Thanks for helping to prove me right.
— Thanatos Sand

You're welcome, Thanatos. You have no idea of how happy it makes me to be able to cast light on your greatness!

So, you still can't make an opposing argument. Good to know.

It's more a matter of judging whether to waste my time on some posters, who are likely to dive into an argument with many unquestioned assumptions, and then resort to insults instead of rational debate. Quite a few of them turn up on forums.

The only one making insults was you. And you clearly can't make an opposing argument, despite your blather. So, you've only been wasting my time, and you can move along.

The problem of 'evolutionary ethics' revolves around the question as to whether, as humans are the products of evolution, then ethical actions and judgements can be understood in evolutionary terms. Below are excerpts from three essays published in the New York Times that address these themes.

A good starting point is a piece from The Stone column in the New York Times opinion section, called Anything but Human, by Richard Polt.

I have no beef with entomology or evolution, but I refuse to admit that they teach me much about ethics. Consider the fact that human action ranges to the extremes. People can perform extraordinary acts of altruism, including kindness toward other species — or they can utterly fail to be altruistic, even toward their own children. So whatever tendencies we may have inherited leave ample room for variation; our choices will determine which end of the spectrum we approach. This is where ethical discourse comes in — not in explaining how we’re “built,” but in deliberating on our own future acts. Should I cheat on this test? Should I give this stranger a ride? Knowing how my selfish and altruistic feelings evolved doesn’t help me decide at all. Most, though not all, moral codes advise me to cultivate altruism. But since the human race has evolved to be capable of a wide range of both selfish and altruistic behavior, there is no reason to say that altruism is superior to selfishness in any biological sense.

In fact, the very idea of an “ought” is foreign to evolutionary theory. It makes no sense for a biologist to say that some particular animal should be more cooperative, much less to claim that an entire species ought to aim for some degree of altruism. If we decide that we should neither “dissolve society” through extreme selfishness, as [E.O.] Wilson puts it, nor become “angelic robots” like ants, we are making an ethical judgment, not a biological one. Likewise, from a biological perspective it has no significance to claim that I should be more generous than I usually am, or that a tyrant ought to be deposed and tried. In short, a purely evolutionary ethics makes ethical discourse meaningless.

Likewise, philosopher Thomas Nagel said in his 2012 book, Mind and Cosmos, that

We ourselves, as physical organisms, are part of [the universe described by modern science], composed of the same basic elements as everything else, and recent advances in molecular biology have greatly increased our understanding of the physical and chemical basis of life. Since our mental lives evidently depend on our existence as physical organisms, especially on the functioning of our central nervous systems, it seems natural to think that the physical sciences can in principle provide the basis for an explanation of the mental aspects of reality as well — that physics can aspire finally to be a theory of everything.

However, I believe this possibility is ruled out by the conditions that have defined the physical sciences from the beginning. The physical sciences can describe organisms like ourselves as parts of the objective spatio-temporal order – our structure and behavior in space and time – but they cannot describe the subjective experiences of such organisms or how the world appears to their different particular points of view. There can be a purely physical description of the neurophysiological processes that give rise to an experience, and also of the physical behavior that is typically associated with it, but such a description, however complete, will leave out the subjective essence of the experience – how it is from the point of view of its subject — without which it would not be a conscious experience at all.

So the physical sciences, in spite of their extraordinary success in their own domain, necessarily leave an important aspect of nature unexplained.

And finally, another philosopher, Roger Scruton, says that :

[According to evolutionary psychologists] the astonishing moral equipment of the human being — including rights and duties, personal obligations, justice, resentment, judgment, forgiveness — is the deposit left by millenniums of conflict. Morality is like a field of flowers beneath which the corpses are piled in a thousand layers. It is an evolved mechanism whereby the human organism proceeds through life sustained on every side by bonds of mutual interest.

I am fairly confident that the picture painted by the evolutionary psychologists is true. But I am also confident that it is not the whole truth, and that it leaves out of account precisely the most important thing, which is the human subject. We human beings do not see one another as animals see one another, as fellow members of a species. We relate to one another not as objects but as subjects, as creatures who address one another “I” to “you”....

I think these passages illustrate the kind of problem being discussed: that to think about humans only in biological terms, doesn't come to grips with the problem of agency, of making choices and decisions.

Alright I see what you mean. It's a matter of emphasis.

We can say that what other people do is obviously a combined result of their biological makeup and their environment...

But, when it comes to ourselves (and that's what counts, and what our life-experience possibility-story is about), then it's a just a matter of what the situation is, what we prefer or like, and what we want to do, for achieving what we prefer or like.

We do what we want, to achieve what we want or like.

