Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Pattern-chaser]

Well, I've outlined such a system at some length. Whether a given action or rule advances a given goal is usually an objective matter. But perhaps you disagree that the goal I've given constitutes "morality." If not, then please tell us what you think "morality" is, or what purpose it serves.

Very few agree with you.

Agree with what? With the aim/purpose of I've given for moralities/moral systems? On the contrary, I think most commenting here do agree with that.

I am one who does not agree. My main objection is your unjustifiable claim to "objectivity", but your outpourings contain other deficiencies too.

[mystery]

Well, I've outlined such a system at some length. Whether a given action or rule advances a given goal is usually an objective matter. But perhaps you disagree that the goal I've given constitutes "morality." If not, then please tell us what you think "morality" is, or what purpose it serves.

Very few agree with you. Your attempts at creating an objective moral system have not convinced others due to the inherent biases. A reasonable system for middle-class, right-wing anthropocentric Americans, but not so good for the poor, the charitable, animals and animal lovers or those from different cultures.

Obligation obviously does not precede rights. How could it? Every baby and child would would be euthanased or left to die slowly after failing to contribute to the community.

baby and child shall be cared for by its own parents until it can contribute. if the parents do not wish to do so or can not, they should avoid activity that leads to birth. bringing a child to the world and dumping it on the community to take care of is immoral. bad for the child and bad for the community.

forcing another to give or help a third party is immoral and akin to slavery. what we choose to give and how to help from our own resources is good, just, and moral. when we take on the arrogance to force another to be like us, that is stepping on the rights of that person.

[mystery]

Very few agree with you.

Agree with what?

That there is such a thing as objective morality. That an objective and universal basis for morality can be devised.

Life is inherently not moral. In order to survive, one needs to kill, steal from, exploit or displace others. That's locked in. Thus, someone will be the victim, the one excluded from any moral model. Usually it's the vulnerable - people or other species.

Any attempt to construct an objective basis for morality will necessarily be skewed to some extent, usually in an anthropocentric way, and will therefore not be truly objective.

If lions could develop their own "objective" morality, it would be felicentric. Large groups effectively become self-focused, somewhat separate "worlds" within the wider environment. In philosophy, one will ideally needs to parse the limited reality of an in-group , eg. species, local populations, and the broader reality in which the clique exists.

Sy Borg is right about nature's power struggle, as I call the fact of red in tooth and claw.

An ethic of how power should be distributed, or alternatively not distributed, is what we need to create a rational foundation of ethics. The rational foundation would have to be practicable, so instincts need to be catered for.

In order for instincts to be catered for we need to try to find out what human nature is. Lion nature, and oak tree nature, not to mention the nature of computers, is easy as compared with human nature.

It's not as if human nature were defined by biological evolution like we can define canine or feline nature or the nature of coronavirus. True, humans have some instincts which are like instincts of other mammals and other predators, but human nature is largely shaped by culture not biology. It would help in the search for a rational foundation for ethics if we gave a lot of attention to human instincts which have been neglected more and more especially since men became confined to urban and intellectual environments. Even coal miners , poorly rewarded for their work in dreadful conditions , knew their own bodies as middle class people in offices do not. There are specifiable occupations that help people to learn the nature of their own instincts, e.g. gardening, small farms, medicine, cooking, teaching, psychology, art in the Romantic tradition, the human sciences (perhaps especially social anthropology) .

I am not disparaging the middle class, which is about to disappear in the coming struggle for survival, and which has been the repository of reason since early modern times. However the time has come for human instincts to be honoured by intellectuals ; because no foundational ethics can be applied unless instincts, the remnants of biological inheritance in humans, are included. Only after that can we reasonably create the foundational system.

you are right on target with this accept that biology is more responsible than culture. more of human nature is common across cultures than different with all of the same core drivers.

but how can it be done to add instinct to ethics, that's a very interesting idea ?

[mystery]

But despots decide for themselves what rights and obligations, if any, they have.

Any rights and obligations someone arbitrarily (i.e., not grounded in first possession) claims for himself are fiat rights ("frights"). They have no moral significance.

