I think the basic problem here is in the polarizing of "social-interaction" and "biological world." You can't really separate the two. They are mutually dependent.

we only have dispositions for or against any behavior in the biological world [rather than the social-interaction world]. — Terrapin Station

I'm interpreting "disposition" as instinct or inherent moral intuition, and "social-interaction" as cultural order (with its various concepts and beliefs). So what you appear to be claiming is that "social-interaction" or aspects of culture cannot become intuitive. That is simply not true.

Of course, I may not be interpreting what you've written correctly.

I give up on this conversation :( — Devans99

Don't give up, persist and if necessary, prevail.

A perspective seeking to exit the merry-go-round — javra

Exactly!

The Source of Morals.

Per my education, and subject to correction, this nutshell sketch. The original virtues were the virtue of the warrior king winning his wars - and protecting or bringing glory to himself and his people or both. This devolved to the idea of the king who was good even if he lost, good in terms of his other actions or his intentions. And this to the idea of the good man, good as to both actions and intentions, with a slow evolution to considerations of intentions.

The time frame from inclusive of the Homeric ideals, of Achilles and Odysseus, and earlier, through to Kant and his deontology, the categorical imperative. Still a work in progress, though apparently and for the most an argument between Utilitarianism and Deontology, which is to say an argument that on one side is a little older than the US, at around 1760, and on the other, the mid-1800s.

The Greek virtues of Aristotelian balance, Stoicism, and Epicurean acceptance were more essentially attitudinal than behavioral. Please, correction/refinement welcome! — tim wood

A perspective seeking to exit the merry-go-round:

Suppose that all our “dos” are driven by “wants” … this including our doing of reasoning: since wants are emotive, as per Hume, reasoning is foundationally driven by underlying desires. Further suppose that our wants are in search of a resolution to that wanted. Reasoning, then, is arguably an optimal means of discovering how to best obtain and thereby satisfy our wants.

Given any degree of realism (here not confused with physicalism), there will then be constraints to how these wants can obtain their sought after aim of resolution. These constraints will then—in some way or another—(pre)determine which actions can factually satisfy our wants and which actions (though intending to so satisfy) cannot.

Those behaviors that factually satisfy our wants will then be logically correct means of so satisfying. They will be the right behaviors for us. And, since what we want is for our wants to be satisfied, right behaviors will constitute good, beneficial, behaviors for us. That aim, whatever it might be, that satisfies all our wants will then be conceptualized by us as complete good: “the Good” as Plato worded it.

And vice versa: all our intentions and subsequent acts to satisfy our wants that are fallaciously conceived to so satisfy our wants will then be wrong behaviors to engage in—for they always lead to frustrated wants and, in due measure, suffering. They will be deemed to be bad behaviors by us for this very reason.

To the same degree that there occur universal and fundamental wants among all humans (or mammals, or life in general), there will then also logically result aims that are universally good to that cohort considered. Being universally good, these aims will hold existential presence in manners that are impartial to the (sometimes fallacious/wrong) intentions of individual beings to satisfy their wants. In this sense, then, this universally good aim (or maybe aims) shall then, by certain definitions, be validly labeled that which is objectively good.

Within this general train of thought, then, subjective want-driven good entails there being some objective good—which can be expressed as “that end which satisfies all wants”—that, whether or not obtainable within our current lifetime in complete form, is nevertheless pursued by all subjective beings.

Discerning what this objective good is can itself be a fallacy of reasoning (a wrong/bad appraisal) or a discovery of what is in fact true (a right/good appraisal). Disparity between discernments of what is objectively good then leads to divergent ethical norms—as well as to, at times, what are labeled acts of evil by the society at large.

***This hypothesis is to illustrate that there is no entailed logical contradiction between subjective good/bad and objective good/bad.

As to Hume’s dilemma when looked at from this offered vantage: figure out what the logically and factually correct aim is that satisfies your wants (this factually correct aim being an “is) and then you logically derive what should be done to get there (this being an “ought”) … thereby deriving ought from is.

