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Ted talk spins morality on it's head

Started by P3nT4gR4m, May 02, 2014, 06:28:45 AM

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Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on May 08, 2014, 02:39:37 PM
It can't be consensus. Consensus is scientifically measurable. Science can't measure morality, remember?  :?

According to the "logic" you seem to be using, science also can't study societies, and neither sociology nor anthropology exist as disciplines because there are no biologically predetermined social or anthropological absolutes.

So, where are you going with this, exactly? You seem to have your head deeply wedged in some false premise in which either morality is hardwired and scientifically absolute, or it doesn't exist.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

#61
I would like at this juncture like to suggest that if you are actually interested in this subject, you read a book or two. I'd love to suggest Sapolsky, as usual, for a biological perspective (he has some good essays in Monkeyluv), and I'm sure others have suggestions as well.

You seem to be stuck somewhere, I'm not sure where you're stuck.

There are, as I've said before (maybe in Twid's biology thread) reasons to believe that empathy is natural and inborn, and therefore that a sense of ethical domain is inherent, but morals are the social structure that is imposed on the sense of ethical domain. It is, as TGRR said, a matter of social consensus, and therefore observable, but like other matters of social consensus it is not consistent from culture to culture.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


LMNO

Could we draw comparisons to language?

There's no universal language (that's been proven), but there is a universal desire and ability to communicate.  And many languages share common elements, yet are distinct.


Just talking off the top of my head, here.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on May 08, 2014, 02:39:37 PM
It can't be consensus. Consensus is scientifically measurable. Science can't measure morality, remember?  :?

Never mind.
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Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Consider: for Catholics, it is immoral for priests to marry.

For Jews, it is immoral for priests NOT to marry.

For Americans, it is immoral for grown men to be fellated by adolescent boys. Among the Sambia, it is a moral imperative for adolescent boys to fellate warriors and swallow as much semen as they can in order to become men.

Look no further than the different ways different cultures view women or homosexuality, and build intense moral structures around them. There are immeasurable examples of conflicts in what is considered moral. Is polygamy moral? Is monogamy moral? Is it moral for a woman to have sex before marriage, or a job, or an education? Cultures create these moral strictures to meet some need they have in their environment at the time, and then often they follow them lang past the stage of utility. They are all observable, and measurable, and a social scientist (there's a reason these guys are in a different category than "hard" sciences, remember, no matter how hard people like Sapolsky and Caccioppo try to blur the line) can even see the conflicts that occur within a society when there is a disagreement about morality, for example with the issue of whether abortion is moral.

So when you have people like Sam Harris saying "morality is biologically inherent and provable by science", I think it's not an unreasonable response to take a step back and say "Well... how are you defining morality?" because the evidence that we actually have (and remember, science is based on evidence) is that empathy and the perception of an ethical domain are inherent in individuals to varying degrees of strength, morals, the form that ethical domain takes within a society, are socially determined.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


P3nT4gR4m

I wouldn't exactly say I'm "stuck" anywhere, other than chewing some new shit over in my head. "Stuck" implies I can't get out. All I gotta do is stop thinking about it. Morality aint something that occupies much of my waking attention normally. I'm generally much more interested in circuitry and software than why there are certain prejudices inherent in the software but the idea that you might be able to measure them or choose an optimal set to facilitate a given condition struck me as interesting.

I'm not even making an argument here, merely questioning this whole notion of morals and ethics.

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