Moral Facts Supervene on Natural Facts

[Flannel Jesus]

So a change in DNA could change moral facts, fabulous. Don't know why it took you so long to get here, probably because you didn't realise that something like that had to be true for supervenience to be meaningful - probably because you don't know what supervenience means. If you did, you would have just said that in your first reply.

Anyway, this seems like moral relativism to me. Morality is relative to whatever values our DNA gives us. If some person, some individual, has mutated DNA, the "moral realism" of yours that applies to him is potentially different from everyone else's morality.

'...a change in DNA could change moral facts...'

I see your aim here. But I have to demur. Since there are no moral facts, there can be no supervenience (whatever that means) of moral facts upon natural facts. In other words, this concession gives the whole point away - though your conclusion about moral relativism is well taken.

A change in DNA - or any natural fact - has no moral entailment whatsoever. Human programming with ought-not-to-kill-humans doesn't mean humans killing humans is morally wrong, any more than human programming with ought-to-kill-humans would mean humans killing humans is morally right.

In other words, moral conclusions must come from outside any factual premises or argument. That's what VA just can't understand.

You're replying to me as if I believe in the supervenience claim of the op.

[Veritas Aequitas]

For a second I thought he actually got supervenience as a one way causal relationship between dissimilar types of property. But then he did his procrustean thing and smooshed it all up into that KFC-Bucket thing with everything else.

There's a 0 percent chance he went into this thread knowing what supervenience actually means. His dumbass cake frosting analogy proves that. Supervenience is absolutely nothing like frosting on a cake, he thinks supervenience is just something you sprinkle on top.

That is not my analogy.
That is AI's analogy as a starting point when I requested for a simple example.
Your intellect is limited when you don't understand the use of an analogy.
If an analogy do not seem right, then one can continue to seek better alternative analogy to understand the principle.
What is critical is understanding the Principles of Supervenience and applying it correctly.

You think you are an expert on what is supervenience?
As I had charged PH, you could as well be grounded on an illusion via philosophical realism which is illusory to start with.

[Veritas Aequitas]

So a change in DNA could change moral facts, fabulous. Don't know why it took you so long to get here, probably because you didn't realise that something like that had to be true for supervenience to be meaningful - probably because you don't know what supervenience means. If you did, you would have just said that in your first reply.

Anyway, this seems like moral relativism to me. Morality is relative to whatever values our DNA gives us. If some person, some individual, has mutated DNA, the "moral realism" of yours that applies to him is potentially different from everyone else's morality.

'...a change in DNA could change moral facts...'

I see your aim here. But I have to demur. Since there are no moral facts, there can be no supervenience (whatever that means) of moral facts upon natural facts. In other words, this concession gives the whole point away - though your conclusion about moral relativism is well taken.

A change in DNA - or any natural fact - has no moral entailment whatsoever. Human programming with ought-not-to-kill-humans doesn't mean humans killing humans is morally wrong, any more than human programming with ought-to-kill-humans would mean humans killing humans is morally right.

In other words, moral conclusions must come from outside any factual premises or argument. That's what VA just can't understand.

Strawmaning again.

I have already mentioned to you a '1000' times.
Morality = Rightness or Wrongness is WRONG
viewtopic.php?t=40331

My focus on morality is NEVER on the idea of right or wrong. This is fire-fighting.

My focus on morality is how can humanity expedite moral progress at source.

It can be very evident.
If scientists were to tweak your neurons settings and those of your future lineage that will make one a malignant psychopath, the change in moral facts and consequences will be very evident.
This can be empirically tested, verified and justified.

Images of prisoners’ brains show important differences between those who are diagnosed as psychopaths and those who aren’t, according to a study led by University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers.
https://www.med.wisc.edu/news/psychopat ... -function/

[Flannel Jesus]

For a second I thought he actually got supervenience as a one way causal relationship between dissimilar types of property. But then he did his procrustean thing and smooshed it all up into that KFC-Bucket thing with everything else.

There's a 0 percent chance he went into this thread knowing what supervenience actually means. His dumbass cake frosting analogy proves that. Supervenience is absolutely nothing like frosting on a cake, he thinks supervenience is just something you sprinkle on top.

That is not my analogy.
That is AI's analogy as a starting point when I requested for a simple example.
Your intellect is limited when you don't understand the use of an analogy.
If an analogy do not seem right, then one can continue to seek better alternative analogy to understand the principle.
What is critical is understanding the Principles of Supervenience and applying it correctly.

You think you are an expert on what is supervenience?
As I had charged PH, you could as well be grounded on an illusion via philosophical realism which is illusory to start with.

Lots of yapping for someone relying on AI to provide shit analogies.

