Questions for the moral atheist

Originally posted by vistesd
I seem to recall an earlier post where Bennett asserted that we need to start with at least one premise (foundationalist epistemology) to get anywhere. However, that premise is not proved by the remaining terms of the inference, or by the conclusion (affirming the consequent?). Basically, epistemologically, there has to be a first turtle. (Wittgenstein s nto Aquinas today, and my brain is really cracked! In a flourishing sort of way, though... 🙂

To make it short and blunt, if it's the same (and ultimately, I do think it is), why do we need a smoke screen? Moral realism is simply that, a way to sweep subjectivity under the carpet by picking one of a myriad of yardsticks and saying that's the one. I tie my own hands to it so I'm no longer responsible for it...

But why did you tie your hands to that one? Doesn't THAT make you responsible?

Edit - How many bad metaphors can I fit in a post?

Edit 432: I understand I'm not arguing for non-cognitivism at this point, some forms of cognitivism are extremely subtle and some of those may be fitted into "preference-based" views of morality. But I think that the struggle you alluded to earlier was more between realism and some forms of anti-realism (including cognitive subjectivism or non-cognitivism).

Originally posted by vistesd
I seem to recall an earlier post where Bennett asserted that we need to start with at least one premise (foundationalist epistemology) to get anywhere. However, that premise is not proved by the remaining terms of the inference, or by the conclusion (affirming the consequent?). Basically, epistemologically, there has to be a first turtle. (Wittgenstein s ...[text shortened]... into Aquinas today, and my brain is really cracked! In a flourishing sort of way, though... 🙂

I am coming into this debate a little late, I saw it get derailed and gave up on it,
but now I see it has returned to an interesting debate, I am not however about
to read the entire thing to find all the interesting arguments in it.

Thus I apologise if I make points that have been made before.

I would be interested however to read the post by Bennett where he makes this assertion.
(this forum sadly lacks the ability to link to a particular post but if you could tell me the
page number that would be most helpful)

I don't however agree that there is a need to make unfounded route assertions with no
justification to be able to create a viable and sound moral system.

There are certain premises on which you do base your moral system but they are not without
logical justification;

A moral system can't exist in a vacuum.
You have to have a plurality of people (a society) for them to have any meaning.
One person on their own doesn't need a moral system as there is no one else for them to
interact with.
The purpose of the moral system thus is to guide the interactions and actions of people IN a
society.

The purpose of the moral system is to improve the functioning of that society.
there is no point in coming up with morals to make it worse.
what constitutes better/ worse I get to later

The system should be based not on what activities are allowed but those that are restricted.
if you have to explicitly state everything that is allowed, then you have to create new morals for
every single activity that people can come up with which is a practical non-starter.
Thus the starting point is that everything is allowed unless you have a good reason to restrict it.

The people who have to follow these moral norms should be the ones creating them.
This gives people a stake in these codes, and increases the likelihood that people will naturally
respect and want to follow these rules, as they have ownership of them. They are not being
imposed by some outsider who is above or beyond these rules.
Also people will be less likely to come up with rules they are not happy following

The people get to define the metrics by which they judge what is good and bad for their own society
This solves the problem of trying to define some perfect ideals by which you live, as we don't live in
paradise. We live in the real world and there are many conflicting opinions about what makes a good society
and the final decision about what is considered good and bad for society should be down to the people
that actually have to live in it.

If the moral code is found not to be working quite as intended it can be amended by the people to solve
the problem. Thus over time the moral code evolves to become more and more sophisticated with fewer and
fewer problems it can't deal with
This ties in with the last one, the people get to define the metrics under which they base their values of good
and bad. If these don't in practice work they can be amended, and updated (also in the light of new technology
or circumstances) meaning that you don't have to get everything perfectly correct (assuming there is such a thing
as perfect morals) first time, you can iterate and improve.



You have a basic guiding principle of 'what if everyone behaved this way' which in conjunction with your
metrics of good and bad for society allow you to use reason to discern if a particular action is moral or immoral,
(and presumably in the extremis, and to the extent that law and morality overlap, legal and non-legal)
If one person litters it is not a big issue, if everyone did it then we have an environmental disaster which
is detrimental to societies health or even survivability, thus littering is deemed immoral.



