I support the idea of social welfare, free education and medical services and, most importantly, taxing the rich to a much greater degree than is presently happening. But no government seems to have the balls to do it — Janus

Agree.

OK, then we disagree on that. I think their attitude is simplistically self-serving and sociopathic. For me sociopathy is not an "all or nothing" proposition, but is on a spectrum. — Janus

One of the problems for me is that each side in this discourse seems to think the other is sociopathic. Today’s discourse is polarized and antagonistic. I’d like to see more civil conversations between people with different worldviews. I’m reluctant to call individuals sociopathic.

It seems part of Christianity's success is precisely its vagueness, its amoebic, shape-shfting identity. How its concepts mean everything and nothing, how it can go a million ways. How it's ungraspable. — baker

I can see that.

This is the feeling superior to others that I'm talking about. — baker

Seems to me that on a discussion forum feeling superior or better informed to the other person is a frequently occurring idea.

Maybe part of the issue is that people arrive here to defend positions.

So you'd say Christianity is not (particularly) successful? — baker

It's a reasonable quesion.

I don’t think there is a single “Christianity” as such. There are multiple religions that use the title Christianity and often consider themselves to be the truer account. Which one of these is most successful? Or are they all successful?

I don't believe morality is a matter of "positions" at all, but of a compass based on the ability to empathize with others. To harm others is undesirable and hence bad because it feels undesirable and hence bad to many or even most people. The other point is that a community is inherently based on mutual respect and care. The fact that some people lack such empathy-based respect and care means that they are, if they don't conceal their disposition, considered to be sociopaths, and sociopathy is generally considered to be a condition of mental illness or incapacity to function in a way compatible with pragmatically necessary social values. — Janus

When I talk about positions, I mean (as one example) how one constructs the notion of human flourishing. I know a number of academics who are conservative. They are often steeped in Greek philosophy and hold the familiar Aristotelian notion of eudaimonia as the goal or telos of a good life. Yet they are also right-wing, Liberal voters who are happy to cut people off welfare and dismantle safety nets.

In my view, their positions would cause considerable harm to the powerless. And yet they and I both ostensibly hold that flourishing is the goal of a moral system. They think that society is enhanced if people's independence is promoted and vital to this is not subsidising sloth and inertia through welfare. I do not think they are sociopathic, they just hold a different worldview. And relative to my worldview they are mostly "wrong" on this.

We live in a pluralist culture where most people think their views are good and right. The best we can do amongst this mess of contradictions is select the views we endorse and try to promote or nurture them. Or opt out entirely, which is also tempting.

First I would need to know your definition of moral naturalism. — Leontiskos

I don’t have one.

My understanding is that it’s the view that moral facts, if they exist, are grounded in natural facts about the world rather than in anything supernatural or non-natural. But I have encountered a range of uses of the term.

I imagine that if you’re going to pick a goal for morality, like wellbeing or flourishing, moral naturalism woudl identify facts that support that choice. But does this start to look like a secular substitute for transcendent grounding?

I'm an emotivist so I have to just observe these things - my moral thinking doesn't generally extend beyond my own mind and behaviour ( — AmadeusD

So how would you go about arguing something is wrong or disagreeing with others about moral assessments?

Part of my interest in the issue is whether or not it’s worth discussing morality, although we can't seem to escape it.

A utilitarian will just do a short-term vs. long-term contrast and say that some short-term suffering reduces long-term suffering, and is thus preferable on the utilitarian calculus. — Leontiskos

That seems tedious.

Interesting. But it depends on what you mean by a foundation.
— Tom Storm

I mean basis, rationale, justification, grounding, etc. "I have no reason to maintain this position, but I am going to do it anyway." — Leontiskos

Ok. So I always assumed a foundation for morality meant something philosophically important, serious and disciplined or potentially transcendent in source. Can one not say that the foundation of my moral thinking is whatever gets me money? I’m assuming that a foundation need not involve beneficial concessions toward others?

I apologise that I didn't respond to your very thoughtful contribution. I must have missed it.

