Where We Get Our Morals From

[plumjam]

It would destroy my position if it were inconceivable that anyone else would ever act otherwise.

It isn't, so it doesn't.

However, I like the, "How you, and by extension, everyone" part. "Let's say I do X. OK? Now, let's go ahead and assume that the other 6bn people on the planet will do exactly the same..."

In effect, then, your argument is that not every single human being in existence will act, react, or believe in the saw way in different circumstances.
Which is very nearly saying nothing at all. And certainly saying nothing of interest.

I don't particularly like beetroot. By your logic, I'm now wondering how the yellow, rubbery **** anyone ever sells any beetroot.

Yes, but your dislike of beetroot, and Fred's liking of it does not mean that beetroot has no existence independent of your own subjective actions, reactions and beliefs about beetroot.

Hmmm. We seem to have gone rather ahead of you, or at least left you somewhere behind.

Who is this "we" you are referring to? Is there a group of you huddled over the keyboard, or do you have split personality disorder?

We are not assuming that all laws are made with self-interest firmly at their heart. Nor are we assuming that all human actions are made with the self as the root cause (although the psychological egoism begets act altruism argument is interesting to those who like Game Theory). What we are in fact doing is positing that these events are possible.

So, what you are saying is that self-interest is possible. As above, big deal.

Not universal. Possible. And, as they are possible, it rather negates the idea that all such decisions are made as a result of conscience or a system of absolute moral truths. They don't have to be.

So you are agreeing with me. Some people have a better developed conscience than others. The ones with less developed consciences are more prone to selfishness. The fact that this happens has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not there exists moral truth beyond the individual.
Some people have impaired sight. They may not see the tomato heading in their direction. But that does not mean the tomato does not exist independently of themselves.

We'll take these two together.

You'd need to so you could see how moral the person actually was. Otherwise, you'd just be putting your opinion forward with little or nothing to back it up. It's clear that you see nothing wrong with this, however, so perhaps the key to the misunderstanding lies here.

With humour it is not terribly important for us, as a society, to be able to agree on, and formulate in words some system that reflects the underlying truth behind our individual perceptions.
With morality it is indispensable that we do this.

So you mixing morality and humour in this way is just a bit silly.

 

[plumjam]

It seems like the original post by you has been removed, but I found this in a response someone made to that post:



So are you retracting that statement now? I don't see why you would, since you clearly stated something similar just now regarding the universal moral truths of humor.

Do I need to realize god, plumjam, to be able to make the correct choice between chocolate and vanilla?

EDIT: Do you ever wish you could take back some of the things have said, so that people like me could no longer use them to show others what kind of a person you really are?

Thanks, you've just backed up what I told you.
Like I said, I have never mentioned "universal moral truth of music", and the other stuff you bizarrely implanted. It was an argument about aesthetic perception.
I see now you have added "universal moral truths of humor". What are you on? Morality is morality, humour is humour.. it is you who are mixing all this stuff up.
In the section you quoted I was talking about a God's-eye-view of all this. God is defined as omniscient. So of course God would be able to perfectly discern the varying levels of beauty in certain things, by definition.

Go and have a lie down

 

[Frozenwolf150]

If this were true you are left with the massive problem of people routinely performing selfless moral acts in situations which could never conceivably occur to themselves. Non-orphans donate to orphanages.

Who are obviously not members of the same species or living in the same society.

Bill Gates gives money for famine relief.

Because poor starving people are only human, unlike Bill Gates, who is a human alien cyborg hybrid, and the plight of people in poor nations obviously has no effect on politics or economics of developed nations.

Men donate money to cervical cancer charities.

Because obviously the lives and well-being of women have no effect on the lives of men, seeing as how the two genders live in complete isolation until mating season in the spring. Did I mention that HPV is completely innocuous to men?

Human beings create and run charities for animals...etc etc..

Yeah, who needs animals anyway? What did domesticated animals ever do for the agriculture that enabled the building of human civilization?

The enlightened self-interest theory is just self-evidently bogus.

Yep, apparently.


ETA: But seriously, just because an altruistic or compassionate behavior finds other applications does not automatically mean it couldn't have originated as a self-interested survival behavior.

 

[schlitt]

God is defined as omniscient. So of course God would be able to perfectly discern the varying levels of beauty in certain things, by definition.

Only in relation to calculating the subjective appreciation of the appreciator. Beauty only has meaning in the context of subjective appreciation.

 

[Undesired Walrus]

Do you kill moths when they fly into your room plumjam?

If so, why do you hate moths?

 

[rocketdodger]

I see now you have added "universal moral truths of humor". What are you on? Morality is morality, humour is humour.. it is you who are mixing all this stuff up.

Maybe you are thinking of the layperson's notion of morality, which is more along the lines of "good" and "evil." Well, I am not a layperson, and that wasn't what I was talking about.

Morality is acting in accordance with accepted standards of right and wrong. Right and wrong are defined according to a set of values -- right is in accordance with those values, wrong is in opposition to them. It is just that simple.

When you assert that values are objective, which is what you are doing with that statement about god and music, you are saying that everyone who makes a choice in accordance with any other set of values is making the wrong choice and by implication that they are morally wrong in that respect.

Are you or are you not saying that there is one correct set of values in the universe?

In the section you quoted I was talking about a God's-eye-view of all this. God is defined as omniscient. So of course God would be able to perfectly discern the varying levels of beauty in certain things, by definition.

Oh, I guess not. Just some values. Like what makes good music and what makes a funny joke.

And this, as I said before, is why nobody takes you seriously.

 

[plumjam]

Do you kill moths when they fly into your room plumjam?