All of these premises can be challenged and justified.

One more thing however should be taken into account.

We are all humans (it gets a bit more complicated if you allow aliens into your moral code but we are not there
yet ;-) ) and thus have certain commonalities of thought and feeling.

The vast majority of people will for example want to steer away from pain, and head towards pleasure.

The statement it's not nice/pleasant/good to burn your hand in the oven, would get near universal agreement.
When you take the opinion of all the people of your society into account the voice of the overwhelming majority
will be the guiding force in creating the values and metrics for judging what is good and bad for society.

Ultimately what is good for society is what creates the most good or happy responses from the people in it
for the least bad or sad responses from the people in it.

While you use logic and reason as the framework by which you forge your moral system, you don't have to.
and shouldn't, ignore emotions. As you are creating a framework for people to live by not robots emotions
are very important things to consider.

Creating a strong punishment for people who molest children for example, is a good idea because otherwise you
are likely to get those molesters killed by lynch mobs of angry parents who no longer respect the moral norms of
your society as it didn't deal with these people.

The psychological impacts of your moral code and its enforcement need to be taken into account.

If the society has lots of unhappiness and not much happiness, then assuming no external force causing it, then
you can assume that something is wrong with that society's structure and try to work out how to correct it.

Originally posted by vistesd
Man, put this together with my ventures into Aquinas today, and my brain is really cracked! In a flourishing sort of way, though... 🙂

The more cracked, the higher likelihood of something going in! This is why I enjoy clashing heads with bbarr's titanium skull.

Originally posted by googlefudge
I am coming into this debate a little late, I saw it get derailed and gave up on it,
but now I see it has returned to an interesting debate, I am not however about
to read the entire thing to find all the interesting arguments in it.

Thus I apologise if I make points that have been made before.

I would be interested however to read the post by hing is wrong with that society's structure and try to work out how to correct it.

Bbarr’s first post on page 26 of the thread, where he says at the end:

“And, as I mentioned above, the question "But is X good?" has to stop somewhere. For the secular ethicist, it stops when normative bedrock is reached; when we trace back and explain our considered moral judgments by reference to some basic set or normative concepts. I think that the basic concepts regard human flourishing and virtue. So, when asked "Why is flourishing good?", or "Why is virtue good?", my response is that these are intrinsically good; that our concept 'Good', when unpacked, and our usage of it examined, is best explained by positing that human flourishing and virtuous character are bedrock, and function as moral foundations. Of course somebody can disagree. But I don't think it is a requirement on a moral theory being correct that there be the resources to convince a skeptic or sociopath.”

—I think I was incorrect in implying “just one”, when what I intended was “at least one”.

Now, if ethical truths depend upon epistemology (finding justification for beliefs and demonstrating that they are true), then epistemology matters. This seems to be what Palynka is arguing against.

You listed a number of premises, and claim that all of them “can be challenged and justified”. Well, justifiability is the issue. What is the justifier for each of those premises? Are you implying a coherentist, rather than a foundationalist, epistemology? Or are you arguing, with Palynka (as I understand him) that there is no epistemic requirement for ethical judgments? Can you put those premises in logical inferential form so that they lead to a conclusion—if so, what would be your first premise, and how would they all follow one another? If, in fact, your first premise is first premise, then I think you have illustrated bbarr’s point…

NOTE: It seems that I am arguing myself back toward the virtue ethics camp….

By the way, I do not think that a eudaimonistic view entails a utopian one; we flourish, or do not, have our well-being, or do not, within existential context.

EDIT: On re-reading your post, I'm not sure that we're disagreeing about principles. (For example, I'm not sure that the reason versus emotions, versus intuition?, is a real dichotomy; and I think maybe you're pointing that out as well.)

Originally posted by Palynka
To make it short and blunt, if it's the same (and ultimately, I do think it is), why do we need a smoke screen? Moral realism is simply that, a way to sweep subjectivity under the carpet by picking one of a myriad of yardsticks and saying that's the one. I tie my own hands to it so I'm no longer responsible for it...

But why did you tie your hands to that ism and some forms of anti-realism (including cognitive subjectivism or non-cognitivism).

