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General => Ethics => Topic started by: Inevitable Droid on November 23, 2010, 10:11:58 AM

Title: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Inevitable Droid on November 23, 2010, 10:11:58 AM
Excellent article: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Moral Epistemology: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-epistemology/

OK. After reading not only the above article, but others to which on other threads I have provided links, and still others to which I haven't, It has become crystal clear to me that the only way to have objective morality is to accept these three axioms:

OM Axiom 1: Moral facts are anthropologically contextual.

OM Axiom 2: There is a will to be moral in man and moral facts and only moral facts trigger it.

OM Axiom 3: Moral facts have their own analytic domain unavailable to sensory perception but fully available to logic.

That facts can be contextual is non-controversial.  If I say the temperature outside is 48 degrees, the context of that statement would be the longitude and latitude at which I happen to be positioned at the moment.  Temperature is always geographically contextual.  If I say it is raining outside, the same applies.  Weather is always geographically contextual.  Even logical and mathematical facts have context, albeit in both cases the context is so obvious as to seem trivial to mention.  Bear in mind I'm talking about facts, not principles.  Logical fact: "If it is true that all dogs have four legs, and if it is true that Fido is a dog, then it is true that Fido has four legs."  The context of that fact is the English language, outside of which the statement we are calling factual would be gibberish.  Mathematical fact: "7+5=12."  The context of that fact is the base ten number system, outside of which the statement we are calling factual would either be gibberish (for example in the base six number system) or else false (for example in the base eleven number system).

The context of moral facts is anthropological.  We either accept that as axiomatic or we abandon the project of objective morality.  Moral facts are natural or logical facts that trigger the will to be moral.  Thus moral facts are subsets of two other sets, the set of natural facts and the set of logical facts.  Moral facts are identified by whether or not they trigger the will to be moral.  They will trigger it in some anthropological contexts but not in others.  In a Christian church on Sunday during worship, a man standing up and disrobing will trigger the will to be moral in some onlookers, and thus will be a moral fact.  At an outdoors beer bash on the side of a lake on a hot summer night in a town where skinny-dipping routinely occurs, a man standing up and disrobing probably won't trigger the will to be moral in any onlookers, and thus won't be a moral fact.
 
That there is a will to be moral in man will be self-evident after any sustained observation of human behavior over a duration of at least a month in any anthropological context that doesn't self-exclude itself, examples of the latter being a maximum security prison or an insane asylum, yet even in those contexts it is entirely possible that sustained observation over a duration of at least a month may provide indisputable evidence of a will to be moral in man, and that evidence may be all the more striking and convincing given its context.

It is likewise self-evident that moral facts as moral facts, and not as natural facts, are unavailable to sensory perception.  That a man is disrobing, taken as a natural fact, can be verified by the sense of sight, but taken as a moral fact, it cannot be verified by the sense of sight alone, but only in conjunction with at least some knowledge of the anthropological context.  All facts without exception are available to logic, ready to be made into premises.  Logic can construct an analytic domain out of any coherent set of facts, and moral facts are no exception.  Anyone with at least some knowledge of an anthropological context can set logic to operate in the analytic domain of moral facts applicable to the given context.

It is my contention that the stipulated three axioms provide a basis, and the only basis, for any activity that even approximates objective morality.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: hackenslash on November 24, 2010, 06:06:17 AM
There's a beautiful bit of question-begging going on in the above, namely the existence of moral 'facts'.

The universe doesn't give a toss how we behave, so there can be no such thing as objective morality. All morality is, as you say, contextual. Anything contextual is necessarily subjective.

Game over.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Wilson on November 24, 2010, 07:43:02 AM
In the absence of God the scorekeeper, there can be no absolute morality.  You postulate that all moral "facts" are anthropologically contextual, which is sort of saying the same thing.  I agree that most (but not all) people do have a drive to be "good" or "moral" and follow the moral standards of the community, which in my opinion came to us through evolution because groups whose members had empathy and cooperation and a certain degree of altruism survived better than those groups whose members did not.  I don't know what your last axiom means but suspect that I don't agree.

I believe that there is a kind of natural morality where those of us with the ability to empathize with others feel that things which benefit people are good and those which hurt people are bad.  Obviously such calculations involving multiple people get complicated, but at least to me that's how I know without thinking if something is morally good or bad.  Faced with a situation where someone is in need of help, most of us don't check a list of rules, we usually know right away what's right and wrong and react instinctively to do what's moral - or we act in our own self interest if the moral path isn't clear or easy.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: hackenslash on November 24, 2010, 07:46:14 AM
Even in the presence of a celestial peeping-tom, there can be no objective morality. Indeed, it could be argued that if there is a cosmic score-keeper, then objective morality is even further ruled out, because then morality is subject to the whim of this individual, which is in fact what many believers argue, which is how they justify the immoral behaviour and mandates of this individual in their holy books of guff. Thus, predicated on the whim of a single individual, it is even more subjective than it would be without him.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Inevitable Droid on November 24, 2010, 09:42:54 AM
Quote from: "hackenslash"The universe doesn't give a toss how we behave, so there can be no such thing as objective morality.

If by give a toss we mean care, and if by universe we mean the universe taken as a whole, then one could argue that the universe taken as a whole doesn't care about anything, yet presumably we claim that there are at least some objective facts.  The universe taken as a whole doesn't care about mass, distance, duration, chemical composition.  Why single out morality and require that, in the case of morality, the universe taken as a whole has to care?  

If by give a toss we mean merely respond, and if by universe we continue to mean the universe taken as a whole, then one could argue that the universe taken as a whole doesn't respond to anything, since all responses are local to some finite portion of space.  If I kick a pebble, the universe as a whole doesn't respond.  The pebble responds, and anything the pebble hits along its trajectory before coming to rest will respond to the pebble, but even if we insist on wildly generalizing the butterfly effect, nothing on the moon will respond in any way to my kick, nor anything on the sun, nor certainly anything in orbit around Alpha Centauri.      

If we allow universe to mean the universe by virtue of any of its parts, then we permit ourselves to say that the universe cares about things, since living creatures care about things and are parts of the universe, and the universe responds to things, since specific entitites, living or not, respond to things and are parts of the universe.  So now, presumably, we permit ourselves to talk about objective facts.  Humans are specific entities, and living creatures.  Humans respond to and care about a great diversity of things, including moral facts.  When humans respond, the universe, as defined in this paragraph, responds.  When humans care, the universe, as defined in this paragraph, cares.  And so, by the parameters of this paragraph, the universe responds to, and cares about, moral facts.  If we dispute the parameters of this paragraph, then we are left having to explain to what extent objective facts of any kind exist.

QuoteAll morality is, as you say, contextual. Anything contextual is necessarily subjective.

Temperature?  Weather?  Average height?  (Ethnically contextual.)  Context matters for most objective facts as typically stated.  "A dog just bit me!"  The context is time of day, due to the word, just.  Remove the word just, and the listener, if not a direct observer, will ask, "When?  Where?"  (The question of location would refer to location on the speaker's body.)  When and where are relevant context for the fact of a dog bite.  Most objective facts need to be clarified as to when and where, and often who, the latter exemplified by average height, or most common eye color and shade, or most common hair color and shade, all being contextual by ethnicity.  Context doesn't negate the objectivity of a fact.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Inevitable Droid on November 24, 2010, 09:45:50 AM
Quote from: "hackenslash"Even in the presence of a celestial peeping-tom, there can be no objective morality. Indeed, it could be argued that if there is a cosmic score-keeper, then objective morality is even further ruled out, because then morality is subject to the whim of this individual, which is in fact what many believers argue, which is how they justify the immoral behaviour and mandates of this individual in their holy books of guff. Thus, predicated on the whim of a single individual, it is even more subjective than it would be without him.

I agree.  Strongly.  As soon as we privilege one individual as the source of morality for all other individuals, we make morality entirely subjective.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Asmodean on November 24, 2010, 10:16:13 AM
Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"If by give a toss we mean care, and if by universe we mean the universe taken as a whole, then one could argue that the universe taken as a whole doesn't care about anything
On the other hand, if your favourite toe gets infected, does that not also mean that your whole body is, the toe being a part of it and all..? WE are the part of the "whole", and we do tend to care. Does it matter to a black hole whether or not I choose to eat babies..? Not likely, no. But if you put that black hole in a system in which our own Earth is included, then it does matter to the system, even though on microscopic component-level. You get my drift, yes..?

However, as humans hold hundreds and thousands opposing moral ideals, and we have no way of knowing what is considered moral on other worlds - or even if they are familiar with the concept of morality, we can not claim objectivity beyond a given society here on Earth.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Inevitable Droid on November 24, 2010, 11:22:08 AM
Quote from: "Wilson"In the absence of God the scorekeeper, there can be no absolute morality.  You postulate that all moral "facts" are anthropologically contextual, which is sort of saying the same thing.

It is saying precisely the same thing.  I am arguing that most objective facts are relative, not absolute.  I am therefore contending that a fact can be relative and still be objective.  I am further contending that being relative to anthropological context is no more fatal to morality than being relative to spatial, temporal, taxonomic, or any other context.

QuoteI agree that most (but not all) people do have a drive to be "good" or "moral" and follow the moral standards of the community

Or at least respond to the moral standards of the community.  This clarification is central to why I talked about moral facts rather than moral principles.  A moral fact is a natural fact that has moral relevance in a particular anthropological context.  A natural fact would be, "That man is disrobing!"  The anthropological context in which that natural fact becomes a moral one would be any where people would be expected to respond either with approval or with disapproval.  In an anthropological context where people would be expected to withhold approval or disapproval of a given natural fact, or never even consider the question, the given natural fact wouldn't be a moral fact.  Why not talk about principles instead?  Because principles need facts on which to be applied.  Facts come first.  Without facts, principles are gibberish.  Without moral facts, there is no morality.  

Quotewhich in my opinion came to us through evolution because groups whose members had empathy and cooperation and a certain degree of altruism survived better than those groups whose members did not.

Plausible and widely entertained.

QuoteI don't know what your last axiom means but suspect that I don't agree.

It was an epistemological point.  It means we can achieve knowledge about morality through logic.  Not just opinion, but knowledge.  This is another reason, incidentally, for talking about moral facts.  Knowledge can only exist if facts exist.  To claim the possibility of knowledge is to claim the existence of facts.

QuoteI believe that there is a kind of natural morality where those of us with the ability to empathize with others feel that things which benefit people are good and those which hurt people are bad.

You're equating morality with empathy, then.  Either you're making them literally identical or you're claiming that one implies the other, either morality implies empathy or empathy implies morality.  Making them identical would mean we could drop one of the terms and lose nothing.  We would drop morality, then, since dropping empathy would confuse people constantly.  "I have such morality for you, Emma!" :)

QuoteFaced with a situation where someone is in need of help, most of us don't check a list of rules, we usually know right away what's right and wrong and react instinctively to do what's moral - or we act in our own self interest if the moral path isn't clear or easy.

Thus someone in need of help would be a moral fact for most of us on this message board, a moral fact to which we would respond either by offering aid or by refusing to do so.  I would contend that someone being in need of help is a moral fact for us only because of anthropological context.  As to whether the need for help elicited empathy or not, that would either be a separate question or else, if not a separate question, the reason for that would be anthropological context, as laboriously laid out above.
 
It is entirely conceivable that in a given anthropological context, helping someone in need would elicit neither approval or disapproval; I.e., people simply wouldn't care either way.  Granted, in our own anthropological context that seems incredible.  But that's how all of this works, and in fact is largely my point, at least with respect to OM Axiom 1.  Calling something a moral fact is very different from calling it a moral opinion.  Facts grab our faces with both hands and force our eyes in their own direction.  Facts are imperious.  They take dominion of our consciousness.  They demand to be picked up, scrutinized, and then placed in the proper container.  They refuse to be treated as if they don't exist.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Inevitable Droid on November 24, 2010, 11:35:32 AM
Quote from: "Asmodean"
Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"If by give a toss we mean care, and if by universe we mean the universe taken as a whole, then one could argue that the universe taken as a whole doesn't care about anything
On the other hand, if your favourite toe gets infected, does that not also mean that your whole body is, the toe being a part of it and all..? WE are the part of the "whole", and we do tend to care. Does it matter to a black hole whether or not I choose to eat babies..? Not likely, no. But if you put that black hole in a system in which our own Earth is included, then it does matter to the system, even though on microscopic component-level. You get my drift, yes..?

Not only do I get it but I argued the exact same thing in the exact same post you're replying to! :)

I care, therefore the universe cares, by virtue of a part of it caring.  Agreed.  Strongly.

QuoteHowever, as humans hold hundreds and thousands opposing moral ideals, and we have no way of knowing what is considered moral on other worlds - or even if they are familiar with the concept of morality, we can not claim objectivity beyond a given society here on Earth.

Thus moral facts are anthropologically contextual.  OM Axiom 1.  Agreed.  Strongly.

What I am arguing is that a fact's contextuality doesn't destroy its factuality, nor its objectivity.  The temperature outside my condo in the parking lot is an objective fact.  It is also geographically and temporally contextual.  I am arguing that there is no good reason to give anthropological context a different status from geographic, temporal, or other contexts.  Context is context.  Facts have context.  Fact remain facts even so, and objective as well.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Asmodean on November 24, 2010, 12:12:35 PM
Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"I am arguing that there is no good reason to give anthropological context a different status from geographic, temporal, or other contexts.  Context is context.  Facts have context.  Fact remain facts even so, and objective as well.
I agree.

However, it also means that objectivity needs to be defined where unclear. For instance, one might want to limit the group of observers of the said fact, it's scale, magnitude, domain and the like.

As an example, 2+2=4 can be considered an objective fact. However, it does rely heavily on 4, as defined, being the sum of two twos, as defined. It can be difficult to imagine what else two plus two might be, but a child who has never seen a math book might well define it as one. Or seven. Or a potato.

Thus, objectivity in this case is that of basic mathematical context and the observer group is that of people familiar with it. For the said group, it would be considered wrong to define 2+2 outside the said context, but for any other group, it might well seem wrong to define it within.

Not too good an example, but still...
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Inevitable Droid on November 24, 2010, 11:08:09 PM
Quote from: "Asmodean"For the said group, it would be considered wrong to define 2+2 outside the said context, but for any other group, it might well seem wrong to define it within.

I think I understand your point, and to the extent I do, I agree with it.  To use the lingo I've been developing in this thread, a natural fact can be interpreted in one of three basic ways from within an anthropological context:

1. Neither approval nor disapproval, hence not a moral fact
2. Approval
3. Disapproval

All three of the above could occur in the same situation.  A woman in a burka walks into a supermarket.  Reactions are mixed.  Radical Muslims approve, secular French disapprove, feminists disapprove, Zionists disapprove, misogynists and misanthropes approve out of malice, sociologists reserve judgment.  Contradictory?  Not at all, because moral facts are anthropologically contextual.  Moral facts simply don't exist at all unless and until you step into a context, but once you step in, the facts are in your face, accosting you.  Similarly, if it were possible to step outside all space and time, presumably one would feel no temperature at all, neither hot nor cold.  So far as we know, temperature literally doesn't exist outside space and time.  Context is mandatory.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Inevitable Droid on November 25, 2010, 12:50:00 AM
OM Axiom 4: Multiple anthropological contexts can be operative in the same situation.
 
OM Axiom 5: Moral allegiance to an anthropological context implies predictable reactions of approval and disapproval in response to moral facts.
 
OM Axiom 6: Moral allegiance to an anthropological context is always optional.
 
OM Axiom 7: Approval and disapproval do not have to be codified into principles before they can operate in an anthropological context.
 
 
Consider the natural fact, "That man is disrobing!"  In the context of a Christian worship service, that fact would be a moral fact, engendering predictable reactions of disapproval from the faithful.  Yet other contexts could be operative at the same time, usually evidenced by the particular way the statement would be phrased.  Nuclear family context - "Dad's disrobing!"  Multiracial America context - "That white cracker's disrobing!"  Employment context - "That guy who's disrobing works for me!"  In each case the disapproval would be nuanced a little differently.
 
Even so, some people in the pews wouldn't react with disapproval at all, nor with approval.  Perhaps they would merely be amused, or nosy.  These people have opted out of any of the anthropological contexts that could view the disrobing with disapproval.  For these people, the natural fact remains strictly a natural fact.  It doesn't rise to the level of a moral fact.
 
If someone claims to participate in the anthropological context of worshipping Christians, yet doesn't react with disapproval to the man disrobing, there is very good reason to doubt the veracity of the claim made.  The person who made the claim may even recognize this discrepancy, and perceive the cognitive dissonance.  This perception may even be the first step in a long process that will culminate in the person rejecting Christianity altogether, on the grounds that Christianity conflicts with the person's epistemological commitments.  But the person would long ago have opted out of the anthropological context.  Proof would reside in the person's failure to react with disapproval to the man disrobing.      
 
Similarly, an offspring may have opted out of the nuclear family context.  Proof would reside in the offspring's complete lack of approval or disapproval regarding the fact that Dad is disrobing.  Of course, the offspring might still be opted into the worshipping Christians context, and might disapprove from that perspective.  The same would hold true for the multiracial America context.  Blacks or hispanics out in the pews might have opted out of the multiracial America context, and thus might lack any approval or disapproval from that perspective, while retaining (or not retaining) the capacity for disapproval from the worshipping Christian perspective.  Likewise, the disrobing man's boss might have opted out of the employment context, and thus might lack any approval or disapproval from that perspective, while retaining (or not retaining) the capacity for disapproval from the worshipping Christian perspective.
 
Notice that I haven't had to talk about moral principles at all.  Moral principles aren't the least bit necessary.  Approval and disapproval in an anthropological context are quite often a matter of reflex, learned as any imitating monkey learns, by observing what others around it do and when.  This is a very important point.  Moral principles can be derived from moral facts through the application of logc, but this is a sapient level of functioning that rises above mere simian imitation.  Morality doesn't have to be very sapient.  It can be largely simian.  The codifying of principles isn't by any means integral to morality.  Integral to morality are (1) anthropological context; (2) an individual having opted into that context; (3) a context's capacity for compelling approval or disapproval; (4) natural or logical facts that engender approval or disapproval; and (5) the will to be moral.  Those five are the core, essence, heart, soul, of morality.  Logic is added on later like a layer of skin, by individuals and groups sapient enough to want to live at least partially by logic.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Persimmon Hamster on November 25, 2010, 01:11:44 AM
Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"What I am arguing is that a fact's contextuality doesn't destroy its factuality, nor its objectivity.
This is what I am having a problem with.  When you add "anthropological contextuality" into the equation I think you are no longer talking about "objective morality".  What is objective about that?  That makes it entirely subjective.  So you get a bunch of subjects together who all agree on acceptable behavior (Sunday church-goers who do not wish to see a man disrobe, skinny-dippers who expect to see a man disrobe)...so what?  It's still subjective.

I am left wondering if this total opposite definition presented here for "objective morality" as compared with the usual definition is some kind of tongue-in-cheek persuasion tactic, or devious attempt to rope in debaters and get them to admit there is no such thing as objective morality, or what?

Cultural beliefs (anthropological contexts) are extremely malleable which poses a serious problem for repeatability of any moral test.  If it is X degrees outside, at this precise location, at this precise time, then you can take any intelligent individual (human or otherwise) with sufficient measurement tools (thermometer) from any time (past, present, future) and place them in those exact same temporal/spatial coordinates and they will all agree on the temperature.  Not so with a moral test drawing from anthropological contexts, and indeed you have said as much already, when talking about the incredible disrobing man.

So basically, I'm left wondering exactly what it is you think you are saying here, because as far as I can tell you're certainly not talking about objective morality.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Inevitable Droid on November 25, 2010, 02:12:29 AM
Quote from: "Persimmon Hamster"This is what I am having a problem with.  When you add "anthropological contextuality" into the equation I think you are no longer talking about "objective morality".  What is objective about that?  That makes it entirely subjective.  So you get a bunch of subjects together who all agree on acceptable behavior (Sunday church-goers who do not wish to see a man disrobe, skinny-dippers who expect to see a man disrobe)...so what?  It's still subjective.

Philosophers distinguish between moral relativism and moral subjectivism.  But they have to argue the case for that distinction.

I view it as follows.  Facts about subjectivity are themselves objective.  Objective facts are falsifiable.  If I say, "Most Zionists condemn Arafat as a bad man," I have made a statement that purports to be an objective fact, and it is falsifiable.  I can survey a representative sample of Zionists and ask them if they condemn Arafat as a bad man.  If less than 50% said they do, then my statement would be falsified.  

Objective facts constitute knowledge.  I know without a shadow of a doubt that if I try to pull the burka off some Muslim woman, and there are Taliban men around, those Taliban men will disapprove of what I'm doing.  I know they will.  Yet that which I know is a fact about subjectivity.  I know they will disapprove of me pulling the burka off a Muslim woman.  I don't speculate that they will.  I don't merely believe that they will.  I don't even hypothesize that they will.  I absolutely know beyond a shadow of a doubt how they will react, with precisely the level of certainty that I have with respect to what will happen to an apple if I hold the apple up and then let go of it.  Taliban disapproval of me pulling off that woman's burka is as utterly dependable as gravity.

QuoteCultural beliefs (anthropological contexts) are extremely malleable which poses a serious problem for repeatability of any moral test.  If it is X degrees outside, at this precise location, at this precise time, then you can take any intelligent individual (human or otherwise) with sufficient measurement tools (thermometer) from any time (past, present, future) and place them in those exact same temporal/spatial coordinates and they will all agree on the temperature.  Not so with a moral test drawing from anthropological contexts, and indeed you have said as much already, when talking about the incredible disrobing man.

Try the Taliban test with anybody you want, so long as they know what a Taliban is.  Ask your selected individuals whether Taliban men would disapprove of me pulling a burka off a Muslim woman.  Not only can I predict how the Taliban would react, but I can predict what your individuals knowledgeable about the Taliban will answer to the proposed question.  I can predict their answer as surely as I can predict that an apple will fall to the ground.

Do you agree that a fact about subjectivity is itself an objective fact?
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Persimmon Hamster on November 25, 2010, 03:08:07 AM
Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"Do you agree that a fact about subjectivity is itself an objective fact?
What if I do?  It seems to me that all you are doing here is attempting to usurp the definition of "objective morality", and replace it with your own definition which is really just the definition of subjective morality with some logical proofs and scientific reasoning slathered on top to make it sound more "objective".  I can see the appeal of such an approach, because it would allow the atheist to claim acceptance of a system of "objective morality", but having redefined the term you are effectively just pulling a fast one over on those who are still using the original definition.

Objective morality would hold that pulling off that woman's burka was "right" or "wrong", "proper" or "improper", regardless of whether any Taliban were present, whether the woman was Muslim, etc -- and the assignment of morality to that action would be indisputable fact of a higher order immune to anthropological contexts.

You've used reason to identify what the likely outcome of your action is--what the surrounding subjects are likely to think about it--but you've failed to identify the morality of your action itself.  Reactions do not morality make.  You've in fact rendered it an even colder calculation than I imagined you might because you based your moral fact entirely on what the men think....not even the woman...not even yourself...  The latter two are the most important, I would argue.

When I ponder the possibility of objective morality of late, I tend to think more along the lines of this: how does a being that has achieved consciousness differ from one that has not?  Once a being gains a conscious sense of "self", which in turn requires a conscious sense of "other", what implications does that have for the being?  If I exist, and others like me exist, am I not bound to conclude something akin to the golden rule (if I ponder on it long enough)?  In your Taliban test, one should think to oneself, were I a Muslim woman (surrounded by Taliban or not), would I want a westerner to walk up and yank off my burka?  And if the answer is most likely "no" then why on earth would you do it?  I might argue that if you did go through with it, you have an underdeveloped sense of "self" and "other" and you need some more schoolin' on the subject.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Wilson on November 25, 2010, 08:20:40 AM
Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"You're equating morality with empathy, then.

No, I'm more or less equating what I called a "natural morality" with empathy.  Sympathetic empathy is the basis for what I'd like morality to be.  We always sympathize in the movies with someone who's broken the rules of society in order to be of service to someone.

Of course "morality" is just a word.  But it seems to me the the common understanding of moral behavior could be defined as something like behaving in a way that makes us feel like we did the right thing.  Immoral behavior is behaving in a way that makes up feel guilty.

In my opinion, there are two kinds of morality - the instinctive kind I mentioned above, and rules.  Rules can be established by a church, a government, a peer group, or even an individual himself.  Obviously the rules of moral behavior are different from culture to culture.  Someone lacking in empathy will be restricted to following rules of behavior.  Those capable of empathy will generally follow the rules of society but sometimes will act out of sympathy toward our fellow men if the rules of society seem unjust or vague.

So to me, someone who acts kindly toward his neighbors is a moral person.  But I recognize that this isn't absolute; it's just what feels right to me, no matter where those feelings came from.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Inevitable Droid on November 25, 2010, 11:18:22 AM
Quote from: "Persimmon Hamster"
Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"Do you agree that a fact about subjectivity is itself an objective fact?
What if I do?

If you do, then I contend that you logically must agree that an objective morality can be built around facts concerning subjectivity.  If you don't, however, then I contend that you have logically rendered objective morality impossible.  The basis of my contentions is a set of three underlying contentions:

1. The existence of moral facts is necessary for objective morality to exist.
2. All moral facts are facts about subjectivity.
3. All facts are objective truths.

To attack my position is to attack one, two, or all three of the above.

Incidentally, I'm not playing a game here.  When I debate, my goal is always truth, either to discover it or to defend it.  Winning an argument for the sake of winning an argument has no appeal for me.  I readily concede error when convinced I have erred.  I even volunteer the concession when I could gracefully avoid doing so.  But I don't concede until I'm convinced.  If I have a God, its name is truth.

QuoteIt seems to me that all you are doing here is attempting to usurp the definition of "objective morality", and replace it with your own definition which is really just the definition of subjective morality with some logical proofs and scientific reasoning slathered on top to make it sound more "objective".

I contend that I don't have to accept a consensus definition if that consensus definition is logically invalid.  I further contend that any definition of objective morality that isn't precisely or at least equivalently, "morality based on facts," is logically invalid, and therefore permissible for me to reject.  All of my arguments in that direction hinge on the three underlying contentions listed previously, above.

Thus if I say that the Taliban will disapprove of me pulling the burka off that woman, and if I have stated a fact, then I have stated an objective truth.  Have I stated a fact?  To test this, first test whether the statement is falsifiable.  It is.  Next, either accept the statement as self-evident, or test whether it's false.  I claim the statement as self-evident, but I don't have to.  We could test whether the statement is false.  I merely claim that the probability of the statement being false is zero.  I say this because I know the Taliban will disapprove.  Knowledge consists of facts.  Facts comprise knowledge.

QuoteI can see the appeal of such an approach, because it would allow the atheist to claim acceptance of a system of "objective morality"

That's one appeal.  But its greatest appeal is that it's logically valid, assuming it is.  Logical validity trumps everything.  Logical validity must be submitted to, or else all reason, all sapience, all common sense, all competence, and all sanity must be abandoned.  If we reject logical validity, we might as well knock a hole in our skulls, scoop out our brains, and use them as chum.

Quote- but having redefined the term you are effectively just pulling a fast one over on those who are still using the original definition.

If your definition of objective morality isn't precisely or at least equivalently, "morality based on facts," then I reject your definition until such time as you convince me your definition is logically valid.  What is your definition of objective morality?

