absolute vs. relative morality
24 Apr 2008, 3:29 pm
I may have touched on something that cannot be accurately explained in a post of readable length. I'll give it some thought and see if I can explain my reasoning through an example, perhaps. I will say that:
1. The basic function of morality is to help people make decisions according to a defined interest or goal.
2. I think that each moral decision could be summarized as a mathematical equation that takes into account the probability of each possible consequence, the possible effects of each possible consequence, and the desirability of these possible effects. I think that any moral system could be conceptualized this way, whether it is based on personal self-interest or the interest of a community. In other words the "desirability" will be defined differently according to different moral systems, but they all function similarly.
So yes, even if you were omniscient and therefore understood all possible consequences of your actions, you would still be implementing moral reasoning because morality defines the desirability of the possible consequences. Without morality, all the possible consequences could be equal.
24 Apr 2008, 3:33 pm
1. The basic function of morality is to help people make decisions according to a defined interest or goal.
2. I think that each moral decision could be summarized as a mathematical equation that takes into account the probability of each possible consequence, the possible effects of each possible consequence, and the desirability of these possible effects. I think that any moral system could be conceptualized this way, whether it is based on personal self-interest or the interest of a community. In other words the "desirability" will be defined differently according to different moral systems, but they all function similarly.
So yes, even if you were omniscient and therefore understood all possible consequences of your actions, you would still be implementing moral reasoning because morality defines the desirability of the possible consequences. Without morality, all the possible consequences could be equal.
Ok, I think I can accept that reasoning, depending upon how broadly we define "interest or goal".
24 Apr 2008, 6:15 pm
EvilKimEvil,
Consider this example:
There are five patients in a hospital. Each patient has a different vital organ that is nonfunctional. If they each get an organ transplant they will all have a 100% chance of survival, yet without a transplant they have a zero percent chance of survival. There are no organs currently available at the hospital and there’s zero percent chance that any will become available in time to save their lives.
Now imagine a sixth person walks into the waiting room. This person immediately subdued and lethally injected, then his organs are removed and transplanted to the other five patients. All five survive.
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It’s obvious on an emotional level that this scenario was very wrong, but the reason why isn’t nearly as obvious. If people derived their morality through logic and reasoning, by going through and calculating the positive and negative implications of each of their actions, then this kind of scenario might seem morally plausible. I think there are reasons why it is immoral, but they aren’t nearly as obvious as the gut reaction.
I think our instinctual gut reaction to things is the catalyst that drives our moral decisions. People tend to ascribe logic and reasons to their morality after they have already made the critical moral judgment on a more basic gut level.
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I'm not saying that a moral system can't be derived from a mathematical formula. I just think that it would be nearly impossible to force people to follow such a formula over their own moral instinct.
I think this instinct is powerfully ingrained in most normal people due to evolution. However, there are cultural norms that have a tendency to override basic moral instincts. Tribes can be culturally conditioned to kill an opposing tribe member’s in warfare even though they would not be inclined to kill their own tribesmen. “Honor” killings in the Middle East would be another example of a case were basic moral instinct is overridden by culture in a negative way.
I think it’s possible that these cultural evils were functional to a tribal society in the past. A strong deterrent against certain acts might have been helpful for the tribe’s survival when there was intense competition for resources. Yet in this day and age these things are considered barbaric. It’s just that cultural morality can take a long time to adjust to changing conditions.
Sorry for such a long rambling post. I just had a bunch of ideas I wanted to share here.
amaren
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24 Apr 2008, 10:02 pm
I think that in order to answer this question in a satisfactory way to everyone, we would need to figure out first:
Whether we think that there is only the usual, mechanistic kind of cause and effect, or whether we think there is another kind of causing done by a person's 'inner self' or soul etc. This is a question which might be answered for us by the neuro-scientists - if they found chemical reasons for every decision, personality trait, moment of consciousness etc, then we should probably not think that there is an extra, invisible cause too. If however neuro-science becomes extremely advanced, and understands most of the brain, but gets stuck on this one little point, we might be justified in believing that we are the cause of our action in some important (and spooky) sense. Clearly, we don't know what will happen, but I think we can make a good guess, based on how many times humans have given something an important, mystical explanation, only to have science come along and show that it's quite normally explicable.
