moral relativism

[iambiguous]

Ethical Truth in Light of Quantum Mechanics
Myles King contends that physics helps us understand ethics.

Quantum Ethics

These five clues indicate that right and wrong are very odd things. Indeed, the Australian philosopher JL Mackie called moral values ‘queer’, and suggested they were so unusual it would be impossible to think of them as like anything else at all. But let’s look again at this list of how right and wrong operate in the world. We’ll see that, actually, they are much like something physicists have studied in thousands of experiments, two centuries after Newton.

We'll need a context of course.

All these five clues about ethics come straight from the quantum world. ‘Spooky action at a distance’ is what Albert Einstein called a phenomenon more dryly referred to as ‘quantum entanglement’. Investigations have shown that, when a pair of already-related quantum entities, say, photons, are separated, the characteristics of one are determined (and not just known) when observations discover the matching characteristic of its partner, irrespective of the distance between them. This ‘non-locality’ effect goes against all our intuitions – much as it went against Einstein’s, who remained sceptical about it until his death. But repeated tests have proven that this is how sub-atomic particles actually do work. Indeed, the 2022 Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded jointly to Alain Aspect, John F Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger, for finally proving this very thing.

Got that? Okay, here is how the author then connects this to morality...

‘Spooky action at a distance’ works for moral judgements, too: as we saw, judging something as ‘bad’ instantly applies that same label to identical situations or behaviours, however far away they may be. So a judgement in one place has an instant impact on a twin situation even if it is a great distance away, and there is no direct connection between the two.

I am clearly missing the point here. What identical situations or behaviors? No two abortions are ever exactly the same. There are always going to be any number of variables that set them apart. Variables rooted in ever evolving historical and cultural contexts and in countless individual sets of circumstances. The part that remains the same in fact is that a woman is either able to obtain an abortion legally or she is forced to give birth. And how on Earth does this pertain to interactions in the quantum world? It seems rather ludicrous to link human morality to the interactions of subatomic particles.

Though, again, sure, I'm missing the point. And that point would be...what?

[iambiguous]

Who’s To Say?
Michael-John Turp asks if anyone has the authority to establish moral truth

There is an instructive comparison here with the theist’s idea that moral law requires a Law-Giver. According to ‘divine command theory’, an action is morally right if it’s in accordance with God’s commands.

Then this part: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions

Which particular God's commands? And it becomes all the more surreal because even in regard to the very same religious denomination there are multiply religious communities that presume different interpretations of God's will. Does God command that women not be shepherds to the flock or that they may be.

"Divisions between one group and another are defined by authority and doctrine; issues such as the nature of Jesus, the authority of apostolic succession, biblical hermeneutics, theology, ecclesiology, eschatology, and papal primacy may separate one denomination from another." wiki

Are Protestants closer to God's commandments than Catholics?

Is Jesus Christ closer to socialism than capitalism? Should the emphasis be placed on the poor inheriting the Earth or or on prosperity theology?

I’m on Socrates’ side, though, when he asks what reasons the gods have to command certain actions. This leads to the so-called ‘Euthyphro dilemma’, from Plato’s dialogue of that name: If there are independent reasons favouring an action as good, then we can appeal directly to those reasons, so why bring in God? On the contrary, without independent reasons for something being good, God’s commands would seem arbitrary.

Of course, that's what many of the secular Isms focus in on. The belief that in a No God world there are in fact ways for mere mortals to command each other...deontologically, ideologically, by way of biological imperatives. It's just that as with the theological schools, the secular schools abound as well in sprouting many differing and conflicting paths:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s ... philosophy

And then my argument that many of us settle on one or another path not because we examined all of them and chose the most rational, but simply because the existential trajectory of our very lives nudged or compelled us to favor one over the others.

Of course, a theist such as St Augustine might appeal to God’s good character as itself the ultimate standard of goodness, and say that in this way goodness resides in or comes from God. So in this way the buck stops with our Creator. This makes sense within a religious framework. An appeal to cultural authority among secular moral relativists is, however, far more puzzling. Why think that the buck of moral justification stops with prevailing cultural norms? What could give cultures a God-like authority to determine moral truth?

Exactly: within a religious framework. Or within a particular cultural framework.

