Does "RIGHT & WRONG" mean anything, without God or Religion?

[DrZoidberg]

or "GOOD & EVIL"?

Everyone says things like "That's wrong!" or "It's the right thing to do!" etc.

Likewise "That's good!" and so on.

What do we mean when we talk like that? Obviously there doesn't have to be a God in order to speak that way. Or, a non-religious person says those things and means it or understands something serious by it.

Also, it doesn't just mean, "I would like that," or "I would dislike that." When you say it's good or it would be right or wrong, you don't just mean your own personal feelings about it. You mean that even if you didn't exist, it would be good or bad or right or wrong.

Suppose you say about something that's going to happen tomorrow, "That will be good," but then you suddenly die that night. Isn't it still the case that it will be "good" anyway, even though you

Also childish people say childish things. I raise you the Euthyphro dilemma.

I also suggest reading up on process philosophy. What is good is what works. So that applies to religions like Zoroastrianism.

 

[Bomb#20]

That's not what "objective" means. The brightness of Saturn varies a lot over time, from a low of 1.47 to a high of -0.49. Do you think that's a good reason to conclude that its brightness is subjective and/or not measurable?

Variations in the brightness of Saturn, stars, etc, is objective, therefore measurable by anyone who has the means to measure it.

Indeed so. But it being objective does not make it measurable by anyone who does not have the means to measure it. Back when the magnitude system for classifying star brightness was invented, some 2100 years ago, nobody had the means to measure it. People just looked at stars and estimated on a scale of 1 to 6 how bright they were. I put it to you that variations in the brightness of Saturn, stars, etc. were already objective 2100 years ago. I put it to you that if another astronomer had told Hipparchus "Brightness is not measurable. It is only reportable. The subject can describe what they sense. This cannot be measured.", he'd have been wrong.

The circumstance that all we have to go on is subjects' reports that their pain is "maybe a 4" is not sufficient reason to conclude that pain is not objective. The circumstance that we do not have the means to measure something does not imply that it is not measurable.

 

[DBT]

Variations in the brightness of Saturn, stars, etc, is objective, therefore measurable by anyone who has the means to measure it.

Indeed so. But it being objective does not make it measurable by anyone who does not have the means to measure it. Back when the magnitude system for classifying star brightness was invented, some 2100 years ago, nobody had the means to measure it. People just looked at stars and estimated on a scale of 1 to 6 how bright they were. I put it to you that variations in the brightness of Saturn, stars, etc. were already objective 2100 years ago. I put it to you that if another astronomer had told Hipparchus "Brightness is not measurable. It is only reportable. The subject can describe what they sense. This cannot be measured.", he'd have been wrong.

The circumstance that all we have to go on is subjects' reports that their pain is "maybe a 4" is not sufficient reason to conclude that pain is not objective. The circumstance that we do not have the means to measure something does not imply that it is not measurable.

Pain is a real phenomena, more to the point, the perception of pain is real to the person who is feeling pain. But this does not put the experience of felt pain in the same class as luminosity of objective things, stars, planets, etc, or that felt pain can defined as an objective phenomena.

It's simply the brain's representation of information received from stressed or damaged tissue, organs and so on.

It can vary from moment to moment, not because the tissue or organ damage has miraculously healed, but that other things have taken precedence, distractions, and conscious focus is being directed elsewhere .

 

[Bomb#20]

Yes you're right. I explained myself badly.

It's not the notion of objectivity that was question-begging, it was the framing of your question that was question-begging - you implicitly embed the notion that the rightness of the action is independent of any individual perspective (you ask "at what time was he doing right?").

In the first place, that can hardly be question-begging, since that wasn't the point in question. The point in question was whether the rightness of the action is independent of time and identity of actor. And in the second place, I'm not seeing how you figure perspective-independence is any more "embedded" in the framing of my question than it was in the framing of the claim I was challenging. I challenged the claim on its own terms. CMS implied that at some point somebody was doing right, so I asked him who and when. If you figure his claim allows for the possibility that rightness also depends on other factors, such as individual perspective or the existence of tachyons, what makes you think challenging his claim doesn't allow for that possibility too?

