where logic and universal morality intersect

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I didn't say I could. I only tried to point out that there are lots of abstractions which you can't measure or put your hands on, but you don't seem to question all of them.


OK, I'll bite. Would you please give me the definition and apply it to some examples? Are you also saying that it is logically necessary for aggression to exist?


I think "Aesthetically pleasing" and beautiful are synonyms or close to it. You may have a tautology here.


I don't know enough mathematics to know whether the mathematicians have a definition for truth, but it is possible that they do. At least, they should have a definition that is consistent within the system where they use it. I accept that example.


This too.



Thank you. That is what I wanted to know. My attempt at getting at a universal rule was empirically based, and so not relevant to your question.


Like I said, I was looking for the basis of behaviour people call moral, something empirical, not logically necessary. But you are right that there would need to be an independent criterion of who your people are to avoid circular reasoning. I don't know whether an independent criterion can be worked out, so I don't know whether my proposal can avoid tautology.


I know that was my problem. That's why I asked. My question was not rhetorical.

Gromit

The only thing is that there are differences, the problem is that justice and morality are metaphysical while other abstractions are merely descriptive concepts.

Aggression- initiating hostilities, or attacking. Punching a guy as I walk down the street is aggression. Why? It is behavior that is considered harmful and thus hostile towards another individual. Now, punching people cannot always be considered harmful but that these types of behaviors exist is certain and we do need to have a word to describe them, so aggression, as an idea is logically derived. It may be found in some society that there is no term for aggression and that aggression is never seen there, just like in the next example that some people have no concept of beauty, but that merely means that the terms are not useful as descriptions.

Yes, they do mean the same thing, but the other term illuminates something. The fact of the matter is that beings know that they find things aesthetically pleasing, and because of this direct knowledge they want to describe their opinion on these matters and thus call these things beautiful.

Can you always determine who initiates hostilities? Bush argues the Iraq war is not a war of aggression but a preemptive war. He says the threat was clear and hostilities unavoidable, and he didn't have to wait until Iraq was in a position to do real damage. Who initiated hostilities?

There is a legal distinction between preemptive war, where there is a clear and present danger and you don't wait for the attack which is imminent, and preventive war, where the threat is at some time in the future. Does that make a difference to who you see as the aggressor in the Iraq war? (Both are genuine questions. I don't know your politics, I don't know your views on the war, so I'm not baiting you. And I know that the border between preemptive and preventive is fluid.)

In Britain, Jean Charles de Menezes was shot by police the day after a set of failed suicide attacks. They got him mixed up with one of the suspects, trailed him to a tube station and shot him 7 times in the head. They said they thought he was about to detonate a suicide bomb. Take that at face value. Who initiated hostilities? The police officers would say it wasn't them, and if they really had shot a suicide bomber, no one would dispute them. People would argue hostilities started the moment someone put on the suicide bomb. But de Menezes was totally innocent. The police had made a mistake. If it was an honest mistake, were they guilty of aggression? Would it make a difference whether the mistake is a consequence of incompetence? If it does, how much incompetence would there have to be? None of us are perfect.

What happens if you have two sides mistaking each other's intentions as hostile? Is it more important who starts or who has better reason to suspect hostile intent? Imagine this happens with two guys carrying guns. The small guy feels threatened and pulls his gun, not intending to shoot but only to deter the big guy. The big guy believes he is about to be shot and shoots the small guy. Who is guilty of aggression?


I agree. For example punching out a drunk who cut an artery, but is too drunk to hold still to be treated. But that still gives you a problem with another part of your definition. The definition is incomplete. I am not sure that a complete definition is possible.

I am also not sure whether you are arguing that aggression must exist, as you asked snake to do for morality. Are you arguing that aggression is a necessary feature of the universe?



Is beauty a logically necessary feature of the universe? Could you have the same behaviour without the subjective experience of beauty?

Gromit

If you have perfect information then you can recognize all of the various aggressive actions. I would say that in this case Bush did initiate hostilities, he did so based upon imperfect information.
Well, not really, there has to be aggression. If there is no aggressive acts that disrupt the peace by one side then it must be done by the other.
The police initiated hostilities as they targeted the wrong person. Yes, they were aggressors, as for guilt, that has more to do with legality which is not involved in how a word is defined but rather in law. There is no difference, we already have a definition, and according to that definition initiating the matter is aggression.
I would consider aggression to be acting with aggressive intent, as aggression is defined by action. The small guy is aggressive as pulling out a gun as a threat of some form even if done somewhat defensively is hostile, but the big guy is hostile in actually shooting the guy. Both acts are in effect hostile and therefore aggressive.

