If there were objective morality - how would you tell?

[Dancing David]

That may be the most intelligent thing Pinker has said but he still has the cart before the horse, I have to ponder.

 

[Cimerian]

The evolutionary heritage of the human species has left most of us (psychopaths excluded) with an innate sense of morals: Most human societies pretty much universally outlaw murder and theft, for example.

Not agree, your statement applies only for members of the same group. Historically,it has been always legal,encouraged and justified by different means, even with science, the murder and theft of the "others": the savages, the infidels, the commies, the terrorists, the non-democrats, etc, you name it.

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

That sounds rather vague and mystical if you ask me. Do you have a more scientific description of where morality comes in?

Human psychology

If this isn't scientific enough for you, I recommend looking up Neuroscience.

 

[Robin]

What method indeed?

What is your point?

Are you saying that even if there was no objective method to differentiate right and wrong actions there might still be objective morality?

If so then I agree wholeheartedly.

Then the question that suggests itself is - are moral decisions made under objective morality any better, or indeed any different, than moral decisions made under subjective morality?

Or are you saying that even if there no objective method to differentiate right and wrong actions then there might still be good reasons for believing that there was an objective morality?

If so, then what would those reasons be?

 

[Robin]

In that case, of course we can objectively determine what is right and wrong. Let's use the example from the OP.



In this example, let X stand for: bowling, except the bowling pins are replaced with Bonsai Kittens

This is, quite obviously, not in accordance with social norms, in the USA, or anywhere else for that matter. X is objectively wrong.

You are not objectively determining right and wrong, you are objectively determining what a group of people feels is right or wrong.

You have, at best, an objective way to treat subjective morality - but it is still subjective morality.

 

[!Kaggen]

Ridiculous. Organisms with brains have been making decisions based on sense input and memory for hundreds of millions of years. I believe that counts as having knowledge of reality, no matter how inaccurate or unconscious.

Well, well now you have brought up epistemology and simply given yours by laying down the rules, "my Theory of Knowledge is anything with brains and a memory that makes decisions on sensory input has knowledge".

So your Theory of Knowledge assumes the concept "knowledge" as existing pre-human cognition and your evidence for this is to project your human definition of knowledge into the past and say there, it existed before we were around. And you do all of this using language that was invented long after your "knowledge" existed. Congratulations I am convinced pulling yourself into the air by your shoelaces is fun

 

[!Kaggen]

No, what do you see? Really do you see words or do you use them to convey the perceptions?

Don't the perceptions exist aside the words?
Tl;dr

We have all sorts of knowledge without words !Kagen, you are thinking that one tool is universal. It is not it is tool. It does not include the perceptions of the 5~7 senses. It can describe them, but it is not needed, except to convey them to another.

I think you are stuck on words, aphasic people with no language expression can still maneuver through the world, so they have knowledge.

There is much more to human reality than words and the hang up on objective/subjective. It is all the same. All the same. Same, same , same. Subjective is part of objective, objective is part of subjective.

I am serious !Kaggen, stop for a moment and consider that monisms are monisms they are exactly the same. There no way to discern BIVs (brains in vats), butterfly dreams, matrix realities, godthought and materialism.

There is no difference.

Stop and consider that. The world is persistent and consistent. There is no reason to draw the line at subjective objective except that subjective impressions are not always consistent predictors. It does not acre what words we use, it does not care at all about knowledge, it simply is. That is the first lesson of mysticism, the darkness within darkness the gate to all mysteries. The tao and the ten thousand.

You keep trying to pretend that there is some magic limitation because we have bodies and sensations, do you think that it makes a difference?

Why, an atom smasher exists, the events within it are captured by devices, they do not have ‘subjective experience’ they just are. We can interpret those results through a variety of means, visual, auditory, math constructs and values, you name it. It doesn’t matter, it is all the same. In fact much of the interpretation is done by unsubjective machines.

The words are just tools, they have meaning through common experiential referents, they are not any more than that. The fact that a hammer exists is not a limitation, it is tool, the facts that words exist is not a limitation it is tool. We have many tools !Kaggen, many ways to be reality and dance with it. I understand the fascination, I have spoken four languages in my life !Kaggen, I have practiced mysticism and walked on the face of god. But I came to understand words are just tool, they are not the windows of the world, they are the windows of communication.

But what people say here is true, you can call the tail of a dog a leg, it still has only four legs, irregardless. Knowledge is much more than words, or else you would walk into things all the time.

