Reason is the Most Important Driver of Human Moral Progress?

[Spirit of Light]

Which only shows spirituality and morality have little to do with each other.

The Spanish Inquisition was done by 'spiritual' people. The burning of witches was done by 'spiritual' people. Execution of heretics was done by 'spiritual' people. The Crusades were done by 'spiritual' people.

Morality has improved. At least now we see slavery as an evil. We are *much* less inclined to murder now than in the past. Torture, while it certainly exists in abundance, is widely condemned now, when it was actively encouraged before.

Do we have a LONG way to go? Most definitely. But have we improved? Yes.

Agree to disagree with you

 

[Audie]

Don't you think that greed and selfishness are the antitheses of reason?

Um, no..I dont. Help me out.

What is the difference between "greed",
"selfishness" , and, say, "enlightened self
interest".

Try for bright line distinctions plz.

 

[Vouthon]

So do you find eugenics to be immoral?

Against the will of the individuals subjected to it (as the Greeks, Romans, Nietzscheans, Social Dawrinists et al believed) and whether merely negative (left to die with no care or treatment) or positive (actively kill), absolutely.

The view presupposes that some people are inherently less deserving of life, even if they want to live, than other people - because their existence is a burden to society and indeed society would be improved, creating a happier and healthy world, if such individuals' genes or hereditary traits were culled from the gene-pool - no matter their personal thoughts, feelings, dignity, volition or perceived 'rights' to the contrary.

But I can't really claim its "irrational" - as one could make a seemingly reasonable argument on utilitarian grounds for doing so, but it would be grossly evil by the standards of most liberal democrats like myself.

 

[Audie]

Against the will of the individuals subjected to it (as the Greeks, Romans, Nietzscheans, Social Dawrinists et al believed) and whether merely negative (left to die with no care or treatment) or positive (actively kill), absolutely.

But I can't really claim its "irrational" - as one could make a seemingly reasonable argument on utilitarian grounds for doing so, but it would be grossly evil by the standards of most liberal democrats like myself.

What do you see as the purpose of eugenics?

 

[Stevicus]

Um, no..I dont. Help me out.

What is the difference between "greed",
"selfishness" , and, say, "enlightened self
interest".

Try for bright line distinctions plz.

How many wars, atrocities, and other acts of inhumanity can be justified by "enlightened self interest," in one form or another?

 

[Revoltingest]

Don't you think that greed and selfishness are the antitheses of reason?

They're independent of each other.

 

[Vouthon]

What do you see as the purpose of eugenics?

I answered that above, and in my previous post explaining (with references) both the Graeco-Roman and modern iterations of eugenical arguments. I wrote:

The view presupposes that some people are inherently less deserving of life, even if they want to live, than other people - because their existence is a burden to society and indeed society would be improved, creating a happier and healthy world for the majority, if such individuals' genes or hereditary traits were culled from the gene-pool - no matter their personal thoughts, feelings, dignity, volition or perceived 'rights' to the contrary.​

 

[Revoltingest]

How many wars, atrocities, and other acts of inhumanity can be justified by "enlightened self interest," in one form or another?

How many are justified by serving the greater
good, eg, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea?

 

[Audie]

I answered that above, and in my previous post explaining (with references) both the Graeco-Roman and modern iterations of eugenical arguments. I wrote:

The view presupposes that some people are inherently less deserving of life, even if they want to live, than other people - because their existence is a burden to society and indeed society would be improved, creating a happier and healthy world for the majority, if such individuals' genes or hereditary traits were culled from the gene-pool - no matter their personal thoughts, feelings, dignity, volition or perceived 'rights' to the contrary.​

Ok, i did ask what YOU think.
If there is no light beteeen your
ideas and those cited, fine.

Do you find the morality to be black
and white, no contrary case possible?

 

[Audie]

How many wars, atrocities, and other acts of inhumanity can be justified by "enlightened self interest," in one form or another?

So you cannot answer the question, which rather suggests
you've not put much thought into this.

Likewise your try at a killer rhetorical question.

 

[Vouthon]

I like Steven Pinker but he's wrong.

All knowledge begins with the senses. So, imagine our long-ago ancestors in a time before language was invented. Since they couldn't see, hear, taste or smell the difference between right and wrong, isn't it likely that they felt it?

Isn't it likely that they intuitively felt the guidance of conscience, warning them of wrongness, long before they could speak or write and use reasoning to write stupid moral rules like "Thou shalt not kill?"

And even dumber, our laws on killing are failed, useless reasoned attempts to write an absolute rule covering future situations of almost infinite variety when an unbiased jury given all the relevant facts could rely on conscience to make the right call.

When criminal laws result in judgments that agree with the judgments of conscience, they are coincidentally right the way a stopped clock can be right twice a day. When the law conflicts with the judgments of conscience, and the law prevails, injustice happens.

I'm far more inclined to your view than Pinker's (given the rather obvious pitfalls of trying to derive moral behaviour from what is 'rational') as I think it has stronger merit and empirical backing, but I still think its rather teleological, almost mystical thinking - if taken to the same extreme as the "cult of reason" approach.

Environmental factors, and I guess 'epigenetics', are as important in moral development - arguably more so - than appeals to 'reason' or 'conscience', which seem to rest upon a sense of 'enlightenment' or 'moral purpose'.

This line of thought makes a judgment about human 'nature' - what it is to be human, that we are inherently moral beings on the basis of objective standards of good and evil that just 'emerge' in our minds by natural mechanism, like a spark of the divine. I'm not sure that squares with Darwinian science. I actually think its a secular attempt at retaining a theological understanding of human morality, if applied in an absolute sense.

