So I posted this already on reddit and I wondered what you guys would think of it.

Moral realism is the view that some objective (generally meant as “attitude-independent”) moral truths exist. In the words of philosopher Stephen Finlay:"claims labeled ‘realist’ cannot be collectively characterized any less vaguely than as holding that ‘morality’, in some form, has some kind or other of independence from people’s attitudes or practices.” [7]. The following is my modest attempt at an objection to moral realism. This will draw heavily on studies in psychology as this is my field of study.

To begin, I would like to bring attention to Descartes Error by professor of psychology and neuroscientist, Antonio Damasio, in which he makes the case that emotions aren't a luxury but a crucial element of our decision-making. He first establishes this by showing several cases of people suffering lesions in regions of the brain that deal with emotions for instance the amygdala, the cingulate and the frontal lobe. Indeed, according to the professor, the individuals that would endure damage in those regions would become indecisive or would outright stop to reason (or to doing anything for that matter). The professor also often points out the fact that the subjects suffered no deficit in intelligence or in knowledge, as a matter of fact Elliot, the first subject not counting Phineas Gage, has an above average IQ. Later on, Damasio remarks of Elliot, mentioned above, that he started to think that “the cold-bloodedness of Elliot’s reasoning prevented him from assigning value to different options, and made his decision making landscape hopelessly flat”. Decision-making relies on what he calls somatic-markers which are in short according to Damasio, "feeling generated from secondary emotions. Those emotions and feelings have been connected, by learning, to predicted future outcome of certain scenarios." and what they do is push attention towards negative/positive result [1]. I think this poses a problem for the moral realist. The term morality refers to, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons.” [6], but from the above evidence it does seem that ways to behave can’t be “put forward” without emotions which are attitudes, because decision making depends on emotions.

To continue, there also seems to be evidence against the notion defended by many moral realists that certain moral choices and hence moral actors are, all things equal otherwise, intrinsically less logical. We can point to sociopaths and psychopaths who, as a group, are normally inferior moral agents according to both folk morality and to the most common theories of normative ethics, yet whose condition does not seem to be the result of low intelligence. Studies on sociopaths don’t seem to show them as having low IQs, to quote Hare and Neuman when speaking on psychopathy from their paper Psychopathy As A Clinical And Empirical Construct : “ However, a substantial literature indicates that the association between the PCL-R total score and standard measures of intelligence is weak at best(Hare 2003). Moreover, there is no obvious theoretical reason why the disorder described by Cleckley or other clinicians should be related to intelligence; some psychopaths are bright, others less so.” [2]. People with the condition also seem capable of assessing others emotions in a study [3]. As we know, a psychopath is characterized, by a lack of certain emotional states (empathy, guilt, remorse, etc.). The data we currently have on moral decision-making leads us to believe that lesions or low activity in regions related to emotions, such as parts of the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala, lead sociopath-like behaviour. Those same regions show increased activity in normal individuals when confronted with moral dilemmas of various sorts. [4] So it would seem that those “bad moral agents” aren’t in such a state because of their inability to observe the world and reason logically (IQ tests measure logical and mathematical reasoning amongst other things) about it, but rather there divergent emotional traits. This is consistent with other findings in cognitive science, such as those from psychologist Jonathan Haidt, that show that moral views are often the product of immediate emotional responses followed by post-hoc rationalization [5].


SOURCES:

Damasio, A. (1994). Descartes' Error: Emotion, reason and the human brain. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

Hare, R. D., & Neumann, C. S. (2007, November 20). Psychopathy as a Clinical and Empirical Construct. Retrieved from "Without Conscience": http://www.hare.org/references/HareandN ... CP2008.pdf

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20417065

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... 63302/#R45

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kI1wQswRVaU

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-definition/

http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~finlay/Moral%20Realism.pdf

Paul Staggerman wrote:So I posted this already on reddit and I wondered what you guys would think of it.

