The Great Contradiction

[Angra Mainyu]

I do not (yet) see that it is the case that at least one of them is not true, no.

What is your evidence against that?
The statements were as follows:

Alice: McConnell's vote for the confirmation of Kavanaugh was immoral.
Bob: McConnell's vote for the confirmation of Kavanaugh was not immoral.
​

Note that the default human position is that one of them is not true, and one of them is true. You do not yet see that that is the case. So, I reckon either your moral sense is very unusual, or else you mistrust it for some reason. I would like to ask which one of the two it is (or if you think it's something else).

Also, how about the following statements:

Alice: Bob crossed the street when the light was red.
Bob: The light was green.​

Would you agree that at least one of them is not true?

 

[Wiploc]

I didn't mean to accuse you of anything other than being a perfectly normal human being: i.e., a person with cognitive dissonance who manages his internal contradictions by compartmentalization.

If you want to do psychotherapy, you should hang out a shingle.

If I came off as hostile, sorry. I was probably feeling a little hostile. You wrote "We have an advocate of retribution in this thread. ... I'm not on Joe's side. I think he's irrational. I do not favor retribution." That's insinuating that retributionists are on Joe's side. You ought not to have done that. Retributionists are not on Joe's side either.

I reject and repudiate your inference about my intentions.

If you didn't know this, that just means you haven't been listening to us with your listening ears on.

Pot, meet kettle.

Are you offended because I'm playing amateur psychoanalyst at you?

Yes, repeatedly. You keep accusing me of having motives that you just made up and attributed to me.

Sorry, but what do you expect? You made an argument that comes off as crazy.

Maybe we seem crazy to each other. Does that license me to lie about your motives?

3. You're trying to arouse an emotional reaction against retribution, and that's fine -- all moral arguments are emotional arguments -- but you're doing it by making Joe some sort of primitive Bible-writing bronze-age goat-herding bigot who thinks children are property.

Me? No. I didn't do anything like that.





You keep bringing up religion. Did I bring up religion?

Yes, indirectly.

No, I didn't.

What you proposed as a pure and canonical example of retribution is a monstrosity unlike anything any of your opponents have ever advocated. What you are showing us would be an alien concept to us, and probably to you as well, except that our culture is already intimately familiar with the concept of it being good and proper to attack somebody by killing his children. It's a concept we've been exposed to from one source: the Bible.

Yes, it was you. You're the one who brought up religion.

God tells the Israelites to revenge themselves on the Amalekites by killing them all including their children and livestock. God tests Job's loyalty by committing an injustice against Job by murdering his children and employees; and then afterwards God makes everything alright again by supplying Job with new children and employees. Adam disobeys God and God takes his anger out not just on Adam but on all Adam's descendants. So what the heck are we supposed to be reminded of when your villain revenges himself on the daughter of the perpetrator, if not religion? We certainly aren't reminded of our own concept of just retribution.

I'm not familiar with that concept, and I don't think you're being a good role model for anything just.

Retribution makes no sense to me. It seems pure villainy.

Utilitarianism -- especially rule utilitarianism -- makes no sense to me.

Okay, then.

It seems, if not pure villainy, then innocent of villainy only by reason of insanity. To me the notion of punishing a crime by killing an innocent looks like it fits a philosophy of maximizing total happiness far better than it fits a philosophy that takes into account who deserves happiness and who doesn't. If the purpose of punishment is deterrence then it makes not a particle of difference whether the punished person is guilty -- it only matters whether he's popularly thought guilty, or whether he's loved by the guilty person.

Spoken like someone who thinks utilitarianism doesn't make sense.

Someone who is a utilitarian would say that there's more utility in punishing the guilty and letting the innocent go free.

But maybe you can explain.

You want me to explain retribution? I'll have to explain morality. I doubt if either of us really has time for that; but here's a synopsis. Morality is not specifically human behavior. It's monkey behavior. When a philosopher comes up with a moral theory like Utilitarianism or the Categorical Imperatives or Divine Command Theory or what have you, there are two ways he can do it. He can do it by trying to conform his theory to the moral judgments being issued by the inherited gadgets in our brains that our monkey ancestors evolved to carry out the moral judgment function they needed, or else he can do it by defining morality to be whatever his theory says it is and then trying to reprogram our monkey brains to conform to his theory.

