tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post1368386501230921464..comments2023-10-10T08:02:18.073-04:00Comments on Rationally Speaking: Disobedience Succeeds EssenceUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-51383743022258695562013-03-26T16:34:35.777-04:002013-03-26T16:34:35.777-04:00Ian,
Fine clarification of your view. I see that ...Ian,<br /><br />Fine clarification of your view. I see that our point of disagreement is superficial though perhaps tenacious. I agree that morality is based in part on evolved human nature and I would not say that morality is a free-floating cultural construct that has nothing to with human nature as understood by biology. What I object to in your view might be described as willingness to mix what we might call 'cultural language' (e.g. moral language) with natural science language in a happy-go-lucy way. These languages have a different physics (purpose and process of formation) and to some ears - ears that I believe are better attuned to epistemic tonalities - mixing them is cacophonous. Formally speaking, linking concepts like morality and evolution or love and neurons is like mixing Christian theology with astrophysics (e.g. rapture will occur when cosmic microwave background radiation has faded to a certain threshold). (Note: this is not to say that theology and morality, love, etc. are conceptually on par; the latter are normative while the former is non-empirically positive.)<br /><br />When an evolutionary biologist brings in the concept of morality, or a neuroscientist brings in the concept of love, he is not "getting scientific" about morality and love any more than the theologian is "getting scientific" about rapture in the above case. All three cases consist simply in a projection of personal views onto science.<br /><br />As to the difference between natural science language (NSL) and cultural language (CL), here are some notable differences: NSL is developed for the purpose of understanding the natural world; NSL is fully under the control of natural scientists (i.e. scientists can make up words and change word meanings as it suits the science); NSL is ideally empirical and decidable (i.e. NSL terms ideally refer to observable situations such that its clear when a term fits or does not). CL has none these properties; no one is in control of it; it's non-empirical; it exists for general human purposes rather than for the study of the natural world; etc.<br /><br />The reason that talk of morality or love (or CL generally) in conjunction with science is problematic, more precisely, is that for it to be legitimately scientific, science would need to take control of the language and treat it as if it were an empirical language - a twofold bogus move at minimum and a rocket-sled into pseudoscience. It is because these moves are illegitimate that "science of morality" etc. is always a projection of personal views onto science a la rapture and the state of cosmic microwave background radiation. <br /><br />Regarding morality and science, while we can say general things, such as that evolution surely shaped our moral capacites, there's an intractable conceptual buffer between the language of morality and the language of natural science due to the fact that the languages are fundamentally different animals.<br /><br />While theologians are free to interpret cosmology according to their theology, Lawrence Krauss, as a scientist, would rightly be impatient with the introduction of theological terms into cosmology. To the extent that evolutionary biologists and neuroscientists do not have a similar impatience with morality, love, etc., they are pseudoscientists. <br /><br />Now Ian, I know you just want to say that certain basic *values* are baked into human psychology by evolution. The problem with this is that "value" is still too culture-laden (etc.) to link seriously with biology. It's like only wanting to say in astrophysics that the sun is divine. Regarding incest and in-group-killing taboos, it is far better to use terms that could be applied to any animal, such as aversion and attraction. What would it mean to say that a bee values pollen? Paul Paolinihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04580285404702244031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-39410351394490372892013-03-26T13:16:39.274-04:002013-03-26T13:16:39.274-04:00You are caused to choose, but you have been given ...You are caused to choose, but you have been given (by who knows what) the responsibility to assess the consequences. You've been caused to be free to choose from at least a yes or no option, and thus been freed to learn that you may have made the wrong choice.<br />Baron Phttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04138430918331887648noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-77611584048880769242013-03-26T11:48:50.204-04:002013-03-26T11:48:50.204-04:00Disagreeable,
