Religious vs non-religous bases for morality

[MikeNovack]

What do those comments relate to? Certainly nothing I wrote.

They refer to whether morality could be eternal/immutable.

[FlashDangerpants]

What do those comments relate to? Certainly nothing I wrote.

They refer to whether morality could be eternal/immutable.

They don't. They apply to a strawman you have created that nobody cares about. You have no idea what arguments are used by the people who believe moral properties supervene onto natural ones, and you have nothing to offer against them.

[Gary Childress]

Two swings, two misses. Still you have not bothered to even learn the slightest thing about what you fool yourself you are arguing against. All so you can try to railroad me over something I wrote that wasn't even remotely about you.

Do you believe that we humans are/have been immutable over time? Especially our culture(s) which change/mutate far faster than we do biologically?

In the case of morality, are you suggesting that, if things had been different, human beings could have evolved to have a different morality than we currently do?

So, for example, had we turned out like Chimpanzees, we could have incorporated rape as an approved behavior, and it would seem "moral" to us? Would that be along the lines of what you mean by morality possibly being mutable (if I'm understanding correctly)?

[MikeNovack]

In the case of morality, are you suggesting that, if things had been different, human beings could have evolved to have a different morality than we currently do?

So, for example, had we turned out like Chimpanzees, we could have incorporated rape as an approved behavior, and it would seem "moral" to us? Would that be along the lines of what you mean by morality possibly being mutable (if I'm understanding correctly)?

Except not "if" but "when" (when we were the LCA species).

Please do note, when you speak of chimp morality you should also be talking about bonobo morality. Bonobos might look like chimps but behave very differently (*). We, the chimps, and the bonobos, are all approximately the same distance apart

"So, for example, had we turned out like Chimpanzees, we could have incorporated rape as an approved behavior, and it would seem "moral" to us?"
This shows you haven't looked at studies of chimp behavior. MUCH more complicated than that. Chimp morality with regard to who can rape AND in regard to who can have sex with a willing female would depend on position in the male hierarchy.

(*) bonobo society is not human society BUT just as bonobo appearance resembles chimp appearance bonobo society resembles human society.

[Immanuel Can]

We, the chimps, and the bonobos, are all approximately the same distance apart

You see, Mike, this is where the thesis from which you're working becomes severely problematic for any moral justification.

Let's say I agree with you: human beings are sophisticated bonobos. Or chimps. Or neither, but all derived from a common ancestor...an uberchimp, or even earlier, a common paramecium-like cell in the primordial soup. It won't matter for the deduction that naturally follows.

Whichever it is, all of us are mere products of chance. Our world exploded into existence billions of years ago, purely by some natural phenomenon of which, while admittedly we have no detailed understanding, we are confident had no intelligence, no plan, no purposes, and no intention behind it. Chimps, bonobos and Mikes all came into being through the same accidental route. Between that accident and today, the operative forces have simply been time and non-directed, non-teleological evolution. Time plus mutation. That's it. What we are today is as accidental as the origin of the universe, ultimately.

If I believed that this is really the world in which I have found myself -- and I mean really believed it, not just said it -- if I believed it with all my heart, and with all the confidence with which anybody ever believes anything. If I felt certain that my wisest choice was to invest my belief in this particular origin story, and decided to live out my life as if this is the whole truth of my origins, then what?

I tell you the truth: I would see the logic of that immediately. The logic would be that there is simply no legitimate thing such as a moral requirement. Maybe the group of late chimps in which I happen to troop would impose one on me, and put rules on me to serve their purposes. But I would see that that was all it was. And in honesty, in sticking to the truth as I believed it to be, I would have to see that it served my own turn to be selective in my adherence to such rules: to obey them only when others were watching, but to find as many ways as I could to subvert or avoid them whenever something in my interest popped up. I might even be able to use them to limit others' advantages relative to me, or to give me a survival and prosperity edge...pretending to believe in them so others had to fall in line with my wishes, but personally feeling no duty whatsoever to stay true to them myself, when I found it useful to do otherwise.

I would realize that it was in a battle for survival and for privileges. There would be no ultimate reason why I shouldn't play the moral game in front of others, but completely abandon it in my own interests. In fact, that would be the perfect logic I would have to derive from my starting point: I'm in an accidental world, with no rules, with no obligations, and no price to pay for subverting the moral game. I would have everything to win by being adaptable, cunning and amoral, and zero to lose. Who could possibly fail to see that logic?