I realized what you were getting at the whole verbal knowledge thing DD.
You are still not getting the fact that I am not pointing to meaning and saying, look.
I am pointing to meaning and saying , think.
Your thoughts above are composed of words with meanings.
You want me to mystically ignore this as irrelevant because a dog still has four legs when I look, no matter what I think.
Yes reality will always be there waiting for us thinkers to knock our heads.
But we cannot ignore the fact that we are thinkers and no amount of mystical gobbledygook is going to wish that away.
I am saying move forward and establish the rules for these inner world of thoughts just as we have established the rules of the outside world.
Ignoring the rules of thinking whilst using them is no helpful.
Depression and a general sense of helplessness has become epidemic despite huge amounts of information about how the world mechanism works.
Mental health needs to progress past the mechanisms of brain tissue to the phenomenology of thoughts.
We know we cannot eliminate physical pain mentally, but we can reduce its effects on our consciousness by adjusting our thinking.
The first step in understanding thinking is to understand how important meaning is in our contact with the world.

 

[Dancing David]

Not agree, your statement applies only for members of the same group. Historically,it has been always legal,encouraged and justified by different means, even with science, the murder and theft of the "others": the savages, the infidels, the commies, the terrorists, the non-democrats, etc, you name it.

Only in horticultural societies, the hunter gathers that we have knowledge of did not engage in raiding. (That may be a factor of the limited groups we have knowledge of.)

Resource gathering is the main time occupier of HG societies, they do not have benefits to raiding, there are not enough stored resources to allow for it is the theory, which may reflect the location of known HG groups in resource poor areas.

Now raiding is more common in horticultural societies, although it tends to take on non-lethal ritualized form involving status or very valuable resources (like herd animals).

Warfare seems to be related to the rise of agriculture and storage economies, this then creates a reason to raid and have wars.

In fact many societies have very strong myths about kindness to strangers and carrying for strangers. Now the actual basis of these myths is unknown, so it is hard to judge.

 

[Dancing David]

Well, well now you have brought up epistemology and simply given yours by laying down the rules, "my Theory of Knowledge is anything with brains and a memory that makes decisions on sensory input has knowledge".

So your Theory of Knowledge assumes the concept "knowledge" as existing pre-human cognition and your evidence for this is to project your human definition of knowledge into the past and say there, it existed before we were around. And you do all of this using language that was invented long after your "knowledge" existed. Congratulations I am convinced pulling yourself into the air by your shoelaces is fun

!Kaggen, try translating this into direct examples, this is a highly abstracted semantic argument ,and therefore is subject to exactly the fallacy you are pointing out.

Define how a preverbal toddler who maneuvers through a room and engages in events based upon memory has an 'epistemology'.

Seriously, go for it, knock yourself out, lets see it.

Oh c’mon do it! Don’t run away this time!

Where is the toddler engaging in epistemology.

 

[Dancing David]

I realized what you were getting at the whole verbal knowledge thing DD.

Nope having read your whole post, you don’t.

You are still not getting the fact that I am not pointing to meaning and saying, look.
I am pointing to meaning and saying , think.

You are the man with the hammer, wham , wham, wham.

There is more than verbal cognition !Kaggen. My thoughts often involve emotions, memories, pictures, sounds and other constructs.

Your thoughts above are composed of words with meanings.

Wrong the words I convey in these written messages are conveyed through an idiomatic self referent language based upon mutual perceptual experiences and social conditioning.

You again have made a grave error, verbal cognition is not the only form of thought.

You want me to mystically ignore this as irrelevant because a dog still has four legs when I look, no matter what I think.

Nope, it is because the 'dog' as such has appendages that we label as 'legs', we can relabel the sensory experience that leads to the perception of a 'tail' as 'leg' is we wish.

This however requires redefining the mutual perception that is the common referent in the idiomatic and self referent language.

The 'mass' of an 'electron' does not change because we call it a 'photon'. The labels and constructs change but the referent in mutual perception does not. (In the case of physical object.)

Yes reality will always be there waiting for us thinkers to knock our heads.
But we cannot ignore the fact that we are thinkers and no amount of mystical gobbledygook is going to wish that away.

Wish what away, you should not be so vague. I said exactly what I meant, you have resorted to idiomatic usage without explaining it.

There is more to the human experience than verbal cognition.

I am saying move forward and establish the rules for these inner world of thoughts just as we have established the rules of the outside world.

