tudal

OK... although I don't see how this supports the idea that murdering a child for pleasure is inherently bad. For now I'll translate "radical thought" to mean "unsubstantiated thought".

Why does it not require further justification? I could use your above logic and say,

My next huge radical step is to realize that for a given life form, "good" applies to that which denies the primary fact of it's own life and growth. This is relative and subjective, yet requires no further justification. Death provides its own justification.

Err, hold on. Weren't you just saying that life itself justifies the idea that killing a child for pleasure is inherently bad?

Not too fast. The first question is, does such a line even exist?

Nowhere357

Think this through. Consider the quality of "hunger". Is it right or wrong to eat? Clearly, eating provides it's own justification. Life is the same, only more so.

I was kidding when I said this is radical. It is self-evident. Life provides it's own justification.

Again, think this through. If our primary impulse is to kill and die, everything would be dead. Life strives to live and grow. Life lives. This is what life does first and foremost - this is what life IS.

No, I haven't said that. Why do you think I said that?

Yes. People see a difference between right and wrong.

An individual's likes and dislikes are mere opinion, self-justified.

In the name of morality, an individual will suppress his likes/dislikes to achieve a greater good, even risking injury and death to do so. Which is solid evidence that morality rises above mere opinion. "Good" here, is that which promotes the health of the group.

Alonzo Fyfe

Actually, I don't see it.

Life is useful -- many of the things we want we cannot have without life. But this still means that life is a tool -- like hammers and nails, money, a warm fire, or a television set. It may be one of the more useful tools, but still a tool.

And, like all tools, its value depends on the things we can use it for.


Well, I think this is just slightly off. In the name of morality, a person does not suppress his likes/dislikes to achieve a greater good. Rather, in the name of morality, a person learns to like or dislike that which achieves the greater good. His likes/dislikes are not suppressed, just changed.

Nowhere357

Life needs no justification for striving to live and grow. That you can't see this self-evident, basic, primary, fundamental, obvious, and necessary fact, means that any conclusion you come to must be suspect and considered unsound. I hope you give your stance more thought.

And I'm curious: you say "many of the things we want we cannot have without life." Provide an example please of something we want and can have, without life. I don't understand you.

Much will seem off to you, until you realize that life is not a tool we use. Life is what we are.

Anyway, morality does more than merely give us more likes/dislikes. One of our primary likes/dislikes is to avoid pain and approach pleasure. If we merely would "like" for the child to be safe, what reason is there to risk life and limb to protect her? Clearly, we have to suppress our basic desire to avoid pain. Morality is of a higher order than likes/dislikes. Morality is more than opinion.

Alonzo Fyfe

I have no idea what this means.

In a sense, it is also the case that the planet needs no justification for going around the sun, and water needs no justification for flowing downhill. It's true, but nothing much can be implied from it.

But I am fairly certain that you mean something else.

You may be saying that "life has value independent of any creature's desire to live or desire for the things that life can be used for," but such a statement DOES require justification. There is no evidence that desire-indepenent value. Such a statement would be like a flat declaration that "God exists, and if you can't see that then you need to rethink your theory."

The entities you exist on faith need not be real.

The prime example: freedom from pain, where one has certain forms of cancer that are extremely painful.

Situations may also arise, for example, where a situation in which the propositions "my child is well off" and "I am alive" is true at the same time -- and one must make a choice. In such a circumstance, one can't have it be the case that one's child is well off and be alive -- as a matter of definition.


Because we like for her to be safe more than we like to avoid pain. Just because we like pleasure and an aversion to pain does not mean that these are the only things we like and that all human action aims toward these ends alone. (This was the popular view in the 1800s but has since been soundly trounced as a viable psychological theory).

The leading contemporary theory, BDI theory, hold that desires are propositional attitudes -- that a desire is a mental state that can always be expressed in the form of an attitude toward a proposition. The general expression of a desire is:

Agent desires that P, where P is a proposition -- the meaning component of a sentence capable of being true or false.

For example:

Agent desires that his child is well off.
Agent desires that he is not in pain.
Agent desires that he is having sex with Jenny.
Agent desires that no child is suffering abuse.

These are all examples of the desires that people can have.

The list of possible propositions that can be desired is no more limited than the set of propositions that can be believed. Just that an agent can believe that his actions are pleasing to God, he can also desire that his actions are pleasing to God, even though there is no God.

We do not need to suppress any desire in order to save the child. We simply need it to be the case that we desire the well being of the child more.


In what does this 'higher order' consist?

