/sci/ - Science & Math

morality is subjective.

i simply dislike murder because i was raised/born with that preference.

>>3542029
What does it mean for morals to be absolute?

In a related question, surely you agree with me that "X is moral" is unfalsifiable? That is, equivalently, morals are not discoverable. Hume's is-ought problem and all.

>>3542035
See here I think murder is always bad and being raised to think it's good doesn't make it good.

Everything is relative. Even simple truth is relative, since you can always use a different set of axioms or a different formal system.

However it's entirely plausible that one could prove certain moral standards to be valid on the basis of other, "less relative" notions, such as that happiness is more desirably to suffering.

>>3542042
right. and being raised to think it's bad doesn't make it bad.

Nope. They are a creation of society. Hate my gf for "changing" (trying to anyway) my depressing view of life (tards should be aborted or euthanized, etc). I'm a social darwinist, or at least try to follow it's principles mixed in with a bit of Nietzsche

fucking relativist libtards, morals come from a higher power, but obviously you libs wont ever acept that because you've been brainwashed by the PC media

>>3542047
Exactly. You could raise someone to think that Macs are awesome and only faggots use Windows, but that still doesn't make it true.

>>3542057
>morals come from a higher power
So, how does this higher power communicate with you?

And why do what the higher power says? If the higher power told you to rape and murder some random woman on the street for the expressed purpose of your enjoyment, would you do it?

>>3542065
>Well it's always nice when one can enjoy his work

[/seven]

>>3542057
I'm not going to get into religion here if possible.

all moral values reduce to facts about the well-being of conscious creatures

I think in general society is getting more moral with time. Considering that slavery was once just accepted as normal by most people.

I think there is no absolute morality.

When it comes to murder, I think saying "Murder is bad" is kind of misleading. In my opinion, society is better when the people in it dont have to worry about being killed.

You can have the moral opinion that murder is bad. But thats as morally deep as saying "oranges are bad." There is a rational, completely objective reason why we say murder is bad. Its based off subjective values, that many of us share.

I think that morality can probably be simplified to the laws of physics.

We do good because it increases our chances of breeding. We breed because it passes on our DNA. We pass on DNA because it codes for our chemical structure. It codes for our physic structure because it's interpretable by a chemical process. That chemical process works because of the laws of physics in place in the universe.

I think, personally, that the laws of physics have to be taken as absolute if we're to base anything off of them (or alternate theories that are more plausible need to exist). So in a way, yes. I don't think they can be defined objectively for humans, though.

>>3542081
Physical* structure.
Need coffee now.

>>3542081
Humans rarely do anything for the purpose of breeding any more.

>>3542077
And that it was accepted as fact that black men were untermensch.

When you see blacks all over the media and in politics and sports, it's almost difficult to even imagine that there was a time within living memory that they were (as I said) less than full human beings in the eyes of society.

>>3542085
They're still driven by the same urges. We've simply reached a point at which we've been able to ignore their original purpose. From an evolutionary point of view, we've royally fucked ourselves.

>>3542093
That is correct. What is sexual attraction for but reproducing?

>>3542093
I don't know about you, but I don't mind at all that I've "fucked myself" evolutionarily. So I don't see why that should factor into discussions about ethics.

>>3542099
warm fuzzy post sex cuddles.

>>3542103
I didn't say it mattered. As far as I'm concerned, humans have a few millenia on the clock at absolute maximum, and probably a few centuries. social change is far more important than physical for the first time in history, which is kinda cool.

>>3542113
Eh, we've since learned that we can put them in a gladiator arena on Sundays in the fall and have white slave drivers order them to beat each other up for our amusement.

>>3542113
Oh boy here we go. Short version - show me any sound study that compensates for both economic bias and cultural bias, and then we're in business. Otherwise, shut the hell up and get out.

No morality exists

>>3542113
So, I post a legitimate thread asking for evidence for or against a genetic component to racism and get banned for "posting inane racist trolling garbage" and you get to spam indiscriminately?
Fick that, a report nazi was just born.

It is entirely relative.

And it's not as much a matter of subjectivity or opinion, it's simply the fact that no matter the case, there are always different aspects to every situation. Thus there are no two similar situations from which you can lay a foundation for an absolute moral statement.

There is some relativism around. Like Amish people who are absolutely convinced they'll be blasted down to Hell if they use electricity.

Mutual self interests and group imposed order exists.

>>3542122

How could you say no morality exists? What if a guy has a moral, about anything, doesnt that constitute morality?

>>3542165
That's not morality, that's [insert cynical definition of morality] you fucking candy ass

>>3542174
Please leave /sci/, and never return.

No.

>>3542174

>mfw

>>3542177

I think he was joking. And I thought it was funny.

Ethics are not dependent on people's subjective preferences.

Moral relativists aren't saying that different situations call for different measures, they are saying that the laws of physics change from place to place, that when you set foot in a foreign culture what is implicitly good and evil changes.

>Hume's is-ought problem
Just because some retards suffer from the nirvana fallacy doesn't mean you cannot make any objective statements about ethics.

>>3542183
Not really. I think murdering, raping, and pillaging is bad anywhere.

>>3542177
My cynicism is apparently too meta.
Why are we having this thread if I'm the only person who claimed morality could be shown to be objective and it only got one reply. Which died out. It seems utterly pointless to sit around explaining things we already understand and agree with to each other.

>>3542183
>Just because some retards suffer from the nirvana fallacy
Please explain.
>doesn't mean you cannot make any objective statements about ethics.
How does one know if one is right? How would I attempt to refute such a claim, or make such a claim, besides saying "It's patently obvious"?

>>3542191
I'm still not sure whether you think you're trolling trolls or you think you're being useful. Eitherway, I'll make popcorn.

>>3542190

Okay then I got a new question.

How subjective is morality? I dont think there is absolute morality, but at the same time I am impressed by how many values people can share.

To test this, lets just see how easy it is to find moral differences between us /sci/friends

>>3542204
Ok. Lemme ask your opinion on these:

*Drugs
*Gay sex
*Incest
*Pedophilia
*Polygamy
*Capital punishment
*Bombing Hiroshima

>>3542204
You first have to define what you mean by "objective".

Morality is not objective in the sense that you can dig it up, or look up in the sky and see it. Hume's is-ought problem.

However, is there large sets of morality shared by most people? Yes. This is a demonstrable empirical fact.

>>3542204
I think morality is based upon natural social rules (the golden rule, mainly) that allowed it to develop complex social structure without sabotaging itself. Along with that came the unanimous desire for hierarchy- Humans, even when in charge, wanted to be ruled by something more powerful, for comfort/confidence/free beer, so they accidentally confirmation bias'd a god into existence. I think it's all traceable to fairly rational roots, and just got accentuated of surpressed by society.
>>3542212
-Fine when non-harmful, otherwise not within a country with a duty of care
-Fine
-Fine as long as birth control is used, additional care is exercised, all children are terminated.
-Being a paedophile is alright, child molestation is not. Counselling should be provided to help remedy it.
-Fine
-Not fine. Capital punishment is one of the only irreversible punishments, and I don't trust any legal system to be able to assign blame enough to justify it
-Completely horrific, horrifically efficient

>>3542212

Okay, Ill answer, but, as I was saying earlier, I think morality is deeper than that. Morality isnt just how I feel about topic A, B, and C. Morality would be an underlying set of values that would guide my opinions about topics A, B, and C.

Drugs:
Drugs should be legal. Im trying to think of why perscription drugs should be prescription but I cant think of why. I bet there is a good reason though
Gay Sex:
People should be allowed to have gay sex
Incent:
People should be allowed to engage in incest
Pedophilia:
Uh, Im assuming that for the protection of children pedophilia should be illegal. Im assuming there is some damage to children that I dont really understand.
Polygamy:
Should be legal
Capital punishment:
Should not be done.
Bombing of Hiroshima:
Should not have happened

>>3542229
There's a limited supply of prescription drugs, by making them assignable by people who can effectively chose those who deserve them you make sure the supplies are most effectively allocated. You also avoid the risk of people killing themselves by drinking pure ethanol.

>>3542214

Okay thats a good point. i dont mean Objective as in, physical. I mean objective as in, there is a definite superior and ultimately correct answer, that is 100% perfect and not wrong.

That, or at least, a best set of morals, not necassarily one that is immaculate.

>>3542230

Oh I see. Neat. That makes sense.

Now we just need libertry to come in here and explain that the market could perfectly allocate those drugs without any interference.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxdgCxK4VUA

>>3542212
>Drugs
Do whatever the fuck you want in the privacy of your home as long as no children are involved
>Gay
Do whatever the fuck you want in the privacy of your home as long as no children are involved. Also do not try and claim gay relationships are equal to heterosexual ones because they're not.
>Incest
Bad
>Pedophilia
Bad, although admittedly some forms of pedophilia are worse than others
>Polygamy
No and the history of the Middle East and China proved that polygamy doesn't lead to very desirable results
>Capital punishment
There are some times when people do things so bad they don't deserve to live.
>Bombing Hiroshima
Horrible, but invading Japan would have killed a million or more people.

>>3542233
>I mean objective as in, there is a definite superior and ultimately correct answer, that is 100% perfect and not wrong.
Sure. I understand that. However, how does one discover it, or learn it? "Objective morality" in that sense is a meaningless claim. It is a factual claim that can never be observed. Thus it is meaningless.

>>3542228

I think I agree with your statement about hierarchy. Humans naturally specialize, and because of that, they are outsourcing what they need to people who will know more about that then they do. They need an authority about... medicine for example, because their judgement is insufficient.

Thats whats particularly interesting in economics, because economists often have the assumption that people know what they want. But thats not the cause. There are a lot of examples where people have no idea what they want, or "what they want" is obviously not what is better for them.

>>3542244

Given both that an absolute, yet unobtainable morality exists, and that we live in a reality which cannot reach that morality we can construct a better morality than what currently exists.

