No... not necessarily. Although, it may depend on how broadly we define "religion". The case that I was/am trying to make is that one need not appeal to a given religion such as Hinduism or Christianity in order to accept the logic of the OP. The idea would be that one need not have faith in a given religion to recognise the possibility of life after death. If the logic of the OP works, one might have to posit the existence of a 'soul' to explain the possibility, but I'm not sure if that alone makes it religious. — TVCL

It need not imply religious faith, it could exist outside religion certainly. But the concept is religious in origin, and there doesn't seem a good reason to believe in it otherwise. So the question seems to be why would we assume something like a soul to begin with.

That's fair enough, but that isn't quite the argument. The argument is not that we cannot know about subjective consciousness with absolute certainty, it's that we might not have any knowledge of it at all outside of our own direct, personal experience of consciousness. In that regard, it is unlike other scientific conclusions that we make based on good but incomplete data.
Consider the matter in this way:
Let's say that you put a man in a machine that maps his body down to the atom. Now, you stab the man in the hand, exciting the signals there that go up to the brain. Now, let's say that you track this signal minutely from the nerves in the hand, through the body, to the neurons in the brain... the question is: at what point could you say that you have observed the conscious, subjective experience of "pain" and have not simply tracked an biological-electrical process? — TVCL

I don't disagree with this, we don't have any direct experience of consciousness outside of our own. Following this line of reasoning to the extreme, we don't really know if a world outside of our own experience even exists, because all we have is our experience... and so it'd be perfectly coherent to believe that only our experience exist. Solipsism is logically irrefutable. We typically do assume that a world outside our experience exists however, not because there is a good argument or proof for it, but because it's one of those things that seem better to believe in than not, all things being equal, because solipsism is a dead end (aside from the fact that we are probably hardwired to assume that a world outside of our experience exist). I'd say something similar about other people's consciousness. We assume that people that look and behave in a similar way have a similar experience.... and I think you do too. So are we to entertain a possibility we don't really believe in, for the sake of making another argument?

This is where we might be tripping over one-another because this is essentially what I'm trying to say. But you have my apologies if I've not made my writing or intentions clear enough. I'm using the definition of life as consciousness. The idea behind using "life after death" in the OP is simply because when I hear people commonly refer to life after death, they do not imply that their biological life continues after death but that there will be a continuation of their 'mind' or their 'soul' at some point, even if this requires a new body. In brief - when they say that there will be "life after death" they imply that conscious awareness will occur again at some point after their current, biological life has come to an end. Hopefully this explains the rationale for my use of terms. — TVCL

Ok yes, but isn't that essentially a religious rationale then, in that you seem to define terms only for the purpose of making sense of what seems like essentially religious concepts like the soul... which was something I thought you wanted to avoid as stated in the OP. And isn't your argument then a bit circular, insofar as you already assume and have to assume something like a soul-like awareness in your definitions for the argument to work?

might not be what it seems. We may not, in fact, strictly know that consciousness either occurs in biological life or only occurs in biological life. We presume that it does because we see physical behaviours that we assume are connected to consciousness, but we lack a scientific way of getting a metric for measuring the subjective experience of what it is "like" for a subject to be conscious. Without which, we may be unable to demonstrate where consciousness does or does not occur. — TVCL

If you mean by "strictly know", knowing with absolute certainty, then yes we do not know... but I don't think that is a standard science or I should necessarily aim for, as it probably is an impossible standard to attain. I think we are justified in inferring things from what we do know or experience to the best of our abilities and form tentative beliefs until we are confronted with evidence to the contrary... because that seems to be the best we can do. If all swans we have ever seen are white, it seems reasonable to assume that all swans are white, that is until we see a black swan.

So I guess what i'm saying is, what would count as an adequate demonstration for me, is showing me a black swan, rather than pointing to everything that is theoretically possible... anything is theoretically possible unless it is proven impossible, like some previous poster already mentioned.

Respectfully, I'm not sure whether the position requires an assumption of panpsychism and we may be speaking at odds if two definitions of life are being conflated.

The biological definition of life accounts for biological process, but says nothing about whether life is present for the subject. For example, if a fly is biologically alive but is devoid of consciousness, in what sense could the fly regard itself as alive? Or, another way to put it is that if you or I were biologically alive, but our consciousness came to a final end, in what sense would you or I, as subjects, know that we are alive? This is why we can remove consciousness from the definition of biological life but, when we do so, we are merely describing a process and an organism becomes just as "alive" in some sense as an engine.

Moreover, panpsychism posits that mind is more fundamental than matter to the extent that it permeates the entire universe. Admittedly, the OP leaves that possibility open but it does not appear to be an assumption that is required for the OP. It could well be the case - as you hold - that matter is more fundamental and that conscious life must arise from biological life. The case being made is simply that this is an open question and we cannot presume that - say - conscious life will come to a Final End once our biological life does. — TVCL

I guess I don't see why something needs to be aware that it is alive, to be considered alive, that's not how we typically use the term I don't think. Someone in a coma is generally considered to be alive, even though he is not conscious.

