As you know, what morality descriptively ‘is’ and what morality normatively ‘is’ are separate questions. In traditional moral philosophy, an extreme version of this idea is that “science has nothing to offer moral philosophy”, implying that what is descriptively moral is irrelevant to what is normatively moral.

Gert contradicts this view by claiming that the "lessening of harm" component of what is descriptively moral (a subject within science's what 'is' domain) is also normatively moral by his criterion “what all rational people would put forward”. — Mark S

No, he does not. Nowhere does Gert claim that the imperative of lessening of harm is (a) descriptively moral and (b) scientifically justified.

Also, I disagree that for something to even be recognized as a moral code, it has to be acceptable by all moral agents ("rational people"). That is much too restrictive for a definition. It would mean that any rule that may not be universally endorsed is "not even wrong": it does not belong to the category of things that could be morally right or wrong, and if you use it in such a way, your interlocutors would not understand you. (Or worse yet, one would have to disqualify all dissenters as moral agents!) That is clearly not the case. Rational people can have moral (as opposed to merely definitional) disagreements.

In putting forward the normative definition of morality as "the behavioral code that... all rational persons, under certain specified conditions, would endorse," Gert identifies those who accept it with moral realists, and those who think that no code would meet this definition with moral skeptics. I don't think that is right either. A moral realist is not necessarily committed to the principle that all universal ethical truths are uncontroversial.

He does give a definition of morality (at 15:28) as "An informal public system applying to all moral agents that has the goal of lessening of harm suffered by those who are protected by this system". — Banno

Are any of you wondering how Gert’s morality can be so concrete?

He can be concrete because his subject in the video is what morality ‘is’ – the same subject as Morality As Cooperation Strategies (MACS). I don’t hear him making direct claims about what morality we somehow imperatively ought to follow (the standard focus of traditional moral philosophy). — Mark S

This formulation departs from the meta-ethical question of "what morality is". Stating that the goal of moral precepts is "lessening of harm" tells us what we imperatively ought to follow: we ought to lessen harm. It is morally good to lessen harm and morally bad to increase it.

As a nonexhaustive moral imperative, "lessen harm" is uncontroversional, but that doesn't make it any less of a moral imperative. Then making it the be-all, end-all of all morality means putting forward a moral theory (known as negative utilitarianism).

Declaring the failure of reductionism seems premature. — Fooloso4

When the OP first started posting on this forum a while ago, I was driven by curiosity to quick-read some sort of paper or book chapter that he shared. I remember being struck by the breathtaking ease with which he solved long-standing problems of philosophy. He proved the existence of God in one short paragraph, then went on as if that question was now settled once and for all. He established the truth of determinism even more simply: by quoting Laplace's famous maxim (Laplace's demon). Later he did think it necessary for some reason to revisit the question of determinism in light of the challenge supposedly posed by quantum mechanics, but dismissed it right away with a reference to Bohm's pilot wave theory - thus settling, in passing, the problem of the interpretation of quantum mechanics.

As pointed out, you probably misunderstood that passage, which comes from the very beginning of the introduction. What you quoted is not a definition as such. Gert is outlining two broad senses of morality: descriptive and normative, and the formulations are intentionally broad and vague, so as to encompass most, if not all definitions in each category. The specifics that you are asking are what an actual definition would be expected to clarify, and the article touches upon them.

To what extent can well-informed, mentally normal, religious people be rational about their religion-based moral beliefs? — Mark S

"Rational" here is intended in a very broad sense:

In the normative sense, “morality” refers to a code of conduct that would be accepted by anyone who meets certain intellectual and volitional conditions, almost always including the condition of being rational. That a person meets these conditions is typically expressed by saying that the person counts as a moral agent. — Gert

(Emphasis in the original.) So, basically, "rational" in the original formulation means anyone who "counts as a moral agent."

Seems to me, in the context of the article, that Gert is not offering a definition of morality, but giving reasons why such a thing is bothersome. — Banno

Well, that's what you generally find in overviews of philosophical topics, such as those in the SEP. You get into the weeds practically as soon as you set out (the very next subchapter in Gert's article on the definition of morality questions the very possibility of defining morality...) You leave with more questions than answers, which probably frustrates some people, but that's the way I like it.

One year mark.

Few to go? — ssu

Lots of analyses and retrospectives in the press, as one would expect.

FT published a large investigation with juicy details: How Putin blundered into Ukraine — then doubled down (open access for now, or use this link: txtify.it). Some accord with what was already known or supposed (only a very narrow circle knew anything about the invasion right up until the fateful date). Some are pretty sensational: "According to two people close to the Kremlin, Putin has already gamed out the possibility of using a nuclear weapon in Ukraine and has come to the conclusion that even a limited strike would do nothing to benefit Russia."

