Concerning the Correspondence of an Ethical System to the Definition of Morality

[brimstoneSalad]

What is the justification for applying all these criteria to filter moral systems? Are they all actually necessary to call something moral?

Logical consistency is necessary to call it a system and discuss it in a philosophical context.
Empirical consistency is necessary to be relevant to the reality we live in. We're not in Narnia. A very different universe may call for or substantiate different rules, assuming morally relevant differences are even possible (they may not be, and probably aren't).

Objective and non-arbitrary deal with the context of the philosophical question.

I've already answered these questions. You need to ask something more specific if you don't understand, or maybe somebody else (Cirion? Miniboes?) can take a crack at explaining them in a different way.

By objective do you just mean the normative version of morality(http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Objective_morality)? Or does this list need to apply to things like interests\reasons as well?

Rationalwiki is fine for stuff like anti-vaccination and anti-evolution, and specific creationists, but it's not going to be a good source on philosophy or anything relating to social justice. They make little attempt to be unbiased and they don't (ironically perhaps, given the name) hold rational positions on these topics.

ob·jec·tive
əbˈjektiv/Submit
adjective
1.
(of a person or their judgment) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_objectivism

More specifically:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_universalism

Moral universalism (also called moral objectivism or universal morality) is the meta-ethical position that some system of ethics, or a universal ethic, applies universally, that is, for "all similarly situated individuals",[1] regardless of culture, race, sex, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, or any other distinguishing feature.[2] Moral universalism is opposed to moral nihilism and moral relativism.

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

Moral realism (also ethical realism or moral Platonism) is the position that ethical sentences express propositions that refer to objective features of the world (that is, features independent of subjective opinion), some of which may be true to the extent that they report those features accurately. This makes moral realism a non-nihilist form of ethical cognitivism with an ontological orientation, standing in opposition to all forms of moral anti-realism and moral skepticism, including ethical subjectivism (which denies that moral propositions refer to objective facts), error theory (which denies that any moral propositions are true); and non-cognitivism (which denies that moral sentences express propositions at all). Within moral realism, the two main subdivisions are ethical naturalism and ethical non-naturalism.
[...]
Moral realism allows the ordinary rules of logic (modus ponens, etc.) to be applied straightforwardly to moral statements. We can say that a moral belief is false or unjustified or contradictory in the same way we would about a factual belief. This is a problem for expressivism, as shown by the Frege–Geach problem.

Another advantage of moral realism is its capacity to resolve moral disagreements: If two moral beliefs contradict one another, realism says that they cannot both be right, and therefore everyone involved ought to be seeking out the right answer to resolve the disagreement. Contrary theories of meta-ethics have trouble even formulating the statement "this moral belief is wrong," and so they cannot resolve disagreements in this way.

This is a sensible prerequisite for having a rational and substantive discussion about what morality is. If you are not interested in using logic to discuss morality, or in finding common ground and being able to convince others of a particular moral position (instead, preferring the conflict averse "everybody is right" approach), this isn't the place for that.

I'm not talking about Randian Objectivism, which is a particular failed attempt at establishing an objective framework. Rand was asking the right kinds of questions, her answers were just wrong. We can talk about why they are wrong if you want to make a thread on that.

There are a number of proposed ethical theories that attempt to be objective answers to these important questions, and it's worth discussing them, relativism and nihilism don't qualify for serious considerations because they aren't relevant .

I don't know what you mean by the second question.

As far as I can tell though, you were attacking an argument I never put forward.

You put it forward, by advancing relativistic definitions and defending egoism ("ethical" egoism, and psychological egoism).

If you aren't making any fallacies, then maybe show me why it's not as it appears.

That's not how it works. The burden of proof is on you to make an argument, not to just make some vague claims about feeling like I made fallacies or appealing to your personal incredulity as you have been doing.

If you do not understand the discussion well enough to make an argument, then you're asking me to teach you the subject matter. I prefer debate with somebody who understands the subject well enough TO debate it, but I can teach you too: doing so has some value since I can learn new ways of explaining things. But you have to do your part and pay attention, which I don't think you've been doing, and stop making assumptions that I'm constantly straw manning positions because my explanations differ from your preconceptions.

Like I told Teo in the flat Earth thread, you need to at least tentatively assume that I know what I'm talking about and stop arguing long enough to ask specific questions with the simple goal of understanding.

He and others that have it as their best interest would be responsible for changing him.

In the context of non-hedonistic egoism, it is not in your interests to change your interests to those that are more easily satisfied. It's satisfying your interests as they are. If it were, then you should go the Zen or Taoist route and just abandon all interests, or align all of your interests to things that are already happening, thus avoiding ever being dissatisfied. Become indifferent to all suffering, and have no goals or ambitions other than inner peace. That's very nearly anti-egoism; it's letting go of the self, not elevating it and gratifying it.

http://buddhajourney.net/letting-go-of-ego/

Our ego is is the failure and success of our lives. It creates and feeds our desires and greed, which ultimately leads us to suffering (dissatisfaction). To eradicate ego, we practice non-attachment, to things, people and ideas.

The idea of Egoism as you are advocating it is incoherent. There are so many concepts that we could actually talk about and having meaningful discussions on if you were not stubbornly blind to this simple fact.

You want to talk about Zen? Fine, let's do that.
You want to talk about Randian Objectivism? Great, that's something we can discuss too.
You want to talk about nihilism? It's not much of a discussion, but it's at least a sort of coherent idea (the rejection of the discussion).

When we talk about Egoism, like when we talk about god, we run into a number of serious logical contradictions, and you have to take a left or right turn, not idle in the intersection of contradiction like you're doing. When you reach the ends of those roads, at their logical conclusions, depending on how you change or diverge from egoism, you find one of several conclusions.

The most consistent with egoism is simply "do whatever you want"; that comes from the interest driven egoism which is most consistent.
If you want to push the hedonistic worship of the pleasure center "egoism", then I explained the outcome of that too (and why it's arbitrary).

Earlier you said:

You are the only one here using the mindless hedonist caricature.

NO. That is the logical conclusion of what you're advocating.
You can not maximize pleasure stimulation and have a mind. The two are mutually exclusive. Maximal pleasure IS mindless.

