Meta-ethics

[belligerent drunk]

In relation to the question how to humans come to have knowledge of moral facts, my response is that such truths are known a priori, much like mathematical truths. I suppose many would regard this as an unsatisfactory response, but even the most ardent sceptic must concede that human beings do possess a priori knowledge whose origin is mysterious, and there is no explicit reason this cannot be true when it comes to moral facts.

I don't think the origin is that mysterious. The innate template of human behaviour is a result of evolution, which itself is strongly influenced by the environment humans/organisms live in. Which is why I don't feel comfortable calling them moral facts, because if they're dependent on the environment, they can't be universal, and apply only to a select number of organisms or lifeforms.

Other than that, I can't see much to disagree with in your view. Seems perfectly reasonable.

 

[drug_mentor]

I don't think the origin is that mysterious. The innate template of human behaviour is a result of evolution, which itself is strongly influenced by the environment humans/organisms live in. Which is why I don't feel comfortable calling them moral facts, because if they're dependent on the environment, they can't be universal, and apply only to a select number of organisms or lifeforms.

Other than that, I can't see much to disagree with in your view. Seems perfectly reasonable.

Presumably a priori mathematical knowledge is also a product of evolution, if you accept this then it would seem you are committed to the view that mathematical knowledge is dependent on the environment and thus by your reasoning mathematical truths are not facts.

Obviously I accept that in a sense you can prove mathematical truths in a way you cannot prove moral truths, but I think your criticism as it stands is flawed.

It doesn't make sense to expect a non-rational being to apprehend rational moral truths, and if they cannot apprehend them it is unreasonable to expect them to act in accordance with them. I suspect there are many organisms which are incapable of performing mathematical operations, I don't see that it follows from this that mathematical truths are not universally true.

 

[Nixiam]

Well, it is called Rationalism. Hard to disagree with a philosophy when it hits so close to the scientific method.

Reason.

Honestly a lot of this stuff seemed like speculation to begin with (to me). For instance, the ambiguity of moral truths.

Maybe some inductive and deductive reasoning would be god for the more speculative conversations.

 

[drug_mentor]

Another bump in the hopes of generating some fresh philosophical discussion.

 

[Xorkoth]

It is my view that morality is entirely relative, that there is no universal "good" and "evil" (hence, there are no "moral facts"). I do not believe there is some creator with a sense of morality who judges us. Morality depends on the beliefs and inherent nature of a thing. For example, a house cat will catch a mouse and slowly torture it to death over the course of hours. Is the cat evil? No, it's in the cat's nature. Likewise, it is in some humans' nature to do similar things (unfortunately). Are these people evil? I think not. The fact is that everyone does what they do for their own reasons. Some people are born without the ability to feel empathy. Some people do damaging things and realize they are damaging, but they're fulfilling a greater need; for example, stealing from family for drug money to feed a powerful addiction.

When people make moral statements, or decide on their morality, or perform moral actions, what they are doing is acting in a way that they feel is right for them. I think this is the biggest reason why culture is important. In order for a lot of humans to live together successfully without descending into chaos, the sense of cultural morality must be rather uniform among the masses of people. This is where religion comes into play, mostly. Imagine if everyone grew up without any sort of moral guidance? People would develop many moralities, and it would be difficult for society to function.

 

[Foreigner]

I believe some morals are objective and all humans share them, innately, even perhaps genetically, while other morals are subjectively taught. I also believe that the interplay between these two is not fixed or categorical. There must surely be some kind of biological morality system in place as humans are social creatures and if we didn't have hard-wired reactions to certain behaviours then we would not have survived evolution.

The reason why I believe in objective morals is because I have seen group behaviours become uniform when certain states are bolstered, particularly heart centeredness. When people move out of their logic brain and into their heart brain, everyone acts the same. Where logic is not uniform and has to be taught, the heart brain is highly agreeable and aims to curb harm. Those harms and benefits are fostered by another faculty that is not categorical mind. I believe this is why most of the world's religions, at their core, talk about love and being in the heart. It's what things like the Ten Commandments are based on, and other general proscriptions about treating people well.

When a society moves out of the heart and into the logic, we need reasoning to decide why a moral has value or not. It's no longer automatic. But as we know, logic can be cruel. Some of the most intelligent logicians in the world have been fascists that killed millions. You can rationalize your way into any kind of moral system with logic. But the heart knows right and wrong without having to speak about it. You can rationalize your way out of the heart's consciousness but you can't change the truth of the heart.

Subjective morals are based on what we are taught as children (traditions) and what we agree upon socially, whether consciously or not. It's all a matter of function. They are manipulatively utilitarian to help society function. That, and the subjectivity of morals becomes more important when you enter logic. As a society, we currently value logical intelligence more than any other faculty, such that we don't believe that other faculties even exist or have relevance. So we're stuck with that for now.