As ever, this is all based on anonymous insider information, so use your sound judgement.

The Financial Times spoke to six longtime Putin confidants as well as people involved in Russia’s war effort, and current and former senior officials in the west and Ukraine for this account of how Putin blundered his way into the invasion — then doubled down rather than admit his mistake. All of them spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. — FT

One year into a war instigated and prolonged by the United States.

The issue is 99.9% obvious and certain for you. — Paine

That's not even 99.9%. No room for questioning of the narrative is left here.

On the other hand, this isn't much better:

Yeah, yeah - this is over simplifying and there are a thousand and one details/nuances. But as I read the back & forth conversations? Both sides make some legit points - hence my comment that both sides share blame. — EricH

I understand that not everyone is invested into this issue to the same extent. But if you are not willing to make the effort, then the honest response to a controversy should not be "I don't know enough to have an informed opinion, so I'll just split the difference."

I do think that his banning will probably be more of a loss to the site than anything. — Jack Cummins

I think it's more of a loss to him than anything - and I don't mean that in a dismissive way. TheMadFool/Agent was one of the oldest members of this forum (not sure if he was on its predecessor), and he spent most of his waking life here, as far as I could see. That's going to be a big hole to fill.

As it is, many users on the site are alone in rooms, reaching out to other people — Jack Cummins

Yes, that's what I was thinking. But the owner and administrators of the forum would like it to be more than just a social club (yet it is that, too). There are other places that are more suitable for that purpose.

Yeah, and the fact that it bullshits and occasionally goes off the rails only adds to the authenticity of the experience :)

Yeah, so I've heard. One of what must have been hundreds of publications on this topic is this Ezra Klein podcast with psychologist, neuroscientist and AI skeptic Gary Marcus, who makes the same point: A Skeptical Take on the A.I. Revolution

Gary Marcus was also on Sean Carroll's podcast last year (but that was before ChatGPT came out). He argues that the unstructured neural network learning model that is used in AIs like ChatGPT will never be adequate, and advocates the incorporation of the old-fashioned structured approach to AI.

ChatGPT is now available in Ukraine: https://t.me/stranaua/91541

The ChatGPT neural network does have some knowledge of events after 2021 (although it warns that they are limited).

When asked "What happened in Ukraine on February 24, 2022", the bot told us about "the imposition of martial law in a number of regions" (in fact, martial law was introduced throughout the country) in connection with the "Russian military offensive in the Chernihiv region", and also about some mythical decision of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, which allegedly canceled the amendments to the Constitution of 2020, and thereby limited the powers of the president.

"This decision led to a sharp deterioration in relations between the President of Ukraine and the Constitutional Court, and also caused a wave of political protests and accusations of misconduct," ChatGPT wrote in a completely bogus story (there were no such decisions of the Constitutional Court on that day).

Do you mean to say that most of our decisions are too trivial and petty to be measured by the lofty standards of rationality?

Rather, you are under-thinking it. Saying that we ought do what is right is trivial; that's just what "ought" is.

The joke is that any choice is rational, hence any choice is right. — Banno

This trivializes rationality and equivocates about normativity.

I suppose you had in mind rationalizations of subjects' choices such as this?

My sense of fairness is worth more that $1 or even $10. If it were $10,000, that would be a different thing. On the other hand, telling someone to go fry ice when he tries to stiff me for thousands might be worth it. — T Clark

Rationality implies certain shared epistemic standards. Those standards have to be at least enduring and widespread, if not permanent and universal, or they would have no meaning. Further, they cannot be inviolate, or else they would be superfluous. It follows then that not every decision is necessarily rational.

Further, "right" is not the same as "rational." Rationality is normative, but it does not represent the full extent of normativity.

Fundamentally, humans are driven to survival, not toward selfish promotion. If it works toward our survival that we abuse one another, we will, and the same holds true for cooperation. But we don't intuit our best survival techniques a priori. We learn through trial and error (natural selection).

So, if you toss me into a dystopia where I am to decide how much to give away to avoid your spite, I'm not fully adapted to such an environment, so I may use my adaptations gained in my normal world to my disadvantage. On the planet I evolved, we have expectations that you share a certain amount with me if you expect mutual respect from me, and consequences result if you violate that norm.

This means that how your test subjects react in this generation will vary in future generations as you continue to expose people to this new adaptation. — Hanover

We find ourselves in "dystopian" situations more commonly than you think. Evolutionary and cultural adaptations serve to improve fitness on average and over long timescales. They do not fine-tune our behavior perfectly for every possible situation that we may face in this world.

