You 'ought' to behave this way

[Dukasaur]

Which is precisely the point. Someone constructing an ethical system does take the time to consider what effect it will have, not only on himself, but on some larger group. Maybe only his own civilization, maybe all of humanity, maybe all living things human or not, but certainly larger than just his immediate circle of friends.

That's not to say that you can care about street kids in Kampala in the same immediate, urgent way you can care about yourself. Our primate brains are only wired to care about 40 or 50 people at a time (the size of a normal tribe of Homo sapiens, before the Neolithic agricultural revolution allowed absurd population densities). But in order to discuss a system of what one "ought" to do, one needs to be able to at the very least put his own self aside and see things, at least in a hypothetical sense, from the point of view of anyone else who might be impacted by that system.

That kid is not part of my system. So of what relevance is it?

And anyways, I thought you were the guy who said that there is no 'ought':

You can analyse reality and come up with all kinds of rules. If you want to accomplish x then you had better do x*. The better your analysis, the better your rules can be. But none of it answers the question of "why do you want to do x?"

You can talk about "happiness for the greatest number" but it's only a subjective opinion that we should seek happiness. What objective reason is there that universal misery is not the goal?

...

I'm a living thing, and I'm naturally prejudiced in favour of life, but what, other than my instinctive prejudice dictates that life should continue? In the end it probably will not. Despite squirming through one theory after another, we can't find any decent shred of hope that the universe will not continue to expand forever, until all interaction ceases and every system ceases to exist. So why should we struggle to buck the trend, when in the end we will fail no matter what?

What I'm saying is, that for any desired outcome it is possible to come up with a set of rules to produce that outcome. What I believe is not possible, is to come up with any objective reason to desire an outcome.

Given the desired outcome that life should continue on earth for the foreseeable future, I think it's possible to craft a set of rules which are likely to produce that outcome. I just don't think the desire to see life continue is based on anything more than the subjective accident that we are living things and we see things from the point of view of living things' subjective desire to keep living.

Given the desired outcome that life should continue to include humans, I think it's possible to craft a set of rules to foster that outcome. I just don't think it's possible to justify that desire in any objective sense. The only reason we desire it is the subjective coincidence that we are humans.

And so on and so forth. I certainly think ethical systems are possible, I just deny them any claim to be objective. At the root of every system is some desired outcome, and that desired outcome is purely a subjective whim based on the dumb animal instincts of the person desiring it. That the sum total of what I was saying, not that ethics doesn't exist.

[crispybits]

The point is you seem quite capable of saying that the acid storm would be worse for you, and totally incapable of making the simple empathetic step to reasoning that the acid storm would be worse for everyone who shares the same objective reaction to the acid (i.e. restricting activities to avoid burning/dissolving) as you do (as in every human being). You have consistently displayed a complete inability to consider more than one perspective on any situation throughout the thread. Don't feel bad (not that I'm sure that's even possible), you didn't choose to be the way you are, by really do get some professional help for the sake of those around you...

Haha. Yeah yeah, I don't agree with you so I'm crazy. Keep up the good work!

It's not about whether you agree with me or not. There are plenty of people who disagree with me that I don't think are psychopaths. And there are plenty of moral statements we would both agree on. For instance "it would be wrong for someone to murder mrswdk just for fun" or "it would be wrong for someone to steal mrswdk's belongings just because they feel like it". You just seem incapable of expanding either of those statements from the personal to the general, to "it would be wrong for someone to murder anyone just for fun" or "it would be wrong for someone to steal anyone's belongings just because they feel like it". In fact if we turned it right around to "it would be wrong for mrswdk to steal anyone's belongings because they just feel like it" then you've already said that you disagree with this statement with your screwing over your business partner bit from earlier.

Like Dukusaur said it's dictionary definition sociopathy.

[mrswdk]

It's not about whether you agree with me or not. There are plenty of people who disagree with me that I don't think are psychopaths. And there are plenty of moral statements we would both agree on. For instance "it would be wrong for someone to murder mrswdk just for fun" or "it would be wrong for someone to steal mrswdk's belongings just because they feel like it".

I might as well stop you there, because that's where you're mistaken. No, I don't think it would be wrong for someone to kill me or steal my stuff.

[crispybits]

What I'm saying is, that for any desired outcome it is possible to come up with a set of rules to produce that outcome. What I believe is not possible, is to come up with any objective reason to desire an outcome.

And here I disagree with you, at least partially.

All of moral discussion is focused around living things. It's not possible to perform an immoral act to a rock or a beam of light or a cloud. Every time we talk about morality and we use any example of what we mean, we're talking about how that has effects on other living things and whether that act is justified given the change it creates in the experience of other living things.

