Morals

[zabu of nΩd]

I think you're missing an important distinction here which Dodens has tried to explain. I'll see if I can do it. Force will equal mass times acceleration no matter what. Every human could be dead and it would be true. Everyone could disagree with it and it would be true. It was true before life began on Earth. Can you say the same thing about morality? No, it is just a consensus.

Neither you or Dodens actually responded to my last post, which is unfortunate since I think it introduces an important point of the existence of value in certain actions to certain living beings.

I think objective moral standards can be derived from the fact that certain things are universally valuable to living beings, and that even if the laws of nature are indifferent to this value, the mere fact that something is valuable to someone provides a justification for various actions where there would otherwise be no reason to reach a conclusion of any sort on those actions. Why does it matter that the universe is indifferent to morality when there are consistent, even universal, traits about us that basically dictate what some of our morals will be?

 

[skeptik]

If it dictates what our morals will be, does that mean that it's objective? I need to know what you mean by objective before I respond to you.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

As I understand it, "objective" means unchanging based on perspective. Thus, I've been trying to argue that certain moral values we have would not change no matter whose perspective they came from, because of qualities that are innate to being a living thing, or to being a human (i.e. desire to survive, desire to be happy, etc.).

As far as I can tell, in order for my proposition to be false, there would have to be some entity (or group of entities) in the universe for whom things like frivolous murder and torture (perhaps even of themselves) would be extremely valuable, in a way that would call to question whether the value we see in life and safety from harm could actually justify our actions on the greater scale.

None of us have observed such entities, and therefore I'm inclined to conclude that in matters of frivolous murder and torture, the value in preventing them is as certain to us as any of the "facts" we arrive at through science.

 

[Dak]

As I understand it, "objective" means unchanging based on perspective. Thus, I've been trying to argue that certain moral values we have would not change no matter whose perspective they came from, because of qualities that are innate to being a living thing, or to being a human (i.e. desire to survive, desire to be happy, etc.).

As far as I can tell, in order for my proposition to be false, there would have to be some entity (or group of entities) in the universe for whom things like frivolous murder and torture (perhaps even of themselves) would be extremely valuable, in a way that would call to question whether the value we see in life and safety from harm could actually justify our actions on the greater scale.

None of us have observed such entities, and therefore I'm inclined to conclude that in matters of frivolous murder and torture, the value in preventing them is as certain to us as any of the "facts" we arrive at through science.

vihris articulates my thoughts much better than I do itt.

 

[skeptik]

As I understand it, "objective" means unchanging based on perspective. Thus, I've been trying to argue that certain moral values we have would not change no matter whose perspective they came from, because of qualities that are innate to being a living thing, or to being a human (i.e. desire to survive, desire to be happy, etc.).

As far as I can tell, in order for my proposition to be false, there would have to be some entity (or group of entities) in the universe for whom things like frivolous murder and torture (perhaps even of themselves) would be extremely valuable, in a way that would call to question whether the value we see in life and safety from harm could actually justify our actions on the greater scale.

None of us have observed such entities, and therefore I'm inclined to conclude that in matters of frivolous murder and torture, the value in preventing them is as certain to us as any of the "facts" we arrive at through science.

Two things:

1) You seem to be using objective and universal synonymously. I take them to mean two different things. After all saying "universal morals are objective" is a tautology, and hardly interesting.
2) I'm not convinced that any morals are 100% universal. First, we have to make sure that we're not mistaking need with morality. That we need to eat is not a moral issue, for example. Secondly, I'm reasonably confident that there have been and are people that don't value human life at all, or in fact place negative value on human life, where it is a moral imperative for them to eliminate it. Of course this is an absurd outlier, but it does prevent morals from being truly universal.

I do not think for a second, however, that either of these (that 1) morals are not objective in a sense greater than that morals are universal and 2) that morals are not indefatigably universal) jeopardize the value of a moral system or that a given region can't have a perfectly reputable de facto set of officially universal morals.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

1) You seem to be using objective and universal synonymously. I take them to mean two different things. After all saying "universal morals are objective" is a tautology, and hardly interesting.

Not sure what bearing this has on my post. I didn't use the word "universal" in it, and I don't actually think that it means the same thing as "objective". Could you elaborate on this?

2) I'm not convinced that any morals are 100% universal. First, we have to make sure that we're not mistaking need with morality. That we need to eat is not a moral issue, for example. Secondly, I'm reasonably confident that there have been and are people that don't value human life at all, or in fact place negative value on human life, where it is a moral imperative for them to eliminate it. Of course this is an absurd outlier, but it does prevent morals from being truly universal.

The existence of people who place zero or negative value on life only shows that moral beliefs are not universal, not that the outlier beliefs are correct. Similarly, the fact that some believe the Earth to be 6000 years old does not make the age of the Earth "relative". I may further add that I have yet to hear someone give me a compelling argument that frivolous murder is morally "correct".

 

[skeptik]

Not sure what bearing this has on my post. I didn't use the word "universal" in it, and I don't actually think that it means the same thing as "objective". Could you elaborate on this?

