Logic AS morality.

Boyish-Tigerlilly · Post by **Boyish-Tigerlilly** » 2004-09-21 11:01pm

Would Ethical SKEPTICISM even be more valid than Subjectivism? There is no right and wrong, it's an invention?

That's another theory. SInce you can't prove objective ethics exist, there is no reason to believe it, but you also can't really prove subjective one's are the truth either, so it's more just a practical invention of people.

Bugsby · Post by **Bugsby** » 2004-09-22 12:31am

I've been kind of beating around the bush with this for a while, so here's my stance on morality. I have a longer thing written up on it, but its still a work in progress, so I'll just summarize:

People go about looking at morality the wrong way. Everyone wants to know what is right and what is wrong. The thing is, statements on right and wrong are normative statements. And according to Hume's Law, every normative statement needs to be supported with a normative premise. This makes it a problem of how to find the initial normative premise. We can't do it. This is because you can't make normative observations (see Mackie's Argument from Strangeness). So any normative conclusion one might make is either logically invalid or depends on a questionable premise. No matter how REASONABLE a premise might sound (eg, happiness is good), you can't prove it. This puts us all in a pickle.

My way of approaching the problem is to look at morality as an institution, not as a study of what is right and wrong, ie, look at what is moral not as "what is right," but moral as "what is acceptable under the institution of morality." Any explorations in this category are not normative because they don't deal with what should be, they deal with what is. More specifically, observations of this kind deal with what is mandated by "morality." But what is morality? Morality is a set of guidelines that determine how you should or should not behave in your interactions with others. So in this way, morality is a function of society. Society cannot exist without morality because without these guidelines for interpersonal interaction, there would be no peaceful coexistance. And morality cannot exist without society, for what need is there for a set of guidelines that govern peaceful interpersonal interaction when there is no peaceful interaction in the first place? As Nietzsche observed in the "Genealogy of Morals," morality is nothing more than a construct of society which forces our natural individualistic tendencies into a framework where we can live together.

Therefore, in any society anywhere, what is morality? Morality consists of those laws that allow society to exist. Therefore, the purpose of morality is to allow society to exist. Therefore, an action is immoral only if it is of such a nature that allowing that action to go unchecked will undermine the very existance of society. Why is this the case? Because any action that does not threaten the existance of society itself can be accepted into a society. Therefore, within the context of that society, the action is considered moral. Because normative "objective ethics" fails to give a good account of itself, there is no way to truly prove that this action could be immoral. Therefore, if the society accepts it, it is moral. And a society will only accept it if it is not of such a nature that allowing it to go unchecked will threaten the very existance of the society. Understand? Cuz now it gets weird.

Since actions are only immoral if they threaten society itself, what about things that do not threaten society? Here I refer to issues like abortion. This has no bearing whatsoever on the fabric of society itself. We can have a stable society if abortion is legal or if it is not legal. So is abortion moral or immoral? It is NEITHER. Abortion, and many other concerns that people see as "moral" are not truly moral. They are ideological. The "right" thing to do cannot be found by appealing to anything external. Only the internal ideology of the person doing the action can say whether that action is "right" or "wrong." You will immediately notice that this narrows the scope of what we consider in "morality" drastically. That is a good thing. Morality gets messy when tied into moral dilemmas, and this is because there truly are no answer to these dilemmas. All so-called moral dilemmas arise from ideological conflicts. In no "moral dilemma" will you see one choice of action that threatens the stability of society itself and another shoice that does not.

While this is a highly subjectivist argument, it does have some universal imperatives, things like prohibitions against theft and murder. If, say, theft were neither immoral nor illegal, that is, if theft were completely permissible in a society, that society would dissolve because of distrust between its memebers. The same is true for murder, and several other cases. One criticism subjectivism often faces is "well, no one could consider X moral, so could it still be moral?" Well, if absolutely no one could consider it moral (ie, there could not exist a stable society wherein X is permissible), then it isn't moral.

There's a lot more to it, a lot more in the way of consequences of this theory and possible problems with it that I attempt to iron out, but this is the basic gist of it. Hope everyone likes it, and I welcome any and all criticisms. But keep your criticisms logical. I wont address any posts along the lines of "I dont like it cuz its stinky."

Boyish-Tigerlilly · Post by **Boyish-Tigerlilly** » 2004-09-22 12:46am

So basically, you are saying that Morality is a cultural by-product made to save itself from annihilation. Right and wrong isn't gotten from anywhere, it is gotten from the society's subjective want to survive and thrive.

Morality's goal is to help creative a flourshing, safe society. Man creates society, society creates problems, man creates moral guidelines to deal with problems.

1. On one hand, it seems Objective insomuch that what is Moral is what keeps a society alive and working, since that is the obvious goal of morality.

