What is the appeal of "objective morality"

[Leumas]

<snip... backpedaling>

.... but I do tend to think that the difference between malfunction and guilt is intuitively clear.

Guilt is just like hunger or thirst or pain or lust or disgust or sleepiness.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Guilt is just like hunger or thirst or pain or lust or disgust or sleepiness.

How do you know that?

 

[David Mo]

Tell me, if you would, how abstract mathematical theories are observable or quantifiable (in a wide sense).
Thanks again.

Mathematical laws (theorems) are not factual but formal. They don’t refer to the empirical world. They can be applied to the empirical world by means of rules of transformation. These rules differ from the axiomatic system.
I was speaking of empirical objects.

You’re welcome again.

I wonder if some of your argument is informed by G.E. Moore's "naturalistic fallacy". I think there's some similarity there, but I am not too familiar with Moore.

I am not familiar enough with Moore’s naturalistic fallacy either. But I suppose I am defending a similar criterion to reject a naturalistic ethic. I strongly disagree with Moore’s intuitionism if I understand it correctly. I arrive to a similar outlook by means of Hume’s guillotine.

 

[phiwum]

Guilt is just like hunger or thirst or pain or lust or disgust or sleepiness.

In this context, I meant "guilt" to stand for "blameworthiness", not for some personal emotional feeling tied to self-evaluation.

 

[phiwum]

Mathematical laws (theorems) are not factual but formal. They don’t refer to the empirical world. They can be applied to the empirical world by means of rules of transformation. These rules differ from the axiomatic system.
I was speaking of empirical objects.

You’re welcome again.

Okay, so we can conclude that right and wrong are not empirical objects, but I'm not sure that anyone thought that they were empirical objects. Philosophers like Kant seem to be quite explicit that we don't come to moral norms via experience.

I am not familiar enough with Moore’s naturalistic fallacy either. But I suppose I am defending a similar criterion to reject a naturalistic ethic. I strongly disagree with Moore’s intuitionism if I understand it correctly. I arrive to a similar outlook by means of Hume’s guillotine.

I like Hume rather a lot, though it's been a long time since I read his work on ethics.

 

[David Mo]

Guilt is just like hunger or thirst or pain or lust or disgust or sleepiness.

Absolutely not!

Guilt is a moral emotion. All moral emotions imply a positive or aversive appraisal of the self. There are some characteristic features of guilt:

It is aversive. The self is devalued because he has violated a rule and/or offended some authority connected with this rule. The authority is internalized in form of conscience. My wrong acts almost ever produced a victim and the guilt is an emotion that arises when I recognise him as such. In other cases, usually associated to some religious beliefs, first of all the victim is the authority. Guilt is normally associated to repentance and reparation.

This is very different from thirst or sleepiness and more definite than disgust (although sometimes guilt is defined as a form of self-disgust). Other moral emotions are pride, shame and embarrassment.

 

[David Mo]

Okay, so we can conclude that right and wrong are not empirical objects, but I'm not sure that anyone thought that they were empirical objects.

Bentham, Mill or Sam Harris are philosophers who have thought that we can translate moral values in terms of specifically measurable features: utility or well-being.

And if is it not empirically "measurable", what kind of feature can be objective?

 

[Pup]

Absolutely not!

Guilt is a moral emotion. All moral emotions imply a positive or aversive appraisal of the self. There are some characteristic features of guilt:

It is aversive. The self is devalued because he has violated a rule and/or offended some authority connected with this rule. The authority is internalized in form of conscience. My wrong acts almost ever produced a victim and the guilt is an emotion that arises when I recognise him as such. In other cases, usually associated to some religious beliefs, first of all the victim is the authority. Guilt is normally associated to repentance and reparation.

This is very different from thirst or sleepiness and more definite than disgust (although sometimes guilt is defined as a form of self-disgust). Other moral emotions are pride, shame and embarrassment.

While moral emotions can be categorized that way, I don't think they're completely apart from thirst, hunger, pain, etc. They're all negative sensations that we feel a need to remove and avoid. If we feel hunger, we eat. If we feel guilt, we apologize and make amends. Avoiding hunger is part of the evolutionary urge to keep the body alive, while avoiding things that cause guilt is part of a similar urge to receive benefits of being part of a group.

