Even if it were true that under naturalism we could determine the outcome of various arrangements of particles, wouldn’t we still be left with the question of which final outcome was the most morally preferable?
Yup.
But that’s sort-of contained within “the positions of particles” (so long as all their other properties are included, such as temperature and chemical connections and so on...might need to include rays of light and non-particle stuff too!). The two are just different ways of describing the same thing. Just like every object around you could be described either with their usual names, (“keyboard:, “desk”, etc) or with an elaborate molecule by molecule description. Plenty of other descriptions are possible too (like “rectangular black colored thing with a bunch of buttons with letters on it” describes my keyboard kinda).
How (under naturalism) do we objectively decide between your preferences and mine?
You don’t. True preferences (as opposed to mistaken preferences) aren’t something you get to decide. They are facts.
ut that’s sort-of contained within “the positions of particles” (so long as all their other properties are included, such as temperature and chemical connections and so on...might need to include rays of light and non-particle stuff too!). The two are just different ways of describing the same thing. Just like every object around you could be described either with their usual names, (“keyboard:, “desk”, etc) or with an elaborate molecule by molecule description. Plenty of other descriptions are possible too (like “rectangular black colored thing with a bunch of buttons with letters on it” describes my keyboard kinda).
That’s an expression of ethical naturalism not a defence of ethcial naturalism.
How (under naturalism) do we objectively decide between your preferences and mine?
You don’t. True preferences (as opposed to mistaken preferences) aren’t something you get to decide. They are facts.
Missing the point. Ethics needs to sort good actors from bad—decisions about punishments and rewards depend on it.
PS are you the same person as rkyeun? If not, to what extent are you on the same page?
Missing the point. Ethics needs to sort good actors from bad—decisions about punishments and rewards depend on it.
(I’d say need to sort good choices from bad. Which includes the choice to punish or reward.) Discovering which choices are good and which are bad is a fact finding mission. Because:
1) it’s a fact whether a certain choice will successfully fulfill a certain desire or not
And 2) that’s what “good” literally means: desirable.
So that’s what any question of goodness will be about: what will satisfy desires.
PS are you the same person as rkyeun? If not, to what extent are you on the same page?
No I’m not rkyeun. As for being on the same page...well I’m definitely a moral realist. I don’t know about their first iff-then statement though. Seems to me that strong moral realism could still exist if supernaturalism were true. Also, talking in terms of molecules is ridiculously impractical and unnecessary. I only talked in those terms because I was replying to a reply to those terms :P
I’d say need to sort good choices from bad. Which includes the choice to punish or reward.) Discovering which choices are good and which are bad is a fact finding mission. Because:
1) it’s a fact whether a certain choice will successfully fulfill a certain desire or not
And 2) that’s what “good” literally means: desirable.
So that’s what any question of goodness will be about: what will satisfy desires.
Whose desires? The murderer wants to murder the victim, the victim doesn’t want to be murdered. You have realism without objectivism. There is a realistic fact about people’s preferences, but since the same act can increase one person’s utility and reduce anothers, there is no unambiguous way to label an arbitrry outcome.
The murderer wants to murder the victim, the victim doesn’t want to be murdered.
Murder isn’t a foundational desire. It’s only a means to some other end. And usually isn’t even a good way to accomplish its ultimate end! It’s risky, for one thing. So usually it’s a false desire: if they knew the consequences of this murder compared to all other choices available, and they were correctly thinking about how to most certainly get what they really ultimately want, they’d almost always see a better choice.
(But even if it were foundational, not a means to some other end, you could imagine some simulation of murder satisfying both the “murderer”’s need to do such a thing and everyone else’s need for safety. Even the “murderer” would have a better chance of satisfaction, because they would be far less likely to be killed or imprisoned prior to satisfaction.)
since the same act can increase one person’s utility and reduce anothers, there is no unambiguous way to label an arbitrry outcome.
Well first, in the most trivial way, you can unambiguously label an outcome as “good for X”. If it really is (it might not be, after all, the consequences of achieving or attempting murder might be more terrible for the would-be murderer than choosing not to attempt murder).
It works the same with (some? all?) other adjectives too. For example: soluble. Is sugar objectively soluble? Depends what you try to dissolve it in, and under what circumstances. It is objectively soluble in pure water at room temperature. It won’t dissolve in gasoline.
Second, in game theory you’ll find sometimes there are options that are best for everyone. But even when there isn’t, you can still determine which choices for the individuals maximize their chance of satisfaction and such. Objectively speaking, those will be the best choices they can make (again, that’s what it means for something to be a good choice). And morality is about making the best choices.
It can be instrumental or terminal, as can most other criminal impulses.
But even if it were foundational, not a means to some other end, you could imagine some simulation of murder satisfying both the “murderer”’s need to do such a thing and everyone else’s need for safety. Even the “murderer” would have a better chance of satisfaction, because they would be far less likely to be killed or imprisoned prior to satisfaction
You can’t solve all ethical problems by keeping everyone in permanent simulation.
Well first, in the most trivial way, you can unambiguously label an outcome as “good for X”. If it really is
That’s no good. You can’t arrive at workable ethics by putting different weightings on the same actions from different perspectives. X stealing money form Y is good for X and bad for Y, so why disregard Y’s view? An act is either permitted or forbidden, punished or praised. You can’t say it is permissible-for-X but forbidden-for-Y if it involves both of them.
