The value of conditional oughts in defining moral systems
If we define a moral ought as an imperative ought, what everyone ought to do regardless of their needs and preferences, then conditional moral oughts of the form If your goal is
Then you ought to
have no moral value. They have no moral value because they are dependent on peoples needs and preferences.
However, there is no evidence that mind-independent imperative oughts exist.
What if we define a moral ought as something like What all well informed, rational, people would advocate? (Adapted from the SEPs definition of morally normative in the Morality entry.) Then conditional moral oughts could be culturally valuable if all well-informed, rational people would advocate them. All well-informed, rational people would advocate for them if they shared goals and how to achieve them.
Are there goals shared by all well-informed, rational people? Peoples needs and preferences have been shaped by our biological evolution and social forces. Social forces can produce diverse needs and preferences but can produce some that are shared. Biological evolution has produced shared needs and preferences, including a desire for well-being. So, there are some goals shared by all well-informed, rational people.
Are there shared ideas about how to morally achieve those goals? If being well-informed includes understanding the function of cultural moral norms and our moral sense is to solve cooperation problems, then there will be a shared understanding. This understanding is that the most moral way to achieve shared moral goals is to advocate for moral norms that are heuristics for solving cooperation problems.
All well-informed, rational people will have shared goals and ideas about how to morally accomplish them. Hence, conditional oughts can be normative and culturally useful for defining culture-independent moral systems.
This surprised me. I have not paid much attention to conditional oughts in ethics.
However, there is no evidence that mind-independent imperative oughts exist.
What if we define a moral ought as something like What all well informed, rational, people would advocate? (Adapted from the SEPs definition of morally normative in the Morality entry.) Then conditional moral oughts could be culturally valuable if all well-informed, rational people would advocate them. All well-informed, rational people would advocate for them if they shared goals and how to achieve them.
Are there goals shared by all well-informed, rational people? Peoples needs and preferences have been shaped by our biological evolution and social forces. Social forces can produce diverse needs and preferences but can produce some that are shared. Biological evolution has produced shared needs and preferences, including a desire for well-being. So, there are some goals shared by all well-informed, rational people.
Are there shared ideas about how to morally achieve those goals? If being well-informed includes understanding the function of cultural moral norms and our moral sense is to solve cooperation problems, then there will be a shared understanding. This understanding is that the most moral way to achieve shared moral goals is to advocate for moral norms that are heuristics for solving cooperation problems.
All well-informed, rational people will have shared goals and ideas about how to morally accomplish them. Hence, conditional oughts can be normative and culturally useful for defining culture-independent moral systems.
This surprised me. I have not paid much attention to conditional oughts in ethics.
Comments (62)
Moral behaviour is defined as performing bad actions only if they cannot be avoided, such as theft or murder.
If I understand you correctly, an ought is an action irrespective of illegality such as stealing food to feed yourself or murder as self defence.
Is this what youre getting at ?
"Moral behaviour is defined as performing bad actions only if they cannot be avoided,"
How do you define bad? The claim just passes the explanatory burden.
Quoting Mark S
Bad is someone smacking you in the face rather than giving you a 20 dollar bill.
Would you be happy to define good or bad in terms of such actions?
Bad is defined as an unpreferred action upon oneself, such as being robbed of your money, life, legs etc.
Would someone smacking you in the face be a good thing or a bad thing?
It could be a good thing if you were experiencing migraine and a good smack cured you of it.
But what if you didnt have a migraine, what explanatory burden would you give to the smack given to you ?
Id like to hear
Moral imperatives are already conditional. For example, "theft is wrong" seems absolute, but what is and isn't theft is an integral part of a moral system and legal system. "Oppression" is wrong but generally, one won't describe something as oppression unless they think it's wrong. Someone who views the employer/employee relationship as immoral might label it "oppressive", but someone who thinks it's a good idea won't describe it that way.
Also, moral systems are complex, and an act can often be interpreted as morally complex. For example, "killing" is wrong, but whether that makes abortion wrong is unclear. "Killing" is wrong, but all kinds of mitigating factors could be invoked. While on the surface moral systems can seem rigid and absolute, because they are complex, and rely on interpretation, ultimately, it's very difficult for a moral system to be rigid, and in the real world, I don't think any such moral system exists.
In your OP, you describe a "well-educated, rational person" but you're not even attempting to hide your bias here. It's not that a well-educated, rational person will share your views on the purpose of morality, it's that people who share your views on morality might get to be considered well-educated and rational. That's how language is, one's feelings are embedded into how one interprets, emphasises, characterises and selects words, and it works that way in morality just like everything else.
This has the same issues as your previous formulations. For a start, the notions "well-informed" and "rational" are normative. You have embedded prior moral judgements in you definition of "moral".
All it might be saying is "A moral ought is what people like me say it is".
Then there is the naturalistic fallacy involved in claiming that the way we have evolved to behave is the way we ought behave.
And then there are the previously discussed difficulties with claiming that cooperation is a virtue - folk cooperate on immoral acts.
In all I don't see any progress since your previous threads.
What does your claim that "well-informed and rational are normative mean to you? I can make no sense of it.
That may be partly due to my background in science and engineering. I am using well-informed and rational in the conventional sense I would in science and engineering. I look at data and the hypotheses that explain it. I cannot make sense of being well-informed and rational about this data and the hypotheses explaining it as normative.
Perhaps well-informed and rational are used differently in philosophy?
