3 ms·

If there is a universal moral code, we can never know it for certain. Moral knowledge, as well as all other kinds of knowledge, is always open to criticism and

by dotsam 3y ago

If there is a universal moral code, we can never know it for certain. Moral knowledge, as well as all other kinds of knowledge, is always open to criticism and being proven wrong. But nevertheless we can make moral progress, just as we make scientific progress. We can find good explanations for why killing and enslaving people is wrong, even whilst we can point to countless examples where killing and enslaving people has been glorified. This is David Deutsch's principle of optimism: "All evils are due to a lack of knowledge". Commitment to solving problems entails a commitment to knowledge growth, which in turn involves a commitment to certain values, such as valuing truth and being open to error-correction by debating and criticizing ideas. Killing and enslaving people is the opposite of this.

epups 3y ago
There is a big difference between morality and science though. The physical reality around us does not depend on our opinion of it, and we can design experiments to test it. You cannot "prove wrong" a set of moral rules without agreeing to a set of subjective principles first.
- dotsam 3y ago
  Can we agree that solving problems = good? If you grant that, the rest should follow.
  - epups 3y ago
    I don't believe it does, at all? How do you "solve" the moral problem of, say, whether we can breed and kill animals to eat them?
    - dotsam 3y ago
      What I mean is: solving problems is good. Solving scientific problems is good, solving moral problems is good. If you do not think solving problems in general is good, you will not think solving the killing animals moral problem is good. The only way to solve problems is to create knowledge. We need to create good explanations of what is there, what it does, and how and why. The only we know to create knowledge is through creatively guessing things and checking our ideas against criticism. To solve the moral problem of whether breeding and killing animals to eat is wrong we need a good explanation of consciousness, and whether animals are conscious, and if they suffer. We do not have a good explanation of consciousness or suffering yet. Any ideas we do have we can improve upon, endlessly. Edit: I should emphasize that we can never be certain that we've really 'solved' any given problem: we could always be wrong. This is why we should always be open to criticism and better ideas.
      - throw0101c 3y ago
        > What I mean is: solving problems is good. Solving scientific problems is good, solving moral problems is good. If you do not think solving problems in general is good, you will not think solving the killing animals moral problem is good. Not necessarily universally: one can have a philosophy / worldview where dealing with your problems is a way to spiritual enlightenment and getting rid of the problems / suffering prevents you from achieving higher spiritual / intellectual levels. > Gnostic cosmogony generally presents a distinction between a supreme, hidden God and a malevolent lesser divinity (sometimes associated with the God of the Hebrew Bible)[1] who is responsible for creating the material universe. Consequently, Gnostics considered material existence flawed or evil […] * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism Any worldview (Buddhism? Hinduism? that treats the material world as 'bad(-sh)' or an illusion would be 'susceptible' to this line of thinking.
        dotsam 3y ago
        Even gnostics have problems they have to solve in their day to day lives, and the only way to solve them is by creating knowledge. Appeals to the supernatural or dogma are bad explanations, and they should be criticised and improved upon. They are bad explanations because they are not hard to vary, and can be easily modified or replaced by any other supernatural or dogmatic entity or force without affecting the phenomenon they are supposed to explain. They are essentially arbitrary and unfalsifiable assertions that do not increase our understanding of reality. Also note, you never get rid of problems, there are always more. New knowledge creates new and better problems. Running out of problems would itself be a problem.
