Sounds like you're world-weary. Weltschmerz. The feeling of experience as "heavy", or "syrupy". I wouldn't even call it listlessness or ennui. You're just kinda "there", existing, somehow. Life flows but incredibly slowly, one heartbeat after another. As if your life is an exile from non-existence and you just want to retire already. Responsibilities are tedious and annoying, things you used to find enjoyable are now sort of empty and lackluster.

You said you used to be an engineer. That's cool, I'm currently pursuing an electrical/computer engineering degree with a minor in philosophy. You'd never guess what my private life is like if you saw me in public - I'm a pretty chill guy, albeit melancholic, and like making people laugh. Yet when I'm by myself I'm troubled deeply by many rather scary or dark thoughts, existential and/or intrusive in nature. It's like I become a different person, and the void begins to open. I want to be upbeat but it's hard to find any genuine or authentic reason to, especially when I have these thoughts nagging me. I'm not suicidal (or at least I don't think I am), but neither am I that attached to my future, whatever the hell that ends up being.

I don't know, if you're on medication I'd keep taking it and make sure you're taking care of yourself. I find some consolation in philosophy; lately I've been reading Nietzsche a lot and do enjoy his almost mythological aphorisms. Sometimes they spark something on fire in me and it's like I'm reinvigorated. A lot of people misunderstand and/or mischaracterize Nietzsche, though, which is unfortunate. Maybe you'll find something of interest in his writings. Or maybe not.

Good luck.

Ugh, no, if we did that, then we would all see who each other really are and would have to actually be considerate and respectful. This is the internet, goddammit, I didn't come here for manners and pleasantries! On with the anonymous ego-trips!

Right, for the sake of argument, let's assume that reasons are "static preferences". Being static, they cannot act as a cause. It is the reasoning mind, which uses static preferences, in the process of reasoning, which causes the decision. It cannot be a preference which is the cause of a decision because the preferences are not active, they are passive. The mind is active in the process of reasoning, and it is the mind which causes the decision, not the preference. — Metaphysician Undercover

You misunderstand what I meant by static. By static, I merely meant unchanging, I didn't mean causally inert. The existence of a opportunity-preference, paired with a principled, character-building preference, leads to action.

We judge things according to principles, not goals. We look for objective principles, and we can judge our goals as to whether they are consistent with the principles which we believe are objective. — Metaphysician Undercover

I hesitate to accept this idea of a perfectly rational mind, built upon sturdy, concrete principles and noble truths. For where do these principles come from, and why do we uphold them if not by a preference to uphold them?

Principles become rules in which to follow, given a framework which we adopt based upon certain preferences.

Practical reason is an ability to arbitrate between potentially conflicting goals. Some specific goal may be judged to take precedence over another goal, in a particular practical situation, when there is a good reason for it to do so. Practical reason is the ability to understand such reasons and to be motivated by them to act accordingly. Reasons themselves, unlike raw desires, baby squirrels of meteorites do not come from anywhere. It's a category error to ask where a reason comes from. One can ask where the human ability to reason practically (i.e. to be sensitive to reasons) comes from, but reasons themselves stand on their own. If someone's reason to do, or to believe, something is bad, what is required in order to show this reasons to be bad, and thereby motivate an agent to abandon it, isn't a story about the causal origin of that reason (or the causal origin of the specific goal that it recommends one to act upon), but rather a good counterargument. — Pierre-Normand

I see no reason to distinguish between preferences and reasons, as if they are two completely separate things. Reasons, in my view, are just static preferences. I have a reason to go for a run today, because I want to be in good shape. I may not actually prefer to go for a run (exercise is hard...), but this preference is over-ridden by the reason (preference) to be fit.

Thus we can have a static grouping of preferences (reasons) if we have a static goal - to be fit, to understand the truth, etc. The division between normative reasons and non-normative preferences thus, in my view, cannot be sustained.

The fact is, as I have argued, and Pierre-Normand now agues, that we use reason to judge conflicting preferences, and this is called making a choice. — Metaphysician Undercover

But to what standard do we judge conflicting preferences, if not the goals we have in mind to accomplish?

So you have not addressed the process which judges the preferences to make a choice. You have simply asserted that a "preference" causes the choice, so it is not a choice at all. But this is simplistic nonsense because clearly different preferences are judged, and not a single one of them actually causes itself to be chosen. They are judged as passive possibilities, not active causes. The active cause of the choice comes from that which is judging. — Metaphysician Undercover

We choose an option depending on what our overarching goals are. Do I go to the movie theater, or donate to a charity? In both cases, I have a preference to have fun, and a preference to be moral. And this is where we get into the idea of character, or the static preferences a person has. The character is what ultimately decides between two or more preferences, based on what the person's higher-order goals are and a deliberation as to which of the possible routes of action helps attain this goal the best. But of course none of us decided what our character would be, or who we would fundamentally be as a person.

