Vorkosigan

Be that as it may, subjectivists then make a mistake of their own by stopping with this one step. This leaves them with an inherently contradictory position -- whereas morality is basically interpersonal, subjectivism allows a person to do whatever they like without consideration of its interpersonal effects unless they like the idea of considering interpersonal effects.

This is a caricature. Please read the <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=52&t=000067&p=1" target="_blank">discussion on Mere Christianity</a> where these points were extensively addressed.

There are many flaws with your statement, but I'll just point out one:

Your statement is a formulation of the extremely intensively-studied problem of the <a href="http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/PRISDIL.html" target="_blank">Prisoner's Dilemma</a>. It basically asks, when the costs to cheat on an agreement are low and short-term gains are strong, what keeps the cheater from pillaging the world? Virtually all social interactions that involve agreements are some variant of this problem.

The answer is: iteration. Dilemmas of this nature do not happen once. If people did not exist in time and deal with this over and over again, then you are absolutely right, everybody would screw everybody.

The problem is that you have framed the problem incorrectly. Interpersonal relations do not occur once, but over and over again, every day. And since the individuals expect to cooperate with other individuals in the future, one has to behave as though she would be a good partner to cooperate with. In other words, people discount current costs of cooperation against future gains of cooperation, just as you do whenever you keep a promise. The calculus of cost is not independent of the future. And your formulation of the problem has no future, and thus, is incomplete. And incorrect.

In scholarly terms, this is known as the <a href="http://www.brembs.net/ipd/ipd.html" target="_blank">Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma.</a> When social beings must contract again and again -- the dilemma is iterated -- outcomes are very different than the one you predict, and much more in accord with what we see in the real world.

I suggest you read the two sites I've provided. There is a gigantic and always increasing body of literature on Prisoner's Dilemma games and the evolution of cooperation.

I hope this has partially answered your question. Although there are many fictional treatments of the problem of social cooperation and enforcement, the best in my view is the science fiction story by Eric Frank Russell, the entertaining And Then There Were None...

Of course, morality is not only interpersonal. There are a couple of levels that most objectivists never think about. One of the most comical aspects of Objective moralities is that they are incomplete; hence, all objectivists are forced to become subjectivists sooner or later. For example, to take Christianity and the Bible, the Bible gives us no guidance on how to dispose of nuclear waste, how to manage a river basin, whether infant industry subsidies are moral, whether Jones Act subsidies are moral, how the homeless should be handled, what the best way to perform cost-benefit analysis is, and so on. Urgent questions of public policy are entirely absent from "Objective" moral systems.

You complain about the changeable nature of subjectivism, but in fact, the ad hoc nature of selectivist thinking is one of its prime advantages. When something doesn't work, we can trash it and move on. Meanwhile, Objectivists are stuck with the morality of 4,000 year old nomadic desert sheepherders, or a German Lutheran living in 19th century London, or whatever they hold to be their source of Objective values.

Michael

Michael

Pomp

Alonzo Fyfe,

Fine, other agents hold these value sets. So what? Why should this matter to me?

Because their value sets will cause them to act in manners which affect you, whether you like it or not.

If I have the power to enslave others and get away with it, and I hold a (subjective) value set that says "might makes right." when what criticism can be levied against me for enslaving them?

In short, by enslaving others, you are advertising your unwillingness to cooperate and causing resentment among agents who have the power to oppose you. It is a fact that "might" confers a degree of immunity to what a subjectivist would call moral constraints, but only a degree. The only agents who are truly above moral constraints are those agents who are self-sufficient to the point of never needing the cooperation of others and dangerous to the point of being able to simultaneously fight every other agent and win.

Edit: As turtonm says, read the thread on Mere Christianity. We've addressed all of the objections you've raised there.

Edit again: Are you still following the discussion <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=52&t=000092&p=2" target="_blank">here</a>?

[ March 29, 2002: Message edited by: Pompous Bastard ]

[ March 29, 2002: Message edited by: Pompous Bastard ]</p>

bd-from-kg

luvluv:

This question reflects total confusion about the nature of moral philosophy.

On the one hand there are moral systems, which consist (to oversimplify a bit) of various ethical maxims and principles, together with some guidance on how to resolve any conflicts between them. On the other hand we have metaethics, which addresses the question of what exactly is the nature of these principles – that is, of what they mean. Thus a moralist might say “You should do unto others as you would have others do unto you”, whereas a moral philosopher will try to construe what it means to say that one “should” do something.

Subjective moral philosophies are metaethical theories, which is to say that they are theories about how statements like “You should do unto others...” should be construed. A subjectivist might well accept the principle of “do unto others” (and act accordingly), but he will interpret it differently than an objectivist would. (Of course both objectivists and subjectivists also differ among themselves as to what such statements mean.)

Thus to ask whether subjectivism entails a “significant moral advance” is meaningless. A “moral advance” would presumably be something like rejecting “might makes right” in favor of “do unto others”. But subjectivism (or objectivism) as such has nothing whatever to say about what moral principles to adopt; it addresses only what such statements mean.

