Naturalistic realism etc.

[brimstoneSalad]

http://lesswrong.com/lw/5u2/pluralistic_moral_reductionism/

This seems very similar to your views, both in terms of morality and perspective on philosophy (is it actually?). I am inclined to agree with something similar.

Very likely. Less wrong is usually on the money.

That the meaning of moral, good etc. is constrained to mean certain things which can be expressed in terms of natural facts, but due to the ambiguity of its folk meaning there is no implied 'correct morality', but there are nonetheless things it cannot be.

It's narrowed down *much* more when we talk about "objective morality" specifically, which is what we must be talking about when we're prescriptive in our moralizing language (assuming we want to convince others of our position and not just probe their own personal intuitions and validate them as equal virtually no matter what they are).

So culturally relative morality with an arbitrary threshold doesn't work in that context.

My concern is that this would leave us with the question of 'which is the best morality from those which it can be?', I'm not sure how that could be answered, perhaps through 'reflective equilibrium' or a concept of self-evidence, I am not sure. Perhaps we could only say something falls within certain definitions.

I think it can be reduced down to the point of some pretty definitive normative claims (even if not all normative claims are definitive).

Intentionally harming others in a way that violates their interests and causes them pain/suffering, for the sake of that harm, which does not have beneficial consequences of either kind (interest or pleasure/happiness) that outweigh that harm, and for no other reason than petty personal amusement, for example: pretty much ticks every possible box to be unambiguously bad.

I also think it can be reduced much more than that (to preference based consequentialism), but that's a more complex issue.

[DrSinger]

To me it seems like the significance of moral, good etc. is lost when you express them in terms of natural facts and a hypothetical imperative e.g.

you should not torture innocent children

seems far more meaningful than

If moral means X, then if you want to be moral, you should not torture children

It seems like contextualism, and makes 'moral' come across like somewhat of an arbitrary concept. I suspect this is why people look to other things to justify what the 'true morality' is. The SEP section on Cornell realism seems to suggest a way, but it is reliant on our intuitions about morality and how we intuitively refine those intuitions with thought experiments or 'reflective equilibrium'.

How would you say you arrived at the conclusion that the only good is the fulfilment of idealized preferences? Is it a matter of self evidence or reflective equilibrium, that can be known a priori?

[brimstoneSalad]

To me it seems like the significance of moral, good etc. is lost when you express them in terms of natural facts and a hypothetical imperative e.g.

you should not torture innocent children

seems far more meaningful than

If moral means X, then if you want to be moral, you should not torture children

The main problem with "you should not torture innocent children" is it's not clear if you mean the act itself irrespective of the consequences, or "all other things being the same" that is with no other good or bad consequences. Or if you mean it as a general rule.

Assuming that, you can absolutely say "You should not do X"
The teleology of the claim already suggests "If moral means X, then if you want to be moral"; the claim is regarding a moral ought, and the fact of it being made says certain things about morality (like we're talking about a prescriptive morality, rather than an anthropological descriptive morality; we're looking for an objective moral basis that would make the claim meaningful, otherwise its not saying anything).

Like saying:
"You should change your oil every 10,000 miles."

That's clearly not a moral should, but an automotive maintenance should.

We do not need to say:
"If automotive maintenance means keeping your car running well (or whatever), and you want to do that, then you should change your oil every 10,000 miles."

The SEP section on Cornell realism seems to suggest a way, but it is reliant on our intuitions about morality and how we intuitively refine those intuitions with thought experiments or 'reflective equilibrium'.

When we're asking how the mind works to process interests, it's not necessarily wrong to ask people what they want. It's imprecise, but sometimes it's all we have. It's also acceptable to probe what you would want in that situation when we have no better information, particularly with a very similar mind (like another human). It's important to discount that when there's evidence against it (e.g. somebody with an unusual mental illness), but that's because there is an objective fact in the matter, and this is just a crude way of assessing that.

None of that is intuition superseding fact or deductive reasoning, or merely guessing on a matter of reality (asking the mind about itself is more credible [not merely intuition about something else, but more of a survey] than asking the mind about metaphysics).

Anyway, that only works if we can get to the point of being interested in interests.

