FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sat Jun 03, 2023 1:14 pm
Clinton wrote: ↑Sat Jun 03, 2023 9:24 am
It seems that you and I have a disagreement on the source of morality.
The way I see it (and I'm in the process of writing a possibly lengthy book on this, so there's no way for me to fully encompass my worldview here) is that the source of what would be best described as true morality is that pleasure is good and suffering is bad. I don't see how we can possibly have any other goals besides maximizing pleasure and minimizing suffering. That is to say, I would not describe anything that is not an attempt to maximize pleasure and minimize suffering as an actual goal of ours...so much as us being tricked somehow into believing that behavior is our goal.
We certainly do have highly divergent views. But at least this thread is a discussion of moral philosophy and those that surround it in the moral philosophy sub do not, so that's something in your favour. The sub has been taken over by an autistic guy who is currently obsessed with discussing generalised ant-realism and the apparent divide between noumena and phenomena - but not the synthetic/analyutic one for some reason.
Why introduce that odd little segue? Because the journey that ended up with him ploughing that deceased furrow began with his attempts to do very much the same stuff that you are doing (although I can predict with certainty that you would complete that book of years much sooner than he will complete the one he's spent about a decade on thus far). That is the background info that will help you make sense of some instances where I suddenly just replace your terminology with his, where the sentiment appears to match. Also he is the only living person apart from yourself that I have ever known to take the concept of hedonoic calculus literally, and one of exceptionally few to suppose that there might be an actual quanatitive measure for such things, but I'll address that point shortly.
The first of thise is your phrase "true morality", which henceforth shall be
morality-proper. It accompanies something that will crop up later where your term is "false morality", his I think might be "naive or vulgar morality" and a term that philosophers might use for the same thing would likely be "folk morality".
In your search for morality-proper, you are focussing to begin with on that which you can conceive of as possible. Phrases such as "I don't see how..." leave one open to accusations of argument from incredulity, or in other words, substituting the limits of your imagination for the output of reasoned investigation. Where possible, it makes life easier if you fcan point to a solid reason why something is inconceivable such as a contradiction with the meaning of the very term needed to describe it or something.
In this para, you appear to be referencing the a goal derived ought, aka a
hypothetical imperative (neither term coes from VA this time, one is modern philosophy wording, the other is Kant). So the thing you cannot conceive of is that the goal we want to acheive via our choices is feeling good in some way, and therefore the thing we ought to do is to secure that objective.
It is not common to argue that hypothetical imperatives are the true object of moral regard. If you want to, you can deal with the objection by arguing that a single non hypothecated imperative (
categorical imperative) justifies the pursuit of some specific hypothecated objective by making it universally proper at all times and in all possible worlds to pursue.... but you won't get there by just noticing that there is thing we call nice and the nicest thing is to feel all nice all the time.
Clinton wrote: ↑Sat Jun 03, 2023 9:24 am
I don't see how we could possibly care about anything except for the maximization of pleasure and minimization of suffering. Also, I can think of no conclusion besides our feelings producing quantities of pleasure and suffering that are just as real as concrete and my shoes...because we can feel that certain feelings are more or less pleasant or unpleasant than other feelings, which implies there being specific quantities of hedons (units of pleasure) produced, because I don't know how there could be more or less of something than something else if there is not some specific quantity of the thing.
What is the basis for asserting that pleasure exists in the same way that a pair of shoes does? I would genuinely say that of course it doesn't because mental objects are not worldy objects that occupy spaces and weigh either more or less than the real world objects that they are "about" and quite how a real world object would be semantically about another.
When we say that the Mona Lisa is more <insert any art term you want here> than this picture of epic comics badass The Goon... what exactly did we measure?
It seems to me that there is nothin automatically problematic in the suggestion that we speak only metaphorically in spacial terms when we say a computer has disk space, and only metaphorically in physical terms when we say that a certain book is weighty - even if we say one is weightier than another, that was still purely metaphorical. And thus if we say that eating delicious cake is nicer than eating diet diet sadness cake we could only possibly be speaking metaphorically if we argue about whether it is 50% nicer or 67%.
