What is your moral philosophy?

Ren said:
So in a sense morals really are subjective.
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By the way, just one note on this: what if someone said to the extent morals are subjective, they don't exist? That is, if morals are about what one *ought to do*, perhaps the real options are either we don't have any such *ought* reasons and we simply do things..... or we actually have *ought* reasons, in which case it's objective.

I know what people are trying to get at when they say morals are subjective is that they value different things. But at best, that would show there's an objective morality that simply requires different people to do different things in order to uphold it. Perhaps it would require Hitler to commit genocide, and require me not to commit genocide.

But the greater challenge is perhaps this is more convoluted than just saying there don't exist 'oughts' period, kind of like a Dark Knight Joker "I just do things!" free-for-all.
What the above scenario sounds like to me is that the objective morals speak to objective obligations, but to strive for different results. That is, it says it's coherent for me to be obligated to pursue X and you to be obligated to pursue not-X. That's still objective morals but just not in terms of consequences.

Overall, I have a hard time understanding how one would found morals on this contradictory consequences basis, so it leads me to suspect what's really being stated is a Joker-morality, aka no morality.
 
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charlatan said:
By the way, just one note on this: what if someone said to the extent morals are subjective, they don't exist? That is, if morals are about what one *ought to do*, perhaps the real options are either we don't have any such *ought* reasons and we simply do things..... or we actually have *ought* reasons, in which case it's objective.

I know what people are trying to get at when they say morals are subjective is that they value different things. But at best, that would show there's an objective morality that simply requires different people to do different things in order to uphold it. Perhaps it would require Hitler to commit genocide, and require me not to commit genocide.

But the greater challenge is perhaps this is more convoluted than just saying there don't exist 'oughts' period, kind of like a Dark Knight Joker "I just do things!" free-for-all.
What the above scenario sounds like to me is that the objective morals speak to objective obligations, but to strive for different results. That is, it says it's coherent for me to be obligated to pursue X and you to be obligated to pursue not-X. That's still objective morals but just not in terms of consequences.

Overall, I have a hard time understanding how one would found morals on this contradictory consequences basis, so it leads me to suspect what's really being stated is a Joker-morality, aka no morality.
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Pain is subjective but I think we can agree that it exists, right?

Subjective things are things that arise internally rather than externally. We say morality is subjective because the source seems to be of internal origins. That doesn't even have to mean that we value different things. The way we generally understand the concept of pain or other feelings proves that.

The main problem with subjective morality arises when morality becomes prescriptive rather than descriptive - i.e. you have an outside source telling you what to feel about inside oriented concepts.
 
sprinkles said:
Pain is subjective but I think we can agree that it exists, right?
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This is in a way exactly my point -- pain is experienced subjectively, but the fact that it happened is objective. If the fact that it happened were also subjective, it would kind of be a self-defeating thing.

I'm suggesting that to be clear-headed about morality, one has to remember it's about what one ought to do. Either there are things one ought to do or not. How one is informed of what one ought to do may be akin to the pain or whatever (that's up for discussion, but it's a possibility for now).... however, that this experience entails some ought would still be something objective.

And to me, this brings us to the question: sure, let's grant that each person may have radically different oughts in terms of the actions prescribed. But how is it an objective fact that they ought to do those things? Why couldn't the same arguments they use to say there are no objective things we all should strive for as consequences be used to say there are no objective oughts that obligate us period, and we simply do things?
That is, to use the example of genocide, say someone says "well you may find genocide wrong, but I don't" -- I then ask well, IS genocide wrong or not wrong to you? Or, is there in reality no notion of right and wrong for you or me?

In different words, subjectivity of experience is one thing, subjectivity of reasons is quite another, and it's the latter that I'm saying sounds muddled.
 
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charlatan said:
This is in a way exactly my point -- pain is experienced subjectively, but the fact that it happened is objective. If the fact that it happened were also subjective, it would kind of be a self-defeating thing.

I'm suggesting that to be clear-headed about morality, one has to remember it's about what one ought to do. Either there are things one ought to do or not. How one is informed of what one ought to do may be akin to the pain or whatever (that's up for discussion, but it's a possibility for now).... however, that this experience entails some ought would still be something objective.

And to me, this brings us to the question: sure, let's grant that each person may have radically different oughts in terms of the actions prescribed. But how is it an objective fact that they ought to do those things? Why couldn't the same arguments they use to say there are no objective things we all should strive for as consequences be used to say there are no objective oughts that obligate us period, and we simply do things?

In different words, subjectivity of experience is one thing, subjectivity of reasons is quite another, and it's the latter that I'm saying sounds muddled.
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Sounds like the is-ought problem.

 
@sprinkles -- yeah, and my point is I wonder if people who are saying you can't ever derive an ought from an is actually are bound to saying there ARE NO OUGHTS PERIOD.

