The Breadth of the Moral Sphere

• Objector: No one says that walking the dog is a moral act!
• Leontiskos: My contention is that your understanding of the extension of moral acts is incoherent. Are you willing to try to provide a coherent definition of morality?
• Objector: No, I am not willing to do that.

• Moral acts are important acts
• Not all human acts are important acts
• Therefore, not all human acts are moral acts

I commend you for the thoughtfulness which is exemplified in your OP, as it is well-written, succinct, and substantive.

The classical example, in my mind, is the common idea in modern society that 'morality' is personal, and that one should not mix their morals with what they vote into law: it is all a load of nonsense that, at worst, is deployed as a moral deception to silence moral views.

...but [negligence can only be moral] if not just deliberate acts are within the sphere of moral scrutiny.

There only two areas that I would disagree with you, and that is (1) the credence that you give to the idea that "morality is nothing more than justice"

morality is broader than just acts

With respect to #1, Morality is the study of intrinsic goodness and what is intrinsically good: both components are necessary to capture what ethics is about.

an action is the synthesis, at least, of an intention, an effect, and an essence

We can say that kicking people is generally wrong, for example, because it produces consequences which violate our morals (whatever they may be); and so the act of kicking the doctor was still wrong, although we wouldn't hold the person, in this case, responsible for it.

• K1: If something is not a human act, then it is not a moral act
• K2: Only moral acts are moral or immoral, right or wrong
• K3: Therefore, if something is not a human act, then it is not moral or immoral, right or wrong
• K4: A reflex-kick at the doctor's office is not a human act
• K5: Therefore, a reflex-kick at the doctor's office is not moral or immoral, right or wrong

Ok, back to #1. Actions which are not deliberate, can still be analyzed, to some extent, in terms of their effects and essences, being that it is a synthesis of intention and effect. For example, other species cannot, for the most part, be meaningfully considered deliberately acting (like humans) so we don't really consider their intentions within moral scrutiny, but we do still analyze the effects and natures of the acts that they perform. If morality is just about justice or, more generally, human acts, then we lose this valid aspect of the study.

A human act is any act that we do on purpose; any act that proceeds from a deliberate will. Objection 3 to the first article gives the complement of human acts, “But man does many things without deliberation, sometimes not even thinking of what he is doing; for instance when one moves one's foot or hand, or scratches one's beard, while intent on something else.” In his reply to objection 3 Aquinas says, “Such like actions are not properly human actions; since they do not proceed from deliberation of the reason, which is the proper principle of human actions.”

I said, "Morality is therefore not only about what someone does or considers. It is also about what they fail to do or fail to take into consideration."
…
If someone neglects to do something with invincible ignorance, then they are not culpable for their "negligence" because their omission is not in any way deliberate.

I agree that morality involves a study of goodness, but in the OP I am focusing on the question of the breadth of the moral sphere. The idea is that we determine how far the moral sphere extends by comparing the set of all acts to the set of moral acts.

Now, I did add Objection 5, and perhaps this is what you are concerned with?

• K1: If something is not a human act, then it is not a moral act
• K2: Only moral acts are moral or immoral, right or wrong
• K3: Therefore, if something is not a human act, then it is not moral or immoral, right or wrong
• K4: A reflex-kick at the doctor's office is not a human act
• K5: Therefore, a reflex-kick at the doctor's office is not moral or immoral, right or wrong

The effects of human acts are moral insofar as they touch on volition

I am a moral [s]realist[/s][naturalist] who disagrees with both theses

Thesis 1 and thesis 2 represent two categorical claims:

All human acts are moral acts
All interpersonal acts are justice acts

What is the breadth of the moral sphere?

Some human acts are not moral acts

Some interpersonal acts are not justice acts

A popular view would hold that acts exist on a moral spectrum, such as the following:

| Heroically virtuous | Mildly good | Neutral | Mildly bad | Heinous |

According to this objection the “neutral” acts are not moral acts.

It seems likely moral discourse is being conflated with discourse about culpability (although perhaps I am reading too much in between the lines): for example, I think it is perfectly valid to analyze whether or not a tornado is inherently immoral or not, and I see that, although a reflex-kick would not render a person culpable, a reflex-kick that is to the detriment of an innocent person is still wrong

it seems like, and correct me if I am wrong, Acquinas is trying to limit the sphere of moral discourse to just "human acts".

If all that is being conveyed here is that only acts which a person performs that is deliberate, or traced back to some deliberation prior, can be validly called a ‘human act’ in the sense of an act that would bind the person with responsibility for it, then I agree.

This is the conflation I am talking about (between moral discourse and discourse about culpability): morality is not just the study of culpability and responsibility. We can say, just like when analyzing a tornado, that a foot + leg kicking another (innocent) person is bad, without conceding that the person that performed the action is culpable for it; which is an eliminated possibility if I take the above quote seriously. A tornado is inherently (morally) bad, but we wouldn't say it is culpable for its effects (or 'actions' in a loose sense of the word).

Fair enough. I think your idea of “invincible negligence” clarified quite a bit of my contentions; and I am inclined to agree with you.

I think I understand what you are going for, but it doesn’t seem correct to depict it as about “the breadth of the moral sphere”: that would imply that you are discussing and analyzing what can be constituted as ‘moral’ whatsoever, and not about particularly what set of [human] acts can be constituted as ‘moral’ (which is what I believe you are trying to discuss).

As long as it is acknowledged that the breadth of the moral sphere is not limited to acts; then I am content.

In the metaethical framework of moral naturalism, I think "the moral sphere" consists of natural creatures (i.e. any sentient species) which can suffer from – fears of – arbitrary harm (or injustice), especially, though not exclusively, moral agents which are also moral patients.

I don't think these statements make sense or are useful (re: if "all" x = y, then ~x = y).

In the normative framework of negative utilitarianism, I think only judgments/conduct which (actively or passively) (a) prevents or reduces harm or (b) inflicts or increases harm are moral; however, those activities which are neither (a) nor (b) are non-moral (e.g. phatic, instrumental, involuntary) so that most "human acts", in fact, are non-moral.

In the applied framework of negative consequentialism, I do not think "interpersonal acts are justice acts" because "justice" pertains to impacts on individuals by institutional or group practices (i.e. policies) and not "interpersonal" – what happens between individuals.

Cannot all of this be said more simply? It seems to me that whatever anything is, it is by reference to other things, whatever they may be. Thus whatever morality is, it is, ultimately, by agreement.

What flavors? For primitives probably the example of nature. Socrates, truth. For Plato, finding nature imperfect, the prefect forms. Aristotle, the telos. Christians, God. Kant, the logic of the thing. Mill, utility.

This is a good thread.

First, an additional argument that might help out with these claims can be found in the part of the Summa Contra Gentiles in the section On The Human Good. There, St. Thomas points out that we must have some ends in order to explain action. If we have no ends, then we will not have any reason to act one way rather than another, nor any reason not to simply be passive. When people say acts have no moral valence, what they often imply if that they are done for no particular ends.

But in the modern view, we seem to want to reduce everything to quantitative measure that can be placed on a scale like the number line, where we can point to "more is better," or "variance from this point is worse." It's clear that this isn't always the case in normative measure. Plato makes a similar point in the Phaedrus when he has Socrates discuss what would happen if he claimed to be a doctor because he had all sorts of medicines, but then has no clue "how much" he should give to a person.

...but to be thus affected at the right times, and on the right occasions, and towards the right persons, and with the right object, and in the right fashion, is the mean course and the best course, and these are characteristics of virtue.

The point here is that I think part of what trips people up in ethics is the way in which the good is often filtered through practices that help us define our ends. These practices are socially constructed, but they are not arbitrary. They relate to "how the world is," prior to any practice existing and evolve according to things other than social practice. However, it seems impossible to reduce them to things outside social practices, and the human good is certainly quite bound up in practices and normative measure.

Practices relate to internal and external goods, and are situated within the pursuit of the higher human good. Without a "human good," it is impossible to explain how practices evolve. Practices make determining goodness difficult if we don't take account of them because they will seem arbitrary if we look at them in isolation, without their relevance to the human good. And they give us trouble because they are not easy to quantize into a model like the number line.

Hume famously denies this sort of good exists. However, I think he essentially just begs the question here. It isn't trivial question begging because he shows what follows from an attempt to reduce everything to the mathematical physics of his day, but it still assumes that oughts aren't observable in the way facts are. Obviously, for Aristotle, the human good is observable, and there are fact statements about (which entail ought statements.) This interacts with normative measure in an indirect way, in that Hume's view seems to end up denying normative measure if it isn't careful, even though it obviously exists. No one goes out to buy a car or house without any idea of what would make them good in mind.

Culpability talk is only one kind of moral talk.

So the claim is that if culpability does not, even in principle, pertain to tornadoes or reflex-kicks, then these are not moral realities.

If it is impossible to ever hold X responsible or culpable, then X is not a moral agent. Because of this "wrong" cannot be applied to tornadoes, for "wrong" is a moral predicate.
…
That's basically it, but don't you think this also accounts for why a tornado is not a moral agent?

In moral philosophy a tornado is a natural evil, not a moral evil. Not all evil (i.e. bad things that happen) is moral

When I say that moral realities are not limited to acts, I am thinking about things like habits, intentions, societies, etc. I am not thinking about tornadoes. I hold the uncontroversial view that tornadoes are not moral realities.

Yes, and I think liberalism has made it hard for us to see the higher good shining through our practices.

How is this not incoherent? You first say there exists a moral talk that is not culpability talk, and then say that all moral realities are culpability realities. Unless ‘reality’, as opposed to ‘talk’, is doing some heavy-lifting here that I am not following, this is incoherent.

That something is a moral agent, is not relevant to if something can be predicated as doing something wrong or right.

By being a moral agent, you are referring to the agent being culpable for their actions,

I don’t disagree that the only moral agents are those which can be held responsible for their actions (or some subset of them); but this in no way implies that amoral agents are not doing morally bad nor good things.

For example, cars and fuel go hand in hand. All cars run on fuel, and therefore to talk about something that has no relation to fuel is not to talk about a car. Nevertheless, not all car talk is fuel talk. We can talk about things like steering, brakes, or tires without talking about fuel.

Note that the things I am stating are not in any way controversial, so you may need to brush up on moral philosophy.

No, I have never said such a thing. In fact the word "culpable" appears only once in my OP. I'm not sure how you are drawing all these conclusions from that one sentence. They certainly don't follow.

I don’t disagree that the only moral agents are those which can be held responsible for their actions (or some subset of them); but this in no way implies that amoral agents are not doing morally bad nor good things. — Bob Ross

Read the bolded part of that sentence back to yourself. You are positing that amoral agents can be moral

For example, morality and culpability go hand in hand. All things relevant to culpability rely on morality, and therefore to talk about something that has no relation to morality is not to talk about culpability. Nevertheless, not all culpability talk is moral talk.

All our disagreement boils down to, is that by ‘moral’ you are referring to moral talk that is culpability talk

When a dog rapes another dog, we don’t say the dog can be held morally responsible and thusly, to your point, is not a moral agent; HOWEVER, we do still admit that the act of rape the dog committed is immoral.

By ‘moral agent’, you clearly mean an agent which is culpable for their actions...

the dog is not moral agent, but the dog’s action was immoral. This is not controversial

1. Non-moral (or "amoral") realities do not engage in moral or immoral acts.
2. A tornado is a non-moral reality
3. Therefore, a tornado does not engage in immoral acts.

Evil in the broad sense has been divided into two categories: natural evil and moral evil. Natural evils are bad states of affairs which do not result from the intentions or negligence of moral agents. Hurricanes and toothaches are examples of natural evils. By contrast, moral evils do result from the intentions or negligence of moral agents. Murder and lying are examples of moral evils.

Your OP is brilliant and everyone should read it. It will undoubtedly inform my own views on ethics, so if you were shooting for changing people's minds, you've changed at least one. :up:

At this point I'm getting impatient because you're not even reading my responses.
…
Thus someone who does something right (and not wrong) is a moral agent who is in no way culpable, and therefore it is flatly false to claim that moral agents are necessarily culpable.