But which one? What with all of the different historical authorities that have already come and gone. And who knows how many more will pop up in the future. Also, if only the question of alien civilizations could be answered. Just how many more Gods might there be "out there" given the staggering vastness of the universe itself?

[iambiguous]

Ethical Truth in Light of Quantum Mechanics
Myles King contends that physics helps us understand ethics.

Another similarity between quantum physics and ethics is the limit to the things we can label. Just as ethics only applies to certain things, there is a finite number of different sub-atomic particles to study. The exact number is debated (seventeen, or more?); but quarks, leptons, photons, and gluons would qualify, recently joined by the newly discovered Higgs boson. Ethicists disagree as vehemently as scientists; but most would accept right and wrong can be assigned to intentions, actions, and some specific qualities in outcomes, but not to most other things.

I'm stumped again with this comparison.

Ethics applies to "certain things" that revolve around conflicting goods. Different people reacting to exactly the same set of circumstances will argue that particular human behaviors are either moral or immoral. Everyone agrees that this or that celebrity has had an abortion. She comes out and admits it. It can be confirmed that the procedure did in fact happen. But with ethics where we are "limited" is in being able to determine [philosophically or otherwise] if this abortion was or was not in fact moral.

With quantum mechanics, the limitations revolve more around what we don't understand about the world of the very, very small itself. But who is going to argue that whatever the science turns out to be it's "subjectively" different for all of us? What does that even mean? Do sub-atomic particles have intentions?

What ethicists disagree about is in regard to how we should react to behaviors that everyone does agree about in regard to what action was taken. The state did execute or will execute particular prisoners: https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions ... executions

All the way down to the sub-atomic particles involved. So, is capital punishment as a value judgment in fact moral or immoral?

Quantum physics also shows that quantum-scale entities can behave like waves in some situations and like particles in others. Light, for example, can impact your retina as individual photons, like particles; but it can also come in waves which form interference patterns, leading to ‘wavy’ light and dark areas on screens after the light has been passed through narrow slits (just like the peaks and troughs of a sound wave which allow noise-cancelling headphones to work). The situation is similar in ethics, in which right and wrong seem to apply to actions in some circumstances (which Kant focussed upon), and elsewhere to a quality of outcomes (Bentham’s approach). In this way the ‘action-outcome’ duality (or in jargon terms, the ‘deontological-consequentialist’ duality) of right and wrong mirrors what is called ‘wave-particle duality’ in quantum physics.

Yeah, I suppose in a sense there is some measure of overlap. But neither the particles nor the waves to the best of my knowledge do what they do involving anything approaching...intention? Who among us would pass judgment on quantum interactions? Which approach comes closest to describing them...the deontological or the consequential?

Again, what point do I keep missing here?

Then there’s Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. The German physicist Werner Heisenberg proved that we can know the velocity of a subatomic wave-particle, or its location, but never both; and similarly with other pairs of quantum properties. Just so, in moral philosophy, we can often be sure that something is right according to its consequences, or by judging the actions, but not by considering both at the same time. We criticise someone for stealing (a bad action), or we praise them for giving money to the poor (a good outcome); but combine the two and our moral verdict is complicated.

Yes, no doubt about it: even regarding mindless matter there is always going to be some measure of uncertainty. If only because both "the gap" and "Rummy's Rule" are applicable. Or, as Hume suggested, cause and effect is not entirely interchangeable with correlation.

Still, a distinction between and either/or world and the is/ought world here is not exactly insignificant.

[iambiguous]

Who’s To Say?
Michael-John Turp asks if anyone has the authority to establish moral truth

The relativist’s question ‘Who’s to say?’ presupposes a cultural authority akin to divine command theory. Moreover, the logic of their argument implies a clear answer to our question – namely, prevailing cultural attitudes.

In that case, what's the difference for all practical purposes? God meet the prevailing cultural attitudes. A different authority. Except that with God it doesn't end on this side of the grave. If you embody a particular divine command theory "here and now" then "there and then" you attain immortality and salvation.

In other words, if things are going really well for you on this side, the part about there being no other side can be swept under the rug. You just don't think about it. Only, eventually, of course, you will have to. Then those prevailing cultural attitudes become entirely moot.

