Yes I supposed as much. I respect that position though hold that it can´t be avoided. Some premises about our daily experience, though unprovable in the strict sense in which I can´t even prove that we are having a dialogue right now, are non-negotiable; we are conscious; there are other minds; there is an external world; there is objective knowledge to be gained etc.
All this statements have metaphysical consequences, although barely anything can ever be refuted conclusively. It boils down to"position x requires y and z to be true. From y and z, x follows. Are the premises y and z true?" And then there is much opinion involved as to what is reasonable to reject. Not a beautiful discipline, but I don´t see how it could be dismissed.
Coincidentally your comment met a topic I was thinking about. If someone asks me what book I´d recommend to show the truth of theism, what would I recommmend? I can´t recommend an analytic philosopher like Edward Feser to someone with an existentialist bench, sympathies to Soren Kierkegaard and doubts about the reliability of rationality when it comes to the fundaments of reality. Then I´d be inclined to recommend people like David Bentley Hart who takes a different approach to existence itself.
I agree wholeheartedly.
I don´t know if this suffices. Armstrong was a physicalistic reductionist, so I´d interpret that statement in that light, too. I don´t read you as saying that the mind can be reduced to the physical constituents on which it depends, so that would already collide with Armstrongs definition of naturalism. You know your views better than I do, but I don´t think this fits you at all.
I think you have that right. I only accept the atheist moniker because the mystery in question has been defined a certain way in Christianity and this is a Christian site. So by the definition in play here I have to plead guilty. I don’t think God so defined exists but as I think you know I think there is something that supports that belief which isn’t inconsequential even if it isn’t the creator of everything.
And a mind is not a thing? …so in other words… mindless things… Of course if you DEFINE rationality as something only applicable to minds… but that is cheating… reducing your claims to semantic tautologies. The fact is that we have computer programs that can beat us at our own games and I don’t think that means they have a mind. And yet since they excel out our own measures of rationality, then without resorting to semantic rhetoric, it would strongly indicate that rationality certainly does apply to things which have no mind.
So we are required to use a different word when animals, plants, and computer programs interpret data from the world?
Huh???
It is not just our brains is responsible for this. Ever heard of wasted, undeveloped potential? Just because we have the tools doesn’t mean we use them.
Surely you don’t thing that every set of data must have patterns and order to it? Therefore, can we not imagine a universe which is not rational to any brain, mind, or computer software?
Yes like evolutionary computer algorithms, the evolutionary process seeks out and finds what rationality there is to find in the environment.
not really… dealing with a changing environment requires the flexibility of a sense making apparatus that can handle a wider range of data. So while most living things on the planet cannot do this, it isn’t so far fetched that one species might have the capabilities. Of course we are connected to the rest of the universe by the same natural laws… so extending this beyond the universe where this applies is different level of flexibility.
May I ask what your definition of rationality is? Let´s take the definition from Wikipedia:
Rationality is the quality or state of being rational – that is, being based on or agreeable to reason Rationality implies the conformity of one’s beliefs with one’s reasons to believe, and of one’s actions with one’s reasons for action.
Which mindless object has the ability to reflect upon itself that way? Which mindless object abstracts in order to reflect in the first place?
The computer program isn´t a good counterexample. It´s entire action is dependend upon the instructions by the designer. It´s “ability” to interpret the patterns of the lighting up from the vacuum tubes also follows only from the program language (e.g. C#) it is programmed in, which again is dependend upon the rules which the designer employed. The pattern of the lightning is meaningless if there weren´t the order from the intelligent designer to react a certain way, if a pattern shows up. It is the same principle which is used in language, where the physical aspects of words (ink, soundwave etc.) is not determining its meaning.
Think about it, your example could be easily parodied, since the same principle leads us to muse about the hammers rationality due to its superior ability to hit a nail into the wall.
Animals? Not necessarily, though the rationality as it is defined and found in language and mathematics is thought to be a distinctively human feature, including by thinkers with no theological axe to grind, e.g. Steven Pinker and Noam Chomsky. This however does not require to deny intelligence in animals. There obviously is such a thing.
Rationality is found neither in plants nor in computer programs. The latter is merely a tool.
