There are Objective Moral Facts

Should you think about your duty, or about the consequences of your actions? Or should you concentrate on becoming a good person?

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Veritas Aequitas
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Re: There are Objective Moral Facts

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Alexander_Reiswich wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 1:38 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 4:53 am If you were to research more extensive on the theory of morality, you will note there is trend at present where morality is trending towards moral elements as moral facts is in the brain and self.
I did research it reasonably extensively, but from an entirely different vantage point -- my research leads me to believe that a logic of Morality can be ascertained with no reference to how our brains work, at all, and yet it leads to very similar (though more abstract) conclusions regarding the nature of Morality. There is nothing "esoteric" about this approach -- it's simply an abstraction with the capability of describing and predicting hypothetical states of affairs which we would ascribe a moral character to. But we don't have to get into that in this thread.
The the scope of Morality and Ethics here;
https://philpapers.org/browse/ethics
You covered and is familiar with the scope fully?

A listing from the above link:
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=39255

"logic of Morality" you mean something like the 'rationalist' approach?
Moral rationalism, also called ethical rationalism, is a view in meta-ethics (specifically the epistemology of ethics) according to which moral principles are knowable a priori, by reason alone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rationalism
Do you have references for your type of morality?
Can you describe its FSK.

Btw, when you are relying on 'abstraction' you are moving away from reality which is represented by unique particulars.
The more you grind these abstractions with logic, the more you are veering off from reality; note also the limitation of logic, i.e. Garbage in Garbage Out.

On the other hand I am grounding my morality and ethics on Scientific verifications and justification which is more realistic on an empirical basis.

Since scientific knowledge based on the scientific FSK [also mathematical] is the most credible at present, thus if you rely on any other FSK, it will be inferior to science.

I don't mind discussing other approaches -- and no, I don't generally favor a "silo" approach. It's just that each of us has limits in the resources available to them, and I don't plan to become an expert in "biochemistry, genetics, molecular biology, genetic engineering, genomics, and rational medicines any time soon...
Point is all human activities, including morality and ethics are reducible to the mental, brain, body, neurons, algorithms, genes, DNA, atom and quarks - the 'black box'.

In the past, philosophers of morality and ethics had to work outside the black-box due to the limited knowledge of what is inside the black-box.
But now that humanity is gaining more and more knowledge within the black box, it would only be effective to go into the black-box to understand how things [in this case morality] work.

If you work outside the black-box, then your knowledge is relative shallow and narrow thus inefficiency? Agree/disagree?
But my recommendation for you is to try and clarify the moral aspects of your terminology a bit more, because it comes with a lot of baggage, and as a result anyone reading your propositions infuses them with their own assumptions about morality, which don't align very well with yours. Thus, it appears like you are making fairly outrageous claims, even though now, after understanding your position more properly, I no longer think so. It's just that the language of morality acts as a bit of "trigger".
My ideas about morality and ethics is very novel and on the fringe thus naturally it will face resistance [resistance to change].
However, whatever I claim re Morality and Ethics, I ensure they must be reducible to whatever can be verified and justified by Science which will maintain a reasonable degree of credibility and reality.
For example, we often use terms like good and bad, right and wrong, good and evil in our conversations about morality. It would be a good start to clarify how you would utilize these terms, if at all. Possibly also terms such as rights and duties. In my opinion, these in particular are philosophically underdeveloped (the internal logic is sound, but it's unclear how general rights, i.e. human rights are derived, precisely). This is something that my approach to objective Morality attempts to explain (well, I wouldn't mind a more descriptive name for my approach, but nothing else came to mind yet).

But maybe this can also be somehow tackled by using your approach. I'm not sure.
I agree it is very common that 'rightness' and 'wrongness' is used in relation to morality and ethics. It has relevance but the emphasis of their use is too subjective most related to feelings, opinions, beliefs, judgments [not on matter of fact] and thus not effective.

My preference is good and evil.
My definition of Morality is 'avoiding evil to promote good'.
What is 'good' specific to morality in this case is not-evil.
What is evil is any act that is net negative to the well being of the individuals and therefrom to humanity.
We will have an exhaustive list of evil acts with a continuum of degree of evilness.
I rank extermination of the human species at 99/100, genocide at 95/100 evilness, and so on with these as the standards.

Whatever is 'rights' is related to political and not morality.

