I was just rereading Boethius' "The Consolation of Philosophy," and I've decided it might be the pound for pound greatest moral work of all time. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Spinoza's Ethics is a bit shorter and IMO much more than "therapy". An even shorter, Platonist work The Sovereignty of Good by Iris Murdoch ranks highly with me as does the very succinct, Naturalist work by one of Murdoch's oldest friends Philippa Foot: Natural Goodness. I think those three are also among the greatest works of moral philosophy "pound for pound" (along with a handful of other works written (or inspired) by Epicurus, Epictetus, Kǒngzǐ, Buddha ... )

@Mark S

Indirect reciprocity? [ ... ] if I have spare resources, it should go towards helping another life live well. This is not cooperation. This is sacrifice. Altruism. You don't get to twist everything into, "But you see, if we twist the word around its really indirect cooperation." Be better than that. — Philosophim

:smirk: :up:

I'm not feeling like you're engaging with questioning, but dogmatically harping that your theory is right because 'science'.

As such, I'm quickly losing interest. I'm not trying to convince you [@Mark S] of anything, I'm letting you know the glaring weaknesses of your claim ... — Philosophim

:100: Yes, scientism (or pseudo-science) is, at best, bad philosophy (i.e. sophistry).

:up:

Given the factcity of disvalues (i.e. whatever is bad for – harmful to – natural beings)^^, it is a performative contradiction not to reduce disvalues; rationally, therefore, disvalues ought to be reduced whenever possible without increasing them. And, insofar as exercising this ought reinforces habits (i.e. virtues, customs (mores), commons capabilities (agencies)) for reducing disvalues, this ought, at minimum, is moral.

Makes sense or not? :chin:

^^see lower half of the post

:yawn:

Just to outright answer your question, you're asking me to prove a negative here. — AmadeusD

You're mistaken again. I've not asked for "proof" of anything including for you to "prove a negative". Apparently, Amadeus, you don't have an answer for

re: moral (i.e. obligates natural beings to care for one another) 

In ethics, "moral" means something else? — 180 Proof

so your claim that my usage of moral is "an arbitrary assertion" is, at best, unwarranted.

Emotivist [ ... ] squarely in emotivist territory. You are letting me know your emotional stance on the fact that ...

Okay this strawman is obtuse. To wit:

My stated moral position is not "emotivist". :roll:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotivism — 180 Proof

Since you spend the rest of your post quarreling with your (misunderstood) "emotivism" strawman instead, and rather than waste my time, I'll leave you to it accepting that you incorrigibly find my (briefly sketched) moral naturslism (aretaic disutilitarianism) unconvincing. I've argued for my moral position on this thread only as a critical objection to the OP's "morality as cooperation" scientism and not as a fully systemized argument (which is why I'd acknowledged several influential moral philosophers at the close of this post). Anyway, enjoy shadoxboxing with strawmen. :yawn:

But if you are a Christian, say, which bits of the Bible do you obey? — Tom Storm

IME, for most members of amy congregation are engaged in groupthink and conform to sectarian traditions reinforced repeated ad nauseam sermons of their priests, preachers, imams, rabbis and, of course, apologists. I think the Gospels, Tanakh, Qur'an, Bhagavad Gita, etc have very little to do with how theists practice or which political policies they support (e.g. US religious right, Indian Hindu nationalists, Israeli militant zionists, Saudi wahhabists, etc). 'Sacred scriptures' are far more revered than read by most congregations which are then uncritically susceptible to the permissible interpretations of their clergy (& theologians). I suspect most secularists are not as tribal (or morally lazy) as most sectarians.

But the problem remains, what version of the good does theism exactly identify? — Tom Storm

It's no "problem" for theists: "the good = God" and f*ck the Euthyphro! After all, the habit of believing long precedes – even trumps – thinking. The prevalence the gambler's fallacy and placebo effect are clearly related. :pray: :eyes:

How does a theist decide this?

S/He doeen't "decide", s/he conforms (even obeys) instead. The tried and true path of least mental effort, no? :sparkle:

wtf :clap: :rofl:

"In the beginning there was no beginning" (i.e. there is no north of the North Pole just as there is no edge of a sphere or first point on a circumference).

