Cheers.

We are hard-wired to connect. — Questioner

Well, no. There are examples of folk who have turned their back on society and walked away. Check out the biography of Mark May. Perhaps we ought fight the "hard wiring"...

The point being that whatever you offer as the way things are, it is open to us to ask if they ought be that way.

This is the Open Question, in a more general form. What we ought do and how things are, are two very different questions.

doubtful premises like ... "Evolution shows us what is good for the species" — J

Evolution does not show, it produces. And what is good for the individual cannot be divorced from what is good for the species. We are a social animal. There is no way around that.

Why should one do that which is good? No, I don't think that good is synonymous with, "something one ought to do". For example, most people would agree that selling all your worldly possessions and donating the money to charity is something that would be good. However, that doesn't mean that one is obligated to do so. Please input into this conversation with your own takes. — Hyper

What we “ought” to do depends on the goal. “Ought” doesnt exist by itself, it is incoherent to posit what we “ought” to do without also positing a goal.
So to your question, if being good is your goal then you ought to do good things. If being good is not your goal, then naturally you will ignore what you “ought” to be doing in order to be good.
Is the goal an orderly society? The maximum well being for the most amount of people? The “ought” to be good is justified by its usefulness or necessitation to the goal.

We are hard-wired to connect.
— Questioner
Well, no. There are examples of folk who have turned their back on society and walked away. Check out the biography of Mark May. Perhaps we ought fight the "hard wiring"...

The point being that whatever you offer as the way things are, it is open to us to ask if they ought be that way. — Banno

We do not necessarily have to remain connected. We must first connect though. That is the way things are. Asking if it ought be that way is out of place.

:wink:

Metaethics and virtue signaling go hand in hand.
— baker
The retort "you are virtue signalling" is quite insipid. It is much the same as the child's outraged cry of "You can't tell me what to do!" — Banno

*sigh*
Oh, the irony. Now who's here for not having his views challenged.


I'm saying that when discussing metaethics, it's normal that people have concerns over how they present themselves and how they are perceived by others in such discussions. I argue that a number of classical problems in ethics (such as the one in the OP) are actually at least partly due to a failure to acknowledge this, and instead taking everything at face value, naively.

To properly discuss problems of ethics, we'd need to clearly distinguish between the actual ethical problem at hand and the virtue signalling that may accompany some people's approaches to discussing it.

And what is good for the individual cannot be divorced from what is good for the species. — Questioner

Take capital punishment, for example. Killing some people might be good for society, or the species, but how is it good for the individuals who are killed?

"You will be killed for your own good, so now be happy with it" ...??

Or how about the state and medical professionals offering euthanasia as a "treatment option" ??

Ought we try to become "the highest level of being human"; or ought we do what is good? — Banno

A couple things come to mind. First, I am having trouble with this word "ought." That implies external judgement, and I am not sure where this comes from.

Second - whether attaining the highest level of being human is the same thing as doing good?

I'd like to first preface my thoughts by saying that I believe "good" is an adjective, not a noun. There is no separate entity or force that we can call the "good." We can only use "good" as a judgement on behavior.

When are we most human? When we are good?

Now, I have already defined what "good behavior" is. It's all those behaviors which contribute to the group, and keep your place in it secure. I am just not sure that this is related to the "level" of humanity you occupy.

We're all human. A great spectrum of behaviors.

There are examples of folk who have turned their back on society and walked away. — Banno

They are anomalies. There are always outliers. And we really don't know what made them walk away, what kind of hurt? All studies of mental illness and addiction show that the number one most important contributor to getting well is human support.

The opposite of addiction is connection

Perhaps we ought fight the "hard wiring"... — Banno

Why?

Take capital punishment, for example. Killing some people might be good for society, or the species, but how is it good for the individuals who are killed? — baker

I was talking about human nature and instincts in general, and the overall scheme.

"You will be killed for your own good, so now be happy with it" ...?? — baker

Sorry, I have no idea how this follows from anything I have said.

Or how about the state and medical professionals offering euthanasia as a "treatment option" ?? — baker

This is an entirely different question.

And what is good for the individual cannot be divorced from what is good for the species. — Questioner

But can this be reversed: What is good for the species must be good for the individual? How would that follow? That's the doubtful premise.

What is good for the species must be good for the individual? How would that follow? — J

Good question. A species' survival ultimately depends on individual survival, and of course reproduction ... I'm having trouble separating the two.

We do not necessarily have to remain connected. We must first connect though. That is the way things are. Asking if it ought be that way is out of place. — creativesoul

Yes to the first, no the the last. It is open to us to ask if we ought remain social.



"Virtue signalling" is not an argument. It is the libertarian's attempt to stop a conversation they find uncomfortable.

I am having trouble with this word "ought." That implies external judgement — Questioner

Why? As in, what is it about "ought" that "implies external judgement"? See Creative's comment and my reply.

I have already defined what "good behavior" is. It's all those behaviors which contribute to the group, and keep your place in it secure. — Questioner

And yet the question "is it good to do those things which contribute to the group, and keep your place in it secure" is meaningful.

There are always outliers. — Questioner

But being an outlier does not make them wrong, and terms such as "mental illness" are themseves normative.

Why? — Questioner

Good question. Why not?

A species' survival ultimately depends on individual survival, and of course reproduction — Questioner

Why ought we survive? Consider antinatalism and Voluntary Human Extinction, both touted as ethical positions.

But I suggest we not worry overmuch about the truth/good parallel -- though you're right, it's interesting-- and instead look at the ways that reason does try to justify values

But that's the very point I was putting in question, I'd argue that the good is to practical reason as truth is to theoretical reason (and as beauty is to aesthetic reason). We might claim these are in a sense convertible, as per the Doctrine of Transcendentals, but that's one of the more difficult philosophical doctrines to even frame properly.

So instead, just imagine trying to justify any claims about goodness with someone who denies the concept (or reduces it to current personal preference). Truth appeals don't matter. Imagine trying to convince your child that deciding to start smoking is bad.

You point out that smoking is likely to lead to at least some level of lung disease in the long term, that it will make their teeth unhealthy and ugly, etc. This is a fact claim.

He doesn't deny your claims, but but he denies that it would be good for him not to smoke. He doesn't care about the future, he claims. Good for him is the "live fast, die young," aesthetic. He likes smoking. Why stop?

You point out that when he is older, with poor lung capacity and gum disease he will likely regret smoking.

He doesn't deny this, but says that this will only occur if he becomes an old sad sack and gives up on what is truly better, his current "future he damned mindset." "I'll cry about it if I become a loser. Right now I'm not a loser."

Maybe they keep smoking, and get particularly early lung disease. Maybe they now agree with your earlier judgement, but maybe, through some heroics of cognitive dissonance reduction, they don't. They still say their glad they started smoking. Maybe they have convinced themselves the smoking has nothing to do with their illness (how did you wind up with such a kid!?)

Is it still better for them to have started smoking? Is it better for them to approach these sorts of issues in this way (i.e. to lack prudence in general and prize the rash gratification of appetites as a virtue)?

Is the good reducible to what people currently prefer, or do we perhaps do some economists' technique of weighting how good people are likely to perceive things at various stages across their lifetime? Or do we make an appeal to what "most people would prefer?"

It seems to me that these are at best proxies for what is good, since people can, and often do, prefer things that are bad for them (e.g. slave owners largely preferred to own slaves, but I'd argue it was actually cutting against their own interests). Lots of little kids and plenty of adults would spend all day watching TV if they could. But, could the transition to some other pursuit be choiceworthy? I think so.

Sometimes choiceworthy choices also take time to get habituated to. We do them because we think they are good (continence), but only enjoy them later (e.g. taking up running, or joining a club for an introvert).

But of course, such a position presupposes that there is a truth about what is better or worse for people. Likewise, that it's better to have some desires and not others. These would be truth claims, but truth claims about values, judgements practical good. The good and the true are in some sense convertible, and this is true even with purely theoretical questions because of course we speak in terms of "good evidence," and "correct reasoning" such that "attaining truth is good." But one can coherently ask, "why is reasoning that leads to truth good?"

Interestingly, people often don't deny the judgements of practical good tout court. They will allow that "Tom Brady was a better football player than my grandmother," can be a factual claim, or that some chess moves might really be blunders. I'd argue that these are just simpler questions of values. We could always still ask: "but why is throwing complete passes and not interceptions good? Why is going to the Super Bowl every other year for 20 years good?"

Moral questions are often much harder. They deal with a mix of complex particulars and distant principles (distant from the senses—as Aristotle says, what is "best known to us," concrete particulars, is distal to the principles that are "best known in themselves,"—a flying bird and its wings are more apparent than the principles of aerodynamics). Yet, I do not this makes them somehow immune to the same "facts about values," that render Michael Jordan a "better" basketball player than I am.

However, I think such questions become impossible to resolve if "moral good" is made a sui generis sort of good discrete from say, the good of "good health." This castrates the moral good, it is rendered impotent, no longer the principle of fecundity in which all analagous forms of good participate, but a dead letter.

It is open to us to ask if we ought remain social. — Banno

I may not have made myself clear. We are neurologically hard-wired to form bonds. This isn't about deciding to be social or not, this is the inherent need to form relationships. It goes all the way back millions of years ago when the first primate mother loved her newborn. (There's research to show all other forms of connection grew from that.)

To deny the need for human bonding is to deny our very essence.

As in, what is it about "ought" that "implies external judgement"? — Banno

Okay, the opposite to "external judgement" is deciding for myself what I should do, and I'm always going to think that what I do is the thing that I should do.

