“The study of why our moral sense and cultural moral norms exist".

Interestingly, for Hegel, this historical question is central the ethics proper. Both what we "have done," and what we "ought to do," are ultimately driven by reason's propelling humanity towards the accomplishment of human freedom. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I've only read a few introductory summaries about Hegel but did not see that connection.

In no way does the science of morality (as the study of what is and has been descriptively moral) make our ultimate moral goals an empty phrase — Mark S

I didn't claim or imply that it did. You make it an empty phrase, Mark, by confessing you do not know what "our ultimate moral goals" are and yet propose that a "science of morality" can describe conditions whivh determine them. This kind of jugglery is of no use to moral philosophy.

The principles that underlie descriptively moral behaviors are what people have thought of as moral (because it has been encoded into the biology underlying our moral sense) for as long as we have lived in cooperative societies. — Mark S

That what is thought of as moral is biologically encoded is at best a hypothesis and at worse an unsubstantiated assertion. In either case it is in need of scientific evidence. What is that evidence?

“The science of morality studies the psychological, neurological, and cultural foundations of moral judgment and behavior”. — Mark S

If the foundations of moral judgement and behavior are biologically encoded then they is not cultural. To the extent those foundations are cultural they differ from culture to culture.

The potential to "do anything." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Looks as though you put some serious effort into expanding your consciousness and writing your reply. I want to respect that. I also want to move the discussion forward with argument.

Potential to do what? Is Trump a good model of a free man grabbing women by the pussy and bragging about it? Is this the model of leadership we want or is there something wrong with that understanding of freedom? Do we want a leader who says he can get away with murder? Are there desired restrictions to "freedom"? Freedom without principles and good moral judgment can be an evil. Education that has nothing to do with principles and good moral judgment, but focuses on power and freedom, might increase evil.

When we tore down all the restrictions on freedom of speech and action and promoted Superman, did we open the bowels of hell? I think this has something to do with the development of Nazi, Germany and what is happening in the US today. The story we tell ourselves is very important so we should pay careful attention to them.

And the father who gets up to tend to the baby may not gladly do this if the mother does not share this responsibility. There are negative consequences to sleep deprivation and taking someone for granted. I am struggling with this argument because I think our motive to do this or that is complex. It is not just about our character but also the circumstances.

That what is thought of as moral is biologically encoded is at best a hypothesis and at worse an unsubstantiated assertion. In either case it is in need of scientific evidence. What is that evidence? — Fooloso4

I am not sure I understand you correctly but I do know doing something nice for others is one of the best ways to feel good. We know our sexual behavior is linked to our hormones. We know men's testrogene level increases when they watch football and this can lead to aggressive behavior. Isn't our knowledge of hormones scientific evidence?

Or how about the study of animals and how it can help us understand our own good and evil? We are one of many different social species. All social animals are biologically influenced to conform to social expectations and if one of their kind steps out of line, another will react in a way that encourages conformity. This results in nonconformers being pushed to the outer circle where they are the most apt to become a carnivore's dinner.

I didn't claim or imply that it did. You make it an empty phrase, Mark, by confessing you do not know what "our ultimate moral goals" are and yet propose that a "science of morality" can describe conditions which determine them. This kind of jugglery is of no use to moral philosophy. — 180 Proof

We used to read our children moral tales and at the end of the story ask them what is the moral of the story. The moral was a matter of cause and effect. The Little Red Hen did not share her bread because no one helped her make it. The fox did not get the grapes because he gave up and walked away saying they were probably sour anyway. The Little Engine that could, made it over the hill because he did not give up.

The book titled, "The Science of Good and Evil" uses animal studies to make its point. I think that pretty well determines some of the science of morality.

You make it an empty phrase, Mark, by confessing you do not know what "our ultimate moral goals" are and yet propose that a "science of morality" can describe conditions whivh determine them. This kind of jugglery is of no use to moral philosophy. — 180 Proof

To be clear, my subject is the science of what is descriptively moral, not any hypothetical (and incoherent in my mind) science of what is prescriptively moral.

