Okay I follow that. I seem to remember him having someone on the podcast with him saying that we can agree on that, but once we move away from the worst possible misery for everyone it becomes very convoluted as to were to go next. And that perhaps if we go one direction up a peak it may be that we have got to go back down if we are ever going to get to a higher peak. I think Sam felt like at this point our answers would be found in further understanding of the brain to see what really makes people happy and perhaps even altering the brain if the wrong thing makes them happy.

Maybe it shouldn't but that last part terrifies me.

I noticed I wasn't as far from your thought process as I thought when putting that up. I I think there is one difference. I think they believe the ideas because they felt they were true. Now feeling they are true can be enough I'm sure. However positing that there is no moral truth is more dangerous to me than it is to you. I don't think the feelings of something being bad go away, but the feeling of the feeling being true might. The feeling of something being true is what leads to action and on your view I think this is in jeopardy.

I'm trying to imagine a rally from someone with your view to end slavery.
Guys I don't feel good about the slaves. Do you feel good about the slaves? I didn't think so. Well I don't like feeling bad so let's go to war and kill a bunch of hicks, and some being our brothers and fathers so that we can make an America that is more preferable to our feelings.

I realize this is not charitable and slightly comical and I'm sure it won't make a point to you but it does in my mind.

The feeling of something being true is what leads to action and on your view I think this is in jeopardy. — Maximus

I believe that what leads to action is someone feeling strongly pro or con particular behaviors. The belief in moral principles being objective is just an ad hoc framework for understanding moral impulses, and it's one that I think is primarily influenced by socialization--it's a common belief that people express, and it has been for thousands of years. Folks simply assume in the wake of that that something they feel so strongly--strong enough that they'll intervene when it comes to others' actions, must not be coming from themselves. I don't think people would assume this if it weren't a widespread belief, however.

Guys I don't feel good about the slaves. Do you feel good about the slaves — Maximus

I'm neither saying nor advocating that anyone is going to use different language a la "slavery is wrong/evil/etc." The only difference is that I'm saying that "what's really going on" is simply something that is sourced in persons. It's not sourced in the world external to persons.

We are sort of circling at this point, but I feel it would be disingenuous of someone with your view to use language like wrong, and evil.

Well, because you're necessarily interpreting them to refer to the objectivist framework. I rather look at it as (a) talk stemming from normal talk about morality, but also (b) acknowledging what's really going on ontologically. (a) doesn't have to be concerned with ontology at all--(b) is really a metaethical issue. But we can just do ethics. That is, (a) can just get on with the business of whether certain things are good/bad/permissible/proscribable/obligatory/etc. with no worries about the ontological background so to speak. That's what we normally do when we talk about ethical issues in practical situations.

Somewhere I take issue with this view, as humans we have the capacity to empathise with others and we can understand each other to some extent. I find it detracts from our capacities if we only imply ethical guidelines in a behaviourist way. The idea of a morally autistic person bugs me.

I don't want to get into a big tangent about other minds and empathy, but I'm not suggesting that we only deal with morality from a behaviorist perspective. If I said something that implied that to you, I probably didn't write whatever it was carefully enough.

I'm kinda curious how such a tangent would pan out but perhaps another time.

You actually wrote very clearly, it's (again) the implications which follow out of that for me (bias).
They way you mentioned that you deal with questions about morality responsibly / like an adult is not completely obvious, would it be somewhat justified to say that you "value" morality?

What I'm trying to address sort of ties in with the "problem of absent moral agents" thread. It's also a very slippery slope to "force" idea's upon others yet it could be considered as such. People could be morally "weak" (please forgive the objectification, it only serves as an example) yet if they never break any laws there's little means to do anything about it aside from possible peer pressure "forcing" preferred behaviour (through social exclusion for example).

I do feel there can be some objective moral values and I would rather see them tied to the capacity of people to understand concepts then them being written down and put into practice as law. They way peer pressure works now is the mechanism how such moral values would come about but it's hard to expect people to "understand" what they're talking about instead of claiming moral superiority in advance.

I'm not trying to push my political agenda here but an example could be immigration of some Islamist people into secular states. Secular states have a clear divide between church and state while followers of Islam can be of the (strong) opinion that Sharia law is the only law that's supposed to count. Even if they move to a secular state not out of necessity but for a preference of the wealth, that's not amoral, we all have our self interests in mind. Freedom of religion is one thing but fundamentally disagreeing with the way the state in which they were given such rights is governed and having the freedom to espouse this view onto others... there's something not quite right there. Also if they have their self interest in mind, who are we to judge if they'd use democratic means to try and accomplish a means of governance which is opposed to a lot of the rights they're given to even undertake such an effort?