'Hmm. Well, I think I can concei...Disagreeable,<br />'Hmm. Well, I think I can conceive of an unemotional rational being, but such an entity would have only beliefs, not motivations. It would have no reason to do anything. (Perhaps it could be compelled to do something the way a machine is compelled to serve, not by an emotional drive but by the nature of its being.)'<br /><br />I thought we were talking about 'human beings' and 'human rationality'. That was the context for my comments. Seth_bloghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14562316879162720028noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-44012514924295396562013-03-26T10:40:41.239-04:002013-03-26T10:40:41.239-04:00I disagree, there are values that are built into h...I disagree, there are values that are built into human nature, and a taboo against killing in-group members is one of them (for a list of human universals, not all of them moral, see <a href="http://condor.depaul.edu/mfiddler/hyphen/humunivers.htm" rel="nofollow">here</a>). This theory does not predict, however, that nobody will ever kill an in-group member. It just predicts that in-group killing will be rare, and will typically involve strong moralistic or self-interested motivation of another sort (e.g., "the victim betrayed my trust"). When it comes to typical human psychology, one counterexample does not disprove the rule. "Cats have an aversion to water" is true, even if you find one or two oddball cats that love to swim.<br /><br />>Returning to my point about philosophically-empty reference to natural selection, I don't see what is philosophically at stake in constant reference to evolution.<br /><br />See my analogy above with the aliens who tamper with our moral sentiments for nefarious ends. What is at stake is whether the none-too-flattering origin of (some of) our moral sentiments should give us pause in our metaethical thinking. (I concede that if you flat-out deny the biological provenance of basic moral sentiments, this is no longer a problem; but I think that denial is very implausible.)<br /><br />>Even if claims that link moral beliefs and evolution were not patent pseudoscience...<br /><br />I am almost as skeptical as you & Massimo about a lot of evo-psych, but all the same, some of their conclusions are pretty much slam dunks. A great example is the cultural universal of moralized avoidance of incest. It takes about 2 seconds to see the very very plausible evolutionary origin of such a universal, whereas you would be hard-pressed to make a solid case against it on principled ethical grounds without resorting to rationalization & special pleading. Also, notice the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westermarck_effect" rel="nofollow">Westermarck effect</a>, which suggests that cultural anti-incest norms are not the only driving factor here - there is something innate to moralized incest avoidance.<br /><br />>...if evolution is not a reliable guide to what is moral, and hence some other mode of reasoning must be relied upon to determine what is moral, what relevance are evolutionary distinctions?<br /><br />That is exactly the question I was trying to solicit answers to in my original comment. I think evolution is responsible for the broad strokes of our moral human nature - not for high-level things such as our <i>belief in virtue ethics</i> or whatever else, but for <i>the psychological nature that makes "flourishing" seem attractive to us in the first place</i> (while Cthulhu only wants to eat yummy souls).<br /><br />We find ourselves with the basics of our moral sentiments "programmed" into us by a completely amoral statistical process that only "cares" about gene survival. What do we do with this information? I don't have a full answer, but "genetic fallacy" notwithstanding, this information does NOT seem to me to be philosophically empty.ianpollockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15579140807988796286noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-37749479581771235772013-03-26T10:40:29.105-04:002013-03-26T10:40:29.105-04:00Paul, thanks for the reply, I think I have a bette...Paul, thanks for the reply, I think I have a better idea where you're coming from now. You asked some helpful questions so I will go ahead & try to answer them.<br /><br />>Are all moral beliefs beliefs that are baked into our psychologies by evolution?<br /><br />No, what I think is baked into us are many <i>terminal values</i>. Examples would be avoidance of pain, seeking of pleasure, protection of kin, fairness, reciprocity...<br /><br />You are quite correct that *beliefs* are not evolved; they are too high-level (although some belief-like entities, such as Aristotelian physical intuitions, may be innate, but let's bracket that). I should have made it clearer from the outset that I *certainly* don't think it makes sense to talk about "the evolution of Deontology" or any such rot.<br /><br />>If not, how do we tell the difference between a baked moral belief and one that is not?<br /><br />Per above, I'd rather talk about the *terminal values* that are baked into us, not the *beliefs.* Here, the test for innateness is roughly human universality for typical humans (i.e., not pathological cases like psychopaths).<br /><br />Generally speaking, I am skeptical about the "depth" of moral disagreement among humans - my impression is that apparent moral disagreement is basically instrumental in nature, and so in principle solvable (in contrast to REAL, non-instrumental moral disagreement with Cthulhu, who just wants to eat your soul).<br /><br />>Further, where do non-baked moral beliefs come from?<br /><br />In my theory, they are complex a posteriori beliefs about instrumental means for fulfilling (largely shared) human values.<br /><br />So it seems that our major disagreement comes from my tendency to see ethics as arising from human terminal values that are part of human nature, and your tendency to see ethics as a more purely cultural/logical construct.