I concure. Moral decisions cannot be decided in an algorithmic fashion - they are far too complex. Just as no rule can accomodate the definition of "game", and of "morality", no rules could cover the all possible situations we migth call "moral". — Banno

I understand that "morality" is defined based upon the context or game upon which it used in, thus making the term inherently ambiguous outside the game upon which it is played. But what goes for "morality" goes for all terms, so I question why that would be a special case.

When you say that "game" cannot be defined, I assume that means that the definition of "game" is dependent upon the game that "game" is used in?

Why is "morality" and "game" within that special case of language games that they should be singled out? Aren't all terms on equal footing in this regard?

Why do you think many secular humanists are concerned about human rights and work hard to help others and improve human life? Do you think it's the remnants of theism? — Tom Storm

I think they do good because they are good people. I'm not terribly concerned with motives. If they're feeding the hungry, the hungry are getting fed.

I do think they're sincere in their motivations, meaning they may feel that it's the lack of there being a God that makes them even more moral in that they feel motivated entirely internally and needn't rely upon higher nonsensical powers. That is, I don't think they have deep seated unshakable theistic thoughts. I think they're true blue atheists.

As a theist, though, I do think their goodness does in fact come from a higher source, even if they deny it. Their beliefs (like mine) don't create reality. One of us is wrong regarding this whole theism thing, but I don't contend that theists are better people because they are theists. The idea that faith alone makes you a better person isn't something I subscribe to.

The shortalls he summarised have being debunked. MAybe you can point out which ones in your opinion still fly. — Nickolasgaspar

In relation to morality I don't really care for science or biology based arguments. I am not a scientist, so I don't know which tentative theory or source of data is accurate or not. Science based arguments just sound like those old advertisements for chewing gum- '4 out of 5 dentists recommend brand X..'

There are probably many scenarios where wellbeing is not all that helpful and I think Issac's question of 'whose wellbeing' is a good one. When there is competing wellbeing, whose are we chiefly concerned with?

If we can increase the world's overall wellbeing by 200% though the slavery of 5% of the world's population, do we do it?

What do you say to this argument?

To claim the secular humanist's beliefs about humans are foundational is to claim something special about humans, but they deny humans have any. If humans have no degree of magic in their constitution, then we'd need to treat human beings like the pool balls that they are.

So, either (1) admit that humans are special and worthy of special treatment and make that your foundation, or (2) deny that and stop with trying to create special rules for these ordinary physical entities. If you choose (1), you're not a secular humanist as they define themselves and you've not avoided any of the problems levied against the theist. If you choose (2), you're not a secular humanist, but some sort of nihilist, which is exactly what the theist expected to be the result. — Hanover

As a theist, though, I do think their goodness does in fact come from a higher source, even if they deny it. Their beliefs (like mine) don't create reality. One of us is wrong regarding this whole theism thing, but I don't contend that theists are better people because they are theists. The idea that faith alone makes you a better person isn't something I subscribe to. — Hanover

Thanks. This seems to be to be a balanced and generous view. Do you subscribe to any form of idealism?

As a theist, though, I do think their goodness does in fact come from a higher source, even if they deny it. Their beliefs (like mine) don't create reality. One of us is wrong regarding this whole theism thing, but I don't contend that theists are better people because they are theists. — Hanover

So, in other words, belief in a higher power makes no difference to whether one is moral or not.

So, in other words, belief in a higher power makes no difference to whether one is moral or not. — Fooloso4

Whether your beliefs comport with reality doesn’t affect your moral worth. I'm aware that's a religious belief held by some though.

there can't be an absolute objective morality - one where I say you are objectively morally wrong in any instance. — PhilosophyRunner

As I wrote in my first post in this thread:

My understanding of morality splits the difference between subjective and objective views. As I see it, morality at its most basic is a reflection of human nature. — T Clark

If morality is, as I claim, a reflection of human nature, there is a sense in which it is objective. It's how we're built by evolution, genetics, and development as supported by socialization and learning.

If morality is, as I claim, a reflection of human nature, there is a sense in which it is objective. It's how we're built by evolution, genetics, and development as supported by socialization and learning. — T Clark

Yes, but even if that is the case, I suggest it is still subjective.

If I I think it is moral to kill dogs and you think it is immoral to kill dogs, you may tell me that I am wrong because we are built by evolution, genetics, socialization and learning to not kill dogs. Hence my position on this matter is objectively wrong

But I would disagree - the very fact that I exist as a dog kill loving person shows that I am not built by evolution, genetics, socialization and learning to not kill dogs.