Only if you can imagine a universe which is irrational to God. But I have the suspicion that you are conflating “rational” with “determined” here. The former doesn´t require e.g. that it is entirely explicable by mathematics.
Doko has a lot more to offer on this than I do. But it seems to me that a brain is a thing but a “mind” refers to what a person with one enough like ours refers to as the domain of their subjective, sometimes deliberative, experience. It is an object perhaps of subjective experience but personally I’d reserve “thing” for referencing objects in our consensual apprehension of the world out there … if that makes any sense.
I don’t see the words “self-reflection” in any part of the definition you quoted.
but…
I don’t believe that animals have a mind and yet I do believe they MUST have the ability to reflect upon themselves… i.e. they very much do have self-awareness. It is a necessary part of being alive.
To be sure, I very much think there are quantitative differences and that because they have a mind human beings are very very much MORE self-aware than other living organisms.
Plants and micro-organisms are also alive and therefore they MUST be self-aware. It would be impossible to maintain themselves otherwise. To be sure they do not have a nervous system and thus they can certainly be said to be quantitatively far less self-aware than even the animals are.
Which means they have no free will or consciousness NOT than they have no rationality. Frankly I think the angels are very similar. As spiritual entities there are significant differences to be sure, but in their case I think they are no more and never can be any more than exactly what they were made to be. They have power, knowledge and rationality but no authentic free will – just a good imitation like a lot of computer programs. But living organisms are different – they are all about growth, learning, making choices, and adapting – in short becoming more than what they are at the moment.
First of all, you must be joking. Hammers have no ability whatsoever to hit a nail into a wall. However a computer program with access to equipment including a hammer certainly CAN hit a nail into a wall.
This is no doubt an issue of semantics, you including consciousness or mind in the definition of rationality while I do not. The point is that I don’t see such an inclusion as being in any way helpful to understanding the world – just stubbornly muddying things up by refusing to make clear distinctions between entirely separable concepts.
Animals certainly have a nervous system but even if you equate the mind to a function of the nervous system, I do not.
For you rationality may be equated to the mythical soul, but to me it is nothing more than a tool.
I can imagine a universe corresponding to any given data set – which include those with no pattern or order to it whatsoever.
Incorrect. Perhaps you are conflating “rational” with conscious. To be explicable by mathematics is one sort of rationality. And to be able to use mathematics as computer programs are quite able is another sort of rationality. But one can have consciousness and a mind without much rationality at all.
Incorrect. Seeking and finding is something routinely done by computer programs and robots without a shred of anything resembling a little man or “homonuculus.” Again you want to define seeking and finding as something requiring consciousness when the fact is that consciousness is an irrelevant addition to the what seeking and finding consists of. This habit of adding consciousness to definitions is a systematic muddying of every issue under discussion.
In order to judge if a belief is rational, I must have the ability to reflect on my reason. In order to judge if my reason is reasonable I would have to reflect on my axioms on which it is dependend. To make matters even more clear we can add the ability to abstract concepts. From our prior discussions I can abstract some of your personality traits. Or when I think about the concept “cat” this concept is informed by abstraction through all the things I learned about and experienced with cats.
Do you find any of the qualities within mindless objects? Is the stone falling rationally to the ground because it follows laws?
I don´t even think that the defintion of rationality as given above applies to any other animal than us. I also don´t see that self-awareness requires rationality. Self-awareness only requires some kind of consciousness. A person with severe dementia may lack the functioning cognitive faculties to form informed judgments, hence can´t use their rationality. This however doesn´t exclude being self-aware. My dog is self-aware. I don´t think that he has the tools to rationally judge his own reasons and vice versa.
A rather peculiar definition. I found this seven aspects for life:
Homeostasis : regulation of the internal environment to maintain a constant state; for example, sweating to reduce temperature
Organization : being structurally composed of one or more cells – the basic units of life
Metabolism : transformation of energy by converting chemicals and energy into cellular components (anabolism) and decomposing organic matter (catabolism). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce the other phenomena associated with life.
Growth : maintenance of a higher rate of anabolism than catabolism. A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter.
Adaptation : the ability to change over time in response to the environment. This ability is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the organism’s heredity, diet, and external factors.
