Alexander_Reiswich wrote: ↑Sun Jan 22, 2023 12:33 am
I agree in regards to the communication and terminology, but I'm not sure if these problems are necessarily inherent in the argument itself.
To some degree I agree. I think he could have a potentially useful position/approach and one that does not necessarily immediately cause problems for PH and FDP. It's a pretty infected dialogue and his position has changed from a more deontological one to the current potentials one precisely due to criticism, though without acknowledging this.
I think the idea of looking for potential sources of behavioral/attitudinal in the nervous system/endocrine system, then having discussions about what direction we might want to go in, then trying to find ways of enhancing that direction is all peachy and without the more direct knowledge of modern neuroscience is a process that has been considered with the tools of parenting, culture, education for a long time. If he let go of using the term 'moral fact' in the way he does, or openly said he wants to use it in an idiosyncratic way and defined it clearly, it would probably go a long way. He also probably needs to admit that other people might want to choose to enhance other things in the brain, and he wouldn't be able to prove (another word he uses too often) that they are immoral to do that. But he could still advocate for the enhancements he prefers. I suspect that he thinks that if he lets go of certain terms, he can no longer be as effective as he wants to be.
To use your example about Vikings, it's true that they might have had greater aggressive potential and less inhibition to kill people (particularly from other cultures), but once they established their dominion, these features disappeared (to an extent), because they are not useful within their own culture.
To an extent. And also because it was not useful - given their goals at that stage. PH has said several times that the second meaning of ought, the non-deontological one, is perfectly valid use in the context of a goal. If you want to live to the age of 85 and be active, then one ought to.....(diet, exercise, avoiding X). That left an easy out for VA if he is not a moral objectivist to say, yes, if our goal is X, then we can.....That goal will not be an objective good, but something that we decide we want. And yes, our physiology might tend in certain directions. But it's not a moral fact, even in relation to health, that living a long time while one can be active, is the goal. Others might want to live hedonistically - and given the option significant numbers of members of most groups have chosen this priority - and sex, drugs and rock and roll lead to shorter lives, but humans seem to have a tendency to make that choice ALSO. And so even in the seemingly more objective realm of the values about health, we have a diversity and we cannot resolve the issue purely on physiology. And the ought varies given the prioritization of goals.
What this tells us is that there are two basic modes to human nature; we could call them externally-aggressive and internally-peaceful. Thus, when we aim to have a peaceful society, it's objectively correct to empower the latter. Since there is fairly strong inter-subjective consensus that this is indeed our goal, it's not a matter of personal preference.
Right. Though one of the problems today is that human interactions are much more causal at a distance, so things like empathy do not work well, given their sensory base. We may or may not be less agressive even intragroup, but our governments' economic and other policies may well kill hundreds of thousands without most of us noticing a single chunk of new sensory data. But yes, once you have the goal down, you can at least begin the discussion of what objectively can lead to this common goal. Something PH has said himself in relation to the two main meanings of ought.
I think even with common goals, however, it is much harder to know the effects of policy/actions in relation to it. We overestimate our ability to track consequences and further tend to ignore any 'side effects' that we cannot easily track (short term or long term). But that's a whole 'nother can of worms.
