Worm Morality Debate Thread

[Polokun]

Thats not what absolute means though. You feel strongly but if you need the word subjective anywhere in that sentence then you have stopped talking about absolutes.

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I consider it absolute in the sense it's hardcoded into my person. Something that will never change or be convinced otherwise by someone who argues otherwise.

 

[Cunuroi]

Couldn't type faster than you apparently
Right, that's why it wouldn't be an absolute. If it were absolute there would be no argument and rape would always be reported and punished. There is argument, and people often excuse/ignore it for various reasons, which is awful (In my subjective opinion) but it proves a lack of absolute evil, as defined, in your example.

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You don't want to go this route. People had a bunch of dumb ideas about say...motion and radiation too.

 

[Thrice.Great]

You don't want to go this route. People had a bunch of dumb ideas about say...motion and radiation too.

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No, that is a complete misunderstanding of how these concepts work.
Motion and radiation are observable phenomena. At one point we thought these things were miraculous because we didn't understand them. Now we do. They are no longer miraculous. A miracle is only miraculous until it is observable and can be understood.
Are you suggesting that at some point in the future we will discover a perfect and absolute morality? Is perfection measurable? How can you provide evidence for perfection? By what metric will we define the absolute?
there are categorical differences between "things we are not yet aware of" and "things which do not have existence beyond language"

 

[Cunuroi]

No, that is a complete misunderstanding of how these concepts work.
Motion and radiation are observable phenomena. At one point we thought these things were miraculous because we didn't understand them. Now we do. They are no longer miraculous. A miracle is only miraculous until it is observable and can be understood.
Are you suggesting that at some point in the future we will discover a perfect and absolute morality? Is perfection measurable? How can you provide evidence for perfection? By what metric will we define the absolute?
there are categorical differences between "things we are not yet aware of" and "things which do not have existence beyond language"

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I didn't say that people thought they were miraculous. I said that they had dumb ideas about them. Thinking that the Sun orbits the Earth isn't a miraculous view unless you're being a revisionist and define everything pre-Enlightenment as magic. It's just wrong.

We can "move forward" on concepts that aren't strictly empirical even if they interact with the empirical world.

Math,logic and philosophy have all changed throughout the centuries.

 

[Thrice.Great]

Miraculous does not mean magic in this case, it means a thing which would be impossible to occur. And they did occur. Which means the word miracle does not describe anything that ever actually happens; it has a linguistic function and describes nothing, like the word perfect or absolute.
yes, and how did they know it was wrong? Testing, observation, research.
We can move forward on ideas that are not empirical in so far as we can talk about those words more. We can't have a science based on things which are not empirical. If we are going to discuss ethics without any kind of scientific reasoning then we're all just stating gut feelings and personal preferences and using references to abstract concepts to back them up.

 

[Thrice.Great]

I didn't say that people thought they were miraculous. I said that they had dumb ideas about them. Thinking that the Sun orbits the Earth isn't a miraculous view unless you're being a revisionist and define everything pre-Enlightenment as magic. It's just wrong.

We can "move forward" on concepts that aren't strictly empirical even if they interact with the empirical world.

Math,logic and philosophy have all changed throughout the centuries.

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Also I can't figure out your point: are you saying we'll eventually discard moral relativism when we discover perfect truth?

 

[Cunuroi]

Miraculous does not mean magic in this case, it means a thing which would be impossible to occur. And they did occur. Which means the word miracle does not describe anything that ever actually happens; it has a linguistic function and describes nothing, like the word perfect or absolute.
yes, and how did they know it was wrong? Testing, observation, research.
We can move forward on ideas that are not empirical in so far as we can talk about those words more. We can't have a science based on things which are not empirical. If we are going to discuss ethics without any kind of scientific reasoning then we're all just stating gut feelings and personal preferences and using references to abstract concepts to back them up.

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I'm not sure what miracles have to do with this at all.

