Materialist Ethics? Vegan Materialists?

[ADigitalArtist]

No sadly it makes eating a daily chore, as the memory of taste and smell faded into distant memory, I lost the will to
eat, it now is because I have to, ... perhaps if I had friends or family around me at meal times it could be easier....
but alone.... an effort.. 5' 4" and only 78lbs

Hmmm. Do you mind if I send you a private message to talk a bit? Just to bounce off some ideas. See if there's anything that might help on my end.

 

[Eliab ben Benjamin]

Hmmm. Do you mind if I send you a private message to talk a bit?

I do not mind at all, gosh, perhaps you may even have way for me to improve my intake

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

premised on two propositions that materialism account for or accommodate: the proposition that there are moral behaviors (that there is an actual, objective difference between moral and immoral acts), and the proposition that a person can choose the acts s/her performs. As far as I can tell, no one here has argued that the thesis of materialism is able to account for or accommodate those two propositions. Am I right or wrong? If I am wrong, then please cite the evidence by which one can conclude that materialism can account for or accommodate those two propositions.

Perhaps you should explain why you see a problem with human beings having a moral faculty in a universe in which material phenomena are most fundamental. I have read several hundred of your words on this matter, and they seem to amount to you implying that the materialist needs to justify having a sense of right and wrong and preferring to comply with what feels right.

I personally haven't chosen materialism or any of its competing hypothesis, since I don't believe that we have the means to do so (I assume that you are referring to the mind-body problem here, and which if either is more fundamental, and precedes and underlies the other).

But whichever answer is most correct - material monism, idealistic monism, neutral monism, or dualism - none precludes having or exercising a moral faculty, and having a moral faculty makes none of them more or less likely.

You seem to assume and imply otherwise.

 

[Nous]

Your article writer is an as creationists who say the only way to moral righteousness is through their particular God and everything else is the non-upward thinking of man. Non-progressive blah blah. It starts with an assumption and follows it up with charater assasination.

What the hell are you talking about? I quoted my own post, and no article is cited. And definitely nothing is said about creationism. I elucidated some of the social and political consequences of moral anti-realism, e.g., the fact that the moral nihilist and relativist in ancient Rome and in the Confederate South could not claim that slavery was immoral there. It was moral realists who argued that slavery was wrong and should be abolished. The moral nihilist and relativist could not claim that Jim Crow laws or coverture or the various laws that have discriminated against gay people and/or same-sex couples were wrong and should be changed. Moral anti-realism is socially and politically regressive. It disallows people to recognize social and political wrongs.

I don't understand why people who advocate or espouse forms of moral anti-realism cannot think through the real-world consequences of those ideas and beliefs.

 

[Nous]

These are not a reflection of my moral ideas as mine aren't actually as authoritarian or even coherent or well-developed as this. I'm more stuck in the mire of moral relativism and nihilism based on a much less sophisticated understanding of materialism.

Obviously one chooses to adopt moral anti-realism. It isn't quicksand that one accidentally steps in and can't get out of.

Cornforth says things such as this:

But thanks to his social life and the laws of its development, he gradually develops in social practice those capacities which make him become free.

But then says things such as this:

In the argument between voluntarism, which says that the will is not determined, and determinism, which says that the will is determined, Marxism takes the determinist side, since every act of will has a cause.

In the first place, no one claims that the ability to choose one's acts means that an act is uncaused. Here is about the only way to define determinism (as the SEP article explains):

Determinism: The world is governed by (or is under the sway of) determinism if and only if, given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.​

Causal Determinism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Thus, the thesis of determinism has certainly been refuted--the occurrence of even a single random event in “the world” refutes the thesis of determinism. But, further than that, the Leggett-Garg inequality has been experimentally violated in every experiment to date, meaning that quanta, and even macroscopic objects, do not exist in a definite state prior to or in the absence of a measurement. See the studies cited in #11 and #19: Solve the Riddle of Compatibilism, Win Big Prize "The way things go" after time t is not fixed by the way the things are prior to time t in a world where quanta have no definite position or trajectory prior to a measurement. Thus, the thesis of determinism is false. The thesis of determinism cannot be used to deny that humans are free to choose their acts.

