bd-from-kg

Primal:

First off, let's try to get clear about terminology. The term “moral naturalism” normally refers to the position that moral claims are claims about the physical world whose truth is independent of any specific person’s beliefs or attitudes (except insofar as such beliefs or attitudes may affect the consequences of the act). Specifically, it refers to the position that the statement “It would be right for X to do Y” ascribes some natural property (or complex bundle of properties) to X’s doing Y. Here the term “property” may be very broadly understood to include such things as the motives and intentions of the agent (which can be considered an integral part of the act itself) and the (natural) consequences of the act, but not so broadly as to include such things as the attitude of either the speaker or the agent toward the act. The latter position is generally called “moral subjectivism”, not “moral naturalism”.

The question before the house is not whether morals are “natural”, but whether moral terms like “good” and “right” refer to natural properties of the things they are applied to. And yes, I do argue that the fact that most people do not consider themselves to be ascribing natural properties to an act when they say it is right or wrong is very strong evidence that they are not ascribing natural properties to an act when they say it is right or wrong.

That to me seems like a very strange position. As Dr. Retard pointed out, “There is no fact of the matter as to whether a term means something, other than how people actually use the term.” Thus, for example, if most people say that when they call something “useful” they do not mean that it has some natural property, this is strong evidence that they do not mean that it has some natural property. And this in turn is strong evidence that being “useful” is not logically equivalent to having any natural property. How is this a weak argument?

By the way, it’s worth noting that when people say that something is “useful” they almost always have in mind some natural properties that make it useful. But this is hardly the same thing as saying that “usefulness” is itself a natural property that “useful” things have and other things don’t. In reality when I say that a thing is “useful” I am not ascribing a property of any kind to it; I am describing my attitude toward it, or at any rate some relationship that I have to it. Similarly, when I say that something is “beautiful” or “tasty”, I do so partly by virtue of some natural properties that the thing has, but I am not ascribing to it a natural property of beauty or tastiness.

I take it that by a “dualistic position” you mean the position that there is a separate realm of reality (“moral reality”) distinct from physical reality? If so, you are misunderstanding me completely. I do not believe that moral statements express propositions about some mysterious “non-natural properties”; I believe that they do not express propositions at all. This position seems to me to be quite parsimonious.

Now let’s move on to the argument against the “open question” argument based on “identity materialism”. Dr Retard defined the latter as saying that “mental properties are identical to (some complicated bundle of) physical properties”, and give as a (hypothetical) example of such an identity 'the firing of C-fibers' and 'feeling a pain'. He further argued that “... if it can be shown that the firing of certain neurons corresponds to pain, then it makes sense via Occam's Razor [that they] are one in the same”. He then outlined an argument against this theory that supposedly “parallels” the open question argument:

Now all of this assumes that the fact that there is no apparent contradiction in saying that the mental process occurs but the corresponding physical one does not might be an argument against identity materialism. The only way that this could possibly be an argument at all would be if identity materialism asserts that the occurrence of the mental process logically entails the occurrence of the physical process. If it does not assert such a logical entailment, the “parallel argument” has no force whatsoever, and the “refutation” that they might entail one another even if we can’t see how is completely beside the point. So I assumed that what he meant by “identity materialism” does assert that there is such a logical entailment, and fashioned my argument accordingly.

But it seems clear that you do not consider identity materialism to involve any such claim of logical entailment. For example, it might well happen that in one instance the sensation of pain is “identical to” one physical process, while in the next it is “identical to” a very different one. There doesn’t even appear to be any need to find any “common thread” connecting the various physical processes that are “identical to” a sensation of pain in the various instances. Under the circumstances I can only say that this “theory” seems to me to be completely vacuous. It can be given some substance by identifying certain classes of mental processes that always coincide with corresponding classes of physical processes, but I see no reason why such a theory would have any implications for the “open question” argument. For example, the fact that the concepts of “being in pain” and “having certain neurons firing” are clearly distinct gives no particular reason to assume that they do not always coincide in practice in the sense of being different aspects of the same event, any more than the fact that the concept of a proton and antiproton annihilating one another when they come together is clearly distinct from the concept of the sudden coming into existince of a burst of energy at that point gives any reason to assume that they do not coincide in practice in the sense of being different aspects of the same event. (By the way, I see no reason to suppose that the kinds of correspondences envisioned by identity materialism do not exist. Whether the best interpretation of such correspondences is that the mental and physical processes involved are identical is best left to another day; I don’t have a definite opinion on this anyway.)