I'm not talking about miracles. People in the past didn't solely believe that everything was miraculous and unobservable. They often believed in mechanics. The Ancients didn't think the world was round purely because of miracles but because of how curvature affected sight and so on.

It's not that they thought it was all miracles and ended up wrong. They often based their views on observation and ended up wrong.

You seem to want to define away that mistake away as some linguistic fuckery on their part. It...wasn't.


As for ethics being science...ethics absolutely incorporates science, it's that the principles often precede science, like certain philosophical positions.

And math and logic is just talking about what words mean more? I mean, you can argue that the actual "meaning" of the "words" is always true and we're just getting to that, but that in and of itself seems meaningful

Also I can't figure out your point: are you saying we'll eventually discard moral relativism when we discover perfect truth?

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I'm saying that the argument from disagreement as formulated was weak in that it assumed that we needed perfect moral organs or there was no "objective" morality at all.

I don't necessarily even believe in objective morality or moral realism. I just found that argument dubious.

 

[Thrice.Great]

I'm not sure what miracles have to do with this at all.

I'm not talking about miracles. People in the past didn't solely believe that everything was miraculous and unobservable. They often believed in mechanics. The Ancients didn't think the world was round purely because of miracles but because of how curvature affected sight and so on.

It's not that they thought it was all miracles and ended up wrong. They often based their views on observation and ended up wrong.

You seem to want to define away that mistake away as some linguistic fuckery on their part. It...wasn't.


As for ethics being science...ethics absolutely incorporates science, it's that the principles often precede science, like certain philosophical positions.

And math and logic is just talking about what words mean more? I mean, you can argue that the actual "meaning" of the "words" is always true and we're just getting to that, but that in and of itself seems meaningful

I'm saying that the argument from disagreement as formulated was weak in that it assumed that we needed perfect moral organs or there was no "objective" morality at all.

I don't necessarily even believe in objective morality or moral realism. I just found that argument dubious.

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I don't think I explained my point well and I think we're not using words the same way. We're actually saying similar things but I'm not going to try and backtrack through all of this on my phone.
If I still care about this later I'll try to clear up my point when I have a keyboard.

 

[silentspirals]

We can move forward on ideas that are not empirical in so far as we can talk about those words more. We can't have a science based on things which are not empirical. If we are going to discuss ethics without any kind of scientific reasoning then we're all just stating gut feelings and personal preferences and using references to abstract concepts to back them up.

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We can put ethical statements in a coherent framework, which helps us understand
and interact with the world. If we take:

I'd consider Rape an Absolute evil action.

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We can draw further conclusions, question on what grounds we believe it to be true, draw distinctions from other moral principles and apply the principle to new situations. I don't think we need to have the possibility of empirical evidence in order to have meaningful conversation.

(Is rape wrong because it is a sub-category of sexual assault, which is always wrong? If not what makes some sexual assaults wrong and not others? If rape is wrong because it harms people, why is it acceptable to harm people in other ways and would a rape which did no harm be wrong? Is violating personal boundaries a unique type of harm, incomparable to physically hitting people?)

If we can say clearly what rape is and why it's wrong, we have a better idea of how to prevent rape and how to deal with rape and other similar incidents.

 

[Thrice.Great]

We can put ethical statements in a coherent framework, which helps us understand
and interact with the world. If we take:
We can draw further conclusions, question on what grounds we believe it to be true, draw distinctions from other moral principles and apply the principle to new situations. I don't think we need to have the possibility of empirical evidence in order to have meaningful conversation.
(Is rape wrong because it is a sub-category of sexual assault, which is always wrong? If not what makes some sexual assaults wrong and not others? If rape is wrong because it harms people, why is it acceptable to harm people in other ways and would a rape which did no harm be wrong? Is violating personal boundaries a unique type of harm, incomparable to physically hitting people?)
If we can say clearly what rape is and why it's wrong, we have a better idea of how to prevent rape and how to deal with rape and other similar incidents.

