Are there .5% or 35 million Active Killers at Present?

[FlashDangerpants]

What about all the people who would join in if they were part of a crowd that got riled up to lynch a paedophile? That's human nature too isn't it?

That is part of human nature in terms of % but not generic and natural to all human individuals.
There are degrees of activeness within a continuum to the above.
The active killers of humans are the malignant psychopaths.

Note murder by passion where one kill out of the blue in a rage of jealousy or anger.
These are not active killers but has weaker inhibitors and they are of a very low minority in contrast to the whole population of humans.
It is the same with those who are riled up and joined a mob, i.e. driven by the herd instinct.

What is natural to humans i.e. generically is like eating, breathing, and whatever is normal to all human beings.
The killing of humans is not natural to humans as a human being.
On the other hand, that 'no human ought to kill humans' is natural to humans beings and the non-compliances are the normal exceptions - note Normal Distribution.

But the herd instinct is entirely human nature, it explains a huge amount of what we all do.

Try to envision the larger picture. Your work so far hasn't discussed very much except murder, and most of morality, or even "morality-proper" is not likely to be about that limited subject, no? If you build everything you do around this single type of moral judgment, you may end up with something you cannot expand in the way you assumed you could.

What you have here is a naturalistic argument, but with a huge hole in it where the explanation for why natural=good needs to go. If you are going to fill that hole with something, which is a task you can avoid only for so long, you should work out what that is before you try to get beyond the trivial tautological stuff of "wrongful killing is wrong" and into whatever you want to say about lying, cheating and so on (because lying and cheating are major aspects of human nature too in case it escaped your notice).

[Veritas Aequitas]

There should be NO governance and enforcement in morality-proper but rather morality-proper should be self-cultivated and self-developed within the individual personally to enable morality-proper to flows & aligns spontaneously with what [the inherent moral fact - oughtness - that] is naturally positive for the well being of the individual[s].

That is not how self-organization works.

If a sufficient number of morally self-cultivated humans get together to form an institution which represents their moral desires that will become a "government", whether there should be one or not.

Governments/justice systems/law enforcement etc. are emergent phenomena born out of our moral instincts.

Governments/justice systems/law enforcement etc. as I had stated are pseudo-morality, not morality-proper.

A shoal of fish that seem to move as "entity" to evade predators look like a 'government'.
As we now know it is merely each individual governing themselves according to their inherent nature.

Point is when humans were endowed with self-awareness, self-consciousness and free will for some reasons but that results each going their own way and out of alignment with their natural inherent moral function.
Morality-proper is how to go about co-ordinating self-awareness, free-will with the inherent moral function.

[Skepdick]

Governments/justice systems/law enforcement etc. as I had stated are pseudo-morality, not morality-proper.

They are manifestations/reification of our moral urges.

What you are pointing out is simply the distinction that any legal scholar understands: there's a difference between the spirit and the letter of the law.

Because language has these unfortunate limits....

Point is when humans were endowed with self-awareness, self-consciousness and free will for some reasons but that results each going their own way and out of alignment with their natural inherent moral function.

Which is why we have governments... to delineate (as best as possible) the band of behaviours that are acceptable and unacceptable.

Morality-proper is how to go about co-ordinating self-awareness, free-will with the inherent moral function.

Yeah. Calibrating your judgment. Learning.

[Veritas Aequitas]

What about all the people who would join in if they were part of a crowd that got riled up to lynch a paedophile? That's human nature too isn't it?

That is part of human nature in terms of % but not generic and natural to all human individuals.
There are degrees of activeness within a continuum to the above.
The active killers of humans are the malignant psychopaths.

Note murder by passion where one kill out of the blue in a rage of jealousy or anger.
These are not active killers but has weaker inhibitors and they are of a very low minority in contrast to the whole population of humans.
It is the same with those who are riled up and joined a mob, i.e. driven by the herd instinct.

What is natural to humans i.e. generically is like eating, breathing, and whatever is normal to all human beings.
The killing of humans is not natural to humans as a human being.
On the other hand, that 'no human ought to kill humans' is natural to humans beings and the non-compliances are the normal exceptions - note Normal Distribution.

But the herd instinct is entirely human nature, it explains a huge amount of what we all do.

