Torture is morally fine.
There are no correct moral claims. People only have incorrect opinions on what's good/bad, what should/shouldn't exist.
To say that torture is bad is to say that moral claims can be true. If moral facts could not ever be true, the torture would not be bad, there would be no reason to prevent torture.
To say that moral claims can be true is to say that there are inherently true moral claims, claims that by definition are not supported by external evidence. Such claims are needed because extrinsic truths depend on intrinsic truths to be truths. It cannot be that the only moral claims that are truthful are those that depend on other moral claims to be true. Any moral justification that lies outside the thing itself - extrinsic morality - "x is good because it does abc and abc is good" - requires claims outside itself to be truth in order for it to be truth. This creates a never-ending chain of justifications, each new justification passing the problem onto something else. This is moral relativism and subjectivism. They are absurd, literally.
The problem of needing axioms is not the problem, the problem is that there are no such moral axioms that are true. Valor is only good because of its effects. So is truth, justice, love, peace, etc. The closest any system (that I know of) gets to claiming moral axioms is hedonism. In it, good feelings are good, bad feelings are bad. But they're wrong: they're merely things that evolution created to help us survive. They are not actually inherently good or bad, despite Hedonism's claims. There is no true reason why they should or should not exist.
Therefore, you have no logical reason to stop me from hammering a toothpick under your fingernail.
To say that torture is bad is to say that moral claims can be true. If moral facts could not ever be true, the torture would not be bad, there would be no reason to prevent torture.
To say that moral claims can be true is to say that there are inherently true moral claims, claims that by definition are not supported by external evidence. Such claims are needed because extrinsic truths depend on intrinsic truths to be truths. It cannot be that the only moral claims that are truthful are those that depend on other moral claims to be true. Any moral justification that lies outside the thing itself - extrinsic morality - "x is good because it does abc and abc is good" - requires claims outside itself to be truth in order for it to be truth. This creates a never-ending chain of justifications, each new justification passing the problem onto something else. This is moral relativism and subjectivism. They are absurd, literally.
The problem of needing axioms is not the problem, the problem is that there are no such moral axioms that are true. Valor is only good because of its effects. So is truth, justice, love, peace, etc. The closest any system (that I know of) gets to claiming moral axioms is hedonism. In it, good feelings are good, bad feelings are bad. But they're wrong: they're merely things that evolution created to help us survive. They are not actually inherently good or bad, despite Hedonism's claims. There is no true reason why they should or should not exist.
Therefore, you have no logical reason to stop me from hammering a toothpick under your fingernail.
Comments (120)
This kind of reasoning would prima facie appear to lead to the conclusion that there are no correct legal claims. And yet it is the case that, in most countries, it is illegal to steal, to murder, etc.
Perhaps claims that some X is immoral is similar in kind to claims that some Y is illegal, albeit the "legislature" isn't some official body that follows a defined process; instead the morality of actions is developed over time by the wider community.
I do. It'll bloody hurt.
Quoting Leftist
No. To say "torture is bad" is to say that the word 'bad' correctly applies to torture. They'd be right. It does.
Like "the bus is red" just means that the word 'red' applies to the colour of the bus.
There definitely is.
Moral claim: "I wish to cause the least harm to the greatest number of people possible".
What is wrong with that moral claim?
Quoting Leftist
There are inherently moral claims. Morality is about avoiding suffering. Torture is not conducive to avoiding harm.
What external evidence does one need to wish to not harm others? Ones intention to not cause harm is a self sufficient premise not to do so.
Quoting Leftist
The logical reason is that it hurts. It is unpleasant and makes me weep in suffering. And as I wouldnt wish it on anyone esle I can justify that it is not right because it ought not be done to anyone.
Exactly. The experience of suffering is inherently a logical reason not to continue it. Harm is a reason not to harm. If you have empathy that is.
If you're a sociopathic person that doesn't give two hoots whether others are harmed in your ambition to get what you want, then it wouldnt serve as a reason not to harm. But that only highlights the perversely selfish nature of such a person.
Trail and error proves the merits and demerits of any moral principle. Slavery isnt inherently wrongit could have been used in a charitable way as to avoid the outright murder of ones enemiesbut it has proven itself wrong according a variety of human measures applied over a sufficient period of trial and error.
You are clearly just trying to raise a ruckus on your first post on the forum. Not a good sign. Still, welcome to the forum.
Moral claims are statements of value and as such have no truth values. "True" and "false" do not apply.
"Right," "wrong," "good, and "bad" do. Those terms are human normative judgements. You can disagree with them but, if things work as they're supposed to, the International Criminal Court will incarcerate your ass.
Yes, although 'harm' doesn't fully encompass all morality. There's a whole set of characteristics which fall into the definition of 'moral' behaviour. Like the word 'game', there's no one criteria for what constitutes a game, but its still pretty easy to be clear that a tomato isn't a 'game'.
Most moral sentiment has some biological origin, like empathy, but it's the cultural definition of the word that determines correct use, not biology. That which is 'moral' is that which your language community understands as being included in that term.
What you propose to actually do, of course is another matter.
For me a game is something that doesn't have actual real life consequences. It is a roleplay. In that way harm can be exercised without realising actual persisting real life complications. One can thus learn from a game the consequences of their actions without those actions being relevant to real life. Its a simulation in essence.
Like monopoly. Family members can Bury one another in debt, crucify them financially, without actually losing the family house. It teaches a lesson in capitalism in a safe environment of knowing the game is not reality and that there isn't really anything truly at stake.
Games are useful as practise and honing practical skills that are actually useful in real life affairs.
I don't need a logical reason; I need a bigger hammer and a 2" box nail. That's one way logic has been applied throughout history. It's an obviously destructive way, which, taken to its predictable conclusion will lead to the extinction of a species.
Another reason that someone - not necessarily the victim - might stop you is that our shared community has rules of behaviour based a philosophy or world-view on some fundamental principles. That' too, is the basis of all legal codes, which are enacted to stabilize a society and keep internal conflict within manageable limits.
Acceptance and rejection of human behaviours are not about about "truth", internal or external. They're about co-existence.
That might depend on what you project your future circumstances to be in relation to others. Do you foresee consequences to your actions of actually hammering a toothpick under someone's fingernail? Do you have any logical reason to give against hammering a nail into your own hand? Why doesn't the future concern whether such action is reasonable with regard to what you want the future to be like?
We're social animals, our welfare heavily dependent on complex social exchanges of quid pro quo moral conduct. We're not crocodiles (though you could pretend to be like one to your own probable ruin).
There may be no ultimate moral facts (sanctified/enforced by a monotheist philosopher God's favor/retribution ) but there are relative moral facts/claims of a consensus or majority.
Is correct not better than incorrect? If it isn't your claim has no force, and if it is your claim is contradictory.
A moral claim is an opinion about what is good or bad.
Morality is not about what is the case, but how we want things to be. Mostly, folk find themselves in agreement on the topic, but they get hung up on the details.
If you think torture is not immoral, you are faulty.
No argument from first principles or axioms or final justifications is relevant here. Indeed, thinking that such things are needed is further evidence of something being wrong. If you cannot see that inflicting pain should be avoided, you are faulty.
Quoting Benj96
Quantity over quality. Similar to mistaking sound for substance. ie. "I would prefer to destroy the least amount of schools as opposed to the most amount of brothels because destroying buildings is generally considered immoral therefore it is the moral choice to make", etc.
Quoting Outlander
The comparison is ridiculous. Deliberately?
Indeed. However it is not about the comparison, what one should make note of are the underlying consistent truths present in both examples. You or I may be able to see them showcased in such an absurd scenario, I'm sure most do. But when blanket claims of morality or any subject for that matter begin to be thrown around and huddled against for intellectual warmth one is inclined to believe said blanket cannot ever harbor or become an incubator for, that which is counterintuitive to its purpose.
