A fresh approach to morality

[FlashDangerpants]

a) OK, but moral oughts are not the same as prudential oughts, or goal derived oughts in general. So a bait and switch to something like a prudential ought based on the need to live in cooperative societies won't work out.

b) I should point out that sympathy, empathy, and a basic sense of fairness are not uniquely human traits, all sorts of other social animals display an awareness of such things. It should be fairly simple to get any reasonable interlocutor to accept that the basic building blocks of moral sentiment are widely distributed beyond human society. How to construct moral reason from moral sentiment is not an easy question though.

You I want to address directly'

"a" ---- but for humans, we might later decide that "moral oughts" ARE a subset of necessary prudential oughts. For humans to continue to co-operate we might NEED morality. I just think that's the wrong place to start. If we have understanding about the properties of necessary human oughts maybe we can make sense of "the problem" << we see something that feels like it SHOULD be a moral question but cannot get there from whatever moral system we choose >>

I don't know how fully formed your argument is at his point, whether you are teasing out a thought as you go along, or attempting to present a completed thesis using an easily digestible step by step method.

If it's something like the latter, then I would rather help work through the thing as I don't think you will ever get the likes of age and IC to do so.

If it's the former, then I have proceeded along similar lines myself in the past and will likely do so again. I would probably want to front-load the questions I have so that by the time your argument has got there you are for-warned and therefore fore-armed. It suits me for your argument to be as strong as possible in the end even if I don't agree with it myself.

One point I feel safe raising either way is this: If you construct your assessment of morality out of the available parts given to us by our nature (i.e. excluding celestial forms and divine revelation) you will eventually run up against a limit to the logical necessity of your results. The part where you say 'X is wrong' may not have sufficient power that you can simultaneously assert that in any possible world it is erroneous to say 'X is not wrong'.

If your account is descriptive in form, you will end up saying this is just a limit on what we can morally achieve. If your accounting is designed to prescriptively overcome all such failings, you might be tempted to beef up an input so that some goal of some sort becomes a necessary ought. Often this would be something like wellness, wellbeing or health - prudential goals that have a surreptitiously inserted normative evaluation built in. Those don't normally work out, for the reason I just gave, they fail to make it over the is-ought gap. There is a lot to be said for the descriptive approach that doesn't try to create an ultimate prescriptive ought out of what's lying around.

"b: I agree with many of you that it may not make sense try to include IC. But ignoring the person, the concept of human exceptionalism is respectable (even if we believe it wrong). I'm simply suggesting that "Man is a moral animal" does not imply "Man is the only moral animal". Leave that for another day.

Human exceptionalism probably cannot be ignored. If morality is entirely unique to humans that has implications.

On the one hand it can be an entirely fictive and affected cultural construct just like economics, literature, genders and customs - open to complete re-evaluation at the drop of a hat because somebody felt it was time for change.

Or for the weirdo dualists who think humans have a special soul with a spark of the divine that hails from a non-extended realm of celestial substances, it might seem obvious that this is what grants humans access to the moral properties of the universe, something that animals with their lack of divine spark can never be privy to.

Suppose there is a distant island, or another planet or whatever where a new type of creature emerges to fulfil the same evolutionary niche as humanity in that location. A creature with intelligence sufficient to form large cooperative societies with complex rules and technologies and all that stuff. This creature though began not as a monkey but as a spider. They mate by drizzling sperm over a huge pile of eggs, then the female eats the male and the little spiderlings that emerge from those eggs run off to a swamp to eat slime and cannibalise each other until they are 10 years old, at which point the surviving 0.0005% return to society and get taught to read etc.

Their morality would be very different from ours. Each having, as a little wildling, eaten between 5 and 20 of their own siblings for instance. They would not be fans of our decadent mode of child rearing and our unwillingness to eat each other. Would this result of divergent evolution with its competing set of necessary oughts be just as good as our version of morality? Upon meeting them, would we be obliged to convert them to our way of thinking, or to accept that their way is right for them and ours right for us, or would there be some way to build a conversation and try to find persuasive methods over time?

For all his faults, IC can probably answer that question much more efficiently than you. Maybe these creatures are in his view animals with no access to morality, and no souls for Jesus to save - I don't care about the details, I just suspect he wouldn't stumble.