In short, if most of humanity lived in heart consciousness, we would not need to have this conversation. The basic tenets of how to treat one another would be readily apparent and our laws would reflect that. Unfortunately we are a long way off from being that way as a people. I think it's rare to find people who operate from the heart level all the time.

 

[drug_mentor]

It is my view that morality is entirely relative, that there is no universal "good" and "evil" (hence, there are no "moral facts"). I do not believe there is some creator with a sense of morality who judges us. Morality depends on the beliefs and inherent nature of a thing. For example, a house cat will catch a mouse and slowly torture it to death over the course of hours. Is the cat evil? No, it's in the cat's nature. Likewise, it is in some humans' nature to do similar things (unfortunately). Are these people evil? I think not. The fact is that everyone does what they do for their own reasons. Some people are born without the ability to feel empathy. Some people do damaging things and realize they are damaging, but they're fulfilling a greater need; for example, stealing from family for drug money to feed a powerful addiction.

I would like to point out that I do not believe there is any God or creator of the Universe; nonetheless, I am a moral realist and feel that several secular versions of moral realism are fairly defensible - at least as defensible as antirealist views.

There are a number of distinct ways to cash out the claim that morality is relative/subjective. You can hold that moral values are real and determined by a society/culture, there are moral facts, but what these facts are vary from society to society (this view is normally called moral or cultural relativism). You can hold that moral values are real and determined by the individual, there are moral facts, but what these facts are varies from person to person (this view is moral subjectivism). Then there are various versions of what is most commonly referred to as moral non-cognitivism, on this view there are no moral facts - when people make moral statements like 'x is good' or 'x is bad', they are really just expressing their approval/disapproval and these statements are not the sort of thing which are apt to be true or false. A famous defender of ethical non-cognitivism was A. J. Ayer, he was a proponent of a view called emotivism. Emotivists maintain that when people say something like 'stealing is bad' they are really evincing their feelings towards stealing, an emotivist would paraphrase a claim like 'stealing is bad' into 'Stealing? Boo!'. The point of this strategy is to deny that moral statements can have a truth value, and since no moral statement can be true there can be no moral facts.

There are significant problem with all three of these views (which is not to say they can't be defended). I won't list them all here, but if you are inclined to endorse one of these views in particular (I get the sense you would probably lean towards non-cognitivism) I would be happy to discuss the view further.

 

[drug_mentor]

I believe some morals are objective and all humans share them, innately, even perhaps genetically, while other morals are subjectively taught. I also believe that the interplay between these two is not fixed or categorical. There must surely be some kind of biological morality system in place as humans are social creatures and if we didn't have hard-wired reactions to certain behaviours then we would not have survived evolution.

The reason why I believe in objective morals is because I have seen group behaviours become uniform when certain states are bolstered, particularly heart centeredness. When people move out of their logic brain and into their heart brain, everyone acts the same. Where logic is not uniform and has to be taught, the heart brain is highly agreeable and aims to curb harm. Those harms and benefits are fostered by another faculty that is not categorical mind. I believe this is why most of the world's religions, at their core, talk about love and being in the heart. It's what things like the Ten Commandments are based on, and other general proscriptions about treating people well.

When a society moves out of the heart and into the logic, we need reasoning to decide why a moral has value or not. It's no longer automatic. But as we know, logic can be cruel. Some of the most intelligent logicians in the world have been fascists that killed millions. You can rationalize your way into any kind of moral system with logic. But the heart knows right and wrong without having to speak about it. You can rationalize your way out of the heart's consciousness but you can't change the truth of the heart.

Subjective morals are based on what we are taught as children (traditions) and what we agree upon socially, whether consciously or not. It's all a matter of function. They are manipulatively utilitarian to help society function. That, and the subjectivity of morals becomes more important when you enter logic. As a society, we currently value logical intelligence more than any other faculty, such that we don't believe that other faculties even exist or have relevance. So we're stuck with that for now.

In short, if most of humanity lived in heart consciousness, we would not need to have this conversation. The basic tenets of how to treat one another would be readily apparent and our laws would reflect that. Unfortunately we are a long way off from being that way as a people. I think it's rare to find people who operate from the heart level all the time.

What is 'heart consciousness'? I am having a difficult time interpreting the view you have expressed. Are you positing that there are (at least) two distinct types of 'consciousness'? Or are you using heart/logic consciousness as metaphors for something else? Would you say that 'heart consciousness' is largely driven by emotion? The most charitable way I can interpret your post is reading you as endorsing some kind of sentimentalism about ethics.