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Post by Terrapin Station on Feb 10, 2018 14:33:42 GMT
If you describe morality that way, then you don't understand what morality is, and you're at least implicitly trying to sneak an argumentum ad populum in (re "common preference" being the determiner) My description is the reason that I think it's wrong to murder. What would you call that if not "morality"? And what is it that YOU call "morality"? If you're just giving your personal reasons for why you think it's wrong to murder, that's fine. That's different than describing what morality is, as a general phenomenon, from an ontological or functional perspective. There, you need to get right what people are doing, either in terms of what's going on materially or functionally, so that it (a) serves as a demarcation criterion that gels with general usage of the word "morality" (and "ethics" etc.), and (b) doesn't exclude a lot of what people are doing with general usage of the word. That doesn't mean to simply report how people think about or use the word, by the way (sometimes there's a misunderstanding about that). It means to capture, from more or less an observational, scientific standpoint, the behavior that's generally picked out by the word, in a way that's specific enough to not include things that don't fit that general usage of the word, but that isn't so narrow as to exclude a lot of things that fit the general usage of the word. You seemed to be doing the latter, but what you suggested doesn't work for the latter. Morality is rather judgments that individuals make regarding either interpersonal behavior (the majority of the time) or behavior towards oneself (in some cases), where the behavior being judged is considered more significant than matters of etiquette, and where the judgments are in the vein of "good," "bad," "right," "wrong," "permissible," "evil," "obligatory," and so on.
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Post by Terrapin Station on Feb 10, 2018 14:37:06 GMT
Something else you'd be doing, by the way, that is severely in error, is assuming that everyone uses "I have a preference to live and flourish" as a moral ground. But that's not at all the case, even if you were to ask people if they have such a preference and they were to agree. Agreeing with that doesn't imply that they're ethical foundationalists with that as their foundation. You can't just "read it into them" as their foundation because it makes sense to you or because it's your foundation or because you like it. From our previous exchange, I already stipulated that the preference to live and flourish is (as you would argue) arbitrary. It may not have an ethical foundation, but (unlike other arbitrary preferences) it is instinctive and for all intents and purposes universal. That makes it valid guide in devising "moral" laws. Preferences are necessarily conscious for one. People only have them if they're present to consciousness. (Which is different than having a disposition towards a preference that may not be realized as a preference until a particular situation arises; and one reason for the difference is that the disposition may not wind up causing a particular preference to obtain.) Preople are ethical foundationalists only if they consciously think about ethics in a foundationalist manner. People only have "my preference to (and/or for others to) live and flourish" as an ethical foundation if they consciously think about it that way. Most people do not.
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Post by Isapop on Feb 10, 2018 14:57:18 GMT
My description is the reason that I think it's wrong to murder. What would you call that if not "morality"? And what is it that YOU call "morality"? Morality is rather judgments that individuals make regarding either interpersonal behavior (the majority of the time) or behavior towards oneself (in some cases), where the behavior being judged is considered more significant than matters of etiquette, and where the judgments are in the vein of "good," "bad," "right," "wrong," "permissible," "evil," "obligatory," and so on. So I'm calling morality the rules upon which we base our judgment, and you're calling morality the judgments themselves. So is this just a difference in semantics? Maybe it is. I don't see any dispute from you on my reasons why approval of murder is not equivalent to disapproval of murder.
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Post by Terrapin Station on Feb 10, 2018 15:00:15 GMT
Morality is rather judgments that individuals make regarding either interpersonal behavior (the majority of the time) or behavior towards oneself (in some cases), where the behavior being judged is considered more significant than matters of etiquette, and where the judgments are in the vein of "good," "bad," "right," "wrong," "permissible," "evil," "obligatory," and so on. So I'm calling morality the rules upon which we base our judgment, and you're calling morality the judgments themselves. So is this just a difference in semantics? Maybe it is. I don't see any dispute from you on my reasons why approval of murder is not equivalent to disapproval of murder.
Equivalent in what context ontologically? In other words, equivalent or not equivalent to what? (I'll get back to the rest in a minute maybe (if we don't get distracted). You brought that up again, and it might be instructive to focus on it for a moment.)
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Post by Isapop on Feb 10, 2018 15:08:52 GMT
So I'm calling morality the rules upon which we base our judgment, and you're calling morality the judgments themselves. So is this just a difference in semantics? Maybe it is. I don't see any dispute from you on my reasons why approval of murder is not equivalent to disapproval of murder.
Equivalent in what context ontologically? In other words, equivalent or not equivalent to what? (I'll get back to the rest in a minute maybe (if we don't get distracted). You brought that up again, and it might be instructive to focus on it for a moment.) Look again at that post. I quoted you, so the context will be clear.