The point of this is I'm laying a challenge down: I'm saying don't tell me your morals ain't the same as mine unless you're prepared to accept and succeed at the challenge to demonstrate that there exist morals even for you.
I won't respect your point of view as your own, instead I'll question if you even HAVE a point of view.

I guess I tend to the objectivity side in the sense that I'm more willing to accept there's no morality than to accept that it's in some meaningful sense subjective.
 
@sprinkles: just reasons to do something in the same way as it's rational to believe in the laws of physics or whatever.

I tend to the objective morals side myself, but I'm saying the alternative to it isn't, to my current understanding, subjective morals so much as a morals-don't-exist thing.

I can understand subjectivity of experience, but I cannot understand subjectivity of morals. Oughts don't seem like the kinds of things that can be subjective.

I realize you're not necessarily suggesting we ought to value different things, but it's very common for subjective-morals to mean that we just have incompatible pov or something. And it was that variety I was addressing. If your variety is simply suggesting our subjective experiences contribute to our knowledge of moral obligations, that's quite separate/not anything I was challenging.
 
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I subscribe to a faith that sort of has an established system of morality that addresses the big questions in life, like stealing, scamming, murder, etc. I do not find myself dwelling on what is right or wrong often. In my everyday life, however, I often bounce between "self-preservation", "an eye for an eye", and "do no harm", depending on how people treat me and react to me. If I am not bothered or provoked, my efforts in life are focused on two things: achieving my potential and caring deeply for those I love.
 
John K said:
We and our nature are as much part of the world as the matter, energy and the physical laws from which we and everything else are constructed.... I see no reason why on that basis there shouldn't be a moral code hard wired into the world in an analogous way to the laws of physics.
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Yes exactly!

John K said:
But it seems to me it couldn't be exactly analogous - do you have any views on how the hypothesis - test cycle could be set up objectively to research on moral law? It seems to me much more difficult to make objective observations in response to moral hypotheses than it does for hard science. It may need us to encounter other civilisations elsewhere in the universe to really get to grips with this. Fascinating stuff ….
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Moral philosophy is not a science, so we can skip over that bit. Just a bit of preliminaries before I start, criticism and refutation is never absolute! Humans are fallible and make mistakes. No matter how certain we are that a theory/philosophy/explanation has been refuted, it is always possible that we simply made a mistake. And so it is always possible that someone clever might come along at some point in the future and expose our horrid mistake. In fact, the situation is even worse than that. We are not only prone to error, we are gauranteed to make them no matter how much we prepare for them. EVERY refutation contains some error that may be discovered at some point in the future. I won't justify this here though, sorry. The important point to remember is that we should accept ALL refutations only provisionally. And this includes scientific falsifications!

Anyway, one way to criticize a moral is to compare it against the facts of reality. Suppose one day you decide that it is immoral to be homosexual! And your explanation is that homosexuality causes harm! What can we say here? Well, there are always two parts to a moral: the prescription and it's explanation. We want to criticize the explanation: 'because it causes harm'. Now, we could question it and ask "what is your definition of harm" or "what counts as homosexuality?". Honestly, these kinds of criticisms are too derpy to take seriously, so please let's not go there. Anyway, another way to do it is by looking at the facts of the matter! Is homosexuality really harmful? And if it is, what are the causes? Is it harmful in its own right? Or is the harm caused by the prejudice of others? Whatever the facts, it's clear that we can use them to criticize the explanation. We have found a potential source of error worth questioning: tentatively of course. Are there other sources of error? Well yes! You could argue philosophically that "preferences don't cause harm, actions do. Therefore the explanation is nonsensical". Admittedly, I don't know how you might argue this! But it's another potential source of error that may be worth investigating!

In reality, there are an infinity of ways to criticize a moral. Just like there are an infinity of ways to criticize a scientific or philosophical theory. The limit is your imagination! Asking for a standard method is to miss the point completely! The whole purpose of putting any kind of human knowledge through cycles of critical examination is to creatively find new and potentially interesting sources of error.
 
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charlatan said:
@sprinkles: just reasons to do something in the same way as it's rational to believe in the laws of physics or whatever.

I tend to the objective morals side myself, but I'm saying the alternative to it isn't, to my current understanding, subjective morals so much as a morals-don't-exist thing.

I can understand subjectivity of experience, but I cannot understand subjectivity of morals. Oughts don't seem like the kinds of things that can be subjective.

I realize you're not necessarily suggesting we ought to value different things, but it's very common for subjective-morals to mean that we just have incompatible pov or something. And it was that variety I was addressing. If your variety is simply suggesting our subjective experiences contribute to our knowledge of moral obligations, that's quite separate/not anything I was challenging.
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We can have different values, but that doesn't mean we have to. I don't even think that most views are all that incompatible. It has more to do with people being unwilling to negotiate or let other people be than it does the views themselves.

I would argue that most people get along until they find a reason not to. Like it suddenly matters just because they realized it.
 
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wolly.green said:
Yes exactly!



