To me there's two things going on here. There's the question of what is/isn't morally good. For a large number of questions I think there's a right answer to that question. It's a linguistic question, no different to asking "what is the correct way to use the term 'morally good'". In proper Wittgensteinian sense the answer is not clear cut, it's fuzzy at the edges, but this fuzziness cannot be resolved ever. Likewise with social contexts. When the grocer delivers potatoes, you 'ought' to pay him because that's the meaning of the work 'ought'. It means 'that action which the social context places an imperative on you to do'. So if someone were to say "When the grocer delivers my potatoes I ought to punch him in the face" they'd be wrong. That's not what 'ought' means. — Isaac
Asking this question of morality is where questions of moral realism come in. The how of making moral decisions is not via any meta-ethic. We can prove that using fMRI scanning, we definitely do not need to consult areas of our brain responsible for things like meta-modelling to make moral-type decisions. There does seem to be some similarity in some moral decisions, there's also a lot of dissimilarity. So there's an interesting question as to what causes this. My preferred answer is long and complicated because I tend to think morality is a messy combination of numerous, often conflicting, models. The point is, though, that whatever model we come up with to explain the similarities/dissimilarities, it has no normative force for exactly the reason you gave. — Isaac
With models about the physical world, the best answer is 'there's an external reality'. That's why I think that dropping my keys will cause them to land on the floor, and so does everyone else, because we're all interacting with the same external world which has patterns and rules. — Isaac
I don't think that what you are talking about here is the same as what the OP and the rest are talking about. I like to think of "objective morality," or moral realism, as a kind of correspondence theory. Just as with the non-moral correspondence theory, where the truth of a proposition is judged by its degree of correspondence to a putative true (physical) state of the world, a moral proposition is supposed to be true to the extent of its correspondence with some true normative state - this "objective morality." And this correspondence cannot be trivial; it cannot simply be implied by what the words mean - otherwise, of course, seeking moral truths would have been a trivial matter. — SophistiCat
By moral conduct, I mean actions undertaken by agents which have intelligible proximate consequences for self and others that depend upon both what the act is and how the act is done. By moral evaluations, I mean any judgement concerning the adequacy of moral conduct by any standard. — fdrake
Does that reflect what you both think? — fdrake
(1) In order for "moral objectivism/universalism" to be true, there would need to be true statements about moral conduct. — fdrake
(2) In order for a statement to be true, it has to correspond to some (physical or external) state of affairs. — fdrake
(3) A statement can be true or false when and only when it concerns some (physical or external) state of affairs. — fdrake
(4) Statements concerning moral conduct do not concern any (physical or external) state of affairs. — fdrake
Let me see if I can make an argument that consolidates both your points. — fdrake
But I probably shouldn't hijack the thread to debate the point. I don't have a problem with the rest though....a linguistic question, no different to asking "what is the correct way to use the term 'morally good'". — Isaac
...(1) In order for "moral objectivism/universalism" to be true, there would need to be true statements about moral conduct.
(2) In order for a statement to be true, it has to correspond to some (physical or external) state of affairs. — fdrake
(7) Therefore there are no statements concerning moral conduct which are true or false — fdrake
(2) In order for a statement to be true, it has to correspond to some (physical or external) state of affairs. — fdrake
When we affirm something, we must be referring to something "out there," right? — SophistiCat
The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is and happens as it does happen. In it there is no value—and if there were, it would be of no value.
If there is a value which is of value, it must lie outside all happening and being-so. For all happening and being-so is accidental.
What makes it non-accidental cannot lie in the world, for otherwise this would again be accidental.
It must lie outside the world.
6.42 Hence also there can be no ethical propositions. Propositions cannot express anything higher.
6.421 It is clear that ethics cannot be expressed.
Ethics is transcendental.
(Ethics and aesthetics are one.)
