The Problem of Morals

[Lain]

Are you forced to use your feelings to make a choice?

They are two method of making choices, that is their relationship. You can choose one or the other, right?

I personally think you can ignore your feelings to make a choice, and go against them (and usually should). But I would not call the other method science,

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Are you forced to use your feelings to make a choice?

They are two method of making choices, that is their relationship. You can choose one or the other, right?

No, not quite. There is a disorder where a person can't use simple feelings. They can spent an hour or more choosing what flavour of icecream to choose.

Brain scans of regular people show that nobody is fully rational when it comes to morality. Of course that might change as it is new science or we might change as humans.

 

[Kooky]

You can go about it in two way.
First, you can let your feelings decide which would include your level of compassion or relationship to the individual.
The other way would be to define your goals, evaluate which actions would best benefit your goals and choose the better action based on a rational evaluation.

Where do your goals come from in this setup?

 

[Nakosis]

To define goals seems to be a version of good and bad in some sense.

Good and bad don't inherently require emotional choices.
Neither do goals.
The only goal of life is survival. Without survival, life has no purpose.
Therefore survival is a rational goal.

 

[Nakosis]

No, not quite. There is a disorder where a person can't use simple feelings. They can spent an hour or more choosing what flavour of icecream to choose.

Brain scans of regular people show that nobody is fully rational when it comes to morality. Of course that might change as it is new science or we might change as humans.

Ok, so we are in agreement about the problem of morality as it currently exists.

 

[Kooky]

Good and bad don't inherently require emotional choices.
Neither do goals.
The only goal of life is survival. Without survival, life has no purpose.
Therefore survival is a rational goal.

By claiming that life must have a purpose, you are making a normative statement.

 

[Nakosis]

Where do your goals come from in this setup?

The purpose of life, survival. Good choices benefit survival. Bad choices are detrimental to survival.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Good and bad don't inherently require emotional choices.
Neither do goals.
The only goal of life is survival. Without survival, life has no purpose.
Therefore survival is a rational goal.

No, because I could choose in some cases my survival over yours and in others yours over mine.

The problem is that you can't decide in a conflict of interests which survival versus death is the correct one.

 

[Kooky]

The purpose of life, survival. Good choices benefit survival. Bad choices are detrimental to survival.

You arbitrarily elevated survival to be the sole yardstick in your system of morals, but it is not logically necessary to be this way. Therefore, your goal is no more "rational" than any other.

 

[Nakosis]

By claiming that life must have a purpose, you are making a normative statement.

Sure, a normative of evolution. We have all descended from species which have survived. There is no reason to think our purpose is any different.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

So you just arbitrarily elevated survival to be the sole yardstick in your system of morals.

Yes, that one is not new. Ayn Rand tried and failed.

 

[Kooky]

Sure, a normative of evolution. We have all descended from species which have survived. There is no reason to think our purpose is any different.

"We have all descended from species which have survived." is a descriptive statement, not a declaration of purpose.

You are committing a logical error when you assume that the fact of our survival necessarily confers an implicit purpose:
"ought" does not logically follow from "is"

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Sure, a normative of evolution. We have all descended from species which have survived. There is no reason to think our purpose is any different.

There is no objective purpose which can be observed. You are making a subjective choice that your survival or whomever you choose is the ultimate goal.

 

[Nakosis]

No, because I could choose in some cases my survival over yours and in others yours over mine.

The problem is that you can't decide in a conflict of interests which survival versus death is the correct one.

The survival of the greatest number. The survival of the species over the individual.
Emotionally, sure, you have an emotional interest in your survival. Is that best for the species, that's something we can weigh.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

The survival of the greatest number. The survival of the species over the individual.
Emotionally, sure, you have an emotional interest in your survival. Is that best for the species, that's something we can weigh.

No, there is no one unique species because different members could survive and there would still be a species.

 

[osgart]

Morally I'm guided by virtues. I always try to be more logical, and less guided by my feelings. Feeling are a result, an effect. If the feelings are bad then I must consider what I'm doing wrong. If the feelings are good then that is a reward for having done well. The worst thing I can do is be guided by feelings over logic. Nevertheless I try to channel my feelings into the moral principles I accept; the virtues.

I can see that a dispassionate scientific process would be beneficial to outcomes. But to lack true and accurate moral principles is very damaging.

 

[Nakosis]

"We have all descended from species which have survived." is a descriptive statement, not a declaration of purpose.

You are committing a logical error when you assume that the fact of our survival necessarily confers an implicit purpose:
"ought" does not logically follow from "is"

For life to exist, it is necessary for life to survive. Is that not a fact?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Morally I'm guided by virtues. I always try to be more logical, and less guided by my feelings. Feeling are a result, an effect. If the feelings are bad then I must consider what I'm doing wrong. If the feelings are good then that is a reward for having done well. The worst thing I can do is be guided by feelings over logic. Nevertheless I try to channel my feelings into the moral principles I accept; the virtues.

I can see that a dispassionate scientific process would be beneficial to outcomes. But to lack true and accurate moral principles is very damaging.

Yeah, I believe differently.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

For life to exist, it is necessary for life to survive. Is that not a fact?

No, to simple. There are more factors than just survival as such. Start with the 4 Fs in biology.

 

[Kooky]

For life to exist, it is necessary for life to survive. Is that not a fact?

Yes, but you have not demonstrated why it is logically necessary to want life to exist in the first place.

And you cannot do that because you cannot arrive at a moral principle from a simple statement of fact; for life to be a moral principle, you must first conclude that life is a good thing; and that is a moral judgement, which cannot be derived from description and claims to facticity.

EDIT: Of course, as Mikkel has already pointed out, starting at "survival of life" is somewhat of a no-starter to begin with, because both of these terms are so broad in scope that they are largely impractical to be point of near-uselessness as far as moral principles are concerned; but this is still one step removed from your fundamental conundrum known as the Is-Ought Dichotomy, which you cannot get out of simply by adding more "science".