The question is then also why one maintains moral principles whose possible or even probable violation seems threatening and troubling. — spirit-salamander

The alternative, not maintaining those moral principles, is an even worse choice, to me, as that gets you in trouble. So given the choice to obey those obligations or not, I think I obey dominant moral principles because doing so keeps you safe in a lot of cases, practically speaking. But even if I could get away with violating my principles, I still wouldn't necessarily go about breaking my moral obligations. I have an internal sense of what is right and wrong by my own desires and standards, and I notice many others share these feelings, so I am also a sucker for empathy in other cases, which is another reason why I stay true to my values. There is something about doing something wrong to someone whom I think doesn't deserve it that hurts me too, in a way. Overall, violating my moral standards regularly enough would be too much of a burden of guilt or shame or just feeling like I'm lying or failing myself. It would be unnatural and exhausting to perform. There are many reasons why a moral realist would obey a given set of moral principles, often intertwined but nevertheless real.

I think I would get in trouble during life plenty if I regularly violated my moral principles. I tend to obey popular behavioral norms like those in school and around my family to save my skin, and I only break the rules when I think I can get away with it and I feel as if I'm not doing something wrong by my standards. I don't know what would happen to me after death if I broke my rules, but I'd like to avoid the bad side of karma on Earth, at least. I like being happy and unpunished.

I am curious because I share your viewpoints to some extent: what do you think of ideal observer theory as it relates to the possibility of an unbiased, realistic way of figuring out right from wrong in a factual, pragmatic, non-subjective sense, in the way that we can prove 2+2=4? Sure, many people disagree on what is right and wrong, but often this is on account of factual misunderstandings. That, perhaps, if we were on the same page, factually, we would come to more of a consensus. With that in mind: is an unbiased approach to ethics impossible, even to a theoretical yet omniscient observer? If so, explain why you think so? I think your post is very insightful, and I kind of want to talk about this more.

As far as giving things up, surely this would only be about giving up that which involves harming others. — Jack Cummins

Does the usefulness of compassion consist in “giving up that which involves harming others”, as you suggest? Or am I misunderstanding what “this” is referring to?

If you mean that compassion entails the prevention of harm, are you referring to harm of all kinds? If compassion, to you, is linked to empathy and a desire to palliate the suffering felt by human beings and/or animals (it might not be, correct me if I’m wrong), do you think all harm is unjust and so should not be tolerated by compassionate beings?

One might argue that wrongdoers do not deserve compassion, but justice. Might those people deserve the pain they experience and might compassion not apply to them? Is anybody unworthy of compassion to you? Or should all people be entitled to the freedom from pain? So who deserves compassion is a question to answer.

On top of that, harm is often warranted (indeed, sometimes necessary) to mitigate social ills. Perhaps ironically, the kind of effective and large-scale action that can solve the social ills of the world, those driven by compassion, may only be effective by way of coercion and force, things which do often cause harm and suffering in their wake. As it so happens, though not always, to cure social ills (a useful way to act on one’s compassion) requires causing harm. To defeat the forces of evil that bring forth the pain caused by social ills, a feat often motivated by compassion and no shortage of bravery, may nevertheless require much suffering on the behalf of wrongdoers. Compassion may not be synonymous with “giving up that which harms others” if social change for the better cannot happen without suffering and some kind of loss.

I hope you will address these questions, as they go a ways to determining how effective compassion is as a means to improve the world.

I love this post so much. Eternal life doesn’t appeal to me, personally, since I like to think of myself as here on Earth for a good time, but not a long time. Hershey bars are my favorite candy, though. Eternal life without philosophy forums is okay, as I imagine we could find other ways to philosophize together. Though eternal life without philosophy of any kind feels to me like an existential crisis waiting to happen.

I’m a little confused by the question (if there is one) posed. Maybe there isn’t one and that’s cool. Is your post about whether or not conceiving of something means that you “know” about it?If so, know what about it? Anything?

