I am not concerned with whether functions definitely exist

My argument is that if there were functions then you could base morality on that.

Computers can be repaired because they have been designed to perform certain tasks and bodies can be healed and restored to a previous functionality.

The problem then is how can human behavior be described as immoral or dysfunctional with no purpose or telos? If nature allows an action that seems to be the only arbiter of what is acceptable.

But you just said that neither ball is more objectively well-suited to rolling. So if the principles are the same . . . ? The goal here isn't to score points, it's to explain something to you. — Terrapin Station

I understand that, Im not trying to keep score, my laughter was meant to be light-hearted not rude.
What I said was that none of the traits are “rolling” traits, according to your own definition. They might be bowling traits, or giant boulder trap traits but as I said I agree that these are not mind independent. They require a subject with a goal for the rolling ball. To get a strike or kill Indiana Jones. Absent of these mind dependent traits, there is still a matter of fact of how well suited a ball is or is not to “moving by turning over and over on an axis”.
What is it that you think you are explaining to me? I feel like I understand what you are saying. We can leave it there or you can tell me why my argument is incorrect but focusing on the semantics of our various examples isnt doing that.

there is still a matter of fact of how well suited a ball is or is not to “moving by turning over and over on an axis”. — DingoJones

Okay, and that matter of fact hinges on?

We can judge painful life saving surgery as good and we can see the pleasure from drugs and alcohol or over eating as bad. — Andrew4Handel

This is "will lead to feeling good/will lead to feeling bad".

Not stealing, not lying not causing harm. The problem is convincing other people not to do these actions as well. — Andrew4Handel

Well if you can't convince them, force has to be used.

Okay, and that matter of fact hinges on? — Terrapin Station

I prefer engagement, otherwise I could just be reading so Im gonna pass.

I think a possible difference between preference and morality is that you could change someones moral ideas by argument but you are unlikely to change someones dislike of pork or their sexuality through argument. — Andrew4Handel

IMV you might be making morality too theoretical. A good example of this taken to extremes is Randian objectivism. Hume's is probably a better approach. Roughly we praise what is good for the community, and this seems to be based largely on an intuitive sense of what is good. Can one justify trying to survive in the first place with pure reason?

I venture to say (especially as a cat lover) that no argument will persuade me that torturing cats is good or OK. The badness of such cruelty is perhaps no less obvious to me than the sight of my shoes on the floor. No matter how perfect the argument, I would doubt argument itself first before being persuaded. Moral intuitions even make civil discourse and argument possible in the first place, IMO. Does one have to reason carefully before deciding not to punch someone in the nose upon first meeting them? IMV you are thinking of reason in an insufficiently complex way, as a sort of calculator. Reasoning is something we do in a living social context made possible by things that reason cannot even grasp with exact concepts perhaps.

I consider back and forths, where we might ask and answer questions in a focused manner (so relatively short, one point at a time, as if we were having a conversation in person), to be the paradigm case, the ideal, of engagement.

I kept meaning to get back to you but I got distracted by a bunch of other posts. Anyway...

The way you have changed someones moral preferences is by giving a moral argument. Whether there preference changes is based on the success of the argument. — Andrew4Handel

This is much less detailed than what I explained above. Are you disagreeing with what I explained above, or?

I would ideally like to be able to show someone that their behaviors or beliefs were wrong. I would want to persuade them based on reason.

I am currently a moral nihilist because I think it is not possible to prove a behavior or attitude is wrong. — Andrew4Handel

Ah, so when you said:

I don't see how you can resolve a moral dispute by preferences — Andrew4Handel

It wasn't because you think you can solve moral disputes via some other means. It's that you don't think that we can solve moral disputes period?

But where are we getting the initial concept of morality from? — Andrew4Handel

It's a way that our brains work. Our brains automatically work in a manner where we feel that some interpersonal behavior is acceptable (where we're talking about something we feel is more significant than mere etiquette, etc.) and other interpersonal behavior is not.

Why do our brains work that way? Because there were evolutionary advantages to it, especially among creatures that required cooperation to survive long enough to reproduce.

This is "will lead to feeling good/will lead to feeling bad". — Hallucinogen

The word "good" originates from the word God. So it does not directly refer to pleasure or pain. The word moral comes from the Latin for character.

My point is that pain and pleasure are not a good indicator of what is good or bad. Even if the end goal is to attain pleasure their is no reason this is good if what is causing the pleasure is not good. The issue is the quality of the things or circumstance causing pleasure or pain.

If you do a pain-pleasure calculation for life or reality this is like utilitarianism and can lead to a rejection of life as overwhelmingly immoral, something I favor at the moment.

However I do think assessing causing pain is a good way of deciding whether something is immoral the problem then is enforcing the prevention of pain and proving to others that they are inflicting unnecessary pain.

But all moral claims can be ignored and overridden by action. I think the best we can hope for is karma and that peoples "bad" actions will create their own punishment or disincentive etc.

It wasn't because you think you can solve moral disputes via some other means. It's that you don't think that we can solve moral disputes period? — Terrapin Station

I think solving moral disputes is hard for various reason. Firstly there do not appear to be any moral facts. Secondly people can act against moral claims.