That's basically the definition of a moral agent: something that is capable of moral acts

This is incoherent. If the dog is not a moral agent that can be held responsible then it cannot commit immoral acts. You can't say that the dog is simultaneously non-moral and immoral. You are committing contradictions.

1. Non-moral (or "amoral") realities do not engage in moral or immoral acts.
2. A tornado is a non-moral reality
3. Therefore, a tornado does not engage in immoral acts.

I don’t follow your objection.

The desire for what is good does not mean that the good will be found in our practices. What the good is remains highly problematic.

Reading Aristotle as if his work is not dialectical makes it hard to see that he is guided by unanswered questions rather than dogmatic answers.

What I mean is this: to say that "all human actions are moral actions" in effect negates itself by entailing that there are no non-moral actions to distinguish from, and thereby identify, "moral actions".

Is harm thought to be synonymous with justice?

For example, if someone enters your house with a gun and you sneak up behind them and knock them unconscious in order to incapacitate them, would the negative utilitarian say that you have harmed them? If this does not count as harm ...

Not if "incapacitating" the gunman is the only or least harmful way to prevent the gunman from doing greater, perhaps lethal, harm

Introduction

What is the breadth of the moral sphere? The common view is that some acts are moral, such as giving a starving man food or committing murder, and some acts are non-moral, such as taking one’s dog for a walk.1 You should immediately notice that by “moral” I do not mean morally good; by “moral” I am not talking about the opposite of immoral.

Instead, when I use the term “moral act” I am referring to an act that belongs to the species of moral-and-immoral-acts; or an act that belongs to the species of good-and-bad-acts. More simply, I am referring to an act that is susceptible to (moral) scrutiny, evaluation, or judgment. A moral act is an act that can be legitimately (and, thus, morally) judged good or bad; a non-moral act is an act that cannot.

There are two theses that I am prepared to defend regarding the breadth of the moral sphere. Both of them will clash with modern language and intuitions, for I am convinced that modern thinking about the moral sphere is confused and perhaps even incoherent.

Thesis 1: All human acts are moral acts

For Aristotle, virtue and teleology permeate all aspects of life. For Aquinas, any act that flows from intention is a moral act.2 In order to understand why all human acts are moral acts we must understand the difference between applying scrutiny to an act and applying moral scrutiny to an act, for above I noted that a moral act is an act that is susceptible to (moral) scrutiny. Or in other words, we must attempt something that very few are willing to attempt: we must attempt to define the moral.

Before we do that, what is meant by a “human act”?

those actions are properly called human which proceed from a deliberate will. And if any other actions are found in man, they can be called actions "of a man," but not properly "human" actions, since they are not proper to man as man.

moral acts properly speaking receive their species from the end, for moral acts are the same as human acts.
— Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, IaIIae, Q. 1, A. 1 & A. 3

A human act is any act that we do on purpose; any act that proceeds from a deliberate will.

Objection 3 to the first article gives the complement of human acts, “But man does many things without deliberation, sometimes not even thinking of what he is doing; for instance when one moves one's foot or hand, or scratches one's beard, while intent on something else.” In his reply to objection 3 Aquinas says, “Such like actions are not properly human actions; since they do not proceed from deliberation of the reason, which is the proper principle of human actions.”

So what does it mean for something to be moral?3 In keeping with the foregoing, I will define morality by reference to a definition of moral judgments. A moral judgment isdf a non-hypothetical ought-judgment.

Strictly speaking, a moral act is an act that involves a moral judgment, but for the pedagogical purposes of this thread I am primarily thinking of a moral act as, “an act that is susceptible to (moral) scrutiny, evaluation, or judgment” (see above).

Admittedly, there is a difference between an act that involves a moral judgment and an act that is susceptible to moral judgment, especially on non-Aristotelian theories. This difference should be largely irrelevant, although I will tease out some of the implications as we go.4

For clarity:

A moral act is an act that involves a moral judgment, or an act that is susceptible to moral judgment.
A moral judgment is a non-hypothetical ought-judgment.

What then is a non-hypothetical ought-judgment? An ought-judgment is simply a judgment about what to do, past, present, or future. For instance, “He should have done that; she oughtn’t do this.” But what does it mean to say that some ought-judgment is non-hypothetical? It means:

He ought to do X if he wants Y.
(including:)
He ought to do X because he wants Y.

A judgment that is non-hypothetical is not therefore a judgment that is necessarily non-instrumental. “He ought to do X because he wants Y,” is instrumental but it is not hypothetical, for it involves no hypo-thesis.

A variant of this sort of judgment could be written, “He ought to do X because he ought to want (or attain) Y.” A non-hypothetical ought-judgment is a judgment in the simplest sense, a judgment “all things considered.” A hypothetical ought-judgment merely presents one consideration that is intended to influence the inevitable all-things-considered judgment which will eventually take place.

Let’s take an example:

You ought to fix your car. (non-hypothetical)
You ought to fix your car if you want to travel to work. (hypothetical)
You ought to fix your car because you need to travel to work. (non-hypothetical)

Let’s focus on the latter two examples in this set of three. These two judgments are not saying the same thing. The non-hypothetical judgment involves a secondary judgment that traveling to work is necessary, and the hypothetical judgment prescinds from this secondary judgment. Only non-hypothetical grounds can result in non-hypothetical conclusions. The statement, “You ought to fix your car if you want to travel to work,” is hypothetical because the antecedent of the conditional is not being asserted. Therefore it is not a judgment about “what to do” simpliciter (all things considered). Instead of saying, “This is what should be done,” it says, “This is something you should take into account when deciding what should be done.”

If you want to travel to work, then you should fix your car.
You want to travel to work.
Therefore, you should fix your car.

The non-hypothetical judgment includes (1), (2), and (3). The hypothetical judgment affirms (1) but not (2) or (3). Those who are paying attention may recognize that on this account moral acts are bound up with normative ends.

Note that this is a logical analysis, not a linguistic analysis. Sometimes in everyday speech people will equivocate between, “He ought to do X if he wants Y,” and “He ought to do X because he wants Y.” Tone of voice, for example, often indicates whether the locution is hypothetical.

Note that a non-hypothetical judgment is not the same thing as a categorical imperative. We could say that all categorical imperatives are non-hypothetical judgments, but not all non-hypothetical judgments are categorical imperatives. For example, “You should fix your car,” is not a categorical claim because it only holds given certain circumstances.

Acts and regrets are non-hypothetical

Following in the footsteps of Philippa Foot, many are accustomed to claim that morality is merely a matter of hypothetical judgments, or that non-hypothetical judgments are rare.

5 To give an indication of how gravely mistaken this opinion is, consider the fact that acts and regrets are all non-hypothetical. Each time we concretely choose and act we are making a non-hypothetical, all-things-considered judgment.

As soon as I decide whether to fix my car all of the previously-hypothetical considerations become non-hypothetical, and this is a large part of what it means “to make a decision” or “to decide.” To make a decision is to gather up all the hypothetical considerations and render an all-things-considered judgment.

Similarly, when we regret some act we are also making a non-hypothetical judgment.

To say that one regrets an act is to judge that they should not have carried out that act,

and this sort of judgment is never hypothetical; it never means, “I should not have done that if…” Such a hypo-thesis would undermine the regret itself, placing it in limbo. Therefore the idea that one can get along in life with only hypothetical judgments is absurd.

What are examples of non-moral acts?

As noted above, the only non-moral acts are acts that do not flow from rational deliberation, such as absentmindedly stroking one’s beard. Or if the doctor hits your knee to check your reflexes and you kick him, you are not morally culpable because the kick did not flow from rational deliberation; it did not flow from you. The difference in these cases is that I am not choosing to act in any way. My body is doing something of its own accord, and these things do not count as moral acts. “Deliberation” is not for Aquinas something that must involve taking time in premeditation. The split-second braking to avoid a pedestrian is therefore a moral act, an act which flows from our humanness, our rational and intentional nature.

Despite the delusions of all people, morality is the only thing going on. Morality is objective and true. All acts are only of course moral acts in that they SHOULD be judged morally. There is no act, no substantive state, that is not merely a succession of choices amid free will. This universe is alive. It emerges life as a natural law. The seeds of life exist as choice down to the sub-atomic level. Choice is effectively the only act thing in the universe. States are all the consequential arrangements of matter and energy and we will say consciousness as well. Really though we could JUST say consciousness because matter and energy are both just forms of consciousness.

That is incorrect.

All morals are forced to be hypothetical ought-judgments. We cannot know. So all beliefs are effectively hypotheses.

Consequentialism is a dangerous lie. Deontological morality is the only thing that makes any sense...

The good is objective.

Etc.

All thinking is incoherent.

I will stop with Thesis 1 to see how this is received.

Which one is that you mean to convey?

These are incoherent taken together.

I need a bit of clarification on this one: do you NOT think rape is wrong, if it is committed by a dog? I seriously doubt that is what you are trying to convey, but that seems (to me) to be the implication of the above quote.

All I think you mean to convey, is that the dog isn’t a moral agent; which wasn’t ever in contention in the first place. I am saying that the act of rape that the dog committed is wrong, and the dog is not a moral agent (in the sense that the dog is not capable of being held responsible for their acts).

What do you mean by “engage” here? I would say that a tornado does not “engage” in immoral or moral acts insofar as it is not culpable for the acts its commits but NOT that the tornado cannot perform what is an immoral or moral act (although it isn’t deliberate).

I see your point to a certain extent, that you distinguish natural and moral evil; but this use of ‘evil’ just seems circular: isn’t that just a reference to something that is immoral?

Just so we can find common ground, let’s forget semantics for a second. I agree with you that there is a difference between ‘evil’ (i.e., moral badness) which is done by indeliberate (i.e., natural) vs. deliberate (i.e., what you call “moral”) actions/events. I would merely add that the action/event is still ‘evil’ (i.e., morally bad: what I call ‘immoral’) if it is natural. I think, stripping the semantics out, you can agree with that.

If natural evil is not moral evil, then some evil is not immoral.

My interpretation of your view, and correct me if I am still misunderstanding, is that you mean to denote a subtype of immorality (i.e., of evil) which is the realm of these 'moral realities' that you refer to; and in that sense I have no problem with it.

Evil in the broad sense has been divided into two categories: natural evil and moral evil.

The semantics just seem weird to me.

My model helps me to understand. Fear, anger, and desire are all three consciousness. They are all three involved in choice. The choice to be, anger, is still a choice. The choice to comply with instantiated patterns, involuntary acts, as you just gave an example for, are indeed still choices.

The power of choice is effectively infinite. But a weak will (desire in general) is hard pressed to carry out 'deliberate' acts that violate the tendencies of the weak current state. We are slowly evolving into more capable moral agents. That is a law of the universe. It is happening everywhere and it is, from what we can determine so far, reasonably rare that what we call life happens. As mentioned, that is a misunderstanding. The call of desire, the existence of nothing but consciousness in the universe, empowers free will for every particle in existence. The STATE of that particle determines the difficulty of choice. So it is nigh unto impossible for a rock to play poker for example. But that is only nigh and not finally actually impossible. Understanding and accepting these extremely rare cases of truth delving is a better way than what most people have of being aware what is going on.

Most people will not be comfortable discussing rocks that choose. But any other assertion is more than just incoherent. Everything in this universe is choosing constantly. And moral scrutiny DOES apply to rocks as well as humans. I realize I am probably alone in this assertion. No worries.

Which is every single act in the universe that has happened, is happening, or will happen. No narrowing down of the scope occurred here. If you think it did, you are only deluding yourself and those that believe you.

What clearly stated to you determines a non-hypothetical state? I promise you there is not one. To any experience of any chooser, any act past or present is hypothetical only.

So to us moral agents that are not perfectevery act is hypothetical even after decisions are made and a new state is formed. We do not know the past. We do not know the present state. We do not know the future. All of it is hypothetical.

They are not. Someone who does something right is someone who is capable of moral acts. Similarly, someone who does something wrong (or immoral) is someone who is capable of moral acts.

At this point I'm getting impatient because you're not even reading my responses.
…
Thus someone who does something right (and not wrong) is a moral agent who is in no way culpable, and therefore it is flatly false to claim that moral agents are necessarily culpable

If the dog is not a moral agent then it is not capable of committing immoral acts, such as rape.

