My view is that morality is evolved thought, and in that sense is a something and not a nothing, certainly more than an individual's mere opinion. I'd even argue that to some degree morality is sure as arithmetic, but the world from time to time and here and there lapses into such barbarous immorality that either humanity is at times collectively both stupid and ignorant, or morality ultimately lacks apodeictic certainty (but that has some other kind of certainty). — tim wood
If someone offered to cut off your daughters clitoris, would you be interested to know about the boons and benefits she would receive as a result? — VagabondSpectre
What more data are you waiting for? Do you think it slows the spread of STI's or something? That victims of genital mutilation are made more subservient to their future husbands, which justifies the initial harm? Is it that we have to respect a parent's right to decide how and why to raise their children, because a parent knows best? — VagabondSpectre
makes me wonder whether or not you are arguing from emotion instead of reason. — VagabondSpectre
so far as they have no evidence/reasoning showing the utility of their moral decisions which I show (with evidence/reasoning) to be harmful (contain anti-utility), I get to carry on as if I'm right, even to the point of arrogance, — VagabondSpectre
This clearly factually inaccurate. My original example was against anti-vax parents. — VagabondSpectre
If you want to take this particular tangent in an anti-modernity, anti-western, anti-industrial, or even anti-enlightenment direction, that's perfectly fine, but you'll have to clarify the point you wish to make. — VagabondSpectre
Are you saying that modernity/industry isn't worthwhile given the effects we've had, and will continue to have, on the climate? — VagabondSpectre
vaccines that have undergone clinical trials. — VagabondSpectre
When it comes to vaccines that have been in widespread use for long periods of time, we have real world experience to go by (data gathering and statistical analysis has to be trusted on some level, but it can also be "tested" through repetition, — VagabondSpectre
we can use evidence and reason to rationally appeal to their existing values as a means of persuasion. I don't have any grand illusions that everyone can easily be persuaded; I'm just identifying what I believe is the most effective vector of persuasion. — VagabondSpectre
Morality...
Everyone has one. The nuance will vary accordingly.
Next. — creativesoul
The evolution of morality exists to hold communities together because it was the moral factor that constructed them, that they were based on. — Brett
Are you talking about the practice/concept of FGM or the act of FGM? — VagabondSpectre
I'm not following why we need relativism to escape the amoral descriptor. I thought what is or isn't amoral was a meta-ethical distinction. — VagabondSpectre
It's my meta-ethical definition which describes in what way moral decisions can be objective, relative to values.
I'm eschewing subjective feelings about what morality is from a meta-ethical standpoint (by defining it as values serving strategies) so that we can have a consistent/objective discussion about how to compare and evaluate competing moral decisions or frameworks. It can't just be subjective feelings all the way up and all the way down; reality needs to be inserted somewhere.
If I've given you the impression I'm defending any sort of meta-ethical absolutism then I have miscommunicated. I am however, though not overtly, defending a kind of meta-meta-ethical distinction that I don't yet have the right language for: ethical frameworks are all in service of some sort of value, but predominantly they are arranged to serve a certain range of nearly universal human values, and they continuously adapt toward more optimal values-service. The broad "convergence" of moral decision making which is oriented toward the same ends induces us toward the idea that some ethical and meta-ethical frameworks are more universally applicable than others; it implies that there are some moral frameworks that will be more agreeable and persuasive to our moral decisions and intuitions at large. Broadly speaking, ethical frameworks which account for methods, costs, and results (empirical matters) tend to be the most widespread and communicable. Reason based moral arguments might not always persuade individual proponents of X, Y, or Z moral framework, but they have stuck around because they're objectively effective at promoting human welfare per our environments, and they transmit well because they are based in shareable empirical fact-checking behavior rather than subjective whim.
