In metaphysics there’s this thing calledQualia. It’s a fancy Latin word used to mean the essence, or quality of consciousness. In sight for example it’s the difference between the human mind that sees the picture and the camera that took it. One captures light and converts it to data the other has the experience of sight.
You can give the wave length of blue, but can you describe it such that a person blind from birth would know what it’s like to see blue?
If you can’t objectively describe the experience of seeing blue, without being self referential, then logically one must conclude either the experience of seeing blue is a mass delusion, or that some real things aren’t objectively describable, or possibly that somethings are self referential.
The last two options allow for morality even if isn’t completely objective in it’s description.
One possible objection is what is blue is generally agreed.
However two arguments agains that objection:
some color blind people, and the blind. It’s not blue to them. It’s either N/A or some other color.
Ambiguous colors. bluish purple, or purplish blue? Maybe greenish blue? No no it’s more a green. People don’t agree and what color is what all the time. Further they change appearance under different lights.
Just like some have different ideas about morality, people can see colors different, or sadly not at all. Yet the experience of seeing colors is very real.
Nope, just the existence of it despite no objectivist definition.
If the argument was extended to absolute vs relative morality I think it could be made into argument for either, but the relative morality argument would be stronger, in my opinion.
Still I repeat the nature of morality isn’t the debate, just its existence.
Huh? We can all agree blue is blue (english speakers anyway), because it is defined outside of ourselves.
It is what we call the experience of being exposed to certain wavelengths of light we have named “blue”.
When we experience them, it is because some organs (the eyes) act as sensor for the physical light, and then certain neurochemical things happen, and we call that experience “seeing blue”.
That we can’t yet trace the details of the neuro-issues and the details of how the chemicals and neurons in our brain work doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.
We can use instruments to measure the wavelengths, and then we are simply conditioned to call the viewing of that “blue” in English or “aou” in Japanese or whatever.
We don’t need to get fancy about whether we see it the same way or not, in fact we know we don’t all see it the same way as our vision can be degraded or affected in many ways. Even synesthesia causes changes in our experience.
But that doesn’t change the fact that we all experience “seeing blue”. there is nothing mystical about it, it is just that we haven’t yet reverse engineered the details between the sensors and the processing.
But we know full well the details are there waiting to be unraveled.
I’m not sure that morality isn’t objectively describable (and I’m not sure I’m grasping what self-referential means here, so I’ll leave that alone for now). I’ll take a little stab at it (hope y’all rip it to pieces so I can learn me some debate skillz):
Morality is not what is generally agreed upon. Yes, there are some things that generally agreed to be immoral: rape, murder, theft. But they’re not immoral simply because we agree they are, they’re immoral because they are harmful; they are acts that hurt others in some manner.
As a species, our self-awareness, our consciousness, our ability to perceive the world around us and other people in it and ability to see how our actions might affect others, places a responsibility upon us to act in manners which results in as little harm and as much benefit as possible. I don’t believe there is a purpose to the universe; but it seems to me that, simply by its existing, the ability to perceive harm and benefit does require action. Or inaction. Whichever is least harmful – to us as a species first of all and then to the rest of the world.
“First, try to do no harm” is the basic tenet of morality (we as a species seem to have an innate sense of this, not given to us by a god, but which appeared as an adaptive trait in one of our [species’] ancestors), as evidenced by most of our generally agreed upon morality taking the form of prohibiting harmful behaviours.
Objective morality doesn’t make sense and is extremely biased towards human affairs. If God is throwing rapists into hell then that’s God’s opinion on the morality of rape. If humans have inbuilt moral systems in the brain this is a result of evolution and has little bearing on objective facts, other than the fact we have opinion generating systems on what we think other humans ought to do. My opinion on rape is no more objective than my opinion on pie.
“Murder is wrong” doesn’t mean anything. It’s an opinion, and a flexible one at that.
No it doesn’t. Our abilities don’t place anything anywhere. In your opinion they do, of course, but you have to recognize that it’s not an actual fact of reality that is independent of your brain. Responsibility is another word that entails subjective opinion.
That’s just your opinion. Nothing is actually required, whatever that would even mean. You’re antropomorphizing the universe by ascribing desires to it, despite your claim to believe it doesn’t have a purpose.
