Comments

  • The science of morality from the bottom-up and the top-down
    Claiming science is, therefore, useless would be silly.
    — Mark S

    Of course, I've done no such thing. What I have done is simply point to the is/ought distinction, and warned against taking what humans have done as evidence for what they ought do.     — Banno

    If anyone cares to read what I actually said, the next part of my comment points out your incoherence in accepting science to be useful, but rejecting the science of morality as necessarily useless. Is this your way of saying that you now agree that that the science of morality’s explanation of morality as cooperation strategies could be culturally useful if the naturalistic fallacy is avoided (which is the case I have presented)? If so, at last progress.

    You have not simply “warned against taking what humans have done as evidence for what they ought do”. In my posts, you have repetitively, insultingly, and, most of all, falsely implied my claims violated the naturalistic fallacy and were therefore nonsense.
  • The science of morality from the bottom-up and the top-down
    ↪Banno
    Pushing the large man off the bridge will reduce trust between people (if you stand next to someone they may kill you)
    — Mark S

    Or will it increase trust, in that those who comment on the event after the fact will see pushing the large man off the bridge as showing that you can be relied on to make difficult decisions, and as an exemplar of how one ought act?

    Perhaps things are not so clear as you suppose.

    Foot's Trolley problem was conceived as a way of showing some of the limitations of consequentialism. The trolley was to be contrasted with the case of killing a healthy person in order to harvest their organs to save five terminally ill patients. Same consequence, differing intuitions. (I see Rogue is aware of this).

    Cooperation seems of little use here, in line with ↪RogueAI's strategy of asking for explicit and practical examples of the use of a cooperation approach, in order to test it's utility.     — Banno

    Empirical data shows that most people consider pushing the large man off the bridge immoral. If you think people are immoral, you will not trust them or want to cooperate with them.

    But a minority of people (most being people who have taken philosophy courses) say pushing the large man off the bridge is moral. Any chance you have taken a philosophy course? They and you make unusual moral judgments. Why?

    Judging that the act is moral is an example of "slow moral thinking" based on mechanical thought processes from a premise, here a utilitarian one.

    Judgments that the act is immoral by most people are spontaneous, near-instantaneous, "fast moral thinking" directly from their moral sense - no rational thought is involved.

    Morality as Cooperation Strategies explains fast moral thinking, not slow moral thinking.
  • The science of morality from the bottom-up and the top-down
    Does this lead us into a space that there is nothing intrinsically good or bad and that almost anything might be allowable under the right circumstances? — Tom Storm

    Hummn… Quite the opposite. Exploitative moral norms create cooperation problems and therefore violate the function of morality – solving the cooperation/exploitation dilemma. There are a lot of good reasons for groups to decide to advocate and enforce cooperation strategies that do not exploit others – that are universally moral. I can’t imagine groups intentionally deciding to advocate and enforce cooperation strategies that exploit others. So “women must be submissive to men” and ‘homosexuality is evil” are ground ruled out.

    Moral norms in general are oughts (what we feel we have an imperative obligation to do). But, as I have explained, that feeling of imperative oughts is an illusion encoded in our moral sense by our evolutionary history because it increased cooperation.— Mark S

    Do you think this is a controversial statement? I see where you are coming from but many people who do not share your values could find this problematic. — Tom Storm

    The science-based reasoning behind it seems solid – see the OP. I have heard no credible argument for how imperative obligations could exist. It appears at least highly likely that sound arguments for imperative obligations cannot be made.


    I've found @Banno helpful on many subjects. He certainly reminds me that philosophy is not easy and to be wary of easy answers. He alerted me to virtue ethics when I first arrive here. Philosophy seems to be about continually refining the questions we are asking, which may matter as much as, if not more so, than the putative answers. — Tom Storm

    I don’t doubt that Banno can provide this kind of a description of morality – it is all part of a tradition of endless questioning and uncertainty that began with Socrates. Science now offers an objective foundation for morality (morality as limited to cultural moral norms and our moral sense) that is fixed in objective science – and Banno is having trouble grasping that.

    Of course, this science-based objective foundation does not answer all our questions about ethics. We can still have endless arguments about the non-objective parts of ethics. For example, science does not supply the wisdom of stoicism about how to live, or the wisdom of consequentialist thought about what is good. Banno could be an excellent resource on ethical wisdom from both virtue ethics and consequentialism.

    I have been impressed with modern stoicism's ethical wisdom, which is way beyond anything science can provide. Massimo Pigliucci’s writings and the book How to be a Stoic are illuminating.
  • The science of morality from the bottom-up and the top-down
    ↪RogueAI
    I wrote a paper on that once, many years ago, although the case I was looking at was Trolley Car vs abducting a person to harvest their organs and save five people. I think in the trolley car cases, we see that as a rare one-off, so we sacrifice the one, but in the other trolley-car like cases where we get our hands dirty (pushing a person, abducting a person), we can see how society could head down a scary path where it starts to actively look for ways to kill people for "the greater good". — RogueAI

    Right, the case of abducting a person to harvest their organs and save five people is supported as moral by virtually no one even though the body count is the same. I see the Morality as Cooperation explanation as complementary and expanding on your explanation in that it explains why we "don't want to get our hands dirty" - those actions would decrease future trust and cooperation, a big concern for our moral sense.

    Relevant to these cases, Morality as Cooperation applied as moral means for utilitarian ends - a kind of rule-utilitarianism - eliminates simple utilitarianism's common gotchas of conflicts with our moral sense. As far as answering the question "What is good?" one attractive answer is a kind of rule utilitarianism with Morality as Cooperation defining moral means (morality as cooperation defining the rule) and, in this case, the utilitarian goal being saving the five lives.
  • The science of morality from the bottom-up and the top-down
    ↪RogueAI

    There is no reason to expect them to answer all moral questions that we can think of.
    — Mark S

    It's going to have to say something about Trolley Car.     — RogueAI


    There is no a priori reason that morality as cooperation must be able to help resolve the dilemmas posed in Tolleyology.

    But Morality as Cooperation Strategies can explain some of its curious experimental results.

