You mathematize it sloppily.

First you establish a spectrum with two perceivably distinct poles (i.e authoritarianism v libertarianism, socialism v capitalism, democracy vs technocracy, conservatism vs progressivism, etc...)

Then you ask people a bunch of questions about a range of political topics which gauge which side they're on concerning the specific spectrums you've identified.

Then you just count how many times they took a particular stance on issues vs how many times they took the opposite stance, and the ratio (or difference, depending on the approach) will represent their displacement from center on the political spectrum.

It's sloppy work rife with inaccuracy, but then, so too are our individual political opinions...

It's not as if everyone's political views neatly and consistently flow from a set of core principles, which is why your friend is somewhat wrong Sometimes we just make shit up on the spot.

I've simply defined morality as a mutually beneficial strategy from the outset rather than beating around the age old bush of "rightness and wrongness" as it's obscured proxy.

Every moral system I've encountered converges around the same basic formula: offer people a way to make decisions that benefits them and those around them (or more simply, does not harm those around them). Even the most esoteric moral systems serve these same ends if in roundabout ways (not always rationally or successfully I should add; obeying god can be perceptually for one's own good even if it really isn't).

And most of the actual meat and potatoes of moral systems aren't even in the strategic bits (the actual positions and prescriptions/proscriptions) it's the persuasive groundwork designed to convince people to stop being selfish assholes in the first place and to actually consider the other.

If the only starting premise we need for morality is consider the other, how do we justify it?

How do we persuade people to do it?

I think I do it by being honest: because if you don't consider other people then they will likely retaliate, so if you value life, liberty, prosperity, and happiness, you might want to consider cooperation instead of conflict.

But you've looped me back onto the surface!

Do I treat people how they want to be treated? What makes how they want to be treated morally right?

By framing consideration of the other as the inherent game of morality, you've implicitly appealed to that very set of nearly universal human desires that I'm always on about.

Whack a mole is tiresome. — creativesoul

The singular hard-working mole takes note of your blatant mental exhaustion...

So morality is expediency. — Banno

Not quite. In my view successful morality is by necessity functional strategy (strategy which serves some initial value)

That's exactly wrong. Morality begins when one starts to take the other into consideration. — Banno

Well, mutually agreeable morality begins when one starts to take the other into consideration. Depending on who you ask though, "moral consideration" need not apply to them.

What does it mean to take the other into consideration though? How should we treat them per moral consideration? (according to their human condition perhaps?)

I'm talking about the feeling though, not the recognition.

recognition =/= feeling.

If you're incapable of addressing my argument that's fine, but you might want to refrain from direct name calling. That's not effective ridicule at all ;)

Rubbish. Now babies have conceptions of existence? Next you'll be saying that they perform calculus. — creativesoul

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_permanence

Babies do not understand emotion in any way that is even remotely close to the kind necessary for having empathy for another. — creativesoul

And yet, dogs exhibit empathy, so they must understand emotion in a way remotely close to the kind necessary for having empathy, right? (the ability to recognize it in others)

Some want us to believe that Jane does all of this without ever making a connection between her mom's behavior and Jane's own remembered experience of times just like these. — creativesoul

Specifically I'm pointing to what Jane feels as a motivator of action. Figuring out how to remedy the bad feeling is learned, but feeling the bad feeling itself is not. (Assuming Jane can indeed recognize the emotions of others).

Virgil was motivated by the bad feeling of seeing his friend suffering. Presumably the bad feeling of seeing his friend suffering overpowered his greed or desire to keep all the nuts for himself. That Virgil needed to make the connection between a lack of nuts and Vulcan's unhappiness is secondary to my point, the empathy is what motivated him to try and remedy it in the first place.

We don't need to understand the source of someone's emotions in order to have an emotional response of our own, we just need to recognize that they are feeling the emotion.

Babies think people cease to exist when they leave the room, so I'm not surprised they cannot easily recognize the emotions of others.

There is a logical gulf in your argument. — Banno

Yes there is. Because there's no logic that can produce an ought out of thin air; we've got to make a starting assumption somewhere.

Humans nearly universally want to go on living, and so taking that for granted as a starting moral premise makes for a nearly universally appealing moral framework.

What's the point of considering it a possibility that we ought not continue living? why not just reject such a premise and resulting moral argument out of hand?

I don't want an objective morality, I want a morality that objectively serves humans.

Actually we're not discussing our disagreement. I agree with the crucial importance of empathy, emotion, and innate potential. I disagree with your account. You're overstating the case. — creativesoul

I wish you would be really specific about which part of my account you disagree with. Is it so hard to believe that Virgil felt a bad emotion when seeing his friend upset and was thusly motivated to act?

How is that not drawing mental correlations between an 'object' of physiological sensory perception(another person in this case) and oneself? — creativesoul

Understanding that someone is suffering is mental. Feeling something yourself because you understand that someone else is suffering is emotional. It's a capacity we're wired for.

But we really ought to ;)

[edit] Look at my magical powers of responding before you even submit! (something went wrong and i lost a reply to creativesoul)

Now your changing the subject... talking about moral agreements. I reject your criterion for what counts as moral behaviour, and have subsequently justified that claim. You're all gratuitious assertion. That's what makes you a twit. Now worries though, I'm a dickhead sometimes... — creativesoul

Twit: A silly or foolish person.

