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Tsk. Tsk. A Common and Appalling Definition of "Objective" Morals, Values, and Duties. Tsk. Tsk.

icehorse

......unaffiliated...... anti-dogmatist
Premium Member
joe:
I have a high regard for Science, the discipline, but not so much for the people who call themselves scientists. Nevertheless, I'd be interested in those definitions if you have them handy.

It's not hard. I could explain it to them. There are two tricks involved. I doubt they would have application to any endeavor other than reaction sports.

On the one hand you say you have a high regard for science. In the next paragraph you proceed to attempt to trivialize the cognitive and motor processes involved in hitting a tennis ball that's moving at high speed. I think you ought to book yourself a ticket to silicon valley and meet with the folks at Google. They are spending gazillions of dollars on robotics research, and if you can simplify that for them they will pay you a LOT of money.

Honestly, the rest of your post seems like a "LMGTFY" moment. It's not my job to get you up to speed on the salient aspects of cognitive science. Here are a few terms you can search on and a few books you could read:

The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance, K. Anders Ericsson, et al.
Pretty much anything else by K. Anders Ericsson
Implicit Learning and Tacit Knowledge, Arthur Reber
Nonlinear Pedagogy in Skill Acquisition, Jia Chow, et al.
Dynamics of Skill Acquisition, Keith Davids, et al.
Handbook of Embodied Cognition, M. Cappucino et al.

I could go on.

You could do more than a perfunctory bit of research on: expert intuition and tacit knowledge.

You could explain to top mathematicians how the fact that they cannot explain in words how they think about the math they think about doesn't qualify as "reasoning" in your book.
 

Milton Platt

Well-Known Member
Some very good folks are of the horrifying persuasion that morals, values, rights, and duties can be said to be "objective" if they are inherent in humans. That is, they can be said to be "objective" if they are rooted in our DNA as a consequence of evolution.

"ZOUNDS! But it is enough to send strong men and women rushing for their smelling salts!" Quote @SalixIncendium (Only Salix was talking about something else entirely and quoting him here is entirely out of context and wholly meaningless. Nevertheless, It always imparts a certain sense of style to the OP to quote Salix.)​

For example: It might thus be argued that reciprocity -- or that a tendency to reciprocate -- is an "objective" value or moral behavior, since reciprocity and/or a tendency to reciprocate are evidently rooted in our DNA.

BUT...

One of the several various and sundry problems with such a definition of "objective" is it commits the Naturalistic Fallacy of logic -- and that is NOT a pretty sight! Not a pretty sight at all!

The Naturalistic Fallacy is a clear and obvious violation of Section IX, paragraph 12, subsection iii of "The Fact/Value Distinction"! In the Old West, men were hanged for less. Simply put, The fact X is natural, does not mean X is moral. Murder is arguably a natural human behavior, but that does not mean murder is a moral behavior. Rape is not ubiquitous to primates, but is only found in a few species -- such as humans -- but just because it is natural in humans does not make it moral. And so forth.

THUS, HENCE, and IN CONCLUSION, the argument that morals, etc. can be said to be objective if they are rooted in our DNA is a heinous sin against good and sound reasoning if and when it is stated or implied that such morals, etc are thus made desirable. And in practice, that very thing almost always is stated or implied.



________________________
And now...


Interesting, I have heard (and believe) that morals are a part of evolution (social species have moral frameworks) but I have not hears that this makes morals objective. Can you provide a link that explains this?
 

joe1776

Well-Known Member
Honestly, the rest of your post seems like a "LMGTFY" moment. It's not my job to get you up to speed on the salient aspects of cognitive science. Here are a few terms you can search on and a few books you could read:
Thank you for your concern but I'm not interested in getting up to your speed on the cognitive sciences.

I'm a pragmatist and my time is limited as is yours. I've been following the research on morality for many years because the science has gradually been confirming my thinking (and David Hume's) on the topic. No topic has generated more nonsense than morality over the centuries.
 
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icehorse

......unaffiliated...... anti-dogmatist
Premium Member
Thank you for your concern but I'm not interested in getting up to your speed on the cognitive sciences.

