Often it is heard by these pomo-wanking lefties, these infantile subjectivist scum that ethics are subjective and whimsical. An interesting debate on solopassion.com will put more light on the issue.
Here it goes: The following is an example of the attack on the use of objective scientific thought on studying behaviour, ethics, politics, religion, esthetics etc etc....
PhD philosopher Richard Goorde agrees and quotes:
The first firebrand is lobbed into the audience by Edward Slingerland, an expert on ancient Chinese thought and human cognition at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. "Religion is not going away," he announced. Even those of us who fancy ourselves rationalists and scientists, he said, rely on moral values - a set of distinctly unscientific beliefs.
Where, for instance, does our conviction that human rights are universal come from? "Humans' rights to me are as mysterious as the holy trinity," he told the audience at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. "You can't do a CT scan to show where humans' rights are, you can't cut someone open and show us their human rights," he pointed out. "It's not an empirical thing, it's just something we strongly believe. It's a purely metaphysical entity."
New Scientist, 10 November 2007.
James Vallient a man with commonsense refutes:
With all due respect to Hume, values are not a species of mythological beast, arbitrary, whimsical or some kind of religious invention. They are a fact about life itself.
"Good" is a teleological concept. It implies an answer to the questions: "Good to whom and for what?"
Teleology is a phenomenon of biology: since only a living being acts in order to survive, only to such a being can something be "good for" it or "bad for" it. As all of our observations show, life is value-pursuit and only living things pursue values. A plant will act to reach the sunlight, but, if it cannot, it will die. For it, sunlight is good -- failing to reach it is bad. Life is the ultimate end of all of its value-pursuing, the only standard by which we can evaluate what is "good" or "bad" for the plant.
The same is true for people -- but only humans can and must choose the values they will pursue. We can act perversely -- in opposition to our health and life. We must select our values carefully. That's why only human beings have or need ethics.
It might be helpful to add something that was only before implicit. Rand believed that most ethical thinking started "in the middle." She believed that the question "What are the values that we should pursue?" could not be answered without first answering the questions, "What are values -- and why do we need values at all?"
Early on, I had written:
"If a value is the object of my action -- something I act to obtain or keep -- then they are very real, indeed. Every living organism I have ever observed pursues certain ends. Survival requires this. Even you [Richard Goode] have goals, I suspect.
"For human beings, who can and must choose the values they pursue, the only question is: are the values I am pursuing actually going to achieve my survival, health and prosperity. Humans, unfortunately, can act, and have acted, self-destructively.
"At the physical level, something is either nutritious for me to eat or it is not. It may even be poison. My nature dictates the range of healthy values open to me. IF I want to live, I must eat within this range of items. Period.
"Thus it is for all values.
"The 'good' is an aspect of reality in relation to human survival and well-being.
"My well-being cannot be achieved arbitrarily. As a human being, I must discover those principles, not just of proper nutrition, but of proper living in general.
"A wildfire in my neighborhood is bad thing by this standard. Running from one, if it got too close, would be a good thing by this standard. Such an evaluation is a purely factual one. IF I want to live, condition X is bad, action Y is good.
"The fact that I am alive and that my life has certain (very empirical) conditions attached to its continuation and prosperity is what makes this relationship a perfectly objective one.
"For example, I have already alluded to the virtue of rationality. As a human being, this is my most basic tool of survival. As such, let me suggest, its exercise is my most basic virtue.
"This relationship to reality exists for all objective virtues. There is only price that can buy the values of credibility and trust -- in reality -- and that is honesty. So, too, a life of initiating violence is dangerous and self-defeating and unproductive. Etc.
"That Hitler was evil is not subjective at all. It is as OBJECTIVE as math."
You questioned whether even cabbages pursued values. I answered:
"Not consciously, of course, Richard, but all living organisms pursue their values. Plants pursue sunlight through phototropism, absorb the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, etc. They do act in order to survive. Even a modest single-cell organism is a complex machine of value-pursuit, with an entire architecture for survival, thriving, and reproduction. In mobile animals, this pursuit has the added help of consciousness (indeed, that's the function of consciousness). In humans, this value-pursuit becomes self-conscious, a deliberate purpose. That is why only humans, who consciously select the values they pursue, have or need a science of ethics.
"Life can be defined as just that: the process of self-generated, self-sustaining activity."
I also wrote:
"Value-pursuit is simply a fact about living organisms. It makes life possible. The relationship of my subjective values to my actual survival is an objective one. Since this is ~ why ~ living organisms pursue values in the first place, this is what makes them objective or not. If one were to pursue the subjective values of, say, Nazism, this relationship between fact and value would be otherwise."
It is a matter of fact that Nazism (or poison) is bad for my survival and, indeed, for all human life. It is a matter of fact (see below) that freedom is good for my survival and, indeed, for all human life.
My objective values are the necessary (and very real and empirically determined) requirements and conditions of my life.
Thus, under any given set of circumstances, and assuming it has a choice of actions, what a living being is determines what it ought to do.
8 comments:
The funny thing is, I agree to a point - but only to a point.
To use one of your own metaphors: let's agree that excess fat is be bad for me, but lots of vitamins are good for me.
Let's arbitrarily call it 'immoral' to eat lots of fat, and 'moral' to eat lots of vitamins.
But tomorrow, imagine we encountered another ice age. Or a massive crop failure or environmental change brought on by let's say a meteor strike. Eating lots of fat, whether good or bad for us may become necessary for our survival.
Or imagine that one day in the future, we for whatever reason evolve the need to gorge ourselves on fat. It would then become 'moral' to eat lots of fat.