[FlashDangerpants]

It is usual, when discussing morality, to begin proposing that morality is the source of the "ought" relation, that it is morality and only morality that makes choices of action right or wrong. I propose we take a step back and consider that "ought" might be more basic, more fundamental, and a direct consequence of our being human.

OK, but moral oughts are not the same as prudential oughts, or goal derived oughts in general. So a bait and switch to something like a prudential ought based on the need to live in cooperative societies won't work out.

Eventually there's a question that you have to find an answer for: why ought we do the morally right thing rather than act entirely selfishly?

The answer is because 'we' will not survive.

So, if 'we' want to keep surviving, then 'we' 'ought' to do the morally Right thing, rather than misbehave entirely selfishly.

So selfishly, if we want to have what we want - survival of our selfish genes for instance - then we should adopt morality for that selfish purpose rather than any moral purpose.

The previous question remains unanswered.

[MikeNovack]

OK, but moral oughts are not the same as prudential oughts, or goal derived oughts in general. So a bait and switch to something like a prudential ought based on the need to live in cooperative societies won't work out.

Eventually there's a question that you have to find an answer for: why ought we do the morally right thing rather than act entirely selfishly?

The answer is because 'we' will not survive.

So, if 'we' want to keep surviving, then 'we' 'ought' to do the morally Right thing, rather than misbehave entirely selfishly.

So selfishly, if we want to have what we want - survival of our selfish genes for instance - then we should adopt morality for that selfish purpose rather than any moral purpose.

The previous question remains unanswered.

Please wait so we can go step by step. I do have an outline in mind but don't think it would help to show that. EXCEPT --- we will address the difference between us as individuals and us as members of a human culture. Our genes do not get to survive if our culture doesn't *we are obligatory social) but the "prudential interests" of us as individuals not identical to those of the culture << think of the culture as a system whose "hardware" is human individuals >>

We are rational beings, capable of NOT doing "the right thing" if our immediate self interest is otherwise. Thus OUR CULTURE (society) might need us to have morality to prevent us from breaking the society/culture. So if you insist on looking ahead, that's the direction I intend to go << morality not "prudential' for us as individuals but in a sense "prudential" for all human cultures/societies that we have morality.

[MikeNovack]

OK, proceeding step by step.

I argue that we humans accept right/wrong as real categories (applied to choices of action in some situation). We believe this because taught in those terms from infancy. It doesn't matter if we can later identify a rational "prudential reason" (for a particular assignment) because we learned the assignment way before could do that. We were taught the right and wrong of bodily functions (we were "housebroken"). We were taught to wear clothes. We learned a LANGUAGE << the right and wrong here not "prudential" but definitional, intrinsic to being a language* >>

As children we learned to play games with other children, games with RULES (right and wrong). Functionally these could be thought of as precursors to complex collective behavior calling for precise co-ordination << how do several of us armed with thrusting spears bring down an elephant with none of us getting killed in the process >>

I think (if some of you want to insist on beginning to discuss morality we could start with those children's games, how the rules ENFORCED. But I'd rather wait until after we have discussed the existence of ARBITRARY right/wrong << that there are assignments right vs wrong that would work just as well the other way around BUT an assignment still necessary >>


* MORE capability comes with our instinctive pattern recognizers. For example, we might judge a sequence of utterances "right" (or wrong) even if not any language << a "nigun" works because we consider those utterances in that rhythm, tune to be "right"

[SpheresOfBalance]

It is usual, when discussing morality, to begin proposing that morality is the source of the "ought" relation, that it is morality and only morality that makes choices of action right or wrong. I propose we take a step back and consider that "ought" might be more basic, more fundamental, and a direct consequence of our being human. In other words, a consequence of us humans being social animals.


While I also believe that we humans are not the only social animals on the planet and others of us, say IC, are "human exceptionalists" (believe we are fundamentally different from other animals) we can ignore that difference of belief as long as we only consider humans.

So lets see if we agree on this starting point. We humans are social animals, can only survive in groups of humans, and this has been true longer than we properly could be thought of as human. I want us to begin HERE and have us explore what that means. So lets see if we are all in agreement so far. Everyone on board with that? Any dissent? << please, at this point JUST about this starting point >>

Imagine having the desire and the want to converse and discuss 'with others' 'your belief' that 'you' are not a social creature, and not recognizing and seeing the blatant hypocrisy and contradiction of this.