So yes there is an underlying presupposition that cannot be objectively justified, that the experiences of living things matter. But when I see people citing this it strikes me as a sort of moral solipsism. We haven't solved physical solipsism so I very much doubt we can solve moral solipsism right now, but in pragmatic terms we all act as if the solipsistic proposition is false when it comes to the physical world around us, and I see no justification for doing any different to the moral proposition.

[crispybits]

It's not about whether you agree with me or not. There are plenty of people who disagree with me that I don't think are psychopaths. And there are plenty of moral statements we would both agree on. For instance "it would be wrong for someone to murder mrswdk just for fun" or "it would be wrong for someone to steal mrswdk's belongings just because they feel like it". You just seem incapable of expanding either of those statements from the personal to the general, to "it would be wrong for someone to murder anyone just for fun" or "it would be wrong for someone to steal anyone's belongings just because they feel like it". In fact if we turned it right around to "it would be wrong for mrswdk to steal anyone's belongings because they just feel like it" then you've already said that you disagree with this statement with your screwing over your business partner bit from earlier.

Like Dukusaur said it's dictionary definition sociopathy.

And also like Dukusaur said, whatever reason you can come up with for it being 'wrong' to steal my stuff is not based on anything objective. Which means that it can't be expanded to the general.

You are correct that I do not think it would be 'wrong' of me to screw over my business partner, but you are wrong (ha!) in thinking that I would say it is 'wrong' for my business partner to screw me over. I think no such thing.

And I've just disagreed with Dukusaur on that assertion, so that's not an inconsistency in my argument.

There is an inconsistency in your argument though. You have said that things can be objectively better or worse for you, and now you're saying that someone making things objectively worse for you is not immoral. If you want to define morality (not the word, the total concept) as being so utterly meaningless then my reply to Dukusaur stands to you as well. I reject your moral solipsism for the same reason I reject physical solipsism...

[mrswdk]

You are correct that I do not think it would be 'wrong' of me to screw over my business partner, but you are wrong (ha!) in thinking that I would say it is 'wrong' for my business partner to screw me over. I think no such thing.

And I've just disagreed with Dukusaur on that assertion, so that's not an inconsistency in my argument.

There is an inconsistency in your argument though. You have said that things can be objectively better or worse for you, and now you're saying that someone making things objectively worse for you is not immoral. If you want to define morality (not the word, the total concept) as being so utterly meaningless then my reply to Dukusaur stands to you as well. I reject your moral solipsism for the same reason I reject physical solipsism...

Your argument being that rejecting moral judgements due to their lack of objectivity is logically sound, but because lots of people value life you think it's okay to just ignore the inherent logical fallacy in your position and work on the assumption that life is valuable?

How is that different from living in Iran and saying 'well, everyone else believes in Allah...'?

[crispybits]

It's different because it's a presupposition

In physical solipsism, the proposition is that we cannot actually know anything about reality because we may be brains in vats or dreaming or deceived by magic or any of a million different theoretical possibilities. We haven't solved this, we haven't come up with a logical justification why we say we experience actual reality instead of an illusion. But in every conversation outside of the theoretical solipsistic one we assume that reality is actually real.

Moral solipsism doesn't ask the same kind of question about illusions, but it is looking for that same justification for why morality is what it is instead of some other theoretical thing (or nothing at all). And in every conversation about actions being moral or not we're talking about the experiences of living beings. It doesn't seem to me at least to be philosophically any different to say "morality is about the experiences of living things" than it is to say "reality is about what actually exists". Neither has justification, but both are almost definitionally true except for weird thought experiements with no base in reality themselves.

[Metsfanmax]

Then I stand by my diagnosis. You seem to think "objectively worse" means "has relevance to me"...

It's a meaningless question given that we have no way to objectively determine what is 'worse' and what is 'better'.

Ultimately everyone prefers their own interests to be advanced, though for many of us those interests include the interests of others (directly or indirectly). Therefore all else being equal, a system that allows everyone to obtain more of their interests than they otherwise would, would be an objectively better system. This seems to be indisputable. No one would object to such a system, since it helps everyone. Therefore I reject from the outset the idea that it's impossible to objectively determine what is worse and better.

Yeah. So if the government of China (or any country I live in in the future) was to seize all private property and initiate a system of central planning then that would be worse, because the most likely result would be for everyone's lives (including mine) to take a turn in a direction that they don't want. If the government in South Sudan was to do the same thing then it isn't either. It's for the people in South Sudan to decide whether that is 'better' or 'worse'. To me, it is of no consequence whatsoever.

