11 ms·

Are we cut out for universal morality?

43 points by dnetesn 5y ago

InvaderFizz 5y ago
Probably not. Almost everyone holds a core belief that precludes a universal morality, even outside of tribalism. That is that a government is morally justified in performing actions that we would find abhorrent of performed by an individual or smaller group.
- smackeyacky 5y ago
  Isn't that the basis for a universal morality itself? That we have chosen to collectively outsource the things we need to keep the sheer number of us alive without having to personally do them? Its not like we can return to hunter gathering because chaos would ensue. Police, taxes, welfare and narrowed choices of how you can live are our bargain for living in large numbers and close proximity.
- pm90 5y ago
  This is not a core belief that precludes universal morality, it is simply a belief educated into the masses (Ie the Sovereignty of Nation States). Which means that other views can similarly be “educated” in.
slver 5y ago
The premise is quite weird, because we're not "cut out". We've evolved, and still evolving. The best thing evolution did to us is to make a lot of our behaviors learned. So how we perceive morality is something we can learn, and we can pass onto generations, basically recreating the concept of evolution through culture, at a much faster pace. The article claims we need to give up tribalism to get there. I disagree. Tribalism is a powerful instinct that can be used for good or bad. We need to stick with tribalism, but make everyone part of the same tribe.
- BobbyJo 5y ago
  > We need to stick with tribalism, but make everyone part of the same tribe. How is that different than giving up tribalism?
  - slver 5y ago
    Because you still have things you're for and against. But they shouldn't be aligned along trivial lines like sports, religion and politics. And yeah I know calling these "trivial" sounds odd, but they really are.
    - simonh 5y ago
      On the contrary I think splitting society on trivial lines is exactly what we need to encourage. It’s healthy and beneficial. Not everyone has to care about the same sports, the same hobbies, the same tv shows or even the same politics. Two people can support different football teams, but still serve in the same army side by side, or work for the same company. They can support different politics and even be friends. Yes really. Erasing group identities is user dumb. Why not just promote and encourage tolerant civilised behaviour. Since when did that become unthinkable? Well, we need to buckle down and think it. That is the way forward.
      - BobbyJo 5y ago
        There's a balance in there that needs to be struck on practical grounds. You don't get groups without in-group bias. You don't get in-group bias without prejudice. Getting rid of groups/tribes/whatever is obviously impossible, but the more you temper how much human identity is derived from them, the more you reduce the downstream negative (and positive) effects. They aren't all good, and they aren't all bad, like everything else. You can't have all the good without the bad unfortunately.
    - BobbyJo 5y ago
      I don't get how that's tribalism but with everyone in the same tribe.
DangitBobby 5y ago
Any sufficiently universal morality must include the impact our actions/inactions have on animals (or any other entity capable of "experiencing" some reality). We are nowhere near such a concept, and almost assuredly never will be.
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  We're moving closer to it. Vegetarianism and veganism used to be much more fringe just a few decades ago than they are now. Animal right groups and laws didn't exist until relatively recently as well. Understanding and valuing ecology and every species role in it as well is relatively new (at least among non-indigenous people) and making a difference in how we treat animals as well. There's also a lot of research in to how animals view and understand the world, how they communicate, how much they understand and feel, and how they differ (or don't) from humans. That's also opening people's eyes. I'm usually pretty pessimistic, but on this issue I am cautiously optimistic that we are moving in the right direction.
  - DangitBobby 5y ago
    After millennia, humans still hate each other on no other basis than skin pigmentation despite our brains being hard-wired to be socially cooperative with other members of our species to boost chances of survival. I have heard arguments against animal rights where the key argument was that humans are intellectually superior and thus it is our right to treat animals however it conveniences us. As smart as some people are, most people are not very sophisticated, especially when it comes to morality, which people mainly wield as a matter of convenience to themselves. My faith in humanity has declined the more I've seen what it's capable of. Tellingly (to me), despite some non-negligible percentage of the population becoming more sensitive to the plight of animals, the scale of animal cruelty today absolutely dwarfs that of any bygone era. I see the modest gains in the population of vegetarians as a pyrrhic victory that would not have been possible with, perversely, the common knowledge of the current scale and scope of modern animal cruelty.
    - yesenadam 5y ago
mmcgaha 5y ago
I know she is divisive, but Ayn Rand lays out a pretty good model for universal morality.
- yboris 5y ago
  My understanding of her philosophy is "let the strong win, fuck the rest". Could you elaborate on what you think is her "universal morality"?
  - andrewclunn 5y ago
    With a leading question like that, why would he answer. Don't agree with Rand myself, but it seems like "the weak die" is nature's law, or the law of the jungle if you will. Break that rule ams you run the risk of breaking evolution amd incentives for self improvement. Most moral codes in the soft amd declining West deny this. A case could easily be made that this is why they are in decline.
  - stablenode 5y ago
    @yboris. Your account says that you are an 'Effective Altruist'. In a nutshell, Ayn Rand believes that altruism is immoral and argues why. Given your eloquently put understanding of her philosophy, I doubt that you are interested in digging deeper. But in case I'm wrong, everything is summarised in a short interview with Mike Wallace (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHl2PqwRcY0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHl2PqwRcY0).
    - z3ncyberpunk 5y ago
      No one takes Ayn Rand's arguments seriously.
    - PeterisP 5y ago
      The fact that there's substantial disagreement for and against these principles is an argument that whatever morality Ayn Rand is arguing for, that morality isn't universal, it would not be universally accepted.
antonzabirko 5y ago
Another mediocre article on morality. If you're interested, research universal morality in Buddhist sutras. By far the best analysis of morality, even compared to purely logical works. Modern-day stuff from what i've seen has been low quality. For this article, it fails to remember that for every unbiased observer there is an equally biased human at the root.
- gher-shyu3i 5y ago
  I challenge that claim. The best source of morality is certainly Islam.
  - mensetmanusman 5y ago
    Love your enemy is truly revolutionary, versus enslaving them.
    - gher-shyu3i 5y ago
      Will all due respect, your comment shows ignorance on multiple levels. It's trivial to look at how the Buddhists (including monks) are attacking and killing Muslims to disprove the claim of "loving your enemy". Secondly, unconditional love breaks down very quickly. What's needed is a very balanced approach that deals both, which Islam provides (which is also another false claim on your part when you imply that Islam enslaves unconditionally and for any enemy - literally middle school material, and I don't mean this in a disparaging way, just pointing out the many falsities spread against Islam which our middle schoolers can trivially disprove).
asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