It would seem, however, subjective in the respect that morality was created alongside society as a tool used to tweak the cultural system.

Morality created to deal with the subjective concerns of a group of people.

Boyish-Tigerlilly · Post by **Boyish-Tigerlilly** » 2004-09-22 12:51am

it just seems like it might not be truely subjective in all cases of analyses. What if a society says something is moral even if it goes and hurts the society. Under Cultural Relativism it would still be moral.

Bugsby · Post by **Bugsby** » 2004-09-22 01:25am

Boyish-Tigerlilly wrote:it just seems like it might not be truely subjective in all cases of analyses. What if a society says something is moral even if it goes and hurts the society. Under Cultural Relativism it would still be moral.

Heh. That's the one fuzzy area I'm still trying to work out. A society will never consciously self-destruct. Yet it may make choices that could weaken the society and make it more prone to dissolution or replacement by another, stronger society. I have two lines of thought on this. One is that if you try to apply this to politics, it doesn't work very well. This is because my theory makes society the variable, and government functions under a system where society is a necessary given. But if we are to assume that society is given, the "best" thing to choose would be that which makes a society stronger and more stable.

So back to your scenario of a society building a self-destructive morality. It's moral because the society allows it. However, it is decidedly unwise, seeing as how although the actions are moral within the context of the society, that context will rapidly disappear as the society vanishes, a victim of its own flawed system.

Kuroneko · Post by **Kuroneko** » 2004-09-22 03:48am

Bugby wrote:People go about looking at morality the wrong way. Everyone wants to know what is right and what is wrong. The thing is, statements on right and wrong are normative statements. And according to Hume's Law, every normative statement needs to be supported with a normative premise. This makes it a problem of how to find the initial normative premise. We can't do it. This is because you can't make normative observations (see Mackie's Argument from Strangeness). So any normative conclusion one might make is either logically invalid or depends on a questionable premise. No matter how REASONABLE a premise might sound (eg, happiness is good), you can't prove it. This puts us all in a pickle.

Your application of Hume's Law is not as forceful as you think it is. If moral imperatives are hypothetical, then Hume's Law is bypassed rather easily by a very minor reformulation of ethics. Consider consequentalism: If [something] is desired, then action [particular/type] should be performed. This provides a reason for those who accept such axioms (e.g., the utilitarianist's 'world happiness is desirable'), or, even better, actually desire them, to act in specific ways prescribed by that model of ethics. This reformulation does not detract anything at all from consequentialism, since consequentialism is already a system of hypotheticals. On the other hand, if moral imperatives are categorical rather than hypothetical, then Hume's Law is made completely irrelevant because categorical imperatives are a priori.

For the overly pedantic, the following derivation of a normative conclusion from a descriptive premiss may provide some amusement: Bugsby has invoked Hume's Law in his posts. Therefore, Bugsby has invoked Hume's Law in his posts or Barney ought to be burned at the stake. How shall we save Hume's Law from such silliness?

Bugsby wrote:Therefore, in any society anywhere, what is morality? Morality consists of those laws that allow society to exist. Therefore, the purpose of morality is to allow society to exist. Therefore, an action is immoral only if it is of such a nature that allowing that action to go unchecked will undermine the very existance of society.

I find it very curious that after deriding Kant as being "totally wrong", your stated view is a close match to categorical imperative: An action is morally right only if its maxim is universalizable. But, why is an explicit reference to society even necessary? Why not make the same criterion "go unchecked" be undestood to be universal, rather than being only within the actor's society?

Bugsby wrote:While this is a highly subjectivist argument...

Only in the sense that you've artifically inserted a reference to the actor's society. Just a tiny step toward objectivism, meseems.

Boyish-Tigerlilly · Post by **Boyish-Tigerlilly** » 2004-09-22 12:47pm

I agree to some extent. That's why I find it better to stay more neutral and accept that most individuals in a society will not create self-destrutive morality, due to biological and social needs. Culture's primary goals are the biological, integrated, and instrumental needs of a society's people, and morality is part of the Superstructure.

I don't see a morality created as a tool for survival by the people as leading to it's destruction being immoral. It's just a less-effective or misapplied tool maybe?

Boyish-Tigerlilly · Post by **Boyish-Tigerlilly** » 2004-09-22 12:48pm

How shall we save Hume's Law from such silliness?

SOme are saying now that the Naturalist fallacy isn't really legitmate in Morality.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-09-22 12:54pm

Boyish-Tigerlilly wrote:
How shall we save Hume's Law from such silliness?
SOme are saying now that the Naturalist fallacy isn't really legitmate in Morality.

it's still legitimate in the sense that it's fallacious if you're attempting to say that one thing is good because it's natural, while another thing is bad because it's unnatural. just because morality may be subjective doesn't make someone's reasoning any less falacious.