Slavery comes up because it was once practised within the arguing culture, and now no longer is. Slavery is brought up by the critic, because they know the relativist to be very likely to consider slavery wrong. And they think that's a gotcha, but by thinking that they demonstrate cultural relativism. The envisioned success of the rhetoric depends on the expected shared values. No?

Moral discourse is predictable to some degree. That is why you can always find some kind of "obviously wrong" thing to throw in the face of a relativist - to shut them up. — Dawnstorm

Yes, that’s true. The anti-foundationalist would probably say that things can still count as better or worse relative to shared cultural goals and values, without being grounded in anything transcendent or universal beyond that. We want safe traffic, so we create road rules. Many of these rules are partly arbitrary; we can drive on different sides of the road or adopt different turning conventions, but there are clearly practices that work better or worse for safety. None of this makes road rules objectively true independent of contingent human purposes and conditions. How different is morality to this?

It follows that if you want to be a consistent person and you think what I've said is true, then you must change either your actions or your words. So it seems fairly clear that it does change something. — Leontiskos

I understand your point but (and I'm not trying to be a dick here) I'm under no obligation to be consistent. My views on many things are inconsistent. I do concede that wilful inconsistency may exclude one from most reasoned arguments and discourse.

No one says, "I don't have any foundation for my position but I am going to maintain it anyway." — Leontiskos

Interesting. But it depends on what you mean by a foundation. I’ve met people who do something close to what you describe, and I’ve done it myself. I would put it like this: X is my belief about what is right, and I situate it within a contingent, revisable understanding of what seems to work better for promoting wellbeing. It isn’t grounded in any ultimate moral foundation, but in practices, experiences, and judgments that remain open to challenge and change.

That said, I also like the idea that moral judgments may be grounded in natural facts about people. Humans experience suffering as bad, and conditions that reduce it tend to support wellbeing and social functioning. For that reason, reducing suffering counts as morally better.

One issue I have with this is that some people like suffering and the idea: "no pain, no gain" has some merit for any athlete or high achieving person who has to work hard and sacrifice many things (suffer) to achieve a goal. I guess the moral naturalist would qualify this by identifying unnecessary suffering and that which is not chosen. What are your challenges to moral naturalism?

It really seems analogous to a cancer cell in the body of an organism. Is anyone seriously going to think that cancer is a good thing? — Janus

Good points. This is heading towards a position of moral naturalism, isn't it?

I get what you are saying. I just think this is a retreat from the can of worms you opened up. — Fire Ologist

To me most philosophy is a can of worms. :wink:

Yes, so instead of saying morality requires fixed foundations and authority (which is where I am headed), you seem more inclined to admit fixed laws are hard to come by, and maybe impossible to come by, so “no one really has a foundation for morality.”

I think that is right. That is what morality is about. Maybe Nietzsche was right and we need to move “beyond good and evil.” So your question and intuitions are valid. — Fire Ologist

It's one direction I lean towards. But I am unsure what I think.

It’s like this: checkers involves a certain checkerboard, and pieces that distinguish two players (red and black typically) and certain rules. If someone removes entirely one of these things, and suggests some other game, that’s fine, but it’s no longer checkers. I get that morality has way more at stake (to us) than a game of checkers, but I don’t see how we can tell anyone else “that is wrong” or “he is bad” meaningfully, absent something objective they both stand under. — Fire Ologist

That's great - I often make this point except I use chess as the analogue.

So to me, we can’t avoid playing the morality game, so we are all forced to figure out the rules. But if we don’t admit this, and do not subject ourselves and others to the exact same rules, we are just resisting the game we already play. — Fire Ologist

Yes.

Great post.

Yes, you’ve made that point already. I can definitely see the argument. I’m tempted to pose what if no one really has a foundation for morality, some just think they do and therefore believe their views are grounded?

But part of me also wonders: if Leon is right, does it really change anything? All it means is that I can’t argue meaningfully with certain members on a philosophy forum because they’ll probably claim my position fails a test of reasoning.

What really matters is the world. I can still vote, belong to organizations, and support values and promote alliances based on my view of what constitutes a better way of organizing society. Do I need any more than this?

Our society is a messy clusterfuck of pluralism, competing values, and beliefs. It seems that all we can really do is argue for the positions we find meaningful.

