/lit/ - Literature

Interior crocodile alligator
I drive a chevrolet
Movie the-a-ther

>>3557371
thanks

Jesus Christ.

>>3557364
Morals are customs. Customs change from place to place and time to time - for example, in Aztec religion, it was the moral and customary thing to cut people's hearts out and pile them in a bowl for the gods. So yes, morals can change. Either move somewhere else or wait around a few decades, and they'll change.

However, if you're using the word evolve in the way I think you are, you have a specific idea of how customs should change. This means you already approve of a set of customs at variance with those around you. (Though I doubt they vary much.) So at least one member of humanity - you - has reached the lofty heights of moral excellence, from your point of view. Surely that's a consolation?

>>3557364

how about a book that caused a serial killer to rethink his actions?

>>3557395
I am unfamiliar with this story. Please elaborate.

>>3557408

itd be kinda hard to elaborate a whole book, im >implying a recommendation.

>>3557412
Not the book the serial killer.

>>3557390
It's consoling to know that humanity is full of loving, genuinely empathetic people, but what I mean to ask is wether their will always be a fox trying to get into the chicken coop. Imagine you, your closest loved ones, and people you trusted as being reasonable, loyal, and "moral" (aligning themselves with customs that to the best of their knowledge produces the greatest good for the greatest number of life forms) - people you would never expect to commit the act of, say, animal torture or spousal abuse, or murder - and you were to beam everybody up onto their own planet. you, and the group you brought with you could live in a crime-less paradise in theory. everyone in the group knew everyone else, you would all be proven to be civil beings you could trust around each other's kids and pets. would this last? would lucifer ever enter the garden you all built? or would it take 2, 3, 4, or even 50 generations until some baby is accidentally dropped on it's head and becomes violent. and his violence creates more violence, and that violence grows and grows until the now 10,000 strong tribe of neo-humans is exposed for what we have always been once more. unless their are advanced social orders that are over my head that could in theory produce the highest good for all... that some future group will be wise enough to implement - and it works.
>>3557395
sounds interesting. I'll check it. thanks anon

>>3557423
The experiment would fail the second I had to find decent compassionate human beings to beam up to the planet. Do you actually meet these kind of people? I'm from a lower middle class family and everyone I know is a scoundrel.

>>3557423

I only have two things to say in response to your post, make of them what you will.

Evolution by Natural Selection

and

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

>>3557446
hahahhah point taken. no I myself couldn't say I have met them. a few people come to mind, but no more than several.

>>3557455
:) I didn't consider the possibility that the future will choose who may enter. that's interesting

would anyone like to offer conjecture about what prerequisite "levels" must be met before a perfect world can come into order? age by age

>>3557495
Well, first off, you would have to be made immortal and appointed king of the world. I'm sure you could figure things out from there.

>>3557504
maybe you can. I'd probably get myself killed because I announced to the world that I couldn't die.

bump

>>3557364
First sentence and you already misunderstand how evolution works. Evolution doesn't imply a progress towards some goal. There is no metric.

Morals don't exist. There are only personal, subjective values, everything else is fluff and power games.

Evolving to an emphaty-less state is still evolution, how you personally value it (i.e. a moral progress) is irrelevant.

Radical change will happen once we start realizing what we are, or rather, what we are not.

Buddhism and neuro science will help (assuming the world with its scientific/technological progress doesn't go to shit first).

>>3557689
nah

throwing in a bunch of memes together doesn't stand for an argument

>>3557687
You might be right that he's misunderstood it, but the first sentence isn't intrinsically misguided. We could evolve morally, it the same way we can evolve physically or whatever. There is a metric, and it's change.

>>3557693
Which memes are you referring to?

The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress by Peter Singer

You should check it out.

>>3557696
We can't evolve morally because morals as a thing don't exist. The word is an anachronism used as smoke and mirrors, process that is part of power games themselves. You don't need biological evolution to change dominant values. You need power.

