Nah, there's no lack of moral certainty among secularists. [...] Being certain that you are right is more related to character than anything else. — SophistiCat

Up to a point, yes. However, by its nature, secular morality allows for challenge. Morality derived from the divine does not and this, I would argue, is what makes it attractive; in fact, especially attractive to the character you mention.

I felt the need to create this tread as a reaction or continuation to some of the recent discussion on morality, and specifically the anscombe thread.

So the problem secular morality faces, is, I think, that it is the successor of religious moralities where morality was founded in metaphysics, with God as the pinacle of that metaphysics. Every tradition not only had it's prescriptive rules, but also it 'discriptive' myth where the morality flowed from. Now this is important I think, not only did they say "you have to do this because God says so", they invariably embedded it in a story so people would buy into it more readily. So the purpose to all of this, is to give a morality authority. You need to follow it because it's true.

Now historically, christianity, with it's valuation of truthfullness, was involuntarily the germ from which the scientic method sprung. Faith in God wasn't enough anymore, God needed to be proven with reason, just to be sure. In came Hume who was fed up with spastic scolastic attempts to prove God, and he showed that ought didn't follow from is. (as an aside, he meant this only as a rebutal of direct logical deduction of ought from is, as rationalist were prone to do in his time. I don't think this implies that 'was is' can't have an effect on 'what should be').

So as scientific thinking progresses, what we end up with is a morality that had lost it's foundation. Kant, allegedly awoken from his slumber, thought he could step in and save to day by subsitituting God with pure reason. Apparently he was only half-awake though, as he didn't notice that God was indeed dead.

What this all means, I think, is that we need to bite the bullet, and reconcile with the fact that morality isn't and can't be true or false. Because what is even worse than a mere lack of Godly authority, is lying to people about the origins of morality and people finding out. And people will find out any new attempts at founding morality in made-up metaphysics because, by now, a scientific mindset is ingrained. But but... what are we to do then, we cannot accept the conclusion that anything goes. Surely relativism is even worse then lying to people? Well no, because if people find out, you end up not only with relativism, but with a relativism of the rebelious kind.

From an atheistic perspective one has to wonder how non-existing Gods managed to come up with reasonably functioning moralities through-out history. People did all of that even then, so surely it should be possible to do something like that now, content-wise. I'd argue we can do a lot better, because for the first time in history, we actually start to 'know' some things about the world. As to the question of how we are going to imbue those moralities with the necessary authority? Same as we allways did, we discuss these things with other people, come to some agreements and found institutions that can settle disputes if need be... this is basicly social contract-theory. The authority is in the morality being supported by the community.

And eventhough these are 'merely' created moralities, and so not true in any objective sense, I'm not all that worried of relativism. There's enough convergence in what people want - certainly now that we will have a progressively better understanding of humanity - that it will mostly end up in something that works fine if people are educated in and accustomed to the idea of it. — ChatteringMonkey

Perhaps, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle is a better place to start a discussion of secular morality. Cicero studied in Athens and I think he made an important contribution to our understanding of why we are moral and why our judgment is sometimes wrong. Daniel Webster wrote "Education, to accomplish the ends of good government, should be universally diffused." I think our liberty and democracy depends on such education.

Individual people disagreeing is not the whole story though. People do disagree, all the time, but if they want to be part of a moral community they have to accept that the group can come to a different agreement about a particular matter. The way those disagreements get settled is the group coming to an agreement, by whatever process that is. — ChatteringMonkey

The gods argued until there was a consensus on the best reasoning and democracy is an imitation of the gods. Ideally, we argue until we have a consensus on the best reasoning.

The objectivity could be said to be in the deduction from subjective desires and preferences. The axioms in the system you describe would be subjective, which means the foundations of every conclusion, thus moral idea, would be subjective also. The process of deriving a universal morality might have much that is objective in it. IOW if we generally agree we don't want children harmed, we can from that vague axiom derive logically certain conclusions (not that humans will ever agree on these but hypothetically). Still the axiom, hence the entire morality, has a subjective foundation and is subjective, if universal in this hypothesis. — Coben

I think there's a general tendency to look down on subjectivity; it's seen as an impediment to its favored counterpart objectivity which is taken to be the infallible path to truths. I have no issue with this view if it means that our minds are riddled with biases that lead us astray and so need to be detected and eliminated. In short subjectivity is a problem if it interferes with logic by way of letting our biases influence us. It's a common practice to include emotions under the banner of subjectivity and logicians even single them out as pitfalls to clear thinking. No issue there at all.

That said, the subjectivity you refer to is a different animal altogether. Morality is intimately linked to emotions: happiness and sorrow, the very essence of morality in that it attempts to promote the former and mitigate/eliminate the latter anyway you look at it, are emotions. It would be rather inconvenient then to try and achieve total objectivity in morality if by that we mean purging all emotions from morality; it would be like trying to understand math without numbers.

