Yes, VA posits that "God exists" is a fact within the religion FSK, but the religion FSK itself is based on principles like faith and tradition, so if we were to take this claim and put it inside of a science FSK, it would be invalid.Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Mon Jan 30, 2023 1:20 pm Sure, and we do those things. Even there though, I think one needs to be careful about what one means by moral as an adjective. Humans think in terms of morals. Things we think need not be factual. That we think that way may be factual. Humans tend to believe in God. I bring this up because VA is an atheist. That humans this this way doesn't mean that God exist. Nor that morals exist in the traditional humans should or ought to way. They exist in that humans tend to have them.
From what I understand VA does not disagree that humans have aggressive impulses (i.e. fight or flight etc.). The argument is that there's a difference between a healthy brain anatomy and an unhealthy one. As such, it's possible to identify when a brain is not functioning properly in the same sense as we can, for example, identify a human eye that doesn't work properly. This of course means that we can also, theoretically, correct it. But it does not mean that we should correct it -- it's a medical decision that's up to the person suffering from the ailment.Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Mon Jan 30, 2023 1:20 pm The problem with this interpretation of his position is that he sees, for example, mirror neurons which produce empathy. He uses this to support that ought-not-to-killness is a moral fact. On the other hand he does not talk about the parts of the brain that cause aggression and call oughtness-not-to-kill as something we should enhance. Neither one of these parts of the brain is a moral fact, they are facts about brains. Adn these facts affect, yes, how we think about morals. We can certainly come up with facts about morals, but not moral facts.
IOW he cherry picks parts of the brain to support a morality (one, at this level of abstraction, I would support also.) But he supports is as showing an objective morality. It doesn't really matter if he is thinking in terms of norms - which I think it is obvious he is, since he repeatedly talks about the oughtness of not killing - but what is talking about is not objective morality. It is objective tendencies to view morality in us. Amongst other tendencies. Which ones he chooses to focus on reflect his morality, not moral facts.
I agree, terminology seems to me like the number one problem. "Human morality FSK" might be a good start to clarify it. I think "morality" alone might be too unspecific.Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Mon Jan 30, 2023 1:20 pm I'm really not confused by this. I do have a background in science, part of it, but more that when he uses philosophical terms, he uses them in ways that are not supported by his arguments. When he uses scientific terms, he also is often confused. English is not his first language - and while he is extremely good in English, I think he often misses nuances. How much that is a problem, I don't know.
IOW above you are assuming that people interested in philosophy only see things in terms of deontology (an accusation he ofte makes), I think you are incorrect.
If he titled his thread, From facts about Brains to Facts about Human morals, that would be a different can of beans. I think that's a perfectly fine way to come up with ideas about where our morals come from or
I think he often, but not always falls under Virtue ethics which
I don't think that's necessarily the case. His point seems to be that we can derive facts from various fields of knowledge and review them through the lens of the (human) morality FSK to determine if they are "moral" in nature, i.e. whether they pertain to human well-being. These "moral facts" can in turn be referenced in other fields, such as policy-making, law or medicine.Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Mon Jan 30, 2023 1:20 pm IOW he wants to enhance the character of people, via technology, so that the parts of the brain that enhance empathy are stronger. Then the behavior will tend to sort itself out without rules to 'be nice to people'. This has been pointed out to him long ago.
This doesn't seem particularly controversial to me, because this is pretty much exactly what we're already doing. For example, social programs are often designed with the intention of minimizing certain behaviors and maximizing others. We could therefore call it "behavior FSK", but this seems too neutral, because the reality is that we do know (to an extent) which behaviors we want to promote and which we want to inhibit.
So maybe we should think of a better terminology... quickly, while VA isn't here yet -- then we can say it was objectively determined by the philosophy FSK
As I pointed out above, I don't think that's completely correct -- according to VA, humans basically have an "organ" (not literally, of course) that regulates their impulses to kill. This, he would argue, is simply a statement of fact -- so it has no implications regarding any "oughts" (which is why the term "oughtness-not-to-kill" is so confusing). This "organ" simply exists (again, not literally, but still physically). So the idea is that if a person can be diagnosed as having some kind of a deficiency pertaining to this "organ", we should be able to provide them with an appropriate treatment.Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Mon Jan 30, 2023 1:20 pm And, of course, this is a valid option for looking at ethics and morals. But he seems to think he can just assume that oughtness to not kill is the one we should enhance. That his version of moral realism had demonstrated this because there are mirror neurons. But it hasn't.
Now this appears to fit in a "medicine FSK" and so the question is where the "morality FSK" would come into play, exactly. I still think it might be possible to rationalize it away completely by assigning things to already existing, established FSK's. Not sure.
From what I understand VA argues that the exact scope of morality must be defined, in the same sense as we define the scope of any other field of knowledge. It seems to me that he hasn't really settled on a definitive definition, so yeah. The provisional one seems to go something like this: "morality is the field of study involving social practices, biological features and behavioral tendencies pertaining to the well-being and flourishing of humanity"Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Mon Jan 30, 2023 1:20 pm It might be one we, via consensus or democratic means, agree we want. But that does not make it a moral fact. No more than enhancing the aggressive parts of the brain to create less empathetic (or more noble, Viking warrior, or corporate leader) types is a moral fact.
So, for example, if a society was under attack by some kind of brutal foreign invader, then it would make perfect sense to me that the morality FSK, in this context, would be used to inform us how to be less empathetic (towards the aggressors).