If it turns out there is no space for a person's inner self to cause, the second question to answer is:
Would a system count as "morality" if it were merely a description of the mechanical, chemical process which happens partly in our brains. I think the answer here is clearly no - we only talk about people and morality because we think they are NOT mechanical systems.
I think the question of absolute vs relative only arises if we find that we cause our own actions as more than just a part of a normal causal chain. Since I think we won't find this, my answer is that I believe neither, and I think everyone else should too, unless they've done a lot more neuro-science than me.
On a separate point, Marshall wrote:
I have heard that some of those with an Autism Spectrum Disorder lack empathy and have trouble with theory of mind - do you think these qualities are part of this instinct?
25 Apr 2008, 7:41 am
Consider this example:
There are five patients in a hospital. Each patient has a different vital organ that is nonfunctional. If they each get an organ transplant they will all have a 100% chance of survival, yet without a transplant they have a zero percent chance of survival. There are no organs currently available at the hospital and there’s zero percent chance that any will become available in time to save their lives.
Now imagine a sixth person walks into the waiting room. This person immediately subdued and lethally injected, then his organs are removed and transplanted to the other five patients. All five survive.
---------------------------------------
It’s obvious on an emotional level that this scenario was very wrong, but the reason why isn’t nearly as obvious. If people derived their morality through logic and reasoning, by going through and calculating the positive and negative implications of each of their actions, then this kind of scenario might seem morally plausible. I think there are reasons why it is immoral, but they aren’t nearly as obvious as the gut reaction.
I think our instinctual gut reaction to things is the catalyst that drives our moral decisions. People tend to ascribe logic and reasons to their morality after they have already made the critical moral judgment on a more basic gut level.
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I'm not saying that a moral system can't be derived from a mathematical formula. I just think that it would be nearly impossible to force people to follow such a formula over their own moral instinct.
I think this instinct is powerfully ingrained in most normal people due to evolution. However, there are cultural norms that have a tendency to override basic moral instincts. Tribes can be culturally conditioned to kill an opposing tribe member’s in warfare even though they would not be inclined to kill their own tribesmen. “Honor” killings in the Middle East would be another example of a case were basic moral instinct is overridden by culture in a negative way.
I think it’s possible that these cultural evils were functional to a tribal society in the past. A strong deterrent against certain acts might have been helpful for the tribe’s survival when there was intense competition for resources. Yet in this day and age these things are considered barbaric. It’s just that cultural morality can take a long time to adjust to changing conditions.
Sorry for such a long rambling post. I just had a bunch of ideas I wanted to share here.
There is a fairly recent book on the psychology of ethics called Moral Minds that talks about this. Apparently an element of our moral instincts is a distinction between direct and indirect harm. The famous example is the various trolley/train dilemmas. Most people think it is OK to re-route a train so that it only hits 1 person instead of 5, but it's not OK to save 5 people by pushing someone onto the tracks.
25 Apr 2008, 8:48 pm
Thanks. I’ll have to look at that.
I personally like my organ transplant example. It definitely goes against my moral instinct to sacrifice a random healthy bystander in a hospital in order to save five dying people in need of organ transplants. People tend to take the trolley problem too literally and come up with other reasons not to push the person onto the tracks (a single person might not stop the trolley, or worse it could cause a derail, killing even more people). You have to work with the assumption that the outcome is certain.
I definitely think that there are both instinctual and cultural aspects to morality and that cultural morality can act as an override to instinctual morality. This idea intrigues me. Does that book mention this? It would be interesting to see if there was actual evidence to support that idea.
25 Apr 2008, 10:13 pm
Perhaps so, but I would agree that deconstructing everything down to that degree is overanalysis. It is sort of like reducing away your subjective sensation of phenomena, you can do it, but it seems absurd.
I agree, because I have done it. It's not fun and it brings you to the brink of insanity. It's better to just "be yourself" and read about past wisdoms from philosophy books on morality.
Plenty from the 16th/17th centuries and onward.
_________________
Uninvention Convention
26 Apr 2008, 11:11 am
Thanks. I’ll have to look at that.
I personally like my organ transplant example. It definitely goes against my moral instinct to sacrifice a random healthy bystander in a hospital in order to save five dying people in need of organ transplants. People tend to take the trolley problem too literally and come up with other reasons not to push the person onto the tracks (a single person might not stop the trolley, or worse it could cause a derail, killing even more people). You have to work with the assumption that the outcome is certain.
