DRFseven

A moral feeling states itself. If people feel that something is wrong or right, they simply feel it and, at that moment, there is nothing you can do to counter it. It is the same as other emotions; you wouldn't be able to tell A that he was wrong about being in love with X because the qualities of X were not sufficient to generate a feeling of love. It's the same with moral feelings. They are either present or not, depending on given circumstances, and you cannot invalidate them. Arguing about whether these moral inclinations promote some type of agreed-upon goal is a separate matter, in that the beliefs that might be generated by the argument can become sources of moral conditioning.

Alonzo Fyfe

This is partially false. There are instances in which a person may express some sort of emotion for X under the belief that X has some property P. Informing the person that P is not true of X, and X becomes instantly worthless.

For example, a person may cherish the urn on her mantle she believes contains her husband's ashes. She finds out that somebody poured the original ashes out and replaced them with ashes from the fireplace. Instantly, the urn with the ashes loses all value because it is not what she thought it was.

The emotion actually goes with property P, not with X.

Now, if the property P that one is responding to with respect to guilt is "wrongness", (as opposed to "lying" or "murder", then evidence of whether an act contains the property 'wrongness' will affect our emotional response as rapidly the ashes in the urn have the property of 'being those of my ex husband'.


Even the emotional attachment to property P can be changed over time. There may be little that can counter a feeling in an instant, but over weeks and years, feelings can be and are adjusted -- sometimes intentionally.

This is more easily done with children than with adults. It is, in fact, possible in some instance to adjust a child's emotional relationship to some state of affairs in a matter of minutes.

But even with adults, these adjustments are possible. It is like learning a language -- associating words with meaning. Adults can pick up a new language -- it just takes more effort than it does for children. But, if learning the new language is important enough -- if it sufficiently fulfills relevant desires -- then people routinely go through the effort.


Along with this, it is quite common for people to recognize that certain emotional associations, however easily they come to us, are irrational. While they work to weaken this emotion, they still act to discount its effects. "Even though I have a fear of flying, I realize that the fear is irrational, and I will fly anyway." The feeling of fear does not prevent people from asking further questions about whether the fear us justifiable; neither does the feeling of guilt.


All of these are elements that illustrate that there is some degree of control over our emotions and how we react to them. Which makes it meaningful to ask "What emotional relationship SHOULD I have." The greater the degree of choice the more important the question -- and it becomes particularly important question to ask about the way children are raised. What sort of emotional associations should we teach our children to acquire?


Now, I am not saying that all emotional relationships are changeable. Aversion to pain, for example, is not an aversion easily changed. And, yet, even here we may put up other emotions against pain (e.g., pride) in order to cause people to endure pain they would not have otherwise tolerated.


Ultimately, the point remains the same. To the degree that our emotional affiliations are a matter of choice, it is reasonable to ask, "what should they be?"


When people say, "X is wrong" they are not saying, "You are (or tend to be) ashamed of yourself for doing X", they are saying, "You SHOULD BE ashamed of yourself for doing X."

Sr. Zonules

on a similar note...

A while ago I "purchased" a (very nice professional) saxophone from someone who had found it in a public place. no where on this item did it say who it belonged to, and there was a lot of dust crusted to the case, so it had been long forgotten. I payed the person who found it a very cheap price (basically a finders fee), and then about twice that to fix it up to be in tip-top shape. The total price (finders fee + repairs) equaled about 1/3 of the total value of this instrument, which I must say is not a cheap price. I have no hard feelings about it whatsoever. I view this saxophone to be mine, even if it was somebody else's at one time. obviously, they did not 'love' the instrument enough to play it, hold on to it or take good care of it. I think this situation is somewhat similar to the OP.

as far as the OP is concerned... I would return it. with all the money. and ACCEPT any reward. if they didn't give me any, that's OK. if they gave me the whole roll, that's also OK. however, if this $$$ was not attached to a purse w/ ID, I would keep it, reason 1 being that it would be a waste of my time trying to figure out who the $$$ origionaly belonged to.

The more the $$$ that the purse contained, the more I would want to return the purse fully intact. (and the more I would check the person's background via the police...) if the purse contained just $50, or even just $5, I would take the money and return the purse. it's not that much of a loss to them.

