What is your moral philosophy?

[wolly.green]

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

Yes exactly! The individual is precious. Well said!

 

[sprinkles]

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!

I understand what you're saying, but things which violate physical law are literally impossible to happen. If we see something that does, that indicates that we don't actually understand physical law entirely.

I agree that natural law is necessary for evolution. Pressure is too, though. Also I don't think free will is really what people believe it is, it is more like freedom of movement - it is actually just rearranging yourself within strict constraints. That would be why there are repeating patterns in human behavior, since there's only so many ways you can act.

 

[Lurk]

I'm consider myself a moral relativist. That no act is inherently good or evil. It's all about perspective.

That said, I'm too much of a softy to apply it to real life.

Killing a baby is so vile it boggles the mind -- or killing a baby is "collateral damage." One baby killer gets the electric chair, the other gets a PTSD service dog. Both babies died painful deaths.

 

[John K]

I understand what you're saying, but things which violate physical law are literally impossible to happen. If we see something that does, that indicates that we don't actually understand physical law entirely.

I agree that natural law is necessary for evolution. Pressure is too, though. Also I don't think free will is really what people believe it is, it is more like freedom of movement - it is actually just rearranging yourself within strict constraints. That would be why there are repeating patterns in human behavior, since there's only so many ways you can act.

Hi @sprinkles - I wondered if you would pick me up on violation of physical law. Yes I think you are right to distinguish between physical law as we know it and as it really is. The problem I have with this is that it seems unlikely to me that you can explain "everything that is" in terms of physics, which is after all a human projection onto the world as we experience it through our senses. Of course we are free to define physical law as that which provides the foundation of everything that is, but that then seems to put it into the same category as the great imponderables such as the existence of god, etc, and it becomes as inaccessible to analysis as they are.

My instinct (setting aside my religious perspective of course which is unhelpful in this sort of conversation) is that our consciousness, as experienced from within won't be easily explained in terms of an extension of physical law as we know it. But that's all it is - instinct - and you could well be right.

 

[sprinkles]

@John K

I don't actually know that physical law is inviolable, it is only a necessary assumption. If we do not make that assumption then knowledge and experimentation becomes meaningless since you have no basis to rule anything out. Mistakes could not be corrected because tomorrow it might not be a mistake. An experiment that failed once might suddenly work the next time for no apparent reason. Discussion would only be good for entertainment and reflection purposes.

So far things don't seem to work that way. Even though we can't explain everything, there's a reason why things happen the way they do and not just randomly, whether we know it or not. We can repeat things reliably even if we don't know why it works that way.

 

[Ren]

The hardest part of your questions to answer relates to faith, and that is where we could get badly diverted. People treat faith quite illogically. So - I have never been to Australia and I only have the word of other people that it exists: it is an act of faith on my part that there is such a place with given characteristics, but that raises no eyebrows. You can argue that all I have to do is get on a plane and go there, but what about all the other places on earth that I've never been to, or the dark side of the Moon. And is it not an act of faith that there was a yesterday. Or can you prove to me conclusively that the Higgs boson exists - I don't mean to an expert, I mean to me in all my ignorance ….. most of our knowledge of the world comes from this sort of faith, faith in what others with expertise or direct experience tell us, not from actual experience of our own, or experimental proof conclusive to each of us individually. So it is with religious or philosophical knowledge - we rely extensively on the word of people who have had certain experiences, been to "places" that most of us don't or can't get to, thought about and processed it with faculties and expertise that we don't have access to, then told us about it.

If you allow me to challenge you here (with love): I'm not sure the "act of faith" that consists in believing that Australia exists is of the same nature as the act of faith in God. In the former case we say that we are certain that the existence of Australia can be empirically verified (i.e. by travelling there). In the latter case the certainty is, it seems to me, of a different nature. It is a kind of certainty that comes from revelation, not from relating virtually to a situation in which the source of belief is empirically verified.