So, here, good and bad are determined by wants which naturally entail their own resolution as aim/goal--and this within the constraints of some form of realism. — javra

:up: :up:
Pay attention you saps, this is what philosophy looks like.

Per my education, and subject to correction, this nutshell sketch. The original virtues were the virtue of the warrior king winning his wars - and protecting or bringing glory to himself and his people or both. This devolved to the idea of the king who was good even if he lost, good in terms of his other actions or his intentions. And this to the idea of the good man, good as to both actions and intentions, with a slow evolution to considerations of intentions. — tim wood

Allow me to go further...

The warrior king ("the Homeric ideals, of Achilles and Odysseus, and earlier) is the depiction of the ethical ideal. The individual found his ethical reality in relation to the warrior king, and the victory of the warrior king signified an ethical victory for the individual. The stage of "considerations of intentions" (Kants contribution, which resolved Hume's dilemma), marks the completion of the dialectical movement into subjectivity for the ethical consciousness (the conscience).

Beforehand, the ethical reality of the individual was mediated through the warrior king, so that, in effect, the ethical existence of the individual was negated. The indirect relation of the individual to the ethical was expressed in depictions of the warrior king as tragic hero, who must make the ultimate sacrifice to save the world. After, the cultural movement into a subjective awareness, the individual no long related vicariously to ethical existence through the victories of the warrior king, but became directly related to the ethical as the responsible moral agent. This dialectical shift of culture into a subjectively dominated conscience rendered the ethical into a matter of personal choice, an individual conviction rather than a conviction determined directly by cultural identity (as embodied by the warrior king).

In gaining the freedom of subjective conscience the nobility of the king, by which the individual ethically oriented himself, was lost. This was alluded to in Nietszche's "death of God" and "slave revolt". After the world historic contribution of Kant, the ethical became nothing but the right to individual opinion.

I don't believe that biology and neuroscience are advanced enough. No neuroscientist or biologist could examine human tissues and determine why some people are, for example, conservative and others are liberal. — praxis

I don't think we're that advanced, either. But the quote above is an example of the fallacy of moving the goalposts. I never suggested, or never meant to suggest, that. It's not all or nothing, and an explanation which goes some way towards explaining the source of morality is better than no explanation at all, or a bad explanation.

I stand by my claim that your objection to what you see as a problem with my explanation, namely your assertion that it doesn't explain the divergence of moral judgements, is a faux-problem. It's not a problem with my explanation, it's a problem you have with it. You haven't justified your assertion that my explanation doesn't account for what you assert it doesn't account for, and I've said enough on the matter to have resolved the problem you're having. But you've persisted in your assertions regardless, and our exchange broke down when you made what I consider to be false claims that I hadn't explained something, and you then tried to get me to go back and quote myself or repeat myself, which I objected to doing on the basis that it's unnecessary, and because I judge it to be an evasion of responsibility on your part, or, at worst, just a debate tactic.

No one here can provide a perfect or complete explanation, so that's no kind of objection. And pointing to very specific things that my explanation can't account for in detail, and never claimed to be able to account for, doesn't justify rejecting what I have actually said.

What I have actually said is that moral judgement is founded in emotion, and emotion can be explained (not perfectly!) through neuroscience. The person who judges cannibalism to be wrong would have experienced negative emotions about cannibalism which swayed his moral judgement, and the person who judges nothing to be wrong with cannibalism would not have had that experience. Whether or not they're clones is irrelevant. The clone thing was a result of a misunderstanding you had about what my position entails. They would feel differently about it, and would have different moral judgements as a result, and this can be explained (not perfectly!) through neuroscience.

I don't have a burden to repeat these explanations endlessly to someone who denies that I've made them, and I don't have a burden to justify claims that I've never made.

I asked you to be specific about what you can't make sense of/why you can't make sense of it. Pretty much quoting the whole thing isn't being specific about what you can't make sense of/why you can't make sense of it. I obviously don't think I said anything difficult to comprehend. I obviously don't think I said anything nonsensical, etc. So how is it supposed to be obvious to me what you would have difficulty with?