Yes, the herd instinct [tribalism] is human nature but it is waning towards the future.
While the herd instinct is still a strong and active instinct, the contentious point, i.e. killing of humans is not a natural instinct.

Try to envision the larger picture. Your work so far hasn't discussed very much except murder, and most of morality, or even "morality-proper" is not likely to be about that limited subject, no? If you build everything you do around this single type of moral judgment, you may end up with something you cannot expand in the way you assumed you could.

What you have here is a naturalistic argument, but with a huge hole in it where the explanation for why natural=good needs to go. If you are going to fill that hole with something, which is a task you can avoid only for so long, you should work out what that is before you try to get beyond the trivial tautological stuff of "wrongful killing is wrong" and into whatever you want to say about lying, cheating and so on (because lying and cheating are major aspects of human nature too in case it escaped your notice).

I used the 'killing of human' example is because it is very obvious without much grey issues.

My thesis is 'morality proper is about doing good and avoiding evil.'
What is good is not-evil [as defined].
"Killing of humans" is one obvious example of evil but so is slavery, rape, torture and many other evil acts.
In this case I will have to present a taxonomy [mentioned before] of an exhaustive list of what I deemed as 'evil' acts and then verified and justified each and every act of evil.
I don't intend to go into details on the above but in the meantime merely focus on the obvious e.g. killing of humans and slavery [chattel].

Let me give you a possible objection to my thesis, i.e.
if 'no human ought to kill humans'
what about the possibility of over population which can possibly and eventually kill many humans.
Of course, if I clued you to an objection, I must have answer to that, but I am not going to discuss it.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Governments/justice systems/law enforcement etc. as I had stated are pseudo-morality, not morality-proper.

They are manifestations/reification of our moral urges.

What you are pointing out is simply the distinction that any legal scholar understands: there's a difference between the spirit and the letter of the law.

Because language has these unfortunate limits....

Point is when humans were endowed with self-awareness, self-consciousness and free will for some reasons but that results each going their own way and out of alignment with their natural inherent moral function.

Which is why we have governments... to delineate (as best as possible) the band of behaviours that are acceptable and unacceptable.

Morality-proper is how to go about co-ordinating self-awareness, free-will with the inherent moral function.

Yeah. Calibrating your judgment. Learning.

Note the trend, early on [>100,000 years ago] most humans were inclined towards authoritarian leaders and government.
Then there is the trend humanity evolving towards the surge for freedom, democracy and less government controls.
On this trend, in the future humanity will evolve towards no government at all or at the minimal a token government, with high individual freedom yet all individuals can optimize as a whole.
This is also the trend for morality-proper.

[Skepdick]

Note the trend, early on [>100,000 years ago] most humans were inclined towards authoritarian leaders and government.

There's many ways to design/structure "government" - it's the 21st century. We know a fair bit about scaling control/coordination/synchronisation mechanisms.

Then there is the trend humanity evolving towards the surge for freedom, democracy and less government controls.

At the very least "governments" are necessary for synchronisation/communication/prioritization where the free market fails pathologically.

We use them for much more than that nowadays. We leverage economies of scale and our collective, tax-funded purchasing power to get better deals on stuff.

On this trend, in the future humanity will evolve towards no government at all or at the minimal a token government, with high individual freedom yet all individuals can optimize as a whole. This is also the trend for morality-proper.

You may want to consider that empirically. The places with least government (central africa, middle east) are worst hell-holes on Earth.

Just as quickly places evolve, they can also devolve. Every great empire in human history has come to an end.

A nation is born stoic, and dies epicurean. At its cradle (to repeat a thoughtful adage) religion stands, and philosophy accompanies it to the grave. --Will Durant

[Peter Holmes]

The pattern of moral objectivist argument is nearly always the same: here's this fact; therefore this is the moral conclusion. Some examples.

1 We have moral desires; therefore we ought to act on those moral desires - it's morally right to act on them.
2 Governments are emergent phenomena born of our moral instincts; therefore we ought to have governments.
3 The murder rate is falling; therefore murder is morally wrong.
4 We're programmed not to kill humans; therefore killing humans is morally wrong.
5 We have dispositions to behave in certain ways; therefore we ought to behave in those ways.

The fact or factual assertion is supposed to justify the moral conclusion, as though the one follows from the other. But in fact, the claimant believes the moral conclusion anyway, and then offers the premise as justification - which fails, because the conclusion can follow only if the argument begs the question.