My belief that Australia exists can in theory be falsified. Can your belief in God be falsified? And if so, how?

Please do!

In one of your earlier posts you said the following: "This relativism you believe in is really just a way of denying that progress is possible. It means that we cannot improve our morals in any way whatsoever. Logical positivism said this about truth, and it almost destroyed science. There's also another thing you are not seeing here. Much of science is guided by moral prescriptions: one must search for evidence, one must subject their theories to experimental testing and so on. To say that morals are subjective is to say that science is subjective."

I think the false equivalency lies in the fact that "One must search for evidence" is not a moral proposition (I think). Sure, it looks like it because it contains the word 'must'. But it only means that if you don't search for evidence you're not doing science well, just like if you're trying to score goals against your own team in a game of soccer, you're not playing soccer well. Would you contend that "You must score goals against the opposite team" is a moral proposition?

It's bad science not to search for evidence, but it's not morally bad. I think you're confusing the two senses of the word "bad" (in the same way that @sprinkles confused two senses of the word "better" earlier.) It's not morally wrong not to look for evidence, it's just bad work. Just like scoring against your own team is not wrong in a moral sense, but just disrespecting the rules, i.e. playing badly.

Replace "good versus bad" with "good versus evil" and the trap vanishes.

 

[charlatan]

The problem I have with this is that it seems unlikely to me that you can explain "everything that is" in terms of physics

I don't think so either; if numbers exist that is, as then I'd not guess they're physical...but for what it's worth, I think the idea of inviolable physical law is really just saying whatever we see in *our world* follows the laws of physics at minimum.
It seems like why the physical laws are what they are will have to be philosophy, not physics.

As for mind, I do think there's a big gap between our current description of physics and mind, but hopefully we figure that out (to be realistic it looks like progress isn't going very far now). Going by the evidence at least, what seems to be the case is a) mental events seem very directly correlated with physical events, so one might surmise the mental properties of our world (not saying anything about if mental can exist independent of physical in other worlds) are properties of physical things... b) however, it seems more like at best. they're properties of physical things in the sense that physical things also have mathematical properties. The key here is that, while physical things may necessarily have mathematical properties (as described by the equations of physics), it seems that mathematical properties can belong to nonphysical things too (like abstract mathematical objects, if one thinks they exist and so on).

The takeaway of this is I think the likeliest possibilities are: there isn't a physical explanation of mind OR, there's a physical explanation which in some way forces us to expand our current concept of physics quite a lot, but still keeps physics as the basis of mind.

 

[charlatan]

I want to try to make this as interesting as possible

I think the false equivalency lies in the fact that "One must search for evidence" is not a moral proposition (I think). Sure, it looks like it because it contains the word 'must'

So there are a couple subtleties going on here that I want to comment on, in case it helps both of you address each other!

First, what Ren probably is getting at is the idea that maybe GIVEN you are aiming to do science, there are certain oughts you must follow, but what if nobody said you ought to do science in the first place, or do anything for that matter. At least that's in my own gloss on what I think he's saying.

However, here's where it gets interesting: what if I ask why someone ought to follow certain protocols in order to do good science?
The direction I see Ren's post going is you'd say well that's the definition of science!!! Maybe that isn't the direction it's going, but it certainly seems very natural/common to take it that direction.

The subtlety I see here is what if we don't make that leap of defining science as following the scientific method/etc, and instead say the aim of science is to discover the truth of the physical world? THEN, the real question is are there right and wrong answers as to how to get at that truth. How do we come up with the elaborate methods we use today?

The strongest version of what I'd (possibly mistakenly) think is wolly's point is simply that, if the methods we actually use to arrive at physical truth are themselves merely subjectively better than other methods, then it basically seems like science is just a game we play, not describing an independent external reality.
And this is especially salient given the example Ren gave as an analogy WAS A GAME (what with the scoring goals!), where we have infinite discretion to come up with the rules, vs if we're describing physical truth, and think it corresponds to objective reality, we can't call it at our discretion in entiretly, presumably!
If we're coming up with the 'oughts' needed to do science, aka discover physical truth, we can't call those oughts themselves science, so wolly might surmise they're philosophical oughts, which not unreasonably may be called moral oughts.