<br /><br />>In my first post in this thread I argued that [the distinction between moral beliefs and intuitions] is a bogus distinction because there are no identifiable moral beliefs that we can claim to be rigid features of human psychology. If a taboo against murdering in-group members is supposed to be an example, note that instances of in-group killing is not uncommon.ianpollockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15579140807988796286noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-85857457464074057732013-03-25T22:38:43.274-04:002013-03-25T22:38:43.274-04:00"Happily, Barash’s notion of human meaning in..."Happily, Barash’s notion of human meaning includes the idea that, even though we are completely natural creatures shaped by evolutionary processes, we still retain a unique human freedom. I say happily because Barash doesn’t conclude that humans have contra-causal free will, nor does he jump to the opposite, fatalistic conclusion that no matter what we do, the outcome will be the predetermined same, so why bother"<br /><br />I still don't understand how philosophy operates. I'm trying my best. It seems one simply chooses a philosophical view that one finds useful and then argues for its truth. For instance, I have yet to be graced with evidence for indeterminism or determinism. I find it useful to operate as if a form of free will exists. I, however, cannot claim free will exists without a way to test that claim. So Barash may say we have a unique human freedom but that assertion remains only an idea, pitifully absent of substantiation. Bill Raybarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06948045437347152013noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-79069685777154546952013-03-25T20:31:41.426-04:002013-03-25T20:31:41.426-04:00@Seth_blog
>We have a very different conception...@Seth_blog<br />>We have a very different conception of rationality.<<br /><br />Perhaps. For me, rationality can be described in terms of the drawing of justified conclusions, whether about beliefs or appropriate courses of action.<br /><br />So it is rational to have a drink of wine, say because you enjoy wine. It might be rational to enjoy wine because you enjoy the feeling of mild intoxication it brings. It might be rational to enjoy mild intoxication because it gives you a general sense of well-being. At some point, however, the buck stops. You get to a belief, such as "I enjoy the sense of well-being I get from mild intoxication" which has no further justification. This is "arational" and is just part of what makes you you.<br /><br />>I don't believe it is possible to be rational without proper input from our emotions.<<br /><br />Hmm. Well, I think I can conceive of an unemotional rational being, but such an entity would have only beliefs, not motivations. It would have no reason to do anything. (Perhaps it could be compelled to do something the way a machine is compelled to serve, not by an emotional drive but by the nature of its being.)<br /><br />But this is quite unlike the case of human beings. I can well imagine that emotionally disturbed people are prone to irrationality. This does not convince me that emotions are fundamentally required for rationality.Disagreeable Mehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15258557849869963650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-60328682718098274962013-03-25T19:43:47.820-04:002013-03-25T19:43:47.820-04:00@Baron P
Pleasure/pain are kind of a difficult cas...@Baron P<br />Pleasure/pain are kind of a difficult case because they are practically defined as desirable/undesirable. An argument could be made that to actively prefer suffering to pleasure is contradictory, because if it's what you genuinely want then what you want is not suffering at all but the pleasure you would get from experiences other people would regard as painful.<br /><br />You might want to substitute specific pleasurable experiences (such as sex) and painful experiences (such as electrocution) for the broad concepts of pleasure and pain and then I would stand by the argument that there is no ultimate rational reason to prefer one over the other.<br /><br />>You are viscerally programmed by a logically constructed system. So of course it's rational in that sense<<br /><br />In that sense, everything is rational, because everything you do is ultimately a result of your programming. That's not a very useful sense.<br /><br />>And in turn the existing people that you claim have found pain pleasant are not acting rationally<<br /><br />Perhaps some of them are irrational, but I see no basis for assuming they are all necessarily irrational.Disagreeable Mehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15258557849869963650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-32055945288208774182013-03-25T19:36:30.665-04:002013-03-25T19:36:30.665-04:00Disagreabble,