(I love dogs, just using that as an example)

So every subjective view on morality that someone has, is the result of evolution, genetics, socialization and learning of that person. And hence no moral view can be considered immoral, as long as someone has that view. Isn't that a subjective morality?

Yes, but even if that is the case, I suggest it is still subjective. — PhilosophyRunner

I don't know that you and I disagree. As I wrote, there is a sense in which it is objective. That means there's another sense in which it is subjective. It's a matter of perspective. The important part for me is that there is something human about morality. It's not infinitely malleable and it's not rigidly determined because it's constrained by its relation to humanity.

Yeah I think we do largely agree.

Another way to express my view would be this.

There is an objective fact that can be observed about human nature. Your baby experiment is this. So in this sense morality is observational and it is objective.

Morality is also used to prescribe what should and ought to happen. And here is where I think it becomes removed from objectivity - because you are looking at the objective observation, then saying that observation is wrong and should be something else.

So yes I would agree with you that morality is objective in some senses and subjective in others.

morality is, as I claim, a reflection of human nature, there is a sense in which it is objective. It's how we're built by evolution, genetics, and development as supported by socialization and learning. — T Clark

This is based upon a false assumption of the universality of ethical norms. It is simply not the case that all cultures hold to the same moral rules, which would presumably be the case if morality was the result of genetic evolution (as opposed to social evolution).

You're making a claim that ethical knowledge is a priori, which, if true, would alleviate the need that we teach our children rights from wrong.

It's simply that an item that does not appear in the assumptions of an argument cannot appear in the conclusion. Hence a series of assumptions or observations about how things are cannot lead to the conclusion that things ought be — Banno

:ok:

So yes I would agree with you that morality is objective in some senses and subjective in others. — PhilosophyRunner

Agreed.

This is based upon a false assumption of the universality of ethical norms. — Hanover

No, it's based on the assumption of common human motivation.

It is simply not the case that all cultures hold to the same moral rules, which would presumably be the case if morality was the result of genetic evolution (as opposed to social evolution). — Hanover

You have misstated my position.

You're making a claim that ethical knowledge is a priori, — Hanover

No, I'm not.

alleviate the need that we teach our children rights from wrong. — Hanover

As I've said, at it's most basic, morality is based on empathy. A sense of commonality with other people. I think a lot of that is built in. Hardwired. How much? I don't know.

This is based upon a false assumption of the universality of ethical norms. It is simply not the case that all cultures hold to the same moral rules, which would presumably be the case if morality was the result of genetic evolution (as opposed to social evolution). — Hanover

I know you are replying to the other poster, but I'm playing with ideas here.

Objective Observational Morality
I observe the moral position of a group (a single person, a society, all of humanity, it can be any group). Based on my observation, I can specify an objective sense of morality for that group.

For example (note the numbers and specifics are made up to illustrate a point):
- Most people in the U.S think that it is wrong to sacrifice humans on a high alter because your religion specifies it.
- Most people in all of history think that it is wrong to sacrifice humans on a high alter because your religion specifies it.
-Most people in Mayan culture think is is right to sacrifice humans on a high alter because your religion specifies it.

In all those cases a combination of evolution, genetics, socialization, learning led to the above thinking. Morality is the result of evolution, genetics, socialization, learning and hence all the above are moral.

Subjective Prescription Morality
Where I elevate my values to prescribe the actions of others. This can also be where my culture elevates its values to prescribe the actions of other cultures.

For example:
-I think that human sacrifice is wrong. I think the Mayans were wrong to carry out human sacrifice.

But this is subjective morality based on my values. Clearly the Mayans didn't share those values, as evidenced by the fact they sacrificed humans. Can I somehow objectively overrule the Mayans? I'm not so sure.

Thoughts?

No, it's based on the assumption of common human motivation — T Clark

Then why the variation cross-culturally?

You're making a claim that ethical knowledge is a priori,
— Hanover

No, I'm not.


As I've said, at it's most basic, morality is based on empathy. A sense of commonality with other people. I think a lot of that is built in. Hardwired. How much? I don't know. — T Clark

How are you distinguishing a priori from "hardwired"?

Some cultures have purity rules, dietary rules, sexual prohibitions, caste systems, gender rules, body modification rules, ritualistic demands, etc etc. These ethical rules often violate progressive liberal views on what empathy demands.