Why would you say this? It appears as contradiction. How can you say that "it chooses", if whatever it chooses it must choose? How is that a choice at all? — Metaphysician Undercover

Exactly, it's not a choice at all. It's like a compass pointing to north - it is forced to point north, but nevertheless we need the needle to know where north is.

Yes, it absolutely does make sense. This is how we proceed to kick our bad habits. We just face the fact that certain things are not good for us, and force ourselves not to choose those things, even though they are our preferences. — Metaphysician Undercover

But to kick our bad habits requires us to have the preference to be rid of these bad habits. An override.

The choice produced by the rational mind is not one of "preference", but one of reason. Then the will releases the suspended choice, allowing the individual to act according to reason rather than preference. — Metaphysician Undercover

What does reason accomplish if not goals, and where do goals come from if not preferences?

But whatever it chooses, it must choose. It doesn't make sense to have a strong preference yet pick the route of least preference satisfaction, otherwise what exactly would a preference even be? There's nothing free about the will here. The will must choose a certain route of action depending on how strong the various preferences influencing it are.

This is the power to not choose, to decline or deny any preference. Since it can decline any preference whatsoever, it cannot be a preference itself. To say that will power, which is the power to deny any preference, is itself a form of preference, is contradictory. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not necessarily. We can see will-power as a kind of illusion. In any case, what exactly is going on when we choose, if not the process of evaluating our preferences? If our preferences don't causally affect our choices, then what exactly causes us to choose one option rather than another?

Your argument fails to dismiss free choice, because you would need to produce a human inclination which could not be overcome by the power of the will, in order to prove your point. But each and every activity of the human being may be overcome through the power of choice, as is demonstrated by suicide. — Metaphysician Undercover

The power of the will? What is the will, if not the manifestation of the most prominent preference, or the conglomeration of a multitude of compatible and cohesive preferences?

But that's an entirely false dichotomy. Preferences are an expression of the individual. They are not somebody else's preferences, nor are they community 'property'. They are, by definition, what makes me me! No matter how they came to be what they are, their source is always me. They were not transferred to me from any external source. — Barry Etheridge

They characterize you but they aren't the product of your will or anything like that. One morning you woke up and found that you wanted orange juice. You didn't decide that you wanted orange juice.

A lot of the existentialists were all about radical freedom, and anti-essentialists. Like Sartre said, existence precedes essence. Which I find to be entirely incoherent, since to exist is to have certain properties and qualities outside of your control.

So say you wake up one day and want orange juice. You get orange juice and it makes you satisfied. But reflecting upon all this you can come to realize that, since you didn't choose to have this preference, you're merely following the rules the universe programmed into you.

So then perhaps in disgust you throw down my glass of orange juice and decide to rebel. But your life is filled with preferences, and this would require a massive undertaking to resist all these preferences. You didn't choose to make the smell of lavender soothingly calming, dammit! You don't want to be a posh resident of the universe, pampered (insulting to the dignity of the ego), and neither do you want to be a pawn of the universe, thrown around without your consent (also insulting)!

But eventually you will realize that all of these preferences are meant to keep you alive - that's the universe's game, to keep you alive until you can procreate and defend the clan. Therefore, in order to rebel, you must discontinue living.

However you then also immediately realize that the preference to live seems to be more important than being an individual - in fact, you realize later, that the preference to be an individual is itself a preference. You didn't get to decide if you wanted to be an individual, you were thrown into the world from nothing-ness.

This leads me to believe that the self has absolutely no causal relevancy here. And it also leads me to believe that existentialism, with its focus on freedom and rebellion, fundamentally falls short because it doesn't realize that our preferences, who we are, are not a product of ourselves at all. We don't have control. And if we can't have control, then what's the point of being an individual?

Sure, I can agree with that. I think this is why I generally don't like the existentialist slogan of individuality - if there is an individual, then its preferences are an imposition onto itself.

Talk of dispassionate choice reminds me Stoicism. But the attempt to dispassionately choose something is nevertheless motivated by some other preference - the wish to not be enslaved to preferences. No matter where you go, there's always a preference lurking behind the choice.

This is a manifestation of her sensitivity to the reasons that she has to act in this or that way in such or such general range of circumstances. — Pierre-Normand

But what are these reasons, other than preferences (i.e. needs, desires, concerns, etc)?

If we are not free when we have to follow a social contract that we did not agree to, then we are not free when we have to follow preferences that we did not agree to.

For example the pedophile may have an implicit preference for children but may also believe this to be wrong and so thus has a higher-level preference that disables the pedophilic preference. However, this pedophilic preference still has influence, since it has to be repressed.

