There's no such thing as ethics!!!

[Hillary]

Singular Intellect's argument is one I have seen from several Christians - it usually takes the form that we need God's system of morality as we are merely human and have no right to impose a system of ethics/morality on each other.

Obviously this is wrong. A system of ethics that outlaws rape and murder is clearly superior to one which doesn't. A system which outlaws descrimination based on race, gender and sexual orientation is clearly superior to one which doesn't.

[Ryan Thunder]

The moral principles we use are not arbitrary constructs, nor are they metaphysical properties. They are based upon our hard-wired empathy for other human beings (and other organisms), extracted from that and systematized into decision making systems. Notions like fairness, justice, that suffering is bad. All of those are the direct spawn of our social mammal brain.

I asked what the point of morality was if it's relative, and your response is to assert that morality is arbitrary. I assume that you're implying that it's relative because its arbitrary. Unless your point is that there is no point, I don't see how that answers my question.

But let's assume that it's true, and everybody's moral code is equally correct. The murderers' and psychotics' take on the morality of their actions carry just as much (or rather, as little) weight as yours. Do you still follow a moral code? If so, why should you follow that code in particular? What makes your code objectively better than theirs?

If no morality is correct, how can we claim that our progressive political and economic solutions are correct? They might be optimized for a particular goal, yes, but is that goal worth pursuing? Well, if we have no moral code (since there's no objective reason to hold one over another in this hypothetical scenario of ours), then the answer is 'no', or more accurately, there is no answer, because anybody can make up any shit he wants!

[Darth Wong]

The moral principles we use are not arbitrary constructs, nor are they metaphysical properties. They are based upon our hard-wired empathy for other human beings (and other organisms), extracted from that and systematized into decision making systems. Notions like fairness, justice, that suffering is bad. All of those are the direct spawn of our social mammal brain.

I asked what the point of morality was if it's relative, and your response is to assert that morality is arbitrary.

Are you fucking retarded? He is saying that it's not arbitrary. Can't you read English? Don't you know what the word "not" means?

[Ryan Thunder]

The moral principles we use are not arbitrary constructs, nor are they metaphysical properties. They are based upon our hard-wired empathy for other human beings (and other organisms), extracted from that and systematized into decision making systems. Notions like fairness, justice, that suffering is bad. All of those are the direct spawn of our social mammal brain.

I asked what the point of morality was if it's relative, and your response is to assert that morality is arbitrary.

Are you fucking retarded? He is saying that it's not arbitrary. Can't you read English? Don't you know what the word "not" means?

That's what he said in the first line, yes. However, he then wrote that "They are based upon our hard-wired empathy for other human beings (and other organisms), extracted from that and systematized into decision making systems. Notions like fairness, justice, that suffering is bad. All of those are the direct spawn of our social mammal brain."

What exactly makes a morality system derived from this absolute? If we were to come across aliens with hard-wired desires to kill all sapient beings, who's right then?

[Darth Wong]

I asked what the point of morality was if it's relative, and your response is to assert that morality is arbitrary.

Are you fucking retarded? He is saying that it's not arbitrary. Can't you read English? Don't you know what the word "not" means?

That's what he said in the first line, yes.

So why the fuck did you reply that he wrote the exact opposite, then? Your idiotic inability to understand what the rest of his reply meant?

However, he then wrote that "They are based upon our hard-wired empathy for other human beings (and other organisms), extracted from that and systematized into decision making systems. Notions like fairness, justice, that suffering is bad. All of those are the direct spawn of our social mammal brain."

Correct; this means that the basis of this morality is derived from our very nature as social mammals, and is universal to all humans.

What exactly makes a morality system derived from this absolute? If we were to come across aliens with hard-wired desires to kill all sapient beings, who's right then?

See above, moron. We come across unintelligent killing-oriented animals all the time. They're called "predators", and no, they have no concept of morality. Your hypothetical situation is highly unrealistic; no species could become technologically advanced without a highly advanced social nature.