How would you say you arrived at the conclusion that the only good is the fulfilment of idealized preferences? Is it a matter of self evidence or reflective equilibrium, that can be known a priori?

A large part of it is teleology of language and the moral claims we make.

We could do the same thing with respect to "God", but it's much trickier due to all of the false empirical claims bundled into god-concepts.

Theists do certain things, like pray to their god.
Either they are in error (error theory), or there's something that fits the teleological bill of what they're doing.

Presumably this being exists, hears them, and can help manifest at least some of what they're asking for. A lot of what they ask for is "strength", so some aspect of their own personality that motivates them (exists in their minds) and can accomplish this feat would fit them bill.

But then they say things like god created the universe and completely foil that theory. Human psychology and placebo producing imaginary friends did not travel back in time and do something to the physical world.

The same problems do not exist for morality as a concept.

[DrSinger]

Something about this is unsatisfying to me, it makes it seem as if it's just a linguistic exercise to determine what a narrower definition of morality might be. (Particularly the lesswrong page, if you've had a chance to read it.)

Let's suppose based on teleology etc., you cannot reduce morality down to a single, perfectly well defined concept such as;

the moral act is the one which maximises the fulfilment of idealized interests, where idealized interests are defined as ...

Then you need something extra to determine what really is moral, and what you should do if you want to be maximally altruistic. That has to come from a notion of self evidence or similar, I can't see any way around it. In which case, why not just appeal to self evidence or 'intuition' to begin with?

Regarding the hypothetical imperatives, I'm not sure they are implicit. As an example, if someone says

you should treat others as you would like to be treated

Then they're saying someone just should, regardless of how they feel on the matter, as an ends in itself.

This is a quote from the wikipedia page about the categorical imperative. I feel much the same way, not that it matters to the reality of the situation, perhaps we can do no better than hypothetical imperatives.

Kant expressed extreme dissatisfaction with the popular moral philosophy of his day, believing that it could never surpass the level of hypothetical imperatives: a utilitarian says that murder is wrong because it does not maximize good for those involved, but this is irrelevant to people who are concerned only with maximizing the positive outcome for themselves. Consequently, Kant argued, hypothetical moral systems cannot persuade moral action or be regarded as bases for moral judgments against others, because the imperatives on which they are based rely too heavily on subjective considerations.

[brimstoneSalad]

Something about this is unsatisfying to me, it makes it seem as if it's just a linguistic exercise to determine what a narrower definition of morality might be.

Isn't narrowing down any definition a linguistic exercise?

If somebody says "mass" we can narrow that down based on context; "I go to mass every Friday" or "The particle has a the mass of an electron".

A significant part of moral philosophy is semantics. Half of moral realism is the semantic thesis, after all.

The distinction, as above with "mass" is that in some contexts morality is used in a more objective sense as with "mass" in a scientific context. And THERE we can narrow things down substantially, discarding personal intuitions and ad hoc mechanisms and globalizing it in some sense.

(Particularly the lesswrong page, if you've had a chance to read it.)

Some of it.

Moral facts are objective1 if they are made true or false by mind-independent facts, otherwise they are subjective1.

I don't know if they got into how that definition isn't really coherent; it leans on what "mind-independent" means, and it doesn't mean anything.

E.g. my qualia of suffering is dependent on my mind, but the fact that Bob is experiencing suffering is objective and not dependent on my mind. It's not something I have to interpret.
Is that mind independent? It can have effects outside of his mind that can be verified too.
Is the fact that an FMRI is registering a certain pattern mind-independent?
Where in the chain of causality is "dependence" broken?
Is the existence of a painting, or a building, or a car mind-independent? Clearly minds were involved in making these things at some point. And via the butterfly effect, is the existence of anything in the causal sphere of a mind truly mind independent?

We can eliminate some definitions by deconstructing them and showing how not-useful they are. It fails to create any coherent distinction; and a big part of that is the fact that a mind is a real thing, and not some mystical and innately independent force.

Let's suppose based on teleology etc., you cannot reduce morality down to a single, perfectly well defined concept such as;

I don't think we can assume that, though.

