Hm. So we ought socialise the free market of ideas when the stuff we want said gets ignored? — Banno

Free speech doesn't bypass academic merit. It bypasses politically correct censorship.

...then we agree with unenlightened that Universities ought not be obligated to provide a platform to fools. — Banno

I didn't reply to unenlightened's comment for the same reason universities would ignore flat earthers. This isn't about arguments that lack academic merit. It's about legitimate views de-platformed for political ends.

Free speech does not entitle one to an audience; nor even to a platform. — Banno

I don't know anyone who thinks it does.

So there are limits to free speech. On what grounds? — Isaac

The classic example is shouting fire in a crowded theatre without cause. It would cause panic, and unambiguous harm. It's not controversial to accept this would have no free speech defence. Any advocate of free speech would accept this limitation. Child pornography is another accepted limitation. Accepted limitations generally revolve around the harm principle.

Every newspaper, every tv and radio station, every website, every youtube channel, every physical space fit for any kind of communication is owned by someone, and that person or organization gets to call the shots on what can be said there and what can't. — baker

No, they don't. For online publishers in particular, there are legal requirements, and platforms like twitter are legally responsible for the content posted by their users. I don't agree with this policy at all - and don't believe platforms would be so jittery about the opinions expressed were it otherwise. This is the next policy that needs to change.

Really, you live in a society where people don't have to walk on eggshells all the time??! — baker

I live in a society where a man on a TV politics talk show was told by a member of the audience that his opinion was illegitimate because of his skin colour; and that woman thought she was in the right - because the man was white. I live in a country pervaded by a form of reverse identity politics - that clothes itself in the garb of moral righteousness while stereotyping people, and discriminating against them on that basis. It needs to stop, and key to that is freeing people from the threat of academic sanctions for opposing this vile dogma.

Yes. It's called "being civilized". — baker

If that's what you think then you're either a dupe - or a fraud, out to dupe others.

Isn't all that 'speech'? Wouldn't preventing it require some kind of restriction on free-speech? — Isaac

No. There's no free speech defence for closing down others. You don't get to delegitimise, shout down, drown out and de-platform other people - and claim that doing so is only exercising your right to free speech. If you appeal to free speech you have to respect that right for others.

I don't imagine humankind could survive the fall of modern civilisation. There are too many of us, and we are too alienated from the processes of production to retreat to the rural idyll should something fry all the microchips. The fall of Rome in 410 AD was a calamity. The fall of modern civilisation would be a thousand times worse. It wouldn't resemble the past at all.

The unstated reality of it is that one may voice and pursue any opinion, as long as no one gets offended. — Book273

How Kafkaesque! Always on trial for a crime you might commit by saying something someone else might find offensive.

Apparently the right to never be offended is of far more value than freedom of speech, or of inquiry. I was, too say the least, very disappointed in the reality of higher education here. It was astoundingly rigid and conformist, not what I had expected at all. Live and learn eh. — Book273

I'm offended by people who seek to take offence. I hope these measures remove the superstitious power of offence taking - and force these people out into the open to defend their arguments on merit.

I think you're mistaken. I would cite the example of JK Rowling - who made a somewhat innocuous remark about politically correct verbiage used in a warning raising awareness of cervical cancer. The warning referred to 'the cervixed' - and Rowling said something like, "didn't we used to call them women?"

Immediately, she was demonised and twitter mobbed. Had it been anyone but an independently wealthy author, she might have been drummed out of her job - because the employer doesn't want the negative publicity. This same kind of politically correct terrorism is going on in academia. So where you say:

everything anyone wants to say seems to get said, even if certain forums close their doors to certain opinions. I'm not dismissing the significance of those instances when a university suppresses certain forms of speech, but let's not pretend that that suppression has the actual effect of keeping people from speaking. — Hanover

I think you're mistaken. The effects are somewhere between difficult and impossible to quantify, but look into the case of Lindsay Shepard. How can you claim there's academic freedom under those conditions?