I definitely think that there are both instinctual and cultural aspects to morality and that cultural morality can act as an override to instinctual morality. This idea intrigues me. Does that book mention this? It would be interesting to see if there was actual evidence to support that idea.
The book says that the moral codes of most cultures are rationalizations of moral insticts.
26 Apr 2008, 3:40 pm
One must remember that ethics is not to decide who to kill in emergencies, but how to live.
But you miss the point. Those dilemmas might not be things we encounter in real life, but they do have broader implications on the nature of morality. I think they prove that certain aspects of morality are instinctual and the rationalizations we come up with are mere side effects of these instincts.
Another implication is that relying on rationalizations over our instinctual sense of right and wrong can be dangerous. The Nazi ideology was full of rationalizations for evil and millions of people bought into it.
26 Apr 2008, 10:07 pm
One must remember that ethics is not to decide who to kill in emergencies, but how to live.
But you miss the point. Those dilemmas might not be things we encounter in real life, but they do have broader implications on the nature of morality. I think they prove that certain aspects of morality are instinctual and the rationalizations we come up with are mere side effects of these instincts.
Another implication is that relying on rationalizations over our instinctual sense of right and wrong can be dangerous. The Nazi ideology was full of rationalizations for evil and millions of people bought into it.
Completely and utterly false... one even wonders if you know what morality is!
The ethics of emergencies is to survive them with one's life in tact. What one DOES in an emergency is to survive, and should such emergencies involve the lives of loved ones, perhaps risk to life and limb to save that which one would not wish the endure without. I.e. a spouse, a child etc... Of course, that depends on your heirachy of values.
The proper province of ethics is to help a person identify why they need values. And further what the core values properly are. And further, how one might go to achieve those values. That is, ethics should help a person to live... not to avoid death.
Of course the results of those "scenario's" have implications. From what I have read it would lead me to believe that should a runaway train come hurtling towards me and I am not aware of it's existence... that I should not rely on the fact that luck will out every time and some good Samaritan (who will sacrifice some others life for mine) will divert it and inexplicably save my life. What I would be more concerned with is how many people stand on railway lines and are not paying attention to the possibility of oncoming trains... and further that in a split second one who is probably not familiar with the intricate workings of railway switching devices (which are mostly electronic these days anyways) would be able to identify said switch ascertain what needs to be done and operate said switch so that events transpire as in the scenarios....
Beyond that I can see no other implications about how one might derive a judgment such as "I should pursue a tertiary education so that I might gain the career that interests me so that I might further my life." Or: "I should substitute more water into my diet instead of sugary soda's because I have discovered that that would improve my health and reduce my dentist bills." etc... The identification as "purpose" and "life" as values leads to the identification as "productiveness" and "healthy eating" as virtues which leads to those two judgments.
AND THAT is the purpose of morality.
27 Apr 2008, 1:07 am
One must remember that ethics is not to decide who to kill in emergencies, but how to live.
But you miss the point. Those dilemmas might not be things we encounter in real life, but they do have broader implications on the nature of morality. I think they prove that certain aspects of morality are instinctual and the rationalizations we come up with are mere side effects of these instincts.
Another implication is that relying on rationalizations over our instinctual sense of right and wrong can be dangerous. The Nazi ideology was full of rationalizations for evil and millions of people bought into it.
Completely and utterly false... one even wonders if you know what morality is!
The ethics of emergencies is to survive them with one's life in tact. What one DOES in an emergency is to survive, and should such emergencies involve the lives of loved ones, perhaps risk to life and limb to save that which one would not wish the endure without. I.e. a spouse, a child etc... Of course, that depends on your heirachy of values.
The proper province of ethics is to help a person identify why they need values. And further what the core values properly are. And further, how one might go to achieve those values. That is, ethics should help a person to live... not to avoid death.
Of course the results of those "scenario's" have implications. From what I have read it would lead me to believe that should a runaway train come hurtling towards me and I am not aware of it's existence... that I should not rely on the fact that luck will out every time and some good Samaritan (who will sacrifice some others life for mine) will divert it and inexplicably save my life. What I would be more concerned with is how many people stand on railway lines and are not paying attention to the possibility of oncoming trains... and further that in a split second one who is probably not familiar with the intricate workings of railway switching devices (which are mostly electronic these days anyways) would be able to identify said switch ascertain what needs to be done and operate said switch so that events transpire as in the scenarios....
