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How any ethical system can be defined under materialism when everything is simply the result of cause and effect. How possibly we can define right from wrong based on cause and effect?

bahman wrote:How any ethical system can be defined under materialism when everything is simply the result of cause and effect. How possibly we can define right from wrong based on cause and effect?

Consequence theory claims that rightness or wrongness of an action depends on the effect an action has. Utilitarianism is a good example of consequence theory. Basically, the theory holds that an action is good if it produces good consequences and bad if it produces the opposite.

Ginkgo wrote:

bahman wrote: How any ethical system can be defined under materialism when everything is simply the result of cause and effect. How possibly we can define right from wrong based on cause and effect?

Consequence theory claims that rightness or wrongness of an action depends on the effect an action has. Utilitarianism is a good example of consequence theory. Basically, the theory holds that an action is good if it produces good consequences and bad if it produces the opposite.

That I understand. Everything in materialism is the result of cause and effect in the core. This base does not provide a good substrate that we can derive a ethical system from. In another word, there is no objective morality within materialism.

bahman wrote:

Ginkgo wrote:

bahman wrote: How any ethical system can be defined under materialism when everything is simply the result of cause and effect. How possibly we can define right from wrong based on cause and effect?

Consequence theory claims that rightness or wrongness of an action depends on the effect an action has. Utilitarianism is a good example of consequence theory. Basically, the theory holds that an action is good if it produces good consequences and bad if it produces the opposite.

That I understand. Everything in materialism is the result of cause and effect in the core. This base does not provide a good substrate that we can derive a ethical system from. In another word, there is no objective morality within materialism.

Utilitarianism philosophers would claim that their theory is objective. They attempted to lay down an objective principle for determining when an action was right or wrong. They called this maxim the principle of utility.

bahman wrote:How any ethical system can be defined under materialism when everything is simply the result of cause and effect. How possibly we can define right from wrong based on cause and effect?

When we're just talking about things like water vapor and lava and minerals and so on, do you agree that things have different properties? Would you say that those different properties arise somehow out of "simple cause and effect"?

bahman wrote:That I understand. Everything in materialism is the result of cause and effect in the core. This base does not provide a good substrate that we can derive a ethical system from. In another word, there is no objective morality within materialism.

That's not necessarily the case, although materialists who believe in objective morality, just like dualists who believe in objective morality, have a lot of work to do in order to present a plausible evidential case for the claim that there is objective morality.

The more important thing to focus on here, though, is the notion that if there's no objective morality, it's a problem for morality in general. It isn't. There is no objective morality. We have no problem creating ethical systems despite the fact that there is no objective morality.

bahman wrote:How any ethical system can be defined under materialism when everything is simply the result of cause and effect. How possibly we can define right from wrong based on cause and effect?

The how is defined and made possible by intent.

*

Intent is the missing ingredient.

“Definition of Intention*:
The definition of intention is a mental factor that functions to move its primary mind to the object.”

“Function of Intention*:
The principal function of intention is to create karma. Of the three types of karma, or action – body actions, verbal actions, and mental actions – intention itself is mental action. However, it is also the cause of bodily and verbal actions, because all our bodily and verbal actions are preceded by mental actions.”

* Understanding the Mind, The Nature and Power of the Mind, Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

bahman wrote:
Everything in materialism is the result of cause and effect in the core. This base does not provide a good substrate that we can derive an ethical system from. In another word there is no objective morality within materialism

There is no such thing as objective morality. And so materialism has nothing to do with it because objective morality can not exist in any other system either. The fundamental principles which govern secular morality are consensus and utilitarianism and reciprocal altruism. Consensus is arrived at through inter subjectivity and it is necessary as a means of establishing what is morally acceptable and what is not at any given time Utilitarianism is a logical reference since it focuses up on the least harmful of options. Reciprocal altruism is the Golden Rule by another name Now it is of course to be found in all the major belief systems but it can also be adopted as secular morality since it is not religious in principle

bahman wrote:How any ethical system can be defined under materialism when everything is simply the result of cause and effect. How possibly we can define right from wrong based on cause and effect?

Is there anything that is not simply the result of cause and effect?

bahman wrote:
How any ethical system can be defined under materialism when everything is simply the result
of cause and effect. How possibly we can define right from wrong based on cause and effect

The laws of physics have got absolutely nothing to do with the formulation of ethics
determined through inter subjectivity. The two are not related to each other at all

surreptitious57 wrote:

bahman wrote:
How any ethical system can be defined under materialism when everything is simply the result
of cause and effect. How possibly we can define right from wrong based on cause and effect

The laws of physics have got absolutely nothing to do with the formulation of ethics
determined through inter subjectivity. The two are not related to each other at all

Sure they’re related. Physical movement is either towards or away from balance. Needs determine ethics in folks, and need determines ethics in cultures. The natural physical processes of meeting needs causes motion towards balance in the human form, which because form is physical, is affected by physical forces that also determine need. Folks and their ways, which represent a wide array of variables, are always a part of the material cause and effect equation.

Walker wrote: Sure they’re related. Physical movement is either towards or away from balance. Needs determine ethics in folks, and need determines ethics in cultures. The natural physical processes of meeting needs causes motion towards balance in the human form, which because form is physical, is affected by physical forces that also determine need. Folks and their ways, which represent a wide array of variables, are always a part of the material cause and effect equation.

Did you intend to write a load of unintelligible garble, Walker, or was it an accident?

Walker wrote:

surreptitious57 wrote:

bahman wrote:
How any ethical system can be defined under materialism when everything is simply the result
of cause and effect. How possibly we can define right from wrong based on cause and effect

The laws of physics have got absolutely nothing to do with the formulation of ethics
determined through inter subjectivity. The two are not related to each other at all

Sure they re related. Physical movement is either towards or away from balance. Needs determine ethics in folks and need determines ethics in cultures. The natural physical processes of meeting needs causes motion towards balance in the human form which because form is physical is affected by physical forces that also determine need. Folks and their ways which represent a wide array of variables are always a part of the material cause and effect equation

That makes no sense and so once again :

There is precisely zero correlation between physical motion and group ethics
Physical forces have nothing at all to do with inter subjective moral consensus

Let's it put it this way.

Physical forces certainly have something to do with group ethics.
e.g. mob violence, combat situations, the rape of Sabine women, and so on.

The ethics are formed by the group in the physical situation, and all the shared variables present in that physical situation.

Ethics do not exist without motion.

The motion can be thought motion, voice motion which includes the physical movement of writing down the ethics into concepts, or the ethics of action which of course requires motion.

Conde Lucanor wrote:

bahman wrote: How any ethical system can be defined under materialism when everything is simply the result of cause and effect. How possibly we can define right from wrong based on cause and effect?

Is there anything that is not simply the result of cause and effect?

That was not my point. The problem is how you can define an ethical system based on cause and effect.