Foolish: (of a person or action) lacking good sense or judgment; unwise.

You're accusing me of changing the subject by bringing up moral agreements, but moral agreements are fundamental to how i communicate my own moral system. I brought up moral agreements in the second paragraph of my first post in this thread, well before you asked me if I was a priest. If you would like to understand how it's related to your question, go read that post.

In order for a moral agreement/system to actually exist between two or more parties, they must necessarily share some beliefs about what constitutes harm and happiness. Where conflict might arise that can infringe or damage our mutually shared values/beliefs, it becomes rational and appealing for us to come to an agreement in order to protect those values

You've unwisely demonstrated that you lack the good sense to read and respond thoroughly, and your judgment is thusly rendered poor and silly.

You're a twit.

Yes, I do. You asserted that instincts and emotions are both innate and count as moral intuition...

Justify your claim. — creativesoul

I already did. Empathy. Our penchant to feel something when we see others being harmed. At it's core it's an emotion, not something you learn.

They aspired to financial success, and achieved it, by virtue of keeping quiet and letting him make them lots of money. — creativesoul

So was it a consensual transaction? Were the women not harmed by the abuse?

So, then moral behaviour must be mutually beneficial to everyone? — creativesoul

For a moral agreement to exist between two parties, each party must perceive the agreement to be beneficial to them. If a particular party is irretrievably harmed and not benefited by the agreement, then they deem it immoral.

The most inclusive moral agreements therefore extend moral consideration to as many as possible. As a result they are universally appealing and persuasive, and better for everyone overall.

You're a twit.

Empathy is being able to put yourself in another's shoes... That's most certainly not innate. — creativesoul

Empathy is being able to share the emotions of another, and I see plenty of evidence that it is innate. When my dog see's me upset and tries to comfort me, he is not "putting himself in my shoes". He is being driven to act because seeing me upset makes him upset.

Why are you calling me a twit though? I thought ridicule never persuaded anyone?

Set it out. — creativesoul

You want me to make a comprehensive list of all of our instincts which promote cooperation?

No. I pointed to innate empathy and I think that's enough, refute that and I'll offer more, but until then I only need one example to make my point. We experience something painful and feel it as painful due to hardwired biology. Then when we see someone else going through that thing which we think is painful, and we empathize or sympathize with them, again, due to hardwired biology, sometimes seeking to help them as a result.

This is a much more comprehensive, specific, and useful explanation of why Virgil behaved the way he did than "all thought and belief consists of mental correlations drawn between objects of physiological sensory perception and/or the agent's own state of 'mind'" You might as well have said "just because".

Harvey Weinstein's behaviour was immoral. Ignoring it was mutually beneficial to all who did and him. — creativesoul

Obviously his behavior and the behavior of those who stayed silent was not beneficial for his victims or possible future victims Please try again.

Capitalism rewards mutually beneficial but immoral behaviour. Have a look for yourself. Being mutually beneficial doesn't require being fair, nor just, nor good, nor moral. — creativesoul

Can you give an example of such behavior? Broadly pointing to capitalism isn't sufficient. What kind of actions are mutually beneficial and also harmful, specifically?

No?

When did I say that autonomous reflexes(which is what you're talking about is) were thought and belief? I didn't. So, yet another red herring, non-sequitur, strawman. You'll have to do better than that. — creativesoul

Emotions. The experience of pain and pleasure. The sensation of liking or not liking something. These aren't thoughts or beliefs, they're feelings. We have a hardwired biological capacity to feel emotions. Fixed action responses demonstrate that our behavior isn't always the result of belief or thought.

These are what we might call "instincts", and some of them guide us toward moral action, such as in the case of Virgil. That's what moral intuition is.

All thought and belief consists entirely in and/or of mental correlations drawn between 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and/or the agent's own state of 'mind'. — creativesoul

No. Fixed emotional responses are not "mental correlations drawn between objects of physiological sensory perception and/or the agent's own state of 'mind"

If you prick the foot of a newborn baby, there is no mental correlation between foot pricking and crying, the response of crying due to pain is hardwired directly into the mind and nervous system of the baby.

What counts as instinct or intuition? — creativesoul

It's the set of emotions and isntincts that naturally guide us toward mutually beneficial regimes of behavior. (I.E: sympathy and empathy providing an emotional reward for sharing).

I'm still waiting for an example of something that is mutually beneficial but also immoral...

The first is that Virgil's behaviour is driven by his thought and belief. — creativesoul

His actions were driven by his instincts, his "intuition" not his "thought and belief".. This is a critical distinction you have consistently neglected to address.

The second is that behaviour can be both mutually beneficial and immoral. Thus, being mutually beneficial does not constitute being moral. — creativesoul

Care to give an example?

The fact that it is mutually beneficial to his and Vulcan's well-being (life, health, happiness).

Virgil's behavior was the objectively moral behavior if mutual survival and well being is a starting moral consideration because it is the most effective course of action available to him to ensure those ends (or avoids a threat to those ends)

It's like making the right or wrong move in a chess game.