It works the same with (some? all?) other adjectives too.
No, there’s no uniform treatment of all predicates. Some are one-place, some are two-place. For instance, aesthetic choices can usually be fulfilled on a person-by-person basis.
Second, in game theory you’ll find sometimes there are options that are best for everyone.
To be precise, you sometimes find solutions that leave everyone better off, and more often find solutions that leave the average person better off.
Objectively speaking, those will be the best choices they can make (again, that’s what it means for something to be a good choice). And morality is about making the best choices.
Too vague. For someone who likes killing ot kill a lot of people is the best choice for them, but not the best ethical choice.
Discovering which choices are good and which are bad is a fact finding mission… So that’s what any question of goodness will be about: what will satisfy desires.
But, what if two different people have two conflicting desires? How do we objectively find the ethical resolution to the conflict?
But, what if two different people have two conflicting desires? How do we objectively find the ethical resolution to the conflict?
Basically: game theory.
In reality, I’m not sure there ever are precise conflicts of true foundational desires. Maybe it would help if you had some real example or something. But the best choice for each party will always be the one that maximizes their chances of satisfying their true desire.
I was surprised to hear that you doubt that there are ever conflicts in desires. But, since you asked, here is an example:
A is a sadist. A enjoys inflicting pain in others. A really wants to hurt B. B wishes not to be hurt by A. (For the sake of argument, lets suppose that no simulation technology is available that would allow A to hurt a virtual B, and that A can be reasonably confident that A will not be arrested and brought to trial for hurting B.)
In this scenario, since A and B have conflicting desires, how does a system that defines objective goodness as that which will satisfy desires resolve the conflict?
I would be very surprised to find that a universe whose particles are arranged to maximize objective good would also contain unpaired sadists and masochists. You seem to be asking a question of the form, “But if we take all the evil out of the universe, what about evil?” And the answer is “Good riddance.” Pun intentional.
I would be very surprised to find that a universe whose particles are arranged to maximize objective good would also contain unpaired sadists and masochists.
The problem is that neither you nor BrianPansky has proposed a viable objective standard for goodness. BrianPansky said that good is that which satisfies desires, but proposed no objective method for mediating conflicting desires. And hereyou said “Do remember that your thoughts and preference on ethics are themselves an arrangement of particles to be solved” but proposed no way for resolving conflicts between different people’s ethical preferences. Even if satisfying desires were an otherwise reasonable standard for goodness, it is not an objective standard, since different people may have different desires. Similarly, different people may have different ethical preferences, so an individual’s ethical preference would not be an objective standard either, even if it were otherwise a reasonable standard.
You seem to be asking a question of the form, “But if we take all the evil out of the universe, what about evil?”
No, I am not asking that. I am pointing out that neither your standard nor BrianPansky’s standard is objective. Therefore neither can be used to determine what would constitute an objectively maximally good universe nor could either be used to take all evil out of the universe, nor even to objectively identify evil.
I was surprised to hear that you doubt that there are ever conflicts in desires.
Re-read what I said. That’s not what I said.
First get straight: good literally objectively does mean desirable. You can’t avoid that. Your question about conflict can’t change that (thus it’s a red herring).
As for your question: I already generally answered it in my previous post. Use Game theory. Find the actions that will actually be best for each agent. The best choice for each party will always be the one that maximizes their chances of satisfying their true desires.
I might finish a longer response to your specific example, but that takes time. For now, Richard Carrier’s Goal Theory Update probably covers a lot of that ground.
First get straight: good literally objectively does mean desirable.
It does not.
Wiktionary states that it means “Acting in the interest of good; ethical.” (There are a few other definitions, but I’m pretty sure this is the right one here). Looking through the definitions of ‘ethical’, I find “Morally approvable, when referring to an action that affects others; good. ” ‘Morally’ is defined as “In keeping of requirements of morality.”, and ‘morality’ is “Recognition of the distinction between good and evil or between right and wrong; respect for and obedience to the rules of right conduct; the mental disposition or characteristic of behaving in a manner intended to produce morally good results. ”
Nowhere in there do I see anything about “desirable”—it seems to simplify down to “following a moral code”. I therefore suspect that you’re implicitly assuming a moral code which equates “desirable” with “good”—I don’t think that this is the best choice of a moral code, but it is a moral code that I’ve seen arguments in favour of before.
But, importantly, it’s not the only moral code. Someone who follows a different moral code can easily find something that is good but not desirable; or desirable but not good.
First get straight: good literally objectively does mean desirable.
It’s not at all clear that morally good means desirable. The idea that the good is the desirable gets what force it has from the fact that “good” has a lot of nonmoral meanings. Good ice cream is desirable ice cream, but what’s that got to do with ethics?
Morally good means what it is good to do. So there is something added to “good” to get morally good—namely it is what it is good all things considered, and good to do, as opposed to good in other ways that have nothing to do with doing.
It if it would be good to eat ice cream at the moment, eating ice cream is morally good. And if it would be bad to eat ice cream at the moment, eating ice cream is morally bad.