I've said that, with regard to an animal, it's that animal's point-of-view--not that of a white-smocked scientist with a clipboard, observing the animal--that is the valid point-of-view.

So, sure, what we prefer, and what we choose to do, to achieve what we prefer, that's the valid point of view. The outside, 3rd-person point-of-view isn't the valid one.

But, with that, I also emphasize that each of us is the animal.

This also relates to the free-will issue. I say that we have free-will, as described above. We do what we want to, to achieve what we like or want. That's how it is from the animal's point of view, and we're the animal, and our point of view is what our life-experience possibility-story is about.

The free-will issue, and all of the argument about it, accentuates how much difference point-of-view makes. To that scientist with the clipboard, the mouse doesn't have free-will. To the mouse, it does have free-will. It does what it wants to.. And the mouse's point of view is the valid one, as regards the mouse.

Michael Ossipoff










.

Incorrect. Just because the many other animal species on this planet can't speak human language, doesn't mean that they like it when they or their young die prematurely. ...as many of them do when we destroy their habitat, by clearcutting, pollution, global-warming, etc. — Michael Ossipoff

I said nothing of language; my comment was about consciousness. Your comment hear doesn't respond to my argument.

Compared to the other animals — Michael Ossipoff

You continue to completely miss my point. Shame, along with all emotions, only exists as a concept within consciousness.

Humans have great potential. As a species, we don't live up to that potential at all, and our effect on Earth's life is incomparably worse than that of other animals — Michael Ossipoff

Is our potential environmental and nothing else? Why does the environment matter? What's the referent for why it matters? Why is it wrong to harm the environment?

You seem to be confusing our potential with our actual deeds and effect. — Michael Ossipoff

I'm trying to help you see that these things you consider morally wrong need a non-physical referent in order to be coherent.

But no, regardless of what it means, its definition, whatever it may be, doesn't invalidate anything that I said. — Michael Ossipoff

Your entire argument has been biologically reductionist thus far, in it's own unique way.

http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095507137

Are you a Spiritualist? — Michael Ossipoff

What is a spiritualist?

You continue to completely miss my point. Shame, along with all emotions, only exists as a concept within consciousness.

No, emotions are also physical reactions and expressions of unconscious experience and feeling, particularly with the more irrational ones like hate, love, and anger. So, they are products of the brain/body and, as you mentioned, another product of brain/body--consciousness.

No, emotions are also physical reactions and expressions of unconscious experience and feeling, particularly with the more irrational ones like hate, love, and anger. So, they are products of the brain/body and, as you mentioned, another product of brain/body--consciousness. — Thanatos Sand

All mental processes are obviously functions of the physical brain, but this doesn't explain consciousness itself. I said "shame...only exists as a concept within consciousness". Michael was talking about the concept of shame when he said we're the shame of the animal kingdom. To feel an emotion without consciousness is physical (animal), but to make an emotional argument, as is doing is intellectual (conscious); not physical. That's the argument I'm making against Michael. For humans to be the "shame" of the animal kingdom requires consciousness; other animals don't consider us the shame of the animal kingdom because they don't consider anything. Whether or not animals actually feel the emotion of shame is not related to a human (conscious) argument about whether or not we as humans are "shameful" animals.

I continue to try to bring the discussion to a fundamental place of considering what the assumptions are that you all are making when you focus so heavily on biological considerations when making philosophical arguments; I continue to ask why you find these discussions worthwhile, I ask what the referent is to why these questions matter, and you all continue to only respond with more biological arguments. You have to agree to go where I'm trying to lead you in order to make arguments against the actual points I'm bringing up.

For humans to be the "shame" of the animal kingdom requires consciousness; other animals don't consider us the shame of the animal kingdom because they don't consider anything. Whether or not animals actually feel the emotion of shame is not related to a human (conscious) argument about whether or not we as humans are "shameful" animals.

I got you, but I would say we are not the "shame" of the animal kingdom because Nature knows no "shame" and every "shameful" thing we do is as much a part of our biology--very often in deficient forms like psychopaths or pedophiles--as tearing animals to shreds is to crocodiles. And our feelings of shame are usually more emotional than parts of our consciousness, which is itself a conceptual term for bio-physiological dynamics.

Nature knows no "shame" — Thanatos Sand

What is Nature, capital N? the poetic device here is confusing.

