On May 13 2011 02:20 Suisen wrote: We know that morality is objective because every moral theory has at it's core some of the same principles. Like Chomsky said: "In fact, one of the, maybe the most, elementary of moral principles is that of universality, that is, If something’s right for me, it’s right for you; if it’s wrong for you, it’s wrong for me. Any moral code that is even worth looking at has that at its core somehow.”
Silver rule or golden rule, every society decides that is a good principle. This isn't arbitrary but this is because apparently it is recognized that those two rules have some merit to them.
No they don't? There's a bazillion of other theories and lines of thought that you conveniently chose to ignore. The golden rule is nothing other a huge generalization with several exception. Which only practical value is that you can tell it to dumb people who cannot grasp anything more complicated.
"Oh you're too dumb to understand there is no morals? Would be too risky to let you do whatever comes up in your head? So here, just follow THESE basic rules and you'll PROBABLY be ok... MOST of the time."
That's all the golden rule is.
Did you happen to catch my response to your slavery argument? I'd like to hear your response if I could, since I did think you made a good point. I'm still not convinced that societies have diverged so vastly in their morals over history as you claim.
On May 13 2011 04:26 Suisen wrote: Well, you are entitled to your own opinion, but it is my understanding that those in the field see it very different.
Except you ignore 99.9% of "those who work in the field" and cherry pick only those who support your opinion.
Well, you just stating that doesn't worry me.
Depending on how you define it and depending on if it is the golden, silver or platinum version, humans seem to be genetically prepositioned to them, according to scientists that do measurements as opposed to people like Nietzsche that just say whatever they want to say, without any constraints.
I suspect this is one of the cases like with pedagogy when a very large majority of the population takes a view that strongly opposes the scientific consensus because of gut feeling. There people don't accept animals and humans don't learn through positive and negative reinforcement when those in the field that supported those theories actually themselves proved it was wrong after the field as a whole already moved on.
I remember FakeSteve here once banning people because they called him out on his support for beating children.
Also, I have observed how you debate, VIB, it is my opinion you can't debate constructively.
Many of our genetic and evoltionary traits are considered immoral across many conceptions on what is "moral", to build a justification for *edit objective * morality based upon our genetic or evolutionary predispositions, would justify a selfish, brutish and deplorable form of morality.
Or at least a form of morality that many would describe as such, however as is blatantly obvious to anyone who is prepared to think about this issue without falling prey to the delusion of hope, or preffering something because it seems nicer to them, morality is by its nature, as a human invention, subjective and can never be more so, no matter how stringently we define it.
As I was one who brought up genetics and morality, that's not at all what I am saying.
First off all, can you show us something that the genes would promote and that can't be shown to be immoral in other ways?
Secondly, the genetics part is important because of what exactly is human nature. If we talk about if humans should have the universal right of democracy of creativity of free speech, this has all to do with human nature. A strong argument right now can already be made that a democratic society is more compatible with human nature than any other one.
That genes in humans resulted in undemocratic societies is something else. Just because a dictator hungers for power and becomes corrupted by it doesn't mean the society as a whole is more compatible with human nature. We can see that war is universal to humans. So are hereditary monarchies. But we also know both individuals and societies as a whole are better off in a different kind of society. This doesn't ignore genetics at all. Also we know civilization can overrule primitive instinct just fine.
Also, humans have a contradiction of morality within them that it needs to solve. The trick is ingroup and outgroup, which is well studied in humans and chimps. Outgroup are not considered humans, which of course is factually false, and this helps humans lift the moral constraints that are there.
Well, you point to no real sources. That google link tells me nothing. Of course there are a few scientists who believe in some sort of objective moral, but that doesn't make it any more scientific than your sentiments about listening to your heart to find the answer.
I asked about your definitions about morality and ethics because it's really strange to call one of them subjective and the other objective. They are so closely related that it really doesn't make any sense. You also never explained it and I still don't see any arguments for your position at all nor why my arguments were wrong.
The arguments I see are: 1) scholars say it, 2) it makes moral values arbitrary (which doesn't relate to the question of if it is arbitrary) 3) Humans are genetically predispositioned to things (genetical predisposition = morals? reason? "It is understood and doesn't have to be explained") , and yet you talk about fallacies?