But when you say “good ice cream,” you aren’t talking about what it is good to do, so you aren’t talking about morality. Sometimes it is good to eat bad ice cream (e.g. you have been offered it in a situation where it would be rude to refuse), and then it is morally good to eat the bad ice cream, and sometimes it is bad to eat good ice cream (e.g. you have already eaten too much), and then it is morally bad to eat the good ice cream.
Morally good means what it is good to do. So there is something added to “good” to get morally good—namely it is what it is good all things considered, and good to do, as opposed to good in other ways that have nothing to do with doing.
That’s a theory of what “morally” is adding to “good”. You need to defend it against alternatives, rather than stating it as if it were obvious.
It if it would be good to eat ice cream at the moment, eating ice cream is morally good.
Are you sure? How many people agree with that? Do you have independent evidence , or are you just following through the consequences of your assumptions (ie arguing in circles)?
I think most people would say that it doesn’t matter if you eat ice cream or not, and in that sense they might say it is morally indifferent. However, while I agree that it mainly doesn’t matter, I think they are either identifying “non-morally obligatory” with indifferent here, or else taking something that doesn’t matter much, and speaking as though it doesn’t matter at all.
But I think that most people would agree that gluttony is a vice, and that implies that there is an opposite virtue, which would mean eating the right amount and at the right time and so on. And eating ice cream when it is good to eat ice cream would be an act of that virtue.
Would you agree that discussion about “morally good” is discussion about what we ought to do? It seems to me this is obviously what we are talking about. And we should do things that are good to do, and avoid doing things that are bad to do. So if “morally good” is about what we should do, then “morally good” means something it is good to do.
I think most people would say that it doesn’t matter if you eat ice cream or not, and in that sense they might say it is morally indifferent. However, while I agree that it mainly doesn’t matter, I think they are either identifying “non-morally obligatory” with indifferent here, or else taking something that doesn’t matter much, and speaking as though it doesn’t matter at all.
What is wrong with saying it doesn’t matter at all?
But I think that most people would agree that gluttony is a vice, and that implies that there is an opposite virtue, which would mean eating the right amount and at the right time and so on. And eating ice cream when it is good to eat ice cream would be an act of that virtue
That’s pretty much changing the subject.
Would you agree that discussion about “morally good” is discussion about what we ought to do?
And we should do things that are good to do, and avoid doing things that are bad to do
I think it is about what we morally ought to do. If you are playing chess, you ought to move the bishop diagonally,
but that is again non-moral.
We morally-should do what is morally good, and hedonistically-should do what is hedonotsitcally-good, and so on. These can conflict, so they are not the same.
Talking about gluttony and temperance was not changing the subject. Most people think that morally good behavior is virtuous behavior, and morally bad behavior vicious behavior. So that implies that gluttony is morally bad, and temperance morally good. And if eating too much ice cream can be gluttony, then eating the right amount can be temperance, and so morally good.
There is a lot wrong with saying “it doesn’t matter at all”, but basically you would not bother with eating ice cream unless you had some reason for it, and any reason would contribute to making it a good thing to do.
I disagree completely with your statements about should, which do not correspond with any normal usage. No one talks about “hedonistically should.”
To reduce this to its fundamentals:
“I should do something” means the same thing as “I ought to do something”, which means the same thing as “I need to do something, in order to accomplish something else.”
Now if we can put whatever we want for “something else” at the end there, then you can have your “hedonistically should” or “chess playing should” or whatever.
But when we are talking about morality, that “something else” is “doing what is good to do.” So “what should I do?” has the answer “whatever you need to do, in order to be doing something good to do, rather than something bad to do.”
Talking about gluttony and temperance was not changing the subject. Most people think that morally good behavior is virtuous behavior, and morally bad behavior vicious behavior. So that implies that gluttony is morally bad, and temperance morally good. And if eating too much ice cream can be gluttony, then eating the right amount can be temperance, and so morally good.
It’s changing the subject because you are switching from an isolated act to a pattern of behaviour.
There is a lot wrong with saying “it doesn’t matter at all”,
Such as?
but basically you would not bother with eating ice cream unless you had some reason for it, and any reason would contribute to making it a good thing to do.
You are using good to mean morally good again.
I disagree completely with your statements about should, which do not correspond with any normal usage. No one talks about “hedonistically should.”
You can’t infer the non-existence of a distinction from the fact that it is not regularly marked in ordinary language.
“Jade is an ornamental rock. The term jade is applied to two different metamorphic rocks that are composed of different silicate minerals:
Nephrite consists of a microcrystalline interlocking fibrous matrix of the calcium, magnesium-iron rich amphibole mineral series tremolite (calcium-magnesium)-ferroactinolite (calcium-magnesium-iron). The middle member of this series with an intermediate composition is called actinolite (the silky fibrous mineral form is one form of asbestos). The higher the iron content, the greener the colour.
Jadeite is a sodium- and aluminium-rich pyroxene. The precious form of jadeite jade is a microcrystalline interlocking growth of jadeite crystals.""
“I should do something” means the same thing as “I ought to do something”, which means the same thing as “I need to do something, in order to accomplish something else.”
So you say. Actually, the idea that ethical claims can be cashed out as hypotheticals is quite contentious.
Now if we can put whatever we want for “something else” at the end there, then you can have your “hedonistically should” or “chess playing should” or whatever.
