Longbow

We aren't talking about behavior. We are talking about morality. When you use a term like "loose morals" you are speaking "loosely", yourself. {i]Morality[/i] is not a general term for behavior.

A. You just did exactly what you are scolding me for.

B. I am not wrong.

These figures of speech are usually thinly veiled expressions of moral subjectivism or ethical relativism, views that are neither scientific nor philosophically sound or even usually very intellectually mature, for that matter.

What different cultures have is different moral beliefs. And if you want to have a straightforward discussion about bad behavior in this thread, then fine.

1) What you are talking about is unequivocally mores not morals

2) If you are already moral subjectivist, then you might believe that morality can vary from culture to culture

3) It is also an unequivocal fact that there are universal characteristics that all cultures must share (an obvious one, I might add, that nonetheless really has nothing to do with morality)

4) It is demonstrably true that most well-informed individuals (i.e. those that know the history of ideas concerning morality) do not adhere to ethical relativism.

5) In fact, it is probably true that most well-informed people aren't even moral subjectivists.

Your pretention that "we know now" that morality is relative to culture is a bald-faced lie. And your subsequent incredibly condescending lecture to me about it is unmitigated hypocrisy:

1) I am not "nitpicking". The discussion is about morality, and now you are not only begging the question for your position, you are deliberately attacking me for disputing it.

2) This kind of attack is not some ad hominem thrown out as a fallacious response to something I said -- it is much more immoral than that. It is a direct attempt to not only censor, but ostracize anyone that holds a threatening view to yours as well as send out a message to anyone else that might "pipe up" about it.

3) Your juvenal reply that "loose morals" doesn't mean "loose physics" completely evades the point of the comparison demonstrating that morality is a subject not a behavior. That people can speak figuratively in a way that alludes to behavior is not even remotely relevant to my post, the subthread with Primal, or this entire discussion topic!

4) The issue of this thread is specifically whether or not morality is limited to evolutionary traits which means that coming up with a metaphorical interpretation of the word "morals" is an incredibly weak "contribution" to the discussion.

Your response is overtly aggressive and condescending. You should at the very least save such behavior for subjects you actually know something about.

Longbow

"You used drugs," and "Using drugs is wrong," are obviously two different statements that are supposed to mean completely different things. It's one thing to contend that it turns out that behavior and morality are synonymous. But, you certainly cannot just act like "everybody knows that..." they are.

Longbow

Yes you do. You have to show a lot of specific things about morality to draw conclusions about the "genetic nature" of morality. One of those things is that morality is not the topic of discussion that we all think it is, but rather is the set fo behavior traits you are claiming it is.

Let's take a look at my contentions:

1) It is NOT the common view that morals are evolutionary traits or relative to culture or whatever else you guys are trying to pass off.

2) This view is more like the consensus of cultural anthropologists or something -- not the consensus of those that know all the arguments for the various positions throughout history that people have taken in moral philosophy.

These two contentions are very falsifiable. Just look it up and see. A survey of the modern and historical literature (I claim) will support my contention. Beyond just making a long list of references of everyone that never believed in such a view, there is little else I can do.

3) The author of the original post as many of you seem to be doing just took it for granted that morals are behavioral traits.

This is not only true just looking back through the posts, but it is also important to his position.

4) You cannot just it for granted that morals are behavioral traits.

This is, in fact, the most important thing you would have to show on such a view. And, yes, you have to show it -- your critics do not have to preemptively refute it. So, stop trying to shift the burden of proof.

K

Longbow:

I stand corrected. I reread your first post in this thread and I concur that you did not claim that morals were not the product of genetics. You only claimed that it was not the generally accepted view. I apologize for misrepresenting your position.

I believe there is a great deal of evidence to support the OP's position on the evolutionary basis of morality. However, admittedly, that isn't what was challenged.