Also subjective morals =/= complete relativism. I still buy the concept of a world that objectively exists. It's morals that was created by humans.
edit: saw you tried to explain the last one. Science, Ingroup / outgroup etc as the anwser., do you really think it's possible to do any kind of real quantative analysis of human behaviour at such a level that it would be able to predict 'good' outcomes for entire societies? Even if we were able to make such an analysis we would still need to put a subjective question to analyse it. And apart from that I can tell you for sure that science is nowhere close to that. Also you argument doesn't even appear to be about morals anymore, but about how objective science can be.
On May 13 2011 03:55 Bleak wrote: Is killing someone morally wrong? Most would agree. Is killing someone in self-defence wrong? Almost universally the answer will be no.
Is stealing wrong? Most would agree. Is stealing food due to suffering from starvation morally wrong?
This is a play with words and has nothing to do with morality or ethics.
It is a matter of if ethics is just a personal opinion and each ethical code is just as good an opinion as anyone else's. Or if ethics is a teaching of morality where there are things to know about morality. There can be things known about what a killing is and what consequences it has.
You say that saying killing is never wrong is equally good as saying killing is always wrong, and everything in between. It is obviously false and in your heart you know it. The question is why it is true and when killing ought to be moral and when not. That's when we get mundane principles like the golden and silver rules which all societies somehow discovered and respected.
They all hint to objective morality. What you understand to be objective morality is not what it is. You think objective morality is some back and white world in which some pope dictates the world of god to the people and that's it and you either go to hell or heaven.
That's not what it is. Subjective morality is saying that every code of ethics is equal to any other code of ethics. No ethical principle is objectively better than other. It's all just personal opinion. Saying killing is always allowed is as good an ethical code as saying killing is never allowed. And both are just as good as saying sometimes killing is allowed but sometimes not and a good reason needs to be given. That and only that is subjective morality. Any other ethical teaching has a objective element to it and depends on objective morality.
Hmm, I understand better now. But accepting subjective equality would result in chaos unless some core principles are applied. And objective morality wouldn't fit to every situation.
I'll admit I didn't read much of the thread so I apologize in advance if this was already discussed. The terms subjective and objective are equally true and equally relevant, similar to how the color terms "black" and "white" can be used to describe a greyscale picture. No man is an island and even if Descartes is right humans are social creatures at the core. Moral is neither something for every man to decide for himself nor does it origin from an all knowing god, moral is decided upon between humans beings - moral is social.
If moral was anything but social it wouldn't be worth talking about, it wouldn't be regulated in law and we wouldn't even need the word "moral" to describe the phenomenon. I'll even go so far as to say that if we didn't have morals we wouldn't be social creatures at all, without a basic rule set which helps us interact with each other and organize ourselves any group efforts would just break down. That is just what moral is, a socially decided upon set of rules that guides interaction between people.
Yes, morality is subjective: it depends on who and where you are (and what rules your group use). Yes, morality is objective: it must be fashioned after constraints from the reality of being human.
On May 12 2011 13:20 VIB wrote: If we lived a few centuries ago. YOU would be telling slavery is obviously moral and how can anyone possibly disagree with that? Everyone knows slavery good. Well, except the black, but they're not really people.
You only think things are moral because you were taught that way. Were you taught different, you would think differently.
What I perceive you to be saying is that morals change in accordance to personally held beliefs. That may be true in a sense, but it still does not advance your argument much. Why? Because while beliefs might direct morals, they don't change their internal character. Hopefully I can explain this in a way that makes sense:
It's interesting that you mention "well, except the black, but they're not really people". That's a "belief" in the sense that I mentioned above; the belief that slaves were not people and hence not deserving of any moral consideration. Surely though, while the slave-owners held slaves, they still held a moral code in relation to one another? For instance, slave-owners might have thought slaves were not people, but they would still abide by the moral command that one cannot make a slave of anyone they wished. They knew that stealing another's slaves was wrong. Again, these are just a few examples. What I'm basically trying to say is that an objective morality did indeed function even amongst them, it was just not believed to apply to a slave. And indeed, isn't the key driver of the emancipation proclamation and its subsequent developments through the civil rights movement the very realization that slaves were in fact people? Once the mistaken belief was taken out of the way, slavery and racism towards blacks ceased to be morally acceptable.
