... by the dog the god of Egypt, I declare, O Callicles, that Callicles will never be at one with himself, but that his whole life will be a discord. And yet, my friend, I would rather that my lyre should be inharmonious, and that there should be no music in the chorus which I provided; aye, or that the whole world should be at odds with me, and oppose me, rather than that I myself should be at odds with myself, and contradict myself.

Plato's Georgias

I think of Qi as the sound of that lyre. The rhythm of life, its vibrations, with all its harmonies and disharmonious parts. What we share in our interactions with others either rings true or sounds out of tune, the disturbing rhythm of being "at odds with myself, and contradict myself".

We are social creatures only negatively. Human's by nature are desirous, greedy, needful, spiteful, weak creatures. We are social creatures because we have no other choice but to negate our natural inclinations, to alienate our self from our nature. — Cavacava

By what standard are you determining human nature?

Reason is a tool, it is neither good nor bad. Our passions: love, hate, jealousy, kindness ...these are good or bad.

Humans are both, reasonable and sensitive creatures. The Rousseau quote implied otherwise, as if we could not be both.

By what standard are you determining human nature?

Aristotle. The following from Leo Strauss "The City and Man":

Man is not by nature social, i.e. Nature dissociates men. This however means that nature compels man to to make himself social; only because nature compels man avoid death, as the greatest evil can man compel himself to become and to be a citizen. The end is not something toward which man is by nature inclined but something toward which he is by nature compelled; more precisely, the end does not beckon man but it must be invented by man so that he can escape his natural misery, Nature supplies with an end only negatively: because the state of nature is intolerable.

Humans are both, reasonable and sensitive creatures. The Rousseau quote implied otherwise, as if we could not be both.

Yes, I think affects are blind without reason, but reason is practical, the only 'ought' it subscribes to is its own soundness and validity,

By gratuitous assertion?

What is the criterion which when met, counts as being by nature?

By gratuitous assertion?

What is the criterion which when met, counts as being by nature?

It sounds reasonable to me, hardly gratuitous.

As stated our sociability is necessary for our survival, even though this sociability goes against our natural impulses to satisfy all our desires.

We are interdependent social creatures... necessarily so. How is that not natural?

How is that not natural?

The distinction has to do with nature's forcing us to be social, in spite of our natural instinct to act as we see fit. It is a defensive maneuver that sets man against nature, this maneuver enables man to attempt to conquer nature to make life livable.

The most coherent description of morality is that it's a a cooperative strategy between two or more parties that is designed to be mutually beneficial (the prevention of conflict/harm and sometimes the promotion of happiness).

In order for a moral agreement/system to actually exist between two or more parties, they must necessarily share some beliefs about what constitutes harm and happiness. Where conflict might arise that can infringe or damage our mutually shared values/beliefs, it becomes rational and appealing for us to come to an agreement in order to protect those values.

Under this view, the bulk of moral persuasion comes in the form of questioning and appealing to these starting shared values, and also by exploring whether or not a given proposed moral agreement (i.e: don't steal, don't murder) is actually successful or efficient. A further simplified conceptual model of morality can be positioned as such: All moral problems concern harm inflicted upon individuals (harm defined by starting values) and whether or not that harm is strategically avoidable (without causing some other harm, which may be justification for carrying out a harmful action).

Most moral thinkers seem to intuitively engage moral discussions according to this framework, although it is very common to get lost in one's own set of singular (and sometimes unexamined) starting values, which then makes the ensuing discussions about actual moral policy deeply confused from the outset.

One typically confused starting value goes something like "the most important moral value is to keep the gods happy" which is perhaps the single most misguided belief in all of human history. Every Shaman and their pet iguana has a different idea about what makes god happy, which has caused there to be constant and conflict generating disparity between mutually exclusive theistic moral platforms.

A better but still somewhat misguided approach goes something like "the most good for the most people". Broadly this is the crux of utilitarian moral systems, which do seem to have some merit as an approach to moral reasoning, but tend to generate disagreement concerning what is the "most good state of affairs" that we should aim for and "how we should get there". It is much easier to agree about states of affairs which are ultimately undesirable rather than what is ultimately desirable, and creating strategies about how to avoid particular states of affairs is inherently easier than creating strategies to achieve particular states of affairs (it's easier to agree about what we don't want, and how we can avoid it than it is to agree about what we both want and how to achieve it, although it's easy to conflate the two which leads to confusion).

"The least harm for the most people" is in my opinion a much more appropriate moral maxim; It still lacks clarity but at least it sends us in the direction of communally seeking to reduce harm rather than the more complicated affair of large scale social mobilization for the greater good. In theory the most beneficial mutually cooperative strategy we can make would have us all making personal sacrifices and taking positive actions that benefit us all in the long run, but that strategy is far too complicated for us to successfully and comprehensively devise (and we have tried earnestly a few times. See: Stalinsim for an example). The free market, for instance, is regretfully a better option than massively centralized economic planning because market complexity confounds long term planning, and likewise, moral reasoning is much easier to do with singular and minimalist claims about what not to do rather than what we all ought to be doing to maximize our moral praiseworthiness and state of well-being. Freedom is an efficient system of maximizing moral value/human happiness/well-being because it allows individuals to pursue (and change) their own version of happiness rather than a set of imposing instructions which cannot possibly function for every individual and in every circumstance.

If there is a true and ultimate moral strategy out there, it would be infinitely comprehensive and beyond complex. One last analogy:

Let the game "Tic-Tac-Toe" serve as an example where perfect strategy can be formulated: Any smart fifth grader can figure out how to always draw (or win if the opponent makes a mistake), making it the objectively best strategy to achieve victory and avoid loss.

Now consider the game of Chess, and imagine if we could program an AI to learn every possible result of every possible set of moves from the starting positions... If this was possible then it could become undefeatable by knowing the end results in advance of every possible variation and how to bring the game to a checkmate or stalemate. The number of possible variations in chess games is staggeringly large though, and both humans and AI are far from mastering it in the same way we can master Tic-Tac-Toe.

Now consider real life, where our ideal end conditions are not well defined, where there are more moving parts than we can count, and more combinations of moves between then than we can possibly imagine. This is why what they call "objective morality" or "the absolute best strategy" has been so enduringly impossible for us to find. Like Chess, the ideal strategy and next move is highly context specific and not always possible to calculate, leaving us to do the best we can in many cases. The strongest and most persuasive moral arguments are those that appeal to the most basic and commonly shared values and entail minimal amounts of compromise (compromise to one's own values). "Don't cut out people's eyeballs" is a claim that you would be hard-pressed to find an objection to. There may be a circumstance out there where the cutting of eyeballs is required for survival (like sacrificing a queen in Chess), but such circumstances do not exist in modern society aside from extremely rare medical cases. We can create strategic and moral rules-of-thumb and best-practices that may apply in general, but unique circumstances can always offer exception, and the values and strategic needs of a society as a whole can evolve or change (I.E: we're running out of fish that people need in order to live). This isn't to say that morality is relative, just that it is situational and depending on the needs, desires, and circumstances of the moral agents in question and the challenges of the environment they are in.

The distinction has to do with nature's forcing us to be social, in spite of our natural instinct to act as we see fit. It is a defensive maneuver that sets man against nature, this maneuver enables man to attempt to conquer nature to make life livable. — Cavacava

Being social then, according to this, is not acting as we see fit...

Doesn't make sense.

Well ... yes. Unjust justice is a contradiction, and so the fulfilment of justice, that is, being just, cannot be unjust.

Fulfilment of justice is different from justice.

Being social then, according to this, is not acting as we see fit...

Doesn't make sense.

Nature forces us to be social, but to be social means that we respect of the rights of others, we become moral, the topic of discussion. The laws of nature are swapped for normative laws, the laws of men.

Makes a lot of sense.

Seems to me that being interdependent social creatures predates codes of conduct, rights, and notions of self...

How?

Could you provide an example? I don't see how one could fulfil justice without being just. Note, I don't mean here mere legal justice, which could be unjust; but real justice.

Seems to me that being interdependent social creatures predates codes of conduct, rights, and notions of self... — creativesoul

How? — Cavacava

Codes of conduct, rights, and notions of self are existentially contingent upon language. Being an interdependent social creature requires only being born and taken care of. Being born and taken care of does not require language.

I'd like to think that we agree upon much here, despite the differences. Those seem to be more about human nature, or perhaps what we ascribe to be such. We disagree there. I find the notion of natural and/or nature to be untenable(or not helpful if strictly adhered to), but I do not think that that needs to stop the conversation from gaining ground. The disagreements seem more about the ontology and/or taxonomy, and less about getting on with it...

Are there any relevant/significant common denominators shared by all known codes of conduct? If there are, then I would say that focusing upon those would lead us to statements about morality that are true, regardless of the individual particulars.

I actually take issue with the notion of normative as it pertains to moral discourse. On my view, any and all statements about what's considered acceptable/unacceptable thought/belief and/or behaviour are moral claims(claims about morality). When we limit what counts as a moral claim to only utterances of ought, we continue to work from an archaic impoverished notion of what counts as a moral claim.

When we limit what counts as a moral claim to only utterances of ought, we continue to work from an archaic impoverished notion of what counts as a moral claim.

I think we all make moral claims to objective rightness, which must be judged on the basis of rational arguments based on our convictions and beliefs regardless of normative contexts. Arguments to support our beliefs, feelings, and convictions can be measured against one another and judged based on their soundness and validity. Defective judgements do exist.

I don't support a naturalistic, causal explanation of this process.