As I wrote to you earlier, morals are cultural values; ethics are culture free. Homelessness in a wealthy country is unethical. There are those who support laws' moral underpinnings of Judeo -Christian morality and those who defy that Judeo-Christian moral code. There is now deep differences between the haves and the have-nots which signifies the haves can and so they do. Power, Mr Morton, does more than signify an operating moral system; power makes an operating moral system.

There are ethical ways to power, and the Gatling gun nor the lies of Rupert Murdoch are not ethical ways.


There are moral systems which you yourself would deplore and also deem very significant.

Much of the Taliban's moral system is not shared by you and it signifies evil to you.

The large part of the moral system of slave-owning cotton growers in the American South, long ago, were not shared by you and also signify evil to you.

The morals of the fairly despotic Henry VIII of England may not be known to you, but you would find them significantly horrific as a free citizen of a democratic nation.

You don't want morals to include the moral systems that govern unfree peoples such as Afghan people under Taliban rule, but they do so , whether you like it or not. Until the regimes of US and UK give more power of choice to the poor and powerless our respective moral systems are ethically rotten.

as long as we have a free market system we will have rich and poor due to chance, effort, and wisdom that is not granted or not applied in equal measures and never can be.

for now, in those free market states the poor have a great deal of choice and in almost no cases are in slavery. they have the "right" to improve. Slaves do NOT have the right to improve and that being a large part of the fault with slavery. In those counties, no law exists that prevents migration from poor to NOT poor. I know personally that it can be done.

what power of choice is against the law for the poor? not being sarcastic, perhaps we miss something, what is it that those of lower economic standing are restricted from by law ? I used to believe the same thing that the rich have some advantage that is unfair. for example, I did not have the means for a top ten university for education while the rich did. but it was because the father or grandfather of the rich made it so, it is fair. however, I for sure felt like it was not because I desired the same and could not. but in truth it was not the fault of them, it was the fault of my own ancestors that did not do as well. I managed anyway and found a path that resulted in the same and could be paid for by hard work instead of inheritance. the point being, the choice is alive in the poor.

so what power of choice should the poor receive and how will it help and how is it fair?

[Gertie]

Well, I've outlined such a system at some length. Whether a given action or rule advances a given goal is usually an objective matter. But perhaps you disagree that the goal I've given constitutes "morality." If not, then please tell us what you think "morality" is, or what purpose it serves.

Very few agree with you.

Agree with what?

That there is such a thing as objective morality. That an objective and universal basis for morality can be devised.

Life is inherently not moral. In order to survive, one needs to kill, steal from, exploit or displace others. That's locked in. Thus, someone will be the victim, the one excluded from any moral model. Usually it's the vulnerable - people or other species.

Any attempt to construct an objective basis for morality will necessarily be skewed to some extent, usually in an anthropocentric way, and will therefore not be truly objective.

If lions could develop their own "objective" morality, it would be felicentric. Large groups effectively become self-focused, somewhat separate "worlds" within the wider environment. In philosophy, one will ideally needs to parse the limited reality of an in-group , eg. species, local populations, and the broader reality in which the clique exists.

I think we can arrive at a moral foundation which is universal, but doesn't have to be objective. Rather it has to be appropriate, fitting to what morality is about - the notion of Right and Wrong, and the Oughts which follow from assessing an action as right or wrong.

A lion doesn't have the ability to think this through, and you're right a lion morality would be lion pov specific. We also are beginning to understand where our human 'moral instincts' come from, through examing our evolutionary social neurobiology.

But we can still think about what Right and Wrong means, and if morality still has some meaningful role to play. What morality is for.

Morality is not for the objectively measurable world of rocks and particles interacting as a result of physical forces. If that's all that existed, morality, right and wrong, would be meaningless. If a rock collides with another rock and smashes it, there's no right or wrong involved. If a person smashes a rock on another living sentient creature's head, that matters. Because sentient living creatures have a state of wellbeing, a quality of life, which can be harmed or helped, wither or flourish. That's why both humans and lions have interests in the state of affairs, what happens to them, why it's generally wrong to smash a rock on a sentient creature's head.

So morality is about the world of experiencing subjects, who have interests in the state of affairs. I think you and I agree on this, most people do.