    People commonly judge throwing a switch to sacrifice one person to save five as moral. But they judge it immoral to push a large man off a bridge (sacrificing one person) to block a trolley, saving five people. Why the difference when the body count is the same?

    What triggers our moral sense to make different judgments? Pushing the large man off the bridge will reduce trust between people (if you stand next to someone they may kill you) and thereby reduce future cooperation. Throwing the switch does not reduce trust to the same extent.
  • The science of morality from the bottom-up and the top-down
    ↪Janus

    The most significant moral issues are regarding exploitation, theft, violence, rape and murder. and those things are almost universally condemned. Other issues such as age of sexual consent, acceptance of homosexuality and so on seem to get worked out sensibly in the absence of dogmatic religious interference.

    The question then devolves to 'ought we want to live happy lives" and that question just seems silly since happiness is universally preferred over unhappiness.     — Janus


    :up:
  • The science of morality from the bottom-up and the top-down
    Would travelling back in time (assume it's possible) to kill baby Hitler be the moral thing to do? What about using data the Nazi's collected experimenting on people? What about diverting a runaway trolley car full of children by pushing one child in front of it? What about aborting a baby one minute for non-health reasons? — RogueAI

    Remember the limitations of the primary conclusions about cultural moral norms and our moral sense:

    • Descriptively moral behaviors are parts of cooperation strategies.
    • Universally moral behaviors are parts of cooperation strategies that do not exploit others.

    There is no reason to expect them to answer all moral questions that we can think of.
    For example, they are largely silent on the goals of acting morally (cooperating). They might or might not be able to answer these particular questions.
  • The science of morality from the bottom-up and the top-down
    ↪Joshs

    Does that satisfy you or does it seem to you that it is just repackaging traditional moralism in new garb, as if there is such a thing as “ universal morality” , or that claiming that evolution wires us to be cooperative doesn’t just push back the question posed by social norms into the lap of biology.
    For one thing, it passes the buck on the question of why we desire to cooperate with each other. It’s because “Evolution told us to”.     — Joshs

    It is highly satisfying.

    "Women must be submissive to men" and "Homosexuality is evil" are common parts of traditional moralism. Now I can explain why people thought they were moral but since they contradict morality's function of solving the cooperation/exploitation dilemma, I know they are immoral.

    Our genetic evolution prompts us to desire to cooperate and triggers psychological rewards when we cooperate because our predecessors who did not tended to die out.

    Ought we cooperate? I will better achieve my goals by cooperating with people who reciprocate that cooperation. Whether you cooperate or not depends on your goals and your interest, or lack thereof, in achieving your goals by moral means.

    This is not complicated. If you want complications and endless arguments, join the search for imperative oughts (categorical imperatives in Kant's terms).
  • The science of morality from the bottom-up and the top-down
    ↪Tom Storm

    I'll respond to your other points later. But your last one is an easy question.
    Final question and forgive me if this seems obtuse - how to do you discern between good and bad cooperation? — Tom Storm

    My central point has been that moral norms for bad cooperation are bad because they exploit others such as "women must be submissive to men" and "homosexuality is evil". It is bad cooperation because it acts opposite to the function of morality - solving cooperation/exploitation problems. Bad cooperation creates cooperation problems rather than solving them.

    Harming children would usually be included under exploitation as bad behavior. For example, harming children to benefit others.

    But if harming children is merely a side effect of having no moral regard for children, we can agree that is evil, but the reasons for being evil might better be found in traditional moral philosophy. Science tells us important things about morality but cannot tell us everything about morality.
  • The science of morality from the bottom-up and the top-down
    ↪Tom Storm

    For the non-philosopher, what do you recommend as a reasonable foundation for morality? — Tom Storm

    The most reasonable foundation for morality is what morality is and always has been - the rules we live by to maintain cooperative societies.

    Moral rules such as the “Do to others as you would have them do to you”, and “Do not lie, steal, or kill” make more sense once you understand them as parts of cooperation strategies – they all advocate initiating indirect reciprocity.

    For example, “Do not lie” as a cultural moral norm is the reciprocity equivalent of “Don’t steal from anyone else and everyone else will commit to not stealing from you and society will punish anyone who does steal from you.”

    Also, as parts of cooperation strategies, all of the above moral norms are understood as heuristics (usually reliable but fallible rules of thumb) not moral absolutes. When the Golden Rule fails, such as when “tastes differ”, and following it would cause cooperation problems rather than solve them, you have good moral reasons for not following the Golden Rule. The same is true for “Do not kill”. If following it causes cooperation problems, as when dealing with criminals and in time of war, there is no moral reason it should be followed.

    And applying the above moral foundation in your own life comes with a bonus – increased durable happiness, the feeling of satisfaction and optimism in the cooperative company of family and friends. These durable feelings of pleasure in the cooperative company of family and friends exist because our ancestors who experienced them were more motivated to stay and participate in cooperative groups. Understanding why and when we experience these pleasures encourages the moral behaviors that trigger them. This really works to both increase durable happiness and motivation for moral behavior.

    It is intellectually and psychologically rewarding to think "How can I cooperate with this person?" and then feel the durable happiness that cooperation triggers. There will be exceptions when attempts at cooperation are rebuffed, but on average, it works well.

    The above describes a useful foundation for morality. Compare it to what Banno could supply.

    Not a question that can have a back-of-an-envelope answer. — Banno

    For non-philosophers, Banno’s muddled answer is not remotely competitive. Some might describe it as dead useless.
  • The science of morality from the bottom-up and the top-down
    ↪Tom Storm

    ↪Banno ↪Mark S I'm confused by this discussion. And Mark I can't seem to understand what you are arguing for - which may be my fault.

    Mark does your approach tell us what we ought to do by identifying universal moral behaviors?

    What are universal moral behaviors - are they the same as oughts?

    What I have said is that:
    • Descriptively moral behaviors are parts of cooperation strategies
    • Universally moral behaviors are parts of cooperation strategies that do not exploit others.
    — Mark S

    These sentences confuse me - admittedly I am not a philosopher.

    What does ' are parts of cooperation strategies' mean? Which parts? What constitutes the rest of these parts?