You seem to be making a distinction between two sorts of 'life', biological life, and some kind of life as awareness... but it isn't clear to me why you wouldn't just call 'life as awareness', consciousness. Why the need for an additional concept for life when we already have a word for essentially the same thing? Doesn't that just unnecessarily complicate things? Or maybe I just don't understand what it is you are trying to convey with that second concept of life, that can't already be done with the concept of consciousness.

Regarding panpsychism, maybe biological life (or some kind of other artificial life) it not strictly necessary for consciousness in a non-panpsychist universe, in the sense that it is logically precluded without it... But I guess it's more a matter of induction, that as far as we know, consciousness only occurs in biological life. And so if you want to posit that consciousness can exist outside of it, it seems reasonable to expect an account for how and in what way consciousness arises then. Maybe it's not that reasonable since we can't yet explain how consciousness arise out of biology :-). Anyway, that lead me to idea you may have to assume some kind of panpsychism to give a beginning of an account for how consciousness can exist outside of biology. But maybe there are other ways, I wouldn't know and I don't have particular strong opinions on that.

I'm conceiving of life as conscious awareness, in the sense that a subject can only know that it is "alive" if it has conscious awareness which may be related to biological life, but not the same as if. Consider for example how you and I, for example, were living organisms in-utero but life as we know it did not begin until some time after birth.

Admittedly, this isn't an exact definition, but life as conscious awareness is used in contrast the conception of non-life in which many commonly presume that there will non-consciousness after death. Admittedly, even in biological life we are at time consciousness and then non-conscious but what I am arguing against is that this non-consciousness will be final at the point of biological death and that conscious awareness will not occur again afterwards.

Does that make sense? That might have been a bit messy. — TVCL

I understand where you are coming from I think. But there seem to be some issues with it, which you seem to be aware of, because as you say we can be non- or un- conscious and still be considered alive... which would point to the conclusion that consciousness is not necessarily a determining factor for life?

In biology, life has been a notoriously slippery thing to define, but I think typically it is understood to be something that takes up energy to sustain itself in the same form (homeostasis) and reproduces itself via a process that allows for variation (not merely replication). Death then is when it no longer sustains itself. Consciousness usually isn't included in that description...

But I take it that since you think consciousness will occur again afterwards, and don't think it is tied to some biological life, you have to assume some kind of panpsychism? If so, I don't think I have much to say to that... we just have different basic assumptions then.

Because intelligence is required for grasping reality itself, and with that comes conscious thought at some higher level. Let's not joke around and say that computers aren't as intelligent in any regard as we are, be it in isolation or collectively. — Shawn

They are good (and bad) at different things than we are.

"and with that comes conscious thought" seems like a big assumption that is still in need of a lot of justification.

Don't feel obliged to try to justify it, because I don't think anybody really knows at this point.

Once again, more of the dark ages brought into the present. Will power as you speak of it does not exist, your will is determined by your motivation and motivation is caused by a plurality of psychological and physical factors. You cannot tell a brain lacking grey matter to simply try harder! This is my last exchange with you. You need to educate yourself and stop trying to see what will stick. I wish you all the best. :) — JerseyFlight

You just can't help yourself, can you? It's certainly clear what motivates you :-).

What separates humans from other primates is that we look to the adults to obtain information about ourselves and our environment. What a human is and will be depends upon his environment, and here we use the term in the broadest possible sense, both physical and psychological. What you are claiming is not empirical, it is a fiction, humans become what they are as their brain develops and passes through concrete experience structures (see Allan Schore, Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self). You are asserting that humans come preset, this is a superstition left over from religion. "Human Nature" does not exist, human brains exist, and they are exceedingly sensitive, what your brain experiences and how it develops determines who you are and what you become. If you abuse a child, neglect him, he will grow up to abuse others, he will be selfish, there will be many problems. Humans are not born predisposed to the negative. This is a religious assertion, not a scientific fact. — JerseyFlight

This proves that you can't even enter the room to talk with the adults, and this is why: it is the most basic knowledge of sociology and social psychology that human wants can be artificially generated. This is what consumer culture is all about, generating artificial needs. One thing people should not do is listen to any advice you have on how to approach the problems of the world, because you have clearly manifest that you don't even comprehend the most basic parts of the system. I'm not trying to be mean, this is a problem if you want to converse with any kind of authority. If I was you I would return to education, specifically psychology and sociology. — JerseyFlight

I disagree, culture plays a part of course, I never said otherwise, but it seems hard to deny there are some basic tendencies that are hard to unlearn. Artificially created humans wants typically are created because they promise people social success, status etc... The specific iteration of objects we attach those desires to may differ, but the underlying desires that make people want those things are usually pretty similar.... in short will to power.

ChatteringMonkey even if we accept the view of human nature you briefly alluded to, it isn't clear which type of property you mean. I think most of what you say is an argument for limited personal property but is not an argument that extends to ownership over means of production, for example. — Kornelius

It does to some extend, people are motivated to care for things they consider 'theirs'. What they consider theirs is a fluid concept to some extend, in the sense you can get them to care for things that are not actually their property, like a 'nation' or a 'sports team', but there needs to be some identification for them to care. And so, the argument does extend to the means of production insofar as someone needs to be motivated to put those means to good use.