The basic reason that there is no valid analogy here is that “moral rightness” is a concept. While two events can be connected to one another in various ways (for example, there may be a causal relationship, or they may be the same event observed or perceived in different ways), the ways in which concepts can be related to one another are far more limited. In particular, the only meaningful way in which two concepts can be said to be “identical” is that they logically entail one another. And if a great many people, including a large number of very bright cookies, have had both concepts in mind simultaneously and none of them has even seen how they could possibly logically entail one another, this is very strong evidence indeed that they don’t. In fact, under these circumstances there is no rational justification for supposing that there is anything but a vanishingly small probability that they do.

[ October 17, 2002: Message edited by: bd-from-kg ]</p>

bd-from-kg

doubtingt:
It's true that they are expressing their preferences, not Kahn's. BUT by calling Kahn's acts morally wrong they are implying that there are reasons for disapproving of them that a disinterested obsever would find compelling. Of course, they could be wrong about this, but this is clearly part of the meaning of moral statements of this sort.

Thus, if the opposing team wins the game by scoring a touchdown with a long pass in the final seconds, you might well "refer to your subjective preferences" by expressing disapproval in various ways. But you probably would not say that what they did was "morally wrong", because you would be unable to offer any reasons for your disapproval that a disinterested observer might be reasonably expected to find compelling.

I suspect that this is the sort of thing that Longbow had in mind when he suggested the term "universalizability". The reasons given for a moral claim, in order to count as moral reasons at all, must be such that any reasonable person can be expected to see their "force" even if he isn't fully persuaded by them.

Primal

Bd: BTW BD I am not Dr.Retard...I am Primal.


I reject this "normal" definition of moral naturalism, because it would exclude egoism and utilitarianism among other things.

Yes at first this seems like an "is...is not". Type argument, until one realizes that the idea of unnatural,immaterial morals is superfluous.


What do you mean "natural properties" as opposed to what?

Also if you mean by that one is saying "murder is immoral" one means that even if there were no moral agents present...murder would still be immoral; I'd agree. That is asburd but I don't think that's moral naturalism. Moral naturalism instead seems to be saying that moral standards or values are to be found in the natural world, as parts of natural moral agents. Whereas the view that morals exist whether a moral agent is present or not seems like more of a deontological position.

By that token, the fact that most people describe their mental properties by means of a spirit or free will is an argument for souls and free will.


I'd say they do. For example, when I say "a car is useful" I mean that it has natural properties that allow it to accelerate quickly and travel at great velocities. Even if a moral/evaluative agent is necessary, this agent judges on the basis of it's own natural properties. The above argument only works if the idea of defining morals via natural properties is unheard of in moral discussion, while it is not. In fact many of the earliest moral systems were naturalistic.


It's about as weak as saying "Since when I say I choose to do something, I mean it was done by my free will, that I have free will or that choice automatically implies free will." Or that "since by life I mean something filled with vital essence, to speak of life without vital essence is a contradiction."

It is an evaluative claim based on the natural properties of the evaluator and the object being evaluated.


Yes but such an attitude is itself a natural property, and determined at some level on the natural properties of what you are evaluating.

Well actually you are apealing to natural properties, what chemicals it releases for example, and light it reflects; which have a certain effect on your physical senses.

I see now. Moral automatically means non-natural. Hence since only the natural exists morals do not. I however see the fact that there is a morality, among us and other animals, as obvious in existence as the presence of light,emotions and thought. Hence your position is not parsimonious because an explanation and description of morality is necessary.

It seems that to argue for your position you have to limit all morality to non-natural properties. Just as someone who claims "there is no 'life'" might want to limit all definitions of life to vitalist ones popular in his own day. However such a position is clearly a straw man as it rejects legitimate materialist positions on the subject 'a priori'.