[Iwannaplato]

Morality = Rightness or Wrongness is WRONG
viewtopic.php?t=40331

My focus on morality is NEVER on the idea of right or wrong. This is fire-fighting.

My focus on morality is how can humanity expedite moral progress at source.

It can be very evident.
If scientists were to tweak your neurons settings and those of your future lineage that will make one a malignant psychopath, the change in moral facts and consequences will be very evident.
This can be empirically tested, verified and justified.

Images of prisoners’ brains show important differences between those who are diagnosed as psychopaths and those who aren’t, according to a study led by University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers.
https://www.med.wisc.edu/news/psychopat ... -function/

So, let's boil this down to be clear.

You think right/wrong morality approaches is not the right approach.
You want to go to the root and change brains, so that people act from a more moral attitude.

Great.

But here's an issue I have.

On the one hand you are using current neuronal patterns, what we find in brains, as the base of objective morality.
We know what objective morality is based on patterns we find in current brain structures.

But

you also want to change brains to fit what you think is more moral.

That is a fundamental contradition.

[Flannel Jesus]

There's something ever so slightly absurd about wanting to change moral facts. If something is wrong now, would it be wrong to change moral facts to make that thing right in the future? Weird...

I think the whole concept is confused.

[Iwannaplato]

There's something ever so slightly absurd about wanting to change moral facts. If something is wrong now, would it be wrong to change moral facts to make that thing right in the future? Weird...

I think the whole concept is confused.

Yes, that's another way to look at the issue, at the level of facts.

Upon what ground do you decide on what is moraIIy objective: it seems VA cIearIy says we can demonstrate through the science FSERC that X is objectively moral because it is in brains. Fine.

But then in another post or even in the same post, we find out we need to reform, adjust brains to make us more moral.

Huh?

Then it is not what we find in brains that determines what is moral.

Or, yes, we can track moral facts over time. Now the moral facts are X. This is not good enough, let's do X, so that moral facts are Y.

[Flannel Jesus]

There's something ever so slightly absurd about wanting to change moral facts. If something is wrong now, would it be wrong to change moral facts to make that thing right in the future? Weird...

I think the whole concept is confused.

Yes, that's another way to look at the issue, at the level of facts.

Upon what ground do you decide on what is moraIIy objective: it seems VA cIearIy says we can demonstrate through the science FSERC that X is objectively moral because it is in brains. Fine.

But then in another post or even in the same post, we find out we need to reform, adjust brains to make us more moral.

Huh?

Then it is not what we find in brains that determines what is moral.

Or, yes, we can track moral facts over time. Now the moral facts are X. This is not good enough, let's do X, so that moral facts are Y.

Everything just seems like it's been slapped together by an ai iterating over various philosophical-sounding words. Maybe va is a SLM - a small language model.

[FlashDangerpants]

It can be very evident.
If scientists were to tweak your neurons settings and those of your future lineage that will make one a malignant psychopath, the change in moral facts and consequences will be very evident.
This can be empirically tested, verified and justified.

If the moral properties supervened upon the biological properties then in the scenario you present here your claim would need to be that it would be morally right for the biological psychopath to obey his biological imperative to kill.

You don't understand supervenience. That is not because you are stupid, the topic is too simple even for idiots to be excluded from understanding. It is because you never read in order to learn things, you only ever read to find justifications for your existing thoughts.

[Flannel Jesus]

You don't understand supervenience. That is not because you are stupid, the topic is too simple even for idiots to be excluded from understanding. It is because you never read in order to learn things, you only ever read to find justifications for your existing thoughts.

Interesting analysis

But is his unwillingness to actually put effort in to learn the words and concepts he's trying to use an artifact of stupidity?

[FlashDangerpants]

You don't understand supervenience. That is not because you are stupid, the topic is too simple even for idiots to be excluded from understanding. It is because you never read in order to learn things, you only ever read to find justifications for your existing thoughts.

Interesting analysis

But is his unwillingness to actually put effort in to learn the words and concepts he's trying to use an artifact of stupidity?

No, but it doesn't come naturally for him, so it actually helps him sometimes to prompt him to re-read a thing and look for meaning he has overlooked.

[Flannel Jesus]

You don't understand supervenience. That is not because you are stupid, the topic is too simple even for idiots to be excluded from understanding. It is because you never read in order to learn things, you only ever read to find justifications for your existing thoughts.

Interesting analysis

But is his unwillingness to actually put effort in to learn the words and concepts he's trying to use an artifact of stupidity?

No, but it doesn't come naturally for him, so it actually helps him sometimes to prompt him to re-read a thing and look for meaning he has overlooked.

What helps him do that?

[Veritas Aequitas]

Morality = Rightness or Wrongness is WRONG
viewtopic.php?t=40331

My focus on morality is NEVER on the idea of right or wrong. This is fire-fighting.