No my friend, what the evidence favors is that human personality structures are conditioned by 1) attachment systems and 2) quality and stability of environment, this includes food and shelter (the vital parts of the brain must develop and mature without trauma or nutrient deficiencies). There is no such thing as "human nature," (a psychological predisposition to which all humans are subject) this is a false metaphysics.

Anyhow, this thread is not about the myth of human nature, which fascism so desperately needs to hold onto in order to justify its primitive narrative of good versus evil.

It seems you are under the impression that Marx rejected private property. Where did you derive this idea? Can you provide a citation? Marx was against the unintelligibility of capitalist formations of private property -- because they don't make any sense when you think of them in terms of the well-being and needs of the species. Everyone is in need of space in order to live, capitalism negates this fact, segregates it and begins to use it as a tyranny, coercion-leverage.

If you think you have figured out the social world because you make use of the false metaphysical concept of "human nature..." all I can tell you is that you haven't even entered the room where the adults speak, you are in much need of a critical education. — JerseyFlight

I don't get it, why do you post quotes that directly and without qualification attack the idea of private property if not to reject the idea of private property. What's you point then?

There's nothing metaphysical about humans having certain tendencies, it's an empirical claim, as I said. If you have spend for instance any time observing infants, that can hardly be said to be indoctrinated by culture already, you'd know that there is strong tendency to appropriate things for themselves. This is for the most part not something that culture imposes on us, it is in our genes.

Thinking in terms of well-being and what we need as a species, won't work if it doesn't align with what we want. Two different things. You need to work with what people want, otherwise it won't work, this is a very simple point.

And I'll say this once, if you continue the discussion in the same pompous vein, I'm done with it.

Yes, and that is a bad situation too which will end up creating problems.

Maybe the conclusion of these two propositions taken together then is that the solution to a few owning everything, is not abolishing private property altogether, but retaining the idea of private property while also finding a way so that it doesn't end up in a few owning everything.

I seem to have encountered an interesting thread about the nature of consciousness with respect to computers, who seem to display an attitude of sentience.

Do you think it is true that consciousness can arise from Generalized or non-Generalized Artificial Intelligence? — Shawn

Maybe, but it's also entirely possible that having a biological brain and all that comes with that is vital for consciousness like we know it to arise. So I'd say no for the moment, but it's a very weak no.

A question I would like to ask though, is why do we think intelligence has necessarily a lot to do with consciousness? They seem like two separate things to me...

I don't necessarily disagree with any of this, but I think it all misses what is I think is the most important argument for private property, which is human nature.

People want to own stuff and owning stuff motivates them to take care of it. Take away private property and a lot of that motivation goes away.

There's no further need to justify private property in metaphysics or natural rights or any of that. If human nature is indeed such that private property is a key part of what motivates people, then theories that don't take that into account are doomed to fail in practice.

You may dispute that view on human nature off course, but ultimately it is an empirical claim and the evidence seems to be in favour of it.

I think we simply do not yet understand how consciousness can emerge from physical stuff. But the fact that we can't explain it yet, doesn't mean that it doesn't emerge solely from the physical. Of course there's always the possibility that something else is going on, but what that something else would be seems entirely unclear to me. And alternative explanations generally have the problem that they seem at odds with other more fundamental scientific understanding of the universe. I get a bit suspicious if we would need to revise theories that otherwise seems to work perfectly fine everywhere in the universe, only because we can't yet explain how a small part of it, consciousness, works. Which is why I would put my money on consciousness arising out of and ending with our biological life.

Specifically about your text, this seems like an odd statement to me:

we could still posit that life possibly carries on after death — TVCL

Isn't death, by definition, the end or absence of life? I'd be curious to know how you define life (or death) such that it is possible to carry on after death.

I'm not sure what your point is?
— ChatteringMonkey
We're on different topics. — tim wood

Ok yes I see, my bad.

↪ChatteringMonkey

That's a fair contention.

Of course, the wedge that we could drive here is to appeal to the "hard question of consciousness". If consciousness was proven to be tethered to biology, there would be a way to prove that consciousness comes to an end at the point of biological death. However, we seem unable to demonstrate the exact connection between biology and consciousness and where, exactly, one is tethered to the other.

What are your thoughts on this? — TVCL

I think there's certainly a lot we don't know about consciousness at this point, but we do know some things. And from the things we do know, it seems like a reasonable assumption that our consciousness does indeed seems to be tied to our biology.

For example drinking a lot of alcohol or getting hit hard on the head, can result in you being unconscious. This alone seems enough to conclude that the state of our biology at least has some non-negligible effects on our consciousness.

Maybe you don't need to have some kind of religious faith to believe that there is something after dead, but you do need to believe that human consciousness is separate from human biology... which i'd say seems very much like some kind of supernatural belief.

