Philosophy Now Forum

Belinda wrote: ↑Sat Oct 12, 2024 4:48 pm

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Fri Oct 11, 2024 4:09 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Oct 11, 2024 12:11 pm

Okay. Is "It is wrong to kill people" morally objective?

That's the issue here. And I think not, because 'objective' means 'factual' or 'based on facts' - and there are no moral facts, but only moral opinions. So the expressions 'moral fact' and 'moral objectivity' are incoherent. For example, it can't be a fact that X - say, abortion - is morally wrong or not morally wrong.

Objective: impartial
unbiased
unprejudiced
non-partisan
disinterested


Nobody in the history of mankind has ever be completely impartial regarding any fact, therefore in the context here 'objective ' means that the ethic in question would exist even when nobody existed to be partial to it.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Oct 12, 2024 3:58 am

CIN wrote: ↑Fri Oct 11, 2024 10:21 am

Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Oct 11, 2024 9:55 am
So is "do not kill people" not morally objective?

I would say that killing a human, other things being equal, is objectively bad. The argument runs like this:
1. To say that X is good is to show a pro-attitude to X and also to imply that that pro-attitude is appropriate to X.
2. A pro-attitude is appropriate to pleasure.
3. Therefore pleasure is (intrinsically) good.
4. Therefore it is (instrumentally) good to cause a being to have pleasure, and bad to prevent the having of pleasure by a being.
5. If a being would have more net pleasure (i.e. more pleasure than pain) if it was not killed, killing that being prevents the having of net pleasure by that being.
6. Therefore, if a being would have net pleasure if it was not killed, then other things being equal, killing that being is bad.

Notes:
1. Humans obviously qualify as beings in this context.
2. Re step 1: see A.C.Ewing, The Definition of Good, p. 152: 'We may therefore define "good" as "fitting object of a pro attitude".'
3. Re step 2: there's a vast amount of empirical evidence for this from both human and animal behaviour. See also Irwin Goldstein's excellent paper, Why people prefer pleasure to pain (on JSTOR).

To show that killing is objectively wrong, as opposed to objectively bad, is trickier, because it gets us into the issue of moral standing, but I'll have a go if you wish (though it may not be today).

1. To say that X is good is to show a pro-attitude to X and also to imply that that pro-attitude is appropriate to X.

It appear there is nothing in the above to stop 'genocides' [or whatever evil to us] as X being good [relative to their definition] and showing a pro-attitude to 'genocide'*.
* those who believe genocide is good for their cause will not label it as 'genocide' but some positive terms [e.g. cleansing] relative to their ideology or beliefs.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Oct 12, 2024 3:58 am I believe it would be more effective to define "morality" as 'the management to eliminate and prevent evil to enable its related good to manifest spontaneously'.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Oct 12, 2024 3:58 am To effect the above, we need an effective moral framework and system [a moral model].

If genocide is identified as evil, then the task of morality is to eliminate or prevent genocide.
In this case, we need to have an exhaustive list of 'what is evil'.
We need not have to focus on 'what is good' because the related good will naturally emerge when the related evil is got rid off, prevented or reduced to most possible minimum.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Sat Oct 12, 2024 4:46 pm

it can't be a fact that *X... is morally wrong or not morally wrong

Heaven help us if you're right. I, for one, have no interest in livin' thru a repeat of humanity's spicer periods. As I say elsewhere: even if natural rights are just a clever construct, a fiction, I can see no downside to livin' as though every person has them.

*an abuse or violation of another's life, liberty, or property

CIN wrote: ↑Sat Oct 12, 2024 11:22 pm

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Oct 12, 2024 3:58 am

CIN wrote: ↑Fri Oct 11, 2024 10:21 am
I would say that killing a human, other things being equal, is objectively bad. The argument runs like this:
1. To say that X is good is to show a pro-attitude to X and also to imply that that pro-attitude is appropriate to X.
2. A pro-attitude is appropriate to pleasure.
3. Therefore pleasure is (intrinsically) good.
4. Therefore it is (instrumentally) good to cause a being to have pleasure, and bad to prevent the having of pleasure by a being.
5. If a being would have more net pleasure (i.e. more pleasure than pain) if it was not killed, killing that being prevents the having of net pleasure by that being.
6. Therefore, if a being would have net pleasure if it was not killed, then other things being equal, killing that being is bad.

Notes:
1. Humans obviously qualify as beings in this context.
2. Re step 1: see A.C.Ewing, The Definition of Good, p. 152: 'We may therefore define "good" as "fitting object of a pro attitude".'
3. Re step 2: there's a vast amount of empirical evidence for this from both human and animal behaviour. See also Irwin Goldstein's excellent paper, Why people prefer pleasure to pain (on JSTOR).

