"I think the one of the main aspects of this discussion is also how moral values happen to be what they are, how they are created and by whom."

You are right. :cheer:

It certainly is always wrong and that is what I am arguing. I think I have pointed that out for the examples you gave me.

Self-defense is a strange case, however causing someone's death as an unintended result of self-defense hardly constitutes killing. The same goes for the accidental killing of a person. For something to be a crime, there must be mens rea, an intention (or the knowledge that one's neglect may cause harm to others), and I suggest we view the morality of killing a person in a similar fashion. So causing a death as the result of an unfortunate accident or as an unintended side-effect of self-defense is not evil.

Also doesn't your last sentence support the view that killing is wrong? After all, why should someone feel remorse for an act wasn't wrong?

Alas, we have wandered enough. So let me restate my question:

Would you agree that if the entire world took the rules "Thou shalt not kill (except for when it is an unintended side-effect of self-defense)" and "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's assets" to heart and would follow them devoutly, the world would be a better place?

I don't think that evolution and morality are so very distinct. Evolution, as you say, deals with biology, but those biological organisms often live in communities. Morals are then the guidelines for behaviour among the individuals for maximising the harmony of the community.

In this way the foundations of morality lie in evolution.

In this way the foundations of morality lie in evolution. — A Seagull

That might be the point.

But also what David Hume says is that morality is not consciously and rationally developed; and it is even more evident when you remember that Hume was a radical skeptic.

"Thou shalt not kill (except for when it is an unintended side-effect of self-defense)" So it is ok to accidentally kill in self defense? What about accidentally in general?

It seems to me that you and @Tzeentch might benefit from distinguishing b/w "murder" and "killing". Presumably all murder is immoral, but that isn't going to be the case for killing, unless maybe you have a radically pacifist moral theory. Where "murder" is going to be defined as something like "the intentional killing of another without justification."

But what do you say?

We've gone over this already. Killing someone as an unintended side-effect of self-defense cannot be considered wrong. Similarly, killing someone by accident, except in cases of extreme negligence, it isn't wrong either. It is unfortunate, but not wrong or evil.

Now quit beating around the bush and answer my question.

I considered this, but in order for something to be murder it needs an element of crime, in which case things like war and capital punishment couldn't be considered murder, even though I think those forms of killing are still fundamentally wrong.

If there are exceptions to your universal law that killing is evil then it is not a universal law.
Would it have been evil to kill Hitler in 1938? How about Osama Bin Laden in 1999? How about terminally ill people suffering terrible pain that want to die? Why should a pesron not be allowed to take their own life? Are you only talking about the killing of other humans? Is it evil to kill fish? etc etc.

I am trying to show you the danger of your argument and how all arguments following such sweeping statements that cannot be backed up will lead you into trouble.

In short I DO NOT AGREE WITH YOUR PREMISES.

A point of order: universal doesn't mean absolute.

You continue to dodge my question, by trying to find exceptions to a rule that any sane person can agree would create a better world if followed. In this case I'd say the exceptions underline the rule. If you were honest, you would acknowledge this.

Instead, you continue arguing semantics and it's getting rather dull. I'm not going to argue with you for the sake of arguing. I've made my stance clear, and it should by now be clear that all the contrived exceptions you're coming up with are completely missing the point of my argument.

I am trying to show you the danger of your argument and how all arguments following such sweeping statements that cannot be backed up will lead you into trouble. — Jamesk

Thanks for your concern; can we now please get on with the topic of discussion?

We cannot have a philosophical discussion without fully qualifying what you mean by your argument.

I already gave you my opinion that your argument is not as complete as you say it is and that I do not agree with it so your claim that I am dodging the question is unfounded. When you say that following these rules would lead to a better world, you need to define exactly what you mean by better. Better for who? Better in what way etc If you cannot clarify these matters in depth then you are merely stating your own opinion.

You made a premise and I showed you where there are exceptions and contradictions in it. You need to clarify your point to make me understand what you are trying to prove.

It was a general question, and you're free to respond with your opinion.

Well, killings during war are kind of a separate issue since it gets you into questions of just war theory. The basic idea being that if you accept killing in self-defense is not murder and morally acceptable, then a killing during a war being fought for strictly defensive grounds seems to be pretty analogous. The separate question then because what counts as a purely defensive or justifiably waged war. Surely some are. Similarly - and this is admittedly much more tenuous - one could argue that w/re to capital punishment that (1) it is a preventive form of self-defense for society at large or, alternatively, (2) that the capitally convicted criminal effectively willed their own death by violating laws for which that was the punishment. As such, it is more like suicide than murder. I think this is essentially what Kant would say about any kind of suffering that was the result of punishment. In any event, given (1), the argument would go further that given the preventive value to society generally, although the killing of the criminal is intentional on the part of the state, it is nevertheless justified and so, therefore, not murder. Personally, though, I agree with you the state should not be in the business of executions, mainly because any criminal justice system is going to be an inherently unreliable mechanism of accurate, objective judgment.

