In the end it's all about power. — praxis

It's about how the mind can best determine an increase of what is vital for the body to prolong its existence. So, perhaps. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), we become blinded by that which we do not understand, and so inevitably make choices that seem wise or conducive to this psychotic goal, yet eventually... make a fatal misstep. And so, the pendulum of power is, perhaps doomed, perhaps favored, to swing back and forth, forevermore. Some ranges of motion simply take longer than others. To no credit of those who become unwitting pawns of fate that a lost world has no choice but to imagine they have any control or influence over. Which they ultimately do not. No mortal does.

anti-realism is not a coherent perspective, it's just a means of labeling a position one finds threatening — ProtagoranSocratist

"Anti-realism" in meta-ethics just refers to the claim that there are no facts about values; which is quite popular as a position. Plenty of people embrace this term as a label for their own ideas; I am pretty sure it is coined by anti-realists themselves.

I don't believe that one can make such a 'hard distinction' between scientific truths and moral truths. — boundless

The Count was quick to point this out and I agree.

I think human reality is largely shaped by human needs or purposes—and human values. We don’t share the same values however, so if there are objective values, who is right and who is wrong? And what is the purpose of insisting that one set of values is Correct? It provides the means to harness collective power.

I think Bonobos might come a little closer to virtues than Chimpanzees because of the difference in their social organization. The leap from these species to humans is huge, and apparently, that is so because of the organization of our brains and social order. Science is now claiming that Neanderthals were closer to modern humans than we once thought. Why they are hidden in our genes but also became extinct is still up for debate. Was it social order or verbal skills that made the difference between Neanderthals and modern humans?

I read, in a research lab, that a Bomobo bit a researcher after saying he would do so if the worker did not correct a wrong. That is how an animal without language sets its boundaries. There is a claim that some of these animals learn enough language to communicate verbally. They are social animals with some rules determining right and wrong behavior, but not the language to be philosophical. Even horses are said to pass culture on to their offspring. I hope that discussion culture falls under the subject of ethics and morals.

We might to able to identify our major cultures and if they there are social differences in their morals and ethics. But I also think our Western understanding of Asians is not adequate for the task.

Would you like to pick up from here and say something? We might consider how different the discussion would go if we held a more scientific mindset, as opposed to assuming Christianity pretty much covers the subjects of morals and ethics, and proceeded with Protestant assumptions.

"Anti-realism" in meta-ethics just refers to the claim that there are no facts about values; which is quite popular as a position. Plenty of people embrace this term as a label for their own ideas; I am pretty sure it is coined by anti-realists themselves. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Okay, for me the phrasing instead would be "subjectivist", which states moral truths exist, but ONLY subjectively. So that still means i can use moral values if they are beneficial to my selfish interests, or ignore them if they appear harmful or immoral. I don't know if Ayn Rand ever called herself that, her excuse was rationalism.

I think claiming there are "no facts about values" is confusing, because facts tend to imply shared information, and there are plenty of those. However, i guess some folks see anti-realism as the best framing for their suspicions on morality.

Interestingly, geocentrism most definitely expressed anthropocentric values and Galileo paid the price for extracting those values from astronomy. In the end it's all about power. — praxis

It was actually Nietzsche who argued this in "Geaneology of Morality", that "the good people" are just the powerful imposing what is "good" on the basis of what is good for them. To me, the point of how to make life better for everyone with a loss of moral absolutism is an interesting one, yet i'm pretty it's impossible currently given that human psychology tends to be more motivated by fear and anxiety than pleasure.

It's not sustainable to ascribe to and abide by a moral system that disregards how the world really works. Idealism like that drives people crazy. — baker

I personally don't think think it's impossible for those things to happen, and it really depends on what attacking and punishing looks like. It's not idealism to know that the hierarchically powerful are not all powerful or godlike.

Maybe you can't assassinate a president and expect to get away with it, but i would suspect a president's cabinet members do hurt them sometimes, but in a much more minor way. I would argue that believing in the social infallibility of leaders is crazier than thinking it's impossible to harm them without getting away with it.

As an example: let's say a single parent is abusing their kids. Wouldn't it be possible for that kid to kill the parent and get away with it? It would be much easier for the kid to do that if there weren't police, and it wouldn't necessarily be good for the kid's future, but i'm just saying that it's possible.

