As opposed to... everyone just putting up with whoever happens to have the power deems is right? — Pfhorrest

Everyone is going to put up with that whatever happens, otherwise it wouldn't be 'power' would it?

People in power are going to use their gut to make decisions. Whether we like it or not. That's what our best theories about how the brain works tell us. Again, this is not something we get to choose, it's how biology is.

Indeed. Moore's question was “Why is it absurd for me to say something true about myself?”. My answer is that it isn't absurd at all, as can be seen from the example of narrating a video of oneself. All that's odd here is that "It's raining" does not convey the degree of belief because it doesn't need to, it's just a couple of words which do something within the context of the conversation. they're not somehow bound by some law of nature to represent an accurate report of someone's mental state, they're just words.

You seem to be saying, if the question at hand is a moral one, "regard all supposed premises as false, and so stop trying to convince each other using them as reasons." Which leaves... what? — Pfhorrest

It leaves accepting that we're a social species and not everything can be resolved by having an argument. If a young offender from a poor gang-dominated community grows up thinking it's OK to beat up rival gang members we don't leave everything exactly as it is and have an argument with him about his reasoning. We make him less poor, less desperate, provide better role-models, stop presenting negative ones in the media, provide safety-nets, stop stress-policing his community, give him real opportunities in life...

Why? Because we recognise that his moral decision-making strategies are the result of his environment, not the result of a long philosophical discussion he had with his mates about Kant.

You can't show a solipsist or metaphysical nihilist evidence that they're wrong; anything you show them, they'll take as part of the illusion of so-called "reality" that they have a prior belief in. — Pfhorrest

You don't need to 'show them' they already believe it, their words are just fluff to make them sound interesting in a social group. They've believed in a shared external world since they were at least 6 month's old probably earlier. That's the point I'm making. You seem to suggest a scientific approach to morality, but in doing so you're ignoring the best theories that this same scientific approach has about how we judge things and form beliefs. Our basic beliefs about a shared consistent source of our physical sensations is hard-wired into us from birth, anyone claiming to believe otherwise is just lying. People can claim to believe anything. It's their actions that tell us what they really do believe.

I said earlier that the reason to assume there is an objective reality is that it's "pragmatically useful -- it got results, it resolved disagreements, it built consensus", and you replied just "Agreed."

Then I said I'm just proposing we do that with moral questions too, and you started asking what color the unicorn's tail is. — Pfhorrest

I don't understand the reference in the last bit, but yes, I don't see what you're not getting about this very simple point. The idea of a shared external source for our physical sensations is pragmatically useful, so useful that evolution has hard-wired it into our brains.

We do not need to speculate on whether such an a approach to the source of our moral intuitions might be equally useful. We already know it is very unlikely to be.

1) People have tried such a thing for thousands of years, it hasn't resolved anything yet.
2) We have studied the brain during moral decision-making and seen that it does not consider rational arguments in most cases.
3) We have studied moral decision-making in social groups and seen how it is influenced more by circumstance than by rational argument.
4) We can look at rational argument in general on matters outside of physical sciences and see (this forum being a classic case in point) that such discussion virtually never resolve anything, that each party leaves with almost exactly the same beliefs they started out with, and that each person simply thinks the other's logic is faulty.

While the others do the same, and in the mean time we just fight and yell at each other, and whoever stymies the other's progress and accomplishes a change in majority opinion most effectively was definitionally right all along, because majority opinion is all there is to being right?

Might makes right? That's your solution? — Pfhorrest

Have you not been listening to anything I've said? There is no 'right'. We will yell and fight if that's what we've been brought up to do. We will look after each other and cooperate if that's what we've been brought up to do. These are just facts about what is the case, not arguments about what 'ought' to be the case because we cannot rationally have a view about what 'ought' to be the case with regards to biology. It is a physical feature of the world.

I don’t think it’s always possible for two parties who disagree to actually in practice reach agreement. One or more of them could be irrationally unpersuadable, either too closed-minded or too uncritical. I claim only that there is always an answer that all rational (open-minded yet critical) people would agree on. — Pfhorrest

Ahh. So only people who you deem to be persuadable, open-minded and critical get to have a say in this utopia of moral enlightenment? The rest have to what...? Just put up with whatever their philosopher-kings deem to be right? This here is exactly why I have such a big problem with moral universalism. When you dig into it it's always, without exception, an attempt at authoritarianism.

