Is morality just a subset of reason?

[Hobbes' Choice]

But now I will reply in kind:

Premise 1: The Supreme Being made all men accountable to Him for their actions.
Premise 2: One cannot be held accountable without the ability to perform free actions.
Premise 3: The ability to perform such free actions is incompatible with slavery.
Conclusion: Therefore, slavery is against the intentions of the Supreme Being.
.

Not even all Christians believe this nonsense.

All you have is 3 unfounded assertions.

[mysterio448]

What I understand the term "objective morality" to mean is that certain actions are right or are wrong in themselves, regardless of the circumstances. You will have to explain to me plainly and clearly what you understand the term to mean so that we are on the same page.

Oh, I see...yes, you're troubled by the "in themselves" bit. Yes, if that's what I were saying I'd agree with you. But it's not my position. There is no such thing as moral "in itself": that would be "intrinsic" morality, and it would be just as unprovable as relativistic morality.

For a Christian, morality is grounded in God. That which is according to His character is good; that which is a corruption or denial of that character is evil. So "good" and "evil" are stable properties. Now, that's a far cry from saying they're "simple" qualities, or always easy to discern. But when correctly discerned, what is being discerned is objectively real -- meaning not a contingent fiction of the vagaries of some human brain or brains.

Based on how you define "objective morality" here, it seems that the idea of morality being rooted in God's character is relatively unimportant; morality really lies within the "discerning" part. It doesn't matter much what God thinks about the matter unless one is able to discern it. But how does one discern God's will?

... I discern that perhaps you are allowing "relative" to slide over into "circumstantial" in your thinking. But that's not correct. That moral reasoning takes into account circumstances is necessary; but that the presence of those circumstances makes or indicates that morality is relative is untrue. An objective moral judgment is premises on all the real, relevant facts of the situation, plus one objective moral claim about those facts.

You might look at it this way: a moral syllogism needs at least one premise with morality built into that premise. In your example re: slavery below, you yourself built morality into the first premise without realizing you'd done it (assuming you're speaking accurately when you also claim you believe the premises are "amoral.") For "deserves" is a moral concept, predicated on a free-standing moral claim, based on something like the intrinsic worth of human beings, which is itself a debatable premise. (In fact, it's an indefensible premise in an atheist world, a matter on which I shall shortly expand.)

I did not build morality into the premise; I built my own personal feelings into the premise, which, as I have already explained, is a normal component of a moral argument. Also, you said that a moral syllogism needs at least one premise with (objective) morality built in, but you also said that objective morality comes from discerning God's character. So you must explain what it means to discern God's character before you can create any moral syllogisms. Without explaining this, the idea of an "objective moral premise" is indeed arbitrary.

A moral premise is amoral, therefore "Lying is wrong" would not qualify as a moral premise but a moral conclusion. Moral premises in a moral argument are at least one objective observation of the circumstances and at least one statement of one's own goals or feelings.

You're trying to use "goals or feelings" to fill in the essential moral content in the premises. But "my goals/feelings are correct/desirable/right/whatever" is a contentious premise you have not defended. In fact, it's a smuggled-in moral judgment.

Essentially, then, the account you have given above would make you an Emotivist (if you go with the word "feelings") or a Pragmatist (if you go with the word "goals"). These are two very different ethical frameworks, which you are using as if they were the same thing. But worse than that, Emotivism has already been widely discredited in moral philosophy because it turns out to be entirely morally uninformative, since "I feel" doesn't justify anything, morally speaking.

Meanwhile, you can note that Pragmatism has decayed into the "End of Ethics" school because it's inherently amoral, substituting "practical for my goals" for the value "right." It's been widely criticized as inherently selfish and agenda-driven, applying as it does only to the interests of a particular individual or group, and not to the larger question of the rightness or wrongness of the action. Essentially, critics have come to see that Pragmatism's just a complete denial of all morality: for the "out" group has no basis of appeal against the power-play being made by the "in" group, under Pragmatism. So it's a killer for minority rights, for example, and ends up just being a "might makes right" theory. In fact, it would allow things like slavery, if they fit some kind of "goal" people can have.

Absent Emotivism and Pragmatism, you'd be stuck. Your moral syllogisms can have descriptions of circumstance, but lack the basis of moral evaluation of those circumstances, and thus cannot conduce to any moral conclusion.

You say that catering to one's personal goals and feelings do not determine what is really morally good. But what does tell you what is morally good? The idea of "discerning God's character" is apparently meaningless. Consulting the Bible is problematic: there are parts of the Bible in which God tells people to kill innocent women, children and babies, so I wouldn't exactly call the Bible a reliable standard of goodness.

Let me ask you this: Is it possible that you can do something "objectively good" but in a way that gives you no personal satisfaction or that does not achieve what you would consider a worthy goal? If so, in what way is such a thing "good"?

In your moral syllogisms, you try to build a moral conclusion into the argument; but to put a conclusion into an argument before you've arrived at the conclusion to the argument is circular reasoning.

Well, that's Consequentialism, not Relativism. In fact, that's the classic Consequentialist counter-case to Deontology that you are citing there. So now you're up to three systems of ethics combined in your account: Emotivism (feelings), Pragmatism (goals) and Consequentialism (the woman will be hurt if you don't lie).

So far, then, it's unclear which of these opposed moral systems is actually driving your view. If the feelings, goals and consequences don't reconcile in a particular situation, which one is supposed to be leading your judgment? Are you an Emotivist, a Pragmatist or a Consequentialists...or a Relativist? Now we've got four.

