I am again surprised to see it resurrected here. It is the zombie strawman that will not die.
— Mark S
Very much unluckily for you, I didn't do that and expressly addressed the fact that you're system is not scientific, or derived from science. — AmadeusD
I just reject that anything you've posited is any way 'moral science'. — AmadeusD
... literary phil seems quite dead outside the existentialist frame. Where are the poetic epics looking at the philosophical implications of quantum foundations or extended evolutionary synthesis!?
— Count Timothy von Icarus
:up: :up: Actually, there are quite a few speculative fiction authors on the margins ... — 180 Proof
Would you be interested in a thread here about the state of science about our moral sense and cultural moral norms?
— Mark S
↪Mark S Sure would, Mark! Where are we starting from? — Kizzy
There is no "moral science" except as a strawman.
— Mark S
Then your entire premise is false and I am happy to leave it here for you to play with :) — AmadeusD
It occured to me that the science of morality is just about useless for Boethius as he sits in his prison cell awaiting his torture and execution for not not allowing corruption. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Where science is probably most helpful is in knowing what to do and how to do it, — Count Timothy von Icarus
Science would be extremely helpful to Boethius while he is still Consul and dealing with the intricacies of public policy. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Point being, science, and techne in general, is only useful once one is already self-determining to some degree. — Count Timothy von Icarus
I'm asking what literature you're using, and what ideas you're basing this off of. When you reference something by science, put a quote so we can see where you're coming from and what research you're basing it off of. — Philosophim
Ok, but that's not cooperation. I can do many things for my gene's advantage that do not involve cooperation. How is me, under threat of jail or duress, getting drafted in a war to die for my country cooperation? — Philosophim
Many ideas of morality and laws in culture are not about cooperation or willingness, but forced obeyance under threat of punishment or death. — Philosophim
If someone in trouble tells me they don't need help, but I secretly slip them 20$ that can't be traced back to me, that's has nothing to do with morality?
— Mark S
Our moral emotion of empathy exists because empathy for other people motivates initiating the powerful cooperation strategy of indirect reciprocity.
— Mark S
Indirect reciprocity? Look, I'm not thinking they're going to pay it forward. For all I know the guy's a psychopath. I also lost 20$. I do it because I think if I have spare resources, it should go towards helping another life live well. This is not cooperation. This is sacrifice. Altruism. — Philosophim
You're really going to try to claim that if I stomp on a bug, it could be considered immoral because it means I'm not good to cooperate with? How does that have anything to do with whether I can work with other people towards a common goal? — Philosophim
Threat of punishment for not following a culture or society is not cooperation. Its also not 'reciprocity'. Its servileness. Slavery. Personal sacrifice for obedience to others. — Philosophim
This needs work. A lot of work Mark S. — Philosophim
The above principle is universal to the direct and indirect reciprocity strategies that are encoded as our moral sense and cultural moral norms. It is universal to what is descriptively moral in societies with the exception of favoritism for kin.
— Mark S
No it isn't. — AmadeusD
Maximize harmony with everyone’s moral sense.
— Mark S
This is a shotgun to the foot. This is an emotive position. — AmadeusD
It is an instrumental ought
— Mark S
Then I have no issues. I just reject that anything you've posited is any way 'moral science'. It appears, patently, your assertion carried forth into a logical framework where you get the desired result of a self-consistent system. This is just utilitarianism with 'co-operation' instead of 'happiness' as its aim. Nothing wrong with that, but it certainly falls short of anythign we could consider a scientific position or train of thought. — AmadeusD
Yes, scientism (or pseudo-science) is, at best, bad philosophy (i.e. sophistry). — 180 Proof
No, you don't. Look Mark, proposing cultural values are moral values is ethics 101. Its highly debated. Your 'no contradiction with known facts' is dogmatic at this point with the examples I've given you. I still see no posted scientific papers that agree with you. You haven't addressed the specific examples I've given you like "Dying for your country". I'm not feeling like you're engaging with questioning, but dogmatically harping that your theory is right because 'science'. — Philosophim
What is universally moral – strategies that solve cooperation problems without exploiting others
— Mark S
Why would this be an Ought?
— AmadeusD
That's what I keep coming back to. It seems there is an assumption that cooperation strategies are good and therefore ought to be obligatory or foundational to any moral system. Sam Harris did the same thing when he proposed that 'wellbeing' is good therefore it ought to be obligatory as the foundation for moral decision making. — Tom Storm
What is universally moral – strategies that solve cooperation problems without exploiting others
— Mark
Why would this be an Ought? — AmadeusD
...I don't have a problem with examining the hypothesis. But if you're claiming its fact? There's a LOT that needs answering.
...How do you explain someone who believes their cultural norms are immoral?
...This is a very unscientific set of thoughts.
..Hand waving away anything that doesn't agree with the desired conclusion and telling people "It Doesn't matter if we don't like it" because 'science' says so, is not a good argument.
...How is dying for my country cooperation when I'm not going to receive one single benefit from dying for it?
