Morality Made Simple

[ImmortalFlame]

According to Yale psychologist Paul Bloom, humans are born with a hard-wired morality. A deep sense of good and evil is bred in the bone. His research shows that babies and toddlers can judge the goodness and badness of others' actions; they want to reward the good and punish the bad; they act to help those in distress; they feel guilt, shame, pride, and righteous anger.

Please provide sources, and please demonstrate that these moral urges were necessarily justified or reasonable. When I was a child, I wanted to punish people for not doing things I wanted them to do, and felt plenty of righteous anger about it. That didn't make my morality then superior to how it is now that I have grown up and given it serious, rational consideration. You're spouting nonsense. The fact is that the morality of babies is rudimentary and basic - they are not capable of evaluating moral judgements beyond a very basic level of fairness. I doubt a child is able to make a reasonable moral choice between one life and another, or one of countless other examples that aren't as simplistic or binary as you wish them to be.

 

[metis]

Since us humans are social creatures, and since social creatures have to have some sort of pecking-order in order to live together in at least relative harmony, morality to a certain extent would need to be intrinsic to our species.

 

[metis]

I doubt a child is able to make a reasonable moral choice between one life and another, or one of countless other examples that aren't as simplistic or binary as you wish them to be.

Not to disagree with you, as "nurture" is so important in our species that it can go a long way in overwhelming "nature".

And what complicates this is the fact that we are a territorial mammal, much like dogs, and mores for our secondary-groups may be far looser than those with our in-group.

BTW, speaking of dogs, the last dog I had was extremely racist, going nuts anytime he saw a black or Asian person. One day I even saw him strutting around the yard with a white hood on.

 

[joe1776]

Your argument is that humans "just know" what is moral at an intuitive level. This is obviously false when you look at human history. Rise in moral thought (that is, the consideration given to morality, not necessarily the "correct" moral code) did not come about until humans started to think rationally.

I'm not clear on your meaning. It sounds as if you are claiming that reasoning about morality didn't come about until humans began to think rationally. Which, indeed, is obvious.

Please do.

Already started. See my post 14.

If the final judgement is intuitive, then all the other considerations are meaningless.

You mean the facts of the case don't matter? If not, what do you mean?

Don't blame me jut because you want the world to be simple. The sooner you realize it isn't, the sooner you might actually be able to talk meaningfully about morality.

You're unable to debate the topic, so you're reduced to condescending BS.

 

[joe1776]

Please provide sources, and please demonstrate that these moral urges were necessarily justified or reasonable. When I was a child, I wanted to punish people for not doing things I wanted them to do, and felt plenty of righteous anger about it. That didn't make my morality then superior to how it is now that I have grown up and given it serious, rational consideration. You're spouting nonsense. The fact is that the morality of babies is rudimentary and basic - they are not capable of evaluating moral judgements beyond a very basic level of fairness. I doubt a child is able to make a reasonable moral choice between one life and another, or one of countless other examples that aren't as simplistic or binary as you wish them to be.

Why should I provide sources to disprove your claim?

You said: This is why the vast majority of toddlers are incredibly selfish jerks - they have no real concept of other people's needs or desires and only really care about their own.

If you want more proof that your claim is false, Google "paul bloom yale babies"

 

[Polymath257]

Your approach has merit as a general guide, but how does it guide when we need to make a choice in a specific issue? In my examples, my model takes on abortion, euthanasia and prostitution. How would we apply your model to decide those issues as a criminal justice policy problem?

Well, I actually think your principles (to which I agree, by the way) follow from the general guidelines I gave.

Conscience doesn't condemn the act as morally wrong unless the actor knew, or should have known, that it would cause harm. I think harm is done when Christians manipulate the minds of young children because they attempt to rob the person of a freewill choice. Yet, there's no doubt that they mean well. So, in my mind that's a negligent act not an immoral one.

I think it would be arrogant of me to claim that they ought to know better.

I think there is a moral obligation to inform yourself of the possible consequences of your actions. That is in the 'should have known' category.

