But I have yet to come across a single argument that would warrant the use of any terminology related to moral philosophy.
I would argue that the problem is not with morality, but with how it is being approached here.
The only reasons we care about other people is either to survive
This is a starting point for understanding morality.
trying to maximize happiness for everybody
is utilitarianism, which seems to be the house approach to morality—the very approach which you find unpersuasive.
thought experiments like the trolley problem are no more than a question about one’s preferences.
Not quite. It’s possible to wish a person dead, while being reluctant to kill him yourself, and even while considering anyone who does kill him a murderer who needs to be caught and brought to justice. Morality derives from preferences in a way, but it is indirect. An analogous phenomenon is the market price. The market price of a good derives from the preferences of everyone participating in the market, but the derivation is indirect. The price of a good isn’t merely what you would prefer to pay for it, because that’s always zero. Nor is it merely what the seller would prefer to be paid for it, because there is no upper limit on what he would charge if he could. Rather, the market price is set by supply and demand, and supply and demand depend in large part on preferences. So price derives from preferences, but the derivation is indirect, and it is mediated by interaction between people. Morality, I think, is similar. It derives from preferences indirectly, by way of interaction. This leaves open the possibility that morality is as variable as prices, but I think that because of the preferences that it rests on, it is much, much less variable, though not invariable. Natural selection holds these preferences largely in check. For example, if some genetic line of people were to develop a preference for being slaughtered, they would quickly die out.
It’s possible to wish a person dead, while being reluctant to kill him yourself, and even while considering anyone who does kill him a murderer who needs to be caught and brought to justice.
This just shows that human wants are inconsistent, that humans are holding conflicting ideas simultaneously, why invoke ‘morality’ in this context?
So price derives from preferences, but the derivation is indirect, and it is mediated by interaction between people.
People or road blockades, what’s the difference? I just don’t see why one would talk about morality here. The preferences of other people are simply more complex road blockades on the way towards your goal. Some of those blockades are artistically appealing so you try to be careful in removing them...why invoke ‘morality’ in this context?
But these two desires are not inconsistent, because for someone to die by, say, natural causes, is not the same thing as for him to die by your own hand.
People or road blockades, what’s the difference? I just don’t see why one would talk about morality here. The preferences of other people are simply more complex road blockades on the way towards your goal. Some of those blockades are artistically appealing so you try to be careful in removing them...why invoke ‘morality’ in this context?
You could say the same thing about socks. E.g., “I just don’t see why one would talk about socks here. Socks are simply complex arrangements of molecules. Why invoke “sock” in this context?”
What are you going to do instead of invoking “sock”? Are you going to describe the socks molecule by molecule as a way of avoiding using the word “sock”? That would be cumbersome, to say the least. Nor would it be any more true. Socks are real. They aren’t imaginary. That they’re made out of molecules does not stop them from being real.
All this can be said about morality. What are you going to do instead of invoking “morality”? Are you going to describe people’s reactions as a way of avoiding using the word “morality”? That would be cumbersome, to say the least. Nor would it be any more true. Morality is real. It isn’t imaginary. That it’s made out of people’s reactions doesn’t stop it from being real.
Denying the reality of morality simply because it is made out of people’s reactions, is like denying the reality of socks simply because they’re made out of molecules.
Consider the the trolley problem. Naively you kill the fat guy if you care about other people and also if you only care about yourself, because you want others to kill the fat guy as well because you are more likely to be one of the many people tied to the rails than the fat guy.
Of course there is the question about how killing one fat guy to save more people and similar decisions could erode society. Yet it is solely a question about wants, about the preferences of the agents involved. I don’t see how it could be helpful to add terminology derived from moral philosophy here or elsewhere.
What are you going to do instead of invoking “morality”? Are you going to describe people’s reactions as a way of avoiding using the word “morality”? That would be cumbersome, to say the least.
I am going to use moral terminology in the appropriate cultural context. But why would one use it on a site that supposedly tries to dissolve problems using reductionism as a general heuristic? I am also using the term “free will” because people model their decisions according to that vague and ultimately futile concept. But if possible (if I am not too lazy) I avoid using any of those bogus memes.
Morality is real. It isn’t imaginary. That it’s made out of people’s reactions doesn’t stop it from being real.
Of course, it is real. Cthulhu is also real, it is a fictional cosmic entity. But if someone acts according to their fear of Cthulhu I am not going to resolve their fear by talking about it in terms of the Lovecraft Mythos but in terms of mental illness.
What are you going to do instead of invoking “morality”? Are you going to describe people’s reactions as a way of avoiding using the word “morality”? That would be cumbersome, to say the least.
How so? Can you give an example where the use of terminology derived from moral philosophy is useful instead of obfuscating?
Consider the Is–ought problem. The basis for every ought statement is what I believe to be correct with respect to my goals.
If you want to reach a certain goal and I want to help you and believe to know a better solution than you do then I tell you what you ought to do because 1.) you want to reach a goal 2.) I want you to reach your goal 3.) my brain does exhibit a certain epistemic state making me believe to be able to satisfy #1 & #2.
But why would one use it on a site that supposedly tries to dissolve problems using reductionism as a general heuristic?
It is no more a philosophical puzzle that needs dissolving than prices are a philosophical puzzle that need dissolving.
I am also using the term “free will” because people model their decisions according to that vague and ultimately futile concept.
I think that the concept of “free will” may indeed be more wholly a philosopher’s invention, just as the concept of “qualia” is in my view wholly a philosopher’s invention. But the everyday concepts from which it derives are not a philosopher’s invention. I think that the everyday concept that philosophers turned into the concept of “free will” is the concept of the uncoerced and intentional act—a concept employed when we decide what to do about people who’ve annoyed us. We ask: did he mean to do it? Was he forced to do it? We have good reason for asking these questions.
But if possible (if I am not too lazy) I avoid using any of those bogus memes.
Philosophers invent bogus memes that we should try to free ourselves of. I think that “qualia” are one of those memes. But philosophers didn’t invent morality. They simply talked a lot of nonsense about it.
Of course, it is real. Cthulhu is also real, it is a fictional cosmic entity.
Morality is real in the sense that prices are real and in a sense that Cthulhu is not real.
Some people talk about money in the way that you want to talk about morality, so that’s a nice analogy to our discussion and I’ll spend a couple of paragraphs on it. They say that the value of money is merely a collective delusion—that I value a dollar only because other people value a dollar, and that they value a dollar only because, ultimately, I value a dollar. So they say that it’s all a great big collective delusion. They say that if people woke up one day and realized that a dollar was just a piece of paper, then we would stop using dollars.
But while there is a grain of truth to that (especially about fiat money), there’s also much that’s misleading in it. Money is a medium of exchange that solves real problems. The value of money may be in a sense circular (i.e., it’s valued by people because it’s valued by people), but actually a lot of things are circular. A lot of natural adaptations are circular, for example symbiosis. Flowers are the way they are because bees are the way they are, and bees are the way they are because flowers are the way they are. But flowers and bees aren’t a collective delusion. They’re in a symbiotic relationship that has gradually evolved over a very long period of time. Money is similar—it is a social institution that evolves over a long period of time, and it can reappear when it’s suppressed. For example cigarettes can become money if nothing else is available.
And all this is analogous to the situation with morality. In both cases, there’s a real phenomenon which some people think is fictional, a collective delusion.
In contrast, religion really is a collective delusion. At least, all those other religions are. :)
Can you give an example where the use of terminology derived from moral philosophy is useful instead of obfuscating?
The term “morality” is not derived from philosophy. Philosophers have simply talked a lot of nonsense about morality. This doesn’t mean they invented it. Similarly, philosophers have talked a lot of nonsense about motion (e.g. Zeno’s paradoxes). This doesn’t mean that motion is a concept that philosophers invented and that we need to “dissolve”. We can still talk sensibly about velocity. What we need to dissolve is not velocity, but simply Zeno’s paradoxes about velocity, which by some accounts were dissolved as a side-effect of the creation of Calculus.
Consider the the trolley problem. Naively you kill the fat guy if you care about other people and also if you only care about yourself, because you want others to kill the fat guy as well because you are more likely to be one of the many people tied to the rails than the fat guy.
That is an example of the philosophical nonsense I was talking about. If you want to dissolve something, dissolve that nonsense. In reality you are no more likely to push a fat guy onto the rails than you are to ask for the fat guy’s seat. In reality we know what the rules are and we obey them.
I don’t see how it could be helpful to add terminology derived from moral philosophy here or elsewhere.
Again, the relevant terminology, which in this case includes the word “murder”, is not derived from philosophy. Philosophers simply took a pre-existing concept and talked a lot of nonsense about it.
Consider the Is–ought problem. The basis for every ought statement is what I believe to be correct with respect to my goals.
Actually, I think that the use of the word “ought” in relationship to morality is very confusing, because “ought” means a lot of things, and so if you use that word you are apt to confuse those things with each other. In particular, the word “ought” is used a lot in the context of personal advice. If you’re giving a friend advice, you’re likely to talk about what they “ought” to do. In this context, you are not making statements about morality!
The person to blame for the confusion caused by using the word “ought” in talking about morality is probably Hume. I think that it was he who started this particular bit of nonsense going.
If you want to reach a certain goal and I want to help you and believe to know a better solution than you do then I tell you what you ought to do because 1.) you want to reach a goal 2.) I want you to reach your goal 3.) my brain does exhibit a certain epistemic state making me believe to be able to satisfy #1 & #2.
Here you’re talking about giving personal advice to somebody. This is a separate subject from morality.
You haven’t demonstrated that the basis for every ought statement is what you believe to be correct with respect to your goals. If your goal is to kill as many people as possible, you ought not to pursue it..that is the there are oughts about the nature of an end and not just about how to achieve it. This is a very well known issue in moral philosophy called the categorial/hypothetical distinction.
You haven’t demonstrated that the basis for every ought statement is what you believe to be correct with respect to your goals.
Imagine your friend tells you that he found a new solution to reach one of your goals. If you doubt that his solution is better than your current solution then you won’t adopt your friends solution.
It is true that both your solutions might be incorrect, that there might exist a correct solution that you ought (would want) to embrace if you knew about it. But part of what you want is to do what you believe to be correct. It is at best useless to assume that you might be mistaken, because you can only do the best you can possibly do.
That’s all irrelevant. You need to show that there are no categorical rights and wrongs. You are just discussing certain aspects of hypothetical (instrumental) “shoulds”, which does not do that.
We do think there are categorical rights and wrongs, because it is common sense that designing better gas chambers is not good, however well you do it. So the burden is on the makers of the extraordinary claim.
know what it means for a set to be uncountable, and I don’t have the faintest idea what that has to do with the really physical. So that is perhaps unimportant. Perhaps you are stuck in a loop where you can’t understand what other people understand because you have a strange notion of meaning.
Why should we think that there are categorical rights and wrongs?
I just don’t see any convincing reason to believe they exist.
We do think there are categorical rights and wrongs [...]
What you should notice about this exchange is that you’ve made an incorrect prediction, and that therefore there might be something wrong with your model.
I suppose you mean I incorrectly roped in NMJ. But I don’t think s/he is statistically significant,and then there is the issue of sincerity. Does NMJ really think it is good to design an improved gas chamber?
What I mean is that you predicted that “we” think there are categorical rights and wrongs, and you were incorrect (more than just NMJablonski disagree with you). Moreover, the fact that you seem to think “is it good to design an improved gas chamber” is inherently about “categorical rights and wrongs” indicates either dishonest argumentation or a failure to understand the position of your interlocutor.
I didn’t predict anything about what my interlocutors think: I made an accurate comment about ordinary people at large.
think what I said is that it is about categorical rights and wrongs if it is about anything. NMJ seems to think it is about nothing. If you think it is about something else,you need to say what:: I cannot guess.
You cannot guess? Do you not see the irony in making this request?
Here is the situation: people often use a single word (such as ‘good’) to mean many different things. Thus, if you wish to use the word to mean something in particular—especially in an argument about that word! - you might have to define your own meaning.
Besides—the behemoth Opal (“ordinary people at large”) is a poor judge of many things.
Making the categorical/hypothetical distinction is a way of refining the meaning. I’m already there (although I am getting accused of pedantry for my efforts).
You need to show that there are no categorical rights and wrongs.
I don’t need to do that if I don’t want to do that. If you want me to act according to categorical rights and wrongs then you need to show me that they exist.
You need to do certain things in order to hold a rational discussion, just as you need to do certain things to play chess. I don’t have to concede that you can win a chess game without putting my king in check, and I don’t have to concede that you can support a conclusion without arguing the points that need arguing. Of course, you don’t have to play chess or be rational in any absolute sense. It’s just that you can’t have your cake and eat it.
Categorical good and evil is a different concept to the hypothetical/instrumental version: the categorical trumps the instrumental. That appears to stymie one particular attempt at reduction. There are many other arguments.
I would argue that the problem is not with morality, but with how it is being approached here.
This is a starting point for understanding morality.
is utilitarianism, which seems to be the house approach to morality—the very approach which you find unpersuasive.
Not quite. It’s possible to wish a person dead, while being reluctant to kill him yourself, and even while considering anyone who does kill him a murderer who needs to be caught and brought to justice. Morality derives from preferences in a way, but it is indirect. An analogous phenomenon is the market price. The market price of a good derives from the preferences of everyone participating in the market, but the derivation is indirect. The price of a good isn’t merely what you would prefer to pay for it, because that’s always zero. Nor is it merely what the seller would prefer to be paid for it, because there is no upper limit on what he would charge if he could. Rather, the market price is set by supply and demand, and supply and demand depend in large part on preferences. So price derives from preferences, but the derivation is indirect, and it is mediated by interaction between people. Morality, I think, is similar. It derives from preferences indirectly, by way of interaction. This leaves open the possibility that morality is as variable as prices, but I think that because of the preferences that it rests on, it is much, much less variable, though not invariable. Natural selection holds these preferences largely in check. For example, if some genetic line of people were to develop a preference for being slaughtered, they would quickly die out.
This just shows that human wants are inconsistent, that humans are holding conflicting ideas simultaneously, why invoke ‘morality’ in this context?
People or road blockades, what’s the difference? I just don’t see why one would talk about morality here. The preferences of other people are simply more complex road blockades on the way towards your goal. Some of those blockades are artistically appealing so you try to be careful in removing them...why invoke ‘morality’ in this context?
But these two desires are not inconsistent, because for someone to die by, say, natural causes, is not the same thing as for him to die by your own hand.
You could say the same thing about socks. E.g., “I just don’t see why one would talk about socks here. Socks are simply complex arrangements of molecules. Why invoke “sock” in this context?”
What are you going to do instead of invoking “sock”? Are you going to describe the socks molecule by molecule as a way of avoiding using the word “sock”? That would be cumbersome, to say the least. Nor would it be any more true. Socks are real. They aren’t imaginary. That they’re made out of molecules does not stop them from being real.
All this can be said about morality. What are you going to do instead of invoking “morality”? Are you going to describe people’s reactions as a way of avoiding using the word “morality”? That would be cumbersome, to say the least. Nor would it be any more true. Morality is real. It isn’t imaginary. That it’s made out of people’s reactions doesn’t stop it from being real.
Denying the reality of morality simply because it is made out of people’s reactions, is like denying the reality of socks simply because they’re made out of molecules.
Consider the the trolley problem. Naively you kill the fat guy if you care about other people and also if you only care about yourself, because you want others to kill the fat guy as well because you are more likely to be one of the many people tied to the rails than the fat guy.
Of course there is the question about how killing one fat guy to save more people and similar decisions could erode society. Yet it is solely a question about wants, about the preferences of the agents involved. I don’t see how it could be helpful to add terminology derived from moral philosophy here or elsewhere.
