Keeping a past record seems little more than archiving. If we want to know what's moral according to divine rule we'd be statistically better off consulting the current crop of religious cults than the written record of the previous c — Isaac

All my favorite philosophers are dead. Their accounts of the source of morality are more satisfying to me than those put forth by living writers. I would think Wayfarer could make a similar argument.

All my favorite philosophers are dead. Their accounts of the source of morality are more satisfying to me than those put forth by living writers. I would think Wayfarer could make a similar argument. — Joshs

An argument for preference, yes. The claim I took issue with was about the difficulties of not using religious doctrine.

That would be a bit like me claiming it was generally difficult to see how society could live without Talisker because it's my favourite whiskey. I would find it hard, but I've no difficulty understanding how society at large wouldn't.

There's thousands of cultists, gurus, prophets and Messiahs right now. You (or @Wayfarer) may not personally like what any of them have to say, but that doesn't make it hard to see how morality from divine revelation could work without religious doctrine. On the contrary, it's easy to see how, we just need to ask one of thousands of cultists, gurus, prophets and Messiahs we have with us right now what's morally right and what's immoral.

Well Pleasure doesn't equate to Happiness and Happiness is an essential metric for our well being.
The Denial of a Pleasurable moment or activity is not always a moral or immoral act. So a kid crying or becoming sad is not an absolute metric.
i.e. denying a kid to play with matches or a wall socket or near a busy street may frustrate it but it is totally moral and justified.
What makes the denial of a Pleasurable moment moral or immoral depends on the situation.
Did that kid had any other sweets that day/week etc? Did we promise it as a reward for something, are other kids allowed to have some but that kid is not? etc.
So denying a child sweets can easily be immoral based on the specific situation.

I can give you a point here on the idea of timescale...since "situation" includes facts in different points in time that we need to include in our our evaluations.

Now Inflicting Harm is also not an absolute metric for morality/immorality or against the well being in general.
i.e. If I kill a murderer right before he manages to kill my wife....I did harm a person but can we say I did an immoral act. No, because an act that is in favor of the well being of our society and its members is moral by definition.
You will point out that the murderer was also a member of this society and that is true. But he is also an agent that undermines the well being of every other member and we need to address and solve the problem.

Yeah, I think morality is probably "merely" a socially agreed/ arguable set of subjective values BUT those subjective values don't come from nowhere. First of all, the historical movements that substantiated the Christian, pagan, classical, and other moral systems were in response to real problems. Like after the dawn of civilization, when human beings (y'know those pillaging, angry apes) had to live with each other in cities and towns with (ideally) a social order that did not have constant murder and theft, etc. you needed ways for people to live together in (relative) peace. Hence the emergence of religions and movements with moral focuses and messages, like monotheism (Zoroaster, Judaism), Confucianism, Buddhism, Jainism, etc.. Whereas before we were like Adam and Eve in the garden right? You just eat when your hungry and sleep with people when your aroused even if you have to attain such things by force, there is no guilt or knowledge of good and evil until your culture develops it. (But hey, now that some cultures have, I have less reason to worry that someone from the next town over is just gonna burn my house and take my stuff).

One thing I'm very curious about with respect to objective morality, is game theory. The logic/ science behind decision making is liable to have some underlying say as to which sets of moral principles are most prudent. Some existing moral systems will adhere to this better than others, but none perfectly in my current estimation.

(I also really like Nietzsche as a moral philosopher).

If I kill a murderer right before he manages to kill my wife....I did harm a person but can we say I did an immoral act. No, because an act that is in favor of the well being of our society and its members is moral by definition. — Nickolasgaspar

Right. So for any moral choice, one might say (using your 'metrics'). "Look, see how much harm action X is doing, it's surely immoral".

But someone else might say, using the exact same metrics, " Ah, you just wait another 20 years, you'll find that society as a whole has benefitted from allowing/encouraging action X more than enough to make up for the temporary harm it did"

Then someone else might say, using the exact same metrics, " Ah, you just wait another 200 years, you'll find that society as a whole has been harmed by allowing/encouraging action X more than that temporary benefit the first 20 years allowed us"

...and so on.

Rendering your 'metrics' utterly useless as means by which we can make morality objective.