Another problem lies in the concept of a moral “advance” itself. The only possible meaning of this would be that moral system A has been superseded by moral system B, which is morally superior to system A. But what could this mean? Presumably system B is “superior” to A by the standards of system B. But conversely, system A is superior by its own standards. It only makes sense to say that system B is superior to system A without qualification if there is an objectively correct moral system in terms of which these two can be compared. But you are asking this question of subjectivists, who by definition do not believe that there is any such “objectively correct” system. This doesn’t make sense.

Alonzo Fyfe

What if they do not have the power to oppose me? Does my moral obligation not to enslave them depend solely on their capacity to prevent from being enslaved?

It seems a very week moral constraint. Slavery has been very common in human history, showing that the capacity to oppose those who enslave is often lacking.


You speak of a matter of degree as if it is a matter of absolutes. Sure, noncooperation may have its costs. But we are talking about subjective values here. If I value the fruits of noncooperation more than the value of cooperation, then my constraints are quite different.

If I am Genghis Kahn and love raiding towns, raping and pillaging, fighting battles, slaughtering innocents, sure these cravings cause others to rise up in opposition. But if winning battles is part of my ethic then I want them to rise up. Thus, I have more reason to be evil than to be good. I may die, sure, but if my ethic is "live fast, die young" this is not a problem for me.

Pomp

Alonzo Fyfe,

What if they do not have the power to oppose me? Does my moral obligation not to enslave them depend solely on their capacity to prevent from being enslaved?

Ask someone else. I don't hold any concept of moral obligations. You are not obliged to refrain from enslaving others, but you are warned that such behavior does not endear you to others.

It seems a very week moral constraint. Slavery has been very common in human history, showing that the capacity to oppose those who enslave is often lacking.

In cases where there is little opposition to slavery, there will be slavery. Individuals who have the power and the will to enslave do so. Claiming that the subjective constraint against slavery is weak seems rather irrelevant, as the overwhelming majority of societies that have endorsed slavery held some form of objectivist morality.

You speak of a matter of degree as if it is a matter of absolutes. Sure, noncooperation may have its costs. But we are talking about subjective values here. If I value the fruits of noncooperation more than the value of cooperation, then my constraints are quite different.

If you value continual struggle against anyone and everyone then, quite frankly, there's nothing the subjectivist can say to you. Unless you have superhuman powers, your life will likely be short and materially unpleasant. If that's fine with you, then, by all means, do so. I won't waste my time trying to convince you (or Genghis) that raping and pillaging are "wrong," I'll simply join the resistence against you.

Autonemesis

How common was slavery in societies where the prevailing views of the enslavers and the enslaved agreed with subjective moral theory? Slavery, genocide, these have always been rationalized by citing objective moral authority.

I find it hard to imagine how slavery or genocide, racist persecution, or any number of societal ills and catastrophes could come about in a society dominated by people who held subjectivist views. That's one big reason why it is superior to objectivist moral systems.

Alonzo Fyfe

And how is this different from saying that under subjectivism, moral questions are ultimately nothing more than questions about who has the largest army -- that people may morally do whatever they have sufficient force (or cunning) to get away with?

[ March 29, 2002: Message edited by: Alonzo Fyfe ]</p>

Malaclypse the Younger

Moral questions frequently are answered by who has the largest army. This is a fact.

What people "may" or "may not" do is dependent on who is doing the enforcing. People can and will do whatever they have the power and the desire to do. And it is a fact that such people actually do things that you and I find objectionable.

[ March 29, 2002: Message edited by: Malaclypse the Younger ]</p>

Alonzo Fyfe

The types of problems confronted in the prisoner's dilemma do not encompass the range of values that a person may take.

How do you define the issues of "Cooperation" and "Defection" if one person obtains a positive value from the suffering of another? Assume that my end is to make sure that you end up with the lowest score possible. Then I have no reason to play the game by your rules.

Or what if I think that it is sick or perverse for you to have a score of "5" in a particular iteration of the game -- that you having such a score offends me and offends my God?

Or, what if something that you think has a score of 5, I think that your having really has a score of 1 -- and something else has a score of 5? And, so, I hold that you suffer from some perversity -- some defect in sensitibility. Out of generosity I prevent you from obtaining what you desire because I believe that some other alterantive is better "for you"?

The Prisoner's Dilemma has made great progress as a system for explaining cooperaation where there is a pre-defined value. In evolutionary theory, it is useful in explaining the survival of species and ways in which one being may evolve traits whereby they may help others to reproduce as a means of ensuring their own reproduction.

But unless you take the source of all value to be reproductive freedom (ultimately, an intrinsic value claim -- not a subjectivist claim) -- then there are a lot of variables that just mess this type of game theory up royally.

[ March 29, 2002: Message edited by: Alonzo Fyfe ]</p>

Malaclypse the Younger

This is true. Prisoner's Dilemma analyses are about moral strategy theory, which is obviously objective. It doesn't speak to moral value theory.

[ March 29, 2002: Message edited by: Malaclypse the Younger ]</p>