First, I maintain that was a misinterpretation of Kant's work that was referenced in it's refutation. — Cheshire

Like other big-name philosophers, the ones

who enjoy household name status, Kant has several, more than two, camps of followers, who have widely differing interpretations of his works. It's a little bit like the Evangelist movement in this sense, that they categorically deny the truth in other interpretations in favour of their own. I now learned to reject those arguments that start with "those interpretations are wrong." To me (and only to me, as far as my claim goes) the claims of those philosophers are supported by their own interpretation, and that is a rather very subjective support of an argument; in other words, if an argument depends on rejecting alternative interpretations, then the argument is subjective, and lacks objectivity.

The fact people can rationalize an immoral act has zero bearing on whether it is an immoral act. — Cheshire

This is another contentious issue, which my paper covers and solves. Nothing has a bearing on an act whether it's moral or immoral, other than people's views. If the view is shaped by rationalization, then the verdict is the opinion still. You can't get an outside, objective judgment on morality; it is a people-generated and consensus-driven quality. I like to bring up the practice of cannibalism and the practice of backstabbing. In some cultures cannibalism is opined to be acceptable and is encouraged, in most cultures it is rejected and deemed immoral. In most cultures turning on your friends to gain advantages is horribly immoral; in the entertainment and movie industry it's the norm of accepted and actually expected behaviour.

makes me wonder if you are typing in a white room — Cheshire

This is, I suppose, a symbolic culture-driven reference which I don't get. A white paper in a white room by a white philosopher who is a white folk? I don't know what you could possibly mean.

fine. I can't make you read that. If you told me which part, you'd have to read that part first, so this is a stalemate.

Can you read it without my making you to do so? And if not, then why not? this terseness is categorical surrender, because 1. You would have to read to know you don't want to read it 2. therefore you read it, and you don't want to deal with it 3. and that can only be so (from the tone that's given in "you can't make me read that") because it upsets you, or irritates you.

Being upset or irritable is not pleasant, and this site is basically purposed for entertainment, or for enjoyment for the users/ members. If you don't want to do something you don't enjoy, fine, but that in this instance you can only do that by aborting the dialogue. I will abide by your wishes.

Nothing has a bearing on an act whether it's moral or immoral, other than people's views. — god must be atheist

In some cultures cannibalism is opined to be acceptable and is encouraged, in most cultures it is rejected and deemed immoral. — god must be atheist

We have your claim and supporting evidence presented above? It would be a shame to lose it the moment things seem untenable. My irritability is with being told how "right I am" repeatedly. If you've closed the matter then fine move on. If you are indeed correct some one will let a distance relative who doesn't understand it know. In the next 160 years. Till then, it's understood to be an open question.

This is, I suppose, a symbolic culture-driven reference which I don't get. A white paper in a white room by a white philosopher who is a white folk? I don't know what you could possibly mean. — god must be atheist

Big door, tiny window.

Big door, tiny window. — Cheshire

That's another symbolic that is lost on me.

That's another symbolic that is lost on me. — god must be atheist

Or the literal description of institutionally themed interior space.

Only if morals are phenomena requiring a theoretical explanation which provide unique predictions.

I'm not sure whether you're actually asking this, or whether it is just part of your discussion. — baker

I miss understood what you meant the first time. I agree that a lot of our conviction concerning moral judgement is based on the perception of them being a matter of reality. But, so does our value of fiat currency.

I wonder if some of the immorality we perceive is subjective impressions while other matters are actually immoral. We do know people can disagree. At one time drinking and dancing on Sunday was considered immoral.

The idea was to establish objective morality. If the answers are different, then morality is not from the act but rather a subjective notion of the observer. The same willful act of destruction of the same object should in theory produce the same moral judgement. Or not. An attempt at an inquiry. — Cheshire

No, this "same moral judgment" is not requited at all, and indeed, such an agreement between is never a real agreement (this is a Quine/Derrida position). All that needs to be demonstrated is that there is a noncontingent part of the essential ethical affair. Just this. You're not going to get people to agree on the radically diverging and different entanglements ! These are impossible to pin down and are, in themselves, ethically arbitrary "facts" of a particular case. Such facts are massively entangled in unique particularities of each person, each case, each culture or community. This lack of agreement is inevitable and it is foolish to think otherwise. However, what is agreed upon is the phenomenological analysis: put aside all factual entanglements and the residual value is not disputed, is cognitively coercive.

