4 ms·

I think relativistic morality has it very wrong. I mean, surely you don't accept that killing Jews can ever be considered moral, or owning slaves, or cutting g

by clicks 13y ago

I think relativistic morality has it very wrong. I mean, surely you don't accept that killing Jews can ever be considered moral, or owning slaves, or cutting genitalia of little girls is moral just because a local majority happens to think that it is moral. In this day and age, with having gone through the Enlightenment with having such an abundant supply of literature on psychological sciences we can more or less reasonably agree on what is moral and not: physical and emotional pain is bad -- we know these things intuitively, we learned it over thousands of years -- fire bad, skin being cut bad, seeing my brother get killed bad, hugging good, we don't need human customs, politics, or some piece of paper dictate what is moral or not. See here Sam Harris better argue for an absolutist morality informed by science: http://www.ted.com/talks/sam_harris_science_can_show_what_s_right.html http://www.ted.com/talks/sam_harris_science_can_show_what_s_... I think all intelligent people should aggressively campaign the idea of absolutist morality to all ends of the earth.

foobarbazqux 13y ago
Let's see. In my system of morals, different people are allowed to have different morals. In your system of morals they are not. You are not okay with my morals. I am okay with your morals, as long as they don't infringe too badly on my own. I certainly understand that you have them. I suspect that absolute anything is going to be a problem eventually. I know that I'm very unlikely to be able to change your morality, so why pressure you? By the way, I don't think it's moral to call another person's morality horseshit. Your system of morals says this is okay. We have a small conflict there. No amount of science will convince me otherwise. Basically I believe it's legitimate for morals to be defined by individuals on the basis of their experiences in life. Yes, we know most of them intuitively.
- clicks 13y ago
  I didn't call your morality horseshit, I meant to just come down on the philosophy of relativistic morality itself. I've revised the original comment to make it a little more civil. > I am okay with your morals, as long as they don't infringe too badly on my own. If you continue down this route you're going to have instances in which severely deranged individuals can agree that killing people is good. Or, to give you a less stretched example: just because two newcons can agree that it's the best decision to just cut all Social Security to seniors who're unable to work because of their declining health, it does not make that decision a moral one.
  - foobarbazqux 13y ago
    I believe in letting individuals define their own morals, so you were at least calling a significant piece of my morality horseshit. But anyway, civility appreciated, no harm done. You and I probably share similar morals about many things, but I don't believe science has all the answers. The difficult moral questions come down to a choice between a rock and a hard place. How can science possibly tell us whether the death penalty is moral, for example? On the one hand you have the idea of the right to life, on the other hand you have the idea of justice for families of the victims. There is going to be pain either way. Just because I am anti-capital punishment and I come up with some scientific experiment to demonstrate that this is valid does not mean that I cannot understand the positions of the people who are pro-capital punishment. If my family was murdered perhaps I might change my mind. Just because someone murders innocent civilians abroad, does that mean we need to sacrifice the lives of our soldiers to stop them? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Abortion is thornier still. How do you possibly begin to answer these questions with science?
- Demiurge 13y ago
  "By the way, I don't think it's moral to call another person's morality horseshit. Your system of morals says this is okay. We have a small conflict there. No amount of science will convince me otherwise." Hold your horses! He can perfectly well find it immoral to call your morality horseshit, and be conscientiously acting immorally!
  - foobarbazqux 13y ago
    Yeah, okay, and I knew that too. Intellectual dishonesty.
Demiurge 13y ago
" we know these things intuitively, we learned it over thousands of years -- fire bad, skin being cut bad, seeing my brother get killed bad, hugging good, we don't need human customs, politics, or some piece of paper dictate what is moral or not." We don't know ALL these things intuitively. Some we do, but some are purely based on customs, tradition, or arbitrary interpretation of conflicting rules (trolley problem). Which is why FGM is moral in some places, but not all.
- clicks 13y ago
  I think you're very right here and I certainly agree, I should have instead said that human intuition goes a long way -- but we should capitalize on it with a more scientifically informed view.
coldtea 13y ago
>I mean, surely you don't accept that killing Jews can ever be considered moral, or owning slaves, or cutting genitalia of little girls is moral just because a local majority happens to think that it is moral. What he or I believe don't matter at all. If you were a southern, back in the slavery days, statistical chances are you would find it moral too. >In this day and age, with having gone through the Enlightenment with have such an abundant literature on psychological sciences we can more or less reasonably agree on what is moral and not The Germans that did those things during WWII not only have been through the englightenment but their country was one of the major contributors to it's whole development. So, you'd be surprised. >physical and emotional pain is bad -- we know these things intuitively, we learned it over thousands of years Yes, and then they tell you "oh, but we only did it to save more lives". Or, "yes, it's bad, but we're doing it to the enemy".
- jivatmanx 13y ago
  Germany's Enlightenment was the most abstract and apolitical, compared to France or Britain, and exemplified by Kant, and tracts like "Critique of Pure Reason". The majority of the figures of "Classical Liberalism" were from Britain. France also had political figures like Rousseau, but they tend to somewhat more Romanticism and less practicality. Germany's tradition of antisemitism owed most to Martin Luther, who explicitly envisioned a genocide/enslavement of Jews in his "On The Jews and their Lies", a book beloved by Hitler.
foobarbazqux 13y ago
> I think all intelligent people should aggressively campaign the idea of absolutist morality to all ends of the earth. I just noticed this, and it's quite interesting by itself. That we should campaign like this is a moral judgment. Can you explain how absolutist morality arrives at the conclusion that we should campaign for absolutist morality? How is this conclusion informed by science?
- clicks 13y ago
  I base the premise of this action to maximization of humanity's well-being. Would the woman who gets killed by her father in an act of 'honor killing' because she was raped be well-served by their society being educated that it's wrong -- despite what their local morality has to say about it? Of course. It means she might have not been killed if her local community didn't have a corrupt sense of morality.
  - foobarbazqux 13y ago
    Let's assume that you're right and that you can conduct scientific experiments to determine whether a specific moral is good or bad. For example, let's assume that it's possible to set up an experiment to determine whether the moral value that says "we should use honor killing" leads to more harm than good. The question is, how do we know that we should do the experiment? How can science provide us with the moral value that says "we should do science"? How do we know scientifically, absolutely, that more knowledge is good for the well-being of humanity? Where is the falsifiability?
    - clicks 13y ago
      Well, as I said, the goal is maximization of humanity's well-being (the two key ideas in this are: longevity and happiness). In order for the human race to survive in the long term we would have to strive for social sustainability as well as environmental sustainability. As we're talking about social sustainability: to succeed in even small groups we work together as a team... no one man can, for example, make a computer. One man doesn't know how to process the sand, how to make a processor, and on top of all that create high-level programs with good UI. Ligltly implicit within team work is good human relationships... it sort of goes hand-in-hand I think. Killing people, depriving them of freedom, etc. all strain humans' happiness and survivability. If you are interested in exploring this in greater detail, I highly recommend giving Sam Harris' book, _The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values_, a read: http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine-Values/dp/143917122X/wwwsamharri02-20 http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine-Valu...
rayiner 13y ago
> I think all intelligent people should aggressively campaign the idea of absolutist morality to all ends of the earth. "But this time, it's different, because we really are the chosen ones!"