To my mind, the latter approach is completely wrong-headed. If we assume our monkey brain's morality organ isn't up to the challenge of competently judging the concrete moral situations it evolved to analyze, then what in god's name would make anyone imagine it's up to the challenge of competently judging an abstract theory of ethics? Conversely, if you aren't judging Utilitarianism or what have you by using your intuitive moral sense, then what the bloody hell else have you got to judge it with, to fall back on? Aesthetics?

When you claim retribution is villainy, you're de facto claiming the evolved monkey moral sense is villainous.

That's absurd. I never said anything like that. I never thought anything like that. You're going to ridiculous lengths to make up unsavory opinions and attribute them to me.

We're done here.

 

[Wiploc]

Let me ask what is the point of justice? What makes it good?

You are missing the point. Justice does not have a further point. It is an end, not a means to an end - well, secondarily, it can be a means to deterrence and whatnot, but it does not need to be.
What makes it good? I think that justice is a good-maker, not something that needs a good-maker. In other words, some behaviors are good because they are just, and they need no further good-maker.

I conclude that we disagree. It's not that we don't understand, or that we're talking past each other. We just disagree.

It's like asking what is the point of not behaving immorally,

I ask that all the time. Of people who think something other than increasing happiness is the basis of morality. If that were the case, then why would anyone want to be moral?

or what makes a world in which people never choose to behave wrongfully a better world than a world in which they do, all other things equal? It just is better. If there is a further truth-maker, I do not know it. But I can make a moral assessment using my moral sense (usually, we do not need to know the truth-makers in order to make true assessments).

We disagree.

Was the Hatfields vs McCoys a good story because each side kept thinking it was getting justice on the other?

I'm not familiar with it. But from what I see, there was plenty of injustice and evil act on the part of people on both sides. It does not seem related to the matter at hand.

I think justice is a good idea because it is socially valuable; it increases world happiness. When you reduce it to just the desire for vengeance, you aren't doing the world any favors.

No, that is not it, and I have already showed you that with an example. In Scenario 2, just retribution reduces world happiness. Indeed, compare scenarios 2 and 3:

Scenario 2: Jack takes Bob by surprise. He hits him in the head, and when Bob is trying to get up, Jack stabs him repeatedly, and cuts him in many places. He laughs as Bob dies in a pool of his own blood. But Jack did not know that Bob also had a knife - he just hadn't had time to grab it before Jack fatally wounded him. So, Bob knows he is dying and has no hope of returning. But Jack is very close, so Bob makes an effort and manages to stab Jack once before he loses consciousness, never to recover. But now Jack is fatally wounded, and a few minutes later, he dies as well.

Scenario 3: Jack takes Bob by surprise. He hits him in the head, and when Bob is trying to get up, Jack stabs him repeatedly, and cuts him in many places. He laughs as Bob dies in a pool of his own blood. But Jack did not know that Bob also had a knife - he just hadn't had time to grab it before Jack fatally wounded him. So, Bob knows he is dying and has no hope of returning. But Jack is very close, so Bob makes an effort and manages to stab Jack once before he loses consciousness, never to recover. But now Jack is wounded. However, while Bob thought he had fatally wounded Jack, in fact the wound is a flesh wound, and not that serious. Jack recovers, and lives out the rest of his life on the island, alone. But he likes being alone - he hates people - and he enjoys recalling how he murdered his victims, the last one of which was Bob.

Note that Bob suffers just as much in both scenarios. On the other hand, Jack is happy in scenario 2, enjoying the memories of how he carved up and killed his victims. He gets off recalling how they died, choking in their own blood, pleading for mercy. It is a happier world than the world of Scenario 2, in which Jack bleeds to dead, justly killed by his last victim. Note that the world that contains the greater amount of happiness of the two is the worse world of the two. The world with less happiness is better. And the amount of suffering is the same. .

Well argued. You want more "justice," and I want more happiness.

One happy man is better than everybody-dead. I think that's a fair assumption. I don't like Bob--screw him--but I think the happy survival of humanity for a few more years has to be seen as a good thing. Or else what is good?