Beyond that I can see no other implications about how one might derive a judgment such as "I should pursue a tertiary education so that I might gain the career that interests me so that I might further my life." Or: "I should substitute more water into my diet instead of sugary soda's because I have discovered that that would improve my health and reduce my dentist bills." etc... The identification as "purpose" and "life" as values leads to the identification as "productiveness" and "healthy eating" as virtues which leads to those two judgments.
AND THAT is the purpose of morality.
Well I think you’re talking about applied ethics while I’m talking about where our sense of “right and wrong” comes from in the first place.
You also haven’t clarified what statement of mine you are contesting.
27 Apr 2008, 6:06 am
One must remember that ethics is not to decide who to kill in emergencies, but how to live.
But you miss the point. Those dilemmas might not be things we encounter in real life, but they do have broader implications on the nature of morality. I think they prove that certain aspects of morality are instinctual and the rationalizations we come up with are mere side effects of these instincts.
Another implication is that relying on rationalizations over our instinctual sense of right and wrong can be dangerous. The Nazi ideology was full of rationalizations for evil and millions of people bought into it.
Completely and utterly false... one even wonders if you know what morality is!
The ethics of emergencies is to survive them with one's life in tact. What one DOES in an emergency is to survive, and should such emergencies involve the lives of loved ones, perhaps risk to life and limb to save that which one would not wish the endure without. I.e. a spouse, a child etc... Of course, that depends on your heirachy of values.
The proper province of ethics is to help a person identify why they need values. And further what the core values properly are. And further, how one might go to achieve those values. That is, ethics should help a person to live... not to avoid death.
Of course the results of those "scenario's" have implications. From what I have read it would lead me to believe that should a runaway train come hurtling towards me and I am not aware of it's existence... that I should not rely on the fact that luck will out every time and some good Samaritan (who will sacrifice some others life for mine) will divert it and inexplicably save my life. What I would be more concerned with is how many people stand on railway lines and are not paying attention to the possibility of oncoming trains... and further that in a split second one who is probably not familiar with the intricate workings of railway switching devices (which are mostly electronic these days anyways) would be able to identify said switch ascertain what needs to be done and operate said switch so that events transpire as in the scenarios....
Beyond that I can see no other implications about how one might derive a judgment such as "I should pursue a tertiary education so that I might gain the career that interests me so that I might further my life." Or: "I should substitute more water into my diet instead of sugary soda's because I have discovered that that would improve my health and reduce my dentist bills." etc... The identification as "purpose" and "life" as values leads to the identification as "productiveness" and "healthy eating" as virtues which leads to those two judgments.
AND THAT is the purpose of morality.
Well I think you’re talking about applied ethics while I’m talking about where our sense of “right and wrong” comes from in the first place.
You also haven’t clarified what statement of mine you are contesting.
You're second "point" was a derivative of the first, and is thus answered by my post. Namely the response to the rise of Nazism can NOT be studied by inferring anything from scenarios about killing different people in certain emergency situations. Which was covered in the paragraph which starts: "Of course the results of those...." and the paragraph which starts "Beyond that I can so no other implications..."
In summary, I was contesting both of them in the one topic, as one point derives from the other... so I contested both by contesting the first point.
As for your first sentence: One can not separate ethics away from human beings. Because they are the only things that ethics deals with. I.e. proper human action.
27 Apr 2008, 4:47 pm
In summary, I was contesting both of them in the one topic, as one point derives from the other... so I contested both by contesting the first point.
As for your first sentence: One can not separate ethics away from human beings. Because they are the only things that ethics deals with. I.e. proper human action.
I wasn’t trying to convey some kind of “moral lesson” from the train example. I think your taking it way too literally. It isn’t supposed to be realistic. I know it doesn’t teach people how they should act in an emergency situation. I never said anything about how people should act, only how they tend to view things. So you don’t need to harp on me about that.
The purpose I see in the train example is that it demonstrates some basic facts about human moral behavior. Namely that we value direct action greater than indirect action and that this is instinctual rather than logical.
So you do you agree or disagree that morality is (at least partially) instinctual? That's all I was trying to demonstrate with my example.
Now on my other point…
I think Nazism is an example where a culture that rationalized immoral behaviors that people wouldn’t participate in on instinct. I don’t think people instinctually hate other races to the point where exterminating them seems moral. It required a rationalization to make people act that way.
Do you disagree with this?
