There has to be. Or else everyone would respond to all situations like a toddler.

I'm not saying intuition doesn't play a role. But there are other elements to decision making. — Artemis

Hence the word ultimately. That wasn't just there for decoration.

First off, obviously we don't stay emotionally the same as toddlers as we age.

But other than that, we already said that you can use various stances as foundational stances on a given occasion (and some people can decide to far more consistently use the same foundation(s)). And then you can reason from those foundational stances. But ultimately, which means when we go back to the foundational stance(s), it's simply how someone feels, what their dispositions are.

Hence the word ultimately. That wasn't just there for decoration. — Terrapin Station

But then you said there's nothing else available. Seems contradictory.

But then you said there's nothing else available. — Artemis

Nothing else available for what morality ultimately depends on than subjective dispositions.

"this is ultimately what everyone does" is what I said. Nothing else is available for what everyone ultimately does when it comes to morality.

Nothing else available for what morality ultimately depends on than subjective dispositions. — Terrapin Station

Is that different from intuition?

You intuit what your dispositions or "gut feelings" are. Basically, you do "hard thinking" to discover how you really feel about things.

But why? What's the point?

But why? What's the point? — Artemis

Well first you can't help but feel that some behavior is okay and not other behavior. That's built into us.

Why do people do "hard thinking" about it? Because we also have an inbuilt tendency to want to be consistent, and if we don't think about our moral dispositions very much, we're less likely to be consistent in our reactions. That particularly bothers us in moral situations as long as we have empathy, because we'll wind up doing things that we're not comfortable with on reflection.

I still don't see why someone with your view of the matter would bother. If my disposition at point t=0 is just as valid as at t=1, then it would all be inherently consistent.

Again, you can't help but feel the way you do. That's built into our biology.

For example, you beat up someone for no reason today. Well, a couple days later, you might realize that you don't really feel comfortable with beating up someone for no reason. Why? It's simply a way that you feel. A disposition you have.

So then you feel regret that you did something you don't now feel comfortable with. Your think that your previous actions are inconsistent with how you really feel--especially if you simply didn't think too much about it when you beat up someone for no reason.

So you decide that you're going to try to figure out how you really feel about these sorts of things.

If I can't help how I feel, how can I purposefully change it through introspection?

I've only got five minutes so don't want to fully get into this right now, but whilst this is fresh. The two points you've just raised seem to me to be exactly what you were denying when we spoke about moral discussions last. 1) that people have foundational moral principles "you can use various stances as foundational stances on a given occasion (and some people can decide to far more consistently use the same foundation(s))", and 2) that people may take a stance on one matter which they may later come to regret because they tend to prefer consistency.

These two principles are exactly those on which I was basing the value of moral argument - a) you're a human being, biologically driven, and most human beings have X as a foundational moral stance, and b) if you take position Y it clashes with stance X and I think you will regret that later.

The moral argument being essentially an attempt to convince the person that, firstly they do (or probably do) have moral stance X, and then to demonstrate by reason that activity Y is inconsistent with it and they will regret that inconsistency later.

Yet you seemed earlier to reject this very basis.

In my experience, most atheists in regards to Ethics are either Relativists or Pragmatists. You should check out Pragmatic ethics, I think you’d really like that. Moral ecology and Piercean Real. — Mark Dennis

Pragmatism and utilitarianism are founded on what is useful, what works - so ‘what is good’ in the sense of what is useful. It leads to an ethic of reciprocal self-interest, rather than a sense of a true good, something good in its own right and of its own accord.

Interestingly, Peirce was not atheist (nor materialist). See his Evolutionary Love wherein he proclaims ‘agapē’ as a creative force (and distinguished from ‘tychism’, evolution by chance, and ‘anancastism’, evolution from mechanical necessity.)

If I can't help how I feel, how can I purposefully change it through introspection? — Artemis

I'm not saying anything about changing how you feel.

Your moral dispositions are "deep" or "gut-level" dispositions that may not be immediately obvious.

You can also have shallower feelings that may be reactionary and that are far more fleeting. For example, you might do something out of anger.

