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Knight_of_BAAWA
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 Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 5:39 pm Post subject: |
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| PJS wrote: | If we are being descriptive and not normative here, the social intuitionist model may add a bit to this thread. In this model, emotions and intuitions are significant players in morality. That is they factor heavily into the way people actual arrive at moral decisions. Often we portray ourselves as dispassionate moral reasoners making objective decisions only after logical analysis. But as Hume pointed out centuries ago, and much cognitive psychology supports, reasoning is often on the other end. Reason is often the consequence and not the cause of our moral judgments.
For example, when people are given scenarios that are offensive but not harmful, the actions feel wrong to many respondents but their reasons are either lacking or very weak in support of their judgment. (The psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s examples of would you eat your dead pet dog? Would you eat a chicken carcass that had been used for masturbation?) Yet subjects typically maintain the actions are wrong nonetheless. This was so even though subjects acknowledged no harm was being done. |
They are conflating aesthetically and/or health-wise wrong with morally wrong.
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aa #51, DNRC o-, Member of the [H]orde
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Knight_of_BAAWA
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| Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 5:41 pm Post subject: |
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| Rortykiller wrote: | | I think that raises a chicken or the egg question. I don't directly dispute what you're saying, namely that morality is not subject to reason or logic, but is instead a vague and defensive attempt to justify something without substantial reasoning. |
Much like everything you write.
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"No being is so important that he can usurp the rights of another"
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Rortykiller
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| Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 6:11 pm Post subject: |
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| PJS wrote: |
Well, I certainly have not worked it all out, but I think the facts on which morality depends are the actualities of our existence and there is no general blanket principle we can always fall back on. In situations where we do reason, and the social intuitionist model simply says reason is not as dominant as the more rational based models argue, ideals must be grounded in concrete existence. When we can sit back and reflect we must always inquire into the specifics of the situation. Nothing is good or bad in a vacuum- as William James pointed out- context always matters. Now I do not know how to distinguish real life episodes of post hoc reasoning for conclusions we have already reached, from more objective searches for a conclusion. How can one know the difference (in actual life) or what mental process truly was decisive? But I would not call this working without morality.I do not see how we can avoid moral evaluations, nor would this seem helpful. I just think morality is more emotional and more based on intuition than many acknowledge. I base this belief on research in cognitive psychology. |
I think you're just ascribing to a metaphysics different from my own. Namely, you're assuming we're using words that are somehow inextricably connected to actions. Example, intuition and emotion. Something you've brought up a few times as if they were actual functions of the brain and not merely our attempt to describe particular actions. I'm saying that instead of trying to find some metaphysical approach to describing morality we device a more inclusive system to describe value associations to particular behaviors. Why say murder is bad? Instead, taking particular insistences of murder and evaluating the circumstances within one may come to the conclusion instead that in this case murder was necessary or helpful (like when we kill a terrorist). The blanket value judgment towards actions is unnecessary and often harmful. Look at John Edwards. Who is to say his wife was a raging cunt and he should have cheated on her? (not saying thats the case, but an example).
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'Morality' is based on your 'innate' ability to anticipate the future consequences of behavior, and it's impact on others. |
How can the ability to anticipate the future consequences of behavior be innate? It is clearly something that has to be learned socially.
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LakeGeorgeMan
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| Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2008 7:28 am Post subject: |
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| Rortykiller wrote: | | LGM wrote: |
'Morality' is based on your 'innate' ability to anticipate the future consequences of behavior, and it's impact on others. |
How can the ability to anticipate the future consequences of behavior be innate? It is clearly something that has to be learned socially. |
The capacity for that ability is innate, it is provided by your large cortex. Your environment fine tunes it's parameters and thresholds.
Much like your capacity for language is prescribed by your genome, but WHAT language you speak, is determined and fine tuned by your environment.
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Rortykiller
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| Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2008 12:48 pm Post subject: |
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Right. So how can the anticipation of future consequences by innate? They can't. They HAVE to be learned first, as you just explained. Therefor, since they can be taught to people in different ways, its not an objective constant to evaluate morality. So it isn't based on the innate aspect, which you claim is a genetic predisposition for the capacity to predict human behavior, but instead its really based on the highly refined inter-subjective faculties of language we use to predict said behavior.