 

[Leumas]

Absolutely not!

Absolutely yes!!!

Guilt is a moral emotion. ...

Circular unreasoning!!!

Guilt is the a primitive instinct hard wired into the processes of the brain just like hunger and so forth which induce the organism to do what it behooves it to do so as to carry on surviving.

When one feels the EMOTION of thirst, it is because the brain is telling itself that it OUGHT to drink to carry on surviving as a biological organism.

When one feels the emotion of guilt, it is because the brain is telling itself it ought to do whatever social action that it behooves it to do so as to carry on surviving as a social organism.

All moral emotions imply a positive or aversive appraisal of the self. There are some characteristic features of guilt:

That is exactly what are fear, disgust lust, hunger, pain, sleepiness, thirst and so on and so forth.

They are exactly positive or aversive appraisal of the self.

... (although sometimes guilt is defined as a form of self-disgust). Other moral emotions are pride, shame and embarrassment.

EVOLUTION!!! EVOLUTION!!!

Just as all other EMOTIONS evolved to induce actions conducive to continued survival of the biological organism in the ENVIRONMENT... so did all those other emotions you mention above also EVOLVE as chemical reactions and neuronal firings so as to induce the organism to carry out actions conducive to its social survival in the SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT.

Morality is just a linguistic description of these emotional instincts pertaining to survival in the social environment... just like we have the word NEED to describe instincts pertaining to survival in the biological/physical environment.

Society is nothing more than an extension of the biological/physical environment.

Fear to avoid the lion's fangs... guilt to avoid the tribe's fangs.

Just as pain evolved as a mechanism to induce the organism to refrain from doing whatever physically/biologically detrimental action it was doing within the biological/physical environment... so has guilt evolved as a mechanism to induce the organism to refrain from doing whatever socially detrimental action it was doing within the social environment.

By the way... one can think of gods as just extended tribal fangs for reining in those who learned to not fear the normal length fangs.

 

[phiwum]

Bentham, Mill or Sam Harris are philosophers who have thought that we can translate moral values in terms of specifically measurable features: utility or well-being.

Earlier, you said "'Wrong' or 'right' are not subject of experience." Now you say that some philosophers believe that wrong and right are subjects of experience, measurable and everything, if I understand you correctly.

Don't you therefore have to give an explicit argument why these philosophers are mistaken? (I don't mind if we leave Harris out of it.)

And if is it not empirically "measurable", what kind of feature can be objective?

I'm not sure why measurability is a precondition of objective features. I'm not even sure what it means.

For thousands of years, we were incapable of measuring the wavelengths of light, but surely this fact doesn't entail colors of objects weren't objective features back then, but they are now. So, I'm just unclear on what you mean by measurability and why being measureable is a necessary condition for objectivity.

I presume, for instance, that counting the number of oxygen molecules in my bedroom this instant is beyond our abilities, without some very large bounds of error. But surely, there is an objective fact about how many, precisely, there are? (Or, if quantum weirdness interferes with this example, consider the number of stars in a very distant galaxy at the time the light that reached earth this moment left the most distant star.)

 

[David Mo]

Earlier, you said "'Wrong' or 'right' are not subject of experience." Now you say that some philosophers believe that wrong and right are subjects of experience, measurable and everything, if I understand you correctly.

Don't you therefore have to give an explicit argument why these philosophers are mistaken? (I don't mind if we leave Harris out of it.)

Yes. I disagree with these philosophers. I was only mention their outlook.

I'm not sure why measurability is a precondition of objective features. I'm not even sure what it means.

It is important to the the naturalist ethics. It is important in the field of values because ethic naturalism maintains that we base our value judgements in a scale of utility, well-being, pleasure, etc.

Quantification is important In natural sciences if we want mathematize our knowledge. But this was not my point at this moment. Science is not ethics.

 

[David Mo]

While moral emotions can be categorized that way, I don't think they're completely apart from thirst, hunger, pain, etc. They're all negative sensations that we feel a need to remove and avoid. If we feel hunger, we eat. If we feel guilt, we apologize and make amends. Avoiding hunger is part of the evolutionary urge to keep the body alive, while avoiding things that cause guilt is part of a similar urge to receive benefits of being part of a group.

