What is morality?

[promethean75]

Bro, that's what made Karl such a boss... that he was a class traitor to the bourgeois culture he was a part of and often smoked cigars with and became like an inside agent and mouthpiece of the working class. He was a philosophical double agent being chased out of every country he was in by its resident bourgeoisie because of his seditious writing. How awesome is that? He's like the John Dillinger of historical materialism.

A question I meant to aks earlier. Are there really people smoking crack on your street without being arrested? If so, clear out the third room because I'm movin' in which you guys.

[Immanuel Can]

Bro, that's what made Karl such a boss...

Complete ignorance of the experience of being working class, plus molesting of the only one he knew...made him a "boss"?

Then why wasn't Nietzsche a "boss"?

[promethean75]

N was a different kind of boss, but I'm sure had he been initiated into the ranks of the proletariat rather than become a career academic and then a retired garage philosopher (like you guys) he would have become a Novatore rather than a Caesar in his writing and not said a single hostile word to the anarchists and socialists swine.

What Fritz needed was a good 10-15 years of hard labor. An electrician, flag-stone patios, truck driver, hospital janitor responsible for floors 1-5. Anything other than a philology teacher (i can't think of a more useless subject than etymology). Wait, i actually can. Quantums physics mechanics.

He experienced none of the comradery that bonds men together and creates a sense of class and community. Never trust a man who hasn't had a beer with his coworkers after work at least once. He was the creepy guy like Mr. Brady who would sit alone at the pizza parlor reading classical texts while the other guys flirted with the girls and horsed around like imbecilic plebs.

[Immanuel Can]

N was a different kind of boss, but I'm sure had he been initiated into the ranks of the proletariat

No, he never was.

...rather than become a career academic and then a retired garage philosopher

Actually, that's exactly what he was. He saw himself as an "economist," and also as a "scientist," but wasn't close to being either. He was bookish and unbelievably pedantic, and brutal even to his admirers. Any friend he found, he tapped for cash; and when it ran out, he raged against them for not paying his way. He was the very picture of a useless layabout. His own mother famously said, "Karl writes so much about 'capital'; I wish he'd make some." But he never did.

Not a great recommendation for an "economist" to be sure; even less for an advocate of the poor.

[MikeNovack]

A game is just a game. It's applicability to life has to be shown, or it remains just a game.

STOP IT!

I do not believe you do not understand the term "game" as used in "game theory"

These "games" ARE models of real life interactions. It is a way of grouping real life interactions in terms of decisions and payoffs. Ones that have the same "matrix" (decisions and payoffs) are given a name, "the XYZ game". This often allows for an experimental test of how people choose.

For example:
Two persons have been apprehended, charged with a crime. They are being interviewed separately, with the prosecutor making an offer. "If you agree to plead guilty and testify against the other person, you will get a one year sentence and he gets a twenty year sentence. If he agrees to plead guilty and testify against you, he gets one year and you get twenty years. If both of you insist on pleading innocent and go to trial, you both will get convicted and sentenced to five years" << to complete the matrix, if you both plead guilty, you will each get a ten year sentence but the prosecutor not going to point that out >>

This goes by the name "the prisoner's dilemma" game. But that same name would be applied to any interaction with the same choice and payoff matrix. Doesn't have to be about prisoners and the sum of the game not relevant << in the example, the sum is negative, but not necessarily the case >> So we could set up an experiment, say with a positive sum and see how people choose.

Experiment --- each person pushes a button, red or green. If a person pushes green and the other person does also, both get a dollar and thank you for your time. If one pushes green and the other red, the green pusher gets $100 and the red pusher nothing. If both push red, each gets $10. This has the same decision and payoff matrix so would be considered a "prisoner's dilemma game". One with a positive sum.

[promethean75]

"His own mother famously said, "Karl writes so much about 'capital'; I wish he'd make some."

Well, you just tell madam Marx that only a man whose born lot will never bring him capital would write so ferverishly and obsessively about it!

Good day to you, sir.

[Immanuel Can]

A game is just a game. It's applicability to life has to be shown, or it remains just a game.

I do not believe you do not understand the term "game" as used in "game theory"

Game theory is supposed to apply to life. This one doesn't, apparently.

In fact, you admit:

These "games" ARE models of real life interactions.

As a "model of real life," it's a failure.

[Immanuel Can]

"His own mother famously said, "Karl writes so much about 'capital'; I wish he'd make some."

Well, you just tell madam Marx that only a man whose born lot will never bring him capital would write so ferverishly and obsessively about it!

You don't know his bio. He had a fat inheritance, which he squandered. Then he sponged of his admirers, and squandered that, too. He was poor only because he was a terrible "economist" and a lousy person. And it was his family that really paid the price for his profligacy and incompetence with money.

[promethean75]

Mr. Marx used a third of the (roughly) 5500 francs left to him by his pops for revolutionary activities and the remaining two thirds on a) newspaper publishing, b) family sustenance during periods of capitalist-vampire-induced poverty, c) train tickets to get the f*** out of dodge before he's arrested, d) candies for that sexy little housemaid with the fat ass, and e) beer and hot pickles for everyone.

[Immanuel Can]

...family sustenance during periods of capitalist-vampire-induced poverty...

Not for Marx. He wasn't a prole, remember? He was born into a professional, middle-class family, and given an inheritance. He was no victim...but he was a sexual predator who molested the only prole he ever met. He was a rabid occultist, too -- among his many charms. And he refused hygiene, and thus suffered from boils, which made his temperament even lovelier. And his children (two of three, plus a son-in-law) committed suicide. No wonder.