Then it's high time you defined what you mean by an immoral act.

If you think evil just means immoral then you didn't read or understand the SEP articles, because they clearly distinguish moral evil from natural evil.

What is the breadth of the moral sphere? The common view is that some acts are moral, such as giving a starving man food or committing murder, and some acts are non-moral, such as taking one’s dog for a walk.1 You should immediately notice that by “moral” I do not mean morally good; by “moral” I am not talking about the opposite of immoral. Instead, when I use the term “moral act” I am referring to an act that belongs to the species of moral-and-immoral-acts; or an act that belongs to the species of good-and-bad-acts. More simply, I am referring to an act that is susceptible to (moral) scrutiny, evaluation, or judgment. A moral act is an act that can be legitimately (and, thus, morally) judged good or bad; a non-moral act is an act that cannot.

In order to understand why all human acts are moral acts we must understand the difference between applying scrutiny to an act and applying moral scrutiny to an act

What do you suppose it means to be an amoral or non-moral reality? You may as well say that non-colored realities can be red.

Given the way you use words like "culpable" and "immoral," I think what you are in need of is a dictionary.

you should consider all interactions to your OP, and be thankful that anyone acknowledges it at all.

We may be at an impasse, so please feel free, if you see nothing new or noteworthy to add to my response here, to just have us agree to disagree. That is not to say that I don’t want to continue discussing, and I will, but I just don’t want you feel that you have to keep circling back and reiterating (if that starts to happen, as I suspect it might).

Which implied that by ‘moral agent’, you are referring to not merely an agent capable of moral action but, rather, one that does right action. See what I mean?

1. That's basically the definition of a moral agent: something that is capable of moral acts. (link)
2. Thus someone who does something right (and not wrong) is a moral agent who is in no way culpable, and therefore it is flatly false to claim that moral agents are necessarily culpable. (link - context: culpability)
3. Someone who does something right is someone who is capable of moral acts. (link)
   • i.e. Someone who does something right is someone who is [a moral agent].

If it is that you just mean the former, then I was right in thinking that ‘moral agent’, for you, is an agent capable of moral action and, thusly, one which can be held responsible for their actions (which, for you, is one which has deliberate actions). OR, if you mean that a ‘moral agent’ is the latter, then it is not true, and patently incoherent, to posit that anyone capable of moral action is a ‘moral agent’ (because they also, in order to meet the definition, must be doing the right acts, not just acts of which they are capable of being held responsible).

There are two broad, traditional senses of the adjective ‘moral’, which you even expounded in your OP, which are a signification of (1) what is within moral discourse and (2) what is actually good.

1. ‘moral’ in the sense of within moral discourse (e.g., whether or not to rape someone is a moral matter [which is not to make a comment on if it is immoral or not]).

2. ‘moral’ in the sense of morally right (e.g., being kind is moral, being mean is immoral).

3. ‘moral’ in the sense of moral responsibility (e.g., you have a moral duty to not rape people, tornadoes are not moral agents, etc.).

By ‘moral evil’ in ‘natural vs. moral evil’, one is denoting with the adjective ‘moral’ what is evil in a deliberate sense: it is to use ‘moral’ in all three senses.

So, let me break down what I mean by way of my dog example:

I was meaning ‘morally bad’, which to me is ‘to be intrinsically bad or relate to something intrinsically bad such that it bad relative to it’, and this is in the second sense (I mentioned above). I am not commenting on whether or not, by saying it is an ‘immoral’ act in this manner, this act is within the ‘moral reality’ of moral responsibility talk—I just mean that it is morally bad.

Think of it this way, for my view, you can just, in this sense of ‘immoral’ (i.e., the second), just substitute ‘immoral’ for ‘evil’ (although I do think that ‘evil’ is specifically moral badness to an extreme, but that doesn’t matter for now).

Correct me if I am wrong, but all I got out of the SEP was that they are making a distinction between two general types of moral badness: those which are natural, and those which are done purposefully.

“moral scrutiny” is being used in the first and third sense, and not the second; which is completely different from how it is used in the natural vs. moral evil distinction. By your own admission, “moral” in “moral scrutiny” is not referring to something morally right nor wrong: “moral” in “moral evil” is referring to something morally wrong, deliberate, and in the sphere of moral discourse.

By ‘moral reality’, I am assuming you mean ~”a society (or perhaps framework) comprised of beings capable of moral responsibility”. Is that not what you mean?

I apologize, by ‘moral agents’ that are culpable for their actions; I meant capable of being culpable for their actions.

Hopefully my expounding of the terms helps.

If we continue you may need to begin to shoulder more of the burden of proof, for your posts are becoming increasingly opaque to me.

"What do you suppose it means to be an amoral or non-moral reality?"

Despite the delusions of all people, morality is the only thing going on. Morality is objective and true. All acts are only of course moral acts in that they SHOULD be judged morally. There is no act, no substantive state, that is not merely a succession of choices amid free will. This universe is alive. It emerges life as a natural law. The seeds of life exist as choice down to the sub-atomic level. Choice is effectively the only act thing in the universe. States are all the consequential arrangements of matter and energy and we will say consciousness as well. Really though we could JUST say consciousness because matter and energy are both just forms of consciousness.

These and other seemingly absolute statements seem sort of at odds with your prior claims that no one can know anything and that any pretension to knowledge is a sort of delusion/vainglory, no?

That is incorrect.

All morals are forced to be hypothetical ought-judgments. We cannot know. So all beliefs are effectively hypotheses.

But I take it you don't actually know if what you've just. claimed is true or not. Is it only a hypothesis?

Weren't you saying something about how people shouldn't speak/write in such a way that they seem certain about things, but instead should always piously acknowledge their ignorance. But then...

Consequentialism is a dangerous lie. Deontological morality is the only thing that makes any sense...

The good is objective.

Etc.

look like knowledge claims.

All thinking is incoherent.

You should have led with this.

Aside from the piety of declaring ignorance, you might want to consider not being so rude lol.

With respect to your use of ‘moral agent’, the issue was really due to my accidental conveyance of ‘an moral agent is one which is capable of being held culpable for their actions’ with ‘an moral agent is one which is culpable for their actions’: I apologize, that was my mistake. The whole time I was thinking the former, but conveyed the latter. Your definition, in light of that, is fine and perfectly consistent.

I honestly don’t know what a ‘moral reality’ is, at all (other than what I understand you to be meaning). I have never used that phrase, and don’t see any need to use it. Perhaps this is an indication of my ignorance...I don’t know.

‘Evil’, by my lights, is a morally-loaded term: there cannot be such a thing as amoral evil; and perhaps if you could elaborate on why you think that, then I may be able to account better for your position.

Evil in the broad sense has been divided into two categories: natural evil and moral evil. Natural evils are bad states of affairs which do not result from the intentions or negligence of moral agents. Hurricanes and toothaches are examples of natural evils.

But I still need to know what you mean by "amoral," as you continue to use this term. In the thread you have spoken about amoral agents and amoral acts. What are amoral agents and amoral acts?

"A natural evil is a bad state of affairs that does not result from the intentions or negligence of moral agents."

Suppose a tornado kills 100 people. The suffering and death of 100 people is evil; it is a bad state of affairs.

Therefore this evil is natural.

I thought about it some more and came up with a somewhat convoluted counterexample that, under certain constraints, might show that your first thesis is wrong.

Accordingly, if we bring “that which benefits humanity” into line with “that which advances knowledge”, by redefining that which benefits humanity to be the effects of advancements in knowledge, we end up with a one-to-one relationship between the two that does indeed maximize benefit to humanity through advancements in knowledge.

But this admits of some acts that must be neutral - not subject to moral scrutiny - because not every act furthers or hinders advancements in knowledge. This is different from the spectrum you describe in objection 2 because there are plainly acts that have no relation to what is good or bad now, even if there is still a sort of bifurcated spectrum.

...The scope of one’s non-hypothetical ought-judgments will extend as far as one’s normative end(s) extend(s). The breadth of one’s moral sphere will depend on what they conceive of as the end of their life and perhaps of all human life. Still, it seems to me that Aristotle conceived of this end and its scope rightly.

By ‘amoral agent’, I was referring to an agent that is not capable of moral decision making (viz., not capable of being culpable for their actions); and by ‘amoral act’, I would be referring to an action which is not itself immoral or moral.

Is this “bad” state, morally bad?

Again, what do you mean by ‘bad’?

I would say that the suffering and death of 100 people is morally bad, because it is a morally bad state of affairs.

Would you agree that, although the tornado is not a moral agent, the tornado is doing something “bad” when in the event of destroying those 100 people’s lives?

If so, then what kind of “bad”?

Yes, but the only way this distinction makes sense (to me) is if this natural evil is still morally bad (being evil);

then morality is restricted to essentially the sphere of deliberate acts and what relates thereto

The way I see it, either 'natural evil' is a matter of amoral consideration and is, thusly, not evil (viz., it is really 'natural badness'); or 'natural evil' is a matter of moral consideration and is, thusly, evil.

Although your intentions may be good, your responses are elongated, disrespectful, sporadic, intellectually lazy, and unsubstantive; and I say this with all due respect, as a person that wants to see you both grow and develop into better philosophers :kiss: . Please try to see it from your reader's perspective: they are reading an essay which conveys a plethora of different ideas (all of which are unrelated to each other) in incredibly confusing, convoluted, and incoherent ways...all while hurling insulting comments at them. How do you expect them to react?

This forum is all about a congregation of people willing to learn from each other with genuineness, respectfulness, and intellectual rigor. It is completely fine and understandable to have different views than other people on this forum, but I would strongly suggest that you try to make your future comments more concise, respectful, and intellectually rigorous.

By 'intellectually rigorous', I do not mean that you need to have extensive knowledge of the topic-at-hand; but, rather, demonstrate in your responses that you took the time to reflect on the topic and the person's post you are responding to (as opposed to just ranting). It goes a long way, when the reader of your response can see that you took the time to genuinely reflect, dissect, and contend with their ideas.

I say none of this with any ill-will intentions nor disrespect in mind: as I said before, I want to see you both become great philosophers (:

Excellent, and it is the corollary that you seem to transgress at various points throughout the thread, "Amoral agents can only produce amoral acts." Or similarly, "Amoral agents cannot produce acts which are moral or immoral." Do you accede to this corollary?

But someone who holds that the suffering and death of 100 people are bad would just say that death and suffering are intrinsically bad (or evil)

You think it is immoral because you have idiosyncratically defined "immoral" to include natural evil, as I noted above (
?Leontiskos
). You agree with SEP that it is a "bad state of affairs which did not result from the intentions or negligence of moral agents," but instead of using the common philosophical parlance of "natural evil" you call it "immoral." According to moral philosophy that which does not result from the intentions or negligence of moral agents is in no way moral or immoral.

You will never hear newscasters or other people speak about the immorality or wickedness of tornadoes

Arthritis is bad, but it's not immoral

Yes, but the only way this distinction makes sense (to me) is if this natural evil is still morally bad (being evil); — Bob Ross

If SEP is making a distinction between natural evil and moral evil, then it makes no sense for you to say, "Okay that distinction makes sense to me so long as natural evil is moral evil." To say such a thing is to fail to understand that any distinction is being made at all!

Morality is restricted to the realm of deliberate acts. As SEP demonstrates, this is not controversial.

I see what you mean, and now recognize that I need to be more clear with my terminology.

To answer your question outright: I accept the corollary as valid, but this leaves me no choice but to deny the existence of amoral agents and acts (in the sense of ‘moral’ qua what is within its sphere [of discourse]) because I do think we can analyze acts and agents which are not responsible for their actions within [the study of] morality.

However, it is important (for me) to note that there are amoral agents and acts in the sense of ‘moral’ qua what is morally wrong/right.

In other words, all agents/acts are within the sphere of moral talk, but not all agents/acts are necessarily being immoral/moral or doing immoral/moral things.

Moreover, there are two subtypes of immoral agents (in both senses of the term I expounded above): those capable of culpability and those that are not.