Response to stimuli : a response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism to external chemicals, to complex reactions involving all the senses of multicellular organisms. A response is often expressed by motion; for example, the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun (phototropism), and chemotaxis.
Reproduction : the ability to produce new individual organisms, either asexually from a single parent organism or sexually from two parent organisms.
None of that points resemble your requirement of self-awareness.
By the very definition you accepted: No consciousness= No rationality. In fact, No free will= No rationality, because the latter is supposed to be guided by the laws of logic, while the former forces us to be the subject of chemical reactions which have no requirement to be in accordance with such laws. And can we even say in any meaningful way that the computer program has a reason to perform an action? Again I refer to the stone falling to the ground.
Not a requirement. And I can´t see how we can meaningfully attribute that to bacterias or sunflowers.
Which in turn got programmed by the designer. The difference between the human using the hammer or the human programming a computer to interpret a certain pattern of lightning vacuum tubes in order to perform an action which the designer recognizes as using a hammer really just boils down to the number of steps. Every rationality is derived from the designer. The physical machine which is the computer can´t meaningfully be described as having reasons on its own to perform an action.
I am clear about my definitions. I don´t see that you are. And especially your defintion of life I haven´t seen mirrorred anywhere.
I don´t think that anyone could read what I write and draw that conclusion.
You can keep your polemics for yourself. I don´t deny that rationality is a tool. What I argue is that it is a tool exclusive to minds.
The computer program by itself is no more able to use mathematics than language by itself is able to use meaning. Both are quite similar ways of intelligent beings to get intentions across. The latter in conversation with other intelligent beings, the former in a worker-tool relationship between intelligence and inanimate objects.
Seeking is a desire. Do mere physical, inanimate objects desire anything? And finding in this context is reducible to a recognition of a pattern in an “if x, then y” causality. Finding in a meaningful sense is the reflection of ones goal. So if you want to ascribe to the evolutionary process a seeking and finding you are quite literally performing a homunculus-fallacy.
But I don’t agree that for something to be rational it must therefore be capable of judging if a belief is rational.
And I do. Rationality is the quality or state of being rational – that is, being based on or agreeable to reason Computer programs are both based on reason and agreeable to reason. Furthermore they are not only capable of using logic to obtain logical conclusions, but they are also demonstrably capable of learning – learning things which we have not yet learned.
It wasn’t a definition at all – it was a conclusion that follows logically from something which does define life – self maintenance. Self maintenance is impossible without both an awareness of its current state and a way of measuring that state against a standard of what is acceptable.
Antiquated lists of abilities often found in living organisms do not define life. How do I define life? To put it most simply living organisms do things for their own reasons. But obviously I am not accepting the human prejudice that defines “reasons” linguistically nor the restriction to neurology either – both of these are merely examples of life and not defining life. Ultimately I think life is mathematically describable as a self-organizing dynamic process (typically composed of numerous interacting cycles) which adapts to a changing environment – it maintains a structure apart from the environment by responding to challenges from the environment with alterations of its own structure. The key point here is that the organisms changes are not simply caused by the environment but instead done to handle those changes in the environment mitigating their impact on its own operation.
Incorrect. There is no mention of consciousness in that definition. Rationality is the quality or state of being rational – that is, being based on or agreeable to reason Computer programs are based reason, agreeable to reason, and capable of using logic and reason to obtain conclusions. And yet I do not think they are conscious. Consciousness is a property of life. Reason is a purely mechanical tool which living things may or may not have access to.
Frankly, I think perhaps you confuse “reason” with the art of rhetoric which is to be sure is purely an artifact of language and thus requires a mind and human consciousness.
Yes, choices and learning are requirements of all living things. It is the essence of evolution and quite demonstrable. Expose bacteria to antibiotics and they will learn immunity. And when survival isn’t on the line they diverge into different strains… making different choices. To be sure these do not have a nervous system so they do not gather, process, and store information in that manner. The only information storage and processing they have is in their DNA. So like I already said, a nervous system is a big improvement on that, and human language is an even bigger improvement – vastly increasing both their awareness and abilities to learn and make choices.