QuoteObjective morality would hold that pulling off that woman's burka was "right" or "wrong", "proper" or "improper", regardless of whether any Taliban were present, whether the woman was Muslim, etc -- and the assignment of morality to that action would be indisputable fact of a higher order immune to anthropological contexts.

I think you're confusing the adjective objective with the adjective absolute.  Do you see those words as perfect synonyms?  I would agree that the absolute implies the objective, but I disagree that the objective implies the absolute.  I contend that the objective can be relative, and in fact most often is.  When the objective is absolute, it is universal as well, thus utterly general.  "Mass pulls mass" is an objective, absolute fact.  It is also universal, thus utterly general.  All specificity is relative.  To disprove that, you will have to say something specific that isn't relative.    

If the goal is absolute morality then I will provide us with absolute morality's only available dictum: "Have a conscience."  No other absolute moral dictum is available, for no other would be universal and therefore utterly general, and all specificity is relative.

QuoteYou've used reason to identify what the likely outcome of your action is--what the surrounding subjects are likely to think about it--but you've failed to identify the morality of your action itself.  Reactions do not morality make.

They do if approval and disapproval are fundamental to morality.  Are they?  I say they are.

QuoteYou've in fact rendered it an even colder calculation than I imagined you might because you based your moral fact entirely on what the men think....not even the woman...not even yourself...  The latter two are the most important, I would argue.

The relativity of morality allows the Taliban, me, and the woman to all disagree and still each be moral within each's anthropological context, while each being immoral within the other's anthropolical context.  That's what bothers you, I think.  You want us all to agree, or else, if we all disagree, then you want one of us to be absolutely right and the others to be absolutely wrong.  I contend that as far as morality is concerned, the only way to be absolutely wrong is to be amoral; I.e., to not have a conscience at all.  Beyond that, rightness and wrongness are contextual, hence relative.

QuoteWhen I ponder the possibility of objective morality of late, I tend to think more along the lines of this: how does a being that has achieved consciousness differ from one that has not?  Once a being gains a conscious sense of "self", which in turn requires a conscious sense of "other", what implications does that have for the being?  If I exist, and others like me exist, am I not bound to conclude something akin to the golden rule (if I ponder on it long enough)?

I say no.  How will you convince me that I'm wrong?  On what basis will you argue?  I contend that I can be sapient and a complete sociopath simultaneously.  I can be sapient and not care at all about anyone's well-being but my own.  Nothing biological, chemical, or physical stops me, and nothing logical does either.  To prove me wrong, you would have to convince me that a complete sociopath isn't sapient.  But of course you aren't arguing what I can do, but what I should.  You are claiming that what I should do is a subset of what I can, such that, the set of what I can do contains not only what I should, but also what I shouldn't.  So your argument isn't based on capability.  What is it based on?

Most people who argue along these lines try to demonstrate that it is somehow illogical for me to prefer myself to others.  They typically contend, eventually, if pressed hard enough to explain themselves, that preferring myself to others is illogical because all preference is illogical, hence to be logical is to not prefer.  This is nonsense, of course.  It is true, certainly, that to be strictly logical and nothing else is to not prefer.  To be strictly logical and nothing else is to not be hungry either, or cold, or male, or human, or alive, or an animal, or biological, or chemical, or physical.  Can I be logical and hungry simultaneously?  Of course.  Can I be logical and cold simultaneously?  Of course.  Can I be logical and have preferences simultaneously?  Of course.

If I can be logical and have preferences simultaneously, then I can be logical and simultaneously prefer myself to others, even totally.  I can be logical and simultaneously a complete sociopath.

But I'll stop here and let you argue your own case.  I contend that you will never successfully defend the golden rule on purely logical grounds.
 
QuoteIn your Taliban test, one should think to oneself, were I a Muslim woman (surrounded by Taliban or not), would I want a westerner to walk up and yank off my burka?

Why should I think that?  I don't think that.  I empathize with the woman, but I don't think I should empathize with her.  For me, empathy is neither good nor bad.  It just is.  I neither approve nor disapprove of empathy.  I experience it the same way I experience hunger, or cold.  It happens, and I respond to it.  I could respond by acting in accord with it, or I could respond by acting in discord with it.  I neither approve nor disapprove of acting in accord with empathy, nor do I approve or disapprove of acting in discord with empathy.  Empathy isn't a moral fact for me.  I don't subscribe to any anthropological context that makes empathy a moral fact.

QuoteAnd if the answer is most likely "no" then why on earth would you do it?

Perhaps because I am a radical feminist who is so deeply offended by the wearing of the burka that I consider it my moral duty to make it stop.  Or because I have a conscience that is deeply offended by cowardice, and I am convinced that the woman in the burka actually hates wearing it and would yank it off on her own if only she had the courage, but she is a coward, and so I consider it my moral duty to yank the thing off her, so as to prevent cowardice, that horrible sin, from winning the day.  Or because I have a conscience that is deeply offended by anyone allowing suffering to occur if it can be prevented, and I am convinced the woman in the burka is suffering, perhaps from heat, but she keeps the thing on out of fear, and so I consider it my moral duty to yank the thing off her, because suffering must be prevented at all costs, if not by the sufferer, then by any onlooker with the power of prevention.

QuoteI might argue that if you did go through with it, you have an underdeveloped sense of "self" and "other" and you need some more schoolin' on the subject.

Apparently you would argue that imposing my will on someone else is immoral.  On what basis?
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Inevitable Droid on November 25, 2010, 11:50:02 AM
Quote from: "Wilson"Sympathetic empathy is the basis for what I'd like morality to be.  We always sympathize in the movies with someone who's broken the rules of society in order to be of service to someone.

Fair enough.  You're saying what you'd like morality to be, as opposed to saying what it in fact is, or must be, or should be.  You're stating a preference.  Fair enough.

QuoteBut it seems to me the the common understanding of moral behavior could be defined as something like behaving in a way that makes us feel like we did the right thing.  Immoral behavior is behaving in a way that makes up feel guilty.

Agreed.  Strongly.  On this thread I've been saying things like, "approving or disapproving are fundamental to what morality is."  I think that's equivalent to your own contention, to the extent that approval or disapproval are applied to oneself.  What I have done, of course, is go a step further, and try to describe the origins of approval and disapproval as they occur in most people most of the time.

QuoteIn my opinion, there are two kinds of morality - the instinctive kind I mentioned above, and rules.  Rules can be established by a church, a government, a peer group, or even an individual himself.  Obviously the rules of moral behavior are different from culture to culture.

Anthropological context, in other words - except for this "instinctive kind" of morality you mention.  I think you must again be referring to empathy.  But I think you've already said, or implied, that empathy and morality aren't necessarily identical, but rather, that you would like them to be.  Empathy probably is instinctive.  But whether it's moral is an open question.  You would like it to be, but you aren't going so far as to say that it absolutely or necessarily is.

QuoteSomeone lacking in empathy will be restricted to following rules of behavior.

Or not following them.  Or acting in accord with approval or disapproval without having codified the reasons for such into principles or rules.

QuoteThose capable of empathy will generally follow the rules of society but sometimes will act out of sympathy toward our fellow men if the rules of society seem unjust or vague.

The phrase capable of empathy is interesting.  I agree that some people are capable of empathy and some people at least seem to be incapable of it.  What would it say about our morality, if we made a moral requirement out of something some people are incapable of?

I've been assuming that the set of what we can do has within it, completely contained, the set of what we should do.  It never occurred to me that perhaps we should do what we can't.  I balk at that notion.  But I do so out of reflex.  I don't have a strictly logical reason.  Perhaps it isn't merely deeds that can be immoral, but being itself.  Perhaps it is immoral to be such a creature as is incapable of empathy.  Perhaps if I were such a creature, the only moral thing for me to do would be to kill myself immediately, as my continued live existence is morally offensive.  I don't really think this, but I don't have a strictly logical reason why morality should exclude being from its domain of influence.

On the other hand, perhaps empathy is only required if one is capable of it.  Perhaps incapability is a valid excuse, not merely with regard to empathy, but with regard to any requirement.  I always thought that.  But I never even tried to justify it.  Any justification would have to assume that being is outside the domain of morality's influence, that my being can't be immoral, but only my deeds.

QuoteSo to me, someone who acts kindly toward his neighbors is a moral person.  But I recognize that this isn't absolute; it's just what feels right to me, no matter where those feelings came from.

Fair enough.  I agree that what feels right to you isn't absolute, just as what feels right to me isn't absolute either.  But whether, being relative, its basis could nevertheless be objective, is an open question.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Asmodean on November 25, 2010, 01:10:36 PM
Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"All three of the above could occur in the same situation.  A woman in a burka walks into a supermarket.  Reactions are mixed.  Radical Muslims approve, secular French disapprove, feminists disapprove, Zionists disapprove, misogynists and misanthropes approve out of malice, sociologists reserve judgment.  Contradictory?  Not at all, because moral facts are anthropologically contextual.  Moral facts simply don't exist at all unless and until you step into a context, but once you step in, the facts are in your face, accosting you.  Similarly, if it were possible to step outside all space and time, presumably one would feel no temperature at all, neither hot nor cold.  So far as we know, temperature literally doesn't exist outside space and time.  Context is mandatory.
Thank you! A far superior example to mine, illustrating pretty much the same point as I was trying to make.  :)
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: hackenslash on November 25, 2010, 03:38:03 PM
OK, let's begin at the beginning. Firstly, I note that you neatly evaded the first part of my post. Quite an achievement for such a long response to such a short post.

You are asking us to take as axiomatic certain things pertaining to moral facts, and arguing that they are uncontraversial. I do not accept your axioms because of the fatal logical flaw in them, namely the question being begged with regard to the existence of 'moral facts'. Your entire line of reasoning is predicated upon the existence of them, yet you gloss over the objection as if it hasn't been raised.

Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"If by give a toss we mean care, and if by universe we mean the universe taken as a whole, then one could argue that the universe taken as a whole doesn't care about anything, yet presumably we claim that there are at least some objective facts.  The universe taken as a whole doesn't care about mass, distance, duration, chemical composition.  Why single out morality and require that, in the case of morality, the universe taken as a whole has to care?  

Beautiful bait and switch.

Morality is about caring, which is why morality is singled out. For anything to be objective, it has to be true from any and every perspective, because that's what the word means. For morality to be objective, and for moral facts to exist, they have to be true from a universal standpoint, which means that the universe has to care about them. The same is not true of other objective statements, only about morality, whose basis is caring. Moreover, even granting that the opinions of one species could constitute objectivity, which is a preposterous proposition, the simple fact that there are no universally agreed upon principles of morality even among humans, or even in what actually constitutes morality, your argument is dead in the water.

QuoteIf by give a toss we mean merely respond, and if by universe we continue to mean the universe taken as a whole, then one could argue that the universe taken as a whole doesn't respond to anything, since all responses are local to some finite portion of space.  If I kick a pebble, the universe as a whole doesn't respond.  The pebble responds, and anything the pebble hits along its trajectory before coming to rest will respond to the pebble, but even if we insist on wildly generalizing the butterfly effect, nothing on the moon will respond in any way to my kick, nor anything on the sun, nor certainly anything in orbit around Alpha Centauri.

Even localised effects are true from a universal perspective, and are therefore objective. What you have not managed to demonstrate is that there is a single moral principle that is true from the standpoint of any observer in the universe (which is what I was referring to with the vernacular usage of 'give a toss', incidentally).

QuoteIf we allow universe to mean the universe by virtue of any of its parts, then we permit ourselves to say that the universe cares about things, since living creatures care about things and are parts of the universe, and the universe responds to things, since specific entitites, living or not, respond to things and are parts of the universe.  So now, presumably, we permit ourselves to talk about objective facts.  Humans are specific entities, and living creatures.  Humans respond to and care about a great diversity of things, including moral facts.  When humans respond, the universe, as defined in this paragraph, responds.  When humans care, the universe, as defined in this paragraph, cares.  And so, by the parameters of this paragraph, the universe responds to, and cares about, moral facts.  If we dispute the parameters of this paragraph, then we are left having to explain to what extent objective facts of any kind exist.

Lovely fallacy of composition there. There are parts of the universe that x, therefore it is a property of the universe as a whole that x.

Very poor.

QuoteTemperature?

Is not contextual, but objective. For a given temperature x, even in a confined region, it is objectively and universally true that x for that confined region.

QuoteWeather?

See above.

QuoteAverage height?

Entirely subjective, and not objective. Tell me, what constitutes 'average', and who decides it?

Quote(Ethnically contextual.)  Context matters for most objective facts as typically stated.  "A dog just bit me!"  The context is time of day, due to the word, just.

No, the time provides context, it doesn't make the statement contextual. Given that the statement is an accurate description of events, it is objectively true that a dog just bit you. The provided context does not make the statement contextual.

QuoteRemove the word just, and the listener, if not a direct observer, will ask, "When?  Where?"  (The question of location would refer to location on the speaker's body.)  When and where are relevant context for the fact of a dog bite.

No, they provide context for the audience to the statement, but they have no effect on the objectivity of the statement itself, which is not contextual.

QuoteMost objective facts need to be clarified as to when and where, and often who, the latter exemplified by average height, or most common eye color and shade, or most common hair color and shade, all being contextual by ethnicity.  Context doesn't negate the objectivity of a fact.

All of those things are subjective, as they describe imposed means, rather than constituting objective statements. Any statement of such an average is, by the inclusion of the context under which it's being stated, necessarily subjective. Average height for what? A human? A dog? A sequoia?

Context provides clarity, not objectivity.

Now, I'd be very much interested in your response to my initial objection, namely the glaring bit of question-begging in the OP.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Inevitable Droid on November 25, 2010, 04:15:32 PM
OM Axiom 8: Opting into or out of an anthropological context is first an act of discovery as to one's true nature, followed up by an act of will.

If moral relativism isn't moral subjectivism, then either it is impossible to move into and out of anthropological contexts, but rather they are givens and must be assumed as incontrovertible, or else the movement into and out of them must be driven first by fact.  I say this because otherwise the movement into and out of anthropological contexts would be driven by subjectivism, and that would render the whole system subjectivist.