Well, humanity can survive elsewhere if you like (place Bob and Jack on a distant planet where aliens put them, or on the island I mentioned, or whatever), but even if they were the two last humans in the universe, Scenario 2 is better. In Scenario 3, what survives is not an abstraction 'humanity', it is a serial killer who enjoys recalling how he carved up his victims, how they slowly died crying and pleading. The survivor deserves to be killed. It is a bad thing that he survived. If you use your own sense of morality to make an assessment (rather than an ideology or philosophical theory), you see that (you already did).

Righteous anger? Is that what we want from life?

No, it is not righteous anger, or any anger for that matter. The amount of anger in Scenario 2 is exactly the same as the amount of anger in Scenario 3.

Again, well argued.

I might be irrationally angry too, in their situations, but I'd hardly promote that as a virtue. I might kill a rapist myself, but I wouldn't ask the law to do that, not if there was no purpose to it other than indulging my sense of righteous outrage.

First, you misunderstand the exchange. You made a claim about the reasons for punishment. I'm explaining that, as a matter of fact, the main reason is just retributioon.

I don't buy that.

Second, why would you think that calling for justice is not a virtue?

What you call "justice" seems to me to be pointless cruelty.

Third, you would not ask the law to kill a rapist. Why not? Because you think he does not deserve it?

Many rapists deserve death.

I didn't say I wouldn't ask the law to kill a rapist. (Okay, well, I am against the death penalty, but not for any reasons relevant to this discussion. Let's put my opposition to the death penalty to one side.)

I said I wouldn't ask the law to punish someone if there was no point, no purpose, no benefit. No rehabilitation, isolation, or deterrence. Where we disagree is that you think hurting someone can be an end in itself when you call it "justice."

Fair enough, but what about a serial killer like Jack above, if he were reachable by law enforcement?

You think "justice" is an ordinary concept that everyone should understand. I think it is controversial, blurred and rimless, that has been disputed by experts for millennia.

You believe the same is the case of concepts like 'morally wrong', or 'morally obligatory', etc.?

Of course. What a question! You think the world agrees about morality? You hang out on a website where morality is disputed constantly.

No, what is disputed in any of those websites is who acted immorally, how immorally it was, etc. But the people debating understand what the terms 'morally wrong', 'morally obligatory', etc., mean. If they did not, they would not be talking in the first place. The same goes for the concept of just retribution, and justice. These are ordinary concepts.

I demur.

Therefore, we often run astray when, in order to illustrate a moral point, we eliminate the group.

That does not follow. The reason I eliminated the rest of the group from the picture was to isolate the variables. In the scenarios, the differences do not involve deterrence, or rehabilitation, etc. Isolating the variables is not something that makes us run astray. Rather, it is something that allow us to study one matter - in this case, just retribution - without risking contamination with other things that might affect our judgments. It is a standard procedure to study a phenomenon.
If we want to study a human moral assessment and we want to know whether what prompts the assessment is always difference in deterrence, or rehabilitation, etc., or it can be prompted by a difference in just retribution, then then using scenarios with the same amount of deterrence, rehabilitation, etc., but different amounts of just retribution gives us: just retribution at least is enough to trigger our assessment. As a bonus, clearly we can see that increased happiness is trumped by decreased justice, in terms of which scenario is better.

To see that the other things (deterrence and the like) on their own do not trigger the assessment, we would need further scenarios. But now we know that just retribution does (well, some of us know, but you should too, after reading the scenario and understanding it; you are failing to accept that, though you have not offered a good reason).

It puzzles me that you don't think I've offered good reason. But, then, your whole stance puzzles me.

And, no, I don't agree that increased happiness is trumped by increased justice.

But I do see that you think that.

And, at this point, I don't think that any amount of further talking is going to bring us together.

 

[ruby sparks]

I do not (yet) see that it is the case that at least one of them is not true, no.

What is your evidence against that?
The statements were as follows:

Alice: McConnell's vote for the confirmation of Kavanaugh was immoral.
Bob: McConnell's vote for the confirmation of Kavanaugh was not immoral.
​

I can't tell you how I feel, partly because I don't know what the alleged moral wrong actually is, and partly because I don't know enough about the McConnell/ Kavanaugh case.

I think you have for some reason picked a very complicated example, and one with which I am not familiar, and that is not helping me.

More to the point, how I would feel, even if I had enough knowledge of what happened and felt able to make a call, might not be a statement of truth, other than subjectively.

Note that the default human position is that one of them is not true, and one of them is true.

