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He’s not saying we have instinctual ethical views. He’s saying we have a biologically determined interpretive framework we use to evaluate ethical questions. T

by simonh 3y ago

He’s not saying we have instinctual ethical views. He’s saying we have a biologically determined interpretive framework we use to evaluate ethical questions. This is what he was talking about when he said we make a leap from scattered data to specific conclusions, and we all do this in a similar way. We all just have different data. However when we have very similar data, such as living in a particular culture, we mostly come to the same conclusions. The interpretive framework sets that reference frame for human ethics. The comparison to visual systems is apt. Intelligent spiders would have a different biologically determined ethical interpretive framework in the same way that they would have a different visual system. Within the range set by our biology there is a considerable degree of arbitrariness, for sure. He spells this out clearly at the beginning. He’s not arguing there is no relativism. He’s arguing against the absolute unlimited relativism espoused by Foucault because that’s what he was asked about.

bambax 3y ago
> when we have very similar data, such as living in a particular culture, we mostly come to the same conclusions That's not my take from the interview, but in any case this is provably false. People living in a given "culture" don't come to the same conclusions: they come to different conclusions -- usually opposite ones. Politics wouldn't exist otherwise. Or most wars, which are almost always between neighbors sharing more or less the same "culture" but having values so different they're willing to die to defend them.
- wubrr 3y ago
  I mean if you recursively generate 'opposite' conclusions you still only end up with 2 different conclusions?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- noobermin 3y ago
  How about "similar enough?" People, particular people who've never lived in another culture overemphasize differences within their own culture between themselves and others in their own culture. They often overestimate similarities between themselves and other cultures.
- ekabod 3y ago
  If we consider that a person is a data point with its own properties (family, wealth, education, upbringing environment,...); the idea of a universal framework that handles these properties for ethics is still valid.
- simonh 3y ago
  I didn’t say the same, I said mostly the same. Cultures consist of a consensus. When the consensus shifts, the culture shifts. Politics operates within an agreed framework at any given time. At the time of the founding of the USA some people had misgivings about slave owning, but even some of them still owned slaves. 100 years later there was a civil war over it. Today in the US slavery is almost universally maligned and only exists as a covert criminal activity. Was there a diversity of opinion at the time of the revolutionary war, and is there now? Sure. Was there a consensus then and now? I don’t see how you can argue otherwise.
  - bambax 3y ago
    At the time of the civil war there was no country-wide consensus on the question of slavery, obviously. Today, on that specific question, there seems to be a consensus (although one can argue it's largely a legal consensus: the song "Rich men north of Richmond" is choke-full of dog whistles advocating for a return to the good old times of pre-civil war in the South, and its runaway success shows it resonates with many people). But there are a lot of other ethical topics where there is zero consensus, in the US, today. Guns, abortion, immigration, to name a few.
    - simonh 3y ago
