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Why Can't We All Just Get Along? Uncertain Biological Basis of Morality (2013)

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61–68 of 68 posts

Re: Why Can't We All Just Get Along? Uncertain Biological Basis of Morality (2013)

#61

It's no better example of the us and China ideology conflicts at play right now... Both sides believed the other cheated bullied and unfairly gained from themselves...

Almost. China believes US is the bully, but I've never heard of anybody believing the US unfairly gained.

Why do you believe that?

People constantly complained US corps extracted too much profit, and get too much recession from the government.

The government recession part is less noticeable, because Chinese people are not informed anyway.

Like TESLA's shanghai factories. It's common that people complained "I can be as successful as Elon, if I got the same support from the government"...

Re: Why Can't We All Just Get Along? Uncertain Biological Basis of Morality (2013)

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that a universal moral system is preferable to a hierarchical or individually diversified one is itself a moral opinion which draws significantly from the Christian universalist conception of human value. That doesn’t make it right or wrong, but it certainly doesn’t make it culturally universal. The reduction of suffering is also not a universal aspiration; many thinkers believe that meaningful suffering is…

I think Nietzsche was a great man and not nearly as judgmental as he conducted himself. But I also believe the classical explanation that he had a problem with his mother and that is the reason why he had such strong expectations towards himself and others. Nazis abused his writings but he wouldn't have like them of course. His dislike for christian morals is understandable because he saw them as a form of subjugatio…

Weird tendency in modern internet discourse of pseudo psychoanalyzing people in order to discredit them. Instead of say engaging in the discussion, talk about their ideas, etc.

Re: Why Can't We All Just Get Along? Uncertain Biological Basis of Morality (2013)

#63
post #3

[flagged]

Please do not take HN threads on generic ideological tangents. It leads to predictable, tedious, and usually nasty discussion.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Why Can't We All Just Get Along? Uncertain Biological Basis of Morality (2013)

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost. China believes US is the bully, but I've never heard of anybody believing the US unfairly gained.

Why do you believe that? People constantly complained US corps extracted too much profit, and get too much recession from the government. The government recession part is less noticeable, because Chinese people are not informed anyway. Like TESLA's shanghai factories. It's common that people complained "I can be as successful as Elon, if I got the same support from the government"...

This is literally the first time I've heard of those complaints.

I'm not American. I don't hang around in the same circles as you.

Re: Why Can't We All Just Get Along? Uncertain Biological Basis of Morality (2013)

#65
post #8

> One question you confront if you’re arguing for a single planetary moral philosophy: Which moral philosophy should we use? The Golden Rule is practically universal. I'm surprised it doesn't get a mention. I'm partial to Hillel's version: "What is hateful to you, do not do to others—this is the whole of Torah; the rest is commentary. Go and study." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule > It’s true that Greene is…

The idea that a universal moral system is preferable to a hierarchical or individually diversified one is itself a moral opinion which draws significantly from the Christian universalist conception of human value. That doesn’t make it right or wrong, but it certainly doesn’t make it culturally universal. The reduction of suffering is also not a universal aspiration; many thinkers believe that meaningful suffering is…

Diversity with ethical commitments to zero-oppression, avoiding arbitrary enforcement of power.. we do not need uniformity, only universality. To embrace suffering as meaningful is to extend suffering beyond the natural consequences domain into projecting it for power purposes/ control.

Suffering is not necessary, only useful to oppressors. Some suffering from learning is different from that being intentionally utilized for other purposes.

Without universality of commitment to reduction in suffering, there's "managed" suffering of some kind.

Re: Why Can't We All Just Get Along? Uncertain Biological Basis of Morality (2013)

#66

It's no better example of the us and China ideology conflicts at play right now... Both sides believed the other cheated bullied and unfairly gained from themselves...

Almost. China believes US is the bully, but I've never heard of anybody believing the US unfairly gained.

This book was recommended to me by a Chinese colleague:

https://www.amazon.com/American-Trap-Americas-economic-again...

It seems to me to be saying the US unfairly gained.

Re: Why Can't We All Just Get Along? Uncertain Biological Basis of Morality (2013)

#67

This is the problem with hypotheticals, they are never an accurate representation of human psychology just like a ball ignoring air resistance. The two problems are not the same, the human brain KNOWS that pushing a large man onto tracks is not guaranteed to save the people on the trolley, even if a researcher tells them it will. The subconscious recognition of that uncertainty will affect the result. Flipping a swit…

https://www.reddit.com/r/VeryBadWizards/comments/7i1tyd/vsau...

Re: Why Can't We All Just Get Along? Uncertain Biological Basis of Morality (2013)

#68
post #8

> One question you confront if you’re arguing for a single planetary moral philosophy: Which moral philosophy should we use? The Golden Rule is practically universal. I'm surprised it doesn't get a mention. I'm partial to Hillel's version: "What is hateful to you, do not do to others—this is the whole of Torah; the rest is commentary. Go and study." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule > It’s true that Greene is…

The idea that a universal moral system is preferable to a hierarchical or individually diversified one is itself a moral opinion which draws significantly from the Christian universalist conception of human value. That doesn’t make it right or wrong, but it certainly doesn’t make it culturally universal. The reduction of suffering is also not a universal aspiration; many thinkers believe that meaningful suffering is…

It's still possible to use decision theory and an utilitarian framework (and/or bounded rationality) to unify whatever two random people's morals happen to be. Sure, in theory people with infinite time on their hands will come to agreement about everything - Aumann's agreement theorem. But even if they don't, it doesn't matter, as they are still going to maximite their utility as best as they every point in time can, with all the complexities involved due to our neurobiology and path-dependence on personal experiences.

Now, that said, ignoring pathological cases (both abstract/hypothetical and real clinical - eg someone just on the verge of suicide) rational agents have instrumental goals, such as survival, gathering resources to be able to survive, keeping warm, but not too warm, etc. And this is where "the fun begins", or the complications. Because there are many possible strategies, just putting them on a predatory-cooperatory spectrum gives a sort of handle on them. (Obviously there are situations where otherwise even the most cooperative-minded person can end up selfish, and vice versa.)

And abstracting all this basically gets you Rawls' Theory of Justice, which says, that since you don't know what situations you can end up in (eg. you don't know if you get cancer in the next year or not), you should think through many situations and determine what would you prefer in them, and then try to find moral norms that are the most satisfiying in the most cases. (Eg. the most fair rules.)

Of course this is extremely handwavy, and naturally - as things in philosophy are rarely - the matter is not settled, but I think there there is a convincing argument to say that sentient minds can find a common moral ground, if they want to.

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