There being a default human view on it (even if there was one) might not tell me anything about the possible truth of it.

You do not yet see that that is the case. So, I reckon either your moral sense is very unusual, or else you mistrust it for some reason.

I think I am unable to give you an instinctive answer because (a) the scenario seems complicated and (b) I do not know enough about it. Could you give me a more simple one? About lying or cheating maybe? It is my impression that something like that might be part of what we are calling an approximately 'species-wide morality'.

I would like to ask which one of the two it is (or if you think it's something else).

I don't feel I know enough about it to come to an opinion.

Also, how about the following statements:

Alice: Bob crossed the street when the light was red.
Bob: The light was green.​

Would you agree that at least one of them is not true?

That seems easy, but how do you know it is like the McConnell/Kavanaugh one, or whether the McConnell/ Kavanaugh one is like the taste of tomatoes?

 

[ruby sparks]

I'm using it broadlyl. Call it 'faculties', if you like. But consider, for example, trusting our senses. Are our senses reliable? Sure, they are generally reliable. When humans do science, they trust their senses all the time. They need to trust them when they read the measurements of their instruments. They need to trust them not to bump into a door. And they need to trust their memories that the information about the experiments that are written in their notes/computer/whatever was in fact put there by them. Are our memories reliable? Yes, of course, they generally are.

This is what I'm getting at. You can find specific instances in which one of our senses is not reliable. You can find situations in which our memories aren't. That is all very salient, but those are the very, very few exceptions in an ocean or reliability. The very scientists who figure that in such-and-such cases one of our faculties (one of our senses, memory, whatever) is not reliable are relying generally on their faculties to make those assessments in the first place. And it could not be any other way. What would be a mistake would be not to realize that those cases of unreliability are (in terms of percentage) few exceptions, and even that in order to see those failures, we need to generally trust our faculties.

Perhaps, you have a narrow sense of 'intuition', but the general point is the same. We should not mistrust them without specific evidence against (one or some of) them. If you use 'intuition' in another way (e.g., excluding our memories, senses, etc.), I'd ask you to be more specific.

I was using the more common definition, 'the ability to understand or know something instinctively, without conscious reasoning'.

But I'm probably ok with using it broadly, at least now that I know you are, to cover faculties/senses generally.

Or maybe it's confusing not to distinguish it from faculties?

Actually, I think in the end it would be more useful to distinguish intuitions from faculties.

In any case, yes, I think it's true that in the end, we rely on our faculties (possibly not our intuitions) and the beauty of science is that it can help us a great deal, not just by extending our faculties beyond their natural limits, but in testing whether they are as reliable as we think, and as a result, challenging our intuitions about what is actually going on.

As to the reliability of our intuitions and/or faculties about what goes on in our brains, science is indispensable, because the events are happening far below timescales we can notice and the 'moving parts' are far too small to see, and too many to count, and mere subjective introspection is not enough, and may even be a barrier. Things are happening that we are not (and in some cases can't be) normally aware of.

You might say we can't readily turn our faculties around to look inside, and even if we could, they are not equipped with sufficient range or accuracy.

Are you really saying nothing more than "I intuitively think this is the case because it feels like it is (to me and possibly to everyone)"? Is that all you are saying?

Our intuitions about ourselves, how our brains function and our psychology, are, in some keys ways, very unreliable indeed, particularly in relation to how 'brain/mind stuff' actually works, things like sense of self, consciousness, and agency, and the various relevant sciences are undermining our intuitions about them, possibly more than you are allowing for.

 

[The AntiChris]

In the way humans use the words, to be more precise (sorry if that wasn't sufficiently clear).

No, I understood.

On the other hand, in the case of moral statements (and some gustatory statements; which ones depends on context, but a candidate would be fresh cat feces taste horrible), people's behavior indicates they do understand themselves to be talking about something about which there is a fact of the matter.

I'm tempted to ask if a fact of the matter would still be implied if the faeces were not fresh.

I don't want to misrepresent your views, but as I understand it you would agree with the following:

"Fresh cat faeces taste horrible" implies the speaker is talking about something about which there is a fact of the matter.

"Anchovies taste horrible" does not imply the speaker is talking about something about which there is a fact of the matter.

Have I got this right?

 

[ruby sparks]

But, then, your whole stance puzzles me.