My analogy of how morality and ethics work is like that of a thermostat, say in an air conditioner.
The first thing is to set the standard or expected temperature.
Now if the temperature room is not according to the standard, it is not appropriate to say the temperature is wrong but rather there is a variance from standard.
Where there is a variance the air conditioner is spontaneously triggered to work to close the gap or variance.

In my case, the self, body, brain and mind would be a moral thermostat which will work spontaneously to strive to close the moral gap/variance between good and evil [as defined].
As such there is no need to raise the question of the confusing 'rightness' or 'wrongness' in the old fashion of morality.
However we need to establish what is 'good' and 'evil' objectively grounded on scientific facts in alignment with human nature such that we have an effective "moral thermostat".
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: There are Objective Moral Facts

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Peter Holmes wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 2:05 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 4:47 am The inherent "oughtness to kill" is embedded deep in the human brain and will not go away, thus there is a need to develop and strengthen the "ought-not-ness-to-kill-human" to suppress, inhibit and modulate the "oughtness to kill" impulse for its intended purpose, i.e. killing non-humans for food to sustain survival with greater confidence no human will kill humans in the future [not now].
But WHY is there 'a need to develop and strengthen the "ought-not-ness-to-kill-human[s]" ? WHY do we need to reduce or stop the killing of humans by humans? WHY should the human race survive?
How can you be so stupid [unintelligent and irrational] not to understand the above as obvious?
It seems you find it morally acceptable that SOME humans should continue to kill other humans.

That the human race survive is secondary.
The point is "ought-not-ness-to-kill-human[s]" is evidently empirical and traceable as a matter of fact in term of a 'program' in the brain represented by neurons, neural algorithms, genes, DNA, atoms and quarks.
When this "program" is strengthen and effective, lesser and lesser humans will be killed by other humans.

WHY? because it is a natural feature of human nature and being-human.

You are ignorant of human nature because you have not bothered to research deeply into human nature, i.e. your own nature.
You fail to recognise that these are NOT self-evidently answerable questions, with obvious, factual answers. You merely assume that humans ought not to kill humans, and that the human race ought to survive.
As I had stated above, I have not assumed but rather it is grounded on a matter-of-fact.
Those are not facts, but rather matters of opinion. You are doing precisely what Hume pointed out: conjuring 'oughts' from nowhere, with no logical connection to facts.

You've been doing this for years, so the penny has probably rusted in place and can never drop for you.
I have already linked "ought-not-ness-to-kill-human[s]" to facts as grounded on the scientific FSK.

You still have not answered my question?
Are scientific truths objective or not? Yes or No?
Last edited by Veritas Aequitas on Sat Jan 21, 2023 4:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: There are Objective Moral Facts

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Alexander_Reiswich wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 5:45 pm
Peter Holmes wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 2:05 pm But WHY is there 'a need to develop and strengthen the "ought-not-ness-to-kill-human[s]" ? WHY do we need to reduce or stop the killing of humans by humans? WHY should the human race survive?
I'm almost positive I understand Veritas Aequitas's position by now, and as far as I can tell, it's really not as problematic as it might appear...

The idea, in simpler terms, is that "objective" knowledge is established (not derived) on the basis of (inter-subjective) consensus and an appropriate system for verifying proposed theories, i.e. the scientific method. Objective knowledge in this sense is not "absolute" -- it's just an estimation of accuracy / validity / quality ("degree of objectivity"). So given enough (credible) consensus pertaining to a particular theory, the status of "objective" is reached. Within this paradigm, it doesn't matter whether the theory refers to human sense-based experiences (sense of taste, sense of beauty, and of course also sense of morality) or observed physical phenomena.

By this definition, if the scientific community were to agree that there is a "proper" function for biological systems (humans in particular), which can be credibly shown to be beneficial to the well-being of humans / humanity, then this would justify an "ought" in an "objective" way, simply because this conclusion has reached a high degree of "objectivity" based on the consensus within the scientific community. Therefore, that which is "objectively" shown to be beneficial to the well-being and thriving of humans (as a species) is deemed to be "objectively moral".

As an example, the concept of mirror neurons, which is considered a scientific fact, can be assessed as being beneficial to our ability to co-exist peacefully. Thus, it's morally relevant, and in this sense opens up the possibility for "moral facts" within scientific considerations.