"is it good to do those things which contribute to the group, and keep your place in it secure" is meaningful. — Banno

It's reality. This is the biological basis for behavior.

But, sometimes there is an unreasonable person, and we all know that unreasonableness leads to progress.

But being an outlier does not make them wrong, — Banno

I don't think I have framed my discussion in terms of right and wrong, but just what is.

Why not? — Banno

Well, that would require changing who we are as humans.

Why ought we survive? — Banno

We know no other way.

I'd argue that the good is to practical reason as truth is to theoretical reason (and as beauty is to aesthetic reason). — Count Timothy von Icarus

It's a good argument...

But we can write "p" is true iff p. Nothing works in a similar way for good.

So it looks as if there are differences between truth and good, that cannot be captured by the proposed approach.

And a step further: there are true sentences about what is good. So what is good is included in what is true. But if that is so, then the mooted symmetry between "true" and "good" is broken.

This by way of questioning an implied non-cognitivism.

But I suggest we not worry overmuch about the truth/good parallel -- though you're right, it's interesting-- and instead look at the ways that reason does try to justify values"

"But that's the very point I was putting in question, — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sorry, this might be a silly query but . . . which is "the very point" here? And by "put in question," do you mean "call questionable" or "offer it as a discussion point"? I'm asking because I agree with just about everything you go on to say, so I'm trying to understand where my comments about the truth/good parallel represent a spanner (or monkey wrench; not sure of your nationality!) in the works.

We are neurologically hard-wired to form bonds. — Questioner

And it might well be that our moral duty is to fight against this supposed hard-wiring. We might deconstruct society, or remove ourselves from it for the Good. Whatever you mean by "hard-wired", the choice remains.

To deny the need for human bonding is to deny our very essence. — Questioner

I'm happy to deny that people have an essence. It's an outmoded notion.

Okay, the opposite to "external judgement" is deciding for myself what I should do, and I'm always going to think that what I do is the thing that I should do. — Questioner

If you decide for yourself what you should so, then you decide for yourself what you ought do. SO we agree ought need not be external. Good.

Well, that would require changing who we are as humans. — Questioner

And that might be a good thing...

We know no other way. — Questioner

That's not right, as the mere existence of antinatalism and Voluntary Human Extinction as proposed moral doctrine shows.

Again, how things are informs how they ought be, but cannot determine it. Put another way, regardless of how things might actually be, we might desire that they be otherwise, and act accordingly.

I had to look up "virtue signaling." Could you explain how it connects to meta-ethics? I'm not seeing it.

We are neurologically hard-wired to form bonds.
— Questioner
And it might well be that our moral duty is to fight against this supposed hard-wiring. — Banno

Consider the likelihood that human males are hard-wired to find girls (and often boys) sexually attractive from puberty on. What would the ethical conclusion be, here? Give in or fight against?

And it might well be that our moral duty is to fight against this supposed hard-wiring. — Banno

I can see no benefit in this. If our greatest source of pleasure is to spend time with those we love, why would we want to cut that out of our lives?

I'm happy to deny that people have an essence. It's an outmoded notion. — Banno

I'm not thinking of any specific philosophical meaning, only that which is at the heart of us.

And that might be a good thing.. — Banno

It's not going to happen overnight.

how things are informs how they ought be, but cannot determine it. Put another way, regardless of how things might actually be, we might desire that they be otherwise, and act accordingly. — Banno

This comes down to to what you believe is the biggest determinant of human behavior - and I don't think we can change the species that we are because we will it.

Consider the likelihood that human males are hard-wired to find girls (and often boys) sexually attractive from puberty on. What would the ethical conclusion be, here? Give in or fight against? — J

Reproduce, baby.

Yikes, really? We should have continued impregnating 12-year-old girls?

I can see no benefit in this. If our greatest source of pleasure is to spend time with those we love, why would we want to cut that out of our lives? — Questioner

Becasue it is the right thing to do...

This comes down to to what you believe is the biggest determinant of human behavior — Questioner

Well, humans have a habit of not doing what is supposedly 'determined".

Here's the point again, lest it be lost: Evolution does not tell us what we ought do.

Yikes, really? We should have continued impregnating 12-year-old girls? — J

Lol, no, that's not what I meant. But boys are attracted to girls, and girls are attracted to boys, and it is a story as old as the species. I see no reason to try to change it.

Becasue it isthe right thing to do... — Banno

Yes.

Evolution does not tell us what we ought do. — Banno

I really like Jonathan Haidt's metaphor of the elephant and the rider. The elephant is our instinctual, emotional self, and our rationality is the rider. The rider steers, but the elephant provides the power for the journey.

If evolution does not tell us what to do, what does?

A variant of the chariot of the passions - Phaedrus?

If evolution does not tell us what to do, what does? — Questioner

...and now you are starting to do ethics...