You're not the only person in this thread feeling that about Angra's posts, on either free will or morality.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

I can't tell you how I feel, partly because I don't know what the alleged moral wrong actually is, and partly because I don't know enough about the McConnell/ Kavanaugh case.

But I am not asking you whether you think his actions were immoral, but rather, I'm asking whether you think at least one of the statements is false. Consider again the color case. Even if you haven't seen the incident (which is hypothetical), you can tell that either Alice's statement is false, or Bob's is.

I think you have for some reason picked a very complicated example, and one with which I am not familiar, and that is not helping me.

I'm surprised that you find that relevant (most people wouldn't), but okay, so let us pick another example.

Mary: Hitler behaved immorally when he ordered the genocide of Jews.
Jack: Hitler did not behave immorally when he ordered the genocide of Jews.
​

Do you think that at least one of them is not true?

More to the point, how I would feel, even if I had enough knowledge of what happened and felt able to make a call, might not be a statement of truth, other than subjectively.

Why do you think so? Is that based on an argument, empirical evidence, or something else?

There being a default human view on it (even if there was one) might not tell me anything about the possible truth of it.

It tells you an enormous amount.
Generally, we rely on human intuitions/faculties. We do not reject them without specific evidence against them. It would not be rational to do so, as you would be picking arbitrarily which intuitions to keep and which ones to reject.

I think I am unable to give you an instinctive answer because (a) the scenario seems complicated and (b) I do not know enough about it. Could you give me a more simple one? About lying or cheating maybe? It is my impression that something like that might be part of what we are calling an approximately 'species-wide morality'.

But the fact that you consider (a) and (b) relevant tells me that either your moral sense is very unusual, or else you mistrust it for some reason. An ordinary human would not need to know the specifics in order to reckon that one of them is false - and one true.

I don't feel I know enough about it to come to an opinion.

What I was asking you there is whether you have a very unusual moral sense, or you are mistrusting your moral sense for some reason, not which one you reckon is false.

That seems easy, but how do you know it is like the McConnell/Kavanaugh one, or whether the McConnell/ Kavanaugh one is like the taste of tomatoes?

That seems easy, but I do not know what your answer is. I take it you agree that at least one of them is not true?
If so, why is it easy to you? Is it intuitive to you that at least one of them is false? But why trust your intuitions here, and not in the moral case? (unless you have very unusual moral intuitions).

Regarding the tomato vs. McConnell vs. traffic light, the difference is of course intuition - mine, and that of the vast majority of humans.
Is that not how you distinguish between the traffic light and the tomato case? If not intuitively, then how?

 

[ruby sparks]

"Fresh cat faeces taste horrible" implies the speaker is talking about something about which there is a fact of the matter.

"Anchovies taste horrible" does not imply the speaker is talking about something about which there is a fact of the matter.

Have I got this right?

I hope you don't mind me joining in.....

That seems to me to be one thing he is saying, yes, but possibly with a caveat.

By 'fact' I think he means, 'fact for humans who have properly functioning brains (or systems as a whole)'. It would, he is saying, be a fact for all other humans (but not for a hypothetical cat dung beetle).

I think he might be right about that, possibly, as he seems to be about green/red lights.

Note that responses to cat faeces would be within the domain of what he is calling 'universal human judgements (for humans with properly functioning systems)'. Tomatoes and anchovies, it seems, would not.

Whether morality is equivalent to either of those is arguably another matter, in the first instance. And in the second instance, even if it were the equivalent of gustatory taste, it would then only apply in certain situations (the moral equivalents of, say, tomatoes and cat faeces) and how would we know which ones? He might say, 'when there is no disagreement between humans with proper functioning systems'. Ok so then, how do you determine what is a proper functioning system?

I think what we could do with here is an example of a moral that is the equivalent of cat faeces, just to demonstrate that there is one.

Personally, I'd pick 'cheating'.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

I was using the more common definition, 'the ability to understand or know something instinctively, without conscious reasoning'.

Well, I think conscious reasoning uses a lot of unconscious understanding in the process as well. It is all intertwined, as I have described in previous posts. But if you like, then let us go with that definition, no problem. Then, we understand the difference between right and wrong intuitively. But so do we understand the difference between red and green traffic lights. And the difference between sickness and health. And we reckon intuitively that the things that we remember doing, happened. For example, you do not need any conscious reasoning to tell that you posted before in this thread. You know it intuitively - you remember doing so, and you trust your memories. And intuitively I trust my eyes and know that there is a monitor in front of me. You do the same. And so on.