Even the higher-level preferences we did not ask for. The preference to be loved, the preference to have a good set of friends, the preference to have a stable job, etc - although we may really really enjoy these preferences being satisfied, after reflection we can come to realize that these preferences are inherently limiting in their nature. They limit what we can and cannot do by limiting what we like and dislike. Therefore, we have no control over what we like and dislike, and therefore have no control over what options will be seen as better than others.

This is why I was saying rebellious existentialism is sort of incoherent, since it takes a preference (that of being an individual) and forgets where this preference came from (not from the individual!).

Sometimes people feel pain, hate it and do nothing about it. Indeed, you might have acted that way. You just chose to tend to it. — TheWillowOfDarkness

In which case, I would argue that they have other preferences over-riding others. Accomplishment is the essence of action. We want something to be the case, therefore we do something.

"Rebellious existentialism" isn't interested in freeing anyone from preferences. It's point is one cannot free themselves from their preference-- you must choose, you must have a preference and there is no other state which can define it. Its freedom is defined in our inability to determine our preferences — TheWillowOfDarkness

My point was that the ultimate act of rebellion in the existential sense would be a rebellion against yourself. It's why we see people who go cliff jumping as totally crazy, yet somehow in an endearing way. They are fighting against their own body's preferences which instantiate themselves as fear and anxiety. But cliff jumping would pale to the maximal act of rebellion, which would be suicide. It wouldn't make sense to kill yourself when you are really, really happy - yet for the rebellious this is exactly what they ought to do.

And that's kind of what I was getting at here, we don't have control. We only think we have control. We didn't get to choose what was to be enjoyable and uncomfortable to us. For some reason, synthwave music jives with me - but I had no choice in this matter. I enjoy synthwave music, and I enjoy it without my own consent. I know that sounds edgy but really if we're all about existential rebellion, then this is kind of important. If we're really actually concerned about individuality then we need to recognize that we don't even have control over who we are, and that the greatest act of individuality would be the rebellion against the individual himself.

Despite lacking free will, our brains tend to do what we prefer and avoid what we don't enjoy, thanks to millions of years of programming behind it — Weeknd

On the contrary I think it rather that our mind, our sense of self, is aligned with what the body needs. But what the body does and needs does not always align with the self - see hunger, thirst, aging, etc.

"Actions are initiated by mental states" looks as if it is saying something other than "we initiate actions". — unenlightened

Yes, I meant preferences which would be outside of the self's grasp. I did not choose to hate tomatoes, for example. This preferences against tomatoes guides my action - without any over-riding higher-level preferences, I will not eat tomatoes. So I suppose it does look like a homunculus, but then again I suspect agency is entirely epiphenomenal.

Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms — schopenhauer1

Which is of course true.

For every action there is a preference. The act of choosing one's preferences is an act itself, which requires a preference that was not chosen.

I don't know what you're getting at here. I have a preference to not feel pain - when I feel pain, I tend to the source of the pain. The reason I tend to the source of the pain is because I have a preference to not feel pain. But I did not choose to have this preference to begin with.

Because of this, any attempt at a radical metaphysical rebellious existentialism is going to be shallow as it ignores our inability to free ourselves from our preferences to begin with. The only rebellion worthy of such a name would be one in which the agent performs actions that are entirely against his own preferences - which is impossible to do without having a preference to rebel in the first place.

No, things can be chosen, but the reasons behind these choices (our preferences) are outside of our control. Certainly we don't have the choice to change our preferences.

You have any examples of how anti-realist normative literature compares to realist normative literature? I'm getting conflicting information on this. Some argue as you have that anti-realism eliminates certain normative theories, while other claim it doesn't do anything to the debate.

What worries me with some forms of anti-realism is that we seem to (or at least I do) find many normative beliefs to be true, and true in virtue of something external to our minds, i.e. an objective aspect of reality. But if we come to the conclusion that there nothing external to us is actually moral, or actually valuable, outside of our projections on them, then that seems to dampen our commitment to these beliefs. If there really is no difference between A and B besides how I feel about A and B, and if how I feel about A and B is at least in part dependent on my belief that A and B are objectively valuable, then my belief that A and B are not objectively valuable is incompatible with the belief that A and B are, which in turn threatens the motivational aspect of morality in general.

In moral reflection, one can use logic to work out the best way to satisfy one's moral feelings. — andrewk

I think I can agree to this. Fundamentally the reaction I have to things I consider moral or immoral is some sort of approval or disapproval. From this I can figure out what makes it the case that I feel this way about something.

However what happens if our moral beliefs are illogical? What happens when, upon further analysis, we find that the moral belief does not conform to logic, or is ad hoc, or begs the question? Which takes precedence, the illogical belief or the logic?