You're an Idiot!

[Age]

Please can we not take this one step at a time. Objections (like "prudential" vs "moral" WILL eventually be addressed). Instinct will NOT be addressed as it is extremely difficult for us to identify our instincts. I am certain that they are active, but probably at a low level, as tools*

Human beings instinct is 'to learn'.

IC, please do not go off the wall with silly examples. Chimpanzees or bonobos killing and eating MONKEYS is no more "murder" than you killing a cow and eating it.

Are we agreed with where we start? That humans are obligatory social animals that can only survive as members of a cooperating group.

Yes.

And while I believe this is also true of some non-human animals, we don't need to deal with the implications of that. For NOW, we want to consider what is NECESSARY for us humans.

Agreed.

We will start with some "oughts that are not necessarily "moral", why we need those (for our group of critters to survive). In other words, trying to establish the necessary reality of "ought" for humans.

But, to survive, peacefully and happy, in harmony, with one another, as One, does not require any 'oughts' at all. For as soon as one 'feels' that they 'ought' to do some thing, then then they 'feel' constricted or restricted in some way, and thus do not 'feel' free, nor feel that they are free and have do not have freedom. Some people will also think or believe that 'enforcement' in one or another way is necessary if 'others' are not doing what they 'ought' to be doing. Which only influences and/or increases some people's ill-gotten beliefs that some people have, or should have, 'power' over 'others'.

Morality is best done or achieved when all feel completely in control over "themselves" and so when no enforced laws nor 'oughts' are being made up. Doing absolutely every thing with voluntary enthusiasm, and thus without any fear of repercussions or consequences is how, and when, the Truly peaceful world begins, and remains.

* For example, ONE of the characteristics of original human societies composed of individuals who all know each other. We will be looking at consequences of that. But how do you know "that person knows me" INSTINCT INVOLVED (this one discovered back when I was in uni). An eyebrow flicker you are not conscious of making nor seen except as "that person knows me". I know the immense amount of work that was needed to identify this. Usually we discover about our instincts accidentally << thus we know WHEN (at what stage) :"incest avoidance" is encoded but not the details how it later works to make "sexually unattractive", just that it does >>

[FlashDangerpants]

OK, proceeding step by step.

I argue that we humans accept right/wrong as real categories (applied to choices of action in some situation). We believe this because taught in those terms from infancy. It doesn't matter if we can later identify a rational "prudential reason" (for a particular assignment) because we learned the assignment way before could do that. We were taught the right and wrong of bodily functions (we were "housebroken"). We were taught to wear clothes. We learned a LANGUAGE << the right and wrong here not "prudential" but definitional, intrinsic to being a language* >>

As children we learned to play games with other children, games with RULES (right and wrong). Functionally these could be thought of as precursors to complex collective behavior calling for precise co-ordination << how do several of us armed with thrusting spears bring down an elephant with none of us getting killed in the process >>

I think (if some of you want to insist on beginning to discuss morality we could start with those children's games, how the rules ENFORCED. But I'd rather wait until after we have discussed the existence of ARBITRARY right/wrong << that there are assignments right vs wrong that would work just as well the other way around BUT an assignment still necessary >>


* MORE capability comes with our instinctive pattern recognizers. For example, we might judge a sequence of utterances "right" (or wrong) even if not any language << a "nigun" works because we consider those utterances in that rhythm, tune to be "right"

Cool, what comes next? It seems so far that you are presenting normativity in general as cultural creation, and culture as an evolutionary product. I am interested to see how we arrive at that set of necessary human oughts.

[Age]

IC, please do not go off the wall with silly examples. Chimpanzees or bonobos killing and eating MONKEYS is no more "murder" than you killing a cow and eating it.

It's not a "silly example": it's a reasonable and thoughtful objection, actually. Perhaps you're missing the point. I'll try again.

If there are "social animals" that are fully "social" and fully "animals" but have no moral requirements, then it's impossible to believe that man being a "social animal" accounts for our morality.

So, what then, exactly, does 'account for' your morality'?