In any case, yes, I think it's true that in the end, we rely on our faculties (possibly not our intuitions) and the beauty of science is that it can help us a great deal, not just by extending our faculties beyond their natural limits, but in testing whether they are as reliable as we think, and as a result, challenging our intuitions about what is actually going on.

Actually, our intuitions too, even in the narrow sense (see examples above). How else do you know about green and red?

As to the reliability of our intuitions and/or faculties about what goes on in our brains, science is indispensable, because the events are happening far below timescales we can notice and the 'moving parts' are far too small to see, and too many to count, and mere subjective introspection is not enough, and may even be a barrier. Things are happening that we are not (and in some cases can't be) normally aware of.

It is the other way around. Science is good but dispensable. Humans did without it for nearly all of the time they've been around. On the other hand, intuitions are indispensable except for very few, and so are the rest of our faculties if you want to separate them, except again for very few.

Introspection, and intuition generally, are necessary. If you want do distinguish them from other faculties, then other faculties are also necessary. Intuitions and other faculties fail sometimes, but in the vast majority of cases, they do not fail. That is how we can do science, logic, and other stuff.

You might say we can't readily turn our faculties around to look inside, and even if we could, they are not equipped with sufficient range or accuracy.

Are you really saying nothing more than "I intuitively think this is the case because it feels like it is (to me and possibly to everyone)"? Is that all you are saying?

I'm saying you also believe that normally, even if you do not put it in words. I am saying that all humans do that. Why do I believe that there is a monitor in front of me? Intuitively, of course. I can rationalize it and think about it, but not without using many other intuitions I need to rely on. How do I know that the headphones in my desk are red? Well, intuitively of course. I just look at them. How do I even know there are headphones on my desk? Intuitively of course. You get the picture, hopefully.

Our intuitions about ourselves, how our brains function and our psychology, are, in some keys ways, very unreliable indeed, particularly in relation to how 'brain/mind stuff' actually works, things like sense of self, consciousness, and agency, and the various relevant sciences are undermining our intuitions about them, possibly more than you are allowing for.

But you rely on them all the time. When writing your posts, you rely on your memories. You tell Wiploc "You're not the only person in this thread feeling that about Angra's posts, on either free will or morality.", and in doing so, you just trusted a gazillion of memories about what happened in our exchange - all of that, of course, intuitively. For each intuition about ourselves that is found wanting, there is an ocean that work fine - and that you use all the time, as you are human. Why then target moral ones for distrust, in particular?

 

[ruby sparks]

Mary: Hitler behaved immorally when he ordered the genocide of Jews.
Jack: Hitler did not behave immorally when he ordered the genocide of Jews.
​

Do you think that at least one of them is not true?

Much better example, imo. Unsurprisingly I am going to say that as I see it, Hitler behaved immorally.

I am temporarily going to only answer that part of the post because, as often, much of the rest just puzzles me too much.

 

[ruby sparks]

whoops

 

[Angra Mainyu]

I'm tempted to ask if a fact of the matter would still be implied if the faeces were not fresh.

Probably, but after ruby sparks' rotten objection, I'm being careful.

I don't want to misrepresent your views, but as I understand it you would agree with the following:

"Fresh cat faeces taste horrible" implies the speaker is talking about something about which there is a fact of the matter.

"Anchovies taste horrible" does not imply the speaker is talking about something about which there is a fact of the matter.

Have I got this right?