I thought it would be clear i'm using the hedonistic version.

When you keep rejecting the logical conclusion and calling it a caricature, it's obvious that you're in no way consistent on what you believe or are referencing.

Either you're trolling, or you haven't understood anything I've been explaining because of some profound lack of understanding on your part.

I asked you to re-read what I had written before given new information and additional explanation: have you?

Have you been assuming some sort of preference egoism this whole time? Your arguments will be perceived as a straw man if you do that.

If you had read my posts carefully, you would have seen that I was clearly dealing with both, and the problems with each.
This is yet another clear indication you are not paying attention or making a sincere effort at understanding what I'm writing.

I don’t see a justification for this. Feel free to explain.

I already did. Many times. Please re-read my posts, and then ask more specific questions if you have any.

I don't think consequences are the determining factor of what is definitionally moral though.

If you don't even accept consequentialism, that's an entirely different issue.

Egoism isn't doing anything fundamentally different from a definitional standpoint either it seems.

Your hedonistic version -- which is necessarily pursuit of mindless pleasure stimulation -- is not necessarily different. That is potentially consequentialist (if you reject psychological egoism). It's also arbitrary.

Interest based egoism is different, because if evaluated relative to consequence deals only in efficacy based on factors beyond ones control, making the term meaningless. If we look only at intent then every intent becomes a moral intent because it's what the agent wanted.

If that definition is to simplistic, and you think it should be changed, maybe egoism isn't counted as moral anymore, but the definition I posted seems better in describing the way people use morality normatively than your method of listing a bunch of rational principles.

That was DERIVATION not definition. I was very clear about that. Either you weren't paying attention, or you're deliberately straw manning me.

In no way are we starting from what we think the definition should be, or what we feel the word means.

If you didn't understand what I meant by that, you should have asked.

You're essentially asking me to teach you this, and then you don't pay attention when I explain something. There's no way you could have missed that if you had carefully read my post.

This thread is about how morality is properly defined; how good and evil are logically determined, etc.
The discussion is about the means of derivation, and why those aspects are important.

I'm not just telling you "what" morality is, I'm telling you WHY it is what it is, and the spectrum of ideas that can be regarded as contenders and which are worthy of debate and discussion (or able to be debated and discussed). There are certain prerequisites for an idea for it to even be possible to coherently discuss it.

The reason i chose that definition is that something like it was specified as the definition of morality in the normative section of the stanford philosophy encyclopedia: “ Those who use “morality” normatively hold that morality is (or would be) the code that meets the following condition: all rational persons, under certain specified conditions, would endorse it. “
Is this incorrect to you?

Please try to include a link when referencing something like that.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-definition/

All rational persons? What is rational? Pure rationality could be seen as without emotion, without will, it's not even innately rational to want to exist. Rationality alone does not compel action, so I have a problem with the suggestion that a fully and exclusively rational person will necessarily DO anything.
Certain specified conditions? What conditions?
Assuming that rational person had moral motivations would just yield a case of circular reasoning.
Endorse? What does that mean? Does it imply practice, desire that others practice it, or just a recognition that it's acceptable as a definition?
(you said more than endorse) And does it mean without lying?

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-definition/ (again)

Consequentialist views might not seem to fit the basic schema for definitions of “morality”, since they do not appear to make reference to the notions of endorsement or rationality. But this appearance is deceptive. Mill (1861: 12) himself explicitly defines morality as

the rules and precepts for human conduct, by the observance of which [a happy existence] might be, to the greatest extent possible, secured.

And he thinks that the mind is not in a “right state” unless it is in “the state most conducive to the general happiness”—in which case it would certainly favor morality.

A uniquely poor argument. If we cherry pick these definitions, we can probably wedge just about anything in there.
It becomes a failure of a definition by being overly broad and accommodating (beyond relying too much on assuming things about rational agents). A definition that fails to define is a failure of a definition.

I'm not prepared to argue that that's even necessarily true for rational agents and morality.

I have made a case for it: http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?t=1932#p19543
But it's fare from iron clad.

We can conceive of a rational person choosing to be evil instead of good. It can be argued that rationality always leads to morality, but only weakly, and it's a poor definition.

The Stanford article even goes into this:

Unless one thinks that rational people would endorse the moral system one is defending, one will have to admit that, having been shown that a certain behavior is morally required, a rational person might simply shrug and say “So what? What is that to me?” And, though some exceptions are mentioned below, very few moral realists think that their arguments leave this option open. Even fewer think this option remains open if we are allowed to add some additional conditions beyond mere rationality: a restriction on beliefs, for example (similar to Rawls’ (1971: 118) veil of ignorance), or impartiality.

Definitions of morality in the normative sense—and, consequently, moral theories—differ in their accounts of rationality, and in their specifications of the conditions under which all rational persons would necessarily endorse the code of conduct that therefore would count as morality. These definitions and theories also differ in how they understand what it is to endorse a code in the relevant way.
[...]
it is common to hold that no one should ever violate a moral prohibition or requirement for non-moral reasons. This claim is trivial if “should” is taken to mean “morally should”. So the claim about moral overridingness is typically understood with “should” meaning “rationally should”, with the result that moral requirements are asserted to be rational requirements. Though common, this view is by no means always taken as definitional. Sidgwick (1874) despaired of showing that rationality required us to choose morality over egoism, though he certainly did not think rationality required egoism either. More explicitly, Gert (2005) held that though moral behavior is always rationally permissible, it is not always rationally required. Foot (1972) seems to have held that any reason—and therefore any rational requirement—to act morally would have to stem from a contingent commitment or an objective interest. And she also seems to have held that sometimes neither of these sorts of reasons might be available.

It admits exceptions, and then touches on how weak the definition is. Like I said, even potentially circular (see the last bolded part; basically, a condition to be morally motivated; Stanford fails to recognize this though).

The article is otherwise fairly good at identifying the differences in the discussion between descriptive morality in anthropology and morality in the context of philosophical discussions. Bad definition though.
I assume you didn't read more than a paragraph?

It would help a lot if you specified the actual definition you are using, and why this seemingly accepted one should be ignored.