It's how millions live their lives, however. They'll deal with oblivion when the time comes. But, in the interim, there are lots and lots of Isms [and lifestyles] they can anchor their lives to in order to sustain a meaningful existence. Or, if not meaningful, then fulfilling and satisfying.

Despite this, many relativists are actively suspicious of the idea that there is any privileged position of authority with respect to moral truth.

Okay, but there are options here as well. You can become a hedonist, or an epicurean, or a libertine, or a nihilist, or a stoic, or a solipsist, or a sociopath. Or someone who detaches him or herself from social interactions completely. A recluse.

And then this part:

For example, they often echo the postmodernist Michel Foucault’s insight that claims to moral knowledge can be used as instruments to seize and maintain power. And they are clearly right about that. Indeed, there’s a long and dreadful history of the powerful imposing their way of life on the weak and vulnerable in the name of their moral truth. Conquerors often have moral gurus by their side, helping to smother dissent. They can be all too sincere; and full of passionate intensity to boot.

Here that can manifest itself more or less in a "might makes right" or a "right makes might" social, political and economic framework. The important factor being that aside from what is believed about morality in any given community, what really counts in the end is who has the actual political power to enforce one or another rendition of "the rules of behavior".

And here, one has the option to be more or less cynical.

[iambiguous]

Ethical Truth in Light of Quantum Mechanics
Myles King contends that physics helps us understand ethics.

Also, we have the observer effect. In quantum physics, as has been proven repeatedly, what and how the observer choses to observe will profoundly affect what is observed. Thinking about or observing an ethical decision will also affect our ethical choice profoundly. Accurate observer-unaffecting observation-based discovery, as practiced by Newton, is impossible for both.

Again, assuming that "somehow" the human brain did in fact acquire autonomy when biological matter evolved into us, what can we know for certain about the continuities and the contrasts between an observer noting interactions in regard to physics and in regard to morality?

We observe a doctor performing an abortion. We observe a debate between those for or against performing abortions on moral grounds.

Does observing abortion as a medical procedure have any impact at all on the procedure itself? Will different people embracing different moral and political and spiritual beliefs, note a different reality?

And yet in regard to abortion as a moral issue, an observer, over the course of his or her life, might, in accumulating many, many different experiences and relationships and sources of information and knowledge, come to conclude any number of different things. Who here has access to the most accurate observations?

Finally, quantum physics may help answer the conundrum of free will. Only at the human level might everything be predetermined by the environment, by genes; generally, by what has gone before. At the quantum scale, subatomic particles can spontaneously appear from nowhere. If choices in our minds spontaneously appear too, this might help solve the riddle of free will.

Indeed, that might be construed as the most intriguing aspect of quantum reality. Connecting the dots between QM, the human brain and moral responsibility. My point is that, yes, what a particular individual has observed given all of the uniquely personal existential components of his or her life can have a profound impact on their moral philosophy.

Yet, even in regard to moral philosophy, there are many "schools of thought": https://www.theclassroom.com/types-of-m ... 83079.html

So, which one constitutes the keenest observations? As this pertains to a moral conflagration like abortion.

Right and wrong are very ‘queer’, just as Mackie said; but their share their queerness with subatomic particles in surprisingly similar ways.

Though I suspect that, other than in a wholly determined universe, it's the part where they are dissimilar that matters most.

[iambiguous]

Who’s To Say?
Michael-John Turp asks if anyone has the authority to establish moral truth

Moral Visions

It seems that the relativists’ strategy of indexing moral truth to cultural norms saddles them with an ethics of authority despite themselves. Can we do better?

Doesn't this suggest relativists who suppose that any particular culture is capable of actually becoming an authority in distinguishing between good and evil, right and wrong? And, instead, the part about relativism comes to pertain to different cultures making the further distinction between "one of us" [the good guys] and "one of them" [the bad guys]? Whereas moral relativists of my ilk suggest cultures themselves are just the historical embodiment of dasein. That there is no philosophical capacity to differentiate good from evil, right from wrong in a No God world.

Three images come to mind when I try to think through moral authority. The first is of a moral guru handing down what he takes to be the absolute moral truth from a position of authority. He might be looking down from a preacher’s pulpit or a professor’s lectern, or a politician’s hustings. He might take himself to be in the business of civilizing the natives.