We have a very different conception...Disagreabble,<br /><br />We have a very different conception of rationality. I don't believe it is possible to be rational without proper input from our emotions. Damasio has demonstrated the poor rationality that occurs when our reasoning is dis-connected from emotional evaluation.<br /><br />By the way I am one of those people who finds a degree (only below a certain threshold) of pain in the right context to be pleasant. I bet most runners would agree with me, and in the right context it is I think rational. While running, what once seemed like pain becomes first tolerated, and then enjoyed at a level that builds healthy development as long as it is mixed with proper recovery.<br /><br />Seth_bloghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14562316879162720028noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-25097252164687368562013-03-25T19:04:19.538-04:002013-03-25T19:04:19.538-04:00@Paul, who wrote to Ian: "You seem to believe...@Paul, who wrote to Ian: "You seem to believe that any moral belief whatsoever is a "moral intuition" that is "baked into our psychology by evolution."<br /><br />Since the belief would be a culturally filtered product of the intuition, Paul has the mechanism working backwards once again.Baron Phttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04138430918331887648noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-13120879347022507102013-03-25T18:38:16.134-04:002013-03-25T18:38:16.134-04:00Bert -
1. I think social-political constraints d...Bert - <br /><br />1. I think social-political constraints do affect one's freedom, e.g., insofar as they can disobey social customs and legal precedents; but I don't think one's freedom to disobey one's genetic 'programming'.<br /><br />2. I might be inclined to agree with you about a philosophy like existentialism not being likely to sprout in a third-world country in *modern* times, mainly because the sheer numbers of people living together in such dense areas would tend to draw them into social concerns as opposed to introspective ones; but one of the most introspective philosophies of all time originated and flourished in India - i.e., Siddhartha Gautama and Buddhism...Steve Neumannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07711295082644210782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-63187952803142914882013-03-25T15:49:43.831-04:002013-03-25T15:49:43.831-04:00Ian,
Thanks for explaining more about your positi...Ian,<br /><br />Thanks for explaining more about your position. When I said 'natural question' I meant to say 'natural selection'. Sorry about that. The point I was trying to make is that the following:<br /><br />>"Given that all human moral intuitions are plausibly baked into our psychology by natural selection, can we distinguish between 'defensible' and 'indefensible' moral intuitions, and if so, how?"<<br /><br />is really just the question of how we know when a moral perspective is defensible once the philosophically-empty reference to natural selection is removed. <br /><br />You seem to believe that any moral belief whatsoever is a "moral intuition" that is "baked into our psychology by evolution." If so, how do you explain the fact that evolution baked different moral beliefs into the psychologies of different people? For example, why did evolution bake the view that morality is empty into the psychologies of the Logical Positivists but largely of no one else? Why did it bake the view that morality comes from God into some psychologies but not others?<br /><br />But maybe you don't believe that all moral beliefs are baked into our psychologies by evolution. If you do not believe this, how can we tell a moral belief that is a "moral intuition" from one that is not? In my first post in this thread I argued that this is a bogus distinction because there are no identifiable moral beliefs that we can claim to be rigid features of human psychology. If a taboo against murdering in-group members is supposed to be an example, note that instances of in-group killing is not uncommon. If "murder" is supposed to be the differentiating concept, note how complex that concept is; murder is "wrongful killing"; is the distinction between okay killing and wrongful killing also baked into our psychologies? If so, why are humans in such radical disagreement on the matter?<br /><br />Returning to my point about philosophically-empty reference to natural selection, I don't see what is philosophically at stake in constant reference to evolution. Even if claims that link moral beliefs and evolution were not patent pseudoscience, if evolution is not a reliable guide to what is moral, and hence some other mode of reasoning must be relied upon to determine what is moral, what relevance are evolutionary distinctions? <br /><br />(Note that I am not at all anti-evolution or anti-science. I'm just anti-dubious reasoning.)<br /><br />So, Ian, here're some questions I hope you'll try to answer: Are all moral beliefs beliefs that are baked into our psychologies by evolution? If so, why do different people have different moral beliefs baked into their psychologies? If not, how do we tell the difference between a baked moral belief and one that is not? Further, where do non-baked moral beliefs come from? <br /><br /><br />Paul Paolinihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04580285404702244031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-54259705672673431932013-03-25T15:13:06.500-04:002013-03-25T15:13:06.500-04:00@DM,