If you read the article, it demonstrates how useless the definition they give is by going into all of the exceptions and interpretations that stretch each of those words to the breaking point.

If you'd like to discuss that definition more, and that article, please read the rest of it (or at least most of that section down to where they start talking about law and religion) and start a thread on it.

It's a poor definition because it fails at its purpose: defining. It's as bad as or worse than the typical theists' definition of god.

From what i can tell, in order for something to follow the main definition of morality, the person putting it forward just has to believe all rational people would agree to it, Not that everyone actually would.

If you read the article, that's not quite what is discussed; rational people will not necessarily follow it (if that's what you mean by agree), and it comes with a number of conditions which as I said could be circular.

But that subjective "if you believe it it's true" interpretation would just make it even less useful.

That's like saying Christianity should qualify as science if a Christian believes certain things. You believing something doesn't make it true. That's what is supposed to give definitions value. You believing a cat is a dog doesn't make it one.

Value is emergent. It's a part of a whole system. Your monomaniacal focus on some intrinsic value to be found in biology is blinding you.

I never said it wasn't part of the whole system. I would still want science to answer which brain states constitute this emergent property of positive\negative experience.

Value is not positive/negative experience. It's not a brain state.

It's as if you're saying you want science to determine the exact position of each hand on the clock that constitutes TIME and its passage.
Like you expect scientists to reveal that the ultimate answer to the question of "what is time" to be 3:15, on the first Monday in June 1257 C.E.
The mechanisms of a clock represent time only by moving together as a whole toward a purpose.

Pleasure and pain are gears:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reward_system#Pleasure_centers

We know where most of them are. If that's all you want, then jam electrodes into your brain and be done with it.
It probably wouldn't cost that much to have done at some shady hospital in a poorer country.

That's like saying you want to maximize TIME so you hook your clock up to a power drill and crank it. If you're after "positive experience", that's what it is.
Euphoria is inherently mindless. Just like you can't have your cake and eat it too, you can't have your euphoria and remain a meaningfully sentient being or have any kind of awareness of the world.

Luckily for utilitarianism, there's no evidence of any such thing existing now.(Utility monster)

A group of psychopaths getting more pleasure than the pain caused to the kidnapped victim they did terrible things to has almost certainly occurred and may be occurring frequently. That's great news under utilitarianism. I don't see how the consequences of Egoism are any worse than that.

1. It's ridiculous that you think there certainly groups of sadists out there getting more pleasure from torture than their victims suffer in pain. Meat eaters argue this sometimes about animal suffering, and even ignoring human harm that's bullshit.

2. Utilitarianism, unlike actual egoism, DOES prescribe a change in interests, like therapy for the psychopaths and them learning to enjoy something else instead for a win-win outcome. The rape gang isn't the greatest good. Likewise, meat eaters are advised to learn to enjoy the vegan option instead.

3. Egoism recommends raping and torturing people even if it causes the victims MORE harm than it provides pleasure for the perpetrators as long as the perpetrators can avoid the consequences.
If you don't see how that's worse, I don't know what to tell you. You don't understand Egoism anyway, so I don't know why I'm trying to explain this. We need a head bashing into a wall icon.

A good majority of the time you go on long tangents disproving concepts that I would never say I agree with in the first place.

If you think it's a tangent, you need to try harder to understand why it's relevant and read more carefully. I don't just add an extra paragraph in for fun.
Stop skimming over 90% of my posts and ignoring most of what I say (including the most critical statements) because you don't understand how it's relevant.
I'm getting the impression that if you just read what I wrote, maybe twice, you wouldn't be so confused.
If you think something's not relevant to you, read it again. If you still don't understand the relevance, then ask. It's relevant.

[Mr. Purple]

I think I might finally understand your definition. If I replace all your uses of the word “moral system” with “system I judge to be good” And all your uses of “morality” with “ What I judge as good”, what you say makes a lot more sense. If those substitutions don’t represent what you mean, let me know.

As far as I can tell though, you were attacking an argument I never put forward.

You put it forward, by advancing relativistic definitions and defending egoism

I did not ever mention Preference Egoism which is what I was referring to by "You were attacking an argument I never put forward".

It admits exceptions, and then touches on how weak the definition is. Like I said, even potentially circular (see the last bolded part; basically, a condition to be morally motivated; Stanford fails to recognize this though).

I never claimed the definition was perfect. I was just presenting the most accepted one I could find for discussion. The broad scope of the definition is part of the reason I took issue with you dismissing certain moral systems based on this overly broad thing called “morality”. I think I might know the definition you are using now though, so we don’t have to bother with this one if you don't want.

If you want to avoid confusion from people like me in the future, instead of saying Egoism isn’t a moral system, just say that Egoism isn’t what you judge to be good. That's much clearer.

In the context of non-hedonistic egoism, it is not in your interests to change your interests to those that are more easily satisfied.

Yes, I never tried to disagree with this. That is yet another moral system where it doesn’t make sense to use a preference framework. I don’t know why you spent any time on it.

If you want to push the hedonistic worship of the pleasure center "egoism", then I explained the outcome of that too (and why it's arbitrary).

I don’t remember you specifying why egoism is arbitrary. For hedonism you stated that only non-arbitrary way to assign value is to do so to values themselves(not sure why). You talked about preference egoism and psychological egoism as well, which doesn't concern me.

Another issue was that you think egoistic hedonism should be dismissed because of how horrible it’s possible consequences seem to our intuitions(electrodes). I don't see why that puts egoistic hedonism on a worse footing that any other moral system though.

This thread is about how morality is properly defined; how good and evil are logically determined, etc.
The discussion is about the means of derivation, and why those aspects are important.

It didn’t sound like the purpose of this thread had anything so specific in mind. “Correspondence of an ethical system to the definition of morality” Sounds like a far different discussion to me than “ What should be considered good”. But as long as I know the sense of the word moral you are using now, that is fine.


A question I have:
What is the justification for accepting rational intuitions while excluding other things held just as strongly like moral intuitions?