Hard to even approach answering this question without some kind of workable definition of "objective" and "universal" and "morality." What does a person mean when they say all these words together? My best guess would be something like, "All people would agree that any action recommended by this morality are right, and any action prohibited by this morality are wrong, and this morality either recommends or prohibits all possible actions." To me, the answer to this question is pretty obvious: there is no possible moral system that matches this definition.
- stablenode 5y ago
  You're quite right. Arguably, an attempt at formulating an objective morality has been made: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism . However, it is anathema on HN.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
    Objectivism has little to do with objectivity, despite sharing the first nine letters. They are two entirely different concepts. Whether objectivism is preferred on HN is another unrelated question.
    - stablenode 5y ago
      Objectivism has a lot to do with objectivity. I'm sorry if this is news for you. How reality is perceived and how objective knowledge is attained are at the core of this doctrine -- without these one cannot even talk about rational pursuit of self-interest. I wasn't even asking a question about HN, just making a remark.
      - kazinator 5y ago
        I.e. objectivism has to do with objectivity, not vice versa. The definition of objectivity simply does not reference objectivism.
agumonkey 5y ago
Tribal relativisme is often a strong attractor and can overcome extrinsic universality
Fern_Blossom 5y ago
>From this perspective, your moral judgments about the insurrection, or about some racist or sexist policy, are viewed as objects of study rather than as candidates for truth or falsity. The scientist is not here engaging with philosophical issues about the potential accuracy of moral claims. The scientist instead approaches your judgments simply as psychological facts about you, causally traceable to various influences—just as with the thoughts and feelings that led to the social injustices you’re responding to. Am I the only one terrified of this? This type of "study" has been abused very well in the past, phrenology being just one decent parallel. People have believed bad science in the past as "good" science. There's zero reason to imagine we're immune to it in this day. Some asshat out there is going to "prove" something about a demographic and use this as a means to enforce action. Just going to throw it out there, if they already dislike a demographic, they're going to prove how they should get arbitrary punishments or re-education because, "the science says so". It takes one shitty paper to fuck things up for a long time, cough cough anti-vaxxers cough cough. An average population is dumb as hell. It's even worse if they're convinced if something was scientifically proven, even though it wasn't. Take all the bad media reports on random papers released. That chocolate diet one fucking flooded the media even though it was total trash (yes, I know it was a hoax paper to prove the media is a dumpster fire). Just imagine the political party that doesn't like you get's ahold of this narrative. Fuck it, while we're at it, is it then better for your preferred party to wield the weapon first? Does that make it morally right for anyone to wield it or just who you approve of because you're perfect at deciding someone's character?
OrvalWintermute 5y ago
The article says we need to abandon tribalism yet the article is replete with tribal narrative.
throwawaybchr 5y ago
Not possible when so many Gaslight others with narratives like January 6th coup. Countries where coups have happened are laughing at the soft west. Never seen a coup where the media is filming a man in a Viking hat
logicchop 5y ago
"If objective ethical values exist, we'll have to give up tribalism to realize them." I didn't see a definition of "tribalism" in the article. I see references to the "January insurrection" and vague references to other "far-right" things. If you go back to Plato's Euthyphro, you see the character Euthyphro on his way to testify against his own father for mistreating a criminal. This is a very early "moral" moment in our intellectual history; it was practically inconceivable that a son would take such a position against his own father. I'd feel comfortable calling it "anti-tribalist," and it isn't so obvious whether Euthyphro is pursuing the right course. If you look at the laws of practically every developed country, there is no "tribalism." Given the vagueness of the authors target, I suspect what he'd rather say is that we have to give up things like nations, borders, ethnic identities, sex-based sport leagues, and so on. If he bothered to spell out in detail what he means by "tribalism," and not simply let the reader's imagination carry the burden of supplying the target, I suspect his proposal wouldn't have made it out of his own mouth.
- thomascgalvin 5y ago
  > If you look at the laws of practically every developed country, there is no "tribalism." The laws may not be tribalistic, but their enforcement certainly is. Take, for example, drugs. This report from the U.S. Department of Justice[1] indicates that arrests for the selling of drugs disproportionately targets black people by 33%, and arrests for possession of drugs disproportionately targets black people by 26%. The same is true of voter suppression laws. For example, the closure of voting places in minority communities, which lead to people of color waiting, on average, 29% longer to vote than white people[2]. The January insurrection is also a perfectly valid example of tribalism. A majority of Republicans falsely believe that this crime was perpetrated by Democrats, Antifa, or even the Capitol Police themselves[3]. We cannot have a serious discussion about the morality of armed insurrection when tribalism causes such a large number of people to reject reality wholesale. [1]: https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/rdusda.pdf https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/rdusda.pdf [2]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1909.00024.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1909.00024.pdf [3]: https://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/republicans-blame-democrats-antifa-and-us https://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/republicans-blame-d...
recursivedoubts 5y ago
I am not a darwinian, but most folks are these days. Universal morality doesn't appear to be particularly successful, when faced with tribalism. As far as I can tell, from a darwinian perspective, the right thing (so called) would be to encourage universalism in your competitors, while practicing tribalism yourself.
- bena 5y ago
  This is a complete aside: What do you define a "darwininan" as? What about that definition are you opposed to? What would you define yourself as? And what is the definition of that thing?
- mehphp 5y ago
  > I am not a darwinian, but most folks are these days Personally, I'd be shocked if that were true.
lwhi 5y ago
The central premise of the argument is false. People involved in the insurrection, weren't going against universally agreed moral standards — i.e. the need for democracy. While I don't agree with their motivation or interpretation, these people felt that democracy was being attacked. It was a desire to uphold moral principles that fuelled the raids.
andrewclunn 5y ago
Tribalism is always going to exist. It's always going to be important in societies that democratically elect their leaders. Even if you rise above tribal thinking, othera are going to see you through that lense, so you can't escape it. Any tribe that is sufficiently successful will split aa it grows. This is emergence. This is nature. And thus article is crap.
topkai22 5y ago
