A basis for objective morality
I'm trying to crack the basis for an objective morality and want to test run my thinking here.
I'm still thinking through this so the below notes aren't airtight and will have clear gaps, but approximating what I'm trying to get at, including attempting to tread my way across the is/ought problem.
Its foundation is based on the fact of embryonic development, and the ought element automatically derived from this as it's nested within it by default.
Embryonic development demonstrates that cellular machinery forms life if given the chance to. If cells do this, then the generic circuitry itself shows that to live is the default baseline to begin with, not a conscious choice - not a choice at all, it just is. But if this is simply hardwired genetic code doing its job, then by default the imperative is to live, because living is the first 'thing' an organism does and is what makes it an organism. Living is an obligation for life. Therefore one ought to live, as being a being implies this by default.
If one ought to live, then good is that what which aids this, stemming from the fact that genetics have been wired from the the very beginning of our ancient history to develop a fetus and form a life, and bad is that which hinders this.
So if life exists at all, then to live is an obligation, and good is that which aids life, therefore one ought to do good.
The above rests on the fact that cellular machinery proactively creates life via embryonic development.
I'm still thinking through this so the below notes aren't airtight and will have clear gaps, but approximating what I'm trying to get at, including attempting to tread my way across the is/ought problem.
Its foundation is based on the fact of embryonic development, and the ought element automatically derived from this as it's nested within it by default.
Embryonic development demonstrates that cellular machinery forms life if given the chance to. If cells do this, then the generic circuitry itself shows that to live is the default baseline to begin with, not a conscious choice - not a choice at all, it just is. But if this is simply hardwired genetic code doing its job, then by default the imperative is to live, because living is the first 'thing' an organism does and is what makes it an organism. Living is an obligation for life. Therefore one ought to live, as being a being implies this by default.
If one ought to live, then good is that what which aids this, stemming from the fact that genetics have been wired from the the very beginning of our ancient history to develop a fetus and form a life, and bad is that which hinders this.
So if life exists at all, then to live is an obligation, and good is that which aids life, therefore one ought to do good.
The above rests on the fact that cellular machinery proactively creates life via embryonic development.
Comments (48)
The facts in the above paragraph don't have any normativity to them. "This is a fact about life, this is what happens when life is created." It doesn't feel like you can derive any oughts from those is'es, it feels like you are leaping the ought-is gap in a way that needs more justification there. To me, anyway, respectfully.
Taking what you said with "This is a fact about life, this is what happens when life is created." to point out the issue with that I said, I suppose what I am trying to do is go back one step further. So rather than saying "this is what happens when life is created" I'm trying to go down a level deeper and establish the basis of life itself as the ought by default - does that make it clearer?
Also nothing you have argued seems to go to morality as such. What does this say about homosexuality; drug use; the role of women; capital punishment, poverty, etc?
It's clear, I think, but it faces some problems conceptually like Tom Storm is addressing. It's like you're defining "ought" as "is" - like you can say "we know life ought to be, because we know that life is" - if ought and is are synonyms, then everything that is the case ought to be the case.
At least that's where it feels like it's going to me, perhaps I'm misunderstanding.
Further to my above response - it doesn't matter how deep you go into the process of life, the point is you are still committing the naturalistic fallacy (which is close to the is/ought fallacy). Just because something is the case in nature does not make that something right. The natural is not the same as the good.
Not that I disagree, but when you say "The natural is not the same as the good", what is it that makes the truth of that proposition? I mean, if I made the counter claim "whatever is natural is right", how would you show me I'm wrong about that? Would you point to intuition, language use, the canon of ethics...?
They're clearly not just referring to the world as it is. If they were, there would be nothing that isn't good, there would be nothing that someone could do to which you would respond, "they shouldn't do that".
So, whatever "good" and "should" mean, they clearly don't mean "whatever happens to be the case". If they did mean that, their utility as concepts would pretty much entirely evaporate.
Yep, I can sympathise with that approach. So would you be happy to support 'what is good is whatever people say is good'? Since that would be undeniably how the word is used?
I don't know of many people who use the word like that.
Let's say you said that though, you said "what is good is what is natural". Are you defining good that way, or are you saying that good has a separate definition, but analytically it works out that everything good is natural and vice versa?
Then how did you learn what the word meant, if not by listening to other people using it?
If you did learn it by listening to other people using it, then it follows, surely, that the way people use the word is to mean that which other people use the word to also describe.
It's not a position I'd support. I was trying to get at how we define 'good' by asking how we'd argue against such a claim. You responded exactly how I'd respond "it's not how the word is used". But there's a commitment that goes along with that response; that how the word is used is what defines 'good'.