If morality is dependent on how you feel, and if feelings are notoriously illogical, does it make sense for your flavor of anti-realism to use logical reasoning to arrive at an emotional conclusion?

True, however in many (or most) normative ethical debates, there are appeals to things outside of our minds, like states of affairs or persons or whatnot. How do cognitivist anti-realists decide what interpretation of the data is right without pretending there is value in the external world?

To put it another way: moral realists' data is the world outside of our minds, in which the semantic content of our normative expressions is the same kind as that of regular old expressions. Correspondence to some actual moral property which makes the statements truth-apt. Yet anti-realism denies the existence of morals independent of our minds - there is no correspondence to some actual moral property. So how are anti-realist statements ever truth apt? If there is no correspondence to some actual moral property in the world external to our minds, the what does the statement correspond to which could make it true or false?

That is why I said anti-realist normative debates would seem to require some element of fiction or as if discussion. Debate morality as if it actually exists outside of our minds. Which would unfortunately put many positions on the frying pan, as any anti-realist could just deny the reality of whatever someone is claiming and that's that.

At its heart lies the claim that some bloke living in relative comfort somewhere in the West is in a better position to know whether a couple in Mali or Malaysia or Madagascar should have a child than they are. Claims like this baffle me. — mcdoodle

Why should it? I don't see how this changes anything. Does the addition of another person in the world make the world go better or worse or stay the same? You're implying that this debate is irrelevant to whether or not someone should have children and I think that is begging the question.

T R I G G E R E D

Been reading an interesting dissertation on this: https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/13064981/Frick_gsas.harvard.inactive_0084L_11842.pdf?sequence=1

It's difficult to summarize as I don't fully grasp the entire argument, especially since much of it is geared towards rejecting other theories and pointing out their flaws, whether that be totalist consequentialism or some other conception.

However the basic gist is that the population Asymmetry exists because we have a standard that exists if we are to procreate. Abstaining from procreation results in no obligation, since no standard exists. But as soon as we contemplate whether or not we should have children, we are put into the mind-set of a standard: if we have children, then we must provide x for the child in order to meet this standard. If we cannot reach this standard then we have a clear-cut reason to not have a child. Thus, the author explicitly defends the thesis that population has little to no relevance here, and that our obligations are to people, not statistics or net-gross populations.

I'm not sure if this is entirely satisfactory, and I'm wondering how he escapes a comparison of populations. Perhaps this also falls under the standard - if we have to choose a population, then we must choose the larger population of happy people. But again I'm still working through the argument and will probably post a more detailed summary/response after I have digested the argument.

I'm interested in your account of the times we aren't uncertain of the consequences. I think of them as nil, which is one reason I'm not a consequentialist. — mcdoodle

I think we can be uncertain but still lean towards some option. Granted, this is still uncertainty. But we can presumably approach/estimate certainty within a certain threshold.

In any case, the value of a state of affairs is independent of the intentions and epistemic conditions of the agents within. Uncertainty may be a legal excuse but isn't a moral excuse, especially when we have the means to resolve uncertainty to within an acceptable amount.

I'm not a consequentialist. I'm interested to know what are the circumstances in which anyone knows for certain what the consequences of a certain act will be, before undertaking it. Your remark makes those circumstances sound frequent. — mcdoodle

Certainty is not required for action. Epistemic vagueness is independent of the value of a state of affairs.

Indeed I think this might actually be a good argument against any affirmative second-order morality in general: we can't be ethical due to our existential and epistemic position in the world.

If the dangerous consequences of intervention are often invisible, so are the benefits.
It is often difficult to identify the connection between action/inaction and consequence.

I'm still a consequentialist, but sometimes we have to guess, estimate, assume--certainly not know-- what the consequences are. — Bitter Crank

Very true, good point. As long as we're consequentialists then we also need to take into account ignorance and uncertainty in certain situations in regards to our own abilities to successfully intervene.

From this, I think it's fairly easy to obtain a theory of responsibility: to act based upon what you know and your abilities. I cannot be held responsible for 9/11. I was barely a child when that happened. I neither knew what was going on and had no way of preventing it from happening. But if today I saw a person getting mugged, I would have not only direct knowledge of the event but also the means (ability) to intervene. Similarly, I have indirect knowledge of the suffering of people afar (I have direct knowledge of their suffering in the abstract), and I have the means of helping them (by donating money, for example).

Thus, the effective altruism pushes the idea that we should try to maximize our utility by becoming knowledgeable of global affairs and pursuing a job that we not only enjoy but also gives us money to donate. Indeed that was what Aristotle recommended (right before he taught the ruthless conqueror Alexander the Great...was Aristotle partly responsible for the ensuing carnage?): to do good by taking care of yourself.

