What should Morals and Ethics be?

[TragicMonkey]

Logic isn't something I should have to "bring up."

It's like asking an engineer for a bridge design and 1/3 of a way into the design process going "What? You never mentioned the bridge would be built in a place with Gravity!"

It is if you want to suggest ethics is based on logic. If that's what you're saying you should be able to show your work. Premise, inference, conclusion. Isn't that what logic is?

"Logic" doesn't mean "something that seems obvious but I'm unable to explain it".

 

[TragicMonkey]

I guess I'm on ignore or something.

But are people choosing to ignore you or being coerced by outside forces? Apparently at least one person is capable of making a choice against their will, which is a pretty neat trick.

 

[caveman1917]

So here we encounter some of the manifold problems with psychological egoism--if I claim that I didn't act according to my own desires at all, but in consideration of other people's interests, I'm told that not only do I feel such a desire, but that I must have felt it more strongly. Otherwise, psychological egoism would be false! *wank emoji*

No, not because otherwise psychological egoism would be false, but because otherwise you would have acted differently, as the only thing stopping you from doing so is yourself. Nothing external was limiting you from acting differently. Hence whatever interest it is that is the reason you choose to act such way is one of your interests.

 

[Belz...]

But are people choosing to ignore you or being coerced by outside forces?

Since apparently even legitimate arguments are solipsism, I'd say that in fact no one makes actual choices.

 

[mumblethrax]

No, not because otherwise psychological egoism would be false, but because otherwise you would have acted differently, as the only thing stopping you from doing so is yourself. Nothing external was limiting you from acting differently. Hence whatever interest it is that is the reason you choose to act such way is one of your interests.

This would only follow if satisfaction of my own desires was the only possible motivator of my actions, ie, if psychological egoism were true. You're talking in circles.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I guess I'm on ignore or something.

I wasn't ignoring you. I wasn't ready for two discussion of this type and then work stuff hit me like a ton of bricks.

I won't leave you hanging, fair enough?

 

[angrysoba]

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.

Ah! You have embraced philosophy at last. Your absolutist consequentialist principle underlying actions cannot itself be demonstrated by evidence, but if you accept the principle as axiomatic, then a lot of implications follow from it. Though would you mind explaining what you mean by “conscious”? If I remember rightly you have ridiculed people in the past for even suggesting something called “consciousness” exists.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Not sure it was what the OP was after, but I generally go with the basic idea of:

"Make your actions towards others the same as you wish their actions towards you to be."

Or as the Gospel puts it. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

If we use that standard to create our morals and ethics, then these things would be based on how we would expect others to act ethically and morally towards us.

 

[theprestige]

Since apparently even legitimate arguments are solipsism, I'd say that in fact no one makes actual choices.

Yeah, but is this a manifestation of physical law? Because arguments are solipsism, you are physically constrained to say that no one makes choices?

Or is it a voluntary conclusion from the premise? Because arguments are solipsism, you choose to conclude that no one makes choices?

 

[theprestige]

Not sure it was what the OP was after, but I generally go with the basic idea of:

"Make your actions towards others the same as you wish their actions towards you to be."

Or as the Gospel puts it. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

If we use that standard to create our morals and ethics, then these things would be based on how we would expect others to act ethically and morally towards us.

That's not ethics, that's just optimizing for self-interest in a race for resources against peer competitors.

Josef Stalin only had to apply that rule to a relatively short list of people who were actually in a position to do anything unto him. The vast majority of Russians, Eastern Europeans, etc. he was free to use as pawns without regard to how they might behave if the situation were reversed. Because the situation would never be reversed.*

I would say that true ethics and morality are rules you apply because you believe they are the right thing to do, not because they are the optimal strategy for self-benefit over time.


---
*Yes, it's always possible that he'd be stranded on a deserted stretch of Siberian highway, depending on the nonexistent goodwill of a vengeful kulak his policies had tortured for years. But that's just risk management.

 

[angrysoba]

My own view of philosophy is that it explores questions that are outside the scope of science, but which can in principle be answered through reason. The answer needs to be coherent and should not go against our intuitions unless it can be shown that not violating an intuition would require violating an even more important intuition.

For example, it seems contrary to intuition that killing people could be morally acceptable unless you show that it would defy a deeper intuition to allow the Nazis win World War Two and complete the Holocaust etc...

I think some of the ideas that morality are merely what a group or an individual arbitrarily decides is right violates the intuition that I have that ethics should be coherent if they are to be considered ethics at all.

 

[angrysoba]

Common feelings about values. They can't be based on anything else.

