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[Belindi]

What's wrong with morality being subjective? It works. Our subjective sense of right and wrong is enough. We “intuit” right from wrong based on our evolved core human morality. Things only matter because they matter to us based on our subjective moral sentiments, which is tautologous. It doesn't not make morality objective but our morality doesn’t need to be objective.

Gertie mentioned Sam Harris and his notion of the wellbeing of conscious creatures. But of course we value well being! Evolution made sure we did. Those sentiments are always already there as Heidegger might say. The values of moral right or wrong that we attach to actions are entirely human. But they are all we need. We don’t need them to be objectively true.

Morality works; relative to ethics that are currently valued.
If there is a determined pattern that the whole world and universe is taking then morality must be objective. If there is no determined course the universe and everything is taking then morality can't be objective.

Science indicates there is an inevitable pattern as science is cumulative. However an inevitable pattern does not imply that we can know the future.
Needs are relative to wants so needs are subjective.People such as Jesus and Socrates taught that we need and should hold to truth, reason, beauty, and kindness.These are all of ethics we need to know objectively.

[Lagayascienza]

If there is a determined pattern that the whole world and universe is taking then morality must be objective. If there is no determined course the universe and everything is taking then morality can't be objective.

Yes, Gertie, I can see that morality could be thought of as objective if there were something like a god to lay down objective laws or some objective universal "ground of being" to which we must or ought conform. But it is not clear (to me, at least) that this is the case, given what we know about the universe and how it works. The universe is amoral. It doesn't, can't, care. Caring, mattering, only seems to happen in brains which are a result of the mindless, amoral, process of evolution by natural selection.

Jesus and Socrates taught that we need and should hold to truth, reason, beauty, and kindness. These are all of ethics we need to know objectively.

Here should means ought. But then one can ask, why ought we? That would depend on the need part, but then the ought becomes an instrumental ought and not a moral ought. But either way, how can I prove objectively that we ought to do what we ought to do? If I tell a highly successful professional thief that his chosen profession is morally wrong, can he not just turn around and say, "What is that to me?" If so, then whence the normativity? Fortunately, most of us have an intuitive sense that stealing is wrong. And that is where the normativity comes from. But evolution is messy and there are going to be a few "edge' cases in which, for whatever reason, the normal moral intuition doesn't kick in. For the rest of us, subjective morality does the job. For the few in whom it doesn't work we have prisons.

[Lagayascienza]

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Of late, I've been trying to expand my mind in respect of ethics/morality - to look beyond what I'm able to see from my rigid, fortified, materialist holdout and try to see things from a different POV. It has not been easy. I have long practiced a form of meditation without knowing much about eastern philosophy/mysticism. And I have always dismissed Idealism out of hand as just some silly Continental nonsense. But, materialism has become increasingly unsatisfying and I've come to realise that I need to understand idealism in order to progress. Therefore, I've needed to leave the Anglo-American Analytic philosophers alone for a while. So, I've been reading Descartes, Kant and Husserl. (Thanks to Hereandnow) I'm not sure that I'll be convinced that morality can be objective, but who knows? In any case, a different perspective on it can't hurt.

Most recently, I've been doing an online course looking into what is called "Analytic Idealism" . The first hour was about the inability (perhaps the impossibility) of our seeing the universe as it is in itself. I think I understand that idea now. We are fooled into thinking that what our brains present to us is reality when, in fact, it is not reality at all but merely a serviceable representation of it - good enough to enable us to survive in the wild, but not the real thing.

I've only done the first hour of the seven hour course. I'm really looking forward to the next six hours. Maybe I'll go from being a hard nosed materialist and end up as some sort of ghostly, nondual mystic, lol. The course is available online for free at essentia foundation dot org. (I can't post the full URL, but it's easy to find) I'd be very interested to read what others think of it.

[Pattern-chaser]

The only way objective morality can work imo is by positing a god as the ultimate source and arbiter of what is right and wrong. That would give us something to point to and see the truth of - if god was point-to-able!

The ''everything is permissible'' fear is a factor in driving such a search...