You are right. Emotions (guilt, love, anger…) and biological impulses (thirst, hunger…) are motivations. So they are impulses to action. Sometimes is very difficult to distinguish them but there is a clear difference: emotions include a subjective aspect: cognitions and justifications. We can say “I believe to be in love with Doris” when I really hate her. But, except in some ambiguous situations when my body malfunctions, I don’t believe to be hungry when I am thirsty.

Therefore, conscience and deliberation are essential to moral emotions and the ways how a moral emotion performs an action are almost infinite.

 

[David Mo]

When one feels the EMOTION of thirst, it is because the brain is telling itself that it OUGHT to drink to carry on surviving as a biological organism.

When one feels the emotion of guilt, it is because the brain is telling itself it ought to do whatever social action that it behooves it to do so as to carry on surviving as a social organism.

That is exactly what are fear, disgust lust, hunger, pain, sleepiness, thirst and so on and so forth.

They are exactly positive or aversive appraisal of the self.

Does sleepiness suppose an appraisal of the self??? Strange.

Oxford Dictionary: Appraisal (= assesing): Evaluate or estimate the nature, ability, or quality of.

I wouldn't say that all the human behaviours are adaptative nor socially advisable.

I don't know any psychologyist that says the hunger is an emotion. Do you know someone? Thank you.

 

[IanS]

Right. Let it drop then.

I'm sorry, but when you asked for a definition of morality, did you not expect some philosophical terms?

Well whether or not I expected you to descend into a smokescreen of philosophical gobbledygook language, the point is that I don't want to hear replies in that sort of obscurantist verbiage. Because it's an attempt to remove the entire discussion into the realms of formal philosophy and "philosophy-speak". If you cannot give a clear simple answer in normal every-day language then there is something wrong with the nature of your explanations.

However, I also note that what you actually said was that you could not give a clear definition of what morality is, or what you mean by morality. Instead you said this about it -

I don't think I can give a clear and precise definition, but perhaps I can list some essential features of morality. Part of the reason, incidentally, that a clear and precise definition is not possible is that the answer to the question, "What is morality?" depends on certain meta-ethical considerations. A realist will not answer the question in the same manner as an emotivist[1], for instance.

And then to explain that, you said that only "part of your reason" for that failure was that it depends on -

"certain meta-ethical considerations"

...whereby you then explain that by saying -

"A realist will not answer the question in the same manner as an emotivist[1]"


So in order to remedy that failure you say "So, let me answer as a realist would" ... and for that your answer was to talk about -

" fundamental feature of moral norms"
" appropriateness of an act"
" not to fulfill this or that subjective end of the actor"
" heart of a moral claim is an "ought"

I think you actually said enough when you admitted that you could not give a proper definition of what you mean by "morality".


The point of asking for some clear and precisely stated definition of what the word "morality" actually means, is that if you cannot define it in any really clear way, or more relevantly if WLC cannot or does not define it in any clear way (e.g. if he only gives the sort of philosophy-speak obscuarntist mumbo-jumbo that you just gave), then when you or WLC claim that "objective morality" is not something which science is able to investigate or explain (or however you wish to express some assumed failure of science), one of the likely reasons why neither science nor anything else can explain it to your satisfaction or to WLC's satisfaction, is that it's not actually a single specific question about any single specific clearly defined thing ... i.e. what you or WLC or anyone means by "morality" is actually a whole load of different things all mixed up together under that one umbrella term ...

... when you ask for science to explain or study "morality", you are actually asking it study lots of different things, any of which might be included by some commentators, but not by others!

If you can define what it really is, then I expect we can quite easily have a scientific study of what you really mean by that word.

But if you cannot give a clear definition, then you are asking science to study and explain something which only exists as a subjective set of various ideas that can change depending on who is proposing or describing the ideas.


If we get back for a moment to what I think was the original issue about WLC claiming that humans have "objective" morality, which he therefore claims must come from God, specifically because he says the moral's are "objective" (and not "subjective"), the reason that he is indulging in circular or self-contained reasoning, is because he is assuming without any independent factual evidence that what he calls "morality", which as we have just seen is probably impossible for him to properly or validly define anyway, is "objective" in the sense of being implanted by God ... and then, after that assumption about something he cannot accurately define, as well as the assumption of an un-evideneced God, he then apparently tries to support that set of beliefs by giving a definition of the sort that was given earlier by pharphis, or so pharphis said in his previous post.

