Is there a meaningful distinction that we can draw and maintain between something or other being believed to be, hence sincerely called "good" and being good? I think there is. — creativesoul

I think so as well. It is the distinction between what it means for something to be good, and what it means for good to be something. Have to admit, though, drawing and maintaining the meaningfulness of it, is a lot harder than merely granting its possibility.

Information on how the brain works includes (...) the part our bodies play in our judgment. — Athena

What part did your body play, with respect to the judgements regarding what to cognize before exemplifying it in the writing of your comment? Your brain played the greatest part, no doubt, but I’m gonna go ahead and bet $100 you had no clue what your brain was actually doing.
————-

A failure of the Enlightenment was a lack of information about our animal nature. — Athena

This presupposes the Enlightenment failed. Your intimation appears to be, that if the Enlightenment had more information about our animal nature, the tenet sapere aude which grounds at least Enlightenment philosophy, would be powerless. Hence, the Enlightenment would have been powerless. But it wasn’t.
—————-

our growing information has improved our ability to understand nature. And this information is very important to good moral judgment. — Athena

Perhaps, but only if one thinks an understanding of nature is a.) possible, and b.) relevant. I am of the mind that the only part of nature we’re entitled to understand, is the incredibly minor part our species-specific cognitive system permits, and, moral judgements are directly related to exactly that.

Neither (...) is going to make us different from how nature has made us. — Athena

...from which it follows that the cognitive system we have, is exactly how nature made us. Better, methinks, to figure out some understanding of that, and what to do with it, then further muck things up by abandoning it.

there is no such thing as a priori concepts. — Metaphysician Undercover

The categories. First from Aristotle, then Kant.

If I understand you correctly information about how our brains work is not appreciated here. Is that correct? — Athena

Correct, but only by me. Well......sorta correct. I appreciate the brain for its fascinating complexity, and I only care about information on how it works as it characterizes the importance other people give it.

You all are going to discuss Natural and Existential Morality without an understanding of nature? — Athena

Don’t need to understand Nature in general to discuss natural morality as a very small part of it. How does one understand Nature, anyway?

Are there different kinds of problems?
— Mww

Sure. — Kenosha Kid

What it is that makes problems of different kinds?
————-

are not detected by the senses (...) indicates some other mode of presence....
— Mww

But my point was that something is present to my consciousness, just not anything like a priori knowledge. It is not a rational thing present. It is emotions and attention biases (...) senses of panic, distress, focus, and urgency.....

And there it is. A different mode of presence, neither empirical nor rational. Let’s call such emotions and attention biases present as innate conditional qualities, in as much as humans come equipped with them, even if not immediately available for use, and the objects of them being, as you say, senses of panic, distress, focus, etc.

.....I am not presented with some voice or inter-title: "One ought to help the child." — Kenosha Kid

Agreed. I am not presented with....yet.

Emotions, the general term for a compendium of related objects, are all present in consciousness, are part of the contents of it. That shouldn’t be contentious. My thought is that morality is an even stronger innate condition than emotion and attention biases, or, which is the same thing, have a greater presence, but regardless, will still have its objects in similar fashion. If such is the case, then one of the objects of morality may be some arbitrary ought, which reflects upon and sufficiently characterizes an empirical circumstance, should one be present, or merely a possible circumstance not yet presented. In effect, the presentation of some arbitrary ought is an effect of innate qualities in general and morality in particular, as connected causality. And while common rationalization is yet not present, the idea of its possibility, is, and is represented by some contingent moral activity related to the ought. In this case, “help”. That I ought to help is naturally qua morally given, but what that help entails, what form I think that help should take, is not.

Agreed, as yet, a priori knowledge has made no appearance onstage, because rationality has not either. Natural predisposition is more like it, I would say.
—————

the person also presents to your rational mode some activity of his that elicits a feeling in you not given by the person as an object, but by what the person is doing.
— Mww

Of course! (...) we are in an environment in which moral actions must be rationalised.....

Thus is established that there is a rational mode, and that there are empirical affects on it.

......But my consciousness being presented with moral drives is not the same thing as my reason having their essence. — Kenosha Kid

This is confusing. I suppose you to mean moral drives being present in consciousness, or, consciousness being present with its moral drives included. Ehhhh.....I wouldn’t affirm either of those, for me consciousness has content in the form of intuitions or conceptions, everything we think, feel or experience, but moral drives are not those, but rather, depend on them. Nevertheless, I agree reason doesn’t have the essence of moral drives, reason is solely and necessarily the means to do something with them.

This is the old-fashioned rationalism I reject. There is a very real analogue to this in our physiological responses that can bias us in a given direction, and the empirically-verified existence of these negates the need for other sources of moral knowledge. — Kenosha Kid

You reject it, but do you testify that you never use it? I admit to being influenced by authors informing me about possible methodologies for my thinking, but do you honestly reference analogues given from test subjects specifically designed to show error, to inform you of your thinking? As far as I’ve been able to discern, knowing the mistakes we make in thinking hasn’t been countermanded by demonstrations regarding the strictness of methods for correct thinking. Being shown the errors in perceiving shades of gray doesn’t tell me what happens when I perceive a mountain, and knowing cognitive errors are natural doesn’t alter what beautiful means to me.

I was talking about how our brains work, not what people believe. — Athena

Ok. I’ll be long past needing a brain, by the time anybody figures out how it works.
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Read, but not studied.
— Mww

That is the difference between slow thinking and fast thinking. — Athena

Ok. I rather think the difference between reading and studying isn’t the speed of the thinking, but the quality of the comprehension.

I acknowledge that something is present (the banging at the door). When I see an apple, feel an apple, taste an apple, even though these are all indirect ideas of an apple, I happily acknowledge that something is present. — Kenosha Kid

No doubt. All that is the empirical mode of perception. That altruism, empathy, and good...justice, beauty, liberty, etc., are not detected by the senses, even if objects of them are, indicates some other mode of presence must be possible.

I feel pain when I see someone suffering -- that pain is present. I feel glad when I help them -- that gladness is present. — Kenosha Kid

And there it is. A different mode of presence. In addition to the empirical mode given to your senses by the person, the person also presents to your rational mode some activity of his that elicits a feeling in you not given by the person as an object, but by what the person is doing.

However I don't have this sense of a priori moral knowledge or of moral objective existence. — Kenosha Kid

Dunno about a sense of qua feeling or emotion, but anything a priori is absent any and all matters of experience. From that, any cognition resulting from the conjoining of conceptions is thought only, hence a priori. If the conceptions represent moral ideas or notions, the cognitions have moral explication. I am certainly conscious of my own cognitions, hence my moral cognitions represent my moral knowledge. Or, if you wish, knowledge of moral consciousness.

On the other hand, if I exhibit an action, such action is a physical manifestation in the world, hence has objective existence, with myself as causality for it. Anyone can observe the object of my action. If that action has been determined by my lawfully deterministic will, it is a moral action. And indeed, possibly an immoral one.

Thus, particular moral objective existence is given, but that does not grant moral objective existence in general, as a condition found in the world independent of moral agency.
—————-

on moral issues, reason must be used to determine an intended behaviour.......
— Kenosha Kid

I submit that reason must be used to determine anything.....
— Mww

These are contradictory. If one accepts that human decisions are sometimes made unconsciously, one cannot hold that reason must be involved in every human determination. — Kenosha Kid

Not a contradiction, but a confusion of source: reason used to determine moral things, reason used to determine all things........unconscious decisions. Again, determinations are judgements, of which we are always conscious, but when a decision is from the unconscious mind, it is not a proper judgement. I remember saying not too long ago, reason is not used for whatever happens unconsciously.
—————-

So is there an answer to “does the psychologist admit to different kinds of reason, as the philosopher absolutely requires?”
— Mww

Different to problem-solving? No, I don't think so. — Kenosha Kid

Ok. Are there different kinds of problems?