I am not aware of doing this. I reject the open question argument as question begging used to try and establish a position otherwise superfluous. I think you may have confused me with someone else perhaps. In any case the argument seems good though so I will defend it even if it isn't my own.

Well I wouldn't say logically entails. As logic indeed, entails very little. Perhaps a better description would be "reasonably entails".


But I do not mean this at all.

I doubt any materialist would make that strong a statement. I certainly wouldn't argue for the materialist cause on the basis that materialist beliefs were logically necessary. That would be like Darwin going "life's formation has to by logic be material, so the idea of a supernatural creation of life is illogical."

Darwin instead used empirical evidence, and principles of evidence like Occam's Razor to establish a material explanation for life's development. This is what most identity theorists do, they notice via emprical observations that there is a possible material faculty for thought and then establish that thought is material via Occam's Razor.

Yes, very true.

Well the common threads would be that in all cases the processes were physical and that they were all identical to their own unique material parts.

How so? It is using observations to explain introspective events in a parsimonious manner.

Neurologists are doing this. And in some cases have done it. They have for example found that damaging certain parts of the brain impairs mental function. Other evidence, like how the intake of certain chemicals can effect one's own mental states suggests this as well.

Ultimate all the above represents the same event described using different words. Save for the proton/antiproton example, as the explosion would make both cease to exist. Hence at the exact point of collision there would be no explosion but a proton and antiproton, then during collision there would be an explosion but no proton antiproton.

I agree with you in a sense, it is possible that mental events really reflect a soul and that any correlation between the mental/physical can just be happening by chance. Or that the physical is somehow the link the mental has to the world, and any effect of the physical only seems to effect the mental because it breaks this attachment. It is also possible that the brain is just an organ made to cool the blood, that life is filled with a vital essence, that the earth was created in six days and that bad spirits are the cause of illness. Possible, but not likely. And this is what identity theory rests on, what is parsimonious and hence what is likely.

I disagree, I see that we have a concept of moral rightness, but I do not see moral rightness as a concept. To explain, we have a concept of pain but is pain a concept?

I see moral rightness as partially emotional not just conceptual.


I disagree. Just about everything that is claimned in science, life identical to body chemistry, illness to a bacterial infection, evolution to the devlopment of life is not logically connected but empirically.


But you have already mentioned that my arguments do not rest on logical entailment. More like rational entailment.

How is the probability small? If many observations back up the observations and the alternatives seems very superfluous and incoprehensible, I think that makes them high.

For example suppose we met a modern vitalist that says, " My life force just seems different then it's metabolic activity." During the Victorian era many said this, including some bright cookies. However given our knowledge of body chemistry and metabolic activity, the probabilities of vitalism being true are vanishingly small, and hence a materialist view of life is established. This is the same situation we have with the mind now at days, many dualists are saying that the mind just seems so differen then physical brain states that the two cannot be identical. But the correlations between brain states and mental activity found in psychology and neuroscience are making such dualist notions increadibly improbable, and this trend will likely only continue. Hence the idea that the brain's activites are identical to the mind is not a small probability but a very strong one. About as strong I think, as saying the blood circulation, is identical to the heart pumping blood cells through vessels and arteries.

[ October 17, 2002: Message edited by: Primal ]</p>

doubtingt

Yes,certain factual features of Kahn's acts are what what violate the villagers' preferencs thus causing their moral outrage. An outside observer, if presented with these facts, could very well adopt a moral preference that is in agreement with those of the villagers. Although it is incorrect that a "disinterested" observer could adopt a moral stance. They could use their knowledge of the situation and of human psychology to recognize the cause of the villagers moral preference, which is a factual objective issue. However, without affective "interest" they would be incapable of adopting a moral preference themself.

Anyway, none of this changes the fact that the preferences of all concerned refer to the reaction of their subjective minds to the facts, which is caused by their personal goals and values, and not to the facts themselves.

As for the football game, you are correct, but it is precisely b/c you cannot provide evidence that the team violated a preferred "ought" that you cannot make a moral claim. If the team knowingly violated the "ought" of pass interference and got away with it you could very well make a moral argument. This is demonstrated further by the fact that someone else in the room could claim there is no moral issue b/c getting away with penalties is a valid skill that can be used to win a game, thus no "ought" was actually violated. All arguments about fairness and cheating hinge upon whether the accused violated an agreed upon preference for how a player ought to act.