All that I am saying about that lot, is that if that is the way that WLC is arguing for the existence of something he calls "objective morality" in humans, then his entire description is self-contained only in his own un-evidenced religious beliefs. And it's not saved or explained by any amount of his philosophical theological mumbo-jumbo, or any similar philosophical mumbo-jumbo from anyone else.

If you want a scientific explanation on this, then I think what we can probably say is that - the reason why WLC wishes to say that what is called "morality" in humans, is objective, is purely because he wants to make it sound as if it's a very specific thing implanted by a heavenly Christian God. That's the scientific answer! Namely - WLC wants to support and proclaim his Christian God belief, so he is making up the idea of "objective" morals. And because he wants to obscure the fact that he has just made it up with no genuine evidence, he does what you are doing, and he describes his invented belief in a vast never ending mass of theological and philosophical semantics.

 

[phiwum]

Yes. I disagree with these philosophers. I was only mention their outlook.

Yes, I figured that, but I think you need some argument in favor of point (4). It isn't self-evident.

It is important to the the naturalist ethics. It is important in the field of values because ethic naturalism maintains that we base our value judgements in a scale of utility, well-being, pleasure, etc.

I'm having trouble understanding how what you wrote above is a defense of the (implicit) claim that objective stuff is measurable. At least it seemed to me that this is what you said, and it is, of course, a bold claim, one that seems, quite generally, false, though it's hard to know unless we know what one means by "measurable".

Quantification is important In natural sciences if we want mathematize our knowledge. But this was not my point at this moment. Science is not ethics.

 

[phiwum]

Well whether or not I expected you to descend into a smokescreen of philosophical gobbledygook language, the point is that I don't want to hear replies in that sort of obscurantist verbiage. Because it's an attempt to remove the entire discussion into the realms of formal philosophy and "philosophy-speak". If you cannot give a clear simple answer in normal every-day language then there is something wrong with the nature of your explanations.

And it seems to me that using precise language, with explanations, is good, that we use it in science as well although the layman may make the same complaint that you make. You've given what appears to me to be an anti-intellectual rant because you have a bias against philosophy, so when a philosopher uses terms that are part of the jargon, you presume they are obscuring the fact they have nothing to say.

However, I also note that what you actually said was that you could not give a clear definition of what morality is, or what you mean by morality. Instead you said this about it -





And then to explain that, you said that only "part of your reason" for that failure was that it depends on -

"certain meta-ethical considerations"

...whereby you then explain that by saying -

"A realist will not answer the question in the same manner as an emotivist[1]"


So in order to remedy that failure you say "So, let me answer as a realist would" ... and for that your answer was to talk about -

" fundamental feature of moral norms"
" appropriateness of an act"
" not to fulfill this or that subjective end of the actor"
" heart of a moral claim is an "ought"

I think you actually said enough when you admitted that you could not give a proper definition of what you mean by "morality".


The point of asking for some clear and precisely stated definition of what the word "morality" actually means, is that if you cannot define it in any really clear way, or more relevantly if WLC cannot or does not define it in any clear way (e.g. if he only gives the sort of philosophy-speak obscuarntist mumbo-jumbo that you just gave), then when you or WLC claim that "objective morality" is not something which science is able to investigate or explain (or however you wish to express some assumed failure of science), one of the likely reasons why neither science nor anything else can explain it to your satisfaction or to WLC's satisfaction, is that it's not actually a single specific question about any single specific clearly defined thing ... i.e. what you or WLC or anyone means by "morality" is actually a whole load of different things all mixed up together under that one umbrella term ...

... when you ask for science to explain or study "morality", you are actually asking it study lots of different things, any of which might be included by some commentators, but not by others!

If you can define what it really is, then I expect we can quite easily have a scientific study of what you really mean by that word.

But if you cannot give a clear definition, then you are asking science to study and explain something which only exists as a subjective set of various ideas that can change depending on who is proposing or describing the ideas.