Simply put, I'm not sure it is a smokescreen. It might be a matter of definitions. Again, if "preference" can include something like an evolutionary (genetic? naturally innate to living organisms?) imperative, then why is it a smokescreen to declare that imperative. I used to put it (before I ever heard the word eudaimonia) as a twin natural imperative to survive and thrive, that I would take as something like self-eveident for biological organisms, sentient or not; sapient or not. I don't feel too comfortable with "self-evidence", but I invite a logical counter-argument to taking that--broadly, eudaimonia--as a foundational premise.

EDIT: Or, similarly, if one cannot identify a higher good (ariston) than eudaimonia? Or, perhaps, more essential good?

I might be conflating moral realism with cognitivism, or some such: I've really been winging this as best I can without going to the bookshelf.

Originally posted by Palynka
The more cracked, the higher likelihood of something going in! This is why I enjoy clashing heads with bbarr's titanium skull.

Agreed. And why I enjoy the interchange with you as well. I might actually be able to argue my way out of being torn. 🙂 I really am winging as fast as I can, though...

Originally posted by vistesd
Bbarr’s first post on page 26 of the thread, where he says at the end:

“And, as I mentioned above, the question "But is X good?" has to stop somewhere. For the secular ethicist, it stops when normative bedrock is reached; when we trace back and explain our considered moral judgments by reference to some basic set or normative concepts. I think that the ...[text shortened]... e; we flourish, or do not, have our well-being, or do not, within existential context.

Thank you for the page number for Bbarr's post :-)
You know you have got into a deep philosophical argument when you have to look up the terms being used.
Also that you are having it at 00:40 is another hint ;-)

I will attempt to stay within the bounds of my regular vocabulary which may require more words to explain things
that could be done faster with a specialised term, but does mean that I remain happy that I am saying what I
mean to say, and hopefully reduces the number of people who will not be able to understand what I say.
Not that I would in anyway attempt to stop you from using such terms, I will follow this with dictionary open :-)

" By the way, I do not think that a [i]eudaimonistic view entails a utopian one; we flourish, or do not,
have our well-being, or do not, within existential context "[/i]

When mentioning that we don't live in a utopia I was saying that the world we live in is imperfect, and the society's
we live in while we try to make them (hopefully) as nice and good as possible are also not perfect.
In fact it can be argued that a perfect society can't in fact exist. (I wont attempt such an argument here though)
Given that I was saying that as morals are by definition for the betterment of society, the different society's we
inhabit imply the possibility of different optimal moral codes.
For example, behaviour that might be perfectly acceptable on dry land, might be unacceptable on a ship at sea,
or in a space habitat, or in a society at peace vs one at war.
If you can't create a 'perfect' moral code that works in all situations then it is more important How you create and
modify your moral code than What it actually contains.


To a certain extent I am 'magicing' these premises into existence although I am not the first to do so,
(I would recommend this http://atheistexperience.blogspot.com/2010/10/matts-superiority-of-secular-morality.html
lecture on secular morality, From which I shamelessly nick ideas, although it doesn't actually contain any concepts
I didn't already hold, it did structure them quite nicely)
However as they are abstract ideas I don't have to come up with a reason for there existence.
Once stated though they can be examined using logic, and reason, and evidence, and I believe found to be justifiable.

They [my premises] are in no particular order, and don't need to be in any particular order to work.

But I start with a definition of sorts of what, for our purposes, a moral system is.
which is "A system for guiding behaviour of humans in a society of humans for the betterment of that society."

So it can't exist in a vacuum, you need a group of humans interacting together for it to have meaning
and those humans have to be working together to form a society.

Now I will happily argue these if you disagree with my formulation of what a moral system is and what its for.
But I think/hope you will find that it is a reasonable working definition of what it is we are actually talking about.

Next I have a practical statement that the moral system should designed on the premise that the default is that everything
is allowed unless you have a good reason to restrict it.
Simply from a practical standpoint that otherwise you have to go through every activity you could possibly do
and work out if it should or should not be allowed in advance.
Experience and history suggests that this is not practical or advisable.