"We should all just rationally discuss our differences (except all those who disagree with me, they're all irrational, closed-mined idiots - we'll ignore them)"

I'm tired of going around and around the same circles over and over again with Isaac in thread after thread. — Pfhorrest

Classic. You do realise the irony?

"No matter how intractable our differences seem to be we have no better choice than to just try to resolve them through discourse... one of us must me wrong and assessing each other's arguments will reveal that eventually... we can't just give up"

"I disagree"

"Oh...I give up!"

Is this how your lauded discussions about morality are going to go? Or did you imagine everyone agreeing with you a lot quicker in those?

If one misuses verb tense. — creativesoul

Narrating a film or book in the present tense is not a misuse of tense it's an accepted narrative device, even though it's understood the portrayed events took place in the past.

That's right, but I was referring to not not-for-profit companies. — Janus

Sorry, didn't notice the double negative. Seems like an odd point to make in the light of the discussion (like you'd have to explain to anyone here what profit-making companies make a profit for)

"I believe" adds nothing to "it is raining outside" during sincere speech acts. — creativesoul

Macintosh watches a video his third friend made of the evening showing himself and the window behind him, he exclaims - perfectly coherently - "Look at me getting up to leave without even reaching for my coat. It’s raining outside, but I don’t believe it is”

The statement can be made perfectly coherently narrating in present tense the recollection of a past discrepancy, which is all his friend was doing in the first place.

what they want people to see and what they actually are inside are two very different things. — Benj96

What I'm struggling to understand is the means by which you're distinguishing how people want others to see them from the way they really think. Isn't how you want others to see you one of the things you really think?

What would that shared reason be? — Harry Hindu

Anything.

So the word, "duck" points to what you learned, just as how you use a bicycle points to how you learned how to use the bicycle. — Harry Hindu

A somewhat idiosyncratic use of 'points'. I don't think you quite mean by it the same thing as others do. To say 'points to' seems ti me to be about drawing the attention. No attention is being paid to either ducking or riding a bike. If what you want to say is just "words have consequences", then I'd agree, I'm not sure many wouldn't, but that seems a rather trivial thing to assert.

we all wear a social mask. This mask is compiled of etiquette, behavioural cues, social and cultural expectations and mannerisms along with what is "okay to say" in public and we refine this mask as we grow up and mature. But I often wonder what people really think. — Benj96

How is the 'social mask' not part of what people really think?

The problem with this is, that interpretation of fMRI scanning is a matter of judgement, and yet in this question, 'judgement' is the very faculty which you're attempting to capture, via an apparatus. — Wayfarer

I don't understand what you're having trouble with. We associate certain areas of the brain with certain types of mental activity because they consistently correlate - the subject reports some type of activity, or is placed in some recognised situation and the same area consistently registers. We can also use lesion studies where damage to some part of the brain consistently results in absence or inadequacy in the same type of mental activity. Plus we can measure endocrine responses and test cellular reactions to those hormones.

Obviously if I'm looking at an fMRI I have to use some judgement to assess it, but that's happening in my brain, not my subject's brain, so I don't see any cause for concern there either.

I don't agree with Isaac that what is moral is

...a linguistic question, no different to asking "what is the correct way to use the term 'morally good'". — Isaac

But I probably shouldn't hijack the thread to debate the point. — SophistiCat

I don't think this thread has a point as such (it's just a poll), so I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this.

when I say "Hitting babies is wrong" ... Its truthmaker is my moral attitude. — SophistiCat

This seems at odds with

When they say that, they still assume that there must be a thing that serves as a truthmaker for a moral statement, and they interpret you as saying that that thing is your (or anyone's) opinion. — SophistiCat

Is it that your moral attitude is not a 'thing', or is it that your moral attitude is not an 'opinion'. Absent either of those things it does seem as though you're agreeing with the latter statement. The thing which serves as the truthmaker for your moral statement would correctly be identified as your opinion.

But there's a problem with this view. I find it hard to believe — TheMadFool

Sums up your entire arguments in all of your most recent posts. Your confusion about the fact that what seems to you to be the case has no bearing at all on what actually is the case.