To know your moral view about something, you often have to engage in introspection, or what's sometimes called "hard" or "deep" thinking, where you're trying to intuit how you feel about something on a gut level.

Sometimes those gut-level feelings emerge naturally in the wake of something you or someone else did that you wind up regretting or resenting.

The reason that you bother, which is why you asked me, is that you can't help but have these sorts of states--the gut-level moral stances, for example. And most people are uncomfortable being inconsistent--so, for example, they might be uncomfortable with something they did out of anger, in a reactionary, fleeting moment, where that doesn't match their gut-level disposition about that sort of behavior.

Interesting. Where do these gut-level things come from?

They're rooted in genetics ultimately. As I said, they're built into our biology--it's a way our brains work, because we're a species where survival was aided by empathy, by having opinions about how other members of the species should and shouldn't be treated.

Environment influences them, too, though.

If they're rooted in genetics, two questions:

1. wouldn't that mean that we all probably have the same gut-level instincts ultimately with slight preference variations.

2. wouldn't that suggest that there is some objectively identifiable and justifiable reason/s for having those? Like, altruism is our gut-level preference because it's better for group survival, etc.

The question (one that I think virtue ethics tackles) is whether the flaws in these calculatory systems are not so massive as to render them less useful than intuition. — Isaac

I don't really see how it could possibly be less useful than intuition, since intuition is where you start from and then try to improve upon it. (E.g. "I think this ought not happen" [intuitively] "Why not?" [asking for reasons] "Because I suffer in this way when it happens." "Really? Let me see... oh yeah, that sucks. But if we do that other thing, I suffer in this way, see? So I don't think we should do that either." "Oh you're right, that's awful. Well what else can we do besides those two things that don't cause either of those problems?" etc...)

1. I don't see the benefit in asserting that the moral 'good' is satisfactory hedonic experiences. So many people would disagree and you get mired in an argument that can't be supported. Why not just say if you want to maximise satisfactory hedonic experience, then it seems empirically indicated that you should do X. Turning it into an if/then statement removes all the mess of the is/ought problem and, if you're right about most people's desires, would still resonate with the vast majority of people. — Isaac

It's not a matter of just asserting or defining that satisfactory hedonic experiences are goodness, which people will argue about for sure; it's that for something to be a satisfactory hedonic experience just is for it to seem good, in the same way that an empirical experience of something is for it to seem true. So we can completely sidestep the (IMO malformed*) question of whether that's "really" good, we're just trying to find a common ground of agreement to work from, so it's just a matter of getting people to have a common base of experiences that, they can all confirm for themselves, sure enough seem good or bad at least, and then from that common base working out what states of affairs avoid the experiences that seem bad and only leave ones that seem good (or minimize/maximize at least), and then the hard work of figuring out how to bring about those good(-seeming) states of affairs while avoiding bad(-seeming) ones.

*(Arguing about whether satisfactory hedonic experiences are "really good" seems akin to arguing about whether the world as it appears to empirical observation is "really real". Sure, mumble mumble evil demon philosophical nonsense, but at the end of the day what we're trying to do is to explain how the world that appears to us operates, to understand and predict it, so whether that appearance is "really real" is beside the point. Likewise, bracketing all philosophical mumbo jumbo about what's "really good", we're generally all concerned about avoiding suffering at least, so "does this hurt?" is good enough to work with for those purposes as "does this observation contradict the hypothesis?" does for the physical sciences. Any crazy people who think suffering is morally irrelevant are as dismissable as people who think observation has no bearing on reality).

2. I don't see anything there about judging hyperbolic discounting (future possible hedonic gains are worth less than current definate ones). — Isaac

I'm not sure what you mean here, you'll need to elaborate.

How does the direction of fit play a part(apply) in "One ought not literally beat oneself up over their failures"? — creativesoul

The "ought" part. It's what distinguishes the sentence from "One does not literally beat oneself up over their failures."

Both of those sentences are concerning the same state of affairs: someone beating themselves up over their failures.

One of them (the descriptive, "does" statement) compares that idea (of someone beating themselves up over their failures) to the world, and if they don't match (or "fit"), judges the idea wrong, in need of changing so that it fits the world.