It is manifestly false that moving into and out of anthropological contexts is impossible.  Anthropological contexts aren't givens.  They can't be assumed as incontrovertible.  It is commonplace that people abandon religions, patriotisms, filial loyalties, friendships, marriages, philosophical communities, political communities, clubs, professions, and business relationships.

I must accordingly either abandon any claim for objective morality, then, or else I must argue that the movement into and out of anthropological contexts is driven first by fact.  The only facts that could possibly drive moral allegiance to a context would be facts about oneself, one's true nature.  Faked allegiance could be driven by all sorts of other facts, but I'm not talking here about faked allegiance.  I'm talking about sincere, serious, real, true, factual moral allegiance.  Nobody offers that to anything except after realizing, "Yes, I am such as would have to be one of these, in fact I am already one of these in all but name and the performance of some requisite rituals."

No honest man gets baptized unless he knows in his heart he is already Christian.  No honest immigrant seeks citizenship unless he knows in his heart he is already a citizen.  No honest fiance seeks to wed unless he knows in his heart he is already husband to his betrothed.  No honest voter joins the Republican party unless he knows in his heart he is already a Republican.  No honest student goes to medical school unless he knows in his heart he is already a doctor, merely awaiting training the way a flower awaits water.

What then of those who abandon contexts?  Either they originally opted in for self-deceitful or disingenuous reasons, or were pressured into opting in, or have changed so fundamentally that what was once true to their natures no longer is.
 
The entire system presented in this thread hinges full square on what I have writen in this post.  Those who wish to dismantle the system need only dismantle what I have written in this post.  Are relativism and subjectivism identical?  If this post is logically or empirically invalid, then relativism and subjectivism are identical.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: hackenslash on November 25, 2010, 04:37:09 PM
Nope. To dismantle the system, I only need to demonstrate that it is rooted in fallacious reasoning. The fallacy in this instance has been cited and no attempt to deal with it has been forthcoming.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Inevitable Droid on November 25, 2010, 05:27:37 PM
Quote from: "hackenslash"OK, let's begin at the beginning. Firstly, I note that you neatly evaded the first part of my post. Quite an achievement for such a long response to such a short post.

Hmm.  OK.  I thought the second part of that post was intended as the supporting argument for the first part, such that, by addressing the second part, I was addressing the first.  Here's the first part, then:

Quote from: "hackenslash"There's a beautiful bit of question-begging going on in the above, namely the existence of moral 'facts'.

Within anthropological contexts there are moral facts.  In the context of Catholicism, extra-marital sex is disapproved of, abortion is disapproved of, theft and lying and suicide are disapproved of.  These are moral facts.  It is factual that Catholicism sets up these disapprovals.  The only open question is whether contextuality renders the facts something other than objective.  
 
QuoteYou are asking us to take as axiomatic certain things pertaining to moral facts, and arguing that they are uncontraversial. I do not accept your axioms because of the fatal logical flaw in them, namely the question being begged with regard to the existence of 'moral facts'. Your entire line of reasoning is predicated upon the existence of them, yet you gloss over the objection as if it hasn't been raised.

OK.  Sorry about that.  It happens (with me at least) when something seems obvious.  But I failed to realize from your post that you were disputing precisely that.  Mea culpa.

Quote
Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"If by give a toss we mean care, and if by universe we mean the universe taken as a whole, then one could argue that the universe taken as a whole doesn't care about anything, yet presumably we claim that there are at least some objective facts.  The universe taken as a whole doesn't care about mass, distance, duration, chemical composition.  Why single out morality and require that, in the case of morality, the universe taken as a whole has to care?  

Beautiful bait and switch.

Morality is about caring, which is why morality is singled out.

Hmm.  Good point.  Thank you for raising it.

QuoteFor anything to be objective, it has to be true from any and every perspective, because that's what the word means.

You're equating objective with absolute; I.e., you're saying that for something to be objective, it can't be relative.  On what do you base that?  To make sure I wasn't off the deep end, I checked my Random House Webster's College Dictionary.  None of the definitions of the adjective objective say anything about not being relative, or about being absolute.  They talk about not being subjective.  I would argue that the antonym of objective is subjective, not relative.  I would also argue that subjective and relative aren't synonyms.  While it's true that everything subjective is relative, it's false that everything relative is subjective.

QuoteFor morality to be objective, and for moral facts to exist, they have to be true from a universal standpoint, which means that the universe has to care about them.

So now objective means universal also.  I don't find in my dictionary any definitions of the adjective objective that talk about being universal, or not being local.  I would argue, again, that the antonym of objective is subjective, not local.  I would also argue that subjective and local aren't synonyms.  While it's true that everything subjective is local, it's false that everything local is subjective.

I accept, incidentally, that absolute and universal might as well be synonyms, even if technically perhaps they aren't, since everything absolute is universal, and everything universal is absolute.  I merely deny that objective can be added to the two to make a triptych.  I base this on the fact that something can be relative and local without being subjective, and subjective is the antonym of objective.

QuoteThe same is not true of other objective statements, only about morality, whose basis is caring.

This point you're making about caring is a good one.

QuoteMoreover, even granting that the opinions of one species could constitute objectivity, which is a preposterous proposition, the simple fact that there are no universally agreed upon principles of morality even among humans, or even in what actually constitutes morality, your argument is dead in the water.

Within a particular context there is usually a great deal of agreement upon principles of morality.  Of course our disagreement resides in whether contextuality destroys objectivity.

QuoteEven localised effects are true from a universal perspective, and are therefore objective.

In order to examine the localized effect, one must enter the local domain, or examine something that has come from a local domain.  I don't know a rock has fallen on Pluto except by examining images constructed from photons that have exited Pluto.  But you and I have disagreed before on what I'm saying here.  I don't grant the existence of a fact unless someone knows it.  Until someone knows a fact, there is no fact.  In a universe with no life, and thus no knowledge, there would be no facts.  Given the foregoing, entering an anthropological context is the same as entering Pluto, and examining something that has come from an anthropological context is the same as examing the photons that have come from Pluto.

QuoteWhat you have not managed to demonstrate is that there is a single moral principle that is true from the standpoint of any observer in the universe (which is what I was referring to with the vernacular usage of 'give a toss', incidentally).

Nor will I ever demonstrate that, or even try, except with respect to the obvious principle, "Have morals."  I think any creature anywhere who posits any kind of morality will have to agree with the principle, "Have morals."  Failure to comply would of course be amorality, which I offer as the one abolute, universal sin.

Quote
QuoteIf we allow universe to mean the universe by virtue of any of its parts, then we permit ourselves to say that the universe cares about things, since living creatures care about things and are parts of the universe, and the universe responds to things, since specific entitites, living or not, respond to things and are parts of the universe.  So now, presumably, we permit ourselves to talk about objective facts.  Humans are specific entities, and living creatures.  Humans respond to and care about a great diversity of things, including moral facts.  When humans respond, the universe, as defined in this paragraph, responds.  When humans care, the universe, as defined in this paragraph, cares.  And so, by the parameters of this paragraph, the universe responds to, and cares about, moral facts.  If we dispute the parameters of this paragraph, then we are left having to explain to what extent objective facts of any kind exist.

Lovely fallacy of composition there. There are parts of the universe that x, therefore it is a property of the universe as a whole that x.

Very poor.

It would be very poor if I had committed it.  I didn't.  I said if we allow universe to mean the universe by virtue of any of its parts.  First of all, then, I was positing a conditional; I.e., a choice.  Secondly, the choice I was offering was whether to accept a definition for the word universe that specifically would have excluded any notion of universe as a whole, since the definition suggested was, the universe by virtue of any of its parts.  My entire point was to suggest we could voluntarily exclude this notion of universe as a whole.  Voluntarily exclude it.

I'm going to skip some of what follows, as it hinges on concepts we debate fully above.  Resuming here, then:

Quote
QuoteAverage height?

Entirely subjective, and not objective. Tell me, what constitutes 'average', and who decides it?

Average height for group X would be the total of the heights of the members of group X divided by the number of members of group X.  The only open question is who are the members of group X.
 
Quote
Quote(Ethnically contextual.)  Context matters for most objective facts as typically stated.  "A dog just bit me!"  The context is time of day, due to the word, just.

No, the time provides context, it doesn't make the statement contextual. Given that the statement is an accurate description of events, it is objectively true that a dog just bit you. The provided context does not make the statement contextual.

Without the context we don't know what the statement means.  A contextual statement is one which cannot be understood without reference to the context.  What else would a contextual statement be?

QuoteContext provides clarity, not objectivity.

I agree.  I however would also say, "Context provides clarity, not subjectivity."
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Persimmon Hamster on November 26, 2010, 05:03:36 AM
Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"If you do, then I contend that you logically must agree that an objective morality can be built around facts concerning subjectivity.  If you don't, however, then I contend that you have logically rendered objective morality impossible.  The basis of my contentions is a set of three underlying contentions:

1. The existence of moral facts is necessary for objective morality to exist.
2. All moral facts are facts about subjectivity.
3. All facts are objective truths.

To attack my position is to attack one, two, or all three of the above.
Well, let me ask you this.  Surely you must have some idea of where this will all take you?  As you currently see it going forward, of what utility will be the system of "objective subjective morality" for which these axioms will provide the framework?

I doubt many would argue with the "objectivity" of the "moral facts" presented in examples you have used so far, but those facts (as far as I can tell so far)  say nothing about how we should hold one another accountable for our actions--the entire point of discussing morality, it would seem to me.  In a vacuum involving myself and no other conscious entities, yes, I may do whatever I want, and the term "morality" is meaningless.  However we do not live in that vacuum; even if I were the last human alive there would also be the potential consciousness of the rest of the members of the animal kingdom for me to morally contemplate.

What it appears, to me, that you are doing is attempting to solve the problem of moral relativism (ethical subjectivism, subjective morality, etc) vs. moral realism (objective morality, etc) by establishing a middle ground wherein we can derive some utility from the identification of "objective moral facts".

Can you give an example, perhaps using the same Taliban test proposed already, of how your proposed system of objective morality will enable us to hold everyone in the situation accountable for their initial actions and resulting reactions?

Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"Incidentally, I'm not playing a game here.  When I debate, my goal is always truth, either to discover it or to defend it.  Winning an argument for the sake of winning an argument has no appeal for me.  I readily concede error when convinced I have erred.  I even volunteer the concession when I could gracefully avoid doing so.  But I don't concede until I'm convinced.  If I have a God, its name is truth.
Fair enough.  By "arguing" with you, I'm not saying you are wrong, or I am right, in fact I don't yet know exactly what I believe/think on this topic (but I have contemplated it in short bursts).

Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"I contend that I don't have to accept a consensus definition if that consensus definition is logically invalid.  I further contend that any definition of objective morality that isn't precisely or at least equivalently, "morality based on facts," is logically invalid, and therefore permissible for me to reject.  All of my arguments in that direction hinge on the three underlying contentions listed previously, above.
I understand the first statement most definitely; as an ignostic I feel the same way about the definition of "God".  I similarly tend to agree that "moral realism" as traditionally imagined (or as I interpret it, perhaps I just interpret it wrong) is a nonsensical idea.

Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"Thus if I say that the Taliban will disapprove of me pulling the burka off that woman, and if I have stated a fact, then I have stated an objective truth.  Have I stated a fact?  To test this, first test whether the statement is falsifiable.  It is.  Next, either accept the statement as self-evident, or test whether it's false.  I claim the statement as self-evident, but I don't have to.  We could test whether the statement is false.  I merely claim that the probability of the statement being false is zero.  I say this because I know the Taliban will disapprove.  Knowledge consists of facts.  Facts comprise knowledge.
Well, not so fast.  I am no longer certain you really have even approached stating a fact in your example.  Consider the following:
1) How do we measure "disapproval" in your system?
2) If I find some Taliban men who would not disapprove of such an act, then you will reject your statement as fact or at least recalculate the probability of it being false.  Trouble is, your statement leaves much ambiguity.  #1 above is part of that, but there is more.  Define "Taliban"?  Are we talking about recent converts, perhaps uneducated youths who have just wandered into the "wrong side of the tracks" for non-ideological reasons?  Are we talking about Taliban in an "unaltered" mental state, medically speaking -- no alcohol has recently been consumed, no mind-altering drugs?  Do they possess vision?  Are they conscious?  Are they looking in your direction?  Et al, ad infinitum.

To call your statement fact, I must assess the likelihood of its being falsified...  To assess that, I will require a full definition for every term in your statement...  Can you provide them?  Ah, the relativity of specificity.

Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"That's one appeal.  But its greatest appeal is that it's logically valid, assuming it is.  Logical validity trumps everything.  Logical validity must be submitted to, or else all reason, all sapience, all common sense, all competence, and all sanity must be abandoned.  If we reject logical validity, we might as well knock a hole in our skulls, scoop out our brains, and use them as chum.
Are you aware of any of the so-called limits of logic?  I’m no expert but in my current stage of philosophical and rational exploration I have already encountered some.

Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"If your definition of objective morality isn't precisely or at least equivalently, "morality based on facts," then I reject your definition until such time as you convince me your definition is logically valid.  What is your definition of objective morality?

I think you're confusing the adjective objective with the adjective absolute.  Do you see those words as perfect synonyms?  I would agree that the absolute implies the objective, but I disagree that the objective implies the absolute.  I contend that the objective can be relative, and in fact most often is.  When the objective is absolute, it is universal as well, thus utterly general.  "Mass pulls mass" is an objective, absolute fact.  It is also universal, thus utterly general.  All specificity is relative.  To disprove that, you will have to say something specific that isn't relative.
Well, so far, I have not attempted to be very specific/discretionary in my usage of the term.  I think the most popular definition would be what might more technically be referred to as "moral realism".  The idea that there are moral facts, but not facts such as you propose (facts about subjective experience in a particular context).  Are there such facts?  If there are, what has any of that to do with morality?