But my usage seems consistent with Gerts entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defining morality, so that seems unlikely. If you think well-informed and rational are used differently in philosophy than in science and engineering, please explain how they are used differently.
The naturalistic fallacy is a warning about imperative oughts. I claim no imperative oughts. That the function (the principal reason they exist) of cultural moral norms and our moral sense is solving cooperation problems has no innate moral bindingness even if it is objective truth. The naturalistic fallacy is irrelevant.
And of course, people cooperate for immoral goals. How is that relevant to moral means? Judging only by your comment, you appear unable to distinguish between the morality of means and ends.
Means and ends are different categories of thing. Perhaps your embedded prior moral judgements and definition of morality are rendering you unable to think coherently about morality unable to understand that moral means (unselfish cooperation) and immoral ends are distinct categories of things.
Empirically, past and present cultural moral norms and our moral senses judgments and motivations are parts of cooperation strategies. Whatever your embedded concept of morality is, it seems to be causing a bizarre rejection of consideration of the possible relevance of this remarkable claimed result.
When you say, You have embedded prior moral judgements in your definition of moral, I am puzzled how you imagine my prior moral judgments affect 1) empirical data about cultural moral norms and our moral sense and 2) the game theory of cooperation developed in the last 50 years or so that explain it.
Every criticism you mentioned is irrelevant.
That is OK with me because of your gift. The gift is the explanation of the reason for your thought processes - You have embedded prior moral judgements in your definition of moral. Thanks. I have thought along these same lines for years, but never expressed it so well. I love the word embedded its just the thing.
Really? Perhaps you could comment on my reply to Banno.
Your ideal of well-informed, rational people with shared goals and ideas is nowhere to be found. The standards that might apply to science and technology do not apply to ethics and politics because there is nothing resembling an objective standpoint. Opinion and self-interest play an essential role.
Well-informed rational people agree that an embryo is a fertilized egg, but there is no information, no evidence, and no reason that leads to general agreement as to the moral status of an embryo.
Well-informed, rational people may agree that global warming is a serious problem, but there is no information or reason that leads to general agreement about what should be done. No information that leads to a general agreement on how to balance competing needs and interests.
You cite moral norms as part of the solution but moral norms are often part of the problem. For most of our history slavery was a moral norm. Gender inequality is still a moral norm. Prioritizing corporate profit over the health of people is still a moral norm.
In your other thread you claimed:
The "cooperative strategy" more often than not has always been and continues to be that those in power make the rules and those who are not "cooperate" by submitting to their power or suffer the consequences.
@Fooloso4 sums it up well. Plenty of well-informed and rational people disagree with you, it's that simple, and labelling anyone who disagrees with you as misinformed or irrational isn't helpful.
Your conditional ought just serves to exclude the opinions of those who don't agree with your point of view. I think it's better to be open-minded and inclusive, try to understand the perspective of others, and aim to minimise the destructive politics and tribalism that are guaranteed to occur.
But being rational and well-informed about how to act morally does not imply such individuals will actually act morally because there are no generally accepted imperative moral oughts.
An irrational and poorly informed individual can choose to act more morally than a rational and well-informed one.
Quoting Fooloso4
The idea that what is normative is what all rational people would advocate is Bernard Gerts (see SEPs morality entry of the last 20 years or so), not mine. I leave it to Gert to defend. I find it a helpful perspective within mainstream moral philosophy.
My main point has been that there is an objective standpoint about the function of human morality. The evidence is that past and present cultural moral norms and the judgments of our moral sense are all parts of cooperation strategies. If this is true, then how would you argue there is not an objective standpoint about the function of human morality?
When you answer, remember this function (solving cooperation problems) has no innate, imperative oughtness connected to it. I am happy to agree there is no objective standpoint regarding imperative oughts - the main focus of traditional moral philosophy.
Regarding your counter-examples:
Quoting Fooloso4
Right. The moral status of an embryo is a function of the goals of a society (preserve life at all cost?), a subject that morality as cooperation is silent on. Just because human morality has a function does not mean that understanding that function can answer all our moral questions.
Quoting Fooloso4
Again, right. You describe an ingroup cooperating (using moral means) to gain the benefits of exploiting an outgroup (an immoral end). So what?
Neither of your counterexamples contradicts the function of human morality being to solve cooperation problems. Both are more about the morality of 'ends', a subject the function of human morality is largely silent on.
I understand why thinking of human morality in terms of its function (the principal reason it exists) rather than in terms of its imperative oughts (the traditional perspective) can be initially confusing.
If you bring it up then it is up to you to defend it, not leave it up to someone who is not here to defend.
Quoting Mark S
What is the relationship between morality and cooperative strategies? They are not, as you assume, one and the same. Cooperative strategies to achieve immoral goals are immoral cooperative strategies.
In addition an appeal to cultural moral norms is an appeal to moral relativism. The exact opposite of an objective standpoint.
Quoting Mark S
If the function of human morality is to solve cooperation problems, then this a "morality of 'ends'".
If human morality is largely silent on the morality of ends then whatever means or strategies are employed to solve cooperation problems would be moral. This would include coercion, imprisonment, and public execution in order to achieve cooperation.
Quoting Mark S
It is what you do not understand that has led not simply to your initial but to your persistent confusion. A rejection of deontology may be part of a more promising path of moral deliberation but is not a solution. Deontology is not "the traditional perspective" but one traditional perspective. There are others.