"If you find pain unpleasant, it is not...@DM, <br />"If you find pain unpleasant, it is not because you have carefully considered the logic of the situation and come to a rational conclusion, it's because you are viscerally programmed to find pain unpleasant. We could imagine a hypothetical rational being who would find pain to be pleasant (and, indeed, such people exist)."<br />You are viscerally programmed by a logically constructed system. So of course it's rational in that sense, as well as in all common sense, to find pain unpleasant.<br />And in turn the existing people that you claim have found pain pleasant are not acting rationally, having reached their masochistic positions by both conscious and unconscious irrationality - for irrational purposes in other words. Further, it's not that they find pain pleasant, it's that they find satisfaction in the self punishment that their pain makes self evident.<br />Baron Phttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04138430918331887648noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-10061965503510496662013-03-25T13:59:20.520-04:002013-03-25T13:59:20.520-04:00>If I determine from experience that being heal...>If I determine from experience that being healthy and moderately pain free is preferable to the alternative is that not a rational determination.<<br /><br />No, it's not a rational determination. It's not irrational either, it's "arational". This is simply because you have no *ultimate* way to justify your preference for being healthy and moderately pain free.<br /><br />If you find pain unpleasant, it is not because you have carefully considered the logic of the situation and come to a rational conclusion, it's because you are viscerally programmed to find pain unpleasant. We could imagine a hypothetical rational being who would find pain to be pleasant (and, indeed, such people exist).<br /><br />Similarly, I don't think there's anything inherently irrational about being either an amoral psychopath or a passionate human rights activist. The two people have fundamentally different foundational preferences or axioms regarding morality, and there's no way to get from one attitude to the other by rational thought.Disagreeable Mehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15258557849869963650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-11521649589446794462013-03-25T11:57:24.063-04:002013-03-25T11:57:24.063-04:00@Ian
>Why (on your view) make a distinction be...@Ian<br /><br />>Why (on your view) make a distinction between those and (e.g.) my preference for humanity's continued existence?<<br /><br />I think you've answered your own question, in a way. Replace "moral" and "amoral" with "musical" and "amusical" and you could make the same argument against musical preferences. Morality is just one of many categories of preferences we have. This categorisation is perhaps related to emotions or sensations associated with the choices. "Moral" choices are the ones that make us feel righteous. "Delicious" choices are the ones that involve pleasant tastes.<br /><br />They are, however, special in the sense that the emotions they produce can be quite powerful, motivating us to judge others, feel guilt, fight and even die for them. This doesn't mean they are ontologically particularly special, it just means that they have a special evolutionary role.<br /><br />>It is useful to make a distinction between terminal and instrumental goals and values.<<br /><br />Agreed. I was taking this for granted. When I said "goals" I was referring to terminal goals. I was hinting at this by referring to "plans of action" (instrumental goals) and "ultimate choice of goal" (terminal goals). I'll try to remember to be clearer in future.Disagreeable Mehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15258557849869963650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-74067892342445707932013-03-25T11:47:09.097-04:002013-03-25T11:47:09.097-04:00Ian, I am not following this :
'All of which g...Ian, I am not following this :<br />'All of which goes to show that although there may be no rational choosing of the terminal goals, there may be scope for rationally talking about the instrumental goals, and about what the best tradeoffs are between different terminal goals.'<br /><br />If I determine from experience that being healthy and moderately pain free is preferable to the alternative is that not a rational determination. And say I also determine from evidence and experience that there is an interaction space where I can promote these qualities in others and they feedback onto my own well-being in a positive way. Would it not be rational to pursue that interaction space?<br /><br />Can you point me to what I missing? thanksSeth_bloghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14562316879162720028noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-78869542327548432702013-03-25T11:26:28.448-04:002013-03-25T11:26:28.448-04:00Paul: one clarification. When I said
>I think ...Paul: one clarification. When I said<br /><br />>I think we should just throw out this intuition, as it looks like it's just an artifact of the kind of social situations H. sapiens confronted once upon a time. The normative/motivational force of the intuition disappears once you 'unmask' it, so to speak.<br /><br />I hope it was clear that my motivation for wanting to throw out the intuition is not "because it evolved" simpliciter (otherwise I would have to garbage all of ethics in a fit of scientism), but rather something more like "because it arose for (natural causal) reasons that cast it in a poor light AND perhaps I have other normative commitments that contradict it."ianpollockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15579140807988796286noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-64988166703844733052013-03-25T10:53:07.943-04:002013-03-25T10:53:07.943-04:00DisagreeableMe:
>There are only moral preferenc...DisagreeableMe:<br />>There are only moral preferences which differ from person to person and culture to culture... That said, I have my own moral preferences, and I believe in them. They are not defensible or rooted in logic, but they are part of what make up my being.<br /><br />I don't think this attempt to split the difference really succeeds though. If you're going to deny moral truth, why talk about <i>moral</i> preferences at all? Why not just preferences? I have loads of preferences and most of them are amoral. For example, my preference for sourdough bread, or the music of Van Morrison. Why (on your view) make a distinction between those and (e.g.) my preference for humanity's continued existence?<br /><br />To me, a moral nihilist who still tries to hold on to moral vocabulary looks a little odd. Kind of like a 20th century materialist who uses the vocabulary of demonology to talk about mental illness.<br /><br />But: >But if there is no moral truth, is it not irrational to behave morally rather than selfishly? Not at all.<br /><br />...that is spot on. :)<br /><br />>The ultimate choice of goal is something baked in, not chosen rationally.<br /><br />It is useful to make a distinction between <i>terminal</i> and <i>instrumental</i> goals and values. For example, somebody might have a goal of distributing bednets to a given village. But that is an instrumental goal, because bednets are only useful for preventing malaria - they have no intrinsic value. But preventing malaria, too, is an instrumental goal, because malaria is only bad inasmuch as it causes suffering and shortens lives. The preference for health and quality life is thus the terminal goal or terminal preference here.<br /><br />I think there are many (possibly hundreds) of different human terminal values/goals.<br /><br />All of which goes to show that although there may be no rational choosing of the terminal goals, there may be scope for rationally talking about the instrumental goals, and about what the best tradeoffs are between different terminal goals.ianpollockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15579140807988796286noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-57753637807673961392013-03-25T10:50:03.149-04:002013-03-25T10:50:03.149-04:00Oh, cool, I sort of forgot I made this comment and...Oh, cool, I sort of forgot I made this comment and then came back to see lots of interesting responses.<br /><br />Steve: >How can we *a priori* proclaim the supremacy of the values of our society over another? Every society of course seems to do this; but we can't do it without some common factor of evaluation.<br /><br />When I asked the question I wasn't really thinking about cultural differences in moral opinion. Pretty much every culture thinks random murders of ingroup members are bad - what I am getting at is whether the origin of that belief (a moral intuition baked into us by NS) says anything normatively interesting.<br /><br />Paul: >Divested of its philosophically-empty reference to natural question, the relevant metaethical question is just that how how we know when a moral perspective is defensible.<br /><br />I am not so sure the reference to a natural question is philosophically empty here. Imagine if science found out tomorrow that all human moral intuitions about, say, partiality to kin, were actually just being inserted into our brains by malicious space aliens who wanted to keep our planet poor and exploitable. It seems like I might want to have some second thoughts about those intuitions, in that case?<br /><br />(Somewhat) analogously, there are certain moral intuitions which, once their origin is plausibly identified through evo-psych style reasoning, just seem <i>explained away</i>.<br /><br />For example, we consider it vastly more important to help a single, identifiable person in trouble right in front of us, than to help strangers at a distance (even if we can help more strangers for less resources and they need it more). I think we should just throw out this intuition, as it looks like it's just an artifact of the kind of social situations H. sapiens confronted once upon a time. The normative/motivational force of the intuition disappears once you 'unmask' it, so to speak.<br /><br />Or take other examples: moralized sexual jealousy, moralized disgust at sexual deviance (e.g., homophobia), moralized partiality and devaluation of outgroup members, unwillingness to trade off 'sacred' values for 'secular' ones, scope insensitivity... really, now that we can identify plausible origins for these feelings in the circumstances of our species' history, can't we just chuck them, or at least suppress them?<br /><br />My difficulty is that the reason I want to chuck them is because they contradict my strongly consequentialist moral intuitions, which are also 'baked into' me, although in a way that does not make for much of a just-so story.<br /><br />I realize that the above is not very philosophically rigorous, but my main point is that I think knowledge of the evolutionary history of our moral intuitions is sometimes *highly relevant to normative ethics,* and yet I don't have a principled theory of how exactly.ianpollockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15579140807988796286noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-33374568090168065982013-03-25T09:49:46.731-04:002013-03-25T09:49:46.731-04:00Regarding human behavior, "cultural determini...Regarding human behavior, "cultural determinism" seems to me to be as misguided as "biological determinism". Human brains biologically evolved to be able to generate new codes and therefore new culture.