by clicks 13y ago

foobarbazqux 13y ago

Let's see. In my system of morals, different people are allowed to have different morals. In your system of morals they are not. You are not okay with my morals. I am okay with your morals, as long as they don't infringe too badly on my own. I certainly understand that you have them. I suspect that absolute anything is going to be a problem eventually. I know that I'm very unlikely to be able to change your morality, so why pressure you? By the way, I don't think it's moral to call another person's morality horseshit. Your system of morals says this is okay. We have a small conflict there. No amount of science will convince me otherwise. Basically I believe it's legitimate for morals to be defined by individuals on the basis of their experiences in life. Yes, we know most of them intuitively.

clicks 13y ago
I didn't call your morality horseshit, I meant to just come down on the philosophy of relativistic morality itself. I've revised the original comment to make it a little more civil. > I am okay with your morals, as long as they don't infringe too badly on my own. If you continue down this route you're going to have instances in which severely deranged individuals can agree that killing people is good. Or, to give you a less stretched example: just because two newcons can agree that it's the best decision to just cut all Social Security to seniors who're unable to work because of their declining health, it does not make that decision a moral one.
- foobarbazqux 13y ago
  I believe in letting individuals define their own morals, so you were at least calling a significant piece of my morality horseshit. But anyway, civility appreciated, no harm done. You and I probably share similar morals about many things, but I don't believe science has all the answers. The difficult moral questions come down to a choice between a rock and a hard place. How can science possibly tell us whether the death penalty is moral, for example? On the one hand you have the idea of the right to life, on the other hand you have the idea of justice for families of the victims. There is going to be pain either way. Just because I am anti-capital punishment and I come up with some scientific experiment to demonstrate that this is valid does not mean that I cannot understand the positions of the people who are pro-capital punishment. If my family was murdered perhaps I might change my mind. Just because someone murders innocent civilians abroad, does that mean we need to sacrifice the lives of our soldiers to stop them? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Abortion is thornier still. How do you possibly begin to answer these questions with science?
Demiurge 13y ago
"By the way, I don't think it's moral to call another person's morality horseshit. Your system of morals says this is okay. We have a small conflict there. No amount of science will convince me otherwise." Hold your horses! He can perfectly well find it immoral to call your morality horseshit, and be conscientiously acting immorally!
- foobarbazqux 13y ago
  Yeah, okay, and I knew that too. Intellectual dishonesty.

