bd-from-kg

The AntiChris:

The distinction in question is not between types of moral theory but between different types of questions addressed by different branches of moral philosophy.

Type 1 is exemplified by “What does it mean to say that X should do Y (or that Y is the right thing to do, or that Z is a valid moral principle, etc.?”)

This is the kind of question addressed by metaethics.

Type 2 is exemplified by “What is the criterion of rightness? That is, how can right acts be distinguished (at least in principle) from wrong ones?”

This is the kind of question addressed by normative ethics.

Type 3 is exemplified by “Should X do (or have done) Y?”

This is the kind of question addressed by practical ethics.

There “seems to be a rational limit” because there is a rational limit. Human society would quickly fall into total chaos if everyone followed a policy of giving everything they had to charity. The rational limit is actually reached long before this. Giving away money (i.e., a claim on valuable resources) to people who haven’t earned it has a number of deleterious effects. For example:

1. It saps the motivation of both the givers and the recipients to be productive.
2. The money will never be spent as carefully as if one had kept it. (Milton Friedman likes to make the point that there are basically four types of spending: spending one’s own money on oneself (or on loved ones), spending strangers’ money on oneself, spending one’s own money on strangers, and spending strangers’ money on other strangers. For obvious reasons, other things being equal the first type of spending is the most efficient (one is careful to get only things one really needs or wants as cheaply as possible), while that last is least efficient. When one gives money to charity one is moving it from the first category to the last.
3. It tends to produce irresponsible behavior such as people having children that they are not in a position to care for (because they expect other people to pay the cost), failing to provide for old age and for various contingencies, etc.
4. In many cases it subsidizes oppressive policies of corrupt regimes by preventing these policies from having their natural effects.

So there are lots of reasons why charitable giving is not always a good thing, and should be limited to a relatively small fraction of total resources, to be used for clearly exceptional cases where the good effects outweigh the bad. The only uncertainty (in my mind of least) is just what this “relatively small fraction” should be.

As for the idea that “excessive” empathy will tend to produce excessive charitable giving, this is a fallacy based on the fact that (like DK) you’re focusing on some of the people your action will affect while ignoring others. Money that you don’t give to charity will presumably be spent in ways that will benefit someone: you, your family, perhaps your friends. These people count too! Also, money not given to charity might be invested, which in general benefits the economy – that is to say, it makes more goods and services available overall. And in general this tends to produce the greatest good for the greatest number. Investment increases the size of the pie, whereas charity generally just redistributes the existing pie (when it does not actually shrink it),. It is irrational to consider only the prospective beneficiaries of a gift to charity while ignoring those who will be made worse off by it. Thus the problem you imagine would stem from too little empathy, not too much.

Of course this danger is purely theoretical. Few people are going to neglect the interests of their own family and friends in favor of helping strangers!

It doesn’t matter whether a rational person who doesn’t have a certain bit of K&U considers it relevant; what matters is whether he would see it as relevant if he did have it. After all, who’s in a better position to judge its relevance; the man who knows what it is or the man who doesn’t? As always, an opinion based on more K&U trumps an opinion based on less. This is just another aspect of the fundamental principle of rationality expressed in my sixth “principle of rational action”. What possible quarrel could anyone have with this? Don’t we always assume that an opinion based on thorough mastery of the relevant knowledge is more valid that one based on less knowledge? Isn’t this why we all try to obtain as much knowledge and understanding as possible before making any important decision? If this principle were not axiomatic, this policy would be absurd. Why waste all that time and effort obtaining K&U if decisions based on less knowledge are just as valid as decisions based on more?

The term “determined” makes this statement true by definition: to say that someone is “determined” to do something is to say that he is going to do it no matter what. The question is whether any fully rational person really is “determined” to do something like murdering someone to get his wallet in the sense that he would do it even if he had perfect empathy with the victim and his family and friends.