I'm (one of) the best. I think this haunts just about any public performance of what one regards as virtue. — Hoo

Agreed. It seems to me to be profoundly egotistical.

I think this is why I particularly am fond of Buddhism: it is an inner-worldly asceticism, better described as "Spartan" - maintain what you need to survive, refuse excess. It's not any of this wishy-washy transcendental other-worldlyness, which inevitably places attachment on the ascetic lifestyle to begin with.

But in general I think people like the idea of a transcendental escape more than they actually like putting this into practice. It's a way of pretending you're making progress, by identifying a goal that you'll "eventually" reach. When really what's going on is the procrastination of action.

“Is it possible that existence is our exile and nothingness our home?”

-Emil Cioran

Well in fact that scientific image produces pain-killers, and hip operations, and cognitive therapies, and other stuff which can change the content of that phenomenological experience. — apokrisis

And this changes...what, exactly? This only confirms what I had been saying earlier - phenomenological experiences are the subject of ethical priority. Your entropic ethics is missing what makes something moral - it's failing to resolve Moore's open-ended question.

Did the lamb express a preference? Is it capable of having one? Again you are having to support your position by talking nonsense. — apokrisis

Does it have a preference? It sure seems as though it does.

I'm not ducking your question as much as you are apologizing for murder.

Does an autistic child have preferences? Is it okay to murder them? Is it okay to have slaves, just because everyone else has slaves?

No.

Do you have a preference about lamb-eating? Might I have a different preference? Now we are talking. What general ground decides the issue morally when preferences are in conflict like this? — apokrisis

Empathy, compassion, etc. Pointing out the reality of certain preferences and decisions and honestly assessing what our reactions are to these realities. Intuitive responses are prima facie evidence for something being of value, because value depends on people who exist.

In any case, there are more important preferences at stake here than your appetite - namely, the lamb's preference to continue living. Are you really going to make equivalent your appetite with the inherent desire to live another day?

The exact same issue arises when a man rapes a woman. There's a violation of preferences here - which is more important, the man's lust or the woman's liberty?

Your entire position essentially boils down to might=right. I'm intellectually superior, therefore I get to make the rules. And this goes entirely against any modern egalitarian ideal. It's barbaric.

Either the sentience of animals is identical or so close to identical as makes no difference to that of humans in which case they should be afforded the identical moral and legal protection or it is not and there can be no rational objection to their being treated as the food that nature made them. — Barry Etheridge

Or sentience exists on a spectrum, and we can't play dice with other people's lives.

Where and how do you draw the line? — Barry Etheridge

Admittedly there is no precise line. We can say for sure that rocks, bacteria and fungi do not suffer. We can say for sure that mammals do. We can't say for sure whether or not insects, fish, or amphibians suffer - we have to take into account the benefit of the doubt and assume they can until substantial evidence shows they cannot.

The moral argument for vegetarianism ends up effectively proposing that it it is better to starve to death than eat meat (doubly so for vegans), sociopathy by any other name. Doesn't exactly scream 'morally superior' to me! — Barry Etheridge

Straw man. If you are starving to death, you have no choice in the matter, you have to eat something. This is why self-defense is acceptable moral behavior - killing someone for no reason is immoral, defending yourself is not.

Luckily for most of us we don't depend on meat to survive, so there's really no excuse.

You know I've explained my view of the role of pleasure and pain as signals which make biological "common-sense". Just as humans are also wired to value their social interactions in terms of empathy and antipathy.

The difference is that while I do ground these feelings in something measurably real, you seem to want to treat them as cosmically-free floating - just feelings that exist in some abstracted fashion with no connection to anything in particular and thus absolute in their solipsistic force. — apokrisis

No. I am not claiming that these feeling are just floating around somewhere. But neither am I going to deny the appearance, the "projectedness", the transparency of these experiences. Identifying pain as C-fibers firing (an outdated neuroscientific model) doesn't change the fact that pain hurts. Telling someone that their fear is only a chemical reaction doesn't help them. Identifying the cause of our morality (empathy, sympathy, compassion) and identifying the cause of these as well does not change how we experience them.

In other words, the content of our phenomenological experiences does not change with the introduction of a new scientific image of man. You need to take into account this.

All you are saying is that you have discovered that you are constrained to think in certain ways about events or choices in life. And while you also know that this is due to some ancestral history (both a biological and cultural one), right there your analysis stops. You just accept whatever it is that you have ended up being without further questions. — apokrisis

Because that's all that's needed. A further anthropological analysis of what makes me tick won't change how I act, although there is some sketchy data which claims to show that moral realists are, all things considered, more likely to act "morally" than anti-realists.

