Well, it is functional in the sense that most people's intuitive senses of what is right and wrong would often win out, while also making room for the potential for change in moral axioms over time. A moral axiom that would apply now could later be thrown out if the consensus changes, and thus more potential for rational discourse to change people's beliefs. I say rational discourse because it is not concerned with making moral statements, which would by definition be wrong if they were made by the minority, but rather with eliminating beliefs that are not reasonable given certain axioms. These axioms could actually be moral and be arrived at through the process outlined in the OP. Thus, there is the potential for progress and the establishment of new consensuses that lead to more flourishing and happiness.

Utility meaning pleasure or happiness? Or utility meaning how functional something is?

there is a huge problem when you try to bring numbers into it. Which is fallacy by majority. It's entirely possible for that ratio to not only be above 0.5 for murder but also belief in non-moral matters. Like physics. Just because the ratio might have once been at 0.9 for both deadly blood sports and the Earth being flat, doesn't mean that either were correct in the moral or the physical sense of the word 'correct'. — MSC

I'm proposing making a subjective consensus can then be used as an objective standard insofar as multiple cultures are concerned, not objective axioms. Furthermore, if one defines "good" or "moral" as "acceptable behavior for most humans some of the time" then the axioms that result from the process I describe are indeed correct morally.

we are much of a muchness — Kenosha Kid

What does this even mean?

Is there some utility or advantage you feel consensus has over other metrics? — DingoJones

Well, there is the example of health care: nobody wants to be denied care or bankrupted by a visit to the hospital. The majority of people, in the US at least, want universal health care to be instituted, but because of garbage neo-liberal politicians this policy has not been passed. The morality I propose would give strong ground upon which to criticize corrupt politicians. Thus, consensus, and the morality I propose, could potentially help overcome a flawed democracy, and, ultimately, result in considerable happiness. Furthermore, certain despicable and backwards practices could be condemned and eliminated, such as fgm. I'll try to think of more ways that consensus has utility.

Sorry fir the snide thumbs up. I think you're great, Fool.

This will have to wait until tomorrow. Sorry. But I'll definitely get back to it.

You say that abiding by the consensus of the majority is fallacious and then claim that something is true because a rule that proposes something is objective because more people report it to be true is true. :up: I didn't claim that the moral view is objective, but rather that it provides an objective standard by which to measure any human's behavior.

Yes, correct about the consensus bit. And I want to avoid cultural relativism, not all forms of relativism. And I think that using the consensus of all humanity would lead to a stabilizing effect; the status quo would probably succeed more often than not. But yes, you make good points, the minority should not always be wrong.


Yes, you are also making good points. Just because the people in the minority are wrong right now doesn't mean they always have to be wrong; perhaps it would serve an even greater good in the future to defy what is considered right right now. Thus, certain axioms would only be right some of the time. One axiom might be thrown out in favor of another if it would better serve the coming present consensus. This could take the form of accelerating the consensus along to what it will be in the future given enough time. Sorry if that is a copout.

This is going to take some time and thought. I'm thinking my theoretical definition of morality is "what is considered good behavior for most humans some of the time". Is there something wrong with this definition? And I would argue that people need guiding principles to live happy, meaningful lives and flourish and that this is where the need for ethics, even if it is subjective at its base, comes in.

But, furthermore, once the consensus is taken, via the process I described, it can be used to make objective moral "measurements" anywhere you find humans.

Slavery would only be justified if one disregarded the views of the slaves. You fall prey to the same objection that Ignoro just laid out. Additionally I literally said I didn't propose an objective morality, I just broadened the consensus.

Yes, good point. There is an element of temporal relativism. But any change isolated within singular cultures over time does not represent cultural relativism; it's not comparing different cultures. But which moral axioms applied in the past should only have affected what we did in the past, and what we should do in the present should only be affected by the moral axioms that apply in the present. Moral axioms have a tendency to stick around so they could conceivably apply for long enough to be themselves applied in the present. However, yes, cultures and people's beliefs change. Thus the "most of the time" and not "all of the time". I'm thinking it should be changed to "some of the time".

There are certain cultural practices that are barbaric to me, such as female genital mutilation, that with cultural relativism I cannot condemn, and that cause real suffering. There would be stronger ground upon which to condemn such things with the morality I propose. But even what I propose isn't objective, just broader. Btw hit the reply button if you want me to be alerted of your response.

I think I disagree with the idea that free will presupposes ethics; in any given moment, confronted with a situation that allows a "choice", there is only one course of action that is most moral from the point of view of consequentialism, for example - the one that achieves the most desirable consequences. So one really has no choice if they want to be as moral as possible. One could, however, argue that from the point of view of a law or rule based morality that what must be done in a certain situation is apply a law, and, while there may be different degrees to which the law is applied and different ways of applying it, the law is ultimately applied, so, once again, there is only a superficial amount of choice.

I think it can be shown that any morality the atheist might take up is subjective within the framework of DCT: DCT makes two important claims:
Claim one: revelation is received from god and is objective.
Claim two: if revelation is objective, god authored it (and thus exists).
Thus, the next two claims:
Claim three: If revelation would be objective and would also be authored by god if god existed, to not believe revelation is objective is to vacate god’s existence.
Claim four: If revelation would be objective and would also be authored by god if god existed, to not believe in god is to vacate the objectivity of revelation.
Thus, the atheist is doomed to subjective morality within DCT's framework. But I still don't know what to make of the atheist who follows god's commands.

Just realized something: revelation, if it exists, would be objective under divine command theory, and, thus, would exist as fact regardless of whether or not someone believes in it. That is the literal definition of objective. The existence of god is also independent of the atheist's belief. Furthermore one could make the claim that to the atheist any morality would be subjective (in the framework of divine command) because of their denial of god's existence, and, thus, objective revelation. And what if an atheist adheres to a religious morality and god exists? Does that make them moral?

I never claimed that people of color are more or less likely to use marijuana. I only claim that they are disproportionately affected by the criminalization of marijuana, which they shouldn't be because, as you recognize, they don't use marijuana more than white people. For the law not to be racist people of color need to be arrested and charged more proportionately.

I'm not saying the abortion debate is a non-issue. All I'm saying is that the open hostility between pro-choice and pro-lifers belies the underlying harmony of belief in the immorality of murder. — TheMadFool

Surely you have more to say about it than that? The hostility is irrelevant to what we were discussing.

This reminds me of a person I knew a long time ago. He was in the habit of cutting out and throwing away the labels that identified the manufacturer of his clothes. Perhaps a poor analogy. Maybe I'm imagining things. :chin: — TheMadFool

Good one. Made me belly-laugh.

These things skew statistical analyses by maintaining high arrest and crime rates through outside factors. — Pro Hominem

I think this is a big deal: the more people of color are arrested and charged for minor crimes, it seems to me, the more it seems crime is rampant, and the more people claim that more policing is needed, when really it's mostly minor offenses, and the over-policing that results can be harmful, creating what you call a "resistance culture" (great term btw).

Systemic racism combined with more personal racism within police forces have served to change the culture in some communities into a resistance culture. — Pro Hominem

Could not agree more. On a more contemporary note: from what I can tell many, especially young, people of color, feel a sense of disenfranchisement and believe that the social contract has been broken by police brutality and the systemic racism permeating our institutions. I mean, why should one abide by the laws of an institution when the institution does not serve you, or, in the case of the police, enforce their laws fairly? When you can be asphyxiated for merely being suspected of a crime, why shouldn't one disregard the law? I still think that people should follow laws and protest peacefully, but I am unsurprised by the looting and rioting, and would lay the blame for that squarely at the feet of racism, both personal and systemic. Culture, in this case imo, is irrelevant.

@batsushi7 English must not be your first language. I guess what is considered a crime is relative to culture, yes, but that has little to do with what we were talking about. Originally I was trying to discuss culture as a determinant of crime and then themadfool kind of derailed it, even if it resulted in a fruitful exchange.

What point are you trying to make, exactly? Do you think something should be permissible merely because one's own culture permits it? I definitely disagree with that. You brought up the subject of pedophilia; well, I think that the US shouldn't tolerate child marriage among Muslims despite it being allowed in their culture.

To tell you the truth, the difference between atheists/humanists and theists on the abortion issue is only superficial, a result of the difficulty in determining when a fetus becomes a person. Pull back the curtains and you'll notice that the debate stems from what is actually a mutually agreed upon moral truth, to wit, murder is wrong. — TheMadFool

You make a good point I think. However, it is still true that what murder is to one person in terms of abortion, is merely pruning a plant to another. This is a meaningful disagreement and is more about whether or not killing non-persons should be allowed, at least on one side, and about what is perceived as child murder on the other.
The argument also concerns women's rights, which constitutes yet another significant disagreement; not everyone agrees that a woman should have the right to control what happens to her body. On one extreme some believe that the government should be able to force a woman to carry a child to term; on the other some assert that women should be allowed to have late term abortions. What does this debate stem from, you think? An intuition that certain entities should have rights? One could dig and find an underlying assumption with regards to any disagreement, but it doesn't mean that there isn't a significant disagreement on a more macroscopic level; and in this case it's the fetus's rights versus the woman's rights.

