I'm figuring this, because if there is no way for me to apprehend the morals of others, how can I claim, with any reasonability, that they actually have morals too. And even if there was something in another, something that I could not deny, there still remains no way to determine that it is morality. — Merkwurdichliebe

Do you think that every single mental thing that goes on in the mind of another is something you can directly apprehend? For example, if I picture a creature that I imagined just now, without drawing it, etc. do you think you can somehow directly apprehend my picturing, or otherwise you can't know that I pictured something?

Do you think that every single mental thing that goes on in the mind of another is something you can directly apprehend? — Terrapin Station

No.

you can't know that I pictured something? — Terrapin Station

I can't

I agree with what creativesoul pointed out.

Some things are neither external nor internal. Some things consist entirely of different elements from both groups. Those things cannot be properly accounted for by using one or the other. — creativesoul

Morals require others. Others are external. Morals require external. Morals require brains. Brains are internal. Morals require internal.

Need we go on here? — creativesoul

The dichotomy of internal/external has been rendered inherently inadequate for the task of setting out the origen of morals. It's a sideshow that leads to gross misunderstandings... — creativesoul

It turned out that "habitualize" was closer to what was being said. — Terrapin Station

Internalization is analogous to appropriation. Habitualize is an inadequate term.

The first relation between follower and usurper is found between the child and parental figure. I would surmise that in all ordinary cases, the parental figure factors as the first ethical authority for everyone. — Merkwurdichliebe

I would concur. Parents are part of the community. Usually it is the parents who are the authority, however, it is well worth noting that some cases it is not and in all cases, the morality being implemented is adopted(mostly).

This is a nod to the importance of history.

It is either granted or usurped.
— creativesoul

The result of this struggle to the death is "consensus". — Merkwurdichliebe

Politics=manufactured consent.

:wink:

Your recent summary of merk and my discussion was spot on. The links to harvard have not worked for me. I may have misattributed meaning to your post offering the link to the test. My apologies if that was the case. That is of interest, and relevant in more than one way here.

Do you think that every single mental thing that goes on in the mind of another is something you can directly apprehend? — Terrapin Station


No.

you can't know that I pictured something? — Terrapin Station


I can't — Merkwurdichliebe

What would be an example of something mental, that you don't directly apprehend, that you can know (propositionally)?

Some things are neither external nor internal. — creativesoul

I know I shouldn't address this, because you'll probably just ignore the other question, but that is incoherent, because the dichotomy exhausts every possible location.

I would concur. Parents are part of the community. Usually it is the parents who are the authority, however, it is well worth noting that some cases it is not and in all cases, the morality being implemented is adopted(mostly). — creativesoul

The notion of "absentee parental figure" is not too much of an issue. In such cases, ethical conditioning bypasses the parental figure, and begins with other societal influences (friends/enemies, teachers, acquaintances, &c.). Everyone is eventually confronted by these influences, and they are all, more or less, quantitatively identical in respect to being an ethical authority. They provide the substantive material which the individual appropriates into a personal morality.

Morality becomes adopted through a complex process of appropriation, in which the ethical authority serves as the primary influence.

What would be an example of something mental, that you don't directly apprehend, that you can know (propositionally)? — Terrapin Station

Thought.

Thanks for answering. I'm wondering why you think that you can't know that I'm picturing something if you think that you can know that I'm thinking something then. (And personally, I'd say that picturing something is a type of thinking, but maybe you use the word "thinking" differently than I do.)

At any rate, you don't think the fact that thinking is "of" each individual implies that my thinking is somehow internal to you, do you?

At any rate, you don't think the fact that thinking is "of" each individual implies that my thinking is somehow internal to you, do you? — Terrapin Station

Your welcome.

No I don't. I was just working out our misunderstanding from a previous post. But I think we're on the same page.

Communication can adequately mediate realities which cannot be apprehended directly, like thought

So in my view, morality works the same way.

So in my view, morality works the same way. — Terrapin Station

I agree there.

@Terrapin Station (Is there any way to perfectly reconcile the incongruities between actual thinking, and speaking about thought? Probably not. Nevertheless, we can approximate our meaning so that we can arrive at some degree of unification of concepts and speak on reasonably common ground.)

I would like to know what others here think/believe to be the difference between what counts as being moral and what counts as being ethical in terms of kinds of belief. — creativesoul

I've said this before, not sure whether on this thread or not, but I count ethical thought as being a broader category than moral thought; moral thought is concerned with others within the community, that is people and perhaps domestic animals, whereas ethical thought also involves that and additionally, involves oneself as oneself and all of nature.