Because that is just to summarily dismiss that x, y, and z are good reasons at all. If they both agree that they are good reasons, but they still don't agree with the conclusion, then there must be some other places where they disagree. — Pfhorrest

Why 'must' there? Why, contrary to all the psychological and neurological evidence, do you keep insisting that their feelings that these are good reasons is sufficient to believe that they are?

Telling someone what people think and why they think it doesn't answer any questions at all about what to think -- whether we're talking about what to think about moral topics, or any other topics. — Pfhorrest

No, but it does answer questions about whether there is likely to be a 'right' answer to that question. as I showed with my random number generating chip example. If we had a random number generating chip implanted in our brains which generated the impression of a 'right' number, the discovery of such a chip would give us very good reason to believe there is no 'right' number and the search for it is fruitless. This is exactly what the science of morality is telling us. That these feelings are generated by deep models in the brain and are not the result of the rationalisations that are attached to them when discussed. As a consequence, our study of brains and people as physical objects informs us about the nature (if not the content) of our study about matters which are properties of those objects. The feeling that something should be the case is a property of a brain which is a physical object. Things we know about that object can therefore tell us about the origins of those feelings. If, what it tells us (and it does) is that the origin of those feelings is a few biological systems and a lot of cultural influence, then we can stop expecting them to ever coincide on a single 'right' answer'. They are the result of several factors which are varied across populations.

This exact same psychologicization can be applied to all our non-moral beliefs. We just went over this a few posts ago, and you admitted as much. Most of the time our non-moral beliefs are also a result of something less than a perfectly rational process, some combination of genetic and social factors. — Pfhorrest

No, absolutely not. Our non-moral physical beliefs are not most of the time the result of some combination of genetic and social factors. They are in vast part the result of interaction with an external world. It is far and away the most prevalent and most well-supported explanation for our beliefs about the physical world.

You have given no reason whatsoever why a similar approach cannot be taken to questions about morality. — Pfhorrest

Yes I have, our moral thought is not the result of interaction with a single external source and so investigation of our differences with an aim to resolving them is likely to be fruitless. Our physical thought is very likely to result from interaction with a single external source and so resolution of our differences here is very likely to be fruitful. It's that simple.

A sure-fire way to not resolve the disagreement is to say "all of your premises are baseless illusions you only think of because of your genetics and upbringing". That leaves no grounds at all to answer the question from — Pfhorrest

Change the environment in which people are raised such as to generate the moral thought you think is best.

A corporation that is not "not for profit" would generally aim to make a profit, if only to give something back to investors, who otherwise would be better off putting their money in the bank or in government bonds; so it would seem that the aim to make a profit is necessarily one, if not the main aim of any such corporation. — Janus

Non-profit making companies are not allowed to make a profit to give something back to their investors. That's the whole point. Otherwise they'd be a profit making company.

All I'm saying about them that's different from you is "don't give up there, figure out why you still disagree". — Pfhorrest

No, that's not all you're saying at all, if it were, I'd have no problem with it. You're saying that they should continue to figure out why they still disagree, but for some some reason they must ignore the possibility the the reason they disagree is because x, y and z are post hoc rationalisations to justify feelings arising from a combination of biological and cultural influences. This despite the fact that this is exactly the explanation almost all scientific investigations on the matter point to.

You've singled out moral thought to be immunised from scientific investigation. You've said that no matter what, we should act as if the feelings some of us have about the categorical nature of moral imperatives must be considered genuine, this despite a mountain of evidence that they are mostly either primitive or deeply entrenched models of how to act resulting from either genetic or early cultural experiences, not from any collection of 'reasons'.

You seem to be saying it's impossible to resolve; if people disagree, tough, nothing to be done there. I say that that's just quitting. Resolution may be hard to find, but we can never know for certain that it's impossible. All we can do is either keep trying or give up. — Pfhorrest

How on earth have you concluded that?. That if we don't take our post hoc rationalisations seriously there's absolutely no other way we can resolve disagreements? How do you think the disagreements arose in the first place?

But if we can't even get past the groundwork of "yes there is something knowable out there to be known", there's no point in going into the details of how to sort it out yet. — Pfhorrest

Exactly. If we can't even establish if unicorns exist there's not much point discussing their tail colour.

until they can be shown unacceptable by appeal to our common experiences — Pfhorrest

That's the method I'm talking about. You keep referring to this 'accounting for', or here 'appeal to' without specifying how such activities are supposed to produce any resolution.