The is-ought-problem is therefore not technically violated, but at the same time, there is no claim that an "ought" outside of the interests of human beings has been derived. Rather, it's an appeal to the rationality and the common interest of people to improve the human condition, so in the traditional sense this would actually be considered a subjective moral argument. As far as I understand, Veritas Aequitas argues that the traditional approach is essentially useless, because objective morality is (allegedly) impossible within it, so we "ought" to adapt the new paradigm, in which objective morality is possible -- in a certain sense.
You reported and presented my views very correctly and 'objectively'.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: There are Objective Moral Facts

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Alexander_Reiswich wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 8:02 pm
FlashDangerpants wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 6:50 pm We might not let you forget you wrote that.
I'm counting on you 😂
Now ask him to explain what makes for a "credible moral FSK" and how exactly he thinks that parallels science.
Then we'll see if you can re-explain his theory for humans once you have some of the baggage to deal with as well.

Somewhere in all that you might notice that the sort of "objectivity" that is required is that sort which can be used to signify a uniquely correct answer to a question. And then you may have to deal with whether VA's thing is supposed to establish that a contrary answer to such questions must be wrong if the answer given via his "credible moral FSK" is true. But sadly you cannot really acheive such things if consensus of opinion is all that undergirds the "objectivity" of your data.
Peter Holmes
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Re: There are Objective Moral Facts

Post by Peter Holmes »

Alexander_Reiswich wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 5:45 pm
Peter Holmes wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 2:05 pm But WHY is there 'a need to develop and strengthen the "ought-not-ness-to-kill-human[s]" ? WHY do we need to reduce or stop the killing of humans by humans? WHY should the human race survive?
The idea, in simpler terms, is that "objective" knowledge is established (not derived) on the basis of (inter-subjective) consensus and an appropriate system for verifying proposed theories, i.e. the scientific method. Objective knowledge in this sense is not "absolute" -- it's just an estimation of accuracy / validity / quality ("degree of objectivity"). So given enough (credible) consensus pertaining to a particular theory, the status of "objective" is reached. Within this paradigm, it doesn't matter whether the theory refers to human sense-based experiences (sense of taste, sense of beauty, and of course also sense of morality) or observed physical phenomena.
Here's the flaw.

P: What we call a fact can be nothing more than an opinion reached by inter-subjective consensus.
C: Therefore, any opinion reached by inter-subjective consensus can be a fact. So there can be moral facts.

The premise is false, because what we call a fact is a feature of reality that is or was the case, independent from opinion. And it mistakes the method by which we may arrive at a conclusion with the nature of the conclusion itself. And consensus theories of truth are patently ridiculous.
By this definition, if the scientific community were to agree that there is a "proper" function for biological systems (humans in particular), which can be credibly shown to be beneficial to the well-being of humans / humanity, then this would justify an "ought" in an "objective" way, simply because this conclusion has reached a high degree of "objectivity" based on the consensus within the scientific community. Therefore, that which is "objectively" shown to be beneficial to the well-being and thriving of humans (as a species) is deemed to be "objectively moral".
Here's the flaw.

P: (It's the intersubjective scientific consensus that) X is beneficial to humans.
C: Therefore, (it's a fact that) X is morally right (good).

Even without the silly consensus condition, the bare premise can only express an opinion based on a subjective assessment of what is beneficial for humans - over which there has been and is wide rational disagreement.
And the premise doesn't entail the conclusion anyway, so the argument is invalid.

As an example, the concept of mirror neurons, which is considered a scientific fact, can be assessed as being beneficial to our ability to co-exist peacefully. Thus, it's morally relevant, and in this sense opens up the possibility for "moral facts" within scientific considerations.
But notice that the moral premise comes first: We ought to co-exist peacefully. From the fact that we have motor neurons that help us to co-exist peacefully, it doesn't follow that we ought to co-exist peacefully. That's cart-before-horsery. Just as, from the fact that we have other neurons that help us act aggressively, it doesn't follow that we ought to act aggressively - that it's morally right to do so. A factual premise can never entail a moral conclusion.