@Terrapin Station

If ethical existence is represented by a circle, individual morality would be represented by a dot in the center.

Ask them. Listen to their answers. That's more than adequate ground to conclude that others have moral thought/belief. — creativesoul

I don't disagree and in practice I think that's what we do; but I was considering the question from the solipsistic perspective of Terrapin, which says that there is nothing "external" about morality that could be internailzed. I was referring to his bad analogy between inferring the morality of others and inferring the existence of neutrinos.

So, I was comparing the idea of observing human behavior and one's own internal moral thoughts and feelings and inferring their moral thoughts and feelings from that, with the idea of inferring the existence of neutrinos from observed experimental results. I was just pointing out that the former does not involve the kinds of precise predictions, calculations, observations and quantification that the latter does, which is why I called it a bad analogy.

I might say, the ethical is a broad category that includes morality as one of its essential terms. I would say the ethical is about right/wrong in general, whereas morality is specifically about right/wrong human behavior.

What is the term "necessary" doing here?

Predicted and observed behaviour can tell us something about motivation. — creativesoul

Again I was comparing the necessity of the mathematics, and inferences form that, that predicts neutrinos with the lack of necessity of inferences form predicted and observed human behavior.

Goodness! How did you manage to successfully predict that? :mask:

I am clairvoyant , doctor. :eyes:

I think that agrees with what I said? I would probably word it a bit differently to say: "morality is specifically about right and wrong behavior towards humans and their domestic animals. Is that what you meant?

Indeed, dude!

morality is specifically about right and wrong behavior towards humans and their domestic animals. Is that what you meant? — Janus

Firstly, I like how you included "domestic animals". (For expediency's sake, we can ignore livestock on factory farms).

I think what you say here is a more acute application of how I defined morality. So, I do not object.

Your recent summary of merk and my discussion was spot on. The links to harvard have not worked for me. I may have misattributed meaning to your post offering the link to the test. My apologies if that was the case. That is of interest, and relevant in more than one way here. — creativesoul

I just took the implicit association test for race (between black & white). I like to think of myself as completely non-racist but the test showed a 'slight' (from no preference to slight, moderate, or strong) preference for white people. So on a subconscious level, according to the results of the test, I have a slight tendency to see white people as good or a slight tendency to see black people as bad. I took the same test many years ago so the results didn't surprise me this time, but I was initially surprised.

The point is that our subconscious mind... how should I say this, isn't as aligned with our conscious mind as we might think it is. This is shown in other ways as well, like hypnosis or placebo/nocebo, or just intuition in general.

This is meant to support the theory of ethical intuitionism.

You seem to be confusing knowledge with belief here. Looking at it from your kind of solipsistic perspective it could only be belief and nothing more. Dissolving the notion that we have privileged access only (or even) to our own thoughts and feelings allows for the idea of a more direct knowledge of others. (And no, I'm not talking about telepathy, either!)

Of course this direct knowledge cannot be deductively certain, so it too, considered from the perspective of that kind of criterion, is really a kind of belief, but I don't think it is a kind of belief based on rational inference; it is prior to all that. This is a kind of Heideggerian point, so I predict you will have no truck with it, but the way I see it is: that's your loss.

Morality and ethical are interchangeable terms, in most cases. But strictly speaking, morality is always ethical, while the ethical does not always include morality.

(For expediency's sake, we can ignore livestock on factory farms). — Merkwurdichliebe

The expedient blind eye is turned... :grin:

Morality and ethical are interchangeable terms, in most cases. But strictly speaking, morality is always includes the ethical, while the ethical does not always include morality. — Merkwurdichliebe

Exactly! If I knew how to produce a Venn diagram on here without a ridiculous amount of effort, I would draw a large circle called 'ethics' with a smaller circle within it called 'morality'. :cool:

Exactly! If I knew how to produce a Venn diagram on here without a ridiculous amount of effort, I would draw a large circle called 'ethics' with a smaller circle within it called 'morality'. :cool: — Janus

Like this, without the black blue and yellow rings?

Interesting! Where did you get that diagram? I'm not convinced by the idea that the ethical is necessarily encompassed by the legal, although within a certain context it seems to work, I guess. :chin:

I think I would leave out the yellow ring as well, then what is left is exactly what I envisaged.