Yes, but when we're asking the question of an objectively good moral system, by construction we immediately stop caring about whether or not you are affected by every decision. Your argument can be stated as: because most moral actions don't affect me, there's no way to come up with a moral system that is objectively good for everyone. I think it is clear that this is untrue. It is not too much of a stretch to say that the residents of South Sudan are probably similar to you. They wouldn't want their stuff taken from them for no good reason. So if a given action makes things worse in China, and South Sudan, and the US, and basically everywhere else people live, not doing that is as close to an objective moral rule as we're likely to get in the near future.

[mrswdk]

It's different because it's a presupposition

In physical solipsism, the proposition is that we cannot actually know anything about reality because we may be brains in vats or dreaming or deceived by magic or any of a million different theoretical possibilities. We haven't solved this, we haven't come up with a logical justification why we say we experience actual reality instead of an illusion. But in every conversation outside of the theoretical solipsistic one we assume that reality is actually real.

Moral solipsism doesn't ask the same kind of question about illusions, but it is looking for that same justification for why morality is what it is instead of some other theoretical thing (or nothing at all). And in every conversation about actions being moral or not we're talking about the experiences of living beings. It doesn't seem to me at least to be philosophically any different to say "morality is about the experiences of living things" than it is to say "reality is about what actually exists". Neither has justification, but both are almost definitionally true except for weird thought experiements with no base in reality themselves.

The world which I assume surrounds me is something I appear to have direct physical interaction with every day. 'Morality' is not.

[mrswdk]

Then I stand by my diagnosis. You seem to think "objectively worse" means "has relevance to me"...

It's a meaningless question given that we have no way to objectively determine what is 'worse' and what is 'better'.

Ultimately everyone prefers their own interests to be advanced, though for many of us those interests include the interests of others (directly or indirectly). Therefore all else being equal, a system that allows everyone to obtain more of their interests than they otherwise would, would be an objectively better system. This seems to be indisputable. No one would object to such a system, since it helps everyone. Therefore I reject from the outset the idea that it's impossible to objectively determine what is worse and better.

Yeah. So if the government of China (or any country I live in in the future) was to seize all private property and initiate a system of central planning then that would be worse, because the most likely result would be for everyone's lives (including mine) to take a turn in a direction that they don't want. If the government in South Sudan was to do the same thing then it isn't either. It's for the people in South Sudan to decide whether that is 'better' or 'worse'. To me, it is of no consequence whatsoever.

Yes, but when we're asking the question of an objectively good moral system, by construction we immediately stop caring about whether or not you are affected by every decision. Your argument can be stated as: because most moral actions don't affect me, there's no way to come up with a moral system that is objectively good for everyone. I think it is clear that this is untrue. It is not too much of a stretch to say that the residents of South Sudan are probably similar to you. They wouldn't want their stuff taken from them for no good reason. So if a given action makes things worse in China, and South Sudan, and the US, and basically everywhere else people live, not doing that is as close to an objective moral rule as we're likely to get in the near future.

I never posited any kind of moral system. Morality is not what I am talking about when I state whether I think a system is 'better' or 'worse' for me.

Come up with correlative patterns all you like, but you still haven't solved the logical black hole that your entire moral system is based on.

[Metsfanmax]

Then I stand by my diagnosis. You seem to think "objectively worse" means "has relevance to me"...

It's a meaningless question given that we have no way to objectively determine what is 'worse' and what is 'better'.

Ultimately everyone prefers their own interests to be advanced, though for many of us those interests include the interests of others (directly or indirectly). Therefore all else being equal, a system that allows everyone to obtain more of their interests than they otherwise would, would be an objectively better system. This seems to be indisputable. No one would object to such a system, since it helps everyone. Therefore I reject from the outset the idea that it's impossible to objectively determine what is worse and better.

Yeah. So if the government of China (or any country I live in in the future) was to seize all private property and initiate a system of central planning then that would be worse, because the most likely result would be for everyone's lives (including mine) to take a turn in a direction that they don't want. If the government in South Sudan was to do the same thing then it isn't either. It's for the people in South Sudan to decide whether that is 'better' or 'worse'. To me, it is of no consequence whatsoever.

Yes, but when we're asking the question of an objectively good moral system, by construction we immediately stop caring about whether or not you are affected by every decision. Your argument can be stated as: because most moral actions don't affect me, there's no way to come up with a moral system that is objectively good for everyone. I think it is clear that this is untrue. It is not too much of a stretch to say that the residents of South Sudan are probably similar to you. They wouldn't want their stuff taken from them for no good reason. So if a given action makes things worse in China, and South Sudan, and the US, and basically everywhere else people live, not doing that is as close to an objective moral rule as we're likely to get in the near future.

I never posited any kind of moral system. Morality is not what I am talking about when I state whether I think a system is 'better' or 'worse' for me.