Universalizability is simply a way of saying that an issue is not considered immoral unless most people not directly affected (not the same as "disinterested") can be shown how the act violates some widely held subjective preference.
This in no way makes the moral criteria less a matter of subjective preference. It simply raises the bar by saying that the act must violate the subjective preference of people other than those directly affected.

[ October 18, 2002: Message edited by: doubtingt ]</p>

bd-from-kg

Primal:

Sorry about that. I realized my mistake just after posting and corrected the post accordingly, but you were too fast for me.

Rejecting “normal” definitions is a pointless exercise. Using common definitions facilitates communication, using personal private definitions impedes it.

Anyway, the definition I gave does encompass utilitarianism, but it excludes egoism on the grounds that it is a form of subjectivism. The idea is to adopt a system of classification such that each common type of theory fits into one and only one category. There is nothing “written in stone” about the categories, but I see little point in deviating from the standard scheme.

I don’t see that this term is problematic. The point is that some people think that moral terms refer to supernatural properties, others that they refer to non-natural but not supernatural properties (whatever that means), and others that they don’t refer to properties of any kind. Many of the latter (like me) are noncognitivists. If you need definitions of these terms, refer to any decent introduction to moral philosophy.

It certainly is an argument that what they understand themselves to mean involves spirits or free will. And if we want to understand what they’re getting at, it would behoove us to inquire into what they imagine to be the nature of “spirits” and “free will”, and why they think that these supposed things have something to do with “mental properties”. If you were to say, “spirits and free will don’t really exist, so we might as well interpret their statements about mental properties as referring to sticks and stones”, I would say that you are not making a good-faith effort to understand them.

But now let’s take a more comparable case. Suppose that most husbands claim that when they say that they believe that their wives love them they do not mean that they believe that their wives are cheating on them. Would this not be strong evidence that when they say that their wives love them they do not mean that their wives are cheating on them? They may not be able to say exactly what they do mean, but we can be very confident indeed that if they say that this is not what they mean, then it is not what they mean. Nor is it at all likely to be the best interpretation of what they “really” mean. Indeed, to claim that when someone says X the best interpretation is that he “really” means Y, when he insists that whatever he means he definitely does not mean Y, is to make a mockery of the term “interpretation”.

This is rather silly. In the first place I haven’t said that anything “automatically implies” anything, but only that some things are evidence of other things. In particular, what people say they mean is strong evidence of what they mean, and what they say they don’t mean is even stronger evidence of what they don’t mean.

Anyway, no one believes that when people call something useful they generally mean something that involves false factual premises or is logically incoherent. The analysis of what it means to say that something is “useful” is quite straightforward. That’s why I used it to illustrate the principle that what people say they mean is strong evidence of what they mean, etc.

In other words, it is not a natural property that useful things have and other things don’t.

The point I was making here is one that I’ve made many times before, including in several posts to you, but you seem to be having trouble grasping it. To say that a woman is attractive does not mean that she has the natural property of attractiveness; it means that you find yourself attracted to her. To say that a meal is delicious does not mean that it has the natural property of deliciousness; it means that you found it enjoyable. To say that a joke is “amusing” does not mean that it has the natural property of being funny; it means that you were amused by it. In each case your reaction was due to some natural properties of the thing in question, but in each case you are not asserting that it has those natural properties, but rather that some relationship holds between you and the thing in question by virtue of its having those properties. The same relationship could hold between you and something else by virtue of its having quite different properties.

Sure, but it’s not a natural property of the thing itself. I already explained what “counts” (in my terminology) as a natural property of something in this context. You may use the term differently, but it’s a waste of time to disagree with statements that I make on the grounds that they’re false under your definitions.

If you are unfamiliar with noncognitivist moral theories, consult a good introductory book on moral philosophy.