Huh? Why would I have to reject that for my question to make sense? Of course it's not only possible that someone doesn't find it wrong, it's a certainty. Lots of people have raped others for fun and gone right on thinking of themselves as good people. What's that got to do with it?

Because your question, "at what time was he doing right?", makes no sense when addressed to someone who does not believe the rightness of an action is independent of individual opinion.

Why does it make no sense, because you say so? What bearing do the beliefs of a speaker have on whether a response to what he says makes sense? I was responding to what CMS said, not to what he believes. If due to his beliefs his words had other than their normal English common-use meanings, he's free to clarify.

If being believed to be false by somebody, somewhere, at some time were enough to make a proposition subjective, then whether people are descendants of monkeys would be subjective.

You're question-begging again.

The claim "I believe that X is not wrong" (ie that X is wrong is false), could mean one of (at least) two things. It could mean the speaker believes X is not wrong independent of any individual opinion or it could simply be the expression of approval for X by the speaker. You're assuming the former.

Hey, if what CMS meant was merely to noncognitively express his own approval of some rapes for fun, then he's perfectly free to take my question in the same spirit, as asking him which particular rapes for fun he approves of.

I don't think beliefs regarding evolution can be construed as expressions of approval or disapproval of the facts of evolution, so I don't think your analogy is apt.

It wasn't an analogy; it was a counterexample. Not the same thing.

I think we're talking at cross purposes. It looks to me like the problem here is that you and CMS have different criteria for "objective" in mind. He presented his criteria and claimed morality isn't objective by his criteria; I argued against him; and you're trying to read what I wrote as if you were the one who'd claimed morality isn't objective and I were arguing against a claim that morality isn't objective by your criteria. CMS didn't say anything about approval or independence of individual perspective. Those are your issues. He and I are talking about dependence on time and identity.

 

[The AntiChris]

In the first place, that can hardly be question-begging, since that wasn't the point in question.

It looks to me that your point relies an a rather uncharitable reading of what CMS wrote.

CMS implied that at some point somebody was doing right, so I asked him who and when.

Another reading of what CMS wrote could be that he was claiming that people's attitude to what was perceived as good or evil was not constant over time (not that action was at one time right and wrong at another time).

Huh? Why would I have to reject that for my question to make sense? Of course it's not only possible that someone doesn't find it wrong, it's a certainty. Lots of people have raped others for fun and gone right on thinking of themselves as good people. What's that got to do with it?

Because your question, "at what time was he doing right?", makes no sense when addressed to someone who does not believe the rightness of an action is independent of individual opinion.

Why does it make no sense, because you say so? What bearing do the beliefs of a speaker have on whether a response to what he says makes sense? I was responding to what CMS said, not to what he believes.

I read what CMS wrote and I couldn't see any claim that an action can be right at one time and wrong at another. His claim that morality changes over time can by interpreted in many ways. Your interpretation is not the most charitable.

If being believed to be false by somebody, somewhere, at some time were enough to make a proposition subjective, then whether people are descendants of monkeys would be subjective.

You're question-begging again.

The claim "I believe that X is not wrong" (ie that X is wrong is false), could mean one of (at least) two things. It could mean the speaker believes X is not wrong independent of any individual opinion or it could simply be the expression of approval for X by the speaker. You're assuming the former.

Hey, if what CMS meant was merely to noncognitively express his own approval of some rapes for fun, then he's perfectly free to take my question in the same spirit, as asking him which particular rapes for fun he approves of.

This is odd. I didn't see CMS approving of any rapes (noncognitively or otherwise).

I don't think beliefs regarding evolution can be construed as expressions of approval or disapproval of the facts of evolution, so I don't think your analogy is apt.

It wasn't an analogy; it was a counterexample. Not the same thing.

For it to be a valid counterexample it must be relevantly similar. Your counterexample is only relevantly similar if you make no distinction between moral attitudes and beliefs about measurable facts in the world.