It wasn't a counter-argument or retort more of a request for the views of a poster I admire that may or may not help in clarifying OP's stance on one or more things, which at present seems to be unclear.
I attribute this argument to Michael and Vera Mont.
It was not explicitly stated that the community creates moral truths, but that's the implication. If the community merely creates moral falsehoods, false beliefs of good/bad, what should/shouldn't exist and be done, there is no logical reason to act on them, and they are not actually good/bad. For them to actually create morality, they must actually create moral truths, or discover them.
I would like you to expand on how communities create moral truths. You're giving me an extrinsic moral truth: "morality is what the community decides is moral". Perhaps that is also the axiom. But why is this a correct axiom, or a correct implication? If everyone decided the opposite, would they still be correct? why should the community get what they label good, and not get what they label bad? If the neighboring village decided the opposite, would it then be both good and bad for X to happen/exist? Or only while in X village? I agree that communities create their own cultural opinions of good/bad - but why should anyone believe they're anything more than incorrect beliefs?
I label this argument "X being stated to be a moral truth, seeming arbitrarily, without justification".
Unless there is more reasoning I have not found, I do not see why these supposed truths are any more truthful than the moral claim that only toothpicks and paperclips should exist.
I attribute this argument to Isaac.
If there are no moral truths, every moral claim is false. If any moral claims were ever true, it would have to be the case that there do exist moral truths, because such claims would themselves be moral truths.
In such a world, calling anything "bad" does mean what it otherwise would. To say something is "bad", when bad does not exist, means very little. Perhaps it means you incorrectly believe the thing should not be done - but that would mean you do not believe there are no moral truths, because you'd believe yourself to be wrong if you did. It cannot be the case that nothing is bad but also that some things should not be done. That would mean that nothing is bad, but also that some things are bad. This breaks the laws of logic, specifically the law of noncontradiction, x =/= not-x. Nothing can correctly be called bad if the concept "bad" does not actually exist, for the same reason nothing can correctly be said to be "from the fictional universe of Star Trek". Sure, you can THINK things are from that universe - but you'd be wrong.
I attribute this argument to Benj69.
Does mere intention make it so something should, or shouldn't, be done? Does it make it a fact that nobody - or just you - should or should not do those things? If it is true that there are no moral truths, it must also be true that moral-based intentions cannot be true claims, merely incorrect claims about morality. If moral truths cannot exist, intentions are illogical and there is no logical reason to act on them. Also, me having the intention to torture as many people as possible would make me torturing people moral, and if I were to consciously decide not to torture it would be immoral.
I attribute this argument to Benj69.
This is another "X being stated to be a moral truth, seeming arbitrarily, without justification". This is hedonism. I explain my reasons against it in the OP and in "The community creates moral truths". The experience of pain might seem like it has inherent bad in it, that it makes it worse for you to exist as you and therefore makes it worse for you to exist at all, but that is merely an illusion created by evolution.
I attribute this argument to NOS4A2.
Nothing can have moral merits or demerits if moral truths do not exist. You are acting as if moral truths exist, else nothing could truthfully be a merit or demerit to any given moral system or claim or principle. Moral systems, or claims, must either be self-justifying or be justified by exterior moral systems/claims. It is impossible to justify a moral system or claim using the merit/demerit system without explicit exterior (or interior, if it's a truth that does not require the merit system) moral truths. Otherwise, how would you know what constitutes a merit or demerit? Arbitrarily? By instinct?
I attribute this to Nils Loc.
This is another "X being stated to be a moral truth, seeming arbitrarily, without justification". There is no truthful reason why life should continue to exist, why it should not be wiped out today.
I attribute this to Banno.
If nothing is truthfully good or bad, there is no logical reason to want anything, therefore there is no logical reason to act on anything you want. There is no logical reason to make the world more like how you irrationally want it to be, the things you want are therefore not actually good. If you believe there are no moral truths, you must also believe there is no valid reason to want anything.
Nope! These are my actual beliefs. They're unusual, I know.
Thanks for the welcome!
Not sure how you get to this. Can you step it out again?
I generally think that humans create morality to facilitate social cooperation in order to achieve our preferred form of order. Roughly speaking, cultures generally share preferences on right and wrong (usually down to not wishing to harm the wellbeing of others) and most cultures, regardless of religion or dominant philosophy, view murder, rape, theft, torture as wrong. I don't know what morality is except that it seems to be created by the choices we make and how we conduct yourself in relation to others. It makes good intuitive sense to treat others well (what goes around comes around) but this is not a scientifically derived 'fact'.
Quoting Leftist
Saying it is 'bad' is a values statement (which may have no connection to truth). Societies can really only determine these sorts of values by coming to shared agreements about how people would like to behave with each other. Why bring truth into it? Communities can just as readily determine (as they have done historically in the West) that torture has utility in the context of crime and punishment. Such debates seem to spring up from time to time and remind us that values are not unanimous or perpetual. One has to make a choice about how one acts and what values one privileges.
Torture is not something people seek out. It is regarded as bad because of this (like setting yourself on fire is not something people do much).
Of course there are exceptions where under extreme circumstances one could suggest torture was the best course of action. We do not generally live in a world where extreme situations present themselves or they would just be called different situations rather than extreme ones.
They may think of it as a truth claim but from what I can see, the best anyone can do is express a preference based on some set of values.
You lie. If I was hammering toothpicks under your fingernails, you would not believe that there's nothing wrong about it and that there's no reason to stop.
No mere intention doesn't make any following act automatically justifiable. Obviously.
Intention is about the end goal - an ideal - not how to get there. How to get there, the journey, is the realm of rigorous reasoning and a broad scope of considerations and then development of a best practice to cautiously proceed.
And revision of said practice when required (if it is seen to do more harm than good by other interlocutors). In essence never assuming the means to get to an ideal equals the ideal. As that would be dangerous.
Well, suffering in modération can lead to post-traumatic growth. People coin it "character building", improved resilience. Which is a good thing. Especially when he who suffered reflects on it brightly as something that was a good life lesson or that helped develop skills.
But there is also suffering that is too overwhelming (pure sadistic torture) which is so damaging that post traumatic growth or positive stress response is unlikely. The type that leads to a broken person, or suicide or murder. And that is a truly harmful harm.
I think these two very different forms of harm are being conflated from the OP onward.
I would say that suffering/harm is impossible to abolish and is neccesary as an opposite to peace/pleasure. Otherwise neither exist or have relative meaning. What is good without bad?
So no, hedonism is not what I'm suggesting. Suffering exists for a reason.
However the existence of suffering doesn't mean we cannot strive for an ideal because we know that the system will always be flawed. And those flaws grow when not actively suppressed (striving for more ideal conditions).
You can choose to/accidentally add suffering to the world or work out a way to avoid doing so as much as possible.
The suffering can be minimised but it isn't ever going to disappear.
So I am not claiming what the exact moral truth is. Im claiming that I'm simply aware that it does exist in some ill-defined capacity as the simple feeling of good/pleasantness/peace.
My intention therefore is not to act on what I think the moral truth is. It is to simply point a finger in its vague direction and say "hey have you ever felt safe, happy and at peace?" and if the answer to that is Yes, then my next statement would be "It is my intention that all people are able to feel this feeling we both agree that we have felt before, as much as is naturally possible and healthy for them to feel."
And if they ask how would you do that? I would say I'm not sure. As I only have the intention. A moral one. But not the reasoning or knowledge to realise it. It is a good starting point though.
But I would recommend that we ought to probably reason the knowledge of what it is as a collective so we may bring it about on the most sensible and safest way possible.
I am nodding for a while then ending up not at all sure what position is presented on the objectivity of morals.
I mentioned both the quality and quantity quite clearly and simply in the statement.
The quality is "least harm/or most" good" and the quantity is "greatest number of people".
I'm not mistaking anything in that moral claim as I never claimed the specific means to bring it about. I didn't speak of implimentation. Only the end goal (the ideal).
