LostGirl

Well, I tried to read more of the backlog of threads from the last thirty days before making my first post here in the introductory forums, but my self control fails me. I want to be initiated so I can jump right in to certain discussions (albeit cautiously, if one can do both at the same time). I admire the level of intelligence that is evident in these discussions as well as the amount of thought that go into some of these posts!

What about me? I am an undergrad student doing a biological sciences bachelors with a philosophy minor, and despite a GPA that I fear is too low, I hope to get into a master's program in bioethics at either McGill or UofT (Toronto) once I'm finished this course of study. This semester, my philosophy course is "Value Theory: Searching for a Global Theory of Value" and I think that some of my professor's ideas about the universal basis of value could be hot topics for debate here. With my 'biosci' (as we say here at the University of Guelph in Ontario) background, I have already noted pz's expertise in this area, but this semester I am also taking courses on Evolutionary Analysis and Human Genetics, so I've got recent textbooks to refer to! Past philosophy courses I've taken have included Religion, Ethics, Medical Ethics, Medieval Christian, Islamic and Judaic Philosophy, Foundations of Indian Philosophy and Foundations of Chinese Philosophy. In the latter two we concentrated on primary text rather than the millennia or centuries of interpretive text that's available.

As far as my beliefs, well, I'm technically an agnostic with leanings towards a mystic* pantheism that incorporates ideas present in the Hindu Atman and string theory but since I'm me, I like to throw in some Taoist equanimity (which is strengthened by some Zen Buddhist principles) and top it off with a cherry-like belief in the absolutely visceral innateness of moral instinct. I don't like to discount anything that seems like a good idea and doesn't contradict things I've worked out to my satisfaction. I love it when my ideas are challenged, because if they weren't strong enough to hold up to the challenge, they're strengthened by adapting to it and changing when better evidence or argument is presented.


*I mean here, mystic in the technical sense that the "mystical experience" with all its hallmarks is the standard way to connect to the pantheistic nature of the universe.

Sarpedon

Please explain: "Visceral innateness of moral instinct." As someone who is very interested in morality, I tend to think of morality as being an intellectual construct of memetic evolution, rather than an inborn quality.

LostGirl

Well, one of the ways we evaluate moral theory is to put it up against the 'hard cases' and see what results it yields. If the result feels wrong, then we deem it a weakness in the moral theory. For example, I use Kant's formulation of the "universal maxim" and the example of the axe murderer at the door. This shows how it's an innate moral sense that tells us it's wrong to tell the axe murderer where his intended victim is hiding strictly because it's always wrong to lie. We know that it is not.

I think we use this visceral (gut) feeling of right and wrong to evaluate moral situations, and moral theory is an attempt to codify why and how what feels right is right. Logical thinking only goes so far - if it doesn't agree with that inner sense that most homo sapiens are born with, then we tend to reject the result that logical thinking has yielded in favour of the gut reaction.

Sarpedon

This "gut feeling" of yours. Are you sure it is not a psychosomatic reaction to a set of conditioned circumstances and/or a simple manifestation of fear?

I have always felt that emotions are the same things as instincts, that is to say, an evolved set of reactions to certain circumstances. Morals, however, appear to me to be social constructs. I base that on my observation that children seem to have no morals at all. Those with effective parents develop them rather quickly, but those with incompetant parents tend to be morally retarded. Have you observed this phenomenon? It would seem to suggest that morality is learned.

LostGirl

hmmm, psychosomatic in particular? no. I don't think moral intuition, gut feeling is psychosomatic. I don't mean physical feelings are induced by moral "instinct (if you like)".
All I mean is that we sense when something is right, and when something is missing the quality of being right. Since we are self-recursive in that we not only think and feel but we think about thinking and have feelings about our feelings, we also try to establish a higher-order system to moral feeling. We think about why this is right, and why it is not - this is moral theory, systems of value. But it's all about trying to make sense of that innate "yes" or "no" we get when we are faced with a morally problematic situation. That's why case examples are held up to moral theory in order to evaluate its applicability, to see if it really works to explain why situations are right. When a theory doesn't yield the intuitively "right" result, we reinterpret that theory, not decide that our moral sense of the situation is wrong.

As for children: moral sense is developmental the same way that a sense of empathy or regard for consequence is developmental. Infants aren't born "complete" - they're still very much works in progress and the brain's plasticity in early childhood has been well noted. Moral sense is sophisticated in that it works on a very basal level - one that we don't 'notice' any more than we 'notice' the brain processing sensory input and comparing it to every connected stored memory before alerting our conscious mind. Both the integration of the moral sense and any child's ability to effectively utilize its whispered output to the conscious mind will take time and stimulation to develop.

Doubting Didymus

Isn't this a naturalistic fallacy?

LostGirl

What do you do, then, when your moral theory yields a result in particular application that you know or feel is wrong? How do you know it is the theory that is wrong, and not your intuition about the situation? And which would guide your course of action?

Sarpedon

An interesting question, LostGirl. This has happened to me several times. The fact is it always causes me to hesitate, but then I consider the excellent reasoning that went behind my code, and having done that, can see how the "counterintuitive" "feeling is actually wrong in a moral sense. A recent example. I was reading an article written by the nefarious Pat Buchanan about why we should torture that dude to get information from him. Now, I consider torture to be wrong, unlike him. However the argument from a point of view of mathematical ethics (Item #3 on my code of ethics) and the ethical hierarchy (#4) indicate that it would be ethical in this case. To harm one person physically to save the lives of many others is an ethical thing to do. Now, I do not believe in the effectiveness of torture. The inquisition proved that people under torture will say what the torturer wants to hear, rather than the truth.

So what does this mean? the gut feeling is just a result of conditioning. Anyone who's ever watched the clockwork orange will no a person can be conditioned to experience physical pain in response to certain situations. I've answered your question, now, I know from experience that sometimes one "knows" (gut feeling) that either course of action is wrong. This is why "moral conflicts" are such a staple of film and literature. The protagonist must decide between two wrong seeming things, how does he do it? he rationalizes. one feeling or the other is overrided by logic. I merely do this pre-emptively.

LostGirl

That's fair enough. I just wonder then, if there could be a situation in which you would override your moral code because of a moral feeling? I understand overriding moral feeling because it is the code that is correct, and I don't mean to say that it is always the code that is wrong, and never the visceral feeling. Sometimes the feeling is misguided, or misapplied . . . but it's also an important clue that the situation is complicated and bears further consideration. Perhaps this is all that can be said; I allow that visceral moral feeling does not and should not reign supreme over a moral code. But the fact that the feeling does contradict the reasoned response indicates that the two are not inseparable. You have moral feelings that you may choose to ignore due to better judgement. However, the reality of the moral feeling is not entirely "psychosomatic" as you say. It might be a chicken and the egg problem - which comes first? Moral instinct, or moral theory? Hard to say. We see both in the animal kingdom.

wade-w

This seems to have developed beyond an introduction, into a discussion of moral theory. I think it belongs in MF&P.