I've taught mathematics, but I could not define mathematics. I once took a course in Domain Theory from a very well-respected researcher, and the class waited in vain for a definition of domain. Sometimes, things are hard to define because the term has not one single, universally accepted meaning.

But there are certain features common to morality, at least as defined by moral realists. One of these is that it involves normative claims. It is also a truism that science is a descriptive endeavor, that scientific theories involve descriptive, not normative, claims[1]. And this fact is sufficient to conclude that it is not for lack of a definition that science does not shed light on moral claims, but because it is not in the nature of science to yield normative claims.

If we get back for a moment to what I think was the original issue about WLC claiming that humans have "objective" morality, which he therefore claims must come from God, specifically because he says the moral's are "objective" (and not "subjective"), the reason that he is indulging in circular or self-contained reasoning, is because he is assuming without any independent factual evidence that what he calls "morality", which as we have just seen is probably impossible for him to properly or validly define anyway, is "objective" in the sense of being implanted by God ... and then, after that assumption about something he cannot accurately define, as well as the assumption of an un-evideneced God, he then apparently tries to support that set of beliefs by giving a definition of the sort that was given earlier by pharphis, or so pharphis said in his previous post.

All that I am saying about that lot, is that if that is the way that WLC is arguing for the existence of something he calls "objective morality" in humans, then his entire description is self-contained only in his own un-evidenced religious beliefs. And it's not saved or explained by any amount of his philosophical theological mumbo-jumbo, or any similar philosophical mumbo-jumbo from anyone else.

If you want a scientific explanation on this, then I think what we can probably say is that - the reason why WLC wishes to say that what is called "morality" in humans, is objective, is purely because he wants to make it sound as if it's a very specific thing implanted by a heavenly Christian God. That's the scientific answer! Namely - WLC wants to support and proclaim his Christian God belief, so he is making up the idea of "objective" morals. And because he wants to obscure the fact that he has just made it up with no genuine evidence, he does what you are doing, and he describes his invented belief in a vast never ending mass of theological and philosophical semantics.

First, of course, I'm not supporting WLC.

Second, I haven't really been defending moral realism as correct in this thread. You asked me for a definition of morality, and the fact is that what morality consists of depends on what meta-ethical camp[2] you're in. The approach of moral realism allowed me to make my point most clearly.

There's a sense, for instance, in which science could well study morality as understood by moral relativists, but then the problem comes before that: science does not seem to be able to establish that relativism is the right meta-theory.

I'm really not too sure I'm keen on continuing this conversation much further, because I really am a bit sick of being accused of obfuscating when I work to put things as clearly as possible. You accept the fact that sciences and mathematics use terms that are not immediately clear to lay users, but you immediately presume that any philosophical jargon is a ruse to obfuscate.

It is an uncharitable conceit on your part.

[1] With a possible exception for functional language in biology.

[2] There's no particularly simple way to avoid terminology like this. There are certain fundamental presumptions about morality that occur prior to what we call ethical theories. These are related to morality in the same way that some meta-mathematical camps (like intuitionism) are related to mathematics. Using this terminology is not intended to obfuscate, but only to clarify.

 

[tsig]

And it seems to me that using precise language, with explanations, is good, that we use it in science as well although the layman may make the same complaint that you make. You've given what appears to me to be an anti-intellectual rant because you have a bias against philosophy, so when a philosopher uses terms that are part of the jargon, you presume they are obscuring the fact they have nothing to say.



I've taught mathematics, but I could not define mathematics. I once took a course in Domain Theory from a very well-respected researcher, and the class waited in vain for a definition of domain. Sometimes, things are hard to define because the term has not one single, universally accepted meaning.

But there are certain features common to morality, at least as defined by moral realists. One of these is that it involves normative claims. It is also a truism that science is a descriptive endeavor, that scientific theories involve descriptive, not normative, claims[1]. And this fact is sufficient to conclude that it is not for lack of a definition that science does not shed light on moral claims, but because it is not in the nature of science to yield normative claims.



First, of course, I'm not supporting WLC.

Second, I haven't really been defending moral realism as correct in this thread. You asked me for a definition of morality, and the fact is that what morality consists of depends on what meta-ethical camp[2] you're in. The approach of moral realism allowed me to make my point most clearly.