In all of this, has any damage been done to the morally objective idea that we should treat others as we should treat ourselves? Slavery appears to be more of a result of a mistaken and regrettable belief in who should be included in the definition of "others". If we lived in a world where we could be served by robots, we would see no moral deficit in exploiting them because we believe they aren't people. I believe this type of logic was unfortunately adopted by slave-owners at those times. To think of them as people would be as ridiculous as us today thinking of robots as people. But that does not mean that morality in general has changed.
You speak of the economic reasons behind the abolition of slavery. Now, I'm no expert, and what you're saying could very well be true. Perhaps the real motivation driving those in power to release the slaves was to turn them into consumers. Does this, however, explain the popular support in the North for Negroes during that period? Were those people who "woke up" and realized blacks were no different from them similarly motivated by such insidious aspirations? Did the whites who risked their lives in the underground railroad or rose up and joined the marches during the MLK era have anything to gain? Your economic example only goes so far--economics may change the face of society for those who stand to gain, but it does nothing to explain away the moral attitude of a public that does not similarly benefit.
I mentioned before the difference between convention and morality. I believe slavery was a convention: a practice guided by a mistaken belief. It has nothing to do with objective morality, which are the principles that exist independent of our individual beliefs. Show me a true example of a society that upholds deviant morals. Show me a society that praises treachery, celebrates cowards, encourages people to deceive each other, or rejoices when a man rejects everyone who has ever been kind to him.
I don't think we can move forward in this argument. It's just a matter of semantics. I constructed my argument that morals are subjective based on what I think most people's definition of the word "morality" is. According to that definition. Morality is all that tells you wheter slavery is bad or not. And since that changed through history, therefore morality isn't universal. It's pretty simple.
But then you come and say "your argument makes sense, BUT that's not what I think morality is". Well, if you don't think that's what morality is, then you don't think that's what morality is. Nothing I can do about.
I think any naming is subjective. Language is subjective. It's just words, it means whatever you want. If morality means that for you. Then morality means that for you. I'm not gonna argue that you're wrong. All I can say is that your definition of the word is different from the one I was using. We can't compare apples to oranges.
Morality is purely subjective. The wrong next step after thinking that morality is subjective is to believe that this implies that rape, murder, and other heinous thing become okay under certain circumstances. This is not the correct conclusion.
I highly recommend this video for this topic:
The bottom of the line falls down to evidence. To claim that morality comes from something that isn't us implies that this other entity exists, but I see no real evidence for that. Occam's razor would then lead me to believe that morality is subjective.
On May 13 2011 06:00 Cenecia wrote: Morality is purely subjective. The wrong next step after thinking that morality is subjective is to believe that this implies that rape, murder, and other heinous thing become okay under certain circumstances. This is not the correct conclusion.
So morality is purely subjective, but some actions are objectively immoral.
On May 13 2011 06:00 Cenecia wrote: Morality is purely subjective. The wrong next step after thinking that morality is subjective is to believe that this implies that rape, murder, and other heinous thing become okay under certain circumstances. This is not the correct conclusion.
So morality is purely subjective, but some actions are objectively immoral.
This thread gets more lol with every post.
That's not what I meant at all. I meant that these things just very likely will never be okay, let alone moral. Think about everything you know about life on Earth. When would these things ever become okay? Likely never. Does that mean that they are objectively immoral? No. The subjectivity is that you are a human being contemplating your current understanding of life.
On May 13 2011 06:00 Cenecia wrote: Morality is purely subjective. The wrong next step after thinking that morality is subjective is to believe that this implies that rape, murder, and other heinous thing become okay under certain circumstances. This is not the correct conclusion.
So morality is purely subjective, but some actions are objectively immoral.
This thread gets more lol with every post.
That's not what I meant at all. I meant that these things just very likely will never be okay, let alone moral. Think about everything you know about life on Earth. When would these things ever become okay? Likely never. Does that mean that they are objectively immoral? No. The subjectivity is that you are a human being contemplating your current understanding of life.
Someone who chooses to subjectively deny the existence of morality would reach the conclusion that ANY action is "okay." In fact, it would render the notion of something being "okay" and "not okay" completely meaningless.
On May 13 2011 01:43 Sablar wrote: So moral rules are objective and true, but they can interpreted differently.
But where did those objective rules come from? Certainly not humans, then it's subjective. Nature/the universe itself? Everything is natural, even 'objective rule'-breaking things.
I also wonder where the objective GOOD and BAD exists. Since it exists somewhere outside of our conciousness and would do so even if humanity died out, I wonder where it's hiding.