-Z

meritocrat

I think it's 'right' to keep the money because there is no one around to place claim on it, even if a person's address is on the wallet/purse.

I may seem like I'm emphasising a 'finders' keepers' mentality, but that's the way it goes. I feel a 'Golden Rule' (so to speak) approach is misguided in this sense.

DRFseven

This is beside the point; of course, mistaken facts change the whole proposition. If I saw a seemingly lost purse lying beside the road at night, but when I went to pick it up to return it to its owner, I found that it was NOT a purse, but a rabid skunk, I wouldn't go near it. The point is that upon knowing the facts (someone HAS lost the purse, the old lady DOES want to cross the street, the homeless person IS hungry, etc.), people feel that certain behavioral responses are right or wrong, and that is that.

Sure, in the future they might change their minds, but I'm saying that at any moment, IF they feel that something is right, then you can't say they don't. And that feeling is what constitutes moral feelings, no matter how it works or doesn't work, no matter how smart or how goofy it seems to anyone else. For instance, Meritocrat says s/he would keep the money, even if the name and address of the owner were available; keeping the money violates none of Meritocrat's moral principles. Keeping the money is morally ok to Meritocrat no matter how crappy an idea it seems to me. I have to accept that others' moral opinions ARE moral opinions, even though they differ from mine; I don't have to LIKE it, I don't have to stand still for it, I don't have to remain silent about it, I don't have to pretend I think they will work, I don't have to teach them to my child, but I DO have to accept that they ARE moral opinions. And, of course, I am highly likely to try to change the mind of someone whose moral opinion seems "seriously" wrong to me.

Alonzo Fyfe

Yes, but where the mistaken fact is "P is wrong" it is no longer beside the point.

Of course, one must go on from here to ask the question of "What does a 'fact' of the form 'P is wrong' look like?" If a 'fact' like this is possible, then the emotional response is dependent on the fact, and people who argue that the fact depends on the emotional response is putting the cart before the horse.

This is the same as the Euthyphro question -- applied to emotions rather than to God.

"Is X wrong because Agent has a particular emotional reaction to X-ing? Or does Agent have a particular emotional reaction to X-ing because he believes (perhaps incorrectly) that X is wrong?"

It seems to me that people who ground the fact of the matter -- in issues of morality -- on the grounds that people have a particular emotional response is like grounding the fact of the matter -- whether the object in the road is a skunk or a purse -- by looking at whether an agent wants to return it to its rightful owner. Or like determining whether the ashes in the urn on the mantle belong to the woman's husband by looking at her emotional reaction to it.

Yes, the emotional reaction depends on the facts of the matter -- but one of those relevant facts is whether "P is wrong."

Now, I do not believe in intrinsic values. I believe that the relevant fact of the matter is whether or not liking or disliking P is "good for us" -- which requires no strange metaphysical assumptions.

A person who falsely believes that "liking P is bad for us" will have a negative emotional response to liking P, but the emotional response does not prove the wrongness of P (does not prove that "liking P is bad for us" is true). The emotional response is misplaced, just like the desire to return the purse/skunk or to preserve the husband's/fireplace's ashes in the urn on the mantle.

Godless Dave

"I would want to be taught a lesson." - Emo Philips

Scorpion

I'd return the wallet with all the money unless the circumstances are unusual (for example, in case I found out the wallet belongs to dangin or meritocrat).

-S-

Alonzo Fyfe

Interestingly . . .

(or, perhaps, not)

. . . the most recent addition to the Ethics Without God series that I am writing (Part XV) deals, in part, with universalizability.

To what degree is the question, "What would you like other people to do in a similar situation with your stuff?" relevant.

DRFseven

But a "fact" of the form P is not possible because its value depends upon a judgement. It is judged good or bad, whether anyone, everyone, or no one approves of the criteria by which it is judged or not.

For instance, you may come up with criteria by which humans determine degree of cuteness; say small, cuddly, flat-faced, large-eyed, and crying. You may determine (and everyone may determine) that kittens meet this criteria as well as anything alive. However, M might not think kittens are at all cute regardless of any standards or criteria. In which case, kittens being cute is not a fact; it is a value judgement that depends upon the sensibilities of the evaluator.