DRFseven

You're still misunderstanding. It's not that we help an old lady across the street because we want to feel the dopaminergic reward instead of because we want her to be safe from the traffic. It's that if we didn't get the proper chemical mix, our efferent nervous system wouldn't have a way to respond to a goal. That's just the way our sensorimotor system works. When we want something to happen, and determine that the required behavior is feasible, we are rewarded by dopaminergic transmitters at the proper sites to effect the necessary behavioral change (such as approaching a struggling old lady in traffic). When our goal is reached, the dopaminergic system slows down, we feel satisfied and not striving toward a goal anymore, so we stop helping her. The limbic system has been in operation much longer than that evolutionary newcomer, the forebrain, but we have incorporated cognition into the reward circuit.

Alonzo Fyfe

If you take this story, with no more than what is literally described within, I do not see anything in it that contradicts what I have written. I do not see anyting in it that yields the conclusion, "Therefore, Alonzo, your statement that 'X' is wrong for some significant statement X."

This does not provide a defense of subjectivism(2) over objectivism(2). It merely describes the mechanism under which whichever one is correct would operate.

It is like a debate over a computer program where one says that the variables that the program uses refers to things outside the computer. The variable "intFish", for example, refers to the number of fishes in the lake, and is therefore objective.

Yet, another person says, "But the program is running inside the computer, therefore it is subjective?"

Yes, the program is being run inside the computer and is, in that sense, subjective. But that does not change the fact that the variables used in the program refer to things external to the computer and are objective.

Adding ever increasing details about how the program works inside the computer, just to further prove that the program is being run inside the computer, will never have anything relevant to say about whether the variables used in the program refer to things outside the computer.

The variable 'moral' and relevant other terms (e.g., right, wrong, good, evil) as it is used in human mental processing has an external reference. It is the only thing that makes sense of how the word 'moral' is used and processed.

Put all of the effort you want into taking the computer apart and showing me how X does not happen unless an electrical signal goes down this path and trips that switch which causes another signal to go down this other path. When you are done I will continue to ask you the same question. "How is this at all relevant to whether the variable N has an internal (subjective) or external (objective) reference?"

excreationist

I believe in an Objective(1) morality (moral claims are not grunts of approval and disapproval but are substantive expressions about the world)
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I believe in an Objecitive(2) morality (moral claims are claims about interests other than the interests of the person making the claim; morality is a social invention that concerns 'us' and not just 'me').
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while the objectivist holds that "X is right" means "X is good for all of us, all things considered."
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It would take some time to defend, but I hold that the only definition that makes sense says that "good" refers to some type of relationship between a state of affairs and one or more desires. It makes no sense to say "X is good" except as a way of saying "somebody wants/likes X" -- and "X is morally good" is a way of saying "Everybody will be able to get more of what they want if they also learn to want/like X."
That sounds like utilitarianism - maximizing people's happiness (through maximizing the satisfaction of their desires). Except that it involves changing their desires....

In order to get people generally to learn to want/like X, we bring all sorts of weapons to bear; praise, blame, shame, guilt, anger, social sanctions, punishment, rules meant to establish certain habits. All of these aim at getting people generally to want/like X, so that we can all enjoy the benefits that would follow from having a society in which people generally want/like X.
Could you explain what X is?

3nd-level subjectivsm/2rd-level objectivism holds that moral claims are not statements of the form "I like" or "I want", but statements about what it is best for US to want.

There is a difference between the person believing that their opinion on this matter is an opinion or an objective fact. Do you think you have the objective answer to that matter (what people should want)? This answer would be the one and only right answer (in your opinion) - not just your personal opinion. That's what I think objective "truths" are all about.

DRFseven

I am responding to the statement of yours I highlighted, that: "This is not to say that pleasure and pain do not play an important role among our desires. It argues that pleasure and pain do not play an EXCLUSIVE role, that the brain contains other programming as well." It seems to me that you think that sometimes we do things for rewards, while other times we do things to satisfy desires. The mental sensations we experience, as ex pointed out, seem to be about "apples or cars" (or getting old ladies through traffic), but it is that chemical reward that "decides" to move the muscles; otherwise they wouldn't act toward that goal. Memory tells us what we want; reward is the motivator.

