Philosophy meme
Philosophy meme
Not sure why this got removed from 196lemmy..blahaj.zone but it would be real nice if moderation on Lemmy gave you some sort of notification of what you did wrong. Like an automatic DM or something
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That would be the case if morals were something we can measure outside the human experience. Unfortunately there is no way to measure if something is moral or not outside how someone feels about it.
That's exactly the reason people are moral relativists.
For an objective morality, there would need to be something outside human opinion to observe and measure.
Not really, if absolutely every single human at all stages of life believed it's morally good to spit in their palm every day that would be an objective moral truth, there would be no subjectivity to it. For morals though no such thing exists.
You don't need to be able to observe it externally to distinguish it. For example i can say I have a conscious experience and that would be objectively true even though we have a pretty minimal understanding on what that really is or how to measure it.
You don't need to be able to observe it externally to distinguish it. For example i can say I have a conscious experience and that would be objectively true even though we have a pretty minimal understanding on what that really is or how to measure it.
Consciousness can be observed an measured. There are machines that can tell if someone is conscious, and even reach conclusions about what that person is thinking about based on brain activity.
You can measure brain activity but not consciousness. Consciousness is most likely an emerging property of brain activity but we can't really say more with out current understanding of it.
You can't solve a mystery you can't properly identify to begin with.
People feel like something more than physical is going on. Rather than see it as a natural consequence of abstract thinking and self-reflection, they jump to the conclusion that this sense is supernatural.
Science isn't in the business of examining vague hunches. The first step to getting an answer is deciding what there is to explain. Our current theories on the brain are compatable with people thinking about their own thoughts, and even having emotional reactions to that process.
Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing contradicting the scientific worldview has happened. So what is there to explain?
What? I never said consciousness in supernatural, just that we have a poor understanding of it and no way to measure it. I was just using it as an example of an objective statement for something we can't externally confirm.
We can't measure it, because what you are talking about doesn't exist.
Once you point to a part that does exist, it immediately becomes something that we can understand and measure.
The part that can't be measured is the part people erroneously assume exists because they have a gut feeling it does. Not because of any real evidence.
We might as well philosophize about the ramblings of the delusional, because they sense something is real, but cannot provide it to the rest of us.
Generally in the latter case, people understand the error in that. In the former, realizing "consciousness" is just a useful hallucination that helps humans reflect on their own thought process doesn't come so easy.
In other words "consciousness" is as emergent as the imaginary friend of someone who's lost touch with reality.
You can ever solve a mystery you can't properly identify to begin with.
People feel like something more than physical is going on. Rather than see it as a natural consequence of abstract thinking and self-reflection, they jump to the conclusion that this sense is supernatural.
Science isn't in the business of examining vague hunches. The first step to getting an answer is deciding what there is to explain. Our current theories on the brain are compatable with people thinking about their own thoughts, and even having emotional reactions to that process.
Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing contradicting the scientific worldview has happened. So what is there to explain?
That doesn't mean it does not exist though. It simply means we can't measure it.
I'm not saying that, just that there's no outside way of verifying if something is true or not in case of morals. I don't believe objective morals exist because you can't find a single moral stance shared among all of humanity not because you can't measure the truth of that stance.
Is suffering good or bad? I don't mean that in a specific context, but any type of suffering in itself.
I can't really say about all kinds of suffering, it really depends on context.
It's like asking if all love is good. There are so many situations I can imagine it could be good or bad or even neutral.
With out of context I mean in it's nature. Imagine you have to cut off someone's leg who doesn't like pain and won't profit from experiencing it during the amputation now or in the future, is it better to do it in the way it causes the most pain or the way it causes less pain, when it leads to exactly the same result?
Oh in that context it's absolutely worse. And in a complete vaccum where no action or even existence precedes or continues from that one moment of suffering it's also bad.
Though because such a vacuum does not exist in reality suffering can be good. For example choosing to suffer to bring about some good outcome would be good. Or suffering that builds character for some future event. Also some forms of suffering are enjoyable to some people.
Yeah of course. But that doesn't change that it's objective. I don't mean suffering just as in physical pain.
Yea, the fact that there are a billion things that can be considered suffering makes it even more subjective since one form of suffering may be someone else's enjoyment.
How is suffering morally objective?
If you hit two people with a stick, one enjoys it and the other does not, than clearly one is suffering the other isn't. That's not morally objective it's a biological reality.
Why are you trying to measure something, when you have no evidence for it existing to begin with?
Anything you could point to as objective morality would be explainable as a relative preference by some group.
Putting it into some objective context is something religions do, on faith.
Do you think pain is real?
Yes, it's a physical process where a creature reacts to unwanted physical stimuli.
There's even ongoing research into objectively measuring pain: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30700064/
Exactly, physical pain and other forms of suffering are an objective reality. You can, in theory at last, decide objectively whether any decision will lead to more or less pain immediately and in the future.
If you look at ethics you could assume the only axiom it has is that when comparing more pain or less pain, less pain is better. This is even independent from circumstance if you consider all suffering now and in the future that are consequences of an observed decision.
In my opinion that makes the decision whether something is morally bad or good objective in it's nature.
Many people think pain is necessary for virtue, so that right there would dispell pain as the objective measure.
Many others have some biased view on it. That it should only be for their clan/nation/species that this applies.
Even if all of humanity agreed reducing pain was the #1 goal, that wouldn't mean it had any objective value outside that society. An uncaring universe with a lifeform that have similar values, is still an uncaring universe.
You could still in theory measure it if you also measure whether and to what extent the idea that pain is a virtue leads to more or less suffering in the life of the person and others directly and indirectly affected.
Otherwise what you suggest is that consequences don't exist if we can't foresee them. But obviously the consequences will objectively exist, whether or not we can measure them.
Imagine you could look at the whole universe, all factors in all of it's future. It's an objective reality, if you agree that suffering is real, that every option will either entail more, less or the same amount of suffering than the other options.
That's what I am asking, is the option that entails more suffering better or the one that entails less suffering?
This all rests on the assumptions that avoiding suffering is objectively the ideal, and I disagree on that.
I'd like to see less suffering, but I don't confuse my own values with objective values.
It's not subjective, though. Morality is an objective reality, that can, in theory, be compared between any two options and there would always be an objective answer which of the options are better or worse or the same. You just think there is no objective reason to follow those options which are morally better, but that's a different question.
Morality is an objective reality, that can, in theory, be compared between any two options and there would always be an objective answer which of the options are better or worse or the same.
Whatever standard you used to compare two moral systems would itself be based on the values of the judge.
Even asking "which leads to less suffering" is a subjective value, placing suffering as the most important aspect.
You just think there is no objective reason to follow those options which are morally better, but that's a different question.
Just the opposite. I believe people have their own reasons for following one system over the other.
One system can be more useful to a society, and they will have cause to maintain that ethical system.