I'm a pragmatist and my time is limited as is yours. I've been following the research on morality for many years because the science has gradually been confirming my thinking (and David Hume's) on the topic. No topic has generated more nonsense than morality over the centuries.

 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
I haven't gone back to be certain but I believe I wrote that we have to regard conscience as infallible because it's the only judgment we have. I think that's a logical deduction.

Please allow me to assure you, Joe, that deducing conscience is infallible from the premise that conscience is the only judgement we have is not a logical deduction. In fact, it is an illogical deduction. That is because it is entirely conceivable that a judgement could be wrong even if it were the only possible judgement.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Please allow me to assure you, Joe, that deducing conscience is infallible from the premise that conscience is the only judgement we have is not a logical deduction. In fact, it is an illogical deduction. That is because it is entirely conceivable that a judgement could be wrong even if it were the only possible judgement.
I know I'm a broken record on this, but.....
Such judgements are not even wrong.
 

joe1776

Well-Known Member
Please allow me to assure you, Joe, that deducing conscience is infallible from the premise that conscience is the only judgement we have is not a logical deduction. In fact, it is an illogical deduction. That is because it is entirely conceivable that a judgement could be wrong even if it were the only possible judgement.
Your reading comprehension is failing you. Yes it is possible that it could be wrong but what I said was that we have no choice but to regard conscience as an infallible guide since we have no other moral authority. Do you see the distinction?

I'll put it another way: Since it's our only moral authority, we have no valid reason to NOT TRUST the guidance of conscience.

By the way, this is a significant point because social scientists often doubt the wisdom of conscience when people cannot offer a reasonable explanation for their intuitive moral judgments. In the scientists' biased minds, reason is a moral authority even when their research finds it's not.
 
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Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
Your reading comprehension is failing you.

Your apparent inability to create an unambiguous statement seems to be at the root of my alleged reading comprehension problem.

Yes it is possible that it could be wrong but what I said was that we have no choice but to regard it as an infallible guide since we have no other moral authority.

For that to be true, you would need to deny the possibility of negation.

I'm afraid I don't have time for much more than that this morning.
 

Koldo

Outstanding Member
Moral judgments are objective.

Unlike opinions on art, music or beauty which are subjective, moral judgments are objective. If two people disagree on whether a specific act is moral or immoral, one of them is wrong.

Sally does not deny killing her husband, Harry. She claims that the killing was justified as an act of self-defense.

Upon hearing the facts, eleven of the twelve jurors agree with her. The one juror who disagrees is wrong.

If Sally's act was morally wrong, the jurors would have felt the wrongfulness intuitively. That feeling would have been followed by the urge to punish Sally. Those feelings emerge immediately and intuitively from the unconscious mind once the facts are known. We call those feelings 'conscience.' Conscience is the only moral authority we have, so we have no choice but to accept its judgment.

If moral judgments are based on feelings, why is someone that is feeling differently from others wrong ?
 

joe1776

Well-Known Member
Your apparent inability to create an unambiguous statement seems to be at the root of my alleged reading comprehension problem.
I'll admit that my ability to communicate wasn't up to the challenge.

For that to be true, you would need to deny the possibility of negation.
No, one only needs to recognize that there is no other reasonable option. It doesn't matter whether conscience is infallible or not.
 
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icehorse

......unaffiliated...... anti-dogmatist
Premium Member
Thank you for your concern but I'm not interested in getting up to your speed on the cognitive sciences.

I'm a pragmatist and my time is limited as is yours. I've been following the research on morality for many years because the science has gradually been confirming my thinking (and David Hume's) on the topic. No topic has generated more nonsense than morality over the centuries.

Ok, a less sarcastic response:

I think the main point I'm trying to make here is that legitimate, reliable, measurable, predictable expertise often exists, even when the expert cannot make his expertise explicit in words.

With that said, I'm not sure it's necessary to argue the semantics of "reasoning", and whether or not explicitness is tightly bound to reasoning.
 

joe1776

Well-Known Member
If moral judgments are based on feelings, why is someone that is feeling differently from others wrong ?
Very specific feelings are involved in moral intuition (conscience). The pain part of the pain-pleasure center of our brains sends an unpleasant feeling when we consider doing something that is immoral.