This experiment tests adaptations, not inherent human nature. — Hanover

This wording is confusing, but I think you meant that this experiment tests the ability to adapt to the situation, as opposed to acting on instinct or habit. But this too is not right: there is no right or wrong way to behave in this experiment, so those acting on instinct are not failing a test. The idea is to find out whether people will act "rationally" (in the game theoretic sense). And the conclusion is that they generally don't - presumably, because the desire for and the expectation of fairness interferes with "rational" considerations. (Could be other reasons as well, such as fucking with experimenters, but I don't think that is very common.)

I'm not sure what these experiments really show other than how otherwise normal people might attempt to navigate a world where arbitrary power controls the random distribution of money. — Hanover

The experiments falsify game theory predictions. Despite all the "isn't it obvious?" sentiment going in this thread, that's not a trivial result, though not entirely unexpected. Game theory is a powerful and successful theory, whatever people say. It was never meant to represent the full extent of human relationships, but pragmatically, it works well enough in a lot of real-world situations.

Also a point about the experimental setup being artificial and unrealistic. That is common to experiments, which try to isolate certain features and exclude confounders. So that in itself is not a good criticism. In this case the idea was to draw a contrast with game theory predictions, and that means creating conditions where the kind of rational self-interest that a game theory solution would take into account would not predict the result. This is why the experiments try to rule out social factors - reputation, reciprocity and all that - which a sophisticated game-theoretical simulation could account for.

There's the joke. Ought we do what feels right and reject the unfair offer, or ought we follow the games-theoretical approach, and accept any offer? The Evolution of fairness article appears to offer a way to resolve this, if our intuition is actually the application of a stochastic strategy. But then in applying our intuition we are ipso facto applying a rule, and acting rationally.

So ought we apply the rule? — Banno

You are overthinking this. We ought to do what feels right (or what you think is right - whichever word you prefer). That's just what ought means.

So NATO is monitoring their targeting systems and won't allow them to strike the Russian interior? — frank

I doubt it. They know full well that Americans would not agree to that. And those systems don't have the range to strike deep in the interior anyway. More likely the Americans are second-guessing the Ukrainians, trying to conserve their expensive munitions.

Of course, no evidence yet doesn't mean there isn't any but I think, once again, we really don't know who's done it and we need to wait it out. — Benkei

I agree, and I never said otherwise. There are arguments in favor of the Russia-did-it theory (e.g. this), and I could buy some of them, but not with real money.

One thing though that makes it easier to buy the Russia theory is that the risk threshold is much lower for Russia than for any other plausible actor. They have little to lose, since their relationships with Europe are at their lowest point since the Bolshevik revolution. Worse comes to worst, they will just deny everything, like they always do, not caring at all whether they are believed.

Now this is interesting. WoPo article says that Ukraine’s rocket campaign reliant on U.S. precision targeting, officials say. What's more, while Ukrainians identify and select their targets for precision rocket strikes on their own, their NATO partners basically have a veto power.

I don't see why anyone in his place would take such a huge risk for a minor (proportionally) financial gain. — SophistiCat

Minor? Weaning Europe of Russian gas in favour of North American gas is not minor in my book. It's tens of billions of dollars in value per year. — Benkei

Sure, but that is a hypothetical that has little to do with reality, so I am not sure how this is an objection to what I said.

1. Europe was already on course to wean itself from Russian gas long before the explosions.
2. Most of the extra purchases necessitated by the shift were not going to the US, for obvious economic and logistical reasons.
3. As I was just saying, before the explosions, only two of the Nord Stream lines were ever in operation, and the explosions left one line intact (one of the Nord Stream 2 lines, which Russia lobbied for and US opposed). The supply was not constrained by this action, because European pipelines were already underutilized, and Nord Stream was not operating at all.

So the hypothetical motivation for the US would not be money, and such an action would not be taken just to earn a bit of extra cash, anyway. It would have to be a political decision. One possible motivation could be to burn the bridges to prevent backsliding, but the timing seems odd, seeing as Europeans were moving away from Russian gas full-steam.

The claim of Phenomenal Conservatism(PC) is: If it seems to S that P, then, in the absence of defeaters, S thereby has at least some justification for believing that P — aminima

While most everyone else here has been attacking this thesis, to me it seems almost - or even exactly - tautological. "Seeming" is nothing other than a judgement of prima facie plausibility. But perhaps rather than justification, which is customarily associated with epistemic standards that do not include mere seeming, you should talk of warrant - a less fraught term.