Understanding what is descriptively moral in terms of cooperation strategies (which normal scientific methods enable) tells us nothing about what we imperatively ought to cooperate to do. Like the rest of science, the science of descriptively moral behaviors is silent about what we imperatively ought to do or value.

And just because it is silent about ultimate moral goals does not mean it is useless.

Indeed, absent a conclusive argument for any imperative moral systems, the moral principle "Act to solve cooperation problems without exploiting others" is the best high-level principle for moral guidance I know.

This principle encompasses fairness, the Golden Rule, and even arguably some of John Rawls' principles in Justice as Fairness. Its advantage over these is it clarifies that these are fallible heuristics for solving cooperation problems, not moral absolutes. If following them would create cooperation problems rather than solve them, we would have reasons for not following them.

Also, note that neither fairness nor the Golden Rule have a stated goal. Their lack of a goal does not make them useless as moral guides.

Do you have a conclusive argument justifying an imperative moral system? If not, what moral guidance would you suggest as superior to what I propose here?

Isn't our knowledge of hormones scientific evidence? — Athena

Evidence of morality?

All social animals are biologically influenced to conform to social expectations ... — Athena

I agree, but I think Mark is saying something more than this. Being a social animal is not a principle that underlies and encodes what it is that people think is moral. Within a societies there may be agreement but between societies there may be disagreement as to what behavior is and is not acceptable. He points to cooperation within a society but this is not the same thing as cooperation between societies. And even within a society we may cooperate with some members while conspiring against others.

That what is thought of as moral is biologically encoded is at best a hypothesis and at worse an unsubstantiated assertion. In either case it is in need of scientific evidence. What is that evidence? — Fooloso4

The evidence is in 1) the explanatory power for virtually all the diversity, contradictions, and strangeness of descriptively moral behaviors as parts of cooperation strategies, 2) huge superiority over any competing hypothesis, 3) simplicity, 4) integration with the rest of science, and other normal criteria for scientific truth.

If the foundations of moral judgement and behavior are biologically encoded then they is not cultural. To the extent those foundations are cultural they differ from culture to culture. — Fooloso4

Both our moral sense and cultural moral norms have the same selection force, the benefits of cooperation they produce. The benefits relevant to the biology underlying our moral sense are reproductive fitness. The benefits relevant to cultural moral norms are whatever goals for cooperation that we seek.

Virtually all the diversity, contradictions, and strangeness of cultural moral norms can be explained as applications of cooperation strategies. This remarkable explanatory power is what makes it such a robust hypothesis.

And even within a society we may cooperate with some members while conspiring against others. — Fooloso4

Right. I would add that some will cooperatively conspire against others (or other societies) while believing they are acting morally.

Do you have a conclusive argument justifying an imperative moral system? — Mark S

I don't know what that is.

If not, what moral guidance would you suggest as superior to what I propose here?

You have not proposed any moral prescriptions, so I'm not sure what you're asking. And I've previously stated my position with respect to your so-called "science of morality":

(Feb 2024)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/885162

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/885373

(2023)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/777275

I agree, but I think Mark is saying something more than this. Being a social animal is not a principle that underlies and encodes what it is that people think is moral. Within a societies there may be agreement but between societies there may be disagreement as to what behavior is and is not acceptable. He points to cooperation within a society but this is not the same thing as cooperation between societies. And even within a society we may cooperate with some members while conspiring against others. — Fooloso4

How about you are both right? I think we need to start at a base line. How would we behave if we did not have language and therefore the ability to argue with each other? Genghis Khan told his people to never pick one religion over another and never settle down in cities and begin accumulating things. Among the Mongols lying and stealing could be a death sentence. As Genghis Khan saw it there was no reason to lie of steal because a stranger lost in the storm was always given shelter and food. The reasoning for that is anyone could be lost in a storm and to refuse someone help could be a death sentence. We know these people as great warriors who would kill every man, woman and child and raze their towns to the ground, making the land good pasture land for their horses.