"I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion." ~Spinoza

The problem with religious based morality is its notion of the good and its ongoing support of immoral ideas like misogyny, homophobia, slavery, genocide. — Tom Storm

:100:

The religious (dogmatic) mindset's categorical imperative, so to speak, is: 'sacred ends, without exception, justify every profane means' (i.e. theodicy excuses evil "for the greater/ultimate good" (e.g. Abraham "willingly sacrificing" Isaac; "redemption" of Jesus' cruxifiction; "72 virgins" for martyrdom; "political" Zionism / Jihadism; etc)). No doubt, faith is believing in the unbelievable in order to defend (and thereby commit) the indefensible. :brow:

Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities. — Voltaire

"Arbitrary?" In ethics, "moral" means something else? My parenthetical stipulation, which you've underlined, expresses empathy (absent some pathological condition) as an empirical assumption about – psychological fact of – humans (i.e. natural beings with sufficient, or unimpaired, agency). Explain why you think "moral (i.e. obligates natural beings to care for one another)" is "arbitrary" rather coherent within the context of those four statements (as well as the rest of that post).

your emotivist crux

My stated moral position is not "emotivist". :roll:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotivism

Do tell – "not compelling ... various reasons"? (I can use all the help I can get. :smirk:)

And is it hte case that you apply that similar boundedness to Morality, but perhaps with different parameters? — AmadeusD

Yes.

Here's a recent post from another thread that might make clearer and more precise what I mean by moral naturalism ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/857773

I'm not a "dentist" either and you're completely mistaken about moral naturalism as I've used the term in this thread. "Morality" is certainly not "innate" or "furniture of the world" any more than ecology or medicine are, and yet the latter are, at minimum, bound (i.e. enabled-constrained) by the laws of nature.

Empirical research, rather than philosophical reflection, is much more informative here – consider:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_study

In anycase, I understand moral naturalism to entail that it is empirically discoverable, as an aspect of the universe. — AmadeusD

What "it" are you referring to?

You're mistaken. I have not claimed or implied "morality is innate to the universe".

My brother and I were raised in the same observant Catholic family and educated for a dozen years in the same Catholic schools but he remains a life-long, devout supernaturalist and, openly since 15, I've been a freethinking naturalist (the family's "village atheist"). Mostly my brother is a brilliant man and so I'm convinced his religiosity is rooted in some deep emotional need, as it is for many other people, which I (like you, Tom) apparently lack.

"Neither is Morality" what?

Are you claiming that science cannot study what motivates/facilitates ethical judgment or moral conduct? — Mark S

No. Why do you ask?

Do you see anything illogical about science studying our moral sense and cultural moral norms that motivate/facilitate moral behaviors within a culture?

No. The sciences I'd mentioned in my previous post, more or less, do just that.

:smirk: :up:

:up:

If so, then tell me what you think of this argument ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/336888

My understanding is that non-pathological "dreams", like base emotions such as desires & fears, are offline (subconscious-involuntary) cognitions which 'are enabled or constrained by' as well as 'can enable or constrain' online (conscious-voluntary) cognitions such as thoughts, ideas, narratives & experiences. In other words, I think "we dream" because we are 'occasionally self-aware, thinking meat' and that our pre-cognitive, pre-verbal, 'vestigial bodies' repress/express themselves by defragging – deconstructing – our memories.

Also, "dreaming" might be how idle minds play with themselves when they are not minding what their bodies are actively, voluntarily doing. Most mammalian species have been observed 'running in their sleep' and all have been observed 'playing' when awake, so it's reasonable, I think, to surmise from this indirect evidence that "dreaming" is a basic biological function of neurologically complex, sentient species.

To a physicalist — AmadeusD

And to a Spinozist ...

One aspect of the idea of ghosts and spirits would be the idea of disembodied 'minds'. — Jack Cummins

Yes, and that's nonsense which is why "ghosts and spirts" are merely (affective) ideas but not (non-mental) entities.

You might be interested in this 2020 thread Disambiguating the concept of gender
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/336888

That's trite.

In sum, "faith" is trust in magical thinking (that too many adults never outgrow re: ) in stark contrast to fallibilistic "belief" based on trust in defeasible reasoning (that is cultivated in too few children).