There are certainly things that reason has that aren't problems to solve in themselves but are factors of problems — Kenosha Kid

Reason, the method, has things of a sort, yes: intuition, conception, understanding, judgement, cognition, and finally, knowledge. I wouldn’t call those factors of problems. Factored into problem solving, perhaps? Still leaves room for different kinds of problems, which hints at a different kind of reason.
—————

The rational mind is an employee hired for solving certain problems that now thinks it's the boss! — Kenosha Kid

Odd, isn’t it? That reasoning is absolutely necessary as causality for the idea of solving the problem of rationality? So the unconscious mind is responsible for all sorts of stuff of which our conscious selves have no clue. Ok, fine. That still leaves rationality fully in charge of that of which we are conscious. As far as I can see, the unconscious mind is a trickster, seeking to unseat the unwary. My unconscious mind is not the me I know, so if it causes errors in me, then the rational mind I know should be the boss. At least then, I’d know exactly who to blame.

I'm still impressed you read it so quickly. — Kenosha Kid

Read, but not studied. Always been a fast reader with rather good retention. Nowadays, only one of those is still evident. (Shrug) So don’t be all that impressed.

But where did the quality of goodness come from? What makes that outcome "good"? — Kenosha Kid

Where does any human quality come from? That the human has qualities is irrefutable, so what does it matter where they come from as long as it is tacitly acknowledged they are present? There is no intrinsic contradiction is supposing the quality of good is every bit as present as the quality of altruism or empathy. If these are all present, and it is absurd to suppose they are present without objective representation....otherwise why would they be there....objective representation herein meaning simply that there is some way for them to be demonstrated, then it follows logically that they all have representations of their own.

Altruism is represented by selfless acts, empathy is represented by your “emotions and insights”, good is represented by my “moral dispositions”.

Nevertheless, I will accede to your point, in that the opening sentence of my moral bible posits an declaration even I recognize as highly tentative:

“....Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good, without qualification, except a good will....”. If one accepts this, the moral philosophy following from it holds. If not, then not.
——————-

System 1 is a problem-solver. There's all sorts of problems it solves that I have no consciousness of. — Kenosha Kid

Agreed, in principle. For the sake of argument, grant the validity of the faculty of sensibility. Sensibility, then, in humans, is the synthesis of sensations to intuitions, completely beyond our consciousness, synonymous with the transition from e.g., physiology of the eye to the information in the optic nerve. We are aware of none of that, from which my “understanding is the first conscious activity” arises.

on moral issues, reason must be used to determine an intended behaviour because there is ambiguity. — Kenosha Kid

I submit that reason must be used to determine anything of which determination is possible. Ambiguity merely regulates the certainty of the determination.

So is there an answer to “does the psychologist admit to different kinds of reason, as the philosopher absolutely requires?”
—————-

Whenever you see an optical illusion, you are unaware of the things your unconscious mind has done to the image before presenting it to your consciousness for consideration. — Kenosha Kid

This suggests my unconscious mind actually does something to the picture of shaded squares. Preventing me from cognizing the correct identity of the shades is something my unconscious mind can do? By extension, then, my unconscious mind has as much power as my conscious mind. I understand you may find that entirely plausible, but I reject it out of hand, for it is quite obvious the conscious mind is responsible for understanding both correctness on the one hand, and error/ error-corrections shown to it on the other.

Why couldn’t optical illusions just be an error in judgement, given from improper understanding of that which is the cause of it? We merely judge incorrectly because we have made rationalizations inconsistent with the truth. In which case, the unconscious mind is at least redundant, or at most, irrelevant.

We operate in a state of illusion or delusion most of the time. — Athena

Kinda depends on what scale you’re talking about, doesn’t it? Even so, the lack of epistemological certainty on any scale, doesn't necessarily imply rational delusion.

We do need reason to figure out how to do e.g. the good thing, in the same way we need reason to figure out which roads to take on a drive. The reasoning is not moral, it's just generic problem-solving. — Kenosha Kid

Yep, which draws us ever closer to the crux of the matter: the use of reason, which everybody knows, is nothing if not rationality writ large. So.....yes, we do need reason to figure out the how of doing everything, moreso initially, then tapering downward with repetitive experience. The how-to-do is not moral reasoning, of course, and while we’ve progressed to acknowledging reason as the means for doing, we have left the reasoning for what-is-to-be-done behind. And that will always be moral reasoning, when the thing to be done is primarily qualified by the goodness of it.

Before heading off on that dialectical tangent, does the psychologist admit to different kinds of reason, as the philosopher absolutely requires? In other words, does your “generic problem solving” type of reasoning distinguish itself from the type of reasoning that grounds your “compelled to behave”?
————-

On another note......

Empathy is a neurological response we are unaware of taking place in our brains. It cannot be rational. We can rationalise with it, but it appears to be a dumb, conditional, stimuli-response phenomenon. — Kenosha Kid

.......is a surprise to me. It is so counterintuitive I don’t know what to do with it. If empathy boils down even the slightest, to understanding, it must be a rational activity, because understanding itself, is exactly just that. If empathy boils down to mere recognition, which requires something to be observed, apparently negating being unaware. A philosopher will naturally balk at any phenomenon that does not present itself to our rationality, especially a stimuli-response example of it.

Not to mention, if we can rationalize with it, how can we not be aware of it? Or must we now separate being aware of, from being conscious of?

Plus, we have cognitive empathy and affective empathy. As if one or the other wasn’t enough. Still, we got more than one quality of reason, so...ehhhhh....why not.
————-

I meant Daniel Kahneman — Kenosha Kid

Jeeez, it sucks getting old. After spending all that time with a book written by him, it never even crossed my mind. Predispositions. (Sigh) If I’d been proper and used his last name with all those equivalences, I might have got it right.
————-

This discussion. We control the discussion; Nature controls the species.

This still presumes there must be an external validation of it — Kenosha Kid

For what...morality and/or moral responses? In what regard? An act is technically validated immediately upon becoming one. Even if it is an immoral act, it is still validated as being external to the agent that willed it. To me, “externally validated” might mean physically exhibited, manifest outside the agent himself. If it means “shown to be correct (or appropriate, or consistent) externally”, that is a sort of a redundancy, because the primary purpose of willful volitions is to conform to innate disposition, hence the act has already been validated as being a moral act.

External validation for altruism is easy....actually helping somebody immediately validates it. Empathy....maybe, maybe not. Being empathetic towards someone is a rational activity, so....not much external validation there. Unless altruism is amended to it, but then, that’s not necessarily externally validating one’s empathy, for he couldn’t tell whether or not his altruism wasn’t just working solo.

I’m confused.
—————-

If so, we are still left with what to do about it.
— Mww

Exactly! Et voila: moral philsophy is born! — Kenosha Kid

Yeah....born first, I might add. Right? What’s the earliest proper exposition of your altruism/empathy social drives?
—————-

Even DK isn't 'truth', just a fairly minimal approximation to it. — Kenosha Kid

DK.....(stabbing haphazardly)....direct knowledge? If so, then agreed. Try this on for size:

“...(truth) is the accordance of a cognition with its object.....” Given a set of predicates, should I cognize ‘57 De Soto from them, then the truth is it’s exactly a ‘57 De Soto. Couldn’t be anything else.

So where do we go from here?