I think we're talking at cross purposes. It looks to me like the problem here is that you and CMS have different criteria for "objective" in mind. He presented his criteria and claimed morality isn't objective by his criteria; I argued against him; and you're trying to read what I wrote as if you were the one who'd claimed morality isn't objective and I were arguing against a claim that morality isn't objective by your criteria. CMS didn't say anything about approval or independence of individual perspective. Those are your issues. He and I are talking about dependence on time and identity.

I suppose could read CMS as saying that because morality changes over time then it proves morality is not objective. A rather more charitable reading would be that he is saying that morality mirrors changing attitudes over time.

It'd be interesting see what he says if he returns to this thread.

 

[C_Mucius_Scaevola]

That's rather like saying that if brightness was an objective, measurable thing, Hipparchus wouldn't have needed to ask the other astronomers on a scale of 1 to 6, or any other scale, how bright Saturn looked to them. He'd just tell them "the brightness you experience is 1.47 magnitude", and there would be no gainsaying the assessment. Should we all take for granted that the state of measurement technology in 2016 is a valid basis for judging whether something is an objective, measurable thing?

Objective = the same through all times and all places for all people.

That's not what "objective" means. The brightness of Saturn varies a lot over time, from a low of 1.47 to a high of -0.49. Do you think that's a good reason to conclude that its brightness is subjective and/or not measurable?

Pain does not fit that criterion, neither does "good" and "evil". If they did, morality would have been the same in all the first societies of men and remained so from the earlieat times until now, and so on into the unending future. That's not the case, and probably never will be. Ergo, "good" and "evil" are not objective. End of discussion as far as I'm concerned.

We have a definitional problem here. What's the right thing to do depends on local conditions. For example, whether it's right for you to shoot someone often depends on the immediate circumstance of whether he's shooting at you. So if Alice should shoot Bob today because he's trying to kill her, but Charlie shouldn't have shot Debby yesterday because she wasn't trying to kill him, are you going to call that "Morality was different yesterday and it's different for Alice from what it is for Charlie."? Or are you going to call that "It's okay to shoot someone in self defense, whether it's yesterday or today and whether you're Alice or Charlie."?

The point is, the first societies of men were up against a different set of constraints from the ones current societies face; in the unending future societies will again find themselves in different circumstances from ours. The consequent changes in what responses to these circumstances are most reasonable for the respective societies no more make morality subjective than a change in whether one is being shot at makes the morality of killing subjective. For example, can we at least agree that it's moral for governments to tax their subjects to pay for socially useful services? Well, it used to be common practice for them to tax the people by means of "corvee", i.e., making citizens do community service work. This would generally be considered morally unacceptable in this day and age; but what were governments supposed to do back when they had no ability to measure income and most economic activity wasn't even paid for with money? Governments telling people "Do whatever work you want and give us 10% of the proceeds." was impractical; "Work for us 10% of the time." was the closest feasible approximation. So to say "Corvee was moral in 1400 AD; today it isn't." is not a good reason to think morality isn't objective.

The flip-side of the definitional problem is that we separately need to distinguish between what's moral and what's believed to be moral. Al Capone may well have believed it was moral for him to rub out other gangsters for competing on his turf in the booze business, but his opinion on the matter is no more evidence that it really was moral than William Jennings Bryan's opinion that God made the world 6,000 years ago is evidence that humans didn't evolve from monkeys millions of years ago. People often believe things that aren't true.

So when you say morality would have been the same in all the first societies of men and remained so from the earliest times until now, and so on into the unending future, and that's not the case, what sort of changes are you referring to? If what you mean is "Corvee was moral in 1400 and now it isn't.", the counterargument is "Conditions change.". But if what you mean is "Burning heretics at the stake was moral in 1400 and now it isn't.", you get a very different counterargument. "Burning heretics at the stake was moral in 1400 and now it isn't." really would be a good reason to think morality isn't objective, but first you'd need to prove burning heretics at the stake was moral in 1400. All you're going to be able to prove is that a lot of people believed it was moral. Whoop de do. A lot of people believed the world was a few thousand years old. Believing stuff doesn't make it so.