I personally reject that "absolute moral facts" can exist in a form that most holding to moral realism might imagine.  IMO, no such fact exists as "any being which engages in sexual activities without specific intent to procreate is acting in moral error".  But I am not so quick to reject the idea that there may be some inevitable moral conclusion that one possessing enough intelligence/consciousness can arrive at -- if you will, a universal truth awaiting discovery by those who strive to understand it which has implications we would define as morality.  We could live our lives in complete oblivion about whether the sun revolves around the earth or the reverse, but the truth is out there, awaiting our conclusion should we choose to pursue it.

Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"If the goal is absolute morality then I will provide us with absolute morality's only available dictum: "Have a conscience."  No other absolute moral dictum is available, for no other would be universal and therefore utterly general, and all specificity is relative.
I would perhaps phrase it as "have consciousness".  But do not stop there, examine what that means in its fullest sense, and perhaps you will find more utile basis for moral conduct than you expect.  This is essentially my proposition, I think.

Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"They do if approval and disapproval are fundamental to morality.  Are they?  I say they are.
Of whom?

Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"The relativity of morality allows the Taliban, me, and the woman to all disagree and still each be moral within each's anthropological context, while each being immoral within the other's anthropolical context.  That's what bothers you, I think.  You want us all to agree, or else, if we all disagree, then you want one of us to be absolutely right and the others to be absolutely wrong.  I contend that as far as morality is concerned, the only way to be absolutely wrong is to be amoral; I.e., to not have a conscience at all.  Beyond that, rightness and wrongness are contextual, hence relative.
I suppose what bothers me is if "morality" depends upon context, I would probably no longer want to call it by that name.  I guess, to me, the concept of “morality" and the idea of absoluteness/universality go hand in hand; if morality is not in some way absolute then why bother to discuss it or even acknowledge relative concepts of “right" and “wrong"?

Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"I say no.  How will you convince me that I'm wrong?  On what basis will you argue?
Alright, I’ll have a go at presenting my thoughts in a logical manner so that they can be more easily attacked.  Please keep in mind that this is my first attempt to do so in any formal sense, so I may make mistakes, I may need to refine the arguments/terms/concepts, simplifications may be possible.  Once I have presented the case, I will attempt to address all the good comments you raised.  Maybe in the process I will decide I am wrong.
For the purposes of my argument I will use the following terms:

Me, Self, I â€" These are more or less interchangeable.  Either term refers to the sense of consciousness which I possess, as a being with a sufficiently complex mind.  Awareness.  Having moved beyond a for-all-appearances deterministic force to become one for-all-appearances in possession of “will" (of the apparently “free" variety).  I would work harder to define “consciousness" (and possibly therein find my failure), but from our previous interactions I think we are on enough of the same page there to proceed without more detail.
You â€" This term refers to a sense of consciousness which I believe to be present in another entityâ€"one which I perceive as being distinct from myself.  But somewhat more than that, it refers to a consciousness like my own.
Other, Not-me â€" More general terms than “You", these terms refer to any entity (conscious or otherwise) which I perceive as existing distinct from myself.  A rock is Not-meâ€"is Otherâ€"as are You.

With these definitions, loose as they currently are, my argument perhaps comes down to a single premise:

1) I cannot exist without you.

Is this proposition falsifiable?  I think so.  Think isolated baby with no human or discernibly intelligent contact allowed to fully mature in said environment.  Perhaps an unethical experiment, perhaps why we have yet to try it.  We find feral children now and then but that's not the same, not at all.

Now, to expand upon that premise, to make it more understandable and derive meaning from it, I will present 4 ideas, or realizations that I contend a conscious being is capable of coming to recognize.  I list these ideas in a particular order; that is, the order in which it would seem easiest for us to come to realize them from the moment we begin to exist.

A) Selfness of Self.
I am me.  My existence is important to me.  I have needs and desires that are mine.
A sense of this would appear to have been hard-wired within me even before capacity for consciousness as we know it.

B) Selfness of Other.   
You are like me.  My existence is your existence and is important to you.  In this way, we are one.  My needs/desires are yours.
I develop a sense of this perhaps as early as in the womb, but at least as soon as my mother (and/or father) begins providing for me and asserting her/his otherness unto me.

C) Otherness of Other.
You are like me, but are not-me.  Because you are like me, your existence is important to you.  You have needs and desires, which may be like or unlike my own.
Others who are not-me and not-you also exist.  Others may have needs/desires, or may not, which may be like or unlike my own.
I come to know this as I enhance my sense of self to the exclusion of others, as I gain and assert independence, and as I see you ([m]other) assert yours.

D) Otherness of Self.
I am like you.  Your existence is my existence and is important to me.  In this way, we are one.  Your needs/desires are mine.
This is perhaps the last to be realized.  In some sense I can know this by becoming a parent.  But to fully realize it is to apply it not only within my immediate kin but on a global scale.  I cannot exist without you, you cannot exist without they, and so forth.  All are connected.  All are one.  We are one.

---------------------
Once a person has fully realized the above, the inevitable conclusions include:

What benefits me, benefits you.  What harms me, harms you.  What benefits you, benefits me.  What harms you, harms me.  We are one.  There is no true distinction between you and I beyond the illusion my immediate perception suggests (I very urgently, very tangibly feel my physical/emotional well-being but not yours).

Therefore my moral responsibility, when it comes to others (and others are required for morality to be an intelligible concept), would seem to be to realize all of the above and choose actions that affect others as though they will also affect myselfâ€"because they do/will.  Acting in a way that harms “we" is illogical and possibly suggestive of a defect in or underdevelopment of full consciousness.

Is all of the above true?  Can I realize it?  Should I realize it?  Keep reading.

Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"I contend that I can be sapient and a complete sociopath simultaneously.
^Correct.  Or is it?  I contend fully developed consciousness includes awareness of (at least) the above 4 ideas.  I suggest something prevents the sociopath from developing such consciousness.  Is it medical?  Is it developmental?  Little of both?  Depends on the case?

Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"I can be sapient and not care at all about anyone's well-being but my own.
^Correct.  But see above.

Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"Nothing biological, chemical, or physical stops me, and nothing logical does either.
^I disagree.  I contend, if you have had sufficient time and external influence (from others) (within observed norms) to fully develop consciousness to the point that the above 4 ideas are self-evident, and yet you still have not concluded them, something biological, chemical, physical, or logical has worked against you.

Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"To prove me wrong, you would have to convince me that a complete sociopath isn't sapient.
If I convince you that my single, simple premise is true, and that full consciousness includes awareness of those 4 ideas, does it help the case any?

Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"But of course you aren't arguing what I can do, but what I should.
Am I?  Should man discover that earth revolves around the sun?  I see no reason to think he should.  But I think it is within his capability.  Likewise I think full realization of the above is within the capability of any conscious being, and is just as inevitable a conclusion to the man who sets out to ponder/explore/test his consciousness (mental universe) as is astronomy/cosmology to he who sets out to do ponder/explore/test his physical universe.  Once he realizes these things, I suggest he has now discovered “absolute morality" and to contradict it is to contradict his own mental senses and surrender to madness.

Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"You are claiming that what I should do is a subset of what I can, such that, the set of what I can do contains not only what I should, but also what I shouldn't.  So your argument isn't based on capability.  What is it based on?
I am claiming that you can do whatever you set out to do, but that if you have realized the above, many things will no longer seem sensible to you; you will reject them as easily and as matter-of-factly as you reject that earth is the center of the u-niverse.  You will no longer regard yourself as the center of the we-niverse.  Your eyes will have been opened to a higher truth that cannot easily be ignored, or should not be (yet still can be, to your own detriment).

Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"Most people who argue along these lines try to demonstrate that it is somehow illogical for me to prefer myself to others.
This is sort of what I am arguing, I suppose?  Or is it?  I would say that once you have reasoned out the above, and discovered my “absolute morality", then to act in opposition to it would not only be illogical to you, it would well be abhorrent to you.  If you have not reached that point yet, perhaps you have an underdeveloped consciousness.  Perhaps I do as well, since I still often do not practice quite what I preach in this regard.  Perhaps I have yet to prove to myself the basic premise…but I strongly suspect it.

Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"They typically contend, eventually, if pressed hard enough to explain themselves, that preferring myself to others is illogical because all preference is illogical, hence to be logical is to not prefer.  This is nonsense, of course.  It is true, certainly, that to be strictly logical and nothing else is to not prefer.  To be strictly logical and nothing else is to not be hungry either, or cold, or male, or human, or alive, or an animal, or biological, or chemical, or physical.  Can I be logical and hungry simultaneously?  Of course.  Can I be logical and cold simultaneously?  Of course.  Can I be logical and have preferences simultaneously?  Of course.
^Now, I am pretty sure I am not saying any of that.  Am I?

Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"If I can be logical and have preferences simultaneously, then I can be logical and simultaneously prefer myself to others, even totally.  I can be logical and simultaneously a complete sociopath.
Certainly.  If this were the 12th century, and the ability to study the cosmos was much further out of your reach, you could lack an understanding that the earth revolves around the sun, and logically you could assert it is the other way aroundâ€"and label anyone who would argue a heretic.  You are logical, yet your understanding of a basic truth is incomplete, and so you engage in behavior that is utter lunacy to anyone who possesses that understanding which you lack.  Like a sociopath, or a child.  And yet the earth revolves around the sun.

Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"But I'll stop here and let you argue your own case.  I contend that you will never successfully defend the golden rule on purely logical grounds.
Well, I certainly have not made a very technical effort to express the argument in purely logical terms.  I am not very well learned in formal logicâ€"I only have one or two discrete math courses under my belt and those were over 7 years ago…as you know I am an engineer and we tend to be more concerned with applications of logic than theory/science of logic.

Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"
QuoteIn your Taliban test, one should think to oneself, were I a Muslim woman (surrounded by Taliban or not), would I want a westerner to walk up and yank off my burka?
Why should I think that?  I don't think that.  I empathize with the woman, but I don't think I should empathize with her.  For me, empathy is neither good nor bad.  It just is.  I neither approve nor disapprove of empathy.  I experience it the same way I experience hunger, or cold.  It happens, and I respond to it.
Hunger…cold…sounds objective to me.  Empathyâ€"a term related to my 4 ideas.  A form of awareness that I=You.  That your pain is mine.  One who experiences empathy is progressing well along the path to full consciousness.

Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"I could respond by acting in accord with it, or I could respond by acting in discord with it.  I neither approve nor disapprove of acting in accord with empathy, nor do I approve or disapprove of acting in discord with empathy.  Empathy isn't a moral fact for me.  I don't subscribe to any anthropological context that makes empathy a moral fact.
Yes, you could.  And if you acted in discord with that empathy, you would harm “we".  And if you know that, you fully understand that, then you would be wreckless to do so.

Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"
QuoteAnd if the answer is most likely "no" then why on earth would you do it?
Perhaps because I am a radical feminist who is so deeply offended by the wearing of the burka that I consider it my moral duty to make it stop.  Or because I have a conscience that is deeply offended by cowardice, and I am convinced that the woman in the burka actually hates wearing it and would yank it off on her own if only she had the courage, but she is a coward, and so I consider it my moral duty to yank the thing off her, so as to prevent cowardice, that horrible sin, from winning the day.  Or because I have a conscience that is deeply offended by anyone allowing suffering to occur if it can be prevented, and I am convinced the woman in the burka is suffering, perhaps from heat, but she keeps the thing on out of fear, and so I consider it my moral duty to yank the thing off her, because suffering must be prevented at all costs, if not by the sufferer, then by any onlooker with the power of prevention.
Oh, I can certainly imagine the myriad reasons a person could conjur for taking such an action.  I am aware, too, of the complexity of the equation when it comes to evaluating the harm to “we" that will come from any single action, however insignificant it may seemâ€"there is a great butterfly effect to every action.  And so even when we have achieved full consciousness, we are not yet perfect beings; we take on a new responsibility (or an existing one, with perhaps more urgency), to evaluate/collect as many objective facts as possible to help us determine the course of action in every day of our lives that brings the least harm, and the most good, to “we".

Consider a simple case.  There is I, there is you, and there is a proposed action I will take which will directly and immediately have an effect on you.  If it is possible for me to ask your opinion about it before taking the action, I propose that is one good place to start.  If you do not desire the outcome of the action that is strong reason for me not to act.  If you do desire the outcome, the reverse is perhaps true.

But the story doesn’t end there.  If your consciousness is not fully developed…if you are, say, a child…you may not know whether an action is harmful or beneficial to you in the long run.  And yet part of reaching full consciousness is learning what is good & bad for you and everyone else so perhaps I should simply hold you at your word no matter what and let you learn.

Yet one can also fathom appalling cases such as asking a child if it would like to be molestedâ€"how can one ask a child such a question when the question is nonsensical to the child and the child does not even comprehend the ramifications?  The one doing the asking, though, presumably has obtained high enough consciousness to be aware that such an appalling action is indeed harmful to “we".  The sociopath, who has not, may not know.  Those who do know will naturally be compelled to intervene on behalf of the child, if able.

So again the equation is complex.  And yet, unlike string theory…quantum mechanics…and so forth…the capacity to ponder and formulate the equation is entirely within every me and you in existence.  It seems the fastest thing we will learn should all of human achievement be cast under a new dark age in a dystopian future.  It requires no resources other than “we".

Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"
QuoteI might argue that if you did go through with it, you have an underdeveloped sense of "self" and "other" and you need some more schoolin' on the subject.
Apparently you would argue that imposing my will on someone else is immoral.  On what basis?
I argue that imposing your will on someone else, if you know that your will will bring harm to “we", is immoral.  If you do so not knowing better it is society’s job (those who know better) to help teach you and I have little doubt “we" will try.  If you do so while knowing better it is society’s job to teach you, until it becomes clear you are limited in your ability to know better at which point it is society’s job to prevent you from doing so ever again and I have little doubt “we" will.