It goes like this...

"I think abortion is wrong"

"I think abortion is not wrong"

"Well, let's not just give up there, let's try to find out who's really right by 'accounting for' our feelings and 'appealing to' our common experiences"

"OK... (long pause). I think abortion really is not wrong because I considered x, y and z and it seems to me that the best way to account for all those factors is if abortion were not wrong"

"Ahh...I also took account of factors x, y and z, but it seemed to me that the best way to account for all three would be if abortion was wrong"

The practice of 'accounting for' is entirely subjective and so hasn't done anything at all to move moral decisions into a more objective realm.

If all you're saying is that people should give their moral choices some prior thought then you really are as hubristic as you sound. Like people don't do that already.

You’re projecting “moral hellscape”; I never said that. — Pfhorrest

Fair enough. A rhetorical whimsy on my part.

some accounting methods cannot work — yelling at each other authoritatively and throwing up our hands in despair, specifically — and my method is just what’s left over if you reject the both of those. — Pfhorrest

Really? If you think your method is literally all that's left after discarding those two options then you're either astonishingly hubristic, or you really haven't understood what I mean by 'your method' when it comes to the accounting procedure.

Does that reflect what you both think? — fdrake

It's difficult to say. Largely because of the caveats about moral statements being somewhat definitional. "Hitting babies is morally wrong" can be true by virtue of the fact that 'morally wrong' is an expression in the English language and whilst it's meaning might be a bit vague at the edges, hitting babies isn't it. I'll try to answer each, but within this framework.

(1) In order for "moral objectivism/universalism" to be true, there would need to be true statements about moral conduct. — fdrake

First hurdle. True statements about moral conduct might be definitional, as per my example above. It is true to say that hitting babies is not morally good. It's true by virtue of the meaning of the term 'morally good', which does not include hitting babies. But this does not lead to universalism. To borrow from Wittgenstein again. If I describe my teacup as a 'game' I'm wrong, that's not what a game is. But having established, say chess is a game, and so's badminton, opinion about which is most a game is not universal. Once the criteria is met for fluid communication, there's no further objectivity from a definition. Likewise with 'morally right'. Once two behaviours can both correctly be described as 'morally right' by definition, there's no further objective measure to determine which is more 'morally right'.

(2) In order for a statement to be true, it has to correspond to some (physical or external) state of affairs. — fdrake

I don't want to sound like a stuck record, but I'd tackle this one linguistically too. 'True' is just a word and so it's correct use is governed by the community of language users. I think 'true' as used just means 'I really, really believe this', but for most people that's because believing it has the expected effect on external states of affairs, so yes, we could go with this one.

(3) A statement can be true or false when and only when it concerns some (physical or external) state of affairs. — fdrake

See above. Yes, but with caveats.

(4) Statements concerning moral conduct do not concern any (physical or external) state of affairs. — fdrake

This is the trickiest because you've said 'statements concerning', this could cover a lot of statements some of which might well concern external states of affairs. The accepted moral code of a culture is an external state of affairs (it's just not a universal one), the meaning of the term 'morally good' is also an external state of affairs (just not a clear one).

"Abortion is always morally wrong" would be an example of a statement about moral conduct which does not concern external states of affairs. It's clearly beyond cultural reference, and the definition of 'morally good' is not specific enough to cover it.

"Rape is morally wrong in modern society" would be an example of a statement which concerns external states of affairs on both grounds. Modern society certainly has such a moral code and rape is definitely outside of the modern definition of 'moral', you'd simply be using the word wrong. As such "Rape is morally wrong in modern society" is true.


---

Essentially though I think the problem with universalism comes down to one of direction of fit. It's perfectly feasible (though not the case), for the term 'morally good' to be a very specific technical term with a clear meaning, and for all cultures to have identical moral codes. If that were the case then all moral statements would either be universally true, or universally false. But...the moment any of that changed, it would not be the case that the new culture was now wrong, it would be the case that we'd need to update our models to reflect this new reality. Like when a word changes meaning. For a while it's just being used wrongly, but after some time of coherent use it's the outdated dictionary that's wrong, not the language users.