Thoughts?

Where does this leave the original question? — Fire Ologist

I think Joshs answered it on page 1. Part of his answer:

What unites these figures is that they reject foundationalism, the idea that morality needs an ahistorical, metaphysically secure ground, while also rejecting the relativist conclusion that norms are therefore merely subjective or interchangeable. The label “relativism” is typically applied by critics who assume that if universal foundations are unavailable, then only relativism remains. But these thinkers reject that forced choice. They are trying to articulate forms of normativity that are historical, situated, and contingent without collapsing into “anything goes.” — Joshs

I remain sympathetic to this view and would like to learn more. But I’m not a philosopher, so morality for me amounts to pragmatically identifying the kinds of behaviour I want to see, or not see, in my culture, based on a view of what promotes wellbeing. I think this is generally how morality operates, except where people follow more rigid, proscriptive belief systems.

Ultimately, if you have the tools, you can construct an argument to ground morality in natural ethics, religious ethics, pragmatic ethics, anti-foundationalism, whatever you like. What others think about these options will largely depend on their worldview.

The Christian desire that everyone should worship Jesus and insistence that they do so and should be compelled to worship no other gods far exceeded that of the Jews, however. It eventually lead to the destruction of pagan world, though that world survived in certain ways through the Christian assimilation of certain pagan religious traditions, and sometimes even pagan gods via the cult of the saints.

I wonder how and why this enormous alteration in the ancient world took place. — Ciceronianus

You raise some fascinating questions. Have you encountered any decent books that have explored this theme in a useful way?

Well I appreciate your seeing the point. In general what I've laid out is what irks me about those who hold to subjectivist or consent-based moralities when these same people engage in forms of moralizing that necessarily go beyond their own positions — Leontiskos

I can see that.

It's that double standard that is problematic: holding others to a standard that one dispenses with oneself whenever it is convenient to do so. — Leontiskos

A point well made.

Yes, I have no per se objection to "moral naturalism" or that specific form of negative utilitarianism (although I would tend to go further myself). — Leontiskos

And I found this part of the conversation useful. Thanks again.

It's not a projection, it's a fact. Not everyone thinks the way you do, it's not universal, it's not a given, it's not something that can or should be taken for granted about people. — baker

Two things. 1) not everyone thinks like you do either. 2) I am not speaking for others, I am talking for myself.

How much suffering someone experiences along with the pain they're feeling is not the same for all people. — baker

Of course. People ought to make their own decision on this. But the option should be available for those who, like me, would probably prefer that option even if not ultimately taken..

The secondary question of whether this idea could be twisted through "peer pressure" or by unscrupulous relatives is distinct from the question of its usefulness.

But this idea -

you have internalized your local cultural standard of what makes life worth living — baker

Still looks like a projection, or appears to be a patronising dismissal of someone else's' view. The implicit assumption that someone is unable to make an independent assessment of this scenario for themselves.

In other words, you have internalized your local cultural standard of what makes life worth living and from when on life isn't worth living anymore. — baker

Maybe that's a projection on your part. Certainly an overly complicated frame. If I experince irreversible pain I would like to die.

Reification — Treating “the normal” as a property things have, rather than a judgement relative to a practice. — Banno

Not following this one closely, but this resonates with me.

The word normal is also often used as a quasi-virtue. Not merely a statement of social acceptability but a marker of goodness.

Do you think that accounts for 100% of them at all times?

I would go so far as to say that the remarkable Paul of Tarsus was more responsible for the founding of Christianity than anyone, including Jesus. — Ciceronianus

I think that's a widely held view these days.

My OP was intended to be a summary of the factors I think most contributed to Christianity's success. I don't contend no other factors were involved. — Ciceronianus

What is the intention of an OP like this? Is it simply that Christmas time has you pondering, or is it an opportunity to reflect on the idea that major religions spread through politics and terror rather than the efficacy of their beliefs?

For those of us in Australia, we look on incredulously at the apparent religiosity in your homeland.
I often think of that HL Mencken quip from the 1920's - "Heave an egg out a Pullman window, and you will hit a fundamentalist anywhere in the United States."