We can prove that using fMRI scanning, we definitely do not need to consult areas of our brain responsible for things like meta-modelling to make moral-type decisions. — Isaac
I don't agree with Isaac that what is moral is
...a linguistic question, no different to asking "what is the correct way to use the term 'morally good'". — Isaac
But I probably shouldn't hijack the thread to debate the point. — SophistiCat
when I say "Hitting babies is wrong" ... Its truthmaker is my moral attitude. — SophistiCat
When they say that, they still assume that there must be a thing that serves as a truthmaker for a moral statement, and they interpret you as saying that that thing is your (or anyone's) opinion. — SophistiCat
The problem with this is, that interpretation of fMRI scanning is a matter of judgement, and yet in this question, 'judgement' is the very faculty which you're attempting to capture, via an apparatus. — Wayfarer
I am also willing to say that the statement is true (otherwise we would find ourselves making Moorian paradoxical pronouncements like "It's raining, but it is not true that it's raining.") But when I say "Hitting babies is wrong" I don't mean it in the same way as when I say "It's raining." There is no referent implicit in the former statement.Its truthmaker is my moral attitude. — SophistiCat
But when I say "Hitting babies is wrong" I don't mean it in the same way as when I say "It's raining." There is no referent implicit in the former statement. Its truthmaker is my moral attitude. — SophistiCat
We associate certain areas of the brain with certain types of mental activity because they consistently correlate - the subject reports some type of activity, or is placed in some recognised situation and the same area consistently registers. — Isaac
The drawing of such implications from fMRI studies, especially psychological or ethical implications, is precisely where many major issues of replicability have been found in the ‘replication crisis’. See this review. — Wayfarer
saying that reasoned ethical argument can be isolated or analysed in terms of brain imaging is treating it as if it was. — Wayfarer
There is no ‘brain configuration’ that equates to judgement - or rather, if there were, you would have to be using the very faculty which you’re trying to ‘explain’, in order to explain it. — Wayfarer
What you’re wanting to do is ground moral judgement in empirical science. — Wayfarer
read the quote from Wittgenstein again - this is saying that is precisely what cannot be done. ‘The sense of the world must lie outside the world’ - you’re not going to square that with naturalism. — Wayfarer
They [values] might be important nonsense, but they are not sensical. — Isaac
Where ‘sensical’ means....? — Wayfarer
For example, people with damage to the left inferior frontal gyrus have trouble with categorical syllogisms. How do you explain this if not via an assumption that this part of the brain is involved in that aspect of reasoning? — Isaac
I don’t think it says anything specific about the nature of reason, other than that a healthy brain is required to grasp it. — Wayfarer
Which is all I'm saying about using fMRI scans to tell us about how we process moral decisions. Particular parts of the brain are used for particular aspects of reasoning. This is the best, most well-supported theory of how we reach reasoned conclusions. — Isaac
fM.R.I. creates images based on the differential effects a strong magnetic field has on brain tissue. The scans occur at a rate of about one per second, and software divides each scan into around 200,000 voxels — cube-shaped pixels — each containing about a million brain cells. The software then infers neural activity within voxels or clusters of voxels, based on detected blood flow (the areas that “light up”). Comparisons are made between voxels of a resting brain and voxels of a brain that is doing something like, say, looking at a picture of Hillary Clinton, to try to deduce what the subject might be thinking or feeling depending on which area of the brain is activated.
But when you divide the brain into bitty bits and make millions of calculations according to a bunch of inferences, there are abundant opportunities for error, particularly when you are relying on software to do much of the work. This was made glaringly apparent back in 2009, when a graduate student conducted an fM.R.I. scan of a dead salmon and found neural activity in its brain when it was shown photographs of humans in social situations. Again, it was a salmon. And it was dead.
It is natural to look for a way in which our understanding of the world could close over itself by including us and our methods of thought and understanding within its scope. That is what drives the search for naturalistic accounts of reasoning. But it is also clear that this hope cannot be realized, because the primary position will always be occupied by our employment of reason and understanding, and that will be true even when we make reasoning the object of our investigation. So an external understanding of reason as merely another natural phenomenon--a biological product, for example--is impossible. Reason is whatever we find we must use to understand anything, including itself. And if we try to understand it merely as a natural (biological or psychological) phenomenon, the result will be an account incompatible with our use of it and with the understanding of it we have in using it. For I cannot trust a natural process unless I can see why it is reliable, any more than I can trust a mechanical algorithm unless I can see why it is reliable. And to see that I must rely on reason itself.
