Science of Morality, Anyone?

[coberst]

Science of Morality, Anyone?

 

Where, in American culture, is the domain of knowledge that we would identify as morality studied and taught?

 

I suspect that if we do not quickly develop a science of morality that will make it possible for us to live together on this planet in a more harmonious manner our technology will help us to destroy the species and perhaps the planet soon.

 

It seems to me that we have given the subject matter of morality primarily over to religion. It also seems to me that if we ask the question ‘why do humans treat one another so terribly?’ we will find the answer in this moral aspect of human culture.

 

The ‘man of maxims’ “is the popular representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality—without any care to assure themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardly-earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human.” George Eliot The Mill on the Floss

 

I agree to the point of saying that we have moral instincts, i.e. we have moral emotions. Without these moral emotions we could not function as social creatures. These moral emotions are an act of evolution. I would ague that the instinct for grooming that we see in monkeys is one example of this moral emotion.

 

We can no longer leave this important matter in the hands of the Sunday-school. Morality must become a top priority for scientific study.

[CaptainPanic]

Sometimes morality goes against survival. Then what?

 

Please note that I agree with the general idea. We should help each other, not kill. Feed each other, not let others starve. Treat each other with respect, even when you disagree with each other.

 

Morality is important, but when you're really hungry/thirsty, or somebody is threatening to kill your family, it is not so important anymore...

 

Luckily the people who read this are the ones who should stop using all the riches of the earth - rich people are the ones who need to take initiative, and start behaving morally correct. We rich people (and anyone with internet access is part of the richest 50% on earth) need to give up, so that the poor people can have a bit more.

 

And that's kinda hard, isn't it?

[Sayonara]

Coberst, one of the defining qualities of morals is that they are person- and situation-dependent. They are essentially subjective.

 

Are you perhaps talking about ethics?

[coberst]

Coberst, one of the defining qualities of morals is that they are person- and situation-dependent. They are essentially subjective.

 

Are you perhaps talking about ethics?

 

Everything that we think, know, and perceive is subjective. I suspect that applies to situational as well.

[Daecon]

Morality is covered in Philosophy courses as Ethics.

 

Morality isn't "objective", so it can't be considered a proper science.

[coberst]

Morality is covered in Philosophy courses as Ethics.

 

Morality isn't "objective", so it can't be considered a proper science.

 

Objectivity is our shared subjectivity.

[Sayonara]

No. No it's not.

[SkepticLance]

As Sayonara pointed out, morality is subjective. What is moral in one society is wrong in another. There is no universal 'moral' way of doing things, and morality changes with time. Teach one morality this generation, and the next will have to rewrite the textbooks.

 

In the 1960's human artificial insemination was considered immoral. Today, it is common. Today, human cloning is considered immoral. Tomorrow, it will be commonplace. And so on.

 

The only morality that is close to universal are basics like 'be nice to each other'. That hardly takes a university course to teach!

[Daecon]

Objectivity is our shared subjectivity.

So mathematical and scientific laws are subjective?

[coberst]

So mathematical and scientific laws are subjective?

 

Everything that we think, know, and perceive is processed by our cognition. I would say that being processed by our cognition is the definition of subjective. Since all humans share a common biology, i.e. a common cognitive processing structure, objectivity is our shared subjectivity.

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As Sayonara pointed out, morality is subjective. What is moral in one society is wrong in another. There is no universal 'moral' way of doing things, and morality changes with time. Teach one morality this generation, and the next will have to rewrite the textbooks.

 

In the 1960's human artificial insemination was considered immoral. Today, it is common. Today, human cloning is considered immoral. Tomorrow, it will be commonplace. And so on.

 

The only morality that is close to universal are basics like 'be nice to each other'. That hardly takes a university course to teach!

 

 

Therein lay the rub. We have only our Sunday school morality to guide us in solving today's moral problems.

[Sayonara]

Therein lay the rub. We have only our Sunday school morality to guide us in solving today's moral problems.

Except that's actually shown not to be the case by SL's comments, because he describes a long-term scenario where moral conventions flex and change, not one in which they remain rigid.

 

Many of the "popular concept" morals which are generally connected with ideas such as virtue and righteousness turn out to be the product of the evolution of social animals.

[SkepticLance]

Learning morality does not really come from Sunday School anyway. During the major formative years for any human - the early years, primarily before age 5, and then to a lesser extent until about age 10 - we are most influenced by our parents. After that, the major influence moves to our peer group. Such things as Sunday School will always be minor influences for the bulk of the human species.

 

My wife is a school teacher, and I have to remind her often that the way children develop is not due to her influence. Nor is she able to change children except to the most minor degree. By the time a kid reaches his/her teenage years, they are beyond the influence of parents, teachers, priests etc.