If you don't believe that consciousness is separate from human biology, than there doesn't seem to be very much space for something after dead, because dead is the end of biological life, and as such also the end of consciousness.

Do we really need to know how we know, to be able to know something?
— ChatteringMonkey
It seems to me that on a philosophy website that question is the one question that may always be asked.
— tim wood

Ships over the horizon passing in the night? — tim wood

I'm not sure what your point is?

It seems to me that on a philosophy website that question is the one question that may always be asked, and must always be answered. Some people may have their own reasons for not answering. But answering is the price of playing. In sum, I argue that any person or argument non-responsive to the question may be dismissed - a short extension of Hitchens's razor. And, that we all ought not to "play" with them. Either they'll learn to play better or go away.

The underlying sense of it - my argument - is that when out of the raw limestone of mere ignorance we try to find and carve out our "angel" of knowledge, a stupid ignorance conceals just what that angel might look like or be. Who wants to be deprived of or derailed from that experience? — tim wood

Do we really need to know how we know, to be able to know something?

This seems to be an assumption that goes largely unquestioned, and it certainly seems questionable to me, if not plainly false.

On the face of it, it seems reasonable to think that we first need to know how we know, what constitutes knowledge etc, if we want to know something. But I think upon further scrutiny it's not evident at all.... At this point of scientific understanding of the brain, it's seems perfectly possible that the biological brain has it's own set of criteria, heuristics, algorithms, or however you want to call it, that subconsciously do a lot of the work in forming knowledge... without us knowing why and how it does it.

The example that I tend to give to demonstrate that this particular assumption is at least not evident, is self-learning neural nets, AI. Nobody knows, not even itself, the criteria by which it determines what it determines, but it certainly 'knows' things for all intends and purposes.... it knows how to play chess better than any human to name one example. And if you look under the 'hood' of said AI, all you will find is a neural net which is ultimately a bunch of switches that have been fine-tuned by certain experiences/inputs. It's not even evident that you could in principle translate the positions of those switches (which effectively constitutes how it knows something) into neat criteria or concepts that we could understand.

I suspect this particular assumption will eventually also end up in the dustbin of misguided philosophical ideas born out of an overvaluation of conscious rational thinking.

I agree that you can say that an agreed upon convention can be objectively said to be broken or not. In my eyes however, and more importantly, the convention itself is not reaching at some objective moral truth. You're back to a kind of subjective consensus about what is right or wrong. — avalon

Yes, I'm not a moral objectivist.

Moral objectivism has a few qualities I struggle to reconcile (maybe someone can help me here):

- If a moral evaluation of some event is to be made by an individual, it is by definition subjective. A group of individuals will tend to disagree (partially / fully) on what the correct moral evaluation of an event is.

- If a moral evaluation of an event were to draw upon some objective "truth" (a correct moral evaluation that is not contingent on the individual and exists objectively), I struggle to see how one would know or come to understand of this truth. — avalon

The problem is that it is both subjective and objective, or maybe better even that this whole objective/subjective divide is not helpful in understanding morality.

We create morals, as a group or collective. Since we create them, and this creation happens based among other things on peoples opinions on morals, you can't really say it's not subjective. But then there are also a whole bunch of objective background constraints that make it so that it generally goes in certain directions... so there are 'objective' aspects to it too.

And then once morals have been created, which is a matter of agreement/convention, it is not a matter of subjective opinion anymore whether a person breaks a moral convention or not. It's objectively true that people agreed upon a certain moral convention, and objectively true or not whether that convention is broken.

Would you mind giving it a look before we continue because it would be good discuss with you how logic might/might not relate to experience? — TVCL

It doesn't relate to experience directly, logic pertains to what we say about what we experience, to language.

Language enables us to abstract from what we experience, from particulars, and say something more general about it, with categories we make up, universals... although strictly speaking no universals exist. X is only truly identical to itself the exact same moment. But for our purposes that doesn't matter all that much, because things have enough similarities so that we can give them the same designations and communicate things to each other. We apply logic to the language we use to keep it coherent, intelligible, etc... in short to keep it usefull to us. That is the justification for logic and it's value.... it's utility to us. And not necessarily because it's inherent or fundamental to the world we experience, although the world appears to be such that logic is useful... which could have been otherwise.

However, I would contend that a source of information such as experience cannot provide us with an understanding of what is true directly and that we must use our logical faculty (paired with our concern for "use") to sort our experience into that which is indicative of the truth and that which is not; what experience tells us may or may not be true, but experience is that which is being judged for its truth-value. — TVCL

I think truth-value applies to statements only, to the things we say about what we experience, not to experience itself. To know whether a statement is true or not, we generally verify it by looking or using any of our other senses. So I'd say we do not judge experience for it's truth-value, I think it's the other way around, we judge statements on their truth-value by looking to experience. Logic then enables us to make coherent statements and deduce ramifications from those statements... by virtue of the analytic connections in our language. But ss I said, it doesn't determine the truth-value, it only preserves it. If a statement is false, logic on it's own can't tell you that's it's false, and anything correctly logically deduced from that false statement will remain false.

