Incidentally, none of your sentences make sense to me, other than the last two. Don't take me wrong; I am not belittling you. It may be due to the fact that you're much more intelligent and deeper than I. I dunno. It could be mockery on your part, too, for all I know. — god must be atheist

No, it wasn't mockery I should have broken the post into two sections. The first was an attempt at some casual advice on herding cats to a thread via a style of OP. I appreciate the generous supposition, but I'm just smart enough to appreciate the things brilliant people do.

I didn't say you couln't measure it, I said it was nebulous and everything can be framed in those terms. Take any existing moral dilemma, then say 'we should look at this in terms of how much each option would cause suffering'. What is achieved by framing it that way. All the factors being considered (tradition, God's will, personal preferences, in-group bias...) can be framed as types of 'suffering', so no factors are being filtered or highlighted for consideration. The dilemma is exactly as it was. — Isaac

I'm not sure I understand. Unless I'm mistaken you are saying that suffering is caused by every action, so we cannot weigh one course of action against another. Well, sometimes there is a measurable tradeoff - one course of action might cause suffering, but less suffering than if it weren't taken. That is how many moral dilemmas could be solved: choose the option that causes less suffering, which, as you admit, can be measured. This seems exceedingly simple to me: trade more suffering for less whenever possible.

Or are you saying there is no discernible criterion for "suffering" since everything could be interpreted as suffering, so there is absolutely no way of navigating moral dilemmas? That seems incorrect to me too because we definitely can can develop a criterion - suffering is an inherently undesirable state of mind we all feel. Thus extraneous factors like God's will can be disregarded. But then again I don't really understand how God's will could actually be a form of suffering anyways.

That is how many moral dilemmas could be solved: choose the option that causes less suffering — ToothyMaw

If we could choose the option which causes less suffering it wouldn't be an extant moral dilemma, it would already be solved (like no-one is wondering whether we should torture children for fun). Moral dilemmas are dilemmas because it is undecidable which course of action causes the least (or most) of whatever metric you're using to determine 'right'. Since every metric can be 'converted' to suffering, changing the metric doesn't resolve the fact that the measurement of it is unresolvable.

Try it, by all means. Take a moral dilemma where people disagree with you about the 'right' course of action. Tell them how much 'suffering' you think the 'wrong' option causes and see if they disagree. If they do, where do you go next? To what higher authority do you appeal to judge the correct amount of 'suffering' in cases of disagreement?

If we could choose the option which causes less suffering it wouldn't be an extant moral dilemma, it would already be solved (like no-one is wondering whether we should torture children for fun). Moral dilemmas are dilemmas because it is undecidable which course of action causes the least (or most) of whatever metric you're using to determine 'right'. Since every metric can be 'converted' to suffering, changing the metric doesn't resolve the fact that the measurement of it is unresolvable. — Isaac

Okay, yes, I see what you are saying - if the dilemma is merely that which course of action causes less suffering then it isn't really a moral dilemma; it is a disagreement about facts about which course of action will cause less suffering.

Try it, by all means. Take a moral dilemma where people disagree with you about the 'right' course of action. Tell them how much 'suffering' you think the 'wrong' option causes and see if they disagree. If they do, where do you go next? To what higher authority do you appeal to judge the correct amount of 'suffering' in cases of disagreement? — Isaac

Do you mean they disagree about the amount of suffering caused or whether or not minimizing suffering is a good objective?

1. You present a theory on something that we don't know what it is. — god must be atheist

Exactly, it's nearly impossible to disagree with that statement. I think the first step in testing a moral theory is presenting it. There are several different ones that are commonly understood.

To decide something is immoral we only rely on our inner gut feelings. It can't be proven that it's immoral, while the emotional judgment is so strong that we are unilateral in the opinion -- without having a basic definition of it. — god must be atheist

Well, in this context of "testing a moral theory" we would be both comparing the "gut feeling" and the logical implications of the theory in question. In example, there are some that would suppose negative utilitarianism implies the removing of suffering people; by means other than reducing there suffering. I don't agree, but it is a vivid example of testing a moral theory.

No, it's not flawed; and we are not basing our moral compass on theory, but on feelings. — god must be atheist

The desire to make a morally correct decision isn't flawed, but the basis for it may be. If the emotional feeling is in fact reliable, we should be able to put into words why one decision is in fact better than another.

