Judgethunder t1_j9jo4z1 wrote
Reply to comment by Killercod1 in Thought experiments claim to use our intuitive responses to generate philosophical insights. But these scenarios are deceptive. Moral intuitions depend heavily on context and the individual. by IAI_Admin
That's one theory anyway. There certain seems to be some pretty clear commonalities of what most people determine as harmful or helpful or what most people regardless of culture find to be a laudible goal.
Even non human animals have some basic intuitions about reciprocity, compassion, and survival. Some answers seem better suited to achieving a generally positive outcome than others.
And of course you could point to some outliers who might find for whatever reason that causing unneeded suffering is somehow ideal for them. But I could also probably find a similar number of people whom when placed in an unlocked cage decide the best way out is to defecate on the floor.
What I mean to say is people say "There is no objective morality" like that is some kind of given, obvious statement. When it's not. It's just as likely to be a coping mechanism for our lack of ability to make optimal ethical determinations due to our biases and flaws.
Killercod1 t1_j9jsllw wrote
Everyone has different desires and goals. Some want to maximize pleasure, others may want to be zealous with their religion. The only constructive argument to be made is how best to adhere to their morality.
There's definitely a moral philosophy that is the most compatible with a functioning human society. Like a morality that maximizes growth, pleasure, and health of the society (some form of utilitarianism). It may be necessary for creating the most effective and functional society. But, it's not the only morality that exists and some may desire society to be less functional or they may be completely indifferent to it.
I would argue that the most common morality is actually detrimental to society. The morality of capitalism, being that of the belief in private property, productivity, and profit being inherently good. This isn't capatible with humanity and our communal structures. However, it is the current ruling morality.
mackinator3 t1_j9jqo1n wrote
You just wrote all that but didn't really say anything. Besides that you specifically want to exclude things that don't suit your conclusion...
Judgethunder t1_j9jr491 wrote
That's an awfully interesting interpretation.
ChubbiestLamb6 t1_j9ke3vv wrote
>optimal ethical determinations
Optimal how? The thing you seem to be missing is that you must choose a yardstick to assess any decision, action, situation, etc, as better or worse than another option. How can you possibly rank things as more or less optimal unless you've picked an attribute to care about? Your appeal to common values across cultures and species--even setting aside the inherent weakness of cherry-picking examples--hinges on a false equivalence between consensus and objectivity.
The fact that there is no objectively correct yardstick to use is the whole problem. It's not about, like, logistics, or the difficulty of accurately predicting outcomes in a complex system to be able to confidently pick the best actions, or anything like that. Those are all problems that come up after you've picked a yardstick.
I'm not saying your yardstick is a bad one, or an uncommon one. But you did pick it because you like it best for whatever reasons, compelling as they may be.
It seems like what you should be arguing for is something like an "Official Morality", not an objective one. I think failure to distinguish between the two is what leads to a lot of the friction in discussions like these. Reading your comment as an argument that it is possible to create a moral policy that is best suited to promote the things most people need and care about totally avoids the disagreements you're encountering. From everyone else's point of view, you missed the point of what "objective morality" means, and from your point of view, everyone else is bumbling around acting like it's impossible to determine if starving is preferable to being safe and well-fed due to some veil of philosophical technicality. But yhe real issue is that you're talking past each other.
Judgethunder t1_j9kh9b4 wrote
>From everyone else's point of view, you missed the point of what "objective morality" means, and from your point of view, everyone else is bumbling around acting like it's impossible to determine if starving is preferable to being safe and well-fed due to some veil of philosophical technicality. But the real issue is that you're talking past each other.
Yeah. That's about the sum of it.
ChubbiestLamb6 t1_j9l5mcs wrote
Soo...if you're aware of the problem, is there a reason you don't change your approach to the conversation?
Judgethunder t1_j9mdhdk wrote
Because I think it is indeed a useless philosophical technicality.
There are many objective facts we accept as objective facts because we use our senses to perceive then. Our senses are subjective. Nothing we detect using them is truly objective, from colors, to shapes, to anything at all.
But we set a standard of objectivity based on our senses anyway.
So in the absence of the word of a deity, what kind of objective reality could we possibly expect beside what we can to the best of our ability calculate is in the best interest of all humanity and the ecosystem we are a part of?
The fact that it is usually better to eat than to starve is as objective as me looking up and observing the color of the sky.
frogandbanjo t1_j9k4gfz wrote
>What I mean to say is people say "There is no objective morality" like that is some kind of given, obvious statement.
Well, maybe it wasn't always, but I'd say Godel did some pretty compelling work on a highly analogous problem. "There is no objective morality" ought to be understood as simply claiming that you can't prove premises using an argument that initially accepts them as a given.
Remember, you're also bounded on the other side by self interest. Free-standing self interest is widely understood as being amoral, not moral... but of course, people can also disagree with that - and some philosophers have! Indeed, many have posited that it's immoral, while a minority have posited that it's moral!
How very objective.
PrimalZed t1_j9jsup8 wrote
There is no universally true moral statement. There is no way to definitively prove any moral statement. Hence, there is no objective morality.
Judgethunder t1_j9ju677 wrote
Some solutions to problems are going to be objectively better than others in their given context. Morality and ethics are problem solving tools, emergent from the evolutionary process.
Midrya t1_j9jzy2n wrote
Could you provide an example? Certainly there are solutions to problems that maximize for specific goals, but you would need to establish that the goal itself is objectively derived, and not just something that is desired.
Judgethunder t1_j9k2zil wrote
You can deconstruct all frameworks to be meaningless if you want to. But we don't. Our minds and desires are emergent products of evolution with certain common desires leaning toward survival, homeostasis, propagation.
Some outcomes are going to be better than others for this. Some desires and goals are going to be better than others for this.
Could we deconstruct these goals as philosophers and render propagation of our species and our ecosystem and our societies as relatively meaningless? Sure. But we don't. Not really.
PrimalZed t1_j9k6f1m wrote
A social or moral desire being "emergent products of evolution" does not make them objective. It's not even true that all morals are emergent products of evolution.
To give an extreme example to quickly cut to the core here, "We shouldn't press the button that kills all humans" is not an objective statement. It presumes that human life or the continuation of humanity are inherently valuable.
Your position that there is objective morality would be easily proven if you can give an example of an objectively true moral statement.
Judgethunder t1_j9k92bb wrote
Assuming that human life and the continuation of humans is a reasonable assumption to make. And an assumption that nearly everyone makes.
PrimalZed t1_j9kjbl0 wrote
"The continuation of humanity is inherently valuable" is not objective. Yes, it is a value that most people hold, but that does not make it an objective truth. At best, that makes it a common axiom.
That you had to qualify "nearly everyone" holds that value itself demonstrates that it is subjective, not objective.
There is no fundamental universal property that makes humanity inherently valuable. Humanity can cease, and the universe will continue on just fine. We can say that's bad, and construct our morals around that axiom, but that doesn't make the axiom objectively true.
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