This article reminds me that A) Most philosophy writings sounds like the ramblings of cranks B) There is still a lot of value in thinking about them. I think that this article is missing a few insights that I value. One is that I’ve come to view something like philosophical truth essentially unknowable- There may be universal truths, but proving that across all scenarios is not feasible. They may even (or likely) be contradictory. Even morality derived from written religious texts has been subject to countless interpretations and reinterpretations. This it’s best to treat morality as probabilistic- I might be highly confident that my stance is correct, but I must always accept that I may be wrong and update on new information. The other is that authors desire to “give up tribalism” is too simplistic. Tribalism is deeply intertwined with identity, and I don’t think it’s possible to get humans to give up on the concept of identity. However, identity is a complex multilayered thing. I identify as an engineer, as an American, as a man, as a Catholic, as an ethnic Jew, as a Seahawks fan, as a skier, as an alumnus, and many other things. These groups do not share a common morality, but I find ways of coping and moving between them. I think we'd have more success getting people to embrace multiple identities and seeking tolerance between them then to abandon tribe seeking behavior.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- mariusor 5y ago
  > One is that I’ve come to view something like philosophical truth essentially unknowable "Any human life holds the same intrinsic value". To me this looks like a moral absolute that "can be known". :) There can be discussions on the side of it about how this "value" can come to fruition, or how it can be extended to encompass all sentient life, or just all life, but you can take it as it is and it represents an objective moral absolute that has no influence from "the inside", as prof. Fitzpatrick put it. Do you think I am wrong?
motohagiography 5y ago
The author starts by expressing a severely limited ontology, sets up a convenient dichotomy, and then assembles some straw men from some exclusively secular and materialist constraints. For what is this the sugar pill? Ah, right. The homogenaity and fungibility of humanity, resistance to a single global authority is futile, give up what you have, etc. His is view is the seed of this universal morality, surely?
gnarbarian 5y ago
This is only a problem for cultural relativists. Morals always exist within a cultural framework of expected behaviors. If we can agree that some behaviors are wrong (the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia for example) We can say unequivocally the west is a morally superior culture to Saudi Arabia on that point. Dominant cultures always impose laws on subordinated cultures. In the 19th century the answer to this problem was simple. "Just go over there and make them follow our rules." These days we tie ourselves into knots doing the same thing while pretending to respect other cultures.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  > If we can agree that some behaviors are wrong (the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia for example) We can say unequivocally the west is a morally superior culture to Saudi Arabia on that point. I guess "we" is "the west." I imagine a Saudi cleric is describing a porn clip he saw on the internet to his flock, explaining how cultural relativity = the abuse of women, and that imposing the world caliphate is the greatest act of mercy imaginable.
keiferski 5y ago
The choice of the word universal is a bit ironic, as the nature of the (physical) universe prevents such a thing from being possible. Unified morality, like a unified concept of what is “human”, is a temporary consequence of centralization in a single location. Right now, that’s Earth. But good luck maintaining a uniform conception of right and wrong when it takes a few decades to get to the next civilization. For that matter, good luck maintaining a unified concept of human being. Mars, for instance, has a number of qualities that will select for certain traits over others. A colony developing there, sufficiently isolated, would start to develop into a variant quite unlike us earthlings. https://youtu.be/0q_B5X7PBHA https://youtu.be/0q_B5X7PBHA
- acituan 5y ago
  > The choice of the word universal is a bit ironic, as the nature of the (physical) universe prevents such a thing from being possible. It might look improbable or unlikely, but I don't see how it is impossible. Unity in the underlying organizing principles (logos) of the universe, the idea of pantheistic view of a "god" as "the one" is at least as old as neoplatonism. However far from achieving a full grasp, all life forms find approximating to reality to be highly adaptive and valuable. As such, there could as well be a continuity between our moral values and general structural functional organization of the universe. Even though we are hopelessly unable to compute our way towards it, we could have been incrementally approximating it (while also occasionally deceiving ourselves). One could say the evolution of consciousness was adaptive towards processing these calculations, but by no means a requisite to have some contact with and understanding of a part of reality.
  - keiferski 5y ago
    Correct, and I should have used the word unified here as I did later in my comment. It is possible that certain civilizations, without coming into any contact with each other, would arrive at similar moral conclusions based on observing nature. But I still don’t think this is sustainable once we factor in evolution and adaptations to different environments.
kodah 5y ago
What is the advantage of secular people establishing morality? This morality would need to compete with religious morality, how would one do that, and what would the motivations be?
howmayiannoyyou 5y ago
I must invoke John Stuart Mill when it comes to morality and politics. With 138 capitol & metro police injured, there's no doubt some number of protestors should face justice for their harm to others. That is where the accountability will hopefully end. In almost every other respect the January 6th 2021 was a quintessentially American expression of liberty with overwhelming historical precedent. Time and again aggrieved citizens on both sides have try to be heard by delaying political fait accompli. From city counsels to county seats, state legislatures to native reservations, the US capital to foreign embassies... naive believers, the agitated, sometimes driven by agent provocateurs have risked prison and worse to remind representatives that victory in a vote doesn't erase diversity of belief; and that governance is more effective when the aggrieved are sincerely heard. Tribalism (on both sides) is all earmuffs and blindfolds that results in shortsighted public policy, and devaluation of different thoughts & tastes.
- MisterBastahrd 5y ago
  There can't be a closure to that issue unless the ringleaders face punishment. They won't. So there won't be. The same politicians who pilloried Hillary Clinton for 2 years over the Benghazi incident want nothing to do with an investigation of the events of Jan 6th. They know who their political base is.
deltron3030 5y ago
Universal morality would require the same reality for everybody, quite utopian.. Tribes are shaped by a common reality, friends and enemies, and the common reality of those who stormed the Capitol was created by the conspiracy scene they followed and participated in.
drummer 5y ago
To get to a universal morality, you should first understand the universal right to life: https://blog.kareldonk.com/the-universal-right-to-life/ https://blog.kareldonk.com/the-universal-right-to-life/
neonological 5y ago