"If your aim is to get a good job, then you should study hard". This does not express a moral imperative. A moral imperative is necessarily categorical and concerns what it is right to do. — Bunji

In the words of my ol’ buddy Wolfgang, when we used to hang out back in The Day....this isn’t even wrong. What you’ve given is a hypothetical imperative, which proves all moral imperatives are not categorical.

I’ve had enough. I appreciate you’re a fan of Kant, I wish our number was greater. But one of us is way off base, and after half a century, not entirely of dedicated study of course, but constant referential familiarity, and a rather complete literary catalog, ehhhhh.......you catch my drift.

Anyway, carry on, and good luck.

There are genes specifically for small social groups that would make rationalisation of moral truths redundant.
— Kenosha Kid

Redundant compared to....what? — Mww

It would be redundant in the same way that a verbal rule: "You should see with your eyes" would be redundant. We're all already doing that. Likewise defining a 'good' to be e.g. 'help those in need according to your means' would be likewise pointless since people already had a physiological, i.e. non-rational altruistic reaction to people in need. — Kenosha Kid

Ok. But having a non-rational altruistic reaction, says nothing about the possibility, or indeed even the validity, of determining a moral action because of it. Is it correct to say an altruistic reaction is merely a recognition of an empirical condition external to the witness of it? If so, we are still left with what to do about it. Help others may be a general rule of altruism, understand others may be the general rule of empathy, but both of those do not instantiate the rational prerogatives of the subject who merely understands the rule., but knows not, because of it, how he should act concerning it.

I grant altruistic and empathetic reaction, and accede to their respective non-rationality, but take issue with them being sufficient for moral claims. Sufficiency is authoritative enough to grant that a moral response ought to be forthcoming, but not necessarily authoritative enough to determine the act which objectifies the morality of it. This is because non-rational enterprises elicit feelings directed towards something outside oneself, that is, facilitated by an external causality, but moral dispositions elicit feelings directed towards the agent himself, facilitated by an internal causality, re: his will.

That is how I would reconcile your iteration of redundancy, in that ever-present, naturally evolved, non-rational altruism and empathy, being posited as the current ground for moral responses, are insufficient for that purpose, when, as plausible theory, moral responses themselves, are always and necessarily determined a priori.
————-

Context is usually important, but must be omitted here.

Daniel:
“.... You probably knew you could solve this problem with paper and pencil if not without...
1787:
“...of which we may become more clearly convinced by trying large numbers....”

Daniel
“...automatic activities of System 1...”
1787
“....in which it immediately relates...”

Daniel:
“....System 1 continually generates suggestions...”
1787
“.... the matter of all phenomena that is given to us....”

Daniel:
“...System 1 and System 2 are both active...”
1787
“...Through the first an object is given to us; through the second, it is thought....”

Daniel:
“....System 2 adopts the suggests of System 1....”
1787:
“....a conception never relates immediately to an object, but only to (mediately to) an intuition....”

Daniel:
“....the highly diverse operation of System 2....”
1787:
“...assemble themselves into a more or less extensive collection...”

....the list is quite extensive, but, as I deleted, from altogether distinct domains. Still, if harsh and perhaps even unwarranted, it permits the philosopher to say to the psychologist....you’ve taken what I’ve given and made a gawd-awful mess out of it. (Kidding. Nobody really says that. Do they?)

Possible, yes. Good catch. Thank you.

Kantian deontology is predicated on fundamental principles....
Actually it's predicated on one fundamental principle - the categorical imperative. — Bunji

Which contains a maxim, which is itself a principle.
—————

I've been talking about judging actions by means of Kantian principles — Bunji

That’s not what you said. If you had, I wouldn’t have objected.
—————-

I think Kant's insistence that morality consists in principles is a mistake. — Bunji

I take the view that moral principles often lead to bad judgements and at best should be treated as rules of thumb. A morally sensitive agent doesn't need them. — Bunji

I get it. However, if morality is a qualitative human condition, that which serves to make us human, then it can be said without mistake, that which is examined with respect to that condition, consists of principles in order to inform us what form such condition may take.

In addition, we don’t think in terms of principles, that is, pure a priori legislations, when we consider our actions, which indicates it is not necessarily principles that lead us to bad judgements. Rather, we look to the benefit we may or may not receive from the action, which leads back to the fallacious proposition that Kantian deontology respects right/wrong, when in truth it respects only good/moral, not good/immoral.

Ahhh...ok. Got it. Thanks.

To judge a principle of necessity would simply be to judge whether it is in fact a principle of necessity. — Bunji

A principle of necessity has already been posited as such, its necessity directly related to that for which the principle is the ground. To then judge whether or not it is a ground, defeats the fact it is a principle. One can say, e.g., this is not a necessary principle for this condition, iff he can show the condition is impossible without it. In such case, he has not judged the principle of necessity, but the necessity of the principle.

Kantian deontology is predicated on fundamental principles, as is any decent moral philosophy, which immediately makes them principles of necessity, so to say they are susceptible to judgement otherwise, is to refute the ground of the theory they support.

And, as I said, paraphrased in my own way, “...Duty is the necessity of acting from respect for the law....”. This is the principle, and its necessity is given in it.

He states this clarification after the fact, but how does it apply to the very argument he provides in his Meditations for the cogito? Last I recall, it was argued by something along the lines of “I can’t doubt that I doubt” — javra

I would guess he took doubt to be just a negative thought, or, a thought of negative quality. Doubt is no less an awareness than any affirmation. Besides, he is involved in thinking doubt, thus canceling the notion for doubt being a feeling.

As for the demon, because his god would not purposefully deceive him, and deception is quite evident, such deception must in fact be a representation of himself:

“....It is for this reason I am persuaded that I shall not be doing wrong, if, taking an opposite judgment of deliberate design, I become my own deceiver, (...) I will suppose, then, not that Deity, who is sovereignly good and the fountain of truth, but that some malignant demon, who is at once exceedingly potent and deceitful, has employed all his artifice to deceive me; I will suppose that the sky, the air, the earth, colors, figures, sounds, and all external things, are nothing better than the illusions of dreams, by means of which this being has laid snares for my credulity...”

He imagines a demon within himself, which is himself. Thing is, he can’t blame his god for his illusions, especially considering who the treatise was written for and dedicated to.
—————-

If it is not “I” but the demon’s thoughts, the proposition of “I think” would then be false. (This, ironically, hinges on the issue of who, or what, causes the thoughts, or doubts, to be.) — javra

Yeah....that good ol’ Cartesian theater on the one hand, or the homunculus on the other.
—————-

On a different note, given this quoted affirmation from Descartes, one’s emotions would be classified as a portion of one’s thoughts. — javra

I wouldn’t argue that Descartes would have thought so. And some folks do even these days. But feelings have since been shown to not be cognitions, so are not a portion of one’s thoughts, which are the only source of cognitions available to us, but certainly qualify as part of one’s consciousness. We don’t think our feelings, but only think the objects which belong to them, hence we are, as he says, “aware of as happening within us”.

I am not so sure it is an opposition, — tim wood

Opposition meaning for this epistemological theory as to how things seem, there is that epistemological theory for how things are. It is by the latter I understand you to mean Kant two inches deep.

Did I....er....grok....you right?

The interesting part is how the rational mind rationalises the irrational answer. People swear blind they thought it through rationally, i.e, worked out the answer mathematically, and yet they clearly didn't. — Kenosha Kid

Ok, I get it. I look at it somewhat differently, although the end result was the same.....I was wrong. I did insist I worked it out rationally, re: no matter what the ball costs, the bat costs a dollar more, therefore the bat costs a dollar. Says it right there...the bat costs a dollar. The irrational insistence comes from neglecting the difference between costs a dollar and costs a dollar more. Such error follows from a cognitive neglect, the causality for which is merely a language game.