And in that case, of which I am still skeptical, why say this is the basis of morality? In fact, its the entire basis for language, not just morality. Now, I don't agree with PJS either. I think his interpretation is lacking for the reasons you outlines and others.
He's focusing on a very narrow aspect of morality and trying to extract some objective principles.
Here is all there is to it: morality is and has always been comprised of a collection of words. Good, Evil, Right, Wrong, Sin, Holy, Bad, etc. These words and their relevance require a personal decision. For God's Warriors or other nutjobs, maybe talking about morality it terms of evil and holy and sinful makes sense. But to me, an atheist, I couldn't possibly suffer through those banal interpretations.
I'm also really into philosophy, and I'm less attracted to 18th century ways of talking about morality like Knight. I prefer a modern and authentically atheist interpretation. And that interpretation is obvious, this is another religious shroud to be disrobed. Its utter uselessness is reason enough to call morality a fault doctrine, let alone all of the harm thinking in terms like this has done to people.
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Knight_of_BAAWA
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| Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2008 12:58 pm Post subject: |
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| Rortykiller wrote: | | Here is all there is to it: morality is and has always been comprised of a collection of words. Good, Evil, Right, Wrong, Sin, Holy, Bad, etc. These words and their relevance require a personal decision. For God's Warriors or other nutjobs, maybe talking about morality it terms of evil and holy and sinful makes sense. But to me, an atheist, I couldn't possibly suffer through those banal interpretations. |
IOW: you hate that a lot of people think that morality only comes from god, so you've rejected morality. Further, you think that morality is purely relative, and you don't want to be told that you've actually done something morally wrong, as it would impinge upon your hedonistic whims.
How fucking idiotic.
| Rortykiller wrote: | | I'm also really into philosophy, and I'm less attracted to 18th century ways of talking about morality like Knight. |
Actually, I talk about morality in 20th century terms. You're just not educated enough. Look up "argumentation ethics".
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aa #51, DNRC o-, Member of the [H]orde
Atheist Minister for St. Dogbert.
"No being is so important that he can usurp the rights of another"
Picard to Data/Graves "The Schizoid Man" |
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Rortykiller
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| Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2008 2:06 pm Post subject: |
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you're so gay for me I'm starting to get creeped out. Fuck off.
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Knight_of_BAAWA
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| Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2008 2:36 pm Post subject: |
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That's wonderful. How good of you to admit that you're a fucking poseur.
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aa #51, DNRC o-, Member of the [H]orde
Atheist Minister for St. Dogbert.
"No being is so important that he can usurp the rights of another"
Picard to Data/Graves "The Schizoid Man" |
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MockingGods
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| Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2008 3:42 pm Post subject: |
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| LakeGeorgeMan wrote: | | Interesting...say you cut my leg, and I kill you for it...is that still completely 'reciprocal'? |
Yes, it is absolutely a reciprocal act. Where the "morality" lies in the equation is if the reciprocation was appropriate to the threat. Some might say yes, some no. We've built entire judicial systems to deal with these moral contingencies.
| Quote: | | Say you cut my leg, and I turn the other cheek, or in this case, leg? Is that recoprocal as well? |
Choosing not to act violently in the face of violence is a loose form of reciprocation; one Gandhi would probably appreciate. “Turning the other cheek” is a reciprocal, if not violent act. Reciprocation certainly does not need to have a violent component. Say instead of "turning the other cheek" (the reciprocation implies "hit me again, I will not act violently"), I gave you something nice. A non-violent positive reciprocation might actually lead to a cessation of violence and perhaps more cooperation.
| Quote: | | 'Morality' is based on your 'innate' ability to anticipate the future consequences of behavior, and it's impact on others. |
Certainly, but it is also a judgment placed upon prior actions.
| Quote: | | It is also the ability for your brain to be fine tuned by social and cultural programming as to what arbitrary behaviors are good or bad according to your cultural or social environment. |
I agree, much of which can be viewed within a reciprocal context.
