthermore, there's a big difference between something's being morally permissible and something's being merely permitted.

this is what I've been saying. you don't even need to bother with morality talk, because we will engage in certain behavior despite morality's nonexistence.

 

[Cythraul]

this is what I've been saying. you don't even need to bother with morality talk, because we will engage in certain behavior despite morality's nonexistence.

I don't totally agree with that. I agree that regardless of whether or not there really are moral truths, people will behave in certain ways but I don't agree that if we completely give up on moral talk altogether everything will remain just as it is. I take it that the fact that I don't believe in Jehovah is one of the reasons I don't bother with the bible. Now, I don't know what your view is on the causal power of beliefs but I'm inclined to think that giving up the belief in moral truths/moral responsibility is going to have some kind of significant effect.

 

[hibernal_dream]

Seditious, you've said ethics is nonsense twice now. Can you elaborate, because doing away with around a third of philosophy is a pretty big call. Is it just because you believe in determinism?

 

[Scourge of God]

Well...I'm pretty certain that symbols exist, but I do not know what an abstract symbol is.

What's being asked here is whether the abstract concepts that certain symbols signify actually exist. Don't be deliberately obtuse.

 

[Norsemaiden]

why would you genepool be the determinant of ultimate good? shouldn't I believe the same is true for my genepool if genepools have something to do with this?

so it's a fallacy to use the word ultimate isn't it?

why? if your genepool don't eat honey it's no worse than killing cancer instead of bees (ignoring the ecosystem repercussions for examplesake)

My genepool should be the determinant of ultimate good because its success is my priority. If you have a different genepool from mine then you should make sure it is never as successful as mine is. And certainly never rival mine. Otherwise, you are evil.
Bees are important in order to pollinate flowers, without which many plants would not exist, and likewise humans would most likely go extinct. Only stuff like ferns could survive. We need bees. They are good.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

My genepool should be the determinant of ultimate good because its success is my priority. If you have a different genepool from mine then you should make sure it is never as successful as mine is. And certainly never rival mine. Otherwise, you are evil.

No - my gene pool is the determinant of ultimate good, not yours.

 

[Cythraul]

What's being asked here is whether the abstract concepts that certain symbols signify actually exist. Don't be deliberately obtuse.

Well...I'm sure the concepts that are signified by the terms 'good' and 'evil' exist. After all, I do have the concepts of good and evil, and so do other people.

 

[Scourge of God]

Well...I'm sure the concepts that are signified by the terms 'good' and 'evil' exist. After all, I do have the concepts of good and evil, and so do other people.

I have a concept of a unicorn, but guess how many unicorns there actually are...

 

[zabu of nΩd]

I have a concept of a unicorn, but guess how many unicorns there actually are...

Hey Scourge... he said the concept exists, not the actual thing. You can imagine good and evil in your mind without good and evil actually existing.

 

[Cythraul]

I clearly know what point he's trying to make. I'm just nitpicking for the sake of my own amusement.

 

[Scourge of God]

Hey Scourge... he said the concept exists, not the actual thing. You can imagine good and evil in your mind without good and evil actually existing.

Existance itself is a thing of reality - a concept with no analog in reality does not exist, even if there is a symbol (concept) for it.

 

[Cythraul]

Existance itself is a thing of reality - a concept with no analog in reality does not exist, even if there is a symbol (concept) for it.

Wait, what are you saying? Let's get clear. I have the concept of a unicorn. Unicorns don't exist. Does that mean the concept doesn't exist or just that unicorns don't exist? If it's the latter, then who gives a flying fuck?

 

[Scourge of God]

Wait, what are you saying? Let's get clear. I have the concept of a unicorn. Unicorns don't exist. Does that mean the concept doesn't exist or just that unicorns don't exist? If it's the latter, then who gives a flying fuck?

