Moral Intuitions - An Investigation
The problem of morality is perhaps one of the most profound and difficult questions to face philosophers - and people at large. There are very strong cases for each form of value theory, which is sort of what this is, but there are also gigantic problems with them. I am writing because I hope that I can clear some of them out in my own mind - but as so often in philosophy, I am most likely just to confuse myself and my dear readers (if indeed, I have any).
I wrote something about this last night to myself, and I am going to use some of my notes from there as the starting point.
1) All moral reflections are contextual. Contextual means posed against a certain background (culture, time, people, situation) and compared with actions of the same type. That is, there has to be other agents who we know of, and who's actions we can see, for there to be a morality. I don't believe, however, that moral agent here means 'human'. It is probably the best if it is a human - seeing as what we have in common with the rest of humanity, our understanding of our unique situations, etc, rather than an animal - but in a strict sense it is not necessary for it to be human.
We also find a supervenience here - and yet not. That is to say, can specific situations "drag" values with them? Many philosophers think that it is quite odd that it can do that. I think that if we look at it this way, then we will find that values both supervene and not. After all, the value remains in consideration with an entire context. So, to say that a murder is wrong requires us to pose a specific background against it. When we make statements like 'murder is wrong', what we are thinking of is a situation in which a neutral agent murders another neutral agent. All those old Kantian vs. Utilitarian thought experiments rely on this context. The Kantian says that murder is always wrong, prohibited by the moral law, and then the utilitarian progresses to paint us a scenario in which this murder does not off-set our moral intuitions.
2) When considering moral actions or events we infer ourselves - or a "stripped down" version of ourselves - into the moral situation. Many of our intuitions build on this, as does the Golden Rule, for example. What I mean by that is that my view leans on an idea of morality as a universalized relation between moral agents from a subjects 'birds eye' (sort of objective, but 1 enters into our theory of the Goodness or Badness that we infer into a situation). We identify with different people or things involved in the moral situation, much through what I laid out in 1 above. It depends really on who we are, we might have found ourselves in a similar situation as to a thief for example - and thus considering that an action is good because we ourselves infer our own feelings and beliefs on the same type of situation.
This view is heavily problematic, yet I think it holds some truth to it. Above all, what does it make when we make value judgement in direct moral situations? Ie, where we are not merely a passive spectator? 2 needs to be filled up with something more. However, I think it goes at least some way to point us in the direction where we need to go.
3) The (moral) meaning of an act relies on context, loss or gain of status, resources, etc. That is to say: the act must have meaning in the context. In specific situations, ie, historical times, cultures, ceremonies, etc, etc, a specific act has a symbolic meaning that communicates something. My words in a court of law are very different than the very same words in my own living room together with my girlfriend. Again, we find ourselves halfway relying on an underlying belief in good or bad - but where that comes from, I am not sure. However, this point is introducing yet another culturally relevant premise. You can say, with Socrates, that "all men desire the good" (or however you translate that in English). I believe it is true that all human beings, at least (I am not sure if monkeys can be moral agents or just moral recipients) want to do the good in a sort of general sense. What they believe is good, however, comes at least in part from the three things I have outlined so far and in what I will continue to write.
I believe that what we consider to be good, regardless of where we are, is "welfare". That is to say, an incredibly fuzzy theory of not only what people will feel happy over (utilitarianism misses most of our moral intuitions after all) but also what will help them, instill them with feelings that are positive and so on. I believe that number 1 here is how we decide this, if we can at all, that is - we infer our own feelings and thoughts over specific acts and then take these various positive emotions and enter them into anothers contex. For example, I would like to enlighten my sisters with the joy of reading which I think is incredibly rewarding, not only for happiness but also because you learn, you get entertainment, you feel strong emotions and so on. However, my sisters do not feel the same way.
4) The issue of covenants. Human beings, being the herd animals we are, build social relations. We gravitate towards leaders and assign functions (perhaps by Searles famous XYZ, but I think things really have more to do with power over resources and power struggles than he seems to believe). One thing that will always set people off is betrayal. It cuts down to the core of human beings. Particularly if we are betrayed by someone who we should trust with whatever it is. I think feelings and the beliefs we sometimes build before or after the bond is created (ie, trusting someone to be your leader, or creating an office that we should trust - whichever way it begins) are incredibly inflamed if the covenant is broken. If people do not do what they should do. This is the basis for our contractual intuitions. However, covenants are far less 'voluntary' and atomistic than social contract theories typically are. Consider the middle ages, for example, where a lord had a specific responsibility to his serfs and the other way around. In no way was this an equal balance - considering that if the serfs opposed themselves to this they would be hung by the lord most likely.