I hesitate to say thinking it out rationally involves the math, because it was the math that proved to me my judgement was irrational. It is a simple equation, after all, but the equation wouldn’t have even been necessary as an empirical proof, had I not overlooked the categorical signifier “more”.

I did get a kick out of the word/placement test though. Daniel asked me to tell myself whether the words he chose for me, were to the left or right of center of the columns in which they were listed. Of course, the words under test were “left” and “right”. Now, my thought process is such that I never do anything without cognizing something about that which I am supposed to do, in this case place words, which I must first cognize as particulars representations of conception. OK, so I see the word “left”, my reason tells me “left” and that is the very first thing I am aware of so I think “left”. But the word “left” I see is to the right of center. In effect, the “left” I think is not the placement “left” I’m being tested on. I’ve been tricked into exchanging my thought, for a test score. And the reason it is a language game, is because it is highly doubtful I’d have been wrong in my word placement if the words had been anything other than “left” and “right”.

Anyway.....it was fun. And does highlight some of reason’s deficiencies.
—————-

it is not the individual that changes from group size to group size, nor has the quality of the moral hardware altered one iota. — Kenosha Kid

Good that we have established the validity of that condition.

There are genes specifically for small social groups that would make rationalisation of moral truths redundant. — Kenosha Kid

Redundant compared to....what? And what is a moral truth? Morality is a rational enterprise, sure, but mere rationalization doesn’t necessarily give truth. If morality is qualified by its good, truth could only apply if and when a moral disposition is truly good, which is a blatant redundancy, for there is no such thing as a good that isn’t good truly. But it certainly can’t be the case that genes are responsible for that redundancy.
—————-

What is the frame of reference that is not violated by hypocrisy?
— Mww

The cosmological frame of reference, in which nothing we do matters, would be one in which it is as reasonable to be a hypocrite as to be social. — Kenosha Kid

True enough, if it should become established we are in a cosmological frame of reference, at the exclusion of any other frame of reference. I suppose to claim all humans are in a moral frame of reference suffers the same dilemma, but it is still much more parsimonious to suggest, and indeed much more evident, that we are moral beings, than it is to suggest nothing we do matters. Hell....I’m taking great care to make myself understood with these words, for no other reason whatsoever than I think it matters. I mean...it’s a moral obligation of mine not to subject you to confusion or to force you into an unaligned response, by which you would possibly feel unflavored.

I would need much more than mere cosmological predicates to ascertain the value of hypocrisy.
—————

The way S1 and S2 work together is that S2 consciously verifies the decisions of S1 while believing them to be S2's decisions. — Kenosha Kid

Understood; empirical psychology in juxtaposition to cognitive philosophy. I trust your exposition herein, because I don’t know any better, and suffice it to say, from my point of view.....close enough. I might point out that your justification is not quite the same as my judgement. It’s like....judgement is a conclusion, justification is the demonstration of a conclusion. They are both rational activities, and therefore both susceptible to irrationality.

As regards this inconsistent amnesiac, here we see why psychology branched from philosophy. The latter makes no room for dysfunctional impairment, while the former requires it. My philosophy tells me how I think, your psychology wants to tell me how wrong I am. Yours tries to warn me of pending mistakes, mine doesn’t warn me at all, but forces me change my thinking because of them. Difference being, of course, while. neither warnings nor experiences are always heeded, experience always carries the much more severe penalties and, even more importantly, carries the higher likelihood for change.
—————-

I put that in bold because it's a good rewording of my key argument. — Kenosha Kid

Now that (bold) I understand and accept without equivocation. But we evolved from small groups, thus there is empathy and altruism and they are purposeful affectations. If we could only come to terms on how that relates to morality, we’d be off to the rodeo.

Kant’s groundwork, with respect to moral philosophy, starts with the notion of a good will, a will good in and of itself.

If moral dialectics are to be subsumed under Kantian transcendental metaphysics and do not themselves start there, they are doomed to be mistaken. Case in point, “freedom through morality” is exactly, unequivocally and catastrophically.......backwards.

Start somewhere else, no problem.

I don’t think so; one cannot judge a principle of necessity.

Moral judgement is central to Kantian moral philosophy, but it isn’t duty being judged. It is lawfully willed volitions being judged, and then only with respect to the maxims from which they are derived. Duty is merely the primary condition which grounds one’s moral obligations, whatever they may be.

To say judgement concerns what one’s duty is, it the classic error Kant specifically illuminates....

“.....That an action done from duty derives its moral worth, not from the purpose which is to be attained by it, but from the maxim by which it is determined, and therefore does not depend on the realization of the object of the action, but merely on the principle of volition by which the action has taken place,...”
(F. P. M. M., 1785)

Something done because of a particular duty is an interest (the purpose attained); something done from the sense of duty is an obligation (the principle of volition sufficient for the purpose attained)..

Fascinating, isn’t it? That there is a distinction, opposed to whether there should even be one at all, both equally contained in multiple iterations of exactly the same kind of thing......us.

Perhaps you do. From where “I” sit, think is all, and only what, “I” do. That being granted, it is clear there can be no “I” without the “think” necessarily conjoined to it. And the separabiltiy is not concerned with “I” and “am”. But with “think” and “am”, “I” being common, and hence inseparable, from both, and “think” and “am” being inseparable from each other.

Because the the OP is directly from Descartes, proper critiques of it should follow from Descartes as well. In the two sections following his infamous assertion, he qualifies his intentions thus:

“...This is the best way to discover what sort of thing the mind is, and how it differs from the body....”

“....I take the word ‘thought’ to cover everything that we are aware of as happening within us, and it counts as ‘thought’ because we are aware of it...”

It is quite reasonable to suggest from those, that the “I am” merely represents awareness that thoughts occur. Therefore, the “I” that is, presupposes the “I” that thinks.

Post-Cartesian philosophy makes attempts to define thought and conscious being, which Rene himself didn’t, for “covering everything” is hardly a definition, and whether such attempts have more justified his proclamation than refuted it, are debatable.

Deontology does not judge rightness or wrongness, insofar as duty is not a judgement, but rather, is the necessity of the will to determine its volitions in accordance with respect for the principles of law.

Your “I am” is sufficient as an affirmation of being, but it is reducible, at least according to Descartes, so it is not self-sufficient and it is not absolute.

“....., therefore I am”. The “I” that is, presupposes the “I” that thinks.

Interesting. Where are you still seeing my comment?

I deleted everything, by this, as you say here....

You seem to have gone one step further and rationalised a new mathematics — Kenosha Kid

....admitting to being wrong, and by this.....

But there are some excellent 200 year old ideas that still stand up today. — Kenosha Kid

.......as being superfluous. I didn’t encounter anything in the book that relates to your half of this conversation, hence my commentary on it being superfluous with respect to the OP. Which leaves me to think you just wanted me to be exposed to modernization. So, thanks.....I guess. (Grin)

"do not harm others to benefit yourself". Nature derived that hundreds of thousands of years ago without a brain, and gifted it to us without a clue. — Kenosha Kid

Metaphorically speaking, I understand; Nature doesn’t derive and Nature doesn’t have a brain. It is true Nature gifted us, but just like getting a gift for Christmas, it stands perfectly well as gift, but is completely useless unless unwrapped.
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So my empathy and altruism are strictly mine, albeit copies of ancestors common to us both. — Kenosha Kid

As my reason is mine. We all have a variation of each of them.
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Metaphysics rationalises natural human responses post hoc, then claims a discovery — Kenosha Kid

Post hoc, yes, because experience is always the ground. Metaphysics doesn’t claim a discovery, as much as posit an explanatory methodology for that experience. Metaphysics doesn’t permit knowledge of future moral actions, but only what future moral actions should be, and then only if one remains aligned with his subjective values.

