Yes. I cannot make sense of

a world in which we don't have a moral obligation to prevent environmental catastrophe and population crash — Michael

I understand that an anti-natalist thinks otherwise, but I just think they are confused. Such a world would at least have to be a world without humans, and I am a human and so can have no perspective or judgement on such a world.

Such a world would at least have to be a world without humans — unenlightened

Why?

Unless "we have a moral obligation to prevent environmental catastrophe and population crash" is true by definition there is a possible world (with humans) in which we do not have a moral obligation to prevent environmental catastrophe and population crash.

And if it is true by definition then it's a case of ethical naturalism, in which case it's vulnerable to Moore's open question argument.

there is a possible world (with humans) in which we do not have a moral obligation to prevent environmental catastrophe and population crash. — Michael

You would have to make that believable to me. Your declaration does not do it without some understandable detail. Perhaps it is a world in which humans have a more significant afterlife such that survival in this world is unimportant - something like that? I'm struggling... one can say there is a possible world in which humans are descended from insects, but I don't think it makes much sense.

You would have to make that believable to me. — unenlightened

It simply follows from the fact that "we have a moral obligation to prevent environmental catastrophe and population crash" is not true by definition.

If it's not true by definition then it's not necessarily true, and if it's not necessarily true then it's possibly false. I believe that's straightforward modal logic?

If it's not true by definition then it's not necessarily true, and if it's not necessarily true then it's possibly false. — Michael

Right. But you cannot make the possibility believable? Then I won't believe it. But i have made a suggestion of how it might be believable - it just requires a religion to be true. Shall we go with that?

But you cannot make the possibility believable? — unenlightened

I can't make the possibility of any kind of moral obligation believable. That's really what I'm trying to show here.

If it's logically possible for there to be a moral obligation to harm and if it's logically possible for there to be a moral obligation to not harm, and if there's no practical difference between being morally obligated to harm and being morally obligated to not harm, then moral obligations are a vacuous concept.

Given your comments, I have a more tailored question: what is the practical difference between a world in which we have a moral obligation to prevent environmental catastrophe and population crash and a world in which we don't have a moral obligation to prevent environmental catastrophe and population crash, assuming that in both worlds we believe that we have such a moral obligation and so act accordingly. — Michael

I’m going to give my argument another try. A notion such as a moral obligation to prevent environmental catastrophe is too important, too complex and too consequential a concept to be equated with a subordinate element of an established empirical theory whose acceptance or rejection as false has little impact on the theory within which its sense as being true or false is intelligible. Such weighty moral stances are more like empirical theories or paradigms than facts within theoretical orientations, and as such they cannot themselves be true or false. If one instead compared two perspectives within the larger umbrella of agreement on a moral obligation to prevent environmental catastrophe, one might be able to locate grounds for truth or falsity that have practical consequences. But then again, in dealing with socially consequential values, we may be bound up in territory that in by its nature transcends the relevance of truth claims

I really don't understand what you are saying.

Here are two possible worlds:

1. We have a moral obligation to save the human race from extinction
2. We do not have a moral obligation to save the human race from extinction

If we believe that we have a moral obligation to save the human race from extinction then what is the practical difference between us being in world 1 (where our belief is true) and us being in world 2 (where our belief is false)?

In neither case do we know which world we're in, but in both cases we believe that we are in world 1.

If there is no practical difference then which world we're in is inconsequential. All that matters is that we believe that we have a moral obligation to save the human race from extinction and so act accordingly.

1. We have a moral obligation to save the human race from extinction
2. We do not have a moral obligation to save the human race from extinction

We believe that we have a moral obligation to save the human race from extinction. What is the practical difference between us being in world 1 (where our belief is true) and us being in world 1 (where our belief is false).

In neither case do we know that our belief is either true or false — Michael

It may be that in dealing with socially consequential values we are bound up in territory that in by its nature transcends the relevance of truth claims. Value systems are not true or false, and only very subordinate elements within them are truth-apt.

Value systems are not true or false. — Joshs

My questioning is direct at moral cognitivists, i.e. those who believe that moral propositions are truth-apt. In particular it's directed at ethical non-naturalists, i.e. those who believe that moral facts are non-natural, and robust moral realists, i.e. those who believe that moral facts are mind-independent.

In this case, the basis itself might change; if cultural evolution was the basis for most of history, there comes a modern time when it is no longer wise to ignore the environmental consequences of 'cultural evolution'. Again, it is a practical matter, and something that has only recently become a dominant moral issue. Anyway, the correct morals are the ones that lead to flourishing, aka 'the good'. — unenlightened

There are two competing outlooks in our world: (1) is that nature is always smarter than we are. By this perspective it's a mistake for us to try to re-engineer our own culture to meet an environmental crisis. Nature will handle it more efficiently that we ever could. Nature is brutal, but it doesn't waste time on misconceived solutions. It goes straight to what will work in the long run.