Well, that's what everyone else is talking about when it comes to morality, so I can't continue this if you want to disagree on accepted terminology. Normally I don't like shutting down debates over semantics but the whole point of morality is to ensure that people can fulfill their desires.

[mrswdk]

I never posited any kind of moral system. Morality is not what I am talking about when I state whether I think a system is 'better' or 'worse' for me.

Well, that's what everyone else is talking about when it comes to morality, so I can't continue this if you want to disagree on accepted terminology. Normally I don't like shutting down debates over semantics but the whole point of morality is to ensure that people can fulfill their desires.

It's not my fault you've got your terminology wrong.

[Dukasaur]

What I'm saying is, that for any desired outcome it is possible to come up with a set of rules to produce that outcome. What I believe is not possible, is to come up with any objective reason to desire an outcome.

And here I disagree with you, at least partially.

All of moral discussion is focused around living things. It's not possible to perform an immoral act to a rock or a beam of light or a cloud. Every time we talk about morality and we use any example of what we mean, we're talking about how that has effects on other living things and whether that act is justified given the change it creates in the experience of other living things.

See, I think right there and then you're giving in to a subjective prejudice. I think if there is any kind of objective evil, it is entropy, the universal tendency to chaos and mindless destruction. If there is any kind of objective good, it consists of increasing complexity, tilting (however futile it might be) at entropy's giant windmill.

By my definition, smashing a beautiful rock may be just as evil as killing a living thing.

show: greater elaboration not really necessary to support the above

So yes there is an underlying presupposition that cannot be objectively justified, that the experiences of living things matter. But when I see people citing this it strikes me as a sort of moral solipsism. We haven't solved physical solipsism so I very much doubt we can solve moral solipsism right now, but in pragmatic terms we all act as if the solipsistic proposition is false when it comes to the physical world around us, and I see no justification for doing any different to the moral proposition.

Okay, leaving aside beautiful rocks and diatoms and pollen grains and androids, I'll accept for the moment that morality is only for those things that are "ordinarily" referred to as conscious living beings. Your difficulty in finding anything non-subjective doesn't stop there.

We have this rule "thou shalt not kill" that is echoed in almost every moral code on earth, and yet in none of those moral codes is the rule interpreted with much rigour. It's okay to kill in self defense, it's okay to kill lower animals when we're hungry, hell it's okay to kill lower animals if they simply annoy us by eating some worthless grass on our front lawn. It's okay to kill our own kind if we're conscripted and ordered to do so by our government, it's okay to kill criminals if the judge says so, and it's okay to kill suspected criminals who haven't even been convicted, if they're frightened and run from the police. It's okay in many cultures to kill someone who looks lustfully upon our sister, it's been okay in some times and places to kill beggars, it's been okay through most of history to kill those who blaspheme against the local deity, and it's okay in most towns to kill any asshole who wears a Philadelphia Flyers jersey. (The last one was a joke, for those who aren't sure.)

To what degree is the incredibly weak emphasis we put on non-killing simply a result of the fact that we evolved as a carnivorous hunting species, a fractious, territorial, tribal species eager to fight? Don't you think our moral codes would give somewhat stronger protection to the ideals of non-killing if we evolved as placid, non-territorial herbivores?

Following the same methodology, you can find subjective roots to almost anything that has ever been posited in a moral code. Why do so many moral codes emphasize monogamy, except for the simple fact that we're a pair bonding species and prejudiced in that direction? Why do most moral codes emphasize chivalry, except for the fact that we're evolved from k strategists that seek to rescue their wounded? If we were evolved from bees, and saw individual members of the hive as being disposable, do you think there would be any impetus to add protection for individuals into our moral code?

[crispybits]

To Dukusaur first:

Part 1 - "life" is fuzzily defined.

This is why I went further than "life" and to "the experiences of living beings". An action that has zero chance of affecting the experiences a living being is not quantifiable in moral terms. I can even defend the "smashing a beautiful rock" under these terms as the beautiful rock may have given pleasure to other living beings who had looked on it in the future so may be considered a moral action. In every conversation we have about morality and ethics the things we talk about are how the action actually or potentially affects the experiences of other living things. The other important bit is that the action must be performed/caused by a living being - a rock falling from space and hitting me on the head is not a moral/immoral thing, it's just a thing. A rock thrown by an astronaut from the ISS and hitting me on the head is a moral/immoral thing.

This also covers part 2 slightly but I agree that we have prejudices in that we see human experiences as being the most important and then we work down the order of animals with dogs and dolphins near the top right down to sea urchins or cockroaches near the bottom. We do that because we subjectively try to judge how much "experience" these things can have (normally by looking at how complex their nervous system/behaviour is). I actually think this is flawed and we need a better understanding of the experiences of other living things but I don't think that's possible right now either - we can't put ourselves into the mind of a snail and see how it experiences the world around it, at least not yet. While we can't do that we do the best thing we can think of with the neural/behavioural complexity. I hope we'll find better ways to figure this out in the future, but biology is weird and slimy to me, I'm more a physicist in terms of scientific understanding.