The fact that morality is subjective can't be helped but the nature of morality, with complete recognition of its subjectivity, can be studied objectively and what have we discovered doing so? Simply that morality's subjectivity, roughly our emotions , are now converging to some very specific moral norms and this is happening despite variations in social, cultural, economic, etc. conditions. This is the objectivity that I feel is relevant here.

Mind dependant or mind independent is how the distinction is typically used.

There is convergence in what people want. But what people want isn't morality yet. I think there are different ways moralities get created, but because people generally want the same things, there will be a lot of similarities usually. This was meant merely to counter the often made point about relativism... and how it leads to anything goes, if we can have no truth about the matter. It doesn't, because people agree about certain things.

To be clear, I specifically don't want to derive a universal set of moral tenents from consensus between moral traditions. I think that quest for universality or objectivity is precisely where it often went wrong in philosophy. — ChatteringMonkey

What do you make of my reply to @Coben

I think there's a general tendency to look down on subjectivity; — TheMadFool

Not on my part. But I did want to point out what would be subjective and what is subjective. Subjectiviity is the best part of my life. Not relevent in you case since you were speaking in general, but often I notice how this or that is sold as objectivity as a power move. Some of the most subjective and unempathic forces out there claim objectivity as a way to try to get others to back down. I gots no problem with subjectivity. Amongst other things, accepting my own, helps me suss out these power mad fools who are happily destroying the planet and our souls.
Now that sounds like I am taking an objective moral stand, at least potentially. But in fact, I just have a strong affection for this planet and life, so I dislike what they are doing. Further I see what they are doing is as painting their choses processes and goals as objective, when it is just a bunch of people with their preferences.

And by what standard, pray tell, do you judge the reliability of your system of morality? — SophistiCat

Short answer: Same way I judge the reliability of science.

Long answer is about 80,000 words if you care to read it. You could start here for just the objectivity part or the last section of this for a general overview.

I very much agree with Coben. Subjectivity is not a pejorative in my book. I also feel like objectivity is often invoked more as a rhetorical tool than an accurate description. That's why I allways tend to side on the morality is subjective side of things, like in this thread... although I do realise it's not only subjective. I guess it's a question of where I think the emphasis needs to be put on.

And by what standard, pray tell, do you judge the reliability of your system of morality?
— SophistiCat

Short answer: Same way I judge the reliability of science. — Pfhorrest

The issue being the fact that the reliability of science is based on quantitative analysis, whereas qualitative factors are intrinsic to moral principles.

A paragraph from your Against Nihilism essay:

I propose the construction of models of reality and morality that are consistent with all such experiences, whatever complicated models may be necessary to account for all of them, and regardless of the agreement of those models with anyone's thoughts or feelings on the matter, only accounting for their experiences. An old parable nicely illustrates the principle I mean to employ here, wherein three blind men each feel different parts of an elephant (the trunk, a leg, the tail), and each concludes that he is feeling something different (a snake, a tree, a rope). All three of them are wrong about what they perceive, but the truth of the matter, that they are feeling parts of an elephant, is consistent with what all three of them sense, even though the perceptions they draw from those sensations are mutually contradictory.

Interestingly, that parable is retold in different Indian religions, Hindu, Jain and Buddhist. It is, as you say, a parable for a partial knowledge, or the kind of knowledge that can't perceive the whole; in each case, the subject says something that is true as far as it goes but cannot see the whole 'elephant'. But implicit in that parable is the belief that the sage is someone who 'sees the whole'. I suppose you could dub that capacity something like the 'unitive vision' which is most often associated with mystical lore.

Well, I didn't mean to say you think/claim that subjectivity is bad in any way for morality but you replied to my claim that moral convergence among various moral traditions was an indication that morality is objective by saying that morality is subjective as if to say that that precluded any objectivity on the issue. It doesn't matter as I may have read too much into your words. You replying to my point with the subjective comment didn't help.

The issue being the fact that the reliability of science is based on quantitative analysis, whereas qualitative factors are intrinsic to moral principles. — Wayfarer

Science is based on “subjective” first-person experiences just as much as my ethical system is. We compare and quantify aspects of those experiences in the building of our models of reality, and there is no reason in principle we cannot do the same for our models of morality.

But implicit in that parable is the belief that the sage is someone who 'sees the whole'. — Wayfarer

What is a sage but a wise man? What is wisdom but the ability to discern truths from falsehoods? What is a scientific method but a means to such ability? Scientists are modern sages, and what I am proposing is an ethical analogue of the usual physical sciences.

The important thing I draw from that parable is the difference between experiences and interpretations. The three men judge based only on their own immediate interpretations of their own experiences. The “sage”, or scientist, searches for some possible interpretation of all of their experiences combined. And then keeps searching for more experiences to test that interpretation against, and new interpretations as necessary to account for those experiences, forever.