Quoting neomac
Quoting Fooloso4
Quoting Fooloso4
In other words, what's your end game?
180Proof, Thanks for assembling salient issues. From my side, it is not always clear which are the most important points to respond to. I appreciate the help.
I have responded to bannos points but not yet seen his response. I doubt that means he is now in agreement.
Responding to the non-banno points in your list:
Understanding morality as cooperation cannot magically answer all our moral dilemmas. It may be of limited help in resolving the moral case for supporting or denying support to the Ukrainians against the Russians.
Morality as cooperation only tells us the function of human morality (to solve cooperation problems). Its applicability is limited since it is 1) largely silent about what the goals of this cooperation ought to be (which will be important in the Ukraine situation) and 2) has no innate imperative bindingness.
That said, if nations wish to interact with each other morally, there is an objective reference defining that moral interaction as solving cooperation problems. I have often heard the contrary view that interactions between nations can morally be based on each nation looking out only for its own interests. That is incorrect.
Modest but still culturally useful examples of where morality as cooperation is useful include: 1) understanding that the Golden Rule initiates reciprocity strategies, 2) masturbation and eating shrimp being immoral are marker strategies of membership and commitment to an ingroup, and 3) women must be submissive to men is a descriptively moral norm that exploits an outgroup to benefit an ingroup. Understanding this is a fact of the matter sheds new light, enabling people to make more coherent moral decisions and resolve more arguments.
Well-informed, rational people are a hypothetical idealization that Bernard Gert created as part of his definition of normative. The fact that no such idealized beings exist is irrelevant to the definition.
Due to our evolutionary origins, we share some needs and preferences that are generated by our genes. To the extent we share genes, we share at least some needs and preferences. Assumed shared needs and preferences are the basis of the ideas that the goals of moral behavior should be increasing "well-being" or flourishing.
Cooperation strategies define moral means. Moral means and moral ends are different categories of thing. They are not necessarily connected.
Assume a soldier falls on a grenade to save his fellow soldiers. By morality as cooperation, the soldier has acted morally since he acted to solve a cooperation problem. Why would you think which side he was on in a war would change the morality of that act?
First, I agree. Second, deontology was not mentioned.
I was talking about imperative oughts being the traditional perspective. By imperative ought I mean what everyone ought to do regardless of their needs and preferences. It has been my reading of traditional moral philosophy that imperative oughts, not conditional ones, are what are being assumed in most proposed moral systems, not just Kant's categorical imperatives. Is that incorrect?
If not, how would you describe the kind of oughts commonly assumed in moral philosophy?
Quoting Tom Storm
Thanks for the question.
Understanding morality started as a retirement hobby. I wanted to understand why morality existed.
Traditional moral philosophy was little help. Then I chanced across explanations of moral behaviors (behaviors advocated by cultural moral norms and motivated by our moral sense) as parts of cooperation strategies. I was surprised at how easy the relevant science is. However, explaining it can be devilishly difficult, as we see here.
Whats the dream?
That I can make a small contribution to making moral philosophy more culturally useful based on understanding human moralitys function is solving cooperation problems.
I dont expect any big success. In any event, the many and varied ways that something so simple can be misunderstood keeps me entertained. And even if I decide to abandon my efforts, I expect that acceptance in mainstream moral philosophy of the science of morality as cooperation is inevitable. It will provide insights helpful in refining cultural moral norms that will better meet human needs and reduce suffering.
I post here looking for insights into how to present the science better and talk about its applications and implications.
That's apparent, and has been through the several threads you have started.
Un's joke captures the point most succinctly:
Quoting unenlightened
But from your response it seems to have fallen flat. I don't think I'll try explaining it.
It seems, from multiple cases hereabouts, that engineering is poor preparation for doing philosophy.
Quoting Mark S
I'm not sure I endorse this thinking for reasons others have written, but best of luck hashing something out. I wonder if you need to drill down and examine more closely your presuppositions of well informed and rational. Perhaps you haven't appreciated the extent to which this is perspectival?
Quoting Mark S
I get where you are coming from. I am less convinced in a rational morality which can be rolled out consistently the way a factory manufactures a car. I'll continue to watch from the sidelines, but I am not a philosopher.
Have you read Sam Harris' The Moral Landscape, I forget if you have or not.
I may take the opposite approach and avoid mentioning Gerts definition of normativity again. That might be possible and still convey the culturally useful essence of the relevant science.
I have read Sam Harris and was disappointed.
Here is something I wrote several years ago for an evolutionary perspective online magazine:
https://thisviewoflife.com/mainstream-science-of-morality-contradicts-sam-harris-central-claim/
And another response by Scott Atran who works mostly in the evolutionary psychology of religion is also critical.
https://thisviewoflife.com/here-he-goes-again-sam-harriss-falsehoods/
Thanks. I was just curious. I was unable to get though it as it's quite dull.
Your point in the essay:
Is this what Harris is arguing? I thought he was saying that wellbeing is generally what morality amounts to (no matter what the source) and this might be a better goal overall than pleasing gods? Looks to me like altruistic cooperation strategies are one potential expression of wellbeing in action. Cooperation being a stepping stone to a goal (wellbeing or flourishing), not the goal itself.
:up:
As an aside, do you think that a cultural moral norm (let's say a majority of people agree with something) means that something is thus a moral intuition (meta-ethically speaking)?
