[MD] The Moral Landscape

[118]

So I haven't read Harris' book.  From appearances it seems to be taking a
view on encapsulating morals into a system which can then be used to justify
the morality of the system.  As such, a question into the morality of
creating such a system is appropriate.

Here is another inquiry into morals.  First defining the system.  Let's just
say to start with that morality is that which occurs between humans.  Let's
leave saving the planet out of it for now.  So, morality towards others.

In my opinion the highest quality of such morality is non-interference.
 That is allowing the liberty of expression of whatever kind.  But then of
course we get into the deviants who want to cause harm.  Should they have
liberty to do so?  I would say yes.  But at the same time we have the
liberty to kill those SOBs.  So are we left with a brutal animal kingdom?
 Do we need laws or commandments that limit freedom or liberty to get to
where we are?

Left to their own devices, the animal kingdom is somewhat moral.  At least
it would seem so from a human perspective.  So what is it about man that
requires strict morality scriptures?  In my opinion it is the disease of
leaders and followers.  Control is exercised by those, who for whatever
reason need to control  By agreeing with it, we accept and propagate such
control.  So, law number one (limiting freedom), there should be nobody
empowered with control over others.  This rule has to be applied to those
who wish to rule and those who wish to follow.  And there are no other laws.

There is a sense of liberty through numbers.  For example building a castle
with a king who gets money from the peasants so as to protect them.  Such a
feeling of liberty (or security) is only created by and propagated by the
notion that it is so.  Such a notion is not so.

I believe that left to his own devices man is good, no different from the
zebra or coyote.  You may say that history does not support this.  However,
in general it does.  Sure there are cases where we want to covet someone
else's wife.  And of course marriage in itself is liberty restricting.  But
what would be the result of complete liberty created through no leaders or
followers?  Would it be anarchy?  I do not think so, if it is allowed to
play itself out.  Maybe we should have a SIM game based on pure liberty and
non-interference.

In another post I will describe my sense of how language is the main culprit
in the need for morality.  The Word, that is.

Just throwing that out for criticism.