I don’t trust that a “free speech champion” should compel people to advocate for free speech under fear of fine and sanction. That seems to me the opposite of free speech. — NOS4A2

Under the plans, universities would be legally required to actively promote free speech and the OfS would have the power to impose fines on institutions if they breach this condition. This would also extend to student unions, which would have to ensure that lawful free speech is secured for members and visiting speakers. Individuals would be able to seek compensation through the courts if they suffered loss from a breach of the free speech duties - like being expelled, dismissed or demoted - under a new legal measure. The Department for Education said the next steps for legislation would be set out "in due course".

It seems there would be a legal obligation on academic institutions to promote free speech; which presumably would undermine those who seek to take offence as a means to power. If the answer to - 'I'm offended' becomes 'So what?' - they are forced to engage on meaningful ground, and defend their arguments on merit. I think that's healthy. I don't imagine there will be some free speech monitor in every seminar - but rather, the measures seem designed to provide a free speech defence for the university against these professional complainers.

I am not seeing a question... — Book273

I thought the questions would form themselves. Your example is terrifying, and presumably precisely what these measures are intended to prevent.

freedom of speech is allowed within the accepted views of the current political narrative. — Book273

How can any university worth the name - presumably for fear of offence, restrict freedom of speech, and so restrict freedom of conscience, opinion, academic enquiry, and scientific investigation? The damage done to academic reputations will be profound if any Canadian research can be dismissed as cookie cutter dogma.

So here, you're appealing to a naturalistic basis for morality, you're arguing that morality is 'naturally selected' for adaptive reasons. This is what I've been criticizing, but it's not because I don't like you - it's on philosophical grounds, the fact that evolutionary biology maybe doesn't supply such grounds, that the moral sense is not innate for evolutionary reasons - which means, you then say, that I must be supporting the Bible! I'm a closet Theist. Try and think about that dispassionately, because it's what has actually happened. — Wayfarer

Not exactly, no. I am arguing that a MORAL SENSE is naturally selected for adaptive reasons. Not any particular moral or ethical principal, but a sensitivity to moral implication, that is, according to Goodall, present in chimpanzee tribal dynamics. Your naturalistic fallacy objection does not apply to the evolutionary development of a moral sense. It applies to any specific 'ought' - such as, Nietzsche's naturalistic ethics.

Anyway, if it were the case that we're 'selected to see the facts', then why is there any room for disagreement? — Wayfarer

I have never used the phrase - 'selected to see the facts." I can only suspect what aspect of what I have actually said, this is intended to refer to. I have asked that you stop paraphrasing me. You don't understand my argument, and so cannot conceivably paraphrase it correctly.

Why could there be any conflict? Because we're not scientically advanced enough yet? If that is so, it seems an ever-receding horizon; science has long sinced provided the means for weapons of mass destruction, but it has no voice about whether to build them or not, or how to resolve human conflict. Bertrand Russell pointed this out in the Epilogue to his History of Western Philosophy. — Wayfarer

This makes no sense of anything I've said. You are pitching at a windmill in your mind. A windmill you think is my argument, but in reality, you're riding a donkey and your armour is made from pots and pans. It is quite that absurd to imagine that my argument is that we are some rule following robot as a consequence of some sort of evolutionary determinism, or something. That's not what I'm saying at all.

As if 'the intellectual level' is continuous with physiological and behavioural. That the ability to reason is like a claw, or a tentacle, or tbe beaver's ability to build dams. That is 'reductionist'. You know what 'reductionist' is, and the objections to it? — Wayfarer

Try this. You have a list of instructions and a map, but you're holding the map upside down. You follow the instructions. Do you get to your intended destination? No, you do not. Why? Because your map is not correct to reality. It's upside down. There's a causal relation between the validity of knowledge, and human action, and the consequences of such action. And this is a continuation of the truth relation between the organism and reality, from the structure of DNA, to physiology, to behaviour - so too must intellectually intelligent human beings be correct to a causal reality to survive.

