He is risen!

[Lorizael]

You end up with a type of utilitarian "ought" because we do have desires, and other people can influence our outcomes. What form of utilitarian "ought" you come up with is how you understand those interactions and what your desires are. In the case of someone who wants to kill children for whatever reason, they have to take into account the likelihood that they will get caught by those who don't want children being killed, and punished for it.

This is actually no different than in the case where you assume a higher power. It's just by assuming a higher power your evaluations are modified because of it. (Not necessarily positively ... see holy wars, inquisition, fatwahs, etc)

That sort of justification for good behavior leads to Ring of Gyges scenarios; i.e. good is just not getting caught. Most people find that to be unsatisfactory and not a reflection of what they think being moral is all about.

[Lorizael]

we do not live as individuals, though we often like to think we do, but rather we live in families, in communities, and in the local societies that we are both defined by and define. we are at heart a social animal and if we are to search for 'meaning' then it is surely here that we must search for it.

This is pretty basic is-ought stuff.

[Kidlicious]

Problem is we don't know what other people believe, unless we assume that they do as they believe, and even then it's sketchy. We really only know what people say, and people are liars. So how are we supposed to have a collective consciousness?

[ricketyclik]

Who said anything about a collective consciousness? Tell those voices in your head to be quiet.

[Aeson]

That sort of justification for good behavior leads to Ring of Gyges scenarios; i.e. good is just not getting caught. Most people find that to be unsatisfactory and not a reflection of what they think being moral is all about.

It's not justification, it's explanation. Individuals evaluating courses of action based on their desires and the expected outcomes. Even if you add in a higher power, really all that is is a change to desires and/or expected outcomes. The more closely a person can predict outcomes the better they can choose in regards to their desires.

As to what it leads to, it can lead to anything. There is a very wide range of different desires and predictive ability.

Personally, all I'd get out of killing a child is a debilitating sense of guilt and shame. Being caught or not would be an insignificant consideration next to that. The death penalty would actually be preferable to having to live with it. A sociopath could have a very different evaluation. They probably would feel no guilt or shame so that's not an issue, and likely put the chances of being caught as much lower or even disregarded entirely. Still sociopaths don't just murder every child they come across, because there may not be any perceived value in the action itself.

[kentonio]

You're still mistaking the feeling of meaning with meaning itself. Or rather, you're content to act as if the two are the same thing.

No, I'm saying that meaning itself doesn't exist. We are because we are, nothing more complex than that. What meaning we construct is for our own personal mission to make our all too brief existences as fulfilling as we can. Some people find that a horrifying concept, others like me find it rather wonderful. Most just don't ever really think about it or care. People spend lifetimes thinking about it, and to me that's the saddest thing of all, because if you only have one life then spending it all thinking about a non-existent 'meaning' is just a waste.

[kentonio]

You are assuming a lot of oughts without grounds. For example, the interest of the individual in perpetuating society or the species. If there is no transcendent or "objective" goal, then ALL means of self-satisfaction are equally valid from the individual's perspective. I have no means of establishing a true morality, i.e. one that applies regardless of expediency. I can say I should not murder children because it is unproductive, or because it invites reprisal, or because it happens to make me, personally, feel bad (likely due to social programming as a child--it's a bit of a stretch to call that an "instinct," since tribal societies will readily massacre children of their enemies). I cannot say I should not murder children, full stop. You could make the case that, under certain circumstances, I should murder children, such as if someone will pay me a large amount of money for it. That's assuming self-interest as a basic good, but self-interest is the only permanent good left once you've eliminated the transcendent.

Why would you need to establish some grand rule that applies no matter what? If the murder of a group of children would save our species from extinction then why would that be 'immoral' despite the instinctive horror of it to us personally? That's the problem I have with definitions of morality, you can almost always find circumstances where they are illogical, and yet because someone wrote them down in a book or carved them into some stone tablets, suddenly they're sacrosanct.

On a wider point though, I just don't recognize your point about how without some greater goal suddenly all behaviour suddenly becomes fine. I actually find it pretty bizarre and disturbing. So without a god in your life you'd suddenly be running around murdering people and helping yourself to anything you wanted? I don't have one, and I've never felt any desire to do any of those things.

[I AM MOBIUS]

No, I'm saying that meaning itself doesn't exist. We are because we are, nothing more complex than that. What meaning we construct is for our own personal mission to make our all too brief existences as fulfilling as we can. Some people find that a horrifying concept, others like me find it rather wonderful. Most just don't ever really think about it or care. People spend lifetimes thinking about it, and to me that's the saddest thing of all, because if you only have one life then spending it all thinking about a non-existent 'meaning' is just a waste.

I tend to agree with this statement. We just are. Why waste time thinking about a 'higher purpose' or all that other guff...?