A concept cannot exist in and of itself. It is a symbol, an abstraction that relates to reality (existence) only to the extent that that which it signifies has a real existence. 'War' is a concept - but it's a concept which signifies something that can actually be seen to exist. 'Unicorn' is a concept, but it is a concept unrelated to anything which does actually exist, and never moves beyond an abstraction as a result. It simply isn't real, nor does it signify anything real, and thus has no meaningful existence.

 

[Cythraul]

A concept cannot exist in and of itself. It is a symbol, an abstraction that relates to reality (existence) only to the extent that that which it signifies has a real existence. 'War' is a concept - but it's a concept which signifies something that can actually be seen to exist. 'Unicorn' is a concept, but it is a concept unrelated to anything which does actually exist, and never moves beyond an abstraction as a result. It simply isn't real, nor does it signify anything real, and thus has no meaningful existence.

This discussion is getting a bit ridiculous. Of what use is it to distinguish between concepts which allegedly exist and those that don't? I only know that the concept of fish exists because I make use of such a concept. I'm aware of the existence of the concept of unicorn in precisely the same way. None of that has anything to do with the existence of the thing putatively signified by the concept. How the heck does some relation which obtains between a concept and the world affect the ontological status of the concept? As far as I can see, the only thing whose ontological status has variability in this case is the thing putatively signified. Also, all concepts are abstractions and nothing more.

 

[Scourge of God]

The practice of communication may make use of abstractions - but these are stand ins, for the most part, for real things. There is a qualitative difference between an abstraction that signifies something real and an abstraction that signifies something that isn't real. 'Horse' has a functionality of meaning that 'unicorn' never will. In that light, 'good' and 'evil' probably have more in common with 'unicorn' than with 'horse,' but it's really neither here nor there, from the standpoint of productivity.

The real question ought to be 'How can we define good and evil in such a way as to maximize the benefits received from them, or, should we dispense with the distinction entirely?'

 

[Seditious]

I don't agree that if we completely give up on moral talk altogether everything will remain just as it is.

I don't know what your view is on the causal power of beliefs but I'm inclined to think that giving up the belief in moral truths/moral responsibility is going to have some kind of significant effect.

yes you raise a good point in the power of belief, and I don't think I said everything would stay exactly the same, but I certainly believe society would not radically change. I believe that if self-awareness existed before moral concepts were articulated that we didn't like murder because we didn't like wondering if someone was going to kill us (because we don't want to be killed), so before ever conceiving of 'murder' as 'wrong' we still acted in a very similar way as we do when considering 'murder' 'wrong.' Without morality's interferance there will still be basic values from which we react, just as we shoot a bear that mauls our child---we need no concept of morality to stop the bear in its tracks. not wanting to lose our hard earned property, loved ones etc would be similar values we would keep and fight for, and so besides things like marajuana being illegal, I don't see a lot changing simply because we can't call something immoral. Even if we don't believe something is 'wrong' we will still believe many things are 'bad' (for us) and thus treat it in a similar manner.

 

[Seditious]

My genepool should be the determinant of ultimate good because its success is my priority. If you have a different genepool from mine then you should make sure it is never as successful as mine is. And certainly never rival mine. Otherwise, you are evil.

no, according to your logic, you're evil, you and your whole genepool threaten mine by eating my resources. or rather, everyone is evil to everyone else... doesn't seem productive to me.