The other (the prescriptive, "ought" statement) compares that idea (of someone beating themselves up over their failures) to the world, and if they don't match (or "fit"), judges the world wrong, in need of changing so that it fits the idea.

I don't really understand why something like "don't drown kittens in a burlap sack" would be either inaccurate or motivated by fear.

And an ethics where all maxims/codes/whatever you want to call them are inaccurate is not really an ethics per se. I'm not saying it's an indefensible position on that basis, just that it doesn't count as an ethics. Like atheism is not a form of theism. — Artemis

That’s a specific statement about very specific behaviour, that doesn’t even come close to an ethical principle. Why is it bad to drown kittens in a burlap sack? Does that make it okay to drown kittens in a plastic bag instead? What if I just put the kittens in the sack and give it someone else - I’m not doing anything wrong then, am I?

This is what I mean by inaccurate. If that statement is an ethical principle, then it’s a highly inaccurate account of the principle, isn’t it? Is there a statement of ethical principle, either positive or negative, that doesn’t require further explanation in terms of what is or is not acceptable?

Now we arrive at moral ecology which is the view that we have to manage our collective moral views as we would an ecosystem. There is some disagreement on moral ecology though, some think all views need to be represented and maintained while others (myself included) feel certain maladaptive and destructive moral views will always contribute to a negative moral judgement on humanity as a whole and don’t contribute to our survival, stability, security or moral progress. — Mark Dennis

Would you agree that ‘our survival, stability, security and moral progress’ constitutes an anthropocentric value system, rather than an attempt to approach an ‘objective good’?

Not to me. Reverence for life demands Biocentrism. It would be foolish to ignore the value of the non human parts of the biosphere in our own and their survival. Whether that is an Earth biosphere, the solar systems, galaxy or universe. Symbiosis with nature is a far safer state of affairs than behaving parasitically toward it.

That’s a specific statement about very specific behaviour, that doesn’t even come close to an ethical principle. — Possibility

How broad or narrow does a principle have to be to fit your definition thereof?

Why is it bad to drown kittens in a burlap sack? Does that make it okay to drown kittens in a plastic bag instead? What if I just put the kittens in the sack and give it someone else - I’m not doing anything wrong then, am I?

This is what I mean by inaccurate. If that statement is an ethical principle, then it’s a highly inaccurate account of the principle, isn’t it? Is there a statement of ethical principle, either positive or negative, that doesn’t require further explanation in terms of what is or is not acceptable? — Possibility

I think your definition of inaccurate is inaccurate. The wrongness of burlap sack drowning does not preclude the wrongness of plastic bag drowning. The wrongness of drowning does not preclude the rightness of giving them to a better home (though, please, don't carry kittens around in any kind of sack, even if you're giving them to a good home---that's still mean :(

Yet if it came down to choosing between a human life and, say, a shark, then under what circumstances might the shark be the priority?

We value ‘non human parts of the biosphere’, but only insofar as they are of benefit to human survival, stability, security, etc. As I’ve said before - we need to be honest about the limits of our ‘symbiosis’.

Reverence for life demands Biocentrism. It would be foolish to ignore the value of the non human parts of the biosphere in our own and their survival. Whether that is an Earth biosphere, the solar systems, galaxy or universe. Symbiosis with nature is a far safer state of affairs than behaving parasitically toward it. — Mark Dennis

Hey, look at that! More common ground :wink:

A few simple, common sense, defensible, and easily teachable ones...


What would happen if everyone acted like that?

Be helpful.

Do what's good for goodness sake. — creativesoul

Artemis, Tim Wood, Mark Dennis, et al, I still think you are misguided in thinking that there is an overriding, or underlying, or penetrating ethical principle.

Creativesoul just helped me illustrate this case. You all call ethical what's good. You all call ethical what reduces suffering. But I claim that you just gave a different name to "good deed".

That's A.

B. is that most ethical "good deeds" as I insist, is bad for some other people. Some case studies (thought experiments, not recounting of facts):

1. Claim: I am good because I give money to the poor. Therefore I am ethical.
counter-claim: you actually hinder the poor to find his own footing and help himself to a better life. You actually deprive the rich of more money than they could have if you gave your money to them, not to the poor. You actually deprive many other poor people because you gave your money to one poor person, callously ignoring the plight of the rest of the poor.