In the case of Christian manipulation, there are two competing aspects: one where parents have the responsibility to raise their children and we give rather wide latitude to them for doing so. The other is the amount of harm done by bad parenting. In the specific case, the harm is low enough (and enough people manage to shake off their parenting) that the weight goes to the parents in general.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Since us humans are social creatures, and since social creatures have to have some sort of pecking-order in order to live together in at least relative harmony, morality to a certain extent would need to be intrinsic to our species.

Not to disagree with you, as "nurture" is so important in our species that it can go a long way in overwhelming "nature".

And what complicates this is the fact that we are a territorial mammal, much like dogs, and mores for our secondary-groups may be far looser than those with our in-group.

BTW, speaking of dogs, the last dog I had was extremely racist, going nuts anytime he saw a black or Asian person. One day I even saw him strutting around the yard with a white hood on.

I think there is a sense in which our early values and collective ethics (i.e: fairness is better than unfairness, working together is preferable to working separately, etc.) may have some evolutionary basis, but none of these things strike me as necessarily intuitive or "ingrained". If we have any ingrained "morality", it's largely only a very basic understanding of fairness and justice. It's only once you start considering what is and isn't moral at an intellectual level (i.e "why is something right" vs "what is right") that I consider it to be "moral". In other words, morality isn't what we deem to be right, but the basis on which we deem it so.

Plenty of room for interesting discussion, though.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

I'm not clear on your meaning. It sounds as if you are claiming that reasoning about morality didn't come about until humans began to think rationally. Which, indeed, is obvious.

Pretty-much.

Already started. See my post 14.

Already responded, and you didn't provide a source.

You mean the facts of the case don't matter? If not, what do you mean?

You said that rationality is involved in making determinations, but the end result is intuitive. You can't have it both ways. Either rational consideration is involved in the determination, or the process is intuitive.

You're unable to debate the topic, so you're reduced to condescending BS.

Sorry you took it that way, but you're the one who responded to an entire paragraph of my argument with just the word "Nonsense". If you wish to debate respectfully, then start showing respect.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Why should I provide sources to disprove your claim?

Because you're claiming the work of a scientist and using it to try and dispute me, but you haven't provided any of that scientist's actual work.

You said: This is why the vast majority of toddlers are incredibly selfish jerks - they have no real concept of other people's needs or desires and only really care about their own.

If you want more proof that your claim is false, Google "paul bloom yale babies"

I'm not doing your legwork for you. You claimed he refuted that point, but you haven't provided any such thing despite me asking. I am already familiar with the work of psychologists in this area, and none of it refute the observation I have made. It is a simple fact that toddlers are less capable of making empathic moral judgements than rational adults are. The idea that some children may have an instinctive or evolutionary sense of fairness or justice doesn't mean that they aren't also lacking in certain basic moral judgements or immune from behaving in very selfish ways.

 

[joe1776]

Because you're claiming the work of a scientist and using it to try and dispute me, but you haven't provided any of that scientist's actual work..

What you're trying to do is called the burden of proof fallacy. You made the original claim, so the burden of proof is yours. The fact that I offered a scientist's opinion to dispute it doesn't allow you to shift the burden to me.

 

[YmirGF]

Since us humans are social creatures, and since social creatures have to have some sort of pecking-order in order to live together in at least relative harmony, morality to a certain extent would need to be intrinsic to our species.

Not if everyone was simply mindful of their actions. Morality need not enter the picture.

 

[Nakosis]

Questions or comments?

Your guidelines rely one mainly two concepts, intuition and an innocent person.

What I see is at least two levels of morality. What is right for you personally and what is right for you as a member of a group. Intuitively, I just see this as a combination of genetic predisposition and culture. There are genetic variances which could cause difference is feelings about what is right and of course cultural variances.

So I think it is a mistake to assume intuition provides any kind of standard. At least not across all of humanity.

An innocent person can be defined relative to culture. In a case, if you worship the wrong God you are not innocent. You may feel justified in killing people of other beliefs.

Item 1 - Don't use your reasoning function to make moral rules or laws and don't be guided by moral rules or laws about any type of act like killing, stealing, incest, lying, and so on.

Basically is saying killing, stealing, incest, lying are not moral issues?

So my actions, as long as I don't feel bad about doing it, as long as I'm not intentionally harming someone I see as innocent, as long as I don't see my actions as unfair, I'm good?

