I agree with mtraven’s last post that morality is an innate functionality of the human brain that can’t be “disproved”, and yet I have said again and again that I don’t believe in morality, so let me explain.
Morality is just a certain innate functionality in our brains as it expresses itself based on our life experiences. This is entirely consistent with the assertion that what most people mean by morality—an objective standard of conduct that is written into the fabric of reality itself—does not exist: there is no such thing!
A lot of confusion in this thread is due to some people taking “there is no morality” to mean there is nothing in the brain that corresponds to morality (and nothing like a moral system that almost all of us intuitively know) -- which I believe is obviously false, i.e., that there is such a system—and others taking it to mean there is no objective morality that exists independently of thinking beings with morality systems built in to their brains—which I believe is obviously true, i.e., that there is no objective morality. And of course, others have taken “there is no morality” to mean other things, perhaps following on some of Eliezer’s rather bizarre statements (which I hope he will clarify) in the post that conflated morality with motivation and implied that morality is what gets us out of bed in the morning or causes us to prefer tasty food to boring food.
Morality exists as something hardwired into us due to our evolutionary history, and there are sound reasons why we are better off having it. But that doesn’t imply that there is some morality that is sanctioned from the side of reality itself or that our particular moral beliefs are in any way privileged.
As a matter of practice, we all privilege the system that is hardwired into us, but that is just a brute fact about how human beings happen to be. It could easily have turned out radically different. We have no objective basis for ranking and distinguishing between alternate possible moralities. Of course, we have strong feelings nevertheless.
I agree with mtraven’s last post that morality is an innate functionality of the human brain that can’t be “disproved”, and yet I have said again and again that I don’t believe in morality, so let me explain.
Morality is just a certain innate functionality in our brains as it expresses itself based on our life experiences. This is entirely consistent with the assertion that what most people mean by morality—an objective standard of conduct that is written into the fabric of reality itself—does not exist: there is no such thing!
A lot of confusion in this thread is due to some people taking “there is no morality” to mean there is nothing in the brain that corresponds to morality (and nothing like a moral system that almost all of us intuitively know) -- which I believe is obviously false, i.e., that there is such a system—and others taking it to mean there is no objective morality that exists independently of thinking beings with morality systems built in to their brains—which I believe is obviously true, i.e., that there is no objective morality. And of course, others have taken “there is no morality” to mean other things, perhaps following on some of Eliezer’s rather bizarre statements (which I hope he will clarify) in the post that conflated morality with motivation and implied that morality is what gets us out of bed in the morning or causes us to prefer tasty food to boring food.
Morality exists as something hardwired into us due to our evolutionary history, and there are sound reasons why we are better off having it. But that doesn’t imply that there is some morality that is sanctioned from the side of reality itself or that our particular moral beliefs are in any way privileged.
As a matter of practice, we all privilege the system that is hardwired into us, but that is just a brute fact about how human beings happen to be. It could easily have turned out radically different. We have no objective basis for ranking and distinguishing between alternate possible moralities. Of course, we have strong feelings nevertheless.