[brimstoneSalad]

I think I might finally understand your definition. If I replace all your uses of the word “moral system” with “system I judge to be good” And all your uses of “morality” with “ What I judge as good”, what you say makes a lot more sense. If those substitutions don’t represent what you mean, let me know.

Not even remotely. This is essentially the polar opposite of what I'm arguing, which is that you (or anybody) can't just decide what morality is. Just like you can't just decide what math or science is.

It's as if you asked a scientist to explain why some things are science and some are pseudoscience, and after a lengthy explanation that you partially ignored and fully did not understand, you said "I see, so you define 'science' as just 'what I perceive to be science'".

I did not ever mention Preference Egoism which is what I was referring to by "You were attacking an argument I never put forward".

You talked about egoism, I addressed the possible interpretations of it and showed why none of them were appropriate.
Like I said, I'll try to draw a diagram, but I haven't had much time.

Your failure to understand the point of discussing this is related to your complete failure to understand the whole idea.

I never claimed the definition was perfect.

Then it's useless, so don't assert it.

I was just presenting the most accepted one I could find for discussion.

That's fine, but you don't seem to understand what discussion is.
Did you read more of the article it came from?
Do you understand why a definition which fails to define anything is a problem?

If you want to avoid confusion from people like me in the future, instead of saying Egoism isn’t a moral system, just say that Egoism isn’t what you judge to be good. That's much clearer.

That would not avoid confusion, it would create it.
You're fractally wrong, and you don't understand the basis of the conversation.

In the context of non-hedonistic egoism, it is not in your interests to change your interests to those that are more easily satisfied.

Yes, I never tried to disagree with this. That is yet another moral system where it doesn’t make sense to use a preference framework. I don’t know why you spent any time on it.

This is why I spent time on it.

See the bolded text. WHY?
Do you finally understand that something doesn't make sense?

Are you willing to defend a claim that "preference egoism" is inconsistent? Would you understand the claim that "preference egoism" is not a moral system, due to incoherence/inconsistency?

You need to start answering the questions I ask you. You've been pretty consistently ignoring the most important ones.

If you want to push the hedonistic worship of the pleasure center "egoism", then I explained the outcome of that too (and why it's arbitrary).

I don’t remember you specifying why egoism is arbitrary.

I did several times. But ignore this for now, since you have so far. Focus on the above.

Try to understand WHY "preference egoism" doesn't make sense. Take a moment to articulate an argument against it.

For hedonism you stated that only non-arbitrary way to assign value is to do so to values themselves(not sure why). You talked about preference egoism and psychological egoism as well, which doesn't concern me.

It SHOULD. If it did, you might understand my arguments.

Go ahead and ignore this AGAIN for now. There's certainly no point in my explaining it a fourth or fifth time (I've lost count).

You need to start by understanding why at least one conceivable proposal for a "moral system" is not adequate.

Another issue was that you think egoistic hedonism should be dismissed because of how horrible it’s possible consequences seem to our intuitions(electrodes).

Incorrect. And you ignored my arguments on that topic AGAIN.

I don't see why that puts egoistic hedonism on a worse footing that any other moral system though.

You would if you had comprehended my arguments.

A question I have:
What is the justification for accepting rational intuitions while excluding other things held just as strongly like moral intuitions?

If you are a rational person, and you value rationality, reason, and logic over subjective and impulsive feelings, then that's why you prefer such justifications over anything else.

If you aren't a rational person, it doesn't matter if you use "moral intuition", the Bible/numerology, or the result a coin, your decisions and beliefs are functionally arbitrary. Any scientific minded person knows intuition is not useful or consistent as a means of understanding reality.
Gnosis is not credible as a source of authority.

If you aren't interested in discussing the subject rationally, then you don't belong in this thread frustrating my efforts with your disinterest. This is not a "What's your gut intuition, it's always true for you!" forum, you'll find that stuff on new-age woo forums, this is a philosophy forum.
If you are interested in discussing things rationally, you shouldn't have to ask that question again. Which is it?

[Mr. Purple]

This is essentially the polar opposite of what I'm arguing, which is that you (or anybody) can't just decide what morality is. Just like you can't just decide what math or science is.

We can just decide what we mean when we say morality though. Same with discussions of math or science.

Are you just taking issue with the “I judge” part? You would prefer “ morality is “What is good” period? That’s fine too, as long as I know the meaning in your head.

If “what is good” still isn’t the correct ballpark then stop being silly. Stop making me play 50 questions with you and, just define terms. When you say “Egoism isn’t morality” You mean…. “ egoism isnt ___”.

Don't refuse to do this and then act surprised when people don’t understand you. Everyone has their own definition of broad words like this in their mind.

I see, so you define 'science' as just 'what I perceive to be science'".

No, it's more like, in a discussion specifically about how a system relates to the definition of science, asking people what they mean by the word science. That’s a very reasonable starting point.

I never claimed the definition was perfect.

Then it's useless, so don't assert it.

That’s a silly thing to say. How does non-perfection equate to uselessness?
But more importantly, I didn’t assert anything. I literally was presenting a definition as an option to help you along since you were unable to do so yourself. Asking for you to provide the definition you want for the discussion is the exact opposite of asserting a definition.

Did you read more of the article it came from?
Do you understand why a definition which fails to define anything is a problem?

Yes, I read the article of course. If that definition is a problem, then present your own. If you can’t, then stop being so picky about what others try to use to get discussion going. A definition that completely fails to define something is a problem, but it would be very hard to find a word like that. Even definitions of broad words like “god” and “morality” usually have unique contexts they are used in and clarify meaning far more than gibberish sounds.

If you want to avoid confusion from people like me in the future, instead of saying Egoism isn’t a moral system, just say that Egoism isn’t what you judge to be good. That's much clearer.

That would not avoid confusion, it would create it.

Yes, that would create confusion if it isn’t the definition you are using, so please help out with that.

See the bolded text. WHY?
Do you finally understand that something doesn't make sense?
You need to start answering the questions I ask you. You've been pretty consistently ignoring the most important ones.

Yes, of course I understand that some things don’t make sense. It should be obvious that this is true for everyone. I don't see this as an important question.

Are you willing to defend a claim that "preference egoism" is inconsistent? Would you understand the claim that "preference egoism" is not a moral system, due to incoherence/inconsistency?