If there is any reason to assign "oughts" to human beings, then they cannot be located in any quality shared by lower animals who have no moral oughts.

1. There is no reasonable reason to assign 'oughts' to you human beings.

2. There are no such things as so-called 'lower animals'. Human beings are animals just like every other animal is.

The difference between you human beings and every other is just your ability to learn, understand, and reason any and every thing.

It must be located in something which, like morality itself, we do NOT share with such animals.

The very fact that 'morality', itself, applies to you human beings, only, literally means that you do not share 'morality' with any other animal. Full stop.

In other words, the fact of human exceptionalism faces us again. Human beings either are animals, in which case it's absurd to assign to them duties that no other animal has, or they are above the animals in some sense; but that sense in which we are above animals must be explained and accounted for.

you human beings are not 'above' other animals, for the very fact that although the human being is the most intelligent species of animal, it is also the most stupid species of animal. you human beings are not superior nor 'above' any other animal, you are just different from every other animal. And, what 'that difference' is, exactly, which separates you human being from every other species of animal is your ability to learn, understand, and reason absolutely any and every thing. No other animal has this capability.

Let's really simplify it, so the common-sensical nature of it becomes perfectly clear:

Social animals do not automatically have moral duties. (bonobos, chimps, dolphins, whatever example you wish to take)
Man is a social animal.
Therefore, man does not automatically have moral duties.

1. What are you, still, after thousands and thousands of years, still, call you humans 'man'. Why can you just not get rid of that most sexist and 'superiority' of complexes?

2. Just because you human beings and other animals are what you human beings call, 'social animals', does not imply nor mean that you human beings are not 'different' in other ways.

3. you human beings do have 'moral duties', whether you were 'social animals' or not. What you are, laughably, 'trying to' argue for, here, could also be applied even if you were 'not social animals'. For example,

Non social animals' do not automatically have moral duties, (crocodiles, polar bear, turtles, or whatever example you wish to take).
Humans are non social animals.
Therefore, humans do not automatically have moral duties.

As I thought would be blatantly obvious, the above argument is not even sound nor valid. Just like "Immanuel can's" is not.

What is the so-called 'premise' animals do not automatically have moral duties come from, exactly?

What have humans being social or solitary animals have to do with any thing, exactly, here? Do solitary animals automatically have 'moral duties'?

If no, then just say and write, no animal automatically has 'moral duties'.

Or

Social animals do not automatically have moral duties.
Man is not just a social animal.
Therefore, man has moral duties.

Again, 'this' is illogical nonsense.

And then we have to say in what way man is a special case, such that our assigning of moral duties is warranted for him, but not for other social animals.

For one who, laughably, claims that a thing with a penis wrote a book, in regards to what human beings 'ought' to do 'morally', but then 'trying to' claim that human beings have not been 'assigned moral duties' seems very hypocritical and contradictory, to say the least.

That's the argument in its simple form.

But, the so-called 'argument' was neither sound, nor valid, and so is not even worth saying nor writing.

[MikeNovack]

Before going on to begin discussing where morality comes from. I want us to recognize that there can be "oughts" where the assignment is arbitrary (but the ought still necessary).

I can't visualize what one of these might be in our societies/cultures 2 million years BCE to 10,000 years BCE which doesn't mean none existed. But to take an example from OUR society, which depends on efficient movement on roads, there is a right and a wrong side of the road and we ought to travel on the right side. The "ought" is necessary (else traffic could only creep) BUT the assignment of which side arbitrary.

OK, I think we are now ready to discuss why morality is a necessary component of human cultures. In other words, why we will see no human cultures without it. Please do note that such an evolutionary argument does not (usually) require a "where from" since CHANCE is sufficient to the observed result. But since evolution builds using whatever already there, most likely some of our instincts (for empathy, sympathy, etc.) involved as tools.

Somebody, please propose a children's game for us to use in our analysis.


IC ---- Now I really don't understand you
IC, please do not go off the wall with silly examples. Chimpanzees or bonobos killing and eating MONKEYS is no more "murder" than you killing a cow and eating it.