I suspect that even with all that institutional power and the canny absorption of other faiths, a religion is unlikely to endure and thrive unless it genuinely meets some psychological or social need. Coercion may explain expansion but I'm not sure it accounts for long-term persistence, or meaning for adherents.

For those who are not Christians, like me, it is often difficult to understand why the faith resonates so strongly and what hold it has on people. We tend to look to cold facts of history and politics for an explanation, but perhaps the reasons run deeper than that.

Countries where medically assisted suicide and euthanasia are legal are basically telling people, "If you can't live up to our culture's standards, then it's better that you don't exist at all. And we are gracious enough to make options for this available to you." Some people internalize this and make use of those options. (And there is no shortage of those who will comment on this with, "Finally, at long last." — baker

I don’t know if that’s true. I am currently well and healthy, but I want to retain the option of ending my own life if circumstances deteriorate. If I were to develop a terminal illness that involved significant suffering, I would want that option available.

All fair points. I'm not sure what I think. That's partly why I'm here.

Okay, but do you see how this is a bit like the insanity defense? When a judge calls someone to account for their actions they might say, "I was insane, I was not in my right mind. I cannot be held to account for my actions. — Leontiskos

Sure, I have no defence.

So it seems that you do think there are moral truths that apply to other people whether they want them to or not, given that you literally enforce those truths on others' behavior. — Leontiskos

It has always seemed self-evident that one ought not allow the strong to harm the weak. But perhaps I should never have intervened, and in future, perhaps I won’t.

I find the account of moral naturalism fairly convincing, and I suspect that, if they reflected on it, many secular people would intuitively base their morality in a similar way.

If I have time I'll think about it some more but I'm not sure I have much left to say on this. I appreciate your patience and rigour.

Would you call Jesus a philosopher? Or would you, perhaps, say there’s not enough agreement on what comes from an actual person and what is mythology?

Indeed, Gore Vidal wrote a cute book on Julian.

Whenever something is cultivated by a huge institution like Rome, it’s hard to resist (whether persecution was as significant or not).

But really, remember screenwriter William Goldman’s saying, “No one knows anything,” to account for the lack of knowledge about why some films are hits and others are not. You can probably apply the same idea to religions and cults: some succeed and continually adapt to speak to the culture, while others lose momentum and fail. We don't always know why but seem to enjoy retro fitting explanations.

Would you also say there are positive aspects introduced by Christianity that greatly appealed to people? Some of the messages in the Gospels, for instance, might have resonated widely. A religion that venerates the powerless and the poor might also account for some of its traction.

One also needs to remember that a religion becoming global and powerful is not that unusual, take Islam (which is roughly 6 centuries younger) which is not far behind in terms of popularity. Islam is faster growing too. This may be a function of birth rate.

Would you then say that your interventions were irrational? That your morality does not provide any grounds for intervention, and that by intervening you acted irrationally? — Leontiskos

I'm not sure I would dignify my interventions as a reasoned moral position. More of a response to an emotional reaction. In some cases, also dangerous. But the broader question as to whether I consider the acts I responded to as wrong is probably yes. The foundation for this is tricky, I suppose I’ve generally drawn from a naturalistic view that the well-being of conscious creatures should guide our actions.

Here you are glossing over/ignoring the many times I stated it is not MY view. I guess you just skimmed a couple of the recent posts. — unimportant

No, the bit of mine you quoted was my reaction to the views put forth in the OP.

I think that's a really valid, fair and nicely worded perspective.

I find it much harder to get an avenue of reasoning going for the value (intrinsic, that is) of a baby being born. Babies are surplus. They are often unwanted. Again, without recourse to a 'life is sacred' type line, I'm wanting some reason to think babies are special beyond "well, quite a few people think this". — AmadeusD

I think I largely agree with you. But I am hard wired to want to protect a baby once born. Not that I’d want to keep it myself if it were not mine. We emerge from a culture that venerates snd sentimentalises babies and childhood and we appear hard wired to nurture, rear and teach. Does this make it ‘special’? Probably no more than many other things. Personally when a young woman tells me she isn’t into children and doesn’t want babies, I feel pleased for her. I’ve known many older childless women and not one has ever regretted it.