We do moral things without the need to ask why, but if we do ask, we can only ask ourselves and only ourselves can answer. I grant the intrinsic circularity, always have. Like I said....blame Mother Nature. And if we do ask, is never our altruism or empathy receiving the query; we can ever only ask our reason.
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I'm saying that small groups, for which our social responses were evolved, bypass the need for moral questions altogether. Smaller groups were what our social responses were adapted for. (...) That is distinct from now where our social responses, inclined toward outcomes of reciprocal altruism with relatives and neighbours, no longer determine the moral course of action. — Kenosha Kid

If altruism and empathy were naturally selected predicated on small groups, but we no longer inhabit small groups specifically, did altruism and empathy evolve in keeping with the evolution of group size?Just be becoming reciprocal? And if we evolved from small groups in which moral questions were bypassed, what made moral questions become relevant? Just because of the group size? Seems to me if moral questions become relevant for some reason, either the members of the group became moral agents for the same reason, or they were already moral agents-in-waiting. I reject that an individual suddenly becomes moral just because he inhabits something more than a small group. How small is small? Is a hundred people a mall group? There never were 8M people in a large group until relatively recently, so.....seems altogether arbitrary to me.
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there is no frame of reference in which this could not be hypocritical. — Kenosha Kid

Your hypocrisy is my immorality. No matter its name, it is that which goes against the good. My immorality’s frame of reference is lawful obligation, herein the violation of it, and is a subjective condition. What is the frame of reference that is not violated by hypocrisy?
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True, not all human responses are rational, but even irrational responses are derived from reason.
— Mww

This is meant merely as a statement of a belief, I assume, not of fact. My understanding of the psychologist's current thinking is that reason comprises about 2% of human decision-making. — Kenosha Kid

It is neither. I don’t do belief, but rather cognize relative certainty, and, it isn’t a fact any more than the concept of reason is a fact. Something undeniable goes on in our head all the while we’re awake and aware; we call it reason just to call it something. It is a fact something is happening; it is not a fact it is reason that’s happening.

Conscious decision making is judgement, in which things are related to each other and a conclusion is drawn. Judgement is a facet of reason, and we make judgements every time things relate to each other. Daniel’s S1 and S2 working together, so to speak.

No autonomic system decisions are judgements, hence are not facets of reason, which means that of the total of all possible decisions a human could be said to make, conscious or autonomic, not all of them come from reason. Call it 2% if you like, but all I would say about it is the percentage is determined by the time we are awake and aware. We must be awake and aware to make irrational judgements, which means they are facets of reason.

Rationalism, as far as I can make out, is claiming the other 98% is also rational, then trying to figure out how. — Kenosha Kid

All human thought is by means of reason, hence is rational. Reason influenced by the sensibility is a posteriori, reason without any influence from sensibility at all, is a priori. And yes, then cognitive metaphysics tries to figure out how, in exactly the same way as we try to figure out how to change a flat tire.

I read the book; it’s at academia dot com from a bing title search. I dumped my write-up commenting on it, being wrong on one count and superfluous on the next.

Thanks for the referral anyway.

Is the metaphysics apologist demanding proof?!? — Kenosha Kid

Nahhh....any metaphysician worth a decent pointy hat knows better, but still stands his ground when, for instance, the existential dogmatist offers unreliable suppositions relative to ancestral behavior.
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My argument is not against moral ideas, but moral ideas with claims to a priori knowledge or an objective right-wrong moral world. — Kenosha Kid

Agreed on a right-wrong moral world. There is only a world in which right or wrong manifest, and manifest not because of the world as causality, but only because of it as possibility.

Ideas are predicated on a priori conceptions, that is, that for which there is no real object of sense. If the conception is thought, it is immediately known to the subject that thinks it. Thus, all moral ideas involve a priori knowledge, not of moral things, which are the possible manifestations of the moral ideas, but of conceptions which validate the moral idea.

Altruism and empathy are no less ideas than morality, for there is no object which belongs to any of them, but only phenomenal manifestations derivable from them for which they can be said to be the causality. That is to say, there is no object in the world to which these can be a property.

(Keeping in mind the condition for, is not the same as a property of. The rational being is an object in the world, but absent certain conditions, it remains an object, but absence certain properties, it does not so remain)

None of these have claims to a priori knowledge, but none of them would exist as valid conceptions if not understood by the subject that thinks them, which he can never do except by cognizing them a priori, and then only as logical inference given from phenomenal exhibition.

It’s good that you’re not against moral ideas. And as altruism and empathy are every bit as metaphysical, as mere conceptions, as morality, I’m baffled as to the rejection of metaphysical explanations for any of them. It is completely irrelevant that each is a social instinct, trait or drive as evolutionary consequence, they are nonetheless purely a priori conceptions, which demands they be treated by metaphysical constructions. One shouldn’t mistake the foot for the boot.
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In small groups, our morality would give right/wrong answers to moral questions that need not be asked because the answers are not rational answers but physiological and neurological responses. — Kenosha Kid

It must be the case that all responses for anything are predicated on physiological and neurological grounds. We are brain-bound, right? So putting that aside, and while it is true small groups won’t have the same ethical questions as large groups, it is nevertheless inconsistent with the idea of moral dispositions to restrict its questions to the size of the group from which the questions arise. Otherwise, we find ourselves in the possible situation whereby an agent, say wandering aimlessly, not a member of a community thus having no moral determinations with respect to it, subsequently finds himself in contact with a community. Now we must consider the parsimony as to whether he initiated a sense of morality merely from contact, or whether he was already a moral agent before the contact. I reject he became moral for no other reason than he has opportunity for it, as opposed to possessing the intrinsic capacity whether he displays it or not. If the latter, the size of the group becomes immediately irrelevant, from which it follows necessarily that all moral answers are rational, because if he is already a moral agent he must be capable of rational moral answers whether or not the occassion arises.
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Morality is based on good-for-the-group altruism and empathy, so anything that jettisons those for reliance on pre-social drives is ipso facto immoral and subhuman. — Kenosha Kid

I don’t accept the major in that proposition, insofar as morality is to be considered a personal human condition, therefore morality is based on the good of the individual. I would accept that which is based on the benefit for the community be named ethical jurisprudence, which is the compendium of moral subjects included as members. The reason for this, is in the consequences. The consequences of violations within a group being physical manifestations of some kind, but the consequences of violations within the individual are subjective manifestations alone, in the form of feelings. Being illegal is not necessarily being immoral, but being unethical is always immoral.
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It is not only true that not all human responses are rational, it also seems to me to be true that the rational mind takes credit for a lot of stuff it doesn't do — Kenosha Kid

True, not all human responses are rational, but even irrational responses are derived from reason. Just poorly. Irrational responses, or, which is the same thing, irrational judgements, are nothing but a case of the understanding mistaking the conceptions in its synthesis. (Have fun with that one!!)

I submit, Good Sir, the rational mind, better known as reason, does everything; it just doesn’t always do it well.

Point/counterpoint. May the games continue.......

