Conscious experience is the source of morals ... because something is moral/immoral if it causes happiness/unhappiness and happiness/unhappiness only exists where there's conscious experience.

Just because one may not be aware of the ground, does not mean that there is none. Just because one may not be capable of arguing for their belief, it does not follow that it is not well-grounded. Just because one may be able to argue for their own belief, it does not follow that it is well-grounded. Coherency alone is insufficient for both, solid ground upon which to base subsequent inference and truth.
— creativesoul

Right. The point is that individuals may have roughly the same intuitions but they can be developed differently depending on cultural influences. If true, that’s relevant to the project of investigating the source of morals. — praxis

Ok. So, it seems that you're willing to accept the explanation in the terms I've put to use. My hesitance to invoke "intuition" is based upon it's lack of thorough definition/delineation. As mentioned earlier, and now that I have our agreement, I do not see how multiplying entities/conceptions is helpful here, especially if the framework being employed take take adequate account of all things called "intuition". Unless I'm missing something important in the explanation you've assented to, I think we can say that we agree, and that there is no need to invoke "moral intuition".

I would readily agree that there are simple moral thought/belief common to all humans who eventually learn language.

I would not agree that one can acquire knowledge of morals without evidence.

I would not agree that one can acquire knowledge of morals without evidence. — creativesoul

I’m not sure what you mean by this.

That was an element/tenet of certain 'isms' in a link within the wiki page you linked us to.

Moral intuition was characterized as moral knowledge acquired without evidence. I cannot agree to that.

Maybe that makes sense in context?

Moral intuition was characterized as moral knowledge acquired without evidence. I cannot agree to that.
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praxis
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Maybe that makes sense in context? — praxis

I'm listening.

Evolutionarily... I would think that amoebas are incapable of either. — Merkwurdichliebe

Wouldn't be much of an experience to be a single celled organism...

A socially conditioned moral sensibility that is not properly understood by the individual could be a case of moral dumbfounding. That would be the result of one's own ignorance regarding the adoptive morally relevant portion of her/his/their initial(original - pre-reflective) worldview.

My issue also lies with evidence. All evidence exists in it's entirety prior to being used as evidence. There is no knowledge that is moral in kind(called "moral knowledge") that is completely devoid of pre-existing thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable thought, belief, and/or behaviour.

Such thought/belief begins long prior to our ability to use instances thereof as evidence. Our evidence is behaviour including but not limited to language use. Language allows us to acquire knowledge of that which existed in it's entirety prior to our naming it. Some of those things are themselves existentially dependent upon language use. Some are not.

Moral knowledge without evidence - by my lights - would be existentially dependent upon a creature that acquires knowledge of unacceptable/acceptable thought, belief, and/or behaviour and does so - somehow - without ever having any experience. It doesn't make much sense to me, and my foundation could not be any stronger as far as I know.

All moral knowledge is existentially dependent upon complex language use. All complex language use is existentially dependent upon experience. All moral knowledge is as well.

That's the short of it!

:cool:

A socially conditioned moral sensibility that is not properly understood by the individual could be a case of moral dumbfounding. That would be the result of one's own ignorance regarding the adoptive morally relevant portion of her/his/their initial(original - pre-reflective) worldview. — creativesoul

Ignorance of conditions (instinct) or conditioning (early development), I would guess.

Both, if it makes sense at all. I'm not sold on it.

What's the criterion for sufficiency/adequacy? I mean how much ignorance does it take to be called "morally dumbfounded"?

We certainly do not demand omniscience as the only possibility for avoiding being dumfounded, do we?

I suggest you try some of the harvard.edu implicit association tests to maybe get a feel for your own ignorance:
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html

I suggest that we keep the discussion about the content and not the authors. That's never a good sign. Disappointing.

I understand if it doesn’t interest you. The results are typically surprising.

Moral intuition is the product of a pre-existing worldview replete with thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable thought, belief, and/or behaviour. Habits of thought/belief are habits of mind. Habits of mind yield consequences. Intuition is a consequence of previously formed and re-formed thought/belief. — creativesoul

Couldn't say it better.