If power structures of societies change, so called 'morals' aka reigning values change. You don't need generational change for that.

Nazis went from 'Jew is a rat to be killed' to 'Jew is not a rat and is not to be killed' in a few years (I'd even say months).

>>3557364
Yes, from a materialist viewpoint we can theoretically get to the point where we have such mastery over the brain that we can alter it in such a way, yes.

>>3557687
the word "evolution" predates the theory of evolution. I meant it in the former sense as a metaphor for continued technological-cultural progress actively achieved by humanity.

>>3557719
>I meant it in the former sense as a metaphor
In that case see >>3557712 it applies nontheless:

>progress
There is this word again. There's no 'progress', there's change. Your personal values are just that.

>>3557712
well technological and social change/progress can produce environments that maximize empathetic and intelligent qualities in people. if we lived in a world where genetic engineering allowed for intelligence, and fully provided for, educated households, without exception, simply by virtue of the fact that it would be so easy to do so (with the future prospects focusing on larger projects - megastructures and the like) it WOULD create generational change. prosperity and social changes coinciding with generational changes DO produce different kinds of people. a shit world produces shit people generally, - in a hypothetical technologically advanced (age of abundance, where all base needs are taken care of across populations - no poverty, etc. - and self-engineering is done, as well as immortality - eliminating the natural cruelties that could arguably be the root cause of "necessary evil" - wars, violence in self defense, etc.) could this socially and technologically advanced world - with advanced culture - which would indeed produce more advanced people - create more MORALLY advanced people (caveman's morality has changed as our culture has developed - the modern world is the safest it's ever been relatively speaking). or will humanity never learn..

>>3557712
we can evolve morally because although morality IS a relative, and supple term that covers broad, and conflicting behavioral frameworks and cultural rationales - I would argue that a benevolent/empathetic impulse exists in humans that struggles to produce moral frameworks that aim for the highest good it can imagine. in times where all the society knew was tribe vs tribe - nationalistic/tribal justifications for genocide were common. but the fact that civil rights movements, and increasing safety (in most countries) correlating with global communications HAS stimulated debate and social revolution for decades on many topics - shaping our culture and shaping us. although it is imperfect, and slow - based on the ability to reason, and the impulse to DESIRE the highest good for all - moral frameworks of superior benevolence can be proven to trump inferior ones. not all moral philosophies are equal. by "moral evolution" I mean for human culture, encompassing groups of humans who no longer die, no longer suffer, and no longer envy (I suppose) to also transcend in the sophistication of their cultural morality ()
just because "morals" are memes, doesn't mean their not real. they're just software. collective mental evolution IS possible, but I am unsure of the limits.

>>3557729
You pulled all those causal relations of hypotheticals stright out of your ass. This is wishful thinking and handwaving, all those buzzwords of 'megastructures' and 'engineering' are just that - meaningless distractions.

You seem to value empathy and intelligence. Some other person doesn't. It's your word versus his/her word versus environment. Value system of the more powerful prevails.

>shit world produces shit people
Shit for you because you are fucked, but awesome for that other guy because he succeeds (and sees you fail).

>>3557736
>>3557729
sorry I know some of these sentences are run ons. I'm exhausted. just to wrap this up - there is an objectivity to what is of maximum benefit to organisms - and its complicated. the perfect moral philosophy would have to be one that involves total understanding of what that would be - for all organisms - and act on it. so I would agree that human ethics are just doomed to constant change and never "perfection", but that is until we become extraordinarily aware of the world around us - and capable of building a biosphere which can create this "highest good for all". but even then - will acts of theft and betrayal still occur?...or perhaps I still haven't abandoned this notion that they're even is an objective good

>>3557736
I just can't take you seriously when you say shit like:
>struggles to produce moral frameworks that aim for the highest good it can imagine
There is no objective hierarchy, there is no good or bad. Those are your personal values. You play a little game with your words to hide this fact. Which you are either arrogant and insulting or deluded enough to think others can't see through this bullshit.

