Brian Iverson

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
Hume and Kant

I’m with Hume: morality is an evolved psychological matter.  I think Kant went wrong by trying to insist it’s rational and moreover, absolute.

As an evolved psychological matter, we can investigate it from an evolutionary standpoint.  I think that modern morality rests on four or five evolved p…[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:
I’m not saying that the study proves universal principles, but it has found some good candidates.

It also comes down to the question, how many people have to agree with a principle to make it a principle?  Anti-social people believe they can take what they want from others.  Does that make anti-social behaviour an ethical pri…

[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:
Unseen wrote: Any further “studies” would be superfluous and gratuitous. It’s been established factually that different societies have different moral codes. I’m not the one making an extraordinary claim here. “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”

That’s a simplistic cop-out.

Who is promoting simplistic id…[Read more]

It also comes down to the question, how many people have to agree with a principle to make it a principle? Anti-social people believe they can take what they want from others. Does that make anti-social behaviour an ethical principle?

What a moral principle is depends entirely on the moral system. Deontological systems generate entirely different…[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:
Unseen wrote: Any further “studies” would be superfluous and gratuitous. It’s been established factually that different societies have different moral codes. I’m not the one making an extraordinary claim here. “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” That’s a simplistic cop-out. there absolutely must be some…

[Read more]

Hume and Kant both believe that philosophy should dig beneath the surface of morality and present a theory of its foundation. When it comes to morality’s foundation, they seem to agree on two things. First, morality’s foundation cannot be located in religion. Second, it cannot be found in mind-independent facts about the world. Yet they dis…[Read more]

Davis wrote:
That would just be anthropological documentation of human behaviour.

I.e., human morality.  I’m not saying that the study proves universal principles, but it has found some good candidates.

It also comes down to the question, how many people have to agree with a principle to make it a principle?  Anti-social people believe they c…[Read more]

When people say “objective morality exists”, what they usually mean is “my morals are objectively true”.  So, they are confounding what is psychologically true for them, with objective truth.  I think that at heart is the problem they face.

I agree with *everyone* that “moral truth” is always going to be unproveable either way.

As for u…[Read more]

I think Simon you are using the correspondence theory of truth. In a basic way it means what you believe is true can be proven by finding out the corresponding empirical fact in the world.

For example if you think that the Pyramids are in Egypt. Then if you go there and see them then what you believe corresponds to truth.

However there are…[Read more]

Davis wrote:
Not finding a single human society that agreed or disagreed with any moral law doesn’t prove (or falsify) it as a moral truth. A moral truth cannot be verified or falsified like a scientific law.

Yes, even though I agree with you, I will still put the other side:  would not a universal principle be a good candidate for a moral fa…[Read more]

Davis wrote:
Not finding a single human society that agreed or disagreed with any moral law doesn’t prove (or falsify) it as a moral truth. A moral truth cannot be verified or falsified like a scientific law.

Use your eyes to read the words I have written, about 20 times:

For the 19th time, I agree with you. I’m just putting a point of view tha…

[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
Any further “studies” would be superfluous and gratuitous. It’s been established factually that different societies have different moral codes. I’m not the one making an extraordinary claim here. “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”

That’s a simplistic cop-out.

there absolutely must be some factual, eternal, ob…

[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:

Unseen wrote:
No. To assert as much is the logical fallacy called “composition.”

How can you assert, therefore, that there are no universal morals? How would you design a study to show that there are or are not? I would do it the same way the people in the study did, using a representative sample of the world’s socie…

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I would do it the same way the people in the study did, using a representative sample of the world’s societies.

That wouldn’t PROVE anything. That would just be anthropological documentation of human behaviour. Not finding a single human society that agreed or disagreed with any moral law doesn’t prove (or falsify) it as a moral truth. A moral t…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
No. To assert as much is the logical fallacy called “composition.”

How can you assert, therefore, that there are no universal morals?  How would you design a study to show that there are or are not?  I would do it the same way the people in the study did, using a representative sample of the world’s societies.  I would have a longer…[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:
So, if the cultures are representative of the whole world, are these universal morals?

a) That’s a pretty big “if.”

b) No. To assert as much is the logical fallacy called “composition.”

I think Davis has suggest you background yourself a bit in moral philosophy. I agree. Arguing with you about this is basically like…[Read more]

I agree with you about “moral facts” such as “murder is wrong”: I think they don’t exist, too.

They are, if true, simply factual observations about the particular cultures they studied.

So, if the cultures are representative of the whole world, are these universal morals?

Simon Paynton wrote:

Unseen wrote:
If “moral facts” exist, then they are facts about morality, not facts of morality.

I think there are a number of possible categories of “moral facts”.

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1. fa…

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Davis wrote:
That is not what ethics and metha ethics are “supposed” to be about.

Ethics is about something: what is it about?  Morality?  If so, then it makes sense to study morality itself.

Unseen wrote:
If “moral facts” exist, then they are facts about morality, not facts of morality.

I think there are a number of possible categories of “moral facts”.

1. facts about morality;
2. the idea “murder is wrong” is said by some people to be a fact;
3. the fact, “if I murder someone then I am breaking the norm that says murder is wro…

[Read more]