Doing the right thing takes willpower because the right thing is often painful in the short term. Exercise, eating healthy, helping others are examples. Contrast with eating sweets - the wrong thing to - is attractive to people of low willpower - because it is short term pleasure in exchange for long term pain. — Devans99

Completely agree that long term is harder, but often tend to focus on a morally better outcome. However, inducing what is morally good or bad in the long term is still what is problematic and needs a method.

I think perfecting your morals includes adopting a definition of group as 'all sentient life' - leading to respect for all sentient life. — Devans99

Agreed, but within this group, how do you solve the trolley problem? As an example? Moral dilemmas need a method that includes the complexity of many different situations.

Agreed, but within this group, how do you solve the trolley problem? As an example? Moral dilemmas need a method that includes the complexity of many different situations. — Christoffer

I think its based on pain and pleasure:

- Completely right is maximum pleasure and minimum pain for the individual and group.
- Completely wrong is minimum pleasure and maximum pain for the individual and group.

So we look for MAX(Pleasure-Pain) as a solution for any moral problem. So in the trolley problem, we kill 1 person rather than 5.

Where there are conflicts of interest between individuals and the group, peer pressure within the group should ensure the group wins out over the individual.

I think its based on pain and pleasure:

- Completely right is maximum pleasure and minimum pain for the individual and group.
- Completely wrong is minimum pleasure and maximum pain for the individual and group. — Devans99

Have you read the moral theories I posted before? It's basically based on this value calculus :wink:

So in the trolley problem, we kill 1 person rather than 5. — Devans99

But if we think long term, how do we know that the one person killed isn't the causal start of something that leads to a cure for cancer? That person's child or they themselves might solve such a cure in the future, meaning that if you kill 5 to save 1, you save more in the long term. This is why the trolley problem becomes problematic. You can apply the mathematical probability that 5 people equals both more good in the present over 1 person killed and that there might be a larger probability that one of those five will cure cancer or be the casual continuation towards it. However, it is not a certainty.

That's why probability needs to be included if we ought to define what is of most morally positive value to that choice. It might be worse to kill 5 to save 1 because we think that the one person will cure cancer because the probability is higher that saving 5 will lead to that outcome instead. Therefore it's morally responsible to do so, based on the probability of max pleasure, not what is currently so.

First I'm not asking for what is right or wrong, rather were do our sense of right and wrong come from
— hachit

Long term > Short term

So Right is what is optimal for the long term (exercise, healthy diet, helping others)

Wrong is what is optimal for the short term (sweets, laziness, harming others) — Devans99

Is this a joke? Did you not read what he just said?

Have you read the moral theories I posted before? It's basically based on this value calculus :wink: — Christoffer

I don't think I encountered them. You have a link?

But if we think long term, how do we know that the one person killed isn't the causal start of something that leads to a cure for cancer? That person's child or they themselves might solve such a cure in the future, meaning that if you kill 5 to save 1, you save more in the long term. This is why the trolley problem becomes problematic. — Christoffer

I guess to make a perfect moral judgement, you must first be in possession of all the facts. So you would know precisely who is likely or not likely to cure cancer and at what probability.

Then with all the facts, you'd proceed to make a right decision by maximising pleasure and minimising pain over the long term (even if that means pain in the short term) for the group (the human race in the case of cancer). So if the 1 guy is going to cure cancer, your calculation would lead you to kill 5.

First I'm not asking for what is right or wrong, rather were do our sense of right and wrong come from
— hachit

Long term > Short term

So Right is what is optimal for the long term (exercise, healthy diet, helping others)

Wrong is what is optimal for the short term (sweets, laziness, harming others)
— Devans99

Is this a joke? Did you not read what he just said? — S

I believe our sense of right and wrong come from the need to maximise pleasure and minimise pain both as individuals but more importantly, across a group/community.

Long term > Short term, so our sense of right and wrong come from an appreciation of what is right and wrong in the long term.