Well, I didn't mean to say you think/claim that subjectivity is bad in any way for morality but you replied to my claim that moral convergence among various moral traditions was an indication that morality is objective by saying that morality is subjective as if to say that that precluded any objectivity on the issue. — TheMadFool

I did specifically mention that one can work with objectivity once one has subjective axioms. So I acknowledged that facets of working out a morality can be objective. But this does not mean that the conclusions (or moral rules) are objective. The sum of the process is still a set of rules that are subjective. Say, we all decide that violence is bad. WE don't like it. Then we can turn to science and parenting studies, etc. to see if there are ways to reduce violence. And then we come up with some moral guidelines. Like say corporal punishment has been shown to lead to violence, so we now want to stop corporal punishment.

But none of this would show that corporal punishment (or any violence is bad) because the foundation is subjective.

I am not saying this makes such investigations a waste of time at all, or anything of the sort. But even with objective elements in the process of working out morals, we still end up with subjective morals. But if we all agree, this doesn't matter, since we would now have a system that meets our collective subjective desires. It just wouldn't be objective morals.

I did specifically mention that one can work with objectivity once one has subjective axioms. So I acknowledged that facets of working out a morality can be objective. But this does not mean that the conclusions (or moral rules) are objective. The sum of the process is still a set of rules that are subjective. Say, we all decide that violence is bad. WE don't like it. Then we can turn to science and parenting studies, etc. to see if there are ways to reduce violence. And then we come up with some moral guidelines. Like say corporal punishment has been shown to lead to violence, so we now want to stop corporal punishment.

But none of this would show that corporal punishment (or any violence is bad) because the foundation is subjective.

I am not saying this makes such investigations a waste of time at all, or anything of the sort. But even with objective elements in the process of working out morals, we still end up with subjective morals. But if we all agree, this doesn't matter, since we would now have a system that meets our collective subjective desires. It just wouldn't be objective morals. — Coben

I agree but morality is subjective for it concerns happiness and joy and these are emotions, subjective. You can't hold numbers against math; math is numbers. We can try and understand what makes us happy and what makes us sad and build the edifice of morality from there using objective rationality. I daresay we agree on the last sentence.

Up to a point, yes. However, by its nature, secular morality allows for challenge. — Txastopher

The flexibility and openness to change of secular moral systems can vary as much as the flexibility of and openness of religious systems (which vary a good deal). But ultimately systems are only as open and as flexible as their users.

That god has been successfully ejected from morality, to say nothing of the fact that god never really figured in it as explained above, doesn't imply that there are no moral truths. — ChatteringMonkey

OK, good. I did a trace back through our posts and I think it was your use of the phrase 'moral truths' coupled with the mentioning of objective processes in determining morals, that led me to believe you were saying something opposed to that last sentence.

Science is based on “subjective” first-person experiences just as much as my ethical system is — Pfhorrest

That is not so. Note this article in Aeon magazine (subject of a rather acrimonious debate here last June). The point of this criticism is precisely that until now, science has excluded the subjective from consideration, which is one of the basic tenets of 'objectivism'. You can't simply appropriate the subjective as part of scientific method, when, until such criticism as these came along - and they're recent and still highly controversial - it was always assumed, and still is widely assumed, that science is exclusively concerned with the domain of the objectively measurable. The whole point of having agreed measures, peer review, and so on, is to screen out the subjective elements to purportedly arrive at what Thomas Nagel describes in his book about exactly this point, 'the view from nowhere'.

What is a sage but a wise man? What is wisdom but the ability to discern truths from falsehoods? What is a scientific method but a means to such ability? Scientists are modern sages, and what I am proposing is an ethical analogue of the usual physical sciences. — Pfhorrest

Which is still based in physicalism, the notion that the physical domain and its analysis by science is the yardstick of what is real. Modern scientific method, starting with Galileo and Newton, certainly grew out of the tradition which venerated sagacity, and indeed is an attempt to arrive at the unitive vision in a disciplined way. But it is the implicit bracketing out of the subjective which makes it radically different from the quality of sagacity as understood in the earlier, and broader, philosophical tradition. I've read all your essays, and I can't see any indication of an appreciation of that quality (which is not to claim that I possess it, but I believe I can identify philosophical sources of it.)

The whole point of having agreed measures, peer review, and so on, is to screen out the subjective elements — Wayfarer

Yes, but you’re still building that objective view out of subjective views. Nobody can get outside their own first-person perspective; but we can build models that account for many first-person perspectives simultaneously. Nobody can have a truly third-person perspective on everything, but they can filter out and control for their own biases and so approach one arbitrary closely. Whether investigating reality or morality.