The concept of preference egoism seems consistent to me. I don’t see a contradiction in saying “Doing what you want is good”. It seems like a weird rule, but it logically seems fine. Inconsistent would be something like it saying killing is always wrong, and killing is always right at the same time. Our brains just aren't capable of understanding that.

If preference egoism was actually incoherent, then of course that is a problem. It would either disqualify it from being a moral system or it could be considered a useless or defective moral system.

If you are a rational person, and you value rationality, reason, and logic over subjective and impulsive feelings, then that's why you prefer such justifications over anything else.

Of course I value rationality, reason, and logic, but that doesn't by itself make it any more true. I was just asking what the justification for accepting those as true is in a way that can't also be applied to moral intuition. If we take many rational concepts as axioms, how would we stop others for doing the same with moral concepts? (I'm sure this has a straightforward answer.)

If you aren't interested in discussing the subject rationally, then you don't belong in this thread frustrating my efforts with your disinterest. This is not a "What's your gut intuition, it's always true for you!" forum, you'll find that stuff on new-age woo forums, this is a philosophy forum.
If you are interested in discussing things rationally, you shouldn't have to ask that question again. Which is it?

I'm just looking for a strong answer to the question.(like with all questions I ask) There's no need to get your panties in a bunch. I bet most philosophy forums would be fine with that question in how it relates to morality, much less try to chase the asker out of the thread because of it.

[brimstoneSalad]

Of course I value rationality, reason, and logic, but that doesn't by itself make it any more true.

Just because your clock is synchronized with international clocks and works properly doesn't make it any more correct than a broken clock... twice a day for one instant.

That's the difference we're talking about here. Intuition is at best guessing based on your feelings; it is not a source of authority in knowledge.
Even if your intuition is accidentally correct, that does not mean you were justified in following it (you were no more justified in following it than somebody with a wrong intuition).

Knowledge may be best defined as justified true belief. And that's what we're seeking here. Intuition doesn't help.

Rationality, reason, and logic, if practiced correctly, will never lead you to an unjustified belief, and given your empirical premises are correct too, will never lead you to a false one. Intuition is unpredictable, and will never lead you to a justified belief, and will only randomly and accidentally lead you to occasional true beliefs without any reliability or justification.

I bet most philosophy forums would be fine with that question in how it relates to morality, much less try to chase the asker out of the thread because of it.

1. This is a discussion forum. Please come here willing to discuss. This isn't a place to lecture, and then refuse to address others' rational arguments or even answer others' questions. Discussion is founded upon logic, if you don't accept basic logic as valid, there's really nothing for you to do here except lecture, and this isn't the place for it. Again: This is a discussion forum.

You need to accept the value of reason and logic over "intuition" in order to have a meaningful discussion here on this subject or any subject.
The very act of asking that question suggests you are not convinced of that, which undermines the premise of all rational philosophical argument.

I'm sure you will find that kind of thinking very welcome on a more new-age and pseudo-philosophy based forum.

We can just decide what we mean when we say morality though. Same with discussions of math or science.

No, we can not.

Are you just taking issue with the “I judge” part? You would prefer “ morality is “What is good” period? That’s fine too, as long as I know the meaning in your head.

Not even remotely, and no, that is not fine. That would be a circular definition. It's tautologically true, and useless because of it. It gives us no information.
Such a "definition" would be a failure of a definition, and wouldn't qualify as a moral system since it says nothing about what should be done.

If “what is good” still isn’t the correct ballpark then stop being silly. Stop making me play 50 questions with you and, just define terms. When you say “Egoism isn’t morality” You mean…. “ egoism isnt ___”.

I'm not making you play 50 questions. Stop asking me this, which has already been answered multiple times. Go back and read my posts from the first in this thread.

Common definitions are not authoritative, and not always consistent. They just tell us what is most useful for communicating.

The definition of ethics basically just tells us which word to use, a combination of sounds. That's why we call good 'good' and evil 'evil'. That's not really relevant to the system itself.

We could call it Gluberflobble instead of Morality. I use certain words because of common usage and the fact that they would be recognizable and convey the meaning most clearly. That's just language. Yes, words mean what their popular definitions say they do, within the limits of logic (some words are broken or useless due to problematic common usage).

There is one other system which is consistent and arguably non-arbitrary (if we ignore the negative part), which is immorality/anti-morality/malevolence. Using "morality" to describe this system would be inappropriate. No usage panel would agree that's the right word, and it would result in very troubled communication.
There is some leeway in what we call things and how we describe them, but not so much as to break language and render discussion incoherent.

There is the issue of the common definition, which is not an authority on the philosophical system being discussed, but just helps us choose an appropriate word to describe the system, then there is the issue of the system itself.

Descriptive definitions are roughly set with the approval of a usage panel in context of their uses. I am not a usage panel. I have no authority to define the common definition of "morality" as a word. I'm only speaking very generally to usage, beyond that I'm talking about the system.

As to the system, in answer to a philosophical question of value and right action (which is the context here and of moral questions in philosophy):

The answer is much simpler and lies more or less with the golden rule; do unto others as you would have been done by, others being other beings that can have an interest in being done by at all, and as you would be done by meaning valuing their interests (as you would have yours valued).
The statement that we should value the interests of others (others being those capable of interests, and to the extent they are) is probably more to the point.

I have explained WHY that is a (perhaps the only) rational conclusion to draw. I have explained this in detail.

Don't refuse to do this and then act surprised when people don’t understand you. Everyone has their own definition of broad words like this in their mind.

I'm not here to define morality as an authority, I'm here to show why a certain system is the best fit based on logical analysis to the word, and why it's a coherent concept. This is a question of WHY a particular ethical system is the only best fit (or why a particular subset of qualities are the only valid ones).

If you have your own special "intuitive" definition of morality in your mind that dictates a particular system, that's your problem right there. Following your "intuition" will lead you to no justified belief.

You should instead come here asking why morality is what it is, or what it is, and what systems fit it and how to justify that rationally. That was the point of the thread.

Yes, of course I understand that some things don’t make sense. It should be obvious that this is true for everyone. I don't see this as an important question.