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Yes, good use of a morally relative system that uses evidence. We can construct reasons why we think a crime is harmful and in what ways it violates the objectives and goals for given situation (even a situation as broad as a society) and draw from real life examples in order to illustrate or refine our points. For example, we can say that victims of rape suffer either physically or mentally, and we can define the criteria for what is and is not rape and what acceptable punishments should be by engaging in discussion and reviewing previous cases.

What you didn't do was say rape is wrong because it is a thing which is inescapably wrong, and that's more or less what an absolute morality (according to Wittgenstein) would argue.

I sort of wish other people had read the lecture I put up, since I'm now put in the position of defending a point I was making from it.

I'm not sure what miracles have to do with this at all.

I'm not talking about miracles. People in the past didn't solely believe that everything was miraculous and unobservable. They often believed in mechanics. The Ancients didn't think the world was round purely because of miracles but because of how curvature affected sight and so on.

It's not that they thought it was all miracles and ended up wrong. They often based their views on observation and ended up wrong.

You seem to want to define away that mistake away as some linguistic fuckery on their part. It...wasn't.

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Using the example of miracles was a mistake because it muddied the waters. Apologies. I was not trying to talk about people in the past or how they conceived of unexplained phenomena, but trying to address a particular kind of language that often gets used in (again, what Wittgenstein would have considered) incorrect ways.

we all know what in ordinary life would be called a miracle.
It obviously is simply an event the like of which we have never yet seen.

Now suppose such an event happened. Take the case that one of you suddenly grew a lion's head and he began to roar.

Certainly that would be as extraordinary a thing as I can imagine.
Now whenever we should have recovered from our surprise, what I would suggest would be to fetch a doctor and have the case scientifically investigated and if it were not for hurting him I would have him vivisected.

And where would the miracle have got to? For it is clear that when we look at it in this way everything miraculous has disappeared; unless what we mean by this term is merely that a fact has not yet been explained by science which again means that we have hitherto failed to group this fact with others in a scientific system.

This shows that it is absurd to say "Science has proved that there are no miracles."

The truth is that the scientific way of looking at a fact is not the way to look at it as a miracle.

For imagine whatever fact you may, it is not in itself miraculous in the absolute sense of that term.

For we see now that we have been using the word "miracle" in a relative and an absolute sense.

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Wittgenstein is bringing attention to the fact that we use words in different ways depending on the circumstances, and that one word can have very different grammars and functions in different contexts (He uses, in another work, the word Water. It can be a command, an answer, a relieved exclamation, a list of ingredients, etc.). In this case he's talking about relative vs. absolute uses of those terms:

Now instead of saying "Ethics is the enquiry into what is good" I could have said Ethics is the enquiry into what is valuable, or, into what is really important, or I could have said Ethics is the enquiry into the meaning of life, or into what makes life worth living, or into the right way of living.
I believe if you look at all these phrases you will get a rough idea as to what it is that Ethics is concerned with.
Now the first thing that strikes one about all these expressions is that each of them is actually used in two very different senses.
I will call them the trivial or relative sense on the one hand and the ethical or absolute sense on the other.

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He goes on to say that the relative sense of a word relies more on conceptions of the use and meaning of that word as decided by those who use the language. He uses 'good' as an example, and that a 'good' road would be a road that matched certain criteria for its use; will it get you to your destination, will it get you there quickly (if that is your goal), is it well paved, is it scenic (if you care about aesthetics) etc.
But Ethics and absolutism don't use words like good in that sense.

Every judgment of relative value is a mere statement of facts and can therefore be put in such a form that it loses all the appearance of a judgment of value: Instead of saying "This is the right way to Granchester," I could equally well have said, "This is the right way you have to go if you want to get to Granchester in the shortest time"; "This man is a good runner" simply means that he runs a certain number of miles in a certain number of minutes, etc.[...] The right road is the road which leads to an arbitrarily predetermined end and it is quite clear to us all that there is no sense in talking about the right road apart from such a predetermined goal.
Now let us see what we could possibly mean by the expression, "the absolutely right road."
I think it would be the road which everybody on seeing it would, with logical necessity, have to go, or be ashamed for not going.
And similarly the absolute good, if it is a describable state of affairs, would be one which everybody, independent of his tastes and inclinations, would necessarily bring about or feel guilty for not bringing about.
And I want to say that such a state of affairs is a chimera.
No state of affairs has, in itself, what I would like to call the coercive power of an absolute judge

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So the point he's making is that something described in absolute terms is actually a kind of tautology. Something that is an absolutely right road would be the road that everyone would have to take regardless of destination or personal preference. Which is absurd sounding.

