(...)Moral ecology makes no such claims. It merely describes differences between malignant, benign and beneficial moral and ethical ideologies(...) — Mark Dennis

You denied that morality was about goodness but now you are using the words benign and beneficial.

Morality cannot justify assuming that any behaviour is morally good, benign or beneficial without begging the question and it has to justify why any system should be called moral.

If moral ecology is just claiming moral opinions are diverse then that is just a triviality if it is not asserting moral progress then I can't see the point in it.

Some of these new moralities appear to be disguised utilitarianism and utilitarianism has faced lots of criticisms.

But I find it all very manipulative and self serving where people are just trying to make their own world view flourish whilst feigning public concerns.

So for example for someone who has a partner and child and wants them to flourish and have free health care and good education, It is not in their interest to make a rigorous moral analysis but it is in their interest to hand wave and promote some general principles that tug on the emotions so they can maintain their lifestyles and values without too much scrutiny

The first problems I can see with Pragmatic ethics and Moral ecology is that they make unprovable assertions such as that moral behaviour exists and it evolves and involves progress.

I think claiming a behaviour is moral is begging the question.

I am criticising specific moral positions.

Kant was challenged about whether it was always wrong to lie and people have raised the absurdity of this position by pointing out that it could lead to other peoples deaths.

I don't know if you are trying to claim there is a consensus on the definition of morality. there is not a consensus and hence that undermines making moral claims.

For example you cannot agree with me that morality is to do with how to be good and I can't agree with your assertions so we are at an impasse.

These are irresolvable disputes.

Oxford definition is okay if you're speaking to Lay people. — Mark Dennis

I am talking about the moral values of lay people

But also the most prominent positions in moral philosophy.

Scientists can do science without worrying about philosophers definition of science and would hope you believe that people can apply a moral position before doing a degree in ethics.

The issue I pointed out in my open post about moral nihilism and moral truth is that there are no answers to moral question. This means any moral system is undermined in its lack of authority.

I can look into ethical pragmatism and moral ecology and critique them as well if you want.

If you just want to quibble or argue about the definition of morality then like I said earlier that is not a topic with an agreed upon answer or a way to reach any consensus.

Finally if the philosophical meaning of morality is far removed the dictionary definition then it becomes meaningless and disconnected from what almost everyone else considers to be morality.

Synonyms for moral are "virtuous" "good" "righteous" "upright" "upstanding"

My criticisms in the initial post was of several moral positions that are established and motivating action. We could try and invent a new moral paradigm but I don't see that happening,

Does my use of the word problematic mean something that is impossible? — Mark Dennis

No I am the one saying morality is impossible not just problematic. When I said problematic that probably wasn't a strong enough word because I certainly didn't mean challenging.

According to the dictionary
Morality
noun
principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour.

Morality, is nothing more than reins that society putted over the individual to control and command the way that the "own" thinks, lives, and exists. Without morality, with the "ego" in its full potential, humanity would develop at its maximum. — Gus Lamarch

I have wondered whether not making moral claims would benefit society. No one group could claim to be morally superior over another or more or less worthy.

I think the problem is that a lot of power and ideas are fueled by dubious moral claims including the notion of survival of the fittest which has been abused as a mark of worth. So I wouldn't advocate any kind of natural or unnatural hierarchy.

At best I think we need to constantly challenge assertions and ideologies and abandon failed ones.

For example imagine if someone had said thousands of years ago that slavery is indefensible and convinced other people then we could have maybe had thousands of years free of slavery.

I use the term indefensible as opposed to immoral because I am just talking about an argument challenging someone or societies behaviour not a condemnation.

I thought it was accepted that morality was about goodness?

So if you want to be good or do good you have to perform certain actions or refrain from certain actions.

If there is no agreement on the definition of morality then that in itself undermines it.

I had a lot of involvement in the care of severely ill relative for many years (he died last week). I do not feel a glow of moral accomplishment for doing that. But it would be nice to know whether or not you did the right thing.