If you want to go into meta-ethics, by all means go ahead. But keep in mind that you're doing meta-ethics, and not normative ethics.

If the lamb that ends up on my plate involves no suffering, where is the issue with me enjoying my dinner? It cannot be any issue to do with suffering, can it? — apokrisis

If the person that ends up in the cemetery involves no conscious suffering (perhaps you 360 no-scoped them), where is the issue with this murder?

The issue is that someone's preferences were violated. Suffering isn't just the violation of a preference - that's much too empty. But suffering is, all things considered, the most prioritized of experiences.

But they are not preferences any more in the sense of being a moral choice when you are saying you have no choice but to respect your own discovered feelings on these matters. — apokrisis

This is sort of where Levinas comes into play with his idea of the persecution of ethics. We feel compelled to act ethically. Ethics is not egoistic, ethics do not necessarily align with our preferences. Only in the "virtuous" man does this occur.

I am saying we can instead understand the actual moral codes of societies - which are general pretty enthusiastic about hunting and meat-eating - as natural preferences because they encode the kind of balancing acts that make for a flourishing society. — apokrisis

Oh, sure, they're natural, but again personal preferences are not necessarily normative. What you want to do is not necessarily moral. The satisfaction of preferences can be moral in the abstract sense, but just because we have preferences doesn't mean their contents are moral.

You are speaking up here only for your own very personal minority view of what feels right when it comes to being a member of the tribe, Homo carnivorius. So either you have special privileged knowledge the rest of the world doesn't share, or you are just speaking to some particular quirk of your own psycho-developmental history. — apokrisis

Or, to be less dichotomous about all this, it's that I recognize that humans have a surplus of intellectual ability that is able to reflect upon our ingrained preferences and reject them. This goes right back to Zapffe again. We're not comfortable in the world anymore, we're not complacent. We've seen too much.

This is not at all unrealistic. Software programs have bugs that persist simply because the conditions around them allow them too. They don't belong, but the nevertheless are there. Change the programming, the bug disappears. The same applies to the human psyche. For some crazy reason human consciousness exists when a toned down version would have sufficed. Perhaps this is a product of the agricultural revolution in Mesopotamia all those centuries ago.

We evolved in a relatively thermodynamically-stable environment. We had no concept of entropy. And yet entropy, the same thing you're arguing is moral, is going to stab us in the back.

So while you waffle on about all right-thinking dudes knowing instinctively that eating animals is inherently bad form, pretty much the entire human race plainly just does not believe you. — apokrisis

Are you seriously going to argue that population dictates moral righteousness? Really?!

Clearly the majority of civilizations two thousand years ago wouldn't have thought slavery was wrong.

Like I said before, moral conventionalism all the way. It's an ad hoc meta-ethical theory.

But as you say, your position doesn't rely on such facts. The only thing that matters in all existence is your preferences on some issue. If we want to understand morality, we must come to you - learn about how self-deluding we all are. — apokrisis

I wouldn't be so smug about it, but, yes, I think with the proper education and a little bit of honesty, people can see the errors of their ways. This applies universally.

I'm sure I could explain it a million more times and you still wouldn't twig what is meant by "constraints".

I will simply repeat that constraints are what make possibilities actually possible. Limits give choice meaningful shape (such that some action could be regarded as actually moral vs immoral). — apokrisis

What I see to be the fundamental problem with your view is that you aren't taking into account the phenomenology of ethics.

I won't disagree with you that entropy rules in the end. I won't disagree with you that our normative intuitions came about via entropic constraints.

What I will disagree with you on is the phenomenal motivation we have for acting ethically. Any entropic constraint that made our intuitions what they are, are ancestral. I don't step in to prevent a rape because I'm worried about maximizing entropy, or because if I step in it will help keep society stable and ultimately increase our entropic footprint. I step in because I care about the person getting raped. I have placed the fundamental value on persons. My intentions are, ultimately, towards people regardless of how these intentions have evolved in the past.

So you now admit your argument based on suffering has no bearing here. We can remove that from the discussion. — apokrisis

No we can't. And no, suffering has inherent bearing in here because suffering is partly the violation of preferences (i.e. why masochists can feel some pain but not suffer - they have a preference for pain).

Now we instead have something truly ethereal - preferences. Why should I have to share yours? Where is the argument for that? — apokrisis

Indeed, why should I have to share your preference for entropy maximization, hmm?

Like you would say, our preferences are a result of the environment. And no, preferences are not ethereal - we have preferences after all. You're saying anything that isn't a major force in the holistic global scene is ethereal? Hardly.

I have to say is only flimsily supported at best by science — Barry Etheridge

Absolutely not. Science is on my side on this one. Humans are not the only ones who have sentience.