You care for some other people. That guy down the road doesn't. That's it, it's word versus word. You can invent all this self-referrencing mythology and play word games all you want but it won't change this fact.

>just because "morals" are memes, doesn't mean their not real. they're just software. collective mental evolution IS possible, but I am unsure of the limits.
Invoking morals is either a sign of ignorance or purposeful deception. I choose to detest both. There are only personal values. Status quo values are called morals for only one reason: it validades them in the eyes of hoi polloi. We can't get rid of this anachronistic word because the status of being 'morals', which some values gain, is the spoils of war in this world. When differing values battle each other, both sides see the deception of the other side. But when you win you don't want to get rid of 'morals' status of values. You want to retain it and replace the old status qup values with your own - while gaining validation the word bestows upon your values.

>>3557744
>>3557744
I don't agree that this is necessary for human society. it may be for thousands of more years but the only reason that we even think in those terms ("other guy succeeds and sees me fail", class systems, etc.) is because we have to fight against each other to grab what we want in the battle for resources. if our species has sufficiently built enough technologies and amassed enough culture and knowledge, etc. to provide for all members of it's society - no primeval power structures, no "ruling elite", etc. - would this environment coincide with empathy, because pain and death and the NEED to compete in any lethal sense has been eliminated? or is it just going to always be a world where tribal pockets care for each other but for the world at large - we're all at war.

>>3557756
You are so naive, it's cute. Why is that, that the most powerful are the most greedy? Don't they have like the biggest portion of resources? What's up with all that buzz about '0,1%'? What is wealth accumulation? I'd say you should study our history more. You don't differentiate between the necessity to do something and the will to do something. It's not the african and asian poor that are invading and genociding around. Not least for the resources.

Do you really think that gassing Jews was profitable endeavour for Nazis?

>>3557364
Yeah separate each among groups
Don't allow interaction

Come back in 100 years

>>3557757
just curious, because I maintain that they're is a philosophically respectable way to use those words, but what do you refrain from doing and why? if you saw someone being attacked by someone - would you stop it? do you cringe at people burning cats?
yes it's true that were base level impulse-gratifiers but do you really assert that there isn't also a universal component to our minds (that exist in other mammals as well) that feel empathy and drive us to group together, die for one another, etc? this desire/empathy/whatever you call it does exist across mammalian species - but moral frameworks attempting to coherently discuss this desire may be poorly built. I know I used the terms vaguely, but they are not void of content - it's just my poor writing.

their is an objectivity to well-being regardless of an empathetic observer. a cat dying is not good for a cat dying. in the same way snakes don't care about wolves, and wolves only care about their young, and humans can vary in what and who they care about - in the style of legal ideals (which come from our own minds, I admit) it seems rational to propose that greater intellects that understand power dynamics, subjectivity of human ethics, etc. could create a superior "legal system" that functions even on the level of "raising" children - which seeks not to punish crime as a primary goal - but to eliminate "crime" - and which defines "crime" or "evil" or whatever you choose to call it - in a clear way that would reject personal morality - and only protect the well being of all creatures.

>>3557771
>I maintain that they're is a philosophically respectable way to use those words
List those ways. Or wait, no, just give me your best.

>what do you refrain from doing and why?
I don't take pleasure in being exploited. I don't take pleasure in believing in demonstrably false things. Simple as that.

>do you cringe at people burning cats?
Are you asking me about a biological reaction? It's totally irrelevant. My brain tells me to eat junk food even though it's suicidal. Get over your emotions, be rational.

>their is an objectivity to well-being regardless of an empathetic observer.
No. Value exists only in an observer. If there is no observer valuing something, there is no value.

Under no circumstances you are able to prove to me that I should always value the well being of others.