Then you need something extra to determine what really is moral, and what you should do if you want to be maximally altruistic. That has to come from a notion of self evidence or similar, I can't see any way around it. In which case, why not just appeal to self evidence or 'intuition' to begin with?

If we can't reduce it at all, then yes we have to appeal to a pure intuition and there's no reason not to do that to start with since reason got us nowhere.

However, it's not the same to start from a guess, and to use reason to reduce the options (to, say, two or three unknown variables) and then guess from where it leaves off (providing we don't contradict those deduced conclusions, which is often what intuition does).

Regarding Kant; it was a noble effort, but deontology is irreparably broken. It can't be put into practice.
Or, you might consider that it can be fixed, but in the fixing you transform it into preference based consequentialism (which is truly universifiable without "contradiction") and you lose everything that was unique about deontology.

[DrSinger]

I don't know if they got into how that definition isn't really coherent; it leans on what "mind-independent" means, and it doesn't mean anything.

I agree, I think it would be stupid and unproductive for people to call themselves subjectivists because good and bad refer to experiences that relate to the mind.

Let's suppose based on teleology etc., you cannot reduce morality down to a single, perfectly well defined concept such as;

I don't think we can assume that, though.

I think we have to appeal to concepts like self-evidence and reflective equilibrium, that some might call 'intuition' or even non-naturalism, because they allow for moral facts to be known a priori, with no empiricism involved. Do you have a problem with those, or just intuition that is overtly supernatural?

In other contexts, ‘non-naturalism’ denotes the epistemological thesis that knowledge of basic moral principles and value judgements are in some sense self-evident (see Frankena 1963: 85–86). However, this view (which some self-styled naturalists would actually accept) is more often and more usefully referred to as ‘intuitionism’ and I shall henceforth also refer to it as such.

My point about Kant was just about hypothetical imperatives being unsatisfying

'If i want to be moral, I should do X'

is less satisfying than a categorical imperative (that needn't be deontological) like

'I should do X' (that doesn't have an impicit 'if')

Because the former leaves you with the question of why be moral? The start of the wikipedia page relates to it. I don't think there's a way around hypothetical imperatives, though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative

[brimstoneSalad]

I don't know if they got into how that definition isn't really coherent; it leans on what "mind-independent" means, and it doesn't mean anything.

I agree, I think it would be stupid and unproductive for people to call themselves subjectivists because good and bad refer to experiences that relate to the mind.

There are quite a few people doing just that. *Cough* Isaac Brown *cough*

I think we have to appeal to concepts like self-evidence and reflective equilibrium, that some might call 'intuition' or even non-naturalism, because they allow for moral facts to be known a priori, with no empiricism involved.

If you mean general principles, I don't think so. Any practical fact is ultimately going to be based on empirical evidence, even if it's as simple as "As a general rule it's wrong to torture people because (empirically) people generally do not want to be tortured, and (empirically) torture is not very effective at achieving positive outcomes even when attempted to those ends."

Do you have a problem with those, or just intuition that is overtly supernatural?

I'm not sure what you mean by self-evident.

I have a problem with those too; the same general kinds of claims could be made about theistic metaphysics.
Arbitrarily denying the application to something that's theistic and otherwise allowing it isn't very intellectually honest.

My point about Kant was just about hypothetical imperatives being unsatisfying

'If i want to be moral, I should do X'

is less satisfying than a categorical imperative (that needn't be deontological) like

'I should do X' (that doesn't have an impicit 'if')

Is that not "If I want to follow a categorical imperative, I should do X"?
Or even just (if we assume it's dictated by reason): "If I want to be rational, I should do X"?
Or "If I want to be 'consistent', I should do X"?

What compels any of those things?

We can talk about the teleology of mind. Should minds be rational? Is that their job?
Outside that, it's very difficult to make any intrinsic should connections without any conditionals.

...And we don't need to for minimal realism.

Neither do we need to when saying "should", because it's implicit in a moral should.

[DrSinger]

I'm sure most normal people would be objectivists/realists if they knew what the term meant, it is the commonsense position.

I'm not sure what you mean by self-evident.

I have a problem with those too; the same general kinds of claims could be made about theistic metaphysics.
Arbitrarily denying the application to something that's theistic and otherwise allowing it isn't very intellectually honest.