[Ryan Thunder]

That's what he said in the first line, yes.

So why the fuck did you reply that he wrote the exact opposite, then? Your idiotic inability to understand what the rest of his reply meant?

Because he appeared to contradict himself immediately after that. If I were to say the sky is red in one sentence, then expound upon how light scattering makes the sky blue in the next, well, I'd be saying the sky is blue, wouldn't I?

However, he then wrote that "They are based upon our hard-wired empathy for other human beings (and other organisms), extracted from that and systematized into decision making systems. Notions like fairness, justice, that suffering is bad. All of those are the direct spawn of our social mammal brain."

Correct; this means that the basis of this morality is derived from our very nature as social mammals, and is universal to all humans.

I guess so. Good enough for me. But couldn't somebody suppose that they we're just succumbing to instinct?

What exactly makes a morality system derived from this absolute? If we were to come across aliens with hard-wired desires to kill all sapient beings, who's right then?

See above, moron. We come across unintelligent killing-oriented animals all the time. They're called "predators", and no, they have no concept of morality. Your hypothetical situation is highly unrealistic; no species could become technologically advanced without a highly advanced social nature.

Well now we're discussing the purely hypothetical. Let's pretend its some other value that's more reasonable for a sapient and technologically advanced species to hold that's also morally abhorrent (to us.)

[Kuroneko]

Because he appeared to contradict himself immediately after that. If I were to say the sky is red in one sentence, then expound upon how light scattering makes the sky blue in the next, well, I'd be saying the sky is blue, wouldn't I?

Not quite. In fact, the reverse: your objection is a bit like saying that "the sky is blue" is not an objective fact of reality because it is hypothetically possible for us to colonize a planet with a red sky. At best, it's a little linguistic trick, since in the event it happens, we'd just need to be slightly more careful with how we use language regarding skies and colors.

Then let's pretend its something else that's more reasonable but also morally abhorrent (to us.)

Then nothing particularly interesting. If at least some of morality is a biologically evolved trait*, then that part is non-arbitrary, and saying that all persons should have it is correct in the same way that "healthy people should have two lungs" is a correct statement. As such, it is absolute in the sense actually used in ethics. At worst, your hypothetical just means that sometimes we might need to be a bit more specific about a few terms (e.g., 'persons'), not that it's arbitrary or not absolute.

*(Actually, I don't think that this property is necessary for the conclusion that at least some of morality is not arbitrary. Even if all of morality is learned rather than hard-wired, then given common human needs, that people make some kind of enduring society in the first place is already a condition that removes complete arbitrariness.)

[Ryan Thunder]

EDIT: Shit, thought I was editing a typo.

[Surlethe]

Did you notice that his statement implicitly contains the accusation that no ethics system can lay any claim to superiority over others apart from "because I say so"?

Well, that's strictly true. No ethical system can lay claim to superiority over any others, since otherwise you could construct an infinite regression*. It's the ethical version of solipsism: true, maybe, but vacuous. So, I think the best rebuttal is a practical one: who cares? We live in the real world, deal with real people, and work in real society, so we have to be pragmatic in our goal selection**. Practical constraints alone are enough to kill the idealistic regression.

(I think you pointed this out in a previous thread on the subject that I started.)

* "I prefer system X because it meets criteria Y."
"Why do you prefer criteria Y over criteria Z?"
"Because of meta-criteria A."
"Why meta-criteria A over B?"
etc.

** "I prefer system X because it meets criteria Y."
"Why Y over Z?"
"Because I live in the real world and any moral system I propose has to work."

[Darth Wong]

Did you notice that his statement implicitly contains the accusation that no ethics system can lay any claim to superiority over others apart from "because I say so"?

Well, that's strictly true. No ethical system can lay claim to superiority over any others, since otherwise you could construct an infinite regression*. It's the ethical version of solipsism: true, maybe, but vacuous. So, I think the best rebuttal is a practical one: who cares? We live in the real world, deal with real people, and work in real society, so we have to be pragmatic in our goal selection**. Practical constraints alone are enough to kill the idealistic regression.

