What should Morals and Ethics be?

JoeMorgue said:
Morality and ethics are questions of reducing the suffering of conscious beings.
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Why is reducing the suffering of conscious beings desirable?

You've asserted a philosophical premise there, can you back it with argument or must it be taken as a matter of faith?
 
mumblethrax said:
You're missing the point--if I had chosen to do the selfish thing, it would be absurd to call the choice moral. The reason I didn't do it is precisely because I thought it would be unethical. Which means that it can't be true that morality/ethics just means just doing what we want. It's a very specific subset of desires, even if we accept the egoistic framing (and there are lots of good reasons why we shouldn't). Which means there's more work involved in calling them desires--what kind of desire, exactly? Saying "it's just us doing what we want to do" elides the whole topic.
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The point you're missing is that you apparently want to be moral. Which is a desire that influenced how you chose to act.

Edited to fix damn autocorrect
 
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mumblethrax said:
You're missing the point--if I had chosen to do the selfish thing, it would be absurd to call the choice moral. The reason I didn't do it is precisely because I thought it would be unethical.
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Would it be less absurd to call the choice moral if you have not chosen to do the selfish thing?

Which means that it can't be true that morality/ethics just means just doing what we want
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Yet you did what you wanted, even dressed up the whole choice in terms of morality, then how can your example refute the notion of morality as just doing what we want?
 
TragicMonkey said:
Why is reducing the suffering of conscious beings desirable?

You've asserted a philosophical premise there, can you back it with argument or must it be taken as a matter of faith?
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The Hypocrisy clause!


Evolution. Self-preservation. Pain. Suffering.
 
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Cheetah said:
Oh, an observation, sorry.
I was asking about personal opinions, so naturally I thought that was yours.
What is your philosophy then?
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Well it's also my personal opinion of course, it would be silly to hold a personal opinion which contradicts observation. I mean that it's not "my philosophy" in the same sense that my personal opinion that gravity exists is not just "my philosophy" but an opinion based on observation. A fact, basically.
 
TragicMonkey said:
The point you're missing is that you apparent want to be moral. Which is a desire than influenced how you chose to act.
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Well, no, that's an unfalsifiable assertion of psychological egoism, and it's not in fact how I think about such dilemmas.

But the claim wasn't "people have desires the influence them to act". The claim was that morality was nothing more than doing what we want to do. That's a hyper-simplistic model that completely ignores that we have conflicting desires, and that normative ethics is all about how we mediate those desires.
 
mumblethrax said:
Well, no, that's an unfalsifiable assertion of psychological egoism, and it's not in fact how I think about such dilemmas.

But the claim wasn't "people have desires the influence them to act". The claim was that morality was nothing more than doing what we want to do. That's a hyper-simplistic model that completely ignores that we have conflicting desires, and that normative ethics is all about how we mediate those desires.
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I didn't say morality was "nothing more than doing what we want to do". I said morality, whatever it is, is something we choose to behave in accordance with (or not). It's perfectly possible, even common, to choose to act contrary to what one thinks is the moral choice.
 
caveman1917 said:
Would it be less absurd to call the choice moral if you have not chosen to do the selfish thing?
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Yes. Acting for a just, equitable outcome has a moral character that acting to satisfy your desire for ice cream does not.

Yet you did what you wanted, even dressed up the whole choice in terms of morality, then how can your example refute the notion of morality as just doing what we want?
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Because you can't get everything that you want, even if we accept the egoistic framing (and I don't). We have to mediate between conflicting desires, a fact that "morality/ethics is people doing what they want" completely ignores.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Ethical solipsism does not concern me. That isn't angels dancing on the head of a pin, it's Prince Alberts dancing on the head of an angel's penis.
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If someone stated the base of ethics is to act in accord with the wishes of God you'd want them to back that up, wouldn't you?

Your premise is not so self-evident it can stand unsupported or unexamined.
 
TragicMonkey said:
If someone stated the base of ethics is to act in accord with the wishes of God you'd want them to back that up, wouldn't you?

Your premise is not so self-evident it can stand unsupported or unexamined.
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I'd ask them to prove God exists.

Are you asking me to prove conscious creatures exist and can suffer?
 
TragicMonkey said:
I didn't say morality was "nothing more than doing what we want to do".
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I know. Robin did, and it's this idea I'm objecting to.

It's perfectly possible, even common, to choose to act contrary to what one thinks is the moral choice.
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Well, no ****. But we wouldn't call that choice the moral choice, which means there's a problem with saying that morality is just doing what we want to do.
 
mumblethrax said:
Yes. Acting for a just, equitable outcome has a moral character that acting to satisfy your desire for ice cream does not.
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That depends the moral code you're using, doesn't it?

Because you can't get everything that you want, even if we accept the egoistic framing (and I don't). We have to mediate between conflicting desires, a fact that "morality/ethics is people doing what they want" completely ignores.
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But you could have gotten everything you claimed[*] you wanted, you were perfectly capable of locking everyone else out. The only thing that stopped you was you, so "you can't get everything that you want" doesn't really apply here. Clearly, there's something else you wanted even more (to act ethically) than to have good WiFi access. You did this thing you wanted most, claimed it to be the moral choice, yet consider that an argument against the notion of morality as "just doing what we want." Note that I don't necessarily agree with said notion of morality, but your example obviously doesn't refute it either, if anything it supports it.

*
mumblethrax said:
That seems hopelessly reductive to me. Yesterday I was on a bus with terrible wifi service, and I noticed that the mobile gateway was using the manufacturer's default password, so I could have blacklisted everyone but me and had decent service. And I wanted to do this.
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JoeMorgue said:
Morality and ethics are questions of reducing the suffering of conscious beings. The questions are answered like every other question; by weighing the evidence.

These questions are difficult, fiendishly complicated at times, and complicated further by cultural baggage, but they are not magical woo-woo questions that either don't have answers or only have absolute answers handed to us by the burning bush.

Everything else is so much Angels dancing on the head of a pin and can be dismissed as the nonsense it is.
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Your premise is that morality and ethics is about reducing the suffering of conscious beings. Is that statement a result of priori (self-evident) or posteriori (experience) knowledge? Can I be a carnivore and still be considered a moral being? It's probably a spectrum, not a right or wrong type of scale.

When you say that this question can only be answered by weighing the evidence, that leads me to believe you are stating that this question can only be answered by means of empiricism (experience or experiments). Is that an accurate portrayal of your position?
 
JoeMorgue said:
I'd ask them to prove God exists.

Are you asking me to prove conscious creatures exist and can suffer?
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I'm asking if you can support the premise that ethics is "reducing the suffering of conscious beings". Why is that a desirable thing?
 
Whenever we talk morality/ethics I always get perturbed by the number of people who are, even if only on an argumentative level, either looking for a loophole to exploit to be a total psychopath and/or assume other people are doing the same.

Humans are social creatures who want and need to interact with each other, but we have different, sometimes conflicting, individual wants, needs, and desires.

We are unhappy when we don't get the things we want/need.
But sometimes the easiest, simpliest, most obvious way to get what we want/need causes unhappiness in other people.

Looking at the overall situation and going "How can we maximize personal happiness at least without sacrificing, ideally while also improving, overall group happiness?" is the only morality/ethics I feel is valid.

//Note. I use the term "happiness" as shorthand, but this refers to a broad range of positive human emotions.//
 
Again I will not entertain "Prove to me why I shouldn't just be a psychopath" moral solipsism.

I'm comfortable starting at a point of "Suffering is bad" being self evidence.
 
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