Given the very same specific act, unbiased minds will get the same signal.
 

Koldo

Outstanding Member
Very specific feelings are involved in moral intuition (conscience). The pain part of the pain-pleasure center of our brains sends an unpleasant feeling when we consider doing something that is immoral.

Given the very same specific act, unbiased minds will get the same signal.

How did you reach the conclusion that unbiased minds will get the same signal ?
 

joe1776

Well-Known Member
Ok, a less sarcastic response:

I think the main point I'm trying to make here is that legitimate, reliable, measurable, predictable expertise often exists, even when the expert cannot make his expertise explicit in words.

With that said, I'm not sure it's necessary to argue the semantics of "reasoning", and whether or not explicitness is tightly bound to reasoning.
I have no doubt that expertise, such as in your Chess example, can develop into intuitive decisions that can't be explained. I'm equally certain that the phenomenon is unlike moral intuition (conscience) because, unlike the expertise you're suggesting, there is no learning involved with conscience.

The idea that we were taught to discern right from wrong as children was once a popular belief. It never made sense logically and now there's ample research that eliminates that possibility.

This is just one reference that I have handy:

According to Yale psychologist Paul Bloom, humans are born with a hard-wired morality. A deep sense of good and evil is bred in the bone. His research shows that babies and toddlers can judge the goodness and badness of others' actions; they want to reward the good and punish the bad; they act to help those in distress; they feel guilt, shame, pride, and righteous anger.
 

joe1776

Well-Known Member
How did you reach the conclusion that unbiased minds will get the same signal ?
There's research to support that claim but if you read of a clear case of cold-blooded murder and then another killing that is a clear case of self-defense, you don't doubt that other unbiased minds get the very same feelings about them. Do you?
 

Koldo

Outstanding Member
There's research to support that claim but if you read of a clear case of cold-blooded murder and then another killing that is a clear case of self-defense, you don't doubt that other unbiased minds get the very same feelings about them. Do you?

What research ?
I absolutely do doubt every unbiased mind will feel the same way.
 

joe1776

Well-Known Member
What research ?
I absolutely do doubt every unbiased mind will feel the same way.
Harvard's Moral Sense Test has been online since 2003. It tracks responses to a series of hypothetical moral dilemmas. These responses have proven to be remarkably consistent, regardless of age, gender, religion, or cultural background.
The Moral Sense Test
 

icehorse

......unaffiliated...... anti-dogmatist
Premium Member
I have no doubt that expertise, such as in your Chess example, can develop into intuitive decisions that can't be explained. I'm equally certain that the phenomenon is unlike moral intuition (conscience) because, unlike the expertise you're suggesting, there is no learning involved with conscience.

The idea that we were taught to discern right from wrong as children was once a popular belief. It never made sense logically and now there's ample research that eliminates that possibility.

This is just one reference that I have handy:

According to Yale psychologist Paul Bloom, humans are born with a hard-wired morality. A deep sense of good and evil is bred in the bone. His research shows that babies and toddlers can judge the goodness and badness of others' actions; they want to reward the good and punish the bad; they act to help those in distress; they feel guilt, shame, pride, and righteous anger.

I'd bet dollars to donuts that while SOME rudimentary morals have been bred into our DNA (and the DNA of some animals as well), MOST of the advanced ideas of morality are learned. In other words, I don't think it's an either/or.

I think it's hard for you to defend your claim that there is "no learning involved with conscience". The first obvious counter-argument is that your claim flies in the face of normal childhood development. Young children are taught ideas like sharing, they do not come by those ideas naturally.
 

Koldo

Outstanding Member
Harvard's Moral Sense Test has been online since 2003. It tracks responses to a series of hypothetical moral dilemmas. These responses have proven to be remarkably consistent, regardless of age, gender, religion, or cultural background.
The Moral Sense Test

What do you mean by 'remarkably consistent' ? At the end of the test, I got a graph showing how people ended up with varied results.
 
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