Yes, but that's the point; once you acknowledge that ethics systems actually have certain goals external to themselves, as opposed to merely fulfilling their own precepts, then it becomes possible to measure the performance of an ethics system relative to those goals. One need not engage in the pointless exercise of measuring an ethics systems' performance relative only to its own principles (against which it invariably scores 100%, of course).

[Surlethe]

Did you notice that his statement implicitly contains the accusation that no ethics system can lay any claim to superiority over others apart from "because I say so"?

Well, that's strictly true. No ethical system can lay claim to superiority over any others, since otherwise you could construct an infinite regression*. It's the ethical version of solipsism: true, maybe, but vacuous. So, I think the best rebuttal is a practical one: who cares? We live in the real world, deal with real people, and work in real society, so we have to be pragmatic in our goal selection**. Practical constraints alone are enough to kill the idealistic regression.

Yes, but that's the point; once you acknowledge that ethics systems actually have certain goals external to themselves, as opposed to merely fulfilling their own precepts, then it becomes possible to measure the performance of an ethics system relative to those goals. One need not engage in the pointless exercise of measuring an ethics systems' performance relative only to its own principles (against which it invariably scores 100%, of course).

That's not quite what I was saying. The infinite regression points out that the choice of external goals is again arbitrary, in a metaphysical sense. It is not practically arbitrary, however, which was my point.

[Darth Wong]

Yes, but that's the point; once you acknowledge that ethics systems actually have certain goals external to themselves, as opposed to merely fulfilling their own precepts, then it becomes possible to measure the performance of an ethics system relative to those goals. One need not engage in the pointless exercise of measuring an ethics systems' performance relative only to its own principles (against which it invariably scores 100%, of course).

That's not quite what I was saying. The infinite regression points out that the choice of external goals is again arbitrary, in a metaphysical sense. It is not practically arbitrary, however, which was my point.

Explain what you mean by "arbitrary, in a metaphysical sense". Usually, when I hear "metaphysical", I mentally translate that to "bullshit". Honestly, if you're in the type of debate where you must actually point out that we exist in a physical universe, you're probably dealing with a dishonest asshole.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I know Wong already beat you up for it, but there is a reason you have a VI title, and I think it necessary to show in exhaustive detail exactly how stupid you are.

I asked what the point of morality was if it's relative, and your response is to assert that morality is arbitrary.

That is not what I claimed at all. I replied with the statement that while the universe does not care what we do to eachother, morality matters because we evolved it in order to solve certain problems relating to social life. The basic principles that philosophically are arbitrary, are not functionally arbitrary and the intuitive forms of these principles are hard-wired into our brains by evolution. You apply them in many cases with no conscious awareness that you are doing so.

I assume that you're implying that it's relative because its arbitrary. Unless your point is that there is no point, I don't see how that answers my question.

That is because you are functionally illiterate.

But let's assume that it's true, and everybody's moral code is equally correct. The murderers' and psychotics' take on the morality of their actions carry just as much (or rather, as little) weight as yours.

Except that is not what I said at all. Psychotics and murderers actually are not metaphysically evil. Psychotic is the lay term for schitzoid disorders. They are delusional. In an evolutionary sense murderers often have very good reasons for murdering (not serial killers mind, they are mentally damaged). I will go into this in a second.

Social groups are characterized by a sort of internal tension. Ecological pressures force cooperation between individuals, otherwise social groups can never form

Over time, in competition between other groups, the group that cooperates best is the one more likely to survive. However evolution is not forward looking like this.