What he wants us to be aware of, is that language has certain limits, and one of those limits is what we can imagine. So having an absolute good in ethics is impossible because we cannot discuss what that would mean. Maybe we can feel it for ourselves, but that's sort of useless since we need to be able to apply our ethics in a social context.

Our words used as we use them in science, are vessels capable only of containing and conveying meaning and sense, natural meaning and sense. Ethics, if it is anything, is supernatural and our words will only express facts; as a teacup will only hold a teacup full of water [even] if I were to pour out a gallon over it

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I may have just made this more confused, and I apologize, but I'm partially trying to work through these ideas myself. Thanks for your patience.

I don't believe in objective morality because we are subjective beings and we cannot experience an objective universe.

 

[silentspirals]

I'd be happy to say a road is objectively the best road, because it (to my knowledge) fulfills the most common criteria used to judge the roads implied available by context, even though those criteria are subjective

 

[Thrice.Great]

I'd be happy to say a road is objectively the best road, because it (to my knowledge) fulfills the most common criteria used to judge the roads implied available by context, even though those criteria are subjective

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but the objectively best road would have to fulfill all criteria in every context, regardless of the subject.

 

[silentspirals]

I like the Wittgenstein better in chunks. The format is a lot more readable.

but the objectively best road would have to fulfill all criteria in every context, regardless of the subject.

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That's pretty much the point I was trying to make. Most discussion doesn't use "objectively" that way. We use it for what seems to us to be the truth uncoloured by our personal feelings and opinions. We use "the best road" with an assumption of shared basic criteria on what constitutes best, which may be wrong. We know "best" is a value judgement, so we only expect it to be one we are likely to share (if we have similar priorities to the person giving directions) within the given context.

Also, absolute is stronger than objective, if we're using it philosophically. If I divide up truths into absolute or relative, in the literal sense, I only put truths by definition into the absolute category, with scientific knowledge and ethics both relative (and also both things that have no logical reason to work consistently but do). Saying a moral truth is absolute in this way makes no real sense, you're right.

I assume moral discussion is not working on this sort of level, unless an argument explicitly states otherwise. And, honestly, even then I mostly assume that they're either mistaken or have defined every important word in their argument according to principles I'm unaware of. It's not a productive level to discuss ethics on.

I suspect this is what you are saying, but with a couple of different assumptions about what other people have meant.

 

[Thrice.Great]

That's pretty much the point I was trying to make. Most discussion doesn't use "objectively" that way. We use it for what seems to us to be the truth uncoloured by our personal feelings and opinions. We use "the best road" with an assumption of shared basic criteria on what constitutes best, which may be wrong. We know "best" is a value judgement, so we only expect it to be one we are likely to share (if we have similar priorities to the person giving directions) within the given context.

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Excellent point, but the problem I have is that many people use language in a sloppy kind of way so that "best" which you are describing as a kind of contraction of the phrase "What is most effective given our goal" Is an absolute judgment when it is applied to moral or ethical issues.
Possibly this is also why I object to the use of 'objectively' in moral discussion, since morals are definitely subjective issues and having an objective approach to a subjective topic seems odd at best. But that might be my personal bias, since I think I just want people to use a phrase like, "according to my ability to take other people's perspectives" which 'objectively' might be a stand in for.

Also, absolute is stronger than objective, if we're using it philosophically. If I divide up truths into absolute or relative, in the literal sense, I only put truths by definition into the absolute category, with scientific knowledge and ethics both relative (and also both things that have no logical reason to work consistently but do). Saying a moral truth is absolute in this way makes no real sense, you're right.