As far as my limited understanding of eastern religions extends, the ideas presented here seem integral to some.  You might consider "enlightenment" to be similar to what I call "full consciousness".  You might consider Hindu notions of the system of reincarnation to be similar to one's position on the path to my "full consciousness".  Yet I would not assign any mystical/supernatural attributes to my idea.

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Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Inevitable Droid on November 26, 2010, 06:57:08 AM
Quote from: "Persimmon Hamster"Well, let me ask you this.  Surely you must have some idea of where this will all take you?  As you currently see it going forward, of what utility will be the system of "objective subjective morality" for which these axioms will provide the framework?

First, the name.  The title of my thread was designed to get people to read the initial post and to draw attention to a key point, but the system itself would be better named, Contextual Morality, in my opinion, and I guess my opinion is the one that counts in this instance. :cool:

The utility of the system is its ability to combat moral nihilism to the extent the system is taken seriously.  I personally view moral nihilism as the main danger inherent in a poorly articulated or poorly understood atheism.  So many people conclude that no God means no good or bad, no right or wrong.  Contextual Morality provides an escape route out of there.  It does this by specifically denying that the only choices available are moral absolutism (which most atheists deem impossible, myself included) or moral subjectivism (which most people of any kind deem unsatisfying, myself this time excluded).  Moral relativism is a third choice, but it will only be a satisfying one (for most people of any kind) if it can be presented as a legitimate branch of moral realism, and as distinct from moral subjectivism.  Contextual Morality is my attempt to meet both requirements.    

By the way, here's a link to a good article on moral realism: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Moral Reaslism: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-realism/

Following the path laid out by the above referenced article, I will define moral realism as, "the perspective that there are moral facts available and possible to be known, and moral fallacies available and possible to be known as fallacies."

The words fact and known are key terms, obviously, and a main thrust of my approach is to claim that a fact need only be objective, not absolute, nor universal, but merely objective.  Thus a strictly relative, local claim can be a fact by virtue of being objective and being true.  Contextual Morality spins off from that starting point.

QuoteI doubt many would argue with the "objectivity" of the "moral facts" presented in examples you have used so far, but those facts (as far as I can tell so far)  say nothing about how we should hold one another accountable for our actions--the entire point of discussing morality, it would seem to me.

Yet I, for my part, would say that the most important thing is to be able to hold ourselves accountable.  I concede that many people fixate on what other people do.  In my opinion, laws are the best way to limit what other people do, unless you and the other people subscribe to the same anthropological context, in which case you may actually be able to win an argument about a quesiton of moral fact and actually convince other people to do as you would have them do.  Relevant laws or relevant shared contexts are necessary, in my experience, if one wants to influence the behavior of others from a perspective of right and wrong.  But before worrying about other people, I suggest we focus attention on ourselves.
   
QuoteCan you give an example, perhaps using the same Taliban test proposed already, of how your proposed system of objective morality will enable us to hold everyone in the situation accountable for their initial actions and resulting reactions?

It would hold each accountable from within each's anthropological context.  This means they could all be right.  However, some of them could be wrong, judged by the standards of their own contexts.  I would argue that you will never convince any of them to concede they were wrong unless you take as your starting point, with respect to each person, that person's anthropological context.  They simply won't listen to you otherwise.  So why not take this practical reality and build a system around it?  After all, maybe the practical reality is actually pointing us toward a philosophical reality!

I'm going to stop here and get some sleep.  I'll come back to pick up where I left off.  Thank you for your serious and thoughtful response.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Inevitable Droid on November 26, 2010, 12:10:54 PM
Quote from: "Persimmon Hamster"
Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"Thus if I say that the Taliban will disapprove of me pulling the burka off that woman, and if I have stated a fact, then I have stated an objective truth.  Have I stated a fact?  To test this, first test whether the statement is falsifiable.  It is.  Next, either accept the statement as self-evident, or test whether it's false.  I claim the statement as self-evident, but I don't have to.  We could test whether the statement is false.  I merely claim that the probability of the statement being false is zero.  I say this because I know the Taliban will disapprove.  Knowledge consists of facts.  Facts comprise knowledge.
Well, not so fast.  I am no longer certain you really have even approached stating a fact in your example.  Consider the following:
1) How do we measure "disapproval" in your system?

First, let me make sure anyone reading this is aware that I have started replying to Persimmon Hamster's post in the middle, rather than the beginning, because I already (a few hours ago) posted a reply to the beginning portion of Persimmon Hamster's post.

Also, I need to set a ground rule for my own responses.  I'm not going to address the epistemological position of absolute skepticism, nor any sort of argument that would force me to address absolute skepticism in a substantive way.  Such a project would be far more difficult than anything I'm prepared to take on.  Thus I take as an operating assumption that it isn't true that no facts of any kind are available or possible to be known.  I'll call this the assumption of general knowability.

OK.  Preliminaries aside -

We measure disapproval by asking our Taliban if they disapprove.  If necessary to convince people, we attach our Taliban to polygraphs.  If scientific knowledge at the time of the experiment would permit, and if ethical considerations wouldn't preclude, we could even set some (currently imaginary) disapproval monitor onto the heads of our Taliban before besetting them with the sight of me pulling the burka off some Muslim woman.
 
Quote2) If I find some Taliban men who would not disapprove of such an act, then you will reject your statement as fact or at least recalculate the probability of it being false?

Yes.

QuoteTrouble is, your statement leaves much ambiguity.  #1 above is part of that, but there is more.  Define "Taliban"?  Are we talking about recent converts, perhaps uneducated youths who have just wandered into the "wrong side of the tracks" for non-ideological reasons?

If they tell us they're Taliban, they give us a general impression of being Taliban, and some disinterested party confirms they're Taliban, I'll accept them as Taliban, regardless of any other parameters, beyond age, which I'll require to be at least twelve.  If they're at least twelve, they will disapprove of what I did with the burka.

QuoteAre we talking about Taliban in an "unaltered" mental state, medically speaking -- no alcohol has recently been consumed, no mind-altering drugs?

Unimportant.  Sober they will disapprove, and drunk they will disapprove.

QuoteDo they possess vision?  Are they conscious?  Are they looking in your direction?

If they're blind, we'll tell them what I'm doing, and let them hear the woman's reactions, whatever they might be.  If they aren't conscious, we'll wait until they are.  If they're looking away, we'll draw their attention.

QuoteEt al, ad infinitum.

Here I'll invoke the assumption of general knowability.

QuoteTo call your statement fact, I must assess the likelihood of its being falsified...  To assess that, I will require a full definition for every term in your statement...  Can you provide them?  Ah, the relativity of specificity.

I think I'll invoke the assumption of general knowability here too.  I suspect it would be possible to parse almost any claim to such a degree that we start to doubt our ability to know anything at all.

No one seriously doubts that, generally speaking, if we're reasonably sure that those Taliban sitting under a tree over there are really Taliban, then it will be one hundred percent certain that if I start yanking the burka off some woman we're reasonably sure is a Muslim, those Taliban over there will disapprove.

But yes, if we were running a scientific experiment, then all sorts of rigor would be required.  Given whatever rigor you insisted upon, the end result would be that our Taliban disapproved of the burka yank.  It simply isn't possible for the Taliban to be real, the burka to be real, the Muslim woman to be real, and the yank to be real, and the disapproval to fail to materialize.  It will materialize.  We know it will, or else we know nothing about anything.  The rigor will only make the outcome more certain, not less.  

QuoteAre you aware of any of the so-called limits of logic?  I’m no expert but in my current stage of philosophical and rational exploration I have already encountered some.

I only know this much: there are logical propositions that cannot be proven or even expressed in first order logic, and so they are set up as constructions in second order logic.  I'm not a logician and haven't studied any of that at all.

Since everything else is limited, it doesn't disturb me that logic is.
 
Quote
Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"What is your definition of objective morality?

Well, so far, I have not attempted to be very specific/discretionary in my usage of the term.  I think the most popular definition would be what might more technically be referred to as "moral realism".  The idea that there are moral facts, but not facts such as you propose (facts about subjective experience in a particular context).  Are there such facts?  If there are, what has any of that to do with morality?

Moral realism in its general form would stop at, "Yes, there are moral facts available and possible to be known."  As soon as we start bracketing off particular kinds of facts as being inside or outside our scope, we begin having to talk about particular moral realists and their particular writings, and having to remember that these people often disagree with one another on important points.  Contextual Morality, in its claim to be a system of objective morality, is claiming to be an assertion of moral realism in its general form.

QuoteI personally reject that "absolute moral facts" can exist in a form that most holding to moral realism might imagine.

I do also.  Except I don't know that most holding to moral realism would require moral facts to be absolute or universal.

QuoteIMO, no such fact exists as "any being which engages in sexual activities without specific intent to procreate is acting in moral error".  But I am not so quick to reject the idea that there may be some inevitable moral conclusion that one possessing enough intelligence/consciousness can arrive at -- if you will, a universal truth awaiting discovery by those who strive to understand it which has implications we would define as morality.  We could live our lives in complete oblivion about whether the sun revolves around the earth or the reverse, but the truth is out there, awaiting our conclusion should we choose to pursue it.

No one has discovered it in thousands of years of trying.  I would propose that humanity finally give up.  

Quote
Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"If the goal is absolute morality then I will provide us with absolute morality's only available dictum: "Have a conscience."  No other absolute moral dictum is available, for no other would be universal and therefore utterly general, and all specificity is relative.
I would perhaps phrase it as "have consciousness".  But do not stop there, examine what that means in its fullest sense, and perhaps you will find more utile basis for moral conduct than you expect.  This is essentially my proposition, I think.

Another way of phrasing the only available moral dictum of absolute and universal inescapability would be, "Have morals."  Violation of the dictum would be amorality, which I would suggest is the only absolute, universal sin.  Once I decide to have morals, I can pursue subjectivist morals or relativist morals and succeed in my pursuit, or I can pursue absolutist or universalist morals, and fail.  The reason I will fail in the latter is that having morals involves giving moral allegiance to something, and giving moral allegiance is a decision, and decisions are made by decision-makers, and decision-makers are inescapably relative and local, therefore their decisions are inescapably relative and local.  I can't make an absolute, universal decision, because I'm not an absolute, universal being.  The only way to have absolute, universal morality is to devise a system of morality that doesn't begin with moral allegiance to something; I.e., that doesn't begin with a decision.  Morality that doesn't begin with a decision wouldn't be morality, because morality's whole essence is tied up with decisions and decision-making.  

Hmm.  I guess our second dictum after, "Have morals," could be, "Make decisions," since making decisions is necessary for having morals.  Does that get us anywhere?

QuoteAlright, I’ll have a go at presenting my thoughts in a logical manner so that they can be more easily attacked.

I'll stop here and do my morning calisthenics.  I'll come back and pick up where I left off.  This is where your post gets really good! :)
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Inevitable Droid on November 26, 2010, 04:34:38 PM
Quote from: "Persimmon Hamster"Please keep in mind that this is my first attempt to do so in any formal sense, so I may make mistakes, I may need to refine the arguments/terms/concepts, simplifications may be possible.

No biggie.  I'm after truth.  Let's see if we can find some.  

For anyone reading this who doesn't know, this is my third post in response to one mammoth post of Persimmon Hamster's.  See my prior posts above if you want the whole conversation.

QuoteFor the purposes of my argument I will use the following terms:

Me, Self, I â€" These are more or less interchangeable.  Either term refers to the sense of consciousness which I possess, as a being with a sufficiently complex mind.  Awareness.  Having moved beyond a for-all-appearances deterministic force to become one for-all-appearances in possession of “will" (of the apparently “free" variety).  I would work harder to define “consciousness" (and possibly therein find my failure), but from our previous interactions I think we are on enough of the same page there to proceed without more detail.

OK.  You're saying the possession of a will is somehow important.  We can disregard whether the will is free or not, unless you decide to make that a pertinent fact.  You're also saying awareness and a complex mind are important.

QuoteYou â€" This term refers to a sense of consciousness which I believe to be present in another entityâ€"one which I perceive as being distinct from myself.  But somewhat more than that, it refers to a consciousness like my own.

You might try the word sapience on for size.

QuoteOther, Not-me â€" More general terms than “You", these terms refer to any entity (conscious or otherwise) which I perceive as existing distinct from myself.  A rock is Not-meâ€"is Otherâ€"as are You.

OK.  You and I are Other with respect to one another but are also You and I.  A rock can only be Other.  It can never be referred to as You, or refer to itself as I.  Interestingly, every You is also an I, and every I, also a You.  This again draws attention to that word I like - sapience.

For non-human animals, we might introduce the term sentience, which we human animals share, and which is a pre-requisite for sapience, at least among animals.  Robots might some day have what we would have to call sapience, but without having sentience - which is a weird notion, I admit.

QuoteWith these definitions, loose as they currently are, my argument perhaps comes down to a single premise:

1) I cannot exist without You.

Is this proposition falsifiable?  I think so.  Think isolated baby with no human or discernibly intelligent contact allowed to fully mature in said environment.  Perhaps an unethical experiment, perhaps why we have yet to try it.  We find feral children now and then but that's not the same, not at all.

I capitalized the word You in your quote above.  It seemed right to do so.

So are you saying that if you took a baby and left it in the woods to die, and it somehow survived without the help of a sapient being, this baby, once grown to its fullest stature, wouldn't be sapient?  I'll assume you are - which means you're saying sapience can only arise if an I has a You to interact with.  One definite possibility is that language won't develop unless the learning process begins before a certain age, and that process requires that our I has a You to interact with.  I'll grant your premise.  Interestingly, this means we owe the human race* a debt of gratitude for our sapience.  That would be a moral fact for us, if owing debts of gratitude was something we acknowledged, which of course it doesn't have to be.

* I say the human race because our parents didn't suddenly appear out of nowhere.  They had parents, and their parents had parents, and so on, all the way back to our ancient mother Lucy.
 