This can also be inferred from my paper. — god must be atheist

The style of making sweeping declarative statements that must feel self-evident does mirror some elements I found in the paper. I agree you aren't imagining the points you are making; but you may be missing some of the issues that come along with them. Thanks for the response.

I personally think that there are only two ways to reach objective morality. One would be by knowing absolutely nothing (and I mean it in absolutely every sense of the word), and the other would be by knowing everything possible. In both cases, I believe that they'll be rendered as non-sentient. The nature of life prevents us from being able to reach either of these states and thus, objective morality is impossible for humans.

Perhaps, a reasonable approximation is still in play?

Since every metric can be 'converted' to suffering, changing the metric doesn't resolve the fact that the measurement of it is unresolvable. — Isaac

If you define suffering as exclusively being an undesirable state of mind then it seems to me that not every metric can be converted to suffering, although almost anything could be seen to cause suffering.

Of course. It is always possible to attempt to approach such a thing, I think. However, how would we know for certain whether or not even small deviations from the answer won't result in catastrophic implications that can completely change the end-result? I'm not trying to shut your argument down, but I'm wondering if this is the case.

If the liking system were still in effect I would like that comment. :up:

Unless I'm mistaken that is a big thing that happens when running certain simulations.

Yes, I think the field that studies such occurrences is called Chaos Theory.

Right, but Chaos Theory is almost entirely mathematical. I think linguistics is probably more important in this context than math because we would describe a moral fact, or the approximation of one, in terms of language, not, say, in terms of the curvature of the path of a body in the presence of other bodies. So I don't know if Chaos Theory could say a whole lot about approximating moral facts and the outcomes of doing so.

But it is interesting nonetheless, and the concept might be useful.

, we should be able to put into words why one decision is in fact better than another. — Cheshire

That's just it: feelings are not universal over some particular action or event.

For example: One nation's celebration of victory over the overlords is a sad day in the life of the overlord. The victory is moral on one side of the fence, immoral on the other side.

Or take the crucifixion of Jesus. Christians decry and hate the decision by the Jewish leadership to crucify him; yet without the act, people of Jesus' followers would never be saved. So should Christians thank the Jews for killing their god, or hate them for it? Christians by-and-large chose the hate part.

If my soccer team wins by one goal where the referee did not punish my team for being off side, then it's not a moral sin for the followers of my team, but it is for the opposing team.

That's just it: feelings are not universal over some particular action or event.

For example: One nation's celebration of victory over the overlords is a sad day in the life of the overlord. The victory is moral on one side of the fence, immoral on the other side.

Or take the crucifixion of Jesus. Christians decry and hate the decision by the Jewish leadership to crucify him; yet without the act, people of Jesus' followers would never be saved. So should Christians thank the Jews for killing their god, or hate them for it? Christians by-and-large chose the hate part.

If my soccer team wins by one goal where the referee did not punish my team for being off side, then it's not a moral sin for the followers of my team, but it is for the opposing team. — god must be atheist

How does that relate to what you quoted? I think Cheshire was more talking about how we have to give a justification for why one act is better than another - and explain it in words; we have to be able to give
- at minimum - a rationalization about why we are right, if not a fully logical explanation.

I see now what you were getting at, but I think Cheshire meant something else entirely.

How does that relate to what you quoted? I think Cheshire was more talking about how we have to give a justification for why one act is better than another - and explain it in words; we have to be able to give
- at minimum - a rationalization about why we are right, if not a fully logical explanation. — ToothyMaw

that's precisely what the subjectivism is about (voluntary) morality; the precise thing that eradicates any trace of objectivism. You said it yourself, and ever so rightly: we rationalize our actions into moral superiority, without any substantive support for it. I have seen it in communist Hungary, I have seen it in capitalist USA, I have seen it in fascist anti-Semitic literature.

Karl Marx (one of quite a few of his observations that I find true that are not related to communism) discovered this in political movements: "Humans of a common movement create an ideology to help them succeed in their efforts." In other words, humans must lie to themselves to explain the evil acts (not in a religious sense evil, but in a moral sense) they are about to commit. The WARS to satisfy the greed for Indian spices was explained as crusades. The killing of the Jews was explained as an economic and moral good deed by Hitler. The enslavement of Blacks was explained by saying they are sub-humans. The American Civil War was explained as a humanitarian act.