I simply stated an intention. Which by itself, in isolation, yet un-acted upon, can't commit any error (unintended harm trying to act it out in reality).
So it's a solid starting point and ironically it describes the end goal simultaneously.
So I'll repeat my question: what's wrong with simply saying in essence:
"I don't want to harm people."
Is that an unacceptable statement to make?
And what say you of the characteristics of those that deem such a notion as unacceptable and try to argue it away? Is that moral of them? Is any argument with the statement not a way to rationalise why you should or do harm people?
Quoting I like sushi
Are you not misunderstanding what @Leftist is saying? Their position would be that murder and rape is neither good nor bad, and your say so doesn't make it good or bad.
Any justification you give for it being bad, such as "it causes suffering" would beg another question "why is suffering bad", if you keep asking the question of the previous answer, eventually all you'll have is "because I feel it is bad". Is truth (truth of it being good or bad) determined by your feelings? What about if your feelings conflict with another (such as a consequentialist and a deontologist) - which of you determines what is true? Wouldn't it be easier to admit there is no right and wrong answer to moral questions?
Oh please. Literally every answer begs another question. All of them. How then is that a useful basis for your argument against
Why is the sky blue, because of light scattering, why does light scatter, because of different air densities, why do they happen, why does the atmosphere work that way, why does light happen, how fast does it move, why does it go at that speed, etc etc and on and on and on.
Kids do this "why" stage of constantly begging questions.
So if every question has an answer or multiple possible answers - some of which may be more correct or absurd than others, and they also have their own string of questions.
Then where ought we start?
We start with what we are most certain of. Ones ability to come to harm and die. That's as fundamental and core to us as evolution and survival instinct.
We justify that this is bad by the very fact that we are still alive.
It is justified, quite obviously in fact, by the person who hasn't committed suicide because they fundamentally think death is worse than surviving.
The assertion that harm is bad and leads to death is demonstrated by the continued existence of the person who wrote it.
There's your justification in a sphere of endless begging the question and answer.
"Why is life good? Because we are still here."
You can then argue as to why life is good, and what harm is, and how to deal with harm to preserve the goodness of life and avoid murdering others or committing suicide. One can develop a solid intention which is self justifying.
The only thing that should be done are things which are good. Good things should be done. If anything should be done, it is by definition good. If you believe there are no moral truths, you believe nobody can make a true claim of "good", meaning nobody can make a true claim of what should be done or exist. To want something is to say the thing should exist. It is impossible to want something without thinking it should exist, or should be had by you, or whatever other "Should", because that is what is meant by "wanting something". This is especially clear when talking about wanting goals. If you know there's nothing good about accomplishing the goal, that there's no logical reason why the goal should be achieved, why would you want the goal to be achieved? Every possible justification, every possible "it should be achieved because abc", would be wrong, and you'd believe it to be wrong. Therefore, you cannot want anything for logical reasons if there are no moral truths.
I agree with the rest, with the note that all their views and claims regarding good/bad are false.
Value judgements have connection to truth in that value judgements can be correct or incorrect. You can't just randomly decide something actually should be done, or shouldn't be done, and be correct. It's not imaginary, or if it is, it's therefore not real and shouldn't logically be acted upon. They must all always be incorrect claims, if it is true that no claims made of value can be true. Otherwise, there must be an actual system in place that determines actual morality, much more than just "x people think y should be done, therefore y should actually be done". Even if morality were real, and there were moral facts, it'd have to be more than sometimes-completely-arbitrary opinion. Otherwise, conflicting beliefs would be true at the same time, and every single possible justification for anything being good/bad would be equally potentially valid, the only thing making them actually valid being if a person happens to believe it at the right time in the right place. Then there's the question, why should people have their personal desires fulfilled, and why should things they consider bad not happen? How is it that those things actually should not, and actually should, happen - just because somebody thinks they should?
Quoting Benj96
That's only if you are asking different questions to each answer.
If you keep asking why something is morally bad, eventually the answer to the question is because you feel it is bad. It is all built upon your feelings.
Quoting Benj96
Discounting those that don't want to be here, or are indifferent to being here, the fact we are still here would at best mean we prefer to be here. Why would it be good for us to get what we prefer?
There is such a system. Demonstration. Trial and error and the lasting impacts of that outcome on you (guilt, shame, pride, contentment) whatever the case.
What morality is can be learned through experience. Thats why we have to tell children to share not steal, and wait their turn not push to the front.
It's pretty basic. We can convolute it as much as we want with terminology, jargon and esoteric language but at the end of the day morality deals with the simple question "do you think you're more valuable/important/better than others?"
In other words "do you think you're the center of the universe and everyone else ought revolve around your whims?"
If so, you had better offer a damn fine reason why. Otherwise make space and tolerate other people's choices and beliefs. Don't harm them just because they don't match yours.
In the OP you were going by moral nihilism (there are no true moral claims). Now you're defining good as what should be done. @Metaphysician Undercover, isn't that Aristotelian?
Aristotle also spoke of necessary evils, like slavery. You could argue that torture is sometimes a necessary evil (although the CIA disagrees), but that just means it's both good and bad.
There are certain parameters under which language functions and is understood. If you refer to torture as not being something nasty it does not mean that torture suddenly stops being nasty only that you have decided to pass the nastiness on to some other term.
Think of instances where people do not starve to death anymore because the government bans starvation as a reason for death on death certificates can people no longer die of starvation or has the government merely prevented the language term from being used to implicate death.
Our feelings of what is morally right and wrong clash with other people's feelings of what is morally right and wrong. Who is right, the consequentialist or the deontologist, and why?
What if the moral claims are simply not truth-apt? Like the fictional universe of Star Trek, we posit moral worlds (and, actually, Star Trek kind of does fit the notion of a fictional world that is particularly motivated by moral thoughts).
And if you were in the middle of watching Star Trek and told someone watching it "You know this isn't real, right?" -- well, it'd be a queer question. You'd seem to have missed the point of Star Trek.
And so it seems to me that you've missed the point of morality. Who cares that it's not "true"? That doesn't bother me. Nor does breaking the "rule" of non-contradiction, from time to time.
Those that truly don't want to be here are in the active process of suicide. A state that doesn't last very long as it is either successful or failed and they are either incapacitated or incarcerated in a pysche ward.
Those that are indifferent to being here don't participate in these discussions as they don't care, they're apathetic.
For the rest, we are here because we hold onto hope that things can be good. We are not hopeless. And so continue living.
As for why it would be good for us to get what we prefer, when we are talking about being alive verse being dead, we have already gotten what we prefer by virtue of still being alive.
The dead have no say. They don't have a choice to get what they prefer as they don't exist as a living "I".
So the question of why it's" good to get what we prefer" is redundant - already answered by the fact that we are alive.
We prefer to live and so we do. The question is self resolving by the fact we continue to Exist.
When we think being alive isn't good then we either become suicidal or an antinatalist - blaming everyone else for existence.
But when we enjoy living. And think its good, our justifications come from maintaining our right to live. And thus harm (increasing the likelihood of death) is bad. And through empathy/comparison we can understand that others also wish to live and, as we are, ought to also be allowed to. So harm to others is also bad.
It's the basic logic that emerges from one's own existence.
Well, I agree with @Moliere:
Quoting Moliere
I am strongly opposed to causing suffering irrespective of whether it is morally wrong.
I didn't doubt they're your actual beliefs.
The OP stated that if torture is bad then there must be a moral truth. Why did they say this? No idea. They just asserted it.
Torture is bad. It can also be argued that bad things can be done for good reasons. I am not neglecting here that torture is bas ONLY marking that there are exceptions under which a bad act can be deemed as better than not doing said bad act in the long run.
Show me that someone (other than a masochist or someone otherwise deranged) actively seeks out torture and I will eat my words. Torture is bad is NOT the same as saying torture is ALWAYS wrong.