Would that make me a bad person? No, in the first place, because "bad" would never be a real thing. But if I failed to see that logic, I would be a stupid and disadvantaged person, for sure...I would miss my own opportunities, out of some false sense of duty to a non-thing, to morality, when I could be getting ahead. And in the second place, it would actually make me, in a perverse sense, "good." Why? Because, ultimately, it's even better for the human race if I do get ahead, if I am truly one of the few who has managed to be a total realists about things, like this: for the human race, I would believe, progresses by guys like me, guys with the cunning, strategy and amorality to get ahead, to procreate, to seize more power for themselves, to enjoy more privileges and increase survival potential -- and to raise children who thought exactly the way I did, and were just as beyond morality in their realism as I was. Thus would the race evolve, I would conclude.

Now, do you think that's how I should reason? But if you don't, how would you say I ought to reason? Should I abandon my original belief in an accidental, Materialist kind of universe? But why, if I truly believe it? Should I know that there's no such real thing as morality, and still play patsy to the moral demands of others, and even of lesser men? How would that serve me, or the human race, if I did it? Where would doing that be to my advantage?

So tell me, Mike...why should I, as a believer in accidental origins and evolutionary bonobos, take any moral imperative seriously at all? Why would you have me abandon my brain, deny my essential beliefs, lose my advantages and impair the human race?

You can now see the problem, can't you?

[FlashDangerpants]

Did that idiot just fail the rape question there?

[MikeNovack]

If I believed that this is really the world in which I have found myself -- and I mean really believed it, not just said it -- if I believed it with all my heart, and with all the confidence with which anybody ever believes anything. If I felt certain that my wisest choice was to invest my belief in this particular origin story, and decided to live out my life as if this is the whole truth of my origins, then what?

I tell you the truth: I would see the logic of that immediately. The logic would be that there is simply no legitimate thing such as a moral requirement. Maybe the group of late chimps in which I happen to troop would impose one on me, and put rules on me to serve their purposes. But I would see that that was all it was. And in honesty, in sticking to the truth as I believed it to be, I would have to see that it served my own turn to be selective in my adherence to such rules: to obey them only when others were watching, but to find as many ways as I could to subvert or avoid them whenever something in my interest popped up.


You can now see the problem, can't you?

Can't you? I am saying that it is the knowledge (and other non-moral factors will weigh in on what action you end up taking)

But seriously, do you believe that it is only a question of "if the others know"? If no others are around to see, none will know it was you, you would see it as a simple free choice whether to drop your trousers and take a dump in the corner of the room?. << I picked THAT example because you learned that part of right/wrong long before you knew of any god giving you direction about what was right and what wrong >>

When you look at the "secular" origin story (**), do you not see that as we evolved ans social animals, and social animals that would have "culture", morality would come into existence/evolve along with us? On one hand you do see "how the others will react" as being in play BUT HOW DID YOU KNOW HOW THE OTHERS WOULD REACT? Why WOULD the others react that way?

(**) EXCEPT not necessarily secular. I am still on the "with gods" part of this. But "with gods" does not necessarily imply a hands on tinkerer for the creator. A creator god COULD have chosen just to create and let that creation proceed from that point. God of the Big Bang?

[Gary Childress]

We, the chimps, and the bonobos, are all approximately the same distance apart

You see, Mike, this is where the thesis from which you're working becomes severely problematic for any moral justification.

Let's say I agree with you: human beings are sophisticated bonobos. Or chimps. Or neither, but all derived from a common ancestor...an uberchimp, or even earlier, a common paramecium-like cell in the primordial soup. It won't matter for the deduction that naturally follows.

Whichever it is, all of us are mere products of chance. Our world exploded into existence billions of years ago, purely by some natural phenomenon of which, while admittedly we have no detailed understanding, we are confident had no intelligence, no plan, no purposes, and no intention behind it. Chimps, bonobos and Mikes all came into being through the same accidental route. Between that accident and today, the operative forces have simply been time and non-directed, non-teleological evolution. Time plus mutation. That's it. What we are today is as accidental as the origin of the universe, ultimately.

If I believed that this is really the world in which I have found myself -- and I mean really believed it, not just said it -- if I believed it with all my heart, and with all the confidence with which anybody ever believes anything. If I felt certain that my wisest choice was to invest my belief in this particular origin story, and decided to live out my life as if this is the whole truth of my origins, then what?