Boyish-Tigerlilly · Post by **Boyish-Tigerlilly** » 2004-09-22 02:12pm

They say the naturalist fallacy is going from an is to an ought. I am not an expert, but many are brining that into doubt. I don't know.

Boyish-Tigerlilly · Post by **Boyish-Tigerlilly** » 2004-09-22 02:13pm

is that the same thing as you mean? Natural?

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-09-22 02:31pm

Boyish-Tigerlilly wrote:They say the naturalist fallacy is going from an is to an ought. I am not an expert, but many are brining that into doubt. I don't know.

err. mind being more specific? as in giving an example of what you mean by going from is to an ought? not quite sure what you mean here.

Boyish-Tigerlilly · Post by **Boyish-Tigerlilly** » 2004-09-22 02:39pm

Well, What I think it means is that when you form a Normative statement (what ought to be) you cannot go from what IS the situation and have it resemble what ought to be.

For example. Subjectivism is wrong, they claim, because subjective ethics takes note of what is IS the case and then applies it to morality, and not what ought to be the case. They assume what is can't be what ought to be, I think.

Cultures have many different moral beliefs, and there is no locatable objective evidence, but that might BE the case, but that's not what ought to be.

The definition of the Naturalist fallacy doesn't seem to mean what my book is saying it means. I don't think subjectivists are saying something is good because it'sn atural, they are saying good/bad is made up, but the author and curriculm is calling that a naturalist fallacy.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-09-22 02:55pm

The definition of the Naturalist fallacy doesn't seem to mean what my book is saying it means. I don't think subjectivists are saying something is good because it'sn atural, they are saying good/bad is made up, but the author and curriculm is calling that a naturalist fallacy.

maybe my brain's not quite working, but i'm still having trouble deciphering what you're saying. i'll post the infidel.org definition of the naturalist fallacy (nizkor doesn't seem to be up atm), and see where that gets things.

The Appeal to Nature is a common fallacy in political arguments. One version consists of drawing an analogy between a particular conclusion, and some aspect of the natural world -- and then stating that the conclusion is inevitable, because the natural world is similar:

"The natural world is characterized by competition; animals struggle against each other for ownership of limited natural resources. Capitalism, the competitive struggle for ownership of capital, is simply an inevitable part of human nature. It's how the natural world works."

Another form of appeal to nature is to argue that because human beings are products of the natural world, we must mimic behavior seen in the natural world, and that to do otherwise is 'unnatural':

"Of course homosexuality is unnatural. When's the last time you saw two animals of the same sex mating?"

Robert Anton Wilson deals with this form of fallacy at length in his book " Natural Law." A recent example of "Appeal to Nature" taken to extremes is The Unabomber Manifesto.

Boyish-Tigerlilly · Post by **Boyish-Tigerlilly** » 2004-09-22 03:13pm

Then their definition of the naturalist fallacy makes no sense compared to that. AT ALL.

It definitly sounds nothing like what you posted. The one you posted Makes sense.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-09-22 03:16pm

Boyish-Tigerlilly wrote:Then their definition of the naturalist fallacy makes no sense compared to that. AT ALL.

It definitly sounds nothing like what you posted. The one you posted Makes sense.

since you said it's from a book, any chance you could do a quick copy/transcription/etc. and post it word per word as best you can? assuming it's not like 2-3 pages long that is.

Boyish-Tigerlilly · Post by **Boyish-Tigerlilly** » 2004-09-22 03:18pm

42. Naturalist fallacy (ethics). 1. The fallacy of reducing ethical statements to factual statements, to statements about natural events. 2. The fallacy of deriving (deducing) ethical statements from nonethical statements. [is/ought fallacy]. 3. The fallacy of defining ethical terms in nonethical (descriptive, naturalistic, or factual) terms [ought/is fallacy].

Several new Ethicists are saying it's outright silly and stupid to apply the naturalist fallacy to ethics, since you would be supporting ought to be statements with ought to be statements instead of fact/evidence.

I guess an example would be: Survival is an important goal of society, so what helps a society survive is what ought to be done. That's going from an Is to an ought, I think.

It seems stupid to NOT use factual evidence and reasoning, because that makes it all hypothetical, unproovable nonsenese, and this is why Theya re arguing against it's application.

Bugsby · Post by **Bugsby** » 2004-09-22 04:25pm

Boyish-Tigerlilly wrote:42. Naturalist fallacy (ethics). 1. The fallacy of reducing ethical statements to factual statements, to statements about natural events. 2. The fallacy of deriving (deducing) ethical statements from nonethical statements. [is/ought fallacy]. 3. The fallacy of defining ethical terms in nonethical (descriptive, naturalistic, or factual) terms [ought/is fallacy].