Kharakov

Morality is not only a subject of discussion, it is also (to quote a dictionary) : a) conformity to the ideals of right human conduct b) a doctrine or system of moral conduct.

I was under the impression that you were trying to limit the definition of the word morality to the subject, and that you were wrongfully attacking other peoples comments about morality (the behavior of being moral) because you insisted that morality was only a subject (which is incorrect).

In later posts:
<strong> Once again, morality is not just the subject, it is also moral conduct (or behavior).

I apologize for thinking you were nitpicking and responding in kind. Generally, when I believe someone is acting in a childish manner, I respond in a childish manner (games people play: child--child), because that is the only way to show the person what they are doing.

Kharakov

Primal

And you cannot take it for granted that theya re not. And seeing as this position is least superfluous I accept it over others.

What are the other positions? Well one involes us finding an ultimate moral agent to "giude"(enslave) us. Like God.

The other involves finding some sort of "ultimate principle" or group of principles, like Kant's categorical imperative, usually chosen arbitrarily.

Then there is moral relativism, which is also arbitrary and faces the problem of raw feel and random distribution as well as exegentic explanations, animal precusors and the cross cultural nature of morals. It also seems to presuppose randomism and free will.

Moral nihilism suffers from raw feel evidence and observations of behavior we call "moral" among animals.

All they can argue is that, these "moral" behaviors are not really what morals are. Which leaves the question of "what are they then?" In which case the nihilist must say "something made up" or the relativist "someting practiced/sanctioned by a culture or individual" i.e. a behavior.

Longbow

It isn't the least superfluous. That is the whole problem. That is why you have the burden of proof and why I can for all intents and pruposes assume that morals are not limited to evolved behavioral traits.

I do not have to posit some ethereal nether realm where morals float around and evil seeps like a black ooz. Children might imagine such things, but that's not what moral objectivism is all about. I am not "creating another reality" or anything like that.

It may suprise you to find that not many well informed people really think like this either. Okay, so now we have dispensed with these silly ideas. Now we can get started on 2500 years of moral philosophy.

In other words, when I talk about "well-informed" people as being people familiar with the history of ideas concerning morality, I am nto talking about a bunch of religious fanatics preaching "the word of god". Most moral philosophy consist of nothing of the sort. So, if we take this as representative of really eventhe most extreme positions that I am really entertaining as moral "objectivism" or "realism" or whatever, then you can just put these kind of thoughts right out of your mind.

Relativism doesn't presuppose free will, I don't think. If anything it is usually associated with determinism. I don't think it is arbitrary -- it is the claim that any other moral position is arbitrary. It really just reduces to moral subjectivism in my opnion. (I really don't take seriously the contention that morality can vary by culture but not by individual.)

The Categorical Imperative is certainly not choosen arbitrarily. Naturalistic explanations have always become arbitrary at some point in the past. Other similar ideas like more primitive natural rights doctrines (e.g. Locke) are the same. Locke doesn't really try to defend some profound metaethical foundation -- he just kind of takes a "who could dispute that...," approach.

It might surprise you to find, though, that natural rights theories are deontological. And Kant's moral philosophy is a natural rights theory and is very much articulated this way when it comes to the main topic of justice. You might also be surprised that the idea of co-possible liberty is the central thesis of Kant's "Doctrine of Right" (i.e. his views on justice).

Kant wrote an entire book explaining and defending the Categorical Imperative, so it isn't arbitrary by any means. He wrote an entire other book describing his actual moral philosophy (what he though the consequences of the Categorical Imeprative were). What has often happened, especially in popular philosophy, is people take and construe all variety of absurd things from what Kant has actually said. It is no different than when social democrats take Locke and try to make him out to be a socialist or a welfare-state advocate. The turth is that Locke was pretty much an evil capitalist pig. Kant wasn't, but he wasn't a proto-communist or autocrat, either, as is often argued when people look at his student, Hegel, and Marx who was a neoHegelian.