Like I could speculate over the existence of unicorns and have a preconceived image of what unicorns look like in my head, but it doesn’t follow from those facts alone that I know all there is to know about unicorns, right? Moreover, I could conceive of what a moral life is like, but does the mere fact that I posed the question prove that I know what a moral life is? So I could use some clarification.

Or if the question has to do with “knowing the answer before the question is asked”, I’m not sure that is necessarily true for all questions. Maybe I could ask my teacher for clarification on a math problem without having a clue of their response, right?

So, I am asking how relevant is for us to consider now? — Jack Cummins

To me, compassion is a virtue. It is a feeling, quality, or a kind of state of mind. As others have mentioned, I believe compassion is synonymous with the expression of empathy. Although, that may not be the only conception of compassion.

Whether or not compassion by itself can bring about tangible remedies to suffering without action to back it up is in question. NOS4A2 sums it up well:

But compassion, as a feeling, is nothing if it isn’t followed by good deeds. — NOS4A2

A less extreme version of the point indicated by the quote is well-taken on my end. Feelings by themselves do not solve the "seemingly intractable problems of our times". Those may be too large-scale to solve without collective action.

Yet, I do not think compassion is worth "nothing" without good deeds to follow it. I think good intentions normally (but certainly not always) are prior to good action. If compassion is in the philosophical trash bin as you worry, then I do not think it deserves to be there. After all, since compassion can motivate someone to palliate the suffering of another, then compassion is a harbinger of goodness in the world in at least a minimal sense. But as NOS4A2 brought up, someone who feels empathy may nevertheless not act upon that feeling, often because they do not have the means to do so effectively. In cases like that, while compassion may be helpful ( and perhaps necessary) to develop the kinds of human beings who wish to alleviate suffering, compassion alone may not be enough to solve the "world's problems". Perhaps all that is why compassion might appear rather underrated in philosophical communities.

On another level, what exactly the "intractable" problems in need of solving are seems up for debate. Such problems do not seem delineated in the original post. Yet this is an important clarification to make: what counts as "goodness" or a "problem" in the contexts of actions and people might be totally relative to your audience.

In my opinion, in the final analysis, the solution to the intractable problems of our times, whatever they are, must take place due to tangible, noticeable, and positive change in rules and institutional structures. That is a feat achieved by - but not only by - a change of heart.

My impression is that the value of a human life depends on who you ask. A lot of variables play into how much a person values another, like familial relations, kindness, and memorability of another person. It is hard for me to say if, in general, humans tend to see each other as less or more valuable than they should be, since I view value as a relative measure. On one level, I am not sure what the general consensus is of Earth’s population on the matter, so it is likely hard to assess in an objective manner how much humans value each other.

Intelligence has helped me live in a few major ways. It strengthens my social skills, which
help me to live cooperatively with other people. On the academic side, analytical intelligence helps me rationally think through puzzles, which helps me to pass school and play sports. I would say that intelligence makes me a more capable and balanced person than if I did not have it.

Agreed. There is ambiguity in the question that could lead someone to misunderstand it.

I would object that epistemology itself is not a way of thinking that is either totally correct or incorrect, since there are many ways one can do epistemology. Epistemology refers to any number of ways in which one can think about knowledge.

The moral sense is a very real basis for human action; but often, people are quite ill-informed, or worse yet, deliberately misinformed — counterpunch

I accept readily that moral senses are real bases for human action, but when do you think moral senses are and are not reliable? What conditions do you think must be met before I can trust my moral intuition to guide my actions correctly? As you mention, perhaps I need to grasp the facts of a situation before I can make correct ethical inferences about them. Although, that may not be enough; which facts are deemed morally relevant seem to depend on who you ask, because that matter tends to dip into value judgements, often subjective things.