    Is a universally moral behavior an ought?

    What qualifies as a cooperation strategy?

    So sure, cooperation, games theory, and anthropology might well be a useful part of a moral perspective; but they are not the whole.
    — Banno

    For the non-philosopher, what do you recommend as a reasonable foundation for morality?     — Tom Storm

    Tom, here I'll answer the questions you addressed to me.

    I'll separately answer your excellent question to Banno, "What do you recommend as a reasonable foundation for morality?" and invite you to compare my and Banno's answers and consider which answer you expect to be the most useful in your life.

    Answering the questions you asked me:

    Descriptively moral behaviors are described as moral in at least one society but perhaps no other. I could also have expressed this as:

    “Past and present cultural moral norms (no matter how diverse, contradictory, and strange) are virtually all explained as parts of cooperation strategies.”

    Parts of cooperation strategies include moral norms and moral intuitions that advocate or motivate 1) initiating cooperation, 2) punishing moral norm violators, 3) markers of membership in favored ingroups and disfavored or exploited outgroups, 4) detection of free-riders and other exploiters.

    Examples of each include 1) versions of the Golden Rule and advocacy of loyalty and self-sacrifice for the group, 2) moral norms about punishments plus righteous indignation to motivate the punishment of others and guilt and shame to punish our own violations, 3) sex and food taboos plus clothing and behavior rules, and 4) “He who will not work will not eat” and moral gossip about who is and is not a reliable person to cooperate with.

    Cooperation strategies are developed in game theory as means to overcome the cooperation/exploitation dilemma. The main ones are reciprocity, indirect reciprocity, and kin altruism. You might do a google search. There are a lot of them, with some more relevant to morality than others.

    Moral norms in general are oughts (what we feel we have an imperative obligation to do). But, as I have explained, that feeling of imperative oughts is an illusion encoded in our moral sense by our evolutionary history because it increased cooperation.

    Is what is universal to morality (cooperation strategies that do not exploit others) an ought? That depends on what you mean by "ought". Is it a “magic ought” (Banno's apparently favorite kind) - what we ought to do regardless of our needs and preferences? No.

    However, that does not prevent it from being a culturally useful, culture and even species-independent, moral reference. All it takes to become a moral ought is for a group to decide to advocate and enforce it as a moral ought.

    Groups could decide as a preference that they will advocate and enforce it as what we ought to do regardless of our needs and preferences. This preference could be based on it being most likely to achieve group goals. And experience shows that this advocacy and enforcement should work well. This cultural advocacy and enforcement is the main source of the oughtness (bindingness) of moral norms that enable our civilizations to continue to exist.
  • The science of morality from the bottom-up and the top-down
    ↪Banno

    Ah, so your account, Mark S, does not tell us what we should do?

    ...and yet "...science can provide useful instrumental (conditional) oughts for achieving shared goals"? Despite nine threads on the same topic, perhaps your account is not as clearly expressed as you think?     — Banno

    As a matter of logic, science does not tell us what we imperatively ought to do.

    Is science then culturally useless? No, of course not. Claiming science is, therefore, useless would be silly.

    Your contempt for the relevance of science of morality for resolving moral disputes and understanding the foundations of moral philosophy is equally silly.

    The science of morality is culturally useful because it explains that:

    1) Cultural moral norms are parts of cooperation strategies.
    2) A subset of cooperation strategies that do not exploit others are universal to all strategies that solve the cooperation/exploitation dilemma – the same dilemma that must be solved by all highly cooperative specie from the beginning of time to the end of time. To enable highly cooperative societies, all intelligent species must create morality made up of strategies that solve that dilemma. .
    3) Morality as cooperation strategies is uniquely harmonious with our moral sense, and therefore has self-motivating components, because these cooperation strategies are what created our moral sense.
    4) Our moral intuitions are parts of cooperation strategies.


    1), 2), and 3) provide an objective basis for resolving many disputes about moral norms and reveals what is universal for all moral systems – systems that solve the cooperation exploitation dilemma. In summary, 1), 2), and 3) provide an objective basis for a universal moral system.

    And before you start going off again about imperative oughts, no it is not a system that comes with innate imperative oughts. However, a group could decide that this is the system they will advocate and enforce based on the expectation it will best achieve their shared goals. Is that a good enough moral system for a well-functioning society? Of course! And as a bonus, it fits our moral sense like a key in a well-oiled lock because this key, morality as cooperation strategies, is what shaped this lock, our moral sense.

    Why do you think we should throw out what science tells us about morality just because it does not come with magic oughts? Pursuing a source of imperative oughts is, to me, the intellectual equivalent of spending your life searching for magical unicorns who fart rainbows. Others disagree. That's fine. But please don't spread the falsehood that looking for imperative oughts is the only approach to designing and refining moral systems.

    Returning to the list of what science explains, 4) explains the foundations of moral philosophy based on “well-considered moral intuitions”. What foundations does moral philosophy have except our moral intuitions and rational thought?

    So sure, cooperation, games theory, and anthropology might well be a useful part of a moral perspective; but they are not the whole. — Banno

    I have never claimed there was not more to morality than what science can tell us. I have emphasized there was more to morality than science can tell us multiple times. Again, you make false accusations based on your straw man version of what the science of morality provides.

    Max Planck once said, “Science advances one funeral at a time”. Perhaps the same is true for moral philosophy. Some people are incapable of changing old ideas when presented with new evidence.
  • The science of morality from the bottom-up and the top-down
    Here are the two problems with the view espoused by Mark S.

    1. Regardless of how sophisticated it might be, no description of what we do can imply what we should do.     — Banno

    I do not claim anything so silly.

    2. That an act is cooperative is not sufficient to ensure that it is moral. Folk can cooperate to act immorally. — Banno

    This is, of course, true. If you read what I have written, you will know that nothing I have written contradicts this.

    The “Two problems” you describe do not exist.

    What I have said is that:
    • Descriptively moral behaviors are parts of cooperation strategies
    • Universally moral behaviors are parts of cooperation strategies that do not exploit others.