Moreover, you’re ignoring the second part of my argument, regarding the Principle of Equality. Even if perfect empathy might fail to deter someone from doing such a thing, the realization that the beneficiary will not be him in any real, objective sense combined with foreseeing and feeling the consequences to the victim and everyone else who will be affected just as clearly as vividly as the consequences to himself, in my opinion, would persuade him not to do it.

I think that the difficulty that you, dk, and others have with understanding this is due to the fact that it is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine having the kind of perfect empathy that I’m talking about. No human being is really capable of this in practice.

How could it be rational to refuse arbitrarily to take into account some of the information that one has when making a decision? It seems to me that this would be self-evidently irrational, like not expecting the sun to rise in the east tomorrow because one refuses to take into account that is has done so every day of your life and reportedly has done so from time immemorial.

As I’m sure you understand, I do not take it as an axiom that it is rational to always act altruistically. This is a conclusion from other premises. If the premises are correct and the argument is valid, the conclusion must be accepted. It doesn’t matter whether it “feels right”.

But since this does seem to be a stumbling block for many people, some concrete examples may help illuminate the theory and show that it does indeed “feel right” once it is understood properly.

1. Smith believes that seriously handicapped people are a pointless burden on society and should be left to fend for themselves. Eventually his closest friend becomes seriously handicapped. He admires the courage with which he faces his adversity and realizes that even the seriously handicapped are people with human dignity and worth like everyone else. He quits his lucrative job to become an advocate for the handicapped.

2. Huntington is the son of a slave owner in the Old South and considers slavery to be natural and just because he has been taught that blacks are lazy, shiftless, immoral morons. He expects to inherit his father’s estate soon and run it just as before. Eventually he happens to come to know some of his father’s slaves personally and realizes that not only is all of this a pack of lies, but that slavery is a miserable, degrading condition that no man should be subjected to. He frees his slaves as soon as his father dies and becomes part of the Underground Railroad, at considerable risk to his life and fortune.

3. The example of Scrooge in A Christmas Carol is too well known to have to be recounted. I would point out that his transformation was effected almost entirely by simply providing him with information and understanding that he did not have.

In all of these cases the people involved changed their behavior in ways that either were clearly against their own self-interest or that they would certainly have considered to be against their self-interest before their transformation occurred. Do you think that any of them ever thought “Golly, I wish that I had never come to know what I know now so that I could have continued happily as before”? Of course not – or if they did, they were immediately ashamed of the thought. Do you think that any of them were irrational for acting differently in the light of their new K&U? Would you have advised them to remain in ignorance about the things in question, lest the new K&U should change them? I should hope not!

In all such cases we take it as axiomatic that the new preferences, goals, and behavior that result from new K&U are more valid than the old ones. We do not believe that it is ever rational to deliberately avoid acquiring certain K&U on the grounds that we might act differently if we were to acquire it. Above all, after acquiring it we never even consider the possibility that the preferences, etc. that we had before doing so might have been more valid than the ones we have now. Or if they were, it can only be because there is still further K&U that we are not yet privy to that might change our thinking again.

I really think that if you reflect on such examples for a while it will be clear that this is necessarily always the case. If you can think of any exceptions I would be very interested to hear about them. I don’t believe that there are, or can be, any.