No! To be sure, a demonstration is by definition something we can show by setting up the circumstances to show those results, but it does not follow that the demonstrated facts do not happen without a designer. These are simply illustrations of something which can and does happen entirely by chance. So ultimately this is nothing but a circular argument that because you believe in a designer then these things happen by design. When we set up software to learn how to do things, it simply isn’t the case that we know what they will learn – they in fact learn things that we never imagined. The results thus do not come from our design but from the fact that the software can learn new things which we do not know.
You can keep your polemic definitions of rationality to yourself as well. Sounds a great deal to me like claims that rationality is a tool exclusive to males or to white people. I say the tool is still rationality no matter who or what uses it.
But they do use mathematics – all the time. Not only by their very essence but even the symbolic manipulations of mathematics to solve equations and prove theorems. Mathematics is a very mechanical thing. It is just a system of rules and computer programs are very very very good at following a system of rules.
But meaning to be sure is not just a system of rules. In fact, it so hard to nail down that many philosophers have decided that there is no such thing as meaning. Now I think that is absurd. My response is that their whole philosophy is meaningless. But it does suggest there is something rather difficult with the idea of “meaning.” I think it is highly relative and contextual. Something has meaning relative to a pre-existing context of needs, desires and motivation, and we know the perceptual process which derives meaning from sensory data involves the operation of beliefs.
No it is not. Seeking is an effort to find something and this is a task which bots and software are given all the time.
Evolution is a recognition of survival and reproduction by passing on the information in the DNA which accomplishes this. It is a mechanical process, but while you use the prop and excuse of definitions to exclude this demonstrable fact, others simply accept what has been demonstrated as true. Evolutionary algorithms can both seek and design things that we haven’t even imagined. Rationality is thus a mechanical tool quite apart from consciousness and the human mind.
Time for us to agree to disagree. Because I have heard your reasons and definitions and I reject them, just as I have presented my reasons and definition as well, so there is no point in repeating ourselves anymore.
Please slow down. No one observes rules in nature. What we observe in nature are patterns, and from these patterns we infer the existence of rules. We must infer the rules because they are not, in fact, physical.
To illustrate, suppose you were unfamiliar with the game of chess but were allowed to observe chess players moving pieces as they played. You would see patterns in the movements of certain chess pieces, and from these you might infer many of the rules of chess. Where exactly would these rules exist? In documents about chess? Documents would contain ink marks representing the rules of chess, but the rules properly exist in the minds of chess players.
Rules in the minds of chess players have a causal effect on the movements of pieces on a chessboard. The rules of chess in fact exist in mental space, not physical space.
In nature we observe patterns. If these patterns are a collective brute fact, then to infer rules from them would be to succumb to illusion. A pattern not driven by a rule has no predictive value. A string of coin tosses might yield the results H-TT-H-TT-H-TT at some point, but it would be futile to predict that the next toss must be “H” if the sequence was due to chance, not a rule. We might toss the coin and actually get heads by pure chance and feel that a rule must be at work, but we would be wrong.
Likewise, if the objects/events/states of nature are what they are as brute fact, then the predictive value of science is illusory. On the other hand, if the patterns of nature are rule-driven, then they are being conditioned by objects (rules) that exist in mental space, not physical space.
The fact that we observe patterns but must infer–not observe–rules is one way of understanding the Problem of Induction expounded at length by David Hume.
That’s why all the references to self-organization of matter and order arising without thought amount to special pleading. Is self-organization and the general intelligibility of nature due to presumed “laws of nature”? If so, then the mental comes back into the picture.
“a morality founded on good reasons”
If the good reasons are simply biological processes or physical states, then you are trying to get an “ought” from an “is.” (David Hume again.) Good luck with that.
Semantics which changes nothing. The fact remains that a system of rules whether imposed in a artificial system or observed in nature is all that is required for the generation of complexity, self-organization, and the appearance of design. Whether you believe it begins with rules or with a rule maker is a purely subjective choice and not required by logic.
More semantics and lines which are artifacts of language only. Not interested. Again this doesn’t change the facts of life. A morality derived from reasons is the only morality with meaning in a changing world which is what mature responsible people need for understanding what is right and wrong. An antiquated codex from time without the same moral challenges is useless. Nor does dictation make morality any less relative to the dictator – only an explanation of why some things are good and others evil adds anything like an element of the absoluteness to morality. I don’t give a fig about any imagined “oughts” I only care about the reasons why some things are better than others.
Alleging “semantics” is, I suppose, useful as an all-purpose defense against an opposing argument. For those who want to pursue the subject more deeply I recommend John Foster’s book, The Divine Lawmaker: Essays on Induction, Laws of Nature, and the Existence of God.
The difficulty of grounding morality in a purposeless, purely physical cosmos is fairly straightforward. For the shape of that challenge, the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on “Moral Realism” is a good place to get one’s feet wet. Obviously, people face the practical question of whether right and wrong in an ethical sense are grounded in something more than personal preference or what the surrounding society happens to value at a particular moment in history.
Well, if we assume that without divine involvement all that is possible is the inevitable reactions of physics, then of course morality along with intentionality and most everything else about our first hand experience would cease to make sense. But surely chemistry includes emergent properties relative to physics, biology includes emergent properties relative to chemistry and consciousness includes emergent properties relative to biology. There is no reason to think the natural world cannot include wonder, beauty, love or curiousity without divine intervention. It is fine to attribute those things to the divine but it is far from necessary.
On the contrary, grounding morality in negative effects which are actually measurable has considerably more substance than grounding morality in the pure hearsay of someone’s beliefs about things which are not measurable in any way at all. There is frankly no reason to take the latter as anything more than mere pretense for lording it over other people.
As for the Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on “Moral Realism,” here we go…
The first question that comes to me from reading this is to consider whether I am a moral realist? Well it depends…
I am an avid opponent of Platonic realism, so the only way in which I can be a moral realist is when we take moral claims as referring to things other than ideas and universals.
I do in fact think that moral claims reports facts, and the facts to which they refer are measurable effects upon the well being of human beings and their communities.
We are asked to consider the proposition: Nigel has a moral obligation to keep a promise. And my response is that the phrase in bold has no meaning unless you can show evidence that the lack of expectation that people keep their promises will have a negative impact on people and their communities. I think it is easy to get such evidence for history provides ample evidence.
I do not accept moral realism in a way that can be described as moral absolutism. After all the measurements I am speaking of are necessarily statistical which means they are about generalities and rules of thumb rather than absolutes.
Perhaps I should also mention that my stand on normative ethics is that of virtue ethics rejecting both deontological ethics and consequentialism in the sense that the most important issue of ethics is what our actions say about us as a person, and not about the integrity of the rules or the actual effects, which we rarely have that much control over.
The article then goes on to consider 5 objections to moral realism.
Moral Disagreements: disagreements are irrelevant in the face of measurements which give the same results no matter what you believe.
Metaphysics: Since I have refuted Platonic realism and given a purely naturalistic meaning to moral claims then I don’t see how this objection is applicable. Moore’s open question in this case is… Is it really good to do something when the evidence shows that this promotes the well being of people and their communities? The answer is yes. In fact this leads us directly to the claim that we are morally obligated to do so and that this is really the only meaning of the phrase “morally obligated.”
Psychology: But what if people do moral wrongs thing for a good reason? Moral dilemmas can be very complex and in such cases the people involved have to make the best judgement they can about what they can live with. We shouldn’t let too much dogmatism about what is right get in the way of such decisions.
Epistemology: Only when the evidence is objective (scientific) do we have a reasonable expectation that other should be guided by it. If our evidence is only subjective (personal experience) then the most we can expect is that this would guide our own behavior alone.
Semantics: I quite agree with this objection and I think my explanation above reflects this.
“Grounding morality in negative effects” runs the danger of begging the question. How we define “negative effects” or “harm” can depend on the moral stance we assume in the first place. The student who feels they can cheat with little chance of being caught may reason that no one is harmed and they themselves are benefited, depending on the exact circumstances. A student who believes that cheating is intrinsically wrong may reason that harm is done to their own conscience and character, even if to no one else, no matter what other calculations or rationalizations may come to mind.
The points in the article simply illustrate the lack of consensus among philosophers about how morality is grounded, whether it is objectively real, and similar questions.