It is apparent that our changing environment, or our changing minds or bodies may cause us to redefine what is 'good' and 'bad' for us.
Thus, morals are subjective. That's all we "infantile subjectivist scum" are saying.
And by the way personal attacks, even towards groups, get in the way of intellectual discussion.
I can't even give this argument any credit. Why? Because it is so far fetched into the improbable and unlikely and so separate from our concrete reality from the history of humanity here on earth, that to consider some ridiculous disaster on equal terms, to a predictable, knowable planet and then try to derive an ethics base on that would lead no where. It would lead to contradictions. Should we eat lots of fat? "yes because its good too, you never know what will happen next and you need store" (Ethics based on meteor theory..... OR "No because it gives, pancreatic, colon, artery, heart, liver, kidney, limb and eyes disease. Oooops we have a contradiction. Ok. Lets check our premises. Oh Dear! There it is...... the equal terms which you prescribed disaster, or million years of change, too what we actually have.
Christian said: "Thus, morals are subjective. That's all we "infantile subjectivist scum" are saying."
If you read my post you will realise that it is in fact not what moral subjectivists are saying at all. They are saying that ethics are abstract, in tangible, not physical. Therefor they conclude that because you can't scan ethics,it is therefore unscientific. As you can see this assumption is very mislead.
The appropriate form of ethics such as freedom, individual rights, property are all based on reason. Now to test this, you have to look at two things. 1) Internal consistency 2) External consistency.
However, first of all lets confirm whether you see the flaw in dealing with green eyed monsters on Mars and concrete reality on equal terms of which to base life on?
I think you might have missed the point.
Regardless of the improbability of such events (which I will address later), if they did happen then you would no doubt change your 'moral' outlook.
Rand's dislike of hypotheticals makes her seem very closed minded.
Hypothetical scenarios are integral to philosophy and science. What if Einstein had proposed his Special Relativity, only to be told it was irrelevant because we never travel at speeds approaching the speed of light?
As for ethics being 'intangible', that point of view stems purely out of the fact that subjectivists realise that there is more, or could be more to the universe than *us*, *now*.
To tie back in to probability of my hypotheticals, life on other planets is not only possible, but extremely likely. Intelligent life on other planets is also quite probable. This high probability makes it a hypothetical that you can't ignore.
Do you think these separately evolved creatures would have the same code of ethics than us? Not likely!
We can construct any number of likely or unlikely scenarios that give these creatures different ethics to us. THIS is what we mean when we say ethics are subjective.
We will agree though, that ethics are concrete for *us*, *now*.
I mean, scientists recently found a gene in a particular mole-type creature that, when switched on and off, can control whether or not the male animal will be monogamous and a good father, or polygamous and an abandoner!
Ethics are tangible, and they are concrete - they are usually genetic but often socially ingrained. But if we had evolved any differently, they would be different too.
That could be called moral fluidity, and from a distance, can be viewed as subjectivity.
Probable based on what? No answer given for the assertion....
“Rand never dislike hypotheticals.” In fact she used them very often to illustrate points. So wrong assumption there I’m afraid. It’s the non realistic foundations which you equated with the realistic which I was disputing.
A girl once tried to disprove that man needs incentive in order to live. Incentive of course is a direct result of a system of supply and demand - essentially what humanity here has always dealt with. She argued that my argument would change if machines were constructed which maintained themselves and were self sufficient in delivering all human needs then supply and demand could be removed, incentive not needed and the ideal of all human equality could be pursued. Of course on her premise I said perfectly possible, of course metaphysically it had no relevance to reality hence not possible. Note, reality does not mean pragmatically a moment in time, it means life here on earth as we know it to be.
Just the same, your examples of different organisms on other planets, in different elements would pose a different set of ethics is a possibility based on…….. oh I don't know how you calculated it, but it is also divorced from all metaphysical reality here. So you’re really just chasing a straw man argument. Put literally, weak as hell due to not having any reference to our reality.
Your Einstein example of relativity not having being discovered because we don't travel at speeds of light is just as flawed as "ethics aren’t scientific because we can't x-ray them. The entire purpose of measurement is to reach the physically unreachable (for which in this case it is)
The fact that "creatures" on other planets have different ethics to us does not negate objectivity in fact it would negate subjectivity. You have acknowledged that a totally different system of physical elements would pose different grounds of ethics. Well there we have it in a nut shell. Objective reality causes the case for ethics, not whim. And because you can't x ray something does not make it subjective. Reason, logic (non contradiction identification of reality) achieves an answer very competently.
On genes which show monogamy and polygamy I would suggest to be careful of the huge generalization and applicability you ascribe to a finding. I have never heard that one can establish a behaviour and competency of being 'bad' or 'good' at the same time from switching on and off a single gene. I would be willing to gamble you took more than was found from that finding or the journalist did when telling you about it.
First, on the genes - I said nothing of 'good' or 'bad'. The Prairie vole (with monogamous males who stay to take care of their young) has a close cousin - the Montane vole - whose males have evolved to be polygamous, and who do not stay to take care of young. Not even the mother sticks around!
One species has clearly survived on polygamy, the other on monogamy. You could even go so far as to say that for one species, monogamy is considered moral, and polygamy immoral. And vice versa.
Modifying a SINGLE gene in the Montane vole actually makes it change its behaviour completely and become monogamous - it sticks around, forms pair bondings with its mates...
A simple example of different environments causing different evolutionary pathways to be trod - one for polygamy, and abandonment of children (they survive just fