Edit: Duplicate post glitch. Flag for deletion.

It provides an objective standard for any human, even if it is based on a consensus, and, thus, is subjective. This just makes it a more descriptive claim, but I don't see why that matters if it is relative to all of humanity.



Yes, I get it. I still don't think it is fallacious, but I'll think about it some more.

What do you think I mean by fallacious? I don't mean wrong. If that helps you at all?

What exactly is fallacious about it? The claim isn't about something objective, it is about something subjective. It isn't like saying the earth isn't flat just because the majority of people believe it isn't, it's that something is true for all members of a group if it is true for the majority, given certain criteria, namely the a priori assumption that what is good behavior for most people some of the time is true for everyone. Where is the fallacy in that?

Without pretending to have any definitive answers to these questions, I wouldn't mind making an attempt to spark some discussion:

what do [you think] constitutes an act which is moral? — god must be atheist

An act which leads towards the true happiness of the individual that commits it.

The core here is the first Socratic paradox "All men desire the Good"; in other words, everyone does those things that they think will make them happy. The sad part is, what we think makes us happy is more often than not based on fears, ignorances, delusions, etc., many of which are deeply engrained since childhood.

The more one exposes these matters which cloud our judgement, the closer one will be able to see what it is that will make them truly happy, and thus learn to act morally.

I mean, we are naturally moral animals, to a certain degree, at least, if that means anything. It appears to have inherent value because it offers a guide on how to live one's life meaningfully, regardless of whether or not this guide is subjective. I mean, surely you believe some things are wrong? Maybe premeditated killing, for example? Or rape?

This just makes it a more descriptive claim, but I don't see why that matters if it is relative to all of humanity. — Aleph Numbers

What if morality is relative to context, not humanity? Descriptive contextual relativism.

I'm going to argue from some of your points that I can agree with, so you know I'm being fair and that your words do have the power to move the conversation along in a functional and helpful way.

A majority is perfectly capable of not knowing the full context of any given situation.

The best way to describe the difference between an honest moral mistake and a malicious moral act is individual or group knowledge of context.
If I know he full context of a given situation but still argue against it = malicious act.

The idea of moral progress requires honest moral mistakes. I think you would benefit by looking out some books of logic problems to really get into this point. I can't remember the one I'm thinking of off the top of my head but I can describe how it works.

There are a number of good logic problems where the question is essentially "How many times do you have to guess incorrectly to know what the right answer is?"

An honest moral mistake is made when someone believes the way are acting in a way that benefits others but our experience of the context isn't full enough to realistically be expected to make the right answer.

it is about something subjective. It isn't like saying the earth isn't flat just because the majority of people believe it isn't, it's that something is true for all members of a group if it is true for the majority, given certain criteria, namely the a priori assumption that what is good behavior for most people some of the time is true for everyone. Where is the fallacy in that? — Aleph Numbers

Because when the full context is known and language is sophisticated enough to explain that, there would be an objective moral answer for any given situation. So in that situation the majority is only right when it is contextually objectively right. If they are wrong, then it's just wrong.

The thing about relativism in most of it's forms, is that it claims there are no objective moral absolutes, but it doesn't make that claim of itself. It posits itself as the only moral truth. So if descriptive contextual relativism is the only moral truth, then it's central claim that there are no objective moral absolutes, truth or knowledge is not true. So how could relativism be true?

An act which leads towards the true happiness of the individual that commits it. — Tzeentch

Immediately begging the question “what about if true individual happiness means murder, rape and torture?”
How do you exclude that?

Quite simply by pointing out those things in fact do not contribute to a person's happiness. Isn't it so that people who commit such acts are deeply troubled or even mentally ill individuals?

They are driven by a need to resolve childhood trauma, slavish obedience to their basic impulses, or mental defects. All sorts of things that need to be resolved before an individual can understand what true happiness means for them.

Immediately begging the question “what about if true individual happiness means murder, rape and torture?”
How do you exclude that? — DingoJones

I'd call BS and say that this individual is contextually incapable of knowing what true happiness is, because they are in fact truly miserable and deluding themselves.

Exactly!

what do [you think] constitutes an act which is moral?
— god must be atheist

An act which leads towards the true happiness of the individual that commits it. — Tzeentch

With all due respect, Tzeentch, my question was not that; and answering a changed question amounts to answering it.

But I appreciate that you want to spark discussion, without answering my question. That's perfectly acceptable.

Just please don't mix the two: spark a conversation at the cost of paraphrasing my question to a totally different one, and pretending that you answered it.

Otherwise carry on, my job here is finished.

Quite simply by pointing out those things in fact do not contribute to a person's happiness. Isn't it so that people who commit such acts are deeply troubled or even mentally ill individuals?

They are driven by a need to resolve childhood trauma, slavish obedience to their basic impulses, or mental defects. All sorts of things that need to be resolved before an individual can understand what true happiness means for them. — Tzeentch

Very appropriate to point out.

Because when the full context is known and language is sophisticated enough to explain that, there would be an objective moral answer for any given situation. — MSC

Based on what? Sophisticated language and deep contextual knowledge does not give an objective moral answer to anything. Were do the facts that inform the act come from? An objective answer to a moral question does not follow from descriptive claims, this is just the gap between is and ought, unless I'm mistaken.

descriptive contextual relativism — MSC

Could you explain to me what that is?

Hey, guys and gals, what do yout thing constitutes an act which is moral?

I am asking because there has been examples of what we call good and what we call bad. But there has no discerntion between good and right and between bad and wrong. If it's bad, it's wrong, and the right thing to do is to do something that is good for everyone.

Where is the moral compass? What can you say about something bad that is still moral? Something bad that is still moral, yet it contains no good that counter-effects the bad?

This is what I need to hear before I can seriously engage on a talk about morality. Morality exists, but we never touched upon what its hallmarks are. Please tell me what it is about morality that makes it different from everything else, and most prominently different from good and bad. — god must be atheist

These are all reasonable questions and I'm sorry for not addressing this myself sooner. As I noticed that in some of your other comments you felt your questions have not been given a fair shake.

I don't know how much of my comments to @Aleph Numbers you have gotten the chance to read. Did you feel any of what I said answered any of those questions for you? All, none or a few?

I will attempt to answer them but I want you to have the time to critique what I've already said to others so I can see where our understandings have overlapped and where they are at odds. Will probably make it easier for me to answer your questions in a way where they are true attempts at direct answers, whether you agree with them or not. Sound fair?

MSC, I washed my hands in this thread, and I don't want to engage any more, but I must answer your plea for the reason of sheer personal respect.

I have one question so far, and that is, what is it in a moral act that distinguishes it from other acts, as being moral (or immoral).

My point is that the criteria for morality has not been found yet.

You ask me to read your posts and answer them directly. I might do it after you reply to this to do it still.

I will present a few ideas what people think morals are, and I show you that they are indistinguishable from other acts.

-- that makes the actor feel good and truly happy. Indistinguishable from other things that make us happy, such as child birth, wedding, falling in love. Is falling in love a moral act, in and by itself? It's not even in your power when you do.
-- that which most people approve of. Most people approve of holding the fork and knife properly, of driving on the proper side of the road, of not kicking dogs. Is not kicking dogs actually a moral act, in and by itself? Is not raping children a moral act? No, raping children is immoral by consensus, but not raping them is not moral per se.
-- heroic acts: sacrificing one's own health, wealth, family, even life, for the good of the community or for loved ones. Is working overtime to make a boss's or capitalist life better, at the cost of destroying your own health a moral act?
-- acts that make most or all people feel better, or their lives better, easier, happier. This is indistinguishable from being "good" or "bad", in case of the opposite.
-- a decision has to be involved; a moral decision. You see your child drowning in a lake; you jump in, without thinking. This is a moral act; yet no decision took place. So it is indistinguishable from a good Samaritan act.
-- serving god. Well, it is not moral to kill, according to the ten commandments, but refrain from murder is indistinguishable from harm avoidance: you burn in hell if you do cross god.
-- etc.