Clinton wrote: ↑Sat Jun 03, 2023 9:24 am
Now, we can't be entirely sure what the quantity of hedons is that are produced by any given feeling...but we don't need to know the specifics, we can estimate that, and we have to, if we're to behave rationally, because we have no other sensible goals in life besides the maximization of pleasure and minimization of suffering...so far as I can tell.
We would definitely be needing those specifics, or at least some viable roadmap to get us there. Given the scope for doubt that this talk of existence for joy and despair and art and goodness amounts to anything more than the reification of metaphors, this guestimation talk is not viable at all.
Your counterpart likes to suppose he can assemble a measurement by projection. He believes he can assign a group of experts who can collectively estimate quantities for these things and then if he gifts himself a 5% margin of error then that's all sorted out. His method is not good, but yours is to trust to a leap of faith perhaps accompanied by some sort of gentlemen's agreement.
Clinton wrote: ↑Sat Jun 03, 2023 9:24 am
Now...regarding the difference between science and moral philosophy you mentioned...is science really less subjective than moral philosophy? I'm not sure it is. For example, if we live in a computer simulation everything we think we know about the laws of physics could be wrong, and I'd definitely say that we have no way to prove that we don't live in a computer simulation. Let's compare that to simple type of utilitarian calculus I can do. That thought process will consist of: When only considering my feelings over the course of the next thirty seconds...would it be better for me to have my arm torn off by a gorilla (assuming I have traditional pain receptors), or to get a small, average, paper cut?
Well, I'd argue that if getting my arm torn off by a gorilla in this instance can possibly be described as less painful than the paper cut, the meaning of pain in no way resembles its traditional meaning, so we have to say that the paper cut would be less painful. Going back to what I claimed our goal to be...the maximization of pleasure and minimization of suffering, I think I'd have to say it would be just flat out better to get the paper cut than have my arm torn off by a gorilla...and what's more, that pain would exist whether or not we live in a computer simulation. We could feel that pain, and therefore be far more certain of its realism than any law of physics.
In that sort of way, I'd actually argue that moral philosophy can often be a much more precise means of determining truth than the physical sciences.
We got a few things going on there. In this little section though, you have moved in seemingly ordinary way of reasoning from a discussion of what is and is not to one of that which ought and ought not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xEcdJHNdZE.
Aside from the is-ought thing going on there, the measurability of the pain is a real problem for your example. Suppose that a gorilla's brain is natually more attuned to the feeling of pain and elation than is the human organ, let us assume for the sake of arg that it is so by two orders of magnitude. Where your positive and negative joys are measured merely in hedons and nega-hedons, his are megahedons, and meganega-headons, that's how much more the gorilla feels than you do because he just has bigger feelings than a human has. If this gorilla has a lifelong ambition to rip off a human arm (cause: mistreatment at a zoo that was nothing to do with you) and wipe his own arse with it, his need is greater than yours, you greedy 2 armed bastard. You won't even feel most of the pain, you're a weak human and will pass out.
But a more important side note than either of those is the general direction of the argument you are presenting. It's a mistake, consider it the opening move in a chess game where you are sacrificing your bishop to take a pawn. Downgrading science such that it resembles the thing you want to elevate to a peer of the same sciences is a bad sacrifice, VA made that move years ago, some utter fucknut who calls himself Prof did the same, those guys are shit, don't follow their lead.
Clinton wrote: ↑Sat Jun 03, 2023 9:24 am
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Now, to expand upon my previous ideas, if our goal is to maximize pleasure and minimize suffering, by default I'd say that should be to maximize all pleasure and minimize all suffering, because we didn't specify otherwise...which means the default system would be to strive to think up some way to maximize the pleasure and minimize the suffering of all life in all universes for all of time. So, the next step would be to think up some formula to do this.
I don't know how any system except for utilitarianism could compose such a math formula that focuses on maximizing quantities of pleasure and minimizing quantities of suffering.