We are just a happy mutation where having bigger and bigger brains was an obvious survival tool for what is essentially a fairly weak and pathetic animal in the world scheme of things. Intelligence is our ace in the hole survival mechanism and provides us with the ability to survive long enough to fulfil every organism on this planet its biological imperative: to procreate and survive.

That is all. No higher purpose and certainly no higher beings, just a simple survival method that has reached its logical conclusion. If you want a 'higher being' angle, then think a whole planet living symbiosis, like Lovelock's Gaia Theory. Otherwise seriously stop wasting your time.

We are each blessed with this biological accident, so simply make the most of it by filling your time making yourself and others happy and enjoy your life. If filling your mind with made up beings to explain your existence makes you happy, then be my guest. But if it makes you all angsty and fearful - then stop being an idiot wasting your precious and extremely limited time on this planet and go out and get laid...

Oh and if you really want to be a rebel: don't have kids, so wear a condom!

[Kidlicious]

It's not justification, it's explanation. Individuals evaluating courses of action based on their desires and the expected outcomes. Even if you add in a higher power, really all that is is a change to desires and/or expected outcomes. The more closely a person can predict outcomes the better they can choose in regards to their desires.

As to what it leads to, it can lead to anything. There is a very wide range of different desires and predictive ability.

Personally, all I'd get out of killing a child is a debilitating sense of guilt and shame. Being caught or not would be an insignificant consideration next to that. The death penalty would actually be preferable to having to live with it. A sociopath could have a very different evaluation. They probably would feel no guilt or shame so that's not an issue, and likely put the chances of being caught as much lower or even disregarded entirely. Still sociopaths don't just murder every child they come across, because there may not be any perceived value in the action itself.

It can, and does, change. And therefore can't be the good, because the good is always only one thing, and not bad. Yes, order is imposed, of a sort, but the worst sins always go unpunished.

[I AM MOBIUS]

On a wider point though, I just don't recognize your point about how without some greater goal suddenly all behaviour suddenly becomes fine. I actually find it pretty bizarre and disturbing. So without a god in your life you'd suddenly be running around murdering people and helping yourself to anything you wanted? I don't have one, and I've never felt any desire to do any of those things.

This too. I swear not long ago there was a thread where Jon Miller was pretty much saying that, if it were not for religion, he wouldn't know right from wrong...

Needless to say, I was horrified.

[Kidlicious]

I tend to agree with this statement. We just are. Why waste time thinking about a 'higher purpose' or all that other guff...?

We are just a happy mutation where having bigger and bigger brains was an obvious survival tool for what is essentially a fairly weak and pathetic animal in the world scheme of things. Intelligence is our ace in the hole survival mechanism and provides us with the ability to survive long enough to fulfil every organism on this planet its biological imperative: to procreate and survive.

That is all. No higher purpose and certainly no higher beings, just a simple survival method that has reached its logical conclusion. If you want a 'higher being' angle, then think a whole planet living symbiosis, like Lovelock's Gaia Theory. Otherwise seriously stop wasting your time.

We are each blessed with this biological accident, so simply make the most of it by filling your time making yourself and others happy and enjoy your life. If filling your mind with made up beings to explain your existence makes you happy, then be my guest. But if it makes you all angsty and fearful - then stop being an idiot wasting your precious and extremely limited time on this planet and go out and get laid...

Oh and if you really want to be a rebel: don't have kids, so wear a condom!

Stupid people have been saying basically this very same thing since the beginning of time.

[Elok]

That sort of justification for good behavior leads to Ring of Gyges scenarios; i.e. good is just not getting caught. Most people find that to be unsatisfactory and not a reflection of what they think being moral is all about.

I prefer to think of Thucydides (though I've never read either): human civilization is really a terribly thin and fragile set of chains holding a horrible, horrible creature in check. Most if not all of our good conduct is simply our response to a changeable set of incentives. At present, we live in a stable and secure society because we have built up a very elaborate set of incentives. At bottom, however, we are as amoral as the evolutionary process which created us, and if the incentives ever disappear we will do any number of terrible things if they happen to be profitable and/or entertaining. In a sense, almost none of us can be said to be "moral"; the good ones simply respond best to the incentives. Morality happens to align, at the moment, with our self-interest.

(Orthodoxy Christianity, like most religions, could be described as an attempt to turn the individual into the sort of irrational critter who does not bend with the incentives in that fashion)

[ricketyclik]

Stupid people have been saying basically this very same thing since the beginning of time.

What, this?

Stupid people have been saying basically this very same thing since the beginning of time.

[dannubis]

I'm very comfortable with life being an end unto itself. It is indeed majestic.

This... about 7 billion times.

[dannubis]

Life continuum? What does that mean? You have faith that life will go on for eternity?

Eternity ? No.

But look into the eyes of your offspring and then try to deny the continuum...