I suppose that a subjective Bayesian would connect seeming with the subjective prior probability - your starting point in evaluating a proposition, which you subsequently update by considering relevant evidence.

Hersh was once a respected journalist - Pulitzer winner and all that. But he went off the rails a while ago. His wiki page mentions some of that, and you can find more info if you look for it. This type of explosive "investigation" based on a single anonymous source (who may or may not exist, for all we know) has become his modus operandi.

Of course, none of it matters to the useful idiots who will swallow any yarn if it's too good not to be true.

Now let's hear from random conspiracy nuts!

how likely is it that it's actually true? — Benkei

Let's just say that Seymour Hersh's "investigation," based entirely on a single anonymous source, doesn't move my opinion one way or another. It might as well be some random conspiracy nut (which is what Seymour Hersh has become in his dotage). But it will be amusing to watch how all the anti-American "skeptics" will jump on this juicy piece.

What woudl be mist surprising here would be that Biden had the balls... — Banno

Yeah, basically that's why I rank the US-did-it theory low. It's not just Biden though: I don't see why anyone in his place would take such a huge risk for a minor (proportionally) financial gain. Only an actor as desperate and impoverished as North Korea might have done something like this just to earn a bit of extra cash.

Besides, it doesn't even make sense from the money angle. Russia had several pipelines to Europe, which were operating well below capacity. The pipeline through Belarus had been shut down earlier that year. Nord Stream 2 was never operated. Nord Stream 1 was being shut down intermittently throughout the year, and then Russia closed it off indefinitely, not long before the explosions. The explosions took out three out of four Nord Stream lines, leaving one intact (notably, it was one of the Nord Stream 2 lines). If both Russia and Europe were willing, gas could have been flowing at the same rate or higher. The explosions as such didn't change the calculus in US's favor.

And a question for everyone.

Have I just become old and cranky, but are especially Hollywood films become worse? What do you think about current films compared to 20th Century films? Especially the last few years have seem to me as a quite downer when it comes to great films. — ssu

I don't know. At its best, Hollywood has produced quality entertainment, as well as some solid, earnest but accessible works, the kind that contend for Oscars and Golden Globes. And I don't see this trend changing in recent times. Sure, style and tone has changed somewhat, but don't they always?

Here are some recent films that are quite good, in my opinion (though I am not sure that all of them are, technically, Hollywood productions):

Anomalisa (2015)
Dunkirk (2017)
Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022)
Hell or High Water (2016)
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
Leave No Trace (2018)
Manchester by the Sea (2016)
Paterson (2016)
The Green Knight (2021)
The Shape of Water (2017)
The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021)

Seymour Hersh just posted a blow-by-blow account of How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline, going into details of secret meetings and CIA reports, communications between governments, and precise descriptions of military operations.

All of it "according to a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning."

(Sorry for posting on topic!)

Woke up with this playing in my head :death:

Page 3:

Pulp Fiction
Goodfellas
Dr. Strangelove
Lost in Translation
The Departed
Monty Python and the Holy Grail — Manuel

All About Eve
Blow-Up — Joshs

The Magnificent Seven
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly - I'm surprised no one has mentioned this. Also:
A Fist Full of Dollars
For a Few Dollars More
Once Upon a Time in the West — T Clark

That’s why I’m a big fan of the anti-Western, and Sergio Leone’s films with Clint Eastwood were among the first of these. Anti-Westerns turn the tables on the standard view of the hero as establishment figure. The rebellious anti-establishment outlaw becomes the new hero. — Joshs

I kind of skipped classic Hollywood westerns (there are two or three that I like) and went straight for Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns. So for me these are the classic westerns. In any case, though there is a great distance between Ford and Leone, I wouldn't call the latter anti-western: there is a clear line of continuity between them.

Favorite anti-western: Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller

Das Boot (1981): submarine films don't get better as this and perhaps the best naval warfilm. Puts the sound of sonar in a totally different perspective. — ssu

:up:

Although I think the most grim warfilm, a film that really makes war as awful as it can be is Elem Klimov's Come and See from 1985, a quite rare film from the Soviet Union. — ssu

:up:

Being John Malkovich
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon — Andrew4Handel

Page 2

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (The evil of authority generally, but perfectly personified by Nurse Ratchett).
The Shining (The face of insanity)
American Beauty (Suburban existentialism) — Hanover

I am not into horror, but The Shining is classic for a reason.