The is-ought-problem is therefore not technically violated, but at the same time, there is no claim that an "ought" outside of the interests of human beings has been derived. Rather, it's an appeal to the rationality and the common interest of people to improve the human condition, so in the traditional sense this would actually be considered a subjective moral argument. As far as I understand, Veritas Aequitas argues that the traditional approach is essentially useless, because objective morality is (allegedly) impossible within it, so we "ought" to adapt the new paradigm, in which objective morality is possible -- in a certain sense.
VA's argument very explicitly does 'violate' the is-ought barrier, and is invalid for that reason.
Peter Holmes
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Re: There are Objective Moral Facts

Post by Peter Holmes »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sat Jan 21, 2023 4:03 am
Peter Holmes wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 2:05 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 4:47 am The inherent "oughtness to kill" is embedded deep in the human brain and will not go away, thus there is a need to develop and strengthen the "ought-not-ness-to-kill-human" to suppress, inhibit and modulate the "oughtness to kill" impulse for its intended purpose, i.e. killing non-humans for food to sustain survival with greater confidence no human will kill humans in the future [not now].
But WHY is there 'a need to develop and strengthen the "ought-not-ness-to-kill-human[s]" ? WHY do we need to reduce or stop the killing of humans by humans? WHY should the human race survive?
How can you be so stupid [unintelligent and irrational] not to understand the above as obvious?
And exactly here is your blind spot. The only answer you have to my question as to WHY we need to develop and strengthen human ought-ness-not-to-kill-humans is: IT'S OBVIOUS. ARE YOU STUPID?

In other words, you start from a moral premise for which there's no non-moral justification. As I've been saying all along.

Then you scratch around for some physical facts - such as mirror neurons - that you retrospectively claim support your moral premise, in a post hoc rationalisation - ignoring other features of 'human nature' that inconveniently don't support your argument.
It seems you find it morally acceptable that SOME humans should continue to kill other humans.
Talk about stupidity and irrationality! All that research, all those texts - and this is the best you can come up with? WAFWOT.
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Alexander_Reiswich
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Re: There are Objective Moral Facts

Post by Alexander_Reiswich »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Jan 21, 2023 9:07 am Now ask him to explain what makes for a "credible moral FSK" and how exactly he thinks that parallels science. Then we'll see if you can re-explain his theory for humans once you have some of the baggage to deal with as well.
I have a pretty good idea: first, we look at the scientific model as the gold standard (as it has arguably proven itself) and identify its characteristics, i.e. empiricism, replicability, objectivity, peer-review, etc.

Then we apply the same principles to aesthetics first. Why aesthetics? Because it's easier to understand :)

In aesthetics, we can utilize the scientific approach to "objectively" understand what people deem attractive (or repulsive). By exploring our evolutionary past and our biology and neurology we can understand why exactly we find certain things more visually pleasing than others.

Our aesthetic sensibilities are based on facts, such as the environment we inhabited during our evolutionary development, general physiological properties such as symmetry and proportions, as well as hard-coded preferences based on sexual attraction. These factors of course vary from culture to culture and from individual to individual. However, they're certainly not entirely random and it's possible to predict with some degree of accuracy what any given person would find attractive or not based on their age, gender and cultural upbringing.

As such, we can consider aesthetics an objective field of study with its own FSK (which is based on the scientific FSK, but adapted to aesthetics).

Now, morality is essentially equivalent to aesthetics -- but rather than dealing with what is beautiful and ugly, it concerns itself with what is good and evil. So in a very similar way that we can discover aesthetic facts, we can also discover moral facts; i.e. why people consider certain behaviors to be good and worthy of praise and emulation, and others evil and worthy of condemnation and punishment.

In this way, we can discover what is generally deemed "good" and "evil" and thus predict what moral value a particular individual (again, based on factors such as age, gender and upbringing, among others) would assign to a particular action or behavior.

In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with this approach, because it's not prescriptive, but rather entirely descriptive.

This includes what VA calls the "ought-not-ness-to-kill-human" -- it's totally confusing in it's terminology, particularly within a philosophical context. But in actuality, it doesn't say "you, Bob, ought not to kill humans". Rather, it says "humans in general possess neurological inhibitors that dissuade them from killing other humans", meaning humans have an "ought-not-ness-to-kill-humans".

So there is no claim that there is any kind of objective ought as we understand it from Hume's is-ought-problem.

FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Jan 21, 2023 9:07 am Somewhere in all that you might notice that the sort of "objectivity" that is required is that sort which can be used to signify a uniquely correct answer to a question. And then you may have to deal with whether VA's thing is supposed to establish that a contrary answer to such questions must be wrong if the answer given via his "credible moral FSK" is true. But sadly you cannot really acheive such things if consensus of opinion is all that undergirds the "objectivity" of your data.
VA's argument is that all scientific knowledge is fundamentally based on expert consensus (i.e. within the scientific community). For example, if a new theory is introduced to explain phenomenon X, we tend to be cautious at first and say things like "we have to wait for more evidence to emerge to confirm it". At this stage, the theory has a "low level of objectivity". As more research, experimentation and peer-review takes places, the more certainty we gain as to its veracity. If a multitude of experiments and investigations from various sources yields results that align with the theories predictions, we can achieve a "high level of objectivity".

Now, personally I would prefer to use the term "(scientific) certainty" rather than "objectivity". But I would posit that the logic itself is sound. It's just that the terminology is confusing.
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Alexander_Reiswich
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Re: There are Objective Moral Facts

Post by Alexander_Reiswich »

Peter Holmes wrote: Sat Jan 21, 2023 10:17 am Here's the flaw.

P: What we call a fact can be nothing more than an opinion reached by inter-subjective consensus.
C: Therefore, any opinion reached by inter-subjective consensus can be a fact. So there can be moral facts.

The premise is false, because what we call a fact is a feature of reality that is or was the case, independent from opinion. And it mistakes the method by which we may arrive at a conclusion with the nature of the conclusion itself. And consensus theories of truth are patently ridiculous.
Well, I understand where you're coming from, but it's not "just" about consensus, it's about consensus of experts in the corresponding field of study, what VA calls "FSK".

In this sense, the argument is sound, because scientific facts indeed are established (although not derived) based on (scientific) consensus.

So there is a bit of a misunderstanding due to the utilized terminology.

Peter Holmes wrote: Sat Jan 21, 2023 10:17 am Here's the flaw.

P: (It's the intersubjective scientific consensus that) X is beneficial to humans.
C: Therefore, (it's a fact that) X is morally right (good).

Even without the silly consensus condition, the bare premise can only express an opinion based on a subjective assessment of what is beneficial for humans - over which there has been and is wide rational disagreement.
And the premise doesn't entail the conclusion anyway, so the argument is invalid.
I recommend reading my response to FlashDangerpants above, where I explain this in more detail. The conclusion you've arrived at here is incorrect, because you interpret VA's position as arguing for prescriptive morality, but this is not the case -- it's descriptive.

So it's not true that X is "morally right". Rather, the argument is that we (objectively) know that humans would in general deem X to be "good", based on our understanding of what humans consider to be good or bad / evil. Therefore, we are justified in describing it as good or moral, in exactly the same as we're justified in calling vegetables (objectively) "healthy", even though it's perfectly possible that a particular person can have an allergic reaction or intolerance toward a particular vegetable.

Peter Holmes wrote: Sat Jan 21, 2023 10:17 am But notice that the moral premise comes first: We ought to co-exist peacefully. From the fact that we have motor neurons that help us to co-exist peacefully, it doesn't follow that we ought to co-exist peacefully. That's cart-before-horsery. Just as, from the fact that we have other neurons that help us act aggressively, it doesn't follow that we ought to act aggressively - that it's morally right to do so. A factual premise can never entail a moral conclusion.
Yes, that's correct, but as I explained above, this was not actually claimed. It was just confusing because VA calls it "ought-not-ness-to-kill-human", even though it's actually a descriptive concept in nature.

Peter Holmes wrote: Sat Jan 21, 2023 10:17 am VA's argument very explicitly does 'violate' the is-ought barrier, and is invalid for that reason.
Again, that's a misunderstanding due to your assumption that the argument is prescriptive.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: There are Objective Moral Facts

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Alexander_Reiswich wrote: Sat Jan 21, 2023 10:21 pm
FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Jan 21, 2023 9:07 am Now ask him to explain what makes for a "credible moral FSK" and how exactly he thinks that parallels science. Then we'll see if you can re-explain his theory for humans once you have some of the baggage to deal with as well.
I have a pretty good idea: first, we look at the scientific model as the gold standard (as it has arguably proven itself) and identify its characteristics, i.e. empiricism, replicability, objectivity, peer-review, etc.

Then we apply the same principles to aesthetics first. Why aesthetics? Because it's easier to understand :)

In aesthetics, we can utilize the scientific approach to "objectively" understand what people deem attractive (or repulsive). By exploring our evolutionary past and our biology and neurology we can understand why exactly we find certain things more visually pleasing than others.