...Often times morality has the threat of punishment or death if one does not follow it, such as following God's commands. Why would cooperation need threats if we both mutually benefit?
..., I think it would help at this point that you publish some of these scientific articles and conclusions you keep purporting. . — Philosophim
Cite some reputable scientific studies which corroborate your claim. — 180 Proof
in situ 'moral sciences' do not motivate/facilitate either ethical (or juridical-political) judgment or moral conduct. — 180 Proof
Some nontrivial percentage of individuals are psychopaths, and that has been investigated in a game theory context as well: — wonderer1
↪Mark S "Empathy" and other emotions are not "cooperation strategies innate to the universe" anymore than (e.g.) strawberries are caused by strawberry-flavored atoms. Cite some reputable scientific studies which corroborate your claim. — 180 Proof
Rather than taking empathy and other parts of human nature as givens, I go up a level of causation to their source, the cooperation strategies that are innate to our universe.
— Mark S
This claim seems to me quite an unwarranted (reductive) leap that, so to speak, puts the cart (cultural norms) before the horse (human facticity). Explain how you (we) know that "cooperation strategies are innate to our universe" and therefore that they are also "innate" in all human individuals. — 180 Proof
Your conclusion that cooperation that does not exploit other people is moral does not come from descriptive morality — Philosophim
Can we show definitively through science a morality that doesn't result in basic contradictions, handles edge cases, and is rationally consistent? — Philosophim
No. Cultural norms and biology based intuitions alone cannot be called moral. If I have a biological impetus to be a pedophile, its still wrong even if I have a group around me that supports and encourages it. Same with killing babies for sport. You have to explain why the biology and culture that is in conflict with this is correct/incorrect. That requires more than descriptive morality. — Philosophim
The law, and morality, are not the same. There are plenty of laws and cultures we would consider immoral. Descriptive morality takes any objective judgement away from morality, and simply equates it to what society encourages or enforces on others. You will find few adherents to that. — Philosophim
No debate with that, but I'm not seeing that here. — Philosophim
So when I find a bug in my home and decide on my own to capture it in a cup and put it outside instead of stepping on it, that has nothing to do with morality? If someone in trouble tells me they don't need help, but I secretly slip them 20$ that can't be traced back to me, that's has nothing to do with morality? I could give tons more. Very few, if any people, are going to buy into the idea that morality must involve cooperation. — Philosophim
AmadeusD
1.4k
The science of morality can explain why our moral sense and cultural moral norms exist.
— Mark S
I can't understand how this would be the case. Unless you take "the science of morality" to just be sociology focused on social norms? I would also posit that given the extreme expanses of time that would need to be "number crunched" in regard to their moral outputs, lets say, across history, that this science could never be used. — AmadeusD
I'm a "moral naturalist" (i.e. aretaic disutilitarian) and, according to your presentation, Mark, "the science of morality" is, while somewhat informative, philosophically useless to me.
...
I think your "preference" is wholly abstract – "a kind of rule" – and therefore non-natural which is inconsistent with your self-description as a "moral naturalist". What you call "cooperation" (reciprocity), I call "non-reciprocal harm-reduction" (empathy); the latter is grounded in a natural condition (i.e. human facticity) and the former is merely a social convention (i.e. local custom). Of course, both are always at play, but, in terms of moral naturalism, human facticity is, so to speak, the independent variable and convention / custom / culture the dependent, or derivative, variable.
No doubt the relationship of nature-culture is reflexive, even somewhat dialectical, yet culture supervenes on nature (though it defines or demarcates 'natural-artificial', etc). No, you're not "illogical", Mark; however, I find the major premise of your "Morality as Cooperation" to be non-natural (i.e. formalist/calculative/instrumental) and therefore scientistic or, at the very least, non-philosophical vis-à-vis ethics. — 180 Proof
Yet if we just understand that "how the World is" and "how the World should be" are two totally different questions that aren't easy to answer and that the first question doesn't immediately give us an answer to the second question, that's a good start. — ssu
If moral norms solve cooperation problems in groups, we can obviously understand that moral thinking goes further than a group of humans. What about other groups, what about other living beings, our World and the environment in general? — ssu
My perspective is that 'morality' as "what everyone ought to do regardless of their needs and preferences" does not exist.“Morality” here can be interpreted as [...] a category of strange thing I am not sure exists. — Mark S
“Descriptively moral behaviors solve cooperation problems in groups” is arguably scientifically true based on its explanatory power for past and present cultural moral norms and our moral sense.
— Mark S
This is weirdly worded. A descriptive moral behavior is why someone does something they believe is moral. Meaning that someone could believe that cooperating with another has nothing to do with morality. Descriptive moral behavior is subjective, therefore more a study of sociology on unreliable narrators than objective science. — Philosophim
Yes, the ingroup cooperation strategies are universal even when used for purposes that exploit or harm others.
