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Why Our Children Don't Think There Are Moral Facts

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com

151–160 of 165 posts

Re: Why Our Children Don't Think There Are Moral Facts

#151
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Self-sacrifice and penance are almost the basis of one the most popular moral theories in the world You can't make those objective, though. That is my point. (It's not like I haven't actually heard of Christian morality before.) Ultimately, the only thing that actually matters for any living organism is pleasure. Thus, only pleasure, ultimately, can be good or bad for an organism. I mean "pleasure" in the broadest…

Ultimately, the only thing that actually matters for any living organism is pleasure. How so? Why can't subjective things matter to a living organism? You're jumping some logical steps there, I think.

Subjective things can only truly matter if they bring pleasure or cause pain. So my point is still correct. (We need a definition of subjective, though, so this probably isn't clear.)

It's true that someone could subjectively think, mistakenly, that something matters, which doesn't. So someone could be wrong about what matters. e.g. Someone could think that God's approval matters, when in reality, only pleasure and pain matter for their own sake.

Re: Why Our Children Don't Think There Are Moral Facts

#152
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately, the only thing that actually matters for any living organism is pleasure. How so? Why can't subjective things matter to a living organism? You're jumping some logical steps there, I think.

Subjective things can only truly matter if they bring pleasure or cause pain. So my point is still correct. (We need a definition of subjective, though, so this probably isn't clear.) It's true that someone could subjectively think, mistakenly, that something matters, which doesn't. So someone could be wrong about what matters. e.g. Someone could think that God's approval matters, when in reality, only pleasure and p…

I think the point was that "pleasure == good" is not any more obvious/provably correct/well-defined than something like "duty == good".

Re: Why Our Children Don't Think There Are Moral Facts

#153
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a big "if", though. For others, stealing might increase one's pleasure. This decrease v. increase of pleasure about something is what's called an "opinion". It's not objective if it changes based on who you ask and how you observe it.

> It's not objective if it changes based on who you ask and how you observe it. Sure it is. I'm not sure what you think the word "objective" should mean.

Could you explain why/how pleasure is objective? It's not obvious to me what you mean.

Re: Why Our Children Don't Think There Are Moral Facts

#154
post #17

The article doesn't provide anything to back the claim that moral opinions may be universally, non-subjectively true. The cartoonist example is deeply flawed. We're outraged because this event violated our deepest beliefs and values we hold dear, not because it violated some universal eternal moral law. We also know that there were people that weren't saddened by this event too. This is the problem I have with many p…

So universal human rights are not objectively good? It's fairly easy to assert that some moral standards are objectively better. Take slavery for example, society a practices it while society b does not. Which society gives a better environment for the whole of its people? And the same thing can be extended to take your example, don't know why you've put in game theory into the mix, but in general people tend to live…

What you are writing is exactly why I threw game theory into the mix. Game theory show strategies that given a certain set of rules are beneficial for the player or all players (for interesting example see Nash equilibrium). The example you have given in first paragraph, that forbidding slavery creates a better environment for the whole of it's people is exactly just that - showing one strategy to be more beneficial than the other. It's not showing that slavery is "objectively" wrong. I remember seeing a nature documentary where two species were explained to live in something that could be seen a master/slave symbiosis which benefited them both. (As a sidenote, I'm all against slavery and I do not accept causing harm to others no matter how beneficial it would be to myself).

You say that "people tend to live better lives" and "I would like to live in" etc. This is very subjective. As for quantifying wellbeing of members, we may ask if it's better for 100% of society to feel well, or is it better for 80% of society to feel fantastic and 20% miserable and in fear. It's again a matter of opinion and we can use mathematical concepts like game theory to better explain using formal methods why some moral values would be beneficial for us and other's not. That's why I threw it into the mix.

You also say that some opinions are better than others. This general statement is very dangerous and was used throughout the ages by proponents of slavery, racism etc. They definitely claim that their opinions are better than yours while you do otherwise. The thing is, some opinions are better to achieve certain goal given some set of circumstances, rules and participants. Acknowledging that opinions and moral values are not objectively right or wrong doesn't make us crazy to pursue those that we see as moving the society we live in in the direction we want.

Re: Why Our Children Don't Think There Are Moral Facts

#155
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Subjective things can only truly matter if they bring pleasure or cause pain. So my point is still correct. (We need a definition of subjective, though, so this probably isn't clear.) It's true that someone could subjectively think, mistakenly, that something matters, which doesn't. So someone could be wrong about what matters. e.g. Someone could think that God's approval matters, when in reality, only pleasure and p…

I think the point was that "pleasure == good" is not any more obvious/provably correct/well-defined than something like "duty == good".

I haven't missed the point.

I'm not saying that pleasure is obviously the only ultimate good; I'm saying that it is the only ultimate good.

And I would challenge someone to make an argument that duty is good, or, in fact, anything other than pleasure. It is pretty obvious that none of those arguments work.

Re: Why Our Children Don't Think There Are Moral Facts

#156
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point was that "pleasure == good" is not any more obvious/provably correct/well-defined than something like "duty == good".

I haven't missed the point. I'm not saying that pleasure is obviously the only ultimate good; I'm saying that it is the only ultimate good. And I would challenge someone to make an argument that duty is good, or, in fact, anything other than pleasure. It is pretty obvious that none of those arguments work.