No, there is a very important subtlety here. I do not think it implies that. Rather, I would say that in the first case, the speaker probably means to talk about something about which there is a fact of the matter (i.e., one that is not speaker-dependent). But a speaker might be talking about her own taste. Which one is the case depends on what the speaker meant, and context would help us figure it out.
Similarly, in the second case, the speaker probably does not mean to talk about something about which there is a fact of the matter. She is probably talking about herself (or more precisely, about anchovies as related to herself), not about a property that holds for all normally-functioning humans. But in your modified Alice example (i.e., when she says " Well, you're wrong. They're delicious!"), then she means to talk about something about which there is a fact of the matter. I do not know enough about anchovies to be sure, but Alice might be mistaken. In the case of tomatoes, I would reckon she'd very likely be mistaken. But if she is not, then the alternative is widespread illness in the sense of (gustatory) taste of the human population, plus some other things that would need significant evidence to back them up.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Well, I think conscious reasoning uses a lot of unconscious understanding in the process as well. It is all intertwined, as I have described in previous posts. But if you like, then let us go with that definition, no problem. Then, we understand the difference between right and wrong intuitively. But so do we understand the difference between red and green traffic lights. And the difference between sickness and health. And we reckon intuitively that the things that we remember doing, happened. For example, you do not need any conscious reasoning to tell that you posted before in this thread. You know it intuitively - you remember doing so, and you trust your memories. And intuitively I trust my eyes and know that there is a monitor in front of me. You do the same. And so on.



Actually, our intuitions too, even in the narrow sense (see examples above). How else do you know about green and red?


It is the other way around. Science is good but dispensable. Humans did without it for nearly all of the time they've been around. On the other hand, intuitions are indispensable except for very few, and so are the rest of our faculties if you want to separate them, except again for very few.

Introspection, and intuition generally, are necessary. If you want do distinguish them from other faculties, then other faculties are also necessary. Intuitions and other faculties fail sometimes, but in the vast majority of cases, they do not fail. That is how we can do science, logic, and other stuff.


I'm saying you also believe that normally, even if you do not put it in words. I am saying that all humans do that. Why do I believe that there is a monitor in front of me? Intuitively, of course. I can rationalize it and think about it, but not without using many other intuitions I need to rely on. How do I know that the headphones in my desk are red? Well, intuitively of course. I just look at them. How do I even know there are headphones on my desk? Intuitively of course. You get the picture, hopefully.

Our intuitions about ourselves, how our brains function and our psychology, are, in some keys ways, very unreliable indeed, particularly in relation to how 'brain/mind stuff' actually works, things like sense of self, consciousness, and agency, and the various relevant sciences are undermining our intuitions about them, possibly more than you are allowing for.

But you rely on them all the time. When writing your posts, you rely on your memories. You tell Wiploc "You're not the only person in this thread feeling that about Angra's posts, on either free will or morality.", and in doing so, you just trusted a gazillion of memories about what happened in our exchange - all of that, of course, intuitively. For each intuition about ourselves that is found wanting, there is an ocean that work fine - and that you use all the time, as you are human. Why then target moral ones for distrust, in particular?

I think we need to stop discussing free will and stick to discussing morals.

You have already indicated that you are content to rely on the colloquial and the intuitive.

You are saying, 'I intuitively feel I have free will in the colloquial sense'.

Fine.

I've tried to explain the various reasons why I feel that's extremely inadequate. You're not convinced. Let's just leave it. We can do morals instead.

I'm saying a lot more than that, but let us stop if you like.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Mary: Hitler behaved immorally when he ordered the genocide of Jews.
Jack: Hitler did not behave immorally when he ordered the genocide of Jews.
​

Do you think that at least one of them is not true?

Much better example. Unsurprisingly I am going to say that as I see it, Hitler behaved immorally.

I am temporarily going to only answer that part of the post because, as often, much of the rest just puzzles me too much.

Unfortunately, there seems to have been a misunderstanding. As I mentioned, I wasn't asking you which moral assessment were correct. Of course, I agree that Hitler acted immorally. But my question was not that at all. My question is whether you agree that at least one of the statements is false. Do you agree that in the scenario, Jack made a false statement (maybe sincerely, maybe not, but a false one), and Mary made a true statement?

That is what I wanted to ask.

 

[ruby sparks]

Science is good but dispensable. Humans did without it for nearly all of the time they've been around.

Sure, but they got a lot of things wrong. Which I think is exactly a point I've been trying to make several times, about not relying on intuitions.

Why then target moral ones for distrust, in particular?

If we are talking about morality, and have stopped talking about free will (phew!) then, I don't think it's necessarily the case that I distrust moral intuitions.

(I thought we were still discussing free will. That's another matter. There's loads of evidence that our intuitions are wrong in that case).

 

[ruby sparks]

Do you agree that in the scenario, Jack made a false statement (maybe sincerely, maybe not, but a false one), and Mary made a true statement?