Do you agree?

In my study of economics we model a lot of unobtainably perfect things that while unrealistic can help us describe reality.

>>3542239
Oh liberty. I remember the good old days (thursday) when s/he could make many a tripfag rage quit.

I get the argument drugs should be legal. And I agree, that if there were no rulers, they would be. What some people (not you) never seem to grasp is that they live within a society with predefined rules and universal obligations. If you think you're free, you're making a fundamental error of judgement, because you owe the society something. Is it fair? Of course not. Does anyone care?
>>3542248
I think whenever people end up with perverted ideas of what they want (as in, shiny TV as opposed to bitches and cattle) it's more due to the fact that historically we didn't have these distractions in these quantities, and therefore the lack of limitation on our reactions to them was a lot less important. If that makes sense. In other words, what you talk about is just a case of the system being tested in an instance it wasn't prepared for.

>>3542256
I'm having trouble parsing that.

>Given both that an absolute, yet unobtainable morality exists,
For whatever that means, sure. It offers no falsifiable predictions, so I really don't know what that means.

>and that we live in a reality which cannot reach that morality
Do you mean "We cannot discover that morality"?

>we can construct a better morality than what currently exists.
Better by what measure?

>>3542262

I agree about that distraction stuff. In modern society, most of the stuff people buy is exactly what they know they want. We dont need a doctor to tell you to buy a TV, when you want to watch a TV show. Thats because we have so many consumer goods that are so easy to understand.


>>3542263

>For whatever that means, sure. It offers no falsifiable predictions, so I really don't know what that means.

Here, lets replace morality with proceedure. We will say we are baking bread and we only have a vague idea of how to do it. There is a hypothetical ideal way of making it, that we certainly wont do the first time we try and make bread.

What I mean by absolute yet ubobtainable, is that we will never ever reach that perfectly ideal way of making bread.

Same with morals.

>Do you mean "We cannot discover that morality"?

No I meant live.

>Better by what measure?

I dont think its measurable. To say measure, implies that it is adhering to a deeper standard, but thats the morality to begin with. Does that make any sense?

>>3542297
>There is a hypothetical ideal way of making it, that we certainly wont do the first time we try and make bread.
False analogy. With making bread, there are implicitly understood empirical measures, such as the quality of bread, the efficiency of use of ingredients and time, etc.

If you want to fiat analogous measures for morality, then you've committed the fallacy of begging the question. You argue that we can discover morals by using a measure which is itself morals.

>>3542297
>No I meant live.
Well, this is unfortunate. I feared this response.

I think you're wrongly conflating "ideal world" with "morality". Knowing morality in its absolute truth, were such a thing possible, is not the same thing as living in the ideal world.

Let us grant for the moment that we can "know" that murder is simply wrong. This is knowing absolute morality. However, it may be that the physics of the situation simply require that someone is going to be murdered, aka not living in the ideal world.

Morals are taught. They come from our parents and society around us.
we don't even know what 'good' or 'bad' is until its explained to us when we're little

when we grow up, we tend to pick and choose morals as we go, according to our own personal tastes and the culture around us

>>3542297
>I dont think its measurable. To say measure, implies that it is adhering to a deeper standard, but thats the morality to begin with. Does that make any sense?
Sorry, no. I don't understand what it might mean for something to be better without a measure of some kind. That's simply what the word "better" means.

>>3542303

> With making bread, there are implicitly understood empirical measures, such as the quality of bread, the efficiency of use of ingredients and time, etc.

But thats stuff we learn. Even if you understood what you wanted, you would get what you wanted when you tried your first time.

>>3542325
I think we're getting confused. Let me take a step back.

When one talks about the ideal way to make bread, there are implicitly understood measures of "better". This is not discussing "oughts". This is merely discussing efficiency. No one is arguing that one ought to make bread in the fastest way, or most efficient way. It's merely an implicit axiom.

When arguing about objective morality as we are, we are talking about "oughts". We're not discussing what is the most efficient and effective plan to minimize the number of murders, like we are with the bread. We're discussing whether we even ought to minimize murders at all.

>>3542339

Thank you, yes I think I am a bit confused.

Maybe I can restructure the analogy.

The ideal bread is the moral, not the procedure. We are trying to reach the ideal bread via various procedures each with their own efficiency at reaching that bread. Likewise an individual can recognize an ideal society/human and can attempt to reach that via various policies and behaviors.

Is saying "Murders are bad" analogous to the ideal bread, or the baking of the bread?

I would think, its analogous to the baking of the bread, I could imagine circumstances in which a murder is a good thing, but a reality in which people murder when they believe its good, is not preferred to a reality in which people are extremely conservative about murdering. Perhaps infinitely conservative.

>>3542187
>murdering, raping, and pillaging is bad anywhere
I can think of real life situations where murder and pillage are ethical, if aliens invaded and said "lol you, rape someone or we rape everyone on earth" then rape would be ethical even though it is usually unnecessary otherwise.
>>3542191
>How does one know if one is right?
How do you know flexing your muscles to stay upright is right? Why not flop on the floor motionless and do this for the rest of your natural life since there is no way you can be sure flexing your muscles is the reason you are upright or be sure of anything else? Because there is no point commanding your body to do anything, or even to bother thinking? You are thinking in absolutes.

Hume wasn't saying that we are incapable of theorizing anything, he was saying that people often confuse the theoretical models of reality in their mind with actual reality.

You should avoid using the term "absolute" as this confuses the issue.

We can talk about whether morality is "objective" that is, it exists apart from or universally across any given people or groups of people, or if morality is "subjective", that is, merely a matter of preference or taste. (Google emotivism).

I believe evolution provides a context and a sort of foundation for what we normal think of as "moral" behavior (e.g., altruism and cooperation), however evolution is not "absolute". Certain behaviors are preferable in certain circumstances while others are not in other circumstances (e.g., the killing of a human being). This does not mean that morality is entirely subjective, merely that morality depends on the given context of a situation. This also seems to be what many of you are arguing for (except for those who are arguing complete forms of emotivism).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contextualism

>>3542374
Very Platonic Ideal-y in here.

What is an ideal piece of bread. Can you recognize it if you see it? Can you prove that it's not?

If we further refine the concept "ideal" to mean simply measurable concepts, then yes. If you keep "ideal" as this nebulous, ill defined idea, then no.

There is no way to refine "murders are bad" to be simply a sum of measurable concepts.

>>3542388
I'm just arguing in favor of Hume's is-ought distinction, and little more.

>>3542388

Samefagging, but as others have mentioned, Hume's "is-ought" problem is being a bit misunderstood here.

Hume was not suggesting that morality is utterly subjective because we cannot bridge the "is-ought" gap. Hume simply stated their is no logical way to deduce an is from an ought (e.g., Because the sun has risen in the past, it ought to rise tomorrow). However, Hume was very much in favor of inductive reasoning, and did believe that morality could be founded upon inductive methods, even given the famous problems of induction.

>>3542389

>If we further refine the concept "ideal" to mean simply measurable concepts, then yes.

Then yes... we can obtain it? Is that what you mean?

Morality is not a physical, substantive thing that exists in the physical world in any way.

Let us take the case of a simply homicide/theft.

The physical world is indifferent to the death of the man being shot. It's laws allow for the bullet to move at such and such speed and impact the skull with such a force that the delicate organ within it is unable to function. The universe operates indiscriminate of an organism's behavior.

The whole idea of justice and morality (and indeed a great deal of other human endeavors) is to combat these differences and unfortunate circumstances we have been presented with, and create and alternative world which functions as we would like.

Most of the time it works. Most humans live in places where the crass killing of others is intolerable and will result in punishment.

That being said, morality is not a wholly abstract thing instilled upon us by birth. We all have common ground in that all humans experience certain things as uncomfortable and painful. Many of our 'morals' are based on simple psychological reactions that exist in nearly all people. These are what I believe should serve as the basis of morality.

>>3542414

The problem is -- many will claim -- is that we all disagree on our moral preferences, and thus morality is subjective.

I happen to disagree with this people, and agree with what you said, though.

There is currently a lot of good work being done on what is referred to as "moral psychology" -- that is, our universal intuitions and preferences of moral outcomes and behavior, but it isn't very well respected among /sci/entists.

I'm drunk.

Guys

My thoughts are pouring into your heads right now through your eyes

wearing a seatbelt increases the chance of you being in multiple road accidents, and of developing cancer.

>>3542413
This conversation is wallowing in ambiguity. I also am having problems following it.

"This bread is an ideal piece of bread" can be a falsifiable claim, and it can be unfalsifiable, depending on the exact meanings of the words. If you define "ideal piece of bread" as a piece of bread ~12 in long, 4 in high, 4 in wide, then this is a measurable property.

"Murders are bad" is not a falsifiable claim. One cannot go out and perform a measurement that demonstrates that one side is right, and one side is wrong.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm sure someone's thinking we can go out and demonstrate how this is bad because it negatively affects conscious minds, but in that case we're just moving the problem from "murder is bad" to "negatively affecting conscious minds is bad". We've done nothing to bridge the is-ought gap. To be clear, one can deduce an ought from a set of 'is's and 'ought's, where the set contains at least one ought, but one cannot deduce an ought from a set of purely 'is's.

>>3542430

Yet you also cannot prove why falsifiability is an important criteria for something without bridging the "is-ought" gap via a value claim.

Claiming that falsifiability is an important criteria is, ultimately, a value claim. One that I happen to agree with, but a value claim nonetheless.

>>3542442
>Yet you also cannot prove why falsifiability is an important criteria for something without bridging the "is-ought" gap via a value claim.

False.

>Claiming that falsifiability is an important criteria is, ultimately, a value claim. One that I happen to agree with, but a value claim nonetheless.

Indeed.

You are confused though. I never tried to justify science and inductive reasoning. I claim that axiomatically, without justification, at all.

>>3542430

So then saying

"A society where people dont murder each other is an ideal society" is falsiable?

>>3542429

This reminds me of an example about morality in economics. A foolish economist might say "We should have knives in the steering column to deter people from accidents." While other, more normal people, would just accept that a car accident is something unavoidable that we should lessen the severity as much as possible, rather than avoiding the incident all together.

>>3542445

But of course you can justify why you think science and inductive reasoning is important.

Don't worry about contradicting yourself. Look at results. It is much more likely that we have gone wrong somewhere in our language/reasoning/argumentation than science itself being unjustifiable.

I may indeed have misunderstood you, and continue to misunderstand you. I live up to my name, and I have had 5 mojitos.

>>3542452

Thank you. We have to reach a point where being practical intersects with being rational. Too many Popperians have mucked about and toted falsifiability as the be all and end all of scientific reasoning.

>>3542452
>"A society where people dont murder each other is an ideal society" is falsiable?

Define ideal. Under some meanings, yes. Under some meanings, no.

Example: An "ideal" society (one of many, aka not in the superlative sense) is one in which a vast supermajority of the human population would like to live. Then it is a falsifiable claim that a society must have a small number of murders to be ideal.

Example: "Ideal" is defined as what ought to be. Then the following claim is unfalsifiable: A society where people don't murder each other is ideal.

>>3542459
Nope. I cannot justify with rational, logic, argument why inductive reasoning works. It's undefendable. It is.

>>3542468
It is ideal to be realistic, in which case we should expect there to be a few crimes and murders but ideally they should be kept at reasonable levels.

>>3542468

Please demonstrate why falsifiability is an important criteria that we even "ought" to consider without bridging the is-ought gap.

kthx

>>3542479
I don't understand what you're trying to get at. I have made no such claim. I am merely trying to defend Hume's is-ought separation, and consequently I am attempting to show that morality is not discoverable, and consequently "objective morality" is a practically meaningless idea, just as meaningless as Platonic Ideals

>>3542474
Inductive reasoning is justified due to necessity, just as deductive reasoning is. It is necessary to believe rolling around naked in the mud will make you cold, you don't need to abstractly define it, a dog knows this.

>>3542487
I don't know what that means. I'm not sure I particularly care.

>>3542468

What does that entail if its unfalsifiable?

>>3542484

What is the importance of defending it at all? You clearly believe you ought to do so. You honestly believe that you have made no decisions about what preferences are more rational or acceptable than others?

You can theoretically argue that preferences or morality is meaningless all you like, but when it comes down to it, to even argue the point, you must explicitly have preferences. Your preferences are based on something. The bases of your preferences can be pragmatically explored to see which are more "rational" than others.

There is a difference between theoretical meaninglessness, and practical meaninglessness. Discussing morality and value claims is not practically meaninglessness.

>>3542479
Perhaps this is what you're trying to ask?

An "is statement" is a factual claim. An "ought statement" is a statement of duty, or obligation. These two kinds of claims are disjoint, that is there is no factual claim which is an ought claim, and there is no ought claim which is a factual claim. They are separated by many things. One such thing is their literal English construction.

"Is" statements come in two kinds, the falsifiable, and the unfalsifiable.

"Ought" statements come in only one kind, the unfalsifiable. Now to be clear, if you accept another ought statement as a premise, then one can deduce another ought statement as true or false, but this is not falsification. This is logical deduction.

>>3542493
Dunno. I'm not trying to make any broader claim than that. I'm just trying to make the claim that morals are not discoverable nor falsifiable.

Theres no such thing as absolute morals, but there are things that can be weighed by logic that would be the best for certain goals. Then certain goals can be weighed against each other to see who they would benefit best, and then you have to weigh why which is more important with logic etc. Don't think I can break it down any further than this.

>>3542496
>What is the importance of defending it at all?

Some short answers are "Because I like it", "Because I learn from others when I do so", and so on.

The shortest answer is "Because I want to".

>>3542503
Total agreement. I've been trying to say more or less that.

As I see it, for morals to be absolute, you'll have to have absolute definitions of what is "good", and what is "bad". Is this step obtainable for us as a species at a physical level? Does "good" and "bad" exist at all on a physical level, or just states which we attribute to these as man-made concepts?

>>3542510
Depends on how you define "good" and "bad". If you define good and bad as factual claims, then you have to justify the argument that one ought to do good and one ought not do bad.

If you define "good" and "bad" as descriptions of obligation, then you've given no way to discover these obligations, as obligations are not discoverable via factual evidence.

>>3542502

Okay, well personally I feel my belief that murder is bad is falsifiable. To say murder is bad because I am saying its bad relative to a more important moral statement. Which is a society in which we dont have to fear being murdered is better than one which we do. It ha nothing to do with murder itself, Im sure plenty of people should be murdered. Like this one time I heard this guy say "Halla acha boy" for example.

And I guess I feel that is falsifiable too. That a society which people dont have to fear murder is better because people are guaranteed stability and basic livelihood.

>>3542518
To continue, the problem with this entire thread is this ambiguity and dual definition-ness of some words, like good and bad.

Good and bad can be measures of factual claims, like the levels of certain chemicals in the brain (as Sam Harris is fond of doing), and good and bad can be obligations.

In fact, people go between these definitions frequently mid-sentence. This lack of clarity, both on paper and in the minds of some people, is the cause of all of this confusion.

>>3542518

Do you also believe that someone has no real reason to think they should take a particular medicine to cure a certain illness?

>>3542520
"Murder is bad" may be falsifiable if your axiomatic framework contains an "ought" axiom. You cannot derive an "ought" axiom from purely "is" axioms.

>>3542527
There are two possible questions you're asking.

1- Is it reasonable to believe that taking a certain medicine will cure a certain illness? Yes. This is a falsifiable, and presumably verified, claim.

2- Is it reasonable to take the medicine which will cure a disease you have? Perhaps - this is what we would call a moral question. It's asking you what you ought to do.

>>3542537

So you would, theoretically speaking, claim that a subtle distinction that a philosopher made -- who is entirely fallible as well as able to be misinterpreted -- should take priority in guiding one's action over one's practical knowledge and/or desire to cure one's illness? If you say yes, then I think you are being practically absurd. If you say no, then you are awesome for being pragmatic. If you say that my question is just again resorting to a claim about what we "ought" to do and must bridge that gap, then you main theoretically consistent, but practically speaking, completely absurd.

I'm sure you have figured out by now that I'm a pragmatist, and I'm assuming you are some flavor of emotivist.

>>3542530

>You cannot derive an "ought" axiom from purely "is" axioms.

Why not?

>>3542547
I'm not sure what you're trying to ask me. I've been trying to remain someone ... unbiased, or objective, or neutral.

Should the person take the medicine to cure his disease? All things being equal, hell yes. They almost certainly want to be happy and healthy, and I'm all in favor of human happiness and healthiness. Is this a falsifiable claim? Hell no.

>>3542555
Not sure if I can derive that from other more basic axioms. I probably could. However, that would first require using a non-ambiguous language, and English is not that.

At this moment, if it does not appear self evident, then I do think there is much I can do to persuade of it. The best I could possibly do is to ask for a counter-example, then ask "why?" at the part where you explicitly or implicitly bridged the is-ought gap.

>>3542561

From what I understand by "is axiom" is you mean just a plain ol fact. Something is bad, and its bad because Criteria X.

Im asking, if we dont derive our oughts from facts, what do we drive them from? Nothing? Just random abstractions?

>>3542570
What do we derive them from? As a general sort of question? Or where do they come from in practice?

As a theoretical nature, we have certain ought axioms. I for instance have the axiom that people ought not harm others except for self defense. (JS Mills' The Harm Principle.)

As for the practical matter, the evidence is pretty clear that certain moral axioms are simply innate in the human brain. This is due to the shared embryology and structure of most human brains, which is the result of the shared DNA of most humans.

Other moral axioms are learned or taught.

OP:

There are no absolutes, save for the absolute that there are no absolutes.

Anything else before bed? Make it good, lol.

>>3542588

No I dont think so.

Somehow just saying "DNA" doesnt satisfy me. It might explain why we have the morals we do. But... I dont know. It doesnt really answer what they are. What does it mean to have those values? I guess that becomes a consciousness statement which on 4chan becomes extremely fail-prone.

>2011
>think morals are relative
>dont even understand the definition of moral
please dont do this

>>3542518
>>3542525

This and this. What I meant with my post, is that there is no function of good and bad in the universe. The universe seems to be indifferent, so how can you derive absolute definitions of good and bad from it? Stuff just happens within the laws of physics. This in turn would make it impossible to define morals as an absolute.

In the case of murder; is there any measurable reaction from the universe on murder? Does it stop turning? Does lightning strike you? Will the laws of gravity suddenly stop?

we will have to impose some absolutes otherwise civilization will collapse, relativism is the greatest enemy

>>3542593
Dunno. Don't feel too down. I might not be right. Think about it.

This has little to no practical impact on your life. At least, that is my intent. I bring this up as rather important to get rid of this silly notion that a god somehow can change things so there are objective, /discoverable/, morality. That's the thing that rubs me the wrong way. Even if god cannot be in the presence of sin, and even if god commands you to not sin, and even if you're going to suffer in everlasting torment for sinning, that still does not logically imply that you ought not sin.

If you add the premise "I ought to avoid pain", then of course with the rest of the axioms "I ought not sin" follows easily. At that point, it's merely a matter of efficacy.

The thing I want to emphasize is that with god or without god, you still make the choice. You decide how you act, and AFAIK there is no discoverable "right obligation" and "evil obligation".

everything we are and do is based off of chemical reactions and electric potentials, even the higher processes in our brains, we're just a reaction to our environment

>>3542605
See. This is another problem. This is a broken argument. Some people find it "obvious" that
1- There are no discoverable morals
implies
2- You ought to be tolerant of all other people and their practices.

That argument is not obvious (a true claim concerning the deductive logic), and IMHO morally wrong (not a falsifiable claim).