So I suppose that is the key issue. If people do not know whether there behavior is moral or not then what's the point?

Lots of dubious groups of people give praise to each other for behaviour deemed by many is bad. So anyone or any group can simply assert they are good or moral with no known boundaries.

Without morality, with the "ego" in its full potential, humanity would develop at its maximum. — Gus Lamarch

I like that.

Why not? I'm not suggesting that society should be benefited, just that it is. — frank

I think the problem is of defining society, whose society and how it is being benefited and what flourishing is.

What constitutes a thriving flourishing person and society and who decides? I think our societies are highly exploitative and parasitic etc including environmental damage which is to some extent for short term gain.

I am an agnostic nihilist so I don't rule out meaning but I think we can critique our current meaning systems and values for rationality.

Irrationality is dangerous because it is the equivalent of walking around near a cliff wearing a blindfold.

I'm a nihilist, but I see the benefits to society of rules and punishments — frank

I don't think you can be a real nihilist and talk about benefits to society.

I am an antinatalist nihilist I do not see the point of continuing to propagate the human race.

I think that creating a society based on half truths, fantasies and a lack of rational justification is problematic. A bit like creating a delusion/illusion.

My nihilism is the default until someone can provide me with moral facts.

I think if you took any of the current moral stances seriously they would undermine peoples actions. The problem I think is that people are exploiting moral concepts to justify action but not examining the validity of these concepts.

I don't think society should function on invalid values.

If morality was easy, everyone would already be moral. — Pantagruel

This is exactly why morality is untenable. It is absurd to only expect a tiny proportion of society to be morally enlightened.

If people want to be moral they should do their own research.

I think the problem is that people have been offered poor and unreflective moral ideas to follow.

But I do not think ignorance is a sufficient moral excuse.

Challenges are always problematic. — Mark Dennis

I do not think that this is true. There are numerous challenges that we overcome.

This is a semantic problem anyway. There is a difference between something being a challenge and something being impossible.

I am moral nihilist and I don't think any moral claims are valid. But even If I was not I cannot see any workable moral claims.

Sorry, the title got me! If it wasn’t ‘problematic’ they’d be no such thing as morality. — I like sushi

I feel that morality is the main thing preventing nihilism. The idea of value and moral order. I think that the failure a moral system leads to nihilism.

I think moral values inform action and actions are problematic if there is a failure to justify them.

I think that the bad is easier to define than the good. If you associate the bad with suffering. It is easy to imagine why someone would not like being in pain.

But the good appears to have more moral connotations. Just pure pleasure seems amoral and pleasure from exploiting others would seem bad. So usually to be good tends to require some kind of character and action based assessment.

Thanks

I think that if someone is convinced life has a meaning and finds life meaningful they might consider life a gift.

When I was a child and teenager I just expected to get married and have children until I realised that being gay made that impossible (in the 90's).

I think there is a narrative about life that makes certain things seem inevitable. I might have just blindly had children if I was straight without reflecting on it because there was no alternative narrative.

However I was surprised in my teens that two world wars, genocide,crimes against women (misogyny/gendercide) and slavery didn't deter people from having children. I felt the world was mad.

I do think children can create a lot of meaning and love though.

And in about three months to a year (my average has been 6 months) you fall out of it. It's called "honeymoon phase", and it's nature's (evolutionarily developed) way to catch you in a legally and socially binding relationship. During which in our evolutionary past you got married, irrevokably, and that was binding, so much so that when the honeymoon phase fizzes out, you are still stuck there with your wife or husband. For life. — god must be atheist

In my case I am Gay (that was a sexuality condemned roundly by the church).

I am not sure what evolutionary model applies to gay sexuality because the sex will not lead to offspring.