In any of the foregoing, the act which we call moral, and its essential qualifier, can be found in acts that are not moral. Not immoral, but just not moral. And therefore I claim that humans have not found the magic formula for calling any act truly moral, whether the act is actually moral or not.

what is it in a moral act that distinguishes it from other acts, as being moral (or immoral). — god must be atheist

A moral act is an act you are compelled to take. Essentially it is what you ought to do. This is different from deciding what cereal to eat in the morning, or whether or not to exercise thirty minutes a day, or to work over time. People have different ideas of what one ought to do in certain situations, but the gap between is and ought means that moral acts are different from acts that are just approved of, for instance. It is a descriptive claim to say that most people approve of driving on the right side of the road, but to say one ought to is to transition to a moral claim.

I ought to have cleaned the chicken coop before the inspectors came.

Have I committed a moral act? I ought to. Is this different from other ought to-s?

I ought to have married Bob instead of Mary. Is this a moral ought to?

Should I give to the poor? I ought to. So I do. -- is this a moral act, or a compulsion to do good?

I hear what you say, Aleph, but I am not convinced that a sheer "ought" is the kernel of what morality is.

And you deny that moral acts involve a decision. Others say that a decision is ESSENTIAL to human morality. (You wrote: A moral act is an act you are compelled to take.) You are also compelled to roll the dice at a crap shoot game when you are losing. If you separate out the factor of "compel", then it is indistinguishable from other forms of acting but moral.

you deny that moral acts involve a decision. — god must be atheist

I'm not saying one isn't deciding; I'm saying that if one wants to be moral they have to decide a certain way. As for the oughts you provided: they do not serve a greater goal or project, except for the giving to the poor one. In fact I think an ought would have to serve an a priori morality. So while it would have saved you some headache if you had cleaned the chicken coop, the consequences do not feed into anything greater than a conviction that you should have saved yourself some trouble. Indeed, two of your oughts are appeals to prudence, not morality.

A moral act is an act you are compelled to take. Essentially it is what you ought to do. — Aleph Numbers

This involves neither decision, nor a goal of good. This is what you said no? In your entire paragraph or post that contained this, you mentioned nothing of good, or making a decision.

I go by your first definition as per above. If you want to improve on it, fine, but please don't tell me but only when you got to the final result. I don't want to be bogged down with every last minute detail in the making, please gimme that much peace.

Please present me with a final decision what is moral, and I'll show you it is indistinguishable from other acts. Thanks.

That might be true of some people who murder, rape and torture but not all of them. Some people might do it just because they enjoy it, and those are the people im talking about. How would you exclude these people from being moral?

you mentioned nothing of good, or making a decision. — god must be atheist

I didn't even make a reference to what is good in my last post. What are you referring to?

Based on what? Sophisticated language and deep contextual knowledge does not give an objective moral answer to anything. Were do the facts that inform the act come from? An objective answer to a moral question does not follow from descriptive claims, this is just the gap between is and ought, unless I'm mistaken. — Aleph Numbers

Woooo! Now we are talking! So we are at Hume, who believed we make moral judgements from emotional sentiment, not logic. Not what I believe exactly.

Logic is a tool for making sense of our experiences. Language is a tool for describing that experience.
This is true of our individual experiences and our collective experiences.

Your emotions are psychological, your cognitive reasoning facilities and ability to utilise logic are also psychological. Individual Emotional Psychological facts like "I fear Covid-19" are true if you are really afraid of covid-19 because you fear your death or a loved ones death. Collective social and moral truths are contingent on a few different things. Culture, Individuals, Psychology, Biology, and Physics. Now, keep in mind that those concepts here should not be conflated with the experts in the study of those concepts, who are individuals within academic field cultures. Same with me, I'm no expert.