Moral philosophy is not a science, so we can skip over that bit. Just a bit of preliminaries before I start, criticism and refutation is never absolute! Humans are fallible and make mistakes. No matter how certain we are that a theory/philosophy/explanation has been refuted, it is always possible that we simply made a mistake. And so it is always possible that someone clever might come along at some point in the future and expose our horrid mistake. In fact, the situation is even worse than that. We are not only prone to error, we are gauranteed to make them no matter how much we prepare for them. EVERY refutation contains some error that may be discovered at some point in the future. I won't justify this here though, sorry. The important point to remember is that we should accept ALL refutations only provisionally. And this includes scientific falsifications!

Anyway, one way to criticize a moral is to compare it against the facts of reality. Suppose one day you decide that it is immoral to be homosexual! And your explanation is that homosexuality causes harm! What can we say here? Well, there are always two parts to a moral: the prescription and it's explanation. We want to criticize the explanation: 'because it causes harm'. Now, we could question it and ask "what is your definition of harm" or "what counts as homosexuality?". Honestly, these kinds of criticisms are too derpy to take seriously, so please let's not go there. Anyway, another way to do it is by looking at the facts of the matter! Is homosexuality really harmful? And if it is, what are the causes? Is it harmful in its own right? Or is the harm caused by the prejudice of others? Whatever the facts, it's clear that we can use them to criticize the explanation. We have found a potential source of error worth questioning: tentatively of course. Are there other sources of error? Well yes! You could argue philosophically that "preferences don't cause harm, actions do. Therefore the explanation is nonsensical". Admittedly, I don't know how you might argue this! But it's another potential source of error that may be worth investigating!

In reality, there are an infinity of ways to criticize a moral. Just like there are an infinity of ways to criticize a scientific or philosophical theory. The limit is your imagination! Asking for a standard method is to miss the point completely! The whole purpose of putting any kind of human knowledge through cycles of critical examination is to creatively find new and potentially interesting sources of error.
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That's very helpful - I was a bit concerned that you may be heading towards a standardised method. Your approach sounds like common sense to me - I think a lot of our learning processes take place like this. Of course if we have different standards of validation we will end up with different moral values (I may decide based on What Offends God, while someone else may use Do No Harm as their yardstick), but that's just the way the world is. In some ways, I think one of the most serious moral infractions is when people close themselves off from any new input and refuse to review their viewpoint on an ongoing basis.
 
sprinkles said:
@John K
I would say that Natural Law arises... naturally where organisms coexist. A big difference that separates natural law from physical law is that physical law generally cannot be violated.

We are capable of doing only what the universe allows, and I think there is a reason we are able to go against natural law. Everything in this universe exists as a result of some prior thing being destroyed. We want to live and beat suffering and death, but suffering and death is also the reason we live.
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That's very interesting @sprinkles - and even more interestingly, I'm not sure that in some sense human freedom of will does not violate physical law, in an analogous way that it can violate natural moral law. I'm assuming here that freedom of will is a prerequisite for any moral system to exist that applies to humans, and there seems to be no room in science as we know it currently for consciousness and free will to be included. My feeling is that Natural Law is part of the foundation of the world which is a necessary condition for self-conscious creatures like us to evolve. But it's so frustrating using thread comments to discuss these things - it's so easy to sound dogmatic when I mean to be speculative, which is what these thoughts are meant to be!
 
John K said:
That's very helpful - I was a bit concerned that you may be heading towards a standardised method. Your approach sounds like common sense to me - I think a lot of our learning processes take place like this. Of course if we have different standards of validation we will end up with different moral values (I may decide based on What Offends God, while someone else may use Do No Harm as their yardstick), but that's just the way the world is. In some ways, I think one of the most serious moral infractions is when people close themselves off from any new input and refuse to review their viewpoint on an ongoing basis.
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Well it's absolutely vital that there are different standards of validation. Without variation, criticism is impossible. And without criticism, truth is impossible to discover. That we have different standards of validation is not a flaw, it is a necessity. That's why I care so much about respect for individual freedom and autonomy! Because without it, civilization will fail and die.
 
Actually @John K I would go one step further! All civilizations that fail to recognise the importance of openness and individuality eventually collapse. This is one thing I believe Ayn Rand was correct about. The individual is very important and must be protected against tyranny!

I sound very dogmatic right now, sorry about that! Anyway what are your thoughts?
 
wolly.green said:
Actually @John K I would go one step further! All civilizations that fail to recognise the importance of openness and individuality eventually collapse. This is one thing I believe Ayn Rand was correct about. The individual is very important and must be protected against tyranny!

I sound very dogmatic right now, sorry about that! Anyway what are your thoughts?
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I couldn't agree more. Societies and civilisations aren't sentient - individual people are, and they are the most precious thing we know of in our world. We need some measure of collective regulation of course otherwise there would just be anarchy and we'd be back to the stone age, but it must be minimal, constantly under review and subject to democratic change.

I thought you sounded earnest and focused rather than dogmatic :smiley:
 
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