QuoteNow, to expand upon that premise, to make it more understandable and derive meaning from it, I will present 4 ideas, or realizations that I contend a conscious being is capable of coming to recognize.  I list these ideas in a particular order; that is, the order in which it would seem easiest for us to come to realize them from the moment we begin to exist.

A) Selfness of Self.
I am me.  My existence is important to me.  I have needs and desires that are mine.
A sense of this would appear to have been hard-wired within me even before capacity for consciousness as we know it.

OK.

QuoteB) Selfness of Other.   
You are like me.  My existence is your existence and is important to you.  In this way, we are one.  My needs/desires are yours.
I develop a sense of this perhaps as early as in the womb, but at least as soon as my mother (and/or father) begins providing for me and asserting her/his otherness unto me.

OK.

QuoteC) Otherness of Other.
You are like me, but are not-me.  Because you are like me, your existence is important to you.  You have needs and desires, which may be like or unlike my own.
Others who are not-me and not-you also exist.  Others may have needs/desires, or may not, which may be like or unlike my own.
I come to know this as I enhance my sense of self to the exclusion of others, as I gain and assert independence, and as I see you ([m]other) assert yours.

OK.

QuoteD) Otherness of Self.
I am like you.  Your existence is my existence and is important to me.  In this way, we are one.  Your needs/desires are mine.
This is perhaps the last to be realized.  In some sense I can know this by becoming a parent.  But to fully realize it is to apply it not only within my immediate kin but on a global scale.

OK.

QuoteI cannot exist without you, you cannot exist without they, and so forth.  All are connected.  All are one.  We are one.

I'll grant that we're all connected but not that we all are one.  We aren't all one.  We are all Other.

What you can say is that You and I share the attribute of sapience.  Without sapience we wouldn't be You and I at all, but merely Other.  You can also say that we both owe our sapience to the species Homo sapiens.  But should we care about any of that?  If yes - why?

Quote---------------------
Once a person has fully realized the above, the inevitable conclusions include:

What benefits me, benefits you. What harms me, harms you.  What benefits you, benefits me.  What harms you, harms me.  We are one.  There is no true distinction between you and I beyond the illusion my immediate perception suggests (I very urgently, very tangibly feel my physical/emotional well-being but not yours).

Having disputed that we're all one, I would dispute the above.  Put it this way.  Somebody breaks into my condo and shoots me in the head.  I'm dead.  Are you dead?  Are you even injured?  At worst, you lose the opportunity to continue interacting with me on this message board - admittedly a tragic outcome. :(

QuoteTherefore my moral responsibility, when it comes to others (and others are required for morality to be an intelligible concept),

Incidentally, not everyone would necessarily agree with you that morality only involves interaction with Others.  There are people who consider masturbation immoral.  Or singing, even alone.  Or giving oneself a tarot reading.  Or driving a car on Saturdays, even if alone in the car.  Granted, these people tend to posit a cosmic Other with whom they're interacting.  But they didn't have to do that.  I could decide that masturbation, or singing in the shower, or giving oneself a tarot reading, or driving a car on Saturdays, is immoral for reasons intrinsic to human nature, regardless whether anyone but me is affected.

QuoteIs all of the above true?  Can I realize it?  Should I realize it?  Keep reading.

I'll stop here and let you respond to my comments above, since I see that what follows is based on what we're discussing above.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Inevitable Droid on November 26, 2010, 05:54:26 PM
Contextual Morality can be applied to the secular atheist anthroplogical context, as follows.

First, I'll explain that I selected the term secular atheist rather than merely atheist, so as to have the right to posit a particular political stance.

I think it's self-evident (but is nonetheless amenable to testing) that secular atheists disapprove of anyone forcing anyone else to engage in the hypocrisy of pretending to be theist.  Given that, it's highly likely (and amenable to testing) that secular atheists disapprove of the hypocrisy of pretending to be theist.

Given the foregoing, it's highly likely (and amenable to testing) that secular atheists disapprove of anyone forcing anyone else to engage in hypocrisy of any kind, and likewise disapprove of hypocrisy of any kind.

Hypocrisy is emerging as a secular atheist sin, whether engaged in oneself, or forced upon someone else.  Once we were confident of the accuracy of this, Contextual Morality would assert this as a real moral fact, a genuine, actual, serious, true moral fact.  This moral fact would have far-reaching implications, by which I mean to say, this moral fact would establish, for secular atheists, a moral dimension in a great many situations.

What's especially interesting is that hypocrisy as a sin would hit the secular atheist's will to be moral from two different levels.  First, the hypocrisy specific to the situation would be disapproved of.  Secondly, the hypocrisy of engaging in hypocrisy while claiming to be secular atheist would be disapproved of.  Hypocrisy would be both sin and meta-sin for the secular atheist.  Contextual Morality would say that all of this was real, objective, substantive, true - not merely some whim to be set aside out of moral nihilism.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: dloubet on November 27, 2010, 01:04:24 AM
Question: If someone is not trying to be moral, but inadvertently behaves in a moral manner, is he being moral or amoral?

This bears on the hypocrisy issue. If a secular atheist is not trying to be moral, yet behaves in what everyone considers a proper manner, is he being a hypocrite?
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Wilson on November 27, 2010, 02:02:13 AM
Quote from: "dloubet"Question: If someone is not trying to be moral, but inadvertently behaves in a moral manner, is he being moral or amoral?

This bears on the hypocrisy issue. If a secular atheist is not trying to be moral, yet behaves in what everyone considers a proper manner, is he being a hypocrite?

By definition, hypocrisy is pretending to have virtues or beliefs you don't really have.  So I guess pretending to be a believer in God - to stay in the closet - makes one a hypocrite.  But that's a venal (small) sin.  The hypocrisy we get worked up about is a politician claiming to be a moral icon and turning out to be a child molester or partaker of prostitutes.  So unless the atheist in question is claiming to have virtues he doesn't have, he gets a pass in my book.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: dloubet on November 27, 2010, 08:02:19 AM
QuoteSo I guess pretending to be a believer in God - to stay in the closet - makes one a hypocrite.

Okay, I wasn't suggesting that behavior, but I can see how it was implied in my "what everyone considers a proper manner" phraseology. Actually, I was thinking that the atheist in question was merely behaving in a polite secular manner, helpful and kind, and not actually lying to remain closeted.

I agree about the politicians.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Inevitable Droid on November 27, 2010, 10:00:29 AM
Quote from: "Wilson"By definition, hypocrisy is pretending to have virtues or beliefs you don't really have.  So I guess pretending to be a believer in God - to stay in the closet - makes one a hypocrite.  But that's a venal (small) sin.  The hypocrisy we get worked up about is a politician claiming to be a moral icon and turning out to be a child molester or partaker of prostitutes.  So unless the atheist in question is claiming to have virtues he doesn't have, he gets a pass in my book.

Interesting!  Two different categories of hypocrisy - pretending belief versus pretending virtue!  This is why message board discussions are worthwhile.  Other people hit us (or at least me) with unexpected perspectives.  Why do you think most people get more worked up about pretense of virtue, as opposed to pretense of belief?  Also, couldn't the two be conflated in certain scenarios?  For example, belief in Our Lord and Savior could be viewed as a virtue by a certain constituency, no?  Pit an openly atheist political candidate against an openly Baptist one and set the vote in a bible belt state.  Furthermore, do you think hypocrisy becomes more severe, the more public it is?
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Wilson on November 27, 2010, 09:29:39 PM
Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"Interesting!  Two different categories of hypocrisy - pretending belief versus pretending virtue!  This is why message board discussions are worthwhile.  Other people hit us (or at least me) with unexpected perspectives.  Why do you think most people get more worked up about pretense of virtue, as opposed to pretense of belief?  Also, couldn't the two be conflated in certain scenarios?  For example, belief in Our Lord and Savior could be viewed as a virtue by a certain constituency, no?  Pit an openly atheist political candidate against an openly Baptist one and set the vote in a bible belt state.  Furthermore, do you think hypocrisy becomes more severe, the more public it is?

People get more worked up about the virtue variety because it's implied that the individual is better than us peons who have moral shortcomings.  And yes, I do think we get much angrier at sexual hypocrisy by religious leaders and politicians - and that's partially because we don't like most of them, anyway.  Mixed in with the anger, though, is a certain amount of righteous glee, at the mighty falling.  I'm guilty myself of that sin of shadenfreude.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: hackenslash on November 28, 2010, 07:52:56 AM
I'm going to skip most of this as having entirely missed the point or rooted in linguistic nits, or indeed already conceded.

Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"
Quote from: "hackenslash"There's a beautiful bit of question-begging going on in the above, namely the existence of moral 'facts'.

Within anthropological contexts there are moral facts.  In the context of Catholicism, extra-marital sex is disapproved of, abortion is disapproved of, theft and lying and suicide are disapproved of.  These are moral facts.  It is factual that Catholicism sets up these disapprovals.  The only open question is whether contextuality renders the facts something other than objective.

Sorry, but no. All you're doing here is reasserting the existence of moral facts. Citing something as fact just because some people would agree does not a fact make. What one person or a group of persons think cannot be cited here as facts. Facts are absolute and universal and not subject to the whims, emotions and opinions of people or groups thereof (which is also a definition of objective, rendering my usage of objective as 'absolute' and 'universal' perfectly appropriate). Please, without citing what some people think, which is by definition subjective, demonstrate the existence of moral facts. Your entire argument stands or falls on your ability to do this, and the rest is irrelevant.
 
QuoteYou're equating objective with absolute; I.e., you're saying that for something to be objective, it can't be relative.  On what do you base that?  To make sure I wasn't off the deep end, I checked my Random House Webster's College Dictionary.  None of the definitions of the adjective objective say anything about not being relative, or about being absolute.  They talk about not being subjective.  I would argue that the antonym of objective is subjective, not relative.  I would also argue that subjective and relative aren't synonyms.  While it's true that everything subjective is relative, it's false that everything relative is subjective.

Dealt with above.

QuoteSo now objective means universal also.  I don't find in my dictionary any definitions of the adjective objective that talk about being universal, or not being local.  I would argue, again, that the antonym of objective is subjective, not local.  I would also argue that subjective and local aren't synonyms.  While it's true that everything subjective is local, it's false that everything local is subjective.

I accept, incidentally, that absolute and universal might as well be synonyms, even if technically perhaps they aren't, since everything absolute is universal, and everything universal is absolute.  I merely deny that objective can be added to the two to make a triptych.  I base this on the fact that something can be relative and local without being subjective, and subjective is the antonym of objective.

Dealt with above.

QuoteNor will I ever demonstrate that, or even try, except with respect to the obvious principle, "Have morals."  I think any creature anywhere who posits any kind of morality will have to agree with the principle, "Have morals."  Failure to comply would of course be amorality, which I offer as the one abolute, universal sin.

Well, here we have further disagreement, and it is more profound than previously, because I reject the entire concept of sin. Perhaps my mind could be changed if you could come up wityh a coherent definition of sin that doesn't rely on the existence of a celestial peeping-tom. As far as I'm aware, no such definition exists that isn't open to equivocation at the very least.

QuoteIt would be very poor if I had committed it.  I didn't.  I said if we allow universe to mean the universe by virtue of any of its parts.  First of all, then, I was positing a conditional; I.e., a choice.  Secondly, the choice I was offering was whether to accept a definition for the word universe that specifically would have excluded any notion of universe as a whole, since the definition suggested was, the universe by virtue of any of its parts.  My entire point was to suggest we could voluntarily exclude this notion of universe as a whole.  Voluntarily exclude it.

OK, I'll concede that, although I do not concede that any other definition of 'universe' than 'that which is' is entirely without utility. I only ever employ it in the sense of the universe as a whole, and any other usage is open to equivocation. I reject any definition other than that, because that's what the words means.

QuoteAverage height for group X would be the total of the heights of the members of group X divided by the number of members of group X.  The only open question is who are the members of group X.

Note the bold. I'll take it that you have conceded this point. Entirely subjective.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Inevitable Droid on November 28, 2010, 09:38:59 AM
Quote from: "hackenslash"Sorry, but no. All you're doing here is reasserting the existence of moral facts. Citing something as fact just because some people would agree does not a fact make. What one person or a group of persons think cannot be cited here as facts.

Joe thinks Babe Ruth is the best baseball player ever.  Everybody knows he thinks that.  He repeats it on a regular basis to anyone who will listen.  Is it a fact that Joe thinks Babe Ruth is the best baseball player ever?  I don't see how we can say no.  If we say no, we're saying we don't know for sure whether Joe thinks Babe Ruth is the best baseball player ever.  But we do know for sure.  Anything we know for sure is a fact.  No?

You seem to be arguing that a truth claim acquires the characteristics of its subject matter.  Thus, if I make a truth claim about something subjective, that truth claim itself would be subjective; a truth claim about science would be scientific; a truth claim about art would be artistic; a truth claim about music would be musical, etc.  I don't see why a truth claim would acquire the characteristics of its subject matter.  To me a truth claim is either falsifiable or not, accurate or not, probable or not, known for sure or not.  Those characteristics adhere to the truth claim regardless of subject matter.

The above seems the crux of our discussion so I'll stop here.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: dloubet on November 29, 2010, 12:31:43 AM
QuoteNor will I ever demonstrate that, or even try, except with respect to the obvious principle, "Have morals." I think any creature anywhere who posits any kind of morality will have to agree with the principle, "Have morals." Failure to comply would of course be amorality, which I offer as the one abolute, universal sin.

Having morals is useless in and of itself. It only becomes useful when one behaves according to those morals. Having them gets you nowhere unless you actually follow them.

If a person was not trying to be moral but instead was honest, friendly, and helpful, just because he felt like it, how is that a sin?
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Inevitable Droid on November 29, 2010, 01:09:35 AM
Quote from: "dloubet"Having morals is useless in and of itself. It only becomes useful when one behaves according to those morals. Having them gets you nowhere unless you actually follow them.