"shameful" thing we do is as much a part of our biology--very often in deficient forms like psychopaths or pedophiles--as tearing animals to shreds is to crocodiles. — Thanatos Sand

The physical symptoms in the brain that lead to psychopathy or pedophilia are not the same thing as a crocodile feeding to survive. And furthermore, those physical symptoms of mental illnesses are simply the machinery by which our subjective conscious experience of those states of mind are set into motion, and we only know that through the subjective experience of conscious scientific observation. You're reducing those mental states to biological functions (biological reductionism). This is fallacious because you're doing this through your conscious intellect. None of us have the ability to actually observe the world outside of this mental state that we all share. When we observe the physical mechanisms of our own minds, we are doing just that: observing the mechanisms. We are not observing anything to do with an ontological meaning by which one might be able to make a philosophical argument.

You're basically saying: The lasagna is only a product of the oven. No one made the lasagna, and they didn't (not) make it for anyone else to eat.

What is Nature, capital N? the poetic device here is confusing.

I just mean the natural world, as in everything.

The physical symptoms in the brain that lead to psychopathy or pedophilia are not the same thing as a crocodile feeding to survive.

I never said they were. You need to go read what I wrote again and retract that.

I never said they were. You need to go read what I wrote again and retract that. — Thanatos Sand

The sentence in question is pretty vague, so maybe simplify it? Then feel free to comment on the actual argument that I just made instead of nitpicking on things that I misinterpreted because your language was vague.

And furthermore, those physical symptoms of mental illnesses are simply the machinery by which our subjective conscious experience of those states of mind are set into motion, and we only know that through the subjective experience of conscious scientific observation.

No, they are not; they are somatic and mental manifestations of chemical imbalances in the brain.

You're reducing those mental states to biological functions (biological reductionism).

No, I'm not. They are biological functions and biological reductionism is a ridiculous religious term.

This is fallacious because you're doing this through your conscious intellect.

No, it's not because my conscious intellect is a product of my brain and the rest of my body and nothing more.

When we observe the physical mechanisms of our own minds, we are doing just that: observing the mechanisms.

We can't observe the mechanisms of our minds. Only neurologists and their equipment like EKGs can.

You're basically saying: The lasagna is only a product of the oven. No one made the lasagna, and they didn't (not) make it for anyone else to eat.

No, i'm not even close to saying that at all, and you haven't shown I have. What a ridiculous metaphor.

I never said they were. You need to go read what I wrote again and retract that.
— Thanatos Sand

The sentence in question is pretty vague, so maybe simplify it? Then feel free to comment on the actual argument that I just made instead of nitpicking on things that I misinterpreted because your language was vague.

Sorry, the sentence in question and my language werent' vague and you haven't shown it is. You just completely misrepresented what I said. So, it's on you to read better. And asking you to not misrepresent what I said is not nitpicking; it's asking you to actually use your English skills if you have any.. But since you're fine with misrepresenting me, we're done and I won't be reading anymore of your posts.

Cheers.

No, they are not; they are somatic and mental manifestations of chemical imbalances in the brain. — Thanatos Sand

This is not a response to my argument. You continue to avoid how conciousness plays into this.

No, it's not because my conscious intellect is a product of my brain and the rest of my body and nothing more. — Thanatos Sand

See above.

No, I'm not. — Thanatos Sand

yes, you are.

They are biological functions — Thanatos Sand

No they're not, we only apprehend them through subjective conciousness.

We can't observe the mechanisms of our minds. Only neurologists and their equipment like EKGs can. — Thanatos Sand

So why are you making arguments on their behalf?

What a ridiculous metaphor. — Thanatos Sand

I thought it was pretty tasty >:O

use your English skills if you have any.. — Thanatos Sand

There's no need to insult me; consult my posts to see if I have English skills. I trust you have it in you to philosophize with arguments instead of insults. All of us do, and you're no different. It just takes a willingness to question one's own beliefs, to weigh the beliefs and philosophies of others as impartially as you're able to, to put yourself in their shoes, and to use reason to assess arguments, including your own, in a leveled manner. I wish you the best in cultivating that ability.

But since you're fine with misrepresenting me, — Thanatos Sand

I'm not, which is why I asked you to simplify the sentence in question. It's a small, inconsequential sentence, and not worthy of cutting off debate with a specific forum member over.

we're done and I won't be reading anymore of your posts. — Thanatos Sand

I've seen you say this to others. It would appear that at this rate, you'll only be singing to your own choir on this forum, or possibly just not posting at all. I'd love to debate with you more in the future if you decide to change your mind. Good luck!

There's no need to insult me; — Noble Dust

Always comes back to insults in his/her case. Apparently they are a product of 'unconscious brain mechanisms', so there's not much point arguing with, or about, them.

:P

We don't stay up late, and so i must sign-off for the evening, but let me just make a brief preliminary comment or two:

I didn't mean to say that the other animals are ashamed of us. Only that we should be ashamed of ourselves, or our conduct toward the Earth and its life.

If you're saying that the other animals don't have consciousness, I disagree.

More tomorrow.

Michael Ossipoff

What is a spiritualist? — Noble Dust

Someone who believes in consciousness as something apart from the physical animal.

Such a person believes in consciousness or mind as a separate metaphysical substance.

..even if you believe that the body is, by supervenience &/or emergent-property, etc., the origin of mind or consciousness--but still believe in mind or consciousness as something separate and different from body.

The body doesn't make or originate mind or consciousness. Mind and consciousness are Spiritualist fictions. The fact is that we're each an animal, with preferences, likes, dislikes, fears, etc., and that's it.

Your need to artificially separate us into separate mind and body, and say that we're the mind, is fictitious philosophical make-work.

More tomorrow.

Michael Ossipoff
.

Someone who believes in consciousness as something apart from the physical animal. — Michael Ossipoff

You're thinking of dualism; a spiritualist is a person who practices spiritualism.

The body doesn't make or originate mind or consciousness. Mind and consciousness are Spiritualist fictions. The fact is that we're each an animal, with preferences, likes, dislikes, fears, etc., and that's it. — Michael Ossipoff

What's your argument for this claim? I assume you mean dualist fictions, not spiritualist ones.

For instance, this:

The fact is that we're each an animal, with preferences, likes, dislikes, fears, etc., and that's it. — Michael Ossipoff

Is not an argument for this:

The body doesn't make or originate mind or consciousness. Mind and consciousness are Spiritualist fictions. — Michael Ossipoff

Such a person believes in consciousness or mind as a separate metaphysical substance. — Michael Ossipoff

Are you using the word "substance" here as a metaphor on purpose or no?

A few messages ago, I said that I disagree if you say that the non-human animals don't have consciousness.

But that contradicts my statement that mind and consciousness are fiction.

So I retract the statement that I disagree if you say that nonhuman animals don't have consciousness.

Let me just say, instead, that, though humans have a special adaptability, language, and special talents that the other animals don't have, if you meant that, other than that, there's some qualitative fundamental attribute possessed only by humans, then I disagree with that.

Or, to say it differently, though I disagree with the notion of mind and conscious as things, as us apart from bodies, it sounds even more wrong to me when you say that humans but not animals have it.

(even though I don't believe that either has it)

I just wanted to fix that sentence in which I contradicted myself.

Michael Ossipoff

though humans have a special adaptability, language, and special talents that the other animals don't have, if you meant that, other than that, there's some qualitative fundamental attribute possessed only by humans, then I disagree with that. — Michael Ossipoff

But consciousness itself is that qualitative fundamental attribute because it's the very "realm" in which we humans have these discussions. Consciousness is the foundation of all human experience. You can't make a physicalist claim without your consciousness. The problem you need to address is how to even go about making an argument that that consciousness which is the foundation of your experience is a physical attribute of your body. The burden of proof actually always lies with the physicalist here because consciousness is something that we experience as not being physical, regardless of whether or not it actually is.

"Someone who believes in consciousness as something apart from the physical animal". — Michael Ossipoff

You're thinking of dualism; a spiritualist is a person who practices spiritualism. — Noble Dust

Sure, Dualism is another word for what I mean. A better word, because it's more familiar, in philosophical discussion.

But philosophical Dualisms sound to me like varieties of Spiritualism.


I'd said:

The body doesn't make or originate mind or consciousness. Mind and consciousness are Spiritualist fictions. The fact is that we're each an animal, with preferences, likes, dislikes, fears, etc., and that's it". — Michael Ossipoff

You reply:

What's your argument for this claim? I assume you mean dualist fictions, not spiritualist ones.

I mean both, because Spiritualism is Dualism, and philosophical Dualisms sound to me like something in the same class as Spiritualism. I don't perceive much difference between philosphical Dualism and what's usually called Spiritualism.

My argument is that the simplest description of what we are, is that we're nothing other than what we seem to be--an animal. Our experiences are entirely consistent with that simple description of us.

This philosophical need to believe that the animal consists of separate body and mind (or consciousness) is an unnecessary elaboration.

Ii prefer simplicity, without all the added assumptions.

Our simple-animalness was obvious to me when I was in pre-secondary school. It never occurred to me that there might be philosophes who were contriving elaborate unnecessary other theories.

When simple-animalness is completely consistent with our experience, then there's no reason to believe that your elaborate separate Consciousness or Mind are other than fiction.