I think you may have a different definition of ulrasocial going on. I meant it in the typical neuroscientific sense of ultracooperative social groups.... — Kenosha Kid

Yeah, looks like. I don’t know anything about neuroscience or ultracooperative social groups, so to me, ultrasocial is just somewhat more social than social. Doesn’t matter; they’re all still just a bunch of individuals.
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If you are saying that natural capacities for empathy and altruism have nothing to do with morality, I would have to disagree strongly. If you are disputing that these natural capacities are identical with any metaphysical idea of morality, yes, hopefully, because I believe one is real and one is not. — Kenosha Kid

Yes. I don’t see any reason to include heritable traits in the metaphysical idea of morality. But the metaphysical idea of morality is just that, an idea, hence will never be real in the sense of morality in which heritable traits serve as the criteria for personal or social conduct.

An idea is nonetheless real in the sense of its thought. And it is obvious everybody, without exception, thinks, regardless of their social status, even to the extent they don’t have any, therefore it would seem much more opportune to consider the rational aspect of conduct over its existential or natural aspect.
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But our moral apparatus is as unaware of its origin as our ancestors were. It is not a consequentialist philosophy of human beings. It is biology as a consequence of natural selection. Is that what you mean? — Kenosha Kid

That we are moral beings may be a consequence of natural selection, insofar as evolution granted us the apparatus sufficient to enable the kind of being we are to become morally inclined. So yes, our moral apparatus is unaware of its origin. So what, I ask. We are concerned with being moral, not with where moral being came from, which grants that our moral apparatus is not a consequentialist philosophy.

If I’m still with you, it appears you’re claiming our moral apparatus is the same, or given from, our heritable traits, such that

It is biology as a consequence of natural selection. — Kenosha Kid

Even if that is the case, it remains how that biology, that moral apparatus, is used by the individual subject in possession of them, in order to satisfy the criteria that describes what it means for him to be moral. Again, that it is used is given, because that we are moral beings is given, but we want to know how. We want to know whether our morality can be controlled, and how much, if at all. Mostly, we want to know why we feel we’re better people than those other guys. That we are altruistic and empathetic and whatnot is because science felt the need to inform us of stuff we already knew without calling it by name.
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On rationality:

someone does something, therefore they must have worked out that that was the best thing to do using their reason alone and, if it was the wrong thing, they made a rational error. In reality, if your ancestor had attempted this in the face of an oncoming sabre-tooth tiger, you almost certainly wouldn't have been born — Kenosha Kid

Now we’re gettin’ downright serious. That is a little bit categorical error and a whole lotta misplaced concreteness. I’m here, therefore he didn’t get killed by the cat, but he did die.

But none of that is sufficient to prove that he couldn’t possibly have rationalized the danger. It is every bit as likely he did, therefore I’m here. The human thought process is, after all, virtually instantaneous. Not like he had to ask the cat to wait a minute.

Rationalism trap. As in, trapped by rationalism? Being trapped by that which is impossible to escape, seems like a mischaracterization of terms, doesn’t it?

You’re doing an outstanding job of trying to defeat metaphysics with scientific principles. Thing is, the only way to defeat a metaphysical position, is with a better one.

Square One:

1.)

Social animals tend to operate in their cohabitation groups: hunting, gathering, child-rearing, migrating, fighting, etc. Humans are ultrasocial animals: we pack a lot of biological capacity specifically for operating in social groups compared with other animals. — Kenosha Kid

2.)

we are ultrasocial animals with heritable altruistic and empathetic capacities that compete with other, selfish heritable characteristics that, together with a heritable amenability to socialisation, allows us to make moral decisions concerning other individuals.

3.) That on its own isn't much of a foundational morality though. — Kenosha Kid

1a.) Ultrasocial can be attributed to over-population and/or economic dictates, which implies adaptability and/or small-scale tactical necessity, rather than an evolutionary progression. That we are social animals is sufficient.

2a.) Decisions grounded in those heritable capacities denote compatibility, rather than morality.

3a.) Granted, insofar as 1.) and 2.) are more related to consequentialist ethics, a psychological domain with respect to some arbitrary conduct in general, rather than moral determinism, a purely metaphysical domain with respect to innate human qualities under which mere capacity is subsumed, which first generates, then judges, what the specific conduct will be.

Acceptable?
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Square Two:

Understanding the perspective of another individual allows us to assess their threat and their vulnerability. It comes under the general negotiations of subsocial and social animals. — Kenosha Kid

What we have learned scientifically since is that no such understanding is required by us. Instead it needed to be the case in the past that a certain behaviour is a) statistically beneficial for survival and b) within our genetic space. — Kenosha Kid

How in the Holy Dickens can you reconcile these two assertions? Now, given that your “such understanding” relates to my “understanding is the first conscious activity”, you still have to demonstrate that the understanding we still use to assess threats, isn’t the same understanding science has shown we no longer require. “Negotiations of subsocial and social animals” leaves out “ultrasocial” animals, sure, but “ultrasocial”, being an extravagance anyway, if nothing else, puts understanding right back in the picture, by your own admission. Which is a good thing, because no otherwise rational or moral agent is going to function properly without it.

The problem is, of course, what you mean by understanding, such that we used to need it but now we don’t, and what I mean, such that it is absolutely needed, always. That is to say, understanding the benefit of staying clear of Sabre-tooth cats and warlords is exactly the same as understanding the benefit of staying clear of dump trucks and panhandlers.

Acceptable?
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Square Three, for Tic-Tac-Toe and the win:

It follows that there are no unreal or non-sensical scenarios
— Mww

There certainly are: a society of mostly antisocial actors being one. — Kenosha Kid

Prison.

TA-DAAAA!!!!

First, the categorical imperative is not strictly reciprocal. — Kenosha Kid

Oh, absolutely. It was never intended to be. It is nothing but a measure of best-case-scenario, where it would work just fine if every moral agent granted himself the same maxim, that is, subjective principle, from which the imperative arises. But the chances of that, sufficient to make meaningfully reciprocity, is slim and non-existent. We’re just too individually different in our mutual congruencies. The imperative reduces to......be-the-best-I-can-be, and may the rest of y’all live with it.
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the moral problems Kant had to address are not obliged to be within our natural moral capacity. — Kenosha Kid

Moral philosophy, it seems to be, is not a means of addressing moral problems; it is a symptom of incompatibility of moral beings evolved on one environment trying to make sense of a different one. — Kenosha Kid

Correct, on the first, the particular moral problems of a bygone era may no longer be pertinent.

But, in the second, if it be granted that humans have not evolved, in the truest sense of the concept, one iota since, how we handle our own moral problems hasn’t changed. We still love and hate, give and take, think and feel, are inclined or persuaded, need and want, just the same, even if the objects of all those have changed, some quite considerably. Hence, a worthy moral philosophy address the handling of problems no matter what they are, which makes the time of them, moot.

And theoretically, as soon as one adopts a moral philosophy, he should be well-enough armed by it, to accommodate moral dilemmas of any era. But that can never be shown to be the case, so we are not realistically allowed to use that possibility for our current justifications. As you say, environmental circumstance contributes significantly to moral dispositions from being members of a community, if not innate moral constitutions from being an individual (100% physical!!!!) rational subject.
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are very far from contingent rules, for they abide no possible exception.
— Mww

Not clear what you mean. — Kenosha Kid

A rule is contingent, as you say, but a law cannot be contingent because it is subsumed under a necessary principle. By admitting to a contingent moral rule, law is forsaken, but quantifying the rule with “never” this or “never” that, which broke no exception elst would not qualify as “never”, admits to no contingency whatsoever. In effect, you’ve possessed the rule and the law with the same power, which is contradictory.