Moral realism is the view that some objective (generally meant as “attitude-independent”) moral truths exist. In the words of philosopher Stephen Finlay:"claims labeled ‘realist’ cannot be collectively characterized any less vaguely than as holding that ‘morality’, in some form, has some kind or other of independence from people’s attitudes or practices.” [7]. The following is my modest attempt at an objection to moral realism. This will draw heavily on studies in psychology as this is my field of study.

Hello... welcome to the lions' den.

First off, how can morality be distinct and/or apart from (independent of) the being who is the agent of morality? That would make no sense, unless the implication is that 'God' is the being that is truly moral and that 'we' - who must hence be distinct and separate to God (which also doesn't make sense in terms of God being an omni-being) - are not in any way privy to this morality.

If there are moral truths [in an absolute sense], then I fail to understand how any of this can be discussed outside the context of an absolute being who is the agent of those truths.

Paul Staggerman wrote:To begin, I would like to bring attention to Descartes Error by professor of psychology and neuroscientist, Antonio Damasio, in which he makes the case that emotions aren't a luxury but a crucial element of our decision-making. He first establishes this by showing several cases of people suffering lesions in regions of the brain that deal with emotions for instance the amygdala, the cingulate and the frontal lobe. Indeed, according to the professor, the individuals that would endure damage in those regions would become indecisive or would outright stop to reason (or to doing anything for that matter). The professor also often points out the fact that the subjects suffered no deficit in intelligence or in knowledge, as a matter of fact Elliot, the first subject not counting Phineas Gage, has an above average IQ. Later on, Damasio remarks of Elliot, mentioned above, that he started to think that “the cold-bloodedness of Elliot’s reasoning prevented him from assigning value to different options, and made his decision making landscape hopelessly flat”. Decision-making relies on what he calls somatic-markers which are in short according to Damasio, "feeling generated from secondary emotions. Those emotions and feelings have been connected, by learning, to predicted future outcome of certain scenarios." and what they do is push attention towards negative/positive result [1]. I think this poses a problem for the moral realist. The term morality refers to, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons.” [6], but from the above evidence it does seem that ways to behave can’t be “put forward” without emotions which are attitudes, because decision making depends on emotions.

That people without emotional content cannot make decisions, regardless of their intelligence, gives reason to believe the opposite. To me, this is like saying that the world cannot be real because some people are blind/deaf and are unable to navigate as effectively as those that can see and hear. Taking away a human's faculties and then declaring that some facet of the world doesn't exist is premature (in this case: morality).

By losing emotional content, you've lost value assignments. It's perfectly in line, then, that someone without the ability to assign values to one scenario over another (such as choosing a cereal over another) would lose the ability to navigate choice. So why is this an issue for moral realism? You seem to take issue with the word "rationality" in that SEP definition up there. I put it to you that rationality can, and almost always does, include emotions and decisions derived thereof as a natural consequence of how we reason. Indeed, you've even provided some nice evidence for this. Why do you assume rationality includes no emotions given how we make decisions?

Paul Staggerman wrote:To continue, there also seems to be evidence against the notion defended by many moral realists that certain moral choices and hence moral actors are, all things equal otherwise, intrinsically less logical. We can point to sociopaths and psychopaths who, as a group, are normally inferior moral agents according to both folk morality and to the most common theories of normative ethics, yet whose condition does not seem to be the result of low intelligence. Studies on sociopaths don’t seem to show them as having low IQs, to quote Hare and Neuman when speaking on psychopathy from their paper Psychopathy As A Clinical And Empirical Construct : “ However, a substantial literature indicates that the association between the PCL-R total score and standard measures of intelligence is weak at best(Hare 2003). Moreover, there is no obvious theoretical reason why the disorder described by Cleckley or other clinicians should be related to intelligence; some psychopaths are bright, others less so.” [2]. People with the condition also seem capable of assessing others emotions in a study [3]. As we know, a psychopath is characterized, by a lack of certain emotional states (empathy, guilt, remorse, etc.). The data we currently have on moral decision-making leads us to believe that lesions or low activity in regions related to emotions, such as parts of the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala, lead sociopath-like behaviour. Those same regions show increased activity in normal individuals when confronted with moral dilemmas of various sorts. [4] So it would seem that those “bad moral agents” aren’t in such a state because of their inability to observe the world and reason logically (IQ tests measure logical and mathematical reasoning amongst other things) about it, but rather there divergent emotional traits. This is consistent with other findings in cognitive science, such as those from psychologist Jonathan Haidt, that show that moral views are often the product of immediate emotional responses followed by post-hoc rationalization [5].