However, to bounce back to Ren's point, I'd wonder what if we're asking the more basic question: are there any oughts at all?! That is, ought I be rational? Ought I be scientific?

Certainly if I ought to be anything, it is be rational, as there doesn't seem any grounding for any other ought if you're willing to accept contradictions.
But there's still that beginning "IF" ..

 

[wolly.green]

Would you contend that "You must score goals against the opposite team" is a moral proposition?

Yes I would! I believe this is as much a moral as "one should not murder". Both are prescriptions about how act, both have explanations and so both can be criticized. Another way of seeing it is that one cannot act without a morality. Without morals, one would be a lifeless cabbage. What do you personally morals are?

 

[wolly.green]

I want to try to make this as interesting as possible



So there are a couple subtleties going on here that I want to comment on, in case it helps both of you address each other!

First, what Ren probably is getting at is the idea that maybe GIVEN you are aiming to do science, there are certain oughts you must follow, but what if nobody said you ought to do science in the first place, or do anything for that matter. At least that's in my own gloss on what I think he's saying.

However, here's where it gets interesting: what if I ask why someone ought to follow certain protocols in order to do good science?
The direction I see Ren's post going is you'd say well that's the definition of science!!! Maybe that isn't the direction it's going, but it certainly seems very natural/common to take it that direction.

The subtlety I see here is what if we don't make that leap of defining science as following the scientific method/etc, and instead say the aim of science is to discover the truth of the physical world? THEN, the real question is are there right and wrong answers as to how to get at that truth. How do we come up with the elaborate methods we use today?

The strongest version of what I'd (possibly mistakenly) think is wolly's point is simply that, if the methods we actually use to arrive at physical truth are themselves merely subjectively better than other methods, then it basically seems like science is just a game we play, not describing an independent external reality.
And this is especially salient given the example Ren gave as an analogy WAS A GAME (what with the scoring goals!), where we have infinite discretion to come up with the rules, vs if we're describing physical truth, and think it corresponds to objective reality, we can't call it at our discretion in entiretly, presumably!
If we're coming up with the 'oughts' needed to do science, aka discover physical truth, we can't call those oughts themselves science, so wolly might surmise they're philosophical oughts, which not unreasonably may be called moral oughts.


However, to bounce back to Ren's point, I'd wonder what if we're asking the more basic question: are there any oughts at all?! That is, ought I be rational? Ought I be scientific?

Certainly if I ought to be anything, it is be rational, as there doesn't seem any grounding for any other ought if you're willing to accept contradictions.
But there's still that beginning "IF" ..

Yeah you're kinda getting what I mean! Except I would say that the game example is also a moral! You mentioned that prescriptions applied to scientists must be objectively true. It would be impossible to discover true theories otherwise! If scientists were doing something that prevented them from finding truth, they would not find it. And since the purpose of science is to find true theories, it follows that any action contrary to that goal is bad.

Yes we can go on and on about what "bad" actually means. We can ask questions like "what really is the purpose of science?". We can even ask "is science morally right though? What does it mean to say science is right? How can we be sure that anything is right"? We can ask questions until our faces turn blue. And THAT is the point. Like science, we can ask questions about morals. We can criticize them, test them against the facts and ask ontological questions with very serious consequences. There are an infinity of ways to cast doubt on what we think is "true" or "right"! But so what? This has been true of science since it's conception! We can never be sure of anything that scientists do. And I mean ANYTHING. Yet it still functions. It somehow gets by with assumptions about what it is, why it is, and how to do it. And even these assumptions are not beyond questioning.