That having of a quality of life is an objective fact. The rights and wrongs and oughts which derive from it are rooted in our subjective, qualiative experience. Our subjective experience can't be objectively observed and measured like rocks. But it's what makes how we treat each other matter, and that's what morality is about. For humans, lions and all experiencing creatures. So it is universal as far as all sentient creatures (subjects) go, but not non-experiencing objects like rocks, or as far as we can tell living things like plants or bacteria.

Sentience, subjective experience, is the universal qualifying condition for moral consideration.

So morality is simply not a good fit with how we describe objective stuff, the ''Is'' of the world. But that doesn't mean it doesn't matter, or is wholly down to opinion. It does matter, and the reason is the qualiative, experiential nature of consciousness. That's what makes sentience the appropriate foundation for morality.

[Ecurb]

If property rights exist only by rule of law then your "principle of justice which overrides the will of the majority or the king" is not applicable to property rights. It means that whatever the legislator decides is right is right. In that case a law that says the rich must give money to the poor is no more just or unjust than a law that says the poor must give money to the rich. When it comes down to it, I doubt you would want to go the route of legal positivism with respect to property rights.

This simply doesn't follow from my suggestion that property rights exist by rule of law. Why can't some laws be just, fair, and conforming to some moral principle ("greatest good for the greatest number" or something else), and others be unjust and cruel? This is certainly the case with property law. For example, if Robinson Crusoe claims that by some rule he "owns" the only food source (an orchard) on the island, and denies Friday food, so Friday starves, I would suggest that Crusoe's "property law" is cruel and unjust. Even if there were two Crusoes (so the majority could rule), I would say the same.

I also suggest that "from each according to his ability; to each according to his need" is reasonable from the point of view of justice, charity and kindness. If it is impractical, or inefficient, and fails to conduce human well being as a result, then (as a practical matter) we should abandon it. But there's no intinsic (i.e. intrinsic to some natural nature of property) reason to think it immoral. I'd suggest that billionaires can (and should) give half of their money for the public good, at which point they will be (for all practical purposes) equally "well-off" as they are now. If the public good is enhanced, human well-being will be conduced by such an arrangement (some people will be substantially helped, and nobody will be substantially harmed).

G.E. Morton says:

as philosophers it is our job to devise a morality that has an objective, rationally defensible basis.

I agree. However, devising a logical system is inevitably circular (that's the nature of logic). Nor is deriving morality from a "basis" of principles the only way to derive morality. We can derive morality analogically as well as logically. This is obvious to us Westerners, since Christians are called on to "emulate Christ". Are they supposed to derive principles from Jesus' life and teachings, and then use that to build a moral superstructure? I don't think so. Instead, they are asked to "become" (with God's help) Christs themselves, by channeling and intuiting "what Jesus would do". We need not be Christians to find this a reasonable (rationally defensible?) system. Perhaps we would admire different role models from history, myth or fiction and emulate them. Although (I suggest) such an ethos is "rationally defensible", it is (perhaps) not "objective". Nor is any other moral system, since they must all start somewhere. The objectivity begins only after the postulates are accepted.

[chewybrian]

First, I consider "morals" and "ethics" to be synonymous terms, in the context of moral philosophy.

This explains a lot.

I believe that ethics are situational and apply to everyone who holds a certain title or is in a given situation of trust. Shoot, even lawyers have ethics! Ethics say that a doctor has a duty to help someone in medical distress when he is able, and also that he is not allowed to help a terminal patient in pain to end their life (in most places). I would not be required to help the person in distress, and would likely be held to a much different standard if I gave the dying person a bottle of sleeping pills to take.

Morality involves general ideas of right and wrong that largely apply to everyone all the time. But, morality is also a personal judgement. It is an attempt to be a good person, or perhaps to judge whether or not someone else is a good person. But, there are not hard and fast rules. These principles will vary from person to person within a given culture.

So, you might say it is ethical to pay your taxes and morally right to treat others with respect at all times. The ethics of taxation have nothing to say about whether I should hold the door open for a lady with a big bag of groceries in her hand, and I won't get a ticket or go to jail if I don't hold the door open. You seem to be confusing playing by the rules with being a good person, even if the rules are inherently unfair. So, the policemen who arrested Rosa Parks might have been "morally correct" in your unusual definition, and you might even say that she was behaving immorally, given the laws in place at the time.