    If you could find an example of cooperation that does not exploit others being immoral, then you would have an interesting criticism. As is, you have nothing.

    As far as I know, Phillipa Foot was unaware of game theory’s explanatory power for cultural moral norms and our moral sense. So it is no surprise that she didn’t talk about the cultural value of conditional moral oughts based in science.

    Peter Singer’s wonderful 1981 book The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress is consistent with the above two moral principles. Singer intuitively recognized that moral progress was made by expanding the circle of moral concern (the circle of people who were not to be exploited). Singer’s moral progress through history is the history of moving from merely descriptively moral behaviors (the first principle) that may exploit others to universally moral behaviors that do not exploit others (the second principle).

    John Rawls’ justice as fairness explicitly advocates expanding the circle of moral concern to everyone. This is consistent with the second principle since exploitation is unfair.

    By revealing the underlying principles of our moral norms and moral sense, the science of morality reveals the underlying foundations of much of moral philosophy.
  • The science of morality from the bottom-up and the top-down
    ↪Banno
    ↪wonderer1

    ↪Mark S So, oddly, you are now saying that it is not the case that we ought cooperate?

    I'm not too keen on the term, but that looks rather mote-and-bailly. Somehow this tells us
    about right and wrong
    — Mark S
    without telling us what to do? You commence your argument in the bailey of right and wrong, but when challenged retreat to the motte of supposed "objective science".     — Banno

    Despite your incoherence here, I will respond that I have made no retreat from bailey to motte - check your spelling.

    Where I start from and where I end is that science can provide useful instrumental (conditional) oughts for achieving shared goals. One form is:

    "If your goal can be obtained by cooperation and you wish to act consistently with those objective moral values that sustainably maintain cooperation, then you ought (instrumental) to act consistently with those objective moral values."

    This is culturally useful moral guidance. No imperative oughts are required, which is a good thing. It is a good thing because we have no evidence they can exist.

    Why are you so fixated on imperative oughts when our best evidence is that their pursuit is a waste of time? You must know that your intuitions on the subject are an illusion. In contrast, conditional oughts are quite real and culturally useful for refining cultural moral norms that can encourage human flourishing.
  • The science of morality from the bottom-up and the top-down
    ↪Joshs
    Apparently Hilary Putnam also makes this ‘error’. Putnam makes the argument that if the basis of our valuative, ethical judgements is an evolutionary adaptation shared by other animals then it is as though we are computers programmed by a fool ( selection pressure) operating subject to the constraints imposed by a moron (nature). — Joshs

    I have not studied Hilary Putnam, but nothing (with one exception) I have written contradicts his quotes here. The science of morality reveals what the underlying principles of past and present cultural moral norms ‘are’. These principles reveal what is objectively universal to cultural moral norms and our moral sense’s judgments – which non-philosophers would say summarizes their moral values. That looks like agreement to me that at least these values are objective.

    However, there is nothing in the Putnam quote about imperative oughts. The objectivity of moral values does not necessarily imply that everyone somehow ought to follow these values regardless of their needs and preferences.

    The objectivity of moral values does imply a conditional ought:

    If your goal can be obtained by cooperation and you wish to act consistently with those objective moral values that sustainably maintain cooperation, then you ought (instrumental) to act consistently with those objective moral values.

    So, I don’t see the quotes as relevant to Banno’s bizarre belief, despite all evidence to the contrary, that I am somehow naively claiming a source of imperative oughts from science.

    Just FYI, where I disagree with Putnam is his reported assumption that the source of our ethical judgments is a fool – referring to selection pressure. This is an obsolete, inaccurate perspective that remains the source of much misunderstanding among moral philosophers, particularly when making evolution-based moral debunking arguments.

    Selection pressure is part of the mechanism that encoded cooperation strategies in our moral sense and cultural moral norms and is not the source of what was encoded. The ultimate source of what was encoded – cooperation strategies – (and the source of our moral values) is in a cooperation/exploitation dilemma that is innate to our universe. The encoding mechanism for morality is a fool. What was encoded is not.
  • The science of morality from the bottom-up and the top-down
    ↪Banno


    I would greatly appreciate it if you could justify or give any explanation of your astonishing claim:

    what you call the "bottom-up" is an example of the naturalistic fallacy in which it is presumed that what we ought do is just what we have previously done. — Banno

    The bottom-up claims of Curry, Haidt and my extension are objective science. Objective science, on its own, cannot commit the naturalistic fallacy. It takes a person to do that.

    The only person presuming that science tells us what we imperatively ought to do (the only person committing the naturalistic fallacy) is you. You alone are making this error.

    I do not now and never have presumed something so naive. No conclusion I have described relies on the naturalistic fallacy in any way. The cultural usefulness of my claims is only as the basis of instrumental, not imperative oughts.

    I have repeatedly emphasized that this science, like the rest of science, can only supply instrumental oughts and is silent on ultimate goals.

    Yet, over and over, you can't get it. You somehow interpret my examples of principles underlying cultural moral norms and our moral sense as imperative oughts. Why?

    Any suggestions for clearer language I could use? Here is my present language for my conclusions from the integrated bottom-up and top-down perspectives:

    • Descriptively moral behaviors are parts of cooperation strategies
    • Universally moral behaviors are parts of cooperation strategies that do not exploit others.

    Where in these two claims do you see any presumption of the naturalistic fallacy? Is it the use of the phrase “universally moral behaviors”?

    The second claim is a factual claim about what is universal in solutions to the cooperation/exploitation dilemma (and in human morality, the behaviors advocated by cultural moral norms and motivated by our moral sense).

    Is there another phrase to describe what is universal about “the behaviors advocated by cultural moral norms and motivated by our moral sense” that would be less confusing for you? I really want suggestions.
  • The science of morality from the bottom-up and the top-down
    ↪Banno
    Interesting that you mention Philippa Foot, a philosopher who perhaps above all others showed us the intractable nature of moral questions. — Banno

    I assume Foot’s discussions of “the intractable nature of moral questions” you refer to were about imperative ought’s (what everyone ought to do regardless of their needs and preferences). If so, Foot and I are in strong agreement. I have proposed no imperative oughts. I have argued that imperatives oughts are illusions “foisted on us by our genes” (as Michael Ruse delights in saying).