I have always viewed the "everything is permissible" thing as a scare-story, put about by those who disapprove of the basic idea, but (for some strange reason) don't seem able to just say so.

Just because abortion is available doesn't make it compulsory, for example. The scare-story version is "They're trying to make abortion *COMPULSORY*!", which, of course, no-one is, but the opponents of abortion will say so anyway. Anything to panic you/us into doing what *they* think we should.

Because one thing is allowed doesn't mean that everything is. There are few things that annoy me as much as intentional misdirection.

Rant over.

[Belindi]

If there is a determined pattern that the whole world and universe is taking then morality must be objective. If there is no determined course the universe and everything is taking then morality can't be objective.

Yes, Gertie, I can see that morality could be thought of as objective if there were something like a god to lay down objective laws or some objective universal "ground of being" to which we must or ought conform. But it is not clear (to me, at least) that this is the case, given what we know about the universe and how it works. The universe is amoral. It doesn't, can't, care. Caring, mattering, only seems to happen in brains which are a result of the mindless, amoral, process of evolution by natural selection.

Jesus and Socrates taught that we need and should hold to truth, reason, beauty, and kindness. These are all of ethics we need to know objectively.

Here should means ought. But then one can ask, why ought we? That would depend on the need part, but then the ought becomes an instrumental ought and not a moral ought. But either way, how can I prove objectively that we ought to do what we ought to do? If I tell a highly successful professional thief that his chosen profession is morally wrong, can he not just turn around and say, "What is that to me?" If so, then whence the normativity? Fortunately, most of us have an intuitive sense that stealing is wrong. And that is where the normativity comes from. But evolution is messy and there are going to be a few "edge' cases in which, for whatever reason, the normal moral intuition doesn't kick in. For the rest of us, subjective morality does the job. For the few in whom it doesn't work we have prisons.

It's me, not Gertie.
God is not a being like other beings or other ideas, God is existence itself. God is the system of systems that relates each event to each other event.
We ought to get on with other people and the natural environment for to do so is for preserving life on Earth.If we don't ,we will all die sooner than we have to. By working together we can have a better chance of surviving a few years longer and in relative happiness on this beautiful Earth. The tools for working together are ordinary human sympathy, beauty, truth or reason.

As for the highly successful thief you mention, criminals are often lost in unreason, and one who uses all her energies for stealing would be pretty bored or else desperate. This implies that criminal justice systems should be liberal and educational but not punitive.

[Belindi]

If there is a determined pattern that the whole world and universe is taking then morality must be objective. If there is no determined course the universe and everything is taking then morality can't be objective.

Yes, Gertie, I can see that morality could be thought of as objective if there were something like a god to lay down objective laws or some objective universal "ground of being" to which we must or ought conform. But it is not clear (to me, at least) that this is the case, given what we know about the universe and how it works. The universe is amoral. It doesn't, can't, care. Caring, mattering, only seems to happen in brains which are a result of the mindless, amoral, process of evolution by natural selection.

Jesus and Socrates taught that we need and should hold to truth, reason, beauty, and kindness. These are all of ethics we need to know objectively.

Here should means ought. But then one can ask, why ought we? That would depend on the need part, but then the ought becomes an instrumental ought and not a moral ought. But either way, how can I prove objectively that we ought to do what we ought to do? If I tell a highly successful professional thief that his chosen profession is morally wrong, can he not just turn around and say, "What is that to me?" If so, then whence the normativity? Fortunately, most of us have an intuitive sense that stealing is wrong. And that is where the normativity comes from. But evolution is messy and there are going to be a few "edge' cases in which, for whatever reason, the normal moral intuition doesn't kick in. For the rest of us, subjective morality does the job. For the few in whom it doesn't work we have prisons.

It's me, not Gertie.
God is not a being like other beings or other ideas, God is existence itself. God is the system of systems that relates each event to each other event.
We ought to get on with other people and the natural environment for to do so is for preserving life on Earth.If we don't ,we will all die sooner than we have to. By working together we can have a better chance of surviving a few years longer and in relative happiness on this beautiful Earth. The tools for working together are ordinary human sympathy, beauty, truth or reason.