It is meaningful wherever it is meaningful to discuss whether there are wants people should and shouldn’t have.
I am going to use moral terminology in the appropriate cultural context. But why would one use it on a site that supposedly tries to dissolve problems using reductionism as a general heuristic? I am also using the term “free will” because people model their decisions according to that vague and ultimately futile concept. But if possible (if I am not too lazy) I avoid using any of those bogus memes.
Of course, it is real. Cthulhu is also real, it is a fictional cosmic entity. But if someone acts according to their fear of Cthulhu I am not going to resolve their fear by talking about it in terms of the Lovecraft Mythos but in terms of mental illness.
How so? Can you give an example where the use of terminology derived from moral philosophy is useful instead of obfuscating?
Consider the Is–ought problem. The basis for every ought statement is what I believe to be correct with respect to my goals.
If you want to reach a certain goal and I want to help you and believe to know a better solution than you do then I tell you what you ought to do because 1.) you want to reach a goal 2.) I want you to reach your goal 3.) my brain does exhibit a certain epistemic state making me believe to be able to satisfy #1 & #2.
It is no more a philosophical puzzle that needs dissolving than prices are a philosophical puzzle that need dissolving.
I think that the concept of “free will” may indeed be more wholly a philosopher’s invention, just as the concept of “qualia” is in my view wholly a philosopher’s invention. But the everyday concepts from which it derives are not a philosopher’s invention. I think that the everyday concept that philosophers turned into the concept of “free will” is the concept of the uncoerced and intentional act—a concept employed when we decide what to do about people who’ve annoyed us. We ask: did he mean to do it? Was he forced to do it? We have good reason for asking these questions.
Philosophers invent bogus memes that we should try to free ourselves of. I think that “qualia” are one of those memes. But philosophers didn’t invent morality. They simply talked a lot of nonsense about it.
Morality is real in the sense that prices are real and in a sense that Cthulhu is not real.
Some people talk about money in the way that you want to talk about morality, so that’s a nice analogy to our discussion and I’ll spend a couple of paragraphs on it. They say that the value of money is merely a collective delusion—that I value a dollar only because other people value a dollar, and that they value a dollar only because, ultimately, I value a dollar. So they say that it’s all a great big collective delusion. They say that if people woke up one day and realized that a dollar was just a piece of paper, then we would stop using dollars.
But while there is a grain of truth to that (especially about fiat money), there’s also much that’s misleading in it. Money is a medium of exchange that solves real problems. The value of money may be in a sense circular (i.e., it’s valued by people because it’s valued by people), but actually a lot of things are circular. A lot of natural adaptations are circular, for example symbiosis. Flowers are the way they are because bees are the way they are, and bees are the way they are because flowers are the way they are. But flowers and bees aren’t a collective delusion. They’re in a symbiotic relationship that has gradually evolved over a very long period of time. Money is similar—it is a social institution that evolves over a long period of time, and it can reappear when it’s suppressed. For example cigarettes can become money if nothing else is available.
And all this is analogous to the situation with morality. In both cases, there’s a real phenomenon which some people think is fictional, a collective delusion.
In contrast, religion really is a collective delusion. At least, all those other religions are. :)
The term “morality” is not derived from philosophy. Philosophers have simply talked a lot of nonsense about morality. This doesn’t mean they invented it. Similarly, philosophers have talked a lot of nonsense about motion (e.g. Zeno’s paradoxes). This doesn’t mean that motion is a concept that philosophers invented and that we need to “dissolve”. We can still talk sensibly about velocity. What we need to dissolve is not velocity, but simply Zeno’s paradoxes about velocity, which by some accounts were dissolved as a side-effect of the creation of Calculus.
That is an example of the philosophical nonsense I was talking about. If you want to dissolve something, dissolve that nonsense. In reality you are no more likely to push a fat guy onto the rails than you are to ask for the fat guy’s seat. In reality we know what the rules are and we obey them.
Again, the relevant terminology, which in this case includes the word “murder”, is not derived from philosophy. Philosophers simply took a pre-existing concept and talked a lot of nonsense about it.