dk

Part I, NOM (Nontheistic Objective Morality)
dk: - Morality is the antecedent of ethics i.e. morality associates (judges) a value of concrete human activity, then the science of ethics applies morality in different circumstances and situations. For example morality judges a wanton intentional act of homicide to be murder. The science of ethics distinguishes homicidal acts by type and degree, from cold blooded murder to justifiable homicide.
dk: Are you arguing for a “no harm no foul” rule? I understand morality (subjective or objective) to conceptualize the most primitive notion of causation derived from agency. A concrete human act absent agency is accidental or natural. When a person manifests agency through concrete actions they become an ‘an ends unto themselves’ governed by NOM. We need to contrast ‘event causality’ verses “agent causality’.
-----------------------
In a material (apparent) sense- concrete actions draw meaning from the beneficial/detrimental affects they entail.
*–verses-
In a formal sense- concrete actions become a manifestation of human agency to actualize potential in time.
-----------------------
What a person ‘should do’ ordered to K&U (event causality) is often an obstacle to the personal potential (intimacy) of human agency. For example, it is apparent (material to) that somebody with sufficient K&U should have murdered Adolph Hitler before 1933. The benefit being to avoid the NAZI German Nation that caused WW II. But the presumption is not at all certain because human events, unlike motion pictures, can’t be played back and edited to restore the past. For example its quit possible the murder of Hitler would have delayed WW II until Germany developed and built enough intercontinental nuclear missiles to subjugate the world to a new order of Aryan superman. That was the point of the Oedipus myth (posted earlier, which nobody on this thread addressed). The point was that people participate their own destiny as intimate individuals governed by NOM irrespective of K&U, society, government and culture.
. . In other words your moral theory treats ‘K&U’ as if sufficient ‘K&U’ somehow makes time reversible(like the material laws of science). The presumption innately undermines the personal agency intimate to a suitable social order and essential to actualize self potential (self fulfillment). People can cheat to apparently escape the burden of NOM (consequences) to acquire some desired benefit, but in so doing become a cheat. What a person becomes over time is a function of active judgments that form habits. When a person cheats they falsify themselves, and the falsification becomes an intimate addendum to their identity that fundamentally undermines the intimacy of true self.

[ July 21, 2002: Message edited by: dk ]</p>

Koyaanisqatsi

Un hunh...



I pointed out to you that the statement "X should do Y" is an incomplete declarative, because it is lacking the necessary qualifier "I think X should do Y," and without that necessary qualifier it only has the appearance of an objective declaration, when in fact it is not and cannot be considered an "objective" statement.

"X should do Y" according to whom or what? The word "should" demands a qualifier that you have simply left off.

That is what I was trying to get at and thought I did.

It means nothing, since it is an incomplete declarative. "BD thinks X should do Y" is a properly qualified declaration, yes?

Who is saying "X should do Y?" If it isn't you saying someone should do something and therefore qualified to you and your opinions, then who is? The universe? The universe thinks X should do Y? That's absurd.

All of humanity? All of humanity thinks X should do Y? How would it be possible--in the real world where this actually applies--to get "all of humanity" to think that, or, better to qualify that (i.e., declare X should do Y)?



Should! The statement you have provided is a should scenario that demands a qualifier against which such a measurement can be made.

How do you propose somebody accurately assess the following incomplete declaration: "Tom should eat more vitamins."

According to whom? A doctor? His wife? The mailman? Who is the one proclaiming the should? The universe? Who?

That's what using the word "should" forces upon the individual. Here's Webster's take on it so no one accuses me of creative definition: used in auxiliary function to express condition.

The operative word is should, which is a conditional (not in the formal logic sense) and therefore dependent upon a qualifier. Take your own examples above. "Who's going to win the game tonight?" would be "Who do you think should win the game tonight?"

"Close the door," would be, "Who do you think should close the door?" or, "Who do I think should close the door?"

In other words, who the hell is declaring the "should?" Who? Somebody must be declaring the should conditional in order for it to be properly qualified!

You tell me what the declaration, "Bob should do penance for his sins," means beyond the expression of the opinion of whoever it was that wrote the declaration, because as far as I can see it expresses nothing else but the opinion of whoever wrote the declaration, yes?

Christ, I've given it a thousand times and no one has refuted it, other than to bring up an incoherent argument that morality only applies to humans, which is the definition of subjectively. If an action cannot be considered to have an intrinsic "rightness" or "wrongness" then it is impossible to state said "rightness" or "wrongness" is objectively true.

"Jane should stop posing for pornography."

According to whom and why?

Those two primary qualifiers (whom and why) must be addressed in order to determine the moral position of the individual making such a declaration, but it is impossible to objectively determine the "rightness" or "wrongness" of posing for pornography.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the action posing for pornography!

Thus the above declarative sentence to be properly qualified would be: "Jane's Father, Hank, thinks Jane should stop posing for pornography, because it demeans her."

Circumstance and subject must be factored in or the declaration is utterly meaningless.

"Jane should stop posing for pornography" is an incomplete declaration that has no ultimate meaning because the "should" has not been properly qualified.

Get it?

Un hunh...

If you'll recall (and if not, just look up a few lines) you had asked me what I thought it means to say that a moral statement is “objectively true”.

As should be abundantly clear to you by now, I think that to say a moral statement is "objectively true" is an impossibility; a contradiction in terms because morality is inherently subjective, thus to answer what I think it means to say that a moral statement is "objectively true" is to say nothing more than a moral statement has in fact been declared, i.e., it is a tautology, since a moral statement cannot ever be considered "objectively true" in the sense that there exists an objective morality.

"I think Frank should not masturbate, because masturbation is morally wrong," is a moral statement, yes? The only thing regarding that statement that could be considered "objectively true" in any meaningful, non-trivial, "real world" sense is the fact that I just typed it and and I think it, hence the only qualification the term "objectively true" has in regard to a moral statement is that it was made by me and nothing else.

Certainly not that the immorality of masturbation has been established as an objectively true condition of the action, to masturbate, which is what we're all discussing, yes?

If not, then pardon me, since I have no desire to quibble over trivial matters of the rules of formal logic as you appear to be obsessed with.

Yeah I get that a lot, which is why I apply Topos theory instead, since formal logic ultimately breaks down into pointless semantics masturbation like what you're doing.

Asking me what "X should do Y" means, for example, as if such a declarative can exist in its own vacuum is a perfect example.

It is useless in this discussion to attempt to objectively word necessarily subjective declaratives.

Who or what thinks X should do Y? Until those question are answered and the declarative properly qualified, how can I possibly address the question, accept to say an equally subjective opinion, which is "I think X should do Y, because..." and then provide my reasons for saying so?

Use the real world where morality and decisions regarding morality actually exists and stop hiding behind rules of formal logic for ten seconds, yes?

Sorry, my bad. Your conditional commits a fallacy of ambiguity ("amphiboly" if I recall correctly, or is it "equivocation?"). How's that?

When I said that a consensus defines morality, what I was saying is that a group comes to an agreement on what is or is not considered moral for that group at that particular time, not just that a supergroup defines for all time and all people what is or is not "MORAL," all right? Is that clearer now?

If morality is defined by a group consensus then the objective existence of such a group and the consensus they arrived at (aka, the fact that a consensus was arrived at) would not be an example of an objective moral truth; it would only mean that a group of people came to a consensus--agreement--to the morality of a certain action.

This in no way means that the morality of any action defined by the consensus is in fact an objective moral truth just because the group can be said to "objectively exist," all right?

You're quite right, which is why I apply Topos theory to this question, because it exists in the real world and requires real world examples and technical aspects of formal logic serve no purpose, happy?

True, but only in a trivial, technical rules of formal logic way.

The argument itself does not follow because of the terminology you misconstrue in your premises, better?

For example: " “Capital punishment is wrong” means that there is a consensus against capital punishment."

But not in any "objective" sense; in a purely conditional, subjective group consensus manner; i.e., a group of people in Florida, let's say, elected to the legislature have concluded that for their state, Capital Punishment is "morally wrong."

The fact that this group exists and that they came to that conclusion regarding Capital Punishment does not establish or prove or relate in any way to the larger declarative that your premises imply: "Capital Punishment is objectively wrong."

Quite right, because I always seek to cut through such sophomoric horseshit and get to the meat of the issue.

When I typed "non-sequitur" I did in fact mean that your argument did not follow based on the inherent flaws in the terminology of your premises, not necessarily on the technical qualities of your premises as they relate to formal logic, only because I have no interest and no patience for obeying trivial rules that can easily be transcended by a simple nod to context and intent in a real world scenario.