Yes, I'm not very sure as to how current technology will be able to do this with Chaos Theory as well. It could be a possibility in the future though. Regarding what you said about math and its relationship to morality, this is objective morality we're talking about, so there might be some basis in using it. I'm far too inexperienced to think of any specific methods though.

I also personally thought that linguistics had more to do with the expression of ideas rather than the idea itself. Of course, certain ways of expressing ideas could yield promising results that can help us get better at approximating the actual answer. I was wondering what your thoughts on using linguistics for this subject were.

Yeah, I definitely agree with all of that. :up:

But it seems to me many of these rationalizations are the result of or an interaction with deeper tendencies like tribalism, fanaticism, greed, hegemony, etc. - things that are both explicitly and latently dangerous.

For example, none of the neocons in the US can even give a fucking half-decent rationalization for their forever-wars, so the tendency towards hegemony with regards to the US is quite explicit.

(duplicated post)

I also personally thought that linguistics had more to do with the expression of ideas rather than the idea itself. Of course, certain ways of expressing ideas could yield promising results that can help us get better at approximating the actual answer. I was wondering what your thoughts on using linguistics for this subject were. — XFlare

Maybe analyzing applied approximate moral facts in terms of the semantics of their constituent parts and comparing the combinations of constituent parts to the outcomes arrived at by their application could yield a basis for combining said constituent parts into a more accurate approximation through trial and error?

Basically you would insert different combinations of chunks of meaning into an ever-closer approximation based upon how you know they interact from trial and error, and then check the consistency/closeness of the approximation.

if the dilemma is merely that which course of action causes less suffering then it isn't really a moral dilemma; it is a disagreement about facts about which course of action will cause less suffering. — ToothyMaw

Yes, thats right, and if the dilemma were previously framed as which course of action caused most happiness, changing it to which causes least suffering won't change the disagreement because lack of happiness can be framed as a type of suffering.

Do you mean they disagree about the amount of suffering caused or whether or not minimizing suffering is a good objective? — ToothyMaw

The former. They may talk as if they disagreed about the latter, but my argument is that such disagreements are superficial whether it's least suffering, or most happiness, or most virtuous, or most culturally acceptable, or most pleasing to God... The main thrust of the disagreement in moral dilemmas is not the objective, it's the means of getting there.

If you define suffering as exclusively being an undesirable state of mind then it seems to me that not every metric can be converted to suffering, although almost anything could be seen to cause suffering. — ToothyMaw

Seems contradictory. If anything can be framed by how much suffering it causes, then it seems to follow that every metric can be converted. All that's required is to measure the suffering caused by it's valence.

Yes, thats right, and if the dilemma were previously framed as which course of action caused most happiness, changing it to which causes least suffering won't change the disagreement because lack of happiness can be framed as a type of suffering. — Isaac

Fair enough.

The former. They may talk as if they disagreed about the latter, but my argument is that such disagreements are superficial whether it's least suffering, or most happiness, or most virtuous, or most culturally acceptable, or most pleasing to God... The main thrust of the disagreement in moral dilemmas is not the objective, it's the means of getting there. — Isaac

Once again, fair enough.

If you define suffering as exclusively being an undesirable state of mind then it seems to me that not every metric can be converted to suffering, although almost anything could be seen to cause suffering.
— ToothyMaw

Seems contradictory. If anything can be framed by how much suffering it causes, then it seems to follow that every metric can be converted. All that's required is to measure the suffering caused by it's valence. — Isaac

That was a bit of a mindfuck. I suppose that that is true too.

So where does that even leave us?

To decide something is immoral we only rely on our inner gut feelings. — god must be atheist

Suffering e.g. starvation is much more than "inner gut feelings". If reducing suffering is the goal, then 'causing / not reducing starvation' fails to pursue, or undermines, the goal. But is this goal moral? may be asked.

Negative utilitarianism, as I understand it, is the position which assumes, on a naturalistic basis, that the defects of our species (and most other mammalian species), when stressed cause dysfunction or worse, are objective facts and that these stressors are homeostatic / hedonic signals for help to reduce them; it is this inherent solicitude – appeal, or demand, for help – to others (with defects and vulnerability to the same stressor-hazards) which is moral – which makes the goal of reducing suffering (e.g. starvation), in this framework, moral.