But when we are talking about morality, that “something else” is “doing what is good to do.” So “what should I do?” has the answer “whatever you need to do, in order to be doing something good to do, rather than something bad to do.”
Back to the usual problem. What you morally-should do is whatever you need to do, in order to be doing something morally good, is true but vacuous. . What you morally-should do is whatever you need to do, in order to be doing something good is debatable.
The point about the words is that it is easy to see from their origins that they are about hypothetical necessity. You NEED to do something. You MUST do it. You OUGHT to do it, that is you OWE it and you MUST pay your debt. All of that says that something has to happen, that is, that it is somehow necessary.
Now suppose you tell a murderer, “It is necessary for you to stop killing people.” He can simply say, “Necessary, is it?” and then kill you. Obviously it is not necessary, since he can do otherwise. So what did you mean by calling it necessary? You meant it was necessary for some hypothesis.
I agree that some people disagree with this. They are not listening to themselves talk.
The reason that moral good means doing something good, is that the hypothesis that we always care about, is whether it would be good to do something. That gives you a reason to say “it is necessary” without saying for what, because everyone wants to do something that would be good to do.
Suppose you define moral goodness to be something else. Then it might turn out that it would be morally bad to do something that would be good to do, and morally good to do something that would be bad to do. But in that case, who would say that we ought to do the thing which is morally good, instead of the thing that would be good to do? They would say we should do the thing that would be good to do, again precisely because it is necessary, and therefore we MUST do the supposedly morally bad thing, in order to be doing something good to do.
Now suppose you tell a murderer, “It is necessary for you to stop killing people.” He can simply say, “Necessary, is it?” and then kill you. Obviously it is not necessary, since he can do otherwise. So what did you mean by calling it necessary? You meant it was necessary for some hypothesis.
You are assuming that the only thing that counts as necessity per se is physical necessity, ie there is no physical possiibity of doing otherwise. But moral necessity is more naturally cashed out as the claim that there is no permissable state of affairs in which the murdered can murder.
In less abstract terms, what we are saying is that morality does not work like a common-or-garden in-order-to-achieve-X-do-Y. because you cannot excuse yourself , or obtain permissibility, simply by stating that you have some end in mind other than being moral. Even without logical necessity, morality has social obligatoriness, and that needs to be explained, and a vanilla account in terms of hypotetical necessities in order to achieve arbtrary ends cannot do that.
The reason that moral good means doing something good, is that the hypothesis that we always care about, is whether it would be good to do something.
If the moral good were just a rubber-stamp of approval for whatever we have in our utility functions, there would
be no need for morality as a behaviour-shaping factor in human society. Morality is not “do what thou wilt”.
That gives you a reason to say “it is necessary” without saying for what, because everyone wants to do something that would be good to do.
In some sense of “good”, but, as usual, an unqualified “good” does not give you plausible morality.
Suppose you define moral goodness to be something else. Then it might turn out that it would be morally bad to do something that would be good to do, and morally good to do something that would be bad to do. But in that case, who would say that we ought to do the thing which is morally good, instead of the thing that would be good to do?
It’s tautologous that we morally-should do what is morally-good.
The “no permissible state of affairs” idea is also hypothetical necessity: “you must do this, if we want a situation which we call permissible.”
As I think I have stated previously, the root of this disagreement is that you believe, like Eliezer, that reality is indifferent in itself. I do not believe that.
In particular, I said that good things tend to make us desire them. You said I had causality reversed there. But I did not: I had it exactly right. Consider survival, which is an obvious case of something good. Does the fact that we desire something, e.g. eating food instead of rocks, make it into something that makes us survive? Or rather, is the fact that it makes us survive the cause of the fact that we desire it? It is obvious from how evolution works that the latter is the case and not the former. So the fact that eating food is good is the cause of the fact that we desire it.
I said the basic moral question is whether it would be good to do something. You say that this is putting a “rubber-stamp of approval for whatever we have in our utility functions.” This is only the case, according to your misunderstanding of the relationship between desire and good. Good things tend to make us desire them. But just because there is a tendency, does not mean it always works out. Things tend to fall, but they don’t fall if someone catches them. And similarly good things tend to make us desire them, but once in a while that fails to work out and someone desires something bad instead. So saying “do whatever is good to do,” is indeed morality, but it definitely does not mean “do whatever thou wilt.”
I don’t care about “morally-should” as opposed to what I should do. I think I should do whatever would be good to do; and if that’s different from what you call moral, that’s too bad for you.
The “no permissible state of affairs” idea is also hypothetical necessity: “you must do this, if we want a situation which we call permissible.”
I still don’t think you have made a good case for morality being hypothetical, since you haven’t made a case against the case against. And I still think you need to explain obligatoriness.
In particular, I said that good things tend to make us desire them. You said I had causality reversed there. But I did not: I had it exactly right. Consider survival, which is an obvious case of something good.
Survival is good, you say. If I am in a position to ensure my survival by sacrificing Smith, is it morally good to do so? After all Smith’s survival is just as Good as mine.
I don’t care about “morally-should” as opposed to what I should do.
Doens’t-care is made to care. If you don’t behave as though you care about morality, society will punish you.
However. it won’t punish you for failing to fulfil other shoulds.
I didn’t see any good case against morality being hypothetical, not even in that article.