There are Emotional and cultural facts about you for example. You are aware of some or most of them but not of others. Like everyone.

Ultimately since there is more experience within a collective, the collective is the thing that should be the object of the most judgement and responsibility for its moral behaviour. Which means to some extent individuals are the object of judgement and responsibility for what goes into the culture of that collective. Obviously some people bare much more responsibility on that due to the amount of power they wield on the modal quality of the moral culture of the collective. This is why most people intuitively feel it is wrong to blame poor people for their lot in life. No one individual knows the full context but we can get an emotional impression of it when exposed to experience of it from any perspective. It's also why I trust most people to be accurate in the claim that "they are treated unfairly" even if I don't agree with their estimation of the Why, as my view of the context will most likely be different than theirs.

The way you arrive at this conclusion, is to examine the historically contextual answers to the Is ought problem, Kant and Mills for example, and then contemporary ones like pragmatism and neo pragmatism etc, Negate the falsehoods and affirm the truths from all those proposed solutions until the modal quality meshes symbiotically between the different answers to the problem, balanced with the criticisms to those answers in a way that actually solves whatever problem is trying to be solved based on what the language identifies. While also accepting the truth of human fallibility when it comes to using tools like logic and language. The tools aren't the problem, the craftsman is. It's up to the craftsman to figure out if;
A) if he is using his tools correctly and
B) has the right tools for the job.

MSC, I washed my hands in this thread, and I don't want to engage any more, but I must answer your plea for the reason of sheer personal respect. — god must be atheist

That's nice to hear, not sure what I've done to earn the respect but thank you. It's returned in kind, even if we end up disagreeing.

I have one question so far, and that is, what is it in a moral act that distinguishes it from other acts, as being moral (or immoral). — god must be atheist

My claim: What distinguishes it from an act from an immoral act or a moral act, is truth relative to context, combined with a few moral imperatives based on self evident truths about the nature of the universe, the nature of life and the nature of humanity. The self evident truths about humanity is where I will introduce how this method works exactly while also highlighting its inherent fallibility born of my inherent fallibility as an individual who doesn't know the full context of the nature of life and the universe.

I am going to have to put a pause on this now but I will be ready to address the rest of your comment later. I have a zoom meeting in half an hour. Got voters in Wisconsin to write to. Vote Biden! (Note for Moderators, if my "vote biden" remark was against the rules or shouldn't be in this discussion, let me know and I'll remove it but please leave the rest of the comment intact if you use your discretion to remove it yourselves)

Same thing as with Tzeentch, there are people who hurt because they are hurting but there are also people who hurt because it makes them truly happy.
I don’t feel like this is controversial, but to illustrate Ill use the classic example of evil: The Nazi’s thought they were creating a better world, they were in the pursuit of true happiness, they thought they were doing good. Now maybe you can make the claim that not every Nazi felt this way, maybe even most of them had deep down pain and regret and it was all just acting out these deep psychological pains and sure, that might be true but you arent going to easily convince me Joseph Mandalay did. He was a monster, who took great pride and pleasure in his evil scientific pursuits. To him, the fact that these were human beings, that he was causing suffering, death, insanity etc didnt bother him, deep down or otherwise. Some people are born or conditioned by experience to derive true pleasure and happiness from inflicting pain or rape or whatever. You think Stalin, or Putin, or Ted Bundy wouldn't be happy if people just left them alone to do as they pleased? They’d slip into a depression would they? I dont think so.

That might be true of some people who murder, rape and torture but not all of them. Some people might do it just because they enjoy it, and those are the people im talking about. How would you exclude these people from being moral? — DingoJones

Enjoying something and true happiness are not the same. True happiness is a prolonged state of being, and not some short-term gratification of base desires. Perhaps inner peace would be another term to describe it.