And it is also plainly false, that no one can understand his books or that he goes around contradicting himself all the time. He is no different than any other philosopher in history. He wrote a few books on moral philosophy defining and defending the only view (I would claim) of morality that adequately explains it and distinguishes it from other things. He doesn't invent a nether realm of morals to do this. He doesn't abandon reason to do it, either (which you hear a lot from Objectivists). He doesn't create any superfluous or extra attachments to reality, including the existence of God or the immortality of the soul both of which, if anything, Kant argues for based on the existence of morality (not the other way around).

Perhaps this kind of historical perspective is a better thing to point out than just going straight for the ideas. A lot of people reject deontology for a lot of reasons. Very, very seldom are those reasons really because they directly disagree with something that Kant actually believed or because of anything essential to deontology. Instead they just have their own pet view that they just can't wait to get to. I really just think that people don't really consider deontology. You can usually tell someone that has by the way they account for the possibility of it as an interpretation of morality. And usually people that haven't really considered deontology have other obvious holes in their interpretations of moral statements that you don't need a deontologist to point out...

Helmling

I think what he means by alleging that Kant's categorical imperative--or any other supposedly rational basis for a morality--is arbitrary is that eventually it can be reduced to some assumption that is--in true existentialist fashion--chosen. The choice of these root assumptions--like Kant's CI--have no ultimate appeal to rationality. How much Kant wrote to justify his choice is irrelevant to the fact that when you get down to it, there is no logical reason that morality must spring from the Categorical Imperative or from the Golden Rule or from what have you.
These explanatory systems are applied after the fact. They are convoluted rationalizations for what has already existed--the phenomenon of morality.
Morality is a complex construct. I think it is dangerous to overgeneralize about it, by saying that it's wholly one thing or the other. However, I think there must be some genetic components to our moral behavior. While I like your phrase, Longbow, that it is the desire for morality that is genetic, I'm afraid there are actual behavior patterns that are recorded as well. Some of our basic social instincts would qualify as "morality." Our basic rules for social conduct...like not automatically beating our neighbor to death to secure greater resources for ourselves...are evolved behaviors. Some animals do react that aggressively to potential competitiors. But we, like most mammals have a evolutionary behavioral makeup that concludes something different from the cost-benefit analysis of that type of behavior.
That being said, a great deal of what we consider morality can likewise NOT be genetic, given both the incredible diversity of moral systems throughout various cultures and the rate at which moral systems are subject to change. Many of these moral precepts are tied to evolution, though, in that they are often cultural attempts to contain other evolutionary behaviors. The morality of marriage and possession of female reproductive assets by males, for example, is probably a male-biased counter to an evolutionarily selected for behavior by females to shop around for better genes while duping an existing mate into raising the offspring. Recent studies have suggested that the rate of this could be as high as to leave 10% of mates cuckolded.

Kharakov

Longbow-

Are you talking about the platonic form 'morality' instead of morals (moral practices or modes of conduct)?

bd-from-kg

K:

You say:

Well, yes. It’s pretty much a given that traits that almost all humans have in common are a product of evolution, which means that they are probably favored by natural selection. As to why they’re favored by natural selection, that’s more speculative, but it seems plausible that empathy (and perhaps some other traits) were selected for because they allowed humans to work together.

But without knowing anything about either evolution or actual human behavior, one could confidently predict that “moral” behavior would be produced in large part by desires and goals that “allow us to work together”. That’s because “moral behaviors” are by definition ones that primarily benefit the group, or mankind as a whole, rather than the individual. As it happens, this kind of behavior is favored in some respects, though not in others, by natural selection. But even if it weren’t selected for in any respect, it would be socially desirable, and therefore moral.