Yes, and in cultures/communities down through the ages there have been countless renditions of this. Then it comes down to the extent to which they might be willing to concede that "we're right from our side and you're right from your side", or flat out insist that "we're right so you're wrong". And then, of course, historically, the consequences of that.

Then back to this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s ... philosophy

And those right here who are themselves on one of these more or less arrogant and autocratic One True Paths to Enlightenment.

In other words...

This is a somewhat frightening image. In its most extreme version, it involves a toxic combination of power and moral certainty that is a prelude to authoritarianism, totalitarianism, oppression, even genocide.

Which is why my main aim here is to engage the objectivists among us in a discussion of what the consequences might be for those they deem to be of the wrong faith or the wrong gender or the wrong sexual orientation...or have the wrong skin color or are from the wrong ethnic background. Or have the wrong moral and political convictions.

Bringing them down out of the "serious philosophy" clouds and exploring the "for all practical purposes" ramifications of their God or No God dogmas.

[iambiguous]

Who’s To Say?
Michael-John Turp asks if anyone has the authority to establish moral truth

The relativists’ alternative seems at least a step better. Here I imagine members of a shared culture gathered around their moral truths like campers around a fire. There is a measure of harmony, and often an acceptance that other campers have other fires that seem to keep them equally warm. Let a thousand campfires burn!

In fact, what does this tell us about the nature of morality itself? That it revolves as much around how it anchors us psychologically to a community as in what the actual moral prescriptions of that community are. That we can all come to embrace -- to share -- a moral consensus is truly a significant inducement in and of itself in creating the ties that bind.

There is also the sensible conservative insight that we may learn something from the ideas handed down by our ancestors – ideas that worked for them; or at least worked for most of them, more or less, some of the time.

Or, more to the point [mine], that it becomes of fundamental importance that the past, the present and the future are "as one". After all, if we come to reject the moral narratives of our ancestors what's to stop the next generation from rejecting ours? The crucial point is the necessity to intertwine the past, the present and the future to one or another inherent, essentially objective set of behaviors that do sustain the "one of us" ties that bind.

I worry here, however, about the dissenting voices around the edges of the group, huddled against the cold, who suspect that their culture may have gone astray. Let’s hope they belong to a culture that tolerates such dissent if they dare voice it. In fact, let’s hope that their culture is responsive to rational argument. Also, let’s not think too much about those other groups of campers who are intent on spreading their fire – by force if necessary. After all, tolerance isn’t a universal moral norm.

Yep, that's eventually what it always comes down to. There's what you believe about rational or irrational, moral or immoral rules of behavior and there's how far you are willing to go to enforce them once in a position of power. The power I bring up with those like AJ and Wizard and Satyr in regard to race and gender and homosexuals and Jews. There's what they do believe about them "in their heads" and there's what actual policies those who think like they do would impose on the community if they were able to.

[iambiguous]

Can You Be Both A Moral Rationalist & A Moral Sentimentalist?
Andrew Kemle says that evolutionary forces give us the answer.

One of the major discoveries in the social sciences over the past few decades has been that people have innate other-regarding preferences. This means that we generally take other people’s interests and well-being into account when making decisions, and that although socialization can affect the strength of these preferences, we have them as part of our genetic make-up. We are born with them.

Here, however, we have to point out that social sciences are not called the "soft sciences" for nothing:

"Soft sciences apply the scientific method to such intangibles, but because of the nature of living beings, it is almost impossible to recreate a soft science experiment with exactitude. Some examples of the soft sciences, sometimes referred to as the social sciences, are: Psychology. Sociology."

Thus, as I note time and again, we need actual examples of this given particular sets of circumstances in which we can either more or less take into account the interests of others.

Still, to the extent that it can be demonstrated by the hard guys and gals that we are hard wired to behave this way what does it suggest when the discussion gets around to, say, capitalism vs. socialism?

Other-regarding preferences, in fact, appear to have a deep evolutionary history. Not only do other primates display signs of empathy and concern for their peers, but so do animals separated from us by hundreds of millions of years of separate evolutionary development, such as some insects and possibly certain species of octopi (Peter Godfrey-Smith’s 2016 book Other Minds is highly enlightening in this regard).

It is often pointed out that human beings are "social animals". As opposed to other animal species that, over and again on the nature documentaries, are shown to be almost entirely solitary. Only during mating will they mix it up. And even then it often involves only a pair that, once mating is accomplished to sustain the species go back to being loners.

What's always mindboggling is just how many different combinations of social/solitary interactions there are in the animal kingdom. And within the human species itself there are many different preferences. Me, I have always preferred being my own best friend. Solitary down to the bone. I'm just not inclined to interact socially with others. Though throughout most of my life I have been around lots and lots and lots of others.

So, how and why did I pick up my own "other regarding" moral parameters? Clearly, it is derived from my own actual personal experiences and relationships. That and the realization that had, for any number of reasons, those experiences and relationships been different, who knows how "I" might have turned out instead?

The convoluted complexities rooted existentially in dasein is how I have come to understand it "here and now".

[iambiguous]

Can You Be Both A Moral Rationalist & A Moral Sentimentalist?
Andrew Kemle says that evolutionary forces give us the answer.

There are a couple of thought-provoking implications here for anyone interested in metaethics. One is that the fact that we have innate, other-regarding preferences seem to support the idea that moral decision-making is basically emotion-driven, such that ‘moral sentimentalism’ is the correct way to think about the nature of morality.

Here, of course, given that we do command at least some measure of free will, things can become very, very problematic, very very quickly.

When faced with a situation in which you must make a choice regarding behaviors some deem moral and others deem immoral, where exactly does one draw the line between reason and emotion? Is that ever really addressed by the deontologist? You're a Kantian and you think it's wrong to lie but over and over again, given a particular set of circumstances, your emotions may or may not be in alignment. You think that, philosophically, abortion is unethical but then you find yourself in a situation in which you feel hopelessly drawn and quartered, pulled and tugged ambivalently in conflicted directions. So, what, you flick a switch in your brain and shut down your feelings? You become a Vulcan?

And Kant of course had God to sort it all out in the end.

This is because our emotional responses evolved millions of years before our reasoning capacity, which is a comparatively recent development.

So, does this make morality easier to understand or harder?

One might even argue from this innateness that morality is a type of unconscious ‘social heuristic’. A heuristic is a problem-solving technique that relies on rule of thumb or on trial and error. We use them all the time. A social heuristic depends on social rules of thumb reinforced and corrected by emotional cues.

Actually, one might argue that, above all else, in regard to assessments of this sort, we need an actual context in which to explore what the problem is and any possible techniques to resolve it. But, in my view, then we are back to one or another rather complex intertwining of might makes right, right makes might and moderation, negotiation and compromise. Also, which "rules of thumb" and which emotional reactions to them are more...reasonable?

To put it differently, perhaps the root of morality in our brains is an instinctive strategy that helps us navigate social dilemmas quickly. If so, it isn’t primarily reason that guides us in how we treat one another; instead our evolved preferences for certain forms of relationships motivate us to act through emotions, rather than through the force of reason alone.

And then that part: instinct. Or, for some here, the belief that when push comes to shove, morality revolves largely around biological imperatives. One or another rendition of survival of the fittest. The will to power. The masters and the slaves. That, in turn, there are "natural" ways in which to construe, among other things, race and ethnicity and gender and human sexuality.

[iambiguous]

Can You Be Both A Moral Rationalist & A Moral Sentimentalist?
Andrew Kemle says that evolutionary forces give us the answer.

Interpretations of this kind [above] are fairly common in the literature on moral psychology (see for example, Jonathan Haidt’s 2012 book The Righteous Mind, or David G. Rand’s ‘Social Heuristic Hypothesis’). They are frequently taken to imply that morality is basically a non-rational concept. According to some, it follows from the claim that moral sentimentalism is true that moral rationalism – the idea that moral truth is uncovered through reason – is either false, or plays an insignificant part in our moral decision- making.

Of course, my main argument is that, even to the extent someone might make what they construe to be an important distinction here, from my own frame of mind, the role that dasein plays doesn't go away. Morality as a function of reason, morality as a function of sentiment. There is still a limitation imposed on the philosopher king or on the ethicist in a No God world. After all, throughout history and around the globe different people have thought and felt conflicting things about one or another moral conflagration. And, in my view, individual reactions to particular behaviors are more a manifestation of dasein than of deontology.