This strange idea that philosophy should be cut off from real life ... — baker

nah i'm unfortunately just a sensitive person and sometimes i don't want to talk about specific things on the internet ;-) I don't think it can be fully cut off from other things you do, even though it's always the case that people are like "let's not talk about this, let's do something else", and sometimes that approach appears necessary for group cohesion. I was having some thoughts about how punishments for extreme crimes could be improved to be less harmful and less hypocritical, but i am not quite ready to start a discussion on that kind of a rabbit hole here yet.

Would you like to pick up from here and say something? We might consider how different the discussion would go if we held a more scientific mindset, as opposed to assuming Christianity pretty much covers the subjects of morals and ethics, and proceeded with Protestant assumptions. — Athena

TBH, I never wanted to assume the truth of Christianity from the start in my posts, not sure why you think that. I was just arguing that, in my opinion, virtue ethics is a better view about ethics than other models. Virtue ethics is also generally coupled with the 'intellectualist' model of freedom, i.e. that a rational being is truly free when he or she is freed from all 'obscurations' that prevent him or her to recognize properly the good with the assumption that being 'rational' means to spontaneously desire what is recognized as good, in contrast to the 'libertarian' model which, instead, simply assert that freedom is the same as 'deliberative power' to choose among alternatives.

This model of ethics and freedom was certainly accepted among many Christians in history but I think you find it also asserted in completely different traditions like, say, Platonism, Neoplatonism, Aristotelism etc in the 'West' and also in Indian religions. For instance, in Buddhism Nirvana is said to be achieved when spiritual ignorance ('avidya') ceases precisely because the 'enlightened' isn't said to be deluded about what is truly the highest good for him/her.

I now believe, after having reflected upon these things, that these kinds of ideas about freedom and ethics - irrespective (of some form) of Christianity, Buddhism or even 'secularism' etc being right - make most sense and they are the only that allow us to avoid considering 'virtuous behaviour' as the result of merely following an external code which is unrelated to our own nature.

Having made this clarification, sure, I think that scientific studies about the behavior of animals actually give us more understanding about human ethics. I am a bit reticent, however, to use it as a starting point because as you note there are differences among animal species. Still, I believe that the best approach is to study directly what happens among humans. I believe we should make the same observations we can make about animals in the case of humans.

So, I believe that the starting point of this kind of inquiry would be: what is good for a given human being? Considering that humans seem to be 'social animals', i.e. that human beings can't really be in total isolation from other human beings, we might think that, perhaps, relationships with others are essential for the good of a human being. So, how should people relate to each other in a way that it is good for them?

Are cultural differences enough a barrier to prevent us to make some judgments about other cultures? For instance, it seems that it is better for children to be raised by parents who truly love them. This is something that certainly seem to be supported by research in psychology. If we encountered a society that doesn't consider important how parents treat their children, would the difference among our cultures prevent us to say that such a society is simply wrong about this? Are we so hopelessly constrained by our own cultural context that we aren't able to make any judgment about other cultures?

The Count was quick to point this out and I agree. — praxis

:up:

I think human reality is largely shaped by human needs or purposes—and human values. We don’t share the same values however, so if there are objective values, who is right and who is wrong? And what is the purpose of insisting that one set of values is Correct? It provides the means to harness collective power. — praxis

I believe that the best approach here is to carefully examine all proposed 'set of values' with a critical spirit in a similar way one does in science (although the approach can't be the same of course). I happen to believe that, as I said, in the beginning of this post, virtue ethics and the intellectualist model of freedom are right precisely because they make the most sense and not devalue ethics as the mere following of an extrinsic moral code that is estranous, as you put it, to our 'needs or purposes'.

So, I believe that the starting point is to assess and try to find out what what are these 'needs' and 'purposes' are. Clearly some of the 'needs' aren't culturally dependent. It seems that, for instance, all children need genuine love when they are raised. Are we going to argue that this depends on a given culture? Or, instead, we might consider that, say, after reading the brutal effects that being raised in a dysfunctional or even abusive context can have on a person, perhaps we are allowed to say "it is good for children, irrespective of their cultural context, to be raised in a loving environment" as something that might apply to cultural contexts different from our own.