What I don’t understand is why it is so generally believed that evolution comes into this in any significant way. What is the relevance of the fact that natural selection favors individuals who exhibit certain kinds of socially desirable behavior to a moderate degree? Can we deduce anything of interest (save to the scientist) about morality from a knowledge that such behaviors are widespread as a result of evolutionary processes? It seems to me that we cannot. In fact, we can figure out most of what’s important about morality simply by considering the requirements for a stable, orderly society. (Not everything, because moral considerations also enter into interactions between different societies. And here there seems to be pretty much a total disconnect between moral behaviors and behaviors favored by natural selection.)

Kharakov:

It appears that you’re saying that some kinds of moral behavior are favored by natural selection and others aren’t, but tend to be propagated by memes. True enough, and still others aren’t propagated at all. What’s your point? Obviously if we observe a certain kind of behavior in the natural world, there must be some natural explanation for it, and if it’s persistent over many generations there must be some reasons why it’s persistent. I suppose that the actual mechanisms through which certain behaviors persist over a long period of time in a given society might be of some interest to a sociologist, but why are they of interest to a moral philosopher? If the point is that some of the behaviors in question are not socially beneficial, this might perhaps be interesting to a social scientist in the same way that a patient’s belief in astrology might be of interest to a psychologist, but it seems to me that the former is of about as much interest to a moral philosopher as the latter is to an astronomer.

It seems to me that this is about as fruitful a procedure for doing moral philosophy as studying the mechanisms through which most people came to believe that the earth is flat in ancient times and those through which most people come to believe that it’s round in modern times is a fruitful way of doing geology. This might be of some interest to a few people, but not to a geologist, whose concern is not what people have believed about the shape of the earth or how they came to believe it, but whether the earth is flat or round. Similarly, determining whether there is something about the structure of the brain that predisposes us to believe that the geometry of spacetime is Euclidean would be of interest to scientists studying the brain, but not to physicists, who are interested in whether the geometry of spacetime is Euclidean.

It seems to me that Longbow has a point. When people who purport to be talking about a certain subject when they are really talking about psychological or other natural explanations of associated beliefs or behaviors, it is almost always because they believe that there is really nothing worth saying about the subject itself. For example, if someone talks as if he’s discussing astrology but has nothing to say about astrology itself, but only about why some people believe in it, you can be pretty sure that he thinks astrology is bunk. If someone claims to be discussing exorcism, but has nothing to say about exorcism itself and instead talks exclusively about how some people can fall into the delusion that they are possessed by a demon and be “cured” of this delusion by certain rituals, you can be pretty sure that he doesn’t believe that there is really any such thing as an exorcism. And if someone claims to be discussing the origins of morality but turns out to have nothing to say about morality, but only about why some people behave in certain ways, you can be pretty sure that he doesn’t think that there is really any such thing as morality.

Now the notion that there is no such thing as morality (or at least nothing like what most people seem to mean by morality) is certainly defensible. But you can’t just assume that it’s true at the outset of a discussion about morality. If your position is that the vast majority of people have been talking utter nonsense on a subject throughout recorded history, it really is incumbent on you to offer some evidence - some cogent reason to believe that it’s so.

By the way, resorting to the dictionary to show that the term “morality” can refer to behavior conforming to some generally accepted moral code is beside the point. Moral philosophy is concerned with the questions of what moral principles are valid and what moral statements mean, not with causal accounts of why people act this way or that. It is not concerned with why John Jones is philandering – whether it is the result of his upbringing or has a genetic basis or both - but with whether there is any justification for saying that philandering is immoral, and what it means to say that it is immoral.

And evolution is irrelevant to these questions. Before you can even consider the question of to what extent and how natural selection favors “moral” types of behavior, you have to have a reasonably clear notion of what constitutes moral behavior. and in order to know what constitutes moral behavior, you have to know what it means to say that a behavior is “moral”. But the answers to these questions are the very subject matter of moral philosophy. So by the time you are ready to consider the question of the relationship between moral behavior and evolution, your job as a moral philosopher is already done! In other words, the questions of interest to moral philosophy are logically prior to any considerations relating to evolution.