It is not about judgments' differences at all. it is rather that disagreements arise out of ethically arbitrary conditions, like the fact that I borrowed the ax, I feel the obligation to return it and this conflicts with my suspicion that were I to do so it could lead to a terrible crime. One can ask further into such an affair, get more facts, find where justification for belief is grounded or not, examine the many, many possible relevant facts, psychological or otherwise, and it is HERE where disagreement emerges: in the indistinctness of the way the case is to interpreted. But logically beneath this, there is the assumption that the crime itself would be BAD, and it would be bad because there is some value at risk, in play, to be won or lost, and it is this value that is beyond inquiry.

No, this "same moral judgment" is not requited at all, and indeed, such an agreement between is never a real agreement (this is a Quine/Derrida position). All that needs to be demonstrated is that there is a noncontingent part of the essential ethical affair. — Constance

I agree. A failure to establish that all three acts are immoral doesn't negate the existence of objective morality. If it could be shown they were all indeed immoral it would make for a tidy compelling position. I tried to reduce bias by using three cases and a gradual increase of intuitive permissibility. It is also a case I personally witnessed years ago with a friend who failed to meet the art school entry requirements, but whose work was already on public display and then destroyed by the artist after it was returned.

You're not going to get people to agree on the radically diverging and different entanglements ! These are impossible to pin down and are, in themselves, ethically arbitrary "facts" of a particular case. — Constance

I wasn't thinking like a philosopher. My purpose wasn't to produce a known result and pretend as if it was a discovery. It was scientific in the sense I hoped I would learn something.

This lack of agreement is inevitable and it is foolish to think otherwise. — Constance

It would have been bold to assume all three would be considered immoral by everyone; foolish to think they would be considered equally immoral.

However, what is agreed upon is the phenomenological analysis: put aside all factual entanglements and the residual value is not disputed, is cognitively coercive. — Constance

I think this was the most notable point set down by the responses. The observation that harm came to a store of value. It does seem to suggest that we can act on the world in a way that carries some objective element apart from the variance that arises. And that an act can be judged apart from the measure of suffering entailed. The paintings did not suffer. Which isolates a major common thread in known moral theories. The scientific approach asks if there is a better test or way to realize more informative results. You say it's "coercive", but I'm not sure in which direction you mean.

I feel the obligation to return it and this conflicts with my suspicion that were I to do so it could lead to a terrible crime. — Constance

It also puts you at a personal liability of having possessed a murder weapon. Your fingerprints and DNA could be caught up in the handle. The matter is best resolved by covering the replacement cost of the axe and be done with it. When axe murder is in play the risk of withholding property wrongly is out weighed by a perceived non-trivial involvement in serious injury. How your complaints of entanglements exist above and are reconciled here is difficult to articulate. But, I understand the scenario introduces the seemingly conflicted nature of perception into a question of objectivity. But, having a known immoral act as the subject of perception in a way fabricates some of the matter or not. Criticism is difficult to establish; like so many things the differing suppositions of the context conflict with the desire for a clear analysis. Interesting points though; it does have informative value.

I wonder if some of the immorality we perceive is subjective impressions while other matters are actually immoral. — Cheshire

But then we're still left with the problem of distinguishing which is which.

But then we're still left with the problem of distinguishing which is which. — baker

Which means we've identified a problem. I'd call the thread a success based on that much clarity alone.

The observation that harm came to a store of value. It does seem to suggest that we can act on the world in a way that carries some objective element apart from the variance that arises. And that an act can be judged apart from the measure of suffering entailed. The paintings did not suffer. Which isolates a major common thread in known moral theories. The scientific approach asks if there is a better test or way to realize more informative results. You say it's "coercive", but I'm not sure in which direction you mean. — Cheshire