What we decide to do in moral dilemmas is determined by several mental models, some of which are virtually impregnable from birth, others resulting from culture and upbringing almost as difficult to shift. A few are flexible and responsive to discourse. Almost none are meta-ethical, by which I mean derived from some calculated algorithm for how to make such decisions. As such, any such meta ethic as 'universal moral laws' can only ever be descriptive at best. It has no normative force. If it concludes that something is morally wrong which is nonetheless described as 'morally right' by a community of language users, then it is wrong, not the aforementioned community.

Imagine everyone in the world has a chip implanted in their brain which generates a random number and a strong feeling that this is the 'right' number. No one knows about these chips. A study of 'numberology' is started to talk to people about why they feel their number is the 'right' number. People give all sorts of post hoc rationalisations, these are all gathered and assessed with an aim to find what really is the 'right' number. No one is having the success they want. Almost all the numbers are somewhere between 5 and 15, with only a few outliers, but beyond that, no further progress has been made.

One day, a scientist discovers the chip and finds out how it works. It generates a random number (but has a statistical anomaly which favours numbers between 5 and 15).

Why would anyone now continue the effort to find out what really is the 'right' number? We already know it's the chip generating it randomly. We know why there's a tendency toward 5-15, we know why there's such a strong feeling that it's the 'right' number. What would be the point of the continued study?

People do not routinely believe other than what their religions tell them about the creation of the world, or what happens when we die, or the fate of mankind, etc. They also do not routinely try to universally account for all observations (i.e. do science).

Within a given worldview there's no problem, pretty much by definition: everyone agrees, or they wouldn't be within that worldview. — Pfhorrest

Dodging the point. The point was that people do not do the accounting method you're suggesting we should do and yet do not end up in some kind of moral hellscape. The part of your thesis that this disproves is that such an accounting method is necessary. It is not. The fact that people routinely believe supernatural things has nothing to do with it. all that proves is that we do not need a universal accounting method for physical reality either. We're fine without both. What we can't do is send people to the moon, or carry out any physical joint activity without an agreed on account of the physical world. We can, it seems, believe in God. Many people do and it doesn't seem to get in the way of basic physical activities. It is the same for for morality. We don't have an agreed upon accounting method and yet mainly everyone gets along fine.

It's at the boundaries between them, where disputes emerge, that a method of resolving disputes is important. — Pfhorrest

Agreed. Not sure how you think anyone is more likely to agree on an accounting method than they were to agree on the moral 'oughts' in the first place.

It also tells us all that same kind of stuff about how people come to form opinions about what is real, but we don't then rely on psychological research into how people form descriptive beliefs in order to do something like physics. — Pfhorrest

Yes we do. If it were discovered that our brain's models of physical reality were influenced heavily by upbringing, culture, mood, social norms...we would control for those things when assessing our observations. Luckily, our brain's models of basic physical reality are not heavily influenced by those things so we don't have to. We seem to be born with concepts of basic physics which the rest of our models of reality are built on. Certain cultural norms have an effect at the edges, but not in its core.

Or more poignantly: psychological research into why people are inclined to believe in gods, magic, etc, tells us nothing at all about whether or not god, magic, etc, are actually real. — Pfhorrest

It absolutely does. If we can show how such feelings are generated (and that they are generated by cultural influence, or brain lesions or something) then it absolutely does stand as evidence that they are less likely to be real (ie resultant from our models of physical reality).

What people think, and why they think it, is a different question from what thoughts are properly justifiable, i.e. what it is correct to think, what is true. — Pfhorrest

We're not talking about the result of the question "what ought we to do" we're talking about the accounting method. That takes place in brains and their function is absolutely crucial to the question.

I say it was reached in the matter of factual discourse because it proved itself pragmatically useful -- it got results, it resolved disagreements, it built consensus, it didn't leave people in an intractable mire of unresolvable disputes about what is or isn't real. — Pfhorrest

Agreed.

I give exactly that reason for why we should adopt a similar practice for moral discourse — Pfhorrest

What practice? You've still yet to provide the details.

Scientific 'accounting' method = theory, controlled trial, statistical analysis, qualified presentation, peer review - not a thorough explanation of the process, but enough to see it's more than just 'having a think about it'.