    It would be a category error to think that scientific facts could alone imply imperative oughts. This is an error I have not made, though I strangely keep being accused of it.

    I expect Foot would find it interesting to understand, for instance, 1) the source of our illusion that imperative oughts are real and 2) the principles underlying cultural moral norms and our moral judgments and intuitions. Such knowledge about cultural moral norms could be directly useful for resolving disputes about which moral norms to advocate and enforce. Such knowledge about our intuitions could be useful for understanding aspects of moral philosophy that rely on our “well considered intuitions” – which I see as most schools of thought in moral philosophy.


    You say you "post here to understand better how to present conclusions from the science of morality to people familiar with moral philosophy but perhaps not with this science". You seem to think you are providing "answers from science", and are puzzled by their reception. Perhaps what you propose is not as novel to those old fuddy duddies as you supposed, and perhaps the questions they are asking are not the questions you are answering. — Banno

    Not new? If identifying the ultimate source of cultural moral norms and our moral sense in a cooperation/exploitation dilemma is not novel, could you give a reference that describes that?

    Or how about just a reference describing the philosophical implications of cultural moral norms and our moral sense advocating and motivating cooperation strategies?

    I do not expect you to be able to do either, but I would be happy to learn I was wrong.

    But yes, I’ve always fully appreciated that “the questions they are asking are not the questions you are answering” (good observation!). That is obvious. That difference also has had unfortunate effects on the relevance of moral philosophy to public life.

    It's not so much that what you have provided is wrong, as that it is so very incomplete. — Banno

    Incomplete? What more is needed for this knowledge from science to be culturally useful for resolving disputes about which moral norms to advocate and enforce? I am sincerely interested in what else is needed. I really want to know.

    But please don’t respond with more nonsense about (as I understand your vague hints) the importance of searching for imaginary imperative oughts.

    My goal is to find objective, mind-independent knowledge that is useful for resolving disputes about which moral norms to advocate and enforce in a culture.

    What is your goal regarding moral philosophy?


    Indeed, in so far as what you offer encourages the development of the virtues, we are in agreement. But it should be of concern to you that what you espouse might be used to explain away acts of collective, perfunctory evil, as easily as it does acts of virtue. — Banno

    There is no justification of “acts of collective, perfunctory evil” in anything I have said. There is only explanation of 1) why people can do such evil and think it moral and 2) the underlying source of immorality in the exploitation of others. I see this as culturally useful knowledge.

    Do you realize that your accusation only makes sense if you are thinking that what morality ‘is’ implies what we imperatively ought to do? That is the error you bizarrely accuse me of.


    Perhaps you might begin to see that there is more going on here than you might previously have supposed. — Banno

    I would be delighted to learn there is more going on relevant to the implications of understanding the underlying principles of cultural moral norms and our moral sense.

    Perhaps you could describe what "is going on here" that you think I am not aware of?
  • The science of morality from the bottom-up and the top-down
    All,

    Some of the comments received prompt me to repeat previously made points.

    As described in the OP, Morality as Cooperation Strategies describes objective claims supported by the modern science of morality that:

    • Descriptively moral behaviors are parts of cooperation strategies.
    • Universally moral behaviors are parts of cooperation strategies that do not exploit others.

    Do these moral principles define imperative oughts – what everyone ought to do regardless of their needs and preferences? Of course not. You will not find a source of magic oughts in science.

    Is this lack of imperative bindingness a fatal flaw? Again, no.

    For example, the science supporting these principles provides an objective understanding of:

    • A part of “natural goodness” (see Philippa Foot’s work on moral goodness as an aspect of what makes us good as human beings and how this knowledge can supply us with useful “hypothetical imperatives” - no imperative oughts required, 180 Proof).
    • Why we share a strong intuition that imperative oughts exist and why that intuition is an illusion encoded in our genes.
    • Moral ‘means’ for accomplishing what we understand to be moral ‘ends’.

    Readers should also understand that Morality as Cooperation Strategies is only about a subcategory of answers to the big ethical questions: “What is good?”, “How should I live?”, and “What are my obligations?”.

    Morality as Cooperation Strategies illuminates (but does not define) my understanding of my preferred answers to these questions: Utilitarianism tempered by Negative Utilitarianism, Modern Stoicism, and obligations based on Rawlsian Justice.

    How I see Morality as Cooperation Strategies integrating with and even illuminating traditional moral philosophy sounds like a good topic for another post.

    All in all, though, your comments to date are much appreciated and have been helpful. I post here to understand better how to present conclusions from the science of morality to people familiar with moral philosophy but perhaps not with this science.
  • The science of morality from the bottom-up and the top-down
    ↪apokrisis
    ↪Mark S You substantiate my point. :up: — apokrisis
    Good to hear. Thanks for commenting.
  • The science of morality from the bottom-up and the top-down
    Do you run your marathon in green shorts or blue? Who could even find a reason to care? — apokrisis
    In individual sports, the color of your shorts is irrelevant. In team sports, the color matters - a lot. The color of people's shorts (or uniform) is a quick way to recognize your teammates and an example of a marker strategy.
  • The science of morality from the bottom-up and the top-down
    ↪Banno
    Why do you imagine that is a problem...
    — Mark S

    Just checking the pretence that science tells us what we ought to do, highlighting a point you yourself made, that "...the science of morality cannot tell us what our goals somehow ought to be".

    There is extensive literature on this other, much more difficult puzzle, unaddressed by your approach.
    3 hours ago     — Banno

    There is extensive literature on the subject of imperative oughts? Perhaps you are trying to make a joke again.

    That seemingly bottomless ocean of literature underlies traditional moral philosophy with no resolution to date, no resolution in sight, and no reason to believe there ever will be any resolution. This is not surprising since our strong intuition that imperative oughts exist is an illusion created by our evolutionary history.