We can question morals until our face turns blue. But like science, let's just start with some base assumptions first and see where we get from there. When we say "it is morally right to score a goal", we are assuming that the purpose of the game is worth persuing. And given that the game is worth investing in, we can ask "what is the best way to achieve that purpose". Well, all games have unique rules. A players actions are confined by the rules in the same way that scientists are confined by the laws of physics. But thats irrelevant. If the purpose is to win, and we know it is worth persuing, how can we achieve that purpose given the games laws of physics? Well, score goals! Of course, every part of what I have just said up for questioning. Nothing i have just explained is beyond doubt. But so what? This does not mean that morals are subjective.

 

[charlatan]

One other idea I've flirted a good bit with is that perhaps some mental states (like unbearable suffering) contain oughts (colorfully called ought-nots) in them, so that you simply can't say there are no oughts.

 

[sprinkles]

@wolly.green
Rules are not automatically morals. Rules are distinctly arbitrary.

Remember that illegal gambling, dog fights etc. also have rules.

 

[wolly.green]

@wolly.green
Rules are not automatically morals. Rules are distinctly arbitrary.

Remember that illegal gambling, dog fights etc. also have rules.

That's not what I said.

 

[John K]

If you allow me to challenge you here (with love): I'm not sure the "act of faith" that consists in believing that Australia exists is of the same nature as the act of faith in God. In the former case we say that we are certain that the existence of Australia can be empirically verified (i.e. by travelling there). In the latter case the certainty is, it seems to me, of a different nature. It is a kind of certainty that comes from revelation, not from relating virtually to a situation in which the source of belief is empirically verified.

My belief that Australia exists can in theory be falsified. Can your belief in God be falsified? And if so, how?

Hi Ren - you are quite right that there are different contexts for the faith examples I gave. The point I was making was that in practice most of our personal knowledge is based on believing what other's have told us, rather than from direct experience or analysis. Some of this knowledge I could in principle verify personally - like we both said, I could simply go to Australia and look - but I couldn't practically do this for every place I haven't yet visited! I certainly can't verify / falsify my belief in yesterday without a time machine: oh yes, I have a memory of it and it's quite clear but that is subjective and isn't the same hard repeatable evidence as going there - and what about 19th July 215,018 BCE?

Similarly, to many of us, the process of scientific discovery is as remote and unverifiable as religious revelation. We only have the word of experts that something is so, and the evidence to back it up or reject it is often impenetrable to anyone but another expert - these guys seem to me to be empirically in the same relationship to most of humanity as the guys who have been spoken to by God and independently brought a consistent message back to us. Both sets of experts can translate their experiences into layman's terms so we can understand it to some extent, but most of us can't participate in the verification process in either situation - we have to rely on their word.

I'm not sure how best to think about God from the perspective of falsifiability - is it sensible to try applying the concept to God? There are quite a few contemporary people who have encountered him/her/it - but these are almost always intensely personal subjective experiences that cannot be reproduced at will and shared directly with another person. The encounter is similar to the experience of falling in love with someone - though falling in love is rather more common than mystical experience of God! Its difficult to express these experiences to someone who hasn't had them, and easy to share them with people who have. There are other subjective experiences that aren't falsifiable in the usually intended way - how do I validate the inner experience of red and green to someone colour-blind from birth. I have never had binocular vision, so my experience of sight must be rather different from someone with normal eyesight - I can never validate what it is like to have binocular vision except as a concept.

We are way off the thread topic so I'd better end there - hope this makes some sort of sense :thinkinghard:

 

[sprinkles]

That's not what I said.

It's not what you said, but what you did say strongly implies this.

 

[wolly.green]

It's not what you said, but what you did say strongly implies this.

Maybe. It's hard to know what you mean without an explanation though. Can you explain what you mean and why?

 

[charlatan]

Except I would say that the game example is also a moral! You mentioned that prescriptions applied to scientists must be objectively true.