Part 2 - "killing" is fuzzily enforced

This is because morality is situational. Every real world situation has countless different variables and these must all be taken into account when calculating if an action is moral or immoral. That's why when, even in this thread, we try and think of morally bad actions we don't just say "if I kill someone" we say "if I kill someone innocent just for the fun of it" because it rules out a lot of the complexities that could be added to avoid dealing with the point at hand. Every step of the following chain both makes it more complex to judge the action morally, but also makes it more likely we'll come to a more accurate conslusion:

Peter shot and killed Dave
Peter the policeman shot and killed Dave
Peter the policeman shot and killed Dave the murderer
Peter the policeman shot and killed Dave the murderer as Dave tried to shoot at Peter
Peter the policeman shot and killed Dave the murderer as Dave tried to shoot at Peter from a school playground
Peter the policeman shot and killed Dave the murderer as Dave tried to shoot at Peter from a school playground when there were kids out playing in it

I could go on adding more and more layers to that, and it is an imperative when making any sort of judgement that we consider all of the factors we can before we make that judgement. Adding the "when there were kids out playing in it" condition actually adds to both sides of the judgement too - if Peter missed he could hit a kid, if Dave took a hostage and threatened to kill a kid, if the kids see the death of Dave they may be traumatised, etc.

The only people claiming that you can hand down some simple rules that must never be broken are ether naive or religious (that's probably redundant imo, religious views on morality are pretty much universally naive). In moral discussions we have certain over-arching principles but not unbreakable rules, given enough situational context we can find exceptions to every simple "You shall not X" type of rule.

I'd also say that morality is culture-dependent. Not that different cultures have different objective "right" and "wrong", but to your monogamy example, we live in a culture where monogamy is the expected norm. So when two people enter into a relationship they expect, by default, that the relationship will be monogamous. But playing around in this situation isn't immoral because playing around is immoral, it's immoral because it has a negative effect on the experience of the partner who legitimately expects monogamy. If both partners agree that it is a non-monogamous relationship (and additional partners know the score too) then nobody is expecting anything different and playing around loses the "immoral" tag in the absence of other situational considerations.

I'm not sure I've explained that very well, but I'm sure you'll find the holes and pick at them and show me where I could have done better

[crispybits]

It's different because it's a presupposition

In physical solipsism, the proposition is that we cannot actually know anything about reality because we may be brains in vats or dreaming or deceived by magic or any of a million different theoretical possibilities. We haven't solved this, we haven't come up with a logical justification why we say we experience actual reality instead of an illusion. But in every conversation outside of the theoretical solipsistic one we assume that reality is actually real.

Moral solipsism doesn't ask the same kind of question about illusions, but it is looking for that same justification for why morality is what it is instead of some other theoretical thing (or nothing at all). And in every conversation about actions being moral or not we're talking about the experiences of living beings. It doesn't seem to me at least to be philosophically any different to say "morality is about the experiences of living things" than it is to say "reality is about what actually exists". Neither has justification, but both are almost definitionally true except for weird thought experiements with no base in reality themselves.

The world which I assume surrounds me is something I appear to have direct physical interaction with every day. 'Morality' is not.

The quick answer (because I just gave too much time to that long post before this and I have to be at work soon) is that you are wrong. You do interact with morality every day. Just because it's not a physical/material thing (and nobody has claimed it is by the way) doesn't mean it doesn't enter into your interactions with the world, because every action you take that has effects on the experiences of other living beings has a moral/immoral character to it.

[mrswdk]

No rush. Whenever you have time.

[BigBallinStalin]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem#.22Moral.22_oughts

Is there any valid way of establishing a moral goal that ought to be achieved, or are people who subscribe to a system of morals just expressing what they want to see achieved?

Sure. Here's one: don't kill people for stupid reasons--e.g. because I wanted their shoes. There's more efficient ways to get shoes, which benefits a society. Now, it comes down to standards of proper behavior: e.g. efficiency, social good, etc.

Of course, one can say, "Efficiency!? Social good!? Bah! I worship death!," but reasonable people tend to ignore such types (which the moral relativists cite as 'good' support for their stance on morality. In other words, if one supports a moral position which either approves of or can offer no good reasons against Nazism or the KKK, then no one should really bother listening to such a person).

Another point is about outcomes--a point which morality tends to neglect. Many moralists tend to focus on good intentions, but if good intentions systematically lead to poor outcomes, then one ought not to focus solely on good intentions as the benchmark of proper behavior. (This is why sitting down and thinking of a priori rules for the Good Society can largely be a waste of time).