I did explain obligatoriness. It is obligatory to do something morally good because we don’t have a choice about wanting to do something good. Everyone wants to do that, and the only way you can do that is by doing something morally good.
I did said I do not care about morally-should “as opposed” to what I should do. It could sometimes happen that I should not do something because people will punish me if I do it. In other words, I do care about what I should do, and that is determined by what would be good to do.
I did explain obligatoriness. It is obligatory to do something morally good because we don’t have a choice about wanting to do something good. Everyone wants to do that,
From which it follows that nobody ever fails to do what is morally good, and that their inevitable moral goodness is th result of inner psychological compulsion, not outer systems of reward and punishment, and that no systems of reward and punishment systems were ever necessary. All of that is clearly false.
and the only way you can do that is by doing something morally good.
Unless there are non-moral gods, which there clearly are,since there are immoral and amoral acts committed to obtain them.
“From which it follows that nobody ever fails to do what is morally good”
No, it does not, unless you assume that people are never mistaken about what would be good to do. I already said that people are sometimes mistaken about this, and think that it would be good to do something, when it would be bad to do it. In those cases they fail to do what is morally good.
I agree there are non-moral goods, e.g. things like pleasure and money and so on. That is because a moral good is “doing something good”, and pleasure and money are not doing anything. But people who commit immoral acts in order to obtain those goods, also believe that they are doing something good, but they are mistaken.
I was surprised to hear that you doubt that there are ever conflicts in desires.
Re-read what I said. That’s not what I said.
Right. You said:
In reality, I’m not sure there ever are precise conflicts of true foundational desires.
Do you have an objective set of criteria for differentiating between true foundational desires and other types of desires? If not, I wonder if it is really useful to respond to an objection arising from the rather obvious fact that people often have conflicting desires by stating that you doubt that true foundational desires are ever in precise conflict.
First get straight: good literally objectively does mean desirable.
As CCC has already pointed out, no, it is not apparent that (morally) good and desirable are the same thing. I won’t spend more time on this point since CCC addressed it well.
Your question about conflict can’t change that (thus it’s a red herring).
The issue that we are discussing is objective morals. Your equating goodness and desirability leads (in my example of the sadist) A to believe that hurting B is good, and B to believe that hurting B is not good. But moral realism holds that moral valuations are statements that are objectively true or false. So, conflicting desires is not a red herring, since conflicting desires leads (using your criterion) to subjective moral evaluations regarding the goodness of hurting B. Game theory on the other hand does appear to be a red herring – no application of game theory can change the fact that A and B differ regarding the desirability of hurting B.
One additional problem with equating moral goodness with desirability is that it leads to moral outcomes that are in conflict with most people’s moral intuitions. For example, in my example of the sadist A desires to hurt B, but most people’s moral intuition would say that A hurting B just because A wants to hurt B would be immoral. Similarly, rape, murder, theft, etc., could be considered morally good by your criterion if any of those things satisfied a desire. While conflicting with moral intuition does not prove that your definition is wrong, it seems to me that it should at a minimum raise a red flag. And, I think that the burden is on you to explain why anyone should reject his/her moral intuition in favor of a moral criterion that would adjudge theft, rape and murder to be morally good if they satisfy a true desire.
Yup.
But that’s sort-of contained within “the positions of particles” (so long as all their other properties are included, such as temperature and chemical connections and so on...might need to include rays of light and non-particle stuff too!). The two are just different ways of describing the same thing. Just like every object around you could be described either with their usual names, (“keyboard:, “desk”, etc) or with an elaborate molecule by molecule description. Plenty of other descriptions are possible too (like “rectangular black colored thing with a bunch of buttons with letters on it” describes my keyboard kinda).
You don’t. True preferences (as opposed to mistaken preferences) aren’t something you get to decide. They are facts.
That’s an expression of ethical naturalism not a defence of ethcial naturalism.
Missing the point. Ethics needs to sort good actors from bad—decisions about punishments and rewards depend on it.
PS are you the same person as rkyeun? If not, to what extent are you on the same page?
(I’d say need to sort good choices from bad. Which includes the choice to punish or reward.) Discovering which choices are good and which are bad is a fact finding mission. Because:
1) it’s a fact whether a certain choice will successfully fulfill a certain desire or not
And 2) that’s what “good” literally means: desirable.
So that’s what any question of goodness will be about: what will satisfy desires.
No I’m not rkyeun. As for being on the same page...well I’m definitely a moral realist. I don’t know about their first iff-then statement though. Seems to me that strong moral realism could still exist if supernaturalism were true. Also, talking in terms of molecules is ridiculously impractical and unnecessary. I only talked in those terms because I was replying to a reply to those terms :P
Whose desires? The murderer wants to murder the victim, the victim doesn’t want to be murdered. You have realism without objectivism. There is a realistic fact about people’s preferences, but since the same act can increase one person’s utility and reduce anothers, there is no unambiguous way to label an arbitrry outcome.
Murder isn’t a foundational desire. It’s only a means to some other end. And usually isn’t even a good way to accomplish its ultimate end! It’s risky, for one thing. So usually it’s a false desire: if they knew the consequences of this murder compared to all other choices available, and they were correctly thinking about how to most certainly get what they really ultimately want, they’d almost always see a better choice.