I've seen several different notions of 'moral judgment'. On my view, all moral judgments are about what's counts as either acceptable or unacceptable behaviour. It is to think, believe, and/or say that some specific thought, belief, and/or behaviour is one or the other(acceptable/unacceptable). — creativesoul

It is important to address how moral judgement can, in some cases, become a result of irrational intuition/feeling. It is here that we find the possibility of moral dumbfounding, in that the operation of irrational feeling/intuition cannot be adequately rationalized in terms of thought/belief. I use the example of Socrates to show that despite all the reasons he provides to justify his moral obligation to drink the hemlock, in the eyes of Athens (qua. the entity that ethically opposes Socrates), his rationale is rather unintelligible and quite insane.

Wouldn't be much of an experience to be a single celled organism... — creativesoul

Seems like all they really do is masturbate. :lol:

No mass debates?

We certainly do not demand omniscience as the only possibility for avoiding being dumfounded, do we? — creativesoul

Imo. . .moral dumbfounding is determined by an independent agent from the one that is morally dumbfounded. The morally dumbfound is so hopelessly inured in his moral conviction that there is nothing in existence that can tell against it. From the outside, we can say he is ridiculous, but to him, every ridiculous thing he says makes sense to him.

only mass redebates

Moral intuition was characterized as moral knowledge acquired without evidence. — creativesoul

Moral feeling/intuition comes after thought/belief that is moral in kind. This is a part of the process of the internalization of ethical conditioning. At a certain level of exposure to particular ethical thought/belief, it becomes ingrained and unconscious to a degree - habitual.

I'd rather a massive rebate! :wink:

:rofl:

Hmm.. how about this: morals are advice that is given out of concern for another. So morals originate from compassion, and are 'certified' through the nature of change they bring. (There's probably a better way of expressing that idea.)

Conscious experience is the source of morals ... because something is moral/immoral if it causes happiness/unhappiness and happiness/unhappiness only exists where there's conscious experience. — luckswallowsall

We have already reconciled this issue over the first twenty pages of excrutiating debate. Simply follow the comments of praxis, creativesoul, and Merkwurdichliebe, and you can see how your claim fits in.

Hmm.. how about this: morals are advice that is given out of concern for another. So morals originate from compassion, and are 'certified' through the nature of change they bring. (There's probably a better way of expressing that idea.) — Couchyam

Join the discussion.

So far we have discovered many necessary but insufficient sources of morals. It cannot be pinned down to one thing . . . We have entered into deeper examinations of societal conditioning as ethical authority, as well as the internalization of that ethical conditioning in both thought/belief and feeling/intuition that is moral in kind. I would categorize compassion under moral feeling/intuition.

(Add. And although one can behave compassionately at the primitive level of prelinguistic thought/belief, it does not become moral in kind until it is mediated by thought/belief that is moral in kind...here in the present conversation, it would be highly relevant to discuss compassion-as-feeling/intuition in the terms of moral thought/belief.)

The notion that morals are a matter of: "giving advice out of concern", implies an ethical authority, and can be explained as a part of the dynamic of societal conditioning. It can be further examined in the light of the authority, in this case, the one that assumes the role of the ethical superior, whose advice is only incidental. But, what is important here, is that which makes him authority - that he imposes "compassion" on the inferior as the ethical right, an assumption that compassion is good to give, to accept, and to be.

@praxis
@creativesoul

I can't wait to compile the relevant posts of this discussion. We have made it to 30 pages in less than a month, and for the most, we've not been bogged down in rhetorical bullshit (thanks to the methodology of creative soul).

The last statement seems to be claiming or at least has the consequence of claiming that all evaluations of primitive thought/belief are primarily acquired from culture, and not as a result of the primitive thought/belief. — creativesoul

So, on my view all moral thought/belief is thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour. If the converse is also true, if all thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour is moral thought/belief, then we arrive at moral thought/belief prior to language. However, morals are quite a bit different than mere moral thought/belief.

The social aspect is certainly relevant. — creativesoul

A central point.

Moral dumbfounding is believed by some to be evidence for moral intuition.
— praxis

I'd have to see that argument. :wink: — creativesoul

My hypothesis: particular moral intuitions/feelings can be considered morally dumbfounded in certain relations between independent ethical agents.

I can't wait to compile the relevant posts of this discussion. We have made it to 30 pages in less than a month, and for the most, we've not been bogged down in rhetorical bullshit (thanks to the methodology of creative soul). — Merkwurdichliebe

I haven't read most of what creativesoul wrote. What would you succinctly say that he gives as the source of morals?