However, in a world that is reducible to the movements of matter (ignoring the fact that humans make the Heisenberg choice in quantum experiments), the refutation of determinism only leaves random or undetermined behavior. So, even with the refutation of determinism, materialism still leaves the question of how it is possible that a person can choose to engage in moral behavior and to avoid engaging in immoral behavior.

freedom is something which develops socially on the basis of the activities of definite classes, and that the same is true of morals.

Human morality is not an expression of some eternal moral law decreed by heaven and somehow revealed to mankind; nor is it, as Kant imagined, the expression of a "categorical imperative" inherent in the human will; but it is a natural product of men's social organisation. Since men live in society, they necessarily evolve a moral code to regulate their mutual relations and activities in society.

So, obviously Cornforth is arguing for moral relativism here. See the post I quoted above for the problematic issues of moral anti-realism.

In fact, Cornforth's argument for relativism is a very commonplace one that doesn't make sense. He claims that because humans live in a society, we have to have a moral code. But other animals live in social groups and do so without problem without declaring that rape, murder, assault or theft are immoral acts.

 

[Nous]

Perhaps you should explain why you see a problem with human beings having a moral faculty in a universe in which material phenomena are most fundamental.

It isn't (necessarily) "a moral faculty" that is problematic in a world that is reducible to the behavior of matter; it is the existence of objective moral facts that materialism cannot accommodate or account for.

What are the properties of matter that would give rise to objective moral facts? I've asked that question in various ways numerous times on this thread without an answer so far.

Let's say two people disagree about the moral status of some act--e.g., someone claims that non-therapeutic abortions are always immoral, and another person disagrees. That's a common dispute. How do the properties of matter help to resolve that dispute? Obviously they don't. We cannot examine a slab of matter and determine which person is right. Correct?

I personally haven't chosen materialism or any of its competing hypothesis, since I don't believe that we have the means to do so (I assume that you are referring to the mind-body problem here, and which if either is more fundamental, and precedes and underlies the other).

Good for you. I admire metaphysical neutrality. I do my best to not dedicate myself to a metaphysical thesis (even though some theses seem to be more wrong than others). Metaphysical theses are not tested or testable by use of the scientific method. Any metaphysical thesis that denies sheer pluralism is particularly suspect, to my mind.

 

[Nous]

Metaphysical theses are not tested or testable by use of the scientific method.

Well, actually some are testable and tested, at least in a sense. The thesis that nothing exists except that which is the product of object that have mass and volume (i.e., matter) or that objects that have mass and volume are the most fundamental phenomena of the world has been thoroughly refuted by the findings of modern physics experiments and theories.

 

[Nous]

However, in a world that is reducible to the movements of matter . .

It isn't (necessarily) "a moral faculty" that is problematic in a world that is reducible to the behavior of matter . . .

And before someone astute such as you guys catch me on this and points out that there is (allegedly) such thing as non-reductive materialism, I acknowledge that that is true. Perhaps I should specify throughout this thread that I'm (largely) referring to reductive or eliminative materialism in my arguments here.

On the other hand, insofar as some thesis of non-reductive materialism can account for or accommodate willful acts (such as choosing to engage in moral behavior and to avoid immoral acts),--i.e., where consciousness can be said to exist and be causally efficacious--that thesis isn't distinguishable at that point from the various forms of dualism or emergentism (and, in fact, other metaphysical theses as well). In fact, at the moment I'm not sure how non-reductive materialism portends to be distinct from emergentism. I am not sure that there is an appreciable difference.