I am a moral person as long as I don't guilty about what I'm doing basically.

I assume for civil issues like traffic and theft we use reason to compensate for whatever value lost.

Morally, we just judge everything according to our own values.

Ok, though I don't see were using your guidelines changes anything really.

 

[Nakosis]

Since us humans are social creatures, and since social creatures have to have some sort of pecking-order in order to live together in at least relative harmony, morality to a certain extent would need to be intrinsic to our species.

I think group morals are, but that doesn't necessarily provide a standard between groups.

 

[Nakosis]

Not if everyone was simply mindful of their actions. Morality need not enter the picture.

Morality is based on feelings mostly. Do you personally feel you are taking the right, moral action. I don't see where this is different from being mindful of your actions.

As opposed to group morality, whether the group you belong to sees your actions as moral.

As long as your mindful of the groups morals in your personal actions? You still seem to be stuck with the need to be aware of group morality.

 

[metis]

I think there is a sense in which our early values and collective ethics (i.e: fairness is better than unfairness, working together is preferable to working separately, etc.) may have some evolutionary basis, but none of these things strike me as necessarily intuitive or "ingrained".

Why I think some of it is ingrained is because certain mores are so entirely cross-cultural that we cannot attribute them exclusively to enculturation.

Plenty of room for interesting discussion, though.

Yes there is.

 

[metis]

Not if everyone was simply mindful of their actions. Morality need not enter the picture.

I'm not entirely sure what you're saying here.

But while I'm at it, let me just add to what I've already posted in that what we often call "delinquency" is even observable with some single-celled organisms. IOW, we're not all "programmed" the same way even within species.

 

[joe1776]

Your guidelines rely one mainly two concepts, intuition and an innocent person

Intent is a major factor.

What I see is at least two levels of morality. What is right for you personally and what is right for you as a member of a group.

I wouldn't agree. I think, given all the facts of a specific case, unbiased minds will agree on whether the act is right or wrong.

Intuitively, I just see this as a combination of genetic predisposition and culture. There are genetic variances which could cause difference is feelings about what is right and of course cultural variances.

I don't think so. Those things will have a bearing on how we act but will not change the guidance of conscience.

So I think it is a mistake to assume intuition provides any kind of standard. At least not across all of humanity.

I think there is a cross-cultural conscience for unbiased minds. The differences are due to traditional cultural biases which will disappear in time. The acceptance of slavery was a traditional cultural bias which has almost disappeared.

An innocent person can be defined relative to culture. In a case, if you worship the wrong God you are not innocent. You may feel justified in killing people of other beliefs.

Once again, you won't see conscience as cross-cultural until you remember that we need unbiased minds to judge.

Item 1 - Don't use your reasoning function to make moral rules or laws and don't be guided by moral rules or laws about any type of act like killing, stealing, incest, lying, and so on. Basically is saying killing, stealing, incest, lying are not moral issues?

No, I'm saying that making moral rules and laws about such things is an error.

So my actions, as long as I don't feel bad about doing it, as long as I'm not intentionally harming someone I see as innocent, as long as I don't see my actions as unfair, I'm good?

If it doesn't feel wrong. If you don't feel shame or guilt, then it's not wrong (unless you never feel anything wrong because you're a sociopath).

Ok, though I don't see were using your guidelines changes anything really.

I simplified judgments on abortion, prostitution and euthanasia in my OP. What other moral judgments would you like me to make?

 

[metis]

I think group morals are, but that doesn't necessarily provide a standard between groups.

I agree, and this is an area whereas religion has helped to build bridges. But, unfortunately, some have used religion to build more walls.

 

[YmirGF]

Morality is based on feelings mostly. Do you personally feel you are taking the right, moral action. I don't see where this is different from being mindful of your actions.

As opposed to group morality, whether the group you belong to sees your actions as moral.

As long as your mindful of the groups morals in your personal actions? You still seem to be stuck with the need to be aware of group morality.

Morality, rarely, if ever, enter my thinking.

 

[metis]

Morality, rarely, if ever, enter my thinking.

But morality tends to become so ingrained into us that we are often unaware of it.

For examples, what's your reaction to the thought of child molestation? having sex with your children? walking nude downtown? [these are obviously rhetorical questions]