What I believe is that in order to get the right answers, one must ask the right questions. One must ask: What do I want? What is important to me? The fact is, your desire to employ objective morality is delusional: one can never truly evaluate a situation objectively; every situation that we evaluate will always ultimately be self-referential. But self-referential doesn't necessarily have to mean selfish. Sometimes what we want is what we want, but other times what we want is what others want or need. But it is still self-referential. It is still about asking: What do I want?

This is why premises in a moral argument are amoral.

They actually can't be. An "amoral" premise would not contain any value judgment. To know if you should lie about the woman or not, you must already have in mind a moral judgment that it is a) against your moral feelings, b) not consonant with right goals, or c) unlikely to create good consequences if you do not lie. And how would you defend that?

I don't have to come to a moral judgment in order to determine whether or not I want to see an innocent woman get murdered. It's not a judgment; its a feeling.

Now, in the case you've given above, it would be possible for you to respond that there's no problem, since all three seem to be in line: but what if the question were, say, "Should I sleep with this desirable woman, even though I have no long-term interest in her?" For then, your a) feelings, and c) the consequences to the woman might be wildly opposite. And your "goals" could be either 1) the satisfaction of your present physical desires, or 2) the honouring of your promise to your own wife; so you wouldn't even know which "goal" to choose. What then? Which is the moral perspective, and how do you know?

Once again, it is about asking the right questions. I have to ask myself what is most important to me in the situation. If it is to satisfy my physical feelings, then so be it. If it is to be faithful, then so be it. Now that may seem amoral to think that it is OK to cheat on one's wife, but this assumption only comes from the traditional moral rules that society imposes on people. Good is not a choice that one determines before the fact, but rather is an evaluation of the outcome after the fact. If what I truly want is to commit adultery, and this desire trumps all other relevant desires, then I see no reason to deny myself. If my wife has a problem with this, then the onus is on her to do something about it as per her own desires.

With your question you seem to assume that moral matters are inherently impractical.

No, I mean the opposite: that practical matters are inherently amoral. And it's not an assumption I personally hold, it's a characterization of the view atheists must hold if they are rational within their own assumptions. For them, "practical" does not self-evidently come bundled with any "moral" information. It only comes with "practical" information. Hume showed that decisively.

The word "practical" merely refers to things that are "useful." Take cheating on one's wife for example: If my wife's feelings and also things like honor and trust are important matters to me, then it is very useful for me to not cheat.

There is no real difference between practical matters and moral matters; the only difference is that moral matters have been arbitrarily labeled so by society. For example, I once knew a woman who had a chronic digestive problem that caused her to have bad fecal odor. I would have considered it morally right for her to limit her contact with other people, but she insisted on going to numerous social events, consequently being a nuisance to everyone around her. Many people would consider this merely a practical matter, but I personally considered it moral. However, the difference is ultimately arbitrary and subjective.

But surely, what you are advocating here is just pure Consequentialism really. And as such, it's subject to all the criticisms to which all forms of Consequentialism are subject, such as the arbitrary teleology problem, because even Consequentialists cannot agree on the right "goal," whether it's a "rule" or an "act," and whether it's "pleasure/pain" or something else, or that all Consequentialist moral calculus in their "hedonic calculations" is arbitrary as well.

The goodness or badness of the outcome is determined by whatever outcome is the most important to you.

Ah, you are correct. In my haste to reply, I made an error. My apologies. But as you corrected that error in your alternate syllogism, you did, in fact, confirm the upshot of what I said: namely, that rational arguments can issue in immoral conclusions. And that's all that really matters to our present conversation.

So reason and morality are not automatic companions (as they sometimes are and sometimes aren't), and thus morality is not a subset of reason.

Here you are assuming that eating babies is immoral, but how so? How is eating babies immoral outside of the moral arguments that decide whether or not it is appropriate for one to eat babies? This is yet another example of your circular reasoning.

So are we ruling out "feelings" now? That's a bit perplexing. Because earlier on, you listed them with "goals" and later, with consequences, as possible essential sources of moral information. Okay, you can do that: but I just want to be sure you're now abandoning Emotivism, if you are. Or are you now just saying that the consequences *overrule* the feelings, and so you're still happy blending Emotivism with Consequentialism, but Consequentialism is the real driver, and Emotivism is optional?

Sometimes there is more to the situation than one's immediate feelings indicate. Again, it's about asking the right questions. For example, which if more important to me: to not have to work at a job I hate, or to be able to pay for food and rent? My immediate feeling is that I hate working, but in the background there exist more important questions to be asked.

Close. I'm saying that at least in principle, if no good line of reasoning can be specified for an action, then we have no reason to think that action rational. Similarly, if no moral line of reasoning can even possibly be adduced for a moral judgment, then we have good reason to think that judgment immoral or amoral.

If we, today, can think of no reason slavery was really wrong, then there would be nothing preventing us from going back to it, or doing it in some other form with some other minority group, if circumstances should seem to favour that goal for us. We need a way of saying to people, "Even if you want it and think it serves your goals, you are still wrong to take slaves." And how will we get that, if no reasons exist?

(As an aside: slavery is far from dead in this world. In places like India, China and North Africa, it's still being done in its primitive form, apparently; and worldwide, the sex-trafficking 'industry' currently has more slaves than existed at any time in human history. And the Qatari treatment of the Nepalese over the building of World Cup stadiums is an international human-rights horror show. So the need for reasons to thwart this are just as pressing as they ever were -- maybe more so today.)