So am I. I don't wish to cause suffering. So what exactly are we arguing/discussing?
Quoting Leftist
What your posts seem to be asking for is some substantial argument for the occurrence of a universal good that is always existentially correct. Something akin to what Plato addresses as the Good. I say, good luck with that.
Until then, here is one example wherein value judgments can be correct and incorrect:
You want to visit a relative who lives in some distant part of the world across some ocean, and this in a relatively short period of time. To accomplish this feat, you will need to fly there.
Here are two conceivable options: a) going to the top of some tall building and jumping off of it while flapping ones arms so as to fly to the given destination; b) investing some money in an airplane ticket so as to fly to the given destination.
If one deems option (a) to be the good option to take, this being a value judgment, the value judgment would be incorrect - for (a) cannot fulfill ones want. Deeming option (b) to be the good option to take, however, would be a correct value judgment - for (b) readily can fulfill ones want.
Here, the correctitude or incorrectitude of the matter in no way relies upon what a majority of people think.
Therefore, value judgments can indeed be correct or incorrect, as I think this example makes clear. While this doesnt account for everything, it to my mind does demonstrate that value nihilism - a position maintaining that no value judgment can be correct or else incorrect - is an erroneous position.
Which in turn evidences the logical possibility that at least some moral claims can be correct or incorrect. To be clear, I'm not here going to uphold that they in fact are ... but am only suggesting that it's logically possible that they might be.
Quoting Down The Rabbit Hole
Quoting I like sushi
The problem is the foundation of your truth statement (your feelings) is the same foundation as the masochist and deranged people's foundation of their contrary truth statement.
Quoting Down The Rabbit Hole
Quoting I like sushi
The most obvious example is the difference between consequentialists and deontologists. Which group is right, and why?
When I want to make safe meta-ethical claims, error theory is home base.
Just... you can only draw the conclusions @Leftist is drawing if you care about much more than the truth-aptness of statements within the formal category of "moral" :D
Hence my attack on caring -- but, maybe it won't connect. That was the idea, though.
Quoting Benj96
It is more academic than of practical consequence.
I don't know if you're a consequentialist or deontologist, but my position would be that whichever group you fall into, you are no more right than the other group is. You just have different preferences.
Humans are cooperative animals. Morality is a conceptual framework which facilitates cooperation, by prescribing cooperative behavior (behavior that benefits others, especially at one's expense) and proscribing uncooperative behavior (behavior that harms others, especially at one's benefit). For a moral claim to be"true" just means that it is consistent with cooperative behavior.
So, torture is unproblematically bad if done for mere sadism, as it is harming others for your benefit. If done for a purported "greater good", more sophisticated moral arguments must be deployed showing why this is or isn't cooperative.
But to require that the claim is True in some deeper, perhaps platonic sense, is just absurd.
For me true and false don't need to come into this. Communities set intersubjective agreements about how they should conduct social interaction based on agreed values. It's interesting that most communities around the world seem to come to similar intuitions about values and conduct. It is probably common sense that murder, theft, rape and torture are mostly proscribed in communities around the globe, regardless of religious beliefs.
Quoting Leftist
It's more complex and far from random. We accept social customs, codes, prohibitions and interdictions based on tradition and superstition and experience, and common sense - none of which need to be true. Which is why humans believe in a lot of strange things as well as a lot of sensible things.
Agreed. However I don't ascribe fully to either consequantialism or deontological ethics. I regard both as important and required in balanced consideration to make something effectively moral.
Consequantialism retrospectively determines the morality of an action by its outcome. It lives in hindsight. And doesn't value initial intention only the effect.
But as we know from miscommunication. The most wholesome acts can be twisted and corrupted by a game of "chinese whispers" . Leading to a bad outcome.
Consequentialism would state that the initial good doer is responsible for the product of how everyone else chose to interpret them or use it as a device for their own intentions. It doesn't consider existence of culpability between the original act and the final outcome.
On the other side, deontology rests on anticipation/ foresight.
It assumes one must be able to predict all possible variables between the initial intention/action and the outcome. In essence judging or factoring in the culpability of any intermediaries (whether that be processes, or people acts etc). An exercise almost tantamount to prophecy.
For me, consequences are important, initial intention is important, and the level of reasoning, knowledge and predictive ability - the underlying principle that determines the path from intention to consequence, yes again, is important.
So to take a side, to be a consequentialist or a deontologist, for me is absurd. Both have input into what morality is. But they don't equal the answer. They aren't moral by themselves while negating the input of the other side.
Consequentialists blame dismissing intention. Deontologist try to rationalise the best/most principled/predictive (Good) intention without taking responsibility for how it leads to a consequence.
Quoting Down The Rabbit Hole
Quoting I like sushi
I use "morally right" and "morally correct" interchangeably.
Are you using "right" to mean "good"? That's fair enough, but I still wouldn't say two conflicting positions are both good.
Easy. Mother cleans daughters room as she sees she's very busy/under stress (mother - good intention).
Daughter (consequentialist - angry because she now doesn't know where her dissertation is and the deadline is in 2 hrs).
Both had good reasons to do/say what they said.
Resolution is outside the argument: daughter emails situation to professor, (s)he extends her deadline giving her time to find the dissertation.
Now that the consequence is gone, daughter can agree with the mothers good intentions. Now that the mother fully appreciates all the possible consequences, she can agree that perhaps good intentions are not enough by themselves. They both learn about the axis of morality.
Therefore deontology and consequentialism are not a paradox. Or at the very least the paradox can be removed by a third person outside of the direct conflict.
The proponents of both consequentialism and deontology having good intentions is different to consequentialism and deontology being good. I'm going to say it - Hitler believed what it was doing was good, it doesn't make what he was doing good. Same for less extreme examples.
I don't understand that at all. If nothing can be good, or bad, how can anything ever be good, or bad?
Well no, not the same for less extreme examples because if Hitlers acts were in fact very bad (which I think most people would agree they were), then less extreme examples are those that are less bad and more neutral. And then on the opposite end of the spectrum would be those that are neutral-slightly good, good, very good and extremely good.
This is ofc course only the case in reference to people who think hitler was really bad (the majority, myself included). Neonazis would probably think differently as I'm sure Hitlers closest comrades at the time did. He must have been toxically persuasive to any un assuming layman (good at hiding his agenda and even better at manipulating people into doing his bidding for him).
You cant have extremely bad (Hitler) without extremely good (?). But where are these opposing examples to narcissistic, power hungry, autocratic dictators? Where are the heroes in the plot?
I suppose we don't know who those people are because I'd imagine they prefer to not take power from others and rise to the top of our hierarchies of fame, glory and recognition. They likely empower others to do that in the name of what's extremely good, and hope they continue to seek council from them, if they know what's good for them anymore that is.
Basically, if we can collectively judge one person as the most evil, sinister and malevolent person alive, then by those same grounds we must be able to identify the opposite person.
But because one lies about the other, and the other only tells the truth (contradictory nature), for everyone else in-between - it's moral relativism. They don't know who to listen to entirely and that's a dilemma.
For the two extremes however, it's actual morality.
Literally all of our best theater, movies, literature etc and even historical figures are about a protagonist which is misunderstood (no one knows they are truly the protagonist) and they are misunderstood because of the persuasive abilities of the villain. And in the end comes some big climax where the hero and villain come face to face and reckon with one another. We as the audience watch a story of the interplay between moral relativism (the I don't knows of the spectators, scratching the heads in the middle) and moral actuality (the good - the hero and the bad - the villain).
Everyone wants a Hero (moral). Nobody wants to be the hero. (relativism).
It can be good or bad. You feel intuitively what's good when you experience the sensation. You know it because you felt it before. Why and when you experience the sensation of goodness however, is defined by the personal qualities you apply to it. That's relative. Ie. It's different for everyone
If you apply the idea of money to "good" in your mind then you will feel good when you get paid, and feel bad when in debt.