Actually, I think that the use of the word “ought” in relationship to morality is very confusing, because “ought” means a lot of things, and so if you use that word you are apt to confuse those things with each other. In particular, the word “ought” is used a lot in the context of personal advice. If you’re giving a friend advice, you’re likely to talk about what they “ought” to do. In this context, you are not making statements about morality!
The person to blame for the confusion caused by using the word “ought” in talking about morality is probably Hume. I think that it was he who started this particular bit of nonsense going.
Here you’re talking about giving personal advice to somebody. This is a separate subject from morality.
You haven’t demonstrated that the basis for every ought statement is what you believe to be correct with respect to your goals. If your goal is to kill as many people as possible, you ought not to pursue it..that is the there are oughts about the nature of an end and not just about how to achieve it. This is a very well known issue in moral philosophy called the categorial/hypothetical distinction.
Imagine your friend tells you that he found a new solution to reach one of your goals. If you doubt that his solution is better than your current solution then you won’t adopt your friends solution.
It is true that both your solutions might be incorrect, that there might exist a correct solution that you ought (would want) to embrace if you knew about it. But part of what you want is to do what you believe to be correct. It is at best useless to assume that you might be mistaken, because you can only do the best you can possibly do.
That’s all irrelevant. You need to show that there are no categorical rights and wrongs. You are just discussing certain aspects of hypothetical (instrumental) “shoulds”, which does not do that.
Why should we think that there are categorical rights and wrongs?
I just don’t see any convincing reason to believe they exist.
EDIT: Not to mention, it isn’t clear what it would mean—in a real physical sense—for something to be categorically right or wrong.
We do think there are categorical rights and wrongs, because it is common sense that designing better gas chambers is not good, however well you do it. So the burden is on the makers of the extraordinary claim.
know what it means for a set to be uncountable, and I don’t have the faintest idea what that has to do with the really physical. So that is perhaps unimportant. Perhaps you are stuck in a loop where you can’t understand what other people understand because you have a strange notion of meaning.
What you should notice about this exchange is that you’ve made an incorrect prediction, and that therefore there might be something wrong with your model.
I suppose you mean I incorrectly roped in NMJ. But I don’t think s/he is statistically significant,and then there is the issue of sincerity. Does NMJ really think it is good to design an improved gas chamber?
What I mean is that you predicted that “we” think there are categorical rights and wrongs, and you were incorrect (more than just NMJablonski disagree with you). Moreover, the fact that you seem to think “is it good to design an improved gas chamber” is inherently about “categorical rights and wrongs” indicates either dishonest argumentation or a failure to understand the position of your interlocutor.
I didn’t predict anything about what my interlocutors think: I made an accurate comment about ordinary people at large.
think what I said is that it is about categorical rights and wrongs if it is about anything. NMJ seems to think it is about nothing. If you think it is about something else,you need to say what:: I cannot guess.
You cannot guess? Do you not see the irony in making this request?
Here is the situation: people often use a single word (such as ‘good’) to mean many different things. Thus, if you wish to use the word to mean something in particular—especially in an argument about that word! - you might have to define your own meaning.
Besides—the behemoth Opal (“ordinary people at large”) is a poor judge of many things.
Making the categorical/hypothetical distinction is a way of refining the meaning. I’m already there (although I am getting accused of pedantry for my efforts).
Would you be willing to move this to the IRC?
I don’t need to do that if I don’t want to do that. If you want me to act according to categorical rights and wrongs then you need to show me that they exist.
You need to do certain things in order to hold a rational discussion, just as you need to do certain things to play chess. I don’t have to concede that you can win a chess game without putting my king in check, and I don’t have to concede that you can support a conclusion without arguing the points that need arguing. Of course, you don’t have to play chess or be rational in any absolute sense. It’s just that you can’t have your cake and eat it.
Categorical good and evil is a different concept to the hypothetical/instrumental version: the categorical trumps the instrumental. That appears to stymie one particular attempt at reduction. There are many other arguments.