My focus on morality is how can humanity expedite moral progress at source.

It can be very evident.
If scientists were to tweak your neurons settings and those of your future lineage that will make one a malignant psychopath, the change in moral facts and consequences will be very evident.
This can be empirically tested, verified and justified.

Images of prisoners’ brains show important differences between those who are diagnosed as psychopaths and those who aren’t, according to a study led by University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers.
https://www.med.wisc.edu/news/psychopat ... -function/

So, let's boil this down to be clear.

You think right/wrong morality approaches is not the right approach.
You want to go to the root and change brains, so that people act from a more moral attitude.

Great.

But here's an issue I have.

On the one hand you are using current neuronal patterns, what we find in brains, as the base of objective morality.
We know what objective morality is based on patterns we find in current brain structures.

But

you also want to change brains to fit what you think is more moral.

That is a fundamental contradition.

Strawman.
It is not changing brains to fit what "I" think is more moral.

What is moral must be justified to be universal and true.
There has to be the greatest care and ensure the move is fool proof.
We are talking about this possibility in the future where the knowledge and technology is easily available, not now

Ultimately it must be tested with the objective reduction in say the number of human killed by humans.
Currently, it is estimated 475,000 per year are killed by homicide.
If we implement some sort of moral strategies, and the result is
100,000 per year are killed via homicide, obviously there is objective moral progress grounded on the recognition of objective moral facts.

[Iwannaplato]

Everything just seems like it's been slapped together by an ai iterating over various philosophical-sounding words. Maybe va is a SLM - a small language model.

Well, even before he started using AIs there was a dutch boy finger's in dike and robbing peter to pay paul pattern.

PH makes argument X. VA finds a position that opposes PH's argument or seems to. This position becomes part of his set of beliefs.
No comprehensive check to see what this new position does/means in relation to other beliefs of VA's.

I think this is a practice common to all of us. IOW we probably all do that at some point. At least I run into it in others, and I have noticed in myself, realizing that a criticism (position) I have of others regarding X, is problematic for me regarding something I do or assert.

But here we keep pointing these things out. I suppose that's why I've been especially irritated when he quotes me and others, but does not directly respond to what is quoted. Often he simply rephrases his position or redefends his position, perhaps even in a new way, but not in one that addresses the point he quoted.

So, here we are, years later, raising the same issue, pointing out the same contradiction.

[Peter Holmes]

So a change in DNA could change moral facts, fabulous. Don't know why it took you so long to get here, probably because you didn't realise that something like that had to be true for supervenience to be meaningful - probably because you don't know what supervenience means. If you did, you would have just said that in your first reply.

Anyway, this seems like moral relativism to me. Morality is relative to whatever values our DNA gives us. If some person, some individual, has mutated DNA, the "moral realism" of yours that applies to him is potentially different from everyone else's morality.

'...a change in DNA could change moral facts...'

I see your aim here. But I have to demur. Since there are no moral facts, there can be no supervenience (whatever that means) of moral facts upon natural facts. In other words, this concession gives the whole point away - though your conclusion about moral relativism is well taken.

A change in DNA - or any natural fact - has no moral entailment whatsoever. Human programming with ought-not-to-kill-humans doesn't mean humans killing humans is morally wrong, any more than human programming with ought-to-kill-humans would mean humans killing humans is morally right.

In other words, moral conclusions must come from outside any factual premises or argument. That's what VA just can't understand.

Strawmaning again.

You just don't understand what I'm saying.

I have already mentioned to you a '1000' times.
Morality = Rightness or Wrongness is WRONG
viewtopic.php?t=40331

My focus on morality is NEVER on the idea of right or wrong. This is fire-fighting.

I didn't mention moral rightness and wrongness above.

My focus on morality is how can humanity expedite moral progress at source.

What constitutes moral progress, and why should we be expedite it? Try a simple answer.

It can be very evident.
If scientists were to tweak your neurons settings and those of your future lineage that will make one a malignant psychopath, the change in moral facts and consequences will be very evident.
This can be empirically tested, verified and justified.

QED. I wrote '...moral conclusions must come from outside any factual premises or argument. That's what VA just can't understand.'

Such a physical/natural change has no moral entailment. You just assume it does. You have a moral opinion already in place: 'of course, less malignant psychopathy would mean moral progress.' Now, think. Why?

Images of prisoners’ brains show important differences between those who are diagnosed as psychopaths and those who aren’t, according to a study led by University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers.
https://www.med.wisc.edu/news/psychopat ... -function/

If your moral theory rejects talk of moral rightness and wrongness, then it isn't a moral theory. It can't say why we should or shouldn't do something - so talk of moral progress is meaningless.