(But even if it were foundational, not a means to some other end, you could imagine some simulation of murder satisfying both the “murderer”’s need to do such a thing and everyone else’s need for safety. Even the “murderer” would have a better chance of satisfaction, because they would be far less likely to be killed or imprisoned prior to satisfaction.)
Well first, in the most trivial way, you can unambiguously label an outcome as “good for X”. If it really is (it might not be, after all, the consequences of achieving or attempting murder might be more terrible for the would-be murderer than choosing not to attempt murder).
It works the same with (some? all?) other adjectives too. For example: soluble. Is sugar objectively soluble? Depends what you try to dissolve it in, and under what circumstances. It is objectively soluble in pure water at room temperature. It won’t dissolve in gasoline.
Second, in game theory you’ll find sometimes there are options that are best for everyone. But even when there isn’t, you can still determine which choices for the individuals maximize their chance of satisfaction and such. Objectively speaking, those will be the best choices they can make (again, that’s what it means for something to be a good choice). And morality is about making the best choices.
It can be instrumental or terminal, as can most other criminal impulses.
You can’t solve all ethical problems by keeping everyone in permanent simulation.
That’s no good. You can’t arrive at workable ethics by putting different weightings on the same actions from different perspectives. X stealing money form Y is good for X and bad for Y, so why disregard Y’s view? An act is either permitted or forbidden, punished or praised. You can’t say it is permissible-for-X but forbidden-for-Y if it involves both of them.
No, there’s no uniform treatment of all predicates. Some are one-place, some are two-place. For instance, aesthetic choices can usually be fulfilled on a person-by-person basis.
To be precise, you sometimes find solutions that leave everyone better off, and more often find solutions that leave the average person better off.
Too vague. For someone who likes killing ot kill a lot of people is the best choice for them, but not the best ethical choice.
But, what if two different people have two conflicting desires? How do we objectively find the ethical resolution to the conflict?
Basically: game theory.
In reality, I’m not sure there ever are precise conflicts of true foundational desires. Maybe it would help if you had some real example or something. But the best choice for each party will always be the one that maximizes their chances of satisfying their true desire.
I was surprised to hear that you doubt that there are ever conflicts in desires. But, since you asked, here is an example:
A is a sadist. A enjoys inflicting pain in others. A really wants to hurt B. B wishes not to be hurt by A. (For the sake of argument, lets suppose that no simulation technology is available that would allow A to hurt a virtual B, and that A can be reasonably confident that A will not be arrested and brought to trial for hurting B.)
In this scenario, since A and B have conflicting desires, how does a system that defines objective goodness as that which will satisfy desires resolve the conflict?
I would be very surprised to find that a universe whose particles are arranged to maximize objective good would also contain unpaired sadists and masochists. You seem to be asking a question of the form, “But if we take all the evil out of the universe, what about evil?” And the answer is “Good riddance.” Pun intentional.
The problem is that neither you nor BrianPansky has proposed a viable objective standard for goodness. BrianPansky said that good is that which satisfies desires, but proposed no objective method for mediating conflicting desires. And here you said “Do remember that your thoughts and preference on ethics are themselves an arrangement of particles to be solved” but proposed no way for resolving conflicts between different people’s ethical preferences. Even if satisfying desires were an otherwise reasonable standard for goodness, it is not an objective standard, since different people may have different desires. Similarly, different people may have different ethical preferences, so an individual’s ethical preference would not be an objective standard either, even if it were otherwise a reasonable standard.
No, I am not asking that. I am pointing out that neither your standard nor BrianPansky’s standard is objective. Therefore neither can be used to determine what would constitute an objectively maximally good universe nor could either be used to take all evil out of the universe, nor even to objectively identify evil.
Re-read what I said. That’s not what I said.
First get straight: good literally objectively does mean desirable. You can’t avoid that. Your question about conflict can’t change that (thus it’s a red herring).
As for your question: I already generally answered it in my previous post. Use Game theory. Find the actions that will actually be best for each agent. The best choice for each party will always be the one that maximizes their chances of satisfying their true desires.
I might finish a longer response to your specific example, but that takes time. For now, Richard Carrier’s Goal Theory Update probably covers a lot of that ground.
http://richardcarrier.blogspot.ca/2011/10/goal-theory-update.html
It does not.
Wiktionary states that it means “Acting in the interest of good; ethical.” (There are a few other definitions, but I’m pretty sure this is the right one here). Looking through the definitions of ‘ethical’, I find “Morally approvable, when referring to an action that affects others; good. ” ‘Morally’ is defined as “In keeping of requirements of morality.”, and ‘morality’ is “Recognition of the distinction between good and evil or between right and wrong; respect for and obedience to the rules of right conduct; the mental disposition or characteristic of behaving in a manner intended to produce morally good results. ”
Nowhere in there do I see anything about “desirable”—it seems to simplify down to “following a moral code”. I therefore suspect that you’re implicitly assuming a moral code which equates “desirable” with “good”—I don’t think that this is the best choice of a moral code, but it is a moral code that I’ve seen arguments in favour of before.
But, importantly, it’s not the only moral code. Someone who follows a different moral code can easily find something that is good but not desirable; or desirable but not good.