    What reason do you have, beyond your intuition, for believing that these 'magic' imperative oughts exist?
  • The science of morality from the bottom-up and the top-down
    At the core, that we do cooperate does not imply that we ought cooperate.
    — Banno

    We ought to cooperate to socially and personally acceptable degrees if we want to live harmoniously in a community.     — Janus
    Right, People commonly desire the benefits of cooperation, are willing to follow moral norms that preserve that cooperation, and can agree on benefits of cooperation to pursue. Understanding morality as cooperation strategies opens a new perspective for refining cultural moral norms to meet human needs better. The illusion of the reality of imperative oughts is an aspect of our evolutionary past. It is not necessary, and is arguably a hindrance, to refining cultural moral norms to increase human flourishing.
  • The science of morality from the bottom-up and the top-down
    ↪Banno
    ↪Mark S Ninth thread on the same topic; same problem as the first thread:
    At the core, that we do cooperate does not imply that we ought cooperate.
    — Banno     — Banno

    Why do you imagine that is a problem or, even more bizarrely, that I and others here don't already understand and fully take into account this obvious and elementary fact?

    Are you lost in the illusion that morality can only be understood as what everyone ought to do regardless of their needs and preferences? As Michael Ruse seems to delight in pointing out, and as I reference in the post, that illusion is one foisted on us by our genes and encoded in our moral sense because it increased the reproductive fitness benefits of cooperation for our ancestors.

    It is far more culturally useful to understand what morality (referring to cultural moral norms and our moral sense) objectively 'is' as cooperation strategies than to entertain unending speculations about what morality imperatively ought to be.
  • The science of morality from the bottom-up and the top-down
    ↪apokrisis
    Exploitation is speaking to the competitive element of the dynamic, but painting it as something more negative - an issue that needs to be addressed by adding constraints against cheaters. — apokrisis

    Thanks for your comments.

    The science of morality focuses on cultural moral norms and our moral judgments, which, I have argued above, are parts of cooperation strategies that solve the cooperation/exploitation dilemma.

    Moral norms about competition arguably fit well into this perspective. Consider people competing in a marathon foot race. If they do not violate the moral norms about fairness (exploitation is essentially unfairness), they can morally compete without exploiting others. Exploitation might be tripping another runner, taking a taxi for part of the run, or poisoning a competitor. So competition is not necessarily exploitative. We can agree as a reciprocity strategy on moral rules for fair competition.

    Competition becomes immoral when it is exploitative. More work is needed to clarify when that is.

    Global warming poses a classic cooperation/exploitation dilemma. It is in everyone’s short-term interest to use the cheapest energy source they have – usually fossil fuels – and advocate for whatever energy source they own, such as fossil fuels. But following that short-term interest will create a disaster for all.

    I am unsure how much good pointing out the fossil fuel company’s moral failings will do. But it is one tool in the toolbox.
  • The value of conditional oughts in defining moral systems
    ↪neomac
    Such comment keeps evading my actual points:
    - You didn’t offer any such proof that your empirical theory of morality has greater explanatory/predictive power than other competing empirical theories. You just keep claiming that’s the case, that’s all. At least you could point at the literature where this comparison is provided.     — neomac

    Thanks for your detailed comments.

    I’d like this thread to focus on the value of conditional moral oughts.

    However, how I am using findings from the science of morality to justify Morality (referring to cultural moral norms and our moral sense) as Cooperation Strategies is a good topic. I have composed something I am reasonably happy with: “The science of morality from the bottom-up and the top-down” at https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14402/the-science-of-morality-from-the-bottom-up-and-the-top-down

    Perhaps we can continue this conversation there.
  • The value of conditional oughts in defining moral systems
    The lack of interest in moral concepts based on conditional norms of oughtness can be explained by the fact that it represents a relatively simple problem. When the goal is known, it is relatively easy to reach a consensus on how it can be achieved. — Jacques

    I don’t see moral systems chosen based on conditional oughts as necessarily a simple problem.

    1) There is no commonly accepted ultimate goal for advocating and enforcing moral systems

    2) Even if a commonly accepted goal were found, there is no commonly accepted understanding of moral means to accomplish that goal (except within the science of morality)

    3) There is no commonly accepted definition of who is which circle of moral concern – Peter Singer claims our obligation to children we will never meet is morally the same as our obligation to our own children (and people will predictably fail to meet this high moral standard).

    So even if choosing what moral system we ought to advocate and enforce is merely a matter of a conditional ought, there are lots of remaining unknowns here. The science of morality gives us a big leg up on the problem, but lots of interesting philosophical problems remain.
  • The value of conditional oughts in defining moral systems
    Meanwhile, I believe I understand what you're getting at. I will do my best to compose a satisfactory answer to it, but it will take a few more days, I'm sorry to say. — Jacques

    No rush.
  • The value of conditional oughts in defining moral systems
    ↪Tom Storm

    People aren't much interested in morality as a subject, but they're happy to hold unexamined 'oughts' which can be used to judge others. Morality functions as a series of prejudices and biases. — Tom Storm

    The biology underlying our moral sense supplies the motivation to act just the way you describe. No surprise there concerning average people.

    My surprise and puzzlement is about the continued interest in the illusion of imperative oughts among people who spend their lives studying morality - moral philosophers.
  • The value of conditional oughts in defining moral systems
    ↪Jacques
    Are there goals shared by all well-informed, rational people?
    — Mark S

    Even if that were the case (which I do not doubt), it would have no significance for moral duties because, as Hume already stated, one cannot derive an "ought" from an "is."     — Jacques

    My point in the OP is the unfortunately common ambiguity of the term “moral oughts” in philosophical discussions.

    Are these “moral oughts”

    1) what everyone ought to do regardless of their needs and preferences (what I understand Hume and Mackie were referring to)? – I’ll call these imperative oughts.

    2) a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational people (Gert in https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-definition/)?

    Gert’s definition encompasses conditional oughts of the form “If your goal for morality is X, then you ought (conditional) to do Y”. If all well-informed, rational people share some goals for morality, then:

    1) All rational, well-informed people have a universal moral code they can advocate to best achieve those goals.

    2) And we can derive a universal moral code based on conditional oughts and shared goals.

    3) A universal moral code that is objective in the sense of being what all rational, ell-informed people would advocate.

