At this point in my life, I would consider myself a moral nihilist, meaning that I don’t believe there are any objective rights or wrongs. I am religiously agnostic and a physicalist, and so I see no reason why morals would be something that actually exists.
Obviously, most people and I have intuition on morals, but I would assume these arise from evolutionarily favorable behaviors. I think most moral truths accepted in our society are really just an appeal to majority.
If anyone here is a moral realist or just thinks moral nihilism is wrong, I would like to see your arguments against it.
I, too, believe that our capacity for morality grew out of our evolution as a highly social species. But I am not a “moral nihilist” which I think implies something different - that morality does not matter. Yes, it does matter. It does matter how I treat others and it does matter than people are treated with fairness and justice.
Physicalism embodies its own form of moralism, one based not on what is correct or incorrect from a religious perspective, but from a supposedly scientific one. For instance, a physicalist might claim that Hitler’s actions were partially based on false beliefs, rather than values. Political battles may then be fought over who has the facts right rather than who is abiding by God’s plan.
Yes, moral subjectivism/relativism is not strong enough, as that still holds that moral rights and wrongs exist. But what people think are moral rights and wrongs are just our preferences.
I am an emotivist. It is incoherent to claim there are objective rights and wrongs. Banno does a good job of arguing that we can make “objective” moral claims based on what people react to. I think that misses the question and in fact, isn’t even a morals-laden claim. Its an observation dressed up as a claim. “it is wrong to kick puppies” is the paradigm. This always boils down to “Who would say no?” which is no moral argument at all.
IN reality, morals cannot be deduced from anything but a human’s attitude. You are free to give that one a go.
I agree with Brandt. Historically people have though of ethical sentences as statements of fact. And when people change their own views they see their previous view as mistaken, which shows the intent behind their sentences.
I’m not sure I grok you - (I presume you mean Banno) doesn’t present anything close to an objective ethic. If you agree with that system, sure. Most would. But it doesn’t serve as anything but formalised emotivist en masse.
I’m somewhat realist about it. Some human behaviours are indisputably wrong relative to human moral judgements in the same way some illumination events are indisputably non-white relative to human colour judgements.
And the relativity is very slight, since we regard the judgements as creating (in either case) a socially agreed scheme deserving to extend universally, at least in the clear cases.
So for example we wouldn’t just accept that a species (cats?) might as well be deliberately cruel, if we thought them capable of moral direction in the matter. We would try to induct them into our moral framework.
Granted, they might have their own moral framework based on cruelty, and perhaps they would be more thorough going relativists, and not try to induct us into their system. They might be emotivists, for example. And, looking at the whole situation you might see only evidence of moral variety and subjectivity.
But from our point of view within a universalising framework, the alleged variety and subjectivity seems over-played.
Not that we don’t do vast amounts of disputing all manner of moral boundaries. But we do so to strengthen the social agreement. And not by making the boundaries less fuzzy, either. Disputing edge cases doesn’t have to make the edge clearer or less fuzzy, and neither must it tend to reduce certainty about clear cases. (See heap paradox.)
I’m referring to the philosopher, Brandt, who criticises emotivism. I describe myself as a moral nihilist, but not an emotivist, for similar reasons to Brandt. viz. Historically people have used ethical sentences as statements of fact, and when people change their own views they see their previous view as mistaken, which shows the intent behind their sentences.
I hear you, but that does not seem relevant to the “objective” problem.
You’re describing what happens, which is fine. Not what that happening represents - which is clearly a subjective wavefront of moral thought in any given mind.
@Banno don’t think that’s how it works mate. Appreciate your preference, as your preference, though.
I say evolutionary biology teaches us next to nothing about ethical behaviour. Recall that the criteria for success in evolutionary terms is the ability to procreate and reproduce. So traits which enable survival and facilitate propogation of the species are likely to be selected while those that do not die out. The logic is simple.
Consider that although a far larger number of species have gone extinct than have survived until the present day, there are nevertheless species, such as crocodilians and cockroaches, that have survived practically unchanged for hundreds of millions of years. Yet the mere fact that they have endured says nothing about morality, or the lack of it. They’re simply better suited to their environmental niches.
But what does that tell us about human behaviour? Philosopher Richard Polt says:
I have no beef with entomology or evolution, but I refuse to admit that they teach me much about ethics. Consider the fact that human action ranges to the extremes. People can perform extraordinary acts of altruism, including kindness toward other species — or they can utterly fail to be altruistic, even toward their own children. So whatever tendencies we may have inherited leave ample room for variation; our choices will determine which end of the spectrum we approach. This is where ethical discourse comes in — not in explaining how we’re “built,” but in deliberating on our own future acts. Should I cheat on this test? Should I give this stranger a ride? Knowing how my selfish and altruistic feelings evolved doesn’t help me decide at all. Most, though not all, moral codes advise me to cultivate altruism. But since the human race has evolved to be capable of a wide range of both selfish and altruistic behavior, there is no reason to say that altruism is superior to selfishness in any biological sense ~ Richard Polt, Anything but Human
Consider that every human being in recorded history are members of the same species, h.sapiens. Humans encompass the range from murderous dictators to altruistic charity workers - yet they’re all products of the same evolutionary process.
What makes the human ethical condition different to animals, is because humans can weigh up and select different courses of action, for a huge variety of reasons. Surely, some are biological, but we’re by no means wholly determined by biological impulses. We act for all kinds of reasons, including impulses, calculations, and desires. Ascribing all of this to evolutionary biology is a missapplication of the theory.
I don’t. It seems only honest, if you are going to attribute opinions to someone hereabouts, that you let them know so that they might respond. But your honesty is for you to demonstrate. I ask as a common curtesy. Indeed, how you act is down to you.
It might be one of those semantic disagreements, but my interpretation is that the intent behind the ethical sentences is relevant to whether they do “express propositions”.