As they saw things people living in cities were immoral as they refused to help those who needed help, and some of them were very rich while others starved to death and had to lie and steal to have a chance of surviving this immoral city living.

Who was the most moral?

Yes, the difference in our environments can lead to differences in our understanding of morals, but we are all human, just as horses are horses and birds are birds. We most certainly can look at evolution and come to conclusions about being human. Then move on to understand why these humans don't agree with those humans. Or we can just study the Greek and Roman classics and pick up where they left off, as we all must work on our agreements just as the ancients did when they traveled and their paths crossed with people who were different.

The evidence is in 1) the explanatory power for virtually all the diversity, contradictions, and strangeness of descriptively moral behaviors as parts of cooperation strategies, 2) huge superiority over any competing hypothesis, 3) simplicity, 4) integration with the rest of science, and other normal criteria for scientific truth. — Mark S

So in other words no empirical evidence. Cooperation is too thin and insubstantial to stand as a moral strategy.

Right. I would add that some will cooperatively conspire against others (or other societies) while believing they are acting morally. — Mark S

And many who cooperate to conspire are not concerned with morality but with their own gain.

I've only read a few introductory summaries about Hegel but did not see that connection. — Mark S

I am sure freedom was not the grand Christian idea of what is desired and all German philosophers were influenced by Christianity. Martin Luther thought the witch hunts were necessary and that God decided who would be a master and who would be a slave. The Methodist believed they held the answer to making people good people. Quakers and Puritans competed to produce the most saints.

I have held the impression that Hegel thought freedom was obedience to the state and the state was God.

“The State is the Divine Idea as it exists on Earth. One must worship the state as a terrestrial divinity.” “A single person is something subordinate, and as such he must dedicate himself to the ethical whole. Hence, if the state claims life, the individual must surrender it.”Jan 6, 2017

Hegel on Worshipping the State - Library of Social Science — Library of Social Science

I am no authority on Hegel but for sure he was influence by the Christian notion of God and this blending of religion and the state holds some dangers.

There's the bit where you give, and the bit where you take back. You offer a "moral science" that tells us all about our social actions, then you say it won't tell us what to do.

If you want to study anthropology, go ahead. But don't make the mistake of thinking you are doing ethics.

You appear to not understand what is included in empirical evidence for scientific truth.

Please define what you mean by “morality”, because so far you are just using the term, which for you is distinct from ethics, without giving a clear definition.

First, the definition is for the science of morality, not morality itself. Is it circular? No.

Agreed.

Ask the most philosophically ignorant person you can find “what is right and wrong”. They will cheerfully tell you what is right and wrong by their moral sense and cultural moral norms. No more of a ‘definition’ of morality is required. My definition generates no “circularity” issues.

???

Nothing about this gives a viable definition of morality: all you described here is anthropological analysis of people’s moral convictions.

Further, defining morality beyond what is “right and wrong”

So, is your definition of morality ~”the study of what is right and wrong”?

for example as Kant’s categorical imperatives, would make the definition nonsense. You could have the scientific study of cultural Kantian norms or Kantian sense motivations - incoherent nonsense.

Whether or not there are categorical imperatives, has no bearing on what morality is; so I am not following your point here.

What is your basis for claiming that what descriptively moral behavior ‘is’ has zero relevance for what morality imperatively ‘ought’ to be?

Because what ought to be, in a moral sense, is derived from what is intrinsically good; and NOT in any way what people happen to believe is moral or immoral. You saying that, what is moral or immoral is itself contingent on what people believe it is; which makes this squarely a form of moral anti-realism.

Any proposed imperative moral system that is not harmonious with the principles encoded into our moral sense will be rejected as “not what morality is about”.