What makes distinguishes a moral intuition from an ad populum fallacy? Obviously cultural norms can be relative. Slavery was considered acceptable, now it's not. Killing off your foes and taking the women and children as part of your tribe/group was considered acceptable in warfare, human sacrifice, all of that stuff, doing horrible things in the name of religion, doing horrible things in the name of differences in culture, resources, belief, needing producers and consumers for your country or economy, physical characteristics, etc.
Many think that your proposal may fallaciously conflate normative and descriptive level of analysis, if not reduce the former to the latter. I'm not entirely sure if that's the case also because I have some doubts about how to understand "the naturalistic fallacy" per se.
Yet I doubt that your descriptive belief that moral norms are heuristics for solving cooperation problems has relevant analytic power for at least 2 reasons:
1 - if moral norms are heuristics for solving cooperation problems, one is capable of defining cooperation problems and their possible solutions INDEPENDENTLY from any specific societys actual set of moral norms, but then morality is not about the cooperation problems that you defined independently from any specific societys actual set of moral norms unless their moral norms perfectly match the way you formulated cooperative problems and solutions independently. On the other side if cooperative problems and solutions are defined as a function of specific societies actual set of moral norms, then the definition of cooperation problems and solutions varies depending on the society, so what is cooperation problem and solution to society X may not be such for society Y. In other words, Xs moral norms would not be about cooperation problem and solutions for Y.
2 - The meaningfulness of a concept is related to its semantically contrastive value. So when you claim that moral norms are heuristics for solving cooperation problems, since cooperation is the opposite of competition, I do wonder why morality can not be understood AS WELL in terms of heuristics for solving competitive problems. The previous point is indeed suggesting that different individuals and societies my compete also due to their different moral norms, if not inseparably from their different moral norms. So the moral space is contested as much as the domain of scarce resources for survival (the latter being common between humans and animals), and both can shape social competition/cooperation conditions.
It would be also useful if you clarified how you understand the notion of heuristics.
Thanks for the non-snarky reply.
Heuristics
Heuristics are usually reliable, but fallible, rules of thumb for doing something based on practical experience, not theory.
Cultural moral norms existed before moral theories. Moral norms exist because they have been selected for based on experience, specifically their ability to 1) produce the benefits of cooperation and 2) harmony with our moral sentiments (which, in turn, are heuristics for cooperation strategies encoded in our genes).
For example, versions of the Golden Rule advocate initiating indirect reciprocity, perhaps the most powerful known cooperation strategy. Versions of the Golden Rule are heuristics for initiating reciprocity. They are not moral absolutes. They are common around the world because they are highly effective at sustainably attaining the benefits of cooperation.
The ultimate source of cooperation problems
From an old essay of mine:
In our universe, cooperation can produce many more benefits than individual effort. But cooperation exposes one to exploitation. Unfortunately, exploitation is almost always a winning short-term strategy, and sometimes is in the long term. This is bad news because exploitation discourages future cooperation, destroys those potential benefits, and eventually, everybody loses.
All life forms in the universe, from the beginning to the end of time, face this universal dilemma. This includes people and our ancestors.
Human morality is our flawed set of heuristics for solving this cooperation/exploitation dilemma. This cooperation/exploitation problem is independent of culture or biology. The cooperation problems of a particular culture or biology do not change the primary function of their moral systems, just the implementation details.
The opposite of cooperation is exploitation, not competition. Competition is common between cooperative groups and, for individuals, within cooperative groups.
A moral norm against cheating in competition is fully in the domain of morality as cooperation strategies. There is nothing inherently immoral in competition.
Descriptive or Normative?
Knowing the function of cultural moral norms is to solve cooperation problems enables us to predict when those moral norms will fail. We ought (conditional) not follow the Golden Rule when tastes differ and in certain times of war and when dealing with criminals in order to not decrease the benefits of cooperation.
And we perhaps ought not (conditional) follow marker moral norms such as eating shrimp and masturbation are abominations once we understand their arbitrariness as markers of membership and commitment to ingroups. And understanding women must be submissive to men and homosexuality is immoral are norms about cooperating to exploit outgroups gives us reasons we ought not (conditional) follow them in order to achieve the goal of moral coherence.
Look! Still no normative claims. We only have conditional oughts, which, as the OP suggests, appears sufficient for a culture and even mind-independent moral system.
Enter Bernard Gerts claim from the SEP: Morality can be used normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions (such as being well-informed), would be put forward by all rational people.
In hindsight, normativity was a stinking red herring complexity I should have left out of the discussion in this forum.
I can make my case for the cultural utility of Morality as Cooperation Strategies based purely on conditional oughts no spooky imperative oughts or even the normative power of agreement among rational people required.
How do you know that? Maybe cultural moral norms fail to solve cooperation problems indeed because they do NOT have such function.
Again, if the function of ALL cultural moral norms is defined externally or independently from such cultural moral norms, and according to such unique set of external/independent criteria you can establish if any cultural moral norms are right or wrong, then - one might argue - you are not describing what that culture moral norms are actually about. If you claimed that the function of culinary recipes is to nurture us in a healthy way, so the recipes which do not conform to such function are wrong, we may object that you have it backwards, culinary recipes may fail to make us eat healthy simply because thats not their function. And if a description of the external function of cultural moral norms equates to establishing moral prescriptions (what ought to be done), then you can be accused of conflating what is with what ought to be, description and normativity, roughly as much as claiming that only recipes that make us eat healthy ought to be considered legitimate culinary recipes
Quoting Mark S
When we ought not to apply the golden rule, given that the golden rule is a cooperative heuristic strategy, what other heuristic strategy should we apply? An exploitative strategy? Criminals in jail ought to be exploited? Enemies in the battlefield ought to be exploited? If not exploited what else?