Interestingly, in a section titled “Is Supervenience Sufficient for Physicalism?” the SEP article on Physicalism says the following, which I have not completely grokked yet:

One way to bring out the sufficiency problem focuses on emergentism, a position on the mind-body problem influential in the first forty years of the twentieth century (Cf. Kim 1998; see also Wilson 2005; for the historical background to emergentism, see MacLaughlin 1992.) Emergentism may itself be understood in several ways, but in the sense that matters to the sufficiency objection, what is intended is a position that weaves together elements of both dualism and physicalism. On the one hand, the emergentist wants to say that mental facts and physical facts are metaphysically distinct--just as a standard dualist does. On the other hand, emergentist wants to agree with the physicalist that mental facts are necessitated by, and so supervene on, the physical facts. If this sort of position is coherent, (1) does not articulate a sufficient condition for physicalism. For if emergentism is true, any physical duplicate of the actual world is a duplicate simpliciter. And yet, if emergentism is true, physicalism is false.​

Physicalism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

The referenced (1) is this proposition:

(1) Physicalism is true at a possible world w iff any world which is a physical duplicate of w is a duplicate of w simpliciter.​

The bulk of this article seems to be about issues revolving around the concept of "supervenience"--despite the fact that the article says that "supervenience is not quite as popular an answer to the completeness question as it once was". Of course, supervenience is a philosophical term of art, not a term defined by any scientific discipline; it does not denote a scientific relation (beyond mere correlation). In any case, I still don't know the difference between non-reductive materialism and emergentism. Anyone who wants to educate me on that point is encouraged to do so.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

It isn't (necessarily) "a moral faculty" that is problematic in a world that is reducible to the behavior of matter; it is the existence of objective moral facts that materialism cannot accommodate or account for.

What are the properties of matter that would give rise to objective moral facts? I've asked that question in various ways numerous times on this thread without an answer so far.

Perhaps the problem is that many of us do not claim that such a thing as an objective moral fact exists, by which I mean something that has a reality outside of (some) conscious minds.

I am one of them. So, I have no need to account for their existence.

If I understood him correctly, Polymath uses the term to refer to ideas that are commonly agreed upon, such as that it is wrong to kill or steal. But I wouldn't call even universally agreed upon moral precepts objective moral facts.

Let's say two people disagree about the moral status of some act--e.g., someone claims that non-therapeutic abortions are always immoral, and another person disagrees. That's a common dispute. How do the properties of matter help to resolve that dispute? Obviously they don't. We cannot examine a slab of matter and determine which person is right. Correct?

Agreed. The properties of physical reality cannot resolve any moral dispute. Isn't that just a restatement of the is-ought chasm?

I still don't see an issue here. Although I don't call myself a materialist for reasons recently given, I believe that I could, and still have nothing that I need to justify in the morality realm. I can generally give a reason for my position on any moral issue, but it ultimately rests on how I feel, and my acceptance of a standard of maximizing total satisfaction (utilitarianism) that has no basis in objective reality. It's who I am, it feels right, and that's justification enough for me to continue as I am.

Do you require more? If so, why?

 

[Laika]

Obviously one chooses to adopt moral anti-realism. It isn't quicksand that one accidentally steps in and can't get out of.

...And everyone lived happily ever after.

 

[Nous]

Perhaps the problem is that many of us do not claim that such a thing as an objective moral fact exists, by which I mean something that has a reality outside of (some) conscious minds.

I am one of them. So, I have no need to account for their existence.

Notice that that is not an answer to any question I have asked. The topic of the thread is not about anyone's personal meta-ethical thesis or beliefs.

Moral realism entails the proposition that there are objective moral facts. The claim or judgment that "rape is immoral" refers to an objective moral fact. It doesn't really make sense to say, "Rape is immoral, if you want it to be. If you don't want it to be immoral or don't believe it is immoral, then it isn't." Right? The statement,"Rape is immoral, if you want it to be," is equivalent to "There is nothing objectively immoral about rape." Right?

And if there are no objective moral facts about the acts that we can choose to engage in (or not engage in), then one cannot choose to engage in moral acts and to not engage in immoral acts. Right?

Although I don't call myself a materialist for reasons recently given, I believe that I could, and still have nothing that I need to justify in the morality realm.

The point of the thread topic is that materialism does not accommodate or account for objective moral facts, and does not account for the ability to choose to engage in acts that are moral or avoid doing acts that are immoral.

 

[Nous]

...And everyone lived happily ever after.