@VagabondSpectre

In order for a moral agreement/system to actually exist between two or more parties, they must necessarily share some beliefs about what constitutes harm and happiness. Where conflict might arise that can infringe or damage our mutually shared values/beliefs, it becomes rational and appealing for us to come to an agreement in order to protect those values.

I am not sure that this is the case. I think that all actions require a cause or a reason, and that some reasons for actions are better arguments than others regardless of whether or not we share the same value or belief system.

What makes some reasons better arguments than others though?

It is precisely the persuasive answer to that question that I am seeking to clarify.

The "reason" is the value; the why of the ought. Not all choices are moral choices and not all actions and decisions have moral components, but of all the decisions which we might classify as belonging to the realm of moral reasoning, there are none that cannot be most persuasively boiled down to an appeal to starting and core values.

(If we happen to be making the same decision using different moral starting values, it is not really a moral arrangement between us but instead a happy coincidence that our goals are aligned.)

Ultimately "morality" only successfully exists when it is shared, and so those moral tenets which appeal to the most commonly shared values have the most broad appeal and hence the most acceptance. Bring up any moral dilemma and I think it should be downright easy to locate and examine the starting value (which then makes it clearer how to appraise the efficacy of various possible decisions). The abortion debate revolves around the importance of protecting life and when life actually begins (the moral value and right to go on living); the gun debate is a classic dilemma between freedom and security (and how to maximize/reconcile both). The gay marriage controversy is about how it somehow damages the (godly/societal?) value of traditional marriage (freedom from harm in a nut shell).

Can you give an example of a moral agreement that is not based on some shared value?

Can you give an example of a moral agreement that is not based on some shared value?

How about honor killing, or suicide bombing..I guess divine command theory in general?

How about honor killing, or suicide bombing..I guess divine command theory in general? — Cavacava

It's really important to pull this one out in the open and yank down it's trousers. "Making god happy" is in my opinion one of the most misguided values that humans have ever concocted because of how much bull-shit and variability is involved in making up what actually pleases god in a given circumstance. It would have long since failed and eradicated itself as a viable starting moral value, but it is in the end adaptable; it can superficially change itself into any other value as needed (it's resilient but risky).

Honor killing is done with the intention of protecting some notion of eternal position. It's utterly stupid to believe in such a metaphysical system, and so the best way to dissuade someone from engaging in honor killing is to convince them that their conception of what honor is ultimately does not serve their other more real values or is itself inaccurate/faulty.

The only way I know that you can convince someone to do a suicide bombing is to convince them that there's nothing left for them in this world and that by killing themselves they're guaranteed a spot in the afterlife (you can extort/force people to do it, but that's not them making a moral decision). This kind of decision appeals primarily to "makes god happy" to justify the actual killing, but it also appeals to the personal desire to live and be free (ironically), in heaven, on the part of the suicide bomber.

The rebuke following from my approach is to attack the notion that god wants the killing to occur (the existence of the value), and that the afterlife is a retarded delusion.

Metaphysical and otherwise superstitious foundations don't always need to be challenged, but they will always be rationally weak from the get go given the tall order of inventing an argument for a divine command.

The examples you give are "moral decisions", but the values which support them are not widely agreed upon at all, which is what makes them easily contestable and weak.

I think we all make moral claims to objective rightness, which must be judged on the basis of rational arguments based on our convictions and beliefs regardless of normative contexts. — Cavacava

Well, certainly everyone presupposes that their own thought/belief is true... moral claims notwithstanding.

Arguments to support our beliefs, feelings, and convictions can be measured against one another and judged based on their soundness and validity. Defective judgements do exist.

I don't support a naturalistic, causal explanation of this process.

Not sure what you mean with the last statement. I think we agree on the rest.

It's really important to pull this one out in the open and yank down it's trousers. — VagabondSpectre

:-O

Are you a priest?

Heh, good one! :)

I mean it needs to be shown for what it truly is, which is an embarrassingly naive superstition based mine-field of self-delusion.

Well Markus or Vagabond...

Ridicule of one whose belief system that calls anything contrary to it "evil" and holds that world is a better place without evil, and further holds that it is one's duty, as a servant to Allah, or God, or some other supernatural entity to rid the world of such evil will not likely work.

Ridicule has it's place. The trick to using it well is by ridiculing ideas directly rather than the people who wield them. Sometimes though one just cannot help it...

No. You're sorely mistaken.

Ridicule has no place being used against someone who cannot yet distinguish between their thought/belief system(worldview) and themselves. For those who would willingly die for their belief system, their entire self-worth and self-identity are wrapped up within that system...

Separating them from it requires care... genuine care.

None of us have a choice in either our original worldview or our cognitive ability.

In that way, and in others, we are all on the same ground. The above is true of everyone, regardless of individual particulars.

Ridicule isn't meant to sway the indoctrinated, but it is meant as a persuasive tool to ward away readers from falling into the ideological pitfalls I point out.

Ridicule emboldens and further empowers that which you seem intent upon weakening...