Even if this is true, it wouldn’t entail in the slightest anything about what is morally good or bad; nor what morality, the study, actually is about. That’s like saying physics as a study depends on our intuitional sense of it—not at all: it is a specific study.

Also, remember there is no agreement and there may never be agreement on what morality imperatively ought to be.

There’s been a consensus on what morality is, at least in the sense of a general account, for a long time; and it has nothing to do with anthropology.

Do you have a better suggestion for moral guidance?

I would suggest studying morality, and not how people behave.

Bob

If you want to study anthropology, go ahead. But don't make the mistake of thinking you are doing ethics. — Banno

I am not trying to do ethics. I am trying to 1) show how the science of descriptively moral behaviors can be useful in ethical investigations into what we ought to do, and 2), in that absence of conclusively argued-for imperative oughts, that science is an excellent source of moral guidance.

But in your view as I understand it,

1) The principles that underlie what average people have consistently thought and felt was moral over thousands of years are irrelevant to ethics.
2) The core of what makes us human, our incredible ability to cooperate, is irrelevant to answering the ethical questions "What is good", "How we ought to live" and "What are our obligations".
3) It is good to claim the well-tested, universal moral principles of descriptively moral behaviors are irrelevant to ethics even when you have nothing better to offer as moral guidance.

You puzzle me. Are you sure about all of these?

I am not trying to do ethics. — Mark S

If so, then how do you know that your "science of morality" can help anyone actually do ethics?

I am not trying to do ethics. I am trying to 1) show how the science of descriptively moral behaviors can be useful in ethical investigations into what we ought to do, and 2), in that absence of conclusively argued-for imperative oughts, that science is an excellent source of moral guidance. — Mark S

You really can't see the incongruity in that?

But in your view... — Mark S

None of those are views I advocate.

I am not trying to do ethics. I am trying to 1) show how the science of descriptively moral behaviors can be useful in ethical investigations into what we ought to do, and 2), in that absence of conclusively argued-for imperative oughts, that science is an excellent source of moral guidance. — Mark S

I don't see how this is 'not trying to do ethics' when you appear to be trying to develop a foundation for morality. Is 'moral guidance' a separate avenue of study to morality?

You may have spoken to this already, but what are you hoping to achieve with all your threads on morality? Are you hoping to write a manifesto/book which will transform how we conceptualize our moral life?

I don't see how this is 'not trying to do ethics' when you appear to be trying to develop a foundation for morality. Is 'moral guidance' a separate avenue of study to morality?

You may have spoken to this already, but what are you hoping to achieve with all your threads on morality? — Tom Storm

Tom,

I am learning to describe to philosophy majors how the science of descriptively moral behaviors can 1) be culturally useful on its own and 2) might be useful in the pursuit of questions outside the domain of science such as “what our ultimate moral goals ought to be”, “what is good?”, “how should I live?”, and “what are my obligations?”

When I said I am not trying to do ethics, I was referring to refusing to answer ethical questions that are outside science’s domain.

Does this science provide a foundation for morality? It does not provide an imperative ought morality – science can’t tell us what we imperatively ought to do or what our goals or values ought to be.

But consider the following:

Versions of the Golden Rule and “fairness” are perhaps the most cross-cultural common moral guidance.

Science can reveal that the Golden Rule and “fairness” are fallible heuristics for solving cooperation problems. If following the Golden Rule and “fairness” is expected to sometimes increase cooperation problems rather than decrease them, we would have reasons to not follow them.

If a group has a goal to increase the benefits of cooperation, they might advocate for a refined moral code that recognized the function of their moral norms is to solve cooperation problems. In such a society, it might be immoral to follow the Golden Rule if doing so is expected to increase cooperation problems (as when tastes differ, in time of war, and when dealing with criminals).

I’ve argued that what is universal to all cooperation strategies (implemented as descriptively moral behaviors) is “Behaviors that solve cooperation problems without exploiting others”. Could this be a foundation for morality?