There is a suggestion that gay men are more promiscuous because of matching levels of sexual drives. However I feel that the reason some gay men are promiscuous might be to do with the the lack of available stable relationships or contexts including marriage and the pathologising of their sexuality.
I feel monogamous and don't have a desire for an open relationship. My ideal would be a long term monogamous relationship. (My fantasy life might be different though).

I think we as people and societies probably don't know what the source of our sexual dynamics is and how much of it is cultural or subconscious or inherited from religion or caused by capitalist commodification etc

Just curious how far past your teen years you are. I would guess that time might be the cure here, but if you're already in your mid 40s or something, then that might not be the case.

Just like when we acquire motor skills, the acquisition of beliefs changes our brain structure, and just as with motor skills, some affect brain structure in a way that can be hard to "erase." So simply realizing that a belief is bunk isn't going to do it. You need to more systematically work on changing beliefs over a period of time. As mentioned above, therapy can help a lot with this. — Terrapin Station

I'm 43.

It is interesting because we can effectively change a lot of our beliefs just by new evidence. For example I if I thought New York was the capital of The USA then I was told that no it was actually Washington DC. I think that belief would change straight away.

So I think something must be re-enforcing my belief I suppose.

I think that the belief/Brain/Mental representation relationship is puzzling. Some people believe in the embodied cognition model which I suppose suggests that a lot of what we believe is actually external in our relationship with the world or that our whole body is us and not just our brain.

But on the other extreme there are neuroscientists trying to find away to erase specific bad memories (without resorting to a lobotomy).

What I wonder about is how brain states can have truth value.

I lived in such a country. Basically they kick the mentally and/or emotionally problematic people around. The community gives them the scraps of everything in life, and some have to stay up all night to take the contents of the septic tank in buckets to the river and dump it there — god must be atheist

I am not referring to that kind of country or society. An example comes from Cambodia where a man became depressed because he had problems with his feet But had to work in paddy fields. So the health practitioner thought that this was the cause of the depression and he raised money to buy the man a cow so he could use that to generate income instead and he became happier. This kind of model has lead to the increasing application of "social prescribing"in the west.

I am not trying to portray the non western world as some kind of paradise and I am aware of the abuses. But I am pointing out different models and potential solutions for mental health issues

I am a supporter of medication however but I don't know if there is a pill to banish paranoia and guilt.

Yeah; but, my point was that it denies you the possibility of hearing out other opinions as if there were some authority on masturbation or sex... — Wallows

I agree. Personally I don't want to be stuck in years and years of therapy reliving my past.

Some countries or societies approach mental health as a public responsibility and try and help the person in the community with diverse community input.

Do you have any other OCDish sort of behaviors--like needing to count certain things, or preferring certain numbers (for example, in a numbered parking lot, maybe you'd only park in spaces with odd numbers, and preferably ending in a 7 or whatever), or needing to do things in a certain order, where otherwise you're a bit uncomfortable? Anything like that? Those sorts of things are very common, and they're very similar to superstitious thinking. — Terrapin Station

No and that is why this is strange. I am not frightened of the dark or terrorists or bangs in the night.

I did have one other superstition but that ended when I left Christianity. I took the Bible very literally (and now I think that relates to my ASD) So when the bible said that God was just I believed that if God was just we should all suffer equally and there was a woman in our church with severe arthritis and so I thought that I should have to suffer a little bit each day. The ironic things is that I had a bad home life and was bullied in school but I didn't reflect on that.

However when I stopped believing in Christianity I dropped that belief because it was strictly associated to the Judaeo Christian God and explicit biblical verses.

I feel it is important to talk about the impact of religion like this. I think my whole upbringing was cruel and the dogma completely, unnecessary and perverse and yet people still claim religion is the solution. I don't oppose all religion but I do oppose the literalist psychologically damaging, dogmatic approach.

It's just a matter of how much you want to change and whether you can accept help or not. — Terrapin Station

I believe in freewill to some degree but I am not confident about my ability to change in any fundamental way.