You can change not only what you apply to the idea of good (the quality) but also the amount of things that are good (the quantity).
In both cases that doesn't mean good doesn't exist. It just means it's open to how we choose to accept it/reject it, how we choose to define it.
Hope (an inkling that good is still there despite no evidence for it) is the last good thing felt by a depressed person before they lose it, and their life.
We can certainly disagree about what constitutes torture and it is likely within that problem you have misunderstood what I was saying.
These are human terms used by humans to explain human phenomenon as if we are able to take a step back and look upon ourselves passively and objectively (two terms that are also part of our understanding of the human condition).
Morality is immoral in practice and ethics is unethical in practice. They are just markers we use nothing more.
That is an incorrect attribution. I neither said nor implied anything about "moral truths" I did explicitly say the opposite: that truth and falsehood are not a function of morality.
There is nothing random about the basis on which people decided what is correct and incorrect behaviour. Their opinion is based on a consensus of principles and belief, which in turn are based on the "truths" of physics and biology. How things in the world work and affect one another determine what happens when we take certain actions. What we desire to happen, therefore, determines which of those actions we choose. If we chose the action that produced the desired result, we have chosen correctly. If the result is undesirable, we have chosen incorrectly.
If you enjoyed the experience of torturing people with a hammer and toothpicks, you achieved a desired outcome, and so your choice was correct. However, if the townspeople come after you, chain you to stake and light a fire under your feet, it may amuse them, but is unlikely to please you. Was your decision still correct? It's not about T or F; it's about degree of correctness according to the outcome.
Quoting Benj96
Luckily people have learnt from history and wouldn't be taken in by a charismatic conman :grimace:
Quoting I like sushi
But, good, bad, negative, positive, are all value judgments. A preference is not.
When you say it is bad/negative to unduly torture, is it bad/negative because most people are opposed to it or because you feel it is bad/negative? Neither is reason to be saying it is bad/negative in my view, and the problem is more obvious when large amounts of people disagree with each other, such as with consequentialists and deontologists.
In everyday life I am happy to use good and bad in the loose sense of what my preference is. But all it is really is a preference.
Like I said, nothing more to discuss.
Bye bye
When a group that constitutes a community, organization or government shares a belief of some kind - true or false matters not in the slightest! - and a decisive majority, or a sufficiently powerful minority of them express a preference, they write that into a constitution upon which the code of law is subsequently based. When a majority of people - or a minority with majority political clout - share a preference that falls within the parameters of the constitution, it's written into law. At any given moment in time, some of the citizens disobey the law and are deemed by fellow citizens to be doing "wrong", and therefore punished. When a majority or substantial minority no longer share that preference, the law is disregarded and eventually challenged; struck off the books or amended.
If I was to use "bad" in the loose sense, it would be for things such as this:
Quoting I like sushi
Yeah, but that was said to a moron ^^, not mere troll/stupid person. Sushi sets a high intellectual bar, but at least there's raw fish on it.
Quoting Vera Mont
:lol:
Quoting Moliere
Quoting Moliere
If you are referring to the above (moral claims are not truth-apt), that is non-cognitivism, rather than error theory. Error theorists (and Leftist, if I am not mistaken) maintain that moral claims have the grammatical structure and the apparent intention of saying something true about the world (the real world, not a fictional universe of Star Trek, for example). But that (they argue) is a mistake, because for a moral claim to be true, there ultimately needs to be something out in the (real) world that has the property of being good or bad or otherwise morally flavored, and there are no such things.
However, when error theorists say that it is not true that "torture is bad," they do not therefore mean to say that "torture is fine": that would be repeating the same mistake. Indeed, all this theorizing does not necessarily imply anything about common morality. All it means (if you accept their arguments) is that moral talk is confused. But you don't have to change your moral attitudes on that account. The appropriate therapy would be to fix the philosophical language, rather than behavior.
But what really gets my goat is when people believe ""Killing is wrong" is true" -- unforgivable.
There are no such things as regards physics. There are such things as regards biology. For biology to operate, life is a necessity and the sustenance of life is therefore inherently good. A moral claim based on that premise may not universally true, since much of the universe is non-living, but it is true for a class of material entities known as organisms.
Your question is (perhaps deliberately) unclear. If you are bothered by the apparent tension between moral talk (locutions such as "torture is bad") and the ontology that denies moral properties, then there are several ways out of this conundrum: fix the language, reconsider the argument about the language (perhaps embrace non-cognitivism instead), reconsider ontology (perhaps abandon moral realism).
What should not be in question is what we actually mean when we say things like "torture is bad." What we care about when we say these things (@Moliere) is neither language nor ontology - only metaethicists care about that.
I don't mean to stick up for error theorists, but I am with them (and with Humeans) on this one. One shouldn't confuse explanations for morality being the way it is, and reasons for acting morally - that would be a naturalistic fallacy. Explanations can be biological, anthropological, social, or perhaps even physical. Motivations ultimately require value judgements. The gap cannot be bridged.
So the OP question is not about truth anymore again? Biology is not "motivated": it is merely predicated. Nothing in the universe operates without underlying principles. The sciences - indeed, all human inventions, including philosophy - are based on observation of the processes in order to discover the underlying principles.
For example, gravity is one of the principles of physics. Without it, things fall apart. Gravity is thus a necessary requirement ("truth" ) of physics, even though the participants in most physical interactions don't have a brain with which to assess or describe or value it. A truth is neither good nor bad until somebody with the ability to value it recognizes it as necessary, after which that thinking entity will draw inferences from that fact.
The fact itself just is; the system of thought - science, philosophy, religion, morality - use it as a template to evolve and mutate.
Continuity of life is the underlying principle discovered by a branch of science, with its own necessary truths. Whether those truths, or operating principles, become values in the human sense is a matter of human choice, since humans participate in its interactions. The validity of the principle is constant, with or without the observation and articulation of a human agent.
Sure, logic does not tell you what to do. Nor does logic tell you what is the case. But that does not mean we have no reason for acting.
Consider "There is no logical reason to make the world more like how you irrationally want it to be," Drop the pejorative and the invocation of logic, and you have "There is no reason to make the world more like how want it to be".
See the irony? Why wouldn't it be reasonable to make the work more like you want it to be? Indeed, isn't it unreasonable not to make the world more like you want it to be?
Something's being how you want it to be just is sufficient reason to make it so.
I'll stop there and await your response.
I missed that tit-bit also. How are "moral truth" "valid reason" and desire interdependent? A truth is not moral or immoral; morality is neither true nor false. A reason is valid or invalid according to criteria not stated here and rarely known by anyone other than the reasoner. Desire doesn't wait upon either. Humans want all kinds of illogical, unreasonable and immoral things all the time. Whether they attempt to fulfill those illicit or foolish or contrary desires depends on their own beliefs and criteria.
Nor do I. And we know our own criteria for why that is a reasonable desire. For anyone with a different moral foundation (e.g. "Might makes right" or "Survival of the fittest - as long as fitness is defined by my traits" or " X-god commands") it might seem completely unreasonable. It depends on which of the fundamental truth forms the basis of your world-view.
Piggybacking on your example for a bit in terms of truth of value judgments:
From the very simple: If I deem strawberry ice cream to be a bad ice cream flavor, then it will be true that strawberry is a bad flavor of ice cream for me.
To the slightly more complex: If all humans find dirt-flavored food to be bad, then it will be true that dirt-flavored food will be universally bad for all humans.
And to the somewhat extreme: If a) all life strives to successfully live and b) no life can survive consuming what is relative to itself a lethal poison, then it will be true that consumption of lethal poisons will be universally bad for all life in general.
Maybe needless to add, such that bad is of itself a value judgment - irrespective of how tacitly it might be made.