The OP seems to express a familiar Protestant hatred of sex which Denis Potter beautifully expressed in The Singing Detective.
.

You've never heard of case studies? They are always open to question.
— Tom Storm

See above. — Philosophim

You said this:

Then it was always circumspect and no one should have listened to them. — Philosophim

Isn't that potentially a baby and bathwater situation? Maybe the point is not that no one should have listened or accepted them, but rather that they should always have been understood as approximations of human experience, like most case studies going back across the centuries.

It’s an obvious point that case studies, or narrative descriptions (like journalism), are not science. They are always crafted to dramatize a point and, as such, are inevitably open to allegations of bias, skewing, and stylised representation. But they can be valuable in giving people an impression or sense of an experience (outside of boring experiments and data points).

I guess the question for Sack's material is did he go too far and is there a line, given it's not a science?

Then it was always circumspect and no one should have listened to them. — Philosophim

You've never heard of case studies? They are always open to question.

Most of his famous work were case studies, interpretative narratives which you can’t really peer review. They were stories about what he saw, and heard from relatives, not scientific facts based on experiments which can be replicated.

I'm not a fan of his work but can you say you were “duped” if we don’t really know which parts of his writings were suspect and which parts were not? I wouldn’t think it unusual for popular, literary-style case studies to include some imaginative fabrications. I’m not aware of any sexual misconduct claims, apart from the ones circulated during his life which seem to have been, in Sacks’s own words, a retaliatory act. What are these others specifically?

Even during his life people often accused Sacks of grandstanding and emotionality. I recall the accusation: “the man who mistook his patients for a literary career.”

:up: It is a good formulation and I feel certain we've spoken of this a couple of times before.

Suppose you see someone acting in a cruel way. Would you try to get them to stop, or not? — Leontiskos

I guess I’ve done so. I’ve taken animals from people who were cruel to them. I’ve thrown men out of bars for harassing women. I’ve broken up unfair fights. I’ve stopped police from hurting people a couple of times; a bit more risky. I've stopped men beating women. I've stopped bullies. Would I intervene if it were a bikie gang picking on a lone person? I’m not sure about that, but I would call the police.

I would say, however, that my interventions have been impulsive and were essentially responses to my emotional reaction to what I experienced. I wouldn’t expect everyone to do the same.

I mean….even if I had a completely determined physical explanation for my abject hatred for the taste of Lima beans, isn’t it still me that hates that taste? What kind of explanation is really worth entertaining, that says neural pathways, or ion potentials, hate Lima beans? — Mww

I like it. Nice way of putting it.

It’s the simple representation of how a subject feels about that stuff of which he is the sole determinant factor. Which is the irreducible condition of Kantian moral philosophy: the proper moral agent will do what he’s already determined must be done, whether he feels good about doing it or not. That’s the subject’s condition because of himself: he feels like shit for what he did at the same time it’s he alone, that determined what was to be done. Or he feels great, depends….. — Mww

Thanks for clarifying.

As a moral naturalist: insofar as needless harm – whatever causes every individual human to gratuitously suffer (as well as other kinds of fauna & flora) – is "foundational" such that we cannot not know this about ourselves (or living beings), "moral claims" – non-instrumental / non-transactional norms, conduct or relationships – are "justified" to the extent they assert imperatives which when — 180 Proof

Not sure I fully understand this - are you saying that we all have an inbuilt awareness that needless harm and suffering are bad, and this functions as a basic starting point for morality? And that moral claims are justified when they express obligations that flow from that fact and when they guide us toward reducing needless harm?

Anyway, what do you think? Do you think there are viable alternatives to teleological naturalism for those who hold to at least some universal moral truths? A fairly easy example of teleological naturalism is the hedonist who says, "Humans are pleasure-loving creatures by nature, therefore we do seek pleasure," and this is seen as a ground for a pleasure-based ethic. — Leontiskos

I don’t think I have any firm commitments here but I do lean a bit towards consequentialism. I'm not a big fan of the notion of human nature. I’ve always assumed that morality is either grounded in God (more along the lines of classical theology): something is good because it reflects or participates in God’s being of perfect goodness. Or we make it up as we go and retrofit reasoning to justify it. I’ve tended to be in the latter camp, but I respect well developed ideas even if I don't share them. I also recognise that my intermittent glibness can get me into trouble.