A tornado is a moral agent in the sense of being an agent subject to moral analysis; and it is, in fact, doing things and that are morally wrong and is being something that is inherently immoral—it is not just being or doing things that are amorally bad.

Evil, then, is always moral. There is no such thing as ‘natural evil’ in the sense that you outlined; instead, what I mean by ‘natural evil’ is evil which is does indeliberately (viz., in a way of which no one can be held responsible for it)—that’s it.

The problem with this, is that under my theory moral goodness is identical to intrinsic goodness; so the obvious antithesis to this is intrinsic badness. Thusly, if what the tornado is doing is intrinsically bad, then it is morally bad. See what I mean?

(1) I don’t think it is idiosyncratic (but that’s a mute point)

To your point, if I were to say to the common man “that tornado is immoral”, they will find it nonsense because they would interpret it the way you are.

To my point, if you said “evil is not always immoral”, they would also find this to be nonsense.

Likewise, to my point, if I clarified my statement about the tornado, such as “the tornado is immoral insofar as its acts (or the events it brings about) are immoral”, the common man would find no problem with it.

The only reason they would find it initially nonsensical, is because within the context of the use of ‘immoral’ in that particular sentence makes it sound like I am saying the tornado is culpable for its evil actions.

Cancer is immoral, because I think it is intrinsically bad; and intrinsic badness is the antithesis to intrinsic goodness; and intrinsic goodness is moral goodness.

No, so what I was pointing out is that the ‘natural’ vs. ‘moral’ evil distinction makes sense if (1) ‘evil’ is interpreted as immoral AND (2) ‘moral’, in ‘moral evil’, is interpreted as signifier the capability of being responsible (as opposed to being an assertion about it being within the sphere of moral discourse). Again, you have to admit (at least) that the adjective ‘moral’ is used in many senses.

For example, imagine agents could not exist in reality: it is, let’s say, metaphysically or logically impossible. Does that mean that there isn’t a state of supreme and ultimate (moral) good that would be applicable to that reality? I don’t think so. Do you?

• Jake: That tree is brk.
• Sue: What does 'brk' mean?
• Jake: Brk is a property of everything whatsoever.
• Sue: So nothing is non-brk?
• Jake: Nope, nothing.
• Sue: Well if there is nothing which is non-brk then it would seem that 'brk' means nothing at all.

. The fact that you have a hard time communicating your thoughts with idiosyncratic language is no coincidence, for idiosyncratic language undermines the purpose of language itself.

It is moot insofar as it does not impact the formal soundness of your arguments. It is not moot insofar as it will prevent you from easily talking with other people and engaging in dialogical philosophy.

Only because "evil" in that sentence will be interpreted as, "evil (human) acts." If you ask the same person whether a devastating tornado is evil, and whether it is immoral, they will probably say yes/no.

And they are right, for immorality implies culpability. I showed you that SEP affirms this. We could also go to IEP and Wikipedia, but if you distrust SEP then I doubt these other sources will avail.

Are we perhaps at the end of our conversation? SEP says that we call something morally evil, morally bad, or immoral insofar as it "results from the intentions or negligence of moral agents." I agree with SEP; you disagree. You think entities incapable of intention can truly be called immoral, such as tornadoes. For me, this is the key takeaway.

Edit: I suppose I should raise the customary toast to the argument from vacuity. That if everything is "moral" then nothing at all is "moral."
• Jake: That tree is brk.
• Sue: What does 'brk' mean?
• Jake: Brk is a property of everything whatsoever.
• Sue: So nothing is non-brk?
• Jake: Nope, nothing.
• Sue: Well if there is nothing which is non-brk then it would seem that 'brk' means nothing at all.

The true word 'moral' has meaning because there are realities which are truly non-moral (or amoral)

Firstly, you are absolutely right to point out that a tornado is not an agent, as an agent is self-caused, and that it isn’t acting (in the strict sense of the word that relates to agents) either; and I apologize if I suggested otherwise. However, this doesn’t takeaway from my main point, which is is that what the tornado is “doing” is immoral.

The difference lies in whether their cause is a responsible agent—something that can be held responsible for producing the evil effect.

Nah, I don't think I have conflated this once in the entire thread. For traditional language-users "moral" has only two basic meanings, and both are closely related: 1) capable of moral or immoral acts, and 2) moral or immoral (and in both of these cases the term "moral" is meant in the sense of praiseworthy or morally good). This is standard language, where a cause can be named according to its effect (see, for example, my "corollary" above).

You could, of course, expand the moral sphere by eliminating space for such amoral acts and judgements, but they could never be fully eliminated, I think.

In one's morning routine, ought one brush one's teeth before brushing one's hair or, otherwise, brush one's hair before brushing one's teeth?

Either way, one ought not use the same brush.

Objection 5: Morality correlates to importance

Moral acts are important acts
Not all human acts are important acts
Therefore, not all human acts are moral acts

This is similar to Objection 2. I would respond by saying that everything someone does is something they consider worthwhile or worth doing. The simple fact that time is scarce leads us to try to use our time wisely and do things that are worthwhile.

On the other hand, not everything is equally worthwhile, and someone might use the idea of morality to denote those things or rules that are worth taking especially seriously. This is fine so long as we do not forget that there is no qualitative difference between more important things and less important things, for all things that are worth doing have a minimum level of importance.

"Being" involves analogical predication and degrees. For example, propositions exist in a different way than giraffes or colors. "Brk" is a univocal predication, as is your predication of "moral (agent)."

Oh, but you are saying it is a property. You think the tornado has the property of "moral agent," and this property applies to all things without exception.

For traditional language-users "moral" has only two basic meanings, and both are closely related: 1) capable of moral or immoral acts, and 2) moral or immoral

Great OP.

I would have said your example of the person with the rule to not cross their fingers while urinating is a good example of a non-moral act in the wider sense you're talking about. It's not morally evaluable because it's not morally significant. So that leads me to objection 5.

Along with objection 2 -- I'd say there are moral acts as you use the term, and non-moral acts -- or, rather, I think I'd prefer "activity" so as to encompass more than a singular act, but rather the patterns within a world.

But rather than saying "this one falls in the middle and so is neither good nor bad", I'm thinking that some acts simply don't fall on the spectrum. To use the light/dark spectrum as analogy, "wind" is real but has no brightness because it's a pressure gradient, rather than a light gradient.

But then when it comes to "What makes activity moral?", in the wider sense, I haven't an answer there. All I have is an example that seems troublesome, but you seem to bite the bullet with your example of the rule to not cross your fingers while urinating as morally evaluable.

Part of me wonders here, though: Surely we can evaluate any action on a subjective basis of an arbitrary rule -- but that ability doesn't indicate something about moral life, just as your finger-crossing example doesn't really seem to, though it can be evaluated along a subjective rule.

I thought about it even more and came up with another argument. I hope you and Bob haven't hashed this one out yet, because I'm not going to read your guys' entire conversation right now.

I start by defining an amoral act as: an act that results from deliberation that is not intended towards a moral end. Note that this is a statement about intent. I also define an amoral judgement as: a non-hypothetical ought judgement resulting from consideration of non-moral hypothetical oughts (a non-moral all things considered judgement).

You might argue that the new category of "amoral" act I am talking about above could still be good or bad based on whether it violates some arbitrary set of rules. I admit that it could be. What if it doesn't break any rules? What if there is an amoral act that flows from an amoral judgment that neither breaks nor acts in furtherance of any rules that could be made?

Not only would it be neither good nor bad, but it would be amoral in the sense of being informed purely by non-moral hypothetical oughts and considerations, and thus would not be subject to moral scrutiny; given no intended moral consequences, there is no calculation that could be considered moral if you accept my definitions.

Nice thread and OP!

Here's a concrete example that might help out: In one's morning routine, ought one brush one's teeth before brushing one's hair or, otherwise, brush one's hair before brushing one's teeth? Whichever alternative one chooses, the action one will engage in will in this example be a fully conscious volitional act (in contrast, for example, to haphazardly touching one's beard in unthinking manners). Yet, because there is no discernible morally best alternative - for both alternatives are to be deemed equally good or bad - irrespective of the choice made the volitional act can nevertheless be deemed amoral.

I first want to mention that, as with all others, the English language has its own idiosyncrasies via which possible conceptualizations find themselves limited to certain linguistic expressions. There is no one word in the English language with addresses this generalized state of blameworthiness/praiseworthiness in impartial manners. I think the closest English comes to it is in the word “responsibility”—this in the strict sense of being the primary cause for an effect/consequence (rather than, for example, in the sense of being accountable, or answerable, for an effect/consequence). As is also the case with at least the Romanian language (which I also speak fluently), existent words also overwhelmingly tend to emphasize the wrongness of effects/consequences: e.g., what or who is at fault for, what or who is to blame for, or culpable for, etc.

That said, when considering the goodness or badness of an effect or else consequence—via what I will here specify as “responsibility for” in the strict sense just mentioned of being the primary cause—the responsible cause can either be in any way accountable, or answerable, for the given effect or not. If the primary cause is deemed answerable for its responsibility in having brought about the effect, then we likewise deem the same given cause’s future effects to be alterable (or else reinforceable) via rewards or punishments. This first broad category of cause-types then subsumes that category the thread addresses as moral evils.

Other primary causes which we deem incapable of being in any way answerable for their responsibility in having brought about a certain effect, we then deem fully unalterable via the (yet possible) administration of rewards or punishments—with tornadoes being one example of such latter types of causes. In this second generalized category of cause-types we then place all natural evils. Here, though the wind is responsible for the tree’s leaves movements, we neither blame nor praise the wind in an attempt to either alter or reinforce its doings (this because the wind as primary cause is incapable of in any way answering, or taking responsibility, for what it does).

This outlook I then find can be itself reduced to a dichotomy between (a) agent-caused effects (with individual agents being, as I believe you’ve previously mentioned, in at least some ways causa sui originators of the effects they willfully produce) and b) effects caused by non-agential causes (which are then basically deemed fully deterministic in their nature). [edit: just as I take your own arguments to generally be]

For one example, while people will blame and praise their dog’s doings with the intention of altering (else reinforcing) their dog’s behaviors, tmk most will not blame or praise an AI’s doings in their interactions with the AI program with the intention of altering (else reinforcing) the AI program’s behaviors. The first is deemed an agent whereas the second is not. (If dogs are too controversial in terms of moral doings, then one can just as well replace their example with the example of fellow humans.)

Not sure if this is of significant benefit to the discussion, but to me at least it does serve to further illustrate the divide between moral evils and natural evils.

Well, what is the example you have in mind? Presumably you have an example that parallels the "wind"?

Yes, and the finger-crossing example was risky in that it is easily misunderstood. I was only trying to illustrate the role of susceptibility and negligence. It is (intentionally) artificial because no one holds that rule. Of course, there is a sense in which it is important to consider subjective moral evaluations (in part because conscience is always a moral factor), but I think we can leave that to the side for the moment.

You might argue that the new category of "amoral" act I am talking about above could still be good or bad based on whether it violates some arbitrary set of rules. I admit that it could be. What if it doesn't break any rules?

The aesthetic might parallel wind here: there are gradients within the aesthetic. The beautiful and the sublime come to mind; and here these gradients need not have opposites but rather can be more or less relative to itself. And if you establish some kind of standard to judge more and less then you'd establish a gradient.

I can think of more plausible examples that mimic the arbitrary nature of your example. The choice between regular M&M's and M&M's with peanuts seems morally arbitrary or amoral (not sure which phrase I prefer).

We can have arbitrary rules that we follow and even though they mimic or can be interpreted within a moral dimension I'd say they're amoral actions -- outside the scope of moral thinking.

Let me put it more precisely, then: “the events which transpire directly due to a tornado are intrinsically bad”. Do you disagree with that statement, or find it likewise idiosyncratic? If not, then I think we are just disagreeing on semantics: I identify intrinsic goodness with moral goodness

The reason we don't call natural evils immoral is because they are appreciably different from moral evils. Both natural evils and moral evils are evil or bad (and this is their common genus: evil or badness). So what makes them different? The difference lies in whether their cause is a responsible agent—something that can be held responsible for producing the evil effect. We have a special word to denote this difference because the distinction is enormously important in human life, and that word is "morality." The difference determines whether blame can apply, and whether we should punish the thing that caused the evil.

The same could be said for "good" (as opposed to "evil"). There are moral goods and non-moral goods. A moral good is the meal cooked by your mother. A non-moral good is the rain that waters your crops. What they have in common is goodness; what differentiates them is whether they are caused by an intentional agent. The word and its antecedents have always been used to describe the behavior of intentional agents, and they have never been used to describe the behavior of non-intentional agents.

The predication of generic “being” (i.e., generic ‘to exist’) is univocal predication, just like “Brk”.

Either way, I don’t see how univocally predicating a property to everything, would make it vacuous. If it is clearly outlined what “Brk” actually is, then it is not vacuous. For example, imagine that everything happens to be red: does that make ‘redness’ vacuous?

I am no longer claiming that a tornado is a moral agent; I was referring to the adjective, which I guess in a sense is a property, of ‘moral’ (perhaps ‘moralness’).

I highly doubt this. Would you not agree, that “moral” also signifies “that which is within the sphere of moral discourse”? You left that out in your analysis here.

If you deny this, then I must admit your theory of ethics is entirely too act-centric for me. The study is fundamentally about what is “good”, and this in a “moral” sense, and only as a biproduct does one discuss moral or immoral acts.

If you think there is a morally ideal possible world EVEN WHEN there is no possible world in which agents exist; then you are admitting that morality is not dependent on, nor gets its core substance from, analyzing acts.

By #2, are also referring to moral and immoral acts, or what is morally bad or good simpliciter? I read it as acts, but if it is about just moral badness and goodness (in general); then I would say that my use of "moral agent" falls within this category, because #2 makes no reference to any sort of capacity for responsibility (of anything). 'moral' in #2's sense, assuming you aren't referring to only acts, would include uses like "this agent is doing moral things, even though they cannot be held responsible for their actions, because their actions align with what is morally good".

Good thoughts! Suppose an evil genius (or maybe an evil non-genius :sweat:) rigs up a scenario where he will murder one of two people given a decision you make. As you are standing still, he tells you, "If you begin walking with your left foot I will kill person A, and if you begin walking with your right foot I will kill person B." You know nothing about either person beyond these simple facts. According to your argument, "because there is no discernible morally best alternative - for both alternatives are to be deemed equally good or bad - irrespective of the choice made the volitional act can nevertheless be deemed amoral."

What are your thoughts about this? I don't think this alternative scenario necessarily undermines your reasoning, but I am curious what you would say.

I think this may be a helpful way to reframe my debate with Bob Ross.

Tricky counterexample. My current best thoughts:

All the same, in this scenario, unlike the first, irrespective of which choice we make we know that we will be committing a wrong beforehand.

[...]

If, however, no other conceivable choice were to be available, then we’d literally have no choice but to knowingly commit the wrong of killing some unfortunate stranger via our actions. In which case, because a) we hold no choice in the matter of so doing despite the two alternatives available to us and b) the two alternatives are morally identical in impact to the best of our knowledge—were we to not then so step with the explicit intent and pleasure of killing a stranger—I’d then conclude that our walking either via a first left step or a first right step would be amoral. We would be attributively responsible for (i.e., we’d be a/the primary cause for) the killing of a stranger but we’d not be morally responsible for it (EDIT: here meaning in any way either blameworthy of praiseworthy for the action taken and its consequence).

All the same, in this scenario, unlike the first, irrespective of which choice we make we know that we will be committing a wrong beforehand. This will then be a crucial difference.

And every individual action must needs have some circumstance that makes it good or bad, at least in respect of the intention of the end. For since it belongs to the reason to direct; if an action that proceeds from deliberate reason be not directed to the due end, it is, by that fact alone, repugnant to reason, and has the character of evil. But if it be directed to a due end, it is in accord with reason; wherefore it has the character of good. Now it must needs be either directed or not directed to a due end. Consequently every human action that proceeds from deliberate reason, if it be considered in the individual, must be good or bad.

If, however, it does not proceed from deliberate reason, but from some act of the imagination, as when a man strokes his beard, or moves his hand or foot; such an action, properly speaking, is not moral or human; since this depends on the reason. Hence it will be indifferent, as standing apart from the genus of moral actions.

Apropos, as to the evil genius being not so genius: It is interesting to me that in Romanian there are two adjectives for the English word “bad” (with no adjective for “evil”); one is r?u, which can just as well mean either “sick” or “mean spirited”; the second is prost, which can just as well mean “stupid” or “idiotic”. (The only relatively close proximity to the term “evil” is the noun form of r?u, but, again, it doesn't occur as an adjective). Which when literally translated into English to me at least presents the connotative understanding that the property of badness could be interpreted as “the stupidity of being mean spirited and, thereby, psychologically sick”. Your expression somehow reminded me of this. :grin: Though, of course, so understood the concept can only apply to agents.

Not to float my own boat, but back when I wrote my midterm essay for some 100-level ethics course, my choice of normative principle was along the lines of "avoid the greatest amount of harm, even if it means also avoiding a greater amount of welfare (to another party)". That seems to be the same as some version of negative utilitarianism, particularly threshold NU and weak NU.

One of my justifications for the principle is that harm violates the object's free will, (not giving) welfare does not.

I will check the theses and the objections when I am in an ethics mood and when I have time.

I added a bit to my last post in an edit and I'm not sure if you saw it:

The reason we don't call natural evils immoral is because they are appreciably different from moral evils. Both natural evils and moral evils are evil or bad (and this is their common genus: evil or badness). So what makes them different? The difference lies in whether their cause is a responsible agent—something that can be held responsible for producing the evil effect.

A moral good is the meal cooked by your mother. A non-moral good is the rain that waters your crops

For example, "Grandma does not exist anymore." We talk about things losing and lacking being.

Yes, because if everything happened to be red then we wouldn't be capable of identifying or distinguishing red

What does the word "moral" in your term, "moral discourse," mean?

Does it mean something other than the two senses I already gave?
…
(As in the OP, "acts" is shorthand, and is not meant to exclude other moral or immoral things, such as habits.)

We can talk all day about good trees, or good birds, or good sunsets, and no one will suppose that we are engaged in moral discourse.

If you think there is a morally ideal possible world EVEN WHEN there is no possible world in which agents exist; then you are admitting that morality is not dependent on, nor gets its core substance from, analyzing acts. — Bob Ross

Earlier in our conversation I already told you that I don't think this.

Other primary causes which we deem incapable of being in any way answerable for their responsibility in having brought about a certain effect, we then deem fully unalterable via the (yet possible) administration of rewards or punishments—with tornadoes being one example of such latter types of causes. In this second generalized category of cause-types we then place all natural evils. Here, though the wind is responsible for the tree’s leaves movements, we neither blame nor praise the wind in an attempt to either alter or reinforce its doings (this because the wind as primary cause is incapable of in any way answering, or taking responsibility, for what it does). — javra


I think this may be a helpful way to reframe my debate with @Bob Ross.

For one example, while people will blame and praise their dog’s doings with the intention of altering (else reinforcing) their dog’s behaviors, tmk most will not blame or praise an AI’s doings in their interactions with the AI program with the intention of altering (else reinforcing) the AI program’s behaviors. The first is deemed an agent whereas the second is not. (If dogs are too controversial in terms of moral doings, then one can just as well replace their example with the example of fellow humans.)

Not sure if this is of significant benefit to the discussion, but to me at least it does serve to further illustrate the divide between moral evils and natural evils. — javra


Thanks - I think it is very relevant to the discussion I am having with @Bob Ross, and this distinction between agent-causes and non-agent-causes is central to the OP, because for the OP morality is bound up with agency.

So according to your earlier statement which I quoted* (and assuming we have no other choice), the act would be amoral. Here it seems like you want to say that it is simultaneously amoral and wrong. Or perhaps more accurately, the act would be amoral and yet in so acting we would be "committing a wrong." There is thus an interesting way in which immorality and wrongness are separating.

For Aquinas the moral decision of which foot to begin walking with is, I think, not a human act. This is because there are no rational criteria upon which to deliberate. Because the reason has nothing to act on, therefore it cannot be an act that flows from reason. The act could only become rational (and moral) if perchance the agent fastened upon some aspect that could support rational deliberation.

Here is a related quote from Aquinas:

And every individual action must needs have some circumstance that makes it good or bad, at least in respect of the intention of the end. For since it belongs to the reason to direct; if an action that proceeds from deliberate reason be not directed to the due end, it is, by that fact alone, repugnant to reason, and has the character of evil. But if it be directed to a due end, it is in accord with reason; wherefore it has the character of good.

Ha - very interesting! Aquinas follows Augustine, and for Augustine evil is a privation of what ought to be, which dovetails nicely with some of this. Further, as you may have noticed from the above, for Aquinas irrationality and immorality are closely related.

Consider, for example, the following hypothetical—wherein shall be held that it is a moral wrong to insult a stranger:

I am the summoned subject of a tyrannical and mad king who, simply for his own amusement, informs me upon my arrival to his citadel that a) either i) I insult a greatly starved, and thereby physically weakened, stranger that also stands before the king in my presence or ii) I beat this same starved stranger until the stranger becomes unconscious or, else, b) the king will insure that everyone I’ve grown close to will be brutally raped and tortured till they die. Granting that I have no reason to doubt the veracity of the king’s imposition, my first-order choice between alternative (a) and alternative (b) might be considered so coercive as to virtually grant me no choice [...] whatsoever, allowing me only one viable option: that of choosing alternative (a). In then granting this, I nevertheless am in no way coerced in my choosing between alternative (a. i) and (a. ii)—for, other than a potential harm to my conscience, neither alternative possess any significant negative repercussions to my personhood—and I happen to be capable of successfully implementing either alternative. I, in being indifferent to which alternative I presume would please this mad king most, then freely choose what I take to be the lesser of the two wrongs—and I thereby proceed to insult the stranger.

Given my alternatives, do I or others then find me culpable for the wrong of having insulted this stranger in front of the king?

While the answer to this question will be contingent on numerous variables (such as, for example, the given stranger’s, and others, degree of empathy for the conundrum into which I was placed through no fault of my own), it is fair to presume that everyone (including the stranger) will be aware that at least the second-order choice I made was freely made by me, was thereby an outcome I intentionally brought about, and, hence, was an outcome I am attributively responsible for. Furthermore, given that I have a generally goodhearted nature, it is also likely fair to presume that everyone (including the given stranger) will nevertheless neither find me blameworthy for my resulting transgression nor praiseworthy for so choosing it over its alternative (considering this outcome the only decent option to be had given the circumstances I was in).

If so, this case illustrates how an [ego or I-ness; i.e., the first person point of view] which is attributively responsible for an outcome commonly deemed a moral wrong—that of insulting a perfect stranger—might neither be blameworthy nor praiseworthy for said outcome, and, hence, how this [ego] might not be morally responsible for an outcome it is nevertheless attributively responsible for.

In general I am apt to prefer classical justice ...

First off, thanks for the thoughtful reply. Your views are much appreciated.

As one example, were a WWII Nazi to knock at the door to inquire as to whether there is a Jew in your house...

Objection 4. Further, one ought to choose the lesser evil in order to avoid the greater: even so a physician cuts off a limb, lest the whole body perish. Yet less harm is done by raising a false opinion in a person's mind, than by someone slaying or being slain. Therefore a man may lawfully lie, to save another from committing murder, or another from being killed.

Reply to Objection 4. A lie is sinful not only because it injures one's neighbor, but also on account of its inordinateness, as stated above in this Article. Now it is not allowed to make use of anything inordinate in order to ward off injury or defects from another: as neither is it lawful to steal in order to give an alms, except perhaps in a case of necessity when all things are common. Therefore it is not lawful to tell a lie in order to deliver another from any danger whatever. Nevertheless it is lawful to hide the truth prudently, by keeping it back, as Augustine says (Contra Mend. x).

Due to life's complexities, in these and like examples we in my view then act morally by engaging in lesser wrongs for the sake of preventing greater wrongs (given caveats such as that no other viable alternative in preventing the greater wrong is available to us).

Because of this, I do deem that on occasion being moral or else immoral is separate from the committing of wrongs. One can likewise appraise someone who does something good and thereby moral due to intentions that are ultimately evil - in so far as having been committed so as to result in the realization of an evil long-term goal. Here, given the overall situation, doing a right/good act can well be nevertheless appraised as immoral (as one possible example, such as when a liar reinforces their nefarious lies via the telling of truths in what is often enough termed "spin").

I'm hoping my reasoning here is explained well enough.

In having thought about this, it yet seems to me that, in order for a human to consciously discern that there are no moral differences in the two alternatives available, the human must necessarily to some extent deliberate between the two alternatives - thereby consciously judge and weigh their differences and differing consequences via their reasoning faculties. So doing will itself be a consciously rational act. So, I presently believe that the very act of consciously discerning that the two alternatives have equal moral import can only be a human act - for it requires conscious rationality.

Once this active deliberation between the alternatives arrives at the conclusion that the available alternatives are of equal moral import, then ... I'm thinking one could still make a reason-based conscious choice as to which alternative to act on (for example, choosing to start with the right foot with the aim of maintaining consistency were this scenario to ever befall again - thereby keeping the harm to a minimum (I know this is iffy, but its the best I've got at the moment)) or, else, one might at this juncture simply allow one's strongest unconscious impulse to precipitate a first step with whichever leg it might be - or else abide by the flipping of a coin. If the first, it would then still be a reason based conscious act. If the latter, then not.

All the same, in terms of blameworthiness/praiseworthiness, the individual's act would be beyond either. Given no other available alternative to choose from, in this sense alone the person's act of walking would then be amoral...

Yet the discernment of the act so being (both on the part of the individual or any onlooker) would then be fully rational - for the individual here was not negligent; he/she took to time to deliberate the situation so as to arrive at the rational discernment of being forced to commit an equal wrong regardless of what is chosen.

Precisely! :up: :smile: Nice to see your evaluation of it.

I'll post the initially mentioned hypothetical I have in mind separately...

Here is a hypothetical wherein the choice made is concluded to be amoral (this strictly in the sense of being neither blameworthy nor praiseworthy) despite a) the available alternatives not being of equal moral import, b) being an act of consciously made volition and, thereby, a human act, c) being a non-hypothetical ought-judgement and, hence, per the OP, a moral act, and, to top things of, d) the choice taken being a known wrong a priori.

I am the summoned subject of a tyrannical and mad king who, simply for his own amusement, informs me upon my arrival to his citadel that...

If this example holds, as I believe it does, it then illustrates how one could have a human act of conscious choice making which, as per the OP, can be defined as a moral act (for it involved non-hypothetical ought-judgements) that is nevertheless amoral in so far as being neither blameworthy nor praiseworthy. And, furthermore, this amoral quality of the act is upheld despite the committed wrong of insulting a perfect stranger.

Maybe I've missed it but could you briefly describe "classical justice" or link to a post upthread where you discuss it. Thanks.

Not if "incapacitating" the gunman is the only or least harmful way to prevent the gunman from doing greater, perhaps lethal, harm (e.g. like surgically removing a malignant tumor...)

I think there are possible sets of moral rules that do not touch on all human acts, such as ?180 Proof's negative utilitarianism. But after recognizing those sets of rules the next step is to ask ourselves whether there is a good reason to call the acts which fall under those rules "moral" while calling acts that do not fall under those rules "non-moral." More specifically, we want to probe the question of whether someone's distinction between the moral and the non-moral is a firm, defensible distinction.

I was not expecting to receive this level of engagement in the thread!

For Aquinas (as for Kant) it is not permissible to lie even in this case. Here is what he says in an article entitled, "Whether every lie is a sin?":

[...]

Reply to Objection 4. A lie is sinful not only because it injures one's neighbor, but also on account of its inordinateness, as stated above in this Article. Now it is not allowed to make use of anything inordinate in order to ward off injury or defects from another: as neither is it lawful to steal in order to give an alms, except perhaps in a case of necessity when all things are common. Therefore it is not lawful to tell a lie in order to deliver another from any danger whatever. Nevertheless it is lawful to hide the truth prudently, by keeping it back, as Augustine says (Contra Mend. x). — Aquinas, ST II-II.110.3.ad4

Would you object to my characterizing your view as (a robust form of) consequentialism?

Perhaps one of the most fruitful entry points is linguistic. First, to nitpick a bit, is the bolded an accurate depiction of your view? "Good and thereby moral"?

What's philosophically interesting here is that, according to your position, it would seem that a bad end/goal vitiates a good deed, but a bad deed does not vitiate a good end/goal.

In other words to advise X such that X non-hypothetically ought to be done is incompatible with X being wrong. Hence the commonly accepted idea that the end will "color" the means (e.g. If Y is necessary, and X is necessary in order to achieve Y, then X becomes necessary). What do you think of this?

I would suggest that harm and the withholding of welfare are both contrary to the object's will, if in slightly different ways—harm is certainly more contrary

Second, I would want to inquire into the relevant definition of harm.

Cambridge:to hurt someone or damage something:

Cambridge:to feel pain in a part of your body, or to injure someone or cause them pain:

On classical justice one can still act unjustly against the gunman even though he has forfeited some of his rights (by, say, using excessive force)

You hold that some ‘evil’ is amorally bad, and is thusly outside of the scope of morality; whereas I think that all ‘evil’ is intrinsically bad, and is thusly within the scope of morality.

You hold that ‘moral’ refers to only meanings directly related to ‘acts’, whereas I use it in a much broader scope.

Morality, at its core, is about acts for you; intrinsic goodness, for me.

I think you think health, for example, is an amoral good...

Everything in reality can be attributed the property; and I can make a parody argument for redness: everything in reality is red, but we can say things that makes sense like “a block that doesn’t exist is not red”.

It means discourse related to (1) intrinsic goodness and (2) what is intrinsically good.

For you, and commonly to people, morality is about behavior; but this is a major mistake: it is really about intrinsic goodness and what is intrinsically good.

It depends: when we discuss those things, are we supposing we are talking about actually good trees, actually good birds, etc.? If so, then we are definitely talking about ethics.

Either morality is only about what is related to behavior and there is no morality in a world incapable of agents (i.e., things which have behaviors, can act, in the manner you describe) OR morality is not fundamentally about behavior (although it can include that in itself, even as a primary sub-subject).

Morality is not itself the study of behavior.

I would say both are contrary to the object's desire, but not free will in the sense of freedom of choice. When we impart harm on someone, we are taking something away from them, which by the definition of "harm" is against their will; by withholding welfare, we are not attacking their free will, as we are basically not interacting with them at all — not giving them something appears to me as very different from taking something away.

I am behind these definitions. The interesting thing about "harm" is that indeed it means to make something lose its qualities. So then we see that the word "harm" itself already carries some sort of aesthetic/moral judgement by evoking the word "quality". In many cases it seems uncontroversial. If I am shooting someone, I am making them lose qualities (health) that we hold universally as desirable.
However, if I offer someone alcohol, there will be wide disagreement about whether I am harming or helping them.

So perhaps it is the case that negative utilitarianism simply pushes the issue back and leaves the conclusion up to subjectivity, instead of grounding it objectively (on something like freedom or serotonin or reproductive success).

And in many countries that is indeed the case. Shooting someone brandishing a knife is allowable if done so to incapacitate, but going behind him and shooting him in the head may be seen as undue use of force and execution.

The analysis seems to be presupposing rights.

I want to say that "to harm something is to make something lose its qualities," is too broad, because not all qualities are self-consciously believed to be valuable

pushes the issue back and leaves the conclusion up to subjectivity, instead of grounding it objectively (on something like freedom or serotonin or reproductive success)

For example, on your definition if I cause someone to lose weight I have harmed them.

if I take alcohol away from an alcoholic, does it necessarily follow that I have harmed him?

As an aside, Peter Simpson has a paper related to a similar issue, "Justice, Scheffler and Cicero."

Also, your book looks interesting!

I think the basic idea here is fairly straightforward. It is the question, "Does duress excuse?" Or, "Is one still culpable when they act under duress?"

So I would want to ask, first, why "positive utilitarianism" is not partially correct (i.e. why consideration of the harm-complement is non-moral).

Second, I would want to inquire into the relevant definition of harm.

- deprivation (of e.g. sustanence, shelter, sleep, touch, esteem, care, health, hygiene, trust, safety, etc)

- dysfunction (i.e. injury, ill-health, disability)

- helplessness (i.e. trapped, confined, or fear-terror of being vulnerable)

- stupidity (i.e. maladaptive habits (e.g. mimetic violence, lose-lose preferences, etc))

- betrayal (i.e. trust-hazards)

- bereavement (i.e. losing loved ones & close friends), etc ...

... in effect, any involuntary decrease, irreparable loss or final elimination of human agency

So I would want to ask, first, why "positive utilitarianism" is not partially correct (i.e. why consideration of the harm-complement is non-moral). Second, I would want to inquire into the relevant definition of harm.

I'm myself finding it a good means of honing my reasoning skills (or lack thereof :smile: )

Myself, I so far find the idealizations of what should be which are presented in this reply contrary to "deliberate reason ... directed to the due end" which Aquinas also makes mention of. Were this due end, for example, to be that of completely obeying or else holding duty to a set of rules set up by some supreme rule-maker, this might then make sense to me. But consider this hypothetical: either one tells oneself a white lie (say, that today the appearance of one's clothes is decent when, in reality, one does not feel this to be so) or, else, all of humanity perishes (one can affix whatever daemon scenario on pleases to this). If the end pursued is absolute obedience/duty to the rule-maker's rule that one does not ever lie, then it might be correct, or right, to destroy all of humanity by not lying. Yet - not only does this intuitively seem very wrong - but, in changing the end one directs one's actions toward to that of, say, maximal eudemonia, it would then necessarily be rationally incorrect, or worng, to do so as well.

That said, any system of consequentialism that does not look upon such literally ultimate long-term goal but, instead, focuses one merely intermediate goals will, to me, necessarily be less than moral. One here deems eating candy a good due to the intermediate goal of satisfying one's sweet-tooth despite so doing leading to tooth decay and the loss of one's teeth ... sort of mindset. And I don't find that typical utilitarianism holds any such ultimate long-term goal in mind - just a generalized heuristic that might or might not eventually lead to such goal (depending on its interpretation and administration).

Yes, language is important, and I was clumsy in how I applied it. To try to better explain, an important synonym for good is "beneficial", which can be interpreted as being of proper fit. One then can further interpret good as that which is of proper fit to one's goal, or telos. There are always different teloi we actively hold at the same time: some proximate, some distal, some intermediate (and, in my own musing, as per what I mentioned above, one's ultimate telos, which I shall here address as "the Good"). That which fits the Good is always good/right in an ultimate sense. That which is antithetical to the Good is then always bad/wrong in an ultimate sense. Then, if one's actively held ultimate goal "X" is antithetical to the Good, one's intentions will always be bad/wrong in an ultimate sense. This even if, to further approach or actualize goal X, one needs to engage in acts that are of themselves a proper fit to the Good. Example: one wants to sadistically destroy humanity at large but finds that in order to do so one needs to rescue an innocent baby from drowning; one than is compelled to save the baby from drowning (something one would not have otherwise done) in order to destroy humanity and then so proceeds to do. The deed of saving the baby is good, for it of itself as deed is fit to the Good, but the intentions with which this deed is done are bad, for as intentions they are of proper fit to goal X. Otherwise expressed, the saving of the baby does not hold intrinsic value to the saver or the baby - as it would for anyone whose ultimate telos is the Good - but, instead, is strictly of instrumental value in allowing for goal X. In brief, the deed of a saved baby is of itself moral but the intention with which it was saved is immoral.

My beating some complete stranger to a pulp strictly out of the pleasure to do so directly estranges my from the Good. However, where I to be aiming to remain optimally aligned to the Good, and were a horrendous attack on an innocent to occur right in front of me, my then beating to a pulp the assailant so as to prevent the innocent's death (were I to be so capable of doing and were this to somehow be the only viable alternative to take) would be vitiated as an intentionally performed bad/evil/wrong. Here, (were I to be so capable) I would be proud of risking my own life to save the innocent despite the violence I willfully engaged in - and would feel very deep shame and guilt, i.e. profound culpability, where I to do nothing while the innocent died right before me with me doing nothing about it (though, in the latter case, I would not have engaged in any violence myself).