It is obviously trivially important whether or not your premises can be considered sequitur on a technical level when they are non sequitur on an ultimate, "real world" level, yes? After all, morality does not exist in a vacuum and is dependent upon humanity as everyone keeps stating, so to focus on trivial matters of technical rules of formal logic when you know what the context and intent of my statements are in regard to the question of morality is literally a waste of everyone's time.

You had asked me what I meant by the terms I was using and I explained that to you so it doesn't interest me in the slightest to have you then misapply those terms in formal terms, all right?

I'm not saying you're incorrect in the slightest, I'm simply saying that you are trivially correct, but that doesn't get us anywhere concerning the context and intent of the terminology in regard to my argument, now does it?

Thus, "X should do Y" is a pointless declarative without a real world qualifier, so qualify it properly and we have something.

Who or what is stating that X "should" do Y? That is the question and always has been the question and everything else is irrelevant, trivial quibbling, IMO.

Fine, your post was pointless and trivial because you sought not to address my requests that you qualify the assumptive "X should do Y" or my arguments as to why that was a necessary condition inherent within the declarative, but instead went into a rules and regulations formal logic redux that never interested me when I studied it in college, because, as we all know, the ultimate intent of logic is to provide a means to discern and address as objectively as possible a truth claim and not to provide a trivial means to slam torpedoes into an argument so that the intent gets bogged down in remembering such ultimately pointless observations as "A implies B" does not necessarily mean that "B is not true."

Clarified enough? From now on I won't use the transcendent and easily understandable term "non-sequitur" in a more colloquial sense to inform you that your counter argument is missing the point, all right?

Now, please feel free to continue your own tirade about my forgetting the irrelevant trivialities of formal logic rules and regulations.

It means that the person is incorrectly using the word "believe" in a colloquial manner better suited to the word "think."

How about we avoid all of this and just use the word "say," so that it becomes "I say that X should do Y."

How's that?

Only if the "I" in the sentence accepts as true (i.e., that in their opinion) X should do Y.

They are saying that in their opinion X should do Y.

Are you beginning to see how such a qualification is necessary and correctly places the argument in question into its proper context?

I didn't argue that, if you'll recall, I argued that the declarative "X should do Y" was an incomplete sentence, because it leaves off the necessary qualifier that places the declarative into its proper context mandated by the conditional "should;" that it is therefore not possible to just have the statement "X should do Y" exist in a vacuum, with the implication being that it is therefore objective due to the lack of a qualifier in the sentence.

That apparently, consistently leaves off a necessary qualifier of the conditional "should."

"X should do Y" according to whom or what? You? Subjective. Me? Subjective. Group consensus? Subjective. The universe? Absurd.



Done whining or would you like to try and transcend it all and address the fact that, no matter what, you've got to qualify the declarative in some manner (or accept the default qualification, which is he or she who made the declarative)?

It cannot just exist in a vacuum of formal rules and regulations. Some one (or some thing) must act as the subjective qualifier that supports or affirms the condition inherent in the use of the word "should."

Who says what X should or shouldn't do concerning Y is the question morality ultimately asks; aka, what we ask ourselves concerning what we call morality, so until you deal with that in the real world, there is no discussion.

Properly qualify the declarative "X should do Y" or I will simply be forced to apply the default, "BD says X should do Y."

How is that? Clearer now?

Of course, the other end of that qualification is the standard for your condition, in the form of "because," thus, again, the real or ultimate declarative regarding morality is:

Now you've got a complete moral statement, properly qualified and all of the conditions inherent within the use of the word "should" fully met.

Your honor, I rest my case.

Now, if you'll all excuse me, I'm going to go try and find my Logic and Language 511 notes...

(edited for formatting and further clarification - Koy)

[ July 23, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

emphryio

Excuse me for butting in.

It's really rather simple. What's is moral is whatever action brings an individual happiness. The more happiness, the more moral.

The problem in understanding this, is occasionally we perform actions were we are concerned with our long term happiness instead of our short term.

For instance even if you can get away with it, it might decrease your happiness in the long term to murder a total stranger. (Who knows, you might meet the person and benefit from the meeting somewhere far down the road.)