It's crucial, because if you could do it, it would help you understand what I'm doing here.
I'm talking about the process of elimination.

The concept of preference egoism seems consistent to me. I don’t see a contradiction in saying “Doing what you want is good”.

You claimed I was making a strawman with my description of egoism as "do whatever you want" before.

Do you see no problem with answering the question "what should we do to be good" with "whatever you want to do"?
It's an answer that invalidates and makes meaningless the concept of morality. It says everything is moral -- because you can not endeavor to do what you don't want (in sum) to do -- which means the definition has failed to define one thing from another; it has failed at being discriminating, it has failed to distinguish immoral and moral at all. It has failed at being a system.

This is a serious issue. If you don't see a problem with that, take some time to ponder on that and if it would be acceptable in other systems.

How about math?

2 + 2 = what?
Whatever you want it to equal!
That's not a system.

It seems like a weird rule, but it logically seems fine.

Look again. Tell me how this is a rule or a system of any kind. Tell me how it discriminates moral from immoral endeavors.

Inconsistent would be something like it saying killing is always wrong, and killing is always right at the same time. Our brains just aren't capable of understanding that.

There are many ways to be inconsistent. In this case, it's inconsistent with the premise of it being some kind of system, or of morality having any functional meaning at all.

What's a Gluberflobble?
Well, everything is a Glubberflobble!
Then Glubberflobble means something?
No, nothing is Glubberflobble too.
Then Gluberflobble means nothing.

If preference egoism was actually incoherent, then of course that is a problem. It would either disqualify it from being a moral system or it could be considered a useless or defective moral system.

Right. Now think about it some more.

What if every other possible moral system, aside from one, was carefully analyzed and disqualified on those grounds?

[Mr. Purple]

Rationality, reason, and logic, if practiced correctly, will never lead you to an unjustified belief, and given your empirical premises are correct too, will never lead you to a false one.

Doesn’t this just push the question back further? Then it turns the question into "what should we count as justified belief?" Why do we just assume logical intuitions(logic, Induction, Mathematical knowledge) as justification but can't do the same for moral intuitions? ( To preempt your inevitable misunderstanding, I'm not advocating this, i'm asking a question. )

You need to accept the value of reason and logic over "intuition" in order to have a meaningful discussion here on this subject or any subject.
The very act of asking that question suggests you are not convinced of that, which undermines the premise of all rational philosophical argument.

I am convinced of logic over intuition for the most part, but as far as i can tell, i’m convinced of it for intuitive reasons. That’s the problem. I’m looking for solid justification outside of intuition though. I asked you to help me, and you responded by trying to get me to leave the thread.

Asking questions undermines nothing. Stop being so dramatic Brim.

Descriptive definitions are roughly set with the approval of a usage panel in context of their uses. I am not a usage panel. I have no authority to define the common definition of "morality" as a word.

I don’t know where you got the idea that I specifically wanted authoritative or common definitions. I’ve only asked for your definition to clarify the meaning in your head.

That would be a circular definition. It's tautologically true, and useless because of it. It gives us no information.

I clearly was not suggesting that was a good definition. Once I know what meaning in your head corresponds to your use of "morality" and "moral systems", then we can discuss things like justification for using the definition you use.

The answer is much simpler and lies more or less with the golden rule; do unto others as you would have been done by, others being other beings that can have an interest in being done by at all, and as you would be done by meaning valuing their interests (as you would have yours valued).

I have explained WHY that is a (perhaps the only) rational conclusion to draw. I have explained this in detail.

You should at least include a link\quote to the part where you think it was explained because if i didn't recognize it as a sufficient explanation the first time, going back through threads to look for where you say you explained something will be a waste of time. You need to figure out why your explanation wasn't convincing and clarify that point rather than just reassert that you have explained it before.

You claimed I was making a strawman with my description of egoism as "do whatever you want" before.

Yes, "Do whatever you want" is a straw man of Hedonistic Egoism from what I can tell. It works well enough for Preference Egoism though.

Do you see no problem with answering the question "what should we do to be good" with "whatever you want to do"?

I see a problem with that intuitively of course, but you are the one advocating that intuition shouldn’t be given any weight. Logically, it seems consistent. It still specifies what is to be considered good and bad without being gibberish or contradicting itself.

There are many ways to be inconsistent. In this case, it's inconsistent with the premise of it being some kind of system, or of morality having any functional meaning at all.

I thought you were talking about logical consistency within the systems themselves, if not, it seems to defeat the purpose of using the criteria in the first place. If by "Functional meaning" you mean ability to make actionable prescriptions, then i still don't see how it is inconsistent here though.
Unless psychological egoism is true, I don't see how hedonistic egoism would be inconsistent with functional meaning either. Though once again, i'm going to need you to define functional meaning and tell me how it's morally relevant.( But you probably wont, so misunderstandings are incoming)

I get eliminating moral systems based on contradictions within the systems themselves, but It sounds like you are saying Egoism isn't morality because it's inconsistent with the sense of morality that includes "functional meaning" in it's definition. That seems especially strange if you are discovering what morality means by eliminating systems based on inconsistency. You may as well drop talk about consistency and just say it doesn't fit your definition of morality.

What's a Gluberflobble?
Well, everything is a Glubberflobble!
Then Glubberflobble means something?
No, nothing is Glubberflobble too.
Then Gluberflobble means nothing.

Much like our conversation, The problem with the Gluberflobble conversation is the word wasn’t defined from the start. You first have to clearly define Glubberflobble, then you can evaluate if it’s a consistent concept or not.

Look again. Tell me how this is a rule or a system of any kind. Tell me how it discriminates moral from immoral endeavors.

Do you think it's possible for someone to do something they didn't want to do? If so, it seems clear that this makes a distinction between good and bad. Doing what you want is good, doing something you didn't want to do is bad. Maybe a message from this morality would be " Don't be controlled by others".

I'm not saying that it doesn't sound a bit silly, but that doesn't matter for evaluating logical consistency.

What if every other possible moral system, aside from one, was carefully analyzed and disqualified on those grounds?

That would be pretty nifty. It seems very unlikely that the options would conveniently narrow to one like that though.