Our aesthetic sensibilities are based on facts, such as the environment we inhabited during our evolutionary development, general physiological properties such as symmetry and proportions, as well as hard-coded preferences based on sexual attraction. These factors of course vary from culture to culture and from individual to individual. However, they're certainly not entirely random and it's possible to predict with some degree of accuracy what any given person would find attractive or not based on their age, gender and cultural upbringing.

As such, we can consider aesthetics an objective field of study with its own FSK (which is based on the scientific FSK, but adapted to aesthetics).

Now, morality is essentially equivalent to aesthetics -- but rather than dealing with what is beautiful and ugly, it concerns itself with what is good and evil. So in a very similar way that we can discover aesthetic facts, we can also discover moral facts; i.e. why people consider certain behaviors to be good and worthy of praise and emulation, and others evil and worthy of condemnation and punishment.

In this way, we can discover what is generally deemed "good" and "evil" and thus predict what moral value a particular individual (again, based on factors such as age, gender and upbringing, among others) would assign to a particular action or behavior.

In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with this approach, because it's not prescriptive, but rather entirely descriptive.

This includes what VA calls the "ought-not-ness-to-kill-human" -- it's totally confusing in it's terminology, particularly within a philosophical context. But in actuality, it doesn't say "you, Bob, ought not to kill humans". Rather, it says "humans in general possess neurological inhibitors that dissuade them from killing other humans", meaning humans have an "ought-not-ness-to-kill-humans".

So there is no claim that there is any kind of objective ought as we understand it from Hume's is-ought-problem.

FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Jan 21, 2023 9:07 am Somewhere in all that you might notice that the sort of "objectivity" that is required is that sort which can be used to signify a uniquely correct answer to a question. And then you may have to deal with whether VA's thing is supposed to establish that a contrary answer to such questions must be wrong if the answer given via his "credible moral FSK" is true. But sadly you cannot really acheive such things if consensus of opinion is all that undergirds the "objectivity" of your data.
VA's argument is that all scientific knowledge is fundamentally based on expert consensus (i.e. within the scientific community). For example, if a new theory is introduced to explain phenomenon X, we tend to be cautious at first and say things like "we have to wait for more evidence to emerge to confirm it". At this stage, the theory has a "low level of objectivity". As more research, experimentation and peer-review takes places, the more certainty we gain as to its veracity. If a multitude of experiments and investigations from various sources yields results that align with the theories predictions, we can achieve a "high level of objectivity".

Now, personally I would prefer to use the term "(scientific) certainty" rather than "objectivity". But I would posit that the logic itself is sound. It's just that the terminology is confusing.
Super excited to see if he's going to endorse that description of his theories.

The whole reason he does any of this is to justify his assertion that one particular religion is the very very worst and most evil. Are you, mister German, going to take that extra step with him?
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Re: There are Objective Moral Facts

Post by Iwannaplato »

Alexander_Reiswich wrote: Sat Jan 21, 2023 10:44 pm So it's not true that X is "morally right". Rather, the argument is that we (objectively) know that humans would in general deem X to be "good", based on our understanding of what humans consider to be good or bad / evil. Therefore, we are justified in describing it as good or moral, in exactly the same as we're justified in calling vegetables (objectively) "healthy", even though it's perfectly possible that a particular person can have an allergic reaction or intolerance toward a particular vegetable.
There are two problems with this.

1) It's not a good description of VA's position because he identifies ought-to-not kill urges (via mirror neurons) as moral, but does not view ought-to-kill as moral. So, he chose which portion of the neuronal systems in the brain he was going to call moral. Or to put that another way, he chose to view those tendencies as moral ones and the others as not moral ones. IOW he had a moral position that guided his choice of which part(s) of the brain to look at, and this then, according to him, generated moral facts. NOTE: not facts about morals, but moral facts. And based on this he talks about developing our moral potentials, which again means enhancing certain parts of the brain or certain patterns of behavior/attitude and not others. Again, this choice (and not the ones Spartans, for example, or Vikings, would have chosen. At the very least their priorities would be different.) 2) The exception of the person with food allergies does not hold, because we have seen whole cultures arise with very different relations to killing, rape, sex with children, gay sex, taking property and so on. We would not have much to worry about if brains generated common moralities with a few exceptions in those with moral allergies.

and while we're going let me look deeper into 2). Some other philosopher, with a different moral base might choose to start with the....orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), superior temporal gyrus, and amygdala. Those parts of the brain that tend towards aggression. They say, as he does, here lies a moral potential for the noble hero character (the Ubermensch, or whatever not so democratic ideal in morals you want to use as an example, and they are out there in real life). This is the part of the brain we shall find ways to enhance (and we do know how to do this also) and no, not empathy, but aggression, owning, taking, dominating, strength, territory, these are the foci of the moral character. These are the human moral potentials.