I will agree that morality is concerned with evaluating desires as good or bad -- better or worse. But it does so in a way consistent with the idea that nothing has value except insofar as it is desired, or useful for bringing about that which is desired. Desires themselves can be evaluated according to whether they are desired (for a desire D, agents desire that people have desire D). Desires can be evaluated as well according to their usefulness in bringing about states of affairs that are desired (a desire that D brings about outcome O, and agents desire that O).

Good desires are desires that tend to fulfill other desires, either directly or indirectly. Bad desires tend to thwart other desires, either directly or indirectly.

On this account, a desire to preserve life (or, at least, an aversion to killing) is good because life is extremely useful in fulfilling other desires and the taking of life tends to thwart desires. Thus, a desire to preserve life (or, at least, an aversion to killing) comes out as having a very high moral value.

Ergo, "thou shalt not murder."

tudal

OK. Let me stop here and ask for clarification. You say that eating provides its own justification. What does this mean? That eating itself justifies the idea that eating is right and hunger is wrong?

I need clarification here, too. Can you fill in this blank for me, please: Life itself justifies the proposition that ____________.

Right. But I still don't see the argument which shows that the denial of our primary impulses is inherently (objectively, absolutely, whatever) bad.

Well, at the bottom of page 1 of this thread you said, "Although I like the example as an "inherently" wrong action+intention+circumstance. Killing a child, in and of itself, is not of necessity an immoral act. Killing a child for the mere sake of pleasure, is." To which I replied, "And why is it?" And then you replied, "Death is contrary to life." Then I asked what your point is, to which you replied, "Life provides it's own justification."

Right. They do see or feel a difference. However that doesn't mean that an absolute right and wrong exists.

We cannot make the following argument: "All humans have this innate feeling of right or wrong. For example, the killing a child for pleasure will result in humans thinking, 'Hey, that is wrong.' Therefore, such an act is absolutely wrong, and thus there exist absolute rights and wrongs."

You see, we're still missing a piece of the argument, a very important piece: that humans' innate feelings of right and wrong equal the absolute right and wrongs.

Why can't it be,
Innate human feeling: killing is bad.
The absolute: killing is good!

Why must there be an absolute at all?

tudal

First, it is Alonzo Fyfe's post to which you're replying, not mine.

Second, I know that life is striving to live and grow. Any person with a working pair of eyes can see that. However, what you need to show is that denial of this life and growth (eg, killing kid for pleasure) is inherently bad. Here, the only thing that's self-evident is that life is striving to live and grow. Nothing more.

Nowhere357

The value of life is not independant of anything. We are talking about right and wrong, good and bad. Life provides a built-in direction for those concepts. Eating to sustain life is good, to the life being sustained.

Good example. freedom from pain. I was worried you were implying an afterlife, sorry.
I don't understand the situation provided, or how it relates.

Desiring something more is what would suppress our avoid pain desire. Without this suppression, we would be conflicted and impotent.
Moral awareness is the source of the desire strong enough to suppress our basic instincts.

Yes that's fine. This lumps our desire for vanilla ice cream in with our desire for justice and tolerance, however, and fails to acknowedge the profound difference, which is we will fight and die for our ideals, but will not fight and die for vanilla ice cream

Some people come to this conclusion without need of stick and carrot. Due to application of reason and empathy.

Your focus seems to be on developing a system used to influence people to behave morally. My focus is on individual development of morality, regardless of outside forces.

Nowhere357

Close. Our need to eat justifies the fact that we eat. We don't need to argue about whether eating is right or wrong; to the life form needing to eat, that need supplies it's own justification. Eating is good and right, to that life form.

Life itself justifies the proposition that that which promotes life and growth is good and right. This is from the perspective of the given life form. We don't need to argue whether it is right for a life form to strive to live and grow - the need to live and grow provides it's own justification - to that particular life form.

That which promotes life and growth is good. That which retards life and growth is bad. To that life. If the denial of our primary impulses retards life and growth, then it is inherently bad - to that life - since it will kill that life. To that life, being killed is bad. To that life, living is good.

Adding the qualifier "for the sake of pleasure" to the killing of the child, means that no greater good comes from the killing. Without this greater good, there is no justification for the killing.

I would not claim otherwise. Right and wrong are relative, and require a pov in order to determine.

There are no objective morals. To the girl, it is clearly wrong, since she loses her life, and no good comes of it, from her pov.
To society it is clearly wrong, again because no good comes of it, while bad does come of it. From the pov of society.
The killer provides another pov, where the deed fills a selfish need or desire.

From the pov of garden snails, it matters not a whit at all.

But I've not made that claim. There are no absolute rights or wrongs. Right and wrong is a value judgement, and requires a valuer. A pov.

The innate feelings of right and wrong provide guidance or direction - not absolute anything.

Oops, sorry.

Denial of life and growth is inherently bad to the life being denied. I don't see the problem.