I did not state something abstract but made the concrete reference to measurable effects upon people and their communities. Sure you can call that a moral stance – one that doesn’t care about made up fantasies by those just seeking excuses to lord it over other people, one that requires proof of actual harm done to people and communities – you betcha!
And I say we can measure the harm done in schools and communities where such rampant cheating occurs compared to those where it does not. Thus rendering these feelings and beliefs you talk about irrelevant.
The point is that I am not buying a bunch of gobble-dee-gook rationalizations to prop up made up rules of morality where there isn’t a shred of evidence for any harm done to anyone.
By the way… bringing this back to the topic of Sam Harris, I have little doubt that we he would totally agree with me on this issue of grounding morality in the measurable negative effect on people and communities, because he has the same objections I do with pushing religion based morality on other people. But I am willing to bet that Jordan Peterson would agree also. We just disagree with Sam Harris regarding his assessment of the value of religion and the compatibility with science. Heck, both Jordan Peterson and I practical derive the value we see in religion from what we have seen in science. But we are likewise very cognizant of the dangers from extremes in religions and that is the common ground we have with Sam Harris.
And I say we can measure the harm done in schools and communities where such rampant cheating occurs
An individual student does not decide whether cheating will become rampant. That person decides whether on a specific occasion under a certain set of circumstances they themselves will cheat. Maybe they live in a place where cheating is already rampant, in which case they disadvantage themselves greatly by refusing to cheat, and contribute very little to any large scale harm. Or maybe they live in an environment where cheating is utterly rare, in which case a similar calculus is possible–minimal harm done (nothing measurable) to society as a whole and critical benefit for themselves.
No one decides what everyone in their society will do, they decide what they themselves will do. Even if we adopt the “what if everyone did as I do” standard, which is a fantasy in practical terms, it still leaves holes. Does a couple decide they must have children by reasoning that if every couple in the world decided not to have children, humanity would become extinct?
Sam Harris, as far as I can tell, thinks we bootstrap our ethics in a cosmos devoid of any larger meaning and purpose. I suspect, however, that even he grounds his ethics on something he treats as objective, even though his philosophy does not really account for it.
We can also measure the effect of failing to penalize a student for cheating. The point here is that while you may attach some magical meaning to moral obligation and doing wrong requiring a fear of eternal damnation or something, I see no more meaning than the measurable effects that such things have on people and the community. It is not that I don’t think there are spiritual eternal consequences but that regardless, the wrong still comes from the measurable harm they do and not from some fantasy harm/offense to a deity. And it is not that I don’t think there is a deity, for I most certainly do. But I don’t believe that God can be harmed by our misdeeds – let alone to such a degree that He is incapable of forgiving them without a some kind of spell powered by a human/divine sacrifice. Which is not to say that I don’t believe Jesus died for our sins – I do. I just don’t think that is what this means.
But that doesn’t change the measurable effects of cheating on society. And if you want to measure the difference between everyone simply following the same old practices or fighting for a better community then I have no doubt about what the results would be.
But I don’t believe in any such benefit. That looks like a habit of looking for ways to avoid learning and that can only cause more long term problems and harm than benefit – all of it still measurable. But remember that I have already spoken against moral absolutism so I have already rejected the idea that there could be no conditions under which something like cheating could ever be the right thing to do. Like I said already, the evidence I have been talking about is statistical in nature so the moral implications can only be general rules of thumb rather than absolutes.
Now you seem to be arguing against Immanuel Kant rather than myself. If you had asked, I could easily have pointed out the flaw in his argument, which has nothing in common with my own.
He probably finds objectivity in the same place I do, which is in the effects measurable by written procedures anyone can follow to get the same results. But of course, I differ from Sam Harris with regards to the universe being devoid of any larger meaning and purpose. I certainly do believe the universe was intentionally created to support life, but my reasons are likely very different from yours. And one of the differences is that I do not believe that morality depends on this greater context of a creator and certainly not upon divine dictation of right and wrong.
Hmmm… Interesting ideas, Mitchell. Personally, I always think that the ‘benefit’ of a Nietzschian will to power view of morality is that it can be a powerful critique against the motives that some might use to promote their moral ethics by abuse of ‘ought’. However, the danger of it is that it has a habit of turning on its handler and eating them alive.