  - tivert 3y ago
    > Can we agree that solving problems = good? If you grant that, the rest should follow. What do you mean by "problems"? And whose problems? My solution might be the source of your problem, and why should I care if it is?
    - dotsam 3y ago
      > What do you mean by "problems"? In David Deutsch's terminology, a problem exists when a conflict between ideas is experienced. It is worth reading his books to understand more on his view. He builds on Karl Popper's work, which is also worth reading. > And whose problems? Everyone has their own particular problem situation. Here's some relevant things Popper has said about problems and solving them: > All things living are in search of a better world. Men, animals, plants, even unicellular organisms are constantly active. They are trying to improve their situation, or at least to avoid its deterioration... Every organism is constantly preoccupied with the task of solving problems. These problems arise from its own assessments of its condition and of its environment; conditions which the organism seeks to improve... We can see that life — even at the level of the unicellular organism — brings something completely new into the world, something that did not previously exist: problems and active attempts to solve them; assessments, values; trial and error. And lastly > My solution might be the source of your problem, and why should I care if it is? How to 'make you care' about you creating a problem for me is itself a problem that we can create knowledge to solve, perhaps e.g. by creating a legal system that discourages you from doing the thing that made my life worse.
      - tivert 3y ago
        >>> Can we agree that solving problems = good? If you grant that, the rest should follow. >> My solution might be the source of your problem, and why should I care if it is? > How to 'make you care' about you creating a problem for me is itself a problem that we can create knowledge to solve, perhaps e.g. by creating a legal system that discourages you from doing the thing that made my life worse. I think your use of "we" presumes some value of universalist cooperation (I'm no philosopher, so I'm just throwing around words to express what I'm feeling), which I don't think can be assumed. I think the more accurate statement is: "how to 'make you care' about you creating a problem for me" is a problem for you. My gut feel is the only way to really to prioritize concern for others is a moral framework that says so (and offers a compelling reason to follow it), or some kind of finely-balanced anarchy where no person or group really has the power or opportunity to force problems on others (which seems impossible to maintain in practice). Also another reason I think I can't agree that "solving problems = good" is there once was a problem labeled "the Jewish Problem" and the "final" solution to it is literally the epitome of evil.
Flimm 3y ago
The idea of moral progress implies that there is objective morality, and that we can improve our knowledge of it. Progress implies a destination, it implies a standard against which the progress is measured, at least in principle.
- dotsam 3y ago
  That is correct. In this is view, all evils are the result of a lack of knowledge, and so moral progress is achieved through the growth of knowledge. All knowledge is fallible and therefore uncertain, so even if we stumbled on objective truth (the destination which we are error-correcting towards), we could never know it for sure.
  - vacuity 3y ago
    I don't think moral progress necessarily implies an objective morality. We can't be working towards something we can't know about. We just happen to be walking towards it, or not. What we feel to be moral progress isn't a statement about our discovering an objective morality but rather a social consensus based on, as you say, greater knowledge and altered perspective. Moral progress is the idea of an expansion of collective understanding and acceptance of moral beliefs/axioms.