Well, your reasoning for objectivity was that there are no cases in which it's not true that such and such a moral value is bad where for every other case it is good. In other words, that it's universal. I think you're making a mistake in assuming that we can know what is valuable for all people. It seems to make sense that no human being would value the senseless killing of other people, but I'm not confident that we can know this. At least we can't know that senselessly killing people is bad for all people. It seems as though the furthest we can conclude is that it's not necessarily good for all people, but there doesn't seem to be anything bad inherently in senselessly killing people. That comes from one's own personal belief that killing is wrong.

The existence of people who place zero or negative value on life only shows that moral beliefs are not universal, not that the outlier beliefs are correct. Similarly, the fact that some believe the Earth to be 6000 years old does not make the age of the Earth "relative". I may further add that I have yet to hear someone give me a compelling argument that frivolous murder is morally "correct".

In order for your comparison to work, we would need to show that there is such a thing as a moral fact. We can concretely know that the Earth is more than 6000 years old, but we can't know concretely that it's morally wrong to steal without basing this on pragmatism or utility, are since there is no impetus that moral values must be pragmatic, I don't see how we can posit that there are true moral facts. For example, it is not a fact, morally speaking, that stealing is wrong. It's one possible belief.

 

[skeptik]

In fact, I think the very terminology when speaking of moral claims makes it very difficult to lend itself to the supposition that it is in any way objective. Things about which we have an opinion are not "wrong" or "bad" objectively. Stealing is not "wrong" objectively. Stealing may not be conducive to a healthy society, but that's not a moral claim, that's a utilitarian claim, upon which can be placed a moral claim, but that still doesn't make it objective.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

I'm pretty low on brain power at the moment, so I'll get back to you on this later.

 

[Einherjar86]

I've been doing some thinking, and here's the result.

I think it was Kierkegaard who said that human beings move through three basic states in their life: aesthetic, ethical, and faith. He called aesthetic the "immediate" state, ethical the "mediated" state, and faith the "higher immediate."

Kierkegaard saw no state beyond faith, but if we chose to create one I believe we could call it the Sublime. Looking from this point of view, we could label the Sublime as the "higher mediated" state. Or, perhaps, the "highest mediated" state.

Essentially, the "immediate" states are formed by relative conceptions. Only the ethical state, the "mediated" state, attempts to qualify matters based on an objective standard. This objective standard is: "what ultimate decision/conclusion/action will be best for everyone?" The problem with ethics is trying to decide what is ultimately the "right" decision in terms of the welfare of others.

This decision cannot be made in terms of aesthetics or faith. For example, take homosexuality. The decision that homosexuality is wrong is one based on faith. Since a large majority of the population are homosexual, the ethical decision would obviously be different. Faith and ethics cannot be allowed to mix together.

However, when one has entered the "faith" stage of life, wrong and right take on a new meaning, and cannot be judged except from this standpoint of faith. This is the problem that we encounter with those of faith and those of ethics. Unfortunately, no one ever enters the state of the Sublime, which would be the highest mediated state (i.e. one would understand right and wrong without any struggle or conflict; essentially, one could only act rightly).

While ethics tries to determine and attain the "highest mediated" state of the Sublime, it never can. The concepts of right and wrong will always be tainted by the relative influences of aesthetics and faith.

Sorry for rambling.

 

[Dak]

I think that the fact that homosexuality is a non-self-supporting lifestyle? is a pretty good arguement for it's stupidity if nothing else, faith issues aside.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

@Einherjar

That was pretty interesting, if just a tad convoluted.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

I think that the fact that homosexuality is a non-self-supporting lifestyle? is a pretty good arguement for it's stupidity if nothing else, faith issues aside.

lol

So any lifestyle that isn't "self-supporting" (by which I presume you mean species-perpetuating) is stupid? How about being single?

 

[Dak]

lol

So any lifestyle that isn't "self-supporting" (by which I presume you mean species-perpetuating) is stupid? How about being single?

I think you mean being celibate.

 

[Einherjar86]

I think that the fact that homosexuality is a non-self-supporting lifestyle? is a pretty good arguement for it's stupidity if nothing else, faith issues aside.

True, but the fact remains that it in no way endangers or harms others by means of its practice. Democratic individualism basically means that people can do as they choose, so long as their choices inflict no harm on others. Homosexuality has no influence beyond those immediately engaging in the act (as long as those beyond are properly educated and informed).

@Einherjar

That was pretty interesting, if just a tad convoluted.

Yeah, I didn't think much before I wrote. It just kind of spilled out.

 

[Cythraul]

Because it has to be applied equally across the board. You can't elevate one person's "needs" without balancing it against the others involved.

Yeah, and why should I care? A statement telling me that I ought to give a crap about such a thing is a moral claim, so I hope that's not being assumed by the person who wrote that article, since that would be kind of, you know, question begging.

 

[Dak]

The existence of people who place zero or negative value on life only shows that moral beliefs are not universal, not that the outlier beliefs are correct. Similarly, the fact that some believe the Earth to be 6000 years old does not make the age of the Earth "relative". I may further add that I have yet to hear someone give me a compelling argument that frivolous murder is morally "correct".

.

 

[skeptik]

I already responded to that.

 

[Dak]

I already responded to that.

So morals must be something other than an innate understanding of order for things to work properly?

 

[Cythraul]

So morals must be something other than an innate understanding of order for things to work properly?

What do you mean by 'work properly'?