Morality actually only means acting for your own self interest. (Egotism with varying degrees of forethought). And of course it's completely subjective.

Everyone is an egotist.

Some may not realize it because they have habitually performed an illogical thought process. (Brainwashed into associating happiness with altruism?)

Some may not realize that in an almost sub-concious fashion, they are thinking in the extreme long term.

But ultimately we really are all egotists, (even the theists.)

bd-from-kg

dk:
To be honest. I can’t make any sense at all of most of your last post. For example, I find the following statements completely mystifying:

But I’ll try to deal with the little that I was able to grasp.

I’m not sure what you mean by “apparent”. As you yourself point out, this is far from clear even with the benefit of hindsight.

But I think what you’re trying to get at is that the “rightness” of an act cannot be based on its consequences because consequences cannot be known before the fact. So if whether an act is right depends on consequences, we can never know whether made the “right” choice; we might end up acting wrongly in spite of having the best intentions and having weighed all relevant factors that we could possibly have known beforehand.

Now it’s true that quite often we cannot be sure what the consequences of a given act will be; this is part of the human condition. But I don’t see why that implies that whether an act is right does not depend on its consequences. Where is it written that we can be sure whether we’re choosing the right action?

In any case, other criteria have the same problem. For example, in deontological theories, an action is generally thought to be right if it is just. But how can you know whether an action is just? No matter how careful we are, we will sometimes imprison or even execute someone for a crime he didn’t commit, honor someone who doesn’t deserve it and ignore someone who does, etc. Many people are dead wrong about whether abortion should be legal (whether it should be or not). Certainty cannot be attained by basing “rightness” on the “intrinsic nature” of an act, because this “intrinsic nature” is often just as impossible to know as its consequences.

The real problem here, I think, is that there are two sense of “right” which are often confused. One is often said to have done the right thing if the choice really is the best all things considered. But one is also often said to have done the right thing if the choice is the one that a person acting with the best intentions might reasonably have done given the information one had available. These two meanings are often incompatible. For example, say that you’re on the jury in a capital murder case. You deliberate carefully, considering all of the evidence that was presented, conclude that the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and so vote to convict. In reality he’s innocent, but there was nothing in the evidence that you had available to suggest that he was, or even that the matter was at all doubtful.

In one sense you did the wrong thing: it’s wrong to convict someone of a crime he didn’t commit. But in another sense you did the right thing: you should reach the verdict that is indicated by an objective, impartial reading of the evidence, and that’s exactly what you did.

My theory uses terms like “right” and “should” in the first sense. But that doesn’t mean that I think the second sense is incorrect; I say only that it’s a different sense than the one I use.

To see why this sense must be allowed as one of the possible meanings of “right”, suppose that you later learn that the man you convicted was executed, and that it was later discovered that he was innocent. Would you not then say that you thought that you were doing the right thing when you convicted him, but that you now realize that it was wrong? Or consider the condemned man himself. Wouldn’t he say that you thought that you were doing the right thing, but that you really weren’t? Or suppose that the jury is about to return with a “guilty” verdict when the news arrives that the real culprit has confessed and the charges have been dropped. Wouldn’t you say that you had been about to do the wrong thing? At the very least you must agree that moral language is commonly used in this way, and that no one would say that someone who used it this way was making a mistake - that he didn’t understand how to use words like “right” and “wrong” properly in their moral sense.

Now let’s turn to one of your final statements:

So far as I can make out, you seem to be saying something like this: cheating has the intrinsic property of being wrong, or of “ought-not-to-be-doneness”, and the property, in some mysterious way, “rubs off” onto the agent. That is, by choosing an act with the property of ought-not-to-be-doneness one acquires (or enhances) an intrinsic property of “badness” or “wickedness”. And in some mysterious way this is undesirable: it “undermines the intimacy of true self”, whatever that means.