But it is the implicit bracketing out of the subjective which makes it radically different from the quality of sagacity as understood in the earlier, and broader, philosophical tradition. — Wayfarer

It is the bracketing out of the subjective that drives progress toward more universal truth. It’s just the elimination of bias, the concession to other points of view, the willingness to admit to being wrong and move on to try to find something less wrong, together. Objectivity isn’t about saying that nobody’s subjective experience matters, it’s about saying that everybody’s subjective experience matters equally, and looking for some way to reconcile all of them together.

bjectivity isn’t about saying that nobody’s subjective experience matters, it’s about saying that everybody’s subjective experience matters equally, and looking for some way to reconcile all of them together. — Pfhorrest

Fair point, and I agree - but that is not how it works out it practice. Because of the emphasis on quantitative judgement, then there are fundamental aspects of subjectivity, or should I say subject-hood, that are excluded from consideration by scientific analysis.

And looking at the state of scientific cosmology and physics at this point in history, I think it's impossible to argue that they're tending towards a view of the cosmos as an ordered whole. (I mean, now it's not a matter of 'seeing the whole elephant', but of seeing 10⁵⁰⁰ elephants.)

Furthermore the tendency of evolutionary accounts of human nature tends to marginalise the significance of first-person experience - that is the source of the arguments about the hard problem of consciousness.

The philosophies that agree on the significance of the first-person account are for example phenomenology and the significance of embodiment - but these are of pretty recent vintage. For example, Varela and Maturana's Embodied Cognition was published in the early 1990's; thankfully we've seen the effect of these perspectives percolating through culture since.

Nobody can get outside their own first-person perspective; — Pfhorrest

That is something that many philosophers of science wouldn't agree with. Einstein, for example, would never agree with such a statement. So even though I agree with your analysis of it, your analysis does not represent the mainstream in this matter.

In a sense, ''The View From Nowhere'' is about a single problem - how to combine the perspective of a particular person inside the world with an objective view of the same world, including the person himself. But because this internal-external tension pervades human life, Thomas Nagel is able by studying it to cast light on four of the supreme topics of philosophy - the metaphysics of mind, the theory of knowledge, the possibility of free will and the nature of ethics.

We cannot help viewing things from a particular standpoint; all our inquiries and all our strivings must start from where we are, each of us at a tiny point in a vast world we hardly begin to understand. Yet any progress in knowledge, any worthwhile achievement, depends on our attempts to transcend our particular viewpoint and develop an expanded consciousness that takes in the world more fully. Mr. Nagel shows how this thesis applies to values and attitudes just as much as to beliefs and theories.

NY Times review

Objectivity isn’t about saying that nobody’s subjective experience matters, it’s about saying that everybody’s subjective experience matters equally, and looking for some way to reconcile all of them together. — Pfhorrest

This deserves more discussion, especially in regard to the question of values - which is where we started.

The point is that the 'objectively measurable' is not subject to opinion, in the way that ethical and moral judgements are held to be. This, of course, is one of the implications of David Hume's observation about the 'is/ought' problem, which I will presume you're familiar with. It is that statements about 'what is' and 'what ought to be' are of a different order.

The problem in respect of secular culture is this. We can all agree on what is ascertainable by science - with 'what is' - but that doesn't necessarily cast any light on questions of morality - 'what we ought to do'. This tends to lead to subjectivism and relativism, which, you say, ought to be rejected.

There's an illuminating article which describes Theodore Adorno's analysis of nihilism:

Adorno argues that morality has fallen victim to the distinction drawn between objective and subjective knowledge. Objective knowledge consists of empirically verifiable ‘facts’ about material phenomena, whereas subjective knowledge consists of all that remains, including such things as evaluative and normative statements about the world. On this view, a statement such as ‘I am sitting at a desk as I write this essay’ is of a different category to the statement ‘abortion is morally wrong’. The first statement is amenable to empirical verification, whereas the latter is an expression of a personal, subjective belief.

Adorno argues that moral beliefs and moral reasoning have been confined to the sphere of subjective knowledge. He argues that, under the force of the instrumentalization of reason and positivism, we have come to conceive of the only meaningfully existing entities as empirically verifiable facts: statements on the structure and content of reality. Moral values and beliefs, in contrast, are denied such a status. Morality is thereby conceived of as inherently prejudicial in character so that, for example, there appears to be no way in which one can objectively and rationally resolve disputes between conflicting substantive moral beliefs and values. Under the condition of nihilism one cannot distinguish between more or less valid moral beliefs and values since the criteria allowing for such evaluative distinctions have been excluded from the domain of subjective knowledge.

The way this manifests in contemporary culture is the notion that the facts of science are what are in the public domain, while ethical judgements and values are an individual, and therefore private, matter. This underlies a lot of the tension in debates about moral realism; the feeling generally is that moral realism is connected to, or a relic of, religious ideology and is therefore oppressive or reactionary.

