Where do you get your morals and ethics?

[Res Ipsa]

later adding, I may be fishing for discussion but there may not be much substantial disagreement here.

i think you're right.

[Physics Guy]

I'm not sure grounding is the right question to ask, but then I'm also not sure I understand what grounding is, as a question.

I really think that morality is just as objective an issue as physical questions like boiling or freezing. Those are somewhat tricky questions, too. They're not a matter of any one atom. Understanding phase transitions like freezing and boiling is on the one hand not anything separate from or other than understanding how lots of atoms behave. On the other hand it's an aspect of atomic behaviour that doesn't even make sense until you have quite a lot of atoms. Back on the first hand, though, to understand what solidity and gaseousness are in atomic terms is to understand how a few atoms here or there do not matter. Solidity and gaseousness are objectively real properties of large numbers of atoms even though they do not even make sense as properties of small numbers of atoms.

Is the fluid dynamics of liquid water grounded in the electrical properties of the H2O molecule? Yes, but not in any way that you can understand without considering huge numbers of molecules jostling together. The features of the H20 molecule that are important for fluid behaviour are all about how things scale up when there are lots of molecules jostling together. In the end I think it makes just as much sense to say that we understand the H20 molecule in light of how liquid water behaves as to say that we understand liquid water in terms of H2O molecules.

I don't know much about the philosophy of grounding ethics, but I'm suspicious that people may be kicking around concepts of explanation for the difference between right and wrong that wouldn't even be able to explain the difference between solid and liquid.

[Gadianton]

"Grounding" isn't an official vocabulary word in ethics jargon, to my knowledge, but it does get at expectations people have for moral imperatives, that something has to give an imperative binding authority or make it real, or something. Or something; that's the problem, it's easy to think you know what you mean when talking about morality while really having no clue at all. It's far easier to be moral than it is to say what morality is -- to coherently articulate what morality is, even from your own point of view.

Rather that asking where we get our morals, or how we ground our morals, the first question should be, what does it mean to be moral? What does it mean to be good or bad?

In Divine Command Theory, "killing is wrong" means "God said killing is wrong". In utilitarianism, "killing is wrong" means "the act of killing produces more misery than happiness", in Kantian ethics "killing is wrong" means "universalizing the idea of killing leads to a contradiction". In Aristotelian ethics, there aren't imperatives like "Killing is wrong", as ethics regards personal virtues not imperatives. And then what does it mean in Confucianism or Buddhism?

That's why the Euthyphro dilemma is a great place to start, because it shows how easy it is to be confused about what you might mean. "Is the pious being loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is being loved by the gods." In our terms it would be, is an act moral because God said so, or does God say the act is moral because it is moral.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Where do you get your morals and ethics?

Particularly the grounding, down at the very bottom.

It's internally derived from external sources influencing my development and genetics.

- Doc

[Res Ipsa]

"Grounding" isn't an official vocabulary word in ethics jargon, to my knowledge, but it does get at expectations people have for moral imperatives, that something has to give an imperative binding authority or make it real, or something. Or something; that's the problem, it's easy to think you know what you mean when talking about morality while really having no clue at all. It's far easier to be moral than it is to say what morality is -- to coherently articulate what morality is, even from your own point of view.

Rather that asking where we get our morals, or how we ground our morals, the first question should be, what does it mean to be moral? What does it mean to be good or bad?

In Divine Command Theory, "killing is wrong" means "God said killing is wrong". In utilitarianism, "killing is wrong" means "the act of killing produces more misery than happiness", in Kantian ethics "killing is wrong" means "universalizing the idea of killing leads to a contradiction". In Aristotelian ethics, there aren't imperatives like "Killing is wrong", as ethics regards personal virtues not imperatives. And then what does it mean in Confucianism or Buddhism?

That's why the Euthyphro dilemma is a great place to start, because it shows how easy it is to be confused about what you might mean. "Is the pious being loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is being loved by the gods." In our terms it would be, is an act moral because God said so, or does God say the act is moral because it is moral.

Thanks, Dean Robbers. Without asking your questions first, we're like the blind men and the elephant.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

If something is good, wouldn't it be evident that the gods love it precisely because it's good? Goodness is typically associated, is it not, with usefulness?

For example, let's ask the question, "What's "good" to man?"

Well. Symmetry is often good. Symmetry mostly equates to healthiness. Healthy fruit. Healthy babies. 'Healthy' stable structures. Smokin' hot men and women -> If symmetry results in the ability to successfully propagate one's self, then is that not good?

Why wouldn't the gods love symmetry? Why wouldn't gods love symmetrical fruit, babies, structures, and smokeshow women?

- Doc

[Res Ipsa]

If something is good, wouldn't it be evident that the gods love it precisely because it's good? Goodness is typically associated, is it not, with usefulness?

For example, let's ask the question, "What's "good" to man?"

Well. Symmetry is often good. Symmetry mostly equates to healthiness. Healthy fruit. Healthy babies. 'Healthy' stable structures. Smokin' hot men and women -> If symmetry results in the ability to successfully propagate one's self, then is that not good?

Why wouldn't the gods love symmetry? Why wouldn't gods love symmetrical fruit, babies, structures, and smokeshow women?

- Doc

Well, that illustrates the dilemma. Do the Gods love symmetry because it's good or is symmetry good because the Gods love it? Heck if I know.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

If something is good, wouldn't it be evident that the gods love it precisely because it's good? Goodness is typically associated, is it not, with usefulness?

For example, let's ask the question, "What's "good" to man?"

Well. Symmetry is often good. Symmetry mostly equates to healthiness. Healthy fruit. Healthy babies. 'Healthy' stable structures. Smokin' hot men and women -> If symmetry results in the ability to successfully propagate one's self, then is that not good?

Why wouldn't the gods love symmetry? Why wouldn't gods love symmetrical fruit, babies, structures, and smokeshow women?

- Doc

Well, that illustrates the dilemma. Do the Gods love symmetry because it's good or is symmetry good because the Gods love it? Heck if I know.

Hrm… do gods detest ugly babies?

- Doc

[Gadianton]

If symmetry is good because of the advantages it gives, then God's approval of symmetry adds nothing; it's good independent of God. If symmetry is good because God said so, irrespective of it's advantages, then goodness is arbitrary.

[bill4long]

You're asking two questions.
Where do we "get" morals?
How do we "ground" morals?
(etc)

Fair enough. Good catch.