5) Where does morality come from? I am a materialist. I cannot believe that we are in any way endowned with morality from a supernatural being. I guess some people do, but that is an entirely different matter which I will not debate here.
Morality, thus, serves as a biological function. In game theory it is proved that moral action by all members is better for the group and each individual in it. Morality surely stems from our ability to cooperate and the bonds of emotions between various members of the group. Morality, thus, is at least halfway concerned with our sentiments - that is, our basic moral feelings towards other conscious beings. I regard our thoughts on people in coma, children, etc, through my point 1. That is, we infer ourselves into the situation. That is, we think what if WE were aborted, what if WE had the pull plugged - etc. It doesn't really sound like valid reasoning, however. I believe the conception of conscious beings, or feelings beings I should perhaps say, to be right considering the way animist tribes view the immaterial objects that they believe are actually conscious. I definately also believe we can have moral sentiments towards animals.
My only explanation for moral feeling towards nature and other immaterial objects is a judgement based on the destructiveness of man, our own inferring our moral selves into a spectator of destroyed rainforest or whichever (which fills us with dread) and above all, the effects for all conscious beings when this happened.
I have two deeply problematic questions to tackle:
6) Can a monkey be a moral agent? I have no answer to this perplexing question. I am certain that a monkey parent will feel to it's young the same obligation, love, etc, as a human being would. I, however, cannot answer if moral reasoning - or reason at all - is necessary for morality. It is definately helpful. But is it necessary?
7) Is this pointing towards a kind of naturalism in a sense of ideal observer theory, objective values or emotivism/cultural relativism? I lean more towards the first two, but there are definately at least parts of the others in this. I hope to compile the jumbled mess that is our moral thoughts into at least a somewhat more systematic system. My main fear is this:
Can there be entirely contradictory moral intuitions that are true at the same time? Also, can we have moral sentiments that are just as moral as anything else, and which at the same time seems to make no sense whatsoever?
More on these two questions later, perhaps.
I wrote something about this last night to myself, and I am going to use some of my notes from there as the starting point.
1) All moral reflections are contextual. Contextual means posed against a certain background (culture, time, people, situation) and compared with actions of the same type. That is, there has to be other agents who we know of, and who's actions we can see, for there to be a morality. I don't believe, however, that moral agent here means 'human'. It is probably the best if it is a human - seeing as what we have in common with the rest of humanity, our understanding of our unique situations, etc, rather than an animal - but in a strict sense it is not necessary for it to be human.
We also find a supervenience here - and yet not. That is to say, can specific situations "drag" values with them? Many philosophers think that it is quite odd that it can do that. I think that if we look at it this way, then we will find that values both supervene and not. After all, the value remains in consideration with an entire context. So, to say that a murder is wrong requires us to pose a specific background against it. When we make statements like 'murder is wrong', what we are thinking of is a situation in which a neutral agent murders another neutral agent. All those old Kantian vs. Utilitarian thought experiments rely on this context. The Kantian says that murder is always wrong, prohibited by the moral law, and then the utilitarian progresses to paint us a scenario in which this murder does not off-set our moral intuitions.
2) When considering moral actions or events we infer ourselves - or a "stripped down" version of ourselves - into the moral situation. Many of our intuitions build on this, as does the Golden Rule, for example. What I mean by that is that my view leans on an idea of morality as a universalized relation between moral agents from a subjects 'birds eye' (sort of objective, but 1 enters into our theory of the Goodness or Badness that we infer into a situation). We identify with different people or things involved in the moral situation, much through what I laid out in 1 above. It depends really on who we are, we might have found ourselves in a similar situation as to a thief for example - and thus considering that an action is good because we ourselves infer our own feelings and beliefs on the same type of situation.
This view is heavily problematic, yet I think it holds some truth to it. Above all, what does it make when we make value judgement in direct moral situations? Ie, where we are not merely a passive spectator? 2 needs to be filled up with something more. However, I think it goes at least some way to point us in the direction where we need to go.