An act can be judged apart from the measure of suffering involved, but I certainly don't think this is an ethical judgment. A pragmatic judgment works like this, the kind that ignores suffering for some higher end, that is, utility. But even here in this contingent world of utility, attention must come to rest on actual value as the point of it all, whatever one has in mind.
I think it is absurd to think about things having value at all apart from what is attributed to them in a conscious act.
As to the scientist, well, all science begins with what is there, at hand. A geologist first has the object to be analyzed, then there is the classificatory work, techniques for measurement are called in, more classificatory work, etc., but it all begins with observation. So: observe an ethical case and give it its classificatory due: judgment is there, contradiction in principles, the rational end of assessing matters; then there is the actuality: the phenomenon of some pain or pleasure, some experience that feels good or bad in a palpable way, not discursively arrived at, but considered as an intuitive apprehension of the world.
the former rational end is itself ethically arbitrary. As Hume put it, reason would just as soon eradicate humankind altogether, for it is just an empty vessel. The ethical nature of ethics comes from the world. Forget about inner and outer conditions, for here we are looking exclusively at the phenomenon of suffering and joy and it doesn't matter if it is a brain "doing" this. It is there, period, like a typhoon is there, or a stone or this cup on the table. It's "thereness" is not at issue and it is not a thoughtful construct or an interpretatively fluid event. Its is absolute, its presence. AND, it carries by virtue of its own nature the the entire weight of the ethical import of the matter at hand. It doesn't matter if it is a trivial matter or one deeply important, the decisive presence of palpable value make ethics what it is foundationally.
Coercive because one is forced to acknowledge pain and pleasure for what they are. Of course, again, once this distributed in the world of entanglements, that are ethically arbitrary, then judgment gets confused, but our understanding of how value is coercive comes through in cases where entanglements do not obscure occlude: radical affairs, like having someone put a lighted match to your finger. The good sceintist asks, what IS this? as a phenomenon, as a phenomenologically reduced event (see Hsserl's epoche). It classification is not IN the interpretative constructs we could bring to bear. It is outside these. this is why Wittgenstein refused to talk about value, for as concepts, ethical ideas are nonsense as they do not tell what things ARE.

An act can be judged apart from the measure of suffering involved, but I certainly don't think this is an ethical judgment. A pragmatic judgment works like this, the kind that ignores suffering for some higher end, that is, utility. — Constance

Well, in the case put forward by the OP there is no stated suffering to ignore.

But even here in this contingent world of utility, attention must come to rest on actual value as the point of it all, whatever one has in mind. — Constance

The idea that value and that suffering is a type of assault on value is becoming significant to my current working model. If this isn't the case then I'll have to rethink quite a bit to account for the error.

I think it is absurd to think about things having value at all apart from what is attributed to them in a conscious act. — Constance

Imprecise or subjectively driven perhaps, but there is no reduction to absurdity in the practice. We bury treasure, rent storage spaces, and purchase insurance with the understanding objects can be a store of value,

As to the scientist, well, all science begins with what is there, at hand. A geologist first has the object to be analyzed, then there is the classificatory work, techniques for measurement are called in, more classificatory work, etc., but it all begins with observation. — Constance

Witty got this bit wrong. Popper has excellent refutation of it in Chapter 1 Conjectures and Refutations. Available on audio for free on youtube.

the former rational end is itself ethically arbitrary. — Constance

I'm going to have to reread this section several times to understand exactly what information you intend for me to possess. I haven't spent enough time reading Wittgenstein, so his communication style which is often adopted is very difficult for me. I do intend on rereading and editing this bit, but any clarifications or simplifications that could be made even tentatively would aid in my understanding of your position on the matter. I believe you are saying that ethical matters are often matters of reality even though they are subject to entanglement with less well grounded notions.

I would honestly say the closest thing that could be called an “objective” moral (at least in the U.S, as far as I know) is the condemnation of pedophilia at large. People often abandon their restraint and celebrate their deaths in prison (which is usually delivered by another criminal that could’ve done a similar heinous crime such as murder, but pedophilia is the thing that REALLY grinds even the most morally bankrupt of people it seems like)

That's why the right uses it to manipulate it's base emotionally. Once people are that enraged, you can feed them any lie you want.

The idea that value and that suffering is a type of assault on value is becoming significant to my current working model. If this isn't the case then I'll have to rethink quite a bit to account for the error. — Cheshire

Not that suffering is an assault on value. Rather, suffering a simply a general notion that refers to kinds of value: I value not having double pneumonia. Why? Because it is a painful affair. Whatever model you have in mind regarding moral objectivity, this idea of objectivity is meaningful weighed against whatever subjectivity is, and so you have to look to both. Subjectivity in ethical theory attempts show that there is nothing in ethical prepositions that is like unproblematic cases of objectivity, like the density of iron being greater than that of mica, or the moon being closer to Earth than the sun. What makes these objective statements? Their truth is verifiable consistently by competent observers in a system of thought and experience. The scientific method, where verification or falsification rest with assumptions about the world and its facts or states of affairs. Note that science does not care for philosophical questions regarding the validity of these assumptions. Ask Neil Degrasse Tyson where the object called the sun gets its verification as an object at all, and he will simple dismiss such a thing. But it is here that ethics has its most salient presence, that is, at the level of inquiry beneath where science has its interests, and here is where phenomenology asserts itself: the level of presence as such, and all "naturalistic" knowledge is suspended and attention is put firmly upon the "given" only. Value as the palpable encounter with pain or pleasure "observed" as phenomena and not as interpretatively processed meaning reveals something Cartesian, that is, undoubtable, absolute.