Sure, so start with the first phrase you quoted.

"If you substitute those terms in what I wrote"

You are not familiar with the idea of substituting one set of terms for another?

Or did you quote that part superfluously? I mean, I hope we don't need to start with explaining words like "if," or combinations like "If you" etc. — Terrapin Station

:lol:

. They are mutually dependent. — praxis

"Mutually dependent" doesn't mean "they're identical so that we can't possibly separate them" does it? After all, if it meant that, we'd not even be able to say that x and y are mutually dependent, because x would be identical to y and it would be impossible to identify an x versus a y.

For example, it makes sense to say that evaporation and precipitation are mutually dependent. It doesn't make sense to say that evaporation and evaporation are mutually dependent. Evaporation and precipitation are mutually dependent, but they're not the same thing. We can identify one, we can talk about properties with one that make it non-identical to the other (after all, they must have some non-identical properties or they would be identical and we'd not be able to talk about mutual dependence), even though they're mutually dependent. Conflating the two just won't do if we're doing meteorology, climatology, etc.

prevail — Merkwurdichliebe

:brow:

But that's impossible.

Morality, I believe, had an origin. We now consider it distinct from its source i.e. it has become a subject in itself. The problem is (at least for me) we haven't taken the trouble to trace morality back to its origins.

What could be the beginnings of morality?

As I see it morality is ''simply'' about how you treat others. From what I've observed there is no need for morality within a family or community and so on. We ''automatically'' treat family, friends and anybody we bond with in a good way.

There are two ways of viewing this state of affairs:

1. You subdue your ego and put others before yourself. In effect you work by the principle ''others before me''.

2. You expand what you identify as self. The family is basically the self, dilated. Likewise a group of friends, a community, etc. are extensions of the self/your ego. I am ''we''.

Morality, it seems, has its origins in knowledge of the unity of humanity and by extrapolation, if you factor animal rights and environmental awareness, the unity of all life itself.

Are you really saying anything other than, "altruism is good", and, "morality should be about altruism"? I doubt it, and I don't think that that sort of thing is a good example of critical thinking skills at work.

Are you really saying anything other than, "altruism is good", and, "morality should be about altruism"? I doubt it, and I don't think that that sort of thing is a good example of critical thinking skills at work. — S

What is morality about then? It's a social thing isn't it? What would one person do with morality?

We ''automatically'' treat family, friends and anybody we bond with in a good way. — TheMadFool

I'd (unfortunately) guess that most families wouldn't actually agree with that.

What is morality about then? It's a social thing isn't it? What would one person do with morality? — TheMadFool

Morality is about right and wrong, good and bad. Too many people on this forum confuse their own judgement about what's good with what morality is. There's a whole debate in ethics between individualism and egoism, on the one hand, and their opposites in collectivism and altruism, on the other. Like I said, it is not a good example of applying critical thinking skills to jump ahead and just assume that whatever side of that debate you are more sympathetic towards is what morality is all about.

I am one person. What I'd do with morality is seek to improve my character.

I am one person. What I'd do with morality is seek to improve my character — S

Whywould you do that? In which world does character have any moral value except in a social setting?

Why would you do that? In which world does character have any moral value except in a social setting? — TheMadFool

That would be this world. I would do that because it matters to me. It has moral value to me.

I'd (unfortunately) guess that most families wouldn't actually agree with that.
2h — Terrapin Station

How right you are but that doesn't negate what I said about morality being essentially a social phenomenon explicable with recognizing some form of unity among peoples. In essence we recognize the other as just another token of ourselves and that makes us moral.

That would be this world. I would do that because it matters to me. — S

I appreciate the thought. I guess it makes sense to be good to yourself. This doesn't make complete sense to me though. Can you explain to me how a world populated by one single sentient being can have any moral dimension?