      >At the time of the civil war there was no country-wide consensus on the question of slavery, obviously. There was a consensus in the South. There was a consensus in the North. It's the existence of consensus at all that is the problem for Foucault's unconstrained relativism. The very fact that individual societies do have consensus moral frameworks demonstrates that individual moral frameworks are not unlimited by constraints such as environment and culture. This is why he says relativism is incoherent. The fact that it accepts that cultural moral frameworks exist, and that there are reasons for that, kills this hard form of extreme relativism stone dead. After all if human ethics were truly unconstrained, how can cultural norms exist? It is true that individuals can vary greatly, most people are not psychopaths but some are. Most do not experience extreme abuse as children that warps their perspective, but some do. Even so, these individuals have their ethical frameworks very largely determined by factors outside their control. A psychopath can't choose not to suffer from psychopathy, an abuse victim cannot just choose not to be warped by that abuse. They do of course have autonomy within a range, and it's not the same range as most of us, but it's still a range and these ranges are set somehow.
SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
>He’s not saying we have instinctual ethical views. He’s saying we have a biologically determined interpretive framework we use to evaluate ethical questions. I thought this was entirely obvious to everyone until I read GP’s to comment. We act in a way that keeps the majority of us alive and reproducing. We have done OK at that so as a society, we keep doing it that way. Sure, ok, that’s “relative”, but also obvious and doesn’t invalidate the idea that we know which things are good/ethical beyond how they feel.
johnnyjeans 3y ago
instinctual -> biologically determined views -> interpretive framework/evaluation system
Liminal_Ledge 3y ago
The concept of a 'biologically determined interpretive framework' doesn't seem all that determined to me. The variation in our individual moral compasses and the existence of intercultural moral divides indicate that this framework is as vague and inconsistent as it can be. Using empathy or feelings as a basis raises the question of whose sensitivity we should calibrate it on. We are not moral relativists because the concept of morality itself is built on the idea of distinguishing right from wrong. We believe that what we are doing is right. In the future, there might be a carbon-neutral vegan society, and they will view us through their newly derived ethical compass, much like how we perceive morality when we look back at our recent history. If this biological source had any consistency, why did people do monstrous things while believing they are on the right? Would you have had your current moral compass if you lived in another society/another time that you look back at now with horror? Can you find a single human ethic that all societies from any time can agree on?
- simonh 3y ago
  >The concept of a 'biologically determined interpretive framework' doesn't seem all that determined to me. The variation in our individual moral compasses and the existence of intercultural moral divides indicate that this framework is as vague and inconsistent as it can be. Is it limitlessly inconsistent as Foucault claimed? >In the future, there might be a carbon-neutral vegan society, and they will view us through their newly derived ethical compass, much like how we perceive morality when we look back at our recent history. That is correct, and Chomsky raised almost that identical example. As I said he's not arguing for no moral relativism, just that there are some biologically imposed limits. >Can you find a single human ethic that all societies from any time can agree on? You're missing the forest for the trees that are blocking your view. The very fact that individual societies do have consensus moral frameworks demonstrates that individual moral frameworks are not unlimited by constraints such as environment and culture. This is why he says relativism is incoherent. The fact that it accepts that cultural moral frameworks exist, and that there are reasons for that, kills this hard form of extreme relativism stone dead. After all if human ethics were truly unconstrained, how can cultural norms exist? It is true that individuals can vary greatly, most people are not psychopaths but some are. Most do not experience extreme abuse as children that warps their perspective, but some do. Even so, these individuals have their ethical frameworks very largely determined by factors outside their control. A psychopath can't choose not to suffer from psychopathy, an abuse victim cannot just choose not to be warped by that abuse. They do of course have autonomy within a range, and it's not the same range as most of us, but it's still a range.

