and other times, MD&D creeps me out...

[_EAllusion]

I guess I can concur with Stak in that I don't think moral statements carry with them some innate oughtness. Moral truths don't supply the motivation to follow them by their mere existence. If I did think think this, I would be an error theorist, becuase I don't think that exists. So I don't think anything "legislates" morality. Rather, I think moral statements say something like, "If you were to be moral you would do X." I just happen to think the vast majority of people care about themselves and others acting morally in the vast majority of cases. Hence, moral discourse.

[_Ceeboo]

I LOVE to read threads where Stak and EAllusion are both actively posting.

Here are the games I play:

The 50% game:
Try and figure out at least half of what either of them are saying.

The word game:
See if you can find 5 words (in any single post) where you know the meaning of those 5 words without using any resources.

The Aspirin test:
See if you can read 6 entire posts (3 from each of them) without taking any Aspirin

The concurrence game (My favorite)
After reading at least 2 pages of a Stak/EAllusion flavored thread, see if you even know whether you concur with either one of them.


Peace,
Ceeboo

[_Fifth Columnist]

Eugenics is artificial breeding to select for traits. It takes two forms: Voluntary eugenics is where people decide who to mate with based on traits they want in their offspring or when people use genetic engineering to the same end. Involuntary eugenics is when people are forbidden from mating to remove undesirable traits from the population or people are forced to mate to encourage desirable ones.

Can this be considered a widely practiced form of involuntary eugenics? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_syndr ... tion_rates

[_EAllusion]

I don't think so Fifth. People don't abort fetuses with Down Syndrome because they are trying to shape the makeup of future generations. (On an aside, men with down syndrome are almost always infertile and women have drastically reduced fertility.) They are attempting to avoid the challenges that come with Down Syndrome either for themselves or the potential person. I suppose it falls within a greater sphere of stuff that sometimes gets called eugenic, but the term properly refers to population shaping.

[_mfbukowski]

can you refresh my memory EA, did you like and use Mackie's error theory?

Yes and no. I don't adopt error theory, but I think Mackie puts on a case good enough to be worth addressing. I also use it when attempting to give people a sophisticated understanding of nihilism. People also forget the second half of Inventing Right and Wrong when discussing Mackie, and I've been known to bring that up.

I think Richard Joyce has some insights relevant to the evolution of morality against Mackie - I tend to agree with Joyce at least on his ideas on morality and evolution but of course we come to different conclusions.

I still think Dewey was right on the money in most of these issues.

What do you think of Joyce? Where does he go wrong or doesn't he?

[_mfbukowski]

True. I don’t think that people create morality, and that things that truly are moral can be considered immoral by all agents, and that consensus of agents will never actually affect that moral fact in question

How are "things" truly moral? Are you talking about judgements, propositions, statements or objects?

And these "things" can be considered either moral or immoral? So they are relative?

What then is a "moral fact"?

Nothing. I believe that moral facts (e.g. It is morally wrong to torture babies for pleasure) are abstract entities that exist necessarily, much like mathematical entities, like Cantor’s heaven.

But didn't you just say that "moral facts" are relative? How can they exist necessarily if they are relative and contingent?

While my ideas are most definitely Platonic, I do not believe in a Platonic heaven, where there is a perfect form of justice that we all mimic, just that justice is a abstract property, like green or round, that is used by cognitive agents to form judgments about a state of affairs.

So if these moral "things" can be considered immoral by all agents, can these abstract things like "green and round" also be considered as "non-green and non-round"?

I’m going to stop here, to prevent a total wall of text post. This explanation is far from complete, but I find it far more fruitful to explain and defend my ideas when it is question driven.

Yes, I think stopping there was a good idea.

Edit: To clarify, do you really believe that moral propositions involve abstract entities which are in some sense objective? If they are objective, why do we get them wrong so often?

[_Darth J]

If the morality of a behavior should be evaluated in terms of its contributing to the survival of the species in an organized society, then why not practice eugenics?