2. Claim: I am a factory owner. I believe in fair trade, and I pay my workers more than other factories do in my industry.
Counter-claim: you make your product incompetitive on the market, because with a same margin of profit, you have to charge a higher price for your products than your competitors do. Since you can't sell a comparative product at a higher price than your competitors' price, you go bankrupt and you have to let your entire work force go.

3. Claim: I am a soldier. I serve my country, its leaders, its people, and the women and innocent children, by fighting the enemy.
Counter-claim: you, as a soldier, kill people; spend a long time in training how to kill people. You deprive your country of the productive work you could be otherwise performing, which woudl benefit all. You fail to pay taxes. You are liable to torture enemy subjects, and to rape their women, when you think you can get away with it.

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Simply put: most good deeds are bad in one way or another. If ethics is defined as "good deeds for most", then the balance of good vs. bad would make almost all actions ethical, even those that we intuitive call unethical, because the good that society produces is more than the bad that society produces. If you disagree, and say that society produces more bad than good, then the balance would indicate that most deeds are unethical.

I think your definition of inaccurate is inaccurate. The wrongness of burlap sack drowning does not preclude the wrongness of plastic bag drowning. The wrongness of drowning does not preclude the rightness of giving them to a better home (though, please, don't carry kittens around in any kind of sack, even if you're giving them to a good home---that's still mean :( — Artemis

Exactly - as a statement of underlying ethical principles governing the behaviour, ‘don’t drown kittens in a burlap sack’ is inaccurate, due to its incompleteness. If you were trying to prevent someone from doing the wrong thing to a bunch of kittens, could you change the wording of the statement to ensure that when they do act with respect to kittens, they won’t end up doing something wrong anyway, even if they follow this ethical principle precisely as stated?

Let’s look at the Decalogue as an example: 10 do or don’t statements that were intended as ethical principles. And yet the moment they were employed as such, they required clarification, qualification and interpretation in practice, which then proceeded to fill several books of Law. The ethical principles behind the statements may have been understood at the time, but the statements themselves are inaccurate accounts of those underlying ethical principles.

The point I’m trying to make is that we can discuss ethical principles all day, and even approach an agreement ‘in principle’ on how we should behave towards one another in particular circumstances. But I don’t believe there are any written statements, maxims or codes that would accurately communicate these ethical principles to cover ALL possible circumstances.

Simply put: most good deeds are bad in one way or another. — god must be atheist

Correction, Simply put: ethics is more complicated than the naive early-Kantian maxims doctrine. Even Kant recognized that later in his career.

Note that by judging any of those scenarios good and then bad, you have to rely on underlying ethical judgments. All of your counterclaims tacitly imply that there exists an objective standard by which you could measure these actions somehow.

inaccurate, due to its incompleteness. — Possibility

By your logic: 2+2=4 is inaccurate because it does not tell us that 3+5=8.

Yet if it came down to choosing between a human life and, say, a shark, then under what circumstances might the shark be the priority? — Possibility

If the human were Trump :rofl:

The answer to the problem of different cultural ethical norms is simply that different cultures are (or were at some point in history) wrong about different things.

And anywhere in the world you find the same underlying principles to ethics: don't cause unnecessary suffering, for example. — Artemis

When you say something is wrong, it is a judgment, and judgments can be derived only by comparing a deed to a code, or by personal gut feelings.

I wish you to state the code of ethics, that universally seperates "wrong" ethics from "right" ethics. I don't want you to make up one; judgment by code USES and already defined code. What is this code, why is it undefeatable, by whose authority or by what logic is it absolute, that it may be used to judge some ethical decisions wrong, while others to be right?
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As if you had anticipated my question, you say "don't cause unnecessary suffering" is the ultimate code of ethics.

It is not found everywhere in the world. So it is not the code that you can derive universally from all behaviour. In fact, there are many cultures in the world that encourage behaviour, that calls for unprecedented unnecessary suffering. I claim that there are benefits to some participants in a society that view the same action as necessary suffering, while others view the very same suffering as unnecessary.