At conception, we are all void of any and all thought and belief...moral belief notwithstanding — creativesoul

I'll grant you this, sure, but we're not devoid of "feeling" at birth (is feeling a kind of thought?). We're born with fixed emotional and physical responses to certain stimuli (I.e, cry when hungry, suckle when nursed).

Calculus cannot be understood prior to understanding arithmetic — creativesoul

Since Virgil's understanding is not relevant to my description and argument, what is the relevance of this?

Moral belief systems cannot be understood as such by an agent until s/he has one to talk about. Thought and belief begins simply and gains in it's complexity. — creativesoul

We're born with an intuitive system that induces us to behave morally. I fail to see how you have addressed my point.

We're born stupid and then we get smarter, gotchya, but Virgil's moral behavior never came from his own understanding, it came from evolutionary happenstance.

You ready to listen, or still just waiting for your turn to talk? — creativesoul

I've responded to every single point you've raised, and what I'm waiting for is for youto construct a relevant argument. (not an analogy, not the promise of an argument; an argument). If you've got some grand and deep and bold and revolutionary moral understanding, then just state it. This all started with you trying to convince me that ridicule never works, and now I'm wondering if you're about to tell me of the wonders of the great Hare Krishna mantra...

Stop asking me if I'm ready to listen or if i "agree with you so far" and just type out your actual argument.

On the surface you're right; before we grasp our own moral systems we're not in conscious control over their development, leaving them vulnerable to arbitrary influences. Our first consciously understood moral positions are generally given as commands when we're children (don't hit, don't lie, don't steal), but before we're given coherent and rigid moral instruction or are able to analyze our own moral systems, can we still exhibit moral behavior?

Consider the following:



Does the sharing of the nuts in the above video actually depict ethical/moral behavior?

If so, what might this indicate about early human morality?

Firstly, the nuts themselves are inherently desirable to the monkeys due to their biology (they want and enjoy the taste and satisfying feeling of eating them); nobody had to impart the idea that nuts are valuable to the monkeys. For the monkeys in this situation, access to nuts is like a starting value or goal, and it's presumably nearly universal to all monkeys who find themselves in such a situation.

The intriguing question is then "why were the nuts shared?". It just so happens that in-group food sharing is a mutually beneficial cooperative strategy, and could possibly have been selected for in the evolutionary past of monkeys and great apes, which presumably would have generated biological mechanisms to facilitate that behavior. I surmise that it is primarily an intuitive and emotional understanding which causes the monkey to share the nuts; one monkey see's the other upset and longing for some nuts, and sympathizes. It is most likely an intuitive feeling which entices the monkey to share, rather than a conscious understanding of the strategic upshot of doing so. That the monkey was able to divide the six nuts into two exactly equal shares probably has more to do with the number 6 being very easy to intuitively/visually divide than it has to do with any careful or conscious consideration on the part of the monkey

What the video does seem to demonstrate is that the intuitive "moral" decision making of monkeys can emerge naturally from biology and circumstance, without the need for formal language or reflective analysis on their part. Without knowing it, the monkey is naturally carrying out a mutually beneficial strategy of cooperation that brings about long term and mutual success in many environments (basically any tribal environment). Rational agents are able to recognize the strategic moral value behind such forms of cooperation, but evolution discovered it long before we did, and it has imbued hominids with a biological capacity to unconsciously employ cooperative (and competitive) strategies.

Just because something is an evolutionary devised strategy doesn't make it a moral strategy though, because not all strategies are cooperative or entail mutual benefit. The more a given strategy/moral arrangement necessitates an unequal or one-sided distribution of burdens and benefit, the less mutually agreeable it becomes from the perspective of the losers. We can indeed thank evolution for designing things like empathy and compassion, which emotionally and intuitively push us in the direction of cooperation where possible, but we can also blame evolution for human capacities like xenophobia and violent aggression which cause individuals and groups to exclude others from moral consideration. Specific groups and individuals can form exclusive moral clubs, but from the perspective of the morally excluded (example: the "untouchable" caste of historical India), what could rationally persuade them to buy into a moral premise that is harmful or un-beneficial to them? (note: it's fully possible to indoctrinate someone into an ideology which oppresses them, but intuitively, and by appealing to more persuasive and universal starting values (life, freedom, well-being), it's quite easy to bereave one's self, or be bereaved, of such positions). (note: it's possible to incorporate competition into a "moral" arrangement, but it will only be morally agreeable to everyone if it can be seen to benefit them (see: the economics of capitalism)).

In practice humans refer to quite a large variety of things as moral or morality. A virtue ethicist might say morality comes from virtues, a consequentialist might say morality comes from outcomes, and a theologian might say morality comes from god. All three of them might deny that we can think of Virgil the Capuchin as capable of moral behavior because he cannot understand virtue, the long term ramifications of it's actions, or god's will (traditionally we think of most animals as amoral). And yet, as if by coincidence, Virgil demonstrably engages in the exact same act that the virtue ethicist, the consequentialist, and the theologian would all argue is the right and moral course of action; understanding the what and why of Virgil's moral intuition encapsulates the origin of what our own moral systems are actually servicing (our basic human needs for survival, health, and happiness).