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So wrapping up the previous stuff I wrote into a more compact and helpful unit: Any moral requirement to maximise pleasure on such a universifiable basis would be a requirement only if it were an imperative of the categorical sort, which isn't compatible with consequentialism and thus not something that you are presently able to argue in support of. The goal to do so just because it seems consistent is a mirage. Once you find yourself even desiring to ahve a mathematical formula for moral rightness you are liekly to be in some trouble, but to need it is to be hopelessly adrift.
Clinton wrote: ↑Sat Jun 03, 2023 9:24 am
So, I'd say that's how we should look at the truest form of morality, and while doing so it's vital to keep in mind that the goal is not to seek consensus, but to come as close to that true form of morality that really does maximize pleasure and minimize suffering as possible.
So, in many ways I think this process would ideally be treated as any problem in physical science...such as how to go to the moon most efficiently. I'd say if we limit ourselves to persuasion, we're ignoring the goal.
There are of course purely descriptive types of morality achieved through nothing but consensus. I feel like a good description of them is "false morality" though, although that's not an official title that has been popularized. Those forms of morality don't necessarily strive to achieve the only goal I think we actually have...so I wouldn't describe them as true morality.
The problem with making a division between folk morality and morality-proper is that-morality proper is an ersatz substitute. I liken it to Genuine American Cheese, the food adjacent substance that needs the word cheese in its name because otherwsise there would be no reason to suppose that word applied at all.
Folk morality is about right and wrong, good and bad, that which is honourable versus that which is despicable, fairness, justice, sportsmanship and all that shit. All the "improvements" we keep getting offered have proven lacking, they are eliminatively reductive because there is no natural reduction from fairness to pleasure and pain unless you try to sneak fair pleasure and unfair pain into a previously quanititative analysis and I've just cut that line of arguement off here.
Clinton wrote: ↑Sat Jun 03, 2023 9:24 am
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I'd argue the types of moral codes I'm trying to develop may be flawed...but the important thing is that I'm trying to get as close to truth as possible. The physical sciences have similar goals. You can't know the laws of physics are true, but so far they seem to be, so they're as close as we can get to truth, and we build our assumptions off that because we have to...because it's the goal of science to close in on truth, and we have no better path to do so than working from these assumptions about reality and building atop them.
It's somewhat presumptuous to assume there is a moral truth to which your investigation can aproximate.
The reason why this whole sub barely discusses morality these days is because VA triend the downgrade of science move in order to upgrade his morality-proper to scientific status and then needed to descide whether his analogous connection between morality and science would be based on there being a similar pattern of approximation to truth within science and and morality. If you are going to go down that road, I would at least suggest taking the sane option and being a scientific realist beasue that other guy is doing my brain in. If you wanna go that way, and you want to save some time,
you could try reading this guy he hasd some moves that might help you out.
*What I like about the phrase "I don't see how" is that if someone does see how, they can simply explain to me how X might be the case which I haven't seen. It's not an argument that X is true though. It does save a lot of wordage if I've used it after some argument that I think points to a sound conclusion, as opposed to spending many more paragraphs delving into why all other possible conclusions are likely incorrect. I'd say avoiding unnecessary language is a vital aspect of these types of conversations. So, I'd say, when I make statements like "I don't see how," it's best not to see that as an argument X is true...just as what it is...a request for others to explain to me why I'm incorrect, and an admission of the limits of my cognitive abilities. This does, unfortunately result in more work for people who are not me...but it would also result in more work for them to have to read a much longer explanation of my thought process, so I don't think it's a bad solution, oftentimes.
*I've read about the "hypothetical imperative." I have yet to understand what that means yet. This may go best if you avoid attempting to teach me. I'm wondering if that would just lead to a pointlessly lengthy conversation.
* You stated:
So the thing you cannot conceive of is that the goal we want to acheive via our choices is feeling good in some way, and therefore the thing we ought to do is to secure that objective
I think I see what the problem might be. You and I may be defining "maximizing pleasure and minimizing suffering" differently.