The Nazi’s thought they were creating a better world, they were in the pursuit of true happiness, they thought they were doing good. — DingoJones

And they were wrong. Simply pursuing true happiness is not enough to be moral. One must achieve it for oneself. And if one actively works against it, then one can be said to be immoral. Thus, immoral actions lead to destruction of oneself, either physically or psychologically.

Some people are born or conditioned by experience to derive true pleasure and happiness from inflicting pain or rape or whatever. — DingoJones

A blind person cannot see, no matter how much they believe it so. Similarly, a malicious person cannot find love or true happiness.

One may play the devil's advocate and ask how do we know that a blind person is truly blind and not simply acting to be, but I fail to see the point of that.

Enjoying something and true happiness are not the same. True happiness is a prolonged state of being, and not some short-term gratification of base desires. Perhaps inner peace would be another term to describe it. — Tzeentch

What if someone derives inner peace from torturing small children? From causing immense amounts of suffering? I've known sadistic people, and they genuinely revel in others' suffering and misfortune.

The Nazi’s thought they were creating a better world, they were in the pursuit of true happiness, they thought they were doing good.
— DingoJones

And they were wrong. Simply pursuing true happiness is not enough to be moral. One must achieve it for oneself. And if one actively works against it, then one can be said to be immoral. Thus, immoral actions lead to destruction of oneself, either physically or psychologically. — Tzeentch

So being immoral prevents one from achieving true happiness because you say that if one doesn't achieve true happiness one is acting immorally. Sounds like a tautology to me, and, thus, one is always immoral as long as they are not achieving true happiness.

Mass confusion on this thread regarding morality. Let me repeat myself: Point of clarification: just because a group embraces, let's say, cannibalism, wouldn't mean that group was practicing a justified or intelligent morality, it would just mean it was the adopted morality of the group. Here's the real problem, when people in Papua New Guinea would eat people they had a religious belief that justified this action as somehow having significance. The question is whether or not we will let unconscious superstition dictate our morals or whether we will use knowledge to craft precepts that are intelligent? With superstition nothing is off the table, all the way to the horror of consuming other humans because it means they become part of your spirit. I vote for a morality based on knowledge, and what is interesting, so does every modern Christian, this is why they reject the archaic morality of their ancestors.

What if someone derives inner peace from torturing small children? From causing immense amounts of suffering? I've known sadistic people, and they genuinely revel in others' suffering and misfortune. — Aleph Numbers

Then they are not truly happy, no matter what they may tell themselves. Or maybe they are mentally defect, in which case there's an argument to be made for them not being moral agents.

You're obviously playing the devil's advocate for the sake of doing so. It's not going to lead to anything productive. As I said, is a blind person truly blind, or is it all some elaborate ruse to fool people? Maybe they are seeing, we cannot look into their minds after all. It's very easy to play this game, but also pointless. Let's have a serious discussion.

So being immoral prevents one from achieving true happiness because you say that if one doesn't achieve true happiness one is acting immorally. — Aleph Numbers

We haven't delved far enough into the idea to really start explaining how it works in detail, but this isn't what I've said. Let me state it clearly:

Acting in a way that works against one's true happiness is immoral.
Acting in a way that works towards one's true happiness is moral.
Acting in a way that works neither towards nor against one's true happiness is not a matter of morality.

If one does not achieve true happiness, one isn't necessarily immoral.

Acting in a way that works against one's true happiness is immoral.
Acting in a way that works towards one's true happiness is moral.
Acting in a way that works neither towards nor against one's true happiness is not a matter of morality. — Tzeentch

Thanks for elucidating that. I must say, that is pretty reasonable. And no, I wasn't playing devil's advocate, I genuinely believe that sadists can be truly happy doing sadistic things, but whatever, I'll drop it.

I find that this conversation is not all that relevant, . Can you relate it to the OP? I would like to talk about this with you, but you might want to make a thread yourself.

Actually, I see how it might be relevant. Doing what is right according to the consensus might interfere with your happiness theorem.