Even sociopaths have to follow the social rules regarding morality and hide their transgressions or they will be cast out as moral lepers. A sociopath can still betray someone, after all, and that betrayal is still going to be met with censure. Our means to reason is based by our ability to take in the external world and make sense of it using internal templates. In such a case where someone is incapable of seeing/anticipating other people's emotions it stands to reason that they are functioning using faulty sensations and as such are not as capable of navigating the world as they could be.

I hope nobody minds but the following came up on my search for "overpopulation" just minutes ago:

An Argument For Moral Realism - http://www.rationalskepticism.org/philo ... 49983.html

---
edit: On topic, I think its interesting "modest attempt", often explored in Star Trek for example where Spock, with his impeccable logic, does not always figure it out so to say. At least that is what we are told in Star Trek.

tuco wrote:I hope nobody minds but the following came up on my search for "overpopulation" just minutes ago:

edit: On topic, I think its interesting "modest attempt", often explored in Star Trek for example where Spock, with his impeccable logic, does not always figure it out so to say. At least that is what we are told in Star Trek.

Thanks

Boyle wrote:
That people without emotional content cannot make decisions, regardless of their intelligence, gives reason to believe the opposite. To me, this is like saying that the world cannot be real because some people are blind/deaf and are unable to navigate as effectively as those that can see and hear. Taking away a human's faculties and then declaring that some facet of the world doesn't exist is premature (in this case: morality).

I am not saying morality doesn't exist in this post or that it isn't real, I am trying to say that if there is a morality it needs emotions.

Boyle wrote:By losing emotional content, you've lost value assignments. It's perfectly in line, then, that someone without the ability to assign values to one scenario over another (such as choosing a cereal over another) would lose the ability to navigate choice. So why is this an issue for moral realism? You seem to take issue with the word "rationality" in that SEP definition up there. I put it to you that rationality can, and almost always does, include emotions and decisions derived thereof as a natural consequence of how we reason. Indeed, you've even provided some nice evidence for this. Why do you assume rationality includes no emotions given how we make decisions?

I have never said rationality includes no emotions. I have said that morality is by definition a code put forward by all rational people. Emotions are needed for decision-making, which is needed to "put forward" something, therefore morality requires emotions which runs counter morality being attitude independent.

Boyle wrote:Our means to reason is based by our ability to take in the external world and make sense of it using internal templates. In such a case where someone is incapable of seeing/anticipating other people's emotions it stands to reason that they are functioning using faulty sensations and as such are not as capable of navigating the world as they could be.

I cite a study in the op about how sociopaths are still capable of assessing the emotions of others in a study, what some would call "cognitive empathy".

The closest thing that I can think of to an objective morality is the golden rule. Beyond that, everything is a subjective cultural construct.

Paul Staggerman wrote:

Boyle wrote:
That people without emotional content cannot make decisions, regardless of their intelligence, gives reason to believe the opposite. To me, this is like saying that the world cannot be real because some people are blind/deaf and are unable to navigate as effectively as those that can see and hear. Taking away a human's faculties and then declaring that some facet of the world doesn't exist is premature (in this case: morality).

I am not saying morality doesn't exist in this post or that it isn't real, I am trying to say that if there is a morality it needs emotions.