Yes, but with two large shortcomings. It is silent regarding the ultimate goal of this cooperation, and it has no innate moral bindingness.

But if it is the most attractive option available, groups could advocate and enforce it as their group’s moral foundation.

My goal is to publish a peer reviewed paper on the subject.

Thanks for asking good questions.

The problem is that, on the one hand, you are claiming that this "science of morality" does not inform us what we ought to do, and then, on the other, you say that this science is a perfectly adequate informant of "moral guidence" (i.e., what one ought to do).

You appear to not understand what is included in empirical evidence for scientific truth. — Mark S

I think it is the other way around. If, as you claim,

The principles that underlie descriptively moral behaviors are what people have thought of as moral (because it has been encoded into the biology underlying our moral sense) for as long as we have lived in cooperative societies. — Mark S

then you must provide evidence and not just arguments supporting your hypothesis. Just claiming that what people have thought of as moral is encoded is not 'science'. The claim that what people think is of as moral is encoded means that moral judgments are encoded, that 'x' is morally acceptable and 'y' is not. In other words, that a moral code is encoded.

The problem is that, on the one hand, you are claiming that this "science of morality" does not inform us what we ought to do, and then, on the other, you say that this science is a perfectly adequate informant of "moral guidence" (i.e., what one ought to do). — Bob Ross

The science of descriptively moral behaviors (what I have been referring to as the Science of Morality) cannot tell us what we imperatively ought to do. This science, like the rest of science, is limited to telling us what 'is'.

On the other hand, understanding descriptively moral behaviors as parts of cooperation strategies can be culturally useful for groups with goals that can be achieved by increasing cooperation. Choosing this scientific understanding as a reference for refining cultural moral norms that will be advocated and enforced can provide high-quality moral guidance. This choice is based only on an instrumental ought, not an imperative one.

"Moral guidance" (what one ought to do in a society) can be based on an instrumental ought of the kind science can provide.

Is the problem you saw now resolved?

You appear to not understand what is included in empirical evidence for scientific truth.
— Mark S

I think it is the other way around. — Fooloso4

This thread's topic is Defining What the Science of Morality Studies. It is not a synthesis of the evidence for behaviors motivated by our moral sense and advocated by past and present cultural moral norms being part of cooperation strategies (see the OP references).

In short, though, that hypothesis is robustly supported by inference to the best explanation of the data set of past and present cultural moral norms and what we know about our moral sense. If you suspect the hypothesis is false, any candidate counterexamples would be welcome.

But in your view...
— Mark S
None of those are views I advocate. — Banno

I am glad to hear that you advocate none of the following views (which I falsely thought were implied by your comments). I think all three are ridiculous opinions.

1) The principles that underlie what average people have consistently thought and felt was moral over thousands of years are irrelevant to ethics.
2) The core of what makes us human, our incredible ability to cooperate, is irrelevant to answering the ethical questions "What is good", "How we ought to live" and "What are our obligations".
3) It is good to claim the well-tested, universal moral principles of descriptively moral behaviors are irrelevant to ethics even when you have nothing better to offer as moral guidance.

A question for you. Which discipline's methods do you think are better suited for studying descriptively moral behaviors (behaviors motivated by our moral sense and advocated by past and present cultural moral norms)? I think science's methods (such as inference to best explanation) are critical. Which, if any, of moral philosophy's methods do you think would be suitable?

...that hypothesis is robustly supported by inference to the best explanation... — Mark S

Inference to the best explanation is not scientific evidence.

If you suspect the hypothesis is false, any candidate counterexamples would be welcome. — Mark S

I have no alternative hypothesis. I regard this whole endeavor as a fruitless dead end.

Does this science provide a foundation for morality? — Mark S

Of course not. Why assume morality requires any "foundation" at all?

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/885373

I regard this whole endeavor as a fruitless dead end. — Fooloso4

Ditto. :up: