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[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

bump

why bump?

because bumps are made of monads

and monads are the ultimate reality

so bump

[Baffler]

I used to be a "weak" moral relativist, but now I'm thinking that there is no way to logically justify morality itself. That is, any system of morality will be arbitrary, except for the fact that it was evolutionarily produced. A morality that says "kill all babies" will result in a dead civilization. That is the only absolute definition of "good"; all other definitions are made from that, and nothing is objectively good or evil in the sense that people use the terms. You can only call things good or evil with a reference frame of a particular arbitrary set of morals.

A problem.

Say that the religion of a culture living on an isolated island holds (among other things) that a baby born that year must be sacrificed at mid-day on the winter solstice of every year, or the sun will be angry, summer will never come, and the world will be plunged into freezing night. The single person's death does no harm to the survival of the whole, and as close to everyone as makes no difference believes it. Now suppose some catastrophe occurs and the sacrifice isn't made, but the ritual isn't public so only the priesthood knows about the problem. They freak out at first, but eventually realize that the days get longer anyway. Should they tell the people that the sacrifice is no longer necessary, knowing that the unrest following the revelation would very likely be ruinous? Or do they suppress the knowledge, agree to never speak of it again, and knowingly carry on with the pointless ritual to maintain social cohesion?

[BFEL]

I used to be a "weak" moral relativist, but now I'm thinking that there is no way to logically justify morality itself. That is, any system of morality will be arbitrary, except for the fact that it was evolutionarily produced. A morality that says "kill all babies" will result in a dead civilization. That is the only absolute definition of "good"; all other definitions are made from that, and nothing is objectively good or evil in the sense that people use the terms. You can only call things good or evil with a reference frame of a particular arbitrary set of morals.

A problem.

Say that the religion of a culture living on an isolated island holds (among other things) that a baby born that year must be sacrificed at mid-day on the winter solstice of every year, or the sun will be angry, summer will never come, and the world will be plunged into freezing night. The single person's death does no harm to the survival of the whole, and as close to everyone as makes no difference believes it. Now suppose some catastrophe occurs and the sacrifice isn't made, but the ritual isn't public so only the priesthood knows about the problem. They freak out at first, but eventually realize that the days get longer anyway. Should they tell the people that the sacrifice is no longer necessary, knowing that the unrest following the revelation would very likely be ruinous? Or do they suppress the knowledge, agree to never speak of it again, and knowingly carry on with the pointless ritual to maintain social cohesion?

I imagine they would probably start getting blowjobs from women who don't want the sacrifice to be *their* baby.
BFEL has a low opinion of priests

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Sure, it would be evolutionarily more optimal to keep sacrificing babies. Conventionally ethical? Hell no. To me? I dunno. wait for comp access

[misko27]

I used to be a "weak" moral relativist, but now I'm thinking that there is no way to logically justify morality itself. That is, any system of morality will be arbitrary, except for the fact that it was evolutionarily produced. A morality that says "kill all babies" will result in a dead civilization. That is the only absolute definition of "good"; all other definitions are made from that, and nothing is objectively good or evil in the sense that people use the terms. You can only call things good or evil with a reference frame of a particular arbitrary set of morals.

A problem.

Say that the religion of a culture living on an isolated island holds (among other things) that a baby born that year must be sacrificed at mid-day on the winter solstice of every year, or the sun will be angry, summer will never come, and the world will be plunged into freezing night. The single person's death does no harm to the survival of the whole, and as close to everyone as makes no difference believes it. Now suppose some catastrophe occurs and the sacrifice isn't made, but the ritual isn't public so only the priesthood knows about the problem. They freak out at first, but eventually realize that the days get longer anyway. Should they tell the people that the sacrifice is no longer necessary, knowing that the unrest following the revelation would very likely be ruinous? Or do they suppress the knowledge, agree to never speak of it again, and knowingly carry on with the pointless ritual to maintain social cohesion?

I imagine they would probably start getting blowjobs from women who don't want the sacrifice to be *their* baby.
BFEL has a low opinion of priests

The question was "should". Unless you are suggesting the moral answer is that they use this power to extort sex from vulnerable mothers, your response makes no sense. And if you are suggesting that, I have a few further questions, such as  "How many times have you been incarcerated?" and "Are you allowed with 200 feet of a school?"

Did somebody say morality?!

I used to be a "weak" moral relativist, but now I'm thinking that there is no way to logically justify morality itself. That is, any system of morality will be arbitrary, except for the fact that it was evolutionarily produced. A morality that says "kill all babies" will result in a dead civilization. That is the only absolute definition of "good"; all other definitions are made from that, and nothing is objectively good or evil in the sense that people use the terms. You can only call things good or evil with a reference frame of a particular arbitrary set of morals.

Is evolution not logical? Stating a morality logically follows from the principles of evolution seems to be a pretty solid endorsement of a set of morality derived from objective principles. Evolution is, essentially, a law of nature after all: it is more simply defined as the rule "Things that tend to exist tend to continue existing, and things with a greater tendency to exist tend to exist for longer than things with a lesser tendency." This is logical (in fact, it is quite nearly tautological), and all evolution stems from this principle (Where "survival of the fittest" is substituted for "tendency to continue existing"). That's definitely a logically justified morality. You could even account for far more types of morality: since I do not want to die, and I am not strong enough to guarantee myself against all who might hurt me, logically it makes sense to enter an agreement to not hurt each other as long as you can have some guarantees of the deals certainty, or believe that rulebreakers will be punished. You might argue that that is not morality, but others might argue that this is the very definition of morality (just not what you think of morality). If you argue that if you hurt babies, others are likely to hurt yours due to violation of the social contract, you could go down the road of justifying everything on the basis of the Categorical Imperative. On the other hand, if you argue that fear of punishment and consequence (such as the violence a government can inflict upon its citizens through law enforcement), then you have another clear form of morality, although one that is quite different from the former.

TL;DR: No such thing as moral objectivism? Evolution (which, mind, is precisely what you just cited) provides a lot of principles to work off of (like fear of death! And pain! And desire to reproduce!), and I'd argue that they are pretty objective. Even if morality grows from the barrel of a gun, fear of guns is a pretty objective response, and a gun is a pretty darn convincing argument too.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Well, yes, but by that definition, God does not send down commandments to his people.

I need to get out of the Red, because that is seriously something that I hear all too much. I am surprised and happy to see that my thoughts are similar to those of others here. Hum, that is good!

*hum: like what an ent says

Edit: goddamnit dozebom stop being intolerant of the outgroup

[scrdest]

TL;DR: No such thing as moral objectivism? Evolution (which, mind, is precisely what you just cited) provides a lot of principles to work off of (like fear of death! And pain! And desire to reproduce!), and I'd argue that they are pretty objective. Even if morality grows from the barrel of a gun, fear of guns is a pretty objective response, and a gun is a pretty darn convincing argument too.

Woo, meta-ethics discussion!

Fear of guns is not an objective response. Matter of fact, evolution-based meta-ethics IS morality growing from the barrel of a gun, it's just that the gun is abstract and its bullets may travel very, very slowly. This argument presupposes that an individual wants to continue existing. This is true for most people - but not all, so the objectivity of this system falls apart. You're, unconsciously, I think, arguing for enlightened self-interest meta-ethics in the guise of evolution.

Furthermore, evolution itself doesn't really have an agenda, it's a description of emergent behavior. Things that propagate become common. If you accept purely evolutionary meta-ethics, aggresively breeding and neglectfully abandoning your children to their own devices (r-selective strategy), for example, is absolutely ethically consistent. As is taking good care of your two-and-a-half kids. Both are things that humans can, physically, do, but one of these is nowadays seen as highly irresponsible.

There's also situations such as asexuality or congenital analgesia, in which cases those drives are more or less completely irrelevant to the affected individual, so they don't really *care* what evolution has to say about their need to breed or avoid walking into a ADS crowd control devices.

[Max™]

We're bad r-selectors, not because it is moral or whatever, but we gotta pop a big brain out through hole in a frame that is well tuned for upright walking, having said offspring start off less developed makes this easier, and we found additional benefits from spending longer periods of time raising them. It is as immoral as it would be for a mouse to focus and dote on a single offspring until well after sexual maturity was reached, I guess?

[NJW2000]

I used to be a "weak" moral relativist, but now I'm thinking that there is no way to logically justify morality itself. That is, any system of morality will be arbitrary, except for the fact that it was evolutionarily produced. A morality that says "kill all babies" will result in a dead civilization. That is the only absolute definition of "good"; all other definitions are made from that, and nothing is objectively good or evil in the sense that people use the terms. You can only call things good or evil with a reference frame of a particular arbitrary set of morals.

A problem.

Say that the religion of a culture living on an isolated island holds (among other things) that a baby born that year must be sacrificed at mid-day on the winter solstice of every year, or the sun will be angry, summer will never come, and the world will be plunged into freezing night. The single person's death does no harm to the survival of the whole, and as close to everyone as makes no difference believes it. Now suppose some catastrophe occurs and the sacrifice isn't made, but the ritual isn't public so only the priesthood knows about the problem. They freak out at first, but eventually realize that the days get longer anyway. Should they tell the people that the sacrifice is no longer necessary, knowing that the unrest following the revelation would very likely be ruinous? Or do they suppress the knowledge, agree to never speak of it again, and knowingly carry on with the pointless ritual to maintain social cohesion?

This is an interesting idea: the basic question asked is, does the survival of an entire culture or even sentient species take absolute priority over the survival of any number of relatively replaceable individuals?

Of course, this example isn't as simple, because the babies are from the same culture/species that is threatened, but it pretty much comes down to this.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

No! There is no objective morality! Thus when you ask if babymurder is moral, I say no. Neither is giving to the poor. Nothing is inherently moral or immoral.

[NJW2000]

My two cents:

-morality exists. People try to do the "right" thing, some of the time.

-the only definition of this morality that holds water and lets us comfortably call stuff like killing babies for sport immoral is the general consensus of the majority of society of how one should act, and more importantly, what should or should not occur.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

But if 90% of people say babykilling is good, has the inherent nature of babykilling changed?

[NJW2000]

No, but the inherent nature of "morality" is.

Well, if they think that babykilling is morally good, that is.

[misko27]

TL;DR: No such thing as moral objectivism? Evolution (which, mind, is precisely what you just cited) provides a lot of principles to work off of (like fear of death! And pain! And desire to reproduce!), and I'd argue that they are pretty objective. Even if morality grows from the barrel of a gun, fear of guns is a pretty objective response, and a gun is a pretty darn convincing argument too.

Woo, meta-ethics discussion!

Fear of guns is not an objective response. Matter of fact, evolution-based meta-ethics IS morality growing from the barrel of a gun, it's just that the gun is abstract and its bullets may travel very, very slowly. This argument presupposes that an individual wants to continue existing. This is true for most people - but not all, so the objectivity of this system falls apart. You're, unconsciously, I think, arguing for enlightened self-interest meta-ethics in the guise of evolution.

Furthermore, evolution itself doesn't really have an agenda, it's a description of emergent behavior. Things that propagate become common. If you accept purely evolutionary meta-ethics, aggresively breeding and neglectfully abandoning your children to their own devices (r-selective strategy), for example, is absolutely ethically consistent. As is taking good care of your two-and-a-half kids. Both are things that humans can, physically, do, but one of these is nowadays seen as highly irresponsible.

There's also situations such as asexuality or congenital analgesia, in which cases those drives are more or less completely irrelevant to the affected individual, so they don't really *care* what evolution has to say about their need to breed or avoid walking into a ADS crowd control devices.

*raises hands* Fair enough. I'm not trying to make a coherent theory of evolutionary ethics, merely illustrate that it might be possible.

But if 90% of people say babykilling is good, has the inherent nature of babykilling changed?

I'd make the argument that such a thing does not arise outside of lab conditions, and that a pure (as opposed to one that attempts to justify it, thus admitting the essential immorality of the action) baby-killing society doesn't exist. Point me to a society which, on average, believes in killing babies, and then we'll see about specifics. No one kills babies in a vacuum, it's pointless to try and apply morality to a hypothetical society of mustache-twirling Ne'er-do-wells.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Augh, no! It was an example! Need I spend days attempting to convince you that a hypothetical scenario can be useful in philosophy?

Morality itself can be logically consistent, but there is no objective "best" of all moralities, because there is no inherent value of moralities themselves. To rank them would be to assume a morality, but the ranking must be independent of assumptions.

I'm pretty proud of that line of thought. I'll like it even more when your brutal criticism rips it to shreds and forces me to think more