Mike Leigh films:
Mr Turner.
Vera Drake. — unenlightened

+ Another Year

Ken Loach films — unenlightened

I've seen these:

Raining Stones
The Wind that Shakes the Barley

I should see more limey working-class kitchen-sink dramas :)

Trainspotting. — unenlightened

Goodfellas
Chinatown
The Big Lebowski — Bradskii

Seven Samurai (1954) - Kurosawa
Apur Sansar (1959) - Ray
L'Eclisse (1962) - Antonioni
Late Spring (1949) - Ozu
Ran (1985) - Kurosawa
Cleo from 5-7 (1962) - Varda — Maw

Of Angelopoulos I've seen only Eternity and a Day - loved it. The music is still stuck in my head.

Persona is my favorite Bergman — Maw

Not my favorite, but worth watching, especially as part of a retrospective.

The Meaning of Life — BC

Midnight Cowboy
Casablanca
The Graduate
Annie Hall
Fanny and Alexander (Bergman)
Godfather
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest
Dr Strangelove
Gone With the Wind — BC

Gallipoli — BC

Thin Red Line (a great poetic war film from Terrence Malick) — ssu

Heat (a great Al Pacino and Robert de Niro faceoff, likely best film from Michael Mann) — ssu

In the Mood for Love
Brazil
Walkabout — Tom Storm

A masterpiece — javi2541997

:up: I also liked his Chungking Express, though it is very different.

I've seen so many good movies, I couldn't possibly rank them. Maybe I'll just pick some from others' lists.

Seven Samurai
Persona
8 1/2
There Will Be Blood — Mikie

5. A Clockwork Orange — god must be atheist

(Mostly for style and atmosphere, which is where Kubrick excels.) I think my favorite Kubrick movie is one of his lesser known ones: Barry Lyndon.

Annie Hall — T Clark

2. Pulp fiction
3. The Godfather (all the parts)
4. Tokyo Monogatari
5. A clockwork orange
6. Ikiru
7. Yojimbo
8. Ran
9. Akira — javi2541997

The Godfather I & II
Blade Runner
Barfly
Unforgiven — 180 Proof

Pulp Fiction
Andrei Rublev
Taxi Driver — Jamal

My favorite Tarkovsky film, along with Rublev, is probably The Mirror.

Amadeus
Groundhog Day
Donnie Darko — Luke

The Gods Must be Crazy
Tootsie — Vera Mont

Night of the Hunter
Citizen Kane
Midnight Cowboy
Bonnie and Clyde
Almost Famous — Joshs

Richard II, with Lawrence Olivier
Lawrence of Arabia
High Noon
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie — Paine

Aguirre, the Wrath of God
Princess Mononoke
Spirited Away — tim wood

Platoon — universeness

Oops. Yes I did see that — I know it as Tokyo Story. The Japanese didn’t ring a bell. Ozu is incredible and it’s a great movie.

I love almost everything I’ve seen out of Japan, which admittedly isn’t a lot. Ozu and Kurosawa are at the very top. Miyazaki is up there too. — Mikie

Check out Kore-eda Hirokazu if you haven't seen him: Nobody Knows, Still Walking, Shoplifters.

I have seen all Ozu's films, and they are fantastic. — javi2541997

:up:

Love Good Morning. His silent film,I Was Born, But... which is loose remake, is also excellent. — Maw

I was fortunate to have seen this in a theater with an honest-to-goodness live piano accompaniment!

It is for some the former [world, existence, etc.] via the latter [study of philosophical texts]. — Fooloso4

For a student of philosophy, sure.

Why is much philosophical focus devoted to the study of philosophers and their texts? Perhaps in order to use the work of others to articulate fresh concepts of world, existence, reality and truth. — Joshs

Except that for many, studying philosophers and their texts is not a stepping stone towards future practice, but the practice itself. Not that there is anything wrong with that - I didn't mean what I wrote as criticism of academic philosophy. It is what it is, but I suspect that many people don't realize that. They may think, when choosing their major at a university, that they would graduate to write about world, existence, etc. But chances are that if they pursue philosophy as a career, they will be doing something else.

Other academic disciplines are different in that regard. For example, philosophy, history and sociology of science are not considered to be part of science itself and wouldn't be studied in the same departments with scientific disciplines. On the other hand, your typical scientist probably never read any science text published earlier than 70 years ago.

I’m trying to think of an example of something that exists only within philosophy’s practice (or doesn’t exist only within its practice). Put differently, isnt the aim of philosophy to address within its practice such inclusive concepts as world, existence , reality and truth? — Joshs

A lot of academic philosophy is focused more on itself than on concepts of "world, existence, reality and truth." Much of what is taught and published is exclusively devoted to the study of philosophers and their texts; in essence, it is philology of philosophy. History and sociology of philosophy are often also included into the same discipline.