Well, I am not sure that I would consider the drunk matter to not be aggressive, he doesn't want to be punched. I was thinking more like bdsm or some form of consensual violence
I am arguing that aggression is a part of human relations!! Aggression exists, we see it, it is merely a term to describe something that we know. It isn't even in the same category as morality as it is not purely a metaphysical abstraction but a description. Asking me if aggression exists is like asking if kindness exists, we know it exists, we have seen it, we have also likely acted in a manner befitting it, at least I have seen it. Without this concept, we have difficulty describing how things work as aggression is a part of human relations just as force is a part of physics. Even if I misdefine it in some form or another, aggression is still a descriptive term and not pure abstraction as you seek to recast it as.


Beauty is a logically necessary feature of the average human's experience. It is a descriptive term to describe how people feel in relationship to things, I would imagine that if you have the right brain monitors that you could even see the reactions that are involved with people valuing things as beautiful. There cannot be the same world without the experience of beauty as it is found in our mating habits, and decorations, both of which often are done in regards to this internal concept.

Really though, I do not seek to philosophically reinvent the wheel here and go through every segment of reality, but rather simply seek to give common sense in that if we postulate a reality that some concepts are things that definitely exist, and others we lack knowledge of.

I will probably be off WP for the next two or three weeks, I'll reply to your latest post then. I still think aggression and morality are at exactly the same level of abstraction. I think the distinction you are trying to make does not have a good basis. I will see whether I still hold that opinion after thinking some more, or wehether I will come to agree with you.

For now, I would like to present an argument that morality is inevitable under some conditions.

A simple scenario in game theory is the hawk-dove game. The outcome is that for a range of payoffs, you will get behaviour that would have to be included in any reasonable attempt at defining aggression that I can think of. The equilibrium solution is mixed, meaning you get both aggressive and peaceful strategies. Not everyone does the same thing at equilibrium.

Give the game a different payoff matrix, and you get the Prisoner's Dilemma game. If the game is iterated (you meet again, so you would need at leat a moderately social species), and you have the ability to recognize individuals and at least enough memory to remember what they did in the last interaction, then some form of reciprocity is inevitable.

We don't call ants in the same nests moral even though they help each other. Morality includes some element of concern for others. Concern is a subjective feeling, so we need consciousness for morality. concern is about how others feel, so we need theory of mind.

Reciprocity is inevitable if the necessary conditions are met. I say that if you also have consciousness and theory of mind, then some form of morality is inevitable. The reward for being selfish is usually immediate, while the rewards for being nice are usually delayed. Delayed rewards are discounted. You can get closer to the optimal behaviour if you have an immediate reward for being nice. Concern for others gives you that immediate reward in the form of a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling.

I claim if you have a social species with consciousness and theory of mind, that species will have the cognitive capacity for reciprocity, and because of the discounting problem, it is inevitable that concern for others will evolve. Morality is a necessary feature of a social species which is conscious and has theory of mind. My claims about reciprocity and discounting are backed up by published work on game theory, which should be easy enough to find with those key words.

Does that meet your criteria for logical necessity?

Gromit

In all honesty, I cannot see your position as no matter what there are actions that are almost unquestionably aggressive, but as I argue morality is not something where anything can be stated that quick.
Do you mean morality or codes of conduct? I have been using morality to mean that abstract sense of right and wrong.
Ok, that has little to do with morality. It has a lot to do with behavior but behavior does not have much to do with my use of the term moral.
We don't call ants moral because we don't see them as conceptualizing these matters. Morality includes nothing of that nature, some moral ideas are completely egoist. Because morality can be egoist, we cannot argue that there are any requirements for morality in terms of feeling.
Except that it isn't because morality is not what you are describing. You describe behavior that coincides with cultural norms that we describe as our morality, but not a proof of morality itself. The rewards for being nice though are usually minimal rather than delayed, if we argue that we have a person who only cares about material well being. Concern for others does influence behavior though.
No, not at all. I already told you what I was looking for in morality, a metaphysical concept of ought. That isn't it at all. That is an analysis of human behavior, which is different from my concern. You can argue that the conscience exists, and that societal norms exist, and that altruism exists, but morality as I am using the term is a completely different animal. Good and evil are not things that can be defined in a laboratory.