Morality

Moloth · Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 9:59 am Post subject: Morality

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/magazine/13Psychology-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

an interesting, and rather well written, article in the NY Times about morality.
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PJS · Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 11:06 am Post subject:

Good article -Pinker is always interesting, although I've only read some of his online stuff and watched some videos in which he was featured, also online.

Jon Haidt is prominent in the piece. His research on the importance of emotions , cultural variation, and his social-intuitionist model are all important and interesting. He has even found some correlations between political ideology and different bases (the five mentioned)for morality.

People often prefer simple explanations , but as this article and LakeGeorgeMan so aptly demonstrated in another thread, morality encompasses a great deal.
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Moloth · Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 11:17 am Post subject:

LakeGeorgeMan · Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 11:41 am Post subject:

Pinker's 'The Blank Slate' is an excellent read, although he often seems to forget that the scientific study of human behavior and the brain are still in their infancy and it's way to early to pretend we have done anything more than scratch the surface.

He seems to want to draw some magical line between 'moral' judgments and other judgments, and I'm not so convinced that line exists.

For example, he smugly claims in the article that:

Moloth · Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 12:28 pm Post subject:

well said, LGM.
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kmisho · Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 12:52 pm Post subject:

My main contention with the current crop of evolutionary psychologists is that they act like they actually know something...

Pinker boggled me with this comment about the Turing test. "If we simulate a flower so well that we can't tell it's a simulation, that doens't make it a flower. It may just mean that we don't know enough about flowers."

Yes. It MAY mean that. But the whole point, the scientific essence of the Turing Test, is that right now you can't tell the difference. Therefore, by all rights, according all the rules of science, you are justified in saying the simulation is indeed a real flower (that a simulated consciousness is a real consciousness)...unless and until you have a reason to say differently...as long as all the evidence acumulated to date is consistent in the reality of the flower. Using his reasoning, we would be within our rights to say that real flowers may not be real flowers...were we to know more. What would be the point of saying that?
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Moloth · Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 1:01 pm Post subject:

if the simulation is indistinguishable from the original entity, isn't it then the entity? what difference could be noted to determine one from another?

if we build a flower, atom by atom, through some artificial means, why WOULDN'T be a flower? it would have all of the properties of one, besides, perhaps a temporal one... but, then again... even flowers cam from non-flowers at one point, eh?

oh dear.. i've gone cross-eyed.
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BarkAtTheMoon · Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 1:28 pm Post subject:

*waits patiently for the inevitable Star Trek transporter argument*
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Moloth · Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 1:29 pm Post subject:

LakeGeorgeMan · Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 3:29 pm Post subject:

Knight_of_BAAWA · Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 4:32 pm Post subject:

Moloth · Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 4:43 pm Post subject:

xena · Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 4:57 pm Post subject:

I wanna poster to throw darts at....

Rortykiller · Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2008 2:33 pm Post subject:

This is why Morality has never been nor currently is a viable way of talking about people. Its an evaluation without criteria. Morality is the core of all religion, and is also the opiate of the masses. It makes heroes and villains, winners and losers. Somehow Eliot Spitzer is kicked out of office for buying some pussy and Bush is still in there despite lying to the American people. Its because one wraps themselves in morality and religion, the other in economics and law. Its not like Eliot Spitzer is objectively immoral, or moral for that matter, but he was vilified using religious rhetoric instantly marring him.
If Bush did something sexually deviant instead of just mass murder and neglect he would THEN become "immoral".

Its just dumb, and its dumb for any atheist to talk in terms of morality or make any appeals to it.
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Knight_of_BAAWA · Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2008 2:37 pm Post subject:

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