>arguing over this shit when we know there are different schools of thought and they are each as valid as the other from the viewpoint of radical scepticism. Plus all of them have been explored to the farest ends in academic circles, but you still think your half assed opinion is worth writing out and defending

>>3557791
>mutually exclusive things are each as valid as the other
at least you tried

>>3557799
He's actually gone deeper than you while you mistake him for shallow thinking. When you sternly apply logic and rational thinking there is no reason to believe anything is more valid than anything else since there is no basis to found a theory of probability on. He even mentioned 'radical scepticism', which should have gave away just how thorough he meant to be.

>>3557799

>not knowing basic truths in sceptical epistemology

get a hold of this nigger

>>3557807
>When you sternly apply logic and rational thinking there is no reason to believe anything is more valid than anything else since there is no basis to found a theory of probability on
false
it's called empiricism

>>3557817
>sceptical epistemology
can't wait to see you employing "sceptical epistemology" in life threatening situation

aww that's right, the toddler just tried to be cool and edgy

>>3557414
Timothy Mcveigh

>>3557395
Book is fantastic, very hard to get people to read it, but when they do...

>>3557818
Not sure if troll. You do know that there's no rational basis to put faith in empiricism, don't you?

>>3557408
It didnt cause him to rethink his actions so much. The book is basically about a patriotic gun nut who offends an ATF field officer, and gets his home raided. He pretty much engages in a war of attrition on govt employees. Mcveigh was a decorated sniper in the gulf war, he said he would have assassinate anti-gun leaders instead of blowing up the ok city fed building and its daycare.

>>3557825
Seeing how people take to praying in time of crisis your point also stands for theism.

>>3557833
>people thinks guns should be banned
>shoot them because you disagree

That'll show them.

>>3557831
There is.
An agent that doesn't "put faith in empiricism" ceases to exist and is not here anymore to tell the tale. Do you even go outside?

>>3557790
okay. fine. let me correct a few things. I by no means suggested or suggest that the universe cares at all about the well being of life. what I failed to make explicit is that IF one cared about the well being of all (sort of like a judicial matrioshka brain) COULD one even succeed in building the ultimately just city. that's all. I concede that it was my fault in failure to communicate, but I don't retract the question. I agree with you that you can't get an ought from an is, and that human affairs are bound in chaotic power struggles and that legal systems are artificial machines built precisely because we have struggled to find such a way to produce tangible manifestations of abstractions like "justice" or "good". but that doesn't mean that assuming one desired to produce widespread, total legal harmony in this way (forget why one would want to, because I could never argue and win for why anyone SHOULD) that you couldn't.

>>3557835
Sure they can take to praying or even babbling like retards for all I care. That doesn't mean that makes them survive to tell the story.

>>3557860
>implying truth value in survival

Lel.

>>3557843
Its very much a book about the ATF being corrupt and the justice dept foisting a dictatorship on the people. Also, it occurs after a particularly offensive incident similar to ruby ridge/waco that causes a minor civil war in the western states after legislation to disarm the populace is presented. Its an interesting book.

>>3557870
I am not. Truth is irrelevant, what matters is empirically verified degree of certainty. That's it.

>>3557876
How have you come to the conclusion that that is what matters?

Humanity evolves morally all the time in the sense that we are constantly looking back at our past as being primitive or barbaric.

I'd like to bring up an argument that I think H G Wells first used.
Social Darwinism is controlled breeding for the sake of building stronger or better people, but it order for it to work you need a populace that would subject itself to having their sex regulated by scientists or whomever, and in that voluntary subjection you're helping build a weaker kind of person who will even let who he has sex with decided by others.

> reshaping our anatomy, eliminating death, allowing higher levels of cognitive development in our descendants

These are all bad when carried to an extreme, especially eliminating death which is extreme to begin with.

>>3557882
experience of those who survived to tell the tale

>>3557889
I mean how have you come to the conclusion that empericism is the way to go? Also, people's opinions are no argument.

>>3557917
>I mean how have you come to the conclusion that empericism is the way to go?
I watched people who employed it live and succeed while sceptics fail and die? (on average of course)
>Also, people's opinions are no argument.
There are only people's opinions.
You choose some opinions over others - my metric is empirical verification of opinion's effects.