And when VA meets such a person, he cannot possibly undermine such an argument because he either has to admit that his morals affected which part of the brain he focused on, or he has to say, no you can't base your morality on that part of the brain because it is bad. Showing that his preexisting moral position led to his process of creating moral facts.

(those brain parts were related to reactive aggression. Proactive aggressive is not as clearly mapped at this time).

Then VA may try to go for but the parts of the brain associated with empathy are more evolved - though that's manipulative wording. They evolved later. Or did they? The Anterior insular cortex is now thought to be the origin of empathy and, hey, that's not so new. It also has other feelings, like aversion, disgust, other so-called positive emotions, even experiences of union with God (which is ironic when we think of VA's belief system as a whole. It's not clear what would happen if we enhanced the AIC.

It should also be pointed out that many, many times has it been offered up as an option to VA to think of his position as describing possible facts about morals, not moral facts. He has stubbornly resisted this. Or possible facts about human preferences for behavior and attitude. This has also been rejected.

In the wider picture of VA's beliefs and suggested future programs, along with what he focuses on the brain and what he does not, there is a clear presentation of objective morality. Yes, he denies (though sometimes forgets this) that this is prescriptive. But it is clear that he thinks it is objectively good to have certain potentials and not others or he would not cherry pick the brain. Also it is implicit in his description of the potentials that certain acts are bad: outness not to kill being good.

His responses to PH and FDP also could allow for more agreement then. He could acknowledge their points or try to find better language so they are not at odds. But he does not do this. He has pointed out that he does not mean that his conclusions lead to prescriptive assertions. (I think even that is not clear in his posts, but let's grant it). But he actually goes so far as to say that PH and FDP are stopping the world from becoming more moral. He blames them (as stand ins for moral antirealists in general) for keeping us from being a more moral species.

And this is clearly in his mind an objective moral judgment.
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Alexander_Reiswich
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Re: There are Objective Moral Facts

Post by Alexander_Reiswich »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Jan 21, 2023 11:01 pm The whole reason he does any of this is to justify his assertion that one particular religion is the very very worst and most evil. Are you, mister German, going to take that extra step with him?
Have not heard of that, I'm curious as to how the argument goes.
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Re: There are Objective Moral Facts

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Alexander_Reiswich wrote: Sat Jan 21, 2023 11:47 pm
FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Jan 21, 2023 11:01 pm The whole reason he does any of this is to justify his assertion that one particular religion is the very very worst and most evil. Are you, mister German, going to take that extra step with him?
Have not heard of that, I'm curious as to how the argument goes.
Well I can't possibly do it justice, so you ought to get the whole story direct from the very sane mister VA. But the general gist of it is that he boasts he spent years learning Arabic so that he could do his own special translation of the Quran. That involved putting every passage into a spreadsheet and then organising it by thousands of categories of evilness (for which he claims he spent 3 years doing this and nothing else all day every day).

You see VA can imagine a number that represents the badnesses out of a hundred that some action amounts to, and this is science because he also imagines a margin of error for that humber (a generous plus or minus fiver percent). So as you can see, VA has everything he needs to perfectly demonstrate scientifically that one specific religion is dedicated to evil.

You've backed a winner there.
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Alexander_Reiswich
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Re: There are Objective Moral Facts

Post by Alexander_Reiswich »

Iwannaplato wrote: Sat Jan 21, 2023 11:14 pm There are two problems with this. [...]
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 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.

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.

However, this is just a hypothetical imperative, so there is nothing particularly philosophically interesting going on here. I agree that it would be better to drop the moral language, but being controversial garners more attention.
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Re: There are Objective Moral Facts

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Alexander_Reiswich wrote: Sat Jan 21, 2023 10:21 pm
FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Jan 21, 2023 9:07 am Now ask him to explain what makes for a "credible moral FSK" and how exactly he thinks that parallels science. Then we'll see if you can re-explain his theory for humans once you have some of the baggage to deal with as well.
I have a pretty good idea: first, we look at the scientific model as the gold standard (as it has arguably proven itself) and identify its characteristics, i.e. empiricism, replicability, objectivity, peer-review, etc.

Then we apply the same principles to aesthetics first. Why aesthetics? Because it's easier to understand :)

In aesthetics, we can utilize the scientific approach to "objectively" understand what people deem attractive (or repulsive). By exploring our evolutionary past and our biology and neurology we can understand why exactly we find certain things more visually pleasing than others.

Our aesthetic sensibilities are based on facts, such as the environment we inhabited during our evolutionary development, general physiological properties such as symmetry and proportions, as well as hard-coded preferences based on sexual attraction. These factors of course vary from culture to culture and from individual to individual. However, they're certainly not entirely random and it's possible to predict with some degree of accuracy what any given person would find attractive or not based on their age, gender and cultural upbringing.

As such, we can consider aesthetics an objective field of study with its own FSK (which is based on the scientific FSK, but adapted to aesthetics).

Now, morality is essentially equivalent to aesthetics -- but rather than dealing with what is beautiful and ugly, it concerns itself with what is good and evil. So in a very similar way that we can discover aesthetic facts, we can also discover moral facts; i.e. why people consider certain behaviors to be good and worthy of praise and emulation, and others evil and worthy of condemnation and punishment.

In this way, we can discover what is generally deemed "good" and "evil" and thus predict what moral value a particular individual (again, based on factors such as age, gender and upbringing, among others) would assign to a particular action or behavior.

In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with this approach, because it's not prescriptive, but rather entirely descriptive.

This includes what VA calls the "ought-not-ness-to-kill-human" -- it's totally confusing in it's terminology, particularly within a philosophical context. But in actuality, it doesn't say "you, Bob, ought not to kill humans". Rather, it says "humans in general possess neurological inhibitors that dissuade them from killing other humans", meaning humans have an "ought-not-ness-to-kill-humans".

So there is no claim that there is any kind of objective ought as we understand it from Hume's is-ought-problem.

FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Jan 21, 2023 9:07 am Somewhere in all that you might notice that the sort of "objectivity" that is required is that sort which can be used to signify a uniquely correct answer to a question. And then you may have to deal with whether VA's thing is supposed to establish that a contrary answer to such questions must be wrong if the answer given via his "credible moral FSK" is true. But sadly you cannot really acheive such things if consensus of opinion is all that undergirds the "objectivity" of your data.
VA's argument is that all scientific knowledge is fundamentally based on expert consensus (i.e. within the scientific community). For example, if a new theory is introduced to explain phenomenon X, we tend to be cautious at first and say things like "we have to wait for more evidence to emerge to confirm it". At this stage, the theory has a "low level of objectivity". As more research, experimentation and peer-review takes places, the more certainty we gain as to its veracity. If a multitude of experiments and investigations from various sources yields results that align with the theories predictions, we can achieve a "high level of objectivity".

Now, personally I would prefer to use the term "(scientific) certainty" rather than "objectivity". But I would posit that the logic itself is sound. It's just that the terminology is confusing.
Thanks for reporting my views correctly & objectively as I intended which you may or may not agree with totally.

I had posted the same re aesthetics in another post somewhere.
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Re: There are Objective Moral Facts

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Peter Holmes wrote: Sat Jan 21, 2023 10:49 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sat Jan 21, 2023 4:03 am
Peter Holmes wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 2:05 pm
But WHY is there 'a need to develop and strengthen the "ought-not-ness-to-kill-human[s]" ? WHY do we need to reduce or stop the killing of humans by humans? WHY should the human race survive?
How can you be so stupid [unintelligent and irrational] not to understand the above as obvious?
And exactly here is your blind spot. The only answer you have to my question as to WHY we need to develop and strengthen human ought-ness-not-to-kill-humans is: IT'S OBVIOUS. ARE YOU STUPID?

In other words, you start from a moral premise for which there's no non-moral justification. As I've been saying all along.

Then you scratch around for some physical facts - such as mirror neurons - that you retrospectively claim support your moral premise, in a post hoc rationalisation - ignoring other features of 'human nature' that inconveniently don't support your argument.
It seems you find it morally acceptable that SOME humans should continue to kill other humans.
Talk about stupidity and irrationality! All that research, all those texts - and this is the best you can come up with? WAFWOT.
Refer to Alexander_Reiswic's post where he reported what my views are.
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