Similar objects of the same kind are just examples of the thing in question. — Mww
What is a moral realist? Or, what would you say a moral realist is? How would I know one as such? — Mww
Back to our bodies and thinking- how do you feel about what I said? — Athena
Does your gut tell you this is ridiculous or maybe something that should concern us? — Athena
While the brain plays a part in our thinking, it does not play the most important part. Our bodies play the most important part. — Athena
Would you agree that when you're saying "genetic is statements", you have in mind a broader category concerning body and mind functions? Or do you actually want to do the reduction of non-cultural is-statements - which I take are is statements that do not concern cultural stuff but do still concern humans - to statements about genetics? — fdrake
(If human is in configuration X) then (human should do Y)
IE, despite the losses of information there are still true imperatives of that form.
EG: "If a human wants to avoid losing the functioning of their hands then said human should not hold their hands in a fire for 15 minutes" — fdrake
"do humans want to avoid losing the functioning of their hands"? is a question you could answer with a survey. It might also turn out that there are contextual defeaters, like a would you rather game: "would you rather lose functioning of your hands or kill everybody else on the planet?" - that still facilitates the imperative being true so long as the context isn't a defeating context. So it's not necessarily true, it's contingently true for all plausible scenarios, and if you're gonna base moral principles on human behaviour and wants, it's going to output contingently true statements at best anyway. — fdrake
In my experience, deliberation and planning often plays a pretty big role in evaluating how best to treat people. You've already got reason in analysed territory, and it already links to emotions and sensations. Seems strange to me to make such a reduction away from reasoning when you've thrown reasoning in there - presumably justified by it being "subjective" when it concerns human norms (more later). — fdrake
Despite that any representation knowledge varies in a trivial way with human belief (it's knowledge! It's normative!), and even the content depends upon language for its articulation even if it's true - or a great approximation to the truth. But subjective stuff has that property too, it depends upon articulation and human behaviour for its production... Any facts about human behaviour have to vary with human behaviour, so that would make them subjective - whereas more precisely they're contingent and about humans. — fdrake
I prefer to start from the evidence and see what makes sense. Where the evidence suggests that, in encountering another individual, we have unconscious neurological and physiological reactions to that encounter which bias us toward or away from certain behaviours on the whole, clearly that is not describing a rational process — Kenosha Kid
You seem to be characterising my position as somehow wanting to limit the role of reason and looking for evidence to support it. As a person with a background where reason was pretty crucial, that really isn't the case. — Kenosha Kid
We are substantially limited in how we can know the world, trapped by our own subjectivities if you will, and it is therefore important for claims to objectivity to be well justified.
I don't think it's really relevant. The point is one can't simply compare similar methodologies and expect one to be justified because the other is. — Kenosha Kid
Science is justified by its predictiveness. Metaphysics are not justified by anything beyond the subjective attractiveness to the believer. — Kenosha Kid
All of which is subjective, not objective. — Kenosha Kid
I was perhaps unclear. Moral relativism is what's left when you dismiss moral objectivity as being inconsistent with or otherwise not held up by evidence. It's not a position that I feel directly needs defending; it simply emerges from what I consider a more realistic description of what morality is at root. I'm not a relativist because I find it attractive or persuasive on its own merits. — Kenosha Kid
The first order is the fundamental drives and capacities that make us ultra-social animals. The conceptions we form around those -- the second-order -- are rationalisations of the first, lacking insight as to the nature of the first or the origins of the second. — Kenosha Kid
the relationship between morality and social biology would be extremely mysterious, since it would appear that humans have two very different sets of imperatives for doing the same thing: one they are born with, another they must discover for themselves. — Kenosha Kid
Similar objects of the same kind are just examples of the thing in question.