Not a single society which has practiced eugenics has survived,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of ... ngle_cause

The fallacy of the single cause, also known as causal oversimplification, is a fallacy of questionable cause that occurs when it is assumed that there is a single, simple cause of an outcome when in reality it may have been caused by a number of only jointly sufficient causes.

In case I am not being blunt enough, you have provided no reason to infer that any society has ever collapsed because it practiced eugenics.

unless it gave it up, as did the US.

How long does a society have to survive before we can determine whether giving up eugenics is what allowed it to continue surviving?

Laying aside the fallacy noted above, I mean.

I thought I made that point quite a while ago with the comments about Nazi Germany.

Perhaps it is the ethereal nature of your terminology, in which you can't quite decide if "society" means a nationality or a specific governmental regime in that nationality.

It is universally condemned and is not in harmony with the golden rule.

Sometimes an appeal to numbers can be valid when talking about value judgments. Here, though, it isn't, because you have decided to frame the issue in terms of whether a behavior objectively has survival value. Eugenics unquestionably has survival value.

Whether something is in harmony with the Golden Rule is irrelevant to whether it has survival value. You are admitting that there are considerations beyond mere survival value to moral judgments, undermining your own premise.

It would be regarded by the author of the Didache as part of the "Way of Death" as is incidentally the meme of "tit for tat" (which Beastie brought up)

I am certainly impressed that a practice that indisputably has survival value (but that you reject on other moral grounds, which is inconsistent with your argument) would come under the rubric of "the way of death."

And at some point, calling every aspect of human behavior a "meme" starts to dilute the term to where it does not really have any explanatory or illuminating power.

Reproductive rights are pretty much universally recognized as part of a civilized society which believes in human rights

But that is not relevant to survival value. In fact, it is inconsistent with survival value. This suggests that morality in society is often guided by concerns other than survival value. You are refuting your own thesis.

Does anyone here think that eugenics is moral?

If we took your thesis to its logical conclusion, we would.

My point is that morality has "survival value"; eugenics is not considered "moral" and therefore it does not have "survival value"

No. If things are moral because they have survival value, you don't get to say that something does not have survival value because it is not moral. That is circular reasoning.

because societies which practice it have wars waged against them,

This is an appeal to force. It is also a continuation of your single cause fallacy.

and they cease to exist as a society,

1. Appeal to force
2. Single cause fallacy
3. Fallacy of equivocation (the Third Reich no longer exists, but the nation of Germany does)

or as practiced in the US, there is such outrage against the practice that it stops.

An outrage that would be predicated on something other than survival value, since eugenics in pets, livestock, and agriculture continues.

Pretty simple stuff.

The word you are looking for is "simplistic."

[_MrStakhanovite]

How are "things" truly moral? Are you talking about judgements, propositions, statements or objects?

Propositions, judgments, state of affairs.

And these "things" can be considered either moral or immoral? So they are relative?

Nope, their status as moral or immoral never changes, but human perception of them will.

What then is a "moral fact"?

I understand a fact as something that corresponds with reality.

Here is a true moral proposition, “It is always wrong to torture human toddlers for the sole purpose of pleasure.”

Here is a fact, “Darth J is torturing human toddlers for the thrill of it.”

Here is a moral fact, “ Darth J is morally wrong for torturing human toddlers for the thrill of it.”

So if these moral "things" can be considered immoral by all agents, can these abstract things like "green and round" also be considered as "non-green and non-round"??

Instances of properties, like just, red, and square can be misperceived and can be understood as non-red, non-just, and non-square.

To clarify, do you really believe that moral propositions involve abstract entities which are in some sense objective?

Yes.

If they are objective, why do we get them wrong so often?

We are limited by our faulty cognition.

[_mfbukowski]

If this is what you really think, I have nothing to say.

It would be a waste of time.

[_mfbukowski]

To all:

I suggest all here read some Richard Joyce and then we will have something to talk about. He doesn't represent my opinions, but I think you will find the conclusions he reaches highly relevant to this discussion.

I will be glad to discuss precisely where I think he goes wrong if anyone seems to actually understand his position.