[BigBallinStalin]

Then I stand by my diagnosis. You seem to think "objectively worse" means "has relevance to me"...

It's a meaningless question given that we have no way to objectively determine what is 'worse' and what is 'better'. The only criteria I have to go on are the impact it will have on me, which is zero in either scenario.

Yeah, you're selfish/self-interested, but it doesn't follow that there's no objective way to determine which outcomes--given some set of rules--are better or worse. Is there some absolutely objective way to determine the best set of rules (moral, cultural, legal, etc.) which lead to the best distribution of outcomes? No; otherwise, social science would be completed.

Is there some "institutionally contingent" way? Sure. E.g. in society X, killing people for their pets for totally arbitrary and poorly thought out reasons is wrong. Presumably, the outcomes of a such a rule would be good (less resources burnt on repurchasing pets)--however, questions of deadweight costs arise: how many resources should be spent on monitoring and capturing armed robbers of burglars? How much should be spent on prisons, or should they simply be shot in the back of the head and shipped to the nearest landfill? (These questions implicitly assume a moral standard: Kaldor-Hicks efficiency).

All moral positions rely on some basic standard/axiom, which the adherents generally don't question. This is where your questions about "objective" truth for morality are relevant yet unresolvable--for most standards. For some standards, e.g. Nazism, it should be pretty clear that it's wrong--again, assuming you wouldn't want to be a victim of Nazism, or you wouldn't want people X to be a victim of Nazism
.

I applaud your stance on acid rain (in general). Altruistic talk is cheap talk, and it's full of social desirability bias.

[mrswdk]

Hey, the wanderer returns.

[mrswdk]

Then I stand by my diagnosis. You seem to think "objectively worse" means "has relevance to me"...

It's a meaningless question given that we have no way to objectively determine what is 'worse' and what is 'better'. The only criteria I have to go on are the impact it will have on me, which is zero in either scenario.

Yeah, you're selfish/self-interested, but it doesn't follow that there's no objective way to determine which outcomes--given some set of rules--are better or worse. Is there some absolutely objective way to determine the best set of rules (moral, cultural, legal, etc.) which lead to the best distribution of outcomes? No; otherwise, social science would be completed.

Is there some "institutionally contingent" way? Sure. E.g. in society X, killing people for their pets for totally arbitrary and poorly thought out reasons is wrong. Presumably, the outcomes of a such a rule would be good (less resources burnt on repurchasing pets)--however, questions of deadweight costs arise: how many resources should be spent on monitoring and capturing armed robbers of burglars? How much should be spent on prisons, or should they simply be shot in the back of the head and shipped to the nearest landfill? (These questions implicitly assume a moral standard: Kaldor-Hicks efficiency).

All moral positions rely on some basic standard/axiom, which the adherents generally don't question. This is where your questions about "objective" truth for morality are relevant yet unresolvable--for most standards. For some standards, e.g. Nazism, it should be pretty clear that it's wrong--again, assuming you wouldn't want to be a victim of Nazism, or you wouldn't want people X to be a victim of Nazism
.

I applaud your stance on acid rain (in general). Altruistic talk is cheap talk, and it's full of social desirability bias.

That quote was specifically regarding the acid rain scenario, rather than a general theory that there is no such thing as 'better' in any context ever.

Don't forget the deadweight losses of unemployed pet shop staff!

[BigBallinStalin]

The point is you seem quite capable of saying that the acid storm would be worse for you, and totally incapable of making the simple empathetic step to reasoning that the acid storm would be worse for everyone who shares the same objective reaction to the acid (i.e. restricting activities to avoid burning/dissolving) as you do (as in every human being). You have consistently displayed a complete inability to consider more than one perspective on any situation throughout the thread. Don't feel bad (not that I'm sure that's even possible), you didn't choose to be the way you are, by really do get some professional help for the sake of those around you...

Haha. Yeah yeah, I don't agree with you so I'm crazy. Keep up the good work!

In fairness, considering only your own point of view and not taking the time to imagine how others feel about it, pretty much is the classic definition of sociopathic personality disorder.

Mrswdk's not expressing empathy. It doesn't follow that she's neurotic. Besides, for all those who express empathy, it might not be sincere. Instead, it could be them conforming with social desirability bias. Is being cognitively biased somehow better?

Note: psychologists tend not to use the term "sociopath" because it's meaningless. Look up the DSM-V for more accurate disorders/"disorders"].