As for the highly successful thief you mention, criminals are often lost in unreason, and one who uses all her energies for stealing would be pretty bored or else desperate. This implies that criminal justice systems should be liberal and educational but not punitive.

Edited.

The universe does and cannot care because the universe is an objective idea that owns no subjectivity. If there be God then we sapiens invented him as the leading character in an allegy, and sapiens is what makes God better and better or worse and worse. It's our job, Gay Scienza,to decide what is better or worse, and get out and vote.

[Lagayascienza]

Sorry, Belindi. I had just been replying to Gertie so her name was still in my mind.
I agree with you that it is up to us. We bear the responsibility to make things better.

[Gertie]

What's wrong with morality being subjective? It works. Our subjective sense of right and wrong is enough. We “intuit” right from wrong based on our evolved core human morality. Things only matter because they matter to us based on our subjective moral sentiments, which is tautologous. It doesn't not make morality objective but our morality doesn’t need to be objective.

Gertie mentioned Sam Harris and his notion of the wellbeing of conscious creatures. But of course we value well being! Evolution made sure we did. Those sentiments are always already there as Heidegger might say. The values of moral right or wrong that we attach to actions are entirely human. But they are all we need. We don’t need them to be objectively true.

Sorry for the delay.

You seem to be making two related points, the tautology of ''mattering'', and that evolution has already equipped us well enough to value wellbeing, so our evolved social predispositions are a good enough basis for morality - yes?

Mattering -

I perhaps wasn't clear about how I'm using this as part of an argument, which neither relies on morality being 'objective', nor on the 'Is' of the happenstance of our particular species' evolved 'yuck/yum' intuitions. How might we otherwise ground the concept of morality - of right and wrong, and oughts. My argument basically goes that Mattering, as a (qualiative what it is like) aspect of conscious experience, is the source of Interests. And then I say Interests are the appropriate basis for distinguishing between the Is state of affairs, and what the state of affairs Ought to be when we take into account Interests. (This prominence of Mattering is adapted from Goldstein, and it's something so obvious we hardly think about it, but it's not tautological as a grounding).

And imo it's a way of finding an appropriate grounding for Morality, without being scuppered by either Emotivism (yuck/yum) or Moral Realism (objective or God). The elusive holy grail of moral philosophy is right under our noses, if we just recognise it.



Emotivism -

Your other point is that we don't need such a grounding, because Emotivism works fine. That evolution has already equipped us to value our own wellbeing, and as a social species to value that of others. We don't need the concept of morality or oughts, just call our evolved social intuitions ''Morality'' and job done. (Note the implicit acknowledgement that morality is a right fit with our social nature).

I agree to an extent, but not entirely. We don't necessarily need a concept of morality to generally act with consideration of others, but we are also evolved to value self-care, to be selfish. There will inevitably be conflicts there. And our natural circle of care tends to correlate with genetic closeness and those we actively form bonds with. This is tied to the up close and personal nature of much of our evolved social neurobiological mechanisms. Which were fine for when we lived in tribes, but not for our globalised world of inter-dependence on strangers.

In tribal times our bonding could be reinforced by mirror neurons underlying empathy, by acts of reciprocal altruism, showing affection and grooming, sharing tasks and resources, sharing tribal narratives and archetypes, and so on. Knowing who can be trusted, and who can't. But strangers don't have those ingroup bonding attachments and were potential competitors for local resources, and potential threats. They were the outgroup, The Other.

Today, in our vastly larger and more sophisticated world, we need replacements for reliance our neurologically based predispositions - like reason, institutions, laws, government, education, trade, treaties and so on to try to mitigate the effects of in-group/out-group tribalism. And these need an under-girding of a concept of morality.

