Posted: Oct 07, 2017 3:42 pm
zoon wrote:
At the same time, it seems to me that trying to drop morality altogether runs into the same sort of difficulties as trying to be a total sceptic. Every time I tell myself it’s clear we can’t know anything, I’ve run into a paradox because I’m saying I know something,
I agree, sometimes I play thought games. Do I know the capital of Poland is Warsaw? Would someone travelling close to the speed of light agree? Krakow might be a more correct answer for them? What do we mean by Warsaw ... has it changed by the time I finished this post?
zoon wrote: and every time anyone says we should not use the language of morality, they are using the language of morality. Why should we cut the crap in speaking, and why should we contain behaviours? – if not because we have some shared agreement that it’s a good thing if the community is flourishing, and that it’s good if we are, most of the time at least, not talking nonsense?
When we use the word good ... it seems to have two broad meanings ... accurate and somehow beneficial (the latter seems to boil down to "I approve". ie meets my desire and will.
zoon wrote: It seems to me that these are moral predispositions, we back them up with approval or disapproval. It’s possible to argue that it all comes down to pure self-interest, but I think that argument becomes rather strained, especially as it does not in fact accord so easily with evolutionary theory as the other possibility, that we do in fact care, to some extent, about what happens to other people in the group besides ourselves, and that we have some direct interest in the group’s flourishing.
Again I agree we have moral predispositions. But then I have a predisposition think/visualize London double decker buses as red. No matter how much I understand the science, I can't help seeing them as red and I don't have a clue about understanding them as they really might be. My point is ... having a predisposition is nice and useful, but at best only a reflection of the underlying reality.
zoon wrote:We are group-living animals, and genes code for their own interests, which are not always identical with the interests of the individual in which they happen to be (where the interests of the individual are taken to be survival and direct reproduction). (If I’m derailing this thread, and if romansch is interested in continuing this discussion, we could move it to the “justice is a universal” thread.)
I don't see the two threads as separate ... eg Scott (as many do) see morality and free will entwined. In fact some definitions of free will are defined in the terms of being able to be morally responsible.
I get why we anthropomorphize evolution and its underlying chemistry ... we seem to give them properties that are in our image. But if we are to have theories about biology, psychology free will etc, I can't help thinking they should be coherent with the underlying chemistry and physics.
ps call me rom (or drop the "c")