Sure, there's no discoverable morality, but that does not mean I have to be tolerant of all people and all practices. I will not be tolerant of female genital mutilation, nor cultures who do death for apostasy.

>>3542606

>mfw when I have been empowered to reach my full potential and make my own life decisions

>>3542605
>>3542617
To put it in another way, this is another unfortunate conflation. Some people believe that either you believe in discoverable morality, or you have no morality which you can morally enforce on others. This, of course, as I've demonstrated, is simply logically wrong. The deductive logic argument is invalid.

>>3542614
Probably.

Night /sci/.

>>3542617

I agree. Its like nihilists who think that they cannot be moral because they have discovered there was no god delivered moral code. It just means you have to accept your own morality will become more abstract and frankly irrational.

>>3542596
I don't know if you people are this stupid when it comes to philosophy or just like to troll.

>>3542632

So whats your solution to this problem?

>>3542029

>a world where morality does not exist
Lets give Hitler nuclear weapons.


>world where morality exists.
Hell no!, we're not giving that bat shit nutter nukes.

>>3542640

Im going to fill in for him because I understand him and he went to bed.

What problem?

>i simply dislike murder because i was raised/born with that preference.
Wrong!

you dislike murder because your evolutionary instincts want you to survive and prefer life over death

>>3542642
>real world
Let's support Hitler in his noble fight against communism.
Oh fuck, let's support communists in their noble fight against Hitler.
Oh fuck, let's support former nazis so they can support us in our noble fight against communism.

And so on and so forth.

>>3542649
oh fuck this shit

thats my view on morality as well as politics and many other things. life is so much simpler when you dont give a fuck about things you cant influence, trust me

>>3542642
>Hitler
Godwin's Law.

>>3542658
>dont give a fuck about things you cant influence.

But you still give a fuck about things you can influence, so morality is essential in those regards.

>>3542665
ah that was my mistake, reading just one post and replying to it without even looking at which thread its in.

as for OP's inquiry, i think morality is very subjective, cannibalism anyone?

as for influencing morals, i think you can only do it as/to a child. when youre older, you have a set of mind and its really hard to change(compare it to system of belief if you will). you cant really change someones view on right and wrong, you can force them to go by your morals, but you cant change morals of that person.

thats my idea anyway, feel free to discard it anytime, im out

>>3542673
Cannibalism isn't amoral, it's just usually a bad idea.
Granted that's also my view on a lot of other things.

Cannibalism, incest, theft, murder, euthanasia, genocide, mandatory castration, all are generally frowned upon, but it doesn't take a great leap of imagination to come up with circumstances where any of them would be necessary and moral choices.

>>3542029

absolute morality exists in a very general way. when you get specific there is no determined moral facts. for example killing someone for fun will not be appreciated in any culture. but having incest relationship is normal to some tribes. you can add more examples.

Moral right and wrong are just human opinions.

1. Not /sci/
2. Absolute morality does not exist
3. Sage

/thread

Absolute morality does exist for living beings, every intelligent creature in the universe knows the difference between right and wrong in the general sense that they will all agree we don't want the worst possible suffering for everyone imaginable and it's a good thing to reduce suffering.

Of course this sense wasn't magically implanted in us, compassion for others is developed through evolution for survival purposes and this is universal for all living beings, the only things that compromises this universiality are the dividing factors that seperate living beings, obvious one being different species and also race and culture, because to survive and reduce your own local suffering it's not necessary to show compassion to people that you find likely to increase your own suffering. With the implication for this being lack of resources that can only sustain a certain amount of the population, obviously in this scenario equality and morality becomes very hazy, but in the perfect scenario, I think it's clear if you have the capability and the resources to break down barriers and have a greater inclusion of conscious beings into a higher quality of life, then the absolute moral thing would be to do just that.

That's why I believe morality is only subjective only because the knowledge of the natural world and how much resources and abilities life-forms can have changes. Which ultimately means that to achieve a true pure state of morality involves building it on a strong foundation of truth and science, as truth, logic and evidence is the only thing that is universal and something that every evolved intelligent species can agree on and the only hope for breaking down boundaries and achieving a true state of 'Nirvana' among conscious beings.

Its so fucking simple.
Treat others how you would like to be treated.
What part don't you understand???
People have written 100s of books on this but in the end it boils down to that.

>>3542928

Even if I am a fetishist that likes being step on his balls?

>>3542956
If you think it is rational to wish that everyone in the world stepped on everyone elses balls...
And aren't trolling, which im sure you are...
Ouch....

>>3542928

and how does this works with masochism?

>>3542964
He's making a valid point. If you should treat other how you want to be treated, and you WANT to be treated like shit, then that's validation for treating everyone else like shit.

>>3542928

"Treat others how you would like to be treated" doesnt work. Because how I like to be treated might be how others dislike to be treated.

I like meat. Doesnt mean vegetarians like meat.

>>3542970
Wait wait wait.
Lets step back a bit cause I didn't expect you guys to even read it.
You should treat others how you think a person "should" be treated in that situation.
Just understand that how you think they "should" be treated, will also apply to anyone in that situation.
So for example the rioting in UK.
I went to CNN and was horrified when I read the comments on the article.
they were saying things like "they should use live ammunition on the protesters."

If you agree that police should fire on protestors in this situation, you must also will that police be able to fire on you when you protest.

>>3542983
>You should treat others how you think a person "should" be treated

So if you think they *should* be treated like shit, then it's okay?

There are ways around the Golden Rule, you know. It's not perfect.

It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one's life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than 'Try to be a little kinder.'

>>3542983
>>3542983
> If you agree that police should fire on protestors in this situation, you must also will that police be able to fire on you when you protest.

Absolutely.

> protest

The riots are not a protest, they're criminals abusing the disorder to steal and vandalise. Are they behaving morally?

>>3542997
Yes,
if you think they should be treated like shit, go ahead.
If you think Arson is a good idea alright,
If you think raping kids is a good idea do it.
Just guess what.
When I break into your house and steal everything you own, rape your daughter, and burn your house.
You can't say I did anything bad.
This doesn't allow you to be a hypocrite.
Something can't be good if you do it, but bad when someone does it to you, like Egoism.

>>3543009
Morally?
As Socrates said,
The only people who can behave morally are those that know what morality is.
You wouldn't say that a wolf eating a sheep is behaving immorally would you?
Why?
Because the wolf doesn't know any better.

>>3542997
>>3542983

"should" isnt even the golden rule. "should" is just part of any moral question.

Like, how should men live?

In fact, the golden rule is answering a "should" question to begin with.

How should I treat them? As you would like to be treated. Youve made it all backwards
How should I treat them? As you think they should be treated.
It doesnt make any sense anymore. Its just saying exactly what it says.

>>3543010

If I rape women they shou- oh wait

>>3543016
>>3543016
> If I rape women they shou- oh wait

Lastdemon has now given us a moral imperative to rape women. Let's all get a gang together people.

>>3543010
Exactly. And that would lead to a horrible, broken society. Technically, they're still abiding by the Golden Rule, just not in a "good" way. Therefore, the Golden Rule has flaws, and it isn't absolute.

>>3543014
So you will just claim that any human who behaves immorally doesn't know what morality is...no loopholes there, obviously.

>>3543016
If you rape women, then don't complain when someone rapes your love interest.
If your okay living in a world where men can get away with raping women, (I hope you don't) then so be it.
Just don't complain if the moral majority disagree with you.
But we can't control your actions.
Kantianism about individual choice.
I can't MAKE you behave morally no one can.
You have to choose to behave morally.

>>3543021

As I read it.. He has given us the justification for them to rape us..

>>3543024

Yeah and on top of that, mutuality doesnt always exist.

Lets say I love cooking, and I cook my friend a meal. He gets a meal which he loves and in exchange he must cook me a meal, which hates doing, but I get a meal I love. Is it equal? No. I got to do two awesome things and my friend got suckered into some weird deal.

Or, sexual fetishes are on obvious example. I like rough sex in general, while my partner doesnt. I get to abuse and get abused, while she gets nothing. Is that fair? No.

>2011
>Kant
>Socrates
>Golden Rule

>>3543032
I don't know where you guys are getting this from.
The women would have to consent to living in a world where it is alright for anyone to rape anyone.
Most women aren't as sociopathic as 4chan.

>>3543032
Yeah true, bad wording on my part (happens when I am in way too many different threads / forums at once)

>>3543030
I would be more than happy to live in a world of institutionalized rape. No need for love interests, free sex without much effort and no competition between men for women? Sounds pleasant.

You see the problem with the golden rule here.

And I would be happy to get "raped" by a woman"...so that implies...

>>3543030

>If you rape women, then don't complain when someone rapes your love interest.

Wait! But! Thats not the golden rule! Its not.. "treat others how you want your wife to be treated"

You are treating the golden rule like its "treat someone like how someone else is being treated"

>If your okay living in a world where men can get away with raping women, (I hope you don't) then so be it.
>Just don't complain if the moral majority disagree with you.

Thats something different too! Thats "Treat others how the moral majority wants to be treated"

>>3543037
>>3543037
You never brought consent into it before, simply the golden rule...bit of an ad hoc clause there.

>>3543030
> If you rape women, then don't complain when someone rapes your love interest.

The golden rule is "treat others how you wish to be treated", not "treat others how you wish your love interest to be treated".

I would be happy to receive surprise sex from a woman, guess it's fine to do the same to them ^_^

>>3543050
The rule applies to individual actions.
You decide whats best for you, I decide whats best for me.
For example,
You think, hey Id love to live in a world where people can steal from each other all they want! (liar)
I think, Hey I think thats a bad idea.
>You try to steal my car, I call the police.