--------
And now likely distancing myself from your views by a few lightyears distance:
As regards ethics in general: One could in theory progress in the same manner from concrete personal truths to concrete universal truths regarding what is good by finding out what is the/an underlying universal want shared by all life, oneself included. If this premised universal want shared by all life were to be existentially true (i.e., conformant to the reality of the matter), then the complete satisfaction of this want among all life would in turn be an existentially true, universal good. Then, anything which serves to satisfy this true (again, conformant to the reality of the matter) idealization of a universal good would itself be a good in due measure; whereas what deviates from satisfying this universal good would be in due measure a bad. Hence, here, for any action X, one could in turn ask: Is it true that X serves to satisfy that which is universally good? If yes, then X ought to be done; if no, then it ought not be done.
But this in large part pivots on there being such a thing as an underlying universal want shared by all life. Maybe obviously, it would need to be something extremely generalized: maybe - as psychologists might say - such as notions of optimally reducing negative valence and maximizing positive valence in oneself given interactions with ones surroundings or - as us more common folk might translate - finding a means wherein one no longer unduly suffers while yet being with others.
Then again, this gets into metaphysical contemplations regarding what drives life in general and, as is by now no surprise, for many (especially those of a physicalist bent) even contemplating such notions is tantamount to philosophical absurdity.
For my part, though, Im gonna leave this in as an earnest illustration of how it in fact is logically / metaphysically possible that ethical value judgments could be correct or incorrect - and, by extension, either true or false. Make of it what you will.
You argue for a difference in degree between a dislike of strawberry ice cream and a moral judgement. I think there's a difference of kind. A mere personal preference does not have moral implications because it applies only to oneself. In order to have moral implications, the preference must apply to others. Your claim that you ought not eat strawberry ice cream has no moral implication, unless you also think that I ought also not eat strawberry ice cream.
That is, the moral implication enters not when one thinks that one's self ought behave in a certain way, bit when one thinks that others ought act in a certain way.
Morality is thus about other people. Wha makes preferences moral is the expectation that they apply to others as well as oneself.
There's a start.
It is hard to tell, to be frank. The OP insists that it is, but then when philosophers discourse about truth (or anything else for that matter) things get complicated. Are locutions such as "torture is bad" truth-apt? Controversy! I am with @Banno on this: I am happy to count as "true" any statement that I would endorse.
Does the OP endorse the statement "torture is bad"? I should hope so.
Given the title, that's hard to fathom. Quoting SophistiCat
Of course not. Truth and fact are not identical in common discourse.
Facts: Torture hurts. Torture is a deliberate act. The purpose of torture is to cause pain.
None of those are value assessments.
The controversy over truth-aptness is never over the facts; never about the nature or purpose of torture, but rather about its valuation in terms of human interaction: 1 whether a particular practice fits the category of torture (as distinct from 'enhanced interrogation' or a 'friendly chat') and 2 whether the application of torture is justified in a specific instance, 2a on whom, 2b by whom and 2c which methods and at what intensity.
"Bad" is a large, elastic category of valuation that can contain all kinds of disparate items, according to belief system, personal taste, legal code, life requirement, fraternal obligation, sentiment, philosophy and situation. It's not dependent on fact, but generates its own variable truths.
In fairness to me, these are only forum postings, so theyre not as robust in their content as one might want of a comprehensive philosophy. My main intent was to show how it is logically possible that value judgements - in relation to both preferences and ethics - can be eighter correct or incorrect. In short, if there is a universal want, and a means of satisfying that want that all individuals can in principle approach, then all ethical judgments of good and bad - wherein two or more individuals interact - can in principle be appraised by the metric of how well the given action or interaction satisfies the complete fulfilment of the given universal want: this complete fulfilment then being that which is the correct, universal good. All this having been somewhat better expressed in my previous post.
As to there being a sharp distinction in type between value judgments applied to personal preferences and value judgments applied to ethics, I by in large agree: ethical values for the most part tend to always concern two or more interacting agents each with their own personal preferences (despite all holding an underlying universal want, if such in fact does occur). This interaction between agents being to my mind fully subsumed by the logical possibility of correctness previously addressed.
But heres one possible exception to the rule of thumb: a sole castaway on an island with no hope of rescue cuts themselves to relieve stress. Since theres no interaction between persons, is this action then good strictly on account of it being the personal preference of the individual? I know that various intellectualized answers could be provided, but also believe that in our gut we all sense theres something wrong with so doing despite the activity not infringing upon anyone other and it being what the person wants. To me this is a murky area of ethics: it addresses harm and health of life in manners that ice-cream flavor preferences do not.
BTW, I use "ethics" instead of "morality" because the latter to me strongly connotes established mores (customs and norms) whereas the former does not - instead strictly addressing right and wrong conduct. One can for example thereby stipulate: the morality of female circumcision held by some people is unethical (such that the given morality is of itself unethical).
I would call it a mental aberration rather than a wrong action. This is not an intellectualized answer but my gut reaction: "Poor guy's going bananas over there!" I would wish he didn't, but not blame him for it.
I would, however, blame him if he took his frustration out on small helpless animals by torturing them. In that case I would be making a moral judgment according my own foundational principles/ preference. I wouldn't assume ethics comes into a situation where there are no other humans.
Fair enough. We nevertheless do hold value judgements in regard to mental aberrations. For instance, is it right, or else good, that mental aberrations occur? As to the ethical component, to me it yet remains a murky issue, this with the understanding that ethics addressed right and wrong conduct - and, in this sense, conduct which is either good or bad. Is the person's self-cutting neither good nor bad?
BTW, I wouldn't blame the individual either in the sense of finding the individual deserving of punishment or scorn for their actions. But in a different sense of the word, who else is technically responsible for the act of self-harm but the individual themselves?
Thanks, though, for the honest reply. Something to think about.
Quoting Vera Mont
Well, that's one long-standing philosophical debate closed!
This is not a question of ethics or morality (unless you're questioning the judgment of a god). Illness is a fact. The ethical question is how we ought to treat the sufferer, whether we should most appropriately kill, punish, pity, exorcise, banish or medicate him. The rational, or scientific questions follow from which 'ought' we decided.
It's a social issue. individual behaviour in relation to other people; group behaviour in relation to individuals and other groups.
Quoting javra
Yes.
To me, morality is an issue of individual-in-the-world; a karmic issue, if you like.
Outside of a social context, right and wrong are entirely personal values. If a human suffers an illness, some moral systems give him the right to alleviate his symptoms at the expense of other who are deemed of 'lesser value' - people who can't afford the surgery, poor people who need $1000 more than they need a second kidney, other species, etc.
Quoting javra
In this case, I'm not sure either that responsibility can attributed, or that harm has been done.
Is scarification morally wrong? It's certainly deemed ethical in their cultures. Is it okay for western people to have tattoos and studs?
I didn't close it by disagreeing on page 1, so it seems rather more robust that you give it credit for.
Never claimed it is. I claimed that we ascribe value judgments to it: as in, it is of value or not of value ... right / good or wrong / bad in this sense ... and not one of ethics, which would be a category error unless the mental aberrations were to be intentionally caused.
Quoting Vera Mont
It to me seems obvious that if the self-cutting serves to satisfy the immediate want of the individual then the act is good relative to the short-term goals of the individual. If it does not, or else is contrary to the more long-term goals of the individual, than it is not good to the very same individual. Individuals can and often enough do hold contrary wants at the same time but in different respects.
Quoting Vera Mont
Psychologically speaking, self-cutting is intentionally done for the purposes of inflicting bodily self-harm intended to result in various degrees of emotive euphoria. It's like a drug to those who do it: a kind of runner's high incurred from willfully inflicted pain. It is not done so as to decorate oneself, apropos to tattoos and studs.
----
Aside from which, all this is sidelining the main issue I've brought up. Here, for the sake of argument, I'll momentarily consent that ethics by necessity entails the interaction between agents. Is it not logically possible that ethical judgments can be correct or incorrect? Such that if one judges that torture is bad, this ethical judgment can be truth-apt relative to the reality of a universally shared, underlying want that seeks to be fulfilled? (Here presuming you've read my previous posts on this matter.)