[brimstoneSalad]

That would be pretty nifty. It seems very unlikely that the options would conveniently narrow to one like that though.

Even if they narrow down to a range of two or three qualities, we can at least look at what they all have in common. In the overlap of the venn diagram of all of them, we can find unambiguous good, unambiguous evil, and then grey areas. Any narrowing has a tendency to help us in defining objectively what must be good and bad.

Doesn’t this just push the question back further? Then it turns the question into "what should we count as justified belief?" Why do we just assume logical intuitions(logic, Induction, Mathematical knowledge) as justification but can't do the same for moral intuitions?

There are no alternatives to using logic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_explosion
Logic isn't strictly intuitive; often it's counterintuitive.
http://hubpages.com/education/Counterintuitive-Statistics
Even the principle of explosion isn't intuitive to most people.

The only thing that may seem intuitive is some of the rules that logic uses, but that doesn't mean its authority or credibility are derived from intuition.

We can safely ignore other intuition because we can do so without causing problems that make thought or discussion impossible. There's no reason to assume additional and unnecessary authorities. Think Occam's razor.

We HAVE TO assume logic to be true. But in addition to that we can assume general or specific intuitions to be true, or not assume that. The latter is less complex and less error prone, and there's nothing forcing us to regard them as credible as there is with logic.

The assumption that intuitions are an authority and hold positive truth value is basically the opposite of philosophy.
It's frustrating to have to spend time explaining why.

I am convinced of logic over intuition for the most part, but as far as i can tell, i’m convinced of it for intuitive reasons. That’s the problem. I’m looking for solid justification outside of intuition though. I asked you to help me, and you responded by trying to get me to leave the thread.

I'm not trying to get you to leave the thread, I'm trying to get you to stay on topic and follow the forum rules.
If it's not something you're convinced of by now, you may just have to tentatively accept it as one of the rules of discussion on this forum.

Intuition is not an acceptable argument, aside from in an empirical sense related to efficacy of persuasion.
For example: http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1869

Descriptive definitions are roughly set with the approval of a usage panel in context of their uses. I am not a usage panel. I have no authority to define the common definition of "morality" as a word.

I don’t know where you got the idea that I specifically wanted authoritative or common definitions. I’ve only asked for your definition to clarify the meaning in your head.

I have told you that morality is not for me to define, but it is for any rational person to deduce. There's a big difference there.

I have explained that what I have deduced is that it is based on positive consideration for the interests of other sentient beings.
The WHY and HOW I have deduced that are what I have been explaining in this thread at length.
I don't expect you to take my word for it, that's why I'm focused on methodology.

The definition of the word in English usage, as would be demonstrated by a usage panel, is only a small consideration in that deduction.

That would be a circular definition. It's tautologically true, and useless because of it. It gives us no information.

I clearly was not suggesting that was a good definition.

You aren't quite understanding this. It's not just a bad definition, it's a useless one; it's a failure at the point of a definition, which is to provide a useful answer to the question of what a thing or concept is; useful, that is, to deriving some understanding or meaning that informs the issue.

Failed "definitions" like that are not useful in any context, and certainly not here or in a philosophical discussion.

That's why I came down so hard on the definition you referenced; it was loose to the point of being useless. An attempt to be too inclusive broke the definition they tried to create.

Once I know what meaning in your head corresponds to your use of "morality" and "moral systems", then we can discuss things like justification for using the definition you use.

I don't start with intuition and then justify it. This is a question of derivation. You don't need to know the answer to a math problem before you begin to compute it.

You should at least include a link\quote to the part where you think it was explained because if i didn't recognize it as a sufficient explanation the first time, going back through threads to look for where you say you explained something will be a waste of time.

I explained it in this thread, and that's not necessarily true. If you can understand what I'm trying to explain now, that will inform your interpretation of what I said before.

You need to figure out why your explanation wasn't convincing rather than just reassert that you have explained it before.

Apparently you don't even find the idea of using logic instead of intuition convincing, so I really don't know what to tell you. I don't feel like this is a failure on my part. If you don't get why logic is authoritative and intuition isn't by now, there's not much else I can say.

You claimed I was making a strawman with my description of egoism as "do whatever you want" before.

Yes, "Do whatever you want" is a straw man of Hedonistic Egoism from what I can tell. It works well enough for Preference Egoism though.

With "Preference egoism" at least you'll admit to that being a decent summary. Will you admit that this makes up the majority of egoists in practice?

Your "hedonistic egoism" is some fringe belief I've rarely encountered. And when I do, it usually follows from claims of hedonistic psychological egoism; the idea that humans can not choose to do that which they don't believe will provide them the most pleasure. This is an idea you seemed to have advocated in the past.

Which still makes it a valid summary.

"do whatever you want (p.s. you want to maximize pleasure and it's psychologically impossible to want otherwise)"

When I said "do whatever you want" as a summary, did you suppose that also included impossible things?

If you do not assume hedonistic psychological egoism, then you must recognize that people can have other personal interests beyond pleasure. A person's self interest may then be pain, fame regardless of the suffering he or she endures, nationalism, etc.

Fixation on hedonic pleasure without the assumption of hedonistic psychological egoism is no longer egoism, it's some kind of pleasure worship. Real egoists reject any imposition of you telling them what interests they should have like that.

I explained this something like three times already in this thread.

Do you see no problem with answering the question "what should we do to be good" with "whatever you want to do"?

I see a problem with that intuitively of course, but you are the one advocating that intuition shouldn’t be given any weight. Logically, it seems consistent. It still specifies what is to be considered good and bad without being gibberish or contradicting itself.

It's not consistent, it's meaningless.
It's like defining god as "god is god".
It does not answer the question, or it implies that good is meaningless, which is an assertion that there is no coherent or consistent notion of morality available at all; and that is not true. It provides us nothing to analyze.

I thought you were talking about logical consistency. As far as I know, that just deals with contradictions.

I was and I am. There are certain premises which are structurally implicit in questions, statements, answers, and entire discussions. Inconsistency can occur with those premises.

Can you point out a logical contradiction in saying “ Whatever you want to do is good"? Unless psychological egoism is true, I don't see how egoism would be inconsistent with functional meaning.