This thread it making me think the bill of rights in the United States should start like this:

1. Everyone is entitled to a pony

2. Pony defined as section #3

3. The Bill of Rights

>>3542928

Treat others how you would like to be treated is something that isn't at all objective or absolute, but it is a useful psychological tool to gain insight into what may be true morality, as you invoke your own survival mechanism. But it doesn't tell people how exactly they should treat others and it's quite vague in the sense that it implies the reductions of suffering to others, but in practice it needs to happen mutually and people don't want to lend that courtesy to those that do not do the same and when people have been exchanging old hatreds and vengeances for some time and you dump that principle in the middle of the choas, both sides won't simply stop at the same time, as it's like a bunch of kids who don't really know who started the fight in the first place and are blaming each other and are both trying to get even before even considering this principle. Which means that this doesn't work without the turning your other cheek principle as well, which is in itself flawed for survival reasons.

>>3543060
No ignore decent objection plz:
>>3543045
>>3543048
>>3543055

I'm so easy to be trolled.
This is me for your entertainment.
>go to /sci/
>see ethics thrend
>Oh boy I bet their are a lot of interesting ideas there
>Nietzsche nihilism Nietzsche nihilism Nietzsche nihilism Nietzsche nihilism Nietzsche nihilism Nietzsche nihilism Nietzsche nihilism Nietzsche nihilism
>Dam better do something quick
> "Act only acording to that maxim, where at the same time, you will that it become a universal law" - Immanuel Kant
LOL DOES THAT MEAN I CAN RAPE AND KILL JEWS???? XD

>>3543066

I'm afraid of horses. Even little ones.

>>3543078

If only it was that easy, too bad we cant even grasp what an universal law really is

>>3543082

Well what if those horses were actually civil liberties? But instead of calling them civil liberties, we called them "Horses"

>>3543037

Then YOU are going to need a sign that says "doesn't want to be raped by women." Problem solved.

>>3542983
I think you all should reread this...
Wait wait wait.
Lets step back a bit cause I didn't expect you guys to even read it.
>You should treat others how you think a person "should" be treated in that situation.

>>3543088

I think you lost me there. I thought the Bill or Rights sort of does enumerate my Civil Liberties.

>>3543078
>>3543078

Kindly consult:


>>3543077
>>3543077

Here you go guys.
You might have trouble understanding all the BIG WORDS like MAXIM and UNIVERSAL LAW but im sure google will help you with that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwOCmJevigw

>>3543099

Correction, it enumerates your horses.

>>3543096

The golden rule is not
>treat others how you think a person should be treated

On top of that, saying that implies I might treat others how I shouldnt be treated. Which makes no sense. Everyone treats others how they think they should be treated.

>>3543107
> mfw I am a philosophy student who understands exactly what those terms mean, and notices how you are ignoring some decent objections in this thread

>>3543096
>>3543096
> You should treat others how you think a person "should" be treated in that situation.

What if I consider myself superior to others and believe they should be treated as inferiors?

Also, the picture is your face when you are happily ignoring the rape problem (I would like to be raped by women, therefore I will rape women)

>institutionalized rape
I wish you good luck on the campaign trail good sir.
Its going to be tough convincing most people to support the sexual enslavement of women but good luck.

Being more serious I already addressed this here.
>>3543060
If you think its a good idea, (crazy more like), then that means its good for YOU it doesn't automatically make it good for everyone.

Kant believed that if everyone was thinking rationally, a lot of Morals could be commonly agreed upon as being "good" and "bad"

You can't rationally decide what everyone else believes
GODDAMMIT Morpheus, not everyone believes what you believe,
My beliefs do not require them to.

Don't you see the beauty in Kantianism?
Even if tomorrow, western society crumbles, and all anarchy broke out.
You still have a moral obligation, TO YOURSELF, to fight for what YOU think is right.

I used to think JUST like you guys, that morality is bullshit. But humans NEED ethics.

>>3543132

Fuck this shit. Good night everyone

>my face when my skin dissolves in this horrible defense of kant

>>3543132

Speaking of which.. WTF was Ayn Rand's problem with Immanuel Kant? I mean, other than she didn't understand what he was saying.

Im sorry. I deleted my post. I dont want to be rude. Its not a poor defense of Kant. You obviously understand what he said. The problem is you were originally defending the golden rule, and we all criticized you for it. Since then youve just been shifting around what the hell you mean dodging/ignoring what we've been saying.

Im going to bed nonetheless.

>my face when I am doing to others what I want to be done to myself when I am debating with people on the internet

>>3543124
Then you are not a Kantian.
You are an Egoist.
Kantianism requires that you respect everyones autonomy to decide whats right for themselves.

By thinking your better than everyone else, not only are you proving your a complete idiot, but your also undermining other peoples right to decide for themselves.
Kantianism assumes that every healthy human has the capacity to rationalize what is best for themselves, they don't need the church, the bible, Kant, Plato, Jesus, and certainly not YOU to tell them what is right and wrong, they are perfectly capable of seeing something wrong with murder and rape by themselves.

If you don't see anything wrong with murder and rape for example, you are a fucking retard.

Actually I want to add one thing.

Kant's notion of universality is not the equivalent of mutuality.

Universality says I shouldnt chop down a tree because if everyone did that it would be bad
Mutuality says I shouldnt chop down a tree, because I wouldnt like to get chopped down.

The Golden rule refers to mutuality, not universality.

>>3543170
>>3543170
First of all it's a hypothetical case, stop directing your rebuke against me as if I actually did believe those things. However, it is certainly possible people like that will exist.

> By thinking your better than everyone else, not only are you proving your a complete idiot

> If you don't see anything wrong with murder and rape for example, you are a fucking retard.

As far as I can see, you are just asserting these things without explaining why. Logically, why can I not draw a distinction between harm to me and harm to others? There is a very real distinction, I am negatively affected by one and not the other. there are also very intelligent psychopaths, and evolutionarily psychopathy may not be a negative mutation before that card gets pulled.

From my own point of view, I can claim to be worth more to me than anybody else.

Also, you seem to be deferring to authority by simply swallowing Kant (objections to our posts are presented as being against what Kant meant without explaining why Kant is being treated as an authority)

This Kant stuff is all bullshit.

Morals are a biological imperative which come from our evolutionary urge to survive.

If you disagree with this, then show me a succesful society in which murdering children (or any person who can have babies, but hasn't gotten to it yet) is completely legal.

>>3543197
The prisoners dilemma.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prisoners_Dilemma
Ask me again if you want me to explain it to you.
I just didn't want to go into a whole explaination against Egoism.

I could write a university paper against egoism,
Its so much stuff to cover...

Morals? Phenotype. /thread.

We will all avoid pain and seek out happiness. From early on, we make associations in our brain which behaviors lead to what. Very simplified: we learn what bad actions are because they get associated with pain and good actions with pleasure. It's of course a lot more complicated than that, but this should put you in the right mindset.
Now the reason why morality is subjective is because people raised in different environments might have learned different associations. Therefore a bad behavior to one might seem a good behavior to another.
But we must remember that the causes are the same: we initiate most behaviors because we think they will benefit us, give us pleasure. (some actions are involuntary, some out of fear, etc... it's just a simplification)
Morality is absolute on a group level because some actions are better for the group than others, because they will bring more pleasure (longterm is important here). To me, good behavior is that which brings happiness/pleasure because happiness/pleasure is the reason why good behaviors are seen as good. Very tautological I know, but it makes a whole lot of sense. Thus the moral action to perform yourself is the one that delivers you these feelings and is subjective, the correct moral action when responsible for a group is the one that brings the most longterm pleasure to the group and is absolute.
This is a gross simplification of the plethora of motivations and emotions people have for doing something, but that's not important, what's important is the realization that the causes for behavior at a more basic level are quite the same for all humans and that striving to create the endconditions for these motivations is what is moral.

The central problem with the idea of objective morality:


This is an objective moral truth.

>how do you know?

Because most people agree that it is morally correct.


If you can't even get over the first hurdle of separating an objective moral truth from popular opinion or personal preference, and nobody ever has, then you're fucked.

Maybe we do need to take certain things a priori before we can build a system of ethics and morals. Let's say it's something do do with human flourishing and human solidarity. Then, given the basic nature of our biological existence, we can find certain morals that apply nearly universally, but they would still not be objective in the sense that any who hold to objective morality mean it.

>>3543384
How is this a problem to utilitarianism?

>>3543401
Not that guy, but it's only a problem if you think you can objectively define the "correct" utility function.

>>3543403
Agreed, well this is my view on it: >>3543363
No doubt reading more on neuroscience and learning and motivation might change it.

>>3543401

Everyone involved would have a different idea of what the most utility would actually be.

>>3543403

Yeppers.

Morality is subjective until proven otherwise.

>>3543414
Perhaps system of self-reported utility, equally weighted across individuals.

Heh, if everyone had the same income, markets would be just such a system. Currently, it's self-reported utility (as revealed through the use of money), but weighted towards those who can acquire more money.

The problem with morality is one of criteria, if we could determine what makes an action good or bad, then we would have objective moral truths. But if morality is truly subjective and without criteria, how come so many actions are deemed almost universally bad. Wouldn't you expect more randomness?

>>3543459
Humans are not random utility generators. We are all humans.

>>3543473
That's hardly an answer.

>>3543482
Then I'll give a longer version of it.

Basic human desires are innate, and overwhelmingly genetic. We enjoy pleasure, and hate pain. We want food, water, shelter, a sense of physical security, social acceptance and belonging, a sense of being valuable, etc. Pic related, even if you don't take the hierarchy literally.

Cultures vary wildly in their *beliefs* of what people should be and do, the roles they take, etc. But that does NOT change the underlying fundamental desires, or what methods do or do not actually meet them, regardless of what the culture claims will work.

>>3543489
>maslow's hierarchy of needs
So you admit you actually believe this isn't pseudo-science? Can I have that in writing?

>>3543459

There are certain facts of our existence that lend themselves to morals. Morality is, at the end of the day, just a system of rules for living with other people.