OK, this thread is no place for funny stuff.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

The claim or judgment that "rape is immoral" refers to an objective moral fact.

Disagree.

For starters, I don't accept that there is any such thing as an objective moral fact, by which I mean a moral precept existing outside of the heads of some sentient beings.

I have seen others use the term objective moral fact in reference to something that they consider a moral imperative or a near universal moral sentiment. That is not what I mean when I say that something is objectively real. Perhaps that is some of the difficulty here - what is meant by that term.

Furthermore, when I say that rape is immoral, what I mean is that I would feel empathy for a rape victim, and that if I raped somebody, it would cause me significant internal distress that would manifest as shame, regret, and guilt. That's all I mean. Nobody else need believe that for it to be true about me.

I make no claim that that is an objective moral fact.

In fact, were I the only living thing who felt that way, when I died, that idea would disappear from the universe until another creature came along built the same way as I had been. That's pretty much the definition of a subjective reality, not an objective one.

I could say more, such as that empathy and the belief that we should all act to maximize the well-being of all sentient creatures capable of suffering are the basis for my moral theory, but that would still a subjective position.

I can give no reason for why I prefer that kind of world to any other, nor for why I feel empathy. It's a feeling, and therefore subjective as well.

And I consider all of that consistent with a materialist position as well as any of its alternatives.

So, I really don't understand what the problem is here short of a claim that matter is the the most fundamental reality from which all else derives, and that the universe contains objective moral facts to be sought and discovered, which I would consider to be a pair of unjustified assumptions.

And if there are no objective moral facts about the acts that we can choose to engage in (or not engage in), then one cannot choose to engage in moral acts and to not engage in immoral acts. Right?

No, but recall that what I mean by a moral or immoral act is one that feels moral or immoral to me.

Some others mean something else. They mean that they have been told and have believed that certain acts are immoral. Although such a person is not operating under the direction of an internal moral compass, but is instead getting his ideas from the world out there and perhaps an objectively real book, nevertheless, the ideas in the book have no reality until they are understood by a mind capable of understanding them, and the choice to accept them as valid is also a subjective act.

The point of the thread topic is that materialism does not accommodate or account for objective moral facts, and does not account for the ability to choose to engage in acts that are moral or avoid doing acts that are immoral.

I see no reason why materialism is not consistent with having "the ability to choose to engage in acts that are moral or avoid doing acts that are immoral." In my estimation, it is consistent to suppose that material organizes itself in ways that creates material creatures that experience moral sentiments.

If you think otherwise, I don't know why.

 

[Koldo]

I just want to try to again clarify the issue I wish to raise with the questions I asked in the OP:

With which meta-ethical theses is materialism logically consistent? I certainly don't see how it is possible to argue that materialism can accommodate any form of moral realism, which entails the reality of objective moral facts--e.g., facts such as denoted by propositions such as “rape is immoral” or “it is good to avoid causing unnecessary suffering”. It's quite odd to see people here suggesting that materialism is compatible with the existence of objective moral facts, and, moreover, that the thesis of materialism does not preclude the ability of persons to choose to engage in moral behavior. In the short while I've been a member of RF, I've often found that the very mention of the phrase “objective moral facts” seems to offend many people, and there is great resistance to the suggestion that people can choose what acts they will engage in.

I can only conclude that logical consistency relegates the materialist to endorsing some form of moral anti-realism as his/her meta-ethical thesis--moral nihilism or relativism--odious and inadequate though these are. In the OP of a thread I posted a while ago, I noted some of the hopefully discomforting ramifications of moral anti-realism: The Social and Political Regressiveness of Moral Anti-realism

Was there anything immoral in white Americans (and colonists before them) importing and subjugating Africans as their slaves? The moral nihilist would deny any immorality in it, and the relativist would have to say that there was nothing ultimately or objectively wrong with it--many white Americans in non-slave states and about 100% of slaves considered slavery abhorrent and inhumane, but, since Americans in Confederate states were willing to try to secede and fight a bloody war in order to maintain the institution of slavery, it was not immoral there, according to the relativist.