The kind of intuition that Virgil must have relied on to make his decision is the same kind of intuition that most humans rely on when making moral decisions of their own. The realm of conscious and higher moral thought and study contains a plethora of varying postulates and approaches that tend to frame morality as serving something greater, but inexorably they are all attempts to serve the very same set of nearly universal biological drives that spawns our moral intuition in the first place. A consequentialist appeals to the intuitive desirability of certain outcomes and possible states of affairs, while a virtue ethicist appeals to the power of certain virtues to actually bring about those intuitively desirable outcomes and states of affairs. Theology takes many and much more indirect roads, but generally the hope that an all-loving god has your back and has reserved a place for you in eternal paradise is the form of the appeal (it's not surprising how committed religious people are to their ideas given that religious ideology powerfully exploits the nearly universal human desire to go on living and to be happy; what could possibly be more valuable than eternal life with infinite happiness to boot?).

So much confusion and and contradiction tends to result when conscious moral systems are not constructed with a clear and reliable conception of what they're really trying to service. Strictly religious moral systems not only conflate and pervert our starting values with unreasonable intermediaries (example: "pleasing god is the most desirable" because god will then please us out of gratitude), they also pervert the strategic aspect of actually getting to a state of affairs which pleases god (and subsequently us). Example: "God's nature is heretosexual, therefore it is beneficial for every individual to also be heterosexual" (this particular example contains a mixed bag of irrational indirect appeals to intuition such as "god knows what's best" and "displeasing god will bring about the worst case scenario").

What actually caused me to leave religion and theism behind was a lucky ability to recognize the importance of my own emotional and intellectual well-being. As a child with no formal moral system aside from religious commandments (which are absorbed on authority), I was trapped by the painful lie that to disobey meant I would have to suffer in hell along with the rest of my somewhat non-religious immediate family. Ultimately cognitive dissonance forced me to conclude that my beliefs were not rational, but more importantly, were not healthy (hell was the most memorable of what I came to view as harmful beliefs but there were a broad collection of them that contributed to my present day state of irreligiosity).. And from what I know now, it turns out I was intuitively correct. Strict old world religious moral tenets only tend to result in successful communal living in primitive and chaotic environments rife with uncertainty and lacking science of any kind. Out of my own condition and reason I was able to come to the position that my previous religious beliefs were at the very least, not the best or most correct way of doing things; immoral.

I agree that our first worldview is more often that not thrust upon us, but our biology gives rise to a moral intuition that precedes any coherent worldview and is often the well obscured root appeal of moral systems based upon any formalized world view.

Of all things said thus far, this is the most significant.

Would you care to? — creativesoul

I would like you to communicate whatever it is you are trying to say clearly and succinctly,

"What's basic to simple is basic to complex(in terms of it's basic constitution)" is not clear or succinct, and it sounds a lot like equivocation between moral intuition and conscious moral systems or perhaps a compositional fallacy.

This does not imply that we are the way we ought be. — Banno

No, but we can take the way we are and use it to make arguments about how we ought to behave.

Should we be creatures who almost universally have the desire to go on living? I cannot say, but we're trapped in this form so we've got to play the cards we were dealt.

You have and you did once again. Not much more can be said, except to point it out. An astute reader will take note. — creativesoul

How about you point out how I misquoted you then? This is the second time you've griped about me misquoting you, and the second time you've failed to explain how I've done so.

I'm not missing your point, I'm refuting it based upon Ockham's razor amongst other things. Here, you'r attributing agency where none exists. Evolution is a process. There is no warrant for either intent, nor purpose. You preach intelligent design in evolutionary terms. An abuse of language. — creativesoul

First of all, obviously "evolution" is not a creature with a mind or intelligence; the mind of evolution is a figure of speech used to assist the portrayal of an evolutionary perspective. Secondly, you have not successfully employed Ockham's razor (which is itself vague and unreliable): saying "the much simpler and adequate explanation of just plain 'ole attribution of causality; that giving to the others produced results Virgil wanted, inferred, and expected?" does not offer an alternative explanation and frankly says nothing interesting at all.

As is this... Yet another misquote. You seem to still fall prey to not being able to correct yourself when your belief is wrong in light of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. — creativesoul

What evidence? And how have I misquoted you?

The nutritional value of your word salads are rapidly declining...

I'm setting out what's basic for all thought and belief. Thought and belief is accrued. What's basic to simple is basic to complex(in terms of it's basic constitution). What's true of the simple is true of the complex(in terms of it's basic constitution). — creativesoul

Honestly I have no clue what you're even trying to say here.

What does "Thought and belief is accrued" and how is it relevant to my point?

What does "What's basic to simple is basic to complex(in terms of it's basic constitution)" mean?

What does "What's true of the simple is true of the complex(in terms of it's basic constitution)" mean?

You've put forth ideas and notions that are contrary to what basic thought and belief consist in/of. — creativesoul

Such as? You've got to clarify which contrary ideas I've put forward and how they are contrary to what you can demonstrate about thought and belief.

Thus, I reject what you've said. That rejection is grounded upon Ockham's razor and the fact that you're attributing complex thought and belief where none is warranted, where none can be had... yet. — creativesoul

Do you mean empathy? Because that's a feeling that even dogs are capable of. Please try to realize I'm not suggesting Virgil is capable of conscious moral thought. If you're now referring to my reference to evolution as able to devise strategies, then you just don't understand evolution.

Indeed it's not. Nor was that the whole of my answer. Misquoting, blatantly even, is bad form. Red herring. Non-sequitur. Strawman/dog. None of those are acceptable. — creativesoul

:-}

I haven't misquoted or ignored any part of your response. You, however, seem to have completely missed my point.

I offered a causal explanation of why Virgil behaved the way he did: A strategy, devised by the trial and error based mind of evolution, encoded into the genetics of Virgil, which expresses itself through the intuitive and emotional tendencies of the overall organism (I.E hard coded nuero-chemical and hormonal regimes designed to promote specifically cooperative behaviors; innate empathy for lack of a better term).

I never at any point stated that Virgil is cognitively aware of the long term "moral" ramifications of his actions. I made it clear I believe he is not

Your response of "it's a better explanation to just say: causality; what he wanted; what he inferred; what he expected" is then flabbergasting.

So my overall point is two fold: Firstly, the "value" (life and well-being) which evolution has caused Virgil's actions to serve is the same most universal/persuasive starting value that we base our actually conscious moral systems on, and secondly what makes Virgil's actions moral is that they happen to be mutually beneficial to both Virgil and Vulcan in terms of preserving life and well being
(which I am positing is the best moral value, essentially).

The primate draws a connection between his/her own mental state, it's actions, and what happens afterwards. The effects of the act are imprinted into the mind of the primate affecting it's subsequent mental connections. — creativesoul

And then what? The primate distinguishes between outcomes which it desires and outcomes which it does not and acts accordingly? The problem with this is that the payoff for being altruistic is indirect and may never come (hard for simple minds to connect with the altruistic act itself). And I don't think that Virgil's keepers conditioned him to be altruistic with direct encouragement...

Moral thinking is a metacognitive endeavour. It is thinking about what counts as acceptable/unacceptable thought, belief, and/or behaviour. That primate is incapable of thinking in such a way. That is not to say that the primate does not exhibit thoughtful behaviour. It is to appropriately temper our talk of what that consists in/of. — creativesoul

I don't think Virgil is capable of moral thought; his biology and instincts do the thinking for him unconsciously and mechanically. It just so happens though that a very beneficial strategy (re: life and well-being) for communal living is to behave altruistically to members of your group. It's an objectively successful strategy that evolution has long since imbued into many hominids (to varying degrees). Consciously though, humans are able to come up with their own strategies for survival (What's the right course of action if I (or we all) want to go on living and be free from strife?), and it's very easy to see the rationale behind in-group altruistic behavior (both from a species level evolutionary perspective, and from a selfish or individual perspective).

For the sake of clarity, the reason why I always include the "mutual benefit" clause in what I refer to as moral is because unless we extend consideration to people other than ourselves (even if the primary reason to do so is selfish) we might simply destroy one-another in pursuit and according to our differing moral platforms (making them shitty moral platforms IMO, which is also one of the reasons why I value persuasiveness in and of itself when it comes to moral reasoning).

Some of the content of moral thinking exists prior to our awareness of it. For example. Some moral belief is true, others are not. Some religious based. Others are not. Just as it is the case with all our thought and belief, we only first discover that our thought and belief can be true/false. It is false prior to our becoming aware of it. It is true prior to our becoming aware of it. Our becoming aware of it does not make it so, either way. All of this is necessary for moral thinkin — creativesoul

I agree with this although you could be a bit clearer in the way you describe some moral belief as true and untrue. Moral belief can be untrue if it is based on factually inaccurate information (I.E: sacrificing the lamb ensures a good harvest, therefore we must sacrifice the lamb; it's strategically wrong) but it can also be a different kind of untrue: the starting moral premise that "gods will is what is best" isn't even wrong. It could be the case but it cannot be proven or dis-proven, or elucidated upon in any rational or empirical fashion. It's not even reasoning; it's just a random starting assumption that people point to and insist "this is the most important, and therefore moral, concern".

The outlined content in the first paragraph above doesn't require language in order to form. It is both necessary and sufficient for roughly outlining the primate behaviour. It doesn't mistakenly attribute complex thought and belief to an agent incapable of forming and/or holding them. That is the only kind of content that that primate can have within it's mental ongoings. Simple.

Just as we once were, it is not capable of complex thought. It merely acts upon it's own mental ongoings. We describe them. — creativesoul

Hopefully I have made it clear by now that the objective moral component of Virgil's actions doesn't stem from his own conscious mind, but instead that they stem from the strategic serving of a certain set of nearly universal values which we humans ourselves consciously use as a foundation or starting point for our own moral systems.

Scientifically, race is complicated enough that we ought to leave the defining (or debunking) of it to the actual biologists and geneticists. If you want to communicate a hard scientific understanding of why race is meaningless, you've got to go through the scientific models underpinning genetics that reveal why there is no underlying meaning to the term (no easy task).