The alternative (2) is that we do have the ability to change who and what we are, and we may face conditions in which this is the only road to survival. A case of this was when western nations became multi-racial in the wake of the end of slavery. The only way forward was to force change. This can be extremely stressful, but it does work.

I think the coming years will be a test of these two approaches. I won't live to see who won. :groan:

if there's no practical difference between being morally obligated to harm and being morally obligated to not harm — Michael

Did you really mean to write that?

In the first case, there is harm; in the second, no harm - what greater "practical" difference do you want?

Which brings us back to the titular question - the answer to which is"because it is the right thing to do".

As if it could make sense to say one ought not do what one ought do.

In the first case, there is harm; in the second, no harm — Banno

There is harm in the second case. We're just not morally obligated to not harm.

This post explains it more clearly.

We're just not morally obligated to not harm. — Michael

There it is again.

There what is again?

I can't make the possibility of any kind of moral obligation believable. That's really what I'm trying to show here. — Michael

I pity you.

But I will just point out that you have undermined all of your thread which is based on various scenarios of "everyone believes..."

But I will just point out that you have undermined all of your thread which is based on various scenarios of "everyone believes..." — unenlightened

What do you mean by this?

1. No morality but everyone believes that it is immoral to kill babies
2. It is immoral to kill babies and everyone believes that it is immoral to kill babies
3. It is moral to kill babies but everyone believes that it is immoral to kill babies

What is the practical difference between these worlds? — Michael

I can't make the possibility of any kind of moral obligation believable. T — Michael

I take it that you are someone. I take it that since you cannot make the possibility of any kind of moral obligation believable, you do not believe it is immoral to kill babies. Therefore there are no possible worlds in which we can discuss these worlds you propose as your presence makes them impossible.

In fact the moral world is a possible world itself, because we do not do what we ought to do, and so in a certain feeble sense you are right that the moral world is not the real world. Rather, it is an imaginary world like the plans of an architect are an imaginary building. And it is the business of ordinary brickies and plumbers etc to realise the architect's plans as it is the business of ordinary humans everywhere to realise the moral world as best they can.

No one suggests that architecture is not real, and no architect designs piles of rubble. But that is by analogy, what you are doing with this thread, especially when you suggest that possibly "...It is moral to kill babies".

I take it that since you cannot make the possibility of any kind of moral obligation believable, you do not believe it is immoral to kill babies. Therefore there are no possible worlds in which we can discuss these worlds you propose as your presence makes them impossible. — unenlightened

That doesn't make sense. There's a possible world where I believe in moral obligation. There's a possible world where I'm a bartender. There's a possible where I dye my hair.

I'm not sure what you think possible worlds are.

Cool. But I won't be joining you there to discuss. Or possibly I will, whatever!

Did you really mean to write that? — Banno

See:

By pushing further, you are effectively saying, "But what if there is no reason for your moral claim?" ... If there were no reason then the possible worlds could not differ, and the morality in question would be otiose. But there always is a reason. "X is moral/immoral for no reason at all," is not a coherent claim. — Leontiskos

This is the fruit of Kant. :meh:

Kant only secures the nobility and freedom associated with morality at the cost of shifting both into a sphere that lies completely beyond human grasp. The free acts of the will that constitute moral goodness and moral choice are beyond human explanation and comprehension. — Peter L. P. Simpson, Autonomous Morality and the Idea of the Noble, p. 16

Yep, except...

...completely beyond human grasp... — Peter L. P. Simpson, Autonomous Morality and the Idea of the Noble, p. 16

Beyond words, perhaps, but perhaps not beyond acts.

There is only power, interests and negotiation. Morality is a trick of the weak to constrain the strong. Morality is what other people want you to do. Often it's in one's interests to do what others want. Or at least not do what they don't want.

There is only power, interests and negotiation. Morality is a trick of the weak to constrain the strong. Morality is what other people want you to do. Often it's in one's interests to do what others want. Or at least not do what they don't want — bert1

Someone’s been reading Nietzsche.

Someone’s been reading Nietzsche. — Joshs

I can't actually cope with Nietzsche! I tried reading him a few times but found it too emotional. I'm vaguely aware it's the sort of thing he says though.

I can't actually cope with Nietzsche! I tried reading him a few times but found it too emotional. I'm vaguely aware it's the sort of thing he says though. — bert1

Sure is. Especially the part about morality being a trick of the weak to constrain the strong. This is what Nietzsche called ressentiment.

Ah, very good. New word for me, thanks. No doubt I heard the sentiment indirectly from Nietzsche somehow and it stuck in my head.