To show that killing is objectively wrong, as opposed to objectively bad, is trickier, because it gets us into the issue of moral standing, but I'll have a go if you wish (though it may not be today).

1. To say that X is good is to show a pro-attitude to X and also to imply that that pro-attitude is appropriate to X.

It appear there is nothing in the above to stop 'genocides' [or whatever evil to us] as X being good [relative to their definition] and showing a pro-attitude to 'genocide'*.
* those who believe genocide is good for their cause will not label it as 'genocide' but some positive terms [e.g. cleansing] relative to their ideology or beliefs.

I don't understand your objection. Are you saying that a definition of 'good' should make it impossible for people to say that something is good if in fact it is evil?
Language doesn't work like that, it evolves to serve people's need to say what they want to say, so if there are people who want to say that something is good when it's actually evil, then language has to provide them with that ability.

It's my argument as a whole that shows that killing (and therefore genocide) is bad, not just the first premise.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Oct 12, 2024 3:58 am I believe it would be more effective to define "morality" as 'the management to eliminate and prevent evil to enable its related good to manifest spontaneously'.

Possibly, but I wasn't defining 'morality', I was defining 'good', so your comment isn't relevant to my argument.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Oct 12, 2024 3:58 am To effect the above, we need an effective moral framework and system [a moral model].

If genocide is identified as evil, then the task of morality is to eliminate or prevent genocide.
In this case, we need to have an exhaustive list of 'what is evil'.
We need not have to focus on 'what is good' because the related good will naturally emerge when the related evil is got rid off, prevented or reduced to most possible minimum.

But you haven't said what you think the word 'good' actually means. If you don't first establish what the words used in ethics mean, you can't be sure what people are saying when they use them, and therefore you won't know whether their statements (including your own statements) are true or false. Defining 'good', 'bad' and so on is an essential first step in moral philosophy.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sun Oct 13, 2024 2:03 am

CIN wrote: ↑Sat Oct 12, 2024 11:22 pm

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Oct 12, 2024 3:58 am

1. To say that X is good is to show a pro-attitude to X and also to imply that that pro-attitude is appropriate to X.

It appear there is nothing in the above to stop 'genocides' [or whatever evil to us] as X being good [relative to their definition] and showing a pro-attitude to 'genocide'*.
* those who believe genocide is good for their cause will not label it as 'genocide' but some positive terms [e.g. cleansing] relative to their ideology or beliefs.

I don't understand your objection. Are you saying that a definition of 'good' should make it impossible for people to say that something is good if in fact it is evil?
Language doesn't work like that, it evolves to serve people's need to say what they want to say, so if there are people who want to say that something is good when it's actually evil, then language has to provide them with that ability.

What I am saying the term 'good' is too loose a word for use within morality, i.e. "one man's meat and another man's poison."
When Hitler stated the genocide of the Jews is good relative to Nazism, how do we counter that and justify our views genocide is not good?
We need justified objective moral facts to counter that.

The term "good" had and is still a "battered punching bag" within moral philosophy.
See: "Good" within Moral Philosophy
viewtopic.php?t=42955

I believe for the purpose of morality and ethics, it is not necessary to focus on the definition 'good' with details rather.
If one need to define 'good' with reference to morality & Ethics, then 'good' is the opposite of evil.
If we strive to get rid of genocide [an evil], and achieve zero genocide [or a reduction], that consequence will be good, i.e. it is good there is no genocide.
If we can bring chattel slavery to ZERO as moral target, then, it is good that slavery is ZERO.
Whatever defined as good for anyone is secondary.

When we have an exhaustive list of what is evil [=list of not good] as defined, there is no room for evil to be good at all.

It's my argument as a whole that shows that killing (and therefore genocide) is bad, not just the first premise.

You'll need to justify that "humans killing of humans" is objective, i.e. an objective moral fact, i.e. universal. Otherwise, moral relativists will argue your argument is subjective and your personal opinion, belief or judgment.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Oct 12, 2024 3:58 am I believe it would be more effective to define "morality" as 'the management to eliminate and prevent evil to enable its related good to manifest spontaneously'.

Possibly, but I wasn't defining 'morality', I was defining 'good', so your comment isn't relevant to my argument.

The main subject is morality, so it is imperative that we define morality and ethics from the start.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Oct 12, 2024 3:58 am To effect the above, we need an effective moral framework and system [a moral model].

If genocide is identified as evil, then the task of morality is to eliminate or prevent genocide.
In this case, we need to have an exhaustive list of 'what is evil'.
We need not have to focus on 'what is good' because the related good will naturally emerge when the related evil is got rid off, prevented or reduced to most possible minimum.