I tell you the truth: I would see the logic of that immediately. The logic would be that there is simply no legitimate thing such as a moral requirement. Maybe the group of late chimps in which I happen to troop would impose one on me, and put rules on me to serve their purposes. But I would see that that was all it was. And in honesty, in sticking to the truth as I believed it to be, I would have to see that it served my own turn to be selective in my adherence to such rules: to obey them only when others were watching, but to find as many ways as I could to subvert or avoid them whenever something in my interest popped up. I might even be able to use them to limit others' advantages relative to me, or to give me a survival and prosperity edge...pretending to believe in them so others had to fall in line with my wishes, but personally feeling no duty whatsoever to stay true to them myself, when I found it useful to do otherwise.

I would realize that it was in a battle for survival and for privileges. There would be no ultimate reason why I shouldn't play the moral game in front of others, but completely abandon it in my own interests. In fact, that would be the perfect logic I would have to derive from my starting point: I'm in an accidental world, with no rules, with no obligations, and no price to pay for subverting the moral game. I would have everything to win by being adaptable, cunning and amoral, and zero to lose. Who could possibly fail to see that logic?

Would that make me a bad person? No, in the first place, because "bad" would never be a real thing. But if I failed to see that logic, I would be a stupid and disadvantaged person, for sure...I would miss my own opportunities, out of some false sense of duty to a non-thing, to morality, when I could be getting ahead. And in the second place, it would actually make me, in a perverse sense, "good." Why? Because, ultimately, it's even better for the human race if I do get ahead, if I am truly one of the few who has managed to be a total realists about things, like this: for the human race, I would believe, progresses by guys like me, guys with the cunning, strategy and amorality to get ahead, to procreate, to seize more power for themselves, to enjoy more privileges and increase survival potential -- and to raise children who thought exactly the way I did, and were just as beyond morality in their realism as I was. Thus would the race evolve, I would conclude.

Now, do you think that's how I should reason? But if you don't, how would you say I ought to reason? Should I abandon my original belief in an accidental, Materialist kind of universe? But why, if I truly believe it? Should I know that there's no such real thing as morality, and still play patsy to the moral demands of others, and even of lesser men? How would that serve me, or the human race, if I did it? Where would doing that be to my advantage?

So tell me, Mike...why should I, as a believer in accidental origins and evolutionary bonobos, take any moral imperative seriously at all? Why would you have me abandon my brain, deny my essential beliefs, lose my advantages and impair the human race?

You can now see the problem, can't you?

Are you saying that a society couldn't decide on rational rules to govern the behavior of its members for the benefit of all if there is no God? Are you saying that a society entirely comprised of atheists couldn't possibly come up with any codes of social conduct that would be rational and beneficial to all if they were followed by all as a matter of social agreement?

Or are you saying that atheists could come up with rational rules, but cheating is always the best rational option for any member of a society?

So, for example, everyone would always play the prisoner's dilemma, thinking only of themselves and choosing to screw over others for their own personal gain at the expense of others instead of cooperating with others so that there is a better guarantee of peace and resulting prosperity among all? We're all a bunch of narcissists who can't see beyond our own immediate satisfaction, is that correct?

[Gary Childress]

In the case of morality, are you suggesting that, if things had been different, human beings could have evolved to have a different morality than we currently do?

So, for example, had we turned out like Chimpanzees, we could have incorporated rape as an approved behavior, and it would seem "moral" to us? Would that be along the lines of what you mean by morality possibly being mutable (if I'm understanding correctly)?

Except not "if" but "when" (when we were the LCA species).

Please do note, when you speak of chimp morality you should also be talking about bonobo morality. Bonobos might look like chimps but behave very differently (*). We, the chimps, and the bonobos, are all approximately the same distance apart

"So, for example, had we turned out like Chimpanzees, we could have incorporated rape as an approved behavior, and it would seem "moral" to us?"
This shows you haven't looked at studies of chimp behavior. MUCH more complicated than that. Chimp morality with regard to who can rape AND in regard to who can have sex with a willing female would depend on position in the male hierarchy.

(*) bonobo society is not human society BUT just as bonobo appearance resembles chimp appearance bonobo society resembles human society.

So can you elaborate more on what you mean by saying morality is "mutable"?

A) Do you mean that morality can be shaped by circumstances of our given reality? For example, if we lived in a world where people actually universally enjoyed being raped and suffered no harm from it, then rape would be permissible; however, since we live in a world where people are typically harmed both emotionally and physically by rape, rape cannot be made "moral" under these circumstances. Is that what you mean by "mutable"?

I can see a sense in which one might call morality "mutable" in that sense because morality depends highly upon human physiological and psychological attributes, as evidenced by slightly different takes on morality by different societies that practice different customs. But every society nevertheless has a sense of things like wrongful killing and theft. In a sense, no human society is without a concept of wrongful killing and theft.

Or

B) Do you mean morality = whatever evolution programs in a species for that species to see as moral? For example, had fate been different, we could have evolved to think that rape is "moral", even if it were harmful to the victims?

[Gary Childress]

Did that idiot just fail the rape question there?

Who are you referring to, me, Mike, or both of us?

[FlashDangerpants]

Did that idiot just fail the rape question there?

Who are you referring to, me, Mike, or both of us?

Mike. You laid the trap.

[MikeNovack]

So can you elaborate more on what you mean by saying morality is "mutable"?

A) Do you mean that morality can be shaped by circumstances of our given reality? For example, if we lived in a world where women actually universally enjoyed being raped, then rape would be permissible; however, since we live in a world where women are typically harmed both emotionally and physically by rape, rape cannot be made "moral" under these circumstances. Is that what you mean by "mutable"?

I can see a sense in which one might call morality "mutable" in that sense because morality depends highly upon human physiological and psychological attributes, as evidenced by slightly different takes on morality by different societies that practice different customs. But every society nevertheless has a sense of things like wrongful killing and theft. In a sense, no human society is without a concept of wrongful killing and theft. s?

I am using "mutable" to express that we (as a species) are mutable.

A species can go extinct (have no descendants) but any species that exists has ancestors. It has been about seven million years since the last common ancestor between us, chimps, and bonobos. So we can think of the line leading to us today goes back seven million years. Do you think the critter we are now lives as the one that did six million years ago, five million years ago, four million years ago, three million years ago, two million years ago, a million years ago (fire), 200,000 years ago (LCA of all humans alive today), etc.

Our societies are something else again. They can best be thought of as "systems" running on a band of humans as components. So while "low level morality (fundamental, species level, perhaps with evolved "quick evaluators") the DETAILS of how morality plays out modified by society. Thus there might be a low level "share meat with the band" we could expect to be widespread/universal bu details would not be << example "if a hunter kills a small animal, rabbit, it can be his to eat. But a large animal, deer, must be shared in the following way. If hungry, he can eat the liver now, otherwise brought back to camp. The person who made the arrow/atl dart used to kill the deer gets the left shoulder/leg. The band shaman gets the right shouldre/leg, the band chief gets the head and neck, his wife's family gets the left rear leg, his family gets the right rear leg, the rest goes to other band members except he gets to keep the hide. THAT'S CULTURE defining the nitty gritty of what "share the meat" means in that society. Do not expect the rules to be the samefor the band in the next valley. AND -- do not expect me to try to justify the morality of this particular method of "share the meat". Compared to our biological evolution, our cultures evolve orders of magnitude faster IN MOST CASES.

The exception to that is "children's games" which MAY be important in how we learn about morality (that there is a right way and a wring way to do tings). Since children learn games from ones about three years older there have been many "transmission generations" since Pompeii was buried, but a child of today would recognize the "hopscotch" array. STOP -- I am not saying the (specific) rules of these games are "moral" but the LESSON learning them is moral (there is a right way and a wrong way).

[Gary Childress]

So can you elaborate more on what you mean by saying morality is "mutable"?

A) Do you mean that morality can be shaped by circumstances of our given reality? For example, if we lived in a world where women actually universally enjoyed being raped, then rape would be permissible; however, since we live in a world where women are typically harmed both emotionally and physically by rape, rape cannot be made "moral" under these circumstances. Is that what you mean by "mutable"?

I can see a sense in which one might call morality "mutable" in that sense because morality depends highly upon human physiological and psychological attributes, as evidenced by slightly different takes on morality by different societies that practice different customs. But every society nevertheless has a sense of things like wrongful killing and theft. In a sense, no human society is without a concept of wrongful killing and theft. s?

I am using "mutable" to express that we (as a species) are mutable.

A species can go extinct (have no descendants) but any species that exists has ancestors. It has been about seven million years since the last common ancestor between us, chimps, and bonobos. So we can think of the line leading to us today goes back seven million years. Do you think the critter we are now lives as the one that did six million years ago, five million years ago, four million years ago, three million years ago, two million years ago, a million years ago (fire), 200,000 years ago (LCA of all humans alive today), etc.