Then I totally misread your OP, my bad. I agree, especially as I tentatively think that emotions are what we navigate the moral world with.

Paul Staggerman wrote:

Boyle wrote:Our means to reason is based by our ability to take in the external world and make sense of it using internal templates. In such a case where someone is incapable of seeing/anticipating other people's emotions it stands to reason that they are functioning using faulty sensations and as such are not as capable of navigating the world as they could be.

I cite a study in the op about how sociopaths are still capable of assessing the emotions of others in a study, what some would call "cognitive empathy".

This bit?

The results emphasize that although psychopathic patients show no deficits in reasoning about other people's emotion if an explicit evaluation is demanded, they use divergent neural processing strategies that are related to more rational, outcome-oriented processes.

This doesn't mean they are working with good sensory experience. As stated in that study, the non-psychopathic people seemed to go more along the mirror neuron route, and as such felt empathetic. Going along a different route without that empathetic mirroring seems to be what inhibits their ability to respond appropriately to others. I was most definitely mistaken when I said "seeing/anticipating" above. My bad, again.

CdesignProponentsist wrote:The closest thing that I can think of to an objective morality is the golden rule. Beyond that, everything is a subjective cultural construct.

Everything is? Is there a society somewhere that just lets people kill others for fun and considers it good? Or, to set more appropriate rules: Is there a society where equals are allowed to harm each other just for the hell of it? Because mostly I've seen that when killing or stabbing or raping are allowed some sort of discrete system of worth is at play, and that system seems to change, not the rules.

Boyle wrote:
Going along a different route without that empathetic mirroring seems to be what inhibits their ability to respond appropriately to others.

It is well known that sociopaths can respond to others appropriately and fake certain emotions and even manipulate others. Plus, I fail to see how this constitutes faulty sensory experience.Especially when you yourself said you were wrong in saying sociopaths can't perceive the emotions of others. Those 2 claims seem to contradict each other.

Paul Staggerman wrote:

Boyle wrote:
Going along a different route without that empathetic mirroring seems to be what inhibits their ability to respond appropriately to others.

It is well known that sociopaths can respond to others appropriately and fake certain emotions and even manipulate others. Plus, I fail to see how this constitutes faulty sensory experience.Especially when you yourself said you were wrong in saying sociopaths can't perceive the emotions of others. Those 2 claims seem to contradict each other.

It's faulty because of the way they are able to discern emotion, not that they cannot do it. Looking towards the ends rather than being able to feel it as people that are seeing it through mirror neurons seem to be, when compared to other non-sociopathic people, faulty. As such, they need to work to overcome this deficit by paying a lot more attention and learning the things to do rather than feeling them out. Sociopaths (as in the sort that lack empathy) seem to be excellent at manipulating others because of this, but manipulating others, using them as a means to an end, isn't what I would call the appropriate use of others. Nor would I call that moral.

Further, being able to feign compassion doesn't mean they have knowledge of the others emotional state, not in the way one would if they were "seeing" by mirroring. It's akin to asking someone what seeing a color is like and they tell you a wavelength or frequency of electromagnetic radiation. It's not the same and there's knowledge missing there. That's the missing perception and what is faulty, not that they can't analyze cause and effect relationships and put the facial expressions, stated expectations, and body language together to say "Oh, that person is mad."

It's an interesting piece, but as a critique of moral realism I didn't find it very compelling. My immediate suspicion was that you'd misunderstood in what way morals are "independent" for moral realists. (It's moral truths or facts that have some variant of independence, not the ways in which we respond to them.) It's difficult, with that in mind, to see what special problem there is for the moral realist.

My sense of this is that there is, as I often find in such efforts, an almost anxious sense of worry that a mode of conducting oneself CAN'T be established without resorting to an appeal to magic.

Overall, that is what I personally think the whole 'moral realism' movement is driven by.