This is a well trampled area. There have been lot of thinkers pass through this neck of the woods. If you're going to attack my argument, try understand it before drawing in heavy weight philosophers that are not criticising the arguments I'm making. They are criticising the arguments they are making. I am aware of the arguments they have made, and the criticisms of those arguments. I may be traversing the same forest, but I am not on the same well worn path.

I tried earlier to describe how my argument picks its way between randomness and purpose, where I said:

There's an over-emphasis in my view, on the random blindness of evolution - which is not to say that random genetic mutation is not the basis upon which selection acts, nor to suggest that evolution has a purpose in mind. — counterpunch

And it's like you keep saying, that I do think evolution has a purpose in mind, and then you attack that position and ignore what I actually said. I do not suggest that evolution justifies any particular moral ought. I suggest evolution imbued human beings with a sensitivity to moral implication; a moral sense - that, with reference to Hume, allows that we see the moral implications of facts. Indeed, we cannot but see the moral implications of facts.

I would have thought, according to you, that such ‘proof’ could only consist of blows. If you are offended by reasoned argument, then I’m sure there’s something more at work here than simply the instinct to survive. — Wayfarer

That's nonsensical; and betrays a paranoia I will explain to you.

You think Nietzsche was right, that man in a state of nature was some amoral brute, and that the strong were fooled by the weak. But that's not true. The human animal is a moral, social creature; and could not have survived otherwise.

We lived in hunter gatherer tribal groups - for millions of years, and if chimpanzees are any measure - we shared food, defended the tribe and groomed each other. ...

Nietzsche's idea of natural ethics in the will to power is simply false. And the inversion of values he identified was not the strong fooled by the weak but the innate moral sense imbued in the organism, and in the kinship structures of the tribe - made explicit when hunter gatherer tribes joined together to form societies and civilisations.

Don't seek to cast me as an agent for the ubermensch - because that's absolutely not what this is. It's what your paranoid superstition cannot but fear, but try letting reason take the wheel.

I'm sorry truth offends you, but your behaviours prove my arguments.

If you knew what it meant, you wouldn’t ask such questions. — Wayfarer

I was hoping for something a little more productive. I was trying to give you a taste of your own medicine. It's bitter, because you're bitter in your sub rosa defence of a Biblical account of human origins. The difference between us is - I offend you incidentally as I seek to understand reality. You offend me deliberately to confound any other explanation but your own.

It's not hermenuetics that suggests a God concept occurred to primitive man; and that the nature of human intelligence is paranoid suspicion, as opposed to reason. The Mitochondrial Eve is the most recent common matrilineal ancestor - and she occurs about 200,000 years ago - before the occurrence of a truly human mode of thought. That so, how do we explain the universality of intellectual intelligence? Intelligence cannot be grounded in a random genetic mutation selected for by natural and sexual selection - because our common ancestor did not have this trait.

So it has to be something else; and when we take into account the nature of human intelligence - like you, a supposedly grown up, modern day and not unintelligent person, subscribing to the "scrumping for consciousness" hypothesis - it's not reasonable to call that reason. When we look at the history of humankind, and anticipate our most likely future - reason is clearly not the central faculty at work. Reason is some poor relation at the feast laid out by paranoid superstition - invoked by the simple question that Cicero, William Paley and Richard Dawkins grind upon - the "Who made this?" question.

That idea of a Creator God could be transmitted among people, and is clearly able to grip the human mind in a very profound way - such that, even now, in the modern world, given a rational explanation, you cannot let go of it. That's very difficult to explain in terms of reason as a random genetic mutation - selected for by natural and sexual selection. Even putting aside that fact no such genetic trait could be universally transmitted among all people because the Mitochondrial Eve occurs long before human intellect occurs, humans are not reasonable creatures. It must have been psychological evolution, and there's no other idea - with such great power, within reach by dint of a small and natural leap than the answer to the question: Who made all this?