I assume moral discussion is not working on this sort of level, unless an argument explicitly states otherwise. And, honestly, even then I mostly assume that they're either mistaken or have defined every important word in their argument according to principles I'm unaware of. It's not a productive level to discuss ethics on.

I suspect this is what you are saying, but with a couple of different assumptions about what other people have meant.

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I think you have me right. I also think you're right that I have used objectively and absolute as similar concepts once or twice, and they definitely are way different in meaning.
Ok, so I don't sound like a raving lunatic anymore, which is nice.
Thanks for letting me philosophy-vomit all over this page. Also, Wittgenstein is a great read in general since he doesn't use particularly flowery language in his work. The best of his work, in my opinion, would be Philosophical Investigations, which mostly focuses on examining the way in which language is used and how it has generated philosophical problems (much like the one we have discussed just now).
EDIT: For anyone who is interested in his work, you should also know that he was the protege and good friend of Bertrand Russell.

 

[silentspirals]

Excellent point, but the problem I have is that many people use language in a sloppy kind of way so that "best" which you are describing as a kind of contraction of the phrase "What is most effective given our goal" Is an absolute judgment when it is applied to moral or ethical issues.
Possibly this is also why I object to the use of 'objectively' in moral discussion, since morals are definitely subjective issues and having an objective approach to a subjective topic seems odd at best. But that might be my personal bias, since I think I just want people to use a phrase like, "according to my ability to take other people's perspectives" which 'objectively' might be a stand in for.

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I take your point and I do think people generate philosophical problems through confusion. ("What is the meaning of life?")

On the other hand, I think ethics is a subject that needs some degree of universality to be meaningful. If things aren't objectively wrong, why are morals more than personal preference?

 

[Thrice.Great]

I take your point and I do think people generate philosophical problems through confusion. ("What is the meaning of life?")

On the other hand, I think ethics is a subject that needs some degree of universality to be meaningful. If things aren't objectively wrong, why are morals more than personal preference?

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Well.... they kind of are personal preference. I have the personal preference of not causing harm to other people and I can recognize the negative consequences of doing so (negative for me, others, and even society at large). I choose to not do harmful things because I personally believe it would be wrong to do so.
But some degree of universality is useful, as long as we are constantly vigilant for dogmatism, the enemy of personal responsibility and self-reflection.

 

[Cunuroi]

I may have just made this more confused, and I apologize, but I'm partially trying to work through these ideas myself. Thanks for your patience.

I don't believe in objective morality because we are subjective beings and we cannot experience an objective universe.

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No, this makes perfect sense. Thanks for the quote and recs.

EDIT: For anyone who is interested in his work, you should also know that he was the protege and good friend of Bertrand Russell.

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I thought him and Russell had a falling out?

Well.... they kind of are personal preference. I have the personal preference of not causing harm to other people and I can recognize the negative consequences of doing so (negative for me, others, and even society at large). I choose to not do harmful things because I personally believe it would be wrong to do so.
But some degree of universality is useful, as long as we are constantly vigilant for dogmatism, the enemy of personal responsibility and self-reflection.

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Isn't a bit of psychology getting mixed in here?

Surely some madman might not care about the continued existence of the universe but I don't think that that means that, given a certain definition of a moral goal (flourishing, whatevs), that means that the point about that moral goal doesn't stand.

 

[Thrice.Great]

No, this makes perfect sense. Thanks for the quote and recs.

I thought him and Russell had a falling out?

Isn't a bit of psychology getting mixed in here?

Surely some madman might not care about the continued existence of the universe but I don't think that that means that, given a certain definition of a moral goal (flourishing, whatevs), that means that the point about that moral goal doesn't stand.

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He and Russell were often arguing (as philosophers and logicians apparently do) but I think the falling out was more about Wittgenstein wanting to pursue philosophy and more 'mystical' studies (as Russell saw it) from his original pursuit of logical calculus.