All I'm saying is that religion is the birthplace of the first formal moral system humans have encountered. It should form a major part of the discussion if morality is analyzed against the backdrop of culture. — TheMadFool

I disagree; I think religion should be relegated to the garbage can of history, and, while it might've been useful at one point, it is no longer necessary to believe that one will be held responsible by supernatural forces in order to keep a tribe together, or to encourage people to do good things.

There's no difference between an atheist and a theist in terms of morals. — TheMadFool

Why is it, then, that far more atheists and humanists support abortion, for example? If polled on a series of issues atheists and humanists answer differently from most religious people, especially fundamentalists. After all, I recently encountered an essay written by a humanist that said we should be pro abortion, not just pro-choice. Such a view is unheard of among religious people, even those to the left on social issues.

Atheism is the new kind on the block and you must know that atheistic morality essentially consists of bringing reason to bear on pre-existing theistic ethical intuitions/insights. — TheMadFool

Some ethics are purely secular, such as humanism, which celebrates the human condition and seeks to galvanize positive action without appeals to faith or the threat of hell. So I think that secular ethics is about more than just bringing reason to bare on ethical intuitions. Running with the abortion issue: there is an intuition among many that a fetus is a person worth protecting because the soul enters the zygote upon conception. And even some non-religious people share the intuition that the fetus is a person worth protecting. The denial of the fact that the soul enters the zygote upon conception or that the fetus isn't a person arises from science hammering religious intuitions; secularism here is making an original proposition: the fetus is not a person, and thus it is okay to abort it before viability. This is at odds with Christianity.

I'd say that the blame/credit for both failures and successes in the moral sphere must be laid down at the door of religion. — TheMadFool

I think much blame can be laid at the feet of religion, but certainly not all of it. After all, secular people commit plenty of crimes, (if not more than the rest of the population). Furthermore, God has little to say about climate change, yet people still oppose measures intended to mitigate the incoming climate catastrophe.

It being true that in most cultures, morals - the only thing keeping us from a life a of crime - comes from religion, I suggest we devote our efforts to discuss the perpetrator (religion) instead of wasting time on the accomplice (culture). — TheMadFool

I believe that more than just religion prevents one from living a life of crime; after all, atheists and humanists are no more likely to commit serious crimes than religious people (I have sources for this fact if needed). Furthermore, I'm a little confused: are you suggesting that religion supplies poor morals and thus does not inhibit crime as much as a strong secular ethic could?

What has become ghetto or urban culture is a poison that has been spoonfed to them using puppets who get rich to destroy their own people- all while thinking they're the puppet masters and catalysts of some sort of "black power" movement spurring change. — Outlander

So I take it you would include people like Cornell West and Nina Turner in this group? Not only are they genuine, they advocate for policies that would positively affect people of color, such as decriminalization of marijuana. They would never imagine themselves as puppet masters.

Outlawing, marijuana, a crop that isn't even native to Africa but from the Far East, is not racist. — Outlander

I beg to differ: I think that if a policy unfairly targets any racial demographic it is racist. The intent behind the policy just might be difficult to demonstrate sometimes, however.

What would be racist is not policing predominantly black neighborhoods and letting their children grow up knowing only fear and terror. — Outlander

As it turns out over-policing can have some negative effects. To quote Jonanthan Blanks: "Findings imply that pretextual investigatory stops of minorities have negative effects on minority communities such as reducing respect for police and civic institutions as well as undermining the drivers’ sense of equal place in society, regardless of how polite the officers were." Link to source here: https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/racist-policies-need-go

Not going to lie, I don't even understand much of your last paragraph.

the minority of any land will naturally have less opportunity than the majority. — Outlander

But surely this doesn't have to be the case? Why can't we have civil liberties that protect the opportunities and dignity of everyone? I get that the minorities can be outvoted, but, at least here in the US, their rights aren't usually voted away; we have a constitution for a reason. It just might need some updating sometimes.

If it is the case that I just haven't read enough about this please point me to the appropriate literature; I'm very interested in this stuff atm.

What is growth for one, may not be growth for another. — Tzeentch

Why would one's own personal growth affect another person's personal growth? When you grow in the process of supporting a universal good I don't see how that growth has any effect on anyone else. Promoting social causes might affect others in good (or bad) ways but one's own growth probably only makes one a better advocate for social change, a better leader, more competent, etc.

What if the proponents of some collective action think they know the facts when they really don't? — Tzeentch

It is true that no one is perfectly informed, but it is undeniable that the facts do exist and that relatively informed people can learn these facts and act on them and be promoting a universal good while growing in the process. Furthermore, the people who might promote social causes based on misinformation could also grow; whether or not the cause is just might have no effect on whether or not advocating for it makes one a better leader, more competent, etc.