Allow me to go further... — Merkwurdichliebe

Indeed you did. Thank you for it! Yours worth the read!

I said about morality being essentially a social phenomenon — TheMadFool

It's about social interaction, and social interaction influences it, but the social realm can't literally have moral stances, because we can't have moral stances in lieu of meaning, in lieu of behavioral preferences, etc. And those things only obtain as mental phenomena. There is no social mind.

I appreciate the thought. I guess it makes sense to be good to yourself. This doesn't make complete sense to me though. Can you explain to me how a world populated by one single sentient being can have any moral dimension? — TheMadFool

So, if you found yourself in that scenario, you wouldn't try to resolve one of the most famous moral dilemmas of all time: whether to be, or not to be?

I don't believe that biology and neuroscience are advanced enough. No neuroscientist or biologist could examine human tissues and determine why some people are, for example, conservative and others are liberal.
— praxis

I don't think we're that advanced, either. But the quote above is an example of the fallacy of moving the goalposts. I never suggested, or never meant to suggest, that. It's not all or nothing, and an explanation which goes some way towards explaining the source of morality is better than no explanation at all, or a bad explanation. — S

"Goes some way" is a rather euphemistic way of saying what? Inadequate.

I stand by my claim that your objection to what you see as a problem with my explanation, namely your assertion that it doesn't explain the divergence of moral judgements, is a faux-problem. It's not a problem with my explanation, it's a problem you have with it. — S

Inadequacy or 'going some way' is problematic in its deficiency. Clearly that's not a problem for you, and yes, it's a problem for me, and anyone else who is interested in an explanation that goes further than "some way."

What I have actually said is that moral judgement is founded in emotion, and emotion can be explained (not perfectly!) through neuroscience. — S

I'm not sure why you believe that emotions are any less dependent on culture than morals, or that neuroscience can 'adequately' explain emotion. Do you think that we're born with a full set of emotions or something? That we have, for instance, an inherent sense of schadenfreude?

Biological affect is theorized to consist of two basic dimensions, namely pleasure vs. displeasure and high arousal vs. low arousal. How these feelings are interpreted in different circumstances conforms to a conceptual framework, a framework imparted to us by our culture.

The person who judges cannibalism to be wrong would have experienced negative emotions about cannibalism... — S

And the person who judges it to be right would have experienced positive emotions about it?

If a person can go either way depending on the culture that they're raised in, it would appear reasonable to conclude that nature & nurture is a more adequate explanation than mere nature.

Biological affect is theorized to consist of two basic dimensions, namely pleasure vs. displeasure and high arousal vs. low arousal. How these feelings are interpreted in different circumstances conforms to a conceptual framework, a framework imparted to us by our culture. — praxis

There is no explaining the source of morals without including the societal component. We are not only born with a predetermined biological makeup, but when one is born he also inherits the historically developed pathos of the society into which he is born. The Geneology of Morality explains it all.

How these feelings are interpreted in different circumstances conforms to a conceptual framework, a framework imparted to us by our culture. — praxis

How would you say that culture can impart a conceptual framework? How would you be able to literally acquire concepts from someone else?

The general term for the process is learning. But I suppose you could also say conditioning.

The general term for the process is learning. But I suppose you could also say conditioning. — praxis

Let's get more specific, though. How does someone literally learn a concept?

There’s a variety of methods.

You’re do that thing again where, if I knew what you’re point was, we could get there much quicker.

The point is that you can't literally be given concepts via social means.

You believe we can be given concepts. So I'm giving you a chance to support that view (against the objections that I'll forward as we go along).

The general term for the process is learning. But I suppose you could also say conditioning.
— praxis

Let's get more specific, though. How does someone literally learn a concept? — Terrapin Station

I'll provide you an answer to work with.

One way is by education. A process of communication between teacher and student in which the student appropriates the concept as presented by the teacher. But the student can only be said to have learned something if he knows it. And one knows something by remembering what they have appropriated. Finally, the individual cannot be said to know something until he shows it, by correctly communicating what he remembers.