For example, in pre-state societies the murder rate among males was extremely high. Successfully murdering your rivals could be rewarded with wealth and power, which meant more children. If anything, your genetic responsibility would be to ignore the less pressing moral responsibility.
If humans had innate agreed upon morality there would be little need for debates on many topics. If we agreed that doing harm to one another was really bad there wouldn’t be war or widespread violent crime. In reality they’re all opinions which can change to suit our purposes.
Definitely. People have opinions on what other people should do, especially if it benefits the person pronouncing it. We all have a little Gladys Kravitz in us.
TTR, it appears that you started this thread in response to my hijack of another thread. I’m happy to respond to you in this thread as soon as you state plainly what you are trying to say. Thanks.
A: Build a device that vibrates when pointed at objects which reflect light with a wavelength between 440–490 nm and a frequency between 680–610 Thz.
B: Give it to a person with no experience of the color blue. But with a sense of touch. If the person does not have a sense of touch, a sense of hearing may be substituted. If the person has neither touch nor hearing, improvise a variation on A such that they can sense it. Possibly via smell. If the person has no senses at all, you are going to have issues communicating the experiment to them, find a new person.
C: Have the person point it at objects. Ask them if the device vibrates. If so, it is blue. Congratulations, they have now experienced blue.
AAaaand that’s how an engineer would solve the problem. Possibly completely missing the point, but highly effective anyhow.
There is a fourth possibility: that it can be objectively described, but human language isn’t up to the task. There are examples of this. Jargon is used in science because natural language doesn’t have the precision needed for science. Specialized notation is used in mathematics for the same reason.
Wouldn’t work. The object would vibrate when it sees white as well.
My experience of desires is that they are (barring other conflicting desires), things that should happen. That, too, is an objective fact. Indeed, I’d be willing to define “should” as “referring to that which is the object of a desire.”
As far as I can tell, there are plenty of desires out there besides my own. I see no fundamental difference between those desires and my own.
Therefore, I see no fundamental reason why I should classify those desires differently: if my own (barring conflicting desires) should be fulfilled, so should those others.
So here’s our very basic underpinning of objective morality: as far as I can tell, desires (barring conflicting desires) should be fulfilled.
When I have conflicting desires, I judge them. Which desires are more important? Which desires are easiest to fulfill? Which ones result in the greatest overall satisfaction? I should do the thing that fulfills the more important desire, that is the easiest to do, and/or that results in the greatest overall satisfaction. Again, if I define “should” as I do above, that’s what I should do.
When desires conflict with desires outside of me, I see no reason not to make a similar judgment on what I should do.
So that’s how you ostensibly determine what you do and don’t do. But let’s say someone else does something that you wouldn’t have done based on that system. Do you say “what that person has done is immoral”? If you do say that, then do you think your statement is one of objective fact (i.e., a testable statement, the same as “water is wet”)?
If I should do it, why shouldn’t they? I see no relevant difference between them and me: as near as I can tell, other people experience desires, so they’re aware of the “should” dynamic, and they are aware that others besides themselves experience desires, so they know that not only their own desires should be fulfilled, and they know how they handle conflicting desires, so they know how conflicting desires should be handled. And that’s what they should do: they should do the thing that results in maximal desire fulfillment, given the complex judgment that must be made when desires conflict.
And if they don’t do that thing, then that changes my equation for the thing that I should do.
What are natural rights? I’m not being obtuse, I’ve never heard the term before. It’s been a long while since I spent any time around these boards and I haven’t seen those threads.
I have no belief in god or hell. And I do think that any moral system we have is a result of evolution.
What makes you think we can’t be objective about pie, or that how we feel about pie is purely opinion? Our subjective experience of a pie can be broken down into facts about the taste and consistency of its filling and topping, about the texture of its crust, about whether or not it is cooked or overcooked, or too hot or too cold, and about the number of each specific type of taste bud we have and about the sensitivity of those taste buds.
And beyond that there are facts about the purpose of the taste buds: we have taste buds for salt and sweet because our bodies need salt and sugar; we have taste buds for bitter and sour because many poisons are bitter or sour. I myself am not a pie guy. I have never developed a sweet tooth, and so I find most pies and most desserts too sweet for my taste. That is a fact. A fact about myself which I can and just did consider objectively.