It’s not at all clear that morally good means desirable. The idea that the good is the desirable gets what force it has from the fact that “good” has a lot of nonmoral meanings. Good ice cream is desirable ice cream, but what’s that got to do with ethics?
Morally good means what it is good to do. So there is something added to “good” to get morally good—namely it is what it is good all things considered, and good to do, as opposed to good in other ways that have nothing to do with doing.
It if it would be good to eat ice cream at the moment, eating ice cream is morally good. And if it would be bad to eat ice cream at the moment, eating ice cream is morally bad.
But when you say “good ice cream,” you aren’t talking about what it is good to do, so you aren’t talking about morality. Sometimes it is good to eat bad ice cream (e.g. you have been offered it in a situation where it would be rude to refuse), and then it is morally good to eat the bad ice cream, and sometimes it is bad to eat good ice cream (e.g. you have already eaten too much), and then it is morally bad to eat the good ice cream.
That’s a theory of what “morally” is adding to “good”. You need to defend it against alternatives, rather than stating it as if it were obvious.
Are you sure? How many people agree with that? Do you have independent evidence , or are you just following through the consequences of your assumptions (ie arguing in circles)?
I think most people would say that it doesn’t matter if you eat ice cream or not, and in that sense they might say it is morally indifferent. However, while I agree that it mainly doesn’t matter, I think they are either identifying “non-morally obligatory” with indifferent here, or else taking something that doesn’t matter much, and speaking as though it doesn’t matter at all.
But I think that most people would agree that gluttony is a vice, and that implies that there is an opposite virtue, which would mean eating the right amount and at the right time and so on. And eating ice cream when it is good to eat ice cream would be an act of that virtue.
Would you agree that discussion about “morally good” is discussion about what we ought to do? It seems to me this is obviously what we are talking about. And we should do things that are good to do, and avoid doing things that are bad to do. So if “morally good” is about what we should do, then “morally good” means something it is good to do.
What is wrong with saying it doesn’t matter at all?
That’s pretty much changing the subject.
I think it is about what we morally ought to do. If you are playing chess, you ought to move the bishop diagonally, but that is again non-moral.
We morally-should do what is morally good, and hedonistically-should do what is hedonotsitcally-good, and so on. These can conflict, so they are not the same.
Talking about gluttony and temperance was not changing the subject. Most people think that morally good behavior is virtuous behavior, and morally bad behavior vicious behavior. So that implies that gluttony is morally bad, and temperance morally good. And if eating too much ice cream can be gluttony, then eating the right amount can be temperance, and so morally good.
There is a lot wrong with saying “it doesn’t matter at all”, but basically you would not bother with eating ice cream unless you had some reason for it, and any reason would contribute to making it a good thing to do.
I disagree completely with your statements about should, which do not correspond with any normal usage. No one talks about “hedonistically should.”
To reduce this to its fundamentals:
“I should do something” means the same thing as “I ought to do something”, which means the same thing as “I need to do something, in order to accomplish something else.”
Now if we can put whatever we want for “something else” at the end there, then you can have your “hedonistically should” or “chess playing should” or whatever.
But when we are talking about morality, that “something else” is “doing what is good to do.” So “what should I do?” has the answer “whatever you need to do, in order to be doing something good to do, rather than something bad to do.”
It’s changing the subject because you are switching from an isolated act to a pattern of behaviour.
Such as?
You are using good to mean morally good again.
You can’t infer the non-existence of a distinction from the fact that it is not regularly marked in ordinary language.
“Jade is an ornamental rock. The term jade is applied to two different metamorphic rocks that are composed of different silicate minerals:
So you say. Actually, the idea that ethical claims can be cashed out as hypotheticals is quite contentious.
Back to the usual problem. What you morally-should do is whatever you need to do, in order to be doing something morally good, is true but vacuous. . What you morally-should do is whatever you need to do, in order to be doing something good is debatable.
The point about the words is that it is easy to see from their origins that they are about hypothetical necessity. You NEED to do something. You MUST do it. You OUGHT to do it, that is you OWE it and you MUST pay your debt. All of that says that something has to happen, that is, that it is somehow necessary.
Now suppose you tell a murderer, “It is necessary for you to stop killing people.” He can simply say, “Necessary, is it?” and then kill you. Obviously it is not necessary, since he can do otherwise. So what did you mean by calling it necessary? You meant it was necessary for some hypothesis.
I agree that some people disagree with this. They are not listening to themselves talk.
The reason that moral good means doing something good, is that the hypothesis that we always care about, is whether it would be good to do something. That gives you a reason to say “it is necessary” without saying for what, because everyone wants to do something that would be good to do.
Suppose you define moral goodness to be something else. Then it might turn out that it would be morally bad to do something that would be good to do, and morally good to do something that would be bad to do. But in that case, who would say that we ought to do the thing which is morally good, instead of the thing that would be good to do? They would say we should do the thing that would be good to do, again precisely because it is necessary, and therefore we MUST do the supposedly morally bad thing, in order to be doing something good to do.