— Mww
What I'm asking is what your justification is for saying this. Taking Wittgenstein's 'game' example, there is no 'thing in question' with regards to the word 'game' we apply it according to some rules, but the rules do not together represent 'game' because they do not all need to be applied at any one time. — Isaac
What I'm saying is that words do jobs, they don't always refer to some 'thing' even if they appear to. — Isaac
The same word might do a different job in different contexts. — Isaac
So with a word which appears to refer to some thing, we might be looking for one thing, several things or no things at all. — Isaac
I think a moral realist would have to be someone who thinks that moral 'goodness' and 'badness' are universals. — Isaac
Is there a meaningful distinction that we can draw and maintain between something or other being believed to be, hence sincerely called "good" and being good? I think there is. — creativesoul
I think so as well. It is the distinction between what it means for something to be good, and what it means for good to be something. Have to admit, though, drawing and maintaining the meaningfulness of it, is a lot harder than merely granting its possibility.
— Mww
I think this would be highly unlikely. We can't even agree on what constitutes a 'game', or where exactly the boundaries of 'here' are. The idea that our word 'good' picks out exactly one unified and inviolable concept identical in every mind which conceives it seems ludicrous. — Isaac
My perspective on that is: we do react in some way, and reason is involved somehow. Well, more accurately cognition. The qualitative distinction between the functioning styles of system 1 and system 2 in that approach doesn't preclude both functioning at the same time - it's more a question of weighting, no? — fdrake
And since it's a question of weighting, reason's involved to a greater or lesser extent depending on the act. This is why I find it strange that you're focussing on moral behaviour being non-cognitive when both systems are involved. Instances of action based on moral principles or conceptually relating to norms of conduct are in part deliberative. — fdrake
My perspective on what you've said is you're throwing the baby (reason-cognition-deliberation-planning) out with the bathwater (reducing following moral principles to a certain homeostasis of non-cognitive sentiment). I just don't see good reasons to split cognition away from sentiment when we're talking about morality, that usually comes up in contexts when we're already trying to find out what best to do. Cognition's involved in that. — fdrake
I'd side with you that for the most part moral decisions are made transparently (absorbed coping-system 1 functioning-prethetically), that is they are already made by what we're already doing - but in cases where we're trying to find out what's right, cognition is way more involved and I don't think it's appropriate to call these moral problem solving behaviours non-cognitive. — fdrake
It's like moral conduct is deficient since it's not objective (merely subjective), but it's actually both if you propagate all those distinctions through each other using an assumed structural symmetry. — fdrake
How would you draw the conclusions you have without your framing of the subject/object distinction? You've given a bird's eye view from the perch of the objective, I'm not sure you can perch there when talking about human conduct - it always varies with human conduct, since it is human conduct. — fdrake
That we know what we know about those biological drives comes from reason, so this is an assault purely on rationalism, not reason itself, which is pretty great actually, if over-credited. — Kenosha Kid
As I said to Pfhorrest, if anyone can justify the objective existence of moral truths in the same way that nature has justified belief in an objective existence, the OP is wrong, and I am stumped as to what the evidence in hand can possibly mean. — Kenosha Kid
There is a subject of discourse referred to by the word “game”, something like.....that formal activity in which a relative competition arbitrates a standing goal, and consequently having for its objects the conditions consistent with the particular rendition of the concept the word represents, and all according to rules. — Mww
the subject “good”, being merely a possible human condition, or a possible integral part of human nature — Mww
words always refer to some thing because that is the only job they have — Mww
The word is still only doing one job in each case, that being relating a conception to its representation — Mww
Appears to refer to some thing still presupposes the possibility of the thing. — Mww
It's an interesting question, touching on something Mww asked earlier. If I were to stab at an answer (and you should definitely attack this with big sticks as there's a strong potential for argument ab rectum here), it would be this: reason is invoked to solve particular problems, and provided with evidence that may or may not be relevant to those problems. This seems counterintuitive because we think we're always thinking, but I suspect that's a symptom of the fact that we lack immediate problems to solve that are not reliant on cognition. — Kenosha Kid
No, I don't think moral conduct is deficient because of the lack of moral objectivity. I think moral objectivity is a deficient description of moral conduct. Moral conduct seems to be taking care of itself. — Kenosha Kid
. If you're comfortable with that, I don't see anything controversial in the idea of social responses having a non-rational basis. — Kenosha Kid
Have it your way. I’m not interested in tangential nit-picking. — Mww
If we acknowledge that the term 'morally right' is applied to different behaviours/characteristics for different reasons in different contexts, we can see that no such mechanism can possibly exist. — Isaac
Morality, as a single measurable property of behaviours/characteristics is a fabrication of philosophy, it just doesn't exist among real human groups. — Isaac
It's not tangential, it's fundamental to the arguments about moral realism. — Isaac
Morality, as a single measurable property of behaviours/characteristics is a fabrication of philosophy — Isaac
That’s not the first and second order I’m talking about. The first order I’m talking about is “what should we do?” Answers to that are certainly often informed by the drives you mention. But the second order is “how do we figure out what we should do?” — Pfhorrest
Imagine a world where there was an objective morality as you mean it and moral claims were predictive as you mean it.