>That is at least what moral practice is like when viewed “from the inside.” By that I mean your moral phenomenology as an engaged participant. This perspective presents the appearance of at least a core of basic objective and universally valid or correct moral standards we are trying to understand and to live by (even as we recognize that we will at best do so imperfectly). This is why we’re prepared to argue, often passionately, in defense of basic moral claims about social justice, for example, in a way we don’t with mere matters of taste; and it’s why we feel compelled to modify our views when someone convinces us that we have a blind spot or other error in our moral outlook. This is a very misguided view on morality. The author doesn't know what morality is, why it exists and what actually compels us to behave the way we do. Many people who are very intelligent fail to comprehend this. Morality is biological in origin. You think and behave, debate and contemplate morality because you are evolutionarily predisposed to do so. Morality does not exist outside of this framework. Morality is simply a set of rules that allow us to form stable societies and biology evolved you to behave within this rule set because if you didn't your society or you would be naturally selected out. That's it. The problem is, most people don't realize this. When people think about fairness and morality they think they are deploying their logical and conscious mind to decide the meaning of right and wrong. Nothing is further from the truth, and this is 100 percent an illusion. When you are thinking about morality you are deploying the instinctual side of your brain, the same part that triggers hunger, sexual arousal or fear. It sounds so absurd to say this but believe it or not it can actually be logically proven that this is what the human brain is doing. I can prove to you that your entire logical framework of morality is built off a biological predetermined moral instinct that is absurdly identical to everyone else's concept of morality. The way this is done is that the moral module in your mind is imperfect. By identifying this imperfection I can illustrate to you that like how evolutionary programming doesn't always converge at the global optimum the same has happened in the moral module of your brain. Of all our brains. Consider a baby drowning in a pool next to you. You are wearing fashionable clothes that costs thousands of dollars. By jumping in the pool to save the baby you permanently ruin your clothes. What would be the moral thing to do? The moral thing to do is to save the baby. The life of the baby is more important the your clothes even if it's thousands of dollars. In fact our brains will be disgusted at the person who let's the baby drown just to save thousands of dollars. Essentially the moral precept here is saving a life is worth more than a couple thousand dollars so you should always do the former. Here is where the flaw comes in. Leave the situation the same but change some of the superficial aesthetics. The baby is no longer drowning but is now a child in Africa who is starving. This child can be saved with a donation of thousands of dollars. Is it reprehensible that you don't save the baby? Most of us reading are aware that poverty exists in Africa and that donations can save them yet most of us haven't donated a dime. Keep in mind the premise is identical. Save a baby in exchange for sacrificing thousands of dollars. What has changed? Why does the psychopath who refused to save the drowning baby is evil and why is the person who refused to donate money less evil when the basic moral premise is exactly the same? The answer is easy to identify. Something has changed and that change influences the moral module of our brain in an illogical way that is unresolvable. The change is superficial... basically the location and sensory stimulus is removed. By making the baby far away in Africa and removing visual stimulus, it is no longer triggering the moral instinct in your brain. Why does this fail to trigger it? Because there is no evolutionary advantage to societies who have morals that are concerned for entities that are far away and unrelated. Your morality is associated with visual stimulus and proximity but your brain does not incorporate these axioms into your reasoning because there was never any evolutionary pressure for your brain to evolve this way. That is the inconsistent flaw. Our moral modules are not designed to correctly apply moral reasoning to subjects outside of a certain physical proximity, so our brain triggers behavior that contradicts our own reasoning. Thus our instincts do not trigger when a baby in Africa is dying of starvation, only when a baby next to you is dying from drowning. Of course there is a gradient. Starving babies in Africa triggers far less concern then drowning babies next to you even when the cost of saving those babies is completely identical. If I presented to you these two scenarios separately and asked you to analyze the moral logic behind each, most people would derive separate and valid logic that would condemn the person who let the baby drown and vindicate the person who let the baby in Africa die. By presenting both scenarios to you at the same time, however, the contradiction becomes apparent and your brain is now most likely trying to contemplate the moral logic and rules that will resolve the contradiction. My point is to tell you that the resolution and everything your brain is doing to make sense of this moral contradiction is pointless. You are giving in to instinctual behavior. The moral contradiction exists regardless of what you do because morality is an imperfect biological phenomena. There isn't a universal explanation here. These are arbitrary rules applied to arbitrary events and you attempt to resolve it is just you giving in to your biological predisposition. Same as you giving in to eating when you are hungry. There is no point in making sense of why rocks scattered on the ground is the way that it is any more then it makes sense to resolve this moral contradiction. Like the rocks, morality is simply an arbitrary set of rules... A biological phenemona unique to humanity and not a universal phenomena intrinsic to the universe. Once you realize this, you will see that all this language, philosophy and structure built around morality is sort of pointless. It exists to help us survive there is no deeper meaning here and any search for something deeper will likely result in you making something up without realizing it (see religion).
achenatx 5y ago
There is no universal morality. Morals are likely partial genetic and partially cultural. Natural selection selects for cultural values ("morals") that allow a culture to survive to destroy other cultures. Random morals are constantly being created - mutations. They sometimes are negative for cultural survival, sometimes neutral, and sometimes positive. Based on a changing environment morals needed for a culture to survive will also change. Over a long enough time, some moralistic behavior has become embedded in our DNA. (e.g. protecting children). Moralistic behavior that is embedded in DNA is probably the closest thing we have to "universal morality". Controversial examples might be procreating at 13. When people died at a much younger age, it was not immoral to procreate as soon as we were able. Now it is morally abhorrent. Some cultures still allow it. It is absolutely not universally immoral.
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  You seem to be proclaiming universal truths and morals.
gher-shyu3i 5y ago
The article lacks substance, and asks the reader for suppositions. "Science" will not be able to, nor is in the realm of deducing or making morality. It's quite annoying how scientism is being pushed these days.
fallingfrog 5y ago
I’m pretty sure there is something approaching universal truth out there, and it involves power relationships between people and groups of people. After all, a single person alone on a desert island can’t do much that really qualifies as good or evil, unless someone else is there to be affected by it. Morality exists between people and in the way they relate to each other. My personal view is that decisions that affect the individual should be left to the individual, decisions that affect groups should be made by those groups (in a democratic fashion). Of course the devil is in the details.
bmitc 5y ago
Even if such a thing existed, absolutely not.
networkid 5y ago
Why Americans so care about PEACEFUL transfer of power and at the same time support bloody and dirty revolutions all around the world?
rytill 5y ago
The article begins with saying there are two ways to discuss morality: phenomenological morality, and evolutionary morality, but many (most?) comments here are of the format, “morality is Darwinian” like it’s a panacea for the whole discussion. It’s really the much less important side of the discussion. Just because we evolved doesn’t mean we don’t genuinely prefer certain conscious experiences to others.