Our moral norms are heavily shaped by environment (both material factors & other people) and socialisation, just as much as they are by empathy and intuition (which provides the basis for identifying our needs and wants and desires and sense of self-consciousness in other moral agents i.e. people, and thus being able - without thinking - to just spontaneously put ourselves in another mind's shoes, based purely on intuition, without consciously thinking it through). And reasoned judgments then play a part as well, albeit in an ancillary function.

Nature and nurture both condition our behaviour.

 

[Audie]

How many are justified by serving the greater
good, eg, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea?

Is that justified, or, "justified"?

 

[PureX]

Um, no..I dont. Help me out.

What is the difference between "greed",
"selfishness" , and, say, "enlightened self
interest".

Try for bright line distinctions plz.

The difference is a concern for the well-being of others. Greed is the insatiable desire to gain more for oneself regardless of how it effects others. Enlightened self-interest (ambition) seeks an increase to oneself by generating an increase to everyone involved in the exchange.

A greedy man trades with others looking to gain as much as he can while giving as little as he can in return for it (to maximum the profit to himself). He does not seek a 'fair trade', but instead seeks to exploit whatever advantage he can over those he trades with to gain as much as possible from them, regardless of how this will effect them.

An ambitious man will look for ways to maximize the value gained by both himself AND those he is trading with so as to ensure everyone's well-being and to increase mutually beneficial trading relations for the future.

This is an ENORMOUSLY important difference that is being totally ignored by the purveyors of modern capitalist dogma and practice. And the toxic ignorance engendered in this regard is destroying our economy, our government, and our society as a whole.

 

[Terry Sampson]

The Biblical god character inspires evil as there is nothing good about that entity should it exist.

Neat! So do you have an alternative template that you propose, or do you recommend that everyone just do what they want to do?

 

[Augustus]

@Sunstone



There is, although it's a bit of extra work to prepare one but worth the trouble when available and the video interests you enough.

• Go to the Youtube version.
• View attachment 33294
• Look down and to the right of the "like", "don't like", "share", "save" horizontal menu.
• Click on the three dots. Click on "Open transcript" [when available].
  
• 
  
• View attachment 33295

• View attachment 33296

• Move your cursor to the beginning of the transcript (usually something close to "00:00"}
• Press your mouse's "left click" and hold.
• "Select" by scrolling down to the end, while holding "left click"
• Copy.
• Open a blank document page in a separate window.
• Paste what you copied there.
• Takes a couple of tries to get used to, and does not give you a perfect transcript. But it can give you something you can work with and edit.
• An hour's worth of transcript is a lot to edit.
• Good luck.

For those who don't have the wherewithal to follow my instructions, see attachments below.

If you click on the 3 dots then 'toggle timestamps' you get rid of the numbers which makes it easier to read.

 

[Audie]

The difference is a concern for the well-being of others. Greed is the insatiable desire to gain more for oneself regardless of how it effects others. Enlightened self-interest (ambition) seeks an increase to oneself by generating an increase to everyone involved in the exchange.

A greedy man trades with others looking to gain as much as he can while giving as little as he can in return for it (to maximum the profit to himself). He does not seek a 'fair trade', but instead seeks to exploit whatever advantage he can over those he trades with to gain as much as possible from them, regardless of how this will effect them.

An ambitious man will look for ways to maximize the value gained by both himself AND those he is trading with so as to ensure everyone's well-being and to increase mutually beneficial trading relations for the future.

This is an ENORMOUSLY important difference that is being totally ignored by the purveyors of modern capitalist dogma and practice. And the toxic ignorance engendered in this regard is destroying our economy, our government, and our society as a whole.

All that and you only touched on two out of three,
missing entirely the bright line dstinctions.

 

[Stevicus]

How many are justified by serving the greater
good, eg, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea?

It all comes down to "enlightened self interest." It's all to protect OUR way of life, right?

It would seem to me the cornerstone of any kind of "reason" and "enlightenment" would involve truth and honesty. Do you really believe that those wars were to "serve the greater good"?

Consider the opening remark in the video (which I can quote here thanks to the transcript provided by @Terry Sampson ):

Reason appears to have fallen on hard times: Popular culture plumbs new depths of dumbth and political discourse has become a race to the bottom. We're living in an era of scientific creationism, 9/11 conspiracy theories, psychic hotlines, and a resurgence of religious fundamentalism. People who think too well are often accused of elitism, and even in the academy, there are attacks on logocentrism, the crime of letting logic dominate our thinking.

I think there's a certain truism which is a strong part of human nature: People in general don't really like to be lied to.

It triggers a negative response which can often go in different directions - such as embracing concepts deemed "anti-intellectual" - such as belief in creationism, conspiracy theories, psychic hotlines, religious fundamentalism, etc.

The opening statement of "Reason appears to have fallen on hard times" may be correct, but it also presents it as a phenomenon which "just happened" out of the blue. One should be able to reason out the cause and effect here, but for some reason, that's not happening to any noticeable degree.

 

[Stevicus]

So you cannot answer the question, which rather suggests
you've not put much thought into this.

Likewise your try at a killer rhetorical question.

Your throwaway one-liners don't exactly convey much thought or erudition, so you don't have much room to talk on this subject.

 

[Aupmanyav]

"Reason is the key driver of human moral progress."

Agree completely with this statement. Morality is decided by the society. There is a reason for all things that are considered 'moral', and it helps the society to be peaceful, safe and prosperous. What does not do this is considered 'immoral'.

Yeah, 'enlightened self-interest' as you said. Even wars become a moral necessity when the society needs that.

 

[Ponder This]

"Reason is the key driver of human moral progress."

Comments?

People are really good at coming up with reasons for their actions.