That is why I think teleology/function/purpose would have been a good basis for morality. A Doctor can warn you about what will objectively cause damage to your health. But there appears to be no purpose or natural rules that humans can transgress.

I suppose we can just persevere and try and force our moral claims to top position through various means including reason.

But it seems that if there is a moral good it is something that should be enforced or pursued as soon as possible.

Thinking preceeds action; there is no action without thinking, and sometimes a lot of think is necessary to do something; so, I chose "morality" when morality is according with the laws of nature, which is prior to the etics and the laws of mankind. Who thinks the principles rules the universe. Who is capable of; I think that morality is good, is some way, when we don't have the time for elaborated thinking; is a social automatism.

But it seems that if there is a moral good — Andrew4Handel

I think it seems that way, too, but what I'm saying by that is that there are things that I feel (sometimes very strongly) about interpersonal behavior being acceptable or not, recommendable or not, etc.

Re the doctor comment, by the way, the doctor can't tell you whether anything has an objectively positive or negative value. He can tell you what will likely obtain given different situations, but it's up to individual humans to determine whether they want one thing versus another to obtain.

I think it seems that way, too, but what I'm saying by that is that there are things that I feel (sometimes very strongly) about interpersonal behavior being acceptable or not, recommendable or not, etc. — Terrapin Station

You seem like a moral nihilist not convinced of the strength of your moral intuitions.

Re the doctor comment, by the way, the doctor can't tell you whether anything has an objectively positive or negative value — Terrapin Station

Function and value are not the same thing. However I find it implausible that someone would want to be unhealthy. If someone wants to be healthy then a doctor can advise them.

If you have certain goals and preferences there are ideal ways to achieve them sometimes.

I am not sure what your stance is and whether you want any moral system at all or if you want a purely subjective moral system based on individual feelings and subject to whim.

People can define morality how they feel.

Thinking preceeds action; there is no action without thinking — Gilliatt

Possibly.

I would say that if thinking precedes action then thinking needs rationality and logic. the problem is that people can act on weak or false belief.

But it is also not clear if thinking can justify action. I don't think nature can validate action except that nature permits any action that occurs, indiscriminately.

Can one justify trying to survive in the first place with pure reason? — macrosoft

I think lack of justification is a good restraint. I think the intuition or simple belief that you action or belief is justified can be very harmful.

Lack of justification does not defend good OR bad behavior. So how would people behave without false beliefs and a false sense of justification?

I think reason can lead to negative conclusions but does that mean we should abandon it?

I do think there is a lingering specter of nihilism where both reason and unreason can lead to it. But I don't think morality should be soporific and something that acts like a sticking plaster on anesthetic.

You seem like a moral nihilist not convinced of the strength of your moral intuitions. — Andrew4Handel

A moral nihilist in the sense of being a subjectivist/rejecting objectivism, yes.

Not sure why it seems like I'm "not convinced of the strength of my moral intuitions" though.

However I find it implausible that someone would want to be unhealthy. — Andrew4Handel

Sure, it's unlikely, but nothing (about the ontology of this stuff) would hinge on how likely it is to find particular unusual views.

I am not sure what your stance is and whether you want any moral system at all or if you want a purely subjective moral system based on individual feelings and subject to whim. — Andrew4Handel

I think that we have a purely subjective moral system despite what anyone wants or what anyone believes we have instead of that.

I think that we have a purely subjective moral system despite what anyone wants or what anyone believes we have instead of that. — Terrapin Station

What about when morality is put to the vote? If a moral system is widely accepted and democratically endorsed then I don't think it can be purely subjective.

I think a purely subjective moral scheme would not be a morality. In this scenario which would be egocentric and the individual would always be right. However if an objective fact could persuade them otherwise it would no longer be a purely subjective morality.

I don't see why morality should be about wallowing in your own preferences as opposed to trying to reveal some kind of empirical truth. I think the truth may be that we have to be moral agnostics.

If a moral system is widely accepted and democratically endorsed then I don't think it can be purely subjective. — Andrew4Handel

The subjective/objective distinction has nothing to do with agreement or a lack of agreement. It's purely about whether we're talking about something that's a mental phenomenon or not. It could be the case that every single person has the same mental phenomenon, so that every single person loves the Beatles, or loves pizza, or whatever. That doesn't make loving the Beatles, loving pizza, etc. not subjective

I think a purely subjective moral scheme would not be a morality. — Andrew4Handel

The problem is that factually morality is only subjective, and yet we have morality.

In this scenario which would be egocentric and the individual would always be right. — Andrew4Handel

For one, you'd be positing that people are always sure about how they feel . . . which for one, would suggest that you've never been in a romantic relationship at all (and it would suggest that you've probably never had any friends, etc.). ;-) It's not at all the case that people are always sure how they feel. You probably know that already.

I don't see why morality should be about wallowing in your own preferences as opposed to trying to reveal some kind of empirical truth. — Andrew4Handel

Well, because factually, there are no non-mental moral facts at all. There's absolutely no evidence of that, no matter where we look. No reason at all to believe that there would be non-mental moral facts. So it's a matter of having to deal with what's available to you.