Your meta-ethical definition focuses on the very fact that there is no "objective moral 'truth'" as a starting point that defines it ontologically as a realm of relative subjective truth (where truth conforms to values and beliefs). My own meta-ethical definition focuses on what it is moral activity is attempting to do more holistically: it's not just serving values, it's trying to serve them well. Under my view also, moral "truth" doesn't necessarily point to anything meaningful beyond the existence of relative values. And like any proposition designed to navigate uncertainty (any strategy), there are no "true or false" decisions to begin with, only "statistically better and worse decisions" (though there is an objective truth to the ramifications of our decisions, even when we're lucky we can only approximate it with strong induction). Even if a decision is 100% guaranteed to be the worst decision, it could only be "false" if we went out of our way to frame it as a truth statement (it is false that X move will create the desired outcome)., Though we cannot access truth with objective certainty (as Isaac will never let me forget), we can indeed often approximate it with objectivity. (e.g:if Isaac was "objective" and gathered facts, then he would come to realize that FGM has no meaningful benefit to individuals or society.) — VagabondSpectre
But I'm not seeing how you're moving from the existence of a cause for moral judgement being the way it is, to the existence of a moral absolute. — Isaac
But 2) is just an unsupported claim. — tim wood
But why would you care, after all, nothing is absolutely true or false? — tim wood
I agree. I think if we had to explain the striking degree of homogeneity with people's moral judgement, evolved mechanisms to keep communities together would be top of my list of reasons. But I'm not seeing how you're moving from the existence of a cause for moral judgement being the way it is, to the existence of a moral absolute. There's an evolutionary reason why we tend to like junk food, and tend to turn our noses up a boiled veg. It's because we're programmed to seek out high energy return foods. Now, does that make eating junk food mandatory? Is it now the case that we 'must' eat junk food, because we've identified the biological cause of the general preference for it?
I've not doubt that there is some biological basis behind our feelings on moral matters. But there's some biological basis behind all of our feelings and motivations, but that doesn't mean they're all the same, any more than we all have blue eyes. — Isaac
Nothing is absolutely right or wrong.
— Terrapin Station
You completely miss the boomerang effect of this, don't you. And it's not trivial. Indeed it's a linchpin of your argument. Like this:
1) If nothing is absolutely right or wrong, then no moral proposition is absolutely right, or wrong.
2) Nothing is absolutely right or wrong.
3) No moral proposition is absolutely right, or wrong.
But 2) is just an unsupported claim. The syllogism is valid, just not true. But why would you care, after all, nothing is absolutely true or false? You can have what you want. Btw, does everyone benefit from this argument of yours? Or does it only work for you? — tim wood
The evolution of morality exists to hold communities together because it was the moral factor that constructed them, that they were based on. — Brett
There's an evolutionary reason why we tend to like junk food, and tend to turn our noses up a boiled veg. It's because we're programmed to seek out high energy return foods. Now, does that make eating junk food mandatory? Is it now the case that we 'must' eat junk food, because we've identified the biological cause of the general preference for it? — Isaac
How does the language of moral relativism work? — Rank Amateur
I think we eat junk food because it’s easy. We dont need junk food to give us a high energy return when we gave other food that we’ve eaten for years. — Brett
What morality is? Don’t be so arrogant. If it doesn’t have a purpose, what it’s good for, then why would it exist? — Brett
If it doesn’t have a purpose, what it’s good for, then why would it exist? — Brett
So you think you can work out what morality is with no context? — Brett
If instead of junk food you said morality, and that our survival and successful evolution was dependent on ideas of morality that evolved and held together our co-operative communities, then yes, we must keep morality intact today, because without it we would lose the glue that holds communities together. — Brett
Why "no context"? Who is proposing anything like that? — Terrapin Station
I don't understand why, in a debate about moral relativism, you've started asking me questions as if I support continued practice of FGM. — Isaac
I'm pointing out that the problem with claiming objective moral laws is that your biases inevitably cloud them. They just become your own set of personal bugbears anyway, only with an undeserved gloss of objectivity over them. — Isaac
And so far no one has been able to say what morality is — Brett
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