Morality must be fundamentally concerned with experience, not principle. — Ourora Aureis
Individuals value experience and arrange differing instances of experience into hierrachies, denoting their value in relation to each other. This is a neccesary condition for the concept of value to have meaning. To value is to prefer over another (this doesnt mean you cannot have equivalent value). — Ourora Aureis
No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition, as if every thing were titular and ephemeral but he. — Emerson - Self-Reliance
to avoid more semantic confusion, this isn't a psychological analysis but a model of morality. — Ourora Aureis
No, experience is not a principle. The sensory inputs entering your eyes, and the preference for orange juice over apple juice are not conceptual ideas, but are natural values we hold and so can be used to ground an ethical egoist morality.
I do not think psychology or social factors are irrelevent to ethics but that for the purpose of my specific argument I think construing it as a model is more relevent. I am assuming here that we have values as just a product of our being, regardless of the particulars of how they arise, which is where I believe those factors would be more relevent. — Ourora Aureis
To express the paragraph you quoted with some more context: I think that there is no such things as "values" outside of the experience we value. When we say "I prefer the taste of orange juice to apple juice", I think that can be translated to "I prefer an experience involving the taste of organge juice to apple juice". — Ourora Aureis
There are infinite hypothetical experiences and we arrange these into hierrachies, aka we value them in relation to eachother. To state again, this isnt a psychological statement about how people view morality but a way of construing a basic idea that we have preferences for different experiences. — Ourora Aureis
I think thats merely redefining principle. If someone can steal and improve their already good life then to do so in a way that allows them to avoid punishment must be a good for them. — Ourora Aureis
Prefering rock music and prefering no murder are fundamentally the same process in terms of how they affect action, — Ourora Aureis
I would like those responding to suggest how principles could be used to ground morality and gives potential examples of such. — Ourora Aureis
Morality can only be defined in relation to a certain set of values. You could do any action and if it is in accordance with your values then it is moral by definition.
I dont believe there is a difference fundamentally between aesthetics and ethics, as in the preference for orange juice is equivalent to a serial killers preference for murder, theres no distinction just preferences. — Ourora Aureis
That's somewhat contentious:Because actions can only be committed by individuals... — Ourora Aureis
Visiting the Taj Mahal together looks to be something that fundamentally you cannot do individually. And visiting the Taj Mahal together is only one of many acts that require collective intentionality.Suppose you intend to visit the Taj Mahal tomorrow, and I intend to visit the Taj Mahal tomorrow. This does not make it the case that we intend to visit the Taj Mahal together. If I know about your plan, I may express (or refer to) our intention in the form “we intend to visit the Taj Mahal tomorrow”. But this does not imply anything collective about our intentions. Even if knowledge about our plan is common, mutual, or open between us, my intention and your intention may still be purely individual. For us to intend to visit the Taj Mahal together is something different. — SEP: Collective Intentionality
Again, ethics is about how we relate to others — Banno
There is a difference between considering what you prefer and considering what others prefer. There is a difference between "I will only drink orange juice!" and "You will only drink orange juice!". — Banno
Sometimes "just a semantic difference" means "I hadn't considered that". — Banno
That is a contentious issue, as I've pointed out.You refer to cooperative actions that require multiple individuals but these can always be broken down into their individual parts, and us as individual beings have no control over the actions of other beings. — Ourora Aureis
Again, sociology is about how people do indeed interact, but ethics about how they ought interact. These are quite distinct topics.Part of sociology is the study of human social behaviour, if your definition of ethics refers to how people relate to each other, then that's just sociology. — Ourora Aureis
Not particularly, although ethics is as much about what others ought do as it is about what you or I should do. My preference is virtue ethics, although deontology and consequentialism have their place. "Principles", your term, also have their place - acting consistently, keeping one's word, and so on. You claim that "one can easy construct an anti-principle and yet it has the same effect in a moral framework", which seems quite puzzling. Acting consistently will have a very different outcome to acting inconsistently; not keeping your word will bring about a very different response from others to keeping your word, and so on. All principles are very much not in effect the same as all others.Your view of ethics seems to be about forcing principles upon others. — Ourora Aureis
Hmm. Virtue ethics is slightly preferred amongst professional philosophers. Deontology has a small lead amongst those who specialise in ethics. I don't know how you might have gauged it's "popularity" more generally. Quite a few folk would be happy with an ethic based on flourishing, as part of a community, through self-improvement.But I also do not have much experience with it (Virtue ethics) due to its lack of popularity in modern times. — Ourora Aureis
I think I showed this not to be the case, since differing principles will lead to different actions, and hence have quite different results. A rational being will choose their principles on that basis.All independent principles have equal rational basis. — Ourora Aureis
I quite agree. An example is not a definition. You say we ought avoid making use of principles, yet apparently advocate a principle something like "One should act to maximise one's experience". Odd, that.A principle is not simply a consistency. — Ourora Aureis
The reason this isn't a principle is because its not a rule, but a definiton. Maximising ones experience is to improve said experience according to some set of values. To ought to do something is to do so because it has increased value. Hence, you ought to maximise your experience, by definition, since it would improve said experience according to your values. It's like if I was to say "One wants to listen to songs that one enjoys", this isn't a principle, its definitional. — Ourora Aureis
I do not believe in the existence of objective categories, this includes moral or aesthetic values. — Ourora Aureis
I'm not sure what you define as morality, but I've described what I define it is in many of my comments. If our definitions disagree then we're simply having seperate conversations with a joint term.
what is the relationship between morality taken in this context and punishment? — kudos
Can an individual ever be guided by conscience that is not correct? — kudos
Morals refer to a good and a bad, and these are in no manner the exclusive product of our own imagining, they are also real — kudos
Someone can freely do evil disguised as morality — kudos
I'm a moral anti-realist, so any conception of good or evil outside of preferences is simply someone trying to push their values upon another.
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.