Philosophy Now Forum

Philosophical perspectives on the Golden Rule typically focus on the Golden Rule’s well-known flaws and may even have a dismissive tone. The philosopher Dan Flores recently wrote in his article The Not So Golden Rule. “If ethics is the inquiry into the basic claims of morality, then upon philosophic...

where would you be without love. Because of love and compassion there is morals. Like a divine lightning bolt that says wake up we exist and we have hearts inside us. What moral naturalism 'is' is discovered and empirically true. What morality 'ought' to be is invented as an intellectual construct ...

How is cooperation morally significant? That was explained in the original post. Strategies that solve the universal cooperation/exploitation dilemma all include the necessary element that violators are punished. Moral norms in all cultures are the norms whose violators deserve punishment. Thus, cu...

If you want to conceive of universal morality, then look at what all language acquisition takes, and look for things that are morally significant, because it is there that you will find what all morality has in common. Trust and truth. Those two are just as morally significant now as during the ado...

With regard to your belief that others are trying to force your ideas into a preconceived notion of what counts as morality. As I see it, you're the one who wants to change what the concept is all about. Morality is a conventional notion with a common conventional definition which allows shared und...

I totally agree with Markus7 (#1). I'm interested in history as interpretation of the human past. I ask Markus7 if he thinks that a good case can be made that the sort of reciprocity as characterised by The Golden Rule depends from increased technological progress especially with the advent of coin...

My apologies for the tone Markus , but you and I in addition to you and many many others have already had conversations which included others who attempted to point out flaws in your argument, which either weren't accepted or understood, but they were valid objections nonetheless. More to this poin...

Also, there is no universal (subjective) morality. Sure there is. However, Markus has been peddling this idea of his for years, and it's not even close to being an meaningful account of what could be rightfully and sensibly called universal morality. Do you care to explain yourself using rational a...

The topic here is a morality from science that is "instrumentally" useful for achieving common shared goals in a culture. The naturalistic fallacy has nothing to do with what is instrumentally useful. It is irrelevant to this conversation. You commit the naturalistic fallacy point by poin...

Let's try it this way, then: Take this: "1) In our physical reality, benefits of cooperation are commonly available" What are we referring to with "benefits"? From the OP: "In the following, 'benefits of cooperation' are shared goals achieved by cooperation." So you're...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy For the hard of thinking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT7yXG2aJdY The topic here is a morality from science that is "instrumentally" useful for achieving common shared goals in a culture. The naturalistic fallacy has nothing to do wit...

Terrapin Station wrote:Let's try it this way, then:

Take this:

"1) In our physical reality, benefits of cooperation are commonly available"

What are we referring to with "benefits"?

From the OP:

"In the following, 'benefits of cooperation' are shared goals achieved by cooperation."

Markus, you made comments about benefits, exploitation, etc. in the context of these introductory remarks: "Moral naturalism in modern moral philosophy proposes there are 'natural facts' of one sort or another that provide an objective basis for what is and is not moral. Relevant science of th...

Cooperation strategies such as “indirect reciprocity” solve this universal cooperation/exploitation dilemma and are encoded … Also, there is no universal (subjective) morality. That’s because the morality of cooperation is objective morality if the presented encoding hypothesis is correct. This wou...

X is a benefit. Your implication is false that I have claimed science can define X (a benefit). Exploitation is to be avoided. What I actually said was cooperation strategies that exploit others are not universally moral. Whether you want to avoid them is a subjective choice. --neither of those are...