One could also criticize the way our monetary systems have forced a form of governance unto people who never had any say in the matter and, even though we might claim such a means of gaining material wealth will benefit everyone in the end, there's little (to my mind) ethical debate on this but individual morals are more and more starting to wonder if they agree with the moral / ethical repercussions of capitalism and it is the individual understanding and agreement which would be most potent in having an influence on the way capitalism applies itself globally.

There's a mechanism at work here where we appear to detract from the potency of this mechanism. (peer pressure combined with the human capacity for understanding ...or something like that...)
Not acknowledging how (un)conscious consent works in enabling things to grow out of hand (capitalism) or enabling a regress of moral values (religion). Failing to recognize this detracts from our human capacities in this point in time in my opinion, I feel it's more relevant to make people see this for themselves then discuss it meta-ethically. (Where meta-ethics could help a lot in clarifying what I'm saying).

By claiming that we must become slaves to either the compulsive or reflective desires you are limiting the scope of freedom. If we are freely choosing, in every case whether to follow compulsive desires or our own reflective (or intuitive) sense of what is right, then, in that moment of choice, we are not slaves to anything. Although in principle we may be said to freely choose compulsive desires, I would say that in practice there is no freedom in that, and that freedom only begins where we choose to go against being controlled by compulsive desire. I would say that the choice is not that between two alternative forms of slavery at all, but that between slavery and freedom.

would it be somewhat justified to say that you "value" morality? — Gooseone

Yes, of course I value it. I think that everyone does, really (that is, everyone with anything like a normally functioning brain, at least), whether they would be comfortable putting it in those terms or not. People care a lot about interpersonal behavior that they approve and disapprove of.

an example could be immigration of some Islamist people into secular states . . . — Gooseone

I'm extremely Libertarian/laissez-faire on stuff like that. I don't want to restrict who can live where. In fact, I'd completely get rid of immigration laws. What I'd do in a nutshell is simply make it so that folks live voluntarily under whatever limitations they'd like to live under. So a bunch of Muslims wanting to live under Sharia law can move wherever and do that--in a community with other people who voluntarily want to live under those limitations. I'd simply disallow trumping a constitution that prohibits legislative changes that would force someone to live under such limitations.

I'd also ideally change our socio-economic structure overall if I were king. I mention above that I'm extremely Libertarian/laissez-faire on issues like immigration, but overall, I actually call myself a "libertarian socialist" for want of a better term. Economically, I'm in favor of a very idiosyncratic socialist system (that also incorporates some libertarian principles).

Aside from that, I don't quite understand everything in your comment, but I suppose I get the gist of it.

It's just a little bit deeper than your thinking I think. And I don't mean that arrogantly. I I just think if we are being honest we don't chose either our reflective desires or our compulsive desires. It's the chosing of which we indulge in that I think is free. It takes a lot more work to indulge the reflective desires.

Those living under such a law in some sort of separate community would not likely want to keep to themselves.

If "we don't chose either our reflective desires or our compulsive desires" then we don't choose " which we indulge in", which means we are not free at all. I think you need to think a little deeper yourself, or else give a coherent account of the purported distinction between what you apparently think we don't choose and what you apparently think we do choose.

The desires are there. Each give some level of satisfaction when fulfilled. It's up to us which to fulfill because they often come in conflict.

You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
-Romans 6:18

I'm not Christian anymore, but I think that Paul was on to something.

OK, I think I get your distinction now. You are saying that we don't choose which particular compulsive and reflective desires are there.. I would say you are somewhat right about the compulsive desires and wrong about the reflective desires. Compulsive desire will weaken and even disappear if we do not strengthen them by indulging them; so to some extent we do choose what compulsive desires are there.. The "reflective desires" are not so much desires as dispositions that we have chosen, through our freely chosen reflections, to adopt or not to adopt. Having adopted a set of dispositions then we are faced with the task of acting on them rather than giving in to compulsive desires.

Aside from that, I don't quite understand everything in your comment, but I suppose I get the gist of it. — Terrapin Station

I was mainly trying to show how a difference / discrepancy between 'is' an 'ought' might show. Basically there are laws for the ought and there's peer pressure for the is. If there's a complete lack of understanding of any ought or there are many petty patronizing laws needed to make people act civil I think there's something wrong and I feel it's of no use to make "understanding" a legal obligation.

And concerning immigration laws, I live in the Netherlands, it's a small social welfare state with a pension fund based on solidarity (all employees are obliged to contribute to a pension fund and it works with a reserve as well as those working now paying for those retiring now, most European pension funds work without a reserve). If anyone would be able to come and get a free lunch (labour participation among immigrants is generally a lot lower then native inhabitants) there wouldn't be much left of the country quite fast.

Those living under such a law in some sort of separate community would not likely want to keep to themselves. — Maximus

Maybe not. But nevertheless, there would be a non-trumpable law in place, and a police/militaristic force in place to enforce it, that would disallow forcing others to live under other limitations like that which they have not voluntarily chosen to live under.