...
All evidence is “subjective” in that sense. It is being shared in common between everyone that makes it converge toward the objective. Again, exact same scenario with empiricism and reality as with hedonism and morality. — Pfhorrest
The fundamentalist would call it relativist, just like religious fundamentalists call physical sciences relativist too. But then the postmodern social constructivist, a kind of truth relativist, claims that the physical sciences are just another totalizing dogma just like the fundamentalist’s religion is.
Both the fundamentalist and the social constructivist fail to see how the physical sciences are not just the opposite between those two, but a completely different third option. You seem to me to be in the analogous place of the social constructivist, with regards to morality: you’re rightly against the fundamentalist, but missing that my kind of position is not over there with him, but also is not over with your relativism (as the fundamentalist would claim I am), but is rather a completely different third option. — Pfhorrest
it would appear that humans have two very different sets of imperatives for doing the same thing: one they are born with, another they must discover for themselves.
— Kenosha Kid
That’s not at all like anything I’m proposing.
My moral methodology is an admonition ... to instead pay closer attention to and expand the range of that experience we innately turn to, to find that greater understanding of morality. — Pfhorrest
How has nature justified belief in an objective existence? Was it via rationalism or reason itself? — Luke
I don’t have any feelings about it; my feelings weren’t affected. My thinking was affected, and from that, I can say I agree with a lot of what you say, disagree with some.
Agree:
.....Enlightenment is no longer predominant; our education is bad; stress how to think not what to think; sense of right or wrong is visceral...
Disagree:
Sense of true or false is visceral; (formal) education develops us as capable moral creatures; we normally vote from feelings.
————-
Does your gut tell you this is ridiculous or maybe something that should concern us? — Athena
Only this.....
While the brain plays a part in our thinking, it does not play the most important part. Our bodies play the most important part. — Athena
....which I fail to understand at all. I suppose you mean our gut is part of our body, which I reject as it relates to thinking. From here, if it were true, it would follow that feeling controls thinking, which in turn permits thinking to be rash, irresponsible and dangerous, exactly as much as it permits thinking to be beneficial. But the former is the exception to the rule, the latter being the rule.
Anyway, I have the utmost respect for educators, especially these days, when kids are generally just punk-ass renditions of their parents. And THAT....is what my emotional intelligence looks like. — Mww
Noun. gut feeling (plural gut feelings) (idiomatic) An instinct or intuition; an immediate or basic feeling or reaction without a logical rationale. Don't think too hard about the answers to a personality test; just go with your gut feeling.
gut feeling - Wiktionary — wikipedia
How Different Cultures See Intuition and Innovation - Business ...
www.business2community.com › strategy › how-differ...
Jul 30, 2019 - ... be acquired without reason or observation: a gut feeling or a sixth sense. ... This is different from Japan, where they cultivate their inner intuitive ... I think we in the West look down on intuition because it is difficult to quantify. — business2commnunity
I do not believe, as Mww does, that my ancestors had to bother reasoning whether escaping a sabre-tooth tiger was efficacious or how to do so — Kenosha Kid
I want to begin by establishing "gut thinking" is not my idea.