Damn...one thing at a time! But you're right; once you accept that there is an objective standard out there that exists independently of people's perceptions of it, then the natural "next-step" is to determine where the standard comes from. That's a whole new can of worms that's outside the confines of the OP, so I won't bother going there. Definitely worth talking about, however, and if you want your understanding to be complete you will have no choice but to address it.
If it's objective it's genetically coded.
If it's subjective it has to do with your upbringing and the values of society.
That's where "morality comes from".
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Anyway, I definently believe there's a moral core ingrained in us that we are born with but not only can it be "overwritten" while growing up by the way society shapes us but I also believe there's basically morality added to the core, making it more complete (stemming from society). Oh, and there's this thing called compassion (sympathy) - might want to ponder that for a while.
On May 12 2011 15:53 XeliN wrote: Instead of saying that perhaps provide a coherent argument for why you disagree with him and/or think he is a bad philosopher.
Harris keeps stumbling on the point Craig keeps hammering. The concept that maximizing well-being is something which we are all bound to is ridiculous. He refutes himself when he says "who are you to say that we are obligated to maximize well-being?" but then he shrugs it off without giving the question the seriousness it deserves. He just gives you a dumbfounded look that just says "duh, well-being man, it's soooo obvious duuude".
Craig is right on that. Harris has not succeeded in grounding his well-being concept as a binding moral obligation. His entire philosophy is a failure. It seems good enough at first sight yes. But consider for example the Nietzschean thought that suffering, intoxication and destruction can be desirable for the life-affirming type of man. Harris does not cover that angle very well and he knows it. He tries to cover it up so hard with that mocking look on his face. I do believe Nietzsche has a much more satisfying account of human morality than Harris. On so many levels. It's so arrogant on Harris' part to claim that his work is objective and no one else's is.
But I will say that evolutionary accounts of morality are interesting. However I think they have a limit. I think they are more useful as a descriptive, historical, explanatory tool than a prescriptive tool for me or future generations.
(BTW, I used Nietzsche here but feel free to insert any other philosopher. It's just who I had in mind at that precise moment."
I'll just take this as an illustration of my former post, where I criticised Harris for being a demagogue. Only in demagogy, one could actually be perceived as the losing side of an argument when arguing for well-being... in a real argument, systemic doubt would be below the belt, and only factual doubt counts.
As for your Nietzsche reference, please look that up again. Nietzsche's amor fati implies to accept suffering as a part of life, but nowhere does Nietzsche argue against well-being... quite the opposite actually.
He does argue against the narrow british concept of well-being (the same concept that harris is inheriting). Also, suffering, intoxication and destruction does not only come in as amor fati would have it. It's part of his Dionysian and Apollonian dichotomy. It's also part of his concept of improvement only coming off when overcoming obstacles and trials.
I consider myself a Nietzsche expert, I read all his books, read secondary literature, wrote essays in university, etc. I'm pretty confident in thinking that Nietzsche would hate the idea of maximising well-being. He would be far more concerned about the flourishing of great creative minds, athletes and leaders.
The discipline of suffering, of great suffering — do you not know that only this discipline has created all enhancements of man so far? That tension of the soul in unhappiness which cultivates its strength, its shudders face to face with great ruin, its inventiveness and courage in enduring, persevering, interpreting, and exploiting suffering, and whatever has been granted to it of profundity, secret, mask, spirit, cunning, greatness — was it not granted to it through suffering, through the discipline of great suffering? (BGE 225; cf. BGE 270)
referring to hedonists and utilitarians — that, “Well-being as you understand it — that is no goal, that seems to us an end, a state that soon makes man ridiculous and contemptible…” (BGE 225).
Are we not, with this tremendous objective of obliterating all the sharp edges of life, well on the way to turning mankind into sand? Sand! Small, soft, round, unending sand! Is that your ideal, you heralds of the sympathetic affections? (D 174)
Ok, I see what you're getting at. These quotes leave no doubt that you're right that Nietzsche wouldn't want to agree with Harris at all. Point taken... especially in regard to the primacy of art and wisdom over "mundane" gratification.