43 points by dnetesn 5y ago

Probably not. Almost everyone holds a core belief that precludes a universal morality, even outside of tribalism. That is that a government is morally justified in performing actions that we would find abhorrent of performed by an individual or smaller group.

smackeyacky 5y ago
Isn't that the basis for a universal morality itself? That we have chosen to collectively outsource the things we need to keep the sheer number of us alive without having to personally do them? Its not like we can return to hunter gathering because chaos would ensue. Police, taxes, welfare and narrowed choices of how you can live are our bargain for living in large numbers and close proximity.
pm90 5y ago
This is not a core belief that precludes universal morality, it is simply a belief educated into the masses (Ie the Sovereignty of Nation States). Which means that other views can similarly be “educated” in.

slver 5y ago

The premise is quite weird, because we're not "cut out". We've evolved, and still evolving. The best thing evolution did to us is to make a lot of our behaviors learned. So how we perceive morality is something we can learn, and we can pass onto generations, basically recreating the concept of evolution through culture, at a much faster pace. The article claims we need to give up tribalism to get there. I disagree. Tribalism is a powerful instinct that can be used for good or bad. We need to stick with tribalism, but make everyone part of the same tribe.

BobbyJo 5y ago
> We need to stick with tribalism, but make everyone part of the same tribe. How is that different than giving up tribalism?
- slver 5y ago
  Because you still have things you're for and against. But they shouldn't be aligned along trivial lines like sports, religion and politics. And yeah I know calling these "trivial" sounds odd, but they really are.
  - simonh 5y ago
    On the contrary I think splitting society on trivial lines is exactly what we need to encourage. It’s healthy and beneficial. Not everyone has to care about the same sports, the same hobbies, the same tv shows or even the same politics. Two people can support different football teams, but still serve in the same army side by side, or work for the same company. They can support different politics and even be friends. Yes really. Erasing group identities is user dumb. Why not just promote and encourage tolerant civilised behaviour. Since when did that become unthinkable? Well, we need to buckle down and think it. That is the way forward.
    - BobbyJo 5y ago
      There's a balance in there that needs to be struck on practical grounds. You don't get groups without in-group bias. You don't get in-group bias without prejudice. Getting rid of groups/tribes/whatever is obviously impossible, but the more you temper how much human identity is derived from them, the more you reduce the downstream negative (and positive) effects. They aren't all good, and they aren't all bad, like everything else. You can't have all the good without the bad unfortunately.
  - BobbyJo 5y ago
    I don't get how that's tribalism but with everyone in the same tribe.

DangitBobby 5y ago

Any sufficiently universal morality must include the impact our actions/inactions have on animals (or any other entity capable of "experiencing" some reality). We are nowhere near such a concept, and almost assuredly never will be.

pmoriarty 5y ago
We're moving closer to it. Vegetarianism and veganism used to be much more fringe just a few decades ago than they are now. Animal right groups and laws didn't exist until relatively recently as well. Understanding and valuing ecology and every species role in it as well is relatively new (at least among non-indigenous people) and making a difference in how we treat animals as well. There's also a lot of research in to how animals view and understand the world, how they communicate, how much they understand and feel, and how they differ (or don't) from humans. That's also opening people's eyes. I'm usually pretty pessimistic, but on this issue I am cautiously optimistic that we are moving in the right direction.
- DangitBobby 5y ago
  After millennia, humans still hate each other on no other basis than skin pigmentation despite our brains being hard-wired to be socially cooperative with other members of our species to boost chances of survival. I have heard arguments against animal rights where the key argument was that humans are intellectually superior and thus it is our right to treat animals however it conveniences us. As smart as some people are, most people are not very sophisticated, especially when it comes to morality, which people mainly wield as a matter of convenience to themselves. My faith in humanity has declined the more I've seen what it's capable of. Tellingly (to me), despite some non-negligible percentage of the population becoming more sensitive to the plight of animals, the scale of animal cruelty today absolutely dwarfs that of any bygone era. I see the modest gains in the population of vegetarians as a pyrrhic victory that would not have been possible with, perversely, the common knowledge of the current scale and scope of modern animal cruelty.
  - yesenadam 5y ago

mmcgaha 5y ago

I know she is divisive, but Ayn Rand lays out a pretty good model for universal morality.

yboris 5y ago
My understanding of her philosophy is "let the strong win, fuck the rest". Could you elaborate on what you think is her "universal morality"?
- andrewclunn 5y ago
  With a leading question like that, why would he answer. Don't agree with Rand myself, but it seems like "the weak die" is nature's law, or the law of the jungle if you will. Break that rule ams you run the risk of breaking evolution amd incentives for self improvement. Most moral codes in the soft amd declining West deny this. A case could easily be made that this is why they are in decline.
- stablenode 5y ago
  @yboris. Your account says that you are an 'Effective Altruist'. In a nutshell, Ayn Rand believes that altruism is immoral and argues why. Given your eloquently put understanding of her philosophy, I doubt that you are interested in digging deeper. But in case I'm wrong, everything is summarised in a short interview with Mike Wallace (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHl2PqwRcY0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHl2PqwRcY0).
  - z3ncyberpunk 5y ago
    No one takes Ayn Rand's arguments seriously.
  - PeterisP 5y ago
    The fact that there's substantial disagreement for and against these principles is an argument that whatever morality Ayn Rand is arguing for, that morality isn't universal, it would not be universally accepted.

antonzabirko 5y ago

Another mediocre article on morality. If you're interested, research universal morality in Buddhist sutras. By far the best analysis of morality, even compared to purely logical works. Modern-day stuff from what i've seen has been low quality. For this article, it fails to remember that for every unbiased observer there is an equally biased human at the root.

gher-shyu3i 5y ago
I challenge that claim. The best source of morality is certainly Islam.
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  Love your enemy is truly revolutionary, versus enslaving them.
  - gher-shyu3i 5y ago
    Will all due respect, your comment shows ignorance on multiple levels. It's trivial to look at how the Buddhists (including monks) are attacking and killing Muslims to disprove the claim of "loving your enemy". Secondly, unconditional love breaks down very quickly. What's needed is a very balanced approach that deals both, which Islam provides (which is also another false claim on your part when you imply that Islam enslaves unconditionally and for any enemy - literally middle school material, and I don't mean this in a disparaging way, just pointing out the many falsities spread against Islam which our middle schoolers can trivially disprove).

asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago

Hard to even approach answering this question without some kind of workable definition of "objective" and "universal" and "morality." What does a person mean when they say all these words together? My best guess would be something like, "All people would agree that any action recommended by this morality are right, and any action prohibited by this morality are wrong, and this morality either recommends or prohibits all possible actions." To me, the answer to this question is pretty obvious: there is no possible moral system that matches this definition.

stablenode 5y ago
You're quite right. Arguably, an attempt at formulating an objective morality has been made: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism . However, it is anathema on HN.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
  Objectivism has little to do with objectivity, despite sharing the first nine letters. They are two entirely different concepts. Whether objectivism is preferred on HN is another unrelated question.
  - stablenode 5y ago
    Objectivism has a lot to do with objectivity. I'm sorry if this is news for you. How reality is perceived and how objective knowledge is attained are at the core of this doctrine -- without these one cannot even talk about rational pursuit of self-interest. I wasn't even asking a question about HN, just making a remark.
    - kazinator 5y ago
      I.e. objectivism has to do with objectivity, not vice versa. The definition of objectivity simply does not reference objectivism.

agumonkey 5y ago

Tribal relativisme is often a strong attractor and can overcome extrinsic universality

Fern_Blossom 5y ago

>From this perspective, your moral judgments about the insurrection, or about some racist or sexist policy, are viewed as objects of study rather than as candidates for truth or falsity. The scientist is not here engaging with philosophical issues about the potential accuracy of moral claims. The scientist instead approaches your judgments simply as psychological facts about you, causally traceable to various influences—just as with the thoughts and feelings that led to the social injustices you’re responding to. Am I the only one terrified of this? This type of "study" has been abused very well in the past, phrenology being just one decent parallel. People have believed bad science in the past as "good" science. There's zero reason to imagine we're immune to it in this day. Some asshat out there is going to "prove" something about a demographic and use this as a means to enforce action. Just going to throw it out there, if they already dislike a demographic, they're going to prove how they should get arbitrary punishments or re-education because, "the science says so". It takes one shitty paper to fuck things up for a long time, cough cough anti-vaxxers cough cough. An average population is dumb as hell. It's even worse if they're convinced if something was scientifically proven, even though it wasn't. Take all the bad media reports on random papers released. That chocolate diet one fucking flooded the media even though it was total trash (yes, I know it was a hoax paper to prove the media is a dumpster fire). Just imagine the political party that doesn't like you get's ahold of this narrative. Fuck it, while we're at it, is it then better for your preferred party to wield the weapon first? Does that make it morally right for anyone to wield it or just who you approve of because you're perfect at deciding someone's character?

OrvalWintermute 5y ago

The article says we need to abandon tribalism yet the article is replete with tribal narrative.

throwawaybchr 5y ago

Not possible when so many Gaslight others with narratives like January 6th coup. Countries where coups have happened are laughing at the soft west. Never seen a coup where the media is filming a man in a Viking hat

logicchop 5y ago

"If objective ethical values exist, we'll have to give up tribalism to realize them." I didn't see a definition of "tribalism" in the article. I see references to the "January insurrection" and vague references to other "far-right" things. If you go back to Plato's Euthyphro, you see the character Euthyphro on his way to testify against his own father for mistreating a criminal. This is a very early "moral" moment in our intellectual history; it was practically inconceivable that a son would take such a position against his own father. I'd feel comfortable calling it "anti-tribalist," and it isn't so obvious whether Euthyphro is pursuing the right course. If you look at the laws of practically every developed country, there is no "tribalism." Given the vagueness of the authors target, I suspect what he'd rather say is that we have to give up things like nations, borders, ethnic identities, sex-based sport leagues, and so on. If he bothered to spell out in detail what he means by "tribalism," and not simply let the reader's imagination carry the burden of supplying the target, I suspect his proposal wouldn't have made it out of his own mouth.

thomascgalvin 5y ago
> If you look at the laws of practically every developed country, there is no "tribalism." The laws may not be tribalistic, but their enforcement certainly is. Take, for example, drugs. This report from the U.S. Department of Justice[1] indicates that arrests for the selling of drugs disproportionately targets black people by 33%, and arrests for possession of drugs disproportionately targets black people by 26%. The same is true of voter suppression laws. For example, the closure of voting places in minority communities, which lead to people of color waiting, on average, 29% longer to vote than white people[2]. The January insurrection is also a perfectly valid example of tribalism. A majority of Republicans falsely believe that this crime was perpetrated by Democrats, Antifa, or even the Capitol Police themselves[3]. We cannot have a serious discussion about the morality of armed insurrection when tribalism causes such a large number of people to reject reality wholesale. [1]: https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/rdusda.pdf https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/rdusda.pdf [2]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1909.00024.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1909.00024.pdf [3]: https://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/republicans-blame-democrats-antifa-and-us https://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/republicans-blame-d...

recursivedoubts 5y ago

I am not a darwinian, but most folks are these days. Universal morality doesn't appear to be particularly successful, when faced with tribalism. As far as I can tell, from a darwinian perspective, the right thing (so called) would be to encourage universalism in your competitors, while practicing tribalism yourself.

bena 5y ago
This is a complete aside: What do you define a "darwininan" as? What about that definition are you opposed to? What would you define yourself as? And what is the definition of that thing?
mehphp 5y ago
> I am not a darwinian, but most folks are these days Personally, I'd be shocked if that were true.

lwhi 5y ago

The central premise of the argument is false. People involved in the insurrection, weren't going against universally agreed moral standards — i.e. the need for democracy. While I don't agree with their motivation or interpretation, these people felt that democracy was being attacked. It was a desire to uphold moral principles that fuelled the raids.

andrewclunn 5y ago

Tribalism is always going to exist. It's always going to be important in societies that democratically elect their leaders. Even if you rise above tribal thinking, othera are going to see you through that lense, so you can't escape it. Any tribe that is sufficiently successful will split aa it grows. This is emergence. This is nature. And thus article is crap.