We want to continue existing, so we abhor killing. We want to maintain bodily integrity, so we abhor assault. We want to keep a hold of our stuff, so we abhor stealing. We want to trust one another, so we abhor betrayal. And there are a few other rules besides these, but they become progressively more unclear as you go down the line, and the people we find deserving of such behavior, the in-group, is also highly malleable. If they seem universal, it's only because we all share a similar nature.

Take a test example. Is it okay to torture a child? What does that mean? The very term is loaded, since it implies the wrongful harming of a child, and that the act is of no benefit to the child. So torturing a child is always wrong, by technicality. Is it wrong to slice a child's stomach open and pull out an organ? If the child did not have a burst appendix, then this would be torture. If it does have a burst appendix, then it's surgery.


And even if there were objective moral truths, there is no way to ascertain them. So we would be left with a practical relative, subjective morality, and we would be forced to argue the objective moral truths with precisely the same arguments we'd use to promote subjective moral truths. The only difference would be that it is that much harder to talk someone out of a abhorrent moral position when they feel they are objectively right about it, thanks to some authority they have special access to.

>>3543489
I definitely agree, but to me this seems to be in accordance with objective moral truths more than with subjective and I took your answer to be in support of subjective moral truths, which I find odd.

>>3543498
Read my post, retard.
> Pic related, even if you don't take the hierarchy literally.
I don't take this specific hierarchy literally. But it gives a brief overview of needs that are very likely universal in humans, with a rough ranking of their "importance", i.e., which needs make other needs irrelevant until they are met.

tl;dr the basic idea of innate and universal human needs is not a problem here, and that's all I'm really conveying.

>>3543506
Humans are not objectively special. If we meet aliens, they may have a vastly different list of desires with different weights.

>>3543508
(cont)
And, as such, vastly different moral "truths".

Basically, "morality" is nothing more or less than the systems and principles that actually produce happiness in a given society of individuals.

Human morality would be quite different from alien morality.

OP, you're american aren't you.

>>3543506

The things that protect the needs at the base of the pyramid are fairly universal among humans. As you go up the pyramid, you start to see more and more subjective terms used to describe them.

And aliens might share only some of the base needs, and need not share any needs higher than that.

>>3543527
>>3543518
ITT: we now discuss interestingly different possible values and moralities aliens might have. What could differ on the hierarchy?

>>3543527
I'm
>>3543489
>>3543508
>>3543518

I think there are several reasons for this.
1) Whether or not a basic need is met is more obvious. For instance, a culture that hates farming is "wrong" because it causes starvation. But with higher-level needs, things become more nebulous. Can you tell whether a given society produces a sense of belonging? How about a sense of usefulness and personal value? I think you can, but it requires a concerted and conscious effort to check. Most cultures don't think at this level, especially if they are struggling with the basic needs. Basically, it's not that higher needs themselves differ, but the systems that are trying to define and meet them are getting less strongly tied to feedbacks, and are thus more varied.
2) The other possibility is that the higher needs, as labeled, are *too specific*, and are actually special cases of a variety of high-level satisfactions that can be achieved. This would mean that, even for humans, there are quite a few different cultures that would be vastly different, and yet produce equally and optimally happy people.

>>3543537
Well, IMO we might be restricted based on what alien biologies are conducize to technological civilization. Intelligent aliens that are not social, like tigers and most reptiles are not social, would have little need for a sense of "being valued", or even a sense of "belonging". They would have no interest in personal compliments, in social gatherings, in awards or recognitions; they would be quite alien.

But could a non-social species cooperate enough to form a technological civilization?

>>3543537

If they weren't social creatures, we wouldn't see the entire love/belonging tier, and most of the safety and esteem tiers would be absent or changed totally.

>>3543538

Exploring the moral landscape, like any such fitness landscape, has historically been best done by evolutionary means. Morals that work propagate, morals that don't don't. I have no problem with the idea of alternate peaks on the moral landscape, but I get the gut feeling that the foothills would always be identical. (to stretch the metaphor a bit)

>>3543507
sorry

>>3543547
>Morals that work propagate, morals that don't don't.
I agree, but natural selection mechanisms don't have the best optimizing power. Just as in biological evolution, this is just a "good-enough" mechanism. You would have to either adopt conscious design of society with empirical verification (SCIENCE!), or just vastly increase selection pressure between societies by making it easy for people to voluntarily switch between them.

>>3543553
LOL, np. I shouldn't have said "retard".

If morals are objective then how come we have different morals? That just goes to show that they are subjective.

>>3543557
If reality is objective then how come we have different beliefs about reality? That just goes to show that reality is subjective.

Seriously, though, morality isn't objective, but humans all have the same basic needs, and no amount of belief will change what things do or don't meet those needs in societies.

>>3543546
> But could a non-social species cooperate enough to form a technological civilization?

Have often wondered this myself. Possibilities dreamed up:

> Creatures which could not directly perceive the outside world and simply maximised behaviors which resulted in success without ever knowing why, thus falling into a form of society without necessarily knowing it (in essence, things which operate like very complicated flies and may not have a centralized brain).

> Creatures which couldn't tell each other apart, perhaps. Several possibilities for why this might happen.

> Something like a blend of human autism and no real competition between them for anything.

> Creatures which are able to effectively take over the minds of each other somehow and implant their own goals, this itself becoming a form of competition / evolutionary pressure

>>3543565
Fuck. Aliens might be *really* weird.

>morals
>comprehending now to not die and not to be a moron to other people

>>3543556

We don't know enough about it, and we don't have the wherewithal as a species to follow through, to even perform 'husbandry' on moral systems. Never mind memetic engineering.

We can find wild examples that we can analyse for efficacy, sure, and we can even do some crude autogenous grafting, but we can't artificially select, as we do with livestock. But even this stretches the metaphor.

And perhaps the moral system is not even heading towards a peak. It could be all red queen. We know that we are more moral than the Aztecs. But they would have know they were more moral than us.

>>3543567
Fascinating to think about though. When I was younger (although worryingly, not that much younger than now), I literally wrote out pages of word documents describing alien biologies, "cultures", languages and the like. Not even stories, just detailed descriptions or mock reports. Some didn't even evolve in the way we do, and were divided up into different concepts than species.

>>3543562

Because morals are conceptual, they exist only inside the mind. They are defined directly by their effect on subjective beings, us.

>>3543580
Scientific theories are the same. Do you see what I'm getting at?

let me solve this for you guys since you can't.

no.

>>3543579

>>3543582

Of course. Science is a good way to deal with the objective world, and morals are a good way to deal with other subjective beings.

Dealing with impersonal laws of nature is a different manner of thing than dealing with agencies similar to us.

>>3543591
Lol, you did this as well?

Morals are just opinions on whats right and wrong. How the fuck can you call opinions objective?
Just because a majority agrees upon something does not make it objective, and even if it was objective. So what? What does it matter? But the fact that people have such different morals just proves that it isn't.

yes. absolute morality exists, to the individual, sometimes. we don't all have one mind.

>>3543592
>Dealing with impersonal laws of nature is a different manner of thing than dealing with agencies similar to us.
Sure.

I just want to defend the idea that there IS a verifiable "correctness" of human moral systems, because we actually have humans to observe. Systems which make humans unhappy are "wrong". Systems which make human happy are "right", or "more correct", or "better" systems of human morality.

>>3543593

My hobby, my ur-hobby if you like, is definitely world-building. Whether it's speculative-fiction, role-playing games, alternate history, and whether it's dry as fuck 'reports' on these worlds or it's maps and charts, or it's short stories. And, of course, reading other peoples.

I wish there was a way to reliably turn this into money. Because I have spent way more time doing it than anything else.

>>3543594
>How the fuck can you call opinions objective?
You can have the opinion that the moon is cheese, but you would be wrong.

You can say that farmers are evil and that murdering everyone who attempts agriculture will be good for society, but you would be wrong.

You can say that authoritarian dictatorships tend to produce the greatest happiness in the most people, but you would be wrong.

>>3543598

Well, it's like health. As Sam Harris says, we might not be able to satisfactorily describe health, but it's easier to describe sickness or injury.

>>3543565
>>3543567
>>3543579
I have a good one.

You know how humans effectively acquired pets since the pet animals evolved to have a use to us and become appealing to us? what if several different animals did that with each other, such that none individually reached human level intelligence but they were not quite pets to one another either. Then some fractional "society" could emerge with nobody inside necessarily understanding it overall. If other factors prevented any individual creature gaining dominance over the others, while the useful behavior was more instinctive than planned, this could end up highly bizarre. The different minds, and perhaps abilities to communicate, could preclude the development of any common language.

>>3542029
I realize I'm probably restating something already mentioned above me (just got here and the thread is huge), but "absolute morality" is entirely bunk.
Morality is generally considered the means to which humans diminish human suffering, and increase widespread physical and emotional prosperity.
This is to say that morality is nothing more than a path to a common societal objective. However, absolute morality would therefore require an absolute objective, an irrefutable, self-justifying cause. The problem is that this doesn't exist, at least to the best of our knowledge. An "absolute pursuit" is more or less crossing into religion. In the real world, most nonreligious and nonspiritual people would contend that nothing can be considered intrinsically "good" or "beneficial", such meanings are only applied to these notions by sentiment beings.
I think the essential point of my argument is that morality is defined as relative to the objectives humans have agreed upon, as influenced by evolutionary motives (humans are naturally driven to be happy, avoid pain, care for others and facilitate or invent ways in which they can manipulate the world to meet these objectives.)
This is different from Absolute Morality, in which the objective is intrinsically, or divinely, beneficial, removing morality's relativity to humans and human goals. And that is basically just more religious, spiritual, illogical flim-flam.