Demiurge 13y ago

" we know these things intuitively, we learned it over thousands of years -- fire bad, skin being cut bad, seeing my brother get killed bad, hugging good, we don't need human customs, politics, or some piece of paper dictate what is moral or not." We don't know ALL these things intuitively. Some we do, but some are purely based on customs, tradition, or arbitrary interpretation of conflicting rules (trolley problem). Which is why FGM is moral in some places, but not all.

clicks 13y ago
I think you're very right here and I certainly agree, I should have instead said that human intuition goes a long way -- but we should capitalize on it with a more scientifically informed view.

coldtea 13y ago

>I mean, surely you don't accept that killing Jews can ever be considered moral, or owning slaves, or cutting genitalia of little girls is moral just because a local majority happens to think that it is moral. What he or I believe don't matter at all. If you were a southern, back in the slavery days, statistical chances are you would find it moral too. >In this day and age, with having gone through the Enlightenment with have such an abundant literature on psychological sciences we can more or less reasonably agree on what is moral and not The Germans that did those things during WWII not only have been through the englightenment but their country was one of the major contributors to it's whole development. So, you'd be surprised. >physical and emotional pain is bad -- we know these things intuitively, we learned it over thousands of years Yes, and then they tell you "oh, but we only did it to save more lives". Or, "yes, it's bad, but we're doing it to the enemy".

jivatmanx 13y ago
Germany's Enlightenment was the most abstract and apolitical, compared to France or Britain, and exemplified by Kant, and tracts like "Critique of Pure Reason". The majority of the figures of "Classical Liberalism" were from Britain. France also had political figures like Rousseau, but they tend to somewhat more Romanticism and less practicality. Germany's tradition of antisemitism owed most to Martin Luther, who explicitly envisioned a genocide/enslavement of Jews in his "On The Jews and their Lies", a book beloved by Hitler.

foobarbazqux 13y ago

> I think all intelligent people should aggressively campaign the idea of absolutist morality to all ends of the earth. I just noticed this, and it's quite interesting by itself. That we should campaign like this is a moral judgment. Can you explain how absolutist morality arrives at the conclusion that we should campaign for absolutist morality? How is this conclusion informed by science?

clicks 13y ago
I base the premise of this action to maximization of humanity's well-being. Would the woman who gets killed by her father in an act of 'honor killing' because she was raped be well-served by their society being educated that it's wrong -- despite what their local morality has to say about it? Of course. It means she might have not been killed if her local community didn't have a corrupt sense of morality.
- foobarbazqux 13y ago
  Let's assume that you're right and that you can conduct scientific experiments to determine whether a specific moral is good or bad. For example, let's assume that it's possible to set up an experiment to determine whether the moral value that says "we should use honor killing" leads to more harm than good. The question is, how do we know that we should do the experiment? How can science provide us with the moral value that says "we should do science"? How do we know scientifically, absolutely, that more knowledge is good for the well-being of humanity? Where is the falsifiability?
  - clicks 13y ago
    Well, as I said, the goal is maximization of humanity's well-being (the two key ideas in this are: longevity and happiness). In order for the human race to survive in the long term we would have to strive for social sustainability as well as environmental sustainability. As we're talking about social sustainability: to succeed in even small groups we work together as a team... no one man can, for example, make a computer. One man doesn't know how to process the sand, how to make a processor, and on top of all that create high-level programs with good UI. Ligltly implicit within team work is good human relationships... it sort of goes hand-in-hand I think. Killing people, depriving them of freedom, etc. all strain humans' happiness and survivability. If you are interested in exploring this in greater detail, I highly recommend giving Sam Harris' book, _The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values_, a read: http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine-Values/dp/143917122X/wwwsamharri02-20 http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine-Valu...

rayiner 13y ago

> I think all intelligent people should aggressively campaign the idea of absolutist morality to all ends of the earth. "But this time, it's different, because we really are the chosen ones!"