I'm not disagreeing that my modern sensibilities don't prioritize empathy as an ethical criterion, but if I'm going to proclaim that the true way to determine morality for all cultures in an absolute sense, I'm not going to be able to declare that it arises from the natural human condition because it doesn't seem to when I look at the human condition across cultures.

Take the analogy of physics laws (my area). I observe that force applied on an object is proportional to it's mass multiplied by it's acceleration. People have observed that since newton, and it is one of the laws of motion he suggested. This has very accurately and reliably been shown to be true. I'm pretty confident in it. I can use it to make predictions.

However I cannot use it to say how nature should or ought to behave. — PhilosophyRunner

I could only say that you are a victim of incorrectly attributing similarities where there shouldn't be. We are talking humans here. Let's get physics out of here.

I preface my post with, this thread is intentionally contentious, without wanting to come to a common understanding.

No, it's based on the assumption of common human motivation
— T Clark

Then why the variation cross-culturally? — Hanover

Some cultures have purity rules, dietary rules, sexual prohibitions, caste systems, gender rules, body modification rules, ritualistic demands, etc etc. These ethical rules often violate progressive liberal views on what empathy demands. — Hanover

Here's what I wrote in a previous post.

My understanding of morality splits the difference between subjective and objective views. As I see it, morality at its most basic is a reflection of human nature. We are social animals. We like each other and like to hang around with each other. We have empathy. Add on top of that the needs of running societies ranging from just a few people to millions and you get a complex mix of biological, psychological, sociological, and cultural. — T Clark

How are you distinguishing a priori from "hardwired"? — Hanover

A priori generally refers to knowledge. When I say "hardwired" I'm talking about motivation, values, feelings.

proclaim that the true way to determine morality — Hanover

I wasn't trying to proclaim anything. I wasn't suggesting a way to determine right from wrong. I just gave my understanding of how moral feelings and judgements might have developed.

Frankly, I don't understand the question.

Frankly, I don't understand the question. — Agent Smith

Which question? The OP is asking:

is one particular moral view objectively right and the others are wrong, regardless of what people believe? — PhilosophyRunner

Well, in that case, we could start from incontrovertible truths, these being hedonic judgments, in re morality, oui? Let's keep things simple and begin with nobody likes to be physically assaulted. To that one could add psychological pain e.g. insults. These are universal and true across the board.

To complicate matters, though the indicators of good & bad are clear viz. :smile: & :sad: , the triggers are not. The classic spanner in the works for ethics is masochism which typifies one man's meat is another man's poison. This, let's just say, exception, thwarts any attempt at formulating universal laws with respect to morality. This state of affairs is what moral relativism is.

It's worth mentioning here that the differences mentioned vide supra seem to be intuitive in nature i.e. not much in the way of systematic analysis is done. There could be an underlying rationale that justifies the diverse values i.e. moral relativism could simply be an illusion and can be dispelled à la how Thanos sees through Dr. Strange's magical clone illusion in Avengers, Infinity war! :grin:

How do you measure well-being? — Isaac

There are specific metrics like
1.our biological drives to survive( belong to a group,), to flourish(ensure safety) and to procreate.
1.our biological urges Address our biological need, Seek non destructive pleasure and avoid pain/suffering
3.Behavior fueled by our mirror neurons that enable sympathy and empathy
those are some of the most essential. — Nickolasgaspar

Those are not metrics. I'm asking you how you measure whether someone (or society's) well-being has been harmed. That measurement is required for the objectivity of your proposed scheme.

Seems you are using "biological urge" in much the way I might use "desire". — Banno

Possibly. I was trying to give a charitable understanding of the ethical naturalist position (despite not really being a fan). Personally, I've never found a truly satisfactory term for what they're trying to get at. 'Biological urge' doesn't really do it either (as if there were non-biological urges - what would they even be?). I think - to give a fully wordy definition - what they're trying to get at are urges which seem to occur to us without the influence of others - ie ones which are unaffected by culture. That's the motivation behind Karen Wynn's work, it's why she studies babies.