Do you know what 'hermenuetics' means? — Wayfarer

I know what it is supposed to mean. But perhaps you should say what you mean by it!

I figured you might. That's why I mentioned Dennett. But it's not specific to him - it's a general observation. — Wayfarer

What, in your mind is the purpose of these sly asides?

I've just learned an interesting phrase from modern philosophy 'the hermeneutics of suspicion', to wit:

The “hermeneutics of suspicion” is a phrase coined by Paul Ricoeur to capture a common spirit that pervades the writings of Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche. In spite of their obvious differences, he argued, these thinkers jointly constitute a “school of suspicion.” That is to say, they share a commitment to unmasking “the lies and illusions of consciousness;” they are the architects of a distinctively modern style of interpretation that circumvents obvious or self-evident meanings in order to draw out less visible and less flattering truths

So, whereas I might depict the advent of self-consciousness as opening up new horizons of being, you might depict it as 'paranoia'. I guess there will be, ultimately, no way of adjuticating that, but I know which one I'd prefer to believe. — Wayfarer

So in your view, the advent of self-consciousness involves an apple tree, a talking snake and a pissed off deity? What one might call the "scrumping for consciousness" hypothesis? Provocative, certainly!

And then you bring in all these things I hadn’t thought of and writers I haven’t heard about which criticises this view. How condescending! You’re just insufferable!’ — Wayfarer

It's almost certainly, not my view being criticised. So wherein lies the benefit? Here's one of your quotes:

the reason [Dennett] imputes to the human creatures depicted in his book is merely a creaturely reason. Dennett's natural history does not deny reason, it animalizes reason. It portrays reason in service to natural selection, and as a product of natural selection. But if reason is a product of natural selection, then how much confidence can we have in a rational argument for natural selection? The power of reason is owed to the independence of reason, and to nothing else....Evolutionary biology cannot invoke the power of reason even as it destroys it. — Leon Wieseltier

Should I defend Dennet then? If Leon Wieseltier wants to criticise Dennet, I'm sure Dennet can take it, but what has it to do with me? Dennet's conclusions are not my own. I thought Darwin's Dangerous Idea was a great book - but toward then end, we diverged.

I can give a probable explanation of the occurrence of intellectual intelligence, and it's not primarily as a product of natural selection. In 'The Neanderthal Enigma" James Shreeve identifies an event in evolutionary history dubbed 'the creative explosion.' It's the sudden appearance in the archaeological record of artefacts that display a truly human mode of thought. Cave art, burial of the dead, jewellery, improved tools etc. There is no concurrent increase in cranial capacity or change in diet that explains this change in behaviour.

I think it was conceptual evolution occurring in behaviourally intelligent homo sapiens that jump started intellectual intelligence. It could relate to a Creator God concept - as an answer to the question, formed for the first time ever: Who made me? Who made the world? I think primitive man was cast from innocence into superstition in the blink of an eye, and that intellectual intelligence is a consequence of this paranoia. But then, I've also read a lot of psychology.

If you like; my purpose was no more than to ensure that it was clear this moral position is not a deduction from evolutionary science. — Banno

I answered "none of the above" because morality is behavioural intelligence. The capacity to have a moral opinion is a consequence of evolution, and reducible, in turn - to the truth relation between the organism and reality. The capacity to have a moral opinion is not the same as an expression of that moral capacity. If you ask me - ought humankind survive? Then for all sorts of reasons, yes. But I do not have that opinion by dint of some sperate magisterium, or Platonic ideal, less yet, God given rules of conduct. I am able to form that opinion because morality is a sense ingrained into the organism at the behaviourally intelligent level by evolution in a tribal context. So again, none of the above.