Accordingly, in secular culture, there's the usually implicit notion that the real world is the world described by the sciences, which is what remains when the accretions of religious dogma have been removed.

Which is what, I think, you're saying.

OK, good. I did a trace back through our posts and I think it was your use of the phrase 'moral truths' coupled with the mentioning of objective processes in determining morals, that led me to believe you were saying something opposed to that last sentence. — Coben

Can we discuss the meaning of subjectivity? @ChatteringMonkey offers the following definition:

Mind dependant (subjective) or mind independent (objective) is how the distinction is typically used. — ChatteringMonkey

and the lexical definition is "based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions,".

Do the definitions above conflict with my belief that there are moral truths, here being interpreted as those moral tenets arising from the simple fact that we all share a great deal when it comes to emotions, especially happiness and sorrow, which form the foundation of morality?

In this discussion of morality, the definition of subjectivity that I'm concerned about is the one that asserts that morality is opinion, feelings, taste and hence doesn't lead to objective moral truths. As I said before even if morality is about personal feelings, so subjective, the causal patterns in re these feelings are sufficiently generalizable, i.e. the causes of happiness and sorrow seem to be similar for all people irrespective of cultural, social, economic, variations, that it allows us to be rational about what must follow thereof; in other words, we can be objective about what sort of moral theory is consistent with, morality's essence, our feelings. For example, there's a universal dislike for murder - we feel offended by it - and this can be the basis of the objective moral truth thou shalt not kill.

The point is that the 'objectively measurable' is not subject to opinion, in the way that ethical and moral judgements are held to be. — Wayfarer

My point is that ethical and moral judgements are wrongly held to be not "objectively measurable", and that the same kind of processes by which we tease out an objective picture of reality from our subjective empirical experiences can be used to tease out an objective picture of morality from a different kind of subjective experience, the hedonic kind. That it is a false dichotomy to say that morality must either be ascertained by appeals to religious faith (or secular laws, which I hold to be formally the same kind of thing), or else left to relativistic matters of mere opinion.

The "is" and the "ought" are separate, but differ only in direction of fit, and can otherwise be treated in perfectly analogous ways. You say you've read all of my essays, so you should know my take on this already, and I think I quoted the summary of it earlier, but here it is again just in case:

When it comes to tackling questions about reality, pursuing knowledge, we should not take some census or survey of people's beliefs or perceptions, and either try to figure out how all those could all be held at once without conflict, or else (because that likely will not be possible) just declare that whatever the majority, or some privileged authority, believes or perceives is true. Instead, we should appeal to everyone's direct sensations or observations, free from any interpretation into perceptions or beliefs yet, and compare and contrast the empirical experiences of different people in different circumstances to come to a common ground on what experiences there are that need satisfying in order for a belief to be true. Then we should devise models, or theories, that purport to satisfy all those experiences, and test them against further experiences, rejecting those that fail to satisfy any of them, and selecting the simplest, most efficient of those that remain as what we tentatively hold to be true. This entire process should be carried out in an organized, collaborative, but intrinsically non-authoritarian academic structure.

When it comes to tackling questions about morality, pursuing justice, we should not take some census or survey of people's intentions or desires, and either try to figure out how all those could all be held at once without conflict, or else (because that likely will not be possible) just declare that whatever the majority, or some privileged authority, intends or desires is good. Instead, we should appeal to everyone's direct appetites, free from any interpretation into desires or intentions yet, and compare and contrast the hedonic experiences of different people in different circumstances to come to a common ground on what experiences there are that need satisfying in order for an intention to be good. Then we should devise models, or strategies, that purport to satisfy all those experiences, and test them against further experiences, rejecting those that fail to satisfy any of them, and selecting the simplest, most efficient of those that remain as what we tentatively hold to be good. This entire process should be carried out in an organized, collaborative, but intrinsically non-authoritarian political structure. — The Codex Quaerentis: A Note On Ethics

My point is that ethical and moral judgements are wrongly held to be not "objectively measurable", and that the same kind of processes by which we tease out an objective picture of reality from our subjective empirical experiences can be used to tease out an objective picture of morality from a different kind of subjective experience, the hedonic kind. — Pfhorrest

So you're saying that the basis of moral and ethical judgement is necessarily connected with pleasure? I think your model amounts to a kind of hedonic utilitarianism - trying to ascertain the average of what people feel pleasure in (or purport to). In other words, trying to democratize the process of ascertaining values on the basis that an average of what people think pleasurable will amount to an ethical norm.

But it's possible for whole societies to fall under the spell of delusion, so that 'the people' might take pleasure in what other cultures would see as obvious evils - for example the last days of the Roman empire. Hell there are good arguments that large populations in contemporary culture suffer as a consequence of hedonism. I don't think it amounts to an ethical philosophy.

