-- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5917043/The underlying neural circuitry differs between psychopaths and altruists with emotional processing being profoundly muted in psychopaths and significantly enhanced in altruists. But both groups are characterized by the reward system of the brain shaping behavior. Instead of rigid assignment of human nature as being “universally selfish” or “universally good,” both characterizations are partial truths based on the segments of the selfish–selfless spectrum being examined. In addition, individuals and populations can shift in the behavioral spectrum in response to cognitive therapy and social and cultural experience, and approaches such as mindfulness training for introspection and reward-activating compassion are entering the mainstream of clinical care for managing pain, depression, and stress. — Sonne & Gash
I know there are many who cannot stand such ideas but I don't intend to re-fight that war. — Kenosha Kid
The true moral condition of the global virtual social group is then:
1. do not harm others to benefit yourself (unless you can absolutely get away with it)
2. help others as you see fit
3. oppose harm as you see fit — Kenosha Kid
But these do not constitute a nihilism. Antisocial behaviour still exists, is still hypocritical, and is still sub-human. Those who pool wealth and resources at others' expense, who in small social groups would have been attacked, exiled or lynched, are still moral (i.e. social, not rational) failures. One is not obliged to oppose the harm they do, because one is not obliged to oppose every harm committed in one's lifetime, but if one is inclined to oppose harm, it is morally meaningful to oppose that harm. Likewise racists, misogynists, rapists, drug dealers, paedophiles, political opportunists, looters, etc., etc. You are justified in ignoring or opposing them, so long as you yourself are not a hypocrite. To oppose racism and be racist would be antisocial on all grounds. — Kenosha Kid
. If the majority of society as a whole engages in either antisocial or subhuman behavior and as a rational man you seek to avoid it, this presents a paradox. — Outlander
There can be no society of majority antisocial behaviour. It is an oxymoron. — Kenosha Kid
the only unaltered fundamental rule we have is: do not be a hypocrite. — Kenosha Kid
Morality [cannot be this way] because that is not what morality really is. — Kenosha Kid
Both of them blithely skip over the is-ought gap without even noticing: — SophistiCat
Pfhorrest operates in a more traditional moral philosopher mode in producing a recipe with statements of fact as inputs statements of ought as outputs. — SophistiCat
If you’re thinking of the most recent thread where Kenosha, Isaac, and I were discussing my views — Pfhorrest
exemplified in The Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, 1788, specifically with respect to the idealistic notion of “the kingdom of ends”. — Mww
“do what you will that harms no other (...), to never step in to help others or resist others who harm, (...) and never expect others (....)”
....are very far from contingent rules, for they abide no possible exception. — Mww
And I don’t give a solitary hoot for the science, the chemicals in my brain that make me both charming and obnoxious, cheerful and gloomy, lend a hand to those I like and leave a dipshit in the ditch right where I found him. I am quite known to myself without knowing a clue about my oxytocin level, thank you very much. — Mww
the existential morality, which asks.....
“how do I choose when to do good/oppose harm”
.....would certainly seem to require it — Mww
Kudos, nonetheless. Well done indeed.
Peace. — Mww
They are still matters of fact that can be obtained with a sociological survey or something like that. — SophistiCat
The practice of devising unreal and even nonsensical scenarios for pretend moral agents to play out pretend morality is precisely the thing I'm arguing against. It is not useful because it tells us nothing applicable outside that particular fantasy. — Kenosha Kid
Got to account for the effects of legal systems, education, conditioning, which you started to touch upon when mentioning memetics I think. — Enrique
even caring to begin with depends on the indoctrinating of our capacity for reason by example etc. — Enrique
First, the categorical imperative is not strictly reciprocal. — Kenosha Kid
the moral problems Kant had to address are not obliged to be within our natural moral capacity. — Kenosha Kid
Moral philosophy, it seems to be, is not a means of addressing moral problems; it is a symptom of incompatibility of moral beings evolved on one environment trying to make sense of a different one. — Kenosha Kid
are very far from contingent rules, for they abide no possible exception.