There is no objective line of reasoning for why slavery is bad. Slavery is not good or bad in itself; it all depends upon the needs and dynamics of the society.

Morality is a subset of reason; part of what this means is that a moral principle is only as valid as the best argument that a person can muster to support it. Thus, one person may come up with a compelling argument for why slavery should be abolished, but then later another person may come up with an even more compelling argument for why its should be instated. Therefore objective morality is an illusion. Individual moral principles are subject to flux, but the true, stable substance of morality is in the reasoning process itself.

Ah but the effects were quite devastating economically for the post-bellum South in America. A plantation owner would certainly not agree with your assessment. What makes you right and him wrong?

I am not right, and he is not wrong, objectively. The most I can do is try to convince him with a strong argument; then either he will change his mind or he won't. If I can't convince him, then that's that. You can't convince everyone to your moral viewpoint. No moral code is perfect.

Define "bad". You mean "Things I feel I don't like," or "things that don't fit my goals," or "things with consequences I don't prefer"? And what if someone else feels otherwise? Are they immoral then? How do you know?

Bad, to me, is basically whatever I don't like, for whatever reasons I may have. Quite often, other people will agree with me as to what is bad, and if we disagree then I will try to convince them to see things my way.

I promised:

Give me your syllogism for why YOU don't believe in slavery. And I'll give you mine.

You replied:

No human being deserves to be owned by another.
That which deprives people of what they deserve is evil.
Therefore, any institution in which a person can be owned by another is evil.
Slavery is an institution in which a human being can be owned by another.
Therefore, Slavery is evil.

Premise 4 is definitional and obvious, so I can grant you that one. But Premise 1 uses the word "deserves," which is a value judgment on your part. Premises 2 and 3 employ the word "evil," to which you would not be rationally entitled without proof. So three out of the four premises, far from being, as you said above "amoral" are morally-freighted premises. But you have already said morality is not objective, so none of these freighted terms are rationally-obligatory for a skeptic to believe. So you have now left us with no defense showing that slavery is immoral. And I think we all know we need one.

I told you before that a moral argument must contain at least one objective fact of the circumstances and at least one statement of personal feelings or goals. The fact is that slavery is an institution in which one person can be owned by another; the other premises constitute my personal feelings on the subject. My feelings are my feelings; they are not subject to further explanation.

But now I will reply in kind:

Premise 1: The Supreme Being made all men accountable to Him for their actions.
Premise 2: One cannot be held accountable without the ability to perform free actions.
Premise 3: The ability to perform such free actions is incompatible with slavery.
Conclusion: Therefore, slavery is against the intentions of the Supreme Being.

This is not original with me, I confess. Essentially, it's John Locke's rationale. It also would free women, and by implication it would also accord to handicapped persons maximal autonomy, among other things. For its basic driver is the necessity of all human beings to give account for their actions to the Supreme Being, and thus it cannot be relativized by the contingent purposes of other human beings. It banishes slavery (and the oppression of other such minority groups) on a basis that is universally-compelling, if premise 1 is granted.

But that's the problem: in the atheist world, premise 1 is not granted. And so the whole argument against slavery falls on that link in the chain, if atheism is true. So falls any rationale for women's rights, the rights of minorities and the rights of the physically and mentally challenged. Children's rights cannot be proved. Human rights across different societies cannot be proved. In fact, absent that first premise, no human rights of any kind can be proved, if atheism is true.

Good thing it's not.

You are basically saying that God opposes slavery because he holds men accountable for their actions but he can't hold men accountable for their actions under slavery. However, there is no indication in your syllogism that God must hold men accountable, only that he does hold men accountable. In other words, the syllogism doesn't imply that not being able to hold men accountable is necessarily a bad thing. Therefore, your syllogism is invalid.

Furthermore, human rights cannot be proved, only convinced, which is all the more reason to view morality as a subset of reason, as reason is the foremost tool of convincing people.

[Immanuel Can]

Based on how you define "objective morality" here, it seems that the idea of morality being rooted in God's character is relatively unimportant; morality really lies within the "discerning" part. It doesn't matter much what God thinks about the matter unless one is able to discern it. But how does one discern God's will?

Great question. And we can make it even more problematic. For human beings have what sociologists call "incommensurable" moral values. Different societies embrace morals so different that it is impossible to reconcile a "win" for one society's morality with a "win" for another. So there is a host of choices and no clear winner, from a human perspective.

But must we take a human perspective? I mean, a "merely" human perspective? Let's think about it another way. If we grant the premise, "A Supreme Being exists," is there any reason to think that even if mankind could not discover morality for itself, such a Being could not choose to reveal it, and to make it completely comprehensible to His creatures? I see that as a straightforward, "No," since by definition, a truly "Supreme" Being would be capable of whatever He chose to do in this regard.

So the question turns not on "could God do it," but on "has He done it." Christians say "Yes." In that God has revealed both His nature, He has also grounded our moral judgments to the extend that they are consonant with that nature. If they are not, they are unwarranted, or "wrong"; if they are so grounded, they are "right."

I did not build morality into the premise; I built my own personal feelings into the premise, which, as I have already explained, is a normal component of a moral argument.

But "normal" is irrelevant here. "Normal" is merely a descriptive statement of the number of people in a given area who do likewise. It does not show that what they do is in any sense "moral." You need to show that your feelings are not just "normal" for, say Western males of a certain age, but that they are legitimate: that is, that they are morally justifiable to a skeptical observer. And "normal" has no implication of justification.