Essentially the same physiology yet two very different moral frameworks. Clearly, it is inadequate to say that the mind or limbic system is the source of morals because it cannot account for vast differences in moral frameworks.
— praxis

Great point. — Merkwurdichliebe

No, it's not a great point at all. It's just an ignorant denial.

So, you don't think that a person growing up in a cannibalistic culture, and a person growing up in our culture, would have any impact on our emotions regarding cannibalism? The clone example doesn't make any difference, because the conclusion is the same: they'd react with different emotions, meaning that their limbic systems would be operating in different ways. The suggestion that clones growing up in starkly different environments would have the same moral judgements is uninformed and illogical. That's the assumption that his argument is based on. It is not an assumption that I have made, and nothing in my argument implies it. He is missing the mark by a country mile.

I believe our sense of right and wrong come from the need to maximise pleasure and minimise pain both as individuals but more importantly, across a group/community. — Devans99

Well it doesn't. The pleasure machine thought experiment refutes that.

It seems as if you're unaware that people in the same family, including twins, even, can and often do have completely different moral views. — Terrapin Station

Yes, and my brother and I are living proof of that. He hasn't thought this through properly at all.

Well it doesn't. The pleasure machine thought experiment refutes that. — S

Interesting.

"Nozick provides us with three reasons not to plug into the machine.

1. We want to do certain things, and not just have the experience of doing them - "It is only because we first want to do the actions that we want the experiences of doing them." (Nozick, 43)

2. We want to be a certain sort of person - "Someone floating in a tank is an indeterminate blob." (Nozick, 43)

3. Plugging into an experience machine limits us to a man-made reality (it limits us to what we can make). "There is no actual contact with any deeper reality, though the experience of it can be simulated.""

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_machine

I would argue that if any of the above 3 hold, then it is more pleasurable for us to be outside the pleasure machine. Pleasure comes in many ways; for example, it could be our role in society that we take pleasure from and that pleasure would be lost by plugging in.

Doing the right thing takes willpower because the right thing is often painful in the short term. Exercise, eating healthy, helping others are examples. — Devans99

They're only examples of things you judge to be good, and that's clearly not the topic.

It can't be more pleasurable outside the pleasure machine. That violates the thought experiment. The pleasure machine is a machine which gives maximum pleasure. People would still turn it down, which shows that your theory is bunk. They judge that it would be better outside of it, even if less pleasurable.

The pleasure machine is a machine which gives maximum pleasure — S

But the pleasure machine cannot maximise pleasure because it cannot give me a role in society which I value above all.

So the thought experiment is contradictory.

Ok, then, I'll give you a chance to convince me. Tell me, how does the limbic system directly and immediately cause the emotional experience of love.

My prediction, you will completely dodge the question like you do every time.

I run into the problem were the first learn it from, after all life seems pointless in the light of reason alone. Sure people my say we learn it from a deity but some of them (if they were really) don't seem to care about human life. — hachit

Sure, life seems pointless now that the light of reason doesn’t have ‘God’ to dialogue with anymore. But for thousands of years it was perfectly reasonable to insist on our God-given right or purpose to populate the earth and have dominion over its inhabitants. At least, that’s what we convinced ourselves, because the alternative was to accept that human life was never the priority.

Darwin might have taken ‘God’ out of the picture, but he maintained that we were compelled to pursue our own existence as a priority, just like every other animal. This is what evolutionary theory teaches.

But our experience (if we pay careful attention) tells us that the ‘self’ is not the priority. And so the dialectic continues...

But the pleasure machine cannot maximise pleasure because it cannot give me a role in society which I value above all.

So the thought experiment is contradictory. — Devans99

No, the pleasure machine isn't contradictory. Once again, the pleasure machine is machine which gives maximum pleasure. If you're talking about a machine which doesn't do this, then you're talking about something else.

Ok, then, I'll give you a chance to convince me. Tell me, how does the limbic system directly and immediately cause the emotional experience of love.