I think, despite the lack of an easy term, it is an important distinction (well it's important in Psychology - it may turn out to be irrelevant in Philosophy, we'll find out!) It's demonstrating that there are (possibly) some pre-wired beliefs (in psychological terms - tendencies to act as if...) and that would obviously have all sorts of interesting consequences. Morality, in some respects, is the hardest, but most interesting of these. Alison Gopnik is carrying out similar studies on beliefs about Physics. My wife's work, incidentally, is in a similar vein on certainty (lying, trusting sources, etc). I don't really know what implications these studies have on the various related philosophies, that's what I'm interested to explore, but it seems to me that we can't, in our philosophical investigation of morality, simply ignore Wynn's findings, they surely must have some meaning? I'm just not sure what. I'm pretty clear, however, that its' not the sort of simple one-rule ethical naturalism espoused so often, other studies rule that out.

Perhaps a more interesting question is the meta-question. What is it about "morality is..." type statements which so appeal to people? We hear dozens of them, all wanting it to be one single simple metric. Why? What's the benefit, or attraction, of it being so simple when it's abundantly clear that morality is anything but simple?

That's really very interesting.

I see the studies you present as, unsurprisingly, showing the intrinsically social nature of humanity. Reinforcing this point is well worth doing, especially in the face of the myth of competition found in capitalist ideology. it also perhaps serves to demonstrate the pathological nature of egocentrism and sociopathy.

My answer to the "morality is..." approach is the same as for most of the trite, overly simplistic answers to philosophical questions. Folk think philosophy is easy. They read an article and think they have the answer. But they do not understand the process involved in criticism, and see any questioning of their reading as an attack. One only has to flick through this thread for examples.

That is, it's down to laziness.

Reinforcing this point is well worth doing, especially in the face of the myth of competition found in capitalist ideology. it also perhaps serves to demonstrate the pathological nature of egocentrism and sociopathy. — Banno

Yeah, Karen Wynn is married to Paul Bloom (another Psychologist - we're all married to each other, it's quite unseemly!), and he works a lot on opposing that very narrative, so I think it's part of that, certainly is for me.

Far from resolving moral questions, these studies simply demonstrate the deeply embedded reasons why we ask those questions in the first place - essentially we have multiple, complex prosocial proclivities and, typical of our species, we try to resolve them socially. It's unfortunate that some (including some of my less enlightened colleagues) confuse the reason for asking a question with its answer.

it's down to laziness. — Banno

Probably, yeah. Simple narratives have a strong appeal when pushed for mental bandwidth, and moral questions are so ubiquitous. For my twopenneth I also think there's a laziness in the art of persuasion too, it leads to an excessive attraction toward powerful answers (I've often referred to it as looking for a bigger stick with which to beat one's opposition). "God said so" is a pretty big stick, but "Logic says so" is favoured by many.

"Logic says so" — Isaac

A favourite of mine. See ought/is, above. Of course, it is far more complex than I acknowledged in that discussion, but there is a point in raising what is a non-trivial problem that had been ignored.

there is a point in raising what is a non-trivial problem that had been ignored. — Banno

Absolutely. I see it from a pragmatic, rather than logical angle (though the same problem, I believe). There will forever be a need for some language which can be used to discuss how things ought to be . We can say "morality is just a biological urge to reduce harm" or some such similar oversimplification, but then we'd just need a new word to use when we ask "ought we follow such an urge or not?" So we might just as well stick with the one we've got.

In relation to morality I don't really care for science or biology based arguments. — Tom Storm

I am not sure you have the luxury to dismiss Knowledge from a philosophical inquire and biology from your efforts to understand a biological by product!
Both practices are the main ingredients for a pseudo philosophical soufflé

I am not sure you have the luxury to dismiss Knowledge from a philosophical inquire and biology from your efforts to understand a biological by product! — Nickolasgaspar

This may be true but I can't judge their merit, not being a biologist. I am very aware of people using what is rightly expert knowledge to argue a point on this site (be it advanced exegetical understanding of Plato or quantum mechanics).

(To borrow from the old joke) I don't know anything about morality, but I know what I like.

i

Those are not metrics. I'm asking you how you measure whether someone (or society's) well-being has been harmed. That measurement is required for the objectivity of your proposed scheme. — Isaac

So Stress hormones or the presence of endorphins to deal with pain or the lack of metabolic molecules due to undernourishment or the absence of oxytocin during social interactions(lack of trust) etc etc are not objective metrics of well being??????
What do you even think well being is? How and why we value well being. Do you even know what Homeostasis is?
Do you really think that well being is a ''bubble" in our world without any connections to our biological nature? Actions affect our biology either physically or mentally and we can objectively measure the impact by observing our chemisty and brain function.
By identifying the evolved drives and urges we can easily learn what is valuable for an organism to survive and flourish.