I already have, you won't like it because I am a behaviorist and I loathe and detest high level abstracted theories of psychodynamics.
I already have studied sensation and perception, they are not effected by verbal cognition.

Ignoring the rules of thinking whilst using them is no helpful.

Pretending that everything is a nail is not helpful either.

How does your retina work to produce and preprocess sensations?
What is associative learning?

Depression and a general sense of helplessness has become epidemic despite huge amounts of information about how the world mechanism works.

Broad claim what data do you have the substantiates that the level of depression has not been constant? What data do you have the shows the levels of depression one hundred years ago?

Mental health needs to progress past the mechanisms of brain tissue to the phenomenology of thoughts.

Sorry, I know of an effective strategy that works for most people. It is called cognitive behavioral therapy.
What have you got, some pretend theory with no research basis?

We know we cannot eliminate physical pain mentally, but we can reduce its effects on our consciousness by adjusting our thinking.

Nope we can modify our response to pain through a variety of means.

The first step in understanding thinking is to understand how important meaning is in our contact with the world.

The first step for you is to get away from philosophy and study some psychology that has a research basis.

There is more to 'knowledge' than language.

 

[nescafe]

Well, well now you have brought up epistemology and simply given yours by laying down the rules, "my Theory of Knowledge is anything with brains and a memory that makes decisions on sensory input has knowledge".

Yes, and?

Well, well now you have brought up epistemology and simply given yours by So your Theory of Knowledge assumes the concept "knowledge" as existing pre-human cognition and your evidence for this is to project your human definition of knowledge into the past and say there, it existed before we were around. And you do all of this using language that was invented long after your "knowledge" existed. Congratulations I am convinced pulling yourself into the air by your shoelaces is fun

Well, then, you managed to evade the point quite nicely. Yes, I used explicitly symbolic knowledge (language) to describe non-symbolic knowledge. The contradiction you point out only exists if you insist that all knowledge is symbolic knowledge, and I rather doubt that is the case.

Oh, and epistemology is largely a pantload.

 

[Wowbagger]

Not agree, your statement applies only for members of the same group.
Historically,it has been always legal,encouraged and justified by different means, even with science, the murder and theft of the "others": the savages, the infidels, the commies, the terrorists, the non-democrats, etc, you name it.

Ah Yes: Historically, this is true.

Though, it is worth noting that a lot of dehumanization goes along with that. If you could paint a bunch of "human-like people" as "non-humans", it opens the doors to be a lot more cruel to them.

Science, though, keeps demonstrating otherwise: All those "human-like people" really are humans! And, the more this gets ingrained into society, the larger our "same group" becomes, and the less tolerated murder and theft becomes between everyone.

 

[westprog]

What is your point?

Are you saying that even if there was no objective method to differentiate right and wrong actions there might still be objective morality?

If so then I agree wholeheartedly.

Then the question that suggests itself is - are moral decisions made under objective morality any better, or indeed any different, than moral decisions made under subjective morality?

Or are you saying that even if there no objective method to differentiate right and wrong actions then there might still be good reasons for believing that there was an objective morality?

If so, then what would those reasons be?

There might be imperfect methods to differentiate actions. It might still be possible to choose between certain good and bad actions.

 

[PAC]

The Social Contract Theory

"morality consists in the set of rules governing behavior, that rational people would accept, on the condition that others accept them as well.”

Morality is subjective. The Social Contract theory suggests we created morality
in order to receive some sort of safety or security in return for giving up our
basic ability to do what we want as long as we can get away with it.

What does morality have to do with religion? Totally separate concepts.

 

[DC]

What method would you use to determine who was right or wrong?

I would look up in the Bible who is right, then i would pray to god to lead the sinner to the right path.

And if i don't find an answer in the Bible, i would send both to God and let her sort it out.



Morality is subjective.

 

[Piggy]

Hm. Interesting idea. I'm still not convinced we all "suffer alike", since suffering itself builds up a tolerance, so to speak, but that's something to consider.

Well, I don't think he'd argue that each individual suffers in identical ways to every other individual.

Nor that moral objections would cease to be valid if, say, a victim were abused until s/he became numb to the abuse.

I think he'd agree that Jefferson's comment on what "neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg" wasn't an arbitrary selection of possible ills, but an astute summary based on a carefully reasoned morality which, nevertheless, was firmly rooted in our common biology, even if Jefferson didn't necessarily think of it that way (although he may well have).