>>3543594
opinions can be right or wrong, depending on your perspective.

my perspective is correct. therefore, my opinions are correct. i AM aware of what is truly moral and immoral. there is no need to argue about it. if you have a disagreement over what is moral, it is because one of you has an incorrect perspective. come to me and argue the case and i will give the correct answer. and even if i did hypothetically get the answer wrong because the one of you who was correct was so stupid that he failed to explain his perspective correctly, i still WOULD have answered correctly. I just didn't because I didn't have the right perspective. But I would have, because absolute morality DOES exist. Life is partially an attempt to find it.

>>3543606
Except for that in the case of morality, there are no moral absolutes and opinions differ greatly on many things. See >>3542212

>>3543612
feeling good is good and everyone wants to feel good. it is absolute. that is what drives everyone to make morals. morals are just attempts to appease our internal goals. it's a translation of our inner values with the world around us. morals themselves don't always match up because people have different ways of feeling good and their brains work different, but feeling good itself is an absolute desire that you can't get your brain to stop thinking in that way.

>>3543616
You're missing the fundamental point.

Of "morality" means "producing happiness in human societies", then these questions DO have answers. Not knowing the answer doesn't mean there isn't one.

You might as well use the poorly understood nature of dark matter as an argument against science, and that there is no objective reality.

Humans exist, and are objectively real. While their nature is fairly arbitrary, as in, not objectively special, humans share basic and universal needs, and a good moral system is one which meets those needs.

I hope you're not arguing that "whatever you want to believe is OK".

>>3543606
Claiming to know things that can easily be proven wrong and your thoughts on a matter are different things.

>>3543621
>If "morality" means "producing happiness in human societies", then these questions DO have answers. Not knowing the answer doesn't mean there isn't one.
Fixed.

>>3543605
I never directly world build any more due to time and not wanting to focus on aspects which do not interest me, so mine are mainly reports. This includes reviews of books and films which never existed, such as a review of Salvador Dalí's books if he was an author instead of a painter.

With alien "civilizations", it tends to be mock scientific reports. I have tried to design "webpages" or news articles from future human societies and have them seem as realistic as possible.

Full scale nerdery, in other words.

What stuff are you into? Favorite conworld activities?

>>3543620
...exactly...except that's kind of entirely what I just said.
I was trying to express the fact that all morality is relative (in this case to human beings), and so absolute morality would not exist in reality. I don't know if maybe it came across wrong or something but there it is.

>>3543622
But the outcomes of various moral systems are verifiable, and real.

We CAN prove moral systems "wrong". Some just require more detailed study than others. For instance, vilifying agriculture is wrong because it produces starvation, which makes humans very unhappy.

>>3543621
Morals go beyond that, look at gay marriage for example, sex outside of marriage, cannibalism etc.

>>3543633
All of them are high-level claims about the outcomes of various policies and practices on happiness in human society. But they ARE cause-effect claims, and they can, in principle, be falsified. It's just that society is very complex, and it is hard to control for confounding variables.

>>3543612
>However, absolute morality would therefore require an absolute objective, an irrefutable, self-justifying cause.
Pleasure.

>>3543641
Or happiness, if you think the connotations of "pleasure" are too low-level.

>>3543631
Only when you perceive happiness as a criterion to judge whether an action is moral. I agree with this though.

I'd say certain morals are absolute, killing, stealing and what have you.

While others aren't; gay marriage, polygamy, drugs etc.

Clearly people have different opinions on the ones listed above, how could we then possibly call them absolute?

>>3543645
OK. But I can't imagine anyone who is both capable of critical thinking and who wouldn't accept this as a basic metric. Even people who said "loving Allah is what matters most" would eventually say this is because the greatest happiness is found in doing so.

tl;dr Everyone wants to be happy, we just disagree on what works best.

>>3543649
>Clearly people have different opinions on the ones listed above, how could we then possibly call them absolute?
We've been over this recently ITT. Opinions about what policy or practice X would do in practice have no bearing on the actual reality. The only difference between the two groups you made it is how obvious or easy to verify the cause/effect link is in practice.

>>3543649
>Clearly people have different opinions on the ones listed above, how could we then possibly call them absolute?
What actually makes human societies happy doesn't change, no matter what my opinions on the matter are.

>>3543651
Indeed, this is my rather simple take on it: >>3543363

>>3543641
Explain how pleasure is self-justifying.
Sure it seems like a great idea from the standpoint of a human, but does injecting dopamine and serotonin into a meat machine in your head really seem like like the irrefutable objective of existence? No, that's silly.
Humans only believe that happiness and pleasure are self-justifying, and intrinsically beneficial objectives, because of their biological, evolutionary drive. Relative to all of existence, why does it matter if one human is happy? Why does it matter if any humans are happy? Why do humans even matter in the first place?
They don't; human sustenance is a biological objective, not an absolute objective.

Phisophical question: name ONE absolute thing.
protip lol u can't

Lol philosophyfags doing the "lets babble around an extremely undefined term" again.

Your undefined "morality" does not get better when you ask for an "absolute" of it.

Define EXACT and TESTABLE properties of what a thing like "morality" (or better, any less pre-spoiled term which everyone immidately knows is not as subjective) should have.

Here, let me give you an example:
'Let "gollroxyness" be when all humans on earth have exactly as much or more nutrition available than required under average working and living conditions as seen in western society today. This must not depend on an individual's economic situation or location. Can "gollroxyness" be achieved and sustained perpertually, and how?'

THIS is something discussable, as we KNOW what the term means fairly specifically, and there's tests that will confirm beyond reasonable doubt that an individual human IS fed well enough. And if it wasn't specific enough, we can add more verifiable properties to narrow it down.


We cannot do anything real with a bollocks term like "morality" that is not really well-defined, even when you ask for an "absolute" of it (I see it as a call for all permutations of possible meanings according to the most vague of a definition people think they have - an exercise in futility).

>>3543669
Not that guy, but I think we all agree that "what makes humans happy" is determined biologically.

>>3543677
Define the EXACT and TESTABLE properties of scientific method first so we know it's ok to use it.

>>3543671
I say FUCK philosophical approaches to morality. Morality is about actions and evaluations of those actions, i.e. behavior. This makes neuroscience the field to talk about it.
This philosophical BS is retarded.

>>3543677
Sure, and I applaud your call for exact definitions.

Lately ITT we've been discussing a "good" moral system as being one which produces greater happiness in human societies. Having enough food is a basic component of that.
>>3543489

Also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness_economics

>>3543680
I think you missed my point.
What I'm trying to say is that human sustenance and pleasure isn't an axiomatic objective to existence, and similarly that all morality is relative.
Although what you said is kind of a part of it.

Behaving morally right towards those who behave morally right (by morally right I mean at least basic morality). This way we can easity justify getting rid of assholes

absolute morality exists if one believes in God, but relative morality exists in both theist and atheist situations.

>>3543683
Morality is just the means to an end, the end being the promotion of the human experience.
He's asking you to justify that objective, otherwise morality is altogether meaningless.
Not the same guy but I think we're on the same page.

>>3543682
It has the property that it is a set of systems of best and required practices. Exact specifics are demanded by your respective university or colleagues, sometimes incrementally more.

It can and will be tested to by its capability to result in correct predictions beyond the average human's immediate means (in other words, it is much, much better than random guesses or guesses by a human brain alone).

Maybe not the best way to verbalize this, nor is there a need to (as I said, you can get the specifics as to what is required from your colleagues in science and your university) but I think you get the essence of it.

>>3543694
>What I'm trying to say is that human sustenance and pleasure isn't an axiomatic objective to existence, and similarly that all morality is relative.
I don't think this follows. When people say "all morality is relative", they generally mean "whatever I think is good for humans is just as right as whatever you think", which is pure bullshit.

>>3543694
I agree with what you say, but don't understand why an axiomatic objective to existence is necessary for absolute morality.

>>3543709
(cont)
To be clear, I'm still using "human happiness = good". I agree that this isn't necessary, and aliens would have a different "good", but humans would not disagree with this metric. They universally prefer it. Who doesn't want to be happy?

Even sociopathic serial killers do it because they enjoy it. But maximizing societal happiness will necessarily not be a personal optimum for serial killers.

A subjective definition of "good", i.e., the happiness of humans, also allows for morality to flexibly and consistently adapt to new technologies, or even to "new" humans (different physical nature and desires).

>>3543658
>>3543658
Gay marriage, polygamy, drugs don't really affect societies happiness.

>>3543721
Not as strongly as murdering all farmers, no.

But the contention, on BOTH sides, is that it most certainly that it DOES affect society's happiness, and quite strongly. And these empirical cause-effect claims can be falsified or supported, with enough study.

>>3543726
>But the contention, on BOTH sides, is that it most certainly DOES affect society's happiness, and quite strongly.
fixed

Gay marriage, polygamy, drugs are topics that people really don't agree upon. How can we say that these things are morally absolute when people tend to disagree on them a lot?

>>3543709
What I mean by "all morality is relative" is that morality only means what human society defines it as. Its the means to an common end. Morality is meaningless without humans to specify its objective, and therefore its justification; therefore it is relative.

And to >>3543711
absolute morality (at least in my definition, maybe I'm misusing terminology but whatever) would then be the means to an absolute end. It would have to be completely independent from humans and society. Therefore, an axiomatic objective to existence must exist to serve as this absolute end to absolute morality.
If it is not axiomatic, then it is not absolute.
If it does relate to the entirety of existence, then it is not absolute.
At least that's my take on it. I'm fairly convinced, but I'm open to argument.

>>3543740
Opinion has nothing to do with reality.

We can, in principle, actually verify what stance on these issues produces a happier society. That people disagree shows that the issue is currently unclear, not that it is unverifiable.

>>3543740
Laws of physics are absolute, even through many christians disagree with them. Your point?

>>3543742
>Morality is meaningless without humans to specify its objective, and therefore its justification; therefore it is relative.
I think you mean "subjective", not "relative", unless we understand different things by the term "relative". And that subjectivity derives from basic human needs, which are very nearly universal as determined by biology.