The review I linked to draws on a large study of fmri data and raises fundamental questions about its accuracy and replicability in many respects. — Wayfarer
are the fundamental terms of logic and reason - the structure of syllogisms or logical rules such the law of the excluded middle - a product of neural processes. Or are they principles which it takes a functioning brain to understand? — Wayfarer
To me there's two things going on here. There's the question of what is/isn't morally good. For a large number of questions I think there's a right answer to that question. It's a linguistic question, no different to asking "what is the correct way to use the term 'morally good'". In proper Wittgensteinian sense the answer is not clear cut, it's fuzzy at the edges, but this fuzziness cannot be resolved ever. Likewise with social contexts. When the grocer delivers potatoes, you 'ought' to pay him because that's the meaning of the work 'ought'. It means 'that action which the social context places an imperative on you to do'. So if someone were to say "When the grocer delivers my potatoes I ought to punch him in the face" they'd be wrong. That's not what 'ought' means. — Isaac
I don't think this thread has a point as such (it's just a poll), so I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this. — Isaac
Is it that your moral attitude is not a 'thing', or is it that your moral attitude is not an 'opinion'. Absent either of those things it does seem as though you're agreeing with the latter statement. The thing which serves as the truthmaker for your moral statement would correctly be identified as your opinion. — Isaac
disagreements about moral questions are not similar to disagreements about the meanings of words. — SophistiCat
A moral assertion carries no such ontological commitments, at least not implicitly. — SophistiCat
I'm a bit uneasy attaching right and wrong to arbitrary ought statements myself; I don't like ought statements to begin with. It construes "ought" as an operator on "is", and "is" contains all the truth conditions in that framing. — fdrake
Regardless, Sally and Lizzy are in love, so it should be true, no? — fdrake
I take a pragmatic view of what it means to hold a disposition. A disposition has pragmatic consequences. — fdrake
A moral assertion carries no such ontological commitments, at least not implicitly. — SophistiCat
You seem to have just restated your conclusions, I was more wondering how you got there. — Isaac
With what is 'moral', for example. How does someone who feels differently to the rest of the population about, say, violence, learn what the term 'morally right' refers to? All they're going to see growing up is people using the term to refer to 'good' stuff (being kind to old ladies etc). I don't understand how you imagine they'd ever learn that their preferred behaviour (hitting people) is somehow the same thing in essence that everyone else in their language community is really referring to when they use the term to describes helping old ladies etc. — Isaac
the identification of members of the class is not just a matter of learning to use words correctly, surely? — SophistiCat
If a foreign student learning English pointed at someone hitting an old Lady and said "stroking", you'd be inclined to say "no, not 'stroking', that's 'hitting'". If they then said "morally good", why would you not similarly correct them and say "no, 'morally bad'"? — Isaac
If you see a foreign language student hitting an old lady, intervene, and he says "I understand that you think it's morally wrong to hit an old lady, but I disagree," we likely do not have language problem. - A moral disagreement — Dawnstorm
So if, in the first example, the student says"I understand that you think it's 'hitting' to push my fist toward an old lady this way, but I disagree," why does no one treat it as a disagreement? It's not, he's just flat out wrong about what hitting is. — Isaac
Natural language terms are not like taxonomic terms. — Isaac
Yes, they are. — SophistiCat
we group things for a reason. This isn't an exact science, but neither is defining the boundaries of biological taxa. — SophistiCat
"Good" and "bad" are natural kinds, to put it crudely. Playing around with labels doesn't change what they are. — SophistiCat
You haven't answered the question though. I wanted to know why you confidently allowed the student to have his own private meaning for the term 'morally good', but you're deeply suspicious if he tries to claim his own private meaning for the term 'hitting'? — Isaac
When the grocer delivers potatoes, you 'ought' to pay him because that's the meaning of the work 'ought'. — Isaac
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