Once here, the matter turns toward the nature of presence, rather than constructed propositions. This is where things get very interesting.

I'm going to have to reread this section several times to understand exactly what information you intend for me to possess. I haven't spent enough time reading Wittgenstein, so his communication style which is often adopted is very difficult for me. I do intend on rereading and editing this bit, but any clarifications or simplifications that could be made even tentatively would aid in my understanding of your position on the matter. I believe you are saying that ethical matters are often matters of reality even though they are subject to entanglement with less well grounded notions. — Cheshire

you may want to read his short Lecture on Ethics, which is I think available online. Then the Tractatus. He typically would refuse to talk about ethical foundations because he was convinced it was nonsense to do so, and this was because language and logic are simply not able to speak about it, for value is there, like qualia, like a pure phenomenon, a presence, and there is nothing one can say, because, reading the Tractatus, there is nothing observable about the "Good". The ethical Good is likely the weirdest thing that can be understood: Just ask yourself as you apply the lighted match to your finger, What IS it that makes this pain Bad?? It is not like a fact of the world, though there are many factuall things to say about it. After all facts have been exhaustively accounted for (see the Lecture on ethics' Big Book of omniscience) there is something unaccounted, which is the badness of the pain. We don't really observe the pain's badness, yet it is by parsecs that most salient feature of the event.
This Good Wittgenstein called divinity. Unspeakable, though; and the implications of the Good issuing from the "fabric of the world" are staggering. The world IS ethical, more so than any fact.

He typically would refuse to talk about ethical foundations because he was convinced it was nonsense to do so, and this was because language and logic are simply not able to speak about it, for value is there, like qualia, like a pure phenomenon, a presence, and there is nothing one can say, because, reading the Tractatus, there is nothing observable about the "Good". — Constance

How does he account for these statements if he can't say anything? I suppose that comes up at some point. Observing a deficit is something if I can speak about it. I used to have the same intuitive opinion concerning ethics, but I've been talking about it for a week, so something is clearly there; strange we would hold something in such high regard and not manage to attach words to it. I might wait and see if the world produces a genius that writes more readable books. Thank you for the recommendations.

Morality is a form of social survival, humans depend on people to survive. And morality is a set of rules you need to follow to benefit from the community protection and care. You don’t follow the social rules you get exiled and you will have to find another community that thinks like you. Hopefully, you can benefit from there protection and care.

These moral rules is to prevent chaos, distress or presenting a threat to a community. Both physically and emotionally.

People tend to forget that the origin of morality comes from evolution and it serves an almost technical purpose also. Is not just all religious or political and such.

Morality was meant to be a set of rules to help the group corporate together to fend off threats and predators. Maximizing the greatest chance for survival.

But as we evolved as a civilization it became more complex. That emotional transgression coming from our peers became the predator.

Morality became almost like a filter to weed the undesirables out.

Morality is not just about character. Is a biological evolutionary mechanism to help humanity survive challenges we may face.

How does he account for these statements if he can't say anything? I suppose that comes up at some point. Observing a deficit is something if I can speak about it. I used to have the same intuitive opinion concerning ethics, but I've been talking about it for a week, so something is clearly there; strange we would hold something in such high regard and not manage to attach words to it. I might wait and see if the world produces a genius that writes more readable books. Thank you for the recommendations. — Cheshire

Right at the outset, he makes that cryptic statement about passing over in silence that which cannot be spoken. There is a lot written about your objection, and I mean a lot! Recently, I have been reaading Michel Henry and Jean luc Marion, and Jean luc Nanci and the theological turn of phenomenology, putting a great deal of emphasis on Husserl. Husserl's phenomenological reduction suspends judgment to allow the world to become phenomenologically clear. Was Wittgenstein a phenomenologist? Maybe.

Morality is a form of social survival, humans depend on people to survive. And morality is a set of rules you need to follow to benefit from the community protection and care. You don’t follow the social rules you get exiled and you will have to find another community that thinks like you. Hopefully, you can benefit from there protection and care.