I agree that morality depends on subjective human needs, but strongly disagree that "all moralities are equally good for human societies", which is the bullshit that "cultural relativism" has become.

>>3543746
>>3543746
So basically all you're saying is that the absolute thing is the end goal of which morality strives towards? Not the actual morals themselves?

>>3543686
>greater happiness in human societies
Happiness is extremely vaguely defined, though. Again, no one will be on the same page there.

Do you want maximized Endorphin release to the point a body can take and experience it without permanent damages?

Or are you thinking of a maximized amount of time that can be (as effectively as possible, as measured by the amount of information processed by the brain) be spent on intellectual pursuits of your own choosing?

Or... what?

>>3543753
Alright, we're pretty clearly miscommunicating here. When I say "relative", I mean that it is relative upon the objectives human society, which in turn are subjective.
It is both relative and subjective.
And as for the statement "all moralities are equally good for human societies" I would also heartily disagree. It can be scientifically and systematically proven which codes of morality promote general human and societal welfare. However, this does not mean that it is an "absolute morality", it just means that it is the best method to reach a given objective.
I would contend that morality which is relative to the objectives set in place by humans exists.
I would not contend that morality which is absolute, with objectives which are in turn absolute, exists.

>>3543751
what a load of horseshit. christians try to show you how anti-God theories VIOLATE physical laws, esp. 1 and 2 laws of thermodynamics

>>3543765
OK, I agree with this.

>>3543761
>>3543761
Bump for this, it seems like this is what you're saying.

>>3543763
>Do you want maximized Endorphin release to the point a body can take and experience it without permanent damages?
We're conscious thinking beings not animals. Consciousness is a fact like any other.

>>3543763
I agree that an externally observable and reliable metric of happiness would make this whole matter much simpler, but I don't think we understand the brain well enough yet to make a reliable indicator.

Instead, I'd suggest maximizing self-reported happiness as observed by survey in different societies.

Even better, what you'd really want is to maximize *preference*. As I see it, "happiness" is best defined by "the state which I prefer above all others". If humans could be made aware of what it was subjectively *like* to be in different societies, their preference to be in one society over another would be a good metric. Subjective, of course, but reliable, as it is very strongly tied to what we're trying to maximize: human "preference", or happiness.

The optimum is that state which I prefer over all others, while having an understanding of what the subjective experience of all the others is like. Unfortunately, this implies a great deal of, if not infinite, subjective experience in different societies.

>>3543761
>>3543774
Very close. The end goal is "human happiness", and that is taken as an axiom. But what produces human happiness is determined by human characteristics - this makes morality both verifiable and non-absolute (subjective), because human nature might change (biological evolution, etc).

Likewise, aliens might have very different morality. But they would still be maximizing their "happiness", the basis of which would come from their basic physical nature.

Morals are subjective. What you believe to be absolute is simply a view which is shared by a group of individuals you have been exposed to. For example, generally it is believed murder is bad. However, in groups that are cut off from the general moral consensus may embrace cannibalism.

>>3543782
Sure. But would you agree that not all societies are equally happy?

>>3543784
I would agree that not all societies are equally happy.

>>3543779
>The end goal is "human happiness", and that is taken as an axiom
Which it isn't.
Which kind of renders the whole "morality" thing bunk.

>>3543803
Do you know what an axiom is?

Also, do you seriously want to argue that you don't want to happy? That you wouldn't prefer it?

>>3543797
Then as it's being defined ITT, the happier societies are superior, and the moral systems which make happy societies are superior to those which make less-happy societies.

>>3542029
>>3542029
>morals are absolute

No

\thread

>>3543803
I believe you are correct when you declare absolute morality doesn't exist, but how can you say that the axiom all humans do not pursue personal happiness in one way or another to be false?

"When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad."

Morals don't exist.

>>3543823
Try to keep up with the thread, here. By stating that actions have an effect on human happiness, and assuming you accept "happiness is good", then morality is just verifying what systems and principles make human societies happy.

>>3543811
Superior is subjective. ITT, societies that are happier are happier. You cannot call a society morally superior without having some absolute morality to compare them to.

>>3543831
As long as we say "happier = better", that's enough of a metric to say which moral systems are better.

If you disagree about "happier = better", that's fine, but I don't see how such objections are helpful.

>>3543809
Yes.
(from dictionary.com)

1. a self-evident truth that requires no proof.
2. a universally accepted principle or rule.
3. Logic, Mathematics . a proposition that is assumed without proof for the sake of studying the consequences that follow from it.

It is not that I, as a human, do not want to be happy.
Its that I know that my happiness is meaningless, and also that I know it is my biological objective, not a universal one.

>>3543811
>the happier societies are superior, and the moral systems which make happy societies are superior to those which make less-happy societies.

Okay, let me introduce the Piraha. Tribe in the Amazon rainforest. Incredibly fucking happy. Weirdest language ever. No real concept of ownership (say, if you make an awesome bow and say "That's one awesome bow, man, I'm gonna keep that", they will respect it - but they don't get trade. Or numbers.). Teamwork above all. No competitive sports. No real concept of sin - the one that comes closest is a marked dislike for violent behaviour. No art or religion. No history beyond living memory. Extremely conservative, they haven't changed culturally ever since their discovery, despite contact w/ Brazilian traders.
One of the happiest people on Earth, it is claimed.

>>3543841
Helpful to what end?
Just because it doesn't progress humanity or an argument in the way you'd like, doesn't make certain claims or objections any less valid.

>>3543850
>they don't get trade

Disregard that, I suck cocks. They DO trade, but they still have no concept of numbers.

>>3543848
>Its that I know that my happiness is meaningless, and also that I know it is my biological objective, not a universal one.
I fully agree. I'm not arguing that morality is absolute.

>>3543850
>>3543864
Yes, I've read/seen some things about them, though not a whole lot. The assumption that they are "very happy" is likely neo-hippie bullshit - an anti-ethnocentric anti-technology bias. Parasites and death from disease don't make me very happy, thought I don't argue that they are miserable, either.

However, I fully agree that our current society is not optimal either.

Self-reported happiness is hard to compare on a shared metric across societies. But would a person who is intimately familiar with the Piraha and other societies choose to become Piraha?

False Dichotomy

>>3543864

I'm a little sceptical.. even Wildebeest's can count a little.... as witnessed by their behavior when Cape Hunting Dogs start showing up one by one.

>>3543848
What the axiom states is that all people act to bring happiness indirectly/directly upon themselves. Moral systems are a result of this urge and allow man to feel good as he perceives that he is doing good.

>>3543877
There are some cultures that only have words for "one", "two", and "more". I might be remembering where the cutoff is incorrectly, and they CAN estimate quantities, but there just not a word for "six".

>3542029
morals are in no way shape or form one specific entity, it works within a self aware framework that balances between what you think is best for certain variables of any kind of situation, and what you think others (role models, parents, friends, teachers) think is best for each variable of a situation, and these tend to push and pull on each other until you find a medium that your brain is content with, and thats not including if you get another persons point of view on the situation that could possibly affect your decision! its amazing how our brain works!

Regardless of whether or not morals are absolute/relative, I think an important thing to consider is enforcement and compliance. As you know, some laws look good on paper but some systems are just too corrupt and no one effectively enforces the laws. Capitalism instills a mindset for people to be opportunistic. That is, if everyone else is lying and cheating to get ahead, there really is no rational reason or perceived benefit for you to be a flawless moral paragon. Couple that with shitty enforcement and you've got a problem. Indeed, regulatory arbitrage (looking for the places with the most relaxed security laws) was one contributor to the financial crisis.
Milgram also taught us that people have a disturbing tendency to comply with authority even when it is seriously questionable. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that many deaths have been caused for the sake of compliance. That is, even when people have their own well-established morals, they are inclined to bow down to authority because well, it's 'authority'.

>>3543875

Their happiness wasn't self-reported - antropologists went in there and measured it using apparently rather reliable methods. I can't really comment on that further, as I'm a linguistic, not an antropologist, and I study them purely under a linguistic aspect.

However, on the "would a person who is intimately familiar with the Piraha and other societies choose to become Piraha?" - Daniel Everett, one of two Westerners able to speak their language fluently, seems to spend about as much time among them as at his professorship in the States, and credited them with massively changing his outlook on life, including deconverting him. He went there as a missionary and eventually found himself losing his faith when they seemed to live perfectly content with no concept of God.

>>3543877

They do understand "more" or "less" but not discrete numbers. They asked Everett to teach them numbers, and did fairly well, but eventually decided they weren't interested anymore.

>>3542187
nothing like complaining while contributing.

or you live in some "neutral" state?

>>3543878
Correct, but they toil under the assumption that the welfare of themselves and their fellow man bears significance and meaning relative to all of existence itself.
Which is where I think they're incorrect.
Besides that though, spot on.

>>3543905
I agree that current Western values do not focus on "quality of life" enough. But I don't think, on the net, that I would join their society.

There's also the issue of aggregating utility, which IS a severe problem we haven't been addressing: In a hypothetical scenario which is better: having a few happy people, or a more slightly-less-happy people?

If we also include the long-term sustainability of a society, this makes being few in number even more problematic as competition with other societies comes in.

Ultimately, the question is to what extent we face a tradeoff between immediate happiness and long-term existence, either as a given type of society or even as a species.

>>3543920
>Ultimately, the question is to what extent we face a tradeoff between immediate happiness and long-term existence
I've wondered about this. Most "utopian" societies I've seen depicted in fiction probably wouldn't fare well against invaders, natural disasters, etc.

I still hope that the global optimum for human happiness is also the optimum for ensuring long-term survival of descendent human intelligences (they might not be biologically human anymore).

>>3543920
>I agree that current Western values do not focus on "quality of life" enough. But I don't think, on the net, that I would join their society.

Neither would I. I hope I will someday be able to run a few linguistic experiments with them (the language is so incredibly fucking awesomely strange), live among them for a while, but I know for a fact I'll be very happy on the plane home.