Next I stated that the people who make the rules should have to follow them, or conversely that those who have to follow
the rules should have a say in making them.
This tends to induce the creation of rules that people are happy to follow as otherwise they wouldn't have created them.
You don't impose on yourself rules your not comfortable following.
Also if the rules don't work you are the ones who made them and you can unmake them.

The next one is where we get into what Bbarr is talking about.
At some point you have to come up with root statements about things that are good or bad.
and you then argue about how you define good or bad.

I say you don't have to have this argument.
The point of the moral code as defined above is to make society better, or in fact work at all.

I say you allow the people who live in the society define what they think is good or bad for their society.
Using the principle of 'what if everyone behaved like this' they can come to collective agreement as to what constitutes
good and bad behaviour in the context of their society.

And it doesn't matter (in principle and the long run) if they get it wrong as long as you retain the ability to say,
"Actually that didn't work, lets try something different", And thus by a process of iteration you get closer to a hypothetical
optimum morality for that society even if you never (or could ever) reach it.

Now while you are dealing with humans who will typically react in the affirmative to a statement such as death is generally bad,
life is generally good. Because we have an instinct for self preservation, and the ability to empathise.
You can justify all of these premises by arguing about what life would be like if the premises were wrong, if everyone
behaved that way. If you let people murder at will your society will cease to function properly or likely cease to exist.

Bbarr's is right that you don't need to be able to include or justify to your societies morals to a sociopath (or any other extreme
outlier)
The guiding principle of what would happen if everyone acted this way deals with them.

I think Bbarr and I are in agreement that you don't actually have to get too hung up on the bedrock of
your morality as almost all humans everywhere have a basic sense of right and wrong, and of fairness that is
intrinsic. This gives you your starting point for your base morals.
Some of those instinctual morals are, however, wrong.
But if you put in place a system that takes the output of your moral system, assesses it and then uses that information
to adjust the input morals you will by a process of trial and error build a system that works.

I disagree with Bbarr in as much as I assert that none of these 'bedrock' premises are beyond analysis or review.
If any are found not to work in practice they can be changed.


it's now 01:44 and probably way past the point at which I still make sense.
I will come back to this tomorrow (and probably cringe).
till then I 'hope' this makes some sense.
Till then I do recommend the video I linked earlier as it does address this topic specifically.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Thank you for the page number for Bbarr's post :-)
You know you have got into a deep philosophical argument when you have to look up the terms being used.
Also that you are having it at 00:40 is another hint ;-)

I will attempt to stay within the bounds of my regular vocabulary which may require more words to explain things
that could be done faster ...[text shortened]... linked earlier as it does address this topic specifically.

We are in different time zones, and my brains are creamed corn right now. Good stuff. See ya later. 🙂

Originally posted by vistesd
Simply put, I'm not sure it is a smokescreen. It might be a matter of definitions. Again, if "preference" can include something like an evolutionary (genetic? naturally innate to living organisms?) imperative, then why is it a smokescreen to declare that imperative. I used to put it (before I ever heard the word eudaimonia) as a twin natural imper ...[text shortened]... r some such: I've really been winging this as best I can without going to the bookshelf.

I don't find biological imperative arguments appealing because they have no way to deal with deviations from the norm, and there are no true universals. At best, for realism purposes, biology gives you propensities and these are statistical arguments that I don't find appealing.

Take your example of child rape. Sure, the vast majority of humans seem repulsed by it and are ready to use force to prevent it. But does that make it an imperative? If some radiation hit the earth, changed our DNA and 99,9999% of the people (you excluded) now found it acceptable would you bow to that statistical norm? If not, aren't you building a smoke screen to hide that ultimately morals cannot escape subjectivity? So in the end, even if you want to reduce all morality to genetics, it will be YOUR personal genes that matter and if moral truths exist, they are again subjective.

And if you say, it's the thriving of the species as a whole that matters, regardless of individual, then you can always find examples where the species is unaffected but atrocities are possible. Take a man and a child on a spaceship hurtling towards the sun with no change of escape, is child rape acceptable in that situation? Obviously not, but the criteria no longer holds water. It's also easy to go further and construct scenarios where actions that might benefit the collective by hurting certain individuals would still not pass the test.

So, to sum it up:
1) there is no universality. If you accept propensity in determining right or wrong, be ready to accept statistical majority as being right (not just when it agrees with you) in ALL cases.