There is no objective basis for morality.

Well, I've outlined such a system at some length. Whether a given action or rule advances a given goal is usually an objective matter.

Your system presupposes that you have chosen the most fair possible way to distribute wealth, and that wealth or property are the true goals of life. I submit that happiness is the real goal. Property or wealth can sometimes assist in reaching for happiness, by allowing us to get the things we want. But, underlying the wealth and the things we buy is the real desire to be happy. We substitute money for happiness because it allows us to 'calculate' our happiness more easily. But, some of us forget that we have made the substitution and conflate money and happiness, and spin our wheels trying to get more money because we are not happy. But, we might try so hard to get the money that we grind others to dust in the process, and leave a (literally) scorched earth in our wake.

But perhaps you disagree that the goal I've given constitutes "morality." If not, then please tell us what you think "morality" is, or what purpose it serves.

Certainly I disagree that unchecked capitalism is a basis for morality. It's useful and necessary at least for now (by which I don't mean to say it needs to be unchecked!), but morality is pretty much everything that checks it. Morality is getting companies to pay their share of taxes, to stop hiding their profits and polluting and exploiting labor overseas. It is housing the poor and granting the right to basic health care to all (medicare for all, for example). It is granting everyone a living wage that is enough to pay for the basics if they are willing and able to work. While there is nothing wrong with people earning and retaining wealth, when it exceeds certain limits it does become immoral. It is wrong for someone to have hundreds of billions of dollars while others work for $7 an hour and can't afford housing.

What is the purpose of this morality? It is to create a world in which the most people possible can be as happy as they can be without excessively stepping on others or leaving problems for future generations. The goal is to create the optimum balance of freedom and security, growth and protection of our resources and the planet. We need to do the best we can for ourselves, for others, and for the people who come after us. To approach this goal necessarily involves using judgement, not unwavering rules (especially those contrived to protect the wealthy at the expense of the underprivileged).

[Pattern-chaser]

as long as we have a free market system we will have rich and poor due to chance, effort, and wisdom that is not granted or not applied in equal measures and never can be.

...

so what power of choice should the poor receive and how will it help and how is it fair?

It's interesting that you focus on fairness. This is an issue that cannot be fair to all at the same time, I think. If we fail to interfere, the greedy rich will use 'trickle-up', and other nefarious tricks, to capture all the money. It isn't fair that the rich get all of the money; not fair to the non-rich, I mean. And if we do interfere, the rich will be reduced to only one ocean-going yacht each, and they (if no-one else) will consider this unfair.

Whatever moral/political system is in place, there will be some who feel they have been treated unfairly. I think the best we can do is to attempt to be as fair as possible to as many of the community as possible, rich and poor, male and female, young and old, and so on ad infinitum. It's a practical compromise that is required, I think.

[GE Morton]

Well, I've outlined such a system at some length. Whether a given action or rule advances a given goal is usually an objective matter. But perhaps you disagree that the goal I've given constitutes "morality." If not, then please tell us what you think "morality" is, or what purpose it serves.

Very few agree with you.

Agree with what?

That there is such a thing as objective morality. That an objective and universal basis for morality can be devised.

Life is inherently not moral.

Apparently I need to re-state (for the nth time) what a "morality" is, and what "objective" means, as I've been using those terms. A morality is a set of principles and rules governing interactions between moral agents in a social setting. It doesn't apply to "life" in general.

"Objective" (and "subjective") are adjectives applicable to propositions, like "true," and "false." A proposition is objective if its truth conditions are public, i.e., if any suitable situated observer can determine by observation whether the proposition is true or false. "Objective" doesn't mean "God-given," "Natural law," or any such thing. A moral principle or rule is objective if whether it does or does not further the goal of that system of principles and rules is publicly determinable, by observation.

Before you can declare that there is no "such thing as objective morality" you have to understand what both of those terms mean.

In order to survive, one needs to kill, steal from, exploit or displace others.

If you're speaking of humans in a social setting, that claim is ridiculous.