Yes. That is broadly my view, morally.

I would still question whether it is a (human) moral fact or not, or just my opinion, or perhaps my opinion and that of, let's say, most other people, today. In that sense, maybe I do distrust my moral judgements somewhat, yes.

Look at the bible, for example, the Old Testament. There, killing outgroup members (including children and pregnant women) was apparently considered so acceptable that it was felt to be the righteous will of an all-powerful, all-knowing god worth worshipping. And you don't get a much higher supposed source of moral authority than that. That apparent cultural relativism might be one reason I am not sure.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

I ask that all the time. Of people who think something other than increasing happiness is the basis of morality. If that were the case, then why would anyone want to be moral?

Humans, by their own constitution, want some things. Humans want to be happy. But humans also want other things, like not behaving immorally. Those things are part of what humans want - as long as their minds are not ill, anyway.
It would be like asking: why would you want to be happy? You just do. Because you are human.
And why would you want to do justice? (in other words, retribution). Well, because you are human (unless something gets in the way of the way human brains normally work, like an ideology).

Well argued. You want more "justice," and I want more happiness.

No, I want more justice, without the quotation marks. I also want more happiness, all other things equal. I do not want more happiness for a serial killer who gets off recalling how his victims died, choking in their own blood, pleading for mercy.

What you call "justice" seems to me to be pointless cruelty.

In doing so, you reject a significant portion of the human moral sense, and generally the monkey moral sense. Do you do that because of a theory? If so, how have you come to believe it is correct?

Many rapists deserve death.

The word 'deserve' has a meaning. Take a look at how people use it. It is about retribution. You say they deserve death. Great. Their deserving death is independent of whether their death makes other safer, happier, or whatever.

I said I wouldn't ask the law to punish someone if there was no point, no purpose, no benefit. No rehabilitation, isolation, or deterrence. Where we disagree is that you think hurting someone can be an end in itself when you call it "justice."

But the point would be, of course, that those people deserve it.

Where we disagree is that you think hurting someone can be an end in itself when you call it "justice."

But justice is an end, in an of itself. That is how humans work (and other apes and monkeys).

And, at this point, I don't think that any amount of further talking is going to bring us together.

That is probable. Hopefully, the exchange has been or will be helpful for at least one reader. Maybe you can think about it in the future, when the thread is long dead and you are not debating anyone.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Yes. That is broadly my view, morally.

I would still question whether it is a (human) moral fact or not, or just my opinion, or perhaps my opinion and that of, let's say, most other people, today.

I'm not asking for your moral view. I am asking whether you think one of the statements is false. Now you say you question whether there is a fact of the matter. Well, if there is no fact of the matter, why would you think that Jack's statement is false? If there is no fact of the matter, well, there is no fact of the matter.

Look at the bible, for example, the Old Testament. There, killing outgroup members (including children and pregnant women) was considered so acceptable that it was felt to be the will of an all-powerful, all-knowing god worth worshipping. And you don't get a much higher supposed source of moral authority than that.

So......

Does your claim need amended to apply only to 'modern, proper-functioning, humans'?

No. Moral humans have religions/ideologies too, and those are known to interfere with the normal functioning of a human moral sense. Take a look at, say, the belief in Young Earth Creationism. Or the beliefs that Jesus walked on water, raised the dead, resurrected, etc. Now, on the basis of the available evidence, people should not believe those things. But they do. Religions/ideologies do that. They are a cause (one of several) of malfunctioning.

Still, if you take a look at, say, political debates, you will find that even when Christians or other religious believers are involved, in most cases, when there is a moral disagreement, there is a disagreement on non-moral facts upon which the moral assessments are made. So, it would be akin to disagreement between the color of the traffic light because the input was different, say because Bob looked at it 1 second after Alice did, so they got different input.

 

[ruby sparks]

I think we need to stop discussing free will and stick to discussing morals.

You have already indicated that you are content to rely on the colloquial and the intuitive.

You are saying, 'I intuitively feel I have free will in the colloquial sense'.

Fine.

I've tried to explain the various reasons why I feel that's extremely inadequate. You're not convinced. Let's just leave it. We can do morals instead.

I'm saying a lot more than that, but let us stop if you like.

One last shot then. What, other than that, are you saying. Try to be succinct.