My prediction, you will completely dodge the question like you do every time. — Merkwurdichliebe

My prediction is that you will mistake a reasonable objection to the wording or logical relevance of the question as a "dodge".

You seem to have pulled that question out of thin air, so you must first explain how it is of logical relevance to what I've actually said. You don't get to just make up a position and act like I'm responsible for justifying it. Here's a tip: don't try to put what you think my position is in your own words, because you've proven incompetent at doing so accurately. Stick to my wording.

And you must also accept that I'm not a neuroscientist.

And also, you're a hypocrite, because you dodged my question and the related points which followed.

Ok, then, I'll give you a chance to convince me. Tell me, how does the limbic system directly and immediately cause the emotional experience of love. — Merkwurdichliebe

If you're only accepting blueprint answers, where's your alternate blueprint answer?

Would you just give up trying to distort my meaning in an attempt to refute what I said? — S

I’m not refuting it, I’ve only repeatedly pointed out its inadequacy.

The source of morals is both nature and nurture.

I’m not refuting it, I’ve only repeatedly pointed out its inadequacy. — praxis

You mean you've repeatedly asserted that without properly responding to my criticism.

No, the pleasure machine isn't contradictory. Once again, the pleasure machine is machine which gives maximum pleasure. If you're talking about a machine which doesn't do this, then you're talking about something else. — S

If anyone refuses to get it, then it cannot be maximising their pleasure. For example, the machine would have to give the occupant the illusion that they are a successful member of society, rather than strapped into a pleasure machine. Then everyone would get in and the objections raised by the thought experiment are not applicable.

Most of your criticisms have little to do with the subject so I have no interest in responding to them, properly or otherwise.

Most of your criticisms have little to do with the subject so I have no interest in responding to them, properly or otherwise. — praxis

You haven't a clue, so suit yourself.

I missed where you property responded to the following, btw.

It is inadequate to say that the mind or limbic system is the source of morals because it cannot account for vast differences in moral frameworks. Saying "we often feel differently and judge moral matters differently" isn't explaining or accounting for the differences. — praxis

If anyone refuses to get it, then it cannot be maximising their pleasure. For example, the machine would have to give the occupant the illusion that they are a successful member of society, rather than strapped into a pleasure machine. — Devans99

Yes, that's obvious, and is of no logical relevance, so I don't know why you're saying that.

Then everyone would get in — Devans99

That's astoundingly ignorant. You've asked everyone in the world about this, and they've all answered in the affirmative?

I missed where you property [sic] responded to the following, btw.

It is inadequate to say that the mind or limbic system is the source of morals because it cannot account for vast differences in moral frameworks. Saying "we often feel differently and judge moral matters differently" isn't explaining or accounting for the differences.
— praxis — praxis

Then pay closer attention. I don't see why I should repeat myself. Just go back and properly address what I've said about that.

That's astoundingly ignorant. You've asked everyone in the world about this, and they all answered in the affirmative? — S

If it was going to give someone everything you could possibly want then we can say only stupid people making the wrong decision would get not get in.

So pleasure/pain (in all its emotional/physical guises) really is all there is to happiness for right thinking people.

The source of morals is both nature and nurture. — praxis

Nurture influences, but can't provide morals.

x influencing y is different than x being identical to y.

If it was going to give someone everything you could possibly want then we can say only stupid people making the wrong decision would get not get in.

So pleasure/pain (in all its emotional/physical guises) really is all there is to happiness for right thinking people. — Devans99

Lots of people wouldn't want to be strapped into a pleasure machine, because they value reality over maximum pleasure. That doesn't make them stupid people making the wrong decision, and it doesn't make the rest right thinking people. But that argument does indicate your own stupidity.

Lots of people wouldn't want to be strapped into a pleasure machine, because they value reality over maximum pleasure. — S

Valuing reality is a form of pleasure. If the pleasure machine cannot give that then the pleasure machine is not working according to specification.