I know things can get more complex, but maybe this serves as good enough explanation?

You are right, it's not easy to phrase these disparate notions of wrongness in common speech. But to try to clarify my position: X is not a wrong (an incorrect or else unfit) course of action to take as a necessary means of achieving Y which is itself optimally fitting to an eventual achieving of the ultimate good goal Z - this even though, in direct respect to ultimate good Z, X can only be ascertained as ultimately being a wrong (this because it does not allow for the ultimate achievement of Z). More concretely, let Z = Kant's Kingdom of Ends; Ukraine's engaging in war against an unjustly invading Russia is then something that cannot of itself directly achieve a Kingdom of Ends and, so, is a wrong in this ultimate sense (I do have trouble calling Ukraine's war of self-deference an evil, though, even when termed a "lesser evil"); nevertheless, Ukraine's engaging in war is necessary to achieve Ukraine's maintaining of autonomy, which is itself optimally aligned to an eventual Kingdom of Ends. As regards common speech: although we all know that war is ultimately bad, it is good for Ukraine to engage in war against an unjust invader rather then allowing itself to be decimated by not engaging in such war.

I skimmed through the paper. The principal example given - that of killing one person to save five - has always been irksome to me due to its ambiguity/non-specificity: ought one kill a Mother Teresa to save five Hitlers or, else, ought one not kill one Hitler and allow five Mother Teresas to die instead?

I think the basic idea here is fairly straightforward. It is the question, "Does duress excuse?" Or, "Is one still culpable when they act under duress?"

But the issue to this hypothetical, within its own context of argument, is as follows: must the person in this case then be answerable for the goodness/badness of the deed they brought about?

In other words, are they in any way morally responsible for their choice (a choice which they now are attributively responsible for)? Specifically, this for having insulted a stranger rather than having done a far worse bad/evil/wrong against this same stranger.

(unlike the choice between (a) and (b) - which, due to being made under extreme duress, the person can be argued to not be attributively responsible for)

It's not about the choice or deed being excusable due to the duress - there was no duress in the two alternatives of the second choice that was taken (there was only a necessary choice between a fixed set of alternatives, with complete liberty to choose either). It's about the individual not being answerable for the goodness or badness (depending on perspective) of the choice of insulting a stranger rather than beating them unconscious. (In contrast, were the person to choose not to insult but to instead beat the stranger unconscious, then they would be morally responsible for their choice - for, in this case, they would now be answerable for the goodness/badness of their choice.)

1. Choose between (a) and (b)
2. If (a), then choose between a.i and a.ii

I don't understand the question. :confused:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_utilitarianism (I interpret this reducing harm-caused-by-personal-conduct / judgment as normative morality ?180 Proof)

Negative utilitarianism is a form of negative consequentialism that can be described as the view that people should minimize the total amount of aggregate suffering, or that they should minimize suffering and then, secondarily, maximize the total amount of happiness.

From a 2023 thread Convince Me of Moral Realism, by 'harm' (in some of its various forms) I mean this...

And by 'injustice' I mean harm to individuals as a direct or indirect consequence of a social structure, or lack thereof, reproduced by customs, public policies, legistlation, jurisprudence or arbitrary violence. Thus, utilitarianism is a kind (or subset) of consequentialism.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_consequentialism (I interpret this reducing injustice (i.e. reducing harm-caused-by-social-structure / violence) as applied morality ?180 Proof)

Leontiskos – Assuming you intend to reply, I've just edited my previous post so that (hopefully) my statements are clearer.

Because the word "quality" here is often up to personal preference, as I note: If I am shooting someone, I am making them lose qualities (health) that we hold universally as desirable. However, if I offer someone drugs, there will be wide disagreement about whether I am harming or helping them because what the drug is supposed to counteract may or may not be held positively, or may or may not be held more negatively than the other effects of the drug.

Well, being fat would not be a quality — so would everybody say prior to 2013.

In most cases no, because being addicted is something that (almost) all would agree is not a quality but the inverse of it.

I can think of one reason to preference the reduction of the negative over the maximization of some positive principle (e.g., pleasure for J.S. Mill).

Minimizing harm seems to be less likely to fall into the "min/max" trap. We are inclined to think of disease, dysfunction, etc. as a variation from some stability point or harmony.

However, when it comes to the acquisition of positive things, we often tend to look to maximize the good. For example, Mill wants to maximize pleasure (and we might consider here Plato's distinction of which pleasures are better than others in the Philibus or Aristotle's in Book X of the Ethics as counter examples). This makes a certain sense to me, because when it comes to the acquisition of external goods, food stores, money, etc., it is always nice to have more as a sort of "backup." More won't hurt, we can always just not use a resource we have "extra," of, or share it in exchange for some other good.

So apparently some negative utilitarians think there is a "second," namely, to "maximize the total amount of happiness." The question could then be rephrased: why choose the first form of negative utilitarianism over the second form?

Yes?

harm is not objectively defined

Really? Name a kind of harm that you have undergone and yet, because it's not "objective" phenomenon, no one else is vulnerable to it or can recognize it as harm.

if I offer someone drugs, there will be wide disagreement about whether I am harming or helping them because what the drug is supposed to counteract may or may not be held positively, or may or may not be held more negatively than the other effects of the drug

If I am shooting someone, I am making them lose qualities (health) that we hold universally as desirable.
However, if I offer someone alcohol, there will be wide disagreement about whether I am harming or helping them.

Harm, or suffering, is not merely subjective (as I've sketched previously ?180 Proof) whereas "happiness" is whollly subjective (e.g. hedonic set-points are not the same for everyone or constant through time for each individual); the latter, therefore, is not as foreseeable, or reliably known, as the former such that reducing harm / injustice is a more realizable and effective moral strategy than trying to "maximize happiness" (whatever "happiness" means).

However, it's my position that on avarage – all things being equal – we optimize well-being, or "happiness", in any situation where harm / injustice has been prevented and/or reduced as much as possible such that it's not a binary choice but rather is a matter of priority whereby the "secondary" consideration (positive utility/consequence (e.g. more sex)) is a function, or opportuned by, the "primary" (negative utility/consequence (e.g. less illness)) and yet not the other way around (e.g. health-wealth-fame-power-pleasure "maximizing" itself cannot prevent or reduce suffering, misery or (self)harm).

Some primary influences on my moral thinking are Epicurus, Spinoza, K. Popper, D. Parfit & P. Foot.

Have you had such an experience? If not, then isn't it more reasonable than not to conclude that everyone is vulnerable to and can recognize the kinds of harm you've experience because they are objective phenomena? :chin:

Regarding your X, Y, Z analysis, I would want to say that if X is necessary to achieve Y and Y is necessary to achieve Z, then X is necessary to achieve Z. In fact this would seem to prove that it is false to claim that, "[X] does not allow for the ultimate achievement of Z." Or am I underestimating the work that your term "optimally fitting" is doing? (Note that if, as you seem to say, Z precludes X, then it cannot simultaneously be true that X is necessary to achieve Z)

I’ll for now address the following last portion of your first reply since I see this as pivotal to most all of the other replies I might myself give. I know there is a lot left for me to address, but, before I do, please let me know if the following is something that you find fault with. If this leads to an insurmountable difference of perspectives, then I doubt you’d find any of my other further replies cogent.

Via one analogy (which as analogy can only go so far), say that one strives to arrive at destination Z from location A in as short a time as possible so as to win a prize. Were it at all possible to do so, one would then rationally follow a straight path from point A to point Z, this being the shortest path to travel. But there is an intractable obstacle in the way at point K.

1. Strive to arrive at destination Z from location A in as short a time as possible.
2. Strive to arrive at destination Z from location A in as short a time as possible, in ideal circumstances.

To then ask whether violence is moral or immoral will depend on the vantage taken: relative to the very actualization and thereby eventual actuality of Z, it will always be immoral. Yet relative to what is on occasion pragmatically needed to best approach the actualization of Z, it will in certain circumstances be moral. As was illustrated, this strictly contingent on—not its application per se—but the intention with which it becomes applied.

1. Do not commit violence (because violence requires treating the object as a means)
2. Survive as a community

For what its worth, it might be cumbersome to explain, but I all the same so far find it conformant to the living of a virtuous life (this as best one can, with the occasional mistake granted).

Or perhaps the more pertinent question is, "What happens when we encounter unforeseen dilemmas?"

What are the two ends?

Strive to arrive at destination Z from location A in as short a time as possible.
Strive to arrive at destination Z from location A in as short a time as possible, in ideal circumstances.

Again, I see two ends, and in this case I think both are simultaneously aimed at:

1) Do not commit violence (because violence requires treating the object as a means)
2) Survive as a community


These are both involved in the goal to, "Arrive at a Kingdom of Ends."

But in this case it seems that (2) is given precedence over (1), and I'm not sure if it is possible to arrive at a "Kingdom of Ends" so long as (2) is given precedence over (1). When would you ever "get there"?
Obviously the alternative would be strict pacifism: giving (1) precedence over (2).

Hearkening back to the OP, my difficulty is the way that you are apt to class exceptions as non-human acts.

If you wish to continue, it seems to me that we would need to discuss this issue of moral perplexity. It seems that on theories such as your own, which admit of perplexity, one must either transgress duties or else redefine those duties as being in some way non-obligatory.

I see that I was addressing many presumptions which are not shared. This for instance. By "obstacle" I naturally assumed that that which stands in the way and thereby impedes is/was unforeseen. Otherwise I'd simply view it as part of the terrain to be traveled. If I see a house between me and the house's backyard to which I want to get to, I don't then discern the house to be an obstacle in my path. But if I expect the backyard gate to be unlocked when in fact it is, this I might then consider something that impedes my intended progress.

Every voyage toward a destination is, consciously or unconsciously, idealized to go as expected or planed, i.e. for the circumstances to be as one best foresees, and thereby idealizes, them. If I take a flight from A to Z, unexpected weather conditions might have it that I get detoured and delayed. Or that I never arrive. Nevertheless, I will take the flight expecting to arrive on time as per the ideal circumstances of so arriving as scheduled.

"Do not commit violence" holds no meaning or significance in the complete absence of agents. In order for violence to not be committed, there must be agents present which do not commit violence. So I again find the presented dichotomy of ends to be inappropriate.

Aside from which, as stated (1) gives the impression of an absolute commandment.

your experiences of kinds of harm which no one else is vulnerable to or can recognize as harm because such kinds are "not objectively defibed"

These contradictions are producing further contradictions,

I hope I didn't give the impression that perplexity-views such as your own are beyond the pale. I think they make a certain amount of sense given the complexity of the moral landscape.

Thanks for the interesting conversation. :up:

is still objective.

Of course, you're correct that what constitutes harm is, to at least some degree, bound up in the virtues, and the virtues are bound up in a given context, but I'm not sure how this leads to their not being at all objective.

Of course, you're correct that what constitutes harm is, to at least some degree, bound up in the virtues, and the virtues are bound up in a given context, but I'm not sure how this leads to their not being at all objective.

Being talkative is seen by some as a [s]virtue[/s] quality, others as [s]a vice[/s] not a quality.

The concept 'harm' seems to only pick out that which is subjectively held to be the case in the real world.

So, i say it's implausible to suggest that harm has an objective meaning, other than from a subjective pov (i.e experiences, for me, will either meet, or not meet my internal benchmark for having received harm).

The problem is that I had to replace "quality" with "virtue". Using quality originally, there will be qualities that are completely up to the aesthetic preferences of someone:

The fact that the definition of something no longer depends only on outside objects that may be referenced should be enough to say something is not objective.

It still seems like harm is fairly obvious in many cases, and these will also tend to be the more important cases (e.g., offending someone with a joke versus setting their home on fire).