You are assuming that the only thing that counts as necessity per se is physical necessity, ie there is no physical possiibity of doing otherwise. But moral necessity is more naturally cashed out as the claim that there is no permissable state of affairs in which the murdered can murder.
http://www.hsu.edu/academicforum/2000-2001/2000-1AFThe%20Logic%20of%20Morality.pdf
In less abstract terms, what we are saying is that morality does not work like a common-or-garden in-order-to-achieve-X-do-Y. because you cannot excuse yourself , or obtain permissibility, simply by stating that you have some end in mind other than being moral. Even without logical necessity, morality has social obligatoriness, and that needs to be explained, and a vanilla account in terms of hypotetical necessities in order to achieve arbtrary ends cannot do that.
If the moral good were just a rubber-stamp of approval for whatever we have in our utility functions, there would be no need for morality as a behaviour-shaping factor in human society. Morality is not “do what thou wilt”.
In some sense of “good”, but, as usual, an unqualified “good” does not give you plausible morality.
It’s tautologous that we morally-should do what is morally-good.
The “no permissible state of affairs” idea is also hypothetical necessity: “you must do this, if we want a situation which we call permissible.”
As I think I have stated previously, the root of this disagreement is that you believe, like Eliezer, that reality is indifferent in itself. I do not believe that.
In particular, I said that good things tend to make us desire them. You said I had causality reversed there. But I did not: I had it exactly right. Consider survival, which is an obvious case of something good. Does the fact that we desire something, e.g. eating food instead of rocks, make it into something that makes us survive? Or rather, is the fact that it makes us survive the cause of the fact that we desire it? It is obvious from how evolution works that the latter is the case and not the former. So the fact that eating food is good is the cause of the fact that we desire it.
I said the basic moral question is whether it would be good to do something. You say that this is putting a “rubber-stamp of approval for whatever we have in our utility functions.” This is only the case, according to your misunderstanding of the relationship between desire and good. Good things tend to make us desire them. But just because there is a tendency, does not mean it always works out. Things tend to fall, but they don’t fall if someone catches them. And similarly good things tend to make us desire them, but once in a while that fails to work out and someone desires something bad instead. So saying “do whatever is good to do,” is indeed morality, but it definitely does not mean “do whatever thou wilt.”
I don’t care about “morally-should” as opposed to what I should do. I think I should do whatever would be good to do; and if that’s different from what you call moral, that’s too bad for you.
I still don’t think you have made a good case for morality being hypothetical, since you haven’t made a case against the case against. And I still think you need to explain obligatoriness.
Survival is good, you say. If I am in a position to ensure my survival by sacrificing Smith, is it morally good to do so? After all Smith’s survival is just as Good as mine.
Doens’t-care is made to care. If you don’t behave as though you care about morality, society will punish you. However. it won’t punish you for failing to fulfil other shoulds.
I didn’t see any good case against morality being hypothetical, not even in that article.
I did explain obligatoriness. It is obligatory to do something morally good because we don’t have a choice about wanting to do something good. Everyone wants to do that, and the only way you can do that is by doing something morally good.
I did said I do not care about morally-should “as opposed” to what I should do. It could sometimes happen that I should not do something because people will punish me if I do it. In other words, I do care about what I should do, and that is determined by what would be good to do.
From which it follows that nobody ever fails to do what is morally good, and that their inevitable moral goodness is th result of inner psychological compulsion, not outer systems of reward and punishment, and that no systems of reward and punishment systems were ever necessary. All of that is clearly false.
Unless there are non-moral gods, which there clearly are,since there are immoral and amoral acts committed to obtain them.
“From which it follows that nobody ever fails to do what is morally good”
No, it does not, unless you assume that people are never mistaken about what would be good to do. I already said that people are sometimes mistaken about this, and think that it would be good to do something, when it would be bad to do it. In those cases they fail to do what is morally good.
I agree there are non-moral goods, e.g. things like pleasure and money and so on. That is because a moral good is “doing something good”, and pleasure and money are not doing anything. But people who commit immoral acts in order to obtain those goods, also believe that they are doing something good, but they are mistaken.
Right. You said:
Do you have an objective set of criteria for differentiating between true foundational desires and other types of desires? If not, I wonder if it is really useful to respond to an objection arising from the rather obvious fact that people often have conflicting desires by stating that you doubt that true foundational desires are ever in precise conflict.
As CCC has already pointed out, no, it is not apparent that (morally) good and desirable are the same thing. I won’t spend more time on this point since CCC addressed it well.
The issue that we are discussing is objective morals. Your equating goodness and desirability leads (in my example of the sadist) A to believe that hurting B is good, and B to believe that hurting B is not good. But moral realism holds that moral valuations are statements that are objectively true or false. So, conflicting desires is not a red herring, since conflicting desires leads (using your criterion) to subjective moral evaluations regarding the goodness of hurting B. Game theory on the other hand does appear to be a red herring – no application of game theory can change the fact that A and B differ regarding the desirability of hurting B.
One additional problem with equating moral goodness with desirability is that it leads to moral outcomes that are in conflict with most people’s moral intuitions. For example, in my example of the sadist A desires to hurt B, but most people’s moral intuition would say that A hurting B just because A wants to hurt B would be immoral. Similarly, rape, murder, theft, etc., could be considered morally good by your criterion if any of those things satisfied a desire. While conflicting with moral intuition does not prove that your definition is wrong, it seems to me that it should at a minimum raise a red flag. And, I think that the burden is on you to explain why anyone should reject his/her moral intuition in favor of a moral criterion that would adjudge theft, rape and murder to be morally good if they satisfy a true desire.