It is not condescending to point out that this is an insufficient basis for resolution of the question posed by the OP. — Wayfarer

It's not insufficient when one considers morality as the behaviourally intelligent survival strategy of social organisms that are built from the bottom up, to be correct to reality to survive.

The pretence is that there is a scientific account of what we ought do. But on analysis, it comes down to an expression of Counterpunch's personal preference. — Banno

We have a choice. That's what gives the matter moral import. If we could only walk blindly into extinction, it wouldn't be a moral question. But because we are able to know, and able to choose - it is a moral question, and my answer to that question is, yes, we ought to survive.

My reasons are many, but most basically, it is reasonably possible to secure a prosperous sustainable future, and live well into the long term future. That so, I think we ought to; rather than inflict terrible suffering on our offspring, and allow the human species to become extinct.

I suspect intellectual intelligence matters - in some bigger sense, because of the truth relation between the organism and reality, that describes the entirety of evolution, and that is also the means to a prosperous and sustainable future. I think truth leads somewhere. I don't know where, but intellectual intelligence should play out to its full potential.

That is simply a paraphrase — Wayfarer

I choose my words with care to explain some quite fine distinctions that your paraphrasing is apt to disregard.

I'm generally critical of the way that biological evolution has become a 'theory of everything' in respect of human nature. There is a very widespread assumption in modern culture that evolutionary biology replaced religion in the sense of providing an account of human origins. So in that context it is natural to assume that moral and intellectual capacities can be understood in such terms. And you're doing this throughout this thread. — Wayfarer

Yes, that is what I'm doing.

So that's why I'm referring to criticisms of this attitude from other sources, such as philosopher Thomas Nagel, who has devoted his career to this line of thought. — Wayfarer

I'm surprised Thomas Nagel has heard of me.

Neither he nor I am afiliated with any form of creationism or intelligent design but are mindful of the shortcomings of the current orthodoxy. If you're interested in exploring them, I can recommend some sources. — Wayfarer

I don't know of any other evolutionary theorist who posits a truth relation between the organism and a causal reality; to which the organism must be correct or be rendered extinct. The furthest any have gone along this line of reason, to my knowledge - is some consideration paid to entropy. Ingesting energy and excreting waste - but beyond that, it's as if evolution plays out against a blank background - rather than, a complex environment with definite physical, chemical and biological properties - to which the organism must be responsive, or die out.

There's an over-emphasis in my view, on the random blindness of evolution - which is not to say that random genetic mutation is not the basis upon which selection acts, nor to suggest that evolution has a purpose in mind. And this is why I'm so careful with the words I use - because between these lies the path of my argument; that the organism has to be correct to reality to survive.

I've done lots of reading on this subject, and have my own argument to make - so if you could quit it with the condescending implications that I don't know what I'm talking about, that would be super!

Obviously you don't understand my criticisms, but I assure you, they are not made in bad faith. — Wayfarer

I understand that I have never said 'the biological determines the intellectual' - and am not about to claim the words you want to put in my mouth. I presume you know that if you highlight the text from my post, and hit quote - it will copy my exact words. There's no need to reinterpret anything. If you want to debate my ideas, debate my ideas.

Ah. Good. So "the human organism"(individual, species, genetic code...?) has a moral imperative to survive. Why? — Banno

Morality, as I've explained, is a sense - and given due consideration to the facts, this is my considered opinion:

After the occurrence of life, intellectual intelligence is only the second qualitative addition to the universe in 15 billion years. We, who look back at the universe from which we spring - and understand, would diminish the universe by our absence. We ought to follow in the course of truth, and survive - and find out where truth leads. Intellectual intelligence should play out to the fullest. — counterpunch

The problem with that, again, is that if the 'biological determines the intellectual', then it undermines the sovereignty of reason. If reason depends for its validity on biological adaption, then what warrant does it have to be true? If you explain that warrant in terms of adaptation, then you're relying on the very faculty for the explanation, but at the same time, reducing it to an adaption instead of something inherently true. — Wayfarer

I do not find you an honest or reasonable debater. You are only out to shoot down these ideas; whether from personal enmity, or philosophical conviction - I don't know. I've asked you to explain your convictions, and you've refused, repeatedly - and I refuse to debate at a disadvantage with someone pursuing a concealed agenda - and willing to misrepresent my argument to further that agenda. If you can find where I've written the phrase 'the biological determines the intellectual' - ever, anywhere - I'll eat my hat. Otherwise, I shall decline to address your deliberate misunderstanding.

