The "OughtNess to Kill"

[Flannel Jesus]

Mate, if you're willing to take abuse from adult toddlers, you do you. I'm just saying other people have a reason for abstaining.

Again, iwannaplato isn't a great example of this, as even when he disagrees with someone as he's done with me many times, he disagrees with a focus on the ideas.

[Dontaskme]

Mate, if you're willing to take abuse from adult toddlers, you do you. I'm just saying other people have a reason for abstaining.

Again, iwannaplato isn't a great example of this, as even when he disagrees with someone as he's done with me many times, he disagrees with a focus on the ideas.

It's just an online forum, no one is going to punch your lights out, like they would in real life. Is all I'm hinting at.

And yes, I personally find Iwannaplato very easy to reason with, without the need to throw insults at each other. So I have no idea why VA would put Iwannaplato on ignore list.

In fact, Iwannaplato is very good at counter arguing a point. I like that. That's what good philosophy is all about, else what's the point.

[Harbal]

In fact, Iwannaplato is very good at counter arguing a point.

And therein lies the reason for VA blocking him.

[Iwannaplato]

Well, perhaps this is all on topic. The only way we can 'kill' another poster, at least in our own little bubble of a universe, is to block them.

[Harbal]

The only way we can 'kill' another poster, at least in our own little bubble of a universe, is to block them.

With a little imagination, it is sometimes possible to make blocking you worse for them than acknowledging you and putting up with it.

[Iwannaplato]

Generally,
1. The primary ought of all living things is the 'oughtness to survive' as long as possible till the inevitable. This is a biological fact [FSK].

Let's accept this for the sake of argument. I think it's slipping in a moral evaluation of a behavioral/attitudinal trait, but let's accept it. I think VA is best countered by accepting his premises, but pointing out what he ignores these entail

2. the 'ought-to-kill' is a critical to fulfil the 'Food' in the 4Fs to facilitate basic survival -1. This is a biological fact [FSK].

.... as long as we include plants as those killed. But he's already slipping in unnecessary ideas. We don't have an oughtness to kill. We have aggressive tendencies that can express in a variety of ways including killing. We don't have a clear model in those neurons of killing. What we have is tendencies towards violence, aimed at prey, aimed at other animals and humans in self-defense and also for a variety of other motivations. He has not demonstrated that neurons have little 'kill' heuristics. They can certain lead to aggression in all forms.

3. This 'ought-to-kill' is directed at non-humans so that humans can kill them for food -2. This is a biological fact [FSK].

Again with the proviso related plants.

4. But being humans there is a possibility [due to various reasons - tribalism, self-defense, etc.] that if such 'ought to kill' is directed at other humans without control, it would theoretical exterminate the species which would contradict 1. There must a control to ensure 1 is sustained. This is a biological and psychological fact [FSK].

Fine, but now we are getting close to where VA gets in trouble.

5. To ensure objective 1 is sustain, evolution has programmed via adaption the 'oughtness not to kill one's kind' as a control.

This is misleading. Again, there are species that kill their own kind for a variety of reasons. There are species that don't do this. Both have been quite successful. And again, it is not an oughtness not to kill, but mirror neurons, which leads to identifying with the feelings and suffering of others. This can modify, weaken or even remove aggressive tendencies. It is not a total control. Nor is it an oughtness. It is a tendency to feel the feelings of someone we can see or hear.

VA posits that he develops a morality out of what he finds in brains. He finds mirror neurons, so empathy, which would tend to reduce killing, is an objective moral fact. But also in brains we have aggressive neurons, capable of leading to violence including murder.

That is the mix of tendencies we have. So, any morality based on brain structures would have to consider the combination of both attitudes empathy and aggressiveness to be necessary moral facts for homo sapiens.

Not for other species, for homo sapiens.

Despite humans have been killing each other due to Tribalism and other reasons, 'oughtness not to kill one's kind' still prevails. This evident in all the species that survive to the present.

To varying degrees. Some simply never murder other members of their species. There could be a variety of causes for this.

This is the advent of the biological and moral function within all humans.

Unclear referent, but these tendencies toward aggression and also toward identification are often called moral stances or behaviors that we create morals related to.

6. Per the Moral FSK, since morality is eliminating evil to enable its related good, and since killing another human is an evil act, the 'oughtness not to kill humans' is a biological and moral issue.