<br /><br />(Example: This week's arguments before the Supreme Court on gay marriage.)Philip Thrifthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03021615111948806998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-44738265675274509792013-03-24T21:44:08.766-04:002013-03-24T21:44:08.766-04:00But, isn't "freedom" dependent on th...But, isn't "freedom" dependent on the social-political constraints within a particular society? Isn't our behavior not only shaped by evolutionary means, but cultural ones as well? To be frank, I think such an introspective philosophy like existentialism can only have originated in a well-cultivated European country, not those in the third-world. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-48028566616033935392013-03-24T11:54:01.857-04:002013-03-24T11:54:01.857-04:00The second part of your post is the same point I h...The second part of your post is the same point I have been trying to make although I expect we perceive it differently. Conflict, constraint, & opposition are all unvoidable. <br /><br />We can frame any concept we value as something to be achieved by fighting against that which we see conflicting, constraining or opposing it. This is a view based on separation. I don't think that is a useful frame if we hope to achieve the 'synthesis' Steve refers to. In my view 'synthesis emerges when we see the non-seprability between what we value and what opposes it. There is a 'systhesis' in the interaction waiting to be discovered if we can orientate ourselves toward it.<br /><br />I think free will is something we value. I don't think it exists as some separate pure entity and don't find it to be a useful concept. I do think we have some capacity for meta-cognition and reflection on how we frame, perceive and recieve our experiance. The way we approach these capacities impact our involuntary unconscious responses.Seth_bloghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14562316879162720028noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-37873012968395273482013-03-24T07:57:10.440-04:002013-03-24T07:57:10.440-04:00>Given that all human moral intuitions are plau...>Given that all human moral intuitions are plausibly baked into our psychology by natural selection, can we distinguish between 'defensible' and 'indefensible' moral intuitions, and if so, how?<<br /><br />Personally, I'm a moral nihilist. I don't think there are any defensible moral intuitions. There are only moral preferences which differ from person to person and culture to culture.<br /><br />That said, I have my own moral preferences, and I believe in them. They are not defensible or rooted in logic, but they are part of what make up my being. I recognise that my moral preferences come from evolution and the culture I was raised in and do not reflect any fundamental moral truth, but that doesn't stop me from acting morally.<br /><br />But if there is no moral truth, is it not irrational to behave morally rather than selfishly? Not at all.<br /><br />Rationality is only a means to arrive at true beliefs or to develop good plans of action to achieve one's goals. The ultimate choice of goal is something baked in, not chosen rationally.<br /><br />It is not rational or irrational to prefer life to death or pleasure to pain. We have these preferences only because that's how we evolved. Similarly, it is not more rational to prefer selfishness to altruism and morality. <br /><br />If we are altruistic, moral people by nature, we should not feel a need to justify our impulse to behave morally.Disagreeable Mehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15258557849869963650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-90417520129687648022013-03-24T07:47:08.767-04:002013-03-24T07:47:08.767-04:00@Steve
I'm not sure the view you present real...@Steve<br /><br />I'm not sure the view you present really works for me. I don't really believe in free will (unless it's of the deterministic, compatibilist sort) so as far as I can see whatever we do, that's what is in our nature to do. The idea of fighting your nature doesn't really make sense to me because if you fight some impulse it's because it is in your nature to do so.<br /><br />The idea of morality being about overcoming basic animal instincts also doesn't really work for me. The basis of our morality is just as rooted in our animal instincts as are our selfish impulses. Overcoming your basic animal instincts could just as easily be construed as learning to ignore your conscience and empathy.<br /><br />However, insofar as you advocate self-improvement through asceticism, introspection etc, then you might be right. I just wouldn't frame it in quite the way you do.Disagreeable Mehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15258557849869963650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-44290076982858269202013-03-24T00:39:31.548-04:002013-03-24T00:39:31.548-04:00To the contrary, anthropology demonstrates that al...To the contrary, anthropology demonstrates that all morality comes down to what we, humans and the other intelligent animals, can be trusted by our social cultures to do right, and distrusted if we do it wrong. And in that sense all beings with a form of culture have moral rules and standards to adhere to. So bats and even our bacteria can in their own ways be as immoral in their respective ways as the rest of us. Just as we are all hard-wired to rely on our intuitive biological functions - you know, those that purposefully direct our sense of what in our respective environments to trust.<br />Baron Phttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04138430918331887648noreply@blogger.com