Besides, how many people in here sincerely care about others--especially in faraway places like Delhi? It's cheap to say, "I surely care!" But, how much MONEY do they spend on charitable programs to help total strangers? For the US, it's about 2% of total income per year (much of which includes saving money to pay for the education of one's own offspring's, which isn't entirely altruistic). Would you like to conclude that most Americans are sociopaths? (Of course not. Mrswdk's being honest, and very likely her opponents on the acid rain 'dilemma' are engaging in cheap moral talk. Look at them chide her for being so rude, but I wonder: how many of them are hypocrites?).

[BigBallinStalin]

Then I stand by my diagnosis. You seem to think "objectively worse" means "has relevance to me"...

It's a meaningless question given that we have no way to objectively determine what is 'worse' and what is 'better'. The only criteria I have to go on are the impact it will have on me, which is zero in either scenario.

Yeah, you're selfish/self-interested, but it doesn't follow that there's no objective way to determine which outcomes--given some set of rules--are better or worse. Is there some absolutely objective way to determine the best set of rules (moral, cultural, legal, etc.) which lead to the best distribution of outcomes? No; otherwise, social science would be completed.

Is there some "institutionally contingent" way? Sure. E.g. in society X, killing people for their pets for totally arbitrary and poorly thought out reasons is wrong. Presumably, the outcomes of a such a rule would be good (less resources burnt on repurchasing pets)--however, questions of deadweight costs arise: how many resources should be spent on monitoring and capturing armed robbers of burglars? How much should be spent on prisons, or should they simply be shot in the back of the head and shipped to the nearest landfill? (These questions implicitly assume a moral standard: Kaldor-Hicks efficiency).

All moral positions rely on some basic standard/axiom, which the adherents generally don't question. This is where your questions about "objective" truth for morality are relevant yet unresolvable--for most standards. For some standards, e.g. Nazism, it should be pretty clear that it's wrong--again, assuming you wouldn't want to be a victim of Nazism, or you wouldn't want people X to be a victim of Nazism
.

I applaud your stance on acid rain (in general). Altruistic talk is cheap talk, and it's full of social desirability bias.

That quote was specifically regarding the acid rain scenario, rather than a general theory that there is no such thing as 'better' in any context ever.

Don't forget the deadweight losses of unemployed pet shop staff!

Sure, but the points in my response pretty much cover what people have been yammering on about for the past 2 pages. The "morality" question largely hinges on my paragraph about axioms. The "institutionally contingent" truths paragraph is a way to wiggle out of the crispy's solipsism problem and the "objective" morality problems (which I don't really think are a big deal; it's just philosophers chasing their imaginary tails--it's fun but unproductive).

Note: that wouldn't be a deadweight loss. It's a transfer. There'd be less people employed in pet shops but more people employed elsewhere (assuming labor is perfectly flexible, which it isn't, so some percent would suck on government resources, thus increasing deadweight loss).

[mrswdk]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem#.22Moral.22_oughts

Is there any valid way of establishing a moral goal that ought to be achieved, or are people who subscribe to a system of morals just expressing what they want to see achieved?

Sure. Here's one: don't kill people for stupid reasons--e.g. because I wanted their shoes. There's more efficient ways to get shoes, which benefits a society. Now, it comes down to standards of proper behavior: e.g. efficiency, social good, etc.

Well yeah, any society establishes a set of rules that will support the way in which it wishes to exist and function, but that doesn't mean that behavior which falls outside of those rules is 'immoral' or 'wrong' - it's just contrary to the system which people wish to establish. We prohibit driving above a certain speed in your car or selling things on the sidewalk not to prohibit 'immoral' behavior, but to reduce the risk of serious road accidents and to stop clowns cluttering up the pavement with their junk while people are trying to walk. We prohibit jaywalking not because it's 'immoral' but because widespread jaywalking is enormously disruptive to traffic flow.

Similarly, societies prevent KKK lynchings and Nazi genocides not because they are 'immoral' but because lynch mobs and genocides are not conducive to helping those societies progress in the way they want. That's why society's can comfortably ignore lynchings and genocides that occur in far away places - they are not making any moral judgements about these happenings, and so they make their decision to act (or not) based upon the effect that intervening would have on their own society. The moral relativists apply moral relativism and argue that it's the other society's decision whether or not they slaughter their open people, but that position is hypocritical (we think it's wrong, but not when they do it) and belies how wholly useless attempting to produce moral standards is (because the moral standard is so full of loopholes as to have no consistent application).

It's much more straightforward to just state that you wish to develop whichever system will have the most overall utility for your society. Not only is this system actually consistent, but such a system isn't prone to the emotional or social desirability biases that you mentioned in reference to the acid rain example.