Was there anything wrong with Jim Crow laws and other legalized inequalities inflicted upon African Americans after the Civil War? Again, the moral anti-realists can only assert that there was nothing (ultimately or objectively) immoral with such denigration and lawful discriminatory treatment of African Americans.

What was wrong with the ancient doctrine of coverture (in which a woman was deprived of any legal status beyond that of her husband), the denial of suffrage for women, or the non-recognition that a man could rape his wife? Nothing, according to the nihilist; and nothing in those societies that approved of such injustices toward women, according to the relativist. Even today there are countries where women are deprived of the legal status and rights that men enjoy.

In this century in the US, after the Goodridge decisions by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 2003/2004, there were eventually 30-something states that amended their constitutions in order to deny same-sex couples and their children the important rights and benefits that come with the couple's ability to participate in civil marriage. Some of these amendments passed by huge majorities of voters. Did any moral anti-realist speak out against these provisions, express any umbrage about the injustice to same-sex couples and their children? Apparently not, unless they were being inconsistent with their nihilism or relativism.

By not recognizing any wrongs or injustices beyond legal wrongs, moral anti-realists are and will always be social/political regressives, unprogressives. illiberals who lack any impetus for change. Social and political wrongs can never be righted by those who are blind to moral wrongs, that is, blind to wrongs beyond legal wrongs.​

This is not to claim that there are no self-avowed materialists who choose to be vegans or who choose to engage in otherwise moral acts and behaviors. But that claim--the choosing to engage in moral behaviors--alludes to and is premised on two propositions that materialism account for or accommodate: the proposition that there are moral behaviors (that there is an actual, objective difference between moral and immoral acts), and the proposition that a person can choose the acts s/her performs. As far as I can tell, no one here has argued that the thesis of materialism is able to account for or accommodate those two propositions. Am I right or wrong? If I am wrong, then please cite the evidence by which one can conclude that materialism can account for or accommodate those two propositions.

Also, nothing I have said here is to imply that materialism is the only metaphysical thesis that is unable to account for or accommodate those two propositions.

One part of your post is a mere criticism against those that don't abide by moral realism. I feel it doesn't need to be addressed unless you want this to become the subject of your topic.

The second part is asking whether materialism is compatible with moral realism. In principle, yes. A materialist would have to point out the source of such morality is matter, in some sense. It would then face all the other issues that plague defending moral realism.

The third part is asking whether an individual can make choices in materialism. And as I have said before, yes. As long as the individual is not the ultimate source of those choices.

 

[Nakosis]

Are there any self-identifying materialists here who try to avoid causing innocent creatures to suffer unnecessarily, such as is the goal of veganism? If so, why? What is the basis or rationale for a materialist to have moral concerns and to conduct his/her behavior according to such ethical purposes?

Compassion foremost. I don't like the idea of causing unnecessary harm.

Kind of disgusted by the idea of consuming animal parts. More for hygienic reasons. I don't know where the animals been, what they've been consuming. A bacteriological nightmare. Kind of a phobia.

Just feelings. I suppose I could try to overcome these feeling but don't see any necessity to.

 

[Nakosis]

The point of the thread topic is that materialism does not accommodate or account for objective moral facts, and does not account for the ability to choose to engage in acts that are moral or avoid doing acts that are immoral.

Does materialism accommodate the fact of feelings?

For whatever reason we have feelings. As I see it our sense of right and wrong are based on our feelings. Some feelings we have in common, some we don't. This accounts for differences in morals.

To whatever degree we can take control of our feelings we can choose our morality.

 

[Yerda]

Are there any self-identifying materialists here who try to avoid causing innocent creatures to suffer unnecessarily, such as is the goal of veganism? If so, why? What is the basis or rationale for a materialist to have moral concerns and to conduct his/her behavior according to such ethical purposes?

I've been a vegan and a materialist at the same time. The justification was similar to how I would justify avoiding causing suffering and/or death to a human. It has never seemed to me that ethics and materialism are incompatible.

Anyway, I'm neither now (though still veggie) so I don't know how useful that is.