2) If you pick "whatever benefits the species most" as an argument then be again ready to bow to the collective over the individual, even over marginal collective benefit.

Eudaimonia seems not to solve much for me, although it can be useful. You need deeper primitives to give meaning to the word, as it is charged by the user's views on what is worthy. For me it seems that it helps in organizing your preferences coherently (and perhaps help in translating them into certain actions), but it does not really serve as a way escape subjectivity.

Originally posted by Palynka
I don't find biological imperative arguments appealing because they have no way to deal with deviations from the norm, and there are no true universals. At best, for realism purposes, biology gives you propensities and these are statistical arguments that I don't find appealing.

Take your example of child rape. Sure, the vast majority of humans seem repul ...[text shortened]... g them into certain actions), but it does not really serve as a way escape subjectivity.

But why is universality of morals an inherently desirable thing?
Or even an achievable thing?

Take for example,

Theft is usually considered to be morally wrong. (and also typically legally wrong)

If you live in a society where material possessions cost time and energy to build up the
capital to acquire, or time spent away from earning capital to make, capital that is also
needed to provide food and shelter.
Then the loss of such possessions to theft is a big deal.

If however you live in a post scarcity society (the Culture from Ian M. Banks novels being an
example of such a society) where you can have anything you want within reason (reason being
your personal resource budget/ration in your society, which for these purposes is defined as
being huge) just by asking for it, theft becomes mearly a minor nuisance, and not a threat to
your financial and/or material wealth. In fact the main emotion from the post scarcity victim
is likely to be puzzlement as to why the thief didn't just ask for whatever it was they stole,
before they do precisely that and have it replaced.

Thus theft in these two societies does not have the same meaning, or moral implications.

Now we are unlikely to see post scarcity societies around soon (although we can hope)
But the point still holds that morals are for the better running of society and thus are somewhat
dependent on the society they are in.

The idea of Universal, absolute morals implies the existence of a moral code independent of the
people who follow it. I don't believe that you can claim such a thing to be true.
Morals don't exist in a vacuum, they need a society of people to exist.

Originally posted by googlefudge
But why is universality of morals an inherently desirable thing?
Or even an achievable thing?

Take for example,

Theft is usually considered to be morally wrong. (and also typically legally wrong)

If you live in a society where material possessions cost time and energy to build up the
capital to acquire, or time spent away from earning capital ...[text shortened]... a thing to be true.
Morals don't exist in a vacuum, they need a society of people to exist.

I didn't say it was, did I? In fact, I'm arguing that ultimately it is purely subjective.

Originally posted by Palynka
I didn't say it was, did I? In fact, I'm arguing that ultimately it is purely subjective.

Ah sorry, my mistake.

I would disagree however that its not possible to have objective morality.
Just that there is no 'one true' morality that works in all situations.
This doesn't preclude the existence of an objectively optimum morality
for any given society.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Ah sorry, my mistake.

I would disagree however that its not possible to have objective morality.
Just that there is no 'one true' morality that works in all situations.
This doesn't preclude the existence of an objectively optimum morality
for any given society.

Disagreement is good. 🙂

If this interests you, can you track back a bit and read what was posted? I don't feel like restarting all of this and rehashing many things that were probably said before...

Originally posted by Palynka
I don't find biological imperative arguments appealing because they have no way to deal with deviations from the norm, and there are no true universals. At best, for realism purposes, biology gives you propensities and these are statistical arguments that I don't find appealing.

Take your example of child rape. Sure, the vast majority of humans seem repul ...[text shortened]... g them into certain actions), but it does not really serve as a way escape subjectivity.

Good and thoughtful post. I’ll just make a couple of comments, and then I’ll digest it for awhile.

What is the difference, re this discussion, between universalities and absolutes? I might agree that there is no universal “redness” absent instantiation of a certain wavelength of light, etc. I doubt that one can speak of “absolute red” except by fiat—“We’ll call just this wavelength ‘absolute red’.”

The thing about statistical distributions is that the whole distribution needs to be taken into account, which is what I hear you saying (fat tails, anyone?). And I would certainly reject “rule by propensity” (or central tendency). Nevertheless, propensities—and helpful ones—can be recognized.