Sure it can. For the Cardassians.

Values are not objective.

The OP is asking what morality and ethics SHOULD be about (i.e. normative ethics), not what ethics happens to be about (i.e. descriptive ethics).

 

[David Mo]

The basis of morality is neither reason nor social pressure. The basis of morality is in feelings. There are two basic feelings that guide our social behaviour: aversion to being hurt (self-care) and aversion to suffering of other persons (empathy). The second is the moral feeling. We are more or less moral in that we give more space to empathy in our lives and transform it in action rules.

Science has nothing to do in this first state of morality.

 

[angrysoba]

The basis of morality is neither reason nor social pressure. The basis of morality is in feelings. There are two basic feelings that guide our social behaviour: aversion to being hurt (self-care) and aversion to suffering of other persons (empathy). The second is the moral feeling. We are more or less moral in that we give more space to empathy in our lives and transform it in action rules.

Science has nothing to do in this first state of morality.

I think reason is important. While it is true that we some kind of concern for others born of empathy is necessary for morality, empathy itself is a poor guide for our ethics. The reason for this is that humans generally have greater empathy for people or animals or even machines which are capable of pulling out heartstrings. We can see a large-eyed puppy in a puppy mill and decide we want to donate all our charity to saving the puppy instead of the rather dirty and not at all attractive refugee family for whom we have no empathy. However, if we applied a form of rational compassion and decided that we should act in a utilitarian manner that doesn’t take into account morally irrelevant facts such as attractiveness or furriness, then we may end up satisfying the greater intuition about what morality ought to be.

 

[David Mo]

I think reason is important. While it is true that we some kind of concern for others born of empathy is necessary for morality, empathy itself is a poor guide for our ethics. The reason for this is that humans generally have greater empathy for people or animals or even machines which are capable of pulling out heartstrings. We can see a large-eyed puppy in a puppy mill and decide we want to donate all our charity to saving the puppy instead of the rather dirty and not at all attractive refugee family for whom we have no empathy. However, if we applied a form of rational compassion and decided that we should act in a utilitarian manner that doesn’t take into account morally irrelevant facts such as attractiveness or furriness, then we may end up satisfying the greater intuition about what morality ought to be.

Of course. Empathy is the basis of morality. ("First state" I said). But human relationships are complex, mediated by cultural entanglement. Reason is necessary to put order and balance self-care with empathy.Either utilitarian or not.

 

[angrysoba]

Of course. Empathy is the basis of morality. ("First state" I said). But human relationships are complex, mediated by cultural entanglement. Reason is necessary to put order and balance self-care with empathy.Either utilitarian or not.

I will broadly accept that. Maybe there are some details I disagree with.

However, whatever the basis for morality, the point of the thread is what morality and ethics SHOULD be. I am assuming then that empathy is an insufficient guide to morality and ethics.

The problem we have to grapple with most of the time is that even if we come up with first principles (such as utilitarianism) our judgments are very often clouded with moray irrelevant details.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Morality must be a function of utility in order to be sustainable: high ideals don't last long against reality.

 

[David Mo]

However, whatever the basis for morality, the point of the thread is what morality and ethics SHOULD be. I am assuming then that empathy is an insufficient guide to morality and ethics.

The problem we have to grapple with most of the time is that even if we come up with first principles (such as utilitarianism) our judgments are very often clouded with moray irrelevant details.

I agree with the first paragraph.

About the second: If what I have read -not much- is true our moral decisions are not taken in strict logical order: axioms, postulates and rules. We take many particular moral decisions in an intuitive mood and we try to rationalize them after. This sounds well.

 

[Belz...]

I wasn't ignoring you. I wasn't ready for two discussion of this type and then work stuff hit me like a ton of bricks.

I won't leave you hanging, fair enough?

Aw, now I'm shivering with anticipation!

Yeah, but is this a manifestation of physical law?

In the end, yes. At the macroscopic level everything is deterministic, so it's not like you could or would've ever made another choice. At the local, quantum level, you can have random events, but their outcome don't make a difference in the larger scheme of things. So, no choice.... unless we define choice as exactly that.

 

[Belz...]

The OP is asking what morality and ethics SHOULD be about (i.e. normative ethics), not what ethics happens to be about (i.e. descriptive ethics).

Well my implied answer is that they should be about whatever each individual and group makes them about. Aside from giving you my own set of moral values there's not much I can say about how things "should be" that they will never be like.

I think reason is important.

Yeah but in the end it's in the service of our feelings and needs. We use reason more to rationalise our decisions and mistakes, and to reach our goals than we do for crafting a rational value system.