There's a sense, for instance, in which science could well study morality as understood by moral relativists, but then the problem comes before that: science does not seem to be able to establish that relativism is the right meta-theory.

I'm really not too sure I'm keen on continuing this conversation much further, because I really am a bit sick of being accused of obfuscating when I work to put things as clearly as possible. You accept the fact that sciences and mathematics use terms that are not immediately clear to lay users, but you immediately presume that any philosophical jargon is a ruse to obfuscate.

It is an uncharitable conceit on your part.

[1] With a possible exception for functional language in biology.

[2] There's no particularly simple way to avoid terminology like this. There are certain fundamental presumptions about morality that occur prior to what we call ethical theories. These are related to morality in the same way that some meta-mathematical camps (like intuitionism) are related to mathematics. Using this terminology is not intended to obfuscate, but only to clarify.

Tent cities for high mathematicians?

Philosophy uses such highly refined terms that laymen are left to stare in wonder at the precision of the language and how carefully the words are woven together.

Unfortunately the garment is transparent.

 

[David Mo]

Yes, I figured that, but I think you need some argument in favor of point (4). It isn't self-evident.

My arguments are here: post #209

I'm having trouble understanding how what you wrote above is a defense of the (implicit) claim that objective stuff is measurable. At least it seemed to me that this is what you said, and it is, of course, a bold claim, one that seems, quite generally, false, though it's hard to know unless we know what one means by "measurable".

Maybe I am too cartesian in this: I think all the "objective stuffs" occur in some space and time coordinates (not necessarily the cartesians space and time, of course). All the objects I can imagine occur with "measurable" properties of force, distance, weight, spin, speed, power, etc. We don't need imagine exact measurements, but only approximative.

I cannot obtain a universal measurement of moral values in the same sense. Of course I can measure the moral behaviour (number or intensity of the answers to a moral stimulation) of a single person, but this is not an objective measurement, because the universality is a feature of the moral imperatives.

 

[phiwum]

Tent cities for high mathematicians?

Philosophy uses such highly refined terms that laymen are left to stare in wonder at the precision of the language and how carefully the words are woven together.

Unfortunately the garment is transparent.

Right, terms like "meta-mathematics" are nonsense, complete fluff.

So, it follows, that meta-mathematical theorems like Goedel's incompleteness theorems, the independence theorems of CH and AC, are just so much nonsense, too.

There is a remarkable anti-intellectual bias when it comes to philosophy around here. I won't, of course, defend everything that goes on in philosophy. It's a broad discipline, and some of it looks like nonsense to me.

But the same people who defend (outdated) concepts like the falsifiability principle seem oblivious to the fact that the principle is a philosophical, not scientific, concept. In fact, any discussion about the demarcation between science and pseudoscience is a fundamentally philosophical discussion, not a scientific one. People here should at least have respect for (analytic) philosophy of science, philosophy of math and philosophical logic regardless of their appreciation of ethics, aesthetics or the horrible morass of continental philosophy.

 

[phiwum]

My arguments are here: post #209

I'll try to return to this soon.

Maybe I am too cartesian in this: I think all the "objective stuffs" occur in some space and time coordinates (not necessarily the cartesians space and time, of course). All the objects I can imagine occur with "measurable" properties of force, distance, weight, spin, speed, power, etc. We don't need imagine exact measurements, but only approximative.

For a moment, I thought you meant you are a dualist, believing in both mind and body!

Let's take a concept which does not appear to have a physical counterpart: validity of a deductive argument, say. Now, you might say this isn't an object, but a moral realist might say "rightness of an act" isn't an object either.

We certainly find it reasonable to talk about validity. We don't think it's nonsense to discuss this concept, even though it doesn't occur with measurable properties of the sort you describe above. Should we conclude that we are mistaken, that so long as we can't find validity in the physical world around us and measure its properties, we are actually discussing an empty concept?

I cannot obtain a universal measurement of moral values in the same sense. Of course I can measure the moral behaviour (number or intensity of the answers to a moral stimulation) of a single person, but this is not an objective measurement, because the universality is a feature of the moral imperatives.

I think I agree with everything you say above --at least it seems plausible-- but I don't necessarily conclude that, therefore, there is no objective morality.