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Post by Terrapin Station on Feb 10, 2018 15:12:50 GMT
Equivalent in what context ontologically? In other words, equivalent or not equivalent to what? (I'll get back to the rest in a minute maybe (if we don't get distracted). You brought that up again, and it might be instructive to focus on it for a moment.) Look again at that post. I quoted you, so the context will be clear. Nothing above addresses what I'm asking you. Equivalent or not equivalent to what, in terms of a thing that has some location, say. Equivalent to a person? To a field that you're claiming exists? To what (ontologically)? In other words, where, and in what sort of thing, would the equivalence obtain?
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Post by Isapop on Feb 10, 2018 15:23:26 GMT
Look again at that post. I quoted you, so the context will be clear. Nothing above addresses what I'm asking you. Equivalent or not equivalent to what, in terms of a thing that has some location, say. Equivalent to a person? To a field that you're claiming exists? To what (ontologically)? In other words, where, and in what sort of thing, would the equivalence obtain? I explained why disapproval of murder is intellectually superior to approval of murder. If you agree with my explanation, then I suspect that any other differences between us are probably just a matter of semantics.
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Post by Terrapin Station on Feb 10, 2018 15:34:28 GMT
Nothing above addresses what I'm asking you. Equivalent or not equivalent to what, in terms of a thing that has some location, say. Equivalent to a person? To a field that you're claiming exists? To what (ontologically)? In other words, where, and in what sort of thing, would the equivalence obtain? I explained why disapproval of murder is intellectually superior to approval of murder. If you agree with my explanation, then I suspect that any other differences between us are probably just a matter of semantics. So here's a possible answer to the question I'm asking you: It's not equivalent morally to the individuals who use "I want to live/fluorish" as a foundational preference for making moral judgments and who have a belief that allowing murder wouldn't lead to the sort of flourishing they're looking for. Would you agree with that?
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Post by Isapop on Feb 10, 2018 15:45:00 GMT
I explained why disapproval of murder is intellectually superior to approval of murder. If you agree with my explanation, then I suspect that any other differences between us are probably just a matter of semantics. So here's a possible answer to the question I'm asking you: It's not equivalent morally to the individuals who use "I want to live/fluorish" as a foundational preference for making moral judgments and who have a belief that allowing murder wouldn't lead to the sort of flourishing they're looking for.Would you agree with that? You have to remove that last part. The first part is the arbitrary preference to be served. But the last part is a prescription arrived by applying the objective criteria of logic and evidence, and that is not arbitrary. It's what makes disapproval of murder superior to approval.
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Post by Terrapin Station on Feb 10, 2018 15:57:03 GMT
So here's a possible answer to the question I'm asking you: It's not equivalent morally to the individuals who use "I want to live/fluorish" as a foundational preference for making moral judgments and who have a belief that allowing murder wouldn't lead to the sort of flourishing they're looking for.Would you agree with that? You have to remove that last part. The first part is the arbitrary preference to be served. But the last part is a prescription arrived by applying the objective criteria of logic and evidence, and that is not arbitrary. It's what makes disapproval of murder superior to approval. You're assuming that the belief is correct. I don't agree with that assumption, at least non-qualified, and there's no way it wouldn't hinge on what the people in question count as "flourishing." But we can ignore that. The point is, it's not morally equivalent to those individuals. To other individuals, they might be morally equivalent.
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Post by Isapop on Feb 10, 2018 16:15:17 GMT
You have to remove that last part. The first part is the arbitrary preference to be served. But the last part is a prescription arrived by applying the objective criteria of logic and evidence, and that is not arbitrary. It's what makes disapproval of murder superior to approval. You're assuming that the belief is correct. I don't agree with that assumption, at least non-qualified, and there's no way it wouldn't hinge on what the people in question count as "flourishing." But we can ignore that. The point is, it's not morally equivalent to those individuals. To other individuals, they might be morally equivalent. It's not morally equivalent to the individuals who place value on logic and evidence. The other individuals would find it equivalent because they consider illogic to be as valid as logic, and lack of evidence to be as valid as evidence. And with those individuals no debate about anything is possible because the tools for debate are useless.
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Post by Terrapin Station on Feb 10, 2018 16:21:26 GMT
You're assuming that the belief is correct. I don't agree with that assumption, at least non-qualified, and there's no way it wouldn't hinge on what the people in question count as "flourishing." But we can ignore that. The point is, it's not morally equivalent to those individuals. To other individuals, they might be morally equivalent. It's not morally equivalent to the individuals who place value on logic and evidence. The other individuals would find it equivalent because they consider illogic to be as valid as logic, and lack of evidence to be as valid as evidence. And with those individuals no debate about anything is possible because the tools for debate are useless.