We know that humans -- or "all neurologically normal" humans, as Pinker puts it -- suffer from unwelcome physical constraint, rape, all manner of torture, psychological trauma, loss of loved ones, knowing that loved ones are suffering, and so forth.

So we recognize the intentional infliction of unnecessary physical and psychological suffering on the innocent as immoral, even if the same treatment makes some victims suffer more than others. And at a societal level, we're justified in making some such acts, or even their attempt, illegal across the board without any reference to the level of suffering of an actual victim.

We also know of certain sometimes-useful but potentially dangerous traits of our species that can harm entire groups or cultures if allowed to flourish unchecked: violence, dominance, laziness, greed, xenophobia, and all the others.

Based on that potential for harm, it is morally right, for example, to encourage stable, prosperous socio-economic environments that recognize personal property but that don't become dangerously unequal at the ends, and to restrain personal freedom to some degree to achieve it.

But Pinker identifies another type of morality, which is just built-in. For example, objection to incest, objection to eating a family pet that has passed away (unless you're literally starving to death), repulsion at a person who betrays a family member or close friend for money, anger at political traitors.

While all these objections can be justified rationally, they're primarily gut reactions against acts that most of us would insist are "just wrong" no matter what the contrary argument was.

Some of these are simply inherited in our wiring, like a physical revulsion to eating the flesh of someone you love, even if it's an animal. (Because of this same kind of wiring, in rare cases where a med student is given the cadaver of someone they've known, the cadaver is removed from the class and another one substituted.)

Others can be more complicated, like the objection to selling out friends, partners, comrades, colleagues, teammates, and family members.

Interestingly, Pinker proposes a biological basis for certain things which are considered "sacred" -- such as trust in close kinships and friendships, loyalty to a nation or tribe or ethnic group, and protection of children -- in the sense that human beings tend to hold them above price. To even consider selling them out (say, by agreeing to pimp your kids, or sell state secrets, or financially ruin a lifelong friend for your own gain) is itself a moral failing, and to actually do them puts you beyond reproach.

Basically, some small set of "sacred" behaviors and relationships, which we feel in our gut to be morally binding, and are digusted when we witness violations, is a valuable and highly efficient biological tool for a social species. So it's no surprise that even when "sacred" status is vested in mundane objects (like pieces of cloth sewn together into a national flag) it's anchored somewhere in that cluster of essential relationships and behaviors.

In short, it's possible to have a personal or group/legal moral code based on an objective view of human nature and morality. If you're into that.

That doesn't mean it'll give you all the answers, though. The world isn't necessarily constructed to keep our various moral imperatives from conflicting with each other sometimes.

 

[Piggy]

Wouldn't that depend on how much is "hardwired" into the brain and the level of "plasticity" of the brain in other areas?

Definitely, and Pinker spends quite a bit of time exploring the experimental record to identify universals and sketch out (as well as can be done) the robustness and limitations of plasticity.

 

[Piggy]

Morality is subjective. The Social Contract theory suggests we created morality
in order to receive some sort of safety or security in return for giving up our
basic ability to do what we want as long as we can get away with it.

Biology suggests that morality is about as subjective as language. It's a biological imperative, and is universal in its underlying rules and how it's processed in the brain, but its specific form depends on the history of the culture.

Contract theory as you describe it (morality as a social invention) does not appear to be true, because we can see our morality's roots in other species who do not appear to be capable of conceiving of anything as abstract as a social contract or the market values of rights.

 

[!Kaggen]

Yes, and?

Well, then, you managed to evade the point quite nicely. Yes, I used explicitly symbolic knowledge (language) to describe non-symbolic knowledge. The contradiction you point out only exists if you insist that all knowledge is symbolic knowledge, and I rather doubt that is the case.

Oh, and epistemology is largely a pantload.

As a sceptic one asks for evidence when someone claims knowledge of something. How do you propose to provide evidence without the use of a language (symbolic knowledge)? Until then all knowledge is symbolic.

 

[!Kaggen]

!Kaggen, try translating this into direct examples, this is a highly abstracted semantic argument ,and therefore is subject to exactly the fallacy you are pointing out.

Define how a preverbal toddler who maneuvers through a room and engages in events based upon memory has an 'epistemology'.

Seriously, go for it, knock yourself out, lets see it.

Oh c’mon do it! Don’t run away this time!

Where is the toddler engaging in epistemology.

A preverbal toddler does not claim to have knowledge, that is what you have projected onto them.