In that case there was really no point in responding to this part of my post at all. As I understand him, Dr. Retard accepts that the “open question” argument is valid insofar as it claims to establish only that most people do not understand themselves to be ascribing a natural property to an act when they call it “morally right”. But he denies that this is strong evidence that they really aren’t ascribing a natural property to the act. His argument is based on a supposed analogy with a “parallel” argument involving identity materialism, which he thinks is clearly unsound. My counterargument is that the “parallel” argument isn’t really unsound, but in any case the analogy is invalid. Since you deny that the “open question” argument even establishes that most people do not understand themselves to be ascribing a natural property to an act when they call it “morally right”, this whole discussion can’t be of much interest to you.

bd-from-kg

doubtingt:

“Disinterested” doesn’t mean “uninterested”. In fact, it’s practically impossible for a normal human to be completely uninterested in things that are happening to (or will happen to, or have happened to) other human beings if he knows about them. Indeed, humans routinely take an affective interest in completely imaginary events, such as those depicted in novels, plays, etc.

Being “disinterested” means not having an “axe to grind”, a “dog in this fight”. It means that neither you nor anyone you care about will be affected by the acts in question.

[Usage note: According to the American Heritage Dictionary, “disinterested” has indeed come to be widely used with the meaning “uninterested”. But this is not its traditional meaning; in fact about 90% of the experts they consulted disapproved of this usage. At any rate, the meaning I intended, of “not having an axe to grind”, is still the primary one.]

Thus a disinterested observer certainly could have a moral preference. It wouldn’t even necessarily be based on his emotional reaction to the acts in question. It could be based on his recognition that if he were one of the people involved he would be affected in such-and-such a way, if he were another one of the people involved he would be affected in some other way, etc. No actual emotions on his part need be involved at all, although his preference for one choice over another will presumably be based (at least in part) on the emotional effects he anticipates that the alternatives will have on those affected. His moral judgment might even be based (in part) on recognizing that the acts would have effects in the distant future, on people who haven’t even been born yet. That’s not to say that his moral judgment would not be based ultimately on his subjective preferences, but only that it would not necessarily be based on his emotional reaction, or even on the recognition that he would have a certain emotional reaction if the events in question were actually to occur.

Agreed, provided that by “reaction of their subjective minds” you do not necessarily mean “emotional reaction”, and by “personal goals” you no not necessarily mean “self-interested goals”. In fact, a moral preference would by definition be a preference that does not take into account self-interested goals.

This is where we disagree. It’s not a question of whether there is a “preferred ought”, at least in the sense that you seem to mean – namely a “moral principle” accepted by that particular society.

But this is demonstrably false. If you promise your four-year-old son that you’ll take him to the circus on Sunday and then don’t do it because you’d rather read a book, he will immediately recognize that this is “wrong” because you’re breaking your promise. He doesn’t have to have learned that breaking promises “violates an agreed on preference”.

Again, slavery was pretty much a universally accepted practice for thousands of years, but eventually it came to be considered unjust in most modern societies. Those who decided that it was unjust could hardly have all been judging incorrectly that it violated an “agreed on preference” – i.e., a “moral principle” already accepted by their society. On the contrary, what they were judging was that the “moral principles” accepted by their society were defective or [/i] incomplete[/i] in a particular respect. And they could hardly have based this judgment on the very “moral principles” that they were judging.

Yet again, when Thomas Jefferson boldly declared “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all mean are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights...” he was not claiming (falsely) that this represented an “agreed on preference” in his society.

The point is not that there is some “transcendent moral reality”, but that there are some subjective preferences that are universal in the sense that they are shared by all (or nearly all) human beings. They are not inculcated by social conditioning or education, but are innate. And these universal preferences can be, and sometimes are, used as a basis for criticizing and changing the current “moral standards” of a given society.

In fact, to say that something is a “moral principle” is to claim that it derives from these truly universal preferences. In other words, valid moral principles are by definition universalizable in this sense.

To repeat, this is not an argument for the existence of an “objective moral reality” which is independent of what anyone thinks, or of human desires and purposes. I’m saying that the “logic of moral discourse” presumes that there are values and preferences that are pretty much universally shared by all human beings. Reasons for doing (or not doing) something are only considered to “count” as moral reasons if they are believed to be derivable from such universal values and preferences.