The subjective/objective distinction has nothing to do with agreement or a lack of agreement — Terrapin Station

I think an agreement is objective. You can't compare mental states.

t's not at all the case that people are always sure how they feel. — Terrapin Station

I do not see how that helps your case. If people cannot decide for instance whether abortion is right or wrong then the moral issue remains unresolved.

If someone opposes abortion one day and agrees with it next week that inconsistency undermines a subjective workable notion of morality. However based on the subjective view they were right on both occasions because they are the final arbiter of morality.


I have no problem with the idea that people can have false beliefs and change how they feel but that is why a subjective morality does not work. Personal I base my moral intuitions on external facts about harm and attitudes etc.

I think an agreement is objective. You can't compare mental states. — Andrew4Handel

I'm not saying that the agreement isn't objective as a speech act--that is, as a verbal or textual event, say.

But we're not conflating the speech act of agreement with the ontological nature of what people are agreeing on.

Subjective/objective has no correlation to agreement or disagreement. Something can be subjective and every person can agree. Something can be objective and every person can disagree.

I do not see how that helps your case. If people cannot decide for instance whether abortion is right or wrong then the moral issue remains unresolved. — Andrew4Handel

The idea isn't to "help a case." I'm just explaining to you that in no sense does something being subjective amount to individuals "always being right." Sometimes individuals aren't sure how they feel about something.

However based on the subjective view they were right on both occasions because they are the final arbiter of morality. — Andrew4Handel

All that "they're right" even amounts to there is that they have a strong feeling about it. In that sense, sure they're "right" to themselves when they feel some way. They have a strong feeling that M, and then later they have a strong feeling that not-M. There shouldn't be anything controversial about that.

You can't "udermine" a subjective morality by pointing out anything about it, because it's a fact that morality is subjective as things are. Whatever is the case re morality in practice, with anyone in the world, that's a way that subjective morality works.

Personal I base my moral intuitions on external facts about harm and attitudes etc. — Andrew4Handel

No one is saying that moral intuitions are not based on external facts. No one is saying that we're just imagining murders, say, or their physical effects, their emotional effects on survivors, etc. The point is that the moral intuitions themselves are not something external to us. It's not the external world that's having intuitions. It's you and me and every other individual.

I think the most important aspect of morality is enforcement. It is useless to have moral sentiments that do not lead to action and do not prevent harm or cause well being.

I think either moral standards have to be enforced by the law/police/society etc or by afterlife scenarios or karma.

I don't think that because a moral stance is reached subjectively that it is untrue. The problem is when people act on there false or dubious intuitions and "resolve" a moral issue that way. In comparison a scientists may have an intuition and theory and go about testing it carefully and cautiously to see if it is valid.

I think either we have to wait for karma or afterlife justice or fight to have our moral position enforced (rather like people who fought to end slavery/sexism etc) But I think the lack of clear moral truths is worrying.

I'm not talking about the etymology of the words, I'm talking about what people mean by "bad and good" whether they're aware of it or not. If something ultimately causes pleasure it is good, if it causes pain it is bad.

I don't think that covers all moral sentiments. Are you saying that covers all moral claims?

People also value character and principle.

People would say you should not steal even if it didn't cause harm, such as stealing from a big company or stealing without detection, because of principle and character reasons.
Likewise most people would oppose defiling a corpse even though the person is dead.

Motivation is also important. For example if you gave thousands of pounds to charity in order to look good you would look good but your character would be called into questions.

I think the reason bad behavior causes pain is often because of the psychological judgement you make not because of the action. That is to say the pain is worst after you discover you have been wronged. Hence pain and pleasure could be caused by the act of making a moral judgement.

such as stealing from a big company or stealing without detection, because of principle and character reasons. — Andrew4Handel

I think you could argue that stealing from something very rich still does cause harm, and if you could prove it doesn't, people would have concerns that accepting theft in such a case sets a bad precedent that has net-negative entailments.

Likewise most people would oppose defiling a corpse even though the person is dead. I think the reason bad behavior causes pain is often because of the psychological judgement you make not because of the action. That is to say the pain is worst after you discover you have been wronged. Hence pain and pleasure could be caused by the act of making a moral judgement. — Andrew4Handel

I'd explain this by saying that people can experience displeasure at things that aren't physically harmful to them due to our inherited social psychology. Understanding that your kin have been insulted damages your social status, so your brain imposes a "toll" which represents your diminished reproductive prospects.

I think the most important aspect of morality is enforcement. — Andrew4Handel

I'm not a big fan of enforcement for most things, though. (For some things, yes, but the list is pretty small for me.) I'm very laissez-faire, libertarian/libertine, etc.

If you're focused on utility, I think there's some to be had in simply talking about moral views, including things we count as transgressions, with people we're interacting with. Most people have enough empathy--and/or sympathy--that talking about moral views can have a positive practical effect, even though it's not enforcement (because there's no force, no social pressure with dire consequences involved).