I think that's because under Scotty from Marketing, morality has been suspended in Oz. — Tom Storm

If anyone is interested, there are other versions on the web which might be accessible there in Timbuktu.

If anyone is interested, there are other versions on the web which might be accessible there in Timbuktu. — T Clark

The relevant chapter of the Handbook of moral development is also available online here

https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/campuspress.yale.edu/dist/f/1145/files/2017/10/Wynn-Bloom-Moral-Handbook-Chapter-2013-14pwpor.pdf

And back to Kant. He gave his categorical imperative three formulations. I think this one is particularly relevant to this discussion - "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." He doesn't say that moral acts are universal laws. He says that we should will that they become universal laws. We should act as if they are. Reminds me of a poem I love by Carl Dennis, "As If." Here's an excerpt:

...You get up and wash
And come to breakfast served by a woman who smiles
As if you're first on her short list of wonders,
And you greet her as if she's first on yours.
Then you're off to school to fulfill your promise
To lose yourself for once in your teaching
And forget the clock facing your desk. Time to behave
As if the sun's standing still in a painted sky
And the day isn't a page in a one-page notebook
To be filled by sundown or never filled,
First the lines and then the margins,
The words jammed in till no white shows.

Here's a link to the entire poem if you're interested.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=39050

Which brings to mind another poem - "The Black Cottage" by Robert Frost, which I've quoted here previously many times:

For, dear me, why abandon a belief
Merely because it ceases to be true.
Cling to it long enough, and not a doubt
It will turn true again, for so it goes.
Most of the change we think we see in life
Is due to truths being in and out of favour.

Again, a link to the whole poem.

https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-black-cottage/

The formulation of the categorical imperative I like more is - "Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end." He claims that the three formulations are equivalent, but they don't seem that way to me. This seems similar to the Golden Rule. I wouldn't mind if that were absolute. I'm willing to "will that it should become a universal law."

The relevant chapter of the Handbook of moral development is also available online here

https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/campuspress.yale.edu/dist/f/1145/files/2017/10/Wynn-Bloom-Moral-Handbook-Chapter-2013-14pwpor.pdf — Isaac

Thank you.

How would you demonstrate, for instance, that rape is wrong based on moral realism? — Tom Storm

The same way a theist demonstrates the existence of his diety. He doesn't. Such is a foundational faith statement, from which all sorts of conclusions derive.

I'd submit without that faith foundation, nihilism and amoralism results.

You've got to have faith in something I suppose.

I'd submit without that faith foundation, nihilism and amoralism results. — Hanover

Certainly not an uncommon assertion. Would you class secular humanism as foundational?

But someone else might say, using the exact same metrics, " Ah, you just wait another 20 years, you'll find that society as a whole has benefitted from allowing/encouraging action X more than enough to make up for the temporary harm it did" — Isaac

- I am not here to promote my moral framework as flawless or absolutely true. I do appreciate your reasonable doubts and questions and I am far from sure that my morale framework includes all possible scenarios.
The fact is that in my conversations and my personal pondering on the topic I have never found an example where our objective evaluation can be suspended.
This is why I challenge my position by asking examples from you. Maybe you will be able to find an exception to the rule...and if I find some more then the rule stops being a rule after all.

Now let me address your reasonable scenario.
First of all lets assume that future societies do manage to find out that a currently "immoral" practice X does promote the well being of individual members and society's as a whole in the near or far future.
(like the example you gave with the sweets).
Such a "discovery" would be a problem for Absolute Morality, not Situational(objective) Morality....and let me explain.
The specific moral judgement that identified that practice "immoral" was the product of current available facts ,current limited knowledge, interpreted and evaluated by the principle of Well being.
So our conclusion was based on Objective Knowledge(shared and accessible by everyone) at our time.
New evidence forced a new objective evaluation that lead to a new conclusion. That doesn't mean that our judgement was not a product of an objective evaluation..right?
i.e. its like the geocentric vs the heliocentric model in science. Objective facts at that time forced people to accept geocentricism while future evidence pointed to a new objectively correct framework. Both models were and are based on Objective observations of their periods respectfully.