You said

For instance, this:

" The fact is that we're each an animal, with preferences, likes, dislikes, fears, etc., and that's it." — Michael Ossipoff


Is not an argument for this:

The body doesn't make or originate mind or consciousness. Mind and consciousness are Spiritualist fictions. — Michael Ossipoff

No, it's more of a re-statement of it.

Above, I spoke of arguments for it.

Let me just ask you this:

Given that animals are natural-selection-designed to accomplish certain purposes, by responding to their surroundings for that purpose, what would you expect that to "look like" and "feel like" to the animal?

Wouldn't you, in fact, expect it to be exactly what you experience?

That's why I say that Dualism/Spiritualism of mind or consciousness is fiction.

I've discussed all this in other topics.

"Such a person believes in consciousness or mind as a separate metaphysical substance". — Michael Ossipoff


Are you using the word "substance" here as a metaphor on purpose or no?

I'm using "metaphysical substance" with its usual metaphysical meaning.

Michael Ossipoff

Alright, what's usually called "Spiritualism" differs from other Dualisms, in the fact that most Dualists don't talk to the spirits that they believe in.

But the similarity is still too close to ignore.

Michael Ossipoff

My argument is that the simplest description of what we are, is that we're nothing other than what we seem to be--an animal. — Michael Ossipoff

Isn't the simplest description of us that we're conscious beings? Your conscious experience is the ontological starting point. The concept of "I am simply an animal" is not the ontological starting point; it's an abstract concept.

Given that animals are natural-selection-designed to accomplish certain purposes, by responding to their surroundings for that purpose, what would you expect that to "look like" and "feel like" to the animal?

Wouldn't you, in fact, expect it to be exactly what you experience? — Michael Ossipoff

Not at all because I experience consciousness.

I think a lot of people lack any kind of framework to even consider this question from any perspective other than the biological. That's what we're seeing in this discussion.

My argument is that the simplest description of what we are, is that we're nothing other than what we seem to be--an animal. — Michael Ossipoff
— Noble Dust

Isn't the simplest description of us that we're conscious beings?

Your conscious experience is the ontological starting point.

Sure. But your conscious experience is of your perceptions, feelings, preferences, wants, likes and dislikes among your surroundings, Those are exactly what one would expect as the experience of an animal, or any other purposefully-responsive device.

Each person is a body living in its surroundings, wanting some things, and wanting to avoid other things. Why do you have to make it more complicated than it is?

No, you don't have to think about being an animal. Other animals don't.

No that doesn't belittle, insult or underestimate you. It's just the simplest description consistent with our experience.

I can't prove that your elaborate Dualism is wrong. So I'll just point out that there's no need or reason to believe in that elaboration.

Yes, philosophy lends itself to endless, elaborate unnecessary theorizing, if that's what you want..

The concept of "I am simply an animal" is not the ontological starting point; it's an abstract concept.

Of course. A squirrel doesn't say to itself, "I'm an animal." It just goes about its business of avoiding dangers and getting what it prefers and likes. ....as do we. ...as any animal would.

I'd said:

Given that animals are natural-selection-designed to accomplish certain purposes, by responding to their surroundings for that purpose, what would you expect that to "look like" and "feel like" to the animal?

Wouldn't you, in fact, expect it to be exactly what you experience? — Michael Ossipoff

You replied:

Not at all because I experience consciousness.

If someone built a robot that can navigate a maze, or vacuum a carpet, etc., that purposefully-responsive device has to get information about its surroundings, and act based on that information and its built-in purpose. ...usually involving some analysis of that information about the surroundings.

Likewise for the natural-selection-designed purposefully-responsive devices known as animals.

Don't you see that "consciousness" of yours is your perception and analysis of your surroundings, maybe with a monitoring of that analysis, for purposes of optimization or communication? ...and your feelings of preference, likes, dislikes, fears, etc.?

Don't you see that that "consciousness" of yours is nothing different from what one would expect for the point-of-view of any purposefully-responsive device, including an animal?

Michael Ossipoff

I think a lot of people lack any kind of framework to even consider this question from any perspective other than the biological. That's what we're seeing in this discussion — Wayfarer

A completely vague statement.

I've agreed that your own 1st-person point-of-view is the only really valid one, because it's what your life-experience possibility-story is about.

But your Dualism has the burden-of-proof, because of its unnecessary elaborateness.

"Framework"? Sure, you can build as elaborate a philosophical framework as you want to, to describe what can be much more simply described.

Michael Ossipoff

I've looked up a number of definitions of "biological-reductionism. But if you want to say that I'm talking biological-reductionism, then you should say by exactly what definition of "biological-reductionism" you're wanting to label what I've said.

Anyway, labeling something doesn't refute or discredit it.

Michael Ossipoff