 

Basically, morality is taught by parents, and then later modifed by the peer group. This has been the case since our tribal hunter/gatherer ancestors evolved from Mr. Homo erectus.

[Daecon]

Everything that we think, know, and perceive is processed by our cognition. I would say that being processed by our cognition is the definition of subjective.

So logic is subjective?

[Kaeroll]

Everything that we think, know, and perceive is processed by our cognition. I would say that being processed by our cognition is the definition of subjective. Since all humans share a common biology, i.e. a common cognitive processing structure, objectivity is our shared subjectivity.

That's actually an interesting point.

 

However, I feel you must recognise the distinction between 'shared subjectivity' that is truly a matter of opinion and cultural and social trends, and 'shared subjectivity' that can be demonstrated or proven using concrete logic (mathematics) or experiment. Objectivity goes beyond human thought insofar as it's reproducible - can't argue with empirical fact, really. (The interpretation, of course, is subjective).

 

Off-topic: coberst, you used to post at PhysOrg, no?

 

Kaeroll

[coberst]

Except that's actually shown not to be the case by SL's comments, because he describes a long-term scenario where moral conventions flex and change, not one in which they remain rigid.

 

Many of the "popular concept" morals which are generally connected with ideas such as virtue and righteousness turn out to be the product of the evolution of social animals.

 

 

Of course we are constantly changing and that is why we need to develop a science of morality based upon our newly acquired cognitive science.

 

Example is "Moral Imagination" by Mark Johnson. Sunday school morality tries to convince us that we get dogma from another world that never changes and it is this attitude that will destroy our species if we do not become self-actualizing self-learners ad awaken to our situation.

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Learning morality does not really come from Sunday School anyway. During the major formative years for any human - the early years, primarily before age 5, and then to a lesser extent until about age 10 - we are most influenced by our parents. After that, the major influence moves to our peer group. Such things as Sunday School will always be minor influences for the bulk of the human species.

 

My wife is a school teacher, and I have to remind her often that the way children develop is not due to her influence. Nor is she able to change children except to the most minor degree. By the time a kid reaches his/her teenage years, they are beyond the influence of parents, teachers, priests etc.

 

Basically, morality is taught by parents, and then later modifed by the peer group. This has been the case since our tribal hunter/gatherer ancestors evolved from Mr. Homo erectus.

 

 

And where did the parents and the peer group get it.

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So logic is subjective?

 

Yes, now you are talking. What we call logic is the product of our container schema.

 

Most cognitive activity happens backstage, i.e. in the unconscious, which is unavailable to direct conscious analysis. The unconscious might be compared with the inside of the atom. They both are worlds not directly available to intuition; these worlds must be comprehended based upon what happens outside their enclosure.

 

Humans talk, listen, and draw inferences without conscious effort. “A large part of unconscious thought involves automatic, immediate, implicit rather than explicit understanding.” A large part of reasoning is accomplished within this unconscious domain of the brain and this reasoning is grounded in our everyday experiences.

 

Humans and, I suspect all creatures navigate in space through spatial-relations concepts, i.e. schemas. These concepts are the essence of our ability to function in space. These are not concepts that we can sense but they are the forms and inference patterns for our movement in space that we utilize unconsciously. We automatically perceive an entity as being on, in front of, behind, etc., another entity.

 

The container schema is a fundamental spatial-relations concept that allows us to draw important inferences. This natural container format is the source for our logical inferences that are so obvious to us when we view Venn diagrams. If container A is in container B and B is in container C, then A is in C. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venn_diagram

 

A container schema is a gestalt (a functional unit) figure with an interior, an exterior, and a boundary—the parts make sense only as part of the whole. Container schemas are cross-modal—“we can impose a conceptual container schema on a visual scene…on something we hear, as when we conceptually separate out one part of a piece of music from another…This structure is topological in the sense that the boundary can be made larger, smaller, or distorted and still remain the boundary of a container schema.”

 

“Image schemas have a special cognitive function: They are both perceptual and conceptual in nature. As such, they provide a bridge between language and reasoning on the one hand and vision on the other.”

 

‘Logic’ is a word with more than one meaning; but it, like ‘science’, ‘Kleenex’ etc, has become a word with a common usage. In our common mode of speaking ‘logic’ means Aristotelian Formal Logic.

 

Aristotle said “A definition is a phrase signifying a thing’s essence.” Essence is the collection of characteristics that makes a thing a kind of thing. Such a definition expresses what is called a concept.

 

Aristotle equates predication (all men are mortal, I am a man) with containment. Predication is containment. To make a predication is to create a ‘container’ that contains the essence of a thing being predicated.