As the The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe notes about NATO:

The NATO Participation Act of 1994 (PL 103-447) provided a reasonable framework for addressing concerns about NATO enlargement, consistent with U.S. interests in ensuring stability in Europe. The law lists a variety of criteria, such as respect for democratic principles and human rights enshrined in the Helsinki Final Act, against which to evaluate the suitability of prospective candidates for NATO membership. — ssu

Speaking of the Helsinki Final Act (Helsinki Accords), a few weeks ago the Russian government banned the Moscow Helsinki Group - one of the oldest human rights organizations in the world. It was started in the Soviet Union (which was a signatory of the Accords) as a watch-group to report on the compliance with the accords in the Soviet Union. Later, similar watch-groups were started in other parts of the USSR and in other countries. The US Helsinki Watch group, started a few years after the MHG, is now called Human Rights Watch. Naturally, the MHG was severely persecuted, but after the dissolution of the Soviet Union it operated relatively freely. Well, not any more.

One of the more interesting themes that I find recurring in Proust is the way in which an experience is thought to be enhanced through the benefit of some predisposing information as to its supposed sublimity. — Pantagruel

In Proust this juxtaposition of experience with expectation and imagination can go in different ways. Remember his disappointment when at last he was allowed to see the famous Berma in Phedre? "The deliberate monotony" of her unconventional delivery was something to which the boy-narrator was unconditioned: he expected "intelligent modulations or beautiful gestures." And yet it was precisely "the trivialities of the moment" intruding on the "merely real" that lifted up his experience, at least momentarily: "Then at last I felt my first impulse of admiration, which was provoked by the frenzied applause of the audience." (Look at that - a short Proust sentence!)

What was the Balbec passage that you were thinking about? (I read that volume - A l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs? - some years ago.)

The “mysticism” of cultural moral norms that science debunks is the mystery of their origins and why they have the strange intuitive properties (that John Mackie described as queerness) of bindingness and violations deserving punishment.

By explaining the “queerness” of our intuitions about cultural moral norms as subcomponents of cooperation strategies, science debunks the mysticism that shields cultural moral norms from rational discussion. — Mark S

Science can only "dubunk" the mysticism of moral norms when it is opposed to mystical narratives concerning their origins and operation, such as those offered by some religious traditions. But we are not talking about that. There is no mysticism involved in accepting moral norms without or independently of an awareness of history and mechanism. (The "queerness" of which Mackie wrote is something else - it concerns moral "properties" when viewed alongside items in a naturalistic ontology of properties.)

And while conservative religious societies may indeed oppose the kind of scientific research into the anthropology of morality that you have been championing in this thread, somehow I don't think that is what you have in mind when you talk about debunking and shielding. What then? The questions that science opens to rational discussion concern the whats and the hows of morality: What norms are there? How did they arise? How do they operate in society and in individual? Etc. What it cannot do is advance the discussion of norms as such - that is, whether one ought to accept them - except indirectly and arationally, similarly to how learning and life experience can over time affect one's moral outlook.

Science reveals an objective basis for evaluating cultural moral norms as instrumental oughts. If you want the benefits of cooperation, you ought not follow cultural moral norms when they predictably will create rather than solve cooperation problems. That seems simple to me.

We can set aside the question of naturalizing morality via scientific insights into its origins, which I think has not progressed much in this discussion, and talk instead about putting those insights to practical use. But I don't know how much there is to be said here. Morality is a social institution, and just about anything having to do with sociality involves cooperation strategies - even conflict above individual level. "Solving cooperation problems" can describe everything that goes on in society, from family life to wars.

Thanks for Clarifying your thinking.

With this empirical knowledge:
• Any perceived imperative oughts are debunked. (Despite our intuitions, the Golden Rule, do not lie, steal, or kill, and other cultural moral norms do not have any innate, mystical, imperative oughtness. They are only heuristics for parts of cooperation strategies.) — Mark S

Yeah, that's a non-starter then. Is does not debunk ought. A naturalistic theory of morality does not have it as a consequence that moral imperatives are false, invalid or obsolete. Strictly speaking, there is no logical coupling between the two. Perhaps entertaining such theories can influence one's moral reasoning in some way, but not via inference.

Generally, a reductive explanation does not debunk its explanandum. But here we don't even have a reductive explanation. A moral imperative is not reducible to an explanation of its neurochemical mechanism or its social function. To see why, simply note that, as Hume argued, causal explanations neither contain nor imply any oughts, nor do they motivate action on their own, without being supplemented by some imperatives.

You still have the choice to abandon moral norms and leave only non-moral imperatives (instrumental oughts), but that choice cannot be justified by science. It's no less "mystical" than accepting moral norms in the first place.