I suppose, to be blunt about it, I am arguing for some form of moral realism - that at least some religious, spiritual or philosophical schools genuinely discern a higher good, which is not simply an hedonic good.

I think your model amounts to a kind of hedonic utilitarianism — Wayfarer

There are similarities, but also a lot of sophisticated differences, that make all of the difference. Most of this was covered in the bit of my Codex I quoted in my last post.

The most important one is the difference between desires and appetites, analogous to the difference between perceptions and sensations. The physical sciences doen't work off of what people perceive, because perception is post-interpretation. They go off of pre-interpretation sensations, or observations. Likewise, the ethical sciences need to work off of appetites, not desires. It doesn't matter what someone wants or doesn't want, it matters what actually feels good or bad to them.

This is the blind men and the elephant thing: it doesn't matter that blind man #3 thinks what he's feeling is a rope, all that matters is that the full picture accounts for what he actually feels, and if an elephant's tail feels the same as a rope, then an elephant accounts for what he feels perfectly well, even if he's really sure that it's a rope and not an elephant and that those guys who think they're touching a snake and a tree are just dumb and should be ignored because it's obviously a rope.

Relatedly, there's a difference between self-reports and replicability. The physical sciences don't just ask people what they saw and take their word for it, they ask for the full circumstances in which they saw it, and then have others stand in those circumstances themselves to check if they see the same thing too. Likewise, the ethical sciences need to be based on replicable experiences, not just self-reports.

Between those two things, we're not just asking people what they want, but verifying what they feel, and looking for things that avoid making people feel bad.

Also, unlike utilitarianism, and like the physical sciences, there's no majoritarian balancing going on here. Every replicable hedonic experience is a bit of "evidence" that must be accounted for in a complete moral account. You can't just say one course of action brings pleasure to a majority and pain only to a minority and so it is good. That's less bad than the other way around, sure, but it's still bad. The physical sciences don't just disregard evidence that doesn't fit with a theory that fits most of the other evidence. Every replicable observation has to be accounted for. Ethical sciences need to work the same way.

Relatedly, unlike utilitarianism, my system is anti-consequentialist. I'm getting tired of retyping things I've already written extensively about so I'm just going to quote myself again (the same essay I quoted earlier, different part):

The primary divide within normative ethics is between consequentialist (or teleological) models, which hold that acts are good or bad only on account of the consequences that they bring about, and deontological models, which hold that acts are good or bad in and of themselves and the consequences of them cannot change that. The decision between them is precisely the decision as to whether the ends justify the means, with consequentialist models saying yes they do, and deontological theories saying no they don't. I hold that that is a strictly speaking false dilemma, between the two types of normative ethical model, although the strict answer I would give to whether the ends justify the means is "no". But that is because I view the separation of ends and means as itself a false dilemma, in that every means is itself an end, and every end is a means to something more. This is similar to how the views on ontology and epistemology I have already detailed in previous essays entail a kind of direct realism in which there is no real distinction between representations of reality and reality itself, there is only the incomplete but direct comprehension of small parts of reality that we have, distinguished from the completeness of reality itself that is always at least partially beyond our comprehension. We aren't trying to figure out what is really real from possibly-fallible representations of reality, we're undertaking a fallible process of trying to piece together our direct sensation of small bits of reality and extrapolate the rest of it from them. Likewise, to behave morally, we aren't just aiming to use possibly-fallible means to indirectly achieve some ends, we're undertaking a process of directly causing ends with each and every behavior, and fallibly attempting to piece all of those together into a greater good.

Perhaps more clearly than that analogy, the dissolution of the dichotomy between ends and means that I mean to articulate here is like how a sound argument cannot merely be a valid argument, and cannot merely have true conclusions, but it must be valid — every step of the argument must be a justified inference from previous ones — and it must have a true conclusion, which requires also that it begin from true premises. If a valid argument leads to a false conclusion, that tells you that the premises of the argument must have been false, because by definition valid inferences from true premises must lead to true conclusions; that's what makes them valid. If the premises were true and the inferences in the argument still lead to a false conclusion, that tells you that the inferences were not valid. But likewise, if an invalid argument happens to have a true conclusion, that's no credit to the argument; the conclusion is true, sure, but the argument is still a bad one, invalid. I hold that a similar relationship holds between means and ends: means are like inferences, the steps you take to reach an end, which is like a conclusion. Just means must be "good-preserving" in the same way that valid inferences are truth-preserving: just means exercised out of good prior circumstances definitionally must lead to good consequences; just means must introduce no badness, or as Hippocrates wrote in his famous physicians' oath, they must "first, do no harm". If something bad happens as a consequence of some means, then that tells you either that something about those means were unjust, or that there was something already bad in the prior circumstances that those means simply have not alleviated (which failure to alleviate does not make them therefore unjust). But likewise, if something good happens as a consequence of unjust means, that's no credit to those means; the consequences are good, sure, but the means are still bad ones, unjust. Moral action requires using just means to achieve good ends, and if either of those is neglected, morality has been failed; bad consequences of genuinely just actions means some preexisting badness has still yet to be addressed (or else is a sign that the actions were not genuinely just), and good consequences of unjust actions do not thereby justify those actions.