Now I can accept the possibility of your scenario but we need to agree that no immoral behavior against a specific population or members of a society can be justified as moral just because other larger populations (in future or contemporary) are benefited by it.
Slavery can be used as an example for this argument. Slavery was one of the main practices that enabled the accumulation of huge capitals thus allowed the transition of National economies from Mercantilistic to Capitalistic principles.
Even if we assumed that capitalism is a successful economical system, we can never justify the practice of slavery as moral.

So I am not sure that my metrics or the principles behind Secular Morality and Situationalism can be demonstrated wrong based on future evidence. The judgement always remains Objective!

I believe morality applies to existence itself, not just human beings. Our own human morality comes from this. — Philosophim

Rocks are neither good nor bad. Morality is about what we should do around others. Hence, your view is wrong.

And back to Kant. He gave his categorical imperative three formulations. I think this one is particularly relevant to this discussion - "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." — T Clark

Which leads us to telling the Nazi's where the Jews are hiding if we know. God forbid we should ever usher in lying.

Rocks are neither good nor bad. Morality is about what we should do around others. Hence, your view is wrong. — Banno

I have not fully written out the morality I'm speaking of. It is a little more than "rocks make bad choices" :) I will likely write up a forum post on it once Bob Ross and I are done discussing knowledge. I only have time and energy right now for one serious topic, and currently, that's it. When I finally write it up, I look forward to your critiques.

I think the question is, is there any true good? Is there anything which is unconditionally good, not a matter of either social convention or individual conviction? I don't know if that automatically entails absolutism - the requirement is simply for some good that is not simply a matter of individual or social judgement. And that seems a very hard thing to discern sans a religious doctrine. — Wayfarer

So an unconditional good is something you would find, something you would come across out in the world.

But that is not how moral statements work. They do not say how things are, but how things ought to be. Their direction of fit is the reverse of what you propose.

That's the problem, raised in our previous conversation, with suggesting that a religious doctrine is central: you must then choose a doctrine; the choice remains yours, not god's.

All the religious approach does is move the decision from "what ought I do now?" to "which creed should I follow?". The fact of moral choice remains yours.

Morality is the abstract concept that describes specific behavior capable to promote the well being of Society and its individual members — Nickolasgaspar

The naturalistic fallacy again.

Why ought we promote the wellbeing of society?

There are moral systems that say the opposite; that what is right is the sovereignty of the individual, even at the expense of the greater good of society.

The point here is not to make a choice between these competing systems, but to realise that the good is not reducible to something else, it is neither the wellbeing of society not individual autonomy.

Despite that,

So the above examples prove that absolute moral declarations are factually wrong statements and Situational ethics is the best way we have to make objective moral evaluations for every act. — Nickolasgaspar

yes, ethics is far too complicated to have an algorithmic solution. Hence, the only viable response is to seek to make good decisions; to make oneself a better person.

Handbook of moral development — Isaac

The naturalistic fallacy remains: that babies act in a certain way does not imply that you ought also act in a certain way.

All the religious approach does is move the decision form "what ought I do now?" to "which creed should I follow?". The fact of moral choice remains yours. — Banno

So important: even within the one creed, we only ever encounter the subjective preferences of believers - hence we see Baptist Protestants who may either hate gays, or fly a rainbow flag for Jesus. Even the term 'moderate Islam' reveals the human choices and construction work inherent in any spiritual belief.

Existentialists would say that accepting a creed as one's moral guide is an act of bad faith.

Faith as bad faith. Go figure.

Faith as bad faith. Go figure. — Banno

It has a nice ring to it.

The naturalistic fallacy again. — Banno

Its a Pragmatic Necessity, no a fallacy. There is a huge difference there.

-"Why ought we promote the wellbeing of society?"
- Societies that do well inevitably promote the well being of its individuals.

There are moral systems that say the opposite; that what is right is the sovereignty of the individual, even at the expense of the greater good of society. — Banno

I don't know what sovereignty has to do with the moral evaluation of behavior between human beings.
We are not addressing who has the power in a society or how it is structured and organized.
We are talking about what is morality and what it evaluates.