Lest you think that this is just an eccentric opinion of mine, I’ll let David Hume (hardly a moral objectivist) have the last word. This is from his <a href="http://www.ncu.edu.tw/~shamyats/hume_epm/" target="_blank">Enquiry Concerning the Principle of Morals</a>, Section 9, Part 1:

Longbow

Well, bd-from-kg actually has a fairly good idea of what I would say. I would add, though, that I actually adhere to the view that something like the principle fo unviersalizability is sufficient for morality. The approach he is using, though, is a more general argument against emotivism which seems to be your interpretation of ethical terms.

Actually, I would say something a lot stronger even than the line of reasoning he is employing. I would say that there is a deontological and pretty nearly formal interpretation of morality. In fact, it is actually pointless to dispute this interpretation because even if we decide that it is not "morality", it is still an objective normative theory. And it is more rationally compelling than any other theory that we could come up with.

As for the principle of universalizability, it is not the idea that some principle is intersubjectively universal as you are describing. There is a definition of the term at Garth Kemerling's <a href="http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/u.htm#unvby" target="_blank">Philosophy Pages</a>. It is often suggested that the principle has all sorts of "flaws", but you have to be careful. The idea has been pretty substantially explicated over the years, and you cannot just throw down an ad hoc interpretation of it and think that it can stick.

bd-from-kg

Longbow:

I have no problem with the definition of universalizability given on the “philosophy pages”, except that it isn’t as precise as one might wish.

G.E. Moore gave what I consider an excellent definition of the principle of universalizability, at least for consequentialist (a.k.a. teleological) moral theories, in his fine little book Ethics. (Actually he doesn’t give the principle a name, but simply notes that classical utilitarianism satisfies it and in this respect seems to him to be clearly correct.) Here it is:

Moore makes it clear that this rule applies to any logically possible effects of any logically possible set of alternative choices.

On this understanding, this principle is probably stronger than the principle of universalizability. But at the least it entails it, for the following reason. For any action X, it is possible to imagine an action Y whose effects would be precisely the same as those of X (and ditto for the alternatives), except that the identities of those affected would be different. Alternatively, the same individuals might be affected, but with the effects permuted, so that the effect on each particular individual would be different even though the total effects are “precisely similar”. In this case the principle says that Y is right if and only if X is right. This clearly entails that any valid moral rule must apply in exactly the same way to everyone, since otherwise we could easily construct a case where the rule gives a result that violates Moore’s principle.

By the way, in my theory the universalizability does not derive from “universally shared preferences” that I mentioned per se (as you seem to think from your comment about “intersubjectively universal” principles), but from the requirement that a reason for doing something, to qualify as a moral reason, must be such that an (anonymous) disinterested observer could be expected to find it compelling. This leads in an obvious way to the conclusion that any valid moral principle must be impartial – i.e., that it must apply equally to everyone. In fact, it entails Moore’s principle.

If this can be done successfully, I’m all for it. But for the reasons I gave on another thread I don’t see how it can work. The problem is that lots of “universalizable” principles (in Kemerling's sense) are not valid moral principles. And as I pointed out, a masochist may “will” that the principle “give pain to everyone” be applied universally for self0interested reasons (and hence is not being “impartial”), but the principle itself is perfectly impartial and universal.

Well, if morality can be derived entirely from the principle of universalizability (as you believe), then it can be derived purely formally, since the principle itself is purely formal and can be derived from an analysis of the logic of moral language. But as for deriving a deontological theory, I really don’t see how this could be done. I don’t see how deontological theories even make sense. It seems self-evident to me that the rightness of an act must ultimately depend on its consequences, even if “rightness” is purely in the eyes of the beholder (as in subjective theories). For example, in my opinion anyone who really accepts the principle “let justice be done, though the heavens fall” taken literally is stark raving mad. Similarly, if refusing to lie or steal in a specific instance would have disastrous consequences for mankind, obviously one should lie or steal.

Well, I didn’t actually just throw down an interpretation without thinking about it, but I’m not a professional philosopher and I’m not familiar with the work that you’re talking about, so there may well be technical flaws in my formulation. Feel free to criticize or explain.

Primal

In essence then no good argument is made to support the is/ought dichotomy. The two presented so far are "they are just different" and the Open Question Argument i.e. if my question makes sense...it must refute something. Sorry but I;m non-too impressed.