topkai22 5y ago

This article reminds me that A) Most philosophy writings sounds like the ramblings of cranks B) There is still a lot of value in thinking about them. I think that this article is missing a few insights that I value. One is that I’ve come to view something like philosophical truth essentially unknowable- There may be universal truths, but proving that across all scenarios is not feasible. They may even (or likely) be contradictory. Even morality derived from written religious texts has been subject to countless interpretations and reinterpretations. This it’s best to treat morality as probabilistic- I might be highly confident that my stance is correct, but I must always accept that I may be wrong and update on new information. The other is that authors desire to “give up tribalism” is too simplistic. Tribalism is deeply intertwined with identity, and I don’t think it’s possible to get humans to give up on the concept of identity. However, identity is a complex multilayered thing. I identify as an engineer, as an American, as a man, as a Catholic, as an ethnic Jew, as a Seahawks fan, as a skier, as an alumnus, and many other things. These groups do not share a common morality, but I find ways of coping and moving between them. I think we'd have more success getting people to embrace multiple identities and seeking tolerance between them then to abandon tribe seeking behavior.

deleted 5y ago
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mariusor 5y ago
> One is that I’ve come to view something like philosophical truth essentially unknowable "Any human life holds the same intrinsic value". To me this looks like a moral absolute that "can be known". :) There can be discussions on the side of it about how this "value" can come to fruition, or how it can be extended to encompass all sentient life, or just all life, but you can take it as it is and it represents an objective moral absolute that has no influence from "the inside", as prof. Fitzpatrick put it. Do you think I am wrong?

motohagiography 5y ago

The author starts by expressing a severely limited ontology, sets up a convenient dichotomy, and then assembles some straw men from some exclusively secular and materialist constraints. For what is this the sugar pill? Ah, right. The homogenaity and fungibility of humanity, resistance to a single global authority is futile, give up what you have, etc. His is view is the seed of this universal morality, surely?

gnarbarian 5y ago

This is only a problem for cultural relativists. Morals always exist within a cultural framework of expected behaviors. If we can agree that some behaviors are wrong (the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia for example) We can say unequivocally the west is a morally superior culture to Saudi Arabia on that point. Dominant cultures always impose laws on subordinated cultures. In the 19th century the answer to this problem was simple. "Just go over there and make them follow our rules." These days we tie ourselves into knots doing the same thing while pretending to respect other cultures.

pessimizer 5y ago
> If we can agree that some behaviors are wrong (the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia for example) We can say unequivocally the west is a morally superior culture to Saudi Arabia on that point. I guess "we" is "the west." I imagine a Saudi cleric is describing a porn clip he saw on the internet to his flock, explaining how cultural relativity = the abuse of women, and that imposing the world caliphate is the greatest act of mercy imaginable.

keiferski 5y ago

The choice of the word universal is a bit ironic, as the nature of the (physical) universe prevents such a thing from being possible. Unified morality, like a unified concept of what is “human”, is a temporary consequence of centralization in a single location. Right now, that’s Earth. But good luck maintaining a uniform conception of right and wrong when it takes a few decades to get to the next civilization. For that matter, good luck maintaining a unified concept of human being. Mars, for instance, has a number of qualities that will select for certain traits over others. A colony developing there, sufficiently isolated, would start to develop into a variant quite unlike us earthlings. https://youtu.be/0q_B5X7PBHA https://youtu.be/0q_B5X7PBHA

acituan 5y ago
> The choice of the word universal is a bit ironic, as the nature of the (physical) universe prevents such a thing from being possible. It might look improbable or unlikely, but I don't see how it is impossible. Unity in the underlying organizing principles (logos) of the universe, the idea of pantheistic view of a "god" as "the one" is at least as old as neoplatonism. However far from achieving a full grasp, all life forms find approximating to reality to be highly adaptive and valuable. As such, there could as well be a continuity between our moral values and general structural functional organization of the universe. Even though we are hopelessly unable to compute our way towards it, we could have been incrementally approximating it (while also occasionally deceiving ourselves). One could say the evolution of consciousness was adaptive towards processing these calculations, but by no means a requisite to have some contact with and understanding of a part of reality.
- keiferski 5y ago
  Correct, and I should have used the word unified here as I did later in my comment. It is possible that certain civilizations, without coming into any contact with each other, would arrive at similar moral conclusions based on observing nature. But I still don’t think this is sustainable once we factor in evolution and adaptations to different environments.

kodah 5y ago

What is the advantage of secular people establishing morality? This morality would need to compete with religious morality, how would one do that, and what would the motivations be?

howmayiannoyyou 5y ago

I must invoke John Stuart Mill when it comes to morality and politics. With 138 capitol & metro police injured, there's no doubt some number of protestors should face justice for their harm to others. That is where the accountability will hopefully end. In almost every other respect the January 6th 2021 was a quintessentially American expression of liberty with overwhelming historical precedent. Time and again aggrieved citizens on both sides have try to be heard by delaying political fait accompli. From city counsels to county seats, state legislatures to native reservations, the US capital to foreign embassies... naive believers, the agitated, sometimes driven by agent provocateurs have risked prison and worse to remind representatives that victory in a vote doesn't erase diversity of belief; and that governance is more effective when the aggrieved are sincerely heard. Tribalism (on both sides) is all earmuffs and blindfolds that results in shortsighted public policy, and devaluation of different thoughts & tastes.

MisterBastahrd 5y ago
There can't be a closure to that issue unless the ringleaders face punishment. They won't. So there won't be. The same politicians who pilloried Hillary Clinton for 2 years over the Benghazi incident want nothing to do with an investigation of the events of Jan 6th. They know who their political base is.

deltron3030 5y ago

Universal morality would require the same reality for everybody, quite utopian.. Tribes are shaped by a common reality, friends and enemies, and the common reality of those who stormed the Capitol was created by the conspiracy scene they followed and participated in.