But more importantly, perhaps, I have never had to struggle with ethical choices in life. I just know what I am going to do in almost any situation. I never want to be cruel or cause suffering. I assume I inherit this from culture and upbringing and understand that not everyone shares such a perspective or sees cruelty or suffering in the same way. I also don't claim to be "good" whatever that may be.

Thanks, good clear explanations.

I see your point that for morality to have any universal clout, it would useful to be able to point to a natural telos, since this grounds moral claims in what something is rather than in what people merely happen to agree to. If, as you say, a person does not accept that all people deserve freedom and equal status, then it's not really possible to use that as a justification for why slavery is wrong. Such is the limitation of consensus made principles.

Now by inclination and temperament, I am unlikely to accept that everything has a built in purpose or end towards which it naturally develops. I am not sure I have any sophisticated reasoning for this at my fingertips but I will consider this over the next few days. And we may come to an impasse over this one. Nevertheless I would accept your argument that telos might be a critical concept for a universal ethics.

Just out of interest, do you think there’s a risk of an is–ought fallacy if we accept telos? Isn’t there still a problem in deriving an ought from a natural fact, or would you say that the notion of “inherent purpose” overrides this because it’s built into the concept itself? It's definitional or analytic.

Act of suicide is an immoral thing to do, because it kills life. Even if it is one's own life. It is still killing which is the most evil act to com — Corvus

Are you a pacifist? Do you think killing is wrong in all situations? War; self defence?

Thanks.

Do you believe there’s such a thing as pure reason? I’m not really a science guy but don’t many cognitive scientists view reason as contingent upon how human brains work? Human habits rather than universal necessities. Big and intractable subject.

If morality is a necessary human condition, there’s no need to look for it. All the moral subject does with his philosophy, which just is the looking in some form or another, is come to grips with himself when he’s failed. — Mww

That's a tantalising comment. I'll need to think over it for a bit before I know if I agree.

he role of affect holds, but not as the senses are affected because of real objects, but the internal affect on a moral subject’s condition because of himself. — Mww

I'm not sure I understand this sentence.


I can’t follow or even get through that Kant passage, it’s too dense and complex. Something about duty and God and atheism? I’ve never understood deontology. I think Kant would consider me morally rotten.

Cool. I'm with you on Aristotle over Kant.

So let me try to spell it out again. If we have a goal (end) then some things will be appropriate unto that end and some things will be inappropriate unto that end. Thus following my formula from above, you could rationally say, "If you share this goal then it is wrong for you to do X," but it would be irrational for you to simply say, "It is wrong for you to do X [regardless of any ends]."

So on the means/ends (or means/goals) understanding of morality, how would one secure the possibility of culpability? How would one be justified in saying, "You are wrong to [hold slaves, say]"? Rather than blathering on, I will let you try to answer this question, but it would apparently have something to do with common ends/goals, no? — Leontiskos

Yes, I think you're correct on this.

If we think that the best goal for a society is to promote flourishing then there are better or worse ways to achieve this end. I think this is fair.

Is your sense of what counts as flourishing pure Aristotle or is it also built around some Christian commitment? I made the assumption, perhaps wrongly, that you were aligned with Thomism.

I would argue that most Western ethics (secular and identity politics) seem to be derived from Christian values (and I guess classical Greek), though I know some people might consider this anathema. But how could it not be the case after a couple of millennia?

That seems a theme in the perennial philosophies, doesn't it? — Wayfarer

To be honest morality seems less important there than metaphysics and experience.

[

Then, why should anyone care about what you think is moral or immoral if it is just your emotions speaking? — Bob Ross

That’s right. Perhaps they shouldn’t. But the interesting thing is society likes to set codes of conduct to organise behaviour if it wishes to avoid anarchy and terror. Most people care enough about this and share emotional reactions to the same things. Do we need any more than this?

Seems to me this is how society already functions. We don’t agree on moral foundations but we also don’t want to be robbed and killed.