In its simplest terms: objective = true for all people in all places at all times. "Good" and "evil" or "right and "wrong" do not meet this standard. With or without "god".

As argued above, you're setting goalposts for objectivity that are unreasonably high. You've set them so high that not even astronomy can meet them, unless you want to claim that the properties of astronomical bodies somehow changed from subjective to objective when we invented the light meter. But never mind that. For the sake of discussion, let's say you're right that objective = true for all people in all places at all times.

I say it's wrong for a person to rape another person for fun. So if right and wrong do not meet this standard for objectivity, then tell me, what person at what time was doing right when he raped another person for fun?

I think you're comparing apples and oranges here. By which I mean, you're conflating matters of fact with matters of judgment. In your example, the luminosity of Saturn, it's a fact that Saturn will shine with a luminosity of x lumens, or at x magnitude, which can be measured by whatever measure is appropriate, and we get the same answer no matter who's doing the measuring. Questions of morality, OTOH, cannot be quantified in the same way, because they depend on judgment, and the answer may vary depending on whose judgment is in play.

Likewise the question of the age of the Earth. The Earth is as old as it is, no matter who believes what on the question. It's a matter of fact, and even if we calculate wrongly, the fact remains as it is, independent of belief.

Morality is a different kettle of fish. There, belief is all we have. Everything depends on the judgment of whoever happens to be considering the question, with the judgment of society at large superceding that of any individual in the society. Thus, yes, corvee labour, as a placeholder for a tax system, was moral at the time and place, because that society deemed it to be so. That doesn't change the fact that we can say it's not moral by modern standards, and wouldn't be allowed today, because we can only use our own standards to make our own judgments.

In the case of "rape for fun" (of which, for the record, I do not approve), while I know of no society which ever considered it moral, it's not inconceivable that such a society could exist, one where women are viewed as nothing more than receptacles for the sperm of whoever wanted to use them that way. There have been many cases where rape was considered a useful act in waging war, and there are societies even today where rape victims are considered to be at fault and are punished for the "crime" of being raped. It's not such a mmassive leap from there to a situation where rape is heartily approved of, and seen as moral, by society at large.

But, you might say, that all comes back down to belief rather than established objective standards. Well, I say that in the case of morality, belief is all we have, lacking as we do any hard and fast measures by which to resolve moral questions. If we believe actions to be moral/immoral which were once believed to be the opposite, it's because we're imposing our own standards on the question, not because we have objective measures of morality which were lacking in that place and time.

 

[Bomb#20]

I think you're comparing apples and oranges here. By which I mean, you're conflating matters of fact with matters of judgment. In your example, the luminosity of Saturn, it's a fact that Saturn will shine with a luminosity of x lumens, or at x magnitude, which can be measured by whatever measure is appropriate, and we get the same answer no matter who's doing the measuring. Questions of morality, OTOH, cannot be quantified in the same way, because they depend on judgment, and the answer may vary depending on whose judgment is in play.

Just to clarify, that was a response to "if pain was an objective, measurable thing, the doctor wouldn't need to ask you on a scale of 1 to 20, or any other scale, how much something hurt.", not a response to what you said about morality. I was inviting you to put yourself in the shoes of the ancient Greeks, who knew nothing of lumens, whose x magnitude measurements depended entirely on judgment, and who got different answers depending on who was doing the measuring. That was not a good reason for them to infer that brightness was not measurable. Likewise, our similar situation today with respect to doctors' pain scales is not a good reason to infer that pain is not measurable. I see no reason to suppose that by 4100 AD we won't have invented pain measurement technology that will render it unnecessary for doctors to ask patients to judge their own pain levels. If somebody today can't imagine how that could possibly be accomplished, what of it? Hipparchus couldn't have imagined how anybody could possibly build a machine to measure luminosity.

In the case of "rape for fun" (of which, for the record, I do not approve),

Just to clarify, I was not seriously suggesting you might. I was sarcastically expressing what a bad argument I thought Chris's "It could mean <something> or it could simply be the expression of approval for X by the speaker. You're assuming the former." was. I shouldn't have said it -- he didn't deserve snarkiness.