[Pattern-chaser]

"Objective" (and "subjective") are adjectives applicable to propositions, like "true," and "false." A proposition is objective if its truth conditions are public, i.e., if any suitable situated observer can determine by observation whether the proposition is true or false.

So "objective" simply refers to a proposition that is testable, in the sense that a scientist, using the 'scientific method', would use the term? Why not just say "testable" instead, for the sake of clarity, if nothing else? For, as we all know, the term "objective" can carry many meanings, and thereby cause many misunderstandings.

[Pattern-chaser]

In order to survive, one needs to kill, steal from, exploit or displace others.

If you're speaking of humans in a social setting, that claim is ridiculous.

If we're speaking of humans, this claim looks like an empirical observation to me. A verifiable observation. Slightly exaggerated, but true nonetheless.

[GE Morton]

I will end up arguing for the idea that obligations are necessary conditions of rights.

Consider Crusoe alone on his island. He finds a coconut. Does he have a right to it?

Per my definition of the term, he does. But obviously no one has any obligations related to it, since there is no one else to have them (and rights impose no obligations their holders). Does that mean he does not have a right to the coconut, on your analysis?

Obligations, like all other moral concepts, arise only in social settings, via some moral theory or code devised to govern interactions between members of that social group. They may involve external objects or other non-moral states of affairs, but they aren't properties of those objects or states of affairs, or derive from any property of them. Obligations are not necessary or sufficient conditions for the existence of a right, but rights may invoke such obligations given some moral theory.

Yes, Crusoe has a right to the coconut, for he has "the power to invoke existing obligations to which one is justly entitled," and this power is at the very least a necessary condition of a right.

I take it that you're agreeing that Crusoe has a right to the coconut, based solely on the fact that was the first possessor of it. Correct?

(BTW, P's first possession of x is a sufficient, though not strictly necessary, for his having a right to x, as there is an alternate means of gaining that right --- acquiring it via a "chain of consent" from the first possessor. A complete statement of the necessary and sufficient conditions for establishing a right would include that alternative).

If so, then any obligations that may be thought to follow from it, or that it may connote, are not necesssary for its existence. Correct? (I think you've already agreed with that).

I don't think it matters that he is alone on the island. Those who are obligated to recognize my property rights need not be notified that I have acquired a piece of property. When I buy a car all humans immediately have an obligation to not steal what is rightfully mine. It doesn't matter how isolated I am.

You're right on that point, of course. My example would only work if Crusoe were the only moral agent in the universe.

Even if Crusoe is the only person in existence, any right he is thought to have would be contingent on potential or counterfactual obligations (e.g. "If or when there is another rational agent out there, then they are obligated in such-and-such a way"). Granted, if he is the only existing rational being then my definition would need to be tweaked, but the general point is that rights still presuppose obligations.

Well, now you're being inconsistent. His right is contingent upon there being obligations? Didn't we agree that first posession is a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a right?

I grant that there is an interesting sense of right as entitlement as seen in the case of Crusoe. When Crusoe discovers the coconut we might colloquially be apt to say that he has a right to it regardless of his social isolation, in the sense that he is entitled to the coconut. But I don't think entitlement makes any sense apart from a social context, for to say that one is entitled to some thing is at the same thing to say that others are not, or are less entitled to it (i.e. subtle obligations again arise). So if we really want to conceive of the situation as non-social, then there are no obligations, rights, or entitlements. Then there is just a guy harvesting a coconut in much the same way that a wild animal would harvest a coconut.

It would seem that your understanding requires a similar sort of social context, for without a social context acquisition could never be righteous or unrighteous.

That does indeed get us a bit closer to the issue here. Yes, rights imply entitlements, just as they imply obligations. And both of those terms presuppose a social context (as do all moral terms). My claim is that those implications, however, do not derive from the definitive properties of rights, i.e., the necessary and sufficient conditions for their existence. They derive, instead, from a moral premise assumed by the rights claimant, which he also assumes is held by those to whom he directs the claim.

This disagreement arise from the fact that we use a morally-laden term, "rights," to denote a non-moral, empirical fact. By using that term we automatically invoke moral assumptions. So a factual claim and a moral one are asserted simultaneously when we claim a right, or impute one to someone else. But I think it prudent, for logical reasons, to keep in mind that those claims are distinct, and that only the factual claim, if confirmed, establishes the truth of "P has a right to x."