Mark

On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 2:05 PM, Platt Holden <plattholden at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Steve,
>
> OK. You've told me your basis, and probably Harris's, for moral judgments
> --
> "common sense." To me this has the same shortcoming as Pirsig's critique of
> "human rights." I'll cheer for "common sense," but spelling out what it
> means in practice is another matter. You say, for example, that as a matter
> of common sense we ought to improve infant mortality. Yet abortion on
> demand
> is moral to many in our society, and infanticide is practiced in China and
> elsewhere as a matter of common sense for population control. Or, if we
> were
> to eliminate war and disease as a common sense good as you suggest, then
> what's to prevent worldwide starvation? Good common sense intentions can
> sometimes lead to unintended consequences worse than the initial problem.
>
> So yes, I'm a skeptic when it comes to moral pronouncements whether from
> priests, politicians or physicists -- skeptic to the extent that inquiry
> ought to extend beyond surface considerations into the unknown, like
> Pirsig's question, "Why survive?" which opened the way to a completely
> novel
> (and I find convincing) explanation of evolution. Or, the question he asked
> in ZAMM that got the whole ball rolling -- "What is best?"
>
> I've always liked John Steinbeck's irrational insight:
>
> "The lies we tell about our duty and purposes, the meaningless words of
> science and philosophy, are walls that topple before a bewildered little
> "Why?"
>
> I guess trying to topple walls is in my genes, and why the MOQ appealed to
> me from the get go. If that makes me a silly extreme skeptic and personna
> non grata, I plead guilty. But in my defense I would plead that those
> individuals who questioned common sense pioneered the expansion of  human
> knowledge. I only wish I could be like them. It'll never happen, but I try.
>
>
> Finally, it seems to me your common sense approach to morality is
> suspiciously like the morality of the Judeo-Christian tradition, you know,
> go in peace, love thy neighbor, help the poor, and all that. So as much as
> we might like to think we have discovered a rational morality, in the end
> it
> looks like good old religious-based morality after all.
>
> Best,
> Platt
>
>
> On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 2:25 PM, Steven Peterson
> <peterson.steve at gmail.com>wrote:
>
> > Hi Platt,
> >
> > > Steve:
> > > Why do you think that it is nonrational to make assumptions? Part of
> > > reasoning is making assumptions and also holding such assumptions up
> > > to rational criticism. Some assumptions we now make about human
> > > flourishing may turn out to be wrong. We will know only when such
> > > assumptions conflict with other things we learn about human
> > > flourishing.
> > >
> > > Consider the parallel to human health.  Not having a precise
> > > definition of what human health is does not prevent us from pursuing
> > > it and understanding it scientifically.
> > >
> >
> > Platt:
> > > Yes, part of reasoning is making assumptions, but the reasoning comes
> > after the
> > > assumptions.
> >
> > Steve:
> > It doesn't really matter whether you think of the generating
> > asumptions as part of reasoning or as a phenomenon that is separate
> > from and prior to reasoning as long as we agree that there is nothing
> > _ir_rational about making assunmptions (you actually used the word
> > "nonrational" which is fine).
> >
> >
> >
> > > Steve:
> > > Some measures that are frequently considered are life expectancy,
> > > literacy rates, poverty rates, unemployment, % of children who are
> > > underweight, GDP per capita, number of residents seeking asylum in
> > > other countries, infant mortality, etc.
> > >
> > > Platt
> > > Yes, a fine list of criteria. But, it illustrates my point about
> begging
> > the
> > > question. Why are such criteria chosen? Don't they all assume moral
> > judgments?
> > > If you agree that they do, then the real question becomes, "What is the
> > basis
> > > of those moral judgments? General agreement among civilized people?
> > Natural
> > > law? Instinct? I don't see how one can give a rational explanation of
> why
> > it's
> > > better, say, for one group to live longer than another.
> >
> > Steve:
> > This sort of questioning can get silly fast if you want to play the
> > extreme skeptic. For example, what is the basis for asking for a
> > basis? A science of morality couldn't account for certain underlying
> > values any more than physics can account for the standards for what
> > ought to count as a good justification in physics. It is simply no use
> > to ask why we ought to value well-being. It is possible to for the
> > question in language, but it is as meaningless as asking what is good
> > about goodness.
> >
> > It is common sense that all the things listed are important concerns
> > for wellbeing. This is not to say that there is no room for debate
> > about whether or not they do, but asking why, say, Harris can justify
> > that we should want low infant mortality rates is nothing we need to
> > answer unless you can give us good reason to doubt it. It seems clear
> > enough that mothers losing their children in childbirth is bad, and
> > perhaps someday we will have a better understanding of the human brain
> > to explain more precisely why that is, but in the absence of that
> > brain science I don't think we have to pretend that we don't already
> > know that a high infant mortality rate is bad for human wellbeing.
> >
> > As for your question about having a higher life expectancy, having an
> > extremely low life expectancy suggests poor health and perhaps
> > violence and perhaps other indications that a society is not
> > flourishing at it could be. Again, it is just common sense that human
> > wellbeing is not best achieved in a society where we live in fear of
> > violent attack or live in disease. These sorts of objections are
> > hardly deserving of a response. They only come up in the context of
> > playing the extreme skeptic. They are not based on real doubts and
> > without a good reason to doubt there is no good reason to defend
> > against such fake doubts. In other words, I sincerely doubt that you
> > would be doubting sincerely if you questioned whether having cholera
> > is any worse than not having cholera. Though there is almost surely
> > not just one best way to structure society, infecting everyone with
> > cholera just isn't an alternative vision of the good life.
> >
> >
> > > Platt
> > > I think you have made my point. "Well being" reminds me of "human
> rights"
> > that
> > > Pirsig blasted in Lila:
> > >
> > > "What passed for morality within this crowd was a kind of vague,
> > amorphous soup
> > > of sentiments known as "human rights." You were also supposed to be
> > > "reasonable." What these terms really meant was never spelled out in
> any
> > way
> > > that Phaedrus had ever heard. You were just supposed to cheer for
> them."
> > (Lila,
> > > 24)
> > >
> > > I can cheer for "well-being" along with Harris and everybody else. But,
> > when it
> > > comes to specifying a basis on which we can agree as to what a moral
> > standard
> > > like "well-being" will actually lead to in practice, I'm afraid we will
> > > continue to go around in circles.
> >
> > Steve:
> > I think there will always be disagreements since situations are just
> > so complicated and also since there may be multiple ways of being that
> > are more or less equivalent in terns of wellbeing, but we won't merely
> > go around in circles. There is a lot we will agree upon just as soon
> > as we agree that there are right and wrong answers to moral questions.
> > For example, if we imagine that there is an isolated population of two
> > people living on an island, we already know that there are ways that
> > these two can flourish as well as possible under the circumstances and
> > ways that they can experience utter misery. We may not know the best
> > way for them to live the best lives possible, but we do know that,
> > say, trying to murder one another would be to move in the wrong
> > direction on the moral landscape while cooperation is likely to have a
> > far better chance of moving them toward a peak on that landscape. It
> > is a simpler situation that a large population, but it nevertheless
> > illustrates that there are better and worse ways to live.
> >
> >
> >
> > Platt:
> > > Let's never forget that every dictator in
> > > history appealed to the "well-being" of the nation to justify his
> > actions. Both
> > > communism and capitalism appeal to well-being for support, yet the
> > outcomes
> > > have been radically different.
> >
> > Steve:
> > Yeah, well just imagine what a dictator who set out to deliberately
> > bring about the worst possible misery for his nation could do. Anyway,
> > this is an argument against dictators rather than against seeking well
> > being. Everyone already seeks wellbeing. Some of us are especially bad
> > at it. For example, the Talibans who throw battery acid in the faces
> > of girls trying to learn how to read are seeking wellbeing but are
> > very wrong about how best to do it (wrong about what is moral).
> >
> >
> > Platt:
> > > Pirsig's defines "well-being" as that which improves response to
> Dynamic
> > > Quality, a rational conclusion from his initial assumption that the
> world
> > is a
> > > moral order. From what you've told me about Harris, his metaphysics is
> > still
> > > good old SOM.
> >
> > I don''t think Harris is doing metaphysics at all, so it doesn't make
> > any sense to say that his metaphysics is SOM.
> >
> > Platt:
> > >But maybe he can tell us on what rationally-determined moral
> > > basis he defines "well-being."
> >
> > As I said, we don't currently have a well-defined understanding of
> > well-being, but we also don't have a precise definition of health or
> > even life. Nevertheless there is an objective difference between being
> > alive and being dead. The problem of needing a more clear definition
> > of wellbeing is one that we will continue to address as we inquire
> > about how to acheive wellbeing just as we learn about what human
> > health is only as we inquire about how to make ourselves more healthy.
> > The one problem does not need and probably can't have a definitive
> > solution before we start work on the other.
> >
> > Best,
> > Steve
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