Simon Paynton

B doesn’t look like the best possible outcome to me, unless you mean the least worst.

Davis wrote:
The most common moral systems all deal with this quite differently and how they deal with it is telling of the general principles of that moral system and is extremely interesting.

Evolutionary ethics places truth-telling within a cooperative…[Read more]

Davis wrote:
F) One or more of the above

None of those possibilities is “to make the best possible outcome”; i.e., “I do something I feel to be wrong in order to make the best possible outcome”.  That’s my point: that right intentions and right actions bring about the optimum outcome, because intentions and actions are putting the conditions in…[Read more]

But do we break our moral rules for the sake of ultimately doing good, or to be selfish?

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
our sense of right and wrong is interwoven with our personality.

This is a very interesting article, which ties in personality traits with moral traits.  I think I score highly on agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience.  Maybe everyone thinks that about themselves.  Maybe it’s why I’m a po…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
John Rawls

As I understand it, Rawls’ formulation of fairness was a distribution that all concerned could be happy with.

For happiness I prefer the definition “a state of satisfaction with one’s life”.

Pleasure is at the heart of my theories about evolutionary ethics.  The hypothesis is that fitness benefits are rewarded with pleasure, and the loss or lack of them produces pain.  Now, humans can achieve their fitness cooperatively: in concert with others.  It is do…[Read more]

Eudaimonia and hedonia:

it’s an interesting question, what constitutes human flourishing.  It has to be long term in my opinion, although short term pleasure is necessary for long term flourishing.  Probably, repeated short term pleasure, and the prospect of more.

Here’s an article which highlights how short term pleasure is felt by the body a…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
Can you have compassion for “law breakers” without some degree of judgement?

Prisoners have human rights – if not autonomy and liberty, then at least, fairness as respect: the maximum benefit and minimum harm available to them.  The practice may fall woefully short, but prisoners are in theory entitled to medi…[Read more]

Davis wrote:
and it is hard to imagine how they can considering we have evolved to be viciously violent, rapey, racist, controlling, indifferent and frequently very cruel on a mass scale

On an individual level, evolutionary ethics has answers for the questions of why these exist.

Autumn wrote:
Fairness is also difficult to define in abstraction. The very concept of it isn’t that difficult to define, but what it actually means or what its particular value is is easier to define.

I would define it as a distribution of benefit and harm on some kind of equal basis.  This can be material or social benefit and harm.  There are…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
I suppose if it stops your “ordinary people” from committing crimes because they have no developed sense of morality, then it is better than nothing.

I think the full range of moral repertoire is there for religious people to use, depending on their personality.  Some people favour punishment and judgment; some peop…[Read more]

jakelafort wrote:
promotes good behavior? Punishes bad?

I think this is true, but the question then becomes, what is good and bad behaviour?  In some societies, it seems that compassion and human rights are not the most important values.

According to John Teehan, in “Religion and Morality: The Evolution of the Cognitive Nexus”, religion arose…[Read more]

jakelafort wrote:
Isn’t that eu word similar to another term used in philosophy that relates to happiness?

Yes, eudaimonia, it means “long term pleasure” or “happiness” or something similar.  As opposed to hedemonia, which means fleeting pleasure.

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
would you say that his ideas on eudaimonism – in that a moral action has its value measured by its capacity to produce happiness, was a stinker?

I don’t know much about Nietzsche, but if he said that, that’s a good thing to say.

Autumn wrote:
Humans rationalize fairness where it doesn’t exist quite readily. While we tend to value the idea of fairness, we often do very little to ensure it exists in practice.

Then we’re rationalising something, making it seem OK, when we can’t do much about it.

What happens more likely is that someone sells us an idea of fairness which d…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
Which moral system is the worst in your opinion? Can we assume that Divine Command Theory (or Divine Comedy Theory as I have sometimes called it), is not worth the discussion time here.

Actually, in theory, the religious moral system works well in its own way.  It promotes good behaviour and punishes bad…[Read more]

@davis, I respect anyone who knows how to turn out good ideas.

Davis wrote:
pick up some books and read them

My bibliography runs to 15 pages.

Autumn wrote:
I don’t understand what you mean by ‘work’.

They’re theories about the world that are wrong.  A theory should be able to describe the world accurately and be used to make further predictions and generate more knowledge.  None of these is possible with a wrong theory.

Autumn wrote:
I am not sure what you expect them to do, or what…

[Read more]

Davis wrote:
which school of evolutionary ethics? It is not remotely an established field. If there are so many unresolved issues…how could it be a system people could rely on for everyday life?

It’s not very well established as an ethical theory, in the sense that it’s me who’s extended it to become a meta-ethical theory, and I’m trying to get i…[Read more]

Autumn wrote:
I don’t understand the value of needing a comprehensive moral system for ordinary people to live by. I take it ‘ordinary people’ means people who are not moral philosophers.

That’s a good point.  What needs to be taught, is how to do what people do anyway, well.  In studying evolutionary ethics, I’ve learned all kinds of things…[Read more]