For example, what makes “measurable effects upon people and their communities” a better judge of morality than “made up fantasies” and “outdated codexes”? More to the point who gets to decide? you? Me? The majority? If the majority, what would you say gives majority X the right to define morality over majority Y on the other side of the world in a different culture? Nietzsche might well have said that human rights are as much ‘a will to power’ as the ten commandments.
The thorn in your paw Mitchell, I think, is that you can only ever say this as being true for you. That you will form morality around “measurable effects upon people and their communities”. As soon as one says, this way for forming morality is objectively better than another way of forming morality one is getting dangerously close to saying it should be done the better way. That would be an ought argument and fall under the same critique of the will to power you are levelling against those who appeal to ‘fantasies’ and ‘outdated codexes’.
If you want to go down this road and say that some folk are using morality to ‘lord it over other people’, you are welcome to, but let’s be clear about the boundaries of the argument. Namely, that you can only really talk about “reasons why some things are better than others” for you. Stray beyond what is right for you and you might find people accusing you of having a no more than “a mere pretence for lording it over other people.”
Then again, you are a smart guy Mitchell, so you probably you already know that. Thanks for a stimulating start to my morning.
The moral obligation dilemma is an acute problem to some of us and it is pathetic. There is no moral obligation to keep a promise and that is dead simple to argue if you look our political suicide pact.
There is only one moral obligation and that is the absolute one not derivable from physicalism. It’s to love thy neighbour like thyself (one has to emphasise that this is the family, not uneself as most people believe in their narcissistic thinking)
If one derives ones morality from the postulated randomness of reality and the cause of one’s existence to be the ability to outcompete all the others ones morals (should) have to be coherent with ones worldwiew unless one can make an argument why the law of non-contradiction should not apply. So cheating as a way of taking advantage of others is a valid survival strategy we might employ for ourselves, but how dare anyone who comes into our country dare to benefit from our state benefits!
I just love the concept of moral “relativism” We justify our cheating by example set by those we envie for their accumulated wealth.
This is a classic case of the fall, the denial of authority of the creator by the created, puberty in a nutshell, to eat from the tree of self realisation to judge good and evil or right and wrong for yourself. It takes a long time and often painful experience to recognise that universal right and wrong because it is not about our own self.
Hi Marvin, Thanks for your post. You really God me thinking. Particularly, I wonder if you’d be kind enough to define what you mean by ‘family’ for me? Were you thinking nuclear or the extended family? Or maybe a genetic definition of family? Or perhaps something else entirely? My issue is that no matter what definition of family I insert in place of ‘neighbour’ my train of thought keeps coming off the rails. Let me try to explain.
My thinking is if one only has an obligation to the nuclear family, it seems hard to imagine how s society would not be justified in jettisoning most social and state-level care or obligation to vulnerable groups (isolated elderly, the stranger, genuine refugees, orphans, or those needing recuse from abusive homes, etc.).
If we are thinking extended family, then how far should I ‘extend’ the family? Should it include grandparents, uncles/aunties, cousins, what about second cousins? From where I’m sitting, if I extend family to include ‘my tribe’ then to love ones tribe as oneself could easily play into the hands of nationalism or racial supremacy. From there it becomes hard to argue that war against another tribe or racially motivated atrocities are ever wrong.
It also seems to me, that even a genetic definition of family has problems. My wife shares none of my DNA, my sons share 50% of my DNA, and my grandchildren only 25%. It strikes me that I could then argue that I have no obligation to my wife, and only a scaling reduction of obligations to my offspring and they to me.
I’m all for building social morality around ‘love ones neighbour as oneself’ but in my own opinion, without a definition of neighbour as broad as ‘the other’ (or no narrower than ‘the person in front of my right now’, the principle seems to collapse when the rubber hits the road. Does that make sense?
I should say, there is a very good chance I have completely misunderstood what you are getting at. So let me bring it back to the question I asked at the beginning of this post: Please, would you be kind enough to explain how you define family in your understanding of love your neighbour as yourself? Thanks in advance. Liam