 

This containment leads us to the obvious logic (formal principles of a branch of knowledge) of containers. If container A is in container C and container B is in A then B is in C. This container schema is where all of these Latin terms, such as Modus Ponens and Modus Tollens, come from. This is, I think, the source of all of the principles for syllogisms. In other words just imagine containers and various juxtapositions of these will lead one to the principles of Aristotelian logic. I suspect many Greeks scratched their heads and wondered “why didn’t I think of that?”

 

Focus for a moment on the logic “if A and B then C”, the container schema, and basketball’s three-point jump-shot. If you do then you will understand why the syllogism seems true without any consideration required.

 

Quotes from” Philosophy in the Flesh” by Lakoff and Johnson

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That's actually an interesting point.

 

However, I feel you must recognise the distinction between 'shared subjectivity' that is truly a matter of opinion and cultural and social trends, and 'shared subjectivity' that can be demonstrated or proven using concrete logic (mathematics) or experiment. Objectivity goes beyond human thought insofar as it's reproducible - can't argue with empirical fact, really. (The interpretation, of course, is subjective).

 

Off-topic: coberst, you used to post at PhysOrg, no?

 

Kaeroll

 

Yes, I posted on PhysOrg.

 

It is an empirical fact that everything that we think, know, and perceive is subjective.

[Sayonara]

Of course we are constantly changing and that is why we need to develop a science of morality based upon our newly acquired cognitive science.

I'm not sure what you are intending to suggest. Are you talking about a sort of fixed standard of morality, which we can use as a guide against which to measure our actions? Or something else entirely?

 

Example is "Moral Imagination" by Mark Johnson. Sunday school morality tries to convince us that we get dogma from another world that never changes and it is this attitude that will destroy our species if we do not become self-actualizing self-learners ad awaken to our situation.

The number of people who get their morals from "Sunday School" sources is very small indeed compared to the size of the human race. And practically all cultures have very similar morals (albeit they have different cultural means of expressing them). So it's pretty self-evident that morality does not come from one particular niche teaching.

 

And where did the parents and the peer group get it.

Consider this possible explanation: Morality begins as a means of improving social interaction and thereby fecundity in a population of a species. This is mediated by natural selection. As the species become more socially complex, and develops language, it becomes capable of conceptualising "moral" descriptions of the social actions which it is carrying out. These actions are then reinforced culturally because the concepts describing them can be transmitted with language.

[coberst]

I'm not sure what you are intending to suggest. Are you talking about a sort of fixed standard of morality, which we can use as a guide against which to measure our actions? Or something else entirely?

 

 

 

The book I mentioned agrees that we are constantly changing and thus we require a morality that is capable of adapting to such changes. In other words with a comprehension of morality that is able to use our imagination to adjust to our ever changing world.

[Sayonara]

The book I mentioned agrees that we are constantly changing and thus we require a morality that is capable of adapting to such changes. In other words with a comprehension of morality that is able to use our imagination to adjust to our ever changing world.

So rather than having arbitrary, fixed moral standards, have some kind of flexible "grammatical" framework which lets us decide by convention what is right or wrong? Along those lines?

[coberst]

So rather than having arbitrary, fixed moral standards, have some kind of flexible "grammatical" framework which lets us decide by convention what is right or wrong? Along those lines?

 

 

That says it well.

 

Morality is about relationships, one mght call it a code for diplomacy. We must learn many things about relationships but one very important thing is the ability to dialogue followed by dialectical reasoning to reach conscensus on how best to mold relationships.

 

I recently had occasion to hang out in the waiting area of St Joseph Hospital in Asheville for a few hours. I was free to walk many of the corridors and rest in many of the waiting areas along with everyone else. It was early morning but it was obvious that the hospital functioned fully 24/7.

 

A person can walk the corridors of any big city hospital and observe the effectiveness of human rationality in action. One can also visit the UN building in NYC or read the morning papers and observe just how ineffective, frustrating and disappointing human rationality can be. Why does human reason perform so well in some matters and so poorly in others?

 

We live in two very different worlds; a world of technical and technological order and clarity, and a world of personal and social disorder and confusion. We are increasingly able to solve problems in one domain and increasingly endangered by our inability to solve problems in the other.

 

Normal science, as defined by Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, is successful primarily because it is a domain of knowledge controlled by paradigms. The paradigm defines the standards, principles and methods of the discipline. It is not apparent to the laity but science moves forward in small incremental steps. Science seldom seeks and almost never produces major novelties.

 

Science solves puzzles. The logic of the paradigm insulates the professional group from problems that are unsolvable by that paradigm. One reason that science progresses so rapidly and with such assurance is because the logic of that paradigm allows the practitioners to work on problems that only their lack of ingenuity will keep them from solving.

 

Science uses instrumental rationality to solve puzzles. Instrumental rationality is a systematic process for reflecting upon the best action to take to reach an established end. The obvious question becomes ‘what mode of rationality is available for determining ends?’ Instrumental rationality appears to be of little use in determining such matters as “good” and “right”.