These moral rules is to prevent chaos, distress or presenting a threat to a community. Both physically and emotionally.

People tend to forget that the origin of morality comes from evolution and it serves an almost technical purpose also. Is not just all religious or political and such.

Morality was meant to be a set of rules to help the group corporate together to fend off threats and predators. Maximizing the greatest chance for survival.

But as we evolved as a civilization it became more complex. That emotional transgression coming from our peers became the predator.

Morality became almost like a filter to weed the undesirables out.

Morality is not just about character. Is a biological evolutionary mechanism to help humanity survive challenges we may face. — SteveMinjares

Perhaps all this is true. But why should one do what is part of an evolutionary mechanism? Preservation of the species? Is this what you tell someone regarding the meaning of their suffering? As the plague blackens the finger tips and boils cover the body, we say, well, alas, this suffering is conducive to survival and reproduction! There, you have it?
You see the absurdity of explanations like this? The real questions in ethics go to more fundamental level, as with Why are we born to suffer and die at all? why does existence throw us into suffering at all as a condition for survival at all?

My position on normative ethics is (aretaic) negative utilitarianism, wherein 'harm suffering misery' of members of any sentient species (at minimum) are considered 'the moral fact' (which solicits help to reduce harm or prevent increasing harm). Given that, I answer:

1. Only insofar as it increases harm to someone.
2. ditto
3. ditto

The answers here are the same in large part because the criterion proposed in objectively grounded. Harm is the objective moral fact at issue: objective because it is specie member-invariant; moral because it entails a meliorative (helping) response; fact because it indicates a natural species defect that when stressed risks dysfunction or worse.

... why would it matter if morality was objective or not? Objectively wrong, or subjectively wrong, they don't care either way. Neither force people to do what's right.
— Isaac
Same with laws: why bother with legistlating or deterrent punishments since "neither force people to do what's right?" — 180 Proof

I'm impressed 180 Proof. Do you ever waste time? Rhetorical question!

Anyway, I'm particularly interested in negative utilitarianism because of one simple reason - reducing suffering seems more feasible than maximizing happiness. For instance, here I am in my room, typing away on a keyboard, expressing my thoughts, directed at you and I feel no pain, no suffering, I'm absolutely content with it all. I know, I know, my world, the world I described to you, is smaller than small; nevertheless, the point is I'm not suffering. I wouldn't say I'm happy though but the fact of the matter is I'm not suffering. Proof, wouldn't you say?, that negative utilitarianism has an attainable goal.

Maximizing happiness seems problematic though because I see no upper limit, no final endpoint to happiness. We're happy let's say but then happier we want to be. Lather, rinse, repeat (shampoo algorithm). It's only the finite nature of the means to happiness that people stop asking for more (happiness). I'm still a bit unsure about this so feel free to correct me.

I believe there's an ancient Greek counterpart to negative utilitarianism which you told me about in re the so-called tetrapharmakos you said I should adopt as a philosophy. I can't for the life of me recall that concept, it was in Greek. Mind sharing it with me once again for my benefit. Thanks!

Perhaps all this is true. But why should one do what is part of an evolutionary mechanism? Preservation of the species? Is this what you tell someone regarding the meaning of their suffering? As the plague blackens the finger tips and boils cover the body, we say, well, alas, this suffering is conducive to survival and reproduction! There, you have it?
You see the absurdity of explanations like this? The real questions in ethics go to more fundamental level, as with Why are we born to suffer and die at all? why does existence throw us into suffering at all as a condition for survival at all? — Constance

Suffering is the challenge we as a species need to go through to weed out the weak and make sure only the strongest survive. The purpose evolution.

So we don’t have to do the dirty task ourselves nature does it herself and goes through the process of elimination. This is not by societies choice but by design by evolution and nature to give the human race the greatest chance of survival.

Is the ego of humans to believe we don’t abide by the same rules that of the other creatures of this Earth.

Yes it hurts, and yes it sucks but it been working for millions of years so who are we to question it.

Yes people will suffer others will experience the heartache of witnessing such things but by each passing event that happen the next Generation becomes better, stronger and wiser.

Is the individual that disapproves this cause they desire a easier alternative.