— Mark S
No, this is not universal. Sometimes people cooperate due to threats or personal profit. They might not morally agree with the situation. For example, getting drafted into a war you think is wrong. Cooperating with a killer because they're threatening your life if you don't. Is this cooperation due to a sense of morality? Most would say no. — Philosophim
Hence, by morality as cooperation, “universally moral behaviors solve cooperation problems without exploiting or harming others”.
— Mark S
Considering this could be applied to problems that don't require cooperation, isn't the real claim of morality more along the line of "Taking actions without exploiting or harming others?" — Philosophim
My chief interest here is in learning how to present it so it will be understood. That is still a work in progress. The responses here have been helpful.
— Mark S
Who is your intended audience? If it's the average person, me, for instance, I struggle to see why it should matter to me. — Tom Storm
My understanding of morality is that it's a code of conduct (an agglomeration of historical cultural mores) enforced through a legal system. Morality provides stability and predictability, which helps societies to thrive (within certain parameters, given that the powerful can manipulate most moral systems to suit their interests).
How different is your view to this? — Tom Storm
The inherent rightness or wrongness of certain actions (e.g., murder or stealing) is a separate matter, I take it? — Tom Storm
as useless to moral philosophers as ornithology (or aerodynamics) is useless to birds — 180 Proof
Perhaps understanding what human morality ‘is’ will provide valuable insights for philosophical studies into what morality ought to be.
— Mark S
Given that morality is an aspect of philosophy (i.e. ethics), a scientific "understanding of morality" seems, IMO, as useless to moral philosophers as ornithology (or aerodynamics) is useless to birds. — 180 Proof
What is hateful [harmful] to you, do not do to anyone. — Hillel the Elder, 1st century BCE
— a[n] exercise entirely in the domain of science.
— Mark S
So then why do you think this "exercise" has any relevance to moral philosophy? — 180 Proof
Perhaps understanding what human morality ‘is’ will provide valuable insights for philosophical studies into what morality ought to be.
Our moral sense and cultural moral norms shape our moral intuitions. Therefore, our moral intuitions are also virtually all parts of strategies that solve cooperation problems. To the extent that a moral philosopher relies on guidance from their moral intuitions, this might be an additional helpful insight. — Mark S
You are pretending to use these words in non-normative ways, but it seems clear to me that you are not being consistent in this.
The simpler claim here is, "Cooperation explains morality, says Science." — Leontiskos
I think the attempt to reduce habits of normative non-reciprocal harm-reduction (i.e. morals) to "strategies for solving cooperation problems" (e.g. game theory, cybernetics) is incoherent and misguided. — 180 Proof
This proposal is incoherent due to the category mistake of reframing non-reciprocity (altruism) in terms of reciprocity (mutualism), or vice versa. — 180 Proof
For example, the so-called "moral sense" in human toddlers and many nonhuman animals is expressed as strong preferences for fairness and empathy towards individuals both of their own species and cross-species ... prior to / independent of formulating or following any "cooperation strategies". — 180 Proof
But what does that have to do with morality? — Leontiskos
to say that morality is for cooperation is a teleological claim — Leontiskos
A moral norm involves valuation, and therefore any field which prescinds from matters of value cannot appraise moral norms, except insofar as it explains them away. But to predicate cooperation of morality is to explain one value term with another value term, and "science," as you have described it, cannot do this. The account is therefore not even logically coherent. — Leontiskos
The science of morality tells us BOTH what is merely descriptively moral as well as what is universally moral. This is as it must be, because the science of morality must explain all of human morality, not just the parts we like.
— Mark S
That's a fine thing to claim, but where is science in your example describing a universal morality? — Philosophim
So we observe a few serial killers working together to mass murder people. "Ah, look at that morality in action!" we would say as scientists. But as philosophers we would take a step back and say, "Huh, cooperation as morality in this situation doesn't make sense. — Philosophim
Living is what life does. Living is not an obligation of life because life has no moral obligation to live regardless of needs and preferences.I get to the conclusion of obligation by the fact that the processes to create life in the first place exists at all. The opposite of life and existence is death and nothingness. Life doens't have to happen. But the mere fact it does leads me to believe that to proactively force the opposite is a violation. — Kaplan
"Objective knowledge" cannot be interpreted as a (physical) object whose attributes are thereby equally applicable to all co-existent minds in impartial manners. Hence, I so far can only interpret it as "impartial knowledge" regarding our shared intuition of about the good. — javra
In sum, it so far seems to me that science and philosophy can only happily, satisfactorily, converge on the issue of morality only if both agree on what the meaning of "good" (regardless of the language in which it is expressed) can and does signify, and what it applies to in all its conceivably instantiations. — javra
Science of morality investigators seek answers to questions about what ‘is’, “Why do cultural moral norms and our moral sense exist?” and “How can answers to this question help us achieve our goals?” — Mark S
As I've repeated already, I believe there is no reciprocity implied by the Golden Rule, and I think that this represents a gross misinterpretation on your part. — Metaphysician Undercover