I claim that I do not include myself in that "we". Of course I think illness is bad in the sense of unfortunate, don't wish it to happen, but without a conscious agency, I don't see how it can be wrong. "Illness happens" is just a morally neutral fact, like "Rocks are hard".
The little words can make the biggest, most confusing Santa sacks of ideas. Right and wrong are equivalent to good and bad only in some specified context.
Quoting javra
Quoting javra
So, you hold that wilful self-harm is/ should be evaluated not according to its effect, but the subject's motivation? Does that mean that's it's okay to damage one's body for decoration or tribal identification, but not okay to do it for stress relief?
I could not make that distinction: to me, it's their body, to do with as they wish, so long as no other is being harmed. I mnean sim[ply that I'm not in a position to judge any individual's degree of volition or validity of motive: hence not sure.
Quoting javra
Yes, I think it's not just possible, but usual. Ethics are set out in systems, with philosophical basis. Any transaction - and even many isolated actions - can be judged according to the tenets of the ethical system to which the actor subscribes.
Quoting javra
No, on two counts. I already stated that it's not a question of truth. And it's not universally shared. I don't believe in a disembodied 'underlying want' that can seek fulfillment. Sentient entities need things and want things, sometimes conflicting things, and seek to resolve those conflicts through the application of ethical rules. As I already mentioned with torture, it's probable that the majority of the human race considers torture a generally bad, undesirable thing, but condones it in certain circumstances. (Or we wouldn't allow it at all, anywhere.)
There may be 0/1 distinctions between correct and incorrect courses of action according to the rules of one ethical system, but come up with a different configuration under the rules of another system. They do not correspond to True/False, Right/Wrong or Black/White with mathematical precision.
Quoting Vera Mont
Because psychological wants have no reality? If wants are real, then there will necessarily be truth-apt propositions in reference to them. Hence, a question of truth.
Quoting Vera Mont
Um, yea. Neither do I. As I hope is not a news flash, humans, for instance, are embodied together with their psychological wants.
If you don't believe in wants that seek fulfillment, then what would a "want" entail other than that it be fulfilled? Wants can be subconscious emotions that attempt to influence us as conscious agents or else be our own, as in "I want X"; either way, they seek fulfillment as far as I know.
As to not believing in such a thing as an "underlying want", when a person wants to turn on the radio it's usually because of an underlying want to hear what the radio is playing. Examples of underlying wants can be quite numerous. On what grounds to you conclude that sentience does not have a base underlying want that motivates all others?
(I'm running short on time; will check in later on.)
Because the nature of their reality is not subject to verification. They are processes inside the subjective consciousness of an organism: real to the subject, unreal to everyone else.
Quoting javra
Why? Is colour true or false? Is size true or false? What about liberty? Music? We know they exist in some way; they have description and measurement and comparison, they may even have value in certain context, but T/F simply doesn't apply, and if applied, doesn't mean anything. Nor does it apply to feelings. Guy sez he feels nauseous. I don't see it. Better show him the bathroom anyway, just in case it's true. And then? What happens is manifest, verifiable; the feeling itself is not. If something happens, we'll have evidence that what he said was true, if it doesn't, we will will never know. Does either result provide us with any useful new information regarding the guy's feeling?
Quoting javra
Want just is; a function of living. Crocodile wants. Human wants. Wolf wants. Lots of things. Some wants are the expression of needs; if they go unfulfilled, the organism dies. Some are expressions of instinctual or emotional urges - whether healthy or pathological makes no difference - if they go unfulfilled, the organism suffers distress, but usually survives to want it again next mating season, or keeps wanting it until he dies in captivity. Some are ephemeral desires, which, if fulfilled cause momentary joy, if unfulfilled, recur or are forgotten and replaced by new whims. Some wants are considered "wrong" by the animal's community and punished for their very expression; some are accepted as legitimate but limits set on what action the animal is allowed to take to fulfill them. The hungry wolf-cub wants meat; that is considered legitimate. He can wait until all the adults have fed, (right) or nip in between their legs and help himself (wrong - and he's punished). The single male wolf wants to mate (his feeling is acknowledged) but he's a Beta, so his choices are to hang out with an Alpha family until a mate becomes available (the sensible course) leave the pack and try his luck elsewhere (solitary existence is hard), or challenge the Alpha (perilous). There are no moral values attached to these events; it's just the way things are. This bachelor wolf, however, would be breaking the rules (doing wrong) if he tried to seduce a mated she-wolf; he could be killed for that.
Quoting javra
They do not seek. They simply occur. We do the seeking.
Quoting javra
People have reasons for wanting, and some of them have other reasons behind them, and the earliest one we may or may not be aware of can be described as underlying the others, but what I said was I don't believe in a want that seeks anything. It just lies there, until the subject either acts on the superficial want or forgets about it and wants something else.
Quoting javra
I haven't concluded anything of the kind. The drive to survival is an attribute of sentient and non-sentient life forms, in which all motivations are rooted - motivations that sentient creatures experience as wanting. It's generated by the life process and takes place in the organism. It is not an entity in itself; has no desires or will of its own; is not an active agent.
My damn cat just knocked over a bucket of water. I didn't want to mop it up, but I did. I did want to strangle him, but didn't. He was trying to take a drink. He wanted it from that bucket because it is a novelty, or else he was too lazy to cross the room and walk down a short hall to his own water dish (I'll go with novelty: he's a cat) That want was motivated by thirst, which was motivated by a sense of dehydration, which was motivated by the survival drive. What he did in response to this want was not deliberately wrong; it was merely stupid. Therefore not punishable in my books. But I'm still miffed at him.
You say, unreal to everyone else, am Im about as flabbergasted as one can get. Like, the wants, the desires, of your loved ones are unreal to you unless they act out - and then its a maybe and just in case kind of mindset on your part as to them actually having any desires.
Since Im in no mood to argue this very pivotal disagreement we have, Im gonna part company right here.
True. One does not want a dissertation.
Your castaway might well be able to find a better way to deal with their stress. Cutting oneself is not healthy, but I don't think it immoral, except as a back-construct against, say, the (reduced) possibility of rescue and hence of consequences for others.
Im curious: How do you differentiate the philosophical issue of how one should live from that of morality? (I view the former as a subset of ethics - very much including virtue ethics - but you might disagree in so far as interpreting ethics to be equivalent to morality.)
How far postmodernism has taken us.
The fact that morality isn't totally similar as logic where things are either true or false and usually provable as so, yet this shouldn't really be any kind of problem for us. There is a link and it is studied in a branch of philosophy called ethics. So is the question...what?
At present I have a preference for virtue ethics, placing an emphasis on developing personal virtues rather than following rules.
So virtue ethics might well be seen to involve personal development that does not have a social implication. Virtue has a broader scope than morality.
So in moving past cutting himself, your castaway becomes more virtuous but not more moral.
An interesting approach.
What else does it include? Do you mean one's relationship with the environment? Or are we in soul/karma land now? I'm not against that; I do see a non-religious aspect to the notion: whatever you do leaves a mark on your... personality or whatever; changes you in some way that cannot be changed back. In that context, virtue may include keeping your karmic slate as clean as possible for an unknown future. In some obtuse angular way I haven't worked out, that converges with the tenet of manners: "Behave in a palace as if you were at home, and at home if you were visiting a palace." (which is to say, naturally, not ignoring people)
In the world of thought and words, truth is the value. A lie may have value to someone just to the extent that it is believed to be true. Thus in the world of words,if it is true that moral claims are never true, then it follows that moral claims have no value. Or at least, they only have value as lies that manipulate.
But notice the inequality between the lie and the truth. the lie can have value only by virtue of the dominance of truth. Without the dominance of truth, language itself has no value and hence no meaning; so the lie is always parasitic on the truth. the lie has meaning and value by virtue of the truth.