I mean, after a decade of this, one could only hope that VA would be able to see that he comes to the table with a morality and then roots around in brains to justify it.

And pretty much everyone here would like there to be less murder. And less of the situations that tend to increase it: poverty, for example.

Since this 'oughtness not to kill humans' is sustained by physical biological neural correlates, it is an objective moral fact via the human-based moral FSK.

But homo sapien murders are also sustained by physical biological neural correlates, so this would be acceptable to some degree. In whales, it is not acceptable. They don't murder each other. But homo sapiens do.

VA's argument is if murder was completely out of control the whole species would die.

Well, that's true for eating. So, we get feelings of being full, for example.

That doesn't mean that eating is bad per se.

(oughtness to eat vs. oughtness not to kill ourselves, at least in the short term, by overeating)
(oughtness to kill vs. oughtness to feel empathy for people like us, which we extend even to other animals)
(just to lay out my analogy)

With eating we want a balance between eating and not eating too much. So we have desires for food and suppression of appitite neuronal patterns and hormonal patterns)

VA may well react to my example with Eating is not evil. How can you compare eating with murder?

Right, it's values outside of physical correlates that lead to his dislike of murder, a dislike I share.

Perhaps we are the best balance of aggression and empathy possible for our species. What works for hares does not work for us. Who knows.

But you have no physical justification for saying we need to

for example

control aggession even more than we do now.

You have to come with values from somewhere else.

You cannot justify the elimination of murder or even increasing its reduction based on what neurons we have. Based on them we should have the murder rates we have.

7. This personal battle of good over evil is a moral function of human nature within oneself, thus the related 'ought-not-ness-to-kill-humans' is a moral fact verifiable and justifiable within the scientific FSK and thence to Moral FSK.

No one is denying we have a mix of tendencies, but all we can really conclude from VA's approach is that aggression and empathy are objective moral facts and humans should be a mix of these things.

And guess what we are.

But VA thinks we need to shift the balance more to the side of empathy. Fine. I'd prefer that.

But there is no objectivity involved in that. Now one has to add a judgment, a moral judgment to the tendencies of aggression and empathy already in place.

And really, how much empathy is VA showing when he interacts with people he disagrees with.

He thinks most people are morally weak at this time in history. He does not think he is, he thinks they are.

He thinks that PH doesn't care about violence. If he read PH with more empathy he'd realize that one of the reasons PH doesn't like the idea of objective morality is because of how it gets used against humans by humans. He may be right about this, he may be wrong.

But if VA could read his posts with more empathy he wouldn't continually assume the worst about him.

VA could also show more empathy for people who are concerned about his utopian plans to change human brains so there are more moral. At times this will be accomplished via technological means. At other times through something like training/planning/pedagogy. A student of history and someone who theoretically values empathy might try to bridge the gap there.

[Dontaskme]

The only way we can 'kill' another poster, at least in our own little bubble of a universe, is to block them.

With a little imagination, it is sometimes possible to make blocking you worse for them than acknowledging you and putting up with it.

Yes, and imagine if you had to block everyone, you'd only end up doing what you do anyway, talking to yourself.

And no one likes not being the centre of their own attention.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Per the Moral FSK

Odd to imply that there is some sort of singular moral fsk, The Moral FSK. There's relatively singular scientific FSKs (with little branches at the end), for example chemistry or relativity, which are 99% singular (almost all experts agree with almost all aspects of the mainstream FSK) with little disagreements between experts at the frontier of study - but morality has no such uniformity that I'm aware of. So, I don't think the phrase "the moral fsk" makes much sense. I don't even know what it refers to.

Noted and agree to your point.
I did not intend to claim there is THE MORAL FSK. Most of the time I used 'moral FSK' with a small 'm'.
However to be more specific, in my case when I write 'moral-FSK' it is 'morality-proper-FSK.'
I contend the existing moral-FSK are pseudo ones - not fully in alignment with human nature and not effective

A FSK is a Framework and System of Knowledge, which is applicable to any claim of knowledge, e.g. as in morality.
There can be many types of moral-FSK, example,
theistic-moral-FSK and its subs, Christian-moral-FSK, Buddhist-moral-FSK and so on.
We have other moral-FSK, e.g. deontology, utilitarianism, consequentialism, etc. and their sub-FSKs.
Each of the above FSK will come in different degrees of objectivity, thus credibility and reliability.

[Veritas Aequitas]

I have discussed the topic of the "OughtNess to Kill" in all [if not most] living species

The presence of something in all eliminates the possibility of it only being present in most.

6. Per the Moral FSK, since morality is eliminating evil to enable its related good, and since killing another human is an evil act, the 'oughtness not to kill humans' is a biological and moral issue.
Since this 'oughtness not to kill humans' is sustained by physical biological neural correlates, it is an objective moral fact via the human-based moral FSK.

Morality, good and evil are concepts, and in order to have concepts there must be thought. Biological processes do not, and cannot, think.

Brilliantly said Harbal

Self-praising your limited, narrow and shallow knowledge dogmatically is not good philosophy. I noted, that is the general standard of all your posts.
Deep reflective thinking is imperative for good philosophizing.

Note,
1. Morality, good and evil are concepts, and
2. in order to have concepts there must be thought,
3. in order to have thoughts, there must be .......??

4. Yeah, there must be the underlying biological processes, [neuroscience, neuro-biology]
5. in order to have biological processes, there must be its specific set of neural correlates in interaction with the whole body, one present and past experiences, within an environment, [neuro-psychology]
6. in order to have neural correlates, there must be the physical neurons,
7. in order to have physical neurons, there must be the Genes, DNA, quarks, particles,.

Thus it is very critical we must pay attention to the biological processes [3-7] and their complex set of variables in order to have effective concepts that can manage evil to enable moral progress.

Take for example, the malignant psychopath who has very strong urge to kill.
Per OP, the oughtness to kill is inherent in ALL humans; for the majority, this impulse is reasonably managed, modulated and inhibited by the 'oughtness not to kill human'.

In the malignant psychopath's case, his 'oughtness not to kill human' [biological processes re neural brakes and inhibitor] exists objectively, but it is not in good working order due to various reasons, thus his loosened 'ought to kill' is directed at humans and he killed humans.

Now if we can understand the biological processes* of the malignant psychopath, this will give humanity the opportunity to prevent the malignancy via the basis of the neurons, genes, DNA and so on.
[*Note the analogy of the difference between a typical car-ignorant driver and one who knows the inside out in every aspects of a car; pari-passu, the latter will be a better driver and in managing the condition of his car.]

When this is possible in the future [.. I am very optimistic - in 75, 100 or > years] then there will no more malignant psychopaths bent on a killing spree to kill humans.

The above is applicable to all other evil acts [contra to morality].
When we achieved that,we would then have achieved the highest level of moral progress with the ability to sustain it from thereon.
From the above points, morality is objective emerging from a human based moral*-FSK.
* i.e. based on morality-proper not pseudo-morality.

Practice deep reflective thinking for humanity sake.

[Harbal]

* i.e. based on morality-proper not pseudo-morality.

Is the deviding of morality into these different categories orthodox practice, or is it something you've come up with yourself?

[Iwannaplato]

1. Morality, good and evil are concepts, and
2. in order to have concepts there must be thought,
3. in order to have thoughts, there must be .......??

4. Yeah, there must be the underlying biological processes, [neuroscience, neuro-biology]
5. in order to have biological processes, there must be its specific set of neural correlates in interaction with the whole body, one present and past experiences, within an environment, [neuro-psychology]
6. in order to have neural correlates, there must be the physical neurons,
7. in order to have physical neurons, there must be the Genes, DNA, quarks, particles,.

In philosophy sometimes thoughts, as a category, is meant to include pretty much anything, including emotions. But I think it makes much more sense to think of VA's empathy as primarily emotional. You feel the other. The limbic system throws this identification at you on a felt level.

It's not rational. (nor is it irrational) It's non rational.

Moral objective facts are based on emotions. If they are objective moral facts or if they are not.

Oughtness not to kill, is actually a tendency to feel what the other person is feeling, if you can see or hear them.
Oughtness to kill, is actually a tendency to express anger, rage, aggression at others, if you can see or hear them.

We get triggered to feel things.

Presumably because these tendencies, in general, worked for homo sapiens.

Other species have less of one, more of the other.
Some don't seem to have much of either.
But amongst the mammals we have some really much less aggressive relatives. They just don't murder.
Perhaps they feel more empathy.
Perhaps they feel less aggression.

Perhaps they feel more fear.