By self evident I mean something like this

A proposition P is self-evident just in case P is evident for any (rational) person S who understands P

from

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-epistemology-a-priori/

Most moral theories I've seen include something like this, be it the reflective equilibrium of cornell realism, or some ideal observer concept in contructivism. I would not say they are theistic in nature, since there are other truths we take to be self evident and they pose no empirical predictions. Of course anyone could say anything is self-evident but that wouldn't make it so. I imagine most classical utilitarians would hold that 'happiness is good' is a self-evident truth, and a preference utilitarian might hold that 'what is good for someone is what an idealized version of themselves would want' as self-evident (which could or could not be just happiness).

Otherwise the only options I can see are to simply choose/reform a definition, or as you said, try to derive the meaning of good and bad from how people use it. imo neither or those are more useful or meaningful than relying on our intuitions to get at what is fundamentally good and bad.

Essentially what I'm trying to say is, I think that fundamental moral truths have to be known a priori by reason/intuition based on the meaning of moral terms, not by some empirical enquiry

[brimstoneSalad]

I'm sure most normal people would be objectivists/realists if they knew what the term meant, it is the commonsense position.

I would say they do, based on the teleology of moral claims.
Otherwise people's insistence and usage of moral language makes no sense at all.

By self evident I mean something like this

A proposition P is self-evident just in case P is evident for any (rational) person S who understands P

from

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-epistemology-a-priori/

And is a rational person defined as a person who understands P?
I think we need better definitions than this, it seems to be passing the buck.

Most moral theories I've seen include something like this, be it the reflective equilibrium of cornell realism, or some ideal observer concept in contructivism.

It's a problem.

I would not say they are theistic in nature, since there are other truths we take to be self evident and they pose no empirical predictions.

How so?

Otherwise the only options I can see are to simply choose/reform a definition, or as you said, try to derive the meaning of good and bad from how people use it. imo neither or those are more useful or meaningful than relying on our intuitions to get at what is fundamentally good and bad.

We derive the meaning of every word from how people use it.

Delicious, table, dog, mass, velocity, exponent?

Some of these things are more subjective, objective, arbitrary, or fundamental than others.

We can understand that an alien civilization would inevitably have a concept of exponents, mass, and velocity (since these are highly objective), and probably of delicious (since they probably eat and taste things, and it would be a concept universal to beings with that kind of sense experience which is something that almost has to evolve), but maybe not of table (highly dependent on morphology), and probably not of dog.

Is morality more like dog (something more arbitrary and geo-or-human centric?), or like delicious (something close to universal due to evolution but not necessarily so, and highly subject dependent), or something like mass, velocity, or exponents?

If it's like the former, then nothing is going to be very satisfying.
If it's like the latter, then the only question is what sounds we assign it (and it doesn't really matter if we call it "morality" or "ytilarom" or anything else, since sounds are arbitrary connected to meaning, but we need to be consistent about it (and consistent with the usage of language).

I don't see it as being a major complaint that we shouldn't say "2+2=4" but instead "Assuming the rules of mathematics, and IF you want to have the mathematically correct answer..."

[DrSinger]

How so?

Because when we're talking about what is morally good, at first we are talking about qualia/experiences of the mind, like happiness, sadness etc. So we can use our intuition/thoughts to get at what qualia are fundamentally good, then we can talk about what that corresponds to physically.

Philosophers often use the term ‘qualia’ (singular ‘quale’) to refer to the introspectively accessible, phenomenal aspects of our mental lives. In this broad sense of the term, it is difficult to deny that there are qualia. Disagreement typically centers on which mental states have qualia, whether qualia are intrinsic qualities of their bearers, and how qualia relate to the physical world both inside and outside the head.

In that sense I think it is fine to have intuitive concepts about what qualia are good, that people can be wrong about, even within what is broadly considered good. With the examples you have given; I would consider it fair to say the following is self-evident

if something is delicious then it tastes good (assuming no other factors )

likewise I think it would be fair to say

if something promotes happiness then it is good (assuming no other factors)

not the best analogy since delicious and tastes good are synonymous, but maybe it will clarify what I'm trying to say.