I sent J the following in the course of a discussion we are having, and I thought I would post it here as well given its relevance:

Since these and the like consequences follow from the fear theory, it is hardly surprising that people should look for some other way to ground the ideas of obligation and of wrong. Such another way is supposed to be provided by the appeal to duty. Here the idea is that one should obey the rules and respect others’ right because it is one’s duty so to do. This duty is not dependent on the presence of any fear or self-interest, nor does it oblige only those who are afraid. It obliges everyone without exception, including especially fearless tyrants. For this reason the duty in question is said to be categorical and to bind categorically. The most readily intelligible statement of it is still the Kantian one, that one should treat others as ends and never simply as means. To treat people as ends is to respect them as creators of their own world and not to reduce them to instruments for the creation of one’s own world.

Doubtless it is true that the obligation to treat people as ends in this sense is commonly regarded as categorical and binding on all. In particular, the obligation is not held to vary according to the varying presence of some motive or passion. The fearless, for instance, are not excused from the obligation by their fearlessness, nor are their violations thereby any the less violations or any the less wrong. The problem with the appeal to duty is not that it fails to capture the categorical character of obligation but that it fails altogether to explain and justify this character. All it does is assert that the obligation is categorical. It does not tell us why it is categorical, nor does it tell us why the obligation is an obligation. If we were to ask these questions, all we would be told is that we are bound because we are bound, that we should obey because we should obey, and that disobedience is wrong because it is wrong.

I am not exaggerating here. Kant himself speaks about the categorical imperative in almost these words.[9] At any rate, he says that the foundation of the categorical imperative, or what makes it into a command we are obligated to obey, is that it comes out of the wholly incomprehensible ground of our noumenal freedom. We cannot penetrate further into its obligatory character than that, which is to say we cannot penetrate into it at all. Of course, Kant would deny that just because we cannot say why disobedience to the categorical imperative is wrong, or what its wrongness consists in, therefore we do not know that it is wrong. On the contrary, he says, we know full well that it is wrong, and we know this because the phenomenon of its wrongness is given to us directly in our ordinary sense of duty. But this does not help. We may be able, by turning to the phenomena, to assure ourselves that there is such a thing as wrongness or doing wrong. What we want to know, however, is what this wrongness amounts to, and Kant tells us nothing on that score. The categorical imperative is not an answer. It is only a sophisticated way of refusing to answer. ‘You ought because you ought,’ is all it says. A tyrant or a devil could easily avail himself of this command. Besides, we are hereby brought back to the same problem as before. The idea of wrongness has not now been explained but explained away. It has been reduced to the idea of being forbidden. At all events, to say, on this theory, that something is forbidden because it is wrong is to say that it is forbidden because it is forbidden.[10]

The trouble with this categorical imperative of duty is that it is far too categorical. The ‘ought’ has been so absolutized that it has been severed from any foundation in the good and knowledge of the good. It can only be obeyed blindly, if at all.[11]

[...]

…The first alternative, the Hobbesian alternative, appeals to the good of self-interest and the second, the Kantian alternative, appeals to an imperative that commands independently of any good, self-interested or otherwise. Neither alternative has turned out to be acceptable. The defect of the second was its failure to appeal to any good. The defect of the first was its appeal to a self-interested good. The obvious solution is to appeal to a good, but to a good that is not self-interested. The good appealed to must be an other-interested and other-directed good. In short, the good of others must become a primary and direct object of our action, and not a secondary and indirect one. Such a good will, because it is a good, ground an obligation and, because it is an other-directed good, ground an obligation to be other-directed and not self-directed. Thus it will, at the same time and by the same fact, avoid both the Kantian and the Hobbesian defects.

[9] Groundwork, GS, vol. 4, p. 401; see also Essay 2 above.
[10] Cf. the problems Euthyphro gets into with Socrates over the definition of piety and impiety in the Platonic dialogue of that name. See also Nietzsche Beyond Good and Evil, part 5, and Genealogy of Morals, where this morality of the ‘ought’ is presented, so to say, as the fear of the slave pitched at the level of an ideological scream.
[11] See Essay 2 above. This same criticism of Kant was classically made by Max Scheler in his Formalism in Ethics, pp. 190-94. It is repeated by John Crosby, in his The Selfhood of the Human Person, p. 209. — Peter L. P. Simpson, “On Doing Wrong, Modern-Style,” in Vices, Virtues, and Consequences, pp. 66-8

From an old thread "Why should I be moral? – Does the question even make sense?" ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/533345

I’m not sure that works.

Here are two possible worlds:

1. It is immoral to harm others
2. It is not immoral to harm others

Are you saying that if I were to harm others in world (1) then I would be miserable but that if I were to harm others in world (2) then I wouldn't be miserable? How does that work? What is the causal connection between the (im)morality of an action and my psychological state?

Also the OP is directed at categorical imperatives, not the kind of hypothetical/pragmatic imperatives that you’re describing.