However, in regard to Nietzsche I still think it is important to note the difference between fostering somebody else's well-being (which Nietzsche rejects because it robs the person of their chance to do it themselves - for example in your quote from BGE 270, Nietzsche is arguing against compassion (Mitleid) and the unmanliness of Christian values and culture, if I'm not totally mistaken) and promoting your own well-being - which, according to Nietzsche, isn't a virtue by itself, but incidentally coincides with the goal of the "will to power". So, while well-being surely is not an end to Nietzsche's thoughts on morals, overcoming obstacles for the sake of empowerment will still eventually lead to well-being... the trick is to become well by denying it a target.
Edit: On second thought, even though he would contradict himself, Nietzsche would probably still agree with Harris... just to piss off religious functionaries.
On May 13 2011 05:23 VIB wrote: I don't think we can move forward in this argument. It's just a matter of semantics. I constructed my argument that morals are subjective based on what I think most people's definition of the word "morality" is. According to that definition. Morality is all that tells you wheter slavery is bad or not. And since that changed through history, therefore morality isn't universal. It's pretty simple.
But then you come and say "your argument makes sense, BUT that's not what I think morality is". Well, if you don't think that's what morality is, then you don't think that's what morality is. Nothing I can do about.
I think any naming is subjective. Language is subjective. It's just words, it means whatever you want. If morality means that for you. Then morality means that for you. I'm not gonna argue that you're wrong. All I can say is that your definition of the word is different from the one I was using. We can't compare apples to oranges.
That makes sense to me. If you're defining subjective morality in that way, then I agree with you that morality (in your sense) is very much guided by things like politics, economics and fashion. My definition of morality is much more basic and fundamental--it's more along the lines of things like the cardinal virtues. Anyways, thanks for taking the time to read at least.
Craig is a professional debater. Harris is a scientist. For a scientist not to 'lose' a debate against a professional debater, she or he needs to be a bad scientist.
That Harris lost the debate only speaks in his favour.
On May 11 2011 15:35 Pleiades wrote: I have a moral nihilistic view of the world, so subjective for me. That does not mean I don't value anything at all. I just have my own set of values, and I try not to value it above others' values.
Harris and Craig are nobodies in the bigger picture of things. Nietzsche and Dostoevsky have much better dialogues in their own writings. On a less grand and more contemporary scale, Alvin Plantinga and David Bentley Hart have some good thoughts on those who would try and attach morality to health and pleasure (which is at time a very sickenning project).
A Random Speculation: The debate between objective morals and subjective morals has no importance unless it is also a debate about immortality and justice. Here is why I say this:
If human beings cease to exist forever more at death then I believe the following is true: If say the human race is to become extinct in a couple million years it will not matter in any moral or teleological sense of the word that Jews were gassed in the holocost, that children were abused by their parents, and other such atrocities. Atoms were simply interacting with oneother in predetermined ways due to arbitrary natural laws, and most importantly no one would be conscious of any moral dimension to history and life and so it wouldn't matter because literally no one would care because literally no one will exist.
On the other hand we can consider the main alternative: The Judeo-Christian view that human beings were intended to exist forever enjoying eachother, creation, and the creator. Actions continue to matter because people continue to exist in relation to one another and to God. Actions in the past will be brought to justice and virtue exalted. If people were to live together forever without justice morality wouldn't matter only power would.
I am not in this post arguing for one view or the other, simply laying out the idea that the argument about objective morality has always seemed to me like an argument about immortality and justice.
If you ask me both Nietzsche and Dostoevsky only tried to deliberately distort the debate on this issue. Both were fiction writers are nothing more. Modern philosophers shouldn't generally be respected, but by acting either of them were philosophers you give them way too much credit.
As for the Harris and Craig debate. There is no universal disputable definition of what morality is. Defining what morality is already answers what is moral and what is immoral. The question is what morality is.
Harris his answer is in terms of well-being of conscious entities.
Craig his answer is that good is what god wants and bad is what god doesn't want and that what is free from free will happens because it is part of god's plan and therefore good.
Sava Fischer, as for your argument, why do you think future events are more important than past events when it comes to morality. You believe suffering that has happened in the past becomes 'unsuffered' when time passes on? This is silly. We think we know the universe will expand into complete nothingness. The works of Bach will one day be gone. But you really think they have no value? You really think that it matters how much we value let's say the fugues of Bach depending on if dark energy beats out gravity 5 billion years from now?
Suffering is real no matter if there is evidence left for it at the end. If you truly believe this line of argument then when you can wipe out all evidence of a murder, it is no longer immoral because retrospectively the suffering of the victim and violation of human rights no longer happened.
EPT
Nothing I can do about.
