Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Thu Apr 13, 2023 10:03 am
Generally,
1. The primary ought of all living things is the 'oughtness to survive' as long as possible till the inevitable. This is a biological fact [FSK].
Let's accept this for the sake of argument. I think it's slipping in a moral evaluation of a behavioral/attitudinal trait, but let's accept it. I think VA is best countered by accepting his premises, but pointing out what he ignores these entail
2. the 'ought-to-kill' is a critical to fulfil the 'Food' in the 4Fs to facilitate basic survival -1. This is a biological fact [FSK].
.... as long as we include plants as those killed. But he's already slipping in unnecessary ideas. We don't have an oughtness to kill. We have aggressive tendencies that can express in a variety of ways including killing. We don't have a clear model in those neurons of killing. What we have is tendencies towards violence, aimed at prey, aimed at other animals and humans in self-defense and also for a variety of other motivations. He has not demonstrated that neurons have little 'kill' heuristics. They can certain lead to aggression in all forms.
3. This 'ought-to-kill' is directed at non-humans so that humans can kill them for food -2. This is a biological fact [FSK].
Again with the proviso related plants.
4. But being humans there is a possibility [due to various reasons - tribalism, self-defense, etc.] that if such 'ought to kill' is directed at other humans without control, it would theoretical exterminate the species which would contradict 1. There must a control to ensure 1 is sustained. This is a biological and psychological fact [FSK].
Fine, but now we are getting close to where VA gets in trouble.
5. To ensure objective 1 is sustain, evolution has programmed via adaption the 'oughtness not to kill one's kind' as a control.
This is misleading. Again, there are species that kill their own kind for a variety of reasons. There are species that don't do this. Both have been quite successful. And again, it is not an oughtness not to kill, but mirror neurons, which leads to identifying with the feelings and suffering of others. This can modify, weaken or even remove aggressive tendencies. It is not a total control. Nor is it an oughtness. It is a tendency to feel the feelings of someone we can see or hear.
VA posits that he develops a morality out of what he finds in brains. He finds mirror neurons, so empathy, which would tend to reduce killing, is an objective moral fact. But also in brains we have aggressive neurons, capable of leading to violence including murder.
That is the mix of tendencies we have. So, any morality based on brain structures would have to consider the combination of both attitudes empathy and aggressiveness to be necessary moral facts for homo sapiens.
Not for other species, for homo sapiens.
Despite humans have been killing each other due to Tribalism and other reasons, 'oughtness not to kill one's kind' still prevails. This evident in all the species that survive to the present.
To varying degrees. Some simply never murder other members of their species. There could be a variety of causes for this.
This is the advent of the biological and moral function within all humans.
Unclear referent, but these tendencies toward aggression and also toward identification are often called moral stances or behaviors that we create morals related to.
6. Per the Moral FSK, since morality is eliminating evil to enable its related good, and since killing another human is an evil act, the 'oughtness not to kill humans' is a biological and moral issue.
I mean, after a decade of this, one could only hope that VA would be able to see that he comes to the table with a morality and then roots around in brains to justify it.
And pretty much everyone here would like there to be less murder. And less of the situations that tend to increase it: poverty, for example.
Since this 'oughtness not to kill humans' is sustained by physical biological neural correlates, it is an objective moral fact via the human-based moral FSK.
But homo sapien murders are also sustained by physical biological neural correlates, so this would be acceptable to some degree. In whales, it is not acceptable. They don't murder each other. But homo sapiens do.
VA's argument is if murder was completely out of control the whole species would die.
Well, that's true for eating. So, we get feelings of being full, for example.
That doesn't mean that eating is bad per se.
(oughtness to eat vs. oughtness not to kill ourselves, at least in the short term, by overeating)
(oughtness to kill vs. oughtness to feel empathy for people like us, which we extend even to other animals)
(just to lay out my analogy)
With eating we want a balance between eating and not eating too much. So we have desires for food and suppression of appitite neuronal patterns and hormonal patterns)
VA may well react to my example with Eating is not evil. How can you compare eating with murder?
Right, it's values outside of physical correlates that lead to his dislike of murder, a dislike I share.
Perhaps we are the best balance of aggression and empathy possible for our species. What works for hares does not work for us. Who knows.
But you have no physical justification for saying we need to
for example
control aggession even more than we do now.
You have to come with values from somewhere else.
You cannot justify the elimination of murder or even increasing its reduction based on what neurons we have. Based on them we should have the murder rates we have.
7. This personal battle of good over evil is a moral function of human nature within oneself, thus the related 'ought-not-ness-to-kill-humans' is a moral fact verifiable and justifiable within the scientific FSK and thence to Moral FSK.
No one is denying we have a mix of tendencies, but all we can really conclude from VA's approach is that aggression and empathy are objective moral facts and humans should be a mix of these things.
And guess what we are.
But VA thinks we need to shift the balance more to the side of empathy. Fine. I'd prefer that.
But there is no objectivity involved in that. Now one has to add a judgment, a moral judgment to the tendencies of aggression and empathy already in place.
And really, how much empathy is VA showing when he interacts with people he disagrees with.
He thinks most people are morally weak at this time in history. He does not think he is, he thinks they are.
He thinks that PH doesn't care about violence. If he read PH with more empathy he'd realize that one of the reasons PH doesn't like the idea of objective morality is because of how it gets used against humans by humans. He may be right about this, he may be wrong.
But if VA could read his posts with more empathy he wouldn't continually assume the worst about him.
VA could also show more empathy for people who are concerned about his utopian plans to change human brains so there are more moral. At times this will be accomplished via technological means. At other times through something like training/planning/pedagogy. A student of history and someone who theoretically values empathy might try to bridge the gap there.
Brilliantly said Harbal