You seem to be saying that another goal besides maximizing pleasure and minimizing suffering would be the goal of "feeling good in some way and striving to secure that objective." I'm not sure why you seem to perceive that stated goal of your's as not "maximizing pleasure and minimizing suffering" though. Surely, if feeling good in some way would be an ideal goal...feeling the most good possible would be a better goal, wouldn't it? Now...that would be maximizing pleasure and minimizing suffering for just you. I think it's worth noting that it'd also be pretty safe to say I can't imagine what other goal you could have besides maximizing pleasure and minimizing suffering for all feeling life in existence throughout all of time though...because I think if that's not your goal, it has to be due to confusion, and you don't really know what your goals are. So, regardless of which translation of "maximize pleasure and minimize suffering" we're using, I think it works fine.
In other words, I don't think what you really want is anything besides the maximization of pleasure and minimization of suffering for all life in the universe which is determined by a utilitarian math formula. That's because, if we'd think about it enough and contemplate ourselves living in the shoes of any other life forms, we'd realize we'd detest any suffering they feel and like any pleasure they feel, and we'd realize all life are just clockwork fated to engage in the actions they've engaged in by their environments and genetics...and we'd end up behaving exactly the same way those life forms would had we not been the ones living their lives...and so I'd say the inevitable conclusion we'll all have if we think about reality enough is to strive to make all these life forms that we might as well be live as ideal of lives as possible.
*I wouldn't say pleasure exists in the same way a pair of shoes does...and if I did that was probably poor wording. I would say that pleasure is just as real as a pair of shoes. My argument for this was that we can feel different amounts of pleasure from different experiences, and I don't know how that could be possible without there being some real quantity of pleasure produced by each feeling we experience. I don't think it matters of it's composed of anything physical or not...because we can feel the impact of it. It would likely be a different kind of real than shoes...but also interact with reality in concrete manner that purely mental concepts like math do not.
*When we say the Mona Lisa is more (insert value estimation here) than another picture...we're measuring a great many different feelings. We're analyzing our feelings and estimating the quantity of different ones and essentially doing the math to determine whether or not it's a good picture. We're thinking to ourselves, "How many units of goodness is this inducing in me, or is likely to induce in others?" with goodness tending to relate to things like...does it give us some special, interesting feeling? Is it some kind of useful social commentary? Is it pretty? Is it rare? etc.
*When it comes to topics like disk space...I'd say the difference between metaphorical language and being literal becomes pretty irrelevant, oftentimes. The disk itself is not being filled up with physical matter...but the disk still contains a certain amount of space for information, and that can be filled. That's how I see concepts like pleasure. You can call my description of it as being real a metaphor...just so long as you keep in mind I think it's about as real as disk space is. I think it's a mistake to focus too much on what's real and not real. It's the impacts of these things that matter. Heck, I'm not really sure why thought is any less of a "real" substance than my keyboard, or why I'd think of it as not a real substance. Both impact the world around me. Both, if I look deep enough, become about as equally confusing. It's just that with my keyboard it doesn't immediately appear to be as confusing as thought. If I look deep enough though...most of my keyboard (and some people would argue all of it) is empty space...and yet it feels very sturdy to me. So, I'd say thought is as real as my shoes too.
*I claimed that we do not need to know the specifics of how much pleasure is produced by actions. You responded by saying "We would definitely be needing those specifics...or at least a roadmap to get there." My response is...we do not need to know exactly how much pleasure is produced by certain actions. All we need to do is have a good idea of how much more pleasure and suffering certain actions produce than other actions. For example, I'll feel a certain amount of pleasure from petting a dog. Knowing how many units of pleasure are produced by that would be totally pointless. All that matters is how that compares to other actions...so this utilitarian math formula I've been talking about would not involve specific numerical values. It would rather, probably, contain a lot of algebra problems, with X's and Y's replacing numbers and such...so I'd think about how much pleasure petting a dog might result in me having. Then I'd think of a situation that is a certain amount more pleasurable than that, and I'd say "However much pleasure petting the dog results in, petting the other dog with the more silky fur that wags their tail is that times 2" or whatever.