I can also consider objectively the why of my sweet tooth lack – there are a number of possibilities as to why: I may have more or less sweet taste buds than average; my sweet taste buds may be more or less sensitive than average. I can make formal, falsifible hypotheses for each of those things and conduct experiments to determine which one is a fact. I can then make more hypotheses about why I ended up with that configuration of taste buds. And they will be testable, too. In other words, it is not true that we are unable to be objective about our subjective experience. (I guess this is what The Tao’s Revenge meant by self-referential in the OP?)
And since we are able to be objective about subjective experience I see no problem with an objective morality. Nor do I see the need to base that morality on any god.
Well, those are your opinions.
It is a fact that we are conscious beings with desires in a world full of other conscious beings with desires. And beyond desires, we have primary needs for water, food, shelter, etc., plus a biological drive to pass on our genes and to protect and nurture the resulting vehicles of our genes so that they can survive to also pass them on. And once again, we live among others with who have those same needs, and that same drive.
To harm the carriers of our own genes is self-defeating. To harm the carriers of another’s genes invites retaliation. So morality is at base an unconscious cost/benefit analysis connected to our emotions. We feel that something is wrong – immoral – and then we rationalize about why it is immoral. That is an innate morality. It objectively exists. And we can examine it objectively.
And responsibility, just like pie, can be broken down into facts and considered objectively. It is a fact that we have emotions and that they influence our judgement as much as reason does, if not more, and from those emotions rise feelings such as responsibility.
I am not ascribing desires to the universe. If you read that as me anthropomorphizing the universe, it may be my fault for being careless with my placement of pronouns: the “its” in “its existing” refers to “the ability to perceive harm and benefit” not to the “universe.”
I’ll address your claim about murder in pre-state societies and genetic responsibility below, though I may not directly reference it.
I claimed an innate morality, not an “innate agreed upon morality.” There is a difference. And in fact I specifically pointed out that is not agreement that decides what is moral and what is not.
It is a fact that we try to keep the carriers of our genes from harm. And it is a fact that the proportion of genes we share with people has an impact on how much effort we will expend to keep them from harm, and on how much harm we will expose ourselves to in the process. We will risk more for a sibling than for a cousin.
It is also a fact that our desires can overwhelm our moral sense. But the moral sense, our innate morality, is still there, and we experience guilt, shame, fear when we act contrary to it. But that again is a cost/benefit equation – how much emotional turmoil are we willing to endure for the gratification of our desires?
Let me ask you something. Do you believe, for instance, that female genital mutilation should be practiced? If so, why? And if not, why not?
OK. So if a person does something that they shouldn’t do, and you say “this person has done something immoral,” do you think that statement you just made is a statement of objective fact?
Inasmuch as “immoral” means “doing that which should not be done,” then yes: it’s objectively true. (Of course, I may be wrong: this is my best understanding of what morality is.)
The experience of seeing the color blue (or any of the colors we lump together under the category ‘blue’) is the same for everybody with eyes sensitive to a range of wavelengths. It’s simple to describe objectively:
You don’t need to be able to see the color blue to relate this someone else. My eyes are less sensitive to blue than others, so blue-green colors identified as blue by others appear green to me. But I understand that’s because of a characteristic of my retinae. And I understand that what I see is green may include blue that I can’t recognize.
Morality is not that simple. There is no wavelength of actions that can be readily identified as immoral. It’s not that people see an immoral act differently, they interpret the morality of it differently. The legal concept of insanity is usually based on a person’s recognition that others see their actions as wrong, not the individuals perception of morality. We define an immoral act by consensus, not the differing perceptions of the physical act. But we can just as easily provide an objective decription of why we believe X is immoral. For some it may be as simple as ‘all X are immoral’ or ‘it feels like X is immoral’, and for others there are rules for determining if X is immoral.
If you are considering whether or not morality exists, that’s even simpler. Morality is not a material thing. It’s a concept. You can’t see it or touch it. It doesn’t radiate. So it does not exist in the way that the color blue does. It exists only so far as it is conceived by individuals, or agreed upon by groups of individuals.
Wrong. It’s not a matter of people conferring and agreeing upon one way to act over another. Morality is based in the brain, and can be objectively measured. And it almost certainly not culturally relative.