by dotsam 3y ago

epups 3y ago

There is a big difference between morality and science though. The physical reality around us does not depend on our opinion of it, and we can design experiments to test it. You cannot "prove wrong" a set of moral rules without agreeing to a set of subjective principles first.

dotsam 3y ago
Can we agree that solving problems = good? If you grant that, the rest should follow.
- epups 3y ago
  I don't believe it does, at all? How do you "solve" the moral problem of, say, whether we can breed and kill animals to eat them?
  - dotsam 3y ago
    What I mean is: solving problems is good. Solving scientific problems is good, solving moral problems is good. If you do not think solving problems in general is good, you will not think solving the killing animals moral problem is good. The only way to solve problems is to create knowledge. We need to create good explanations of what is there, what it does, and how and why. The only we know to create knowledge is through creatively guessing things and checking our ideas against criticism. To solve the moral problem of whether breeding and killing animals to eat is wrong we need a good explanation of consciousness, and whether animals are conscious, and if they suffer. We do not have a good explanation of consciousness or suffering yet. Any ideas we do have we can improve upon, endlessly. Edit: I should emphasize that we can never be certain that we've really 'solved' any given problem: we could always be wrong. This is why we should always be open to criticism and better ideas.
    - throw0101c 3y ago
      > What I mean is: solving problems is good. Solving scientific problems is good, solving moral problems is good. If you do not think solving problems in general is good, you will not think solving the killing animals moral problem is good. Not necessarily universally: one can have a philosophy / worldview where dealing with your problems is a way to spiritual enlightenment and getting rid of the problems / suffering prevents you from achieving higher spiritual / intellectual levels. > Gnostic cosmogony generally presents a distinction between a supreme, hidden God and a malevolent lesser divinity (sometimes associated with the God of the Hebrew Bible)[1] who is responsible for creating the material universe. Consequently, Gnostics considered material existence flawed or evil […] * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism Any worldview (Buddhism? Hinduism? that treats the material world as 'bad(-sh)' or an illusion would be 'susceptible' to this line of thinking.
      - dotsam 3y ago
        Even gnostics have problems they have to solve in their day to day lives, and the only way to solve them is by creating knowledge. Appeals to the supernatural or dogma are bad explanations, and they should be criticised and improved upon. They are bad explanations because they are not hard to vary, and can be easily modified or replaced by any other supernatural or dogmatic entity or force without affecting the phenomenon they are supposed to explain. They are essentially arbitrary and unfalsifiable assertions that do not increase our understanding of reality. Also note, you never get rid of problems, there are always more. New knowledge creates new and better problems. Running out of problems would itself be a problem.
- tivert 3y ago
  > Can we agree that solving problems = good? If you grant that, the rest should follow. What do you mean by "problems"? And whose problems? My solution might be the source of your problem, and why should I care if it is?
  - dotsam 3y ago
    > What do you mean by "problems"? In David Deutsch's terminology, a problem exists when a conflict between ideas is experienced. It is worth reading his books to understand more on his view. He builds on Karl Popper's work, which is also worth reading. > And whose problems? Everyone has their own particular problem situation. Here's some relevant things Popper has said about problems and solving them: > All things living are in search of a better world. Men, animals, plants, even unicellular organisms are constantly active. They are trying to improve their situation, or at least to avoid its deterioration... Every organism is constantly preoccupied with the task of solving problems. These problems arise from its own assessments of its condition and of its environment; conditions which the organism seeks to improve... We can see that life — even at the level of the unicellular organism — brings something completely new into the world, something that did not previously exist: problems and active attempts to solve them; assessments, values; trial and error. And lastly > My solution might be the source of your problem, and why should I care if it is? How to 'make you care' about you creating a problem for me is itself a problem that we can create knowledge to solve, perhaps e.g. by creating a legal system that discourages you from doing the thing that made my life worse.
    - tivert 3y ago
      >>> Can we agree that solving problems = good? If you grant that, the rest should follow. >> My solution might be the source of your problem, and why should I care if it is? > How to 'make you care' about you creating a problem for me is itself a problem that we can create knowledge to solve, perhaps e.g. by creating a legal system that discourages you from doing the thing that made my life worse. I think your use of "we" presumes some value of universalist cooperation (I'm no philosopher, so I'm just throwing around words to express what I'm feeling), which I don't think can be assumed. I think the more accurate statement is: "how to 'make you care' about you creating a problem for me" is a problem for you. My gut feel is the only way to really to prioritize concern for others is a moral framework that says so (and offers a compelling reason to follow it), or some kind of finely-balanced anarchy where no person or group really has the power or opportunity to force problems on others (which seems impossible to maintain in practice). Also another reason I think I can't agree that "solving problems = good" is there once was a problem labeled "the Jewish Problem" and the "final" solution to it is literally the epitome of evil.

Flimm 3y ago

The idea of moral progress implies that there is objective morality, and that we can improve our knowledge of it. Progress implies a destination, it implies a standard against which the progress is measured, at least in principle.

dotsam 3y ago
That is correct. In this is view, all evils are the result of a lack of knowledge, and so moral progress is achieved through the growth of knowledge. All knowledge is fallible and therefore uncertain, so even if we stumbled on objective truth (the destination which we are error-correcting towards), we could never know it for sure.
- vacuity 3y ago
  I don't think moral progress necessarily implies an objective morality. We can't be working towards something we can't know about. We just happen to be walking towards it, or not. What we feel to be moral progress isn't a statement about our discovering an objective morality but rather a social consensus based on, as you say, greater knowledge and altered perspective. Moral progress is the idea of an expansion of collective understanding and acceptance of moral beliefs/axioms.