If I am shooting someone, I am making them lose qualities (health) that we hold universally as desirable. However, if I offer someone drugs, there will be wide disagreement about whether I am harming or helping them

For instance, in chess, the thing being referenced is the game itself, but the rules of chess are objective.

How a word is spelled correctly is also an objective fact, but it's the language that is referred to for this.

Begging the question is when you assume your conclusion. E.g., something like: "our perception of objects is indirect because we don't perceive things directly."

There are many variants of chess, but what constitutes a legal move in a given chess tournament is still objective.

If I raise my child to be a craven, licentious, covetous, and vicious glutton there is a sense in which people in my community can point to what I've done and talk about a "harmful upbringing," without having much difficulty agreeing with one another.

There are different motivations for writing this thread, but one of the primary motivations is to address a common claim. The claim is something like, “You should behave in such-and-such a way, but this has nothing to do with morality.” Our culture is filled with non-hypothetical ought-claims that masquerade as non-moral claims, and this seems to be nothing more than a mendacious technique for controlling other people

To keep things short, I don't find that my account of ethics would make any sense whatsoever were it to in fact incorporate "contradictions", which I do not find my account to incorporate: At no juncture in my account can there ever be something that is both right and wrong at the same time and in the same respect.

The problem is that your system contains internal contradictions, and framing Kantianism in terms of consequence-ends is already a contradiction that Kant would not have accepted. These contradictions are producing further contradictions, such as the idea that violence is compatible with a "Kingdom of Ends."

Say I've got the option to buy a new phone to replace my old one, but don't wish to, and claim "It's not due to financial reasons". Though the act of buying a phone is clearly related to my finances and would be a financial decision, I'd have meant that my decision was motivated instead by other factors.

The question is then whether one can say that, "My decision was instead motivated by non-moral factors," which according to the OP would entail that it involves no non-hypothetical ought-judgment.

Here is what I said:

The problem is that your system contains internal contradictions, and framing Kantianism in terms of consequence-ends is already a contradiction that Kant would not have accepted. These contradictions are producing further contradictions, such as the idea that violence is compatible with a "Kingdom of Ends." — Leontiskos

So, for example, on your scheme violence is simultaneously right and wrong. It is right qua survival and it is wrong qua using-another-as-a-means. The problem is that your principles are not necessarily in sync, and in certain cases they oppose one another (and lead to perplexity). So you could do what most perplexity-views do and weight your principles, but before that you would need to admit that you have two principles in the first place (i.e. that "survival" is distinct from a prohibition on violence).

It doesn't matter that something is not right and wrong in the same respect; such is not needed to produce perplexity. It only matters that something be simultaneously right and wrong.

If we agree that indeed, wanting to buy a phone for non-financial reasons may lead to the financial decision of buying a phone, then we can apply that to "moral judgements" defined in the OP. "Moral judgements" are non-hypothetical ought-judgements, and would parallel with the financial decision of buying a phone. If we non-financial motivations can lead to a financial decision, can't non-moral motivations lead to us making a "moral judgement"?

Perplexity does not equate to the occurrence of contradictions

Yet an affirmation of X does not of itself justify X being true.

And I so far find no contradictions in what I’ve previously stated: Again, given the exact same distal intent of, say, minimizing harm and maximizing harmony, the use of violence as means of obtaining this very same distal intent can be simultaneously right in proximal application (wherein far greater harm/disharmony is thereby avoided) and yet remain wrong in distal terms (for an absolute harmony cannot be of itself produced via violence); therefore being simultaneously right and wrong but in different respects.

Am I mistaken in understanding the quote to conclude that my arguments make use of contradictions? And does not a contradiction require that incongruent givens simultaneously occur in the same respect?

Now if you rewrite your system and say that you're only trying to "minimize harm and maximize harmony," then these two things which were formally ends now become means.

Means toward the end of "minimizing harm and maximizing harmony."

And how do you view this stipulated end as differing from Kant's Kingdom of Ends?

What is the difference between the end of "minimizing harm and maximizing harmony" and Kant's Kingdom of Ends?

Therefore your question makes no sense to me.

To minimize harm and maximize harmony is obviously not the same as treating everyone as an end in themselves.

In his writings on religion, Kant interprets the Kingdom of God as a religious symbol for the moral reality of the Kingdom of Ends. As such, it is the ultimate goal of both religious and political organization of human society.[1]

A number of Kant’s readers have come to question this received view, however. Perhaps the first philosopher to suggest a teleological reading of Kant was John Stuart Mill. In the first chapter of his Utilitarianism, Mill implies that the Universal Law formulation of the Categorical Imperative could only sensibly be interpreted as a test of the consequences of universal adoption of a maxim. [...]

There are also teleological readings of Kant’s ethics that are non-consequentialist. Barbara Herman (1993) has urged philosophers to “leave deontology behind” as an understanding of Kant’s moral theory on the grounds that the conception of practical reason grounding the Categorical Imperative is itself a conception of value. Herman’s idea is that Kant never meant to say that no value grounds moral principles. [...]

It is of considerable interest to those who follow Kant to determine which reading — teleological or deontological — was actually Kant’s, as well as which view ought to have been his. A powerful argument for the teleological reading is the motivation for Herman’s proposal: What rationale can we provide for doing our duty at all if we don’t appeal to it’s being good to do it? [...]

While I'm waiting for your reply: This quote addresses means, but not the stipulated end of "minimizing harm and maximizing harmony" which, as end pursued, would be more properly expressed as "a state of being wherein harm is minimal, if at all yet present, and harmony is maximal, if not ubiquitously applicable". An idealized future state of being as that intended which, by my best appraisals of your previous statements, you deem to be different in nature to that state of being Kant terms "the Kingdom of Ends". *

But again, I'm waiting to discern what you interpret Kant to mean by the term "Kingdom of Ends" ... such that it, as realm of being, is not equivalent to a realm wherein minimal harm and maximal harmony is actualized.

My main point to these quickly produced references being, what you have taken to be "my view" is neither idiosyncratic nor original in its analysis of Kantian ethics.

The main problem with your interpretation is that none of the texts that you have provided support it, and this is because Kant is explicit that the "Kingdom of Ends" is only an ideal, or in your quote, "merely possible." If it were more than an ideal and it were—as you seem to conceive it—an actualizable utopia, then all of the problems I have pointed out would come to bear. In that case the utopian end-state would be liable to justify the sort of violence you have in mind, all in order to achieve it.

Palmquist, Stephen (October 1994) 'The Kingdom of God Is at Hand!' (Did Kant Really Say That?). History of Philosophy Quarterly. 11 (4): 421–437. ISSN 0740-0675. JSTOR 27744641:A cursory reading of these essays is sufficient to reveal that Kant's interest in political his­tory was an in­tentional application of his overall Transcendental Perspective[17] to the final (i.e., ultimate) problem of the end or destiny of the human race. The essays rarely give an account or inter­pre­tation of any specific historical events. Instead, as their very titles suggest, they pose ques­tions about the necessary form of human history, such as: What was the "Conjec­tural Beginning of Human History"? (1786), "What is Enlighten­ment?" (1784), "...Is the Human Race Constantly Progressing?" (1798), and What is "The End of All Things"? (1794). Kant's goal, in other words, was to discover an "Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Perspective" (1784) which could bring "Perpetual Peace" (1795) to humanity through a full realization of the highest good.

According to your source such interpretations are certainly atypical, deviating from the received view. Still, none of the sources you cite are promoting your view that it is necessary to resort to violence to bring about a Kingdom of Ends. That strikes me as a grievous departure from Kant.

Again, given the exact same distal intent of, say, minimizing harm and maximizing harmony, the use of violence as means of obtaining this very same distal intent can be simultaneously right in proximal application (wherein far greater harm/disharmony is thereby avoided) and yet remain wrong in distal terms (for an absolute harmony cannot be of itself produced via violence);

The question at hand is whether your analogy is apt. Perhaps you should attempt to give an example of a non-moral decision.

If we say that a "moral decision" is one based on what is right and wrong, moral or immoral...

By "non-moral decision", I take you to mean the parallel of a "non-financial decision" to buy a phone, so, a "non-moral decision" which leads to a "moral judgement" being made.

I find that you, inadvertently or not, have often strawmanned the arguments I've make. Which makes this conversation with you quite unpleasant. For example, I don't recall every saying "it is necessary to resort to violence" but only that the use of violence within certain contexts can be the right/good thing to do as a means of optimally approaching the Good - "necessity" having nothing to do with it.

"Do not commit violence" holds no meaning or significance in the complete absence of agents. In order for violence to not be committed, there must be agents present which do not commit violence.

Again, you have said that violence is prohibited because it treats another person as a means.

I'm curious as to what references or arguments you have that dispel the argument this paper makes.

You so far seem dead-set against the use of any measure of controlled violence in any context whatsoever, thereby, for example, condemning all police officers all all soldiers to immorality ... as though such ought to be viewed as evil rather than, at least on occasion, heroic. If I am, to what extent am I wrong in this appraisal?

Despite spending time on the forum, you’ve chosen to make your reply rather late. The weekend has now passed, and I now have real world duties in need of tending.

You are again freely strawmanning, inventing truths, putting words into my mouth that I've never spoken, spinning realities, whatever terminology best gets the point across. In this case, I only said that violence is a wrong in an ultimate sense from an ultimate vantage-point, but never that it is "prohibited". And I have neither the time nor the inclination to correct every strawman you've so far made.

[...]

… Which I can’t help but find intellectually dishonest.

In your primary counter, you are conflating the end aimed at of “the Good”, however you prefer to imperfectly exemplify it (you’ve so far alluded to it being an unobtainable utopia of no real consequence), with the means toward approaching it (this assuming one deems the Good as their primary purpose to begin with) as though the Good were somehow already obtained.

In your equating of right/good action to necessary action you, for example, remove all choice from the equation

And you have chosen to ignore both of the following

I am not a Kantian

To say that a moral decision is based on what is moral or immoral is tautological, and does not tell us anything

No, that is not even necessary, for I take it that the example is so disanalogous that even a decision which is non-moral simpliciter would suffice.

I would suggest sticking with Thesis 1 and leaving Thesis 2 to the side for the time being.

The common view is that some acts are moral, such as giving a starving man food or committing murder, and some acts are non-moral, such as taking one’s dog for a walk.

I have no clue what a "moral decision" is supposed to be, it's a term you brought up but isn't defined in the OP. I explained my assumption so it can be corrected.

Suit yourself.

We don't consider acts moral/immoral, we consider principles moral/immoral and acts with no relevance to any moral principles are non-moral. Is that not your experience as well?

You are the one who introduced that term, hence my point.

And my point was that you should provide an example, even though that example does not need to adhere to the financial parallel you have tried to set up.

The OP asks you to spell out the difference between a moral principle and a non-moral principle. The contention is that you will not be able to do this, and because of this your moral theory will fail.

There's an incentive to come up with a logical, well-reasoned argument even though it's bullshit. Which further complicates explaining what morality is. There are too many social and political influences at play. We can't tell what's real or just convenient - too much "fake data", if you like.

You are again freely strawmanning, inventing truths, putting words into my mouth that I've never spoken, spinning realities, whatever terminology best gets the point across. In this case, I only said that violence is a wrong in an ultimate sense from an ultimate vantage-point, but never that it is "prohibited". And I have neither the time nor the inclination to correct every strawman you've so far made.

[...]

… Which I can’t help but find intellectually dishonest. — javra


Ad hominem is what one often resorts to when they find themselves unable to address the arguments at hand. Clearly you've devolved into this state with abandon. You were doing much better towards the beginning of our conversation. Granted, the absurd things you claimed, which I have highlighted and specifically asked you to address, are indefensible, and so it's no coincidence that you refuse to defend them. But the intellectually honest person would simply retract such statements instead of playing the victim.

Short for argumentum ad hominem: A fallacious objection to an argument or factual claim by appealing to a characteristic or belief of the person making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument or producing evidence against the claim; an attempt to argue against an opponent's idea by discrediting the opponent themselves.

But no, I only stated the facts of the matter regarding your actions as I honestly saw them and as I've tried to succinctly evidence via quotes, this rather than engaging in personal attacks of your character as person so as to discredit your comments.

As before, go for it in terms of last words.