Needless to say, I consider all of this to be pure fantasy. There is no such intrinsic property as “ought-not-to-be-doneness”. While doing anything will affect one, often in far-reaching ways, there is no property of “wrong” acts that causes them to affect one in some special, unique way. This is mystical mumbo-jumbo.

dk

I’m confused. You begin the explanation by pointing out that the question “is not between types” then proceed to explain by designating types. Perhaps this is meant to distinguish the method of inquiry from the type of morality. It may be that what you describe demonstrates the crisis of reason the permeates the subject of ethics in the post modern world. .

dk

It makes me happy to murder poor miserable people. I'm happy because I benefit from the power, and whatever cash I find on the corpse, The world is happy to be rid of a miserable person because its overcrowded. A win-win scenario. What do you think?

emphryio

What makes you happy is either based on logic or illogic. Upon which is your happiness in murdering based? (Maybe serial murders are rather illogical. Maybe with more logic they could find greater happiness in other actions. They might find they prefer having conversations, or playing chess? with people.)

What exactly do you mean by poor, miserable people?

Depending upon what you mean by the above, there may or may not exist an action that could cause a greater happiness than murdering these people for power/money. (Such is definitely the case for me. How about you? Can you not think of better ways to achieve happiness even supposing there were no laws and you had the power to kill at will?)

The world is happy because it's less crowded?
How about "the world is unhappy because it's more empty?"

Of course I'm not saying that murder can never be the most moral action. (Maybe) but not definitely.

bd-from-kg

emphryio:

Excuse me for being dense, but this doesn’t seem at all simple to me. Is this a proposed definition of “moral”? If so, on what grounds do you recommend abandoning traditional usage in favor of this one? Or have you detected an intrinsic property of acts that bring happiness to the agent that no one has noticed before? If so, what objective empirical tests can the rest of us perform to verify the existence of this supposed property? Or are you just putting us on notice that you personally intend to use the term “moral” in this sense, but can give no reason why anyone else would want to? If so, why did you choose this forum and this thread for your announcement?

Actually this is not a problem in understanding your statement, but an ambiguity in the statement itself. When you say that an action “brings an indivisual happiness”, do you mean that it gives him an immediate sense of satisfaction or that it conduces to his long-term happiness?

Yes, it might. Then again it might not. The odds that it will increase your happiness in the long run rather than decreasing it depend largely on how much immediate benefit you derive from it. Thus if killing Smith will net you ten million dollars it is far more likely to increase you happiness in the long term than if it nets you only a nickel. So are you saying that (assuming you will get away with it) killing someone for ten million dollars is more moral, or more likely to be moral, than killing someone for a quarter?

This is unclear. If you define what you mean by “your own self-interest” precisely enough, the question of which choice will be most in your own self interest would seem to be objective, just as the question of who will win the next Steelers-Ravens game is objective (although no one knows the answer yet).

Once again, this is unclear. Do you mean that everyone is conceited and boastful? Or that everyone is selfish and self-centered? If the latter, can you give any reasons for supposing that this is true given that everyday experience seems to indicate that it’s false?

Why is it self-evident that happiness cannot be associated with altruism without brainwashing? From the empirical evidence it would seem that happiness can be associated with all sorts of things, including physical pain. Making other people happy does not seem on the face of it to be an especially implausible or unnatural source of happiness. In fact, quite a few intelligent, seemingly quite sane people who do not appear to have been brainwashed have reported that it makes them happier than anything else they’ve ever tried.

It seems difficult to imagine thinking about the long term in an unconscious fashion, since it requires engaging the highest levels of the brain. Thinking in the long term, after all, is precisely what animals and young children do not seem to be capable of because their minds are not developed sufficiently. But whether this is true or not, what does it have to do with your original point?

[ July 29, 2002: Message edited by: bd-from-kg ]</p>

DRFseven

Hi, bd; it seems we've been arguing about this for years, LOL. Please tell me if I have your position right. You are not denying that people have subjective moral opinions, you are just saying that there could theoretically be a set of objective morals that would always work toward some particular thing.