The claim that all deductive argument works this way, so that moral argument is no different, does nothing to establish the special success of moral argument. If it's all a con, then moral argument of this kind is also a con. Moral objectivists can't have it both ways.

It's significant but unsurprising that objectivists here are retreating to varieties of the human nature argument to try to salvage something from the wreckage. We have a 'moral law within' or 'moral instincts' or 'moral intuitions' or 'moral desires' or 'moral programming' or 'moral dispositions'. Kant's been resurrected. Soon we'll be rehearsing Aristotle.

[Skepdick]

The claim that all deductive argument works this way, so that moral argument is no different, does nothing to establish the special success of moral argument. If it's all a con, then moral argument of this kind is also a con. Moral objectivists can't have it both ways.

And no, logic doesn't deal with the truth-value of premises. That's other people's business, such as natural scientists'.

Go fucking figure.

Apparently logical induction is sufficient to arrive at truth. But then we further need logical deduction for.... making sure Philosophers don't go out of business.

Moral objectivists can't have it both ways, but Philosophers can. Because they are special and superior to everybody else.

[FlashDangerpants]

My thesis is 'morality proper is about doing good and avoiding evil.'
What is good is not-evil [as defined].
"Killing of humans" is one obvious example of evil but so is slavery, rape, torture and many other evil acts.
In this case I will have to present a taxonomy [mentioned before] of an exhaustive list of what I deemed as 'evil' acts and then verified and justified each and every act of evil.
I don't intend to go into details on the above but in the meantime merely focus on the obvious e.g. killing of humans and slavery [chattel].

Eeeeew. That's not a viable plan at all.
Surely once you've identified and demonstrated three evil things, you should have worked out what makes a thing evil? Ideally you should work it out on the firdt attempt. An exhaustive list of all the moral things is impossible.

Let me give you a possible objection to my thesis, i.e.
if 'no human ought to kill humans'
what about the possibility of over population which can possibly and eventually kill many humans.
Of course, if I clued you to an objection, I must have answer to that, but I am not going to discuss it.

That's an extremely trivial objection, you've had far better ones than that already. Is there something special about your answer to it that increases its value in some respect, or are you deliberately serving yourself easy wins?

[Skepdick]

Eeeeew. That's not a viable plan at all.
Surely once you've identified and demonstrated three evil things, you should have worked out what makes a thing evil? Ideally you should work it out on the firdt attempt. An exhaustive list of all the moral things is impossible.

Eeeeew. That's not a viable plan either.

Surely once you've identified and demonstrated one red thing, you should have worked out what makes a thing red? Ideally you should work it out on the first attempt. An exhaustive list of all red things is impossible.

<and now we continue with our regular broadcast where Philosophers keep ignoring the symbol-grounding problem while still pretending that red obtains >

red.png

[Veritas Aequitas]

Note the trend, early on [>100,000 years ago] most humans were inclined towards authoritarian leaders and government.

There's many ways to design/structure "government" - it's the 21st century. We know a fair bit about scaling control/coordination/synchronisation mechanisms.

Then there is the trend humanity evolving towards the surge for freedom, democracy and less government controls.

At the very least "governments" are necessary for synchronisation/communication/prioritization where the free market fails pathologically.

We use them for much more than that nowadays. We leverage economies of scale and our collective, tax-funded purchasing power to get better deals on stuff.

On this trend, in the future humanity will evolve towards no government at all or at the minimal a token government, with high individual freedom yet all individuals can optimize as a whole. This is also the trend for morality-proper.

You may want to consider that empirically. The places with least government (central africa, middle east) are worst hell-holes on Earth.

Just as quickly places evolve, they can also devolve. Every great empire in human history has come to an end.

A nation is born stoic, and dies epicurean. At its cradle (to repeat a thoughtful adage) religion stands, and philosophy accompanies it to the grave. --Will Durant

Yes, governments are necessary for conventional life.
I was referring to morality i.e. morality proper.
We don't need a government per se for morality-proper.

[Skepdick]

Yes, governments are necessary for conventional life.
I was referring to morality i.e. morality proper.
We don't need a government per se for morality-proper.

Individuals don't. Collectives do.

[Veritas Aequitas]

My thesis is 'morality proper is about doing good and avoiding evil.'
What is good is not-evil [as defined].
"Killing of humans" is one obvious example of evil but so is slavery, rape, torture and many other evil acts.
In this case I will have to present a taxonomy [mentioned before] of an exhaustive list of what I deemed as 'evil' acts and then verified and justified each and every act of evil.
I don't intend to go into details on the above but in the meantime merely focus on the obvious e.g. killing of humans and slavery [chattel].

Eeeeew. That's not a viable plan at all.
Surely once you've identified and demonstrated three evil things, you should have worked out what makes a thing evil? Ideally you should work it out on the firdt attempt. An exhaustive list of all the moral things is impossible.

Why not?
I have already define what is evil.
What is worse than genocide and the extinction of the human species.
If you take that at 99.9/100 then you can scale down the rest relatively to the best approximates.

Let me give you a possible objection to my thesis, i.e.
if 'no human ought to kill humans'
what about the possibility of over population which can possibly and eventually kill many humans.
Of course, if I clued you to an objection, I must have answer to that, but I am not going to discuss it.

That's an extremely trivial objection, you've had far better ones than that already. Is there something special about your answer to it that increases its value in some respect, or are you deliberately serving yourself easy wins?

Trivial? so far no one has raised it - in any case I am not delving into it and I know there are loads of variables and complexities to deal with such an objection.
It is an objection and there are many which I am very confident of squashing.

[FlashDangerpants]

My thesis is 'morality proper is about doing good and avoiding evil.'
What is good is not-evil [as defined].
"Killing of humans" is one obvious example of evil but so is slavery, rape, torture and many other evil acts.
In this case I will have to present a taxonomy [mentioned before] of an exhaustive list of what I deemed as 'evil' acts and then verified and justified each and every act of evil.
I don't intend to go into details on the above but in the meantime merely focus on the obvious e.g. killing of humans and slavery [chattel].

Eeeeew. That's not a viable plan at all.
Surely once you've identified and demonstrated three evil things, you should have worked out what makes a thing evil? Ideally you should work it out on the firdt attempt. An exhaustive list of all the moral things is impossible.

Why not?
I have already define what is evil.
What is worse than genocide and the extinction of the human species.
If you take that at 99.9/100 then you can scale down the rest relatively to the best approximates.

What is the formula by which we can measure the exact evilness-quotient of public urination in a baptismal font before the baby is dipped into it versus after the baby has already had his dip?

Let me give you a possible objection to my thesis, i.e.
if 'no human ought to kill humans'
what about the possibility of over population which can possibly and eventually kill many humans.
Of course, if I clued you to an objection, I must have answer to that, but I am not going to discuss it.

That's an extremely trivial objection, you've had far better ones than that already. Is there something special about your answer to it that increases its value in some respect, or are you deliberately serving yourself easy wins?

Trivial? so far no one has raised it - in any case I am not delving into it and I know there are loads of variables and complexities to deal with such an objection.
It is an objection and there are many which I am very confident of squashing.

You are always happiest when you mark your own homework aren't you?

[Veritas Aequitas]

Eeeeew. That's not a viable plan at all.
Surely once you've identified and demonstrated three evil things, you should have worked out what makes a thing evil? Ideally you should work it out on the firdt attempt. An exhaustive list of all the moral things is impossible.

Why not?
I have already define what is evil.
What is worse than genocide and the extinction of the human species.
If you take that at 99.9/100 then you can scale down the rest relatively to the best approximates.

What is the formula by which we can measure the exact evilness-quotient of public urination in a baptismal font before the baby is dipped into it versus after the baby has already had his dip?

First you have to review and assess whether such an act fit into the definition of what is evil.
The above act do not qualify as an evil act.

That's an extremely trivial objection, you've had far better ones than that already. Is there something special about your answer to it that increases its value in some respect, or are you deliberately serving yourself easy wins?

Trivial? so far no one has raised it - in any case I am not delving into it and I know there are loads of variables and complexities to deal with such an objection.
It is an objection and there are many which I am very confident of squashing.

You are always happiest when you mark your own homework aren't you?

If you read many papers, you will note many would present the possible objections to save people the time. It is like a FAQ.

Note for example;
b]How to Derive "Ought" From "Is"[/b]: John R. Searle
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2183201?seq=1