This is how you know, more than with "inner gut feelings", that being starved is to suffer the same for others as it is for yourself, and failing to reduce such an abject condition for another is, by this standard, "immoral" (I prefer morally wrong) insofar as you, like the other, expect – appeal/demand for – help to reduce your starvation. And so caveat: taking any decisionist scenario out of the context of any ethical framework, gmba, renders it arbitrary (e.g. "we rely only on our inner gut feelings") and so even easier to conclude what you've assumed: thus, moral nihilism or emotivism, moral relativism or egoism – intractably confused whateverthefuckism – fatuously and decadently proliferate.

none of the neocons in the US can even give a fucking half-decent rationalization for their forever-wars, so the tendency towards hegemony with regards to the US is quite explicit. — ToothyMaw

That is true. What many don't realize is that the USA would be in the middle of a long-long elongated depression, created by an overproduction crisis. This is counter-effected by the powers that be by draining the economy; they do it by building up a military. The military brings nothing to the table of the economy; but because it only takes away, it makes sure that whatever is on the table will get bought up. If things remain on the table, they have a poisonous effect on the economy. A bit like a real, food table: if you don't wash it and empty it of food every day, it will develop greasy dirt that attracts microbes, rodents and disease.

That is true. What many don't realize is that the USA would be in the middle of a long-long elongated depression, created by an overproduction crisis. This is counter-effected by the powers that be by draining the economy; they do it by building up a military. The military brings nothing to the table of the economy; but because it only takes away, it makes sure that whatever is on the table will get bought up. If things remain on the table, they have a poisonous effect on the economy. A bit like a real, food table: if you don't wash it and empty it of food every day, it will develop greasy dirt that attracts microbes, rodents and disease. — god must be atheist

I never would have thought such a thing. But wouldn't production naturally slow down if people weren't buying things and there was no tremendous military industrial complex draining the economy? I'm no economist (or really anything for that matter), so that question might be a bit naïve. But I understand what you are describing.

That's just it: feelings are not universal over some particular action or event. — god must be atheist

Which is precisely why our legal system doesn't run on feelings. In theory at least.

For example: One nation's celebration of victory over the overlords is a sad day in the life of the overlord. The victory is moral on one side of the fence, immoral on the other side. — god must be atheist

When converted to logical thought the question becomes is it morally ok to celebrate a military victory. Making decisions relative to an emotion alone isn't as reliable. When decisions are large enough people have to put forward some type of reasoning or risk being seen derelict of a duty for due diligence.

Or take the crucifixion of Jesus. Christians decry and hate the decision by the Jewish leadership to crucify him; yet without the act, people of Jesus' followers would never be saved. So should Christians thank the Jews for killing their god, or hate them for it? Christians by-and-large chose the hate part. — god must be atheist

I think it's irrational to hold people accountable for being related to other people by 2000yrs just in any context; it's a very misguided concept. In this one; I would remind the interested party he was crucified by Romans and at least some of the account of it was probably written or added in transcription in Rome. Or if your religion makes you hate anyone, then get a new religion.

If my soccer team wins by one goal where the referee did not punish my team for being off side, then it's not a moral sin for the followers of my team, but it is for the opposing team. — god must be atheist

Well, this is actually more significant. It sounds like happenstance of human error in regulating a game. I guess you could ask if it is immoral to enjoy a victory not fully earned?

So, there are ways of taking things out of the subjective; but if your purpose is the opposite, then maybe I'm missing something.

I'm going to flag your comment for triggering me. Triggered.

Seems contradictory. If anything can be framed by how much suffering it causes, then it seems to follow that every metric can be converted. All that's required is to measure the suffering caused by it's valence. — Isaac

The OP is available for confounding this demonstration.

Suffering e.g. starvation is much more than "inner gut feelings". — 180 Proof

Nice pun!

I guess you could ask if it is immoral to enjoy a victory not fully earned? — Cheshire

There are many ways to skin a cat, but the cat has nine lives, and the cat-o-tail has nine whips.

That's just it. You could ask a number of things, and they could answer a number of things. "The victory was fully earned because the game goes to the team with the higher score." or "The refereeing is a human act, it is prone to error, and it could have happened the other way around. The rules say the referee's judgment is the ultimate judgment in the game, so who are we to argue with the referee? It may even earn us a yellow card (personal punishment) if we pressed an argument." "No, it was not offside. The referee saw it correctly." ETC.