99Percent

K,I think that is a circular definition because you are going back to the words "moral" and "immoral" So you end up having to define morality itself.

Lets go to the good old dictionary:

mo·ral·i·ty

Definition 1:Definition 2:Definition 3:As you can see there is nothing in these definitions that have any bearing to behaviourism. Morality fundamentally requires a choice, free will, in order to have any meaning. Behaviourism OTOH is a scientific study of causes and effects where the beings at hand have no choice in the way they act. They simply react according to the environment and their preprogrammed (genetically or otherwise) dictums.A moral theory must necessarily take into account how you ought to act in the given moment when you are presented with a choice.

Moral objectivist will dictate it directly deriving it with absolute values, where there is no opinion or say in the matter.

Moral subjectivist will dictate it by relative values that are determined and perceived by the individual.

Either way an ought is determined otherwise there is no point in discussing it as morality in a meaningful way.

K

99Percent:

First of all, many of your definitions referred to "conduct" and social norms. Conduct is behavior. So is a social norm.

But more importanly, this isn't a discussion of morality. It is a discussion of the foundations of morality. I will admit that what I believe is the foundation of morality (or behavior that is commonly judged as moral or immoral) is of no use in a moral discussion to determine what "ought" to happen. However, it is completely relevant in discussions about the foundations of morality and whether or not there even is an "ought".

99Percent

K,
Firstly, these are not my definitions, they come from a standard online dictionary. Secondly the references to "conduct" are always done with a good/bad qualifier. For example:Here "virtuous" obviously implies that there is a "good" conduct, vs a possible "bad" one.Yes, I agree. And we aren't actually claiming, either objectively or subjectively what is good or bad (and I will try as a moderator to stay clear out of that in this thread), we are just discussing the meta definitions of morality itself and various possible broad categories for moral theories as suggested by dshimel.

K

99Percent:

That's true. And I offered a possible explanation for how we make those good/bad determinations. The only difference is that mine is an explanation of why we generally label some conduct as good and some as bad. It doesn't say that conduct is ACTUALLY good or bad.

Or that humans label some conduct as good and some as bad. I don't see anthing that implies that the label can't be biologically motivated.

dshimel's actual words were "foundations of morality" and I simply offered another point of view on the foundations of morality - that it is a label given to biologically determined behavior (or conduct if you like). However, I really just wanted to show that there were alternatives to the original list of moral foundations. So unless there seems to be interest in discussing this further, I'll go back to lurking on this thread.

Dr. Retard

Why do you assume morality has nothing to do with objects? As I understand it, many philosophers chalk up objective morality to abstract objects like properties. What's the problem?

dshimel

I somewhat agree with you, which is the root of my problem with the concept of "abstract objects'. Anything abstract (not existing in reality, but only within the realm of thought) is greatly influenced by the bio and societal programming of the beholder.

That said, I believe we are all somewhat self-programmed. We can choose to read certain books, or listen to certain speakers, or engage in certain conversations that will likely alter our "program" slowly.

Society is also self-programmed. What a society (sum of individuals) sees as the foundations of its rules will greatly effect what its rules of behavior are. For example, far more of the Bible Belt states (God Foundation) have laws forbidding "unnatural sexual acts".

So, let us say that society is somewhat self-reprogrammed by the sum of how it veiws the foundations of its morality. Then, your bio morality explains how people behave at this time, but does nothing to direct how people will behave in the future. Foundations of morality isn't about explaining how people behave now. It is an intellectual discussion about how society should think about how it should behave, thus altering future behavior.

dshimel

Objects can be detected and measured. Objects exist outside of a mind. They are elements of our shared reality.

Abstract means:
Considered apart from concrete existence: an abstract concept.
Not applied or practical; theoretical.

When speaking of objective (concrete, real, part of shared existance, existing outside of and independant of a mind) and subjective (not objective), anything abstract is in the subjective category.

bd-from-kg

dshimel:

Your OP is full of confusions and non sequiturs. I don’t have time to deal with all of them, so I’ll concentrate on the stuff related to “objective morality”.

So far so good. What objective moral theories claim is that there are objective moral truths – i.e., that there are statements of the form “X ought (or ought not) to do Y” that are objectively true.