If so, why do you hate moths?

UW, you get stranger and stranger. What does this have to do with anything?
For what it's worth, no, I don't kill moths when they fly into my room.
I only kill them when they try to fly into my wallet.

 

[plumjam]

In the interest of brevity I'll just answer this one

Morality is acting in accordance with accepted standards of right and wrong.

No it isn't. SS guards had their own accepted standards of right and wrong. But these accepted standards of right and wrong were immoral.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

In the interest of brevity I'll just answer this one

No it isn't. SS guards had their own accepted standards of right and wrong. But these accepted standards of right and wrong were immoral.

Not to the SS guards, they weren't ...

If you are going to claim that morality is objective, you have to concede that the Judeo-Christian god has acted immorally ..

 

[Hokulele]

If you are going to claim that morality is objective, you have to concede that the Judeo-Christian god has acted immorally ..

Buddha as well.

 

[arthwollipot]

And the thread has finally been Godwinned. Took your time about it.

If morals are absolute and are derived from religion, why aren't I (an atheist) out killing and raping people right now?

 

[pgwenthold]

In terms of so-called "objective" morality of the bible...

Consider the commandment "Thou shalt not kill." OK, watch the Jews/Christians/God himself go to war and/or otherwise kill. Doesn't sound too absolute, right?

But then, the apologist says, the REAL commandment is "thou shalt not MURDER." Oh really? And who defines what is murder? Gotta admit, I don't see that in the bible. Thus, murder gets defined by social/community standards. If the society determines that abortion is not murder, why should it be considered to be a sin? Were cannibals violating the 10 commandments? In their society, capturing and eating war prisoners was acceptable. Therefore, by their standards, they did not committ murder.

Absolute/objective morality my arse!

 

[plumjam]

And the thread has finally been Godwinned. Took your time about it.

If morals are absolute and are derived from religion, why aren't I (an atheist) out killing and raping people right now?

They aren't derived (derived in the sense of us deriving knowledge about them) from religion (that is something I have never argued). They are derived from conscience. Conscience is your way of perceiving non-subjective moral truth (which, yes, is part of our divinely created reality... that is the God connection).

 

[Olowkow]

The problem with the "god connection" is that apes and chimps have a social structure that implements many of the same fairness judgments as humans do. Research abounds. Pretty close to "morality". It derives through evolution of the behavior that permits individuals to live together peacefully. The ones who don't play by the rules get culled.

 

[plumjam]

The problem with the "god connection" is that apes and chimps have a social structure that implements many of the same fairness judgments as humans do. Research abounds. Pretty close to "morality". It derives through evolution of the behavior that permits individuals to live together peacefully. The ones who don't play by the rules get culled.

Do chimps start charities designed to help human beings?
Human morality goes way beyond mere survival, reproduction, and the smooth running of society.

 

[Olowkow]

Do chimps start charities designed to help human beings?
Human morality goes way beyond mere survival, reproduction, and the smooth running of society.

No, not as far as I know, though some charities seem like they are run by monkeys. Of course this is just an unfair question. Do animals become devoted to and protective of humans? Yes.

You forgot empathy. Remember the great ape that picked up the kid who fell into the pit and cared for him?

To the scientist who studies such things, morality is explainable or understandable at least. To the religious it is a mystery. That's just the way it is. It does not mean scientists are immoral. I am not as certain as you that "human morality goes way beyond..." It is rooted in our psyche as has been said here, as a conscience, which is part of our survival kit.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Exactly. Nature would sense the wrongness only at that stage, wheras a lawgiver would make us aware of the 'wrongness' even at the CGI stage.

Normally I don't have much in common with plumjam but in this case your position here is fallacious. Why would 'nature' as you put it not recognize a game from the real world? If you charge rent in Monopoly and put some 'poor' person out of the game in bankruptcy, should you feel like a cad?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

A more interesting argument is that young, single men tend to be more sexually attracted to promiscuous women.

From an evolutionary standpoint, this is exactly what you would expect if we have evolved to ensure the survival of our genes.

From a moral programmer standpoint, it makes no sense that men would be designed to treat a woman with so little respect simply because of her promiscuous lifestyle.....

It's a common mistake to oversimplify the results of natural selection. Evolution is slow, cultural changes are fast. I doubt that our genes have caught up with the TV bombardment of the image of an attractive woman, or the enticement to find Victoria's Secret lingerie attractive. The influence of fads and social cues are not quite so fixed in genetic stone.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Do chimps start charities designed to help human beings?

Since they don't have money I fail to see how this is a valid analogy. It is my understanding they can care for weaker members of the group.

Human morality goes way beyond mere survival, reproduction, and the smooth running of society.

Again, one needs to be careful making assumptions about which variables are operating in a technologically advanced society. You are making a lot of assumptions things are due to morals, but you haven't made a case that these things are not just the same morals as the non-human primates but acting on a different set of elements.

We have language, a global economic system, group education, all sorts of things. Of course morals will result in a different picture in such a society than in a non-technological one.

We are the most advanced species on the planet in terms of technology. But we are not 'special' in terms of the animal kingdom except for being on the top. The nonsense humans are special because they claim god beliefs make them so is not supportable with any evidence. And I take it that 'god made us special' is what you are driving at here.

 

[six7s]

I try to avoid having any beliefs, simply because they are the fuzzy wuzzy stuff that fills in the gaps in comprehension

Which is, itself, a belief. Thus self-refuting.

Are you trying to tell me that my observation equates to a 'belief'?

Until you explain why I will continue to assume that you are merely using irrelevant semantics to avoid acknowledging that your woo is plainly ridiculous