Thus even in the world of words, the truth must prevail, {by and large}, or else the world of words itself loses all value.
The world of words is a microcosm of the social world. Money has value to me because the nice people at Walmart collect it. Philosophers agonise, and then they go shopping...
The inequality applies to money too. If "we" do not trust the money, it has no value. Economists call it "confidence". I like money because you like it too. We all just stopped liking bitcoin so much...
In the case of money, the truth is a fabrication. What does this mean?
But there is another world, not the world of words or the social world, but the natural world. Here, reality bites. The torturer is the lord of this material world - allegedly. Being tortured, then, is what? It happens rather more often than I would like to admit. It has no meaning. It has no value. Eat shit motherfucker.
Or is there, perhaps, another way? You do not have to partake, you do not have to realise, you do not have to engage; thus freedom; thus virtue. The value of your virtue is not to you.
That's a very nice way of expressing my current view on the matter.
Quoting Banno
Well ... thanks.
:up: Especially in relation to your insightful analysis of truth and lies.
Yes. I asked it: What do you mean by this:
Quoting Banno
In order to be broader than morality, it would have to encompass something more than morality does. Since morality covers the individual's interactions with other individuals, society, other species and the environment, I'm asking what is left for virtue to cover that morality doesn't?
Found? By whom? How? If the actor "finds" his behaviour acceptable (or necessary) and there is nobody else there to judge him, who is in a position to deem his act unvirtuous? Who has the authority to do so? By what criteria?
Sorry this is the wrong way around; I was erasing a previous remark.
First off, I appreciate the clear, surgical OP. Why you had to relate your argument to torture I'm not sure; you could have easily demonstrated your beliefs without invoking such a thing.
Would you say that (1) it is impossible for any moral axioms to be true? Or do you think that (2) we cannot prove if any moral axioms are true? Or (3) do you think that all proposed moral axioms are not true?
(1) and (2) sound very much like axioms to me, and (3) appears to be largely unverifiable, or definitely unverifiable if you believe (2) to be true. We, humans, seem to throw paint on the canvas with little thought in the hopes of making sense, not considering what you outline in your post, but I think we have good reason to have the intuitions we have, which is that moral claims can be true and false, unless you can demonstrate (1), (2), (3), or some combination thereof, is true. If (2) is true, (3) becomes as unverifiable as the moral axioms you claim must support extrinsic moral claims.
If it comes between arguing that moral claims cannot be subjected to verification by their very nature, and the claim that they can indeed be verified, I would choose the latter, if only because both claims seem to be equally grounded in arbitrariness, and the latter is more pleasant.
It seems to me the argument in the OP is ambiguous about this: he says that no moral axioms are true, not that no moral claims at all are true. You can assign a truth value to a claim if it is true or false according to a set of axioms, but it ends up being baseless because you cannot verify said moral axioms, or they are just untrue - according to the OP.
So yes, these utterances might have relative value, but ultimately, they have no objective value. Also, I don't see how the kind of value a lie has can be compared to a moral claim. The truth value of the utterance is based on an axiom that cannot be verified or is untrue, and the value of a lie is totally practical.
edit: he does say no moral claims are true, but it is a contradiction, as he recognizes later that some moral claims are true in relation to others that may not be untrue but rather (presumably) unverifiable
Even though it is possible to form arguments in the way that you have done it may out on the purpose of morality. It is a form of logic which could be used by Nazis and is dangerous in that respect. While rational formulation is a way of thinking it misses out on the nature of intuition and emotions which are central to moral values. It can be argued that emotions and conscience in themselves are restricted but what you are suggesting goes to the opposite extreme.
Torturing is definitely bad but it's not because it is "claimed to be bad" or spoken into existence as being a bad thing nor is it because of the action, but instead because of the intention and the intention is often unreasonable making the actions that are inflicted superfluous. The intent behind torture is always irrational and there is no justification for inflicting repetitive harmful actions on people, animals or agents that can register harm.
It's not I claim torture is bad, it's torture is in fact bad and this is how. The latter is a claim about something and not a claim of something.
How do you figure it's irrational to want information about the plans and capabilities of one's mortal enemy?
That's true! It would be interesting to see torture from a Kantian point of view. But hey, I see it coming: ethical metaphysics :eyes: :sparkle:
Your position looks contradictory, here is why: on one side, you claim that extrinsic truths depend on intrinsic truths (that I assume you would call true axioms) and that intrinsic truths (=true axioms) by definition are not supported by external evidence, so extrinsic truths depend on truths not supported by external evidence (=true axioms). At the same time, you claim that moral claims can not be intrinsic truths (=true axioms) because good feeling and bad feeling are not inherently good nor bad because of evolution. The problem is that either evolution is an external condition for the truth of our moral claims, but you stated that intrinsic moral truths are such that are not supported by external evidence, so truths about evolution are irrelevant for intrinsic moral truths to be true axioms. In other words, taking evolution as an external condition of truth for moral claims contradicts your definition of true axiom. Or evolution is taken as an internal condition for the truth of our moral claims, but then this supports the claim that hedonistic axioms are inherently true moral claims. In other words, taking evolution as an internal condition of truth for moral claims contradicts your claim that there are no moral axioms that are true.
When you say good feelings are not inherently good, I assume you mean something different by the first 'good' and the second 'good'; otherwise your statement appears self-contradictory. Since you mention hedonism, I assume that by 'good feelings', you mean pleasant feelings. (Tell me if I'm wrong.) So I assume you mean this:
'Pleasant feelings are not inherently good, they're merely things evolution has created to help us to survive.'
Why can't they be both?
You say confidently that pleasant feelings (or some kind of feelings) 'are not inherently good'. Can you define what you mean by this second 'good'? (If you can't, how do you know what you're saying?)
I would suggest that this second 'good' means something like 'warrants a favourable response'. So if I say 'that's a good painting', I mean something like 'that painting warrants a favourable response'. It's like I'm praising the painting, but not just that, I'm also saying that the painting deserves or warrants that praise. (When people say some X is good, they do think they are saying something about X, not just about their own feelings.)
And then I would suggest that pleasant experiences do warrant a favourable response. (Favourable responses could include approval, praise, actual seeking out, etc.) The evidence for this does indeed come from evolution. Why are the kinds of behaviour that make it more likely that an animal will pass on its genes behaviour like eating healthy food and having sex pleasant? Obviously, because the pleasure motivates the animals to behave in that way. (Animals that found eating healthy food or having sex unpleasant didn't do it, and so didn't pass on the genes that made them feel like that.) But why does this work? Why does making something pleasant motivate animals to do it? Obviously, because pleasure is worth seeking out; it warrants a favourable response. (We know that anyway, from our own experience of pleasure.) But I just suggested that 'warrants a favourable response' is just what 'good' means. So if I'm right, it follows both that pleasant feelings have been created by evolution to help us survive, and also that they are good.
This likely goes some way to explaining why so many believe that the is/ought gap does prevent an objective morality: we currently have no evidence that such a moral 'is' exists, and without it we cannot derive a universal ought.
Then why are so many acts performed in private considered immoral by so many people? Why would they expect you to confess - make known at least to God and one other person - even the most individual thing of all: impure thoughts?
Both virtue and morality are social ideas; their nature and hierarchy devised according to the requirements of a particular society at a particular period of its history. The prevailing philosophy (or world-view) sets out the principles; the current requirements sets the standards. At the start of a war, courage and loyalty are the paramount virtues; at the end of a war, industry and charity become highly prized. When a religion is rising in the world, it's most valued asset is zealous adherence; when it has consolidated its power, it values meek obedience; when it is in decline, it preaches tolerance. (And when it is in power and afraid of having that power challenged, it resorts to torture and calls that virtuous.)
Those folk are mistaken.
Ahhhh!