Agree?

Since they denote the historical event that warrants assigning them they are not meaningless. But they would be functionally vacuous. Similarly, assigning the pseudo-property "doctor" denotes that the person graduated from medical school. But if he never actually practices medicine the label would be functionally vacuous.

But my definition of rights focuses on a power, not function. It is a power to carry out a function, true, but it is still not identical with the function. A doctor is someone who has the capacity to practice medicine, whether or not he does.

We have no way of knowing that someone has the power to do something other than by observing him doing it.

Further, I haven't yet raised the question of whether righteousness is a moral notion, but I tend to think it is.

Indeed it is; it means (as I understand it) "morally acceptable."

This is exactly what I have been emphasizing: understanding the conditions for the existence of some thing does not necessarily give one an understanding of that thing (particularly at the beginning of this post). First possession gives the factual conditions needed for the existence of a right, but it does not provide us with an understanding of rights. I take it that your last sentence proves my point. If one can know the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of rights and yet not understand what rights are, then there must be something about the concept that is not provided by the existential conditions. I would suggest that the missing thing is obligation.

I agree. Do the comments above cover that?

I suppose my question for you is fairly simple: Why isn't the goal itself considered moral? Usually we would consider the goals of one's moral actions to be moral. Concrete acts which attempt to maximize welfare are moral, but so is the goal itself (i.e. maximizing welfare). The means participates in the quality of the end. For example, the nature of traffic laws will be determined by the goal you outline. I find it odd to call the means moral and the end non-moral.

The goal itself is based on the observation that all sentient creatures strive to preserve and improve their own welfare (which often includes the welfare of others), and that for most traditional moral systems and codes that is the central aim ("Thou shalt not murder," "Thous shalt not steal," etc.). Those are matters of fact.

But adopting that as a goal, as the aim of a moral theory, is certainly a value decision, and thus subjective (as are all goals). It then provides the normative premise from which all subsequent "oughts" can be derived --- and we need one of those to bridge the "is-ought" gap. No one is logically bound to adopt that goal, of course, but someone who does not will be using the term "morality" somewhat unconventionally.

[GE Morton]

In order to survive, one needs to kill, steal from, exploit or displace others.

If you're speaking of humans in a social setting, that claim is ridiculous.

If we're speaking of humans, this claim looks like an empirical observation to me. A verifiable observation. Slightly exaggerated, but true nonetheless.

Far from being true, your claim above, if intended as a universal, leads to a reductio ad absurdum. If it were necessary to kill (other humans) in order to survive, the Earth's population would be shrinking, not growing. And, of course, in the UK only about 1 person in 100,000 is murdered.

As for stealing, before something can be stolen, it must be produced. Those who can produce have no need to steal.

[GE Morton]

It's interesting that you focus on fairness. This is an issue that cannot be fair to all at the same time, I think. If we fail to interfere, the greedy rich will use 'trickle-up', and other nefarious tricks, to capture all the money.

Oh, my. The "manna from heaven" theory again.

There is no wealth to "capture." Whatever wealth exists has been produced by someone; it is not a God-given gift in limited supply, and there is no issue about how it should be "fairly" distributed. It is distributed automatically as it is produced --- each person's "fair share" being the share he has produced.

[Pattern-chaser]

In order to survive, one needs to kill, steal from, exploit or displace others.

If you're speaking of humans in a social setting, that claim is ridiculous.

If we're speaking of humans, this claim looks like an empirical observation to me. A verifiable observation. Slightly exaggerated, but true nonetheless.

Far from being true, your claim above, if intended as a universal, leads to a reductio ad absurdum. If it were necessary to kill (other humans) in order to survive, the Earth's population would be shrinking, not growing. And, of course, in the UK only about 1 person in 100,000 is murdered.

You're quibbling. Sy Borg's words, and the commas carefully used, clearly state "...kill OR steal OR exploit OR displace", and I'm sure you understand this. Killing is hardly ever necessary to survive, but it happens. Mostly, surviving has to do with the pie being smaller than the sum total of what we all want, so if you are to be richer, someone must end up poorer.