Calling other people out who eat meat as "speciesists" is perfectly acceptable if I think this is accurate. If you disagree with this label, tell me why. It is perfectly accurate. Killing other animals is disregarding them as sentient, feeling beings - and if you're going to be moral to humans, you had better have a good reason for being moral to human exclusively without begging the question.

Now I'm guessing you are thinking that if something is "simply pragmatic" or "simply a result of nature", then it isn't "moral" because morality ought to involve some kind of transcending human choice. You have the Romantic conviction that humans are above "mere nature" in being "closer to God", or "closer to goodness, truth and beauty", or whatever other traditional morality tale has been part of your up-bringing. — apokrisis

Not really. I just don't equivocate tendencies with normativity.

And science now supports that position rigorously. — apokrisis

Does it really?

All systems persist by striking a fruitful entropic balance. They need global coherence (physical laws, genetic programmes, ethical codes) as their organising constraints, and also local action (material degrees of freedom, evolutionary competition, individual initiative) as the dissipative flow of events that sustains the whole. — apokrisis

Anchoring your morality in what is prevents you from wondering what could be. What could be better, what is not the case, possibilities. It keeps you from exploring other options. Once you remove this veil you're able to go about finding new paths.

Is it moral to kill a person so that society will continue to progress and entropify? No. Here we have a direct contradiction in what the universe "wants" and what we think is moral. You may argue that such action would undermine the societal structure - but we need only look at the past several thousand years to understand how that hasn't done anything to the system. Murdering people hasn't brought humanity to its doom.

Sorry. Remind me which those are again? Are we talking patents for perpetual motion machines? — apokrisis

No, we're talking vacuum cleaners, refrigerators, public maintenance, art, etc. The use of entropy to curb other entropic expansion. Would it be immoral, according to you, to have a nuclear bomb and not drop it somewhere? Such entropy!

If we cannot fail to entropify, then this means there is no prescription for action, and your ethics is empty. Prescribing maximum entropification also disregards sentients for a more abstract entropy.

LOL. This is quite simply atheistic divine command theory. — apokrisis

How so? Keep in mind I'm a moral anti-realist.

OK. But I ask again, where do you stand if the husbandry was perfect and the lamb had the happiest life, a painless death? — apokrisis

You still killed another animal. That's murder.

Applying your own calculus of suffering, how would it be immoral to eat the lamb? — apokrisis

It's not just suffering, it's preferences as well. I don't get to decide who lives and who dies.

Murder is and always has been a forensic legal term with an exact definition which does not apply to any non-human (which for the purpose includes unborn foetuses, incidentally). No amount of propaganda will change that. — Barry Etheridge

LOL, why do you think we don't apply murder to non-humans...? So we can keep eating them, that's why!

Since when did we not have the right? It is assumed in all the major moral and religious codes in history and prohibited by none of the world's legal systems. — Barry Etheridge

Might =/= Right.

The hunt both benefits from and enhances intelligence. You impose this supposed duty on humans to benefit other species because they are like us yet fail to follow through the logic that if they are like us they should also be bound by the same duty. — Barry Etheridge

I am pointing out that, because of our intelligence, we are able to transcend beyond what our intelligence was originally meant for. We can recognize what it's all about and come to terms with it. Become the janitors of nature so to speak.

Other species are not capable of this. Other species are morally relevant but cannot necessarily be ascribed agency. Whereas humans are the only species whose members lead their lives (pace Heidegger), and are capable of agency.

If, by the way, you are cryptically arguing your way toward the moral superiority of vegetarianism, as it certainly seems, then I think it would be fairer to all if you exposed that to more focused scrutiny. — Barry Etheridge

Yes, I think carnivorous diets are morally unacceptable.

At the cosmological level, it is "morally good" to maximise entropy. (Although of course in attributing finality or purpose to the Universe, we would only be doing that in the weakest possible sense. And there is no reason why we can't do both those things.) — apokrisis

Cosmic tendencies are not equivalent to morality, though. Again, morality is only able to be ascribed to sentients. Any other ascriptions are merely equivocations - just as gravity is not the force of love but of a non-agential force. It would be wrong to say that two large options are in love and so they come together, just as it would be wrong to say that entropy is morally good because that's what the universe tends to.

A measure of the intelligence and foresight of a social system will be how good it is at making some right decision on the issue. — apokrisis

How do you evaluate a decision's right/wrongness? What makes the continuation of a society cosmologically right?

So yes. Morality can be built up from first principles in natural fashion. — apokrisis

But only after realizing that they correspond to the golden rule, as you said. Which isn't building from naturalistic first principles. Unless you consider the golden rule to be one of these first principles, which is rather ad hoc.