People can reject or just not bother with foundationalism, for example, right? (And that's just one of countless options. It's an easy one to start with since it's a simple option.)
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Post by Isapop on Feb 10, 2018 18:13:16 GMT
It's not morally equivalent to the individuals who place value on logic and evidence. The other individuals would find it equivalent because they consider illogic to be as valid as logic, and lack of evidence to be as valid as evidence. And with those individuals no debate about anything is possible because the tools for debate are useless.
People can reject or just not bother with foundationalism, for example, right? (And that's just one of countless options. It's an easy one to start with since it's a simple option.) I suppose there's lots of options. But I think that what I'm saying is simple and (so far) unassailable: The instinctive, universal preference to live and flourish is a given (arbitrary, but undeniable). It is logical to behave in ways that serve that preference. We can use evidence and logic to determine what rules of behavior to create. Following those rules will be judged as "right", breaking them judged as "wrong".
That's what I think of when someone says "morality" to me. If that's not what THEY mean, that's not a problem. I'll just let them describe what they mean, and we'll proceed from there.
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Post by Terrapin Station on Feb 10, 2018 18:59:04 GMT
People can reject or just not bother with foundationalism, for example, right? (And that's just one of countless options. It's an easy one to start with since it's a simple option.) I suppose there's lots of options. But I think that what I'm saying is simple and (so far) unassailable: The instinctive, universal preference to live and flourish is a given (arbitrary, but undeniable). It is logical to behave in ways that serve that preference. We can use evidence and logic to determine what rules of behavior to create. Following those rules will be judged as "right", breaking them judged as "wrong".
That's what I think of when someone says "morality" to me. If that's not what THEY mean, that's not a problem. I'll just let them describe what they mean, and we'll proceed from there.
It's trivially false that there's a universal preference to live and flourish. It's trivially false that everyone has a foundationalist approach to ethics/morality. It's trivially flase that there's agreement about what flourishing amounts to. No ought follows from any is. That includes the notion that "I should act to make my preferences a reality" follows from having preferences. You can't just ignore those facts in your meta-ethics. Well, at least not if you want to come across as something other than the equivalent of a religious fundamentalist or something like that.
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Post by Isapop on Feb 10, 2018 19:37:26 GMT
I suppose there's lots of options. But I think that what I'm saying is simple and (so far) unassailable: The instinctive, universal preference to live and flourish is a given (arbitrary, but undeniable). It is logical to behave in ways that serve that preference. We can use evidence and logic to determine what rules of behavior to create. Following those rules will be judged as "right", breaking them judged as "wrong".
That's what I think of when someone says "morality" to me. If that's not what THEY mean, that's not a problem. I'll just let them describe what they mean, and we'll proceed from there.
So, let's look at these. (I don't know if "trivially false" is, for the sake of discussion, any different from "false". I trust not.)It's universal in my neighborhood. If you mean that there are some people who no longer have (or never had) that preference, the preference is still universal for all intents and purposes. Is that supposed to refute something I said? If so, you didn't bother to explain where or how.Refusing to acknowledge a commonly held concept of "flourish" is the sort of semantic quibbling I won't bother with.That's a trivial objection. If you contend that it is arbitrary, rather than logical, to decide that one should behave in ways to serve one's preferences, that's fine. It doesn't change the central point that the rules of behavior can be created with the rational means of logic and evidence.Saying, " X is right because evidence and logic show that X will serve my preference to live" is sufficiently different from saying " X is right because God says so" for me that I won't lose sleep if you think I'm equivalent to a religious fundamentalist.
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Post by Terrapin Station on Feb 10, 2018 19:57:34 GMT
It's universal in my neighborhood. How would you know this? Is your neighborhood that small and you've actually asked everyone about this?
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Post by Isapop on Feb 10, 2018 21:20:56 GMT
It's universal in my neighborhood. How would you know this? Is your neighborhood that small and you've actually asked everyone about this? You make that sound like a serious question. It's not, is it?
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Post by Terrapin Station on Feb 10, 2018 21:26:59 GMT
How would you know this? Is your neighborhood that small and you've actually asked everyone about this? You make that sound like a serious question. It's not, is it? Yes, it is. You're averse to epistemology?
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Post by Isapop on Feb 10, 2018 21:41:34 GMT
You make that sound like a serious question. It's not, is it? Yes, it is. You're averse to epistemology? OK then. You know, in all honesty, I haven't. Congratulations. You have successfully refuted an obviously tangential, tongue-in-cheek remark.
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Post by Terrapin Station on Feb 10, 2018 21:55:24 GMT
Yes, it is. You're averse to epistemology? OK then. You know, in all honesty, I haven't. Congratulations. You have successfully refuted an obviously tangential, tongue-in-cheek remark.
So you weren't actually claiming that it was universal in some given population?
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