Moral 'accounting' method = ??

doing otherwise leaves us in an intractable mire of unresolvable disputes about what is or isn't moral. Either because "nothing's actually moral, that's all just, like, your opinion, man", or because "God has handed down his unquestionable moral decrees and anyone who disagrees is a heathen who will burn in hell!" To put it dramatically. My whole approach boils down to: don't do either of those things. — Pfhorrest

No, it absolutely categorically does not. We currently do otherwise and we currently are not in such a mire. The 'accounting' method people already use, whilst being diverse and defiantly relative to one's culture and upbringing does not result in those extremes. People do not routinely murder whomever they feel like killing, they do not routinely steal from others, they do not routinely rape and torture. They also do not routinely try to universally account for everyone's moral sentiments. So your thesis is simply wrong, we do not appear to need such an accounting process in order to avoid such extremes.

Most cultures have some sort of moral code, it's very difficult for people raised in that culture to act in opposition to it (we're strongly influenced by the social norms we grow up with). We also have basic biological wiring which leads us to generally empathise, seek to cooperate and care for our young. These are difficult to eradicate even id cultural norms somehow conflict with them (in fact they're probably the cause of most cultural norms which is why they're so similar). Variation in biology, variation in culture and variation in exposure to that culture all lead to variation in the resultant moral decision-making process (hence relativism). But similarity in biology, similarity on the parameters of successful culture and similarity in degrees of exposure (sensitivity) already leads to sufficient similarity in moral decision-making to avoid the moral hellscape you're trying to paint.

In essence this is the problem with your approach. You're treating the method by which we judge physical reality as being separate and mutually exclusive to the method by which we judge the way reality 'ought' to be. But judging the way reality 'ought' to be is something which happens in human minds, and human minds are physical objects, and the contents of them are often indirectly observable in physical behaviour. So our account of physical reality already has something to say about these 'oughts'. It tells us how they are likely to be generated, it tells us how they are affected by which external forces, it tells us how they change over time, it tells us how similar/dissimilar they are across cultures, it tells us how they change as we develop... all of these facts form part of our model of physical reality, developed using our agreed on 'accounting' method, derived by treating people and brains as physical object (which they are).

We cannot then develop models of the contents of those objects (which, if we are physicalists, must be physical states of those objects) which contradict the physical models we've already agreed on.

The idea that there is a universal 'right' thing we ought to do in any circumstance which accounts for all of which seems to people to be right in that circumstance already contradicts our physical models of how brains work - and it's brains which generate what 'seems to be right'. We know for a fact that brains are influenced by changing social norms, we know that brains alter what 'seems to be right' over time, with development, dependent on culture etc. So our physical theories about brains already preclude that they could, even theoretically, arrive at a universal 'right solution' for any ought-type feelings. Basically they don't arrive at ought-type feelings by any process that rational discourse has full control over.

Maybe not...but...I do believe that objective moral truths don't exist. Doesn't that make me a moral nihilist? Maybe I'm just not the kind you were arguing against. — Avery

Don't take any notice of the "everyone not an objectivist is a moral nihilist" rhetoric. It's just a lazy way of poisoning the alternative arguments like this kind of nonsense

You wouldn't believe the number of times people hear something like "Morals don't exist." and come back with "Well then why not just kill people then??" — Avery


Well why not, if someone feels like it, and can get away with it, and no moral reasons count? — Pfhorrest

I'm not quite sure where it comes from - I strongly suspect a certain authoritarianism - but staunch moral realists always seem to assume that the only alternative is a world of anarchic moral reprobates.

The problem seems to be that relativism (despite never being presented this way) is assumed to mean that the first thing springing into someone's mind as being 'the right thing' to do is taken as such without any further thought, that we all start acting without considering things like society's moral codes, the behaviour of others, our own conflicting motives and feelings... Of course this is nonsense. We take all these things into consideration, this 'accounting for other people's seemings', which @Pfhorrest seems to think he's just come up with, is something we do all the time, sometimes even subconsciously. All moral relativism says is that after this accounting process, we're all going to come up with different answers because the 'accounting' process is itself not agreed on. When the 'accounting process' for physical reality was widely disputed, theories about physical reality were relativist too (Gods, creation myths, animism...), we only have such widespread agreement now because we also agree about the accounting method (science). We no longer just 'have a bit of think about' the opinions of everyone we happen to have spoken to about physical reality. We consult experts in the field using a (largely) agreed on method of trials, controls, statistical analysis and peer review. This 'method' is based on the prior belief that there is an external cause for the similarity in our observations. Absent of such a belief about objective morals, I can't see us ever agreeing on a method for accounting for everyone's 'seemings' on the matter, nor checking that such a method has been followed. Absent of such an agreement, any conclusions drawn will be based on the individual's own subjective choice of accounting method and so will be entirely subjective - moral relativism.