What I'm trying to get to, I suppose - is that just because morality is a sense, does not mean it is not a finely tuned instrument responsive to "fact" - whether merely believed, or actually true. — counterpunch

If moral sense is not finely-tuned to correctly respond to fact in the first place, as you seem to suggest here, how can I trust it to lead me to lead a good life? When is it right or wrong? This is where my doubt surfaces. Two people may accept the same morally relevant information about a situation but react in different ethical manners to that data, so how can I know which moral sense is correct? Inevitably, humans hold subjective values that influence in different ways what individuals make of morally relevant facts. So there is something more than “fact” that can lead our moral senses astray. An unbiased, neutral, and value-free observer, I think, would not infer any moral conclusions from facts, since that very act seems to introduce extraneous bias to factual information. At the very least, all of this aims to explain why moral senses like emotions and intuitions cannot be relied upon in any consistent way to track down moral truth.

I think I get what you're saying. My worry is that if existence does not accurately tell me anything about how things ought to be, then does that mean all of my ethical beliefs are wrong? Or are they unjustified as a result? I am concerned that talking about a right way to live morally is vacuous because of the "is/ought" gap.

Really, it's a logical discintion that a fact of existing is not the same as a fact of an ought-- that's to say, we do not get or derive the ought from the mere fact something exists. — TheWillowOfDarkness

This resonates with me a bunch. This is kind of why I believe an "ought" can't come from an "is".

By descriptive statements, I assume you mean "the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not." Or facts. — counterpunch

Yes. Descriptive statements aim to describe the world as it is.

By normative statements I assume you mean "no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not." Morals or values. — counterpunch

I am not familiar with Hume, but that phrase sums my thoughts up well. Normative statements aim to describe how things ought to be.

Hume says it himself. It's what people do. He's right insofar as 'is' does not necessitate 'ought' because people have different values. We can look at the same list of facts, and think they imply different moral responses. But the implication of ought from is, is what people do. — counterpunch

That's right. I agree that people often tend to infer conflicting conclusions about what courses of action are morally right and wrong based from their observations of the real world.

We cannot be sure. Is does not necessitate ought, but is does imply ought - a different ought for me than for you perhaps, and so we have philosophy forums and democracy to argue it out. The problem with the suggestion that is does not imply ought is that it devalues the significance of the 'is' - and this is an entirely deliberate feature of western philosophy; currently playing out through left wing post modernist identity politics. — counterpunch

Well said. I concede that human beings do imply "ought" from "is". I guess my worry is that this feature of philosophical thinking is unwarranted. If we cannot be sure whether or not "ought" statements could ever be correctly derived from "is" statements in the first place (as you seem to suggest...correct me if I got the wrong impression), then don't we run into the possibility that all normative statements could be baseless?

I guess I'm having a hard time understanding why you think that descriptive statements can imply normative ones. I think you are quite right that morality is a sense fostered in the human animal by evolution, and I think that is an astute observation. But I am unable to make the logical leap between the fact that morality is a "sense" and the notion that "is" statements can imply "ought" ones. How are those related? I hope you will expand upon this. I also agree with what you said about how humans infer moral implications from a list of facts, I think that is very true. But are humans correct in such inferences? How can we be sure? I like what you said a lot but I need some comprehension help

I haven't read the whole conversation because I don't have time, but the prompt looked cool. I am not sure if there is an objectively true moral code, but I think that if there is, I am not sure how I could know about it. There is no universal consensus regarding what is right and wrong, so an objectively true morality is most difficult to recognize. Emotions or perspectives often can mislead or cloud our thoughts, and while they might compel me to take the objectively moral course of action (if one exists), they cannot prove that I did so. An objectively true moral code, if it exists, would be correct regardless of whether or not you agree or desire it, in the same way that 1+2 must equal 3 in reality. If that is the case, then we could only recognize a moral code as objectively true through an airtight, consistent logical system of reasoning. Alas, the rational nature of logic and math tells me about the way things are, but does not tell me about the way I ought to live my life. In other words, descriptive statements do not imply normative statements, as in "is" does not imply an "ought". However, just because we cannot recognize an objectively true moral code does not mean one does not exist. So, the question remains, how can we possibly know if an objectively correct moral code exists?