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This does not provide a defense of subjectivism(2) over objectivism(2). It merely describes the mechanism under which whichever one is correct would operate.

It wasn't meant to, but, actually, it does, anyway. WHATEVER is incorporated as memory as "moral" and associated with relative reward is what we feel is good. Any time circumstances set up an expectation for doing that, the reward path is activated, whether the behavior is helping someone or doing a suicide bombing. The delineation of this process does not address the efficacy of its features, it merely defines what happens. Throughout this discussion, you have been attempting to define what you think people should do to acquire what you think are appropriate morals; not what people actually do to acquire the morals they have.

HelenM

This comment fascinates me.

I see what you're saying - you're saying that we do things because it 'feels good', ultimately, more than 'because it's right'. Even if we claim we're doing them because it's right, we may actually be doing them because we've been told what we're doing is right and because we've been told that, we do feel good when we do it. So we may say one thing but it's really another that motivates us.

But we may also help the old lady because the smile of gratitude from the old lady makes us feel good. It may have the same chemical effect but it was differently induced.

And I don't think we always do things because they feel good in the short term. So how does the chemical effect come in, then?

Also, what about if we help an old lady across the road because she has promised to pay us if we do?

Any comments? Am I hopelessly off-topic now?

Helen

yguy

I take this to mean we're all dogs in a massive super-Pavlovian experiment. Have I got that right?

You think everybody does good to get some sort of emotional buzz out of it, that without the promise of said buzz we could do no good to our fellow creatures?

DRFseven

No, you're not off-topic, at all, because it's the mechanism involved in morality acquisition that makes it a subjective process.



Basically, yes, only it's more like we do things because it feels right, as opposed to because it feels good, in that the sensation is anxiety-relieving as opposed to pleasure-inducing, and mostly we're not particularly aware of that sensation. Sometimes we are and even say something like, "It feels good to get that off my chest" or "I'm never gonna feel right about this situation until I bite the bullet and do such and such. Then I'll feel better."

And why do you suppose the smile of gratitude makes us feel good?

You mean like putting in the hours for an anticipated change in corporate position? Think about how it would feel to want that change, to perceive how that change could occur, but NOT to put in the "appropriate" hours. It depends upon how the reward of working toward the expected reward compares with the reward of NOT being required to put in those hours. As a matter of fact, many people with motivational problems have dopaminergic system problems, as in the cases of schizophrenia, depression, and Parkinson's.

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Also, what about if we help an old lady across the road because she has promised to pay us if we do?

If she promises to pay us, we expect a reward and we expect to be pleased by the reward, just as in the case that we help because we think it is good to help. Our thoughts are of money or "doing good", but we are responding to chemical messengers and activators.

Why do we eat? To take in nutrients? Not really, though that does occur. We eat for the reward. We should all have signs that say, "Will work for dopamine."

DRFseven

Oh, come on; you could make it sound worse than that; at least dogs are alive. You could say we're like robots programmed to recognize reward codes.

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You think everybody does good to get some sort of emotional buzz out of it, that without the promise of said buzz we could do no good to our fellow creatures?

Everybody (including other mammals) does everything to get "some sort of emotional buzz". Without it, we wouldn't be able to function at all, much less practice social behavior.

excreationist

What if someone was in pain - e.g. they had a splinter in their foot... wouldn't they be motivated by the compulsion to avoid pain? (depending on its intensity) - or perhaps the end of pain leads to the pleasure of relief (what do you think?) - and they are seeking that pleasure rather than avoiding pain??
Or what if someone keeps trying something and gets really frustrated and annoyed. I think that is a kind of pain. What do you think? If they try and avoid this frustration, are they trying to avoid pain? Or are they still seeking some kind of emotional (pleasure) buzz that follows the reduction or end of pain due to frustration.
I guess there would be a pleasure involved with *achieving* goals but it seems that some goals involve avoiding pain....

yguy

Let me get this straight: you are saying that everyone who does anything unselfish gets an emotional buzz out of it? Because if you are, it's a lie. I've felt that buzz when I've done unselfish things, but I've also NOT felt it doing the same kinds of things.