It's not a "silly example": it's a reasonable and thoughtful objection, actually. Perhaps you're missing the point. I'll try again.
If there are "social animals" that are fully "social" and fully "animals" but have no moral requirements, then it's impossible to believe that man being a "social animal" accounts for our morality.

a) It is because of your "human exceptionalism" that we are NOT considering morality of non-human social animals. I am NOT saying that non-human social animals do not have morality. That is NOT what "let's not consider that right now mean".

b) But what I was calling SILLY was your thinking of an animal of species A killing and eating an animal of unrelated species B "murder". Were you deceived by superficial resemblance? The last common ancestor between apes and monkeys something like 25 million years ago!

[Immanuel Can]

Before going on to begin discussing where morality comes from. I want us to recognize that there can be "oughts" where the assignment is arbitrary (but the ought still necessary).

"Necessary" in what sense or way? It clearly can't mean "logically necessary." There's nothing logically demanding of us having any "oughts," given secularism.

...to take an example from OUR society, which depends on efficient movement on roads, there is a right and a wrong side of the road and we ought to travel on the right side. The "ought" is necessary (else traffic could only creep) BUT the assignment of which side arbitrary.

Oh. So not "necessary" at all. Just convenient or conducive for some purpose we might choose.

OK, I think we are now ready to discuss why morality is a necessary component of human cultures.

You mean, "convenient for our purposes," then? It might be. But those "purposes" still need moral evaluating. For example, in order to get more money, maybe it's "convenient" for me to steal from you. Is it moral? "Ought" I to hold back? That's a very different kind of question.

IC ---- Now I really don't understand you
IC, please do not go off the wall with silly examples. Chimpanzees or bonobos killing and eating MONKEYS is no more "murder" than you killing a cow and eating it.

But that's my point. If it's not murder for monkeys, what makes it murder for humans?

It's not reasonable to suppose that it's because we "evolved" or "are social animals," even if that's true: because the assumption has to be that the same is true of ALL animals. And only man gets assigned moral duties, or "oughts." Every other animal just does what's instinctive in each case.

Why do we, of all animals, resist our instincts and impulses, and say, "You ought not to do what you are doing," or "You ought to do what you have left undone"? What makes us a special case?

You see this again in the Climate Change movement. Why do they ask us, of all creatures, to "save the planet"? They'd be silly to ask elephants, or doves, or water snakes or parameciums to "save the planet." So why does a duty to preserve the globe devolve on us, if we, too, are nothing but animals? Who issued that order?

You see, Mike, the story they're telling us doesn't add up. Either man is a different case from all the animals, or he's just an animal. If the latter, he has no moral duties. If the former, then the obvious question is, "Why different?"

It's not silly. I'm not mocking. It's the central concern of metaethics: what grounds the existence of morals? It's not "being an animal." It's not "having evolved." It's not "Nature." It's not "being bigger or smarter." And it's not "survival," since "survival" itself is not an imperative.

So what is it?

If we can answer that question, we'll be off to the races.

[Impenitent]

understanding human language is a key part of the differential...

it can however pose an interesting question...

is a sitting dog (acting after the command) preforming a moral act?

-Imp

[FlashDangerpants]

Before going on to begin discussing where morality comes from. I want us to recognize that there can be "oughts" where the assignment is arbitrary (but the ought still necessary).

I can't visualize what one of these might be in our societies/cultures 2 million years BCE to 10,000 years BCE which doesn't mean none existed. But to take an example from OUR society, which depends on efficient movement on roads, there is a right and a wrong side of the road and we ought to travel on the right side. The "ought" is necessary (else traffic could only creep) BUT the assignment of which side arbitrary.

In the context of philosophical discussion, that is not what necessary means. What you are describing is prudence not necessity.

Road use becomes safer if we can accurately predict the behaviour of other drivers, thus, assuming we wish to have long predictable lives rather than short but exciting ones... it is prudent to establish conventions such as driving on one side of the road or the other, and all stopping at red lights but driving at green ones and so on. Thus we have a set of oughts that are not moral oughts, but prudential ones.

OK, I think we are now ready to discuss why morality is a necessary component of human cultures. In other words, why we will see no human cultures without it. Please do note that such an evolutionary argument does not (usually) require a "where from" since CHANCE is sufficient to the observed result. But since evolution builds using whatever already there, most likely some of our instincts (for empathy, sympathy, etc.) involved as tools.