I'll address the morality arguments when I have more time.

 

[C_Mucius_Scaevola]

In the case of "rape for fun" (of which, for the record, I do not approve),

Just to clarify, I was not seriously suggesting you might. I was sarcastically expressing what a bad argument I thought Chris's "It could mean <something> or it could simply be the expression of approval for X by the speaker. You're assuming the former." was. I shouldn't have said it -- he didn't deserve snarkiness.

No, I didn't imagine you were suggesting that. Just thought I should make it clear, because you never know what people might take seriously. It's like walking on eggshells sometimes.

And, just to clarify, I'm not suggesting you might be one of those people who might take something like that seriously.

 

[C_Mucius_Scaevola]

Just to clarify, that was a response to "if pain was an objective, measurable thing, the doctor wouldn't need to ask you on a scale of 1 to 20, or any other scale, how much something hurt.", not a response to what you said about morality. I was inviting you to put yourself in the shoes of the ancient Greeks, who knew nothing of lumens, whose x magnitude measurements depended entirely on judgment, and who got different answers depending on who was doing the measuring. That was not a good reason for them to infer that brightness was not measurable. Likewise, our similar situation today with respect to doctors' pain scales is not a good reason to infer that pain is not measurable. I see no reason to suppose that by 4100 AD we won't have invented pain measurement technology that will render it unnecessary for doctors to ask patients to judge their own pain levels. If somebody today can't imagine how that could possibly be accomplished, what of it? Hipparchus couldn't have imagined how anybody could possibly build a machine to measure luminosity.

The point I'm making, though, is that whether Hipparchus, or anybody else, can measure the luminosity, it doesn't affect the luminosity. It is what it is, no matter the measuring capabilities. Just as the Earth is as old as it is, even if everybody believes it's some other age. Pain, OTOH, is down to the subjective experience of the individual. Some people are just more sensitive to pain than others. What one person might shrug off and keep on going, might lay aother person out for days. So while it might be possible to make a machine to measure pain, I don't think it would be able to objectively give the same result for all people undergoing the same experience.

 

[jonJ]

I say it's wrong for a person to rape another person for fun. So if right and wrong do not meet this standard for objectivity, then tell me, what person at what time was doing right when he raped another person for fun?

The utilitarian answer is 'when that event turned out to have consequences that were positive overall'. And that allows us to get past the intention of the rapist and look at the outcome of what occurred. Most people, most of the time, do things for non-moral reasons. It's the social institutions in which they operate that are able to turn non-moral actions into moral outcomes. Build a sufficiently effective society, and you no longer need individual moral codes.

 

[OLDMAN]

The cat tortures the mouse and from our perspective it is torture. But not from the animal perspective. Same can be said for sociopaths. In the end I think good and evil are really just a matter of perspective. Knowing better allows one to opp out of selfishness. But even selfishness can be a good thing sometimes.

 

[DBT]

Those who possess the attributes of empathy, mirror neurons, a well developed anterior rostral prefrontal cortex (generally not normal in sociopaths), tend to treat others with greater care and consideration.

 

[Bomb#20]

The point I'm making, though, is that whether Hipparchus, or anybody else, can measure the luminosity, it doesn't affect the luminosity. It is what it is, no matter the measuring capabilities. Just as the Earth is as old as it is, even if everybody believes it's some other age. Pain, OTOH, is down to the subjective experience of the individual. Some people are just more sensitive to pain than others. What one person might shrug off and keep on going, might lay aother person out for days. So while it might be possible to make a machine to measure pain, I don't think it would be able to objectively give the same result for all people undergoing the same experience.

By "the same experience", you mean the same injury? How sensitive you are to it counts as part of the experience. Pain is in the mind. But unless you believe in philosophical zombies, Chinese Rooms, and qualia magically immune to science, that just means pain is in the brain. Brains can be measured. And if building an objective pain meter means first you have to build a sensitivity meter, a distraction meter, and a conscious focus meter, such is life. Those aren't walled off in some non-overlapping magisterium either.