Our societies are something else again. They can best be thought of as "systems" running on a band of humans as components. So while "low level morality (fundamental, species level, perhaps with evolved "quick evaluators") the DETAILS of how morality plays out modified by society. Thus there might be a low level "share meat with the band" we could expect to be widespread/universal bu details would not be << example "if a hunter kills a small animal, rabbit, it can be his to eat. But a large animal, deer, must be shared in the following way. If hungry, he can eat the liver now, otherwise brought back to camp. The person who made the arrow/atl dart used to kill the deer gets the left shoulder/leg. The band shaman gets the right shouldre/leg, the band chief gets the head and neck, his wife's family gets the left rear leg, his family gets the right rear leg, the rest goes to other band members except he gets to keep the hide. THAT'S CULTURE defining the nitty gritty of what "share the meat" means in that society. Do not expect the rules to be the samefor the band in the next valley. AND -- do not expect me to try to justify the morality of this particular method of "share the meat". Compared to our biological evolution, our cultures evolve orders of magnitude faster IN MOST CASES.

The exception to that is "children's games" which MAY be important in how we learn about morality (that there is a right way and a wring way to do tings). Since children learn games from ones about three years older there have been many "transmission generations" since Pompeii was buried, but a child of today would recognize the "hopscotch" array. STOP -- I am not saying the (specific) rules of these games are "moral" but the LESSON learning them is moral (there is a right way and a wrong way).

I don't think of our societies as "systems" and humans as "components". Our society has specific rules and customs that apply to "components," for example, that differ from the way we think of our fellow society members. Maybe I'm wrong, but it kind of sounds like you're conflating two different professions and trying to equate the terminology of one "components" with the terminology of the other "humans", which lends itself to different (though maybe subtle) implications in their usage. It's like a software engineer or a corporate human resource manager trying to apply for a sociology professorship and bringing along the professional terminology of his or her prior profession into the new one. It has its limits in academia.

[FlashDangerpants]

We, the chimps, and the bonobos, are all approximately the same distance apart

You see, Mike, this is where the thesis from which you're working becomes severely problematic for any moral justification.

Let's say I agree with you: human beings are sophisticated bonobos. Or chimps. Or neither, but all derived from a common ancestor...an uberchimp, or even earlier, a common paramecium-like cell in the primordial soup. It won't matter for the deduction that naturally follows.

Whichever it is, all of us are mere products of chance. Our world exploded into existence billions of years ago, purely by some natural phenomenon of which, while admittedly we have no detailed understanding, we are confident had no intelligence, no plan, no purposes, and no intention behind it. Chimps, bonobos and Mikes all came into being through the same accidental route. Between that accident and today, the operative forces have simply been time and non-directed, non-teleological evolution. Time plus mutation. That's it. What we are today is as accidental as the origin of the universe, ultimately.

If I believed that this is really the world in which I have found myself -- and I mean really believed it, not just said it -- if I believed it with all my heart, and with all the confidence with which anybody ever believes anything. If I felt certain that my wisest choice was to invest my belief in this particular origin story, and decided to live out my life as if this is the whole truth of my origins, then what?

I tell you the truth: I would see the logic of that immediately. The logic would be that there is simply no legitimate thing such as a moral requirement. Maybe the group of late chimps in which I happen to troop would impose one on me, and put rules on me to serve their purposes. But I would see that that was all it was. And in honesty, in sticking to the truth as I believed it to be, I would have to see that it served my own turn to be selective in my adherence to such rules: to obey them only when others were watching, but to find as many ways as I could to subvert or avoid them whenever something in my interest popped up. I might even be able to use them to limit others' advantages relative to me, or to give me a survival and prosperity edge...pretending to believe in them so others had to fall in line with my wishes, but personally feeling no duty whatsoever to stay true to them myself, when I found it useful to do otherwise.

I would realize that it was in a battle for survival and for privileges. There would be no ultimate reason why I shouldn't play the moral game in front of others, but completely abandon it in my own interests. In fact, that would be the perfect logic I would have to derive from my starting point: I'm in an accidental world, with no rules, with no obligations, and no price to pay for subverting the moral game. I would have everything to win by being adaptable, cunning and amoral, and zero to lose. Who could possibly fail to see that logic?