Consequentialist models of normative ethics concern themselves primarily with defining what is a good state of affairs, and then say that bringing about those states of affairs is what defines a good action. Deontological models of normative ethics concern themselves primarily with defining what makes an action itself intrinsically good, or just, regardless of further consequences of the action. I think that these are both important questions, and they are the moral analogues to questions about ontology and epistemology: fields that I call teleology (from the the Greek "telos" meaning "end" or "purpose"), which is about the objects (in the sense of "goals" or "aims") of morality, like ontology is about the objects of reality; and deontology (from the Greek "deon" meaning "duty"), which is about how to pursue morality, like epistemology is about how to pursue reality. — The Codex Quarentis: A Note On Ethics

the ethical sciences need to work off of appetites, not desires. It doesn't matter what someone wants or doesn't want, it matters what actually feels good or bad to them. — Pfhorrest

As I said, I think appetites are altogether too limited a foundation for an ethical philosophy.

Do the definitions above conflict with my belief that there are moral truths, here being interpreted as those moral tenets arising from the simple fact that we all share a great deal when it comes to emotions, especially happiness and sorrow, which form the foundation of morality? — TheMadFool

I think it is better to say universal morals. Your sense of what you mean may be fine, but moral truths sound like objective things, to me at least. Or one could work from your verb converge, to converged morals, since we are not likely to have universal morals any time soon.

For example, there's a universal dislike for murder - we feel offended by it - and this can be the basis of the objective moral truth thou shalt not kill. — TheMadFool

Sure, but there are so many definitions of murder, what is a wrongful killing and I think, at this point in history at least, we are making a huge assumption that really, deep down, we all want the same thing. Different cultures AND different individuals inside single cultures have a different sense of what makes a killing OK. We also have deontologist and consequentialist divides. IOW when killing someone who is not directly guilty is allowed, for example. Like in bombing even military targets when some civilians will or may get killed. And then honor killings, or total quaker pacifists, or home as castle justifiable killing for thief break-ins versus cultures that require even escalated responses, and much more. And these are not going to be resolved by logic, because I think at base they are based on fundamental differences in worldview AND temperment. Maybe deep down we really all want the same thing, but it's a maybe. And right now we are dealing with intractable splits in many areas. It looks like we all don't like murder, but actually that is based on the equivocation that the word 'murder' represents. It means radically different things to different people and that's not even bringing in vegans.

As I said, I think appetites are altogether too limited a foundation for an ethical philosophy. — Wayfarer

What you said upthread sounded like you were talking about desires more than appetites. "An average of what people think pleasurable" (what they think, not what actually is), "the spell of delusion" (delusion being false belief), "what other cultures would see as obvious evils" (as in what they think or believe is evil, not something that actually inflicts suffering on them), "suffer as a consequence of hedonism" (a blatant contradiction, as hedonism is all about avoiding and reversing suffering).

I get the impression that you're picturing people eating, drinking, fucking, doing drugs, etc, all wantonly, while laying about and neglecting to plan for their future, neglecting to think or introspect, to appreciate more subtle intellectual or "spiritual" goods. That is the colloquial way "hedonism" gets used, sure. But that's not what philosophical hedonism is. Someone looking to maximize pleasure and minimize suffering for themselves and everyone else needs to be restrained, pragmatic, thoughtful, etc. Just like someone who wants to be rich and have lots of money to spend needs to be frugal and budget and not waste their money.

The reason why over-indulging in short-term pleasures and neglecting that restrained, pragmatic, thoughtful living is bad is because it results in longer-term suffering; where suffering is a negative hedonic experience. Even Stoic and Buddhist practices aimed at minimizing suffering through changing the way you think about things are still aiming for a hedonic good, the minimization of suffering.

Indeed there are differences among moral traditions - what is clearly murder in one culture may be defending the honor of the family in another. However, as far as I know, killing an innocent defenseless person is murder in all cultures. It's this type of convergence I refer to - very basic intuitions or even well thought out positions. I suggest not to mistake the diversity for a lack of unity.

I get the impression that you're picturing people eating, drinking, fucking, doing drugs, etc, all wantonly, while laying about and neglecting to plan for their future, neglecting to think or introspect, to appreciate more subtle intellectual or "spiritual" goods. — Pfhorrest

Whoever does that? We all know the citizens of our advanced economies are almost without exception dedicated to self-improvement, edifying spiritual and cultural pursuits, and the abandonment of hedonistic desires in pursuit of the greater good. (God knows I have never been able to live according to that standard.)