— Mww
Not clear what you mean. — Kenosha Kid
I am quite known to myself without knowing a clue about my oxytocin level, thank you very much.
— Mww
But can you truly understand yourself and not know why it happens? — Kenosha Kid
No more than freedom begs the question of how I choose what to do with it — Kenosha Kid
I'm pleased that you even entertain the notion that a priori moral knowledge isn't so necessary. — Kenosha Kid
That is, after giving us a quick tour of the natural history, anthropology and sociology of morality - what is - you skip to the conclusion - not about any matters of fact - but about matters of ought.
...
At first there appears to be a clear exception to the pattern: the injunction against a hypocrisy that is stated as a purely moral rule. — SophistiCat
But they can and do illuminate vagaries and ambiguities in both moral theory, and the humans that indulge in them. — Mww
But theory aside, as long as it be given humans are naturally moral agents, re: there are no non-moral human beings, then no matter the social inventory, he must determine an object, taken to mean some willful volition, corresponding to a moral dilemma, and if this object, or volition, which translates to a moral judgement hence to a moral action, is in tune with his nature, he remains true to his moral constitution. If it is opposed to his nature, he is untrue, hence immoral. — Mww
Problem is, people get stuck on which choice to make, when they should be considering what the agent’s constitution demands. — Mww
It follows that there are no unreal or non-sensical scenarios — Mww
So.....will your counter-point be that humans do not have a moral constitution? — Mww
If we assume there is nothing objective, the should we be wrong about that (we did merely assume it after all), we will never find out what it is that is actually objective, or even get approximate that. — Pfhorrest
I get the sense education is a place you'd start? — Kenosha Kid
One can still investigate what might exist even without assuming objective existence. — A Seagull
And even if one does assume that something objective does exist this doesn't mean one can also determine unequivocally what it is that does exist. — A Seagull
The way to show an intention to be bad, besides simple contradiction, is to show it fails to satisfy some hedonic experience, an experience of something seeming good or bad (phenomenalism about morality) — Pfhorrest
But the chances of that, sufficient to make meaningfully reciprocity, is slim and non-existent. We’re just too individually different in our mutual congruencies. — Mww
how we handle our own moral problems hasn’t changed. — Mww
And theoretically, as soon as one adopts a moral philosophy, he should be well-enough armed by it, to accommodate moral dilemmas of any era. — Mww
This reflects back to my assertion that understanding is the first conscious activity. With that, if I know myself, I already understand how I acquired that knowledge. — Mww
First of all, one don’t choose what to do with freedom, in the proper deontological moral philosophy. Freedom is its own thing, it’s there, but you don’t technically do anything with it. — Mww
With that out of the way, such an abstraction can never be more than a logical necessity, never susceptible to empirical proofs. Anything that abstract can only be something to believe in, or, grant the validity for. If one grants it validity, it doesn’t beg the question, but because the concept has no real ground other than a logic one may have no solid reason to accept, it does beg the question. — Mww
I'm pleased that you even entertain the notion that a priori moral knowledge isn't so necessary.
— Kenosha Kid
My turn: not sure what you mean. — Mww
natural morality may tend to eliminate the need for a priori knowledge — Mww
Something or another is the correct thing to believe (there is an objective reality) ~ Something or another is the correct thing to intend (there is an objective morality) — Pfhorrest
All beliefs are initially to be considered possible until shown false (epistemic liberty) ~ All intentions are initially to be considered permissible until shown bad (deontic liberty) — Pfhorrest
Any belief might potentially be shown false (epistemic criticism) ~ Any intention might potentially be shown bad (deontic criticism) — Pfhorrest
:100:↪Kenosha Kid In doing so, you are only describing why we are inclined to do certain things, and calling those things good. You haven’t given any argument for why those things we are inclined to do are the good things. You have said what some consequences of doing or not doing those things are, assuming that you and your audience agree that those consequences are good or bad etc, but not given any argument, befitting someone who doesn’t agree, why those things are good or bad.