Quoting Mark S
To me the relevant sense in which your oughts are conditional is wrt the function of morality which you defined as solving cooperation problems, not necessarily moral coherence. So moral coherence at best is an instrumental goal toward such ultimate moral end. And no matter how arbitrary markers norms are but if they actually preserve or boost cooperation, then they are morally legitimate.
Besides solving cooperation problems may be assessed wrt different dimensions: quantity (increasing the set of people joining the cooperation), quality (increasing the reliability of people cooperating), duration (increasing the stability of cooperation trends), resilience (increasing the recoverability of cooperation against external or internal shocks), etc. Now, if different cultural moral norms show different moral profiles wrt such dimensions, what may look as solving cooperation problems for one cultural system, it may look the opposite for another cultural system. In other words, cooperative problems and solutions would still look cultural-dependent, and not unique for all cultures, even when solving cooperation problems may be considered a likely effect (if not a function) of certain moral norms.
Because it is empirically true.
From a bottom-up perspective, all past and present cultural moral norms (norms whose violation is commonly thought to deserve punishment) can be explained as parts of cooperation strategies.
From a top-down perspective, we can understand that cooperation problems in our universe must be solved by all beings that form sustainably cooperative societies. Further, game theory shows that for these strategies for intelligent, independent agents to be successful, violators must be punished. Hence, just as predicted, cultural moral norms exist and can be identified as norms whose violation is commonly thought to deserve punishment.
Proposed counterexamples of moral norms that are not parts of cooperation strategies are always welcome.
180 Proof and Tom,
I'd phrase it as "Cooperation being a 'means' to a goal (wellbeing or flourishing), not the goal itself", but that is essentially the same.
What I am arguing is the mind-independent core of morality is its 'means' - cooperation strategies. The objectively moral goals (end) of moral behavior require other arguments that I am not prepared to make.
People I respect say there are such arguments for objectively moral goals for moral behavior. My interest is not in arguing against the objectivity of moral goals, but rather to point out the direct utility of understanding what moral 'means' are, independent of what people are cooperating to do.
Also, when morality as cooperation is teamed with an objective goal, coherence seems to be increased. For example, most of simple Utilitarianism's "problems" vanish if the moral means of accomplishing that goal is limited to cooperation strategies that do not exploit others.
I have not yet worked through the implications of accomplishing Negative-Utilitarianism's goals only by cooperation strategies that do not exploit others, but I expect those means and ends to be complimentary and reinforcing.
That's fine.
To me the most interesting aspect of morality is whether anyone can demonstrate objective goals.
Also traffic rules can be explained in terms of cooperation strategies, yet they are not commonly understood as moral rules. So something more specific about morality seems to be left out in your functional analysis.
Quoting Mark S
If that's true, then how come that societies in the past and present do not have the same cultural moral norms? As I said there are also cultural clashes because societies do not share the same moral cultural norms, so maybe there are limits to the possibility of cooperation which morality must account for. But if cooperation is not possible, then what's left to do with societies with non-shared cultural moral norms? Exploitation?
Quoting Mark S
Yet you wrote: Knowing the function of cultural moral norms is to solve cooperation problems enables us to predict when those moral norms will fail, so it seems you are suggesting that there are cultural moral norms which might fail to meet the function you are attributing to them. And failing to meet a certain function may also mean that there is no such intrinsic function, the function is an external criterion.
There are imperatives. Imperatives are of two kinds, hypothetical and categorical. A hypothetical imperative carries the weight of an ought and is conditioned by desire, a categorical carries the weight of a shall and is conditioned by moral law, desire be what it may.
There is no Kantian categorically imperative ought, and traditional moral philosophy other than deontology treats conditional oughts as hypothetical imperatives, while deontologically grounded moral philosophy merely grants conditional oughts, but assigns no proper moral quality to them.
Your wording is confusing I think.
Moral philosophy has focused largely on goals. Given the lack of progress in convincingly defining an objective goal for moral behavior, we must face the possibility of no such goal existing. I am not concerned about this.
Choosing as a moral reference the function of human morality - moral 'means' as cooperation strategies that solve the cooperation/exploitation dilemma - gives us two constraints on moral behavior:
Then people are otherwise free to set whatever goal for moral behavior they can agree on. That looks like a pretty good moral system even if no objective goal of that moral system (aside from the constraint about no exploitation) is ever found.
Quoting neomac
Traffic rules are laws; as you suggest, rule of law is an invention to solve cooperation problems. But laws coincide with what is moral only to the extent they are cooperation strategies that solve the cooperation/exploitation dilemma how to sustainably obtain the benefits of cooperation without exploitation limiting future benefits.
I claim that the function of human morality is solving the cooperation/exploitation dilemma. I have not said that all cooperation strategies, such as laws, are necessarily moral.
Quoting neomac
Cultural moral norms are diverse, contradictory, and strange mainly because of 1) different definitions of who is in favored ingroups and disfavored or exploited outgroups and 2) different markers of membership in those ingroups and outgroups.
Understanding the origins of these differences provides an objective basis for groups to resolve them. Groups may not always be able to resolve their differences (different goals for moral behavior may be intractable), but at least they can focus on the right issues.