But when most people speak of race, they're doing so unscientifically. In some cases it's short hand for loose regional ancestry (i.e, blacks have ancestors in Africa, whites have ancestors in Europe, "asians" have ancestry in.... Asia...).

Sometimes we're really just referencing skin color and facial features. "Is an albino african "Black"?

I really don't get why race is such a polarizing issue. One side borders on segregationist racialism from "race realism" while the other side offers a full blown denial of race and racial differences by insisting it's a "social construct"... It's all uneducated bologna...

How would you know if any of this is true?

What makes you think and/or believe that Virgil's behaviour was governed and/or driven by moral intuition? — creativesoul

If moral intuition is the biology driven emotional response when confronted with a moral dilemma (a situation where someone else is suffering or may suffer) then the description fits perfectly.

Why not the much simpler and adequate explanation of just plain 'ole attribution of causality; that giving to the others produced results Virgil wanted, inferred, and expected? — creativesoul

"Causality" is not an adequate explanation, or even an explanation...

"What Virgil wanted" is incorporated in my explanation: he wanted to help his friend due to his emotional response to seeing him wanting.

"What Virgil inferred" assumes more than my appraisal of the situation does. Is Virgil actually making inferences about moral strategy? I don't think so.

"What Virgil expected" is a possibility, but you haven't explained why he expected that. Perhaps Virgil has been trained to share and expect praise for sharing. That's possible, but something tells me that Capuchin monkeys really do have an unconscious and intuitive/emotional sense of fair play.

I find no justification at all for attributing strategy to such simplistic thought and belief. — creativesoul

Evolution did the strategic thinking for Virgil by endowing him with unconscious and somewhat hardwired emotional responses like empathy. And evolution is no simple thinker; it's more than sophisticated enough to figure out that in-group resource sharing is a successful strategy.

I was simply showing the common denominators in morality, some of them anyway. I mean, you strongly asserted against the notion, so... — creativesoul

Actually I pointed to the most common starting values, and explained that the starting value of "serving god" is in reality a confused and bastardized version of those most common starting values (life, liberty, happiness).

By ridiculing away someone's devotion to god and showing them their own happiness and well being was it's function all along, they then tend to happily trade in the old world strategy of theistic morality for a much more rational and successful one.

What makes you think and/or believe that Virgil's behaviour was governed and/or driven by moral intuition? Why not just plain 'ole attribution of causality, that giving to the others produced results Virgil wanted, inferred, and expected? — creativesoul

Evolution has oriented Virgil's intuition to be a certain way (with inexorably strategic results), and in this case his evolution endowed intuition has lead him to make a counter-instinctual decision that was strategically beneficial to his well-being in the long run (many animals would simply horde all the treats for themselves). The mechanical causality of Virgil's derision making is secondary to the strategic ramifications of his actions. We can describe the "why" of the specific action in terms of biological and cognitive processes, but we could also explain the "why" by pointing to the fact that such behavior is prevalent in hominids because it is an extremely successful strategy for preserving life and well-being, which has resulted in creatures with such dispositions to become prevalent.

Here's a point that needs consideration.

Suppose that we have evolved to behave in a certain way.

It remains an open question as to whether we ought behave in that way.

This is Moore's open question argument, and so far as I am aware, no solution has been offered.

So basing you moral choices on what you have evolved to do, remains a moral choice. — Banno

That we evolved to be the way we are isn't what's important, it's simply that we are the way we are.

That we feel pain and pleasure and want to go on living are the basic evolution-endowed facts that we can use as a moral foundation. We cannot appeal to evolution to establish the value of avoiding pain and seeking pleasure, or to continue living; we can only establish those values individually and subjectively (but the good news is just about everyone will naturally affirm these values, so moral agreements based on these similarities can be constructed between individuals).

Say evolution designed us to be generally more greedy and less intelligent than we currently are and as a result we repeatedly fail to share resources in tribal settings... Moore might consider it to be "moral" from the perspective of an innately greedy agent, but from the nearly objective and more universal perspective of avoiding pain and pleasure, and going on living, such a strategy may result in extinction and on those grounds be immoral.

At conception, we are all void of any and all thought and belief...moral belief notwithstanding. Some thought and belief are extremely complex. Others are not. Calculus cannot be understood prior to understanding arithmetic. Moral belief systems cannot be understood as such by an agent until s/he has one to talk about. Thought and belief begins simply and gains in it's complexity. We all adopt our first worldview.

Agree with this so far? — creativesoul

Sorry for the delayed response. I wanted to take some time to thoroughly ponder this question.

On the surface you're right; before we grasp our own moral systems we're not in conscious control over their development, leaving them vulnerable to arbitrary influences. Our first consciously understood moral positions are generally given as commands when we're children (don't hit, don't lie, don't steal), but before we're given coherent and rigid moral instruction or are able to analyze our own moral systems, can we still exhibit moral behavior?

Consider the following:



Does the sharing of the nuts in the above video actually depict ethical/moral behavior?

If so, what might this indicate about early human morality?