So I just wanted to make the finer distinction that in the game case, we make up the rules of the game and then we can definitely ask how we ought to play to optimize the result (minimally, score goals by definition).

The reason I wanted to make this distinction is this is the kind of ought claim I think Ren is already happy with -- the kind where once we agree on the criteria of success in the form of certain methods/rules, we can evaluate success.

On the other hand, he wanted to say it's parallel with science: once you agree you want to do good science, you should do so and so. And that's where I wanted to add that suddenly, even the criteria of success themselves involve philosophical claims about an external reality -- they're not like rules we can just agree on at the start after which it's just a question of optimizing your strategy within the bounds of those rules.

 

[sprinkles]

Maybe. But its hard to know what you mean without an explanation though. Can you explain what you mean and why?

There's a difference between approved behavior and right behavior. Rules are only approved behavior within a context - they're simply what you're supposed to do according to an authority or principle. This is what scoring a goal in a game amounts to. The context is limited and doesn't necessarily take in account external factors the way morals do.

Basically you don't follow rules because they are right, you follow rules because they are rules.

 

[wolly.green]

There's a difference between approved behavior and right behavior. Rules are only approved behavior within a context - they're simply what you're supposed to do according to an authority or principle. This is what scoring a goal in a game amounts to. The context is limited and doesn't necessarily take in account external factors the way morals do.

Basically you don't follow rules because they are right, you follow rules because they are rules.

I don't think you understand me. Don't let the game example confuse you! My point was not that morals are rules. They are more like goals that we have given external conditions. Consider some of the rules in Football.

• A match consists of two 45 minutes halves with a 15 minute rest period in between.
  
• Each team can have a minimum of 11 players.
• The ball must have a circumference of 58-61cm and be of a circular shape.

Its clear these rules are not morals... right? Sure! But for the sake of argument, suppose that they are. Suppose that Football was originally designed to -- say -- help young men engage their competitive instincts. What now? We could criticize the goal itself by arguing that young men don't need to engage their instincts for any reason whatsoever. We could criticize "Football morality" by questioning the goal itself. And therefore cast doubt on whether the game really IS "good". But there's another way. Given that our goal makes sense, we can ask "is Football REALLY the best way to meet it"? Surely there are other ways? Why not hockey, or chess? Or even a regiment of all three? What about letting them Duke it out in the ring? There are literally a cornucopia of ways that one might "engage their competitive instincts". But are ALL of them morals? Well, I hope you are starting to see that the moral here isn't the game, or the rule, or any combination of other activities. But rather the goal itself! Our particular WAY of achieving them is part of our moral system, but they are not morals themselves.

This is really what I mean. Don't get too confused by the words.

 

[wolly.green]

So I just wanted to make the finer distinction that in the game case, we make up the rules of the game and then we can definitely ask how we ought to play to optimize the result (minimally, score goals by definition).

The reason I wanted to make this distinction is this is the kind of ought claim I think Ren is already happy with -- the kind where once we agree on the criteria of success in the form of certain methods/rules, we can evaluate success.

On the other hand, he wanted to say it's parallel with science: once you agree you want to do good science, you should do so and so. And that's where I wanted to add that suddenly, even the criteria of success themselves involve philosophical claims about an external reality -- they're not like rules we can just agree on at the start after which it's just a question of optimizing your strategy within the bounds of those rules.

Yeah exactly. From one perspective you can define the rules as morals. But there are deeper principals that superceed them. For example, the goal "to win" superceeds the rules that exist to achieve it. This is EXACTLY the same as the difference between Newtonian Physics and The Theory of Relativity. Newton was not wrong. But his description of the laws of physics is incomplete, and so was superceeded by Relativity which is deeper and explains more. To say that the rules are morals is not, strictly speaking wrong. It's just incomplete. The goal "to win" is a far deeper and more descriptive moral! It explains why the rules even exist to begin with. Does this make sense to you?