 

[C_Mucius_Scaevola]

The point I'm making, though, is that whether Hipparchus, or anybody else, can measure the luminosity, it doesn't affect the luminosity. It is what it is, no matter the measuring capabilities. Just as the Earth is as old as it is, even if everybody believes it's some other age. Pain, OTOH, is down to the subjective experience of the individual. Some people are just more sensitive to pain than others. What one person might shrug off and keep on going, might lay aother person out for days. So while it might be possible to make a machine to measure pain, I don't think it would be able to objectively give the same result for all people undergoing the same experience.

By "the same experience", you mean the same injury? How sensitive you are to it counts as part of the experience. Pain is in the mind. But unless you believe in philosophical zombies, Chinese Rooms, and qualia magically immune to science, that just means pain is in the brain. Brains can be measured. And if building an objective pain meter means first you have to build a sensitivity meter, a distraction meter, and a conscious focus meter, such is life. Those aren't walled off in some non-overlapping magisterium either.

The parts Ive bolded are the parts where you say what I've been saying all along. Because pain is in the mind, each person will experience pain in a way unique to them, even if all other circumstances are identical. It's not that they're in some NOM, it's simply that each pain experience is unique to the person undergoing it, which makes it impossible to say "if x happens, you will experience y pain", one some one-size-fits-all scale.

By coincidence, I was listening to an audiobook about obscure words today, and one of the words that came up in it was "dolorimeter". From "dolor" = "pain" and "meter" = "measure". This was a device invented in the 1940s whch was found to be reasonably useful in evaluating the efficacy of analgesics (painkillers), but not in measuring pain. In the following decades, it was discredited, in part because other researchers couldn't reproduce the results of the original study.

 

[jonJ]

Those who possess the attributes of empathy, mirror neurons, a well developed anterior rostral prefrontal cortex (generally not normal in sociopaths), tend to treat others with greater care and consideration.

But -- other things being equal -- does that result in better outcomes? A cool, dispassionate logical approach to a problem may well come up with a better solution than a deeply empathic one.

 

[DBT]

Those who possess the attributes of empathy, mirror neurons, a well developed anterior rostral prefrontal cortex (generally not normal in sociopaths), tend to treat others with greater care and consideration.

But -- other things being equal -- does that result in better outcomes? A cool, dispassionate logical approach to a problem may well come up with a better solution than a deeply empathic one.

Of course, but normal human beings (empathy and reason) have both abilities at work, while sociopaths, feeling no empathy or guilt in relation to their decisions and actions, do not.

 

[DrZoidberg]

But -- other things being equal -- does that result in better outcomes? A cool, dispassionate logical approach to a problem may well come up with a better solution than a deeply empathic one.

Of course, but normal human beings (empathy and reason) have both abilities at work, while sociopaths, feeling no empathy or guilt in relation to their decisions and actions, do not.

A part of the diagnosis is that they are drama generators. They create friction and drama where ever they go. It's like they're trying to make other people feel bad and feel insecure. That's not somebody who is cold, logical and calculating. That's somebody who just sucks at life. Sociopaths are more like emotional vampires that need to replace the lacking emotional intensity in themselves by orchestrating it in others. Whenever anything is working out for them and life is good, they're masters at fucking it all up by creating pointless conflicts.

Sociopaths (and psychopaths) are not dispassionate. They're just passionate about the wrong things. It's just a mental handicap. There's very little added benefit to anybody (including themselves) having these people around.

 

[DBT]

Sociopaths (and psychopaths) are not dispassionate. They're just passionate about the wrong things. It's just a mental handicap. There's very little added benefit to anybody (including themselves) having these people around.

Some literally have no feelings. It's either calculation that serves a purpose or it's impulsive behaviour with no consideration for consequences.