What do you think? Is this evolutionary approach reasonable to the studies of social sciences? — F.C.F.V.

I am afraid it wasn't very clear what question you were raising, and so unfortunately the discussion has been derailed into the perennial argument about universal morality.

Anyway, as best as I can tell, you are proposing that Hume's dictum can be vindicated if a naturalistic account of the origins of morality is true. Is this more-or-less what you are saying?

First, note that Hume, not having the benefit (?) of later developments in evolutionary psychology and social science, brought his own arguments to bear. What do you think of those?

Second, let's look at the title dictum: "The Rules Of Morality Are Not The Conclusions Of Our Reason." I think it is evident that it is not exactly true. When we don't have an instant moral clarity on some question, we often apply reason. However, it may be argued that when we trace our moral reasoning to its termini, we will always find some other moral rules there, which are themselves not based on reason.

One way to argue in favor of that position is to say that in point of fact, foundational moral principles are not chosen by each person through rational deliberation. To that end, one might try to show that moral values invariably come about non-rationally: either they emerge from our natural inclinations (moral instincts), or they are inculcated through upbringing, religious indoctrination, authority, social pressure, etc.

How does a particular historical account of the emergence of morality bear on this? That is not very clear. It seems to me that you would first need to establish the proximate causes of our moral judgements along the lines that I suggested above. Once that is done, you could further develop an account of those causes: evolution of moral instincts, social dynamics resulting in the emergence of social norms, etc., but all that seems to be surplus to requirements. You could counterfactually suppose that our moral principles are instilled in us by God, for example - and that would serve the argument just as well, because that too would be an instance of a non-rational origination of morality.

Another way to argue for the thesis is to follow Hume in saying that as a matter of principle, it could not be otherwise. Reason, says Hume, does not motivate action (reason can tell you how best to achieve your goal, but it does not supply goals). "Reason is the slave of the passions." You cannot get from an is - facts, observations - to an ought - moral judgements - though reason. Therefore, only normative beliefs and inclinations can be the source of our moral judgements.

Since you didn't react yet, I'm assuming you won't be answering my question. I'll answer it for you in that case, and make my point anyway.

Any rational person could agree that if people followed the rules 'Thou shalt not kill' and 'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbours assets' the world would be much better off. One may have one or two caveats, like 'but what about self-defense or euthanasia?', but for the other 99.9% of killing we can agree it would be best if it simply stopped. The same goes for jealousy and envy.

This is a rational argument based on reason and it is simply undeniable. It is truth. Morality is based on fundamental truths of human existence.

You have the argumentative skills of child which is why I am not answering you.Do you even know what a rational argument looks like when stated philosophically? I ask because I have not seen anything from you that isn't just your own unsupported opinion.

Ah, insults. The last refuge of the ignorant.

It takes a special kind of debater to call a sensible statement like "the world would be better without people killing each other" an 'irrational and unsupported opinion'. Asking for clarification on the word 'better' in this context is yet another attempt to shift the argument. It's indicative of the way you've been twisting and turning every which way in order to disagree on something that should be common sense, and it reeks of intellectual dishonesty.

I can think of no other reason a person would have this amount of difficulty answering such a general question. A question which could have simply been answered with "No." or "Yes, but...", I might add.

Ok so I will take a definitive position and disagree with your argument. No the world would not necessarily be a better place if killing and jealousy were wiped out.

Would you agree that if the entire world took the rules "Thou shalt not kill (except for when it is an unintended side-effect of self-defense)" and "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's assets" to heart and would follow them devoutly, the world would be a better place? — Tzeentch

What an overly simplistic and naive way to think...

Tell that to the down trodden poor folk who suffer at the hands of the richest in their communities...

Morality is the rules of acceptable/unacceptable behaviour. Morality is a human condition. We are interdependent social creatures by our very nature. Rules for behaviour are inevitable.

Morality is the rules of acceptable/unacceptable behaviour. Morality is a human condition. We are interdependent social creatures by our very nature. Rules for behaviour are inevitable. — creativesoul

.
But is morality a product of reason or emotion?

Why does it have to be one or the other?

There is no Reason without emotion. That is Hume's fatal flaw. He is not alone.

There is no Reason without emotion. That is Hume's fatal flaw. He is not alone. — creativesoul

Hume doesn't deny the existence of reason only that it plays a back seat role in our moral decisions. Emotion is not reason.

Nowhere did I claim it would be the solution to all the world's problems. Simply that following those two rules as an entirety would universally make the world a better place.