Quoting neomac
Cultural moral norms, such as versions of the Golden Rule, are heuristics (usually reliable but fallible) rules of thumb for parts of cooperation strategies. Their failure to solve cooperation problems in times of war, when dealing with criminals, and when tastes differ is due to them being heuristics, not due to their function being misunderstood.
This agrees with the Encyclopedia Britannica a hypothetical imperative, in the ethics of the 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant, a rule of conduct that is understood to apply to an individual only if he or she desires a certain end and has chosen (willed) to act on that desire. Hypothetical imperatives are contrasted with categorical imperatives, which are rules of conduct that, by their form Do (or do not do) Yare understood to apply to all individuals, no matter what their desires.
I have been thinking of the two concepts as
Conditional oughts (instrumental oughts) If you desire x, then you ought to do Y = (or close to) Kants hypothetical imperatives and
Imperative oughts (what everyone ought to do regardless of needs and preferences) = (or close to) Kants categorical imperatives
I do not want to rely on Kants ethics for definitions, but rather to take a broader view of how moral oughts and moral bindingness are commonly used in moral philosophy. For example, the kind of ought, or bindingness, implied by the question But what makes it moral? can be much clarified by specifying if a conditional ought or an imperative ought is sought.
If I use the term imperative ought in the future, I will include what it refers to and point out its similarity to Kants categorical imperative. Thanks for pointing out the possible source of confusion.
Ok - I see this. Focusing on the strategies rather than the ends (which have long been unclear). So essentially, in getting the 'how' right, you believe you can ensure a consistent and progressive morality.
To be moral belongs to the agent in possession of the means for being so. It follows that what makes it moral is not quite the correct iteration, when it is much closer to the case that it should be, what makes me moral?.
Quoting Mark S
Ill try to keep that in mind; its an awful lot like unlearning simple arithmetic, after all these years. Might be interesting to see what you end up with.
Quoting Tom Storm
Right.
]
The word "it" is too vague, though I have often heard the question phrased this way. "What makes the behavior or moral principle moral?" would be more precise. I see "What makes me moral?" is a different question.
I resist using Kant's vocabulary because it comes with too much baggage. All it takes is mentioning "categorical imperative," and people erroneously leap to the idea that the topic is Kantianism or deontology.
The irony is that you keep pointing at an issue of your definition of morality as solving cooperation problems which then you refuse to acknowledge. If cultural moral norms define "who is in favored ingroups and disfavored or exploited outgroups" and related "markers of membership in those ingroups and outgroups" which are at the origin of moral differences and clashes then cultural moral norms can solve AS MUCH AS can generate cooperation problems !
I dont see the irony.
Yes, 1) different definitions of who is in favored ingroups and disfavored or exploited outgroups and 2) different markers of membership in those ingroups and outgroups" are the two primary sources of moral disputes between cultural groups.
And yes, understanding 1) the origins of morally favored ingroups and morally disfavored outgroups and 2) the arbitrary origins of marker strategy moral norms can be useful for resolving those disputes.
For example, 1) understanding that homosexuality is immoral is a strategy for creating and exploiting an outgroup and 2) eating shrimp is an abomination is a marker of membership in a morally favored ingroup can support rational resolutions of disputes about enforcing such norms. Such discussions would be much more likely to be resolved than if the origins, function, and motivating power of cultural moral norms remained mysterious.
Where is the irony?
That is more likely expressing your confidence (or hope?) about that, it doesn't constitute evidence that your theory can actually contribute to solve moral clashes. Wearing a heads-scarf is cultural moral norm in some societies not in others, do you have any actual evidence that your understanding of morality as solving cooperation problems would fix such difference where it is bitterly defended (like say in a Taliban society)?
The problem is that cultural moral clashes are rooted in incompatible cultural moral norms, so they can't possibly solve cooperative problems in the same sense and as you admitted they generate cultural clashes AS WELL, so they can not be claimed to have the function to solve cooperation problems, only because this might be a possible effect or that knowing this is enough to more likely start overcoming moral differences. There are other effects too: like generating conflicts. Cultural moral norms can be invoked also to justify our cooperation limits.
Maybe it's simply a rationalization trying to find one function (or a function) for moral norms. Different individuals may rely on cultural moral norms to cooperate, others to engage in rivalries, others to spiritually distance themselves from society, others only as socially inherited/imposed habits since early childhood.
My claim is that Morality as Cooperation Strategies can contribute to rational discussions about which moral norms to enforce. Specifically, understanding the origins, function, and motivating power of cultural moral norms will provide objective evidence for resolving such disputes.
And your claim is that a culture and mind-independent understanding of the origins, function, and motivating power of cultural moral norms will NOT provide objective evidence for resolving such disputes? I cant make any sense of that.
The present chief barrier to resolving moral disputes by rational discussion is the existing murky, mysterious origins and power of cultural moral norms. Morality as Cooperation Strategies removes that barrier.
Quoting Mark S
Identifying origins, function, and motivating power of cultural moral norms can inform a rational discussion about moral norms. Im not sure that would be enough to overcome cultural clashes though e.g. when cultural moral norms are grounded in religious faith. Besides Im questioning the way you conceptually frame cultural moral norms as strategies to solve cooperation problems from the start. On one side, if this is the RESULT of an empirical investigation you cant include it in the definition of morality from the start. On the other side, cultural moral norms can be diverse and incompatible. This fact suggests that there might be limits to the possibility of cooperation which may be at the roots of cultural moral norms. In other words, there might be an ambivalence in morality similar to building walls around a limited area which can be good at keeping certain people within it but also at keeping other people out of it.