Somebody, please propose a children's game for us to use in our analysis.

You can probably get away with this use of necessity, I would suggest not doing so because you don't need to.

If it is observable that all human societies do create a moral milieu, then we might extrapolate from this that they must have one, that it is inevitable that one will arise. But if we are to say that it is necessary in a philosophical sense provokes questions about the mode of necessity, which traditionally would be deductive in nature rather than abductive inference.

This might all sound like pedantry, but there is an important logical point, which can be found in Immanuel Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysic of Morals, which you can read here (pdf). The relevant part begins around page 18 there.

Stripping away a certain amount of Kantian excess... The issue is that using the strict form of necessity common in philosophical discussion, a necessary rule, order, imperative, ought or whatever would be true in any possible world. Prudential oughts fall under a different category, they hypothecated on some other judgment - that it is desirable to have efficient access to the road, so everybody ought to obey the traffic rules. It is nice to be warm, so you ought to buy a new coat for the winter and so on. In Kantian terms, that is the distinction between categorical (necessary) and hypothetical (useful).

So I think your thing probably needs restating in revised terms. What I would suggest is that the emergence of conventions is an inevitable by product of the formation of societies. That the particulars of such conventions are often arbitrary, but the practice is inescapable. For necessity purposes, it is arguably definitional that any society must create such convention (what is a convention free society? Surely that would be nothing but a disaggregated rabble).

[MikeNovack]

If it is observable that all human societies do create a moral milieu, then we might extrapolate from this that they must have one, that it is inevitable that one will arise. But if we are to say that it is necessary in a philosophical sense provokes questions about the mode of necessity, which traditionally would be deductive in nature rather than abductive inference.

If you really want to discuss how I am using "necessary"

I would say X is necessary to a culture if in the absence of having X that culture would not survive (would cease to exist). I am not using it in the sense of logical necessity. Cultures are subject to evolutionary pressure so if lacking something useful that the competing cultures have, they will be out-competed.

Again, looking ahead -- I am aiming for "morality" to be necessary for human cultures. That's why I began by discussing non-moral right/wrong because FIRST wanting to show that there exist at least some of these (as necessary, for a culture to continue to exist).

But instead of trying to start with "where does morality come from?" I will be asking WHAT IS MORALITY DOING? and "WHY IS THAT NECESSARY?". The point here is once that is shown no need to determine "where from" << that's like asking what caused the initial genetic mutation that made possile an evolutionary change --- as soon as "by chance" is a possible answer you don't NEED a better answer >>

If nobody else will propose a children's game, I will, starting with one where "rule breaking" NOT going to raise moral issues. Please note that children's games are how we humans learn to carry out coordinated activities.

I knew I was taking a chance with that "which side of the road" but don't KNOW a good example of that type of arbitrary assignment for human societies >10,000 years in the past. I know you are able to think being able to move people and goods at more than very slow speed "a convenience". But pray tell, what do you think would happen in OUR society if that happened << would we be able to move goods fast enough to prevent a major die off? Say 90% of the population starving in short order. >>

[FlashDangerpants]

If it is observable that all human societies do create a moral milieu, then we might extrapolate from this that they must have one, that it is inevitable that one will arise. But if we are to say that it is necessary in a philosophical sense provokes questions about the mode of necessity, which traditionally would be deductive in nature rather than abductive inference.

If you really want to discuss how I am using "necessary"

I would say X is necessary to a culture if in the absence of having X that culture would not survive (would cease to exist). I am not using it in the sense of logical necessity. Cultures are subject to evolutionary pressure so if lacking something useful that the competing cultures have, they will be out-competed.

This is intended to be useful advice for you, I am not going to war here. You are using a colloquial version of a protected term of art in a way that contradicts the philosophical usage of the term and is only going to cause you problems that you could easily avoid by switching out the term for a more accurate one such as 'obligatory'. If even IC can see the problem, it is a real problem.

I recommend not dying on such a pointless hill. That phrase "necessary ought" will definitely kill your argument, if you go past me and IC and encounter a real philosopher and use those word, they will stop reading right there.

Again, looking ahead -- I am aiming for "morality" to be necessary for human cultures. That's why I began by discussing non-moral right/wrong because FIRST wanting to show that there exist at least some of these (as necessary, for a culture to continue to exist).