Those like Kant seemed to anchor emotion in reason itself. But of far greater significance to me, he had God around to act as the final arbiter on Judgment Day.

That’s not the same as saying morality is irrational. Rather, it means that our perception of the rightness or wrongness of something comes from emotions, and perhaps the best reason can do is provide justifications or strategies for actions motivated by emotions.

Still, to the extent that you do favor sentiment over reason, it would seem to usher in far more problematic outcomes. We don't speak of "emotional outbursts" for nothing, right? Then the part where our emotions become entangled in the more primitive, limbic system, entangled further in our subconscious and unconscious states. It's not for nothing as well that, when it comes to things like "civilized behavior", it's the higher structures of the brain like the cerebrum that are championed.

Basically, this type of moral sentimentalist would claim that the evolutionary development of moral sentiments invalidates moral rationalism, so that a moral rationalist would then have to say what’s wrong with the experiments revealing innate other-regarding preferences, or try to explain them away.

On the other hand: how basically?

And, again, given our individual reactions to what particular behaviors in what particular set of circumstances? What, we not only have to pin down the most reasonable behaviors, but also the most emotionally sound behaviors? And then, philosophically, resolve any possible conflicts here?

[Iwannaplato]

Several posters have tried to explain matters to those here who are indoctrinated as to Free Will but have not succeeded. However I guess most here are elderly; one hopes the young have more flexible minds.

It's lovely to have a determinist hoping young people will have more flexible minds.

[popeye1945]

Several posters have tried to explain matters to those here who are indoctrinated as to Free Will but have not succeeded. However, I guess most here are elderly; one hopes the young have more flexible minds.

It's lovely to have a determinist hoping young people will have more flexible minds.

Does your definition Iwannaplato, embrace happenstance as part of determination? Nice with all the history of the cosmos behind us, that you feel such self-control.

[Iwannaplato]

Several posters have tried to explain matters to those here who are indoctrinated as to Free Will but have not succeeded. However, I guess most here are elderly; one hopes the young have more flexible minds.

It's lovely to have a determinist hoping young people will have more flexible minds.

Does your definition Iwannaplato, embrace happenstance as part of determination? Nice with all the history of the cosmos behind us, that you feel such self-control.

Happenstance in terms of stuff that we didn't realize was coming and we couldn't predict and from our limited perspective seems random or partly random....for sure.
Happenstance in terms of, for example, QM indeterminism, quite possibly.
I don't embrace free will, determinism or indeterminism. I black box the whole thing.

I'm not sure what you mean by....

Nice with all the history of the cosmos behind us, that you feel such self-control.

[Skepdick]

Happenstance in terms of stuff that we didn't realize was coming and we couldn't predict and from our limited perspective seems random or partly random....for sure.
Happenstance in terms of, for example, QM indeterminism, quite possibly.
I don't embrace free will, determinism or indeterminism. I black box the whole thing.

Your response rests upon a deep assumed implication that Not Determined ⇒ Random. It doesn't.

Random means that there is a known probability distribution over the range of available options.

There's a class of phenomena whic are non-deterministic, but not random e.g we know the available options; and we know that the outcome is going to be one of those options, but we don't know the probability distribution over those options.

e.g imagine a coin that'll either produce heads or tails, but you don't know whether the coin is fair, so you can't immediately assume 50/50.

[popeye1945]

It's lovely to have a determinist hoping young people will have more flexible minds.

Does your definition Iwannaplato, embrace happenstance as part of determination? Nice with all the history of the cosmos behind us, that you feel such self-control.

Happenstance in terms of stuff that we didn't realize was coming and we couldn't predict and from our limited perspective seems random or partly random....for sure.
Happenstance in terms of, for example, QM indeterminism, quite possibly.
I don't embrace free will, determinism or indeterminism. I black box the whole thing.

I'm not sure what you mean by....

Nice with all the history of the cosmos behind us, that you feel such self-control.

Then you have nothing to add to the topic? It is a mystery, I am alright with that, just not much of a base for dialogue.