Outside of religion the word is used
metaphorically and IMO wrongly. — Tom Storm

The only time I use the word faith in conversation is to describe someone's religious views. I try to avoid using this word to describe quotidian matters. — Tom Storm

:up: :up:

:up:

How God becomes Real — Wayfarer

Thanks for this. :mask:

... mental states are not identical to brain states. — RogueAI

Yeah and likewise, e.g. poems "are not identical (or reducible) to" grammars, so what's your philosophical point?

@Manuel

haunted minds, not haunted houses — Tom Storm

:up:

Re: "spirit" (that which breathes, or breaths / voices / winds) & "ghost" (i.e. traum or geist ... dream or in/of the mind ... daimon, etc); also: from acculturation, "believing is seeing" :eyes: :pray:

↪Wayfarer You'd think, given the atrocities committed against the aborigines by the white settlers, that their ghosts, if there were such actual entities, would haunt us plenty. — Janus

:up: :up:

How do you think about spirits and ghosts? — Manuel

I think of them as personal (or ancestral) memories and traumatic (or social) histories, respectively.

And, more importantly, what do you think about falling into such a state as to be suggestible into believing such things to be existing phenomena?

IMO, such beliefs (i.e. literal projections) are delusional. :sparkle:

:up: :up:

In this thread, I am trying to discuss the relationship to moral philosophy of the scientific study of our moral sense and cultural moral norms. — Mark S

From what I can tell, sir, that so-called "relationship" is pretty weak. While interdisciplinary disciplines like moral psychology, evolutionary ethics & sociobiology are empirically interesting (re: 'cultural norms' as eu-social constraints/biases), in situ 'moral sciences' do not motivate/facilitate either ethical (or juridical-political) judgment or moral conduct. I stand by my earlier assessment:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/885373

"Empathy" and other emotions are not "cooperation strategies innate to the universe" anymore than (e.g.) strawberries are caused by strawberry-flavored atoms. Cite some reputable scientific studies which corroborate your claim.

Never mind.

the fate of their immortal soul — Wayfarer

i.e. superstition (or māyā)

... belief is a primary driver of action. — Janus

:up: :up:

:100:

Neither (A) whether or not there is "free will" nor (B) whether or not one believes one has "free will" changes the fact that actions (causes) necessarily have consequences (effects). I think, however, any coherent conception – convention – of agency presupposes compatibilism.^

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism ^

:up:

Rather than taking empathy and other parts of human nature as givens, I go up a level of causation to their source, the cooperation strategies that are innate to our universe. — Mark S

This claim seems to me quite an unwarranted (reductive) leap that, so to speak, puts the cart (cultural norms) before the horse (human facticity). Explain how you (we) know that "cooperation strategies are innate to our universe" and therefore that they are also "innate" in all human individuals.

Seems masturbatory.

What are you trying to accomplish?

I won't bother playing with a LLM until, without prompts, it asks (us) interesting questions.

And therefore we have metaphysics in order not to despair at the real.

:death: :flower:

... suffering is the crucible in which all great things are born, through overcoming that suffering. Not by avoiding it. — Vaskane

I've neither claimed or implied otherwise. Obviously, as an existential fact, suffering is not avoidable; morally, however, suffering is a reducible exigency, the reason, in fact, for flourishing (i.e. overcoming) by non-reciprocally – non-instrumentally – helping others to reduce, not "avoid", suffering. Of "all great things", human flourishing comes first and last, otherwise the rest (including "great things") are merely decadent detritus. Easy sleep is not proposed by me as a "virtue" but as the daily reward for and restorative of strivings to flourish – even as a measure of good health: eine Ja-sagen zu Leiben. :fire:

The eternally recurring choice: blue pill (passivity) or red pill (actively affirming there is no ultimate choice: amor fati – what Spinoza calls blessedness) ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/726159

But my initial impulse was not based on arguments as such. — Tom Storm

Same here, despite a decade or so of Catholic Catechism, altar boy service & bible study, I couldn't shake the (naive?) question: why believe in this religion, or this god, rather than any of the others? I suspect I'd outgrown 'magical thinking' in elementary school a few years before I'd explicitly realized in high school that I did not believe in 'Christian myths'. Most of the arguments, as you say, Tom, came years later.