Therefore, my hope is that this argument/heuristic will eventually be relevant to all who actively seek but, of course, I must be a ways off for now and even if the work is of a level that it only offers something of interest to a handful of people it feels justified. Finally, the point about a lot of epistemology being useless is exactly right and that's why the relevance to our goals is so important - I'm attempting to ground what we know in how we live - in what is relevant to our life and aims without hitting all of the pitfalls of pragmatism. I genuinely believe that this can be done, but there are a lot of questions to overcome before that can be demonstrated. — TVCL

Ok fine, I guess I'd just advise you then to be aware of the fact that you are attempting to (re)create a heuristic that is competing with an organ that has evolved for millions of years and serves a similar purpose (among other things).

I don't want to be overly dismissive of the project, but I think you are on the wrong track in several ways.

Logic is not the measure of truth, logic only preserves the truth-value of statements. What determines the truth-value of a statement in the first place is experience, sense-data, unless it's merely an analytic truth.

And more fundamentally, the idea that we need and have to look for criteria or heuristics for seeking truth starts from the misguided assumption that truth needs to be determined in an active conscious way predominately. I think our brain has heuristics or algorithms imbedded that for most of our purposes do a far better job than any set of clumsy criteria we might try to come up with.

Before you start your project, it's probably not a bad question to ask yourself if the we even have a need for it in the first place. You might think, but how can we know that we know if we are not even aware, or cannot even make explicit the criteria by which we would know?

Think about this for a second, the self-learning algorithm AlphaZero has surpassed any human by orders of magnitude in the poster-child thinking-mans game of chess a while ago already. But it has no idea, nor does anyone else, what criteria it uses to make the right moves... because it's not conscious (and so can't even have ideas). It's just a neural net, a bunch of levers, that has been fine-tuned by playing games to itself. This only to show that knowledge or awareness of criteria by which one knows something is not needed to know something.... which is why most epistemology is useless ultimately.

I'm not singling out biology, it was just an example. I agree moral norms are entangled with non-moral facts.

Hm? I wonder how such an argument would go? — SophistiCat

I meant our biology in the widest sense, including what general kind of psychology that comes with that.

For instance the whole covid-crisis is an interesting case for moral philosophy I think, because you can see how morals are created and evolve... almost in real time. One of the discussions concerning the crisis was around the whole distancing and lock-down measures that should or should not be taken. A lot of arguments in that discussion come directly from the effects the virus has on our biology. How lethal is the virus for us, how easy and in what way does it spread etc etc... But then we also know that social isolation is generally harmfull for us. All of those biological and psychological facts played a part in determining how we should adjust our behaviour to best deal with the pandemic... but they also don't fully determine what kind of norms that should be adopted as is evident by the different reactions in different countries.

But so a simplified version of such an argument would be:

- we know the virus has certain adverse and lethal effects on us
- we generally agree that those effects are bad and should be prevented as much as possible
=> Therefor we should have a moral norm that people should stay indoors as much as possible and otherwise keep their distance if they can't.

The question is whether you take your point of view, or their point to view, or any particular point of view, to be the end of moral inquiry — i.e. because someone thinks so, such-and-such is moral, to them, but to someone else who thinks differently, the same thing might not be moral — or if it’s possible that one or more of you is wrong in some sense stronger than just that someone else disagrees. — Pfhorrest

No I don't take anyone's personal point of view, or even a cultures morals as the end of the story. Arguments can be made, for instance by appealing to our biology, to try to change the moral rules, but this more a question of convincing other people, of rethorics, rather than strictly proving something is right or wrong.

The 'moral force' of morals comes from agreement in a certain group, not directly out of rational arguments. To take a contemporary example to illustrate this maybe, mouth masks. A couple of months back the idea in my country seemed to be that the covid-virus was not necessarily airborne, but spread mostly by touching surfaces or sneezing, and so the emphasis was on keeping distance and washing hands etc... not so much on wearing masks. The moral consensus seemed to be at that time that it was ok not to wear a mask. Now experts do seem to think that the virus does spread via the air in closed environments more so that via touching surfaces etc... and so the moral consensus is shifting towards obligatory wearing of masks in public places. But the fact that we have gained more scientific insight that sheds a new light on a moral rule we previously had, doesn't retroactively render not wearing a mask back then immoral. It was the moral consensus we had at that time, which was based on the incomplete knowledge we had then.

The answer is still the same, their judgements is wrong from my point of view. I have my moral views as I've been raised in a particular moral tradition. But it's not not like there's a overarching universal standard to which I can measure whether their judgement is wrong outside of my point of view, other than maybe pointing out inconsistencies in their view. The question doesn't make sense in a constructivist view, as you are probably well aware.