It doesn't require psychological egoism to be true to make it inconsistent.

You can't attempt to do what you don't want (in sum) to do in a given situation; you can only see an outcome which didn't occur as you wanted by accident. Accidents are not morally relevant to such questions, since they're impossible to always avoid since we're neither omniscient nor omnipotent.
We're limited by knowledge, means, and circumstance, but in terms of evaluating the moral quality of the choice to take a particular action (good or bad) within ones means, that requires that both be possible (as far as variables outside the "self" being evaluated).

The premise of the question "what should we do to be moral?" suggests that there must be things that are moral and things that are not moral (or that are immoral) within our control (or relative to the self, again, being evaluated).

Such an answer as that ("whatever you want to do is good") contradicts that premise and renders the question meaningless while attempting to answer it at the same time.

You can object to the question itself, and the premises it implies, but to do so would be to make your own claim that morality is meaningless; it is not an answer to the question of what morality is. Answering the question implies that you have accepted the premise of the question.

Do you think it's possible for someone to do something they didn't want to do? I was under the impression that you believed this.

Only by accident or due to the functional impossibility of the thing the person wants to do.
I don't know where you got the idea that people are just doing things they don't want (all interests accounted for, relative to the situation at hand which may in itself be undesirable) to do, or that I think this occurs.

People want selfish things that will give them hedonistic pleasure, and they want to do selfless things for others (often even when they know they will suffer and die in the doing and never experience gratification from it); the stronger desire dictates action.

[Cirion Spellbinder]

I'm sorry for ignoring this thread for so long.

The definition of ethics basically just tells us which word to use, a combination of sounds. That's why we call good 'good' and evil 'evil'. That's not really relevant to the system itself.

If the prescriptive definition of morality is irrelevant as I understand you are indicating here, then why did you ask:

As I think I showed, only consideration of interests has meaning. So, how many iterations of consideration of interest are there? [...] Which one looks most like what people would label "morality"?

I don't understand why I should prefer a given iteration of consideration of interest if correspondence to the popular definition is unimportant.

Objective and non-arbitrary deal with the context of the philosophical question.

I don't understand how interests are a non-arbitrary root for morality. Why are interests less arbitrary (and non-arbitrary) relative to a given interest, like that for joy? Would a consequentialist system that sought to maximize fruits be less arbitrary than one that sought to maximize bananas?

[brimstoneSalad]

If the prescriptive definition of morality is irrelevant as I understand you are indicating here, then why did you ask:

Descriptive and Prescriptive are different things (sort of). Neither, from semantics alone, are authoritative.
Descriptive is how people use something, and would be informed by a usage panel -- that is not relative to the structure or logic of the system, but to its naming: it only informs the word we use to label the system.

Most forms of linguistic prescriptivism are not useful here either, be it the word origin, its roots, or how it used to be used.
The only sense in which prescriptivism is valid here is that in which we require a definition to define as a meaningful and useful, consistent and coherent, concept. That's a fairly liberal take on prescriptivism (it's not unheard of to apply logic to word use though), and at that descriptivism falls under the umbrella too.

See more info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_prescription

Anyway, my point is that we don't just cite a definition like it has authority. We examine the possible systems, figure out which ones have certain qualities like consistency and non-arbitrariness, then as a final step if we have a couple of competing systems we can use the common usage as a tie breaker to decide which ones more properly fits the word (or people's understanding of it). The important aspect of definition we're looking for in that case is descriptive in nature. An appeal to a supposed authority like a dictionary would not be particularly appropriate since that doesn't necessarily reflect how the word would be used and understood, or how well or poorly people would grasp that concept if linked to that word.

As I think I showed, only consideration of interests has meaning. So, how many iterations of consideration of interest are there? [...] Which one looks most like what people would label "morality"?

I don't understand why I should prefer a given iteration of consideration of interest if correspondence to the popular definition is unimportant.

The definition is important to the word we use, and which concept ultimately "wins" and gets to be reasonably represented by that word, but it's not important to the details of the system.

Objective and non-arbitrary deal with the context of the philosophical question.

I don't understand how interests are a non-arbitrary root for morality.

Morality is a system of value, which is a form of interest. We're equating interests to interests here, and that's easy.

You can tell me what 12X / 4X equals. The two are using the same terms, and you can give me a clear quantity.
When we mix terms, like 12X / 4Y, you can't give me a clear answer, and you can't tell me if it's larger or smaller than 4Y / 12X.

Trying to equate fruit to morality is like trying to do math with fruit. It's not an interest, and it's not a number.
What's 12 Apples / 4 Pumpkins? I don't mean the weight, I mean the substance divided by another. It makes no sense, such an operator and the values of the components are not defined in that context.

Why are interests less arbitrary (and non-arbitrary) relative to a given interest, like that for joy?

That would be like deciding in mathematics that only prime numbers existed.

Would a consequentialist system that sought to maximize fruits be less arbitrary than one that sought to maximize bananas?

No, because neither have any inherent relationship to value. A focus on bananas is more specific.
But a botanist may be seen to be less arbitrary if he or she studied all fruit rather than bananas specifically. Or a fruit farmer less arbitrary if he or she grew all available fruit rather than just bananas.

[Cirion Spellbinder]

I think I understand better now. It makes sense that the foundations of an ethical system should be non-arbitrary and that if multiple iterations of said foundations exist, have an iteration selected based on how well it fits the popular definition.

Morality is a system of value, which is a form of interest. We're equating interests to interests here, and that's easy.

What is the definition of value in this context?

Why are interests less arbitrary (and non-arbitrary) relative to a given interest, like that for joy?

That would be like deciding in mathematics that only prime numbers existed.

I understand that implication of my question is absurd, but I don't understand why its less arbitrary to pick a group (interests / mathematics) over one of its components (happiness / prime numbers).

But a botanist may be seen to be less arbitrary if he or she studied all fruit rather than bananas specifically. Or a fruit farmer less arbitrary if he or she grew all available fruit rather than just bananas.

Why is this less arbitrary?

Side Question: Does it even make sense for arbitrariness to be described as a spectrum of values?