Firstly, the nuts themselves are inherently desirable to the monkeys due to their biology (they want and enjoy the taste and satisfying feeling of eating them); nobody had to impart the idea that nuts are valuable to the monkeys. For the monkeys in this situation, access to nuts is like a starting value or goal, and it's presumably nearly universal to all monkeys who find themselves in such a situation.

The intriguing question is then "why were the nuts shared?". It just so happens that in-group food sharing is a mutually beneficial cooperative strategy, and could possibly have been selected for in the evolutionary past of monkeys and great apes, which presumably would have generated biological mechanisms to facilitate that behavior. I surmise that it is primarily an intuitive and emotional understanding which causes the monkey to share the nuts; one monkey see's the other upset and longing for some nuts, and sympathizes. It is most likely an intuitive feeling which entices the monkey to share, rather than a conscious understanding of the strategic upshot of doing so. That the monkey was able to divide the six nuts into two exactly equal shares probably has more to do with the number 6 being very easy to intuitively/visually divide than it has to do with any careful or conscious consideration on the part of the monkey

What the video does seem to demonstrate is that the intuitive "moral" decision making of monkeys can emerge naturally from biology and circumstance, without the need for formal language or reflective analysis on their part. Without knowing it, the monkey is naturally carrying out a mutually beneficial strategy of cooperation that brings about long term and mutual success in many environments (basically any tribal environment). Rational agents are able to recognize the strategic moral value behind such forms of cooperation, but evolution discovered it long before we did, and it has imbued hominids with a biological capacity to unconsciously employ cooperative (and competitive) strategies.

Just because something is an evolutionary devised strategy doesn't make it a moral strategy though, because not all strategies are cooperative or entail mutual benefit. The more a given strategy/moral arrangement necessitates an unequal or one-sided distribution of burdens and benefit, the less mutually agreeable it becomes from the perspective of the losers. We can indeed thank evolution for designing things like empathy and compassion, which emotionally and intuitively push us in the direction of cooperation where possible, but we can also blame evolution for human capacities like xenophobia and violent aggression which cause individuals and groups to exclude others from moral consideration. Specific groups and individuals can form exclusive moral clubs, but from the perspective of the morally excluded (example: the "untouchable" caste of historical India), what could rationally persuade them to buy into a moral premise that is harmful or un-beneficial to them? (note: it's fully possible to indoctrinate someone into an ideology which oppresses them, but intuitively, and by appealing to more persuasive and universal starting values (life, freedom, well-being), it's quite easy to bereave one's self, or be bereaved, of such positions). (note: it's possible to incorporate competition into a "moral" arrangement, but it will only be morally agreeable to everyone if it can be seen to benefit them (see: the economics of capitalism)).

In practice humans refer to quite a large variety of things as moral or morality. A virtue ethicist might say morality comes from virtues, a consequentialist might say morality comes from outcomes, and a theologian might say morality comes from god. All three of them might deny that we can think of Virgil the Capuchin as capable of moral behavior because he cannot understand virtue, the long term ramifications of it's actions, or god's will (traditionally we think of most animals as amoral). And yet, as if by coincidence, Virgil demonstrably engages in the exact same act that the virtue ethicist, the consequentialist, and the theologian would all argue is the right and moral course of action; understanding the what and why of Virgil's moral intuition encapsulates the origin of what our own moral systems are actually servicing (our basic human needs for survival, health, and happiness).

The kind of intuition that Virgil must have relied on to make his decision is the same kind of intuition that most humans rely on when making moral decisions of their own. The realm of conscious and higher moral thought and study contains a plethora of varying postulates and approaches that tend to frame morality as serving something greater, but inexorably they are all attempts to serve the very same set of nearly universal biological drives that spawns our moral intuition in the first place. A consequentialist appeals to the intuitive desirability of certain outcomes and possible states of affairs, while a virtue ethicist appeals to the power of certain virtues to actually bring about those intuitively desirable outcomes and states of affairs. Theology takes many and much more indirect roads, but generally the hope that an all-loving god has your back and has reserved a place for you in eternal paradise is the form of the appeal (it's not surprising how committed religious people are to their ideas given that religious ideology powerfully exploits the nearly universal human desire to go on living and to be happy; what could possibly be more valuable than eternal life with infinite happiness to boot?).

So much confusion and and contradiction tends to result when conscious moral systems are not constructed with a clear and reliable conception of what they're really trying to service. Strictly religious moral systems not only conflate and pervert our starting values with unreasonable intermediaries (example: "pleasing god is the most desirable" because god will then please us out of gratitude), they also pervert the strategic aspect of actually getting to a state of affairs which pleases god (and subsequently us). Example: "God's nature is heretosexual, therefore it is beneficial for every individual to also be heterosexual" (this particular example contains a mixed bag of irrational indirect appeals to intuition such as "god knows what's best" and "displeasing god will bring about the worst case scenario").