Another nice polemic. — Banno

What do you mean?

But you still have not confirmed or rejected my assessment that you think living things have a moral imperative to survive. — Banno

Those that survived, survived - and did so because genetically and physiologically and behaviourally they were correct to reality. Morality is a form of behavioural intelligence.

As you say, Chimps remember who contributes in these ways, and withhold their favours accordingly. Ought they do so? — Banno

Survivors do so.

But further, ought they do so if and only if it ensures survival? — Banno

I cannot answer in the way you require. Prior to the occurrence of intellectual intelligence, we cannot reasonably describe moral behaviour as a choice. It's behavioural intelligence that promotes survival. There is no question of whether they ought. But such behaviours make it more likely they will survive.

Is you claim that organisms have a moral imperative to survive? — Banno

The human organism, yes.

Organisms survive until they don't. It's a functional truth relation: the structure of DNA, the physiology of the organism. It's mechanics - if you like; not morality that allows organisms to survive, to breed - and pass on their genetic and physiological correctness to reality.

Animal organisms have behaviours, and these too are functionally correct to reality to allow for survival. I'll provide the example again, of a bird that builds a nest before it lays eggs. Why? Does it know and plan ahead. That seems unlikely. Rather, it is programmed to do so by evolution. Because those that didn't behave this way are extinct - we are left with birds that build nests before they lay eggs. That's behavioural intelligence.

I'm no zoologist, but morality of any recognizable sort, seems to occur in social animals. According to Jane Goodall, chimpanzees have a moral sense insofar as they share food, and defend the troop, and groom each other - but further, they remember who contributes in these ways, and withhold their favours accordingly. Morality then, seems to be promoted as a social survival strategy - in that, a moral sense is an advantage to the moral individual within the troop, and to the troop composed of moral individuals.

What is "correct", if not that the organism indeed survives? Is it that for you an organism ought survive? So your argument is that there is a universal moral obligation on living things to survive? — Banno

Replication begins with DNA unzipping down the middle, and attracting its chemical opposite from the environment. This is the basis of a truth relation between the organism and reality that plays out on every level; the physiological, the behavioural, and for us - the intellectual level.

The organism has to be correct to reality to survive, to breed, to pass on its genetic, behavioural and intellectual intelligence to subsequent generations. If it is not correct to reality it is rendered extinct. 99% of the organisms that have ever existed are extinct.

Only one organism that has ever existed has the intellectual intelligence to act to avoid marching blindly into extinction. We have a choice - and so for us it's a moral question.

After the occurrence of life, intellectual intelligence is only the second qualitative addition to the universe in 15 billion years. We, who look back at the universe from which we spring - and understand, would diminish the universe by our absence. We ought to follow in the course of truth, and survive - and find out where truth leads. Intellectual intelligence should play out to the fullest.

Maybe we'll find out that we are not alone; that there are other intelligent beings out there. Maybe we'll upload our minds into machines and live forever. Maybe we'll travel to other dimensions, or back in time. It could even be God. I don't know. But given the choice, we ought to stick around and find out.

On my view, there is just another additional question, which is not one of the cause of our capacity for moral judgement, but rather a “how to” question about the optimal conduct of that capacity. — Pfhorrest

One looks at the facts, and the moral implications are apparent - in the same way it's apparent that a joke is funny, or a painting is pleasing to the eye. Because, like humour or aesthetics - morality is a sense. This is why recognising a scientific understanding of reality in common is important. If you feed someone falsehoods posing as facts, you get a falsely moral response.