I want to also push back against this charge of "mysticism":

Lacking the empirical knowledge that cultural moral norms are heuristics for parts of cooperation strategies:
• The mysticism of religious and cultural heritage and moral norms’ intuitive imperative oughtness can protect cultural moral norms from rational discussion. — Mark S

This implies that moral norms must derive their oughtness from something - if nothing else, then "mysticism." But I don't think that we necessarily derive our oughts. We may rationalize them, but that is optional and done after the fact.

There is no getting away from norms. We have rational, epistemic norms - those aren't derived either. Moral norms are just a different kind of norm, and they are not derivable from anything non-moral, though many things can influence them.

Key question for you: Why do you think this knowledge would not be useful as I have described? — Mark S

Well, to summarize my perhaps a bit convoluted response, I'll reiterate PhilosophyRunner's question:

How does the "is" help with disputes about "should" and "ought?" — PhilosophyRunner

You yourself seem rather conflicted on this point. In your OP and responses to others you both acknowledge it and contradict it. This is what I find most confusing. There are plenty of people among those who comment on morality who blithely ignore or deny the is-ought problem. But with you I can't even figure out where you stand.

Let me try to reconstruct your thinking and you tell me if I got something right:

1. Science can give us insights about generative principles behind moral norms.

2. Those generative principles constitute a purer form of morality than the specific norms that result from it.

3. Therefore, by gaining an understanding of those principles, we can apply a corrective to the actual moral norms that we hold, or fill the gaps left by existing norms.

(2) is the most problematic step here, in my opinion, although plenty can be said about (1) and even (3) to further complicate the issue.

And to use for example surface to air missiles in the surface-to-surface role is quite inefficient as the missiles don't have a similar high explosive charge as actual artillery missiles and rockets. — ssu

Yes, much of what Russia is now lobbing at ground targets was not primarily intended for that purpose. And the problem with that is not only the size or penetration, but targeting as well. For example, the Kh-22 missile was originally designed to target aircraft carriers, so it has plenty of charge - enough to destroy an apartment complex in Dnipro. But, like most anti-ship missiles, it has radar homing, which works well for large metal bodies in open sea, but not for concrete structures on land. So on land it can hit hundreds of meters wide off target.

Yet I think that creating simple "el cheapo" rockets/missiles to this role is quite possible even with the sanctions etc. Scuds were made in the 1950's and then there wasn't much computer chips around. Russia is likely transforming to a wartime economy and likely changes to the military industry can be done in a year or so. Hence likely a continuation of the missile barrage against Ukrainian cities will continue and I'm not so sure if the missiles will run out. — ssu

Iranian drones that Russia is launching against Ukrainian infrastructure were found to be assembled from many Western components that Iran wasn't supposed to have. But over the years Iran has learned how to get around sanctions, so that they can manufacture their weapons in quantity. If Iran can do it, so can Russia. Indeed, sanctioned components have also been found in recently manufactured Russian munitions and drones as well.

Still, we are likely going to see primitivization of their weapons production, just as we are already seeing primitivization of civilian production (car manufacture, etc.)

Hello Mark and welcome to the forum!

First, when you say "this empirical finding," I am assuming you are referring to this, plus your generalizations/summations, right?

See Oliver Curry’s “Morality as Cooperation” papers and Martin Nowak’s book SuperCooperators for an introduction to the field. — Mark S

This is all fine. Just to add, the study of the natural origins and mechanisms of morality goes at least as far back as Darwin, and has been particularly active in the past 100 years. There are multiple theories from anthropology, ecology, psychology, neuroscience, developmental biology, many of which are not mutually exclusive, but rather provide different and mutually supportive ways of looking at the same subject. Morality as cooperation strategy very much fits into that body of research.

However, I don't understand how you get to this conclusion:

This knowledge can help resolve disputes about cultural moral norms because it provides an objective basis — Mark S

This implies that you can discern the shape of some truer, superior morality by identifying global patterns in its natural origins. And once you have grasped this "super-morality," you can then use it to arbitrate moral puzzles and disagreements. But why? Why must there be some universal, immutable "super-morality" behind the dizzying variety of cultural norms? And why think that this is the way to find it? Just because you can identify patterns doesn't mean that you have found a general principle. Such an approach is redolent of natural science, but then you must believe that morality is a universal principle of nature, like, say, relativity or the least action principle?

I suspect that what is really going on is that you are taking modern science as the paragon of a methodology aimed at truth and then applying that methodology to ethics without first establishing whether ethics is a suitable domain of application.

Identifying general principles behind the historical development of moral norms is a worthy and fascinating scientific endeavor, but I don't think it can inform us about some "truer" morality that supersedes whatever moral norms we may currently hold.