But you haven't said what you think the word 'good' actually means. If you don't first establish what the words used in ethics mean, you can't be sure what people are saying when they use them, and therefore you won't know whether their statements (including your own statements) are true or false. Defining 'good', 'bad' and so on is an essential first step in moral philosophy.

Defining morality and ethics is the first step in moral philosophy, i.e.
"morality" [& ethics] is the getting rid of evil to enable its related goods to manifest.
In the case of morality, what is 'good' is not evil.

When we get rid of evil to ZERO, there is no need to be bothered with its related good, rather we just accept whatever goods manifest therefrom.

The majority do not simply go about killing humans, i.e. which is effective morality; they do not focus on its related "good" with much attention.

If there are killings of humans by humans [evil as defined], people will want to get rid or prevent such killings [evil] which is morality as defined, i.e. getting rid or prevention of evil [killings of humans by humans].

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sun Oct 13, 2024 2:03 am

CIN wrote: ↑Sat Oct 12, 2024 11:22 pm

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Oct 12, 2024 3:58 am

1. To say that X is good is to show a pro-attitude to X and also to imply that that pro-attitude is appropriate to X.

It appear there is nothing in the above to stop 'genocides' [or whatever evil to us] as X being good [relative to their definition] and showing a pro-attitude to 'genocide'*.
* those who believe genocide is good for their cause will not label it as 'genocide' but some positive terms [e.g. cleansing] relative to their ideology or beliefs.

I don't understand your objection. Are you saying that a definition of 'good' should make it impossible for people to say that something is good if in fact it is evil?
Language doesn't work like that, it evolves to serve people's need to say what they want to say, so if there are people who want to say that something is good when it's actually evil, then language has to provide them with that ability.

What I am saying the term 'good' is too loose a word for use within morality, i.e. "one man's meat and another man's poison."
When Hitler stated the genocide of the Jews is good relative to Nazism, how do we counter that and justify our views genocide is not good?
We need justified objective moral facts to counter that.

The term "good" had and is still a "battered punching bag" within moral philosophy.
See: "Good" within Moral Philosophy
viewtopic.php?t=42955

I believe for the purpose of morality and ethics, it is not necessary to focus on the definition 'good' with details rather.
If one need to define 'good' with reference to morality & Ethics, then 'good' is the opposite of evil.
If we strive to get rid of genocide [an evil], and achieve zero genocide [or a reduction], that consequence will be good, i.e. it is good there is no genocide.
If we can bring chattel slavery to ZERO as moral target, then, it is good that slavery is ZERO.
Whatever defined as good for anyone is secondary.

When we have an exhaustive list of what is evil [=list of not good] as defined, there is no room for evil to be good at all.

It's my argument as a whole that shows that killing (and therefore genocide) is bad, not just the first premise.

You'll need to justify that "humans killing of humans" is objective, i.e. an objective moral fact, i.e. universal. Otherwise, moral relativists will argue your argument is subjective and your personal opinion, belief or judgment.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Oct 12, 2024 3:58 am I believe it would be more effective to define "morality" as 'the management to eliminate and prevent evil to enable its related good to manifest spontaneously'.

Possibly, but I wasn't defining 'morality', I was defining 'good', so your comment isn't relevant to my argument.

The main subject is morality, so it is imperative that we define morality and ethics from the start.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Oct 12, 2024 3:58 am To effect the above, we need an effective moral framework and system [a moral model].

If genocide is identified as evil, then the task of morality is to eliminate or prevent genocide.
In this case, we need to have an exhaustive list of 'what is evil'.
We need not have to focus on 'what is good' because the related good will naturally emerge when the related evil is got rid off, prevented or reduced to most possible minimum.

But you haven't said what you think the word 'good' actually means. If you don't first establish what the words used in ethics mean, you can't be sure what people are saying when they use them, and therefore you won't know whether their statements (including your own statements) are true or false. Defining 'good', 'bad' and so on is an essential first step in moral philosophy.

Defining morality and ethics is the first step in moral philosophy, i.e.
"morality" [& ethics] is the getting rid of evil to enable its related goods to manifest.
In the case of morality, what is 'good' is not evil.

When we get rid of evil to ZERO, there is no need to be bothered with its related good, rather we just accept whatever goods manifest therefrom.

The majority do not simply go about killing humans, i.e. which is effective morality; they do not focus on its related "good" with much attention.

If there are killings of humans by humans [evil as defined], people will want to get rid or prevent such killings [evil] which is morality as defined, i.e. getting rid or prevention of evil [killings of humans by humans].

CIN wrote: ↑Wed Oct 09, 2024 12:08 am My thinking has moved on a little since that discussion.