Also, you said that a moral syllogism needs at least one premise with (objective) morality built in, but you also said that objective morality comes from discerning God's character. So you must explain what it means to discern God's character before you can create any moral syllogisms. Without explaining this, the idea of an "objective moral premise" is indeed arbitrary.

Yes. Quite so. The key question, then, is "Has God revealed Himself." If He has not, we're all just thrashing about in equal confusion, and the term "moral" has not real meaning, just a sort of aesthetic implication. But if God has indeed revealed who He is, then there is an objective truth grounding morality.

Let me ask you this: Is it possible that you can do something "objectively good" but in a way that gives you no personal satisfaction or that does not achieve what you would consider a worthy goal? If so, in what way is such a thing "good"?

This question equates, "morally good" with the idea of "useful." The problem with "useful" (or, to put it another way, with "good for ___") is that unless the thing it's "good for" is itself morally good, then it's actually useful for the bad. In my earlier example, date-rape drugs are "good for" debilitating and raping women against their consent. But we can easily see that that is not morally good. But in that case, there's certainly a "goal."

What we need is a standard capable of evaluating the goal itself, not just the efficacy of the means to that goal. We need to be able to say, "Date rape is wrong, not matter how "good for" achieving it the drugs are. So how do we derive that moral standard which judges not just the means but the end as well?

every situation that we evaluate will always ultimately be self-referential. But self-referential doesn't necessarily have to mean selfish. Sometimes what we want is what we want, but other times what we want is what others want or need. But it is still self-referential. It is still about asking: What do I want?

But "self-referential" is only morally informative if the "self" in question is already verified to be moral. If the "self" in question is Adolph Hitler, then he meets every qualification of your claims so far, and yet is widely (though, admittedly, not universally) recognized as a bad man. But how do we verify the moral quality of the agent, if morality only refers to the wishes of that agent, not to his objective moral condition?

I don't have to come to a moral judgment in order to determine whether or not I want to see an innocent woman get murdered. It's not a judgment; its a feeling.

What if that feeling changes? What if, for example, after a nasty divorce, you have tooth-grinding feelings of rage against your ex for all she has done to you? That's not unusual, I think. Will it then become "moral" for you to kill her, assuming you think you can get away with it, or assuming your rage is sufficient that you no longer care?

I asked:
Now, in the case you've given above, it would be possible for you to respond that there's no problem, since all three seem to be in line: but what if the question were, say, "Should I sleep with this desirable woman, even though I have no long-term interest in her?" For then, your a) feelings, and c) the consequences to the woman might be wildly opposite. And your "goals" could be either 1) the satisfaction of your present physical desires, or 2) the honouring of your promise to your own wife; so you wouldn't even know which "goal" to choose. What then? Which is the moral perspective, and how do you know?

You replied:
Once again, it is about asking the right questions. I have to ask myself what is most important to me in the situation. If it is to satisfy my physical feelings, then so be it. If it is to be faithful, then so be it. Now that may seem amoral to think that it is OK to cheat on one's wife, but this assumption only comes from the traditional moral rules that society imposes on people. Good is not a choice that one determines before the fact, but rather is an evaluation of the outcome after the fact. If what I truly want is to commit adultery, and this desire trumps all other relevant desires, then I see no reason to deny myself. If my wife has a problem with this, then the onus is on her to do something about it as per her own desires.

Wow. Okay. I can't argue against your consistency there. But I wonder, if she were the tempted one, and you were the one who was being cheated on, if you'd be inclined to be so generous in assigning her the right to do as her goals directed her. But not knowing you, I don't know that answer, of course.

There is no real difference between practical matters and moral matters; the only difference is that moral matters have been arbitrarily labeled so by society. For example, I once knew a woman who had a chronic digestive problem that caused her to have bad fecal odor. I would have considered it morally right for her to limit her contact with other people, but she insisted on going to numerous social events, consequently being a nuisance to everyone around her. Many people would consider this merely a practical matter, but I personally considered it moral. However, the difference is ultimately arbitrary and subjective.

That does seem a matter of choice. But I'm more impressed with your willingness to allow things like adultery, in which the moral stakes are much higher. If the "moral" ultimately is nothing more than the "practical," do you suppose we would be well-advised, in the spirit of keeping things honest, to drop moral language altogether? Maybe we should just speak of the "practical," and then everyone would be free from the danger of being drawn into moral judgments in situations that were, ultimately, only practical: do you suppose that's true?

There is no objective line of reasoning for why slavery is bad. Slavery is not good or bad in itself; it all depends upon the needs and dynamics of the society.

Are you content, then, that in the pre-war South, slavery was a moral institution? Was the North, then, failing to realize this when it instituted the war against the South? And would you say the same about modern chattel slavery, or even child slavery or sex slavery in the Developing World?

I don't agree, of course, but I want to be fair to your consistency...which you've already showed to be considerable...so I just need to ask.

Morality is a subset of reason; part of what this means is that a moral principle is only as valid as the best argument that a person can muster to support it. Thus, one person may come up with a compelling argument for why slavery should be abolished, but then later another person may come up with an even more compelling argument for why its should be instated. Therefore objective morality is an illusion. Individual moral principles are subject to flux, but the true, stable substance of morality is in the reasoning process itself.

I see. I now fully get where you're coming from. Yet it does seem to me you posit a very Nietzschean world, a world in which, really, raw power determines who wins, and moral language is simply an overlay -- it's merely the wording in which the victors claim superiority over the losers, but really power is the only thing that has made the difference.

As they say, "The winners write the history books," I suppose. But now it looks like they also write the books of ethics.

My feelings are my feelings; they are not subject to further explanation.

So, "slavery is wrong" means, "I feel I don't like slavery." No more, no less?

Finally, I wrote:

But now I will reply in kind:

Premise 1: The Supreme Being made all men accountable to Him for their actions.
Premise 2: One cannot be held accountable without the ability to perform free actions.
Premise 3: The ability to perform such free actions is incompatible with slavery.
Conclusion: Therefore, slavery is against the intentions of the Supreme Being.

And you replied:
You are basically saying that God opposes slavery because he holds men accountable for their actions but he can't hold men accountable for their actions under slavery. However, there is no indication in your syllogism that God must hold men accountable, only that he does hold men accountable. In other words, the syllogism doesn't imply that not being able to hold men accountable is necessarily a bad thing. Therefore, your syllogism is invalid.

Well, I think Locke's point has to be granted.

After all, on the premises that 1) God made human beings, and 2) God therefore made them for a purpose, and 3) to attempt to thwart those purposes is to be working against God, we'd have to concede his point. The Principle of Charity seems adequate to cover his suppositions, IF a Personal Creator actually does exist. There doesn't seem to be a reasonable objection there.

Of course, as always, this rests everything on the question, "DOES a Supreme Being exist," and as I indicated at the beginning of this reply, "Has He spoken?"

I feel I've got a sense of where you're coming from now. You're definitely an egoist-emotivist. I guess, though, that egoism-emotivism is not ordinarily thought of as a paradigm that allows for any real thing called "morality" or "ethics" to exist. For it would seem that there could be no "court of appeal," ultimately, for anyone who felt himself/herself to be ill-used, and no legitimate moral language in which he/she could frame an appeal to that court. So, for example, to say "Slavery is wrong," or "Women have been treated unjustly," is pretty much the same as saying nothing but, "I don't like..." And, of course, that some people "don't like" certain things is merely a contingent fact, nothing that puts a moral burden on anyone else to care.

Interesting. I think you've answered most of the questions I had. Thank you for all your efforts to explain. I think it's been worth it. I understand your view better.

[mysterio448]

No human being deserves to be owned by another.
That which deprives people of what they deserve is evil.
Therefore, any institution in which a person can be owned by another is evil.
Slavery is an institution in which a human being can be owned by another.
Therefore, Slavery is evil.

By what means do you justify your first two premises?

Who says who deserves what?

How about this, I will give you a better argument for why slavery is bad. Slavery reduces a human being to a commodity. Under slavery, a human being can be purchased, sold, re-sold, rented, or given away as a gift just as any other commodity. Under the logic of slavery, a human life is not priceless, but rather is a thing whose value can be quantified specifically in monetary terms. Therefore, to allow slavery is to circumscribe human life into sordid commercial terms, and thus to belittle all human life.

[Scott Mayers]

Morality is merely a practical construct but is relative to the entity (animal/human/??) using it. Humans are indistinguishable by nature's perspective itself to any other thing in nature. Since nature even allows one chemical to alter another, any given human acts as one macro-complex molecule. As long as it has the capacity to affect another, unless all behaviors that one such such molecule requires affecting any other molecule, one molecule gains in some way to the loss of the other in their states.

For a simplistic example, a Hydrogen molecule represents itself as an entity of nature as two Hydrogen atoms covalently bonded as a unit. Similar, an Oxygen molecule exist as two Oxygen atoms. Nature defines laws that require the entities to effect each other in proximity that act to reduce the ease to which the atoms act. When two Hydrogen molecules come close to one Oxygen molecule AND the movements of them have a sufficiently high energy (as in heat) that makes them bump into each other, the Oxygen atoms within the molecule each can bump into the Hydrogen ones that cause them to exchange their arrangement such that each atom steals a hydrogen molecule and this reduces the need for the oxygen atoms to require each other and separate to form two water molecules.

My point is that since nature's chemical changes assure continuous changes by some stealing from other chemicals in order to exist (Water depends upon its existence by hydrogen molecules stealing a part of the oxygen so that oxygen, as a molecule no longer exists. While it is 'true' that even the hydrogen molecule no longer exists too, the two original hydrogen atoms making up the molecule of hydrogen 'gains' an oxygen but can remain together.) This is an oversimplified example how even large entities depend on both taking and giving but in large complex molecules, like a human, in order for this to maintain its defined existence, it must take some part of the environment which can also mean taking from another human. But if one human takes from another human, one 'gains' relative to the other which 'loses' based on that gain. Thus nature permits this even if relative to one human it is beneficial while the other is not.

Morality is only a set of conventional agreements between humans who intellectually recognize that if we value any other human, it is productive to agree not to harm those humans who could harm ourselves in kind and to also agree what they can commonly take from some other part of the environment for things they need instead. Conflict occurs when the rest of the environment cannot fulfill their needs (or are restricted from this by other humans) and so they have no option but to turn on each other. Morality is functional for people who have relative equal values and power to achieve survival needs (or wants) from their environment in the same real way.

What one perceives as 'slavery' is often based on how other groups of humans perceive a right to ANY ownership. If slavery is 'wrong', we have to also question how some people have power over nature with distinction from others. If "ownership" is a right enforced by one group of humans who favor it in kind, even indirectly, this can impose unfairness upon another group of humans to be able to utilize those 'owned' environmental properties they too need to survive. This TOO is 'slavery' even if it doesn't directly dictate whether the slave can have some 'free' things like breathing air. It is the differences of access to some set of environmental needs of a group over another in the same environments which demonstrate that people have distinctly different ideas of what is moral.

[Hobbes' Choice]

No human being deserves to be owned by another.
That which deprives people of what they deserve is evil.
Therefore, any institution in which a person can be owned by another is evil.
Slavery is an institution in which a human being can be owned by another.
Therefore, Slavery is evil.

By what means do you justify your first two premises?

Who says who deserves what?

How about this, I will give you a better argument for why slavery is bad. Slavery reduces a human being to a commodity. Under slavery, a human being can be purchased, sold, re-sold, rented, or given away as a gift just as any other commodity. Under the logic of slavery, a human life is not priceless, but rather is a thing whose value can be quantified specifically in monetary terms. Therefore, to allow slavery is to circumscribe human life into sordid commercial terms, and thus to belittle all human life.

NOTE THREAD subject.
Good, you have departed from LOGIC and REASON and are now trying to appeal to my inherent sense of humanity. In this you agree with me that 'morality is (NOT) a subset of reason'.
On the face of it all of your objections, whilst they might reasonably contribute to your argument, are not of themselves reasonable, but they ARE emotional pleas.
REASONS for slavery
For example slavery is good as it enables humans to be bought and sold in a free market; allowing market forces to supply the labour market most efficiently. So slavery is great because with it human are not worthless but can be assessed for a specific monetary value. Poor people can help their family by making children for sale to help them out of poverty; and footballers, and other contracted workers, can be bought and sold between clubs to the highest bidder

So the assertion that morality is just a subset of reason is false. Morality has to appeal to human feeling and emotion or it is nothing.

[mysterio448]

How about this, I will give you a better argument for why slavery is bad. Slavery reduces a human being to a commodity. Under slavery, a human being can be purchased, sold, re-sold, rented, or given away as a gift just as any other commodity. Under the logic of slavery, a human life is not priceless, but rather is a thing whose value can be quantified specifically in monetary terms. Therefore, to allow slavery is to circumscribe human life into sordid commercial terms, and thus to belittle all human life.

NOTE THREAD subject.
Good, you have departed from LOGIC and REASON and are now trying to appeal to my inherent sense of humanity. In this you agree with me that 'morality is (NOT) a subset of reason'.
On the face of it all of your objections, whilst they might reasonably contribute to your argument, are not of themselves reasonable, but they ARE emotional pleas.
REASONS for slavery
For example slavery is good as it enables humans to be bought and sold in a free market; allowing market forces to supply the labour market most efficiently. So slavery is great because with it human are not worthless but can be assessed for a specific monetary value. Poor people can help their family by making children for sale to help them out of poverty; and footballers, and other contracted workers, can be bought and sold between clubs to the highest bidder

So the assertion that morality is just a subset of reason is false. Morality has to appeal to human feeling and emotion or it is nothing.

I think you are looking at things in the wrong way. An "emotional plea," as you put it, is not inherently unreasonable, as an emotional plea would be useless if there were no reasonable foundation for it. What I have done with this latest argument against slavery is proposed an idea which is neither true nor false but is an idea which one may find persuasive or not. Either way, it all happens within the arena of reason.

I will reiterate something I said in my last post to Immanuel Can: Morality is a subset of reason; part of what this means is that a moral principle is only as valid as the best argument that a person can muster to support it. Thus, one person may come up with a compelling argument for why slavery should be abolished, but then later another person may come up with an even more compelling argument for why its should be instated. Therefore objective morality is an illusion. Individual moral principles are subject to flux, but the true, stable substance of morality is in the reasoning process itself.

[Hobbes' Choice]

How about this, I will give you a better argument for why slavery is bad. Slavery reduces a human being to a commodity. Under slavery, a human being can be purchased, sold, re-sold, rented, or given away as a gift just as any other commodity. Under the logic of slavery, a human life is not priceless, but rather is a thing whose value can be quantified specifically in monetary terms. Therefore, to allow slavery is to circumscribe human life into sordid commercial terms, and thus to belittle all human life.

NOTE THREAD subject.
Good, you have departed from LOGIC and REASON and are now trying to appeal to my inherent sense of humanity. In this you agree with me that 'morality is (NOT) a subset of reason'.
On the face of it all of your objections, whilst they might reasonably contribute to your argument, are not of themselves reasonable, but they ARE emotional pleas.
REASONS for slavery
For example slavery is good as it enables humans to be bought and sold in a free market; allowing market forces to supply the labour market most efficiently. So slavery is great because with it human are not worthless but can be assessed for a specific monetary value. Poor people can help their family by making children for sale to help them out of poverty; and footballers, and other contracted workers, can be bought and sold between clubs to the highest bidder

So the assertion that morality is just a subset of reason is false. Morality has to appeal to human feeling and emotion or it is nothing.

I think you are looking at things in the wrong way. An "emotional plea," as you put it, is not inherently unreasonable, as an emotional plea would be useless if there were no reasonable foundation for it. What I have done with this latest argument against slavery is proposed an idea which is neither true nor false but is an idea which one may find persuasive or not. Either way, it all happens within the arena of reason.

I will reiterate something I said in my last post to Immanuel Can: Morality is a subset of reason; part of what this means is that a moral principle is only as valid as the best argument that a person can muster to support it. Thus, one person may come up with a compelling argument for why slavery should be abolished, but then later another person may come up with an even more compelling argument for why its should be instated. Therefore objective morality is an illusion. Individual moral principles are subject to flux, but the true, stable substance of morality is in the reasoning process itself.

I agree utterly that morality is not objective.

But it is not a sub-set of reason. I have just shown you that is false. Imm Can needs objectivity to prove it is a sub set, as he has to convince us that there is a one true morality that is reasonable. I contend that it is not reason, but emotion that lies at the heart of all morality. Morality is nothing but a rationalisation of our likes and dislikes.
A sub-set is a thing that lies "under"; literally. Reason is not a precursor of morality. What lies under ALL morality is emotions. What lies behind all moral assertions us how you FEEL about it. The rationale comes later. You rationalise how you feel.
Humans have a gut reaction to murder, as they are capable of empathy and can see themselves as victims. Moral reasons against murder are figured out by trying to justify their base instincts.

Every premise you used had a hidden emotional assumption.

Moral laws to protect children rationalise emotional instincts that predate humanity by millions of years. When a crocodile protects its eggs and young from predation, as it has thought to have done for 200 million years, it does not REASON, nor does it need a reason. it acts from the purest of instinct. Not from any intentions. Protection of the young is thoroughly moral, and has not required any "reason" in billions of creatures for millions of years.

So Immanuel Can is utterly and totally wrong on this one. He has to believe that reason contains morality because he believes GOD has invented moral law. I suppose if you believe in god too, then you are labouring under the same delusion.

[mysterio448]

I agree utterly that morality is not objective.

But it is not a sub-set of reason. I have just shown you that is false. Imm Can needs objectivity to prove it is a sub set, as he has to convince us that there is a one true morality that is reasonable. I contend that it is not reason, but emotion that lies at the heart of all morality. Morality is nothing but a rationalisation of our likes and dislikes.
A sub-set is a thing that lies "under"; literally. Reason is not a precursor of morality. What lies under ALL morality is emotions. What lies behind all moral assertions us how you FEEL about it. The rationale comes later. You rationalise how you feel.
Humans have a gut reaction to murder, as they are capable of empathy and can see themselves as victims. Moral reasons against murder are figured out by trying to justify their base instincts.

Every premise you used had a hidden emotional assumption.

Moral laws to protect children rationalise emotional instincts that predate humanity by millions of years. When a crocodile protects its eggs and young from predation, as it has thought to have done for 200 million years, it does not REASON, nor does it need a reason. it acts from the purest of instinct. Not from any intentions. Protection of the young is thoroughly moral, and has not required any "reason" in billions of creatures for millions of years.

So Immanuel Can is utterly and totally wrong on this one. He has to believe that reason contains morality because he believes GOD has invented moral law. I suppose if you believe in god too, then you are labouring under the same delusion.

I disagree. I think what you are talking about is a specific phenomenon that does motivate people in some situations. Sometimes people are led by their emotions or their base impulses and then they rationalize their actions after the fact. But this is not morality. Morality is not about reinforcing what you feel, but determining what you ought to feel. Morality is not about rationalization but justification.

You said that the moral rule against murder is the result to a "gut reaction" to murder, and then you say that this gut reaction involves empathy and the ability see oneself as a victim. But this seems to be a contradiction. A gut reaction is a basic, instinctive impulse, but it seems to me that the ability to put oneself in someone else's shoes involves more than an instinctive impulse but is the product of reason. I think a true gut reaction about murder would be something like: I don't really care about people being murdered unless the murderer is trying to murder me or someone I care about. But reason can develop a person's feelings from what they are to what they ought to be. Reason can potentially tell a person they should extend their concern beyond their own direct interests.

You suggest that feelings come before reason, but I disagree; reason comes before feelings. Without reason providing the context in which one can understand the dynamics of the situation, one cannot know what they should feel. In order to feel anything about a situation one must first understand the situation. For example, if you are walking down the street and you all of a sudden see an unknown man getting viciously beaten by another unknown man, what do you feel? Well, it depends on how you interpret the situation. If you think the aggressor is simply a thug who is victimizing an innocent, helpless person then you may feel anger and indignation. Alternatively, if you think the aggressor is exacting righteous revenge on someone who has previously wronged him, then you may feel very differently. Thus, feelings always come after one's intellectual discernment of the situation. The problem is that often people jump to quick, inductive conclusions about things and thus people may or may not interpret the situation accurately. This is all the more reason why morality should be associated with reason and logic, because we can only make morally good conclusions about things after we have made a logically valid evaluation of the matter.

Also, you seem to betray a notion of moral absolutism when you say that "protection of the young is thoroughly moral." Is that not a moral absolute? Personally, I don't think that protecting one's young is really moral or immoral in itself, nor is anything else moral or immoral in itself. Morality is like logic: no statement is ever logical or illogical by itself, instead logic applies only when there is a complete argument which involves a set of premises that imply a certain conclusion. Likewise, no one statement (such as "Protection of the young is thoroughly moral") is ever moral in itself but morality comes in when there is a complete moral argument.

Morality is not a feeling; it is a process. It is not what you feel about the situation right now but is about making oneself available to look at the situation in a better way, being open to better perspectives and better arguments.

One last thing: I am not quite sure what you hope to accomplish by defining morality in the way you do. What good does your definition do for society? How does defining morality as rationalizing one's pre-existing feelings help people to make better moral decisions?

[Hobbes' Choice]

I agree utterly that morality is not objective.

But it is not a sub-set of reason. I have just shown you that is false. Imm Can needs objectivity to prove it is a sub set, as he has to convince us that there is a one true morality that is reasonable. I contend that it is not reason, but emotion that lies at the heart of all morality. Morality is nothing but a rationalisation of our likes and dislikes.
A sub-set is a thing that lies "under"; literally. Reason is not a precursor of morality. What lies under ALL morality is emotions. What lies behind all moral assertions us how you FEEL about it. The rationale comes later. You rationalise how you feel.
Humans have a gut reaction to murder, as they are capable of empathy and can see themselves as victims. Moral reasons against murder are figured out by trying to justify their base instincts.

Every premise you used had a hidden emotional assumption.

Moral laws to protect children rationalise emotional instincts that predate humanity by millions of years. When a crocodile protects its eggs and young from predation, as it has thought to have done for 200 million years, it does not REASON, nor does it need a reason. it acts from the purest of instinct. Not from any intentions. Protection of the young is thoroughly moral, and has not required any "reason" in billions of creatures for millions of years.

So Immanuel Can is utterly and totally wrong on this one. He has to believe that reason contains morality because he believes GOD has invented moral law. I suppose if you believe in god too, then you are labouring under the same delusion.

I disagree. I think what you are talking about is a specific phenomenon that does motivate people in some situations. Sometimes people are led by their emotions or their base impulses and then they rationalize their actions after the fact. But this is not morality. Morality is not about reinforcing what you feel, but determining what you ought to feel. Morality is not about rationalization but justification.

You said that the moral rule against murder is the result to a "gut reaction" to murder, and then you say that this gut reaction involves empathy and the ability see oneself as a victim. But this seems to be a contradiction. A gut reaction is a basic, instinctive impulse, but it seems to me that the ability to put oneself in someone else's shoes involves more than an instinctive impulse but is the product of reason. I think a true gut reaction about murder would be something like: I don't really care about people being murdered unless the murderer is trying to murder me or someone I care about. But reason can develop a person's feelings from what they are to what they ought to be. Reason can potentially tell a person they should extend their concern beyond their own direct interests.

You suggest that feelings come before reason, but I disagree; reason comes before feelings. Without reason providing the context in which one can understand the dynamics of the situation, one cannot know what they should feel. In order to feel anything about a situation one must first understand the situation. For example, if you are walking down the street and you all of a sudden see an unknown man getting viciously beaten by another unknown man, what do you feel? Well, it depends on how you interpret the situation. If you think the aggressor is simply a thug who is victimizing an innocent, helpless person then you may feel anger and indignation. Alternatively, if you think the aggressor is exacting righteous revenge on someone who has previously wronged him, then you may feel very differently. Thus, feelings always come after one's intellectual discernment of the situation. The problem is that often people jump to quick, inductive conclusions about things and thus people may or may not interpret the situation accurately. This is all the more reason why morality should be associated with reason and logic, because we can only make morally good conclusions about things after we have made a logically valid evaluation of the matter.

Also, you seem to betray a notion of moral absolutism when you say that "protection of the young is thoroughly moral." Is that not a moral absolute? Personally, I don't think that protecting one's young is really moral or immoral in itself, nor is anything else moral or immoral in itself. Morality is like logic: no statement is ever logical or illogical by itself, instead logic applies only when there is a complete argument which involves a set of premises that imply a certain conclusion. Likewise, no one statement (such as "Protection of the young is thoroughly moral") is ever moral in itself but morality comes in when there is a complete moral argument.

Morality is not a feeling; it is a process. It is not what you feel about the situation right now but is about making oneself available to look at the situation in a better way, being open to better perspectives and better arguments.

One last thing: I am not quite sure what you hope to accomplish by defining morality in the way you do. What good does your definition do for society? How does defining morality as rationalizing one's pre-existing feelings help people to make better moral decisions?

Yawn. Sorry, you said you disagreed with me , then you said nothing in far too many words. Worst still you actually quote me words I have not said.
You are utterly confused.
I think you need to get yourself sorted out.

[mysterio448]

Yawn. Sorry, you said you disagreed with me , then you said nothing in far too many words. Worst still you actually quote me words I have not said.
You are utterly confused.
I think you need to get yourself sorted out.

Can you be a little more specific? Where did I misquote you?

[Hobbes' Choice]

Yawn. Sorry, you said you disagreed with me , then you said nothing in far too many words. Worst still you actually quote me words I have not said.
You are utterly confused.
I think you need to get yourself sorted out.

Can you be a little more specific? Where did I misquote you?

You said"Also, you seem to betray a notion of moral absolutism when you say that "protection of the young is thoroughly moral." Is that not a moral absolute?"

Which is so far from my position as it is possible to be.

[mysterio448]

You said"Also, you seem to betray a notion of moral absolutism when you say that "protection of the young is thoroughly moral." Is that not a moral absolute?"

Which is so far from my position as it is possible to be.

Well, it may not be your position but the statement itself sounds like moral absolutism. And you have yet to explain how my post was "nothing" or was unrelated to what you were saying.

[Hobbes' Choice]

You said"Also, you seem to betray a notion of moral absolutism when you say that "protection of the young is thoroughly moral." Is that not a moral absolute?"

Which is so far from my position as it is possible to be.

Well, it may not be your position but the statement itself sounds like moral absolutism. And you have yet to explain how my post was "nothing" or was unrelated to what you were saying.

I DID NOT SAY IT.

[mysterio448]

You said"Also, you seem to betray a notion of moral absolutism when you say that "protection of the young is thoroughly moral." Is that not a moral absolute?"

Which is so far from my position as it is possible to be.

Well, it may not be your position but the statement itself sounds like moral absolutism. And you have yet to explain how my post was "nothing" or was unrelated to what you were saying.

I DID NOT SAY IT.

You still haven't answered my question: What good does your definition do for society? How does defining morality as rationalizing one's pre-existing feelings help people to make better moral decisions?