-"The point here is not to make a choice between these competing systems, but to realise that the good is not reducible to something else, it is neither the wellbeing of society not individual autonomy. "

Morality has to do with us evaluating our interactions and how our actions promote specific metrics that favor the well being in a society.
BY DEFINITION morality refers to the evaluation of acts that affect members in a society!
i.e. Most people identify stealing as an immoral act. Stealing by definition demands the act of taking things from other members of your society.
You will need an act to affect others in order to carry a moral value.
Eating a sandwich is a morally neutral act....eating other people's sandwiches without their consent is an immoral act.

So when our acts do not promote the well being of our society and the members in it, we must expect a kick back from them
i.e lets say I manage to expand my well being by stealing and tricking other people. My society will demand justice and take actions that will affect my well being.(put me in jail).
Can you see now how other members and your society as a whole are linked in this evaluation process?

Rocks are neither good nor bad. Morality is about what we should do around others. Hence, your view is wrong. — Banno

-Ok I c you get which process enables the need of moral evaluations. So what exactly is you objection?
Maybe I misunderstood your argument.

Morality has to do with us evaluating our interactions and how our actions promote specific metrics that favor the well being in a society. — Nickolasgaspar

Surely this is only the case if you already accept a presupposition that there are no transcendent foundations for morality and that moral realism is unrealistic unless we agree to set a goal (an inter-subjective choice) and base morality on that goal, e.g., wellbeing. The reason to do this is pragmatic (the adjective not the philosophy) and eminently contestable.

btw we don't "ought" to behave in a specific way!(promote our well being).
We descent from individuals who for thousands of years survived through organizing themselves in functional societies. Those societies became functional due to specific qualities and characteristics displayed by the behavior of their members.

Morality has to do with us evaluating our interactions and how our actions promote specific metrics that favor the well being in a society. — Nickolasgaspar

Again, you have here claimed that the wellbeing of society is what we ought do.

Why?

You havn't grounded your moral system, just assumed it.

BY DEFINITION morality refers to the evaluation of acts that affect members in a society! — Nickolasgaspar

Well, no, it doesn't. Morality is about what one ought to do.

Perhaps we ought abandon the notion of society and instead return to living as wild, individual beasts. Or perhaps for the good of the planet we ought eliminate humanity altogether.

You've skipped from an is to an ought, without providing a justification. That we are social animals does not imply that we ought to be.

This is basic ethical theory. Ought be obvious... :wink:

So an unconditional good is something you would find, something you would come across out in the world. — Banno

There is a phrase that you will find in the sayings of mystical lore, 'the good that has no opposite'. The thrust of this is that what we normally consider good is always part of a pair - that is, good fortune, good luck, good health, and so on, are always paired with their opposites, in that either is possible. What is good always comes with the possibility of what is bad - good health and good fortune are with us only for so long as their opposites do not prevail.

The good that has no opposite is a good that is not subject to vicissitudes. That is what, I think, religious teachings intend to convey. Does it exist 'out in the world'? It's not a species of animal or some form of natural phenomena. But I think, for instance, the kind of unconditional commitment to charity that is found in charitable organisations indicates a belief in such principles.

Would you class secular humanism as foundational? — Tom Storm

'Secular' means 'excluding religion'. So you're left with something like the common good, what works, greatest good for greatest number, or (here's a favourite) 'evolutionarily advantageous'.

I think there are ethical theorists who develop philosophies on such a basis - John Rawls, I believe, and probably also Peter Singer. But I've always had confidence that there is an unconditional good, and if that makes me religious, then so be it.

But I think, for instance, the kind of unconditional commitment to charity that is found in charitable organisations indicates a belief in such principles. — Wayfarer

Good for you. So what.

It remains that the choice of creed is yours. It remains that you cannot just dump your moral responsibility on to god, any more than @Nickolasgaspar can dump it on the wellbeing of society.

Your systems have a gapping hole in them.

Good for you. So what. — Banno

So, it addresses the question, although I do understand that your stereotyping contempt of anything you categorise as 'religious' has no gapps in it whatever.

Come on, Wayfarer, you can do better than a feeble ad hom.

My stereotyping contempt has nothing to do with the gap in your argument, beyond my finding it amusing.

Again, it remains that you have to choose your creed. Unless you rely on your creed to decide your creed for you...