wellbeing can work as a tentative foundation — Tom Storm
There are specific metrics likeHow do you measure well-being? — Isaac
-I don't dismiss them. The problem with them is that they can be destructive and they need to be managed. Many rules of our society help us keep them under control while you can not see that. Its the sweet spot that allows us to avoid destruction and maximize our well being through our pleasures.You keep dismissing things (pleasure, desires...) but you've not replaced those with anything. If well-being is your key metric it needs a clear definition, no? — Isaac
I think you have summarised nicely the shortfalls in the wellbeing argument. I have generally taken the view that for secular morality, wellbeing can work as a tentative foundation - subject to ongoing clarifications and refinements - which for me is an improvement on debating the putative will of gods which humans can't agree on. It's definitely flawed or incomplete, but I'm not aware of anything better for now. — Tom Storm
I agree but I guess Hanover might ask you on what basis ought one to care for these values? The adoption of 'wellbeing' as a criterion of value is adopting a presupposition, is it not? — Tom Storm
On a given subject, is one particular moral view objectively right and the others are wrong, regardless of what people believe? Or are people's beliefs and views central in the creation of morality itself, and thus morality is subjectively dependant on those beliefs and views. — PhilosophyRunner
Certainly not an uncommon assertion. Would you class secular humanism as foundational? — Tom Storm
That is an interesting video. It suggests that even babies have a concept of right and wrong. I haven't seen the full study referenced in that video, but I imagine more babies selected the "nice" puppet that the "bad" puppet? I.e it was not 100% or 0%? — PhilosophyRunner
The relevant chapter of the Handbook of moral development is also available online here
https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/campuspress.yale.edu/dist/f/1145/files/2017/10/Wynn-Bloom-Moral-Handbook-Chapter-2013-14pwpor.pdf — Isaac
I have not spent long studying formal philosophy. — PhilosophyRunner
Let's say 80% of the babies selected the "nice" puppet and 20% the "bad" puppet. Here are three competing senses of morality: — PhilosophyRunner
the back bone of the modern Judiciary system — Nickolasgaspar
Instead most of you visit ideas that they are either tautologies or factually wrong (based on modern knowledge) or metaphysical at best. — Nickolasgaspar
Not knowing what is morally demanded of us is something that causes most moral creatures occasional distress, and we do resort to others and our own reflections to try to figure it out, meaning we must be accepting there is some objective standard for what that moral reality is. — Hanover
The babies didn't really make moral judgements at all. They acted based on their preferences. I think that's true of all of us. I think what we call moral judgements are rationalizations we come up with to justify our feelings and actions.
Existentialists would say that accepting a creed as one's moral guide is an act of bad faith.
Faith as bad faith. Go figure. — Banno
By relying on others to clarify moral questions, we're only assuming that someone else might know better than we do, or, at most, that someone else knows better than we do. — baker
It remains that the choice of creed is yours. It remains that you cannot just dump your moral responsibility on to god /.../
Your systems have a gapping hole in them. — Banno
Again, it remains that you have to choose your creed. Unless you rely on your creed to decide your creed for you... — Banno
because it goes too far.Not knowing what is morally demanded of us is something that causes most moral creatures occasional distress, and we do resort to others and our own reflections to try to figure it out, meaning we must be accepting there is some objective standard for what that moral reality is. — Hanover
The same way a theist demonstrates the existence of his diety. He doesn't. Such is a foundational faith statement, from which all sorts of conclusions derive.
I'd submit without that faith foundation, nihilism and amoralism results.
You've got to have faith in something I suppose. — Hanover
My point isn't what you think it is. It is about lying. Kant says you don't lie to anyone just to achieve a consequentialist greater good. Maybe I should have said Kant would recommend you tell the Russian troops where the Ukrainian women are hiding because lying is wrong. — Tom Storm
So religious doctrine with regard to morality is to act as a past record of what people had found out about it.
Now. Why do we need a past record of what people had found out about it? Why not a current one? There are more people alive now than have ever been, so more people now should be directly in touch with god than have ever been.
Keeping a past record seems little more than archiving. If we want to know what's moral according to divine rule we'd be statistically better off consulting the current crop of religious cults than the written record of the previous crop. — Isaac
The point is there are more people alive now than have ever been. So if some small portion of humanity are open to enlightenment or divine revelation, then what those people are saying about morality right now is a better guide than what a far smaller group said about it in the past.
In other words, why are you privileging ancient people's access to god (which they then wrote down) over modern people's access to god. — Isaac
There's thousands of cultists, gurus, prophets and Messiahs right now. You (or Wayfarer) may not personally like what any of them have to say, but that doesn't make it hard to see how morality from divine revelation could work without religious doctrine. On the contrary, it's easy to see how, we just need to ask one of thousands of cultists, gurus, prophets and Messiahs we have with us right now what's morally right and what's immoral. — Isaac
Not necessarily faith, but a goal (although, arguably, this can involve faith). By pursuing a goal, nihilism and amoralism are not options anymore. Because by pursuing a goal, a person's actions are directed toward that goal, meaning that the wandering, confusion, inconsistency etc. associated with nihilism and amoralism are eliminated or at least minimized. — baker
It's about the kind of person I am, not the outcome. — Isaac
So, either (1) admit that humans are special and worthy of special treatment and make that your foundation, or (2) deny that and stop with trying to create special rules for these ordinary physical entities. If you choose (1), you're not a secular humanist as they define themselves and you've not avoided any of the problems levied against the theist. If you choose (2), you're not a secular humanist, but some sort of nihilist, which is exactly what the theist expected to be the result. — Hanover
The problem, however, is that governments (and other institutions) are not persons and so have no virtue in and of themselves. Individual government officials can be virtuous, but government policy cannot. So I see a need there for foreseeable consequences to be considered and in that case, perhaps a loose idea of 'well-being' might make a good foundation on which to base one's arguments. — Isaac
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