>>3557854
You lost me dude, I don't follow your reasoning anymore. Anyway, "justice" is impossible. The history of justice is an atempt to redefine what this word means, to shift the equlibrium to a state that satisfies the ruling status quo.

>>3557925
>>3557917
this is reasonable. what are your thoughts on the criticism that the metric becomes severely difficult to employ when discussing the highly abstract?

>>3557883
Strong/weak are relative, especially in the sense you use them. When one is "strong"(good, approved) in something he/she might be "weak"(bad, disapproved) in something else. Everyone's the judge for him/herself. The ones with power use it to export their values onto others.

>These are all bad when carried to an extreme
cool story bro, that's, like, your opinion, bro

>>3557935
This is the only metric that I've seen succeed (using the same metric itself). Show me a better one, I will consider it.

>>3557925
>I watched people who employed it live and succeed while sceptics fail and die? (on average of course)
How have you come to conclude that life is the preferable outcome?

>>3558017
By a heuristic I personally developed. I choose not to adopt a value that destroys the parent faculty that allowed it to be adopted in the first place. E.g. choosing death over life destroys the faculty of choice between life and death.

>confirming to others' moral system
Now that's what I call betafaggot

An exmaple is slavery being phased out (in the western world) so 'yes'...but I guess it is also dependent on culture in which the right environment has been set-up to put emphasis on morality (collectively and individually)

>>3557393
ha!

>>3558040
example of what?

>>3558048
I'm directly repsonding the post with an example that is in favor of humanity being able to morally evolve.

>>3558058
lol, cool opinion, bro

>>3558028
So arbitrary then.

>>3557364
every culture operates on a different morality
compare african to european to asian to indigenous american

compare contrast the existing justice systems for example

>>3558102
Everything's arbitrary since values are arbitrary. You can choose to die, I can choose to live. There is no cookie authority to award you a cookie for your choice. Everyone adopts a metric one likes. Some choices make you cease to be, which, this might be a shock to you, prevents you from making any future choices. You are all talk, no walk mental masturbator.

>>3557364
Read Joseph Campbell's "Power of Myth" and then check out Lewis Mumford's "Culture of Cities" and "Technics and Human Development."

You can continue to evolve human morality into new bounds, but it requires you to not banish pivotal things to our positive development. Things like spirituality and love for out planet and each other.

We're too obsessed with technology, and that's quickly becoming the forefront of importance in this information age. No longer are we interacting with one another like human beings are intended to, we're disconnecting from one another, seeing all other people in our lives as digital icons. The more we fall into this multi-tasked culture of information, the further we are going to grow apart, and the more we're gonna lose that made us human in the first place.

Lewis Mumford kind of outlines this idea that we can continue to develop technology, but in a way that doesn't cost us humanity its spiritual beliefs.

>>3557769
I don't believe what I've said was naive. I agree with you about how things are - but I argue that the existence of genuine selflessness despite genocidal acts like those pervasive throughout history is proof, at least in trace amounts, that people act on higher ethical principles that even put the other lives ahead of their own, not even to mention restraining oneself from committing murder. to suggest that the existence of war or purposeless assault proves that all of humanity is incapable of acting or thinking outside of those views is cynical without basis. so though I do agree, as I have, that humanity is thoroughly corrupted, I do not agree that the existence of genuine empathy (however it may be filtered through some framework and acted on) is a myth.

>>3558077
You are a bit of an idiot aren't you? What kind of a response was that.

>>3557364
Behavior doesn't evolve.

We can, theoretically, as a whole snap out of the hypnotic lull of capitalism and create sustainable and humane societies, but the way things look it'll take the inevitable world-wide collapse to make that even possible.

>>3559840
He means that your idea of improvement is arbitrary, silly.

STOP WRITING SO MANY WALLS OF TEXT. PRACTICE SOME BREVITY MY NIGGA.