and sometimes when we make moral-type decisions areas of the brain responsible for things like dopamine response are not even involved. — Isaac


Citation needed. — Avery

I'm not quite sure how to fulfil this request, I've quite a lot of papers on file covering this (more than 50) as it's a sort of 'proof by exception'. I've linked to a couple below which I know are readable online for free. They just show an example of experiments showing different brain regions involved in moral decision-making. The concept that different brain regions correspond to different types of thinking is taken for granted. If you want evidence of that you'll definitely be going back to papers which aren't available online, so you'll have to get a neuroscience textbook or something.

That being said, here's a couple to get you started. If you want more, just ask...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6758288/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2569820/

It's confusions like this that have caused me to stop using the word "moral" altogether in most speech — Avery

Yes, I can sympathise with that, but I think if one were to avoid using words whose definition consisted of loose, fuzzy collections of properties one would quickly run out of words!

Citation needed. — Avery

I'll dig out a few papers tomorrow when I'm at my computer.

Hard to know what you mean to say here. Would you mind rephrasing this in other words? — Avery

Basically, we use the word 'moral' to describe a wide range of decisions (behaviours to choose from), it seems, from the studies that have been done, that different types of decision engage different parts of the brain, even though we'd call them all morally. For example, seeking to help a fallen friend engages empathy and theory of mind associated areas as we would expect, but deciding whether to help a non-friend (the experiment was done with opposing football supporters) involves parts of the brain associated with valuation, as if they were weighing up the value if the individual, or the social value of helping. Other situations might involve disgust, rule-following, social norms, even complex calculations. Sometimes no concious thought is involved at all. It seems to just depend on the context.

When i wrote "morals" what I should have said was "objective moral facts". People so often refer to their thoughts about morality by the same word "morals", that the two meanings can often by confused, or conflated. — Avery

Understood.

You know, I'm not sure if this was actually a response to my OP, or to what Pfhorrest wrote. — Avery

It was a comment about Pfhorrest's systemetising, but applies equally to any "I can work out what is morally right"type of algorithm which treats morality as something outside of social constructs.

"What do I really want out of this situation? What do I really want to see happen?" — Avery

That may be the case sometimes, but it's a mistake to assume neurological measures of 'happiness' like dopamine correlate exactly with what we talk about as 'happiness'. It's considerably more complicated neurologically and sometimes when we make moral-type decisions areas of the brain responsible for things like dopamine response are not even involved. Things which we talk about as 'moral' decisions are very unlikely to be resolved using any one method.

Commercial activity usually intends to make profits. — ssu

The question wasn't about what they usually intend. It was about what it was necessary for them to aim for.

They will legally cease to exist when they file for bankruptcy. So you might say that is something close to your 2). — ssu

But that leads us back to the fact that not-for-profit companies exist and are not bankrupt. So if a company is not required to make a profit by it's legal definition, and it's not required to make a profit merely to exist (not-for-profit companies exist), then the question remains unanswered. Why must companies name a profit?

But the issue is whether some category of legal entity needs to make a profit. There can only be two possibilities

1) Making a profit is part of the requirements for being that legal entity.
2) Some contingent list such that failing to make profit causes their demise.

I don't know my law well enough to know about (1), but you seemed to start out listing reasons as if it were (2) and then revert to a definitional justification. Are you saying that corporations will legally cease to be corporations if they stop making a profit?

Business = commercial activity.

What is commercial activity, then you ask? Well, something done to make or done intended to make a profit. — ssu

Right. So what were you talking about when you said...

A business enterprise has to make a profit or at least to cover the costs in order to exist in the long term. A business that covers only it's running costs can make no investments, which can create problems later. — ssu

That's now like listing reasons why a bachelor needs to remain unmarried.

the other forms are not businesses. — ssu

What defines a businesses then?