    When the topic is "moral oughts", I do not understand the combination of

    1) the continued philosophical interest in, and too common assumption of, “imperative oughts” that do not seem to exist and

    2) the apparent lack of philosophical interest in universal moralities based on conditional oughts such as Morality as Cooperation Strategies.

    Can anyone explain it?
  • The value of conditional oughts in defining moral systems
    I am keenly interested in why you say:
    The first claim doesn't make sense to me: it sounds as if you are claiming that evidences are based on an empirical theory.... — neomac

    Your interpretation is, strangely, the opposite of what I am arguing.

    My first claim was: “Science does provide that evidence, based mostly on the remarkable explanatory power of Morality as Cooperation Strategies for cultural moral norms and our moral sense.”

    Perhaps we need a review of how science, including the science of morality, proceeds to conclusions:

    1. Assemble an interesting category of phenomena such as “past and present cultural moral norms and the spontaneous judgments and motivations of our moral sense” - This is the data set to be explained.
    2. Look for hypotheses that explain why this entire data set of phenomena exist – perhaps cooperation strategies, or acting for the good of everyone (utilitarianism), or a means of social control imposed by the powerful, or ?
    3. If one hypothesis is far better than any competing one at explaining this huge, diverse, contradictory, and strange data set, we have a potential theory.
    4. If the potential theory meets other relevant criteria for scientific truth such as simplicity and integration with the rest of science, then we have a theory explaining that data set. That theory may become generally accepted as provisionally true (the normal kind of truth in science) or rejected, with rejection usually in favor a new theory that better explains the data set.

    Hence:
    “Science does provide that evidence, based mostly on the remarkable explanatory power of Morality as Cooperation Strategies for cultural moral norms and our moral sense.”

    Then you say:

    "confirms my suspects: taking "solving cooperation problems" as a rational condition (à la Gert) to establish what "morality" is, it's a NORMATIVE criterion,

    "it's external to actual historical cultural moral norms, not descriptive of them (against what you seemed to be claiming in past posts). And it remains generic until you specify what constitutes a cooperation problem and its solutions independently from actual specific cultural moral norms.     — neomac

    Do you see why they don’t make any sense?

    The theory is empirical, not “external” because it is based on its explanatory power for the huge, diverse, contradictory, and strange data set of “past and present cultural moral norms and the spontaneous judgments and motivations of our moral sense” (plus meeting other relevant criteria for scientific truth).

    Are you arguing that “past and present cultural moral norms and the spontaneous judgments and motivations of our moral sense” is external to what morality ‘is’?

    Finally, you say:

    “And it remains generic until you specify what constitutes a cooperation problem and its solutions independently from actual specific cultural moral norms.”

    I have already done this in this thread and will repeat it here for convenience and emphasis.

    “In our universe, cooperation can produce many more benefits than individual effort. But cooperation exposes one to exploitation. Unfortunately, exploitation is almost always a winning short-term strategy, and sometimes is in the long term. This is bad news because exploitation discourages future cooperation, destroys those potential benefits, and eventually, everybody loses.
    All life forms in the universe, from the beginning to the end of time, face this universal dilemma. This includes people and our ancestors.”

    The above describes why the cooperation problems morality solves are innate to our universe. The solutions relevant to morality are primarily cooperation strategies such as indirect reciprocity.
  • The value of conditional oughts in defining moral systems
    And your claim is that a culture and mind-independent understanding of the origins, function, and motivating power of cultural moral norms will NOT provide objective evidence for resolving such disputes? I can’t make any sense of that.
    — Mark S

    My claim is simply that you didn’t provide evidence, so neither that there are not such evidences nor that there won’t be. Try to have a rational discussion with muslims while claiming that putting a head-scarf is a way for men to exploit women, so this cultural moral norm is wrong because cultural moral norms are there to solve cooperation problems.     — neomac

    Science does provide that evidence, based mostly on the remarkable explanatory power of Morality as Cooperation Strategies for cultural moral norms and our moral sense. It is irrelevant to my arguments that there are people who will reject them for irrational reasons such as "God told them something different".
  • Implications for Morality as Cooperation Strategies of Nazis cooperating to do evil
    The challenge of living a moral life today is aligning one's actions to be cooperative on a local and global scale, or if such cannot be done, to resist cooperating on a local level with a globally uncooperative enterprise. — hypericin
    :up:
  • Implications for Morality as Cooperation Strategies of Nazis cooperating to do evil
    Are you suggesting that cooperative murder would be moral if it enhanced future cooperative efforts, or do you refuse to entertain that hypothetical because you think it logically impossible that murder could enhance future cooperation? If so, why? — Hanover

    Your subject sounds like what we somehow ought to do .

    My subject is 1) what science can tell us about the primary reason that cultural moral norms and our moral sense exist - they advocate and motivate parts of strategies that solve the cooperation/exploit dilemma and 2) how this science can be culturally useful.

    There are no innate moral oughts connected to this science. What we morally ought to do is still up to us. The science of morality only tells us past and present cultural moral norms are about cooperating to solve the cooperation/exploitation dilemma.

    Could murder be a part of a strategy to solve the cooperation/exploitation dilemma?

    Killing could be, and has been, part of punishment strategies. Perhaps some definitions of murder would make it impossible for it to be part of a strategy to solve the cooperation/exploitation dilemma.
  • Implications for Morality as Cooperation Strategies of Nazis cooperating to do evil
    That the hypothesis Morality as Cooperation Strategies is able to explain virtually all the commonalities and differences of such a huge, diverse, contradictory, and strange data set robustly supports this hypothesis' scientific truth.
    — Mark S

    It doesn't explain my moral values and also my moral skepticism.     — Andrew4Handel

    Morality as Cooperation Strategies explains the primary reason why past and present cultural moral norms exist. There is no claim it explains your moral values. Your moral values are not part of the data set it explains.
  • Implications for Morality as Cooperation Strategies of Nazis cooperating to do evil
    Means and ends must be adjusted to one another so that the latter is not undermined or invalidated by the former while the former is calibrated to enact the latter. A version of reflective equilibrium. — 180 Proof

    You are making an ought claim (about means and ends) of the normal kind in moral philosophy. Perhaps it is either a conditional ought based on a worthy shared goal or perhaps based on a coherence argument? I am not ready to argue it is incorrect. Also, I am a fan of John Rawl’s reflective equilibrium as perhaps the best guidance we have for defining just societies.