And if that culture disagrees with your critique (as they would), is at least one of you wrong in your judgement? — Pfhorrest

It's wrong in my judgement, yes, but I'm not the authority on everything that is right and wrong, everywhere. I would acknowledge that my judgement is also a product of my particular context. But at the same time I would also acknowledge that some case can be made from the 'telos' that follows from our biology as I also said in a reply to 180proof. So I agree that there's a naturalistic background we can fall back on to formulate such arguments, and in extreme cases like sex slavery this seems like a an easy case to make, but there are plenty of other less clear moral issues where you could go in different directions.

But maybe the point is this really. If we have to create or construct morals, as I think we do, and therefore it's not merely a matter of finding, or worse just knowing what the correct morals are, than we have a continuous responsibility (as contexts change) of putting in the effort to do so. That is thinking about it rationally, getting into dialogue with other people and trying to convince them with good arguments... which ultimately seems like a more productive approach than just insisting on you being objectively right and them being objectively wrong.

The difference of import here is whether a particular event, the same event, can be simultaneously good and bad to two different observers, both of whom are correct in that judgement. — Pfhorrest

No it can't because the same event is subject to the same set of circumstances, which includes the same particular (moral) conventions that may apply.

Edit: You can critique certain moral conventions of other cultures which you find atrocious.

Besides, while what makes people happy varies from person to person and from day to day for each of us, what makes people miserable, or suffer, is the same for everyone (i.e. not "subjective" in the least): — 180 Proof

Right, I don't necessarily disagree with this, but I wouldn't say a fully fleshed out morality directly follows from that. Morality is a bit more concrete and contextual. How we get from that general naturalistic background of human flourishing to more concrete morals in a given situation, is somewhat of a creative act which is not fully determined by our biology and allows for variations... and that wouldn't qualify as objective i'd say.

I mean only what's also called "moral universalism", which is just the claim that, for any particular event, in its full context, there is some moral evaluation of that event in that context that it is correct for everyone to make, i.e. that the correct moral evaluation doesn't change depending on who is making it. — Pfhorrest

I voted no, because I have never seen a good account for how to determine what is objectively moral, or how to adjudicate between different moral views stemming from different values.

The only argument that moral objectivist seem to have is that they can't accept the conclusion that there might be different views on morality, typically including views they find hard to accept,... which is no argument at all really, because what we would want doesn't necessarily have implications for what is true.

My view is that we construct and (tacitly) agree on morals in (local) groups, and that is what we have for better or for worse.

I mean only what's also called "moral universalism", which is just the claim that, for any particular event, in its full context, there is some moral evaluation of that event in that context that it is correct for everyone to make, i.e. that the correct moral evaluation doesn't change depending on who is making it. — Pfhorrest

Note that this definition seems problematic in a number of ways. For the moral constructivist there also is a correct answer, if we are to take the "full context" into account... because full context also implies moral conventions and personal obligations that may apply in that particular situation. If we are to take the full context into account there doesn't seem to be a whole lot left of what one would consider universal.

And in any case the fact that there may be a correct moral course of action, doesn't have to imply that there is something objective about it. If you want to say morality is not merely a matter of personal opinion aka 'subjective', sure I can agree with that to some extend, but there are plenty of things that are not merely a matter of personal opinion that are not objective. To give but one example, the rules of any sport are not objective, we didn't find them in the world by making any kind of observation... we created them, but that doesn't make that only a matter of anyone's personal opinion.

I get that we want to use words like objective and universal to fend off the boogeyman of relativism and nihilism, but ultimately that's not what those words mean. Meaning, although not objective, is also not only a matter of anyone's personal opinion ;-).

I read that Descartes skepticism of the mind was epistemic. How do we know what is represented is real? Kant's skepticism was semantic: what does it mean for the mind to represent anything at all? Can you help? — Coeurdelion

I'm not sure I can help with that. I don't know all that much about either of them, because they are more on the rationalist spectum of the tradition. I'm more of an empiricist, in line with Hume/Nietzsche. What I would say about that question is that we have no proof that the world we see is the real one, and no way of knowing really, because we only have access to the world via our senses. But nevertheless we have to assume that it the real one, to get on with our lives... which makes it a matter of psychology ultimately, rather that epistemology or metaphysics.

(1) On idealization: yes, I do think it is a successful strategy in most, if not all, sciences. Note that idealization is not used (just) to isolate and formulate fundamental laws; rather, we use idealizations primarily to understand causal chains, where these need not be governed by strict laws. I do not think every science has "fundamental laws", but I do think that science is mostly in the business of uncovering causal chains. — Nagase

Ok, I mostly agree with this I think. Any form of knowledge will invariably have to involve some abstracting away from particulars to the more general, otherwise it isn't knowledge. I'm just no sure this can be successfully done for everything... there is no guarantee that everything is knowable.

Assuming the goal of uncovering causal chains is to tell us something about the world we live in, how does that work in economy if we have to assume a hypothetical rational actor to uncover these causal chains? What does it tell us about the world then?