Minor point in itself, but nonetheless sets the ground for a possibility of moral philosophy predicated on law, insofar as if there are conditions which abide no contingency whatsoever, giving your moral rule some real teeth, then we have a moral philosophy operable under any empirical happenstance, including those “unreal and nonsensical scenarios” you mentioned.

Just sayin’......
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I am quite known to myself without knowing a clue about my oxytocin level, thank you very much.
— Mww

But can you truly understand yourself and not know why it happens? — Kenosha Kid

This reflects back to my assertion that understanding is the first conscious activity. With that, if I know myself, I already understand how I acquired that knowledge. In other words, for any “I know what to do about this”, or “I know what I think about that”, the understanding of this or that is already given. Assuming intellectual honesty and integrity, of course. Assuming I’m not kidding myself, or merely wishfully knowing or thinking. Or trying to impress, which in days loooooonnnng gone, might have been the case. (sigh)
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No more than freedom begs the question of how I choose what to do with it — Kenosha Kid

Yeah, that damn freedom thing. First of all, one don’t choose what to do with freedom, in the proper deontological moral philosophy. Freedom is its own thing, it’s there, but you don’t technically do anything with it. Which is why “free will” is a conceptual abomination. (Shrug)

With that out of the way, such an abstraction can never be more than a logical necessity, never susceptible to empirical proofs. Anything that abstract can only be something to believe in, or, grant the validity for. If one grants it validity, it doesn’t beg the question, but because the concept has no real ground other than a logic one may have no solid reason to accept, it does beg the question.

And here is where your non-metaphysical inclination draws its power: that which is accepted merely for what is inferred from it, and has no possibility of sustainable viability except that, shouldn’t have any value. Its only theoretical accomplishment is to terminate rational infinite regress, being said to make the necessarily autonomous human will, possible.

Bring your own salt.
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I'm pleased that you even entertain the notion that a priori moral knowledge isn't so necessary. — Kenosha Kid

My turn: not sure what you mean. A priori knowledge is absolutely necessary for exposition of a credible moral philosophy, but your “natural morality” doesn’t incorporate a theory, but a post hoc behaviorism. I think. Right?

Returning to your opening salvo, “a priori moral rules and moral objectivity are redundant at best, inaccurate always, and damaging at worst”, I might be inclined to agree a priori moral rules being not so necessary, certainly not accurate, but only because the a priori rules I do agree with, don’t relate to morality, but to the human cognitive system in general.

One of my favorite principles: philosophy is the science of splitting hairs.

Next.....

The practice of devising unreal and even nonsensical scenarios for pretend moral agents to play out pretend morality is precisely the thing I'm arguing against. It is not useful because it tells us nothing applicable outside that particular fantasy. — Kenosha Kid

True enough, insofar as one would have to existentially be in a position to decide something about the trolley switch in order for such scenarios to have a priori practical interest. But they can and do illuminate vagaries and ambiguities in both moral theory, and the humans that indulge in them.

But theory aside, as long as it be given humans are naturally moral agents, re: there are no non-moral human beings, then no matter the social inventory, he must determine an object, taken to mean some willful volition, corresponding to a moral dilemma, and if this object, or volition, which translates to a moral judgement hence to a moral action, is in tune with his nature, he remains true to his moral constitution. If it is opposed to his nature, he is untrue, hence immoral.

The devised scenarios illuminate, not the difficulty in choosing volitions but rather, the necessary dedication to a moral constitution. Problem is, people get stuck on which choice to make, when they should be considering what the agent’s constitution demands.

It follows that there are no unreal or non-sensical scenarios; there are only choices virtually impossible to understand if you are not the one called on to actually make them. Anything else is mere unwarranted supposition.

So.....will your counter-point be that humans do not have a moral constitution? In keeping with your non-metaphysical inclinations, I’d guess you would say we do not. At least, qua constitution. Maybe something like it. Or not.

My individual subject is 100% physical, I assure you, — Kenosha Kid

Assure away, but you can’t prove it. The very best you can say is that your individual subject is necessarily grounded in physical conditions, which nobody should ever seriously doubt anyway. But grounded in, does not give you 100% absolutely certainly for, and such deterministic domains are self-refuted by the very undeniable “seemings” intrinsic to the human animal.
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This is metaphysical land-grab yet again. It insists upon itself, then justifies itself by once again insisting upon itself, ad infinitum. — Kenosha Kid

This is the age-old acceptance of the inherent circularity of human reason: we cannot explain things without thinking about them, and we can only think about them by inventing a method that explains how we explain the things we think about. So what, it’s all Mother Nature’s fault. Best we can do is create a system that does the least damage.
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Reason provides insight, and it is quite absurd to suggest we require knowledge of our reason,
— Mww

It is more absurd to attempt to reason without it. — Kenosha Kid

And this is the equally age-old chicken-egg deal: do we know things and use that to reason to other things, or we use reason to give us knowledge. Both those proposition beg their own questions, so it’s a wash. Pick one, work with it til it doesn’t work anymore, switch to the other one til it doesn’t work anymore. Doesn’t matter, really, humans always come up with answers either way. Parsimony suggests, and experience supports, the idea that we come naturally equipped to reason, on the one hand, and come naturally equipped with some kind of knowledge, on the other.

That being said, if it is absurd to attempt to reason without knowledge......how do we learn? Just because I am in possession of, e.g., knowledge of biology, how do I get to knowledge of chemistry without reason specific to that particular discipline? Your proposition may be true in general, but lacks allowance for particular instances: it is not always absurd to attempt to reason without knowledge.
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morality is complex and you don't always get a grade at the end or know if the path you chose was right. — Kenosha Kid

Yes it’s complex, no you don’t always know if you chose the right path, but yes, you most certainly do always get a grade.

Nevertheless, with respect to the chosen path, there is a standing theory that the true moral agent chooses the right path simply because he is a free moral agent. That is to say, he cannot will a wrong path and still consider himself moral. This exemplifies the common error that attributes freedom of will in the wrong place, which permits the pseudo-refutation of its self-legislative determinism, making irreconcilable quackery of the whole concept.

And regarding a grade, the validity of the “moral feeling” must be taken into account, for the moral feeling is the grade the moral agent gives himself. Without the moral feeling, or something equivalent to it, a guy can neither judge himself in congratulation nor chastisement, for any chosen volition. This must be the case, for even if one is obliged to do nothing at all with the trolley switch, because of a standing imperative of his own choosing, he is not thereby prohibited from altering his obligation henceforth, perhaps because of subsequent information or merely a “change of heart”. All following from grading himself as failing by his volition to not act in the first place. He is quite free to change his obligation because the dispositions from which they arise are entirely subjective, and his subjectivity herein is predicated on the grade he gave himself, which reduces to nothing but how he feels.

So I wonder.....where does all that stand in juxtaposition to a individual subject’s 100% physicalism? And no fair exclaiming “PURE HOGWASH!!!” for all that, cuz that just ain’t gonna cut it.

Interesting. As soon as I figured out the emboldened text referred to the section above it, rather than below, as is the norm in dissertation.......

As for a philosophical asswhoopin’, I needn’t bother, for the entire section on Moral Existentialism, particularly the subsections beginning with “The true moral condition of the global virtual social group” and ending with “Morality, viewed (correctly imo) in this bottom-up way, cannot have top-down rules because that is not what morality really is“ is predated by....oh....couple minutes or so, exemplified in The Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, 1788, specifically with respect to the idealistic notion of “the kingdom of ends”. Not exactly, of course, but generally, Kant has said pretty much what you said within those subsections.

But you have an intrinsic contradiction in your version, to wit.....

the only unaltered fundamental rule we have is: do not be a hypocrite. — Kenosha Kid

.......which is correctly delineated as a rule, with the exculpatory.....