[Dukasaur]

The point is you seem quite capable of saying that the acid storm would be worse for you, and totally incapable of making the simple empathetic step to reasoning that the acid storm would be worse for everyone who shares the same objective reaction to the acid (i.e. restricting activities to avoid burning/dissolving) as you do (as in every human being). You have consistently displayed a complete inability to consider more than one perspective on any situation throughout the thread. Don't feel bad (not that I'm sure that's even possible), you didn't choose to be the way you are, by really do get some professional help for the sake of those around you...

Haha. Yeah yeah, I don't agree with you so I'm crazy. Keep up the good work!

In fairness, considering only your own point of view and not taking the time to imagine how others feel about it, pretty much is the classic definition of sociopathic personality disorder.

Mrswdk's not expressing empathy. It doesn't follow that she's neurotic. Besides, for all those who express empathy, it might not be sincere. Instead, it could be them conforming with social desirability bias. Is being cognitively biased somehow better?

Note: psychologists tend not to use the term "sociopath" because it's meaningless. Look up the DSM-V for more accurate disorders/"disorders"].

Surely you do split the finest of hairs. Whether one calls it socipathic personality disorder (as indeed many psychologists do) or antisocial personality disorder (as it is called in the DSM-V) or dissocial personality disorder (as it is called in the ICD-10) it boils down to the same thing -- an inability to be concerned about the suffering of others. Homo sapiens is a social animal, naturally programmed to recognise distress in other members of the species and respond to it in some way. A failure to do so is aberrant, no matter what you call it.

Besides, how many people in here sincerely care about others--especially in faraway places like Delhi? It's cheap to say, "I surely care!" But, how much MONEY do they spend on charitable programs to help total strangers? For the US, it's about 2% of total income per year (much of which includes saving money to pay for the education of one's own offspring's, which isn't entirely altruistic). Would you like to conclude that most Americans are sociopaths? (Of course not. Mrswdk's being honest, and very likely her opponents on the acid rain 'dilemma' are engaging in cheap moral talk. Look at them chide her for being so rude, but I wonder: how many of them are hypocrites?).

You've jumped into the debate mid-stream and are making completely unwarranted assumptions about what is being debated.

Whether one's ethics should be more or less altruistic is not the issue at hand. Ethics does not require altruism. If I choose not to steal, yes that might be motivated by altruism. On the other hand, it could be motivated by a whole swarm of other considerations, most of which are primarily selfish. The vast majority of ethical systems engage in some kind of "social contract" logic -- I won't steal from you with the unspoken agreement that you won't steal from me. But an ethical system might be even less altruistic than that. At least some systems -- as diverse as Buddhism and Randian Objectivism -- teach that it's wrong to steal because to do so is to diminish oneself. It is entirely possible to see not-stealing as a completely selfish act.

The degree of one should convey might be an interesting thing to debate, but it is NOT what is being debated here. What mrswdk is saying is that it is not possible to construct ANY ethics whatsoever, that's one's actions will always be driven only by immediate self interest with no over-riding ethical principle at all, and that any system of ethics is illusory.

Of course it isn't possible to care about millions of anonymous people in any real sense. Our brains just don't have room for that many. But single out an individual from the masses, and you should be capable of caring about that individual. It doesn't require altruism. Meeting a starving man, you might decide to offer him a job, and knowing that he's starving, you might decide to pay him less than the average wage, figuring he's desperate enough to take it, which he probably is. It's a completely selfish transaction on both ends. The starving man just wants to eat, and you want a cheap worker, and through your own selfish considerations you both come out ahead. But even if you find a completely selfish solution to the problem, don't tell me you didn't feel some degree of sympathy for him. If you really didn't, then something is wrong with you.

[mrswdk]

Surely you do split the finest of hairs. Whether one calls it socipathic personality disorder (as indeed many psychologists do) or antisocial personality disorder (as it is called in the DSM-V) or dissocial personality disorder (as it is called in the ICD-10) it boils down to the same thing -- an inability to be concerned about the suffering of others. Homo sapiens is a social animal, naturally programmed to recognise distress in other members of the species and respond to it in some way. A failure to do so is aberrant, no matter what you call it.

Who said I am incapable of feeling any empathy whatsoever? Sure, I don't care about the fates of the beggars who sit outside my nearest subway station, but I care about the well-being of my partner, parents, siblings and a few of my friends.

The starving man just wants to eat, and you want a cheap worker, and through your own selfish considerations you both come out ahead. But even if you find a completely selfish solution to the problem, don't tell me you didn't feel some degree of sympathy for him. If you really didn't, then something is wrong with you.

What I believe is not possible, is to come up with any objective reason to desire an outcome.

Our primate brains are only wired to care about 40 or 50 people at a time

How do you manage to believe that there is something wrong with BBS if he doesn't feel sympathy for a starving stranger, while at the same time believing that there is no objective reason why BBS should feel any sympathy for that man and that the human brain is only capable of caring for a limited number of people in the first place?