Several new Ethicists are saying it's outright silly and stupid to apply the naturalist fallacy to ethics, since you would be supporting ought to be statements with ought to be statements instead of fact/evidence.

I guess an example would be: Survival is an important goal of society, so what helps a society survive is what ought to be done. That's going from an Is to an ought, I think.

It seems stupid to NOT use factual evidence and reasoning, because that makes it all hypothetical, unproovable nonsenese, and this is why Theya re arguing against it's application.

Pretty much, "several new ethicists" have realized that logic does nothing at all to support their idea of morality. Their case is that since you can't prove anything logically, the only way to conduct a definitive study of ethics is to use appeals to intuition! (seriously, look at any ethics paper you have to read. It's full of appeals to intuition. When your professor asks "do you believe the Nazis were moral?" that is the most irrelevant question EVER.)

Look, you silly ethics professors, you. Hume's Law (or the naturalist falacy - whatever) is set in stone. It's true. It's fact. And what do you do when a fact conflicts with your theory? Multiple choice:
a) change the theory
b) stubbornly stick to the old theory and insist that the fact just doesn't apply to you.

Time's up! If you said b), you are a moron.

Boyish-Tigerlily, I reccomend that you hit your professor just as hard as she is hitting you when you get to an analysis of "objective ethics." Ask for a valid logcial argument (premises lead to conclusion) for any statement. Shoot down any appeals to intution. "So do you really believe that..." has no place in a logical argument. Ask for the normative premise necessary to support a normative conclusion. If the professor makes a normative conclusion without any normative premises, the argument is invalid. And if the professor provides a normative premise, ask how you know that one is true, using an argument that includes a normative premise. YOUR PROFESSOR WILL NOT BE ABLE TO BACK HERSELF UP. I reccomend NOT doing this during class, becaue professors dislike bing made a fool of and will hurt your grade for doing what you are doing.

Oh, and yes, your example above is going from an "is" to an "ought." To make that a valid argument, you need to add the premise that "the society ought to survive." But then you need to prove that the society ought to survive. I sidestep it by saying that there is no "ought" to the survival of the society, but rather the society needs to survive for there even to be a conception of "ought." It's all kinda crazy.

Post by **LadyTevar** » 2004-09-22 04:56pm

Just because *someone* had to say it:

Logic equals Morality only if you're a Vulcan

*runs!*

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-09-22 05:10pm

I think that the tendency to describe ethical systems' recommendations as "right and wrong" is the root cause of many misconceptions about ethics. What does it mean for something to be absolutely "right"? Does it mean it's correct, as opposed to being incorrect? If it's the correct answer, then what is the question?

I've said this before: ethics is ultimately a means to an end, or an answer to a question. If you don't know what the question is, you can hardly agree on what the answer is. Saying that you have the "right" answer without defining the question is a ridiculous waste of tim.

Bugsby · Post by **Bugsby** » 2004-09-22 05:47pm

Darth Wong wrote:I think that the tendency to describe ethical systems' recommendations as "right and wrong" is the root cause of many misconceptions about ethics. What does it mean for something to be absolutely "right"? Does it mean it's correct, as opposed to being incorrect? If it's the correct answer, then what is the question?

I've said this before: ethics is ultimately a means to an end, or an answer to a question. If you don't know what the question is, you can hardly agree on what the answer is. Saying that you have the "right" answer without defining the question is a ridiculous waste of tim.

Kant came closest when he talked about the categorical imprative, that rule which defines the correct course of action to take in any situation.

The fundamental question of ethics is very close to what you are describing, though. Only it's not phrased as "what is the question," but rather "what makes an action right or wrong." There are several conflicting theories, but all of them are just attempts to codify intuition. Rarely does anyone approach ethics from a logical standpoint. It's irritating.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-09-22 06:05pm

I can't believe I actually wrote "waste of tim". The last time I knew someone named Tim, I don't think he was all that valuable

Boyish-Tigerlilly · Post by **Boyish-Tigerlilly** » 2004-09-22 06:22pm

Rarely does anyone approach ethics from a logical standpoint. It's irritating.

How can anyone do that, when it's mostly assumptions and unproovable statements? That's what seems so perplexing.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-09-22 06:27pm

Boyish-Tigerlilly wrote:
Rarely does anyone approach ethics from a logical standpoint. It's irritating.
How can anyone do that, when it's mostly assumptions and unproovable statements? That's what seems so perplexing.

The PREMISES are assumptions. However, once you have your premises, you should proceed LOGICALLY from those premises to find your ethical recommendations in any given situation.

Boyish-Tigerlilly · Post by **Boyish-Tigerlilly** » 2004-09-22 09:45pm

Oh yea. Of course. That makes sense. Just not used to seeing non-factual proof in the premises.