I no longer think that all beings capable of experiencing pleasure and/or pain have the same moral standing. Nor do I think moral standing is related to current net pleasure. I am now inclined to think that a being's moral standing is proportional to that being's potential lifetime net pleasure, rather than the net pleasure they are experiencing at the moment. Suppose a child and an old lady are trapped in a burning building, and you can only rescue one of them. The child is terrified and unhappy, and has a broken leg which is very painful but mendable; the old lady is calm and not in any pain. If we decide who to rescue on the basis of their current net pleasure, we will rescue the old lady and leave the child to die. I think this would be irrational: more lifetime net pleasure can be created for the child than for the old lady, so the child has the greater moral standing. We should rescue the child and let the old lady die (sorry gran).

CIN wrote: ↑Wed Oct 09, 2024 12:08 am Whether your great aunt and the foetus have moral standing, then, depends on whether they have potential positive lifetime net pleasure. If they do, then they have positive moral standing. To abort the foetus or withdraw life support from your great aunt would be to treat them as if they had no moral standing at all. If they have potential positive moral standing, this is a moral error. If something is a moral error, then I think it can be regarded as morally wrong.

CIN wrote: ↑Wed Oct 09, 2024 12:08 am

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sun Jan 08, 2023 9:51 pm I also note the oblique reference to utilitarian calculus, but I assume you wouldn't go so far as to endorse actually creating a measurement system to assign units of pleasurability and pain-ness to the mouse and the man's situations, assuming them to be scientific data now, because that would be giberring insanity?

I think we do recognise that some pleasures and pains are more intense than others, and I can't see how this could be the case unless it is also the case that pleasures and pains are quantified. But I would agree that quantified does not necessarily imply measurable.

CIN wrote: ↑Wed Oct 09, 2024 12:08 am

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sun Jan 08, 2023 9:51 pm I am not sure up front how you can use fairness that way. The thing that makes utilitarianism tempting is that it massively simplifies the situation and provides a principle allows assignation of internally uncontroversial statuses of right and wrong. By which I mean that all who agree to the pleasure/pain thing can agree on which is the rigth or wrong course of action in any hypothetical or factual scenario where the outcome is known. but fairness breaks that unless you deal with the rthings that might make any outcome fair or unfair. That would at the very least include dessert, unless we are simplifying "fairness" into equality of outcome or something?

My current view is that goodness does not imply rightness, and that it is possible for an action to be morally good but also morally wrong. (Good and right are different concepts, so 'X is good' does not contradict 'X is wrong'.) An example is our old friend, the surgeon who kills a healthy patient and uses his organs to extend the lives of five unhealthy patients. His action is morally good, because (we assume) it creates more net pleasure than would otherwise be created; but it involves treating the healthy patient as if he was an object with no moral standing (in Kantian language, treating him as a mere means rather than an end), and since he does have moral standing, this is morally wrong.

Should the surgeon choose what is morally good (killing the healthy patient), or what is morally right (not killing him)? I don't think there is an objective answer to this question. We probably give a relative weighting to goodness and rightness in such cases, but I can't see how there could be a single objective scale against which goodness and rightness can both be weighted, so the choice must be subjective.

All comments on the above (from you, not necessarily from anyone else) welcome, but my ethical theory is a work in progress and could still change, so if you don't want to waste time on it, don't.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Sat Oct 12, 2024 4:46 pm

it can't be a fact that *X... is morally wrong or not morally wrong

Heaven help us if you're right. I, for one, have no interest in livin' thru a repeat of humanity's spicer periods. As I say elsewhere: even if natural rights are just a clever construct, a fiction, I can see no downside to livin' as though every person has them.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Oct 09, 2024 2:53 am According to Kant,
the individual[s] and the-collective need to strive to be morally competent, relative to his current moral competency abilities. If indexed at 100 then progress to 101, 102 .. and so on, or try to achieve a quantum jump say, 101, 102, 110, 111, 115 .. and so on.

CIN wrote: ↑Sat Oct 12, 2024 11:36 pmI wouldn't worry, Henry.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Sun Oct 13, 2024 4:07 pm amoralist

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sun Oct 13, 2024 4:25 pm

henry quirk wrote: ↑Sun Oct 13, 2024 4:07 pm amoralist

You don't have any grounds to use that word to describe a single person at this site.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Sun Oct 13, 2024 4:30 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sun Oct 13, 2024 4:25 pm

henry quirk wrote: ↑Sun Oct 13, 2024 4:07 pm amoralist

You don't have any grounds to use that word to describe a single person at this site.

I use amoralist as I would moral subjectivist. You know this (and now, anyone with an interest knows this too).

'nuff said.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Sun Oct 13, 2024 4:37 pm When I end with 'nuff said I'm sayin' I'm not talkin' to you, on this subject, anymore.

You know this (and now, anyone with an interest knows this too).

'nuff said.