The individual wants to maximize their own fitness, sometimes this occurs through cooperation. If I help another person gather food, I get more food. However sometimes it involves fucking over others. If I can take advantage of everyone else cooperating to collect food without having to contribute myself, I should. As a result, every individual wants everyone else to cooperate with them under all conditions, and under certain conditions they want to cooperate, but under others, to cheat. Other individuals want to avoid being cheated. As a result social policing mechanisms evolve. In the individual they evolve in order to facilitate the enforcement of cooperation with them (to avoid being cheated, and to punish cheaters), and to project when cheating may be profitable and when it is not (to determine the risk of being caught and punished, and calculating the benefit. If the ratio is less than 1, risk cheating). In the case of the anti-cheating behavior, individuals will actually take enormous costs to prevent cheating (born out by experiments in game theory using humans and other social mammals like chimps)

This leads to a social intelligence evolving, a component of this is empathy (as well as theory of mind which in humans allows for the detection of third party deception). This ability to project the emotions of others and apply them to one's self is what every moral principle is derived from. The philosopher considers their moral intuitions, and condenses them into principles, then forms an internally consistent framework out of them.

In the case of a murderer (barring serial killers who are just broken), they are typically individuals who gain little benefit from cooperating within the larger society (like a street thug) and thus compared to the gains of the murder (resources or social status within their sub-group generally) has little to lose. Alternatively they are individuals who are taking the prevention of cheating into their own hands (when we have larger systems built into society to do this, like police and divorce courts). So, punishing a cheating spouse, or killing someone who wronged them in some way. The response is disproportionate (usually) and the person is generally not thinking clearly. We punish them because they incur a social cost to us. All of this, save for the application of ethical systems is mediated via emotions. No one really sits around and calculates those costs and benefits... but I digress.

Do you still follow a moral code?

A hybrid between utilitarianism and ethical pragmatism

If so, why should you follow that code in particular?

Because it allows me to make well reasoned decisions that take into account the maximum number of ethical principles, provided I have time to sit around and think about it.

What makes your code objectively better than theirs?

See above

I guess so. Good enough for me. But couldn't somebody suppose that they we're just succumbing to instinct?

What is wrong with that? Are we supposed to somehow be better than any other organism? That is a conceit unique to humans and it has no grounding in reality

Well now we're discussing the purely hypothetical. Let's pretend its some other value that's more reasonable for a sapient and technologically advanced species to hold that's also morally abhorrent (to us.)

Sorry, but I have always found the philosophical exercise of breaking the universe to test the validity of an ethical system to be a bit silly. Any technologically advanced civilization needs to find a way to moderate the society-destroying effects of antagonistic selection and intraspecific competition. To the extent that there are differences, so long as they understand that we operate differently and that works for us, and vice versa, no problem.

Then nothing particularly interesting. If at least some of morality is a biologically evolved trait*, then that part is non-arbitrary, and saying that all persons should have it is correct in the same way that "healthy people should have two lungs" is a correct statement. As such, it is absolute in the sense actually used in ethics. At worst, your hypothetical just means that sometimes we might need to be a bit more specific about a few terms (e.g., 'persons'), not that it's arbitrary or not absolute.

There is also that. Frankly, we can cross that bridge when we get to it.

Explain what you mean by "arbitrary, in a metaphysical sense". Usually, when I hear "metaphysical", I mentally translate that to "bullshit". Honestly, if you're in the type of debate where you must actually point out that we exist in a physical universe, you're probably dealing with a dishonest asshole.

He means it in the sense that the universe does not actually give a shit.

[Surlethe]

Explain what you mean by "arbitrary, in a metaphysical sense". Usually, when I hear "metaphysical", I mentally translate that to "bullshit". Honestly, if you're in the type of debate where you must actually point out that we exist in a physical universe, you're probably dealing with a dishonest asshole.

I mean that there's no a priori reason why I should accept one set of external goals over another for evaluating any ethical system. It's just pushing the question back a step.

[Formless]

There is no a priori reason to live either. The universe is meaningless and absurd.

[Surlethe]

Correct. Hence, practical considerations.

[Elaro]

Regarding the OP: Well, yes, there is. It's the software in a brain/computer that justifies picking one course of action over another. Just because it can be different for everyone and the universe doesn't immediately enforce it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Actually, if you think of ethics as the study of optimizing the probability of the realization of wills (regardless of who's or when), what is considered ethical makes so much more sense.