Still, tribalism is such a strong instinct, we'll form tribal potentially violent allegiances over almost anything - from nationalism, identity politics, class, ideology, religion, to football teams. When I look around the world I see culture clashes, religious strife, territorial conflicts, capitalist exploitation, animal commodification - it's not exactly the best of all possible worlds. Our natural predispositions weren't designed for our modern world, and don't allow for moral progress. A unifying concept of morality such as Harris's Wellbeing of conscious creatures is still needed. Concepts like the social contract, democracy and rights which flow from such a moral foundation are still needed. And philosophy can contribute there, without having to argue from some Objective justification.

[Gertie]

The only way objective morality can work imo is by positing a god as the ultimate source and arbiter of what is right and wrong. That would give us something to point to and see the truth of - if god was point-to-able!

The ''everything is permissible'' fear is a factor in driving such a search...

I have always viewed the "everything is permissible" thing as a scare-story, put about by those who disapprove of the basic idea, but (for some strange reason) don't seem able to just say so.

Just because abortion is available doesn't make it compulsory, for example. The scare-story version is "They're trying to make abortion *COMPULSORY*!", which, of course, no-one is, but the opponents of abortion will say so anyway. Anything to panic you/us into doing what *they* think we should.

Because one thing is allowed doesn't mean that everything is. There are few things that annoy me as much as intentional misdirection.

Rant over.

I think it's a legit pov. Or rather it points to the need for some moral foundation.

Otherwise how do you combat such issues, even murder, being down to the happenstance of your or my opinions/intuitions?

[Pattern-chaser]

Otherwise how do you combat such issues, even murder, being down to the happenstance of your or my opinions/intuitions?

I'm not sure. For a start, is it morally correct to seek to "combat such issues"? And if it is, as many of us believe, then is it really only a matter of opinion? I think yes and no. Individually-held opinions are sometimes shared, sometimes not. The group consensus is as important here as any individual opinion, I think. For we create and implement morality as groups, in the main. Of course individuals have their own moral code, but the most noticeable effect is that of the group's averaged-out POV.

Given that there are no 'objective' justifications for any practical morality, group consensus seems to be the dominant factor. And as I think about that, I wonder if that could be otherwise, never mind whether it *should*?

[Good_Egg]

If consent justifies all (taking someone's stuff, ending their life, deceiving them, etc) then the thing that all wrongs have in common is that they amount to treating an involved person as non-involved or a non-person.

If it is objectively true that some being is or is not a person, and is or is not involved, then that's an objective basis for at least part of morality.

What might be the underlying concept of morality which would justify consent as foundational?

I don't understand what you're asking.

Western culture has been heavily influenced by Christianity, which inherited from Judaism the idea of 10 Commandments. And thus we have the notion of morality as a finite set of rules.

1) if you believe in an active moral authority - whether a Theist God, or some notion of society having moral authority under certain conditions - then there is no complete set of rules. Because Authority could add another one at any time. Or announce exceptions.

2a) If you believe in a Deist God - a God who created the universe and then stepped away - then there can be a set of moral rules baked into the structure of the universe, that are discoverable by perception and reason. Rules that are permanent and absolute.

2b) or if you think that the universe created itself, then it can still have such rules. Subtracting such a God doesn't change much.

2c) or you might think that such rules (against murder, against deceit, etc) are"rules of thumb" and that there is some single explanatory meta-rule (such as "minimise harm") underlying all such commandments.

3) or you can take the nihilist position that "ought" is meaningless - that such rules have no basis in anything that exists outside of a mind, and are no more than an attempt by one mind to impose its arbitrary taste-preferences on other minds.

Consent being foundational is a view of type 2c. And the argument for it is the one that I sketched above. If you believe that consent justifies all then lack of consent is a common factor in all moral wrongs.

And if you don't believe that consent justifies all, then it seems like you're asserting that there is some act that is wrong even if every mind consents.

Or of course you can take the type 3 view that "justifies" is meaningless. But I've yet to meet anyone who actually lives their life that way.

[Gertie]

Otherwise how do you combat such issues, even murder, being down to the happenstance of your or my opinions/intuitions?