Sounds like your ideal is for everyone to believe they have a right to life (like the Objectivists), it sounds like you have an evolutionarily based morality, but you distort nature in order to hold your morality---evil doesn't fit into nature. If it's all about survival and genepools then it's merely nature and there's no reason to believe being 'evil' is a bad thing. aerobic lifeforms were evil when they changed the environment on earth killing off their opposite, but that's what nature does, fights to survive for its own genepool's sake. there's nothing wrong with being evil on that model, there's no reason not to be evil, I'm here for my genepool not yours, so if it's in my genepool's interest to exterminate yours then I should do that since the evolutionarily based ethic based on survival of my genepool determines that this is good. It is good for me to do what you consider evil. I have no reason not to be evil because I have used your system to affirm what I am doing is good. doing 'evll' to other genepools and impregnating as many people as I can is perhaps one of the most good things I could do for mine. What sense does it make to call me evil? If I kill a cow, or you, I'm 'evil', evil can only mean doing something you don't want done, interfering with your good, but so what, I'm not here for your good or the cows good. All you do by pointing out its evil is make me aware 'youll oppose what I do' as the cow would if it was more like a lion--so maybe I eat cows instead of lions, but not because it's only evil to kill lions, since lions make me aware its 'evil' to them. evil and morality are just the wrong terms for what goes on here, and there can be no sanctions in place on this model.

 

[Seditious]

Seditious, you've said ethics is nonsense twice now. Can you elaborate, because doing away with around a third of philosophy is a pretty big call. Is it just because you believe in determinism?

no. my opposition to modern morality is based on natural law theory. I only halfway accept determinism, it seems like it's probably true, though I haven't wholly reconciled this with my experience, so maybe somewhere there is a mysterious free will. I can play 'for sake of argument' with either free will or determinism and still reach the conclusions I do.

 

[Cythraul]

The practice of communication may make use of abstractions - but these are stand ins, for the most part, for real things. There is a qualitative difference between an abstraction that signifies something real and an abstraction that signifies something that isn't real.

No. There really is not. I don't know what universe you're living in but over here your statement doesn't make sense. It's barely intelligible to think of concepts as being demarcated in terms being more or less real or existent. A concept can be confused, unclear, or it might contain some kind of contradiction in which case you might say it's not even a genuine concept. If what you mean is the latter then that's perfectly understandable. For instance, the concept of a square circle. Such a concept would never be instantiated. We can't even properly conceive of a square circle. In that sense such a concept is not even a genuine concept. We just can't even clearly form such a concept. If on the other hand we're talking about unicorns, well that concept is perfectly clear. There's no contradiction contained in such a concept. I can clearly conceive of a horse with a horn coming out of its head without contradiction. It's on a par with any other perfectly clear concept. It only differs in the sense that it's not instantiated.

'Horse' has a functionality of meaning that 'unicorn' never will.

Of course, but the point is that one can make perfectly clear and intelligible use of the concept of a unicorn.

In that light, 'good' and 'evil' probably have more in common with 'unicorn' than with 'horse,' but it's really neither here nor there, from the standpoint of productivity.

They have more in common with 'unicorn' in what sense? In the sense that they're not instantiated?

The real question ought to be 'How can we define good and evil in such a way as to maximize the benefits received from them, or, should we dispense with the distinction entirely?'

Well of course. Why the hell would we want to make use of concepts that are entirely unhelpful?

 

[zabu of nΩd]

the reason we don't have determinism is essentially because our mathematical ability fails us.

sure, maybe a person can be reprogrammed from a destiny to rape by a butterfly being swatted instead of allowed to live, but if the butterfly isn't swat because it's determined so, then nothing can change that, no awareness of determinism changes anything, being aware of determinism would be a a predictable occurance, and the way people react in regards that idea would be predicted by determinism, and so on, there's no 'reprogramming', at best there is the delusion of reprogramming which is determined to be imagined by people in a society new to deterministic acceptance, but ya know, either things are determined or not. fuckit I'm too drunk to make my point lol I might try tomorrow

So... where were you going with this, exactly? What does our mathematical ability have to do with whether determinism is true or not?

I'm not sure I can respond to the second part without clarification, but it sounds like you're saying that having knowledge that the world is deterministic wouldn't change any of our actions because our actions would all be predictable anyway. I disagree with this, because the very knowledge of determinism could deterministically influence us to seek advances in neurology, which otherwise might stagnate as a field of study if people view the brain as something 'magical' which cannot be tampered with. If I missed your point, which is quite possible, feel free to rephrase your argument.