The suggestion I like best at the moment is about falling in love. But I am not sure of this is an antidote for anxiety but I have seen plenty of anecdotal of people who overcome a problem because they were in a relationship but therapists and thinkers often try and dissuade you from having a relationship for some reason and focus on self help.

But I think self help is isolating and puts to much onus on the individual. In away it is like modern western individualism has been very bad for our mental health.

Why the fuck are people telling Andrew4Handle that he needs to see a therapist? — Wallows

I don't mind people suggesting that. It makes sense and I have had some therapy.I am a very open person so sharing this is not problematic for me.

What I was interested in here though is analyzing the nature of what seems irrational and superstitious and why I have just this one superstition and no others.

I am happy for any input because I really welcome any kind of analysis or potential solution as well as being interested in in the structural issues.

Are you able to clear your mind into like a 'blankspace" to achieve sexual release? For me even if I can clear my mind, thinking comes rushing back in usually before self release. It's frustrating as fuck and I cannot get past it. Concentrating on my breathing was one suggestion but it didn't work. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

I don't think I can clear my mind. I am an over thinker. I was also recently diagnosed as autistic which doesn't help.

Obviously sex has been a very potent force for humanity and has had widespread effects including obviously population growth but also relationship woes and mental health and repression (The whole Freudian dynamics thing).

I don't know if it was Freud who first connected sex with death (probably not).

But sometimes I find an exquisite attraction to a person you find beautiful/handsome/lustful can be very painful and unfulfilled desires can make one consider death. But I don't know how widespread this is. But It seems to be the most powerful perception (sexual perception)

I have had some general cognitive behavioral therapy not specifically related to this. But I have mentioned it though. The first counselor I had suggested I experiment with doing what I liked when I liked to try and just challenge the feelings. So I did it spontaneously once but then the next day I was really mean to someone who was annoying me and felt guilty and like I had behaved badly.

Someone else made a similar experiment and said they would monitor my behaviour after I had an experience but i rejected the suggestion because it is awkward obviously.

The main way I have coped is by trying not to think about the issue.

However this topic is not just about sex but my "superstition" and the failure of my rationality when I have a degree which involved complex thorough reasoning and psychology.

In a way the straightforward explanation might simply be that religion screwed me up and conditioned me to exhibit these behaviours an anxieties. But I think it is really hard to overcome what you have learnt

I have always wondered if this is the solution. I think I would feel less guilty having sexual experiences mutually and in a loving relationship.
I have gone without masturbation for several years recently because it can escalate your desire. But then there is something missing when you have no sex.
I think sexual problems can make sex more alluring. Like the forbidden fruit.

But I am puzzled as to why I feel convinced something bad will happen after sexual release because it seems irrational. But the evidence I use is that if something bad happens the day after I attribute it to that. So what happened is I would only do stuff on a weekend because I was paranoid I might get bad news in the post or on the phone during the working week or make a fool of myself when out and about.

So it is like a mental prison. I don't know what other mental prisons people have experienced but this has been my main one. But it does make me question the power of reason. I seem to need some other solution.

The only way we can know something, is through consciousness. If something is truly unconscious we can't know it. For example do you know my middle name?

The only way you could know my middle name is if I told it you and it entered your consciousness.

To believe that anything exists you have to believe you exist in some form otherwise the position does not make sense. When I am dreaming I believe that what happened in the dream is a fiction. I don't simply believe every thing I experience is true.

I can separate myself from my experiences otherwise I would just be fooled by whatever I perceived.

I don't think anything could be known without a self. I don't believe the moon knows it exists. As Thomas Nagel has said Objectivity is a view from nowhere. I think knowledge requires a unified perceiver which i consider is the self. The mystery is how the subjective perspective arises in the face of a universe that is possible infinite and made of vast amounts of atomic interactions.

I am making the distinction between perceptions that makes us believe there is an external world and perceptions of mental content such as concepts including mathematics and the meaning of words that do not a have a clear link to an external world.