Human Rights Watch: Russian Attacks on Energy Grid Threaten Civilians

Russian forces’ widespread and repeated targeting of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure appears primarily designed to instill terror among the population in violation of the laws of war, Human Rights Watch said today. Numerous missile and drone attacks in October and November have deprived millions of civilians of at least temporary access to electricity, water, heat, and related vital services ahead of the cold winter months. — HRW

Russian politicians, lawmakers, and other commentators on Russian state media widely applauded the prospect of Ukrainian civilians being left without heat and water in winter. One member of parliament stated that ordinary people should “rot and freeze”, another said the strikes were necessary to destroy the Ukrainian state’s capacity to survive. — HRW

Amnesty International: Russian attacks on critical energy infrastructure amount to war crimes

Reacting to the news that Russian attacks on energy facilities in Ukraine over recent days have led to a nationwide blackout in the country, Marie Struthers, Amnesty International’s Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, said:

“The strategy behind Russia’s latest warfare tactics is unmistakable. In bombing Ukraine’s critical civilian infrastructure, including energy facilities, the Russian army clearly intends to undermine industrial production, disrupt transportation, sow fear and despair and deprive civilians in Ukraine of heat, electricity and water as the cold grip of winter approaches.”

“Russia’s targeting of Ukrainian civilian infrastructure is unlawful. The morale of the civilian population is not a lawful target, and carrying out these attacks with the sole purpose of terrorizing civilians is a war crime. All those responsible for ordering and committing these criminal attacks must be held to account. With Russia ramping up its efforts to terrorize civilians in Ukraine, the international community must urgently respond and condemn these heinous attacks.” — Amnesty International

International Federation for Human Rights: Russia’s attacks against energy infrastructure violate international humanitarian law

In this position paper, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) analyses why the Russian attacks against Ukrainian energy infrastructure violate international humanitarian law and could be qualified as war crimes. — FIDH

Reuters: When are attacks on civilian infrastructure war crimes?

Russia's attacks on Ukraine's civilian infrastructure, including energy facilities, have been described as possible war crimes by the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Amnesty International. — Reuters

BBC: Is attacking Ukraine's power grid a war crime?

"Demoralising people, terrorising people, is not considered to be an acceptable military advantage," Dr Varaki explains. In fact, she says, the opposite is true: "Terrorising the civilian population is considered to be a war crime."

As well as Russia's insistence that it is targeting only military objects, the Kremlin has hinted that there is another reason for the strikes - persuading Kyiv to talk.

"The unwillingness of the Ukrainian side to settle the problem, to start negotiations, its refusal to seek common ground - this is their consequence," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. — BBC

How is this taken in the Kremlin? Should a change in their tactics be expected? — jorndoe

Not likely. Terror against civilians has been their favored tactics practically from the beginning of the invasion, or rather since the leadership realized within the first few weeks that the blitzkrieg failed and that Ukrainians were not welcoming their "liberators" with open arms. This is nothing new for Russia: they did the same in Chechnya and in Syria. The campaign to destroy life support systems for millions of people in the middle of winter is just the latest escalation of that tactics. It had long been called for by hardline supporters of the war inside Russia, and Putin seems keen to please them, although they are a small minority.

The only change that I am seeing is in the state propaganda rhetoric. In the past crimes against civilians were denied at all levels, however implausibly. Now, while the Russian MoD hypocritically claims that the strikes are aimed against "military control centers and energy infrastructure linked to them," state media and lower-level officials are openly acknowledging and even praising the destruction of critical civilian infrastructure. And they are not shy about articulating the reasons for attacks against civilians: it is to destroy their will to resist and turn them against their government. That the tactics didn't work before and isn't working now doesn't seem to give anyone a pause and doesn't prompt any change in thinking at the top.

As for the effectiveness of the air campaign, it may be less effective than hoped for, but as long as a percentage of missiles and drones gets through, it does its job. Note also that some munitions are better at getting through the air defense than others. For example, Ukraine has no defense against the Kh-22 missile that destroyed the apartment complex in Dnipro (and earlier destroyed a shopping center, also causing dozens of casualties). Patriot might have shot it down, but it is not deployed yet, and Ukraine will never have it in anything like sufficient quantities to protect its major population centers. In any case, all Russia needs to do is launch more than the defense can shoot down. The only potential issue for Russia is the depletion of its stocks of long-range munitions at a much faster rate than the industry can produce. But they are already supplementing their dwindling stocks with hundreds of cheap Iranian strike drones, and according to Western intelligence, they are also negotiating to buy Iranian ballistic missiles.