(2) On biology: supposing that you are right about the biology, it does not follow (at least, not without some highly contentious premises) that you are right about our needs and desires, because these can change without a corresponding change in our biology. So, for example, standards of attractiveness have varied wildly across ages and cultures. Or, to give a more personal example, it's been a couple of years now that I'm a vegan and I have had no need or desire for meat in quite a while. The point is, I think it is undeniable that people can shape at least some of their needs and desires rationally. If that is so, I think it is reasonable to ask whether our institutions could reflect this. — Nagase

I agree that our desires change, because biology is not the only factor, culture obviously has an impact too. But I don't think that ability to change is limitless, not unless you change the human genome. Our institutions do reflect this change that comes with culture, and I have no problem with that in principle. What I have my doubts about is ideas about change that only spring for humans as rational actors or from some moral ideas. Coming up with ideas of change is the easy part. The harder part is to figure out if they could work in practice because of constraints imposed by human biology... and the world in general.

Is Camus right in his idea about Philosophical suicide and that the atheist path is the authentic one? — Ross Campbell

Assuming that the world is inherently meaningless, It does seem more honest to aknowledge that fact about the world than to invent stuff to satisfy a desire for meaning that isn't there in the world.

Their belief whether God exists or not provides them with a sense of meaning and purpose in life and to tell them that their belief is philosophical suicide seems rather arrogant I think — Ross Campbell

He was an existentialist, so I don't know if he wanted everybody to accept his idea of the absurd... maybe that would be arrogant. But purely as a description, I think the term philosophical suicide works, because if you start believing in something metaphysical because you want meaning, you are essentially giving up on trying to make sense of the world that you see with reason.... which is what philosophy is essentially.

I think the two discussions (about economics, about punishment) are a bit different, perhaps in the direction gestured at by ↪SophistiCat. In the case of rational decision theory, game theory, and other economic models, what is being constructed are, well, models, that is, deliberate falsifications of reality for the purpose of simplifying a complex causal network to aid our understanding. Briefly, when phenomena get too complex, it is very difficult to get a hold of it, so we idealize the complexity away (think of Galileo's inclined plane, which ignores things like friction, etc.). Obviously, all sort of things can go wrong, especially if we forget that we are dealing with idealizations, but the general strategy is sound. So I think those that criticize rational decision theory as being too abstract are missing the point: the point is the abstraction. — Nagase

Yes it was certainly a successful strategy in making advances in the hard sciences like physics. I do wonder if the strategy is as successful in economics? That's not a rhetorical question, I just don't know all that much about economics. If we ignore things like friction, we seem to be able lay bare more fundamental laws that hold in most of the universe, and we can then add more complexity back in if we want to use that understanding to calculate things for practical purposes here on earth. Can we expect the same kind of strategy to work for every science? It's not a given that you can break down things into fundamental laws in all sciences I don't think?

And yes to your point that things can go wrong if we forget that we are dealing with idealizations! Maybe economists have gotten to much criticism for this and the real problem was politicians drawing the wrong conclusions.

On the other hand, you're criticizing some philosophical theories on punishment as unreasonable, i.e. the issue here is normative. Of course, the two are related, since part of the problem (according to you, if I understood correctly) is that such theories have an impoverished conception of our human needs. Here, the above strategy won't work, since it is not a question of understanding a causal network anymore, but of how to best satisfy our human needs (that is why I think your criticism is independent of how to assess rational decision theory). — Nagase

Yes that is basically the point I was getting at with the justice example, but you phrased it more clearly and managed to draw out why the analogy doesn't work all that well.

Another example would be something like Peter Singers views on morality. One of the things he says is that proximity should not play a part in how we deal with people morally, someone across the globe should be given the same moral weight as your close relatives... My criticism then would be that, although this might be perfectly rational, this probably won't work all that well in practice, because the affections and relations we build with people we know are part of what motivates us to be moral in the first place, I think.

My question here comes then from another direction: granted that we presently have a need for retribution, should we simply give in to this need, or can we shape it in some way? That is, perhaps there are some of our needs that are not conducive to the good life, so to speak, and therefore should (if possible) be dropped. If that is so, shouldn't our institutions be such to help in this task? — Negase

Given that our biology hasn't changed all that much, the question is how flexibel can we expect humans to be ultimately? Historically, the institution of justice was already an attempt to channel our desires into something that is less harmful, by taking away the right of the individual to seek revenge and institutionalizing it. That was the deal between the state and the individual so to speak, you have to refrain from violence and we will take care of retributive part for you. In that light the non-retributive view on justice is saying essentially, you can't take matters in your own hands AND we are not going to do it for you either. Maybe that could work, or maybe that particular human need would then find another way if it isn't satisfied anymore? I'm not sure, but I do think a lot of philosophy tends to just gloss over these issues.

Both morality and law are normative. The difference is only in that (in some places) the latter is more institutionalized. But this is a distinction in degree, not principle. To anticipate objections, I don't mean to say that legal and moral are synonymous or coextensive; only that both are normative, and both have axiological origin. Laws can be more or less equitable and inclusive, but they are always intended to be the expression of someone's values, even if it is just the values of the powerful group in control. — SophistiCat

Yes ok the laws themselves are normative, like morality, but the sanctions are not, right? That's what we are talking about when talk about retributive or rehabilitative functions of justice. So the question i'm getting at is not whether murder should be prohibited, but how it should be dealt with when someone doesn't abide by that law.