My argument is that a secure morality is one built from the ground up on natural principles. If we can see what nature wants of us, then we can tell in measurable fashion how close we are to what it says is good. That creates a context in which we can make actually meaningful and useful choices. — apokrisis

This is quite simply atheistic divine command theory. God wants us to not do something, therefore we don't do it. The universe wants us to entropify, therefore we entropify.

As you can tell, I have no problem with what is in fact actually natural. So natural=normal. And unnatural=questionable. — apokrisis

Nope. Natural is indeed what is normal, but the unnatural is what is not-normal. You jumped from the non-normative to the normative without justification. What makes it the case that the status quo is natural? Why can't morality go against the system?

Is what is natural also what satisfies our preferences? Not necessarily. Indeed satisfying preferences is "natural" but may go against the cosmic naturalness you're talking about here; see the various societal constructions meant to curb the triumph of entropy.

Again a degree of behavioural variety is also natural. So I don't have any fundamental objection to veganism. I would only want to see it "done right" - done as an actually healthy diet. — apokrisis

Sure. But previously you were making it seem as though hunting a deer is normal and therefore acceptable.

But I live somewhere where we buy meat over the counter after it has been humanely reared and humanely slaughtered. — apokrisis

"Humanely" is not compatible with "slaughtered". Indeed if we have an option of killing an animal vs eating a perfectly good slice of synthetic meat, we'd go with the synthetic meat. There would be no point in killing the animal. There is no justification for killing animals unless it's out of self-defense - and even then this is often caused by a violation of the animal's own territory, it's own "home".

And if indeed a lamb has a happy life in a paddock, safe from all the usual diseases and predation, then dies instantly and painlessly, could you still morally object to it ending up on my dinner plate? — apokrisis

Yes, because husbandry is not as perfect as you make it seem. It's absurdly easy to market one's meat as "humanely raised" by a couple easy fixes to the farm that doesn't help the animals much. Like I said before, if we have the choice between natural and synthetic meat, would you be able to come up with a reason why natural meat is so much better that it justifies killing another creature?

We inherently don't know what's going on in the minds of other people, other creatures. It's easy to fall into the trap of believing that only the human species members ought not to be murdered. That's exactly what killing other animals for no reason is: murder. Since when did we have the right to decide how long a creature lives? Since when did we have the right to own another sentient?

That's certainly a point of view. But that extreme subjective position - one that is only supported by naive realism and its implicit Cartesian dualism - is precisely what is the topic of discussion.

You are claiming subjectivity as the ontological basis for moral necessity. I am replying that morality is better understood in terms of "objective" reality - in terms of whatever general purposes or constraints nature might have in mind. — apokrisis

But why call this morality? It offers no clear guide as to how to act except in general rules, and places the emphasis on something other than people.

You claim that welfare-centered ethics is only supported by naive realism and its implicit Cartesianism and this is absolutely laughable. What was deontology all about, then? Certainly deontology respects people and isn't dependent on Cartesianism, because Kant! Certainly Mill cared more about suffering than he did entropy!

Instead of trying to make morality a global holistic thing, make it an isolated and domain-specific phenomenon. Morality is all about choices. You're making it so that it has nothing to do with the people making the choices.

Talking animals and philosophising hunters? Is this Narnia where our legitimate scenario takes place? — apokrisis

:-}

You don't seem very good at analyzing other people's positions charitably. It's not far fetched at all to think that other animals outside of our species have emotions, can feel pain, and can have future interests. And I don't see why philosophy is outside the realm of a hunter. Indeed this is exactly what Zapffe talked about with his example of the prehistoric man dying on the beaches when he realized how all life was connected as a family of suffering.

But if we grant this craziness, then what actually follows? A sensible animal - if it is indeed taking the hunter at face value - would suggest a way to provide the hunter with an even better meal to their mutual benefit. — apokrisis

Or, you know, it's more about inflicting harm on an animal that can't consent. You're basically justifying murder and/or torture simply because you can get away with it (the animal can't fight back, the animal can't offer alternatives - as if the animal's life should even be on the gambling table to begin with, might=right). Sensibility is not a requirement for moral value - the ability to suffer is. Innocent, senseless suffering.

Instead the animal is senselessly thrown into a situation that it could not consent to, cannot escape, and is forced to endure extreme pain and fear so you can have a snack. It's cannibalism and barbaric. You're arguing that the animal should have been sensible enough not to walk into the trap that we set, or have been sensible enough to run away from the gunshot in a zig-zag fashion. But it's somehow the animal's fault that it got trapped and eaten? We humans get off scotch free?

Being the most intelligent organisms on the planet, we ought to use this intelligence for the benefit of all sentients, not to subjugate them. Avoid speciesism.