Also I didn't follow your point about the madman, can you please elaborate/clarify?

 

[Cunuroi]

He and Russell were often arguing (as philosophers and logicians apparently do) but I think the falling out was more about Wittgenstein wanting to pursue philosophy and more 'mystical' studies (as Russell saw it) from his original pursuit of logical calculus.

Also I didn't follow your point about the madman, can you please elaborate/clarify?

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People can be said to have different preferences, but it doesn't necessarily change the way we talk about morality.

For example, we have an instinctive disdain for the "excuses" of the sort of person who would say...cut up a little girl. We understand that he doesn't care for our morality, but this doesn't, in our eyes, weaken said morality in any way. We'd still say that, if you wished to have certain things (moral righteousness, a particular type of human flourishing) you shouldn't cut up little girls.

 

[Thrice.Great]

So... you're saying that the personal preferences of others don't necessarily affect our preferences? Yeah, I'd say that's pretty reasonable.

 

[Cunuroi]

So... you're saying that the personal preferences of others don't necessarily affect our preferences? Yeah, I'd say that's pretty reasonable.

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Very reasonable on a collective level.

 

[SolipsistSerpent]

but the objectively best road would have to fulfill all criteria in every context, regardless of the subject.

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No, it would just have to fulfill more than any other road that does (or perhaps could) exist, regardless of subject. Provided being finding a better road is impossible, then you can be objectively best without actually containing every potentially desired thing, though to be objective this would have to be true for every person looking at it or limited to 'the objectively best road under circumstance X' and then true for every person looking at it in that circumstance.

Fulfilling every desirable criteria for every subject would be the objectively perfect road, which is slightly different.

What you didn't do was say rape is wrong because it is a thing which is inescapably wrong, and that's more or less what an absolute morality (according to Wittgenstein) would argue.

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No, what was done was the statement was rephrased so it drew on another, different moral absolute, that instead of 'rape' specifically it's 'causing needless suffering' that is inescapably wrong.

You can't actually make a moral statement without having some unlogical absolutes to give yourself a framework to build off of. Even if you start framing morality as 'what's good for society' you've had to start by saying that 'what's good for society' is absolutely the best.

What many systems of morality attempt to do is attempt to come up with the 'best' set of absolute base elements and then build a logical progression from there.

 

[silentspirals]

No, what was done was the statement was rephrased so it drew on another, different moral absolute, that instead of 'rape' specifically it's 'causing needless suffering' that is inescapably wrong.

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Technically, I didn't rephrase the statement at all. I asked a bunch of questions about it, a couple of which were about whether it was based on other moral principles (absolute or otherwise).

I wasn't trying to justify or improve upon the statement. I was trying to show how such statements could be a part of a discussion that was more than "just stating gut feelings and personal preferences".

You can't actually make a moral statement without having some unlogical absolutes to give yourself a framework to build off of. Even if you start framing morality as 'what's good for society' you've had to start by saying that 'what's good for society' is absolutely the best.

What many systems of morality attempt to do is attempt to come up with the 'best' set of absolute base elements and then build a logical progression from there.

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While I agree that you need some baseless principles in order to create any coherent moral system (which I believe is why Thrice.Great deems all morals purely personal preference), I'm not sure they need to be absolutes. Certainly, no moral system based on absolutes has failed to throw up either highly objectionable moral stances or major grey areas. (For example, "needless suffering is wrong" is so vague as to be circular, "needless" essentially meaning "not morally right".) Not using absolutes does make it clear how arbitrary some moral standards are, though.

 

[fallendruid]

Too deep for me.

I mostly get by on the concept of social contracts.

Though I'm beginning to wonder what, specifically, the last few pages have had to do, directly, with Worm except inasmuch as developing definitions for an actual discussion later on.

 

[1986ctcel]

I dunno (it made my head spin personally) but this is a worm morality thread that finally has something DIFFERENT to the tired old circlejerk arguments that have been repeated forever.