I am wary of the bit where brain damage is used to try to prove that "emotion" is a necessary element to decision making. Since even now, we don't know exactly how each bit of the brain affects each other bit of it, not to mention being unable to make truly detailed maps of exactly which details sis get mangled, making any such conclusive deductions from injured people seems dicey.

In any case, I would suggest putting the concern differently: in order to make decisions about outcomes, you need to be able to VALUE one outcome over another. It doesn't have to be an emotional reaction per se.

Past that, the existence we experience consists of actions, circumstances, and our own reactions to those elements. It is not necessary to discard all value choices, in order to make decisions about which reactions or outcomes are preferable to an individual, or to a society. Nor is it necessary to invent a magical entity or an unseen "natural morality" to do so.

A successful society can (in my opinion) be accomplished by combining knowledge of circumstances and physics and psychology-sociology, with mutually agreed acceptance of the consequences that accrue from mutually made decisions. If anything, I find that unquestioned emotional reactions are the elements most likely to disrupt any logic-based system.

In fact I think someone somewhere defined gods that way: gods are created at the moment that man chooses to cease the quest for more certain knowledge, whether that decision to stop is due to his reaching the limits of his understanding, or to simple exhaustion, or to impatience.

igorfrankensteen wrote: In any case, I would suggest putting the concern differently: in order to make decisions about outcomes, you need to be able to VALUE one outcome over another. It doesn't have to be an emotional reaction per se.

How do you assign different values to different outcomes without appealing to any emotional needs?

Boyle wrote:

igorfrankensteen wrote: In any case, I would suggest putting the concern differently: in order to make decisions about outcomes, you need to be able to VALUE one outcome over another. It doesn't have to be an emotional reaction per se.

How do you assign different values to different outcomes without appealing to any emotional needs?

Sociopaths seem to manage.

But seriously, are you saying that you've NEVER made a decision based on comparing possible outcomes, without allowing your emotions to decide for you?

I don't know about you, but I don't have an EMOTION associated with whether or not a given process costs more or less than another given process

The requirement for emotional insight and empathy for 'moral' behaviour is not evidence for objective morality - rather the opposite. What this shows is that we 'learn' our morals from observing others and being aware of their needs/desires.

Pebble wrote:The requirement for emotional insight and empathy for 'moral' behaviour is not evidence for objective morality - rather the opposite. What this shows is that we 'learn' our morals from observing others and being aware of their needs/desires.

Yea, this is an argument against moral realism, as I stated above.

igorfrankensteen wrote:My sense of this is that there is, as I often find in such efforts, an almost anxious sense of worry that a mode of conducting oneself CAN'T be established without resorting to an appeal to magic.

Overall, that is what I personally think the whole 'moral realism' movement is driven by.

I think that's a bit of a sweeping claim. Or maybe it's just that I disagree. Ask realists and what you'll more often find is that they think anti-realism misses out on something important about the moral experience, or however you like to style it. That anti-realists want to do without that something important because they can't fit it within the confines of other theories to which they're already attached.

Pebble wrote:The requirement for emotional insight and empathy for 'moral' behaviour is not evidence for objective morality - rather the opposite. What this shows is that we 'learn' our morals from observing others and being aware of their needs/desires.

How so?

I don't see how it makes sense to say that there exists objective moral truthes merely because there's bunch of moral subjects with common neurophysiological reasons for acting in similar ways.

How does it become an objective moral truth? What makes something a moral truth anyway? This whole thing smells like an exercise in begging the question.

I'm a moral nihilist and if someone can convince me out of that I'll be impressed. I'd really like someone who's a moral realist to prove the reality of objective morals.

Rumraket wrote:I don't see how it makes sense to say that there exists objective moral truthes merely because there's bunch of moral subjects with common neurophysiological reasons for acting in similar ways.

Well, it's the "merely" that's a problem there. Who is a realist merely on the basis you've got there? There are plenty of realists out there who go into detail on why they think moral realism is true or has better support than the alternatives.