Individual well-being and collective well-being are only in conflict if they are actually rival. I would argue that they are not necessarily, and perhaps even generally. Theoretically, one could map a frequency distribution there, too—not only of actual patterns of rivalry/cooperation, but, with some assumptions about or proxies for well-being, of an area of central tendency that maximizes the individual well-being of the members of the group as opposed to their well-being absent the group.

With all that’s said, I withdraw my language of “imperative”, and simply replace it with propensity, something like this:

“The overwhelming propensity of living organisms is toward thriving (flourishing well-being). Both the general conditions for the thriving of any such organism, including humans, and the exceptions can be mapped on frequency distributions fruitfully for analysis.”

This seems to make eudaimonia more of a helpful organizer, as you suggest, but keeps what I still see as a quasi-universality that is statistically measurable. (Not that the statistical measure says everything; there still needs to be explanation.) I suggest that any statistical mapping of human ethical behavior will show the overwhelming tendency toward individual well-being (by which I mean physical and psychological health—again, the opposite of well-being is ill-being), and that social organizations have the propensity to support that. Where social organizations do not support that, they may be ethically criticized. I can see no reason not to cast well-being into an ethical mode, as the foundational “good”—indeed, I would see tendencies toward “ill-being” as ethically questionable. And I do not see explainable exceptions (risking one’s life for one’s child, for example; or for the tribe, say, when the tribe is recognized as a necessary support to well-being generally) as real defeaters.

Some notion of “the commons” (expanded beyond land) may well be vital to the flourishing well-being of the members of humanity as a whole, or of any particular social group. I would not see that as a defeater either. The “individual good versus collective good” may well be—except at the tails of the distribution—a false dichotomy.

BTW, with my quasi-hermit lifestyle, I am probably outside the area of central tendency; true hermits are further out on the tail. That just means that I see less active participation in “the commons” as needed (or helpful) for my eudaimonia than the general population likely does—but it is not a conscious choice toward ill-being.

Okay, that was more than “a couple comments”—just stream of consciousness…

Originally posted by googlefudge
Ah sorry, my mistake.

I would disagree however that its not possible to have objective morality.
Just that there is no 'one true' morality that works in all situations.
This doesn't preclude the existence of an objectively optimum morality
for any given society.

This, and your prior post remind me that there is often a distinction between "ethics" and "morality". For example, when Nietzsche referred to "morality" (generally negatively), he meant a particular moral code. Morality sometimes refers to a codified ethics, and that seems to be more what you're arguing against, in terms of no one moral code fitting all circumstances, social organizations, etc.

However, sometimes the two terms are used interchangeably, sometimes may be given just the opposite "spin" as the example above.

The chapter on ethics in The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy generally conflates the two terms, but the discussion of Aristotle’s “search for the good [or excellent]” seems a specific consideration of ethics. The chapter on morality, however, defines morality as “an informal public system applying to all rational persons, governing behavior that affects others, having the lessening of evil or harm as its goal, and including what are commonly known as the moral rules, moral ideals, and moral virtues”.

I use the term “ethics” in reference to the general question “How ought I (one) to live”? What makes it ethical is that “ought”. Without that “ought”, there is no question of ethics at all. But that “ought” leads to the question: “Toward what end?”.

And that really seems to be the debate here. I am still in the camp that says one can fruitfully speak of an “ought”, but must identify an appropriate end. I am still with Aristotle (or at least some version of virtue ethics), in that I can identify no more foundation “end” (good) than flourishing well-being. However, I recognize—as did Aristotle—that that most often includes a social context (given humans’ propensity for social living), and suggest that some expanded notion of “the commons” may well be helpful in identifying contiguity between the good of the individual and the good of society (the “tribe”, so to speak). [Note also my revision based on Palynka’s critique.)

However, I am not proposing a moral code, and I differentiate between “ethics” and “morality” as outlined above. In terms of “morality”, I likely agree with at least most of what you say (and I don’t want to cherry-pick for the sake of argument).

BTW, I appreciate the video reference, but I have a very slow dial-up connection—can’t even listen to much audio from online (“buffering, buffering”!). Thanks, though.