That's the main way we don't need to know the specific numerical values of pleasure produced by actions...and the main way we can figure out how the formula works.
*You say my system relies on leaps of faith and gentlemen's agreements. I'm thinking that's because you've not seen any of my arguments for the specifics of how the utilitarian calculus behind my views would work. That's always an extremely lengthy process. I've delved into that with some of my fellow utilitarians before...but not everyone here is a utilitarian, so that would seem a waste of time right now. I've had giant essays arguing utilitarian calculus over single issues...that were still pretty vague. My ideal vision for the field of philosophy would be, I'd say, everybody following my exact same brand of utilitarianism, and then all the rest of philosophy is just endless discussions of how utilitarian calculus should work in different scenarios...just people endlessly trying to convince each other why certain behaviors are better than others through a discussion of math and sociology and psychology and neurology and anything else that would impact how much pleasure and suffering certain behaviors are likely to cause.
*I'd say we care about nothing but maximizing pleasure and suffering...so more pleasure automatically = better (at least as far as all of humanity and all feeling life is concerned) and more suffering/pain automatically = worse (at least as far as all of humanity...and all feeling life...is concerned). I'd say that's a fine way of bridging the gap between the is/ought problem.
*Regarding the gorilla example...then yes...it would be best to have the gorilla tear your arm off. You appear to have thought that was a refutation of my views. I disagree. I'm fully willing to bite the bullet and say that, ideally, the gorilla would tear my arm off in that example...if the gorilla experienced such massive amounts more suffering from not doing so than I'd experience from having my arm torn off...or something like that....if you couldn't just kill the gorilla. Realistically, killing the gorilla would probably be the best solution. His pain would end then. Or...if it's the gorilla's pleasure from tearing off my arm that would be so massive, then I'd say we should probably keep the gorilla alive and let him tear my arm off...in this isolated circumstance. Really, I've thought up a sci-fi civilization that would work similarly. The civilization is ruled over by a small minority of brilliant, yet chronically depressed persons whos job is to care for an ever-expanding population of euphoric idiots who are too dumb to care for themselves. The misery of the intelligent leaders, through their endless work, allows the euphoric idiots to remain euphoric, and to me this sounds like an ethically sound civilization.
*I don't think I'm downgrading science. I, rather, think it's rather odd that people don't perceive pain and pleasure as more important. Really...what's more important? Millions of starving children who are being ignored...or trust in science? I don't like that society has this very common, bizarrely inconsistent outlook that all moral codes are fairly equal. That kind of outlook leads to things I'd say we inevitably wouldn't like if we thought about it enough. So, I'd say this thought process that says all morality is equal is an illusion...and I want it crushed out and replaced with something more in line with what we really want in life if we thought about it more.
*I'd say that, if the stated goal is the maximization of pleasure and minimization of suffering...we've already established a universal goal. After all, if my goal is to maximize pleasure and minimize suffering...that implies all of it, and the reason for wanting that would be a form of rule-based consequentialism, so far as I can tell. We're doing that because the consequences of not doing so would be bad feelings and less good feelings.
*You say that all the "improvements" to folk morality have proven lacking. Well, I can think of strong arguments in favor of abortion, and even destroying most life on Earth that nobody would agree with without what I'd argue is more of a logical thought process. If we don't destroy animal life on Earth, we're talking about potential billions more years of the probably equivalent of homeless, severely retarded human beings having endless sex with each other and cannibalizing each other. We just call those organisms nonhuman animals...but they may, in many ways, feel pain very similar to human beings. In that sort of way, I'd say "folk morality" totally ignores what I see as that greatest possible duty of humanity...because it feels icky to destroy life to us. So, I'd definitely say folk morality is inferior to mine.
*I don't know what scientific realism means yet. I've heard of it. I've not looked into it much yet though.
Thanks for the response.