That use of necessary, not a problem with me because it is clear in context that the everyday version of the term is in use and nobody has to watch out for any prestidigitation. I am often accuse of reckless misuse of language though, so my endorsement is not ideal.

Although, again, necessary on what basis? Is it definitional of "culture" that such practices/traditions/conventions(?) are what culture does, or is it merely inescapable that cultures of more than X persons cannot operate without such cooperative practices?

But instead of trying to start with "where does morality come from?" I will be asking WHAT IS MORALITY DOING? and "WHY IS THAT NECESSARY?". The point here is once that is shown no need to determine "where from" << that's like asking what caused the initial genetic mutation that made possile an evolutionary change --- as soon as "by chance" is a possible answer you don't NEED a better answer >>

Quite so. If it is possible to arrive by evolutionary chance at the situation that pertains or which did for our distant ancestors, then the lack of need for any other explanation is apparent. The case made to establish this is of course... sufficient but not necessary.

If nobody else will propose a children's game, I will, starting with one where "rule breaking" NOT going to raise moral issues. Please note that children's games are how we humans learn to carry out coordinated activities.

I knew I was taking a chance with that "which side of the road" but don't KNOW a good example of that type of arbitrary assignment for human societies >10,000 years in the past. I know you are able to think being able to move people and goods at more than very slow speed "a convenience". But pray tell, what do you think would happen in OUR society if that happened << would we be able to move goods fast enough to prevent a major die off? Say 90% of the population starving in short order. >>

That direction of argument doesn't work. The imperative remains hypothetical no matter what move you try, and they have all been tried many times and I have seen it all. The survival of the species, the happiness of the universe, harmony betwixt heaven and earth, all these things are I am sure very fine objectives to seek. But "medicine is good because without medicine all the children will die of polio and then our cats will all be lonely" remains a prudential ought not a categorical one.



I still have no idea if you are aiming at a realist or antirealist outcome with this argument. But a lot of what you are doing seems reminiscent of Mary Midgely's Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature. Her opening question there is about what sort of animal we are, and what counts as the good for that sort of animal. It's sort of Aristotelian virtue ethics stuff, not immensely to my taste, but you might find some helpful stuff there and Midgely's work is always well argued even when wrong.

[Age]

Before going on to begin discussing where morality comes from. I want us to recognize that there can be "oughts" where the assignment is arbitrary (but the ought still necessary).

I can't visualize what one of these might be in our societies/cultures 2 million years BCE to 10,000 years BCE which doesn't mean none existed. But to take an example from OUR society, which depends on efficient movement on roads, there is a right and a wrong side of the road and we ought to travel on the right side. The "ought" is necessary (else traffic could only creep) BUT the assignment of which side arbitrary.

But, which side of the road one drives on, or not, has absolutely nothing at all to do with 'morality', itself.

So, if you do have a 'fresh approach' to 'morality', itself, then what does the word, 'morality', mean and/or is referring to, to you, exactly?

OK, I think we are now ready to discuss why morality is a necessary component of human cultures. In other words, why we will see no human cultures without it. Please do note that such an evolutionary argument does not (usually) require a "where from" since CHANCE is sufficient to the observed result. But since evolution builds using whatever already there, most likely some of our instincts (for empathy, sympathy, etc.) involved as tools.

Somebody, please propose a children's game for us to use in our analysis.


IC ---- Now I really don't understand you
IC, please do not go off the wall with silly examples. Chimpanzees or bonobos killing and eating MONKEYS is no more "murder" than you killing a cow and eating it.

It's not a "silly example": it's a reasonable and thoughtful objection, actually. Perhaps you're missing the point. I'll try again.
If there are "social animals" that are fully "social" and fully "animals" but have no moral requirements, then it's impossible to believe that man being a "social animal" accounts for our morality.

a) It is because of your "human exceptionalism" that we are NOT considering morality of non-human social animals. I am NOT saying that non-human social animals do not have morality. That is NOT what "let's not consider that right now mean".

b) But what I was calling SILLY was your thinking of an animal of species A killing and eating an animal of unrelated species B "murder". Were you deceived by superficial resemblance? The last common ancestor between apes and monkeys something like 25 million years ago!