I'm not sure. For a start, is it morally correct to seek to "combat such issues"? And if it is, as many of us believe, then is it really only a matter of opinion? I think yes and no. Individually-held opinions are sometimes shared, sometimes not. The group consensus is as important here as any individual opinion, I think. For we create and implement morality as groups, in the main. Of course individuals have their own moral code, but the most noticeable effect is that of the group's averaged-out POV.

Given that there are no 'objective' justifications for any practical morality, group consensus seems to be the dominant factor. And as I think about that, I wonder if that could be otherwise, never mind whether it *should*?

I think it can and should be.

Otherwise we have the tyranny of the majority for whom (collectively) anything is permissable. And there's no justification for Rights to protect minorities - Might is Right.

You're right tho that without some morality we can justify as 'objective', it's a challenge to our usual ways of achieving moral consensus which is more than majority opinion, it requires a different approach to what morality is, and what it's for.

If we think about how Hume starkly challenges us- how do you get an Ought from an Is (how do you justify a moral duty from the objective state of affairs/how things just are), then the way that makes sense to me is to acknowledge that conscious beings have a stake in how things are. It matters to us. Because we're experiencing subjects with a quality of life we value. (Unlike a rock or a tree or a toaster).

It's the 'mattering to us' which brings meaning and value into the equation when we're judging whether an action is good or bad. It's not 'objective', because it's all about what matters to conscious subjects, our wellbeing - but that doesn't mean it's not the reason why we Ought to treat each other with consideration. Including minorities, even other species. It's the obvious reason to. Imo

[Gertie]

If consent justifies all (taking someone's stuff, ending their life, deceiving them, etc) then the thing that all wrongs have in common is that they amount to treating an involved person as non-involved or a non-person.

If it is objectively true that some being is or is not a person, and is or is not involved, then that's an objective basis for at least part of morality.

What might be the underlying concept of morality which would justify consent as foundational?

I don't understand what you're asking.



2c) or you might think that such rules (against murder, against deceit, etc) are"rules of thumb" and that there is some single explanatory meta-rule (such as "minimise harm") underlying all such commandments.

Consent being foundational is a view of type 2c. And the argument for it is the one that I sketched above. If you believe that consent justifies all then lack of consent is a common factor in all moral wrongs.

And if you don't believe that consent justifies all, then it seems like you're asserting that there is some act that is wrong even if every mind consents.

OK, so consent would be justified by a 'minimise harm' meta rule.

Then I'm asking what justifies that meta rule? Why not choose a moral meta rule to 'maximise harm' instead? And one of the rules of thumb might be to ignore consent. What justifies 'minimise harm' as moral, but 'maximise harm' not?

[Lagayascienza]

OK, so consent would be justified by a 'minimise harm' meta rule.

Then I'm asking what justifies that meta rule? Why not choose a moral meta rule to 'maximise harm' instead? And one of the rules of thumb might be to ignore consent. What justifies 'minimise harm' as moral, but 'maximise harm' not?

Yes, that is the question.

Isn't it moral oughts all the way down? And aren't these always based in our subjective moral sentiments? How can they be objectified?

[Good_Egg]

Then I'm asking what justifies that meta rule? Why not choose a moral meta rule to 'maximise harm' instead? And one of the rules of thumb might be to ignore consent. What justifies 'minimise harm' as moral, but 'maximise harm' not?

What makes a meta-rule a meta-rule (rather than a rule) is that it attempts to distill or extract an essence from a load of existing rules.

It's not an answer to the hard question "why be moral?". It's not a refutation of nihilism (type 3) or revelation (type 1). It's not a rule of thumb as to how to minimise harm or maximize wellbeing. Both of those are, it seems to me, alternative meta-rules.

Arguably the human brain does not operate by logic, but by pattern-recognition. It's like one of those puzzles where you have a list of things in set A and a list of things in set not-A and have to induce a rule by which to classify other things as being members or non-members of set A. Applied to the set of morally wrong actions.

A good meta-rule is one that explains all or nearly all of your perceptions as to which acts are wrong or not-wrong. And guides you about all those where your perception leaves you unsure.