Could you make the argument that pleasure is good?

Re: Why Our Children Don't Think There Are Moral Facts

#157
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't missed the point. I'm not saying that pleasure is obviously the only ultimate good; I'm saying that it is the only ultimate good. And I would challenge someone to make an argument that duty is good, or, in fact, anything other than pleasure. It is pretty obvious that none of those arguments work.

Could you make the argument that pleasure is good?

Sure, gladly. But it's not so much an argument as a simple observation, plus refuting or ruling out out a bunch of false notions of the good that people have gotten used to. And since it's an observation you see across all living organisms, there isn't any one piece of evidence or one specific argument. It's just part of the nature of life. So I think what is warranted is not an argument, but an example.

Think about a simple organism. Something without complex reasoning about higher values. Say, a frog.

What is good for the frog? What is bad for the frog? Well, the only thing that can matter to you, if you have the consciousness of a frog, is getting pleasure and avoiding pain. When you eat a fly, you are doing it for that reason. When you drink water, you are doing it for that reason. And so on. I mean, frogs probably can't reason at that level---but if they could, that is how they would have to reason about it. Pleasure is inherently valued because of the way organisms are, biologically. It is the thing that evolution uses to reward the behavior that is "wanted" (i.e. that "wins" in a natural selection sense).

In other words, natural selection only works if organisms have a reason to act. For extremely simple things (e.g. single-celled organisms), there is no "mind" or "consciousness" in the organism that regulates behavior in any way. But for complex organisms, there needs to be a mind. And the pleasure/pain mechanism is the way that natural selection has for regulating behavior in the minds of conscious organisms.

Pleasure and pain just are inherently valuable---they are the only things that are inherently valuable. Because of the way biology works.

It's no different for humans, really. Besides physical sensations, humans also have emotions of pleasure and pain. They have moral value systems. When your moral values are satisfied, you get pleasure; when they aren't, you get pain. That is not to say, any moral system is equally valid. It isn't. The best moral system is the one that leads to the most pleasure. That is the one that is in harmony with biology and reality, not religion, social conformity, environmentalism, or anything else, but proving this statement is too much for a comment, so I'm just putting it here so you get the gist of where I am headed.

To get back to my main point--one way to see that pleasure is the only inherent value is to try to think of some reason for acting other than that. Ultimately, there never could be one---not a valid one. But pleasure always can be a good reason for acting.

Keep in mind I mean pleasure in the broadest sense---humans are long-range creatures, so I mean joy, rapture, happiness, contentment, fulfillment, and so on, plus all kinds of physical sensations (good food, sex, etc.). So I am not advocating range-of-the-moment hedonism, like, coke and hookers. I mean, yes, if that's a way to maximize your pleasure---but it isn't for any human being I know of.

Re: Why Our Children Don't Think There Are Moral Facts

#158
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you make the argument that pleasure is good?

Sure, gladly. But it's not so much an argument as a simple observation, plus refuting or ruling out out a bunch of false notions of the good that people have gotten used to. And since it's an observation you see across all living organisms, there isn't any one piece of evidence or one specific argument. It's just part of the nature of life. So I think what is warranted is not an argument, but an example. Think about…

Consider a fictional drug which stimulates the pleasure receptors in a frog's brain, but also reduced its fertility.

Consuming it is intensely pleasurable for the frog, but harmful to it both in an evolutionary sense, and for the frog species as a whole.

I can't see anyway to consider that "good".

Now consider the wide range of what humans consider pleasurable. A community of sadist may derive great pleasure from tormenting an animal. In your argument, that makes it "good" (Quote: "The best moral system is the one that leads to the most pleasure.")

I don't understand this sentence: I am not advocating range-of-the-moment hedonism, like, coke and hookers. I mean, yes, if that's a way to maximize your pleasure---but it isn't for any human being I know of.

Is your argument ignoring people who derive pleasure from harmful things because *you don't know anyone like that"? That seems a bit of a hole in your point of view.

Re: Why Our Children Don't Think There Are Moral Facts

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well you changed a word out there. the first question is you accept that people can fight. the second question is you can have a meaningful. i accept that people and can fight but i don't accept their discussion is meaningful and i don't accept that they can reach a conclusion i agree on. i don't see how accepting that people can fight and decide on rules, means that i think there's any meaning in it and why that mea…

> i don't see how accepting that people can fight and decide on rules, means that i think there's any meaning in it and why that means i agree, disagree or care about the conclusion. "Fight" is probably the misleading point. People can and will fight about meaningless things, yes. Perhaps "debate" would be better, because that implies meaning in the discussion. I think you can reasonably debate, compare and judge cod…

if you say so, although we are now at a meta point of debating the value of debate and i'm out.

Re: Why Our Children Don't Think There Are Moral Facts

#160
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a big "if", though. For others, stealing might increase one's pleasure. This decrease v. increase of pleasure about something is what's called an "opinion". It's not objective if it changes based on who you ask and how you observe it.

> It's not objective if it changes based on who you ask and how you observe it. Sure it is. I'm not sure what you think the word "objective" should mean.

> > It's not objective if it changes based on who you ask and how you observe it.

> Sure it is.

No, its not. "Objective" means, exactly, that its truth is not dependent on who you ask or how you observe; "subjective" is the word that describes claims that are dependent on those things.

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