 

There is a striking difference between the logic of technical problems and that of dialectical problems. The principles, methods and standards for dealing with technical problems and problems of “real life” are as different as night and day. Real life problems cannot be solved only using deductive and inductive reasoning.

 

Dialectical reasoning methods require the ability to slip quickly between contradictory lines of reasoning. One needs skill to develop a synthesis of one point of view with another. Where technical matters are generally confined to only one well understood frame of reference real life problems become multi-dimensional totalities.

 

When we think dialectically we are guided by principles not by procedures. Real life problems span multiple categories and academic disciplines. We need point-counter-point argumentation; we need emancipatory reasoning to resolve dialectical problems. We need Critical Thinking skills and attitudes to resolve real life problems.

[Daecon]

Yes, now you are talking. What we call logic is the product of our container schema.

Sorry but that's just silly. So 1+1=2 only because we think it does?

[coberst]

Sorry but that's just silly. So 1+1=2 only because we think it does?

 

 

Certainly, we created math it did not come from some heavenly kingdom.

[Syntho-sis]

Certainly, we created math it did not come from some heavenly kingdom.

 

We didn't 'create' math in the sense of the word.

 

This entire thread is preposterous...

[bascule]

Morality is not a science. End of story.

[Mr Skeptic]

I think that it is absolutely possible to have fixed, unchanging moral standards, which nevertheless are never obsoleted. Moreover, from these fixed standards, situational slowly changing variables can temporarily allow more specific rules that could be followed for perhaps decades before the situational variables change enough to make them obsolete.

 

Also sometimes the morality rules give you the choice of a good option and a better option, or of a bad option and a worse option, in which case you apparently violate the rules by not choosing the good option or by choosing the bad option, due to your picking the best option available.

 

May I suggest the following rules (I also propose a name for each):

*Goodness: Attempt to maximize overall well-being.

*Fairness: Attempt to spread out well-being equally among those who equally deserve it.

*Personal Responsibility: An individual is responsible for their own well-being more so than anyone else is or than he is for that of anyone else.

*Personal Prosperity: An individual who generates, finds, or acquires well-being in general deserves it and/or is allowed to keep it.

 

Derived from the above (sample):

**Punishment: An individual who reduces well-being should have his well-being reduced. Though this may appear to reduce Goodness, it increases Fairness and prevents Personal Responsibility and Personal Prosperity being chosen at the expense of Fairness and Goodness, rather than in addition to them. As such if properly applied Punishment should actually increase Goodness.

**Empathy: Fairness suggests that a person whose well-being is far below average deserves better, since poor Personal Prosperity could be due to bad luck and the level of Personal Responsibility is usually unknown and could change for the better.

**Envy: Fairness suggests that a person whose well-being is far above average doesn't really deserve it, since it is not clear or unlikely that they generated it themselves rather than getting it at the expense of others.

**Socialized Fairness/Goodness: An individual may have a certain portion of his well-being reduced to increase the well-being of society. This balances Personal Responsibility and Personal Prosperity against Goodness (marginal benefits) and/or Fairness (unequal trades or luck). That this increases Goodness is a result of marginal benefit: for a monetary example, someone who earns a $1,000,000 would benefit less from another million than would 100 people who earn $10,000 getting another $10,000. That this increases Fairness is less obvious, but there is a limit to the amount of well-being an individual may produce, and any accumulation of well-being past that which he produces must then be due to acquiring a disproportionate amount of well-being produced by others or due to luck. Investments in infrastructure paid by taxes also count for this category.

**Ingroup Bias/Obligation: The natural extension of Personal Responsibility and Personal Prosperity to groups in which the individual belongs. However an excessive amount of Ingroup Bias can interfere with Fairness.

 

It is my understanding that all of the above are also in part built-in behavior seen not just in humans but in many other animals.

 

I intentionally did not define well-being.

 

Situation Dependent Morals (sample):

Sexual behavior can be pleasurable and reduce stress,etc, so could be said to increase well-being. Before the advent of birth control, abstinence and fidelity were the only way to prevent STDs and unwanted/unsupported children, hence strong moral imperative to restrict sexual conducts was a requirement to maximize well-being. With the advent of birth control and condoms, there is an alternate way to prevent these problems. Now sexual morals are still required for relationship stability or to reduce jealousy, but such are not as crucial as unwanted children and STDs, so different rules may be applied.

Edited September 21, 2009 by Mr Skeptic
split Personal Responsibility into Personal Responsibility and Prosperity

[randomc]

It is an empirical fact that everything that we think, know, and perceive is subjective.

 

'the ultimate sceptic can and need not be answered'.

- from john skorupski's summary of bertrand russell's attitude in the preface to 'problems of philosophy'

 

'i fart in your general direction'

- from john cleese's summary of coberst's position, in monty python.