Doesn't this logic apply to all words? So all words X are just defined as "X is whatever people say it is"?
No, I think what you do instead is you listen to what people are saying, you're figuring out what they mean by what they're saying, and at least in some cases you start constructing rulesets for categorising things. You're told this is an apple and that's an apple and that's an apple, but that's not an apple, eventually you start getting a good idea of what an apple is, and at some point someone points to a banana and says "that's an apple" but now "apple" is no longer "things people say are apples" to you, it's an abstract category that you can analyse and you can decide that someone can be wrong.
It's hard or impossible to do that as you're first learning the word, but you're confusing the definition of the word with the method for figuring out what people mean by the word. Those two things are separate.
Sure. So 'good' is whatever your language community use the word for? Like 'apple'?
The only reason I'd be wrong to point to a banana and say 'apple' is because my language community don't use the word that way, yes?
Loosely speaking, yes. I'm sure there are much more rigourous ways of saying what I'm saying, and we're sort of no longer talking about morality, this is now about language itself, but loosely speaking, if you're not using words in a way that other people will understand, you're not using language in the way language is intended to be used (most of the time, with exceptions).
If you personally, individually decide that you're going to use the symbols or sounds of "Apple" to refer to this :flower: , you're very likely to be misunderstood. If you don't want to be misunderstood, then... you're not using the tool of language to achieve the goal of being understood very well.
There's no reason apple objectively can't refer to :flower: , symbols are not objectively linked to their referents.
I think I'm tangenting too far at this point. I don't know if this conversation would even benefit from this type of discussion on how people use words. I'm going to stop here for that reason.
Quoting Tom Storm
Hmm. Perhaps we might tease out a way in which the is is always normatively complicit with an ought ( you know, the fact-value entanglement folks like Putnam, Sellars , Davidson, Brandon and Rorty go on about). Where to find such a complicit ought in straightforward talk about organic machinery? Well, is there not a paradigmatic value system that makes such vocabulary intelligible? Is not each fact flowing out of this system of thought framed with expectations and anticipations? Is not each assertative empirical statement a form of question put to experience, an expectation that subsequent events will validate rather than invalidate it?
Lol, an objective basis for morality?
I don't think it's easy to go from is to ought without similar equivocations happening.
For example, I believe that implicit within facts are values. From this paradigm, there is no gap between fact and value. We do not merely percieve a fact. Even in our most unlearned state, we filter that fact through biological and mental apparatus that we have inherited from millions of years of evolution, and that fact holds a relevance for us beyond it's mere 'is'ness - the two are inseparable.
Now I am still working through refining my thoughts in the above paragraph, but I think the is/ought problem, or the naturalistic fallacy, are unassailable gaps perhaps from one paradigm, but not from another which is just as viable.
I'm fairly confident most life doesn't have mental states one could describe as "wants", or mental states at all.
Not all objective morality is the same, and the term "objective" itself varies in meaning, but perhaps you're better off not trying to create an ought. The desire to live weaves its way into our moral thinking, it manifests as our proclivity for ascribing value to life. While that doesn't create an ought, it does do something to ground moral thinking. "Ought" isn't built into us quite so explicitly as you may like, but our biology is designed in a way that naturally leads us to certain conclusions. While we don't "have" to do anything, what we will do is being influenced by our biology, as will what we think we should. You could expand on the idea from there.
However, as for your actual argument, it's a naturalistic fallacy as mentioned. Your role in selecting the facts, interpreting them and arriving at a conclusion can't be ignored. By including new facts, new interpretations, or understanding them differently, the "ought" can change. There's no winning here. Though, even if you somehow did convince others of objective morality in this way, I'm not sure what the point would be. People would just make exceptions or add nuance as it suited them, as is already the case really.
The issue here might be that anyone can argue that their paradigm is better than another paradigm - isn't this what creationists do when they poo-poo evolution in favour of the Biblical paradigm? But we still need a demonstration that one paradigm should be privileged over another.
Quoting Kaplan
Even if this is true, can you demonstrate how this assists us with morality as per my earlier question -
Quoting Tom Storm
Can you tie this more robustly to is/ought for me?
I wouldn't show you that you are wrong, I would say simply that the case hasn't been made. Why would I accept this claim? What is it about the natural that entails the good? Can this be demonstrated?
I dont understand your explanation of how you go from the fact that:
living is the first 'thing' an organism does and is what makes it an organism to
Living is an obligation for life. Therefore one ought to live, as being a being implies this by default.