Suffering is the challenge we as a species need to go through to weed out the weak and make sure only the strongest survive. The purpose evolution. — SteveMinjares

No, rather emphatically. Evolution is not a purposive theory, and there is no guiding hand in nature pushing for the survival of the fittest. Random mutation of genes has no purpose.

So we don’t have to do the dirty task ourselves nature does it herself and goes through the process of elimination. This is not by societies choice but by design by evolution and nature to give the human race the greatest chance of survival. — SteveMinjares

Nature has no such design. You should stop thinking like this. It is an anthropomorphizing of nature.

Is the ego of humans to believe we don’t abide by the same rules that of the other creatures of this Earth.

Yes it hurts, and yes it sucks but it been working for millions of years so who are we to question it.

Yes people will suffer others will experience the heartache of witnessing such things but by each passing event that happen the next Generation becomes better, stronger and wiser.

Is the individual that disapproves this cause they desire a easier alternative. — SteveMinjares

This is all too familiar and beneath the level of inquiry presented here.

Morality is a form of social survival, humans depend on people to survive. And morality is a set of rules you need to follow to benefit from the community protection and care. You don’t follow the social rules you get exiled and you will have to find another community that thinks like you. Hopefully, you can benefit from there protection and care. — SteveMinjares

I wonder if the level of group reliance and the strictness of moral enforcement are correlated. Like, the difference in enforcing a tribal law versus the permissibility of social deviance in modern societies. In a study of behavior there are surely elements of evolution. The anxiety of losing social connections or dysregulation of sleep cycles from isolation points to a biological need for us to attain social involvement.
However, anytime we invoke evolution to explain everything there's the danger of reciting an anthropic principle. Yes, evolution must have functioned in such and such a way to produce this outcome or otherwise it wouldn't be here. The complication arises when trying to say what type of environment resulted in what type of evolution. Did the moral animals survive extreme circumstances better from strict group allegiance or was it a greater aid to proliferation when things weren't as stressful. So, simply stating it aids survival because it survives requires further investigation. But, inarguably is going to be the context of a scientific understanding; if one is ever fully formed.

Right at the outset, he makes that cryptic statement about passing over in silence that which cannot be spoken. There is a lot written about your objection, and I mean a lot! Recently, I have been reaading Michel Henry and Jean luc Marion, and Jean luc Nanci and the theological turn of phenomenology, putting a great deal of emphasis on Husserl. Husserl's phenomenological reduction suspends judgment to allow the world to become phenomenologically clear. Was Wittgenstein a phenomenologist? Maybe. — Constance

Thanks! It's always nice to find I'm at least wandering down a path others see as well. I do intend on at least reading over the lecture on the ethics. What little I've gleamed is he seems like a secular phenomenologist. I read a stack of paper produced by Hegel and could only tell you he wants to see what God sees in order to make sense of things to humans. I think Einstein's approach of accounting for what things look like from the subjective and then explaining it from the objective was the reconciliation phenomenology required. Thanks again for the references; I'll look forward to seeing what the developed form of my objection entails.

Apparently, you missed the following post:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/573153 (from p. 5 of this thread)

Other formulations:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/554048 (re: suffering is objective)

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/540198 (re: moral facts: suffering sapients)

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/572299 (re: consequences for future suffering)

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/548752 (re: tetrapharmakos^, or an ancient example of 'how to unlearn misery') link in post^

The lecture really was an eye opener into his process; at least in the sense I know he is deliberately speaking in a way that he knows is hard to understand on purpose. I can't imagine looking at a crowd and saying "try and get at my meaning" without knowing the following will intentionally be difficult for people to understand. I don't mean these as even passive judgements, but it makes me wonder for what purpose was this form of communication. It doesn't seem like an end in itself. Years ago I used to play with the idea philosophy was a victim of argument as much as the content of argument. Speaking vaguely and without stated or implied opposition would promote agreement. If I am always permitted first to make you agree with my Why?, then my What is delivered presold. So, it seems to solve a problem I thought I saw as well; naturally I prefer my solution, but at least seeing the common ground in the distance is encouraging(even if its incorrect).

However, anytime we invoke evolution to explain everything there's the danger of reciting an anthropic principle. — Cheshire

My intention wasn’t to make evolution to explain everything but it does play a role in moral conduct.

Hopefully I don’t sound like I am going off topic but take the example of mob psychology and how a large group of people can encourage bad behavior in individual or encourage to behave differently.

Mob psychology can be one piece of the puzzle showing how morality is define by culture and society and not by individual thinking.

How peer influences can change how we think.