Noun. gut feeling (plural gut feelings) idiomatic wiktionary — Athena
There being a black and white of white and wrong actions is a poor description of moral conduct; tagging moral actions as purely right or purely wrong is part of the game of moral conduct. I don't think trying to come up with meta principles that filter actions into WRONG and RIGHT bags is a particularly justified endeavor, given that the pretense to universality is already part of the clusterfuck of moral conduct; it stays in the territory of moral conduct. — fdrake
But, I still think it is possible to cultivate moral wisdom in that territory - that we can learn to be more right or at least less wrong in how we treat others. I'd guess you'd agree? — fdrake
I'm coming at it from the perspective of imploding the distinction between rational and non-rational conduct - to replace it with a weighting. — fdrake
I don’t want to be on record as claiming that. Biology may take care of escaping, you know, ....run like hell....but that’s not the same as understanding how not be in a position to have to escape. — Mww
Notice the difference?
I don’t reject gut feelings in their relation to thinking. I reject gut thinking in its relation to anything.
As for the rest...informative and interesting opinions, so thanks for that. — Mww
Intuition happens as a result of fast processing in the brain. Valerie van Mulukom, Author provided
Imagine the director of a big company announcing an important decision and justifying it with it being based on a gut feeling. This would be met with disbelief – surely important decisions have to be thought over carefully, deliberately and rationally?
Indeed, relying on your intuition generally has a bad reputation, especially in the Western part of the world where analytic thinking has been steadily promoted over the past decades. Gradually, many have come to think that humans have progressed from relying on primitive, magical and religious thinking to analytic and scientific thinking. As a result, they view emotions and intuition as fallible, even whimsical, tools.
However, this attitude is based on a myth of cognitive progress. Emotions are actually not dumb responses that always need to be ignored or even corrected by rational faculties. They are appraisals of what you have just experienced or thought of – in this sense, they are also a form of information processing.
https://theconversation.com/is-it-rational-to-trust-your-gut-feelings-a-neuroscientist-explains-95086
Is there a meaningful distinction that we can draw and maintain between something or other being believed to be, hence sincerely called "good" and being good? I think there is. The historical facts and current facts support that answer quite well. Our moral belief, as humans, has evolved. Morality has evolved. There's no good reason to claim otherwise, and/or deny that that evolution continues. So, sometimes we're wrong, and what we once thought to be good is no longer believed to be.
...
I'm not claiming that believing and/or saying that something is good, makes it so. I'm not saying that what's good is relative to the believer in any way that makes moral claims true by virtue of being believed to be. Rather, I'm saying that we come to acquire knowledge of what's good over time with trial and error, and I am only pointing out that we've made and will continue to make our fair share of mistakes along the way.
— creativesoul
I actually agree with your interpretation of the trend; it is a point I have made myself. However... you must be aware that local, temporary moral trends can occur in different directions. We have a growing trend currently toward nationalism, for instance. By your reckoning, then, nationalism must be more morally good, since you assume that, whatever morality is, we tend toward it with time. — Kenosha Kid
There are no thoughts about "goodness" or "the good" unless they are formed within a language user skilled enough to either learn how to use the name to refer to other things, or within a language user skilled enough to begin questioning/doubting such adopted use.
— creativesoul
Agreed. And in terms of origins, I don't see any area for contradiction here, since language preceded the advent of large social groups. — Kenosha Kid
We all adopt, almost entirely, our first worldview.
— creativesoul
I'm wondering if you mean completely. In my experience, moral consideration is incremental. We are limited to the experiences we have had to date. I'd personally not call such a thing a worldview, since there will be many elements of the world about which, as a four-year old, I had no view at all. — Kenosha Kid
* — Kenosha Kid
Yes, I think the schema I proposed in the OP could be better worded along these lines. It is much easier to state that something is objectively (contingently) immoral than it is to state that something is objectively morally. Killing gingers for fun is immoral: it is antisocial, hypocritical behaviour that causes harm for personal gratification and fails to demonstrate human social capabilities for empathy and altruism. — Kenosha Kid
Fundamentalism is not necessarily antisocial. — Kenosha Kid
I do not labour under the impression that you know what the moral objects you believe in are. — Kenosha Kid
Seems remarkably similar. — Kenosha Kid
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