3) The (moral) meaning of an act relies on context, loss or gain of status, resources, etc. That is to say: the act must have meaning in the context. In specific situations, ie, historical times, cultures, ceremonies, etc, etc, a specific act has a symbolic meaning that communicates something. My words in a court of law are very different than the very same words in my own living room together with my girlfriend. Again, we find ourselves halfway relying on an underlying belief in good or bad - but where that comes from, I am not sure. However, this point is introducing yet another culturally relevant premise. You can say, with Socrates, that "all men desire the good" (or however you translate that in English). I believe it is true that all human beings, at least (I am not sure if monkeys can be moral agents or just moral recipients) want to do the good in a sort of general sense. What they believe is good, however, comes at least in part from the three things I have outlined so far and in what I will continue to write.
I believe that what we consider to be good, regardless of where we are, is "welfare". That is to say, an incredibly fuzzy theory of not only what people will feel happy over (utilitarianism misses most of our moral intuitions after all) but also what will help them, instill them with feelings that are positive and so on. I believe that number 1 here is how we decide this, if we can at all, that is - we infer our own feelings and thoughts over specific acts and then take these various positive emotions and enter them into anothers contex. For example, I would like to enlighten my sisters with the joy of reading which I think is incredibly rewarding, not only for happiness but also because you learn, you get entertainment, you feel strong emotions and so on. However, my sisters do not feel the same way.
4) The issue of covenants. Human beings, being the herd animals we are, build social relations. We gravitate towards leaders and assign functions (perhaps by Searles famous XYZ, but I think things really have more to do with power over resources and power struggles than he seems to believe). One thing that will always set people off is betrayal. It cuts down to the core of human beings. Particularly if we are betrayed by someone who we should trust with whatever it is. I think feelings and the beliefs we sometimes build before or after the bond is created (ie, trusting someone to be your leader, or creating an office that we should trust - whichever way it begins) are incredibly inflamed if the covenant is broken. If people do not do what they should do. This is the basis for our contractual intuitions. However, covenants are far less 'voluntary' and atomistic than social contract theories typically are. Consider the middle ages, for example, where a lord had a specific responsibility to his serfs and the other way around. In no way was this an equal balance - considering that if the serfs opposed themselves to this they would be hung by the lord most likely.
5) Where does morality come from? I am a materialist. I cannot believe that we are in any way endowned with morality from a supernatural being. I guess some people do, but that is an entirely different matter which I will not debate here.
Morality, thus, serves as a biological function. In game theory it is proved that moral action by all members is better for the group and each individual in it. Morality surely stems from our ability to cooperate and the bonds of emotions between various members of the group. Morality, thus, is at least halfway concerned with our sentiments - that is, our basic moral feelings towards other conscious beings. I regard our thoughts on people in coma, children, etc, through my point 1. That is, we infer ourselves into the situation. That is, we think what if WE were aborted, what if WE had the pull plugged - etc. It doesn't really sound like valid reasoning, however. I believe the conception of conscious beings, or feelings beings I should perhaps say, to be right considering the way animist tribes view the immaterial objects that they believe are actually conscious. I definately also believe we can have moral sentiments towards animals.
My only explanation for moral feeling towards nature and other immaterial objects is a judgement based on the destructiveness of man, our own inferring our moral selves into a spectator of destroyed rainforest or whichever (which fills us with dread) and above all, the effects for all conscious beings when this happened.
I have two deeply problematic questions to tackle:
6) Can a monkey be a moral agent? I have no answer to this perplexing question. I am certain that a monkey parent will feel to it's young the same obligation, love, etc, as a human being would. I, however, cannot answer if moral reasoning - or reason at all - is necessary for morality. It is definately helpful. But is it necessary?
7) Is this pointing towards a kind of naturalism in a sense of ideal observer theory, objective values or emotivism/cultural relativism? I lean more towards the first two, but there are definately at least parts of the others in this. I hope to compile the jumbled mess that is our moral thoughts into at least a somewhat more systematic system. My main fear is this:
Can there be entirely contradictory moral intuitions that are true at the same time? Also, can we have moral sentiments that are just as moral as anything else, and which at the same time seems to make no sense whatsoever?
More on these two questions later, perhaps.
posted by Björn at 3:35 PM
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