There are a million of conditions of the fall of the Roman Empire. Without the formation of the solar system, the Roman Empire would not have fallen. But no one says that the formation of the solar system "generated" (your word) the fall of the Roman Empire. We are talking about specific conditions.
Someone who answers "Why did Rome fall?" with "Because it existed. You see, it was necessary for Rome to exist before it could fall" is just full of ****. That's not what we're asking when we ask "Why did Rome fall?" We are looking for specific causes, not any old necessary condition.
Similarly, someone who answers "What is the basis with morality?" with "Empathy is the basis of morality. You see, without empathy, morality could not exist" is full of ****. When we ask for a basis for morality, we are not asking for any old necessary condition. We are specifically looking for a logical and philosophical foundation.
I have no idea why you keep quoting my words back at me, given that I am trying to make it clear that these are totally different things that you are trying to conflate. I did get a laugh out of "sic", though.
I have not said that empathy is the only condition for morality. I have said that is the only one that entails action and moral feelings and that it is the only one that surpasses the test of Hume's guillotine.
Well, that's just wrong. Compassion, guilt, shame, etc. are all emotions that can motivate action. You're also trying to smuggle in morality by calling empathy a "moral feeling". What makes it so? And it does not "surpass the test of Hume's guillotine". You need an account for why we
ought to be empathetic before you can do that.
What follows is a summary of an encyclopedia of philosophy. I hope it's clear.
It's clear that you plucked two paragraphs from totally different sections of that entry and dishonestly presented them as if one were an answer to the other.
I am familiar with Hume's ethics. He does not think that empathy does what you think it does.
"It ought to be" is a different way of saying "this is good" and "being good" is nothing but the positive emotion that a disinterested action awakes in me.
This is not true.
Ought implies an obligation, not merely "this is good." When I eat ice cream I might say "this is good", I might feel a positive emotion, but that is not equivalent to saying "I ought to eat ice cream".
In addition to waving in the direction of "positive emotions" as if they were synonymous with morality, you want to say that empathy engenders "disinterested action". If the reason I act is because
I am feeling your emotional state, obviously my action is not disinterested, but self-serving. You are elaborating an especially bad version of hedonistic egoism, and at the same time declaring victory over the is-ought problem. If only you knew what you were talking about, you could find this embarrassing (another emotion that can motivate action, action like reading a book).
But don't tell me that Hume doesn't give a solution to the guillotine problem because this is wrong. Another thing is that you don't like that solution.
He does not give a solution to the is-ought problem.
He does develop an ethics.
To develop an ethics is not to provide a solution to the is-ought problem. To resolve the is-ought problem you need an account of normative truth. You do not need an account of normative truth to develop an ethics.