“The moral rule is contingent.”

However, in the next...

“do what you will that harms no other (...), to never step in to help others or resist others who harm, (...) and never expect others (....)”

....are very far from contingent rules, for they abide no possible exception. Which, I must say, leaves the metaphysical barn door wide open to the notion of moral law in the form of deontological moral philosophy.

But I totally agree: morality cannot have top-down rules, these being nothing more serious than, and having just as little power as, a mere administrative code.

And I don’t give a solitary hoot for the science, the chemicals in my brain that make me both charming and obnoxious, cheerful and gloomy, lend a hand to those I like and leave a dipshit in the ditch right where I found him. I am quite known to myself without knowing a clue about my oxytocin level, thank you very much.

Still, pretty much like all the other expositions on a topic, here we have a lot of what’s and who’s, but not much in the way of how’s, and while natural morality may tend to eliminate the need for a priori knowledge, the existential morality, which asks.....

“how do I choose when to do good/oppose harm”

.....would certainly seem to require it, for therein lays the how of the necessarily subjective determination of choice with respect to moral action, and the innate subjectivity of good itself. Or, at least the how we can grasp with words, rather than it be forced upon us by some obtuse empirical architecture.

Kudos, nonetheless. Well done indeed.

Peace.

That’s fine, as a personal view. We all have them.

I wonder, though, how you justify having no morals. It must depend on what you think morals are, such that the absence of them doesn’t diminish your humanity. Or morals don’t determine one’s humanity.

Hmmmm........dunno.

The question is how can insisting on a priori understanding of one thing be considered invalid and another thing valid. — Kenosha Kid

Understanding is the first and primary conscious activity in humans, so understanding is always evident in any judgement. There are only two kinds of things we can understand, either things we sense, or things we merely think. Things we sense require intuition, things we think do not. Intuitions from the things we sense are synthesized with conceptions to give us cognitions of objects as they appear to us; things we think are the synthesis of conceptions alone, which gives us cognitions of objects as they are thought. Synthesis of conceptions alone is always a priori, because there is no object of sense, or intuition, involve. A posteriori cognitions give us knowledge of objects and is experience, a priori cognitions give us knowledge of ourselves which is not an experience.

Insisting on a priori understanding, therefore, is determined by the source of the object being cognized. If an object of sense, intuition is required, so understanding is not a priori; if an object of thought, or, which is the same thing, an object of reason, synthesized from conceptions alone because of how we think of it, such understanding is a priori. Consciousness and morality are both objects of reason, for they absolutely cannot, in and of themselves, be objects of sense, therefore the understanding of them must always be a priori.

The real fallacy is mistaking consciousness the object of reason, with its content, and mistaking morality the human condition with the actions which represent it. From there, the mistake is thinking we must be able to explain consciousness scientifically because the contents of it are derivable from experience, and we must be able to explain morality scientifically because our actions are quite evidently objective. But the first requisite of science is observation, to which experiments must conform in the present or predict in the future, and such observation is always missing from the pure a priori conceptions of consciousness and morality.
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attention to proper moral issues require an unconditioned cause within us
— Mww

I disagree. The metaphysical land-grab requires an unconditioned cause within us. Morality can fare perfectly well without it. — Kenosha Kid

Ok, fine. How? You must realize no moral agent ever knows more than what he ought to do. As no ought can ever be predicated on law, for then the agent would know what he will do, but merely on subjective rules, and seeing as how science is necessarily predicated on law, it’s going to be mighty hard to equate morality to anything other than a metaphysical rule.

But....have at it. Make morality operate properly without a necessary causality of some kind specific to it alone.
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Knowledge is providing insight into where those actions come from. — Kenosha Kid

No, it isn’t. Reason provides insight, and it is quite absurd to suggest we require knowledge of our reason, when it is reason at work giving us knowledge. On the other hand, I suppose you could say, when I look back, I know I did the right thing. But that doesn’t tell you how you determined what the right thing to do, was. And, in fact, you don’t really know you did the right thing. All you reallyreallyreally know, is the thing you actually did.
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Conditioning, either biological or social, is very much on the table. — Kenosha Kid

Sure. After the fact. But we’re in a metaphysical domain of the individual subject, and even if conditioning is present, he still needs to think for himself to be a rational or moral agent. Otherwise, he is nothing but a member of a set and not an individual in himself.

Ain’t this fun???? Almost as much fun as watching you argue with noaxioms, but I know better than to participate in that existential free-for-all.

I would definitely say it’s right for them to rip people off it makes them feel good — Maya

This is moral relativism writ large, and for better or worse, it is us.

I might have worded the truism a little differently, but the gist is there.

A mathematical proof of a theorem is a chain of logic. — jgill

Hmmmm......I suppose one could say a mathematical proof is in its form, that is, I can prove this theorem with this formula, but that still leaves a necessary proof of the formula. Otherwise, all you’ve got is symbols without relation to anything but themselves. Pythagoras’ Theorem don’t mean much, unless you build a triangle and plug some numbers from the triangle into the chain of logic of the formula.

D=rt don’t mean much unless you’ve got a really long ruler and a speedometer and a stopwatch.

Etc., etc., etc.......

Can you justify the distinction between a fallacious a priori position on consciousness and a valid a priori position on morality, without committing the same fallacy? — Kenosha Kid

Sorry, I’m gonna need some help with that. It’s possible to reconcile a fallacy with a validity, so I’m not sure what I’m being asked.
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The justification for Kant's insistence that moral issues must be treated a priori comes down to God, not an absence of experience. — Kenosha Kid

Only because God satisfies the notion of an unconditioned cause. But God, particularly from the perspective of Enlightenment Germany, is an object outside us, whereas attention to proper moral issues require an unconditioned cause within us. The concept of freedom satisfies the internal unconditioned causality as God satisfies the external. Following the metaphysical logic, autonomy is the effect of freedom, determinations of the will are the effect of autonomy.
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With respect to the SEP article, it must be kept in mind that treatment of moral issues are examined in the Metaphysics of Morals, but the form such treatment takes, as a result of the constitution of the moral agent, is examined in the second critique on practical reason. The latter reveals the principles a priori the former employs in experience. In other words, the agent has no warrant for his imperatives without the freedom to determine what they must be. The choice and employment of imperatives are justified in the Metaphysics, the principles grounding the validity of imperatives are justified by pure practical reason.

“....For, in the present case, we shall commence with the principles and proceed to the concepts, and only then, if possible, to the senses; whereas in the case of the speculative reason we began with the senses and had to end with the principles. The reason of this lies again in this: that now we have to do with a will, and have to consider reason, not in its relation to objects, but to this will and its causality. We must, then, begin with the principles of a causality not empirically conditioned, after which the attempt can be made to establish our notions of the determining grounds of such a will, of their application to objects, and finally to the subject and its sense faculty. We necessarily begin with the law of causality from freedom, that is, with a pure practical principle, and this determines the objects to which alone it can be applied....”
(CpR, 1788, Intro)

From this it is clear....no, really, it is quite clear.....the SEP article neglects the fact the principles for moral constitution have already been established before the moral agency humans demonstrate are examined. It is the difference between morality the fundamental human condition, and determinations one invokes in order to deem himself in compliance with it.

This is why I mentioned that knowledge had nothing to do with it. We already know what we did, in response to some moral issue; what we want to know is why we did what we did. For empirical situations, objects are given to us and we have to figure out what they are; for moral situations, we give the objects in the form of our actions, and we have to figure out where those actions come from.