@Tzeentch I think you are trying to obfuscate the issue; it is without a doubt true that every reasonable person holds the necessary assumptions to support avoiding climate catastrophe, for example; they just might not know the facts or believe they know the facts when really they don't. Furthermore, these issues absolutely require collective action: we each need to do our part; we must limit our emissions, for example, and vote for candidates who support preserving the environment, actions that are done on an individual level that affect the collective. And there are genuinely collective efforts, such as organizing protests, that are necessary too. I think that pursuing a cause necessary for the preservation of organized human life might inspire growth in the individual, and a greater sense of duty to both themselves and other people.

When we project our preferences on society, it is no longer just ourselves that is affected. Issues that would 'require' collective action often have proponents and opponents, since what is considered an improvement by some, may not be considered an improvement by others. — Tzeentch

I am saying that certain policies will objectively increase people's opportunities and wellbeing, such as attempts to avoid climate catastrophe; anyone who opposes these attempts without a hefty philosophical argument ("party and go" comes to mind) is just wrong. You just need the facts and a few key assumptions. Furthermore, I think that the very process of potentially improving the lot of every human on earth could in and of itself lead to personal growth, even if there are some ideological aspects of your cause. And I don't know what tension you are talking about. I like some of what Jordan Peterson does. And so what if we affect other people in the process of growing? That doesn't nullify the growth.

I would sooner put my lot in with academia and research than with the common person. After all, Trump got elected. That says a lot. That being said, the experiences of those who feel the disenfranchisement you seem to be embodying is still important - especially when the feeling is shared by many. Are you being genuine? I seriously can't tell.

Yeah that's great and all but that's just how you feel it seems. Can you cite research or a study that says that all governments are plutocracies? What about Kibbutz's in Israel? Are they plutocracies? What about the Greeks? Did they not have a democracy? I define a democracy as "a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives". Most of the highest rated democracies are social democracies, but democracies nonetheless.

Good point. But what about those who can't leave and feel like the government has been failing them? Non-violent protest? And if someone who voted in favor of violent protest being justified could give me some hard policy positions that they would like to be implemented that would be great.

Yeah I know and it is messed up. I don't give a crap if people hate me for saying something, but I'm just a little guy with nothing to lose. Free speech is essential. Many of those who are sympathetic to rioters or support violence now will be cracked down on eventually. It's bound to happen; once you sign away free speech as a principle you open the door to the establishment dominating the discourse. I saw someone get fact checked on facebook because they shared this meme: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/blm-buses-photo/ And while fact checking isn't quite suppression, I don't think people's posts should be fact checked. The fact checking wasn't by facebook, but facebook gets to decide which posts get fact checked it seems, and they appear to be fact checking mostly conservatives. Idiots actually. Only an idiot would believe some of the crap that gets spread around.

Check out this study: https://www.eiu.com/topic/democracy-index Maybe the US government isn't as corrupt and backwards as it seems. That being said, "flawed" is still pretty bad.

According to a study I found there are some full democracies: https://www.eiu.com/topic/democracy-index For instance, many of the European democracies qualify and top the rankings. Somewhat ironically they are social democracies. The US is considered a flawed democracy, probably because of corporations meddling with our elections and such. But maybe I'm wrong about the democratic mechanisms being almost broken. More research is needed.

I remember hearing about the study that showed that the US is an oligarchy. Despite this, I think we can still salvage our country however through the existing, but nearly broken, democratic mechanisms in place. Thanks for commenting btw.

I probably shouldn't be serial commenting on my own thread but this is a new cohesive thought: one might argue that racist policies are so entrenched in our government that we need to "start fresh" so to speak. The democratic system, on every level, is not serving the people. I don't know what we could put in its place but this an argument I (think?) I've heard.

I am inclined to agree. Those who support the violence seem to not even have any real policy positions either. It's just burn it all down as far as I can tell. If they want change they should vote in people who will make change instead of making the rest of the left look bad.

I should add that I have seen people openly endorsing violence and sympathizing with rioters on facebook. They just don't get censored because they are on the left it would seem.

Oh jeeze. I hope it had nothing to do with my thread.

One of my favorite quotes

lmao. Yeah it bothers the crap out of me but it's necessary sometimes. Like Slavoj Zizek says:

it is precisely if there is god, that everything is permitted to those who not only believe in god but who perceive themselves as…direct instruments of the divine will. If you posit or perceive or legitimize yourself as a direct instrument of the divine will, then of course all narrow, petty moral considerations disappear. How can you even think in such narrow terms when you are a direct instrument of god?