Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Jan 07, 2023 3:16 pm
Understood. I think the ST solution for VA - and all moral objectivists - is to reverse the polarity: there are no moral facts, and non-moral premises can't entail moral conclusions.
He's simply presented his confusion a number of times. He'll show that something like mirror neurons means we are empathetic to other people. Mirror neurons exist, that's objective, so being empathetic, having that charater trait, is good. Because we know that that is good. But wait. There are other parts of the brain, we also have aggressive tendencies, but further he started with his sense of what the good is. And he has no objective justification for saying that this brain tendency is better than others. It's circular reasoning.
But what I find sad is this. He actually could have much more in common with you (and yes, me). When you and I first encountered each other, at least fairly recently I challenged your use of terms I considered carried the idea of objective morality. We fenced around that. But it was clear that you thought we, humans, had a task of deciding what we wanted and to try to find a common ground for interpersonal behavior. To set up a code. Much of what he does is aiming that direction. IOW in practical terms you could engage in a project of trying to find a set of common values and spreading that. Of course one can use objective knowledge to aid such a process. If we want children to grow up into non-depressed adults, then research around what diets, parenting, schooling lead to this can aid the production of organizational and individual behaviors and policies. If we mangage to even simply black box the issue of whether that want is objectively good and just, if agreed on this as a goal, move forward to finding out what works, that's a project you could conceivably work on together.
Of course it is a philosophy forum, so it's not merely stubborness to focus on the ontological issue, but it ends up being sad. I think he thinks, perhaps not consciously, that if his values are not objective, then there is no point in looking at brains and how we learn and what leads to certain societal and individual patterns. If so, well, he's wrong about that.
So - we've had, and have, no choice but to decide what's morally right/good and wrong/bad - which is why moral values have changed, and are still changing. Our ancestors used to think killing (at least of out-groupers) and slavery are not morally wrong. And some moral retards still think homosexuality is morally wrong.
Sure.
And this is why moral realism and objectivism are morally pernicious.
Aren't moral antirealists compelled to say instead 'And this is why I don't like moral realism.' But, as I say in the other thread, this is not just me quibbling over words. Moral realism opposed slavery also. In the US the abolitionists who were active and organized were Christians, using their moral realism to oppose slavery. For example.
Note this is not me saying moral realism is good. 1) I don't think we get to choose which moral realism is the model of moral realism and 2) I am not convinced that without moral realism we wouldn't have had slavery or homophobia. I think moral realism get constructed bases on values we already have. Tendencies we already have. I think there would have been generally pro-slavery in the world, then two camps, with or without moral realism.
I don't know what it all would have been like without moral realism, but so far, I am unconvinced that it would have been better. I don't know how to test that. But it seems just assumed and when people criticize moral realism they often choose those moral realisms of the people whose values they dislike.
People who think there are moral facts always think they know what those moral facts are. It's been justifying or at least excusing wickedness for millennia.
Well, again, it's been justifying behaviors and attitudes you don't like AND justifying behaviors and attitudes you like. I'd need to see the argument that without moral realism the bad stuff would not have been so bad and the good stuff would have been the same or stronger. I need to see that specific argument. How do we know it would have been better without moral realism?
There's the ontological issues.
Then there's the causation issue. How do we demonstrate that without moral realism the stuff we don't like about history would have been less bad and/or the good stuff would have been at least the same.
Mind-numbingly boring response: 'Ah, but if there are no moral facts, how can we know if anything really is morally right or wrong, good or bad or wicked?' (Mmm. Let's see if there's a way out of this puzzle.)
I think it's complicated, but where I find the sadness in VA as phenomenon is that part of his tack, I think, can be helpful - not that he's especially original there, but still. We can look into what we humans tend to want. We are social mammals. Most people agree that gouging out the eyes of naughty children is wrong. We do have some near universal moral attitudes. We do tend to have empathy as part of our makeup.
There is a whole camp of nihilists out there who think we only want power over others, that this is what seethes beneath and even through our moralities. But that does not fit with social mammal behavior, nor with our brains. We also feel other people's pain, unless we are born psycho sociopaths.
There are extremes of stress that makes most people rate life and worse, regardless of culture and values. We can begin with what science tells us about what makes nearly everyone agree, this is worse. My qualitiy of life and our quality of life has gone down and we don't need to have this because of some deontological rule.
Take the gouging children's eyes out. Almost no Abrahamist, even a very rigid traditional one, is going to argue that yes, we feel worse when we gouge out children's eyes, but rule X from scripture says we must to obey God.
So, there even with people with very different values we can find common ground. Yes, there are many other areas where we will not. Yes, some of these are incredibly important. But there are things close to universals. Further there is no reason we cannot continue to look at what humans' tendencies are at root and what our brains tell us about thriving and then trying to influence other people to share that common ground.
While humans do vary incredibly on what they think we should do and not do. We do share physiologies and social mammal needs. So, some things can be ruled out by a consensus. And others can be pecked at over time to see if more and more people can come to a common ground, and/or a kind of pluralist common ground. Perhaps people can do certain things in their subcultures that we don't want in ours.
new): I understand the full range of Morality & Ethics.