Now as to the legal principle that retribution is not a function of justice (I am not actually sure that this is exactly so, but I am not a legal expert), either it harmonizes with what most people believe or it doesn't, but if it doesn't, there isn't an inherent contradiction in that. Unlike an economic model, the justice system is not necessarily intended to conform to the actual beliefs of the populace at all times. It is the populace that is supposed to conform to the justice system in the first place. Whether the populace likes the system and how much influence it has on the system is another question. — SophistiCat

Isn't that a bit like saying a hospital shouldn't try to cure the sick because that is a need people have? The justice system, and again I'm not talking about the law specifically, but about the whole institution, presumably also is there to serve a function society has a need for.

It's no legal principle that retribution is not a function of justice, at least not in most countries yet... but it is a view some (philosophers) have. The basic tenet is that retribution is only there to serve some primitive desire for revenge, but that it's doesn't help society or the rehabilitation of the criminal etc... and therefor should not be a part of the justice system anymore. Maybe that is a perfectly fine view to have, or maybe it does have some problems because it expects people not to be people.

Anyway this is all a bit of a tangent, I take your basic point that rationality can be used in a normative or descriptive sense, and that the two should not be confused. I need to think about it some more.

I think you are mixing up two senses of expectation. There is expectation as a plausible anticipation, a forward model. We may reasonably expect people act on their strong desires. And then there is expectation as a moral obligation: you are expected to behave morally, even if it goes against your (amoral or immoral) desires. — SophistiCat

Right, the one is descriptive and the other normative.... which would mean the analogy still would apply to talking about what functions the justice system should serve for example, assuming we would want to take into account how people actually act when deciding that.

The analogy maybe doesn't work that well when we talk about morality then, because that is supposedly only prescribing normative behaviour. Although it does seem kindof odd that the way we would expect people to behave (in the normative sense here) doesn't take into account how people actually behave. Suppose a hypothetical scenario where the vast majority of people were generally not capable of behaving rationally. A morality that would expect them to behave rationally doesn't seem to make a lot of sense then, does it? And so in that sense how we actually behave doesn't seem to be totally disconnected from the normative.

It's interesting that you bring this up, because for economics it kind of worked the other way around historically. The rational economic actor was supposed to be descriptive... i.e. to be able to make models of how the economy works. But it wasn't always a very accurate model partly because of that assumption, and then it actually ended up being used normatively in that we implemented a lot of policies and laws to try to bring about this theoretical 'descriptive' economic model (neo-liberalism et al).

If not, then it’s just making them feel bad for no productive reason. — Pfhorrest

The "productive" reason is making the person doing the blaming feel better.

Maybe you would say that is not a good reason, but we are not always reasonable... And if we demand reasonable behaviour from the person who does the blaming, isn't there then an asymmetry in how we expect different degrees of agency from different people.

Then is blame is always a mistake, and is there no such thing as agency, which would seem to follow? — jamalrob

Unless you think a part of claims to mental illness or defects are not mental illness or defects, but dissimulation... which is difficult to rule out because diagnosis relies on self-reporting.

I agree with the above post that our beliefs around agency or our lingering belief in free will plays a big part in this.

It's hard to believe in free will and to believe that the will can be compromised at the same time without some cognitive dissonance. If we want to keep believing in at least some form of free will, which we kind of have to because it serves as the basis of a bunch of other ideas concerning morality and democracy for instance, than we would be inclined to view mental health as a given, rather than something that needs to be invested in.

The other contributing factor is I think the fact that mental health seems more difficult to define and measure than physical health; And it's also less clear what to do about it, partly because it is harder to define, and partly because the brain is the part of the body we still know the least about.

The more obvious something seems deterministically and biologically caused, the more we seem to be willing to accept it as a real problem or illness. Not a whole lot of people would say Alzheimer for instance is the fault of the person suffering from it.

1. If there is a finite set of desires, when they will be fulfilled, the only thing left is perfecting. — Eugen

No, because a lot of desires are in relation to other people. And so in relation to those desires, technology is neutral... if everybody has access to that technology.

1. Will technological evolution make us have new desires that our current brain cannot imagine? — Eugen

No, desires are mostly dependant on biology. And technology doesn't alter biology in principle, unless it's technology that alters the human genome specifically.

Will the world over 10,000 years old be much more evolved than today's world, but about as evolved as the one 1 trillion years ahead ? — Eugen

Who knows... but if I'd had to make a guess, yes it will be much more evolved in 10.000, and yes it is possible that it doesn't change that much in the next trillion years thereafter. The reason for believing that is that in the couple of centuries that we started using the scientific method seriously, we already know in general lines how the universe works.... at least the parts that are relevant to our lives. For instance, the standard model of particle physics probably won't change fundamentally anymore no matter how far we go in the future. And so if we know this much already in a couple of centuries, it seems probable that over 10.000 years there won't be much left to discover that will radically alter the world we live in.