That I disagree with your assessment subtracts nothing from my boundless gratitude. Wayfarer's bombardment wasn't particularly helpful in explicating the matter, but I did reconsider the is/ought distinction in the first post. Might that not have provided a clue?

In light of this, consider Hume's famous observation:

"In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not."

Putting aside the usual implication of this argument, it's what human beings do - and cannot help but do when presented with a list of facts. We see the moral implications of those facts. Facts are not a separate magisterium to us, because we are imbued with an innate moral sense, in turn a behaviourally intelligent, evolutionary response to a causal reality. — counterpunch

It follows from my argument that the organism, imbued with a moral sense has to be correct to reality to survive. So assuming only that sustainability is of value, morally correct behaviour occurs as a consequence of what's factually true - and thus, my argument is both descriptive and prescriptive. Or none of the above.

I asked Wayfarer where 'oughts' come from. He refused to answer. Quite prepared to dismiss the evolutionary origin of morality to the immense reputational damage of chimpanzees - but utterly disdainful of the implication that religion, politics, law, economics and so forth, are expressions of that innate moral sense. If you adhere to position number 4 - you have to presume some objective source of morality. So what is it? The Ethics tree? Lake Morals? The Shoulda River? Mount Ought?

I would find it very difficult to explain my reasoning in such a letter, and the Church would find it impossible to acknowledge receipt. So, no - that's not a good idea.

You say the Church is 100% committed to addressing climate change. I have a plan to solve climate change - and secure a prosperous, sustainable future for humankind as a whole. The authority of the Church was used to deprive science of authority as truth; and so Western civilisation has applied the wrong technologies for the wrong reasons - and continues to do so. Windmills and solar panels cannot solve this problem. We need massively more energy - not less. This is the Church's mistake, and responsibility. The Church has plenty of money. I have the know how to correct for this mistake for just a few tens of billions. This isn't a joke. Climate change threatens the collapse of civilisations. The continued existence of humankind is at stake. And the window of opportunity to solve this problem is closing fast.

Well Pfhorrest, what do you think? You asked if I care to elaborate. Was it just to antagonise Wayfarer?

Meaning what, exactly? There is no single authoritative source or oracle by the name of 'science'. Science is multi-faceted, always evolving. I think what you're advocating is actually scientism, which is the view that science is authoritative in ways it cannot be. — Wayfarer

I think there's enormous consensus on the shape and nature of a middle ground scientific understanding of the world around us - insofar as it relates to securing a prosperous, sustainable future. We know enough we need to know to know.

Here's the nub of the issue. But it both subjectivises, and trivialises, morality - it reduces them to an individual matter - essentially a matter of opinion. And this is precisely the issue that the OP is dealing with. — Wayfarer

As opposed to what? On the basis of our moral sense, we form and express opinions, not least by voting for politicians, who express their opinions in the formation of laws, that allocate values in society, and we have systems to punish transgressors. There's no inherent problem with morality being a sense.

I haven't discerned one. — Wayfarer

No, you haven't! I went to such pains to explain it, and whoosh!

'What it means' is that humans can contemplate 'what if....'; they can undertake different courses of action; they can consider the outcome of those courses of action. They can wonder what consequences their actions will have on others. And they can think about the meaning of it all, wonder what it was that brought them into this life, and whether there is any sense in it. And so on. My view is, as soon as h.sapiens becomes, well, sapient, then they're in a different category to non-rational animals, because they then live in a meaning-world, not simply a natural environment. — Wayfarer

Agreed.