A business enterprise has to make a profit or at least to cover the costs in order to exist in the long term. A business that covers only it's running costs can make no investments, which can create problems later. — ssu

you want to have limited liability and not prefer to make a profit, there are then options that I already mentioned open for you: non-profit organizations, an association, foundation even a co-operative. Corporation, or basically a company, isn't the only way. — ssu

This doesn't seem to make sense. In the first part you say that a business which doesn't make profits is in trouble. In the second you say there are other business models available if you want to avoid profit. How come there are other non-profit forms of business if making a profit is essential?

Who, or what, determines what sound or scribble is a word — Harry Hindu

The community of language users using the word 'word' for a shared reason.

The fact that you don't need to focus on it any longer doesn't mean that it no longer points to it. — Harry Hindu

How? If I say "duck!" just because I've learnt to say that word when a golf ball is flying towards someone, and you duck just because you've learned to do so when hearing the word "duck!", you're claiming the word still points to 'ducking' even though neither party involved thought of ducking. So the word had a property {pointing to ducking} despite the property not being attached to that word in either brain. I may be mistaken, as I thought you were a physicalist, if not, then I'm sorry for having wasted your time, if so, then where is this property, if not in either brain?

appears that you actually DO understand, as you are now asking where to look to find out what makes some sound a word, as you are asking me to point you in the right direction. — Harry Hindu

Deflection is not an answer. No one here has said that words never point, so this line of argument is useless, and it still doesn't answer the question. You seem to think there's a fact if the matter about what constitutes a word. I'm asking you where that fact is to be found.

So the sound of someone gagging is a word? — Harry Hindu

No. "Ugh" is a word.

Pffffffth. — Banno

Phewee! Ugh!

What have you been eating?

That would be impossible to do, because both our sensory observations and our "appetites" are much too numerous to be all accounted for equally. — Olivier5

Exactly. We've yet to be graced with any details on this 'accounting' process, which sounds suspiciously like providing some post hoc rationalisation to one's personal 'appetites' to lend them an air of objective authority.

Steven Pinker published an acclaimed book on the subject that is the most subtly biased I've read in recent times. — David Mo

Subtly biased? I'd hate to read anything of his that was not subtle then. Perhaps he wrote a piece entitled "Everything is absolutely fine, please don't take away my stuff... hey look at the primitive fuzzy-wuzzies they were much worse than us...so nothing to see here, move along, everything's fine". Did I miss that one?

This belief system says that morals/ethics don't exist at all, except as arrangements of neurons — Avery

Well then they do exist, don't they?

What makes a particular sound coming from someone a word? — Harry Hindu

Sounds are not 'made into' words, they are sometimes referenced by words, sometimes even byt eh word 'word', but I can't make any sense of them being 'made into' words.

Once you learn it and become an expert at its use (which takes time and using it more than once, so using them takes practice and while you are practising you haven't yet rerouted the information from consciousness through your subconscious yet), then you don't need to focus on it any longer. — Harry Hindu

Which is all I was saying. If there are circumstances where one doesn't need to focus on the image/concept anymore then there are circumstances in which the use of the word is not pointing to that image/concept anymore.

I asked you what if you used some word and I didn't respond as you predicted? Does that mean you used a word or not? — Harry Hindu

What else would I have used?

When that happens wouldn't you mentally revisit what you learned and consciously try to re-learn it's use, just as when something new happens when riding your bike or driving your car, you have to refocus your attention on what it is that you are doing and using? — Harry Hindu

No. I'd probably just say it again, but louder.

You and Banno are avoiding answering the necessary questions. — Harry Hindu

Right ho then. You tell me where to look and I'll do the legwork. where do I need to look to find out what sounds constitute a 'word'?

Yes, it seems that way to me too, especially when, as I was trying to show with my Pavlovian trigger examples, we end up that way having something which is one minute a 'word' and the next no longer a 'word' because it's been used differently.

Sure.

Often, especially amongst those pretending to philosophy, clarifying which of multiple possible uses one means by a word is the bone of contention. — Banno

Exactly. What all too often happens is that definitions are insisted upon first, creating a subset of language in which only those definitions are used on the world, the argument is had and the resultant points are then pasted back onto the world as if they applied to all language use. "For the purposes of my argument 'Jabberwockey' means X, my argument shows that X=Y, therefore in the real world 'Jabberwockey' means Y". Basically half the threads here are like that.