drummer 5y ago

To get to a universal morality, you should first understand the universal right to life: https://blog.kareldonk.com/the-universal-right-to-life/ https://blog.kareldonk.com/the-universal-right-to-life/

neonological 5y ago

>That is at least what moral practice is like when viewed “from the inside.” By that I mean your moral phenomenology as an engaged participant. This perspective presents the appearance of at least a core of basic objective and universally valid or correct moral standards we are trying to understand and to live by (even as we recognize that we will at best do so imperfectly). This is why we’re prepared to argue, often passionately, in defense of basic moral claims about social justice, for example, in a way we don’t with mere matters of taste; and it’s why we feel compelled to modify our views when someone convinces us that we have a blind spot or other error in our moral outlook. This is a very misguided view on morality. The author doesn't know what morality is, why it exists and what actually compels us to behave the way we do. Many people who are very intelligent fail to comprehend this. Morality is biological in origin. You think and behave, debate and contemplate morality because you are evolutionarily predisposed to do so. Morality does not exist outside of this framework. Morality is simply a set of rules that allow us to form stable societies and biology evolved you to behave within this rule set because if you didn't your society or you would be naturally selected out. That's it. The problem is, most people don't realize this. When people think about fairness and morality they think they are deploying their logical and conscious mind to decide the meaning of right and wrong. Nothing is further from the truth, and this is 100 percent an illusion. When you are thinking about morality you are deploying the instinctual side of your brain, the same part that triggers hunger, sexual arousal or fear. It sounds so absurd to say this but believe it or not it can actually be logically proven that this is what the human brain is doing. I can prove to you that your entire logical framework of morality is built off a biological predetermined moral instinct that is absurdly identical to everyone else's concept of morality. The way this is done is that the moral module in your mind is imperfect. By identifying this imperfection I can illustrate to you that like how evolutionary programming doesn't always converge at the global optimum the same has happened in the moral module of your brain. Of all our brains. Consider a baby drowning in a pool next to you. You are wearing fashionable clothes that costs thousands of dollars. By jumping in the pool to save the baby you permanently ruin your clothes. What would be the moral thing to do? The moral thing to do is to save the baby. The life of the baby is more important the your clothes even if it's thousands of dollars. In fact our brains will be disgusted at the person who let's the baby drown just to save thousands of dollars. Essentially the moral precept here is saving a life is worth more than a couple thousand dollars so you should always do the former. Here is where the flaw comes in. Leave the situation the same but change some of the superficial aesthetics. The baby is no longer drowning but is now a child in Africa who is starving. This child can be saved with a donation of thousands of dollars. Is it reprehensible that you don't save the baby? Most of us reading are aware that poverty exists in Africa and that donations can save them yet most of us haven't donated a dime. Keep in mind the premise is identical. Save a baby in exchange for sacrificing thousands of dollars. What has changed? Why does the psychopath who refused to save the drowning baby is evil and why is the person who refused to donate money less evil when the basic moral premise is exactly the same? The answer is easy to identify. Something has changed and that change influences the moral module of our brain in an illogical way that is unresolvable. The change is superficial... basically the location and sensory stimulus is removed. By making the baby far away in Africa and removing visual stimulus, it is no longer triggering the moral instinct in your brain. Why does this fail to trigger it? Because there is no evolutionary advantage to societies who have morals that are concerned for entities that are far away and unrelated. Your morality is associated with visual stimulus and proximity but your brain does not incorporate these axioms into your reasoning because there was never any evolutionary pressure for your brain to evolve this way. That is the inconsistent flaw. Our moral modules are not designed to correctly apply moral reasoning to subjects outside of a certain physical proximity, so our brain triggers behavior that contradicts our own reasoning. Thus our instincts do not trigger when a baby in Africa is dying of starvation, only when a baby next to you is dying from drowning. Of course there is a gradient. Starving babies in Africa triggers far less concern then drowning babies next to you even when the cost of saving those babies is completely identical. If I presented to you these two scenarios separately and asked you to analyze the moral logic behind each, most people would derive separate and valid logic that would condemn the person who let the baby drown and vindicate the person who let the baby in Africa die. By presenting both scenarios to you at the same time, however, the contradiction becomes apparent and your brain is now most likely trying to contemplate the moral logic and rules that will resolve the contradiction. My point is to tell you that the resolution and everything your brain is doing to make sense of this moral contradiction is pointless. You are giving in to instinctual behavior. The moral contradiction exists regardless of what you do because morality is an imperfect biological phenomena. There isn't a universal explanation here. These are arbitrary rules applied to arbitrary events and you attempt to resolve it is just you giving in to your biological predisposition. Same as you giving in to eating when you are hungry. There is no point in making sense of why rocks scattered on the ground is the way that it is any more then it makes sense to resolve this moral contradiction. Like the rocks, morality is simply an arbitrary set of rules... A biological phenemona unique to humanity and not a universal phenomena intrinsic to the universe. Once you realize this, you will see that all this language, philosophy and structure built around morality is sort of pointless. It exists to help us survive there is no deeper meaning here and any search for something deeper will likely result in you making something up without realizing it (see religion).

achenatx 5y ago

There is no universal morality. Morals are likely partial genetic and partially cultural. Natural selection selects for cultural values ("morals") that allow a culture to survive to destroy other cultures. Random morals are constantly being created - mutations. They sometimes are negative for cultural survival, sometimes neutral, and sometimes positive. Based on a changing environment morals needed for a culture to survive will also change. Over a long enough time, some moralistic behavior has become embedded in our DNA. (e.g. protecting children). Moralistic behavior that is embedded in DNA is probably the closest thing we have to "universal morality". Controversial examples might be procreating at 13. When people died at a much younger age, it was not immoral to procreate as soon as we were able. Now it is morally abhorrent. Some cultures still allow it. It is absolutely not universally immoral.

mensetmanusman 5y ago
You seem to be proclaiming universal truths and morals.

gher-shyu3i 5y ago

The article lacks substance, and asks the reader for suppositions. "Science" will not be able to, nor is in the realm of deducing or making morality. It's quite annoying how scientism is being pushed these days.

fallingfrog 5y ago

I’m pretty sure there is something approaching universal truth out there, and it involves power relationships between people and groups of people. After all, a single person alone on a desert island can’t do much that really qualifies as good or evil, unless someone else is there to be affected by it. Morality exists between people and in the way they relate to each other. My personal view is that decisions that affect the individual should be left to the individual, decisions that affect groups should be made by those groups (in a democratic fashion). Of course the devil is in the details.

bmitc 5y ago

Even if such a thing existed, absolutely not.

networkid 5y ago

Why Americans so care about PEACEFUL transfer of power and at the same time support bloody and dirty revolutions all around the world?

rytill 5y ago

The article begins with saying there are two ways to discuss morality: phenomenological morality, and evolutionary morality, but many (most?) comments here are of the format, “morality is Darwinian” like it’s a panacea for the whole discussion. It’s really the much less important side of the discussion. Just because we evolved doesn’t mean we don’t genuinely prefer certain conscious experiences to others.