I'm trying to point out that evolutionary biology, per se, does not provide any particular grounds or rationale for ethical decision-making. It is a truism that if creatures are not adapted to their environment then they will perish; in that sense they need to be a 'good fit'. But that doesn't provide any basis for ethical decision-making, other than the obvious. We've slotted evolutionary biology into the role formerly occupied by virtue ethics, but it doesn't necessarily do the job. It's not equipped for it, and trying to make it fit results in biological reductionism. — Wayfarer

What are your grounds for deciding if a joke is funny? Or deciding if a painting is pleasing to the eye? There are no grounds, per se. There are identifiable regularities, and considerable agreement among people that a joke is funny, or a painting is pleasing. But humour and aesthetics are a sense - and so is morality. I explained this above.

As to what should drive ethical decision-making - obviously a huge question. Pragmatically, I would agree with a lot of what you say about the urgency of tacking climate change. But then ask yourself this: how can the Western industrial capitalist model, based on an untenable projection of never-ending growth on a finite planet, be reconciled with the likelihood of vast resource shortages and environmental disruption? — Wayfarer

Limitless clean energy from the molten interior of the Earth.

What kind of life philosophy ought we to adopt to deal with these constraints? — Wayfarer

Accept that science is true, and act accordingly.

I think we need to learn to cultivate something other than endless consumption and endless growth. — Wayfarer

I disagree.

What kinds of philosophies could that draw on? So that's one element. — Wayfarer

Mine.

Right - but that can only ever amount to either utilitarianism or pragmatism. — Wayfarer

I would have thought 'truth' was the take home concept in terms of an "inherent purpose other than propagation."

And 'intellectual' is in a different category. — Wayfarer

Only human beings have intellectual intelligence.

The intellect can either be adaptive, or maladaptive - if h. sapiens brings about environmental catastrophe that results in billions of deaths, then it's maladaptive. — Wayfarer

No. Just incorrect to reality.

to compare intellect with physical faculties is to miss the point - it opens cognitive horizons that are not available to non-rational animals. — Wayfarer

I don't know what this means? But, only humans are intellectually intelligent. Animals are behaviourally intelligent. Intellectual intelligence is built upon behavioural intelligence, in turn built upon physiological intelligence - right down to the structure of DNA. The organism has to be correct to reality.

I don't know if Jane Goodall is wrong, or what she would be wrong about. I do vaguely recall she documented some pretty appalling violence in chimp tribes, including infanticide and killing of adults. Don't see how that has any bearing on whether chimps are or are not moral. — Wayfarer

You seemed pretty certain in your previous post that:

In fact, the very idea of an “ought” is foreign to evolutionary theory. — Richard Polt

So what are you saying? Where, in your philosophy - do 'oughts' come from?

The problem with Darwinism as an ethos, is that there is no inherent purpose other than propagation. Due to the historical situation in which it arose, evolutionary biology has displaced religion as a kind of secular creation story. It is underwritten by the assumption that the origins of life, whilst not known, are likely fortuitous, a consequence of not-yet-understood chemistry. But your implication is intriguing. — Wayfarer

I disagree. It's a consequence of omitting a causal reality from evolutionary theory as a form of selection, but it's rather obvious when you think about it, that heat, cold, sunlight, time, chemistry, entropy - all these physical environmental factors impose requirements upon organisms, and so - evolution produces organisms that are correct to reality on a number of levels. Genetic, physiological, behavioural and intellectual. If you're wrong - you're gone.

But facts under-determine the possible outcomes. People can see the same facts, and have completely divergent opinions about what they mean — Wayfarer

That's because morality is a sense, like a sense of humour, or the aesthetic sense. There's considerable overlap between individuals, but there's no definition of what's funny or beautiful. Similarly, as Scanlon concludes: "working out the terms of moral justification is an unending task."

In fact, the very idea of an “ought” is foreign to evolutionary theory. — Richard Polt

So then you, or Polt - would deny that chimpanzees have morality of a sort, and that it's advantageous to the individual within the tribe - and an advantage to the tribe composed of moral individuals? Jane Goodall would strongly disagree. Is she wrong?

I want to solve climate change. That will be my life's work. I'll have no time for theory.