Someone looking to maximize pleasure and minimize suffering for themselves and everyone else needs to be restrained, pragmatic, thoughtful, etc — Pfhorrest

Like Epicurus, in other words.

Even Stoic and Buddhist practices aimed at minimizing suffering through changing the way you think about things are still aiming for a hedonic good, the minimization of suffering. — Pfhorrest

Buddhism aims at the eradication of suffering, the complete going beyond of it.

Buddhism has sometimes been called an atheistic teaching, either in an approving sense by freethinkers and rationalists, or in a derogatory sense by people of theistic persuasion. Only in one way can Buddhism be described as atheistic, namely, in so far as it denies the existence of an eternal, omnipotent God or godhead who is the creator and ordainer of the world. The word "atheism," however, like the word "godless," frequently carries a number of disparaging overtones or implications, which in no way apply to the Buddha's teaching.

Those who use the word "atheism" often associate it with a materialistic doctrine that knows nothing higher than this world of the senses and the slight happiness it can bestow. Buddhism is nothing of that sort. In this respect it agrees with the teachings of other religions, that true lasting happiness cannot be found in this world; nor, the Buddha adds, can it be found on any higher plane of existence, conceived as a heavenly or divine world, since all planes of existence are impermanent and thus incapable of giving lasting bliss. The spiritual values advocated by Buddhism are directed, not towards a new life in some higher world, but towards a state utterly transcending the world, namely, Nibbana. — Nyanoponika Thera

Buddhism and the God Idea

Whoever does that? We all know the citizens of our advanced economies are almost without exception dedicated to self-improvement, edifying spiritual and cultural pursuits, and the abandonment of hedonistic desires in pursuit of the greater good. (God knows I have never been able to live according to that standard.) — Wayfarer

I sense sarcasm here but I'm not quite discerning your point out of it.

In any case, my point was that hedonism as a philosophical principle isn't selfishness, it isn't short-sightedness, it isn't unclassy low-brow living, it's just judging things on account of how they effect our suffering or enjoyment. A hedonist can and should concern themselves with the suffering and enjoyment of others besides themselves, with the long-term prospects of that suffering and enjoyment, with more subtle emotional and cultural objects of suffering and enjoyment, etc.

Like Epicurus, in other words. — Wayfarer

From what I know of him, yes.

Buddhism aims at the eradication of suffering, the complete going beyond of it. — Wayfarer

That is the limit, the extreme, of minimizing suffering. Surely the Buddhist doesn't think there's no point to getting only part way there; any progress in that direction has to be good, even if you haven't made it all the way there yet.

Buddhism and the God Idea — Wayfarer

I don't see what this has to do with the topic at hand.

I don't see what this has to do with the topic at hand. — Pfhorrest

You’re the one who brought Buddhism into it; as an example of a philosophy that minimises suffering. What that quote illustrates is something beyond ‘harm-minimization’, beyond living the most comfortable life possible.

Surely the Buddhist doesn't think there's no point to getting only part way there; any progress in that direction has to be good, even if you haven't made it all the way there yet. — Pfhorrest

Sure - but there is a ‘there’, there; an ultimate end, a summum bonum. What this has to do with the topic at hand is that whether there is such an ultimate end, or not, is the question that the values of secular morality hinge on.

However, as far as I know, killing an innocent defenseless person is murder in all cultures. — TheMadFool

Not in war time, at least for some. Others see no reason to create an exception when a government decides X is the enemy and must be fought. All sides even in what one side thinks is a just war will kill innocent defenseless people. Though I am not sure why innocent people with kevlar vests and MMA training are morally more OK targets. Like they are walking down the street and I don't shoot the guy with the suit, but the guy who looks pretty tough (and is training in MMA ((I can see by his black belt) and I see his kevlar vest sticking out of this collar so my shot has to be a head shot) so killing the second guy is less morally reprehensible.

And now we have another word 'innocent' that is interpreted differently, also, in different cultures. And then even what amounts to killing someone. Do economic killings via say excesses of capitalism or lack of access to medical care count as killing. How about via problematic additives in food or lead in the wall paint or through th legalization of guns and the side effects of this in certain neighborhoods. I don't think we have any agreement about this. Is an embargo ok if it (seems to) lead to deaths of children, even if the boycotted regime could perhaps deal with the embargo in a way that protects the children but we know he won't. And if you think this isn't murder, it is called murder by people as other my other examples.

And then let's not even think about abortion.... even the word 'person' is up for grabs in what seems to you like a sentence we can all agree on. And then Peter Singer and other vegans grant personhood also wider than some others.