True.  But before you can follow them you have to have them.

QuoteIf a person was not trying to be moral but instead was honest, friendly, and helpful, just because he felt like it, how is that a sin?

A genuinely amoral person will do absolutely anything to achieve what is desired.  Amorality is utter ruthlessness.  No creature on Earth is more dangerous than an amoral human.  Get in this monster's way and your life may be forfeit.  Only pragmatism and self-preservation restrain this creature.  What can be gotten away with will be perpetrated.  Man without conscience is demon.

A conscience may be subjectivist, contextualist, or universalist.  Any of the three will serve.  A fellow who does what he perceives as good because he feels like it has a subjectivist conscience.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: hackenslash on November 29, 2010, 02:17:05 AM
Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"
Quote from: "hackenslash"Sorry, but no. All you're doing here is reasserting the existence of moral facts. Citing something as fact just because some people would agree does not a fact make. What one person or a group of persons think cannot be cited here as facts.

Joe thinks Babe Ruth is the best baseball player ever.  Everybody knows he thinks that.  He repeats it on a regular basis to anyone who will listen.  Is it a fact that Joe thinks Babe Ruth is the best baseball player ever?  I don't see how we can say no.  If we say no, we're saying we don't know for sure whether Joe thinks Babe Ruth is the best baseball player ever.  But we do know for sure.  Anything we know for sure is a fact.  No?

That's a statement about what Joe thinks, not a statement about baseball. As such, it is an objective statement.

QuoteYou seem to be arguing that a truth claim acquires the characteristics of its subject matter.  Thus, if I make a truth claim about something subjective, that truth claim itself would be subjective; a truth claim about science would be scientific; a truth claim about art would be artistic; a truth claim about music would be musical, etc.  I don't see why a truth claim would acquire the characteristics of its subject matter.  To me a truth claim is either falsifiable or not, accurate or not, probable or not, known for sure or not.  Those characteristics adhere to the truth claim regardless of subject matter.

Quite the contrary.

QuoteThe above seems the crux of our discussion so I'll stop here.

No, the crux of the discussion is the existence of moral facts, which you have yet to support. We can move on when you've addressed that, because I reject any and all claims to said existence.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Inevitable Droid on November 29, 2010, 03:39:34 AM
Quote from: "hackenslash"That's a statement about what Joe thinks, not a statement about baseball. As such, it is an objective statement.

Oh!  I think I get it.  I think I see what you're saying.

QuoteNo, the crux of the discussion is the existence of moral facts, which you have yet to support. We can move on when you've addressed that, because I reject any and all claims to said existence.

OK.  I think I get it.  The fact that people make moral judgments doesn't necessarily imply the existence of morality.  People could be making judgments about something that doesn't exist.  Baseball exists, so what Joe thinks about baseball is an objective statement.  Morality may not exist, so what Joe thinks about morality may not be an objective statement.

Interesting and enlightening.  I see now that baseball and morality might differ in a very important way.  When someone thinks about baseball, they're thinking about something that has a separate existence apart from what they think about it.  Not the case with morality, perhaps.  When someone thinks about morality, their thoughts may well be the sole substance of their subject matter.  By thinking about morality, they may be bringing it into being out of nothing.  Morality may be strictly a process of the brain.  

But is it?  Is morality strictly a process of the brain?  What about its behavioral component?  Morality as behavior can be studied empirically and logically.  Certainly that behavior needs to be interpreted and the interpretation cannot proceed without referencing the rules being followed by the individual.  To what extent does this differ from baseball?  Baseball as behavior can be studied empirically and logically.  The behavior needs to be interpreted and the interpretation cannot proceed without referencing the rules being followed by the players.  The only difference I see is the single set of rules governing baseball and the multiple sets of rules governing morality, but baseball and morality aren't at the same level of generality.  Morality is at the same level of generality as the overall category, sport.  Sport must be subdivided before we can talk about its rules.  Sport subdivides into baseball, basketball, football, hockey, soccer, tennis, etc.  Morality subdivides into Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Kantian, Secular Humanist, etc.  In sport, as in morality, once we know which game we're playing, we know what the rules are, and we can interpret the behaviors, and thus study them empirically and logically.  An anthropologist studying baseball and an anthropologist studying Catholic morality would have very similar tasks in a lot of ways.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: hackenslash on November 29, 2010, 11:32:14 AM
Morality certainly exists, but the very fact that people cannot agree on what constitutes morality demonstrates without ambiguity that it cannot be objective. Properly defined, objctive means, in this context, 'uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices'. Now then, since all our moral values are derived directly from our emotions, no such entity as objective morality can exist. Indeed, as soon as you talk about 'values', you enter the realm of the subjective.

Morality objectively exists, but not objective moralty.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: bandit4god on November 30, 2010, 09:28:14 PM
Quote from: "hackenslash"...since all our moral values are derived directly from our emotions...

Hi there, hackenslash, remember you from the ol' Dawkins days.  Hope you're well!

You're statement above gave me pause because I thought about the implications on evolution.  Is it consistent with the evolutionary algorithm that humans would have a better chance of surviving if they thought it morally commendable to give selflessly to another?  One might argue that all such morals would have been "evolved out" of human emotions, similar to what we see among the animals (exempting parent/child dynamics).
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Persimmon Hamster on December 01, 2010, 03:56:58 AM
Hey Droid, it's been a busy week...no time yet to contemplate & respond to your posts (I did read them).  But I will get to it sooner or later.  The subject demands a large block of time in which I can give full attention.  So for now, just checkin' in.   :hide:
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: hackenslash on December 01, 2010, 05:29:35 AM
Quote from: "bandit4god"
Quote from: "hackenslash"...since all our moral values are derived directly from our emotions...

Hi there, hackenslash, remember you from the ol' Dawkins days.  Hope you're well!

You're statement above gave me pause because I thought about the implications on evolution.  Is it consistent with the evolutionary algorithm that humans would have a better chance of surviving if they thought it morally commendable to give selflessly to another?  One might argue that all such morals would have been "evolved out" of human emotions, similar to what we see among the animals (exempting parent/child dynamics).

Hey Bandit!

One could certainly argue that, but one would be in error to do so. In reality, even outside of the parent/child dynamic, reciprocal altruism is an excellent survival strategy, and selfishness is not.

Dawkins covered much of this ground in The Selfish Gene.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Inevitable Droid on December 01, 2010, 10:46:36 AM
Quote from: "hackenslash"Morality objectively exists, but not objective moralty.

There.  That was useful to me in clarifying matters.  Frankly, I always have doubted that objective morality objectively existed, but I couldn't precisely and coherently articulate why, and that bugged me.  I would paraphrase your statement as, "Subjective morality objectively exists.  That which claims to be objective morality is really subjective morality making false claims, which means it objectively exists but is in error as to its its own nature.  Non-erroneous objective morality does not objectively exist."

I fully agree with your original statement, and with my paraphrase.

The remaining question is whether subjective morality can be binding in an absolute, universal sense.  I raise that question on my Subjectivism thread.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: bandit4god on December 01, 2010, 07:00:03 PM
There may be a meta-argument we are overlooking here.  If you don't believe in the objective moral quality of honesty, why are you debating with eachother at all?

The fact that this forum exists and that we are all trying to persuade each other of our respective opinion is that we place an objective moral truth value on being correct.  Something like, "it is objectively morally better to say something true than something untrue on the Happy Atheist Forum."  Why?  Do you guys and gals ever wonder where that assignment of objective moral goodness to intellectual correctness comes from?
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Inevitable Droid on December 01, 2010, 11:26:04 PM
Quote from: "bandit4god"There may be a meta-argument we are overlooking here.  If you don't believe in the objective moral quality of honesty, why are you debating with eachother at all?

In my case, I'm trying to get at truth, which, in this instance, would more specifically be clarity and coherence.  I value these things, not because the universe does, if it does, and not because scientists and philosophers do, although they certainly do, but simply because, when I contemplate these things, I am drawn to them, and when I contemplate their opposites, I am repelled.

QuoteThe fact that this forum exists and that we are all trying to persuade each other of our respective opinion is that we place an objective moral truth value on being correct.

Not in my case.  As a matter of fact, I place a great deal of importance on the strength of character demonstrated by someone who says, "Oh!  Good point!  You're right.  I wasn't thinking clearly.  You've convinced me to think differently."

Winning debates is too trivial a goal for me to waste time on.  Death is always waiting.  In the face of my impending doom, I can't be bothered with trivia.  But truth, clarity, coherence - these are pursuits I can wave under the nose of that spectral harvester, as if to say, "These.  These are how I beat you.  You brought an end to me, but not before I brought a beginning to these."

QuoteSomething like, "it is objectively morally better to say something true than something untrue on the Happy Atheist Forum."  Why?  Do you guys and gals ever wonder where that assignment of objective moral goodness to intellectual correctness comes from?

Oh.  Are you trying to say it comes from God?  There's no need for that hypothesis.  Humans apparently have what I'll call, loosely, unscientifically, a morality gene.  We have lots of genes.  Shall we claim the ones we like come from God, the one we don't like come from the devil, and the ones we're indifferent toward come from chance?  Better by far to say that all the genes come from natural selection's forebearance and mutation's bounty.

If I were to consider the hypothesis of God's existence, I would conclude that he was performing experiments, this world his laboratory, and us creatures his guinea pigs.  If I decided then to honor my maker, I would do so by advocating the practice of performing experiments, and all the rest of what it means to do science.  This is what it really would mean to have the image and likeness of God, if it meant anything.  It surely wouldn't mean benevolence or fairness, for neither benevolent nor fair are the ways of the wild.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: hackenslash on December 02, 2010, 07:05:53 AM
Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"
Quote from: "hackenslash"Morality objectively exists, but not objective moralty.

There.  That was useful to me in clarifying matters.  Frankly, I always have doubted that objective morality objectively existed, but I couldn't precisely and coherently articulate why, and that bugged me.  I would paraphrase your statement as, "Subjective morality objectively exists.  That which claims to be objective morality is really subjective morality making false claims, which means it objectively exists but is in error as to its its own nature.  Non-erroneous objective morality does not objectively exist."

I fully agree with your original statement, and with my paraphrase.

No argument there.

QuoteThe remaining question is whether subjective morality can be binding in an absolute, universal sense.  I raise that question on my Subjectivism thread.

Now that really is a thorny question. In order to answer it, we'd need to be able to study a much larger sample set of allegedly moral entities, and to see whether their morality matched ours. I have a feeling that the answer to this question will still be no, not least because we can't really agree amongst ourselves what constitutes morality, although that may just be a matter of education.

In reality, I am a relativist in this sense. I think my morality is superior, but I do recognise that that's largely a matter of opinion.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Sophus on December 02, 2010, 08:49:07 AM
I don't know if it's too late for me to jump in on this thread or not but I don't think an Objective Morality could exist without or with God. Morals are always abstractions.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Inevitable Droid on December 02, 2010, 11:31:09 AM
Quote from: "Sophus"I don't know if it's too late for me to jump in on this thread or not but I don't think an Objective Morality could exist without or with God. Morals are always abstractions.

Yes.  Amazingly, perhaps, there have been philosophers who recognized that morals are always abstractions, and yet still, nevertheless, claimed objective existence for these abstractions.  Plato, for example, posited his Ideal Forms, which included among their number, the Ideal Form of the Good.  Plato imagined an actual realm where these Ideal Forms actually existed, with the realm and its denizens being more real, not less real, than our physical Earth.  I frankly think any philosopher who claims the existence of non-erroneous moral objectivity should be made to state whether Plato was right or wrong, and if the answer is, Plato was wrong, the philosopher being questioned should be probed very closely as to precisely why and how Plato was wrong.  It is my assessment that either Plato was right or else non-erroneous moral objectivity doesn't exist.  I claim that Plato was wrong, because his alleged realm of Ideal Forms is on principle unavailable to empiricism, and I reject on principle anything unavailable to empiricism, with two exceptions, mathematics and formal logic.  Non-erroneous moral objectivity could only exist if mathematics or formal logic made normative demands on behavior, and neither of them does.  They stipulate what must be true, not what must be done.  Add empiricism to these to make a triptych, within the boundaries of which all truth is circumscribed, and normative demands on behavior are nowhere to be found.
Title: Re: Axioms of Objective Morality
Post by: Sophus on December 02, 2010, 07:12:06 PM
Quote from: "Inevitable Droid"
Quote from: "Sophus"I don't know if it's too late for me to jump in on this thread or not but I don't think an Objective Morality could exist without or with God. Morals are always abstractions.

Yes.  Amazingly, perhaps, there have been philosophers who recognized that morals are always abstractions, and yet still, nevertheless, claimed objective existence for these abstractions.  Plato, for example, posited his Ideal Forms, which included among their number, the Ideal Form of the Good.  Plato imagined an actual realm where these Ideal Forms actually existed, with the realm and its denizens being more real, not less real, than our physical Earth.  I frankly think any philosopher who claims the existence of non-erroneous moral objectivity should be made to state whether Plato was right or wrong, and if the answer is, Plato was wrong, the philosopher being questioned should be probed very closely as to precisely why and how Plato was wrong.  It is my assessment that either Plato was right or else non-erroneous moral objectivity doesn't exist.  I claim that Plato was wrong, because his alleged realm of Ideal Forms is on principle unavailable to empiricism, and I reject on principle anything unavailable to empiricism, with two exceptions, mathematics and formal logic.  Non-erroneous moral objectivity could only exist if mathematics or formal logic made normative demands on behavior, and neither of them does.  They stipulate what must be true, not what must be done.  Add empiricism to these to make a triptych, within the boundaries of which all truth is circumscribed, and normative demands on behavior are nowhere to be found.
Very well written! I completely agree. It's ironic that Plato was also interested in forms of mathematics and logic. Perhaps that's what led him to idealizing everything else.