Even if you explained how you made that leap, who ought to live? The smallpox virus? (Did we do evil when we exterminated it?) Some individual organism, the individuals species? Just conscious species? All species?
Also, Obligation and ought imply doing something regardless of needs and preferences. Coherently using these words here would require you to describe the domain of when and why one ought to live would be in conflict with your needs and preferences.
The mistake - thinking it might be something fully definable forever unchanging - emerges from the ever present ambitious charlatan - who is always conjuring fears and simultaneously ready with the most certain god prescribed remedies. These are political and religious extremists offering us little pantomimes where they play god. Humans are very impressionable, they love a god that can offer them something solid unchangeable, certain.
But in practice we don't live with much that is all that certain or absolute. Our world is too complex and changeable for that. This absolute business was just meant to be a bit of entertainment for kids around campfire. No body was meant to really believes it.
The best we get is patterns that seem to work, that we follow and improve thru trial and error. Those things that help us are true, those that don't are false.
A paradigmatic scientific worldview implies a moral
value system, even when the participating scientists insist their empirical descriptions of reality are completely independent of their ethical stances. For instance, a naive, or direct, realism implies a non-relativist thinking concerning the moral.
Quoting Kaplan
"Relevance for us" (i.e. a natural species.) :100: :up:
(e.g. Epicurus, Epictetus ... Spinoza, Nietzsche ... J. Searle, P. Foot, M. Nussbaum, et al)
*
A post from an old thread on "Objective Morality" wherein I had sketched-out reflections on various facets of ethical naturalism ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/575905
(Apologies for the length.)
To tackle the first part of your post to begin with. I get to the conclusion of obligation by the fact that the processes to create life in the first place exists at all. The opposite of life and existence is death and nothingness. Life doens't have to happen. But the mere fact it does leads me to believe that to proactively force the opposite is a violation.
At the most basic level this would assist us with every single moral question as it is the foundation. What I mean is, if the above statement is true, then good would be that which aids life and bad the opposite. As to the exact permutations and combinations this would look like in specific moral questions and practical/applied ethics, that is not my goal here.
Quoting Kaplan
Living is what life does. Living is not an obligation of life because life has no moral obligation to live regardless of needs and preferences.
Quoting Mark S
Agree.
I guess as a presupposition I have generally subscribed to something similar - but the devil is in the detail. I have ususally held (something close to Sam Harris), it is better to be alive than dead, better to be well than sick, better to be happy than sad. My sense of morality follows from this.
As others have maybe said in their own way perhaps, this can be framed without the language of emotion in terms of genes being filtered out if they don't keep their moist robots breeding. Life is a stubbornly persistent pattern -- typically persisting through a creation-death loop allowing for constant tiny adjustments. We'd expect just this kind of pattern to predominate in the long run.
FWIW, I think you are right to consider natural constraints on morality. It'd be weird to have large language-ready brains and not ethical systems centered on the cooperation of Us which is sometimes against Them. This (coincidentally?) mirrors the cooperation of the organs within our bodies. 'Inefficient' ethical systems would seemingly be filtered out in something like memetic evolution, while efficient ones would spread --- perhaps by conquest, but maybe just by trade, missionaries, etc.
Quoting plaque flag
That certainly commits one to a reductive evolutionary model, in which our most human capacities for bonding are at the mercy of arbitrary mechanisms. If evolution can code for cooperation , it can just as easily code for the opposite. Even if the former wins out as an advantageous adaptation, the idea that an immoral ethic could emerge biologically, even briefly, reveals much about how ethical relations are being conceived. It may seem that this one-sided naturalist adaptationism is the only protection against a subjective idealist notion of will, but there are more effective ways of grounding ethics than these two choices.
I saw myself as offering a mere piece of the story. What options should we not expect to find ? What options can we rule out ? I can put on my devilworship hat and say some freaky things. Or I can put on my goodboy hat and say some nice things. But I was aiming at something drier, something minimal.
That does not follow. At least in the human context, that seems highly unlikely. We are born helpless and mute. Our killer app is language, which depends on trust and cooperation.
Does this mean that cooperation is not an evolutionary adaptation?
Well I daresay biological evolution played a big role in it. We needed the brain, maybe the expressive face, etc. Something like memetic evolution also seems important --competition at the group level. I presume lots of things happened in an interdependent stew.
I agree with this. A morality could be objective without successfully bridging the is/ought gap. This would just mean that in order for the moral system to have normative force, one would need to first accept the objective rule. In this case the rule has to do with the goodness of life. Indeed, this is a reasonable rule that most people would accept, and it is objective because we are capable of distinguishing life from death.