So you really are ignoring the is/ought divide. You’re giving a great explanation of what is, why people behave the way we do. And your implicit assumptions about what is or isn’t good fit well enough with my (and I expect many here’s) views on that topic. But your description of what inclined us to do those good things doesn’t address the question of whether they actually are good and why or why not. — Pfhorrest
By "morality" do you also mean norms & principles as well as conduct? Isn't "cannot have top-down rules" a top-down rule?Morality, viewed (correctly imo) in this bottom-up way, cannot have top-down rules because that is not what morality really is. — Kenosha Kid
This caricature certainly doesn't apply to what's called 'virtue ethics' (i.e. eudaimonism) from the Hellenes through the (neo)Thomists down to moderns like Spinoza ... G.E.M. Anscombe, Alasdair McIntyre, Philippa Foot, Iris Murdoch, Martha Nussbaum, Owen Flanagan, et al.Moral philosophy is overwhelmingly concerned with questions around how one "ought" to act in a given hypothetical situation — Kenosha Kid
Current moral philosophies informed by moral psychology (+ cognitive sciences, social psychology, human ecology (systems paradigm), etc) has in recent decades moved away from 'friction-free' non-natural/non-empirical inquiry.... without reference to the moral agent's socialisation, state, capacity, or any other details that a real person can use to decide whether and how to act. It is pretend-morality ...
Well, the first & last are features not bugs: "existentialism" is just Kierkegaardian 'subjective idealism' (i.e. decisionist fideism), which is just coin-flipping (à la "Two-Face" or "Anton Chighur"), and "relativism", in so far as it's a truth-claim (negative or positive) is self-refuting; solid grounds to excise them from ethics.... precisely because it denies relativism, pluralism, and existentialism.
Agreed. We're an eusocial species as a rule so to speak.There can be no society of majority antisocial behaviour. It is an oxymoron. — Kenosha Kid
Disembodied, non-ecological cognition? Solipsistic fallacy (if it ain't, it should be). More Berkeley, I guess, than Kierkegaard?In existentialism, I have freedom, personal sovereignty, and I have no compulsion to employ it in a particular way. It's like having all the tools and no particular thing to use them on. Our problem is that we have outdated tools. Any use of them is trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. — Kenosha Kid
Natural. Selection. Shake-n-bake variation by descent sans teleology.Nature isn't wasteful. — Kenosha Kid
In doing so, you are only describing why we are inclined to do certain things, and calling those things good. — Pfhorrest
So you really are ignoring the is/ought divide. — Pfhorrest
:100:Cultural conditioning is a broad and difficult topic, not like I'm an expert, but I would basically argue that the human mind radically acclimates to what it is familiar with, recalibrating in novel situations until behavior is appropriately effective. — Enrique
Bad examples provided by media, combative communities, badly run organizations and elsewhere leading to antisocial behavioral inclinations. — Enrique
Situations where biochemistry changes such that individuals are put into drastic disalignment with their social environments, such as a failing marriage, not infrequently with drug abuse, etc. — Enrique
Societies, classes and subcultures that have intrinsically (but perhaps not irremediably) incompatible or antagonistic standards and principles. — Enrique
Institutional frameworks susceptible to blowing themselves up or becoming so corrupt that ethical standards and real community solidarity are impossible. — Enrique
If you've got the solutions, I've got a million bucks! — Enrique
Society of monks, hermits, or peoples who otherwise avoid eachother for whatever reason. Or perhaps, the go to example, a society of open slavery are examples of a society engaging in antisocial or otherwise subhuman/dehumanizing behaviors are they not?
Fantasy becomes reality all the time. An early society of homogeneous peoples discussing the idea of "other people just like us but different" somewhere in the universe. Traveling the ocean. Space travel. Instant communication between peoples halfway around the world. Too many to list. You're using a floor as a ceiling by reducing the idea of society or reality-inducing change as "fantasy" in order to preserve belief. — Outlander
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