Quoting Mark S
My claim is simply that you didnt provide evidence, so neither that there are not such evidences nor that there wont be. Try to have a rational discussion with muslims while claiming that putting a head-scarf is a way for men to exploit women, so this cultural moral norm is wrong because cultural moral norms are there to solve cooperation problems.
Science does provide that evidence, based mostly on the remarkable explanatory power of Morality as Cooperation Strategies for cultural moral norms and our moral sense. It is irrelevant to my arguments that there are people who will reject them for irrational reasons such as "God told them something different".
The first claim doesn't make sense to me: it sounds as if you are claiming that evidences are based on an empirical theory (if Morality as Cooperation Strategies is an empirical theory) while it should be the other way around. Empirical theories must be based on evidences. Besides you keep lauding the success of such theory, yet providing very little to support it.
The second statement confirms my suspects: taking "solving cooperation problems" as a rational condition (à la Gert) to establish what "morality" is, it's a NORMATIVE criterion, it's external to actual historical cultural moral norms, not descriptive of them (against what you seemed to be claiming in past posts). And it remains generic until you specify what constitutes a cooperation problem and its solutions independently from actual specific cultural moral norms.
Quoting neomac
Your interpretation is, strangely, the opposite of what I am arguing.
My first claim was: Science does provide that evidence, based mostly on the remarkable explanatory power of Morality as Cooperation Strategies for cultural moral norms and our moral sense.
Perhaps we need a review of how science, including the science of morality, proceeds to conclusions:
1. Assemble an interesting category of phenomena such as past and present cultural moral norms and the spontaneous judgments and motivations of our moral sense - This is the data set to be explained.
2. Look for hypotheses that explain why this entire data set of phenomena exist perhaps cooperation strategies, or acting for the good of everyone (utilitarianism), or a means of social control imposed by the powerful, or ?
3. If one hypothesis is far better than any competing one at explaining this huge, diverse, contradictory, and strange data set, we have a potential theory.
4. If the potential theory meets other relevant criteria for scientific truth such as simplicity and integration with the rest of science, then we have a theory explaining that data set. That theory may become generally accepted as provisionally true (the normal kind of truth in science) or rejected, with rejection usually in favor a new theory that better explains the data set.
Hence:
Science does provide that evidence, based mostly on the remarkable explanatory power of Morality as Cooperation Strategies for cultural moral norms and our moral sense.
Then you say:
Quoting neomac
Do you see why they dont make any sense?
The theory is empirical, not external because it is based on its explanatory power for the huge, diverse, contradictory, and strange data set of past and present cultural moral norms and the spontaneous judgments and motivations of our moral sense (plus meeting other relevant criteria for scientific truth).
Are you arguing that past and present cultural moral norms and the spontaneous judgments and motivations of our moral sense is external to what morality is?
Finally, you say:
And it remains generic until you specify what constitutes a cooperation problem and its solutions independently from actual specific cultural moral norms.
I have already done this in this thread and will repeat it here for convenience and emphasis.
In our universe, cooperation can produce many more benefits than individual effort. But cooperation exposes one to exploitation. Unfortunately, exploitation is almost always a winning short-term strategy, and sometimes is in the long term. This is bad news because exploitation discourages future cooperation, destroys those potential benefits, and eventually, everybody loses.
All life forms in the universe, from the beginning to the end of time, face this universal dilemma. This includes people and our ancestors.
The above describes why the cooperation problems morality solves are innate to our universe. The solutions relevant to morality are primarily cooperation strategies such as indirect reciprocity.
Even if that were the case (which I do not doubt), it would have no significance for moral duties because, as Hume already stated, one cannot derive an "ought" from an "is."
"Hume's law or Hume's guillotine is the thesis that, if a reasoner only has access to non-moral and non-evaluative factual premises, the reasoner cannot logically infer the truth of moral statements."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem
Or, as John Leslie Mackie put it: "There are no objective values."
My point in the OP is the unfortunately common ambiguity of the term moral oughts in philosophical discussions.
Are these moral oughts
1) what everyone ought to do regardless of their needs and preferences (what I understand Hume and Mackie were referring to)? Ill call these imperative oughts.
2) a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational people (Gert in https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-definition/)?
Gerts definition encompasses conditional oughts of the form If your goal for morality is X, then you ought (conditional) to do Y. If all well-informed, rational people share some goals for morality, then:
1) All rational, well-informed people have a universal moral code they can advocate to best achieve those goals.
2) And we can derive a universal moral code based on conditional oughts and shared goals.
3) A universal moral code that is objective in the sense of being what all rational, ell-informed people would advocate.
When the topic is "moral oughts", I do not understand the combination of
1) the continued philosophical interest in, and too common assumption of, imperative oughts that do not seem to exist and
2) the apparent lack of philosophical interest in universal moralities based on conditional oughts such as Morality as Cooperation Strategies.
Can anyone explain it?
Meanwhile, I believe I understand what you're getting at. I will do my best to compose a satisfactory answer to it, but it will take a few more days, I'm sorry to say.
Yes. People aren't much interested in morality as a subject, but they're happy to hold unexamined 'oughts' which can be used to judge others. Morality functions as a series of prejudices and biases.
Quoting Tom Storm
The biology underlying our moral sense supplies the motivation to act just the way you describe. No surprise there concerning average people.