What we perceive as the external world is nothing like the numerous entities science has discovered such as cellular mechanisms, DNA,the quantum world and biochemical reactions.

Knowledge of the nervous system is conceptual and symbolic and not based on immediate experience.I learnt about neurons and neurotransmitters by reading text books.

I am referring to terms used in cognitive science such as "retrieving word meaning." It is not clear that any of the activity observed in brains scans etc has the quality or capacity of retrieving word meaning.
It is easy to simply plaster mental concepts onto unexplained correlations of brain activity.

Agreed, if "I" refers to your bodily person. — bongo fury

I cannot be sure my body exists. To be sure anything exists I have to be sure that my consciousness exists and does not deceive me.

I accept Descartes's cogito ergo sum. By having an experience I know for certain that I exist in some form but I can doubt my the content of my experiences.

I don't think homunculi or mental images are a problem I think a lack of focus on them is. Theories often say nothing about homunculi but you know they are required for the theory to be coherent. That is what happens when you people mental representations. But people do not seem to see the requirement for a perceiver or homunculi in their theory.

Reading your link to your previous post that appears to be a form of behaviorism. I think strictly mental content like dreams and concepts are inexplicable that way.

"Subjective" refers to it being a mental state — Terrapin Station

I am not sure I agree with this definition.

I think subjective means personal or perspectival.

You can judge someones is in pain without them telling you.

In a banal sense everything can only be a mental state for us to access it in which case you can say nothing is objective but it does not need to follow that observing something through mental state means is has no external reality.

However take your example of someone opening a door for you. All you know about that person is that one action not their past history thoughts, beliefs and desires. There are other facts that would give you a better informed opinion of their character.

Any value assessments are subjective.

Someone else's suffering is a way they feel about their situation, their experiences. — Terrapin Station

I don't think pain is simply an opinion. People writhe in agony from pain.

It would be bizarre if peoples values were not at correlated with any objective event. Your position verges on solipsism.

I believe those people suffered in that war and I have good reason to do so and that triggers my values.
I don't think anyone would be misanthropic if there was no mean spirited and destructive behaviour from humans.
For example I don't like the feel of cotton wool but I don't blame cotton for that because it is simply my response to it, but you can blame humans for some of their dire conduct.

The binding problem has been explaining why information occurring in different perception becomes a unified perception. This might be solved by tracing neuronal activity on a path to a part of the brain linked to every other part and receiving a final impulse. (you might call this the easy problem of perception)

I am beginning to sympathise with the idea that perceiver might be the soul and some form of dualism.

Is it that you don't mean this is any more problematic at all as regards the "homunculi problem", just that it comes with a "where is it all coming from" problem to boot? — bongo fury

I suppose so.

The perception of internal representations leaves us trapped in our mind.

But I think the homunculus problem is more vivid when you cannot allude to receiving external information.

I personally view this perceiver as my "self". The self is subject to experience. I think focusing on the perception of mental content might be more valuable than mapping the process of signals from the nervous system.
Because it is easy to get the brain to simply respond to external stimuli by creating similar patterns to external stimuli without explaining how this gets perceived (see retinotopic mapping)

Facts can lead to value assessments.

Some facts are about preferences only, such as my brain enjoys the taste of ice cream and this leads me to value ice cream for example.

But other facts that lead to values are likely completely independent of how I respond to an event. Someone else's suffering and hardship is not diminished by how you respond to it.

Of course. It can't be anything else. — Terrapin Station

I don't think that the amount of people that die in a famine or war is subjective.

And that is the context of your people opening the door for each other example.

This seems to be a subjective assessment.

In terms of misanthropy, the fact that we need trillions dollars worth of weapons to protect each other from each other I cannot spin in a positive light.

I think a lot of positive actions only happen because of something negative. So for instance giving to charity because of poverty and under funding of medicine, or caring for a sick relative but they have to be sick for you to do this.