| Quote: | | These behaviors don't have to have anything to do with reciprocity. Eating pork |
I will agree that eating pork is not in itself a reciprocal act. However, this moral is one of a religious nature. The act is in direct conflict with a supposed divine edict, and involves veiled reciprocal components in divine justice.
| Quote: | | and having homosexual sex are both behaviors that certain people consider immoral, even though they don't involve reciprocity. |
One could easily argue that any group sexual act carries reciprocal components to validate it as consensual. If it voids that consensual nature it becomes rape and thus typically immoral. It seems to me, because homosexual sex doesn’t violate this typical reciprocal component, it is becoming less and less considered as immoral, at least to those who don’t hold to divine edicts. The same is becoming true with masturbation.
Edit: I've actually thought much about this particular moral in light of reciprocity. We can ask ourselves what is the basic difference (in a reciprocal context) between hetero and homosexual sex? The obvious component is the ability to procreate. If we think in terms of more superstitious humans who believed that gods were giving them babies and probably knowing through inference that homosexual sex didn’t produce children, we can find a possible reciprocal component to this moral objection.
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Nonsense. There are countless acts that different people and cultures may consider immoral, that have no reciprocal component, however broadly you may try to stretch that word. |
I wouldn't say "countless" but there are certainly many. My argument is that before there was such a thing as "human morality" there was human reciprocation, and from that nature (among others) sprang human morality. I never would claim nor have I intended to claim that reciprocity is the only component. I do however find it probable that it is a primary and essential component to what has become widely known as human morality.
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Last edited by MockingGods on Sat Aug 16, 2008 4:20 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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josephpalazzo
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| Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2008 4:18 pm Post subject: |
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| MockingGods wrote: | | josephpalazzo wrote: | | MockingGods wrote: | | josephpalazzo wrote: | | In most nomadic tribes that were encountered in the past, few ever developed the concept of "property", let alone the concept of "individual rights". |
That's interesting Joe. I would imagine even though they didn't exhibit the ideology of ownership, they did still show typical human reciprocal tendencies.
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I would imagine that those reciprocal tendencies had to be beneficial to the individuals concerned and the group they belonged to. For instances, we might both agree to cut each other's legs, reciprocal (in our misguided head), but hardly beneficial to anyone...  |
Indeed, I would never argue that our natural tendency to be reciprocal is necessarily beneficial, in fact, I think often times it is not. Also, one can be reciprocal without agreement. For instance, say you cut my leg and I cut you back in anger with no agreement; it's still a completely reciprocal act.
To clarify once again, I don’t believe human reciprocity is in itself a “good” thing. I do however find it to be the primary, innate source of what has become known as “morals”. There is an underlying reciprocal current to nearly every act we judge as moral or immoral and that could be, I will admit, do to the fact that most acts which are judged so are acts between groups of individuals and require a reciprocal component. |
Agree. In fact what you say has been corroberated in studies with primates such as scratch my back, i will scratch yours, etc. But there's also that mammal care about their young ones, that the female often show that they're willing to fight intruders at the peril of their own lives. So from there, one can see that compassion for members of the same, a trait that humans have shown over and over, was a strategy that got selected in the fight for survival. And then that compassion was then stretched to other than members of other groups, which means that morality/culture has had its own evolution. |
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MockingGods
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| Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2008 4:28 pm Post subject: |
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| josephpalazzo wrote: | | Agree. In fact what you say has been corroberated in studies with primates such as scratch my back, i will scratch yours, etc. But there's also that mammal care about their young ones, that the female often show that they're willing to fight intruders at the peril of their own lives. So from there, one can see that compassion for members of the same, a trait that humans have shown over and over, was a strategy that got selected in the fight for survival. And then that compassion was then stretched to other than members of other groups, which means that morality/culture has had its own evolution. |
Often I think our empathic nature is at odds with our reciprocal nature. It may be that this is what has given human morality is arbitrary and often conflicting quality. Good points Joe.
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