[promethean75]

Quite the unsavory character, wouldn't you say?

[MikeNovack]

In fact, you admit:

These "games" ARE models of real life interactions.

As a "model of real life," it's a failure.

In this case the term "model" refers to "same decision and payoff matrix". In many cases the NAME normally use for the model comes directly from its most famous real life example. That's why I used "the prisoner's dilemma game" as another example << because "dictator game" got you off on one of your tangents >>. The "prisoner's dilemma" game is precisely how prosecutors get the accused to betray each other IN REAL LIFE.

I brought up "the dictator game" (aka "ultimatum game") precisely because we are talking about morality and experimental results indicate that at least when the matrix values are small* people do NOT decide THIS GAME based on rationality but on morality. It was precisely because researchers were surprised by the initial results that they went on to see if culture mattered and how.

* The SMALL is important. The experiment has not been done with large values and I suspect that this might make a difference, very large values causing people to choose rationally rather than morally. In other words, if the dictator chooses "lets divide this pot of ten I get nine and you get one" experiment indicates the other person will say "no dice" (we both get nothing) if the unit is dollar. But I think would rationally accept if the unit were a million dollars << I'll give up dollar to punish you for being unfair but not a million dollars >>

[Immanuel Can]

...at least when the matrix values are small* people do NOT decide THIS GAME based on rationality but on morality.

This "morality" of which you speak -- which one do you mean? Where is this axiom, "Thou shalt screw over anybody who doesn't play the game as we expect" written down? Who authorized it? What gives it any authority?

Your sentence takes for granted that "morality" is a thing we all understand in common. If it didn't, it couldn't make any sense, or be in any way compelling as an argument. But clearly, you think it is: therefore, you must have some definite conception in mind, one that you think we all understand by the word "morality."

But then, if culture is the basis, then there is no common understanding of "morality." Each culture has its own such conception, and if there's any overlap between all of them, it's terribly small...far too small to speak of as a universal "morality." We can't even prove that the Egyptians and Romans were wrong for their love of incest, if culture is the ground of it.

And as a secularist, how does such a person even know there IS any such real thing as "morality"? Maybe there's not. Maybe all cultures are simply imagining various things, and using pseudo-moral language to describe their mere preferences and local peccadilloes. How would a secularist know whether that was true or not? What standard could he access to form such a judgment?

[MikeNovack]

...at least when the matrix values are small* people do NOT decide THIS GAME based on rationality but on morality.

This "morality" of which you speak -- which one do you mean? Where is this axiom, "Thou shalt screw over anybody who doesn't play the game as we expect" written down? Who authorized it? What gives it any authority?
A)

Your sentence takes for granted that "morality" is a thing we all understand in common. If it didn't, it couldn't make any sense, or be in any way compelling as an argument. But clearly, you think it is: therefore, you must have some definite conception in mind, one that you think we all understand by the word "morality."

But then, if culture is the basis, then there is no common understanding of "morality." Each culture has its own such conception, and if there's any overlap between all of them, it's terribly small...far too small to speak of as a universal "morality."
B)

And as a secularist, how does such a person even know there IS any such real thing as "morality"? Maybe there's not.
C)

A ---- That would NOT be the "axiom" ----- the "axiom" in this case is "be willing to pay a small price to punish deviation from co-operative behavior". IE: it is RIGHT to do that and WRONG not to even though not in self interest. If you truly do not recognize the rel life situations of which the "ultimatum game" is the model, sorry for you. our acting as if not understanding I do not believe.

B ---- Yes perhaps small if we are looking at our large scale cultures. I am not discussing/investigating the vast amount of cultural moral rules that are not in common but the smallish subset that appear to be in common and presumably predate our modern large scale cultures. I'm sorry if this offends your "morality comes from the Christian God" since those beliefs are essentially "modern" and could not have influenced these earlier moral rules.

C ---- the secularist was toilet trained and trained to wear clothes. The secularist played with other children. That's why the secularist believes "some things re right to doa nd some things are wrong to do". NOTE THAT THIS IS THE SAME WAY YOU LEARNED MORALITY EXISTS. You learned that before you knew of an God.

[Immanuel Can]

...the "axiom" in this case is "be willing to pay a small price to punish deviation from co-operative behavior".

That's not a "moral axiom." A moral axiom requires the implication that it is one's duty to follow it. There is no such duty as a duty to punish deviation from whatever "cooperative" behavior is deemed by others to be. It's at most an option...or, I think you want to say, a potential likelihood of mass choice. But it's not a moral obligation of any kind. It has no "oughtness" attached.

I am not discussing/investigating the vast amount of cultural moral rules that are not in common but the smallish subset that appear to be in common

But then, you're not discussing anything universal at all.

So in your view, morality would be neither obligatory (in any sense) nor universal. So what is it? Only some people are told to do it, and none of them are obligated in any sense to follow it. That sounds less like a moral code, and more like an arbitrary wish.

...the secularist believes "some things re right to doa nd some things are wrong to do".

All you're saying is that he was trained. Every child is. But when they come of age, and they can begin to ask "Why?" then that goes out the window. Either you give them sufficient reasons so that they come to believe it themselves, or they have no reason to believe it any more. At that point, you have to either coerce them with force, or find the reasons they need to come to believe X or Y is moral, and persuade them rationally.

And force, by any account, is not a property of morality. So what are the sufficient reasons you'll supply to tell this questioning person why X or Y is right or wrong?