My surprise and puzzlement is about the continued interest in the illusion of imperative oughts among people who spend their lives studying morality - moral philosophers.
No rush.
Oh I see. Surely there must be several reasons. One being the attraction so many minds have for certainty and truth. Surely that quest has often created a type of blindness.
I'll give it a try. The lack of interest in moral concepts based on conditional norms of oughtness can be explained by the fact that it represents a relatively simple problem. When the goal is known, it is relatively easy to reach a consensus on how it can be achieved. If X is known, determining the means Y is relatively straightforward. On the other hand, the more intriguing and challenging question seems to be what one can do before setting the goal X, or through which procedure one can achieve this goal. Or in other words, it's about the question of which goal X one should set and with what justification. This appears to be an almost insurmountable task, especially when one wants to find objections against rational egoism.
I dont see moral systems chosen based on conditional oughts as necessarily a simple problem.
1) There is no commonly accepted ultimate goal for advocating and enforcing moral systems
2) Even if a commonly accepted goal were found, there is no commonly accepted understanding of moral means to accomplish that goal (except within the science of morality)
3) There is no commonly accepted definition of who is which circle of moral concern Peter Singer claims our obligation to children we will never meet is morally the same as our obligation to our own children (and people will predictably fail to meet this high moral standard).
So even if choosing what moral system we ought to advocate and enforce is merely a matter of a conditional ought, there are lots of remaining unknowns here. The science of morality gives us a big leg up on the problem, but lots of interesting philosophical problems remain.
That's why I'm saying that moralizing without such a goal is much more challenging than when you orient yourself towards a goal X that you already have set for yourself.
What I intended to convey is that it is considerably simpler to prescribe the actions one ought take to achieve a particular goal, rather than prescribing the goal they ought to strive for.
I might agree on the 4 points about empirical science. But your way of talking still sounds misleading based on those 4 points: evidences are the empirical base for the explanatory/predictive task of empirical theories (see point 1) and related comparisons (see point 3). So empirical theories are based on empirical evidences, not the other way around. If charitably understood, what you may have meant is that your empirical theory of morality is better supported by available data than other competing theories.
If thats your claim, then lets move on to more substantive points.
Quoting Mark S
Such comment keeps evading my actual points:
- You didnt offer any such proof that your empirical theory of morality has greater explanatory/predictive power than other competing empirical theories. You just keep claiming thats the case, thats all. At least you could point at the literature where this comparison is provided.
- According to your four points, point 1 must refer to a data set that doesnt presuppose your theory of morality otherwise there would be a selection bias. How do you build this dataset? The least prejudicial approach would be to build such dataset based on what cultural norms are pre-theoretically considered moral within the local culture that adopted them. THIS AND ONLY THIS looks to me an internal and descriptive representation of cultural moral norms. The problem is that these cultural norms may include also EXPLOITATIVE cultural norms (which are the opposite of cooperation according to you), therefore on one side claiming that morality is about solving cooperation problems is actually false if there are cultural norms deemed as moral which are exploitative, on the other side claiming that only cultural social norms that solve cooperation problems should be considered moral because more universal is no longer a descriptive claim but an external normative claim (i.e. Gerts principle for a normative definition of morality)
What I think one can at best try to empirically prove is that cultural norms that solve cooperation problems and are deemed as moral, are the most cross-culturally shared. Or that cultural norms that solve cooperation problems and that are the most cross-culturally shared are deemed as moral. Or that cultural norms that are deemed moral and that are the most cross-culturally shared solve cooperation problems.
I can even try to guess their plausibility (e.g. the first hypothesis sounds to me more intuitively plausible than the other 2 hypotheses).
While claiming that cultural norms are moral because they solve cooperation problems, doesnt sound intuitive at all (e.g. there are cultural norms that exploitative and cooperation problem solving norms which are not moral).
Quoting Mark S
This comment doesnt even address my concern. If you want to use game theory in specifying cooperation problems you have to specify strategies (payoffs, iterations, etc.) of specific games in some quantifiable way. If you want to support your claims generically, I can support my objections generically: exploitation is part of moral code maybe because the conditions to achieve long-term goals are simply more uncertain.
To the best of my knowledge conditional oughts/moral beliefs are DEFINED by one's culture and/or system of beliefs, they don't and can't exist independently.
I mean think of it for a second, what use is "morality" to some agent or group of agents (ie an individual or group of them) who's primary purpose isn't self survive and/or needs to know what actions are "good" for themselves and their community.
It is a given that bias is built into morality and it is more or less just as simple as that. One can try to talk about moral systems that are either less bias or try to be less bias but to talk about a truly "Objective Morality" is a foolhardy endeavor. I think the last philosopher that tried to do that was Immanuel Kant with his Critique of Pure Reason and even back then he was laughed at by his fellow philosophers.
IMHO it might be useful to read up on what Søren Kierkegaard had to say about morality in order to get a better handle on the whole subjective/objective morality problem, but of course that is just my opinion.
Thanks for your detailed comments.
Id like this thread to focus on the value of conditional moral oughts.
However, how I am using findings from the science of morality to justify Morality (referring to cultural moral norms and our moral sense) as Cooperation Strategies is a good topic. I have composed something I am reasonably happy with: The science of morality from the bottom-up and the top-down at https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14402/the-science-of-morality-from-the-bottom-up-and-the-top-down
Perhaps we can continue this conversation there.