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And yet we both agree - and so would anyone reading this thread - that the holocaust was wrong and saving a baby from death is right. How do you explain that?
I don't think this is too difficult to explain. Evolution has made our minds quasi-morally utilitarian. We thus are able to arrive at a grasp of moral behavior because it is necessary for personal and evolutionary success. Evolution has imprinted us with the sub-conscious recognition that altruistic behaviors which increase the common good (satisfying desires of many) increases the probability that you yourself will benefit accordingly. Simultaneously, we are inherently competitive such that we are very happy to eliminate such altruistic tendencies to advance your own success, and therefore of the group. We are tribal by nature. Evolution is not merely a chance process, and therefore involves the employment of a logic. To say that no such logic exists and that what we do is mere reaction to emotions which have no particularly informative origin, is nonsensical, in my opinion.
The above can be directly compared with epistemology. Our brains are formulated such that we can understand the truth about what exists if we are talking about things observable in themselves. This is probably rooted in really simple determinations like the location of trees and food, but this has created the mental scaffolding for deep epistemic analysis such as our greatest tool, scientific method. Scientific method is a calculated attempt to take our capacity to constrain the truth about things which are not observed by using things which are. It is not a (biologically) evolved thing, it is a discovered thing. I think that moral analysis is very similar. We are able to evaluate numerous cases directly from our instinctive capacities, and even arrive at consensus on occasion, but I think that the nature of the logic is incomplete, the same way we can arrive at numerous truths about the nature of the universe purely by observation, but that our understanding of the universe remains incomplete without an epistemology which takes us further. There is a transcendental moral puzzle solving method which is beyond our instincts.
Specifically, our nature is tribal, which means that we are programmed to think about the group inasmuch as as a group is composed of minds that think exactly like yours. A more transcendent moral theory should be able to go deeper and ultimately arrive at the realization that the only morally discrete group is the person itself.
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(Btw, things can't be evil - actions can be)
I'm not sure I totally agree, but I would have to think about it more. That only actions are evil is was my meaning and is sufficient in any case.
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I don't have to demonstrate it, I know it. It's a messy human emotion not a computer algorithm or logic puzzle that can be solved using the power of thought alone.
So I can demonstrate it, but you can't?
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I must have missed your case. what was it?
Is it really so difficult to believe that the victims of the holocaust did not want to be systematically murdered?
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Genocide is always wrong - we all know that. But was the human sacrifice of the Aztecs wrong? Can't tell from here - all I can say is that it certainly feels wrong to me now.
My moral heuristic can deal with this. The question is whether or not the human sacrifice, if given full understanding about the consequences of the action, would wish to be sacrificed. If the answer is that he would not wish to be sacrificed, the answer is that it is a moral evil. Obviously if, in his mind, he did not want to be sacrificed, it is a moral evil, but you will notice I qualified the part about whether or not he would do so if given full understanding about the consequences. We might, for instance, consider that the sacrifice was under the influence of a drug and thus wanted to be sacrificed, but since he would not say such a thing if not under the influence, it would be a moral evil to sacrifice him.
One can go much further, but I think the nature of the moral logic is at least apparent.
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Of course we can say what we think about actions that are harmful to others no matter where we find them. That's the only test we have, but it doesn't fit neatly into some set of absolute rules that you appear to need it to.
It doesn't need to fit "neatly" (if i am understanding you correctly). It merely needs to fit by explaining both nominal moral behavior in addition to informing moral problems which are beyond instinct, requiring the use of reason. Such information might result in different emotional responses, but this is
after reason.
I think that my comments on the 'golden rule' illustrate this. While we may be able to instinctively put ourselves in others shoes, it is quite another matter to become that person, and experience the world as that person does.
Edited by TrueCreation, : No reason given.
Edited by TrueCreation, : No reason given.
Edited by TrueCreation, : No reason given.
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