But now we’re going off in an entirely different direction. This is a definition of what it means to say that something (like a tree) “objectively exists”. It is intended to distinguish between trees that exist only in someone’s mind (for exist, when he’s dreaming, or hallucinating, or imagining, or plugged into the Matrix) and trees that exist in the “real world”. Saying that a thing objectively exists means something completely different from saying that a proposition is objectively true. If I say that it is objectively true that the square on the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides, I am not asserting the actual existence in the real world of a particular right triangle with this property. If I say that one should not believe in the existence of green swans without empirical evidence, I’m not asserting that green swans do or do not objectively exist. Yet both of these propositions are (at least arguably) objectively true.

Objective moral theories claim that morality “exists” only in the sense that, say, geometry and epistemology exist. That is, they claim that there are objectively true propositions of a certain kind. This claim is not refuted by the elementary observation that propositions, or moral laws, are not objects that can be detected by the senses, any more than the claim that physics exists is refuted by observing that Schrodinger’s Equation is not something that can be seen, heard, or felt.

Wait a minute. Now you’re talking about something completely different. What’s usually meant by an “absolute” moral code is one that involves rules (like “thou shalt not steal”) that have absolutely no exceptions. That’s an entirely different thing from an “objective” moral code. What’s meant by saying that a moral code is “objective” is that it is true for everyone. An objective moral code (if such a thing exists) need not be absolute and an absolute code need not be objective. (Smith, for example, may have his own, subjective moral code which involves absolute moral rules.)

And the claim that there is an objective moral code doesn’t imply that it is discoverable. However, this isn’t too important in practice since no advocate of objective morality (so far as I know) claims that the “true” morality cannot, even in principle, be discovered. And indeed, an unknowable moral code would be rather pointless, since one cannot be expected to follow a moral code that one cannot possibly know anything about.

Here your argument goes completely off the rails. Lots of things can only be discovered through subjective means: the theorems of logic and mathematics, the validity of Ockham’s Razor, the fact that two things have some properties in common (e.g., being four-sided and blue), the irrationality of accepting empirical claims without evidence. In what way is this kind of “revealed knowledge” more flawed than, say, my knowledge that George W. Bush is President?

It would be nice if you were to lay a foundation for this by showing (or at least giving reasons for believing) that they are “subjective beliefs”, in some sense in which all beliefs are not subjective.

Um, superstitions are not reasoned beliefs. That’s why they’re called “superstitions”. And is your objection to religious beliefs that they are arrived at by thinking about them, talking about them, and examining their effects? Would that this were so!

Finally, how does the fact that a belief is arrived at by thinking about it and discussing it make it a “subjective truth”? It seems to me that you’ve pretty much ruled out the possibility of objective truths of any kind.

So the trouble with thinking of morality as objective is that it results in thinking of morality as objective?

People are going to enforce their moral codes in any case. If most people in a given society think it’s wrong to kill people to get their money, they’re going to punish someone who kills for money. But if they only do things that they consider “justified”, we may be afforded at least some protection: people who follow moral codes generally consider whether they would be willing to be treated the way they propose to treat someone else if the situation were reversed. How would things be better if people did whatever they pleased without worrying about whether they’re justified?

Oh? Do you believe that one should only accept belief in things for which there is sufficient objective, verifiable evidence? If so, what’s your objective, verifiable evidence for this belief? Did you start with disbelief in this principle, as a matter of principle?

Please don’t misunderstand. I agree with some of your statements. My point is that you have so far failed to give anything like a serious argument for them. And others just reflect sloppy thinking.

K

dshimel:

But are the books, speakers, and conversations really chosen - or are they the only possible result given our state of mind at the time the selection is made? My position is the latter. That would mean that any self-programming was done as a direct result of the earlier programming. This would all lead back to genetics and the environment.

Sure it does. People (now and in the future) will generally behave in a way that has provided their ancestors a survival advantage.

I've never heard foundations of morality being limited to future behavior. It also makes the assumption that there is a "should" without considering that this may just be a genetic illusion.

kctan

Morality comes about when we started to interprete our own actions or the actions of others.

That's all there is to it. Nothing really mind boggling. It's natural for an animal which uses brain power as a niche in the natural world.

Edited to add,

Self-interest is already there inbuilt as an instinct.