From: Technotranscendence (neptune@mars.superlink.net)
Date: Sat Nov 27 1999 - 10:41:11 MST
On Saturday, November 27, 1999 12:06 PM Damien Broderick
d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au wrote:
> It seems to me that your ambition of finding an `objective or external
> morality' is based on a bafflingly simple error. You are seeking a
> teleological answer in a non-teleological cosmic substrate. You are asking
> after the ice-cream preferences of a dust cloud. Morality is an emergent
> program for guiding the behaviour of complex social beings.
I would quibble with two things here. First, I do not think "morality" as
such is something only applicable to social beings. See Rand's "Philosophy
Who Needs It" -- the title essay in a book of hers of the same name. Her
basic notion is that philosophy and morality (which is part of philosophy by
her reckoning) are guides to living life. As such they do not just apply
when one has company over.:) They would apply to Crusoe before Friday shows
up. Of course, Crusoe would need no social morality or politics before
Friday shows up, but he would still need guidance in living.
Second, I would like to borrow Rand's trichotomy with regard to moralities.
These are the intrinsic, the subjective, and the objective. Intrinsic
moralities are those based on the notion that the good is external, such as
religious ones where the Good is doing some specific action regardless of
its relation to the doer. The Decalogue of JudeoChristianity is an example
of this. (This seems to be what most people mean by "objective" and,
perhaps, the common usage is better than Rand's, given that it is placing
the good in the _object_ apart from the _subject_. At the same time,
"intrinsic" is not so bad because as a term it points to goodness being
_intrinsic_ to something apart from any relation with anything else, whereas
_objectivity_ is a relation -- specifically, a certain state of awareness
with regard to the world.)
Subjective moralities are based on the subject alone, especially his, her,
its arbitrary preferences. An example of this might be someone doing
whatever they feel like doing at a particular time. This is sort like the
flip side of intrinsic moralities. Now the subject, not external reality
has full control. A special kind of subjective morality are social
conventional moralities, such as those who believe the Good is whatever
society (the majority, tradition, culture, the race, the nation, the
proletariat, the intelligentsia, etc.) decides it is. For instance, if we
all take a vote and decide it's okay to rape, then rape is good -- not just
legal but moral, or, at least, not immoral.
The objective in moralities, using Rand's notions, is when the Good is a
relation between subject and object. (See her and Branden's _The Virtue of
Selfishness_.) Certain actions are good because of this relation. Now this
might seem to only put the argument back further a step and move confusion
to another level. After all, how does one decide what is good for a given
subject in a given context? Couldn't it just be subjective? In that case,
Rand's rattling on about _objective_ morality (note the singular here) is
only thnly disguised _subjective_ morality.
However, she does go a bit further and some have built further on her
insights. Specifically, her views of "value" and the purpose of morality.
She defines "value" -- recalling from memory here -- as that which acts to
gain or keep. This is a very neutral definition. However, she then goes on
to look for why anything would need values. Rather than go on here, let me
ask all on this thread who care to answer, Why would anything _need_ values?
Is value just a useless concept, adding a layer of redundancy to explaining
behavior or internal states?
> Such beings are
> not written ahead of time into the foundations of the universe. Any moral
> code is therefore prudential at best - that is, it is a set of ranked
> instructions for how to attain goals that have been set arbitrarily in a
> complex cascade of adaptations and evolutionary kluges. These can
certainly
> be tested by various criteria of effectiveness, but not against any
deeper,
> universal, aboriginal dicta that preceded the (very recent) emergence of
> minds. Deal with it. Stop looking for some rule in M-Theory that tells you
> why choosing not to eat bluebellied flies on Tuesdays is objectively
> morally righteous.
I would quibble with one thing here which relates to my second point above.
Morality, as such, need not be the same for each species or type of being.
I would not take this as meaning morality is subjective or arbitrary. It
merely reflects on the fact of being being (no pun intended) different.
This applies withing species too. I have a certain set of traits that are
different from Damien's. This means I can pretend to be him (or he me) and
expect to wind up in the same state. I probably lack some skill or
preferences that he has and vice versa. E.g., maybe he likes brussel
sprouts. (I detest them.) Now, this might seem arbitrary, from the point
of a Theory of Everything (TOE), but for he and I, these are just how we
are. We must start with reality, not theory.
Cheers!
Daniel Ust
http://mars.superlink.net/neptune/
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