    But my Opening Post here and my other threads are about a different category of thing. I keep thinking that category difference is clear, but our discussions continue to show it is not. That is my fault.

    My OP and other threads are essentially about the category of what ‘is’ regarding the origins and function of cultural moral norms and our moral sense (the science of morality), and how that science can be useful.

    What are the implications of this science for moral philosophy?

    I am still explaining 1) what science can tell us about why cultural moral norms and our moral sense exist and 2) how these scientific truth claims can be culturally useful.

    However, explaining how this science can be culturally useful based only on its scientific truth claims has not been successful here. Perhaps it is time to focus on this science’s implications for moral philosophy. Perhaps the implications for moral philosophy and how this science is culturally useful are best explained together.
  • Implications for Morality as Cooperation Strategies of Nazis cooperating to do evil
    ↪noAxioms
    There you go. Like almost every country, they put out false propaganda against a subset of their society. That's probably evil by most codes. I can't think of a country that doesn't do it. Certainly not my own (USA), especially since open-hate of <those that aren't exactly you> was legitimized by the far right.
    Who supports that movement? The 'moral' church crowd of course.     — noAxioms

    I am familiar with moral relativism. It had not occurred to me that the explanatory power of Morality as Cooperation Strategies for why cultural moral norms differ could be of interest to moral relativists.

    Do you see any hope that moral relativists might be open to the idea of moral universals?
  • The value of conditional oughts in defining moral systems
    Such discussions would be much more likely to be resolved than if the origins, function, and motivating power of cultural moral norms remained mysterious.
    — Mark S

    That is more likely expresses your confidence (or hope?), it doesn't constitute evidence that your theory can actually contribute to solve moral clashes.     — neomac


    My claim is that Morality as Cooperation Strategies can contribute to rational discussions about which moral norms to enforce. Specifically, understanding the origins, function, and motivating power of cultural moral norms will provide objective evidence for resolving such disputes.

    And your claim is that a culture and mind-independent understanding of the origins, function, and motivating power of cultural moral norms will NOT provide objective evidence for resolving such disputes? I can’t make any sense of that.

    The present chief barrier to resolving moral disputes by rational discussion is the existing murky, mysterious origins and power of cultural moral norms. Morality as Cooperation Strategies removes that barrier.
  • The value of conditional oughts in defining moral systems
    The irony is that you keep pointing at an issue of your definition of morality as solving cooperation problems which then you refuse to acknowledge. If cultural moral norms define "who is in favored ingroups and disfavored or exploited outgroups" and related "markers of membership in those ingroups and outgroups" which are at the origin of moral differences and clashes then cultural moral norms can solve AS MUCH AS can generate cooperation problems ! — neomac

    I don’t see the irony.

    Yes, “1) different definitions of who is in favored ingroups and disfavored or exploited outgroups and 2) different markers of membership in those ingroups and outgroups" are the two primary sources of moral disputes between cultural groups.

    And yes, understanding 1) the origins of morally favored ingroups and morally disfavored outgroups and 2) the arbitrary origins of marker strategy moral norms can be useful for resolving those disputes.

    For example, 1) understanding that “homosexuality is immoral” is a strategy for creating and exploiting an outgroup and 2) “eating shrimp is an abomination” is a marker of membership in a morally favored ingroup can support rational resolutions of disputes about enforcing such norms. Such discussions would be much more likely to be resolved than if the origins, function, and motivating power of cultural moral norms remained mysterious.

    Where is the irony?
  • Implications for Morality as Cooperation Strategies of Nazis cooperating to do evil
    It is not clear what "morality" refers to and it seems that it refers to whatever you want it to quite arbitrarily.

    I don't think that moral language can refer to anything concrete unless it refers to some kind of metaphysical moral domain or transcendent god given or quasi religious laws. That is why it seems that what you attach the term to usually is an arbitrary preference but with no inherent metaphysical moral properties.     — Andrew4Handel

    I like the scientific approach to understanding what morality ‘is’ because it avoids the ambiguity problem about moral language you mention.

    We can use the normal methods of science to understand the data set of known past and present cultural moral norms and our moral sense's judgments. That the hypothesis Morality as Cooperation Strategies is able to explain virtually all the commonalities and differences of such a huge, diverse, contradictory, and strange data set robustly supports this hypothesis' scientific truth.

    Of course, science is still essentially silent about what we imperatively ought to do (ought to do regardless of our needs and preferences). But simply understanding what human morality 'is' can be culturally and philosophically useful.
  • Implications for Morality as Cooperation Strategies of Nazis cooperating to do evil
    ↪noAxioms
    noAxioms — noAxioms
    I am not familiar with moral relationalism (moral relationism?).

    But yes, descriptively moral behaviors (behaviors advocated by cultural moralities) are diverse, contradictory, and strange to outsiders. What is (descriptively) evil is culturally dependent.

    I can agree with your comment “acts to attain that goal are not 'evil' by that standard” if the subject is what is descriptively moral, but not if the subject is what is universally moral and immoral. Here, universally moral refers to being moral in the sense of fulfilling the function of human morality, solving cooperation/exploitation dilemmas, and immoral if creating those cooperation problems within the group.

    So what did the Nazis do that was objectively evil and not simply evil in virtually every other culture’s judgment?

    Nazis lies within the group (German society) about the imaginary threat Jews posed to the ingroup and the moral superiority of that “Aryan” ingroup were evil in an objective sense. Those lies were objectively evil because they created cooperation problems (the opposite of the function of human morality) within the group rather than solving them. (“Human morality” refers to past and present cultural moral norms and our moral sense’s judgments and does not include lies and coercion that advocate and enforce those cultural moral norms.)

    Your comment pointed out I needed to clarify that it is the creation and enforcement of moral norms within a group that creates an exploited outgroup that is universally evil.
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