Would that make me a bad person? No, in the first place, because "bad" would never be a real thing. But if I failed to see that logic, I would be a stupid and disadvantaged person, for sure...I would miss my own opportunities, out of some false sense of duty to a non-thing, to morality, when I could be getting ahead. And in the second place, it would actually make me, in a perverse sense, "good." Why? Because, ultimately, it's even better for the human race if I do get ahead, if I am truly one of the few who has managed to be a total realists about things, like this: for the human race, I would believe, progresses by guys like me, guys with the cunning, strategy and amorality to get ahead, to procreate, to seize more power for themselves, to enjoy more privileges and increase survival potential -- and to raise children who thought exactly the way I did, and were just as beyond morality in their realism as I was. Thus would the race evolve, I would conclude.

Now, do you think that's how I should reason? But if you don't, how would you say I ought to reason? Should I abandon my original belief in an accidental, Materialist kind of universe? But why, if I truly believe it? Should I know that there's no such real thing as morality, and still play patsy to the moral demands of others, and even of lesser men? How would that serve me, or the human race, if I did it? Where would doing that be to my advantage?

So tell me, Mike...why should I, as a believer in accidental origins and evolutionary bonobos, take any moral imperative seriously at all? Why would you have me abandon my brain, deny my essential beliefs, lose my advantages and impair the human race?

You can now see the problem, can't you?

Are you saying that a society couldn't decide on rational rules to govern the behavior of its members for the benefit of all if there is no God? Are you saying that a society entirely comprised of atheists couldn't possibly come up with any codes of social conduct that would be rational and beneficial to all if they were followed by all as a matter of social agreement?

Or are you saying that atheists could come up with rational rules, but cheating is always the best rational option for any member of a society?

So, for example, everyone would always play the prisoner's dilemma, thinking only of themselves and choosing to screw over others for their own personal gain at the expense of others instead of cooperating with others so that there is a better guarantee of peace and resulting prosperity among all? We're all a bunch of narcissists who can't see beyond our own immediate satisfaction, is that correct?

You got sort of two issues going on there entirely separate from the religion v irreligion thing.

1. Mannie reasons like a psychopath, there's no way round that. For non-psychopathic philosophers, it is usual to accept that humans are motivated by beliefs and desires towards moral ways of life, not by reason. Somebody who wants to commit rape or murder is not considered a functional person who has failed to find a logical source of morality, but rather somebody who has a faulty brain.

There was an epically stupid thread here a few years ago when VA misread a passage in an essay by Richard N. Boyd as suggesting that... Moral Fact Deniers Has Cognitive Deficit in Morality. What Boyd was actually saying is that anybody who is not directly motivated by morality has a cognitive defect. This isn't a deduction, it's just an observation. The way things work is that if somebody has no immediate moral motivation, they are mad. Nonces - mad. Kiddie fiddlers - mad. Psycho killers - mad. That's just how these things are divided up and everybody knows it.

So this notion that IC has that without perfect moral logical foundations nobody has any reason at all to behave morally doesn't actually tell us anything about grounds for moral reason, it is IC accidentally exposing his psychpopathic traits. It is understandable that you might assume that because you are prone to depression, self destructive thoughts and even hallucinations, that makes you the best madman here. But the reality is that your situation responds to medication, his won't.

2. Mannie is also an absolutist for no good reason. His arguments just assume absolutism in the most question-begging manner possible. This again doesn't require deduction. It is perfectly observable that we have practices of moral reasoning. I give my reasons why I think something is permissible, you counter with your reasons why you think it is not, and we both reference various principles which we think are better represented by or own viewpoints than the other guy's. That is reasoning, it is the trading of reasons in support of propositions. The assumption that it must all resolve to some verifiable foundation is unsupported.

If we can do reasoning without having an absolute basis - which we definitely can and frequently do* - then we have sufficient basis to go about a trade in reasons in support of propositions that explain our moral motivations in terms of beliefs and desires.

* For proof of this point... we don't only do that for moral propositions. Star Wars fans can argue in quite exquisite detail about the finer points of various imaginary spacecraft, to determine which is coolest. There's no way that needs a perfect theoretical basis. Audiophiles can argue for days about which Pink Floyd album as the sweetest production values.

[FlashDangerpants]

I am using "mutable" to express that we (as a species) are mutable.

If you didn't know what I meant when I spoke of immutable morality why didn't you just ask instead of making up your own buillshit vocabulary and arguing against random strawmen?

You don't understand any of moral philosophy and that is why even a pissant like IC is going to continually bat you around.