What actually caused me to leave religion and theism behind was a lucky ability to recognize the importance of my own emotional and intellectual well-being. As a child with no formal moral system aside from religious commandments (which are absorbed on authority), I was trapped by the painful lie that to disobey meant I would have to suffer in hell along with the rest of my somewhat non-religious immediate family. Ultimately cognitive dissonance forced me to conclude that my beliefs were not rational, but more importantly, were not healthy (hell was the most memorable of what I came to view as harmful beliefs but there were a broad collection of them that contributed to my present day state of irreligiosity).. And from what I know now, it turns out I was intuitively correct. Strict old world religious moral tenets only tend to result in successful communal living in primitive and chaotic environments rife with uncertainty and lacking science of any kind. Out of my own condition and reason I was able to come to the position that my previous religious beliefs were at the very least, not the best or most correct way of doing things; immoral.

I agree that our first worldview is more often that not thrust upon us, but our biology gives rise to a moral intuition that precedes any coherent worldview and is often the well obscured root appeal of moral systems based upon any formalized world view.

P.S: Sorry for such a lengthy response to such a simple question, I just couldn't help it (I might have made a great preacher!). Hopefully some of the ground I've covered will be relevant to where you're present point.

I suggest looking to all moral systems as a means to identify and isolate the morally relevant and/or significant common denominators.

Common ground renders ridicule unnecessary and opens the door for reasonable more respectful dialogue. — creativesoul

You cannot reliably find common ground with a divine moral system when that system is founded on an irrational starting premise:

One religion says be pacifist, and another says spread by force. One religion says sex is bad, another religion says sex is good. Divine command theory is mutually exclusive with itself.

What does paying currency, self-mutilation, invading and conquering foreign lands, and refusing modern-medicine, have in common? These have all been paths to divine absolution which people carry out on a regular basis still to this day.

That you seek to find common dry ground with divine command theory is laughable. There is no dry land; it's just a large debris field of mostly useless old world refuse, floating on a sea of naive and emotional over-confidence.

I put genuine care into my ridicule: I use a scalpel rather than a rapier (as Dawkins advocates in the video); I substantiate and qualify the ridicule itself.

You say to croon them in hushed and sensitive tones, I say to shock them with vivid and stinging rebuttals. Different people can be suaded via different means; there is no right answer. In some cases, ridicule is effective, and I've seen it work in real time.

We are veering a bit off topic though, so let me try to bring it back on point: Morals derived from some kind of divine command theory are rationally unreliable because we have no rational access to any real set of divine moral commands. The real world is populated by diverse and mutually exclusive moral systems built from allegedly revealed and eternal knowledge, and most of them are want to arbitrarily mutate according to internal and external pressures. The fundamental adherence to such moral systems is hubris at best, and at worst genocidal. We should look elsewhere to found morality.

We were discussing divine command theory. Suicide folk in particular. Yanking someone's trousers down ought be more memorable, unless perhaps you've become desensitized... — creativesoul

I cannot say ridicule would be my opening salvos when confronted with a suicide bomber with their finger on the button ("Hey man, there's no need to blow this religion thing so far out of proportion!"). But maybe if the suicide folk had been exposed to effective ridicule at some point prior to their indoctrination and radicalization, they might not have done been so effectively manipulated by it (effective ridicule isn't just insulting, it's also humorous because it points to truth).

Ridicule isn't what primarily motivates suicide bombers or anyone adhering to some sort of divine moral theory. Charlie Hebdo was identified as a target for terrorism because they engaged in ridicule, but that's not what actually motivated the terrorists. It was a political, ideological, and religious worldview combined with their own psychology, upbringing and circumstances which turned them into irredeemable murderers, and it cannot function without the notion of serving god's will (which was the context of my ridicule). If you would have me put on kid gloves because overly sensitive lunatics might snap at any moment, I simply refuse. I would rather not let terrorists win the right to be free from criticism or ridicule by means of murder and violence.

I'll yank down the intellectual trousers of anyone arrogant enough to stand before me wielding the idea that they have access to god's mind and any accompanying divine moral commandments they think apply to me. It's a stupid idea with no rational foundation and it's been muddying mankind's moral waters for millennia. When will enough be enough?

Because you supported your "not always" claim with something other than the case we were discussing. — creativesoul

You asserted that ridicule only ever emboldens those it is meant to disarm, and I retorted with the idea that this isn't the case. Sometimes ridicule (especially of bad ideas) is effective.

We are discussing all cases of ridicule broadly aren't we?

I think the identification reason=utility=justice, leaves out some critical moral aspects of what it is to be a moral agent. — Cavacava

It leaves out the starting values, which sometimes differ from human to human and culture to culture.

This is what I mean when I say that a moral system can only exist between agents when they have some shared values to base them on, and the more universally shared the value, the more universally persuasive the ensuing utility/reason/justice based moral arguments based upon them will be.

Sometimes two people stuck on opposing starting moral values can never reconcile their moral differences, but if they were open to scrutinizing their starting values more deeply they might actually reach common ground to start from. Values like "the right to go on living" and "freedom from oppression" are almost universally acceptable in the basic sense (they can get complicated in practice but as general goals they're broadly appealing); these are the most persuasive objectives of moral agreements between parties and they often underlie other values associated with morality like honor and honesty. Amorphous moral values like pleasing god may at times have somewhat broad appeal but have always been rife with inconsistency. Peculiar moral values like the need to self-flagellate to feel the divine is at least well defined, but it has very little broad appeal, making it weak in general (and rationally weak when empirically examined). Some starting values are better than others...