I can see too many exceptions to your rules. Culling the sick to ensure the survival of the species would be a reason for killing. Being jealous of those who cheat society and create their own elite is also needed in order to make laws for a more just society.

Whether one agrees with these rules or not isn't relevant to the point.

The fact is that civilizations throughout the ages have attempted to formulate rules that when followed would create a more unified world. The Ten Commandments are an example of such a ruleset. The Egyptian Negative Confession is another. Clearly there is some merit to these rules, no matter how much one wishes to deny it.

The degree to which these rules are right is truth. That is objective morality based on reason.

Briefly, he seems to state that morality is, at last, an emerged social institution, not a result of a human design, but a result of non-intentional consequences of human action. It means that the evolution of societies is somehow similar in principles to biological evolutionary theories, which is guided by some sort of natural selection. Those societies that came up to developed emerged but bad institutions just have failed, resting to our time those that, we could say, were approved in the test of time and adapted to general circumstances. Thus, the rules of morality are not the conclusions of our reason. What do you think? Is this evolutionary approach reasonable to the studies of social sciences? — F.C.F.V.

Morality is fundamentally a sense - ingrained into the organism by evolution in a tribal social context. It's promoted as an evolutionary advantage - to the individual within the tribe, and to the tribal group overall.

Society is effectively, the joining together of hunter-gatherer tribal groups, and that wasn't easy. The obstacle is inherent to the social hierarchy of hunter-gatherer tribes - ruled by an alpha male with one or two lieutenants, monopolizing food and mating opportunities within the tribe. Thus, any two such tribes would have great difficulty joining together to form a society, because any disagreement would immediately split the society into its tribal parts.

This obstacle was overcome with an explicit moral code - justified with reference to God. So, I'd have to disagree with Hayeck to some extent; not because morality is not fundamentally an evolutionary quality, but in that, in a state of nature morality is a sense of morality located within individuals and the tribal structure, whereas in multi-tribal society, morality is an expression - an explicit moral code, objective with respect to the individual.

So, unless one believes God inscribed the tablets Moses carried down the mountain - for example, those codes were thought about and designed by human beings - as the basis of societal institutions. However well designed in the first instance, they inevitably become anachronistic over time, and persist as institutional morality - often in quite painful contradiction to attitudes that develop as a result of experience - understood in terms of the innate moral sense, and communicated inter-subjectively.

An example of this is how mass immigration and Islamic terrorism has promoted a far right resurgence in Europe, in contradiction of anti-racist values, made explicit in democratic institutions. Another is increasingly tolerant social attitudes to homosexuality, against hostile values made explicit in religious texts. It's the difference between morality as an innate sense, and morality as an explicit expression of societal values.

Morality is fundamentally a sense - ingrained into the organism by evolution in a tribal social context. — karl stone

So you think it would be impossible for rational creatures, whether human or not, to agree to a system of moral codes? Part of the question being whether it's possible some rational beings don't necessarily come about as a result of evolutionary forces or go through tribalism in the course of their social development. If it's possible there are such beings, then would they be prevented from having a moral system based on how you've conceived it here? Is that the best way to frame a concept of morality, such that it necessarily excludes some agents who intuition might suggest seem to be capable of acting morally?

So you think it would be impossible for rational creatures, whether human or not, to agree to a system of moral codes? Part of the question being whether it's possible some rational beings don't necessarily come about as a result of evolutionary forces or go through tribalism in the course of their social development. If it's possible there are such beings, then would they be prevented from having a moral system based on how you've conceived it here? Is that the best way to frame a concept of morality, such that it necessarily excludes some agents who intuition might suggest seem to be capable of acting morally? — Mentalusion

I have explored the idea of a Nietzschian - amoral species, and cannot imagine that species could progress very far beyond a state of nature. Putting aside the infinite diversity of nature, think upon the difference between a creature that cares for its young, and one that lays eggs and walks away. The amoral species is an egg layer who walks away. It doesn't care for its young, it doesn't form a society, doesn't develop technology - so it doesn't progress beyond a state of nature.

Caring for the young is necessary to the developmental process - inherent to higher intelligence. The more complex the creature, the longer the dependency upon the mother and the tribe. This requires a self-sacrificial moral behavior in adults - broadly called altruism. The developmental potential of an organism that must be hardwired to survive from the moment the egg cracks open is quite limited.

In short, I believe morality is inherent to intelligence, and that you can't have an amoral rational creature. However, there's a saying among biologists - 'evolution is smarter than you are.' And we have only the one example, of life on earth, and the one example of a rationally intelligent creature, homo sapiens, to work with. So, I suppose my question to you would be - what kind of rational agent to do imagine is excluded by this concept of morality?