by simonh 3y ago

bambax 3y ago

> when we have very similar data, such as living in a particular culture, we mostly come to the same conclusions That's not my take from the interview, but in any case this is provably false. People living in a given "culture" don't come to the same conclusions: they come to different conclusions -- usually opposite ones. Politics wouldn't exist otherwise. Or most wars, which are almost always between neighbors sharing more or less the same "culture" but having values so different they're willing to die to defend them.

wubrr 3y ago
I mean if you recursively generate 'opposite' conclusions you still only end up with 2 different conclusions?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
noobermin 3y ago
How about "similar enough?" People, particular people who've never lived in another culture overemphasize differences within their own culture between themselves and others in their own culture. They often overestimate similarities between themselves and other cultures.
ekabod 3y ago
If we consider that a person is a data point with its own properties (family, wealth, education, upbringing environment,...); the idea of a universal framework that handles these properties for ethics is still valid.
simonh 3y ago
I didn’t say the same, I said mostly the same. Cultures consist of a consensus. When the consensus shifts, the culture shifts. Politics operates within an agreed framework at any given time. At the time of the founding of the USA some people had misgivings about slave owning, but even some of them still owned slaves. 100 years later there was a civil war over it. Today in the US slavery is almost universally maligned and only exists as a covert criminal activity. Was there a diversity of opinion at the time of the revolutionary war, and is there now? Sure. Was there a consensus then and now? I don’t see how you can argue otherwise.
- bambax 3y ago
  At the time of the civil war there was no country-wide consensus on the question of slavery, obviously. Today, on that specific question, there seems to be a consensus (although one can argue it's largely a legal consensus: the song "Rich men north of Richmond" is choke-full of dog whistles advocating for a return to the good old times of pre-civil war in the South, and its runaway success shows it resonates with many people). But there are a lot of other ethical topics where there is zero consensus, in the US, today. Guns, abortion, immigration, to name a few.
  - simonh 3y ago
    >At the time of the civil war there was no country-wide consensus on the question of slavery, obviously. There was a consensus in the South. There was a consensus in the North. It's the existence of consensus at all that is the problem for Foucault's unconstrained relativism. The very fact that individual societies do have consensus moral frameworks demonstrates that individual moral frameworks are not unlimited by constraints such as environment and culture. This is why he says relativism is incoherent. The fact that it accepts that cultural moral frameworks exist, and that there are reasons for that, kills this hard form of extreme relativism stone dead. After all if human ethics were truly unconstrained, how can cultural norms exist? It is true that individuals can vary greatly, most people are not psychopaths but some are. Most do not experience extreme abuse as children that warps their perspective, but some do. Even so, these individuals have their ethical frameworks very largely determined by factors outside their control. A psychopath can't choose not to suffer from psychopathy, an abuse victim cannot just choose not to be warped by that abuse. They do of course have autonomy within a range, and it's not the same range as most of us, but it's still a range and these ranges are set somehow.

SV_BubbleTime 3y ago

>He’s not saying we have instinctual ethical views. He’s saying we have a biologically determined interpretive framework we use to evaluate ethical questions. I thought this was entirely obvious to everyone until I read GP’s to comment. We act in a way that keeps the majority of us alive and reproducing. We have done OK at that so as a society, we keep doing it that way. Sure, ok, that’s “relative”, but also obvious and doesn’t invalidate the idea that we know which things are good/ethical beyond how they feel.

johnnyjeans 3y ago

instinctual -> biologically determined views -> interpretive framework/evaluation system

Liminal_Ledge 3y ago

The concept of a 'biologically determined interpretive framework' doesn't seem all that determined to me. The variation in our individual moral compasses and the existence of intercultural moral divides indicate that this framework is as vague and inconsistent as it can be. Using empathy or feelings as a basis raises the question of whose sensitivity we should calibrate it on. We are not moral relativists because the concept of morality itself is built on the idea of distinguishing right from wrong. We believe that what we are doing is right. In the future, there might be a carbon-neutral vegan society, and they will view us through their newly derived ethical compass, much like how we perceive morality when we look back at our recent history. If this biological source had any consistency, why did people do monstrous things while believing they are on the right? Would you have had your current moral compass if you lived in another society/another time that you look back at now with horror? Can you find a single human ethic that all societies from any time can agree on?

simonh 3y ago
>The concept of a 'biologically determined interpretive framework' doesn't seem all that determined to me. The variation in our individual moral compasses and the existence of intercultural moral divides indicate that this framework is as vague and inconsistent as it can be. Is it limitlessly inconsistent as Foucault claimed? >In the future, there might be a carbon-neutral vegan society, and they will view us through their newly derived ethical compass, much like how we perceive morality when we look back at our recent history. That is correct, and Chomsky raised almost that identical example. As I said he's not arguing for no moral relativism, just that there are some biologically imposed limits. >Can you find a single human ethic that all societies from any time can agree on? You're missing the forest for the trees that are blocking your view. The very fact that individual societies do have consensus moral frameworks demonstrates that individual moral frameworks are not unlimited by constraints such as environment and culture. This is why he says relativism is incoherent. The fact that it accepts that cultural moral frameworks exist, and that there are reasons for that, kills this hard form of extreme relativism stone dead. After all if human ethics were truly unconstrained, how can cultural norms exist? It is true that individuals can vary greatly, most people are not psychopaths but some are. Most do not experience extreme abuse as children that warps their perspective, but some do. Even so, these individuals have their ethical frameworks very largely determined by factors outside their control. A psychopath can't choose not to suffer from psychopathy, an abuse victim cannot just choose not to be warped by that abuse. They do of course have autonomy within a range, and it's not the same range as most of us, but it's still a range.