Quote;
''The 20-year-old female subject studied by Damasio et al. was intelligent and academically competent, but she stole from her family and other children, abused other people both verbally and physically, lied frequently, and was sexually promiscuous and completely lacking in empathy toward her illegitimate child. In addition, the researchers say, "She never expressed guilt or remorse for her misbehavior'' ''Both of the subjects performed well on measures of intellectual ability, but, like people with adult-onset prefrontal cortex damage, they were socially impaired, failed to consider future consequences when making decisions, and failed to respond normally to punishment or behavioral interventions. "Unlike adult-onset patients, however," the researchers say, "the two patients had defective social and moral reasoning, suggesting that the acquisition of complex social conventions and moral rules had been impaired." While adult-onset patients possess factual knowledge about social and moral rules (even though they often cannot follow these rules in real life), Damasio et al.'s childhood-onset subjects appeared unable to learn these rules at all. This may explain, the researchers say, why their childhood-onset subjects were much more antisocial, and showed less guilt and remorse, than subjects who suffered similar damage in adulthood.''

 

[DrZoidberg]

Sociopaths (and psychopaths) are not dispassionate. They're just passionate about the wrong things. It's just a mental handicap. There's very little added benefit to anybody (including themselves) having these people around.

Some literally have no feelings. It's either calculation that serves a purpose or it's impulsive behaviour with no consideration for consequences.

Quote;
''The 20-year-old female subject studied by Damasio et al. was intelligent and academically competent, but she stole from her family and other children, abused other people both verbally and physically, lied frequently, and was sexually promiscuous and completely lacking in empathy toward her illegitimate child. In addition, the researchers say, "She never expressed guilt or remorse for her misbehavior'' ''Both of the subjects performed well on measures of intellectual ability, but, like people with adult-onset prefrontal cortex damage, they were socially impaired, failed to consider future consequences when making decisions, and failed to respond normally to punishment or behavioral interventions. "Unlike adult-onset patients, however," the researchers say, "the two patients had defective social and moral reasoning, suggesting that the acquisition of complex social conventions and moral rules had been impaired." While adult-onset patients possess factual knowledge about social and moral rules (even though they often cannot follow these rules in real life), Damasio et al.'s childhood-onset subjects appeared unable to learn these rules at all. This may explain, the researchers say, why their childhood-onset subjects were much more antisocial, and showed less guilt and remorse, than subjects who suffered similar damage in adulthood.''

It's there in the text. Sociopaths don't follow social norms even when it's in their own best interest. They're typically extremely short sighted. They can beat or kill people for the most trivial things. And when they do they feel sorry for themselves when they're punished for it. They often end up in jail. Smart dispassionate people who can plan don't end up in jail.

 

[Bomb#20]

By "the same experience", you mean the same injury? How sensitive you are to it counts as part of the experience. Pain is in the mind. But unless you believe in philosophical zombies, Chinese Rooms, and qualia magically immune to science, that just means pain is in the brain. Brains can be measured. And if building an objective pain meter means first you have to build a sensitivity meter, a distraction meter, and a conscious focus meter, such is life. Those aren't walled off in some non-overlapping magisterium either.

The parts Ive bolded are the parts where you say what I've been saying all along. Because pain is in the mind, each person will experience pain in a way unique to them, even if all other circumstances are identical. It's not that they're in some NOM, it's simply that each pain experience is unique to the person undergoing it, which makes it impossible to say "if x happens, you will experience y pain", one some one-size-fits-all scale.

But what does it mean to say "all other circumstances are identical"? If each pain experience is unique to the person undergoing it, that means two people have different pain experiences. And that, if you aren't appealing to some NOM, means that those two people must have some physical difference in their brains. So all other circumstances are not identical. Whatever the physical difference is that causes one person to experience pain differently from the other, let us call that difference x. Well then, if x happens, you will experience y pain. What makes you think it's impossible to examine a brain and test for whether x is occurring in it?

By coincidence, I was listening to an audiobook about obscure words today, and one of the words that came up in it was "dolorimeter". From "dolor" = "pain" and "meter" = "measure". This was a device invented in the 1940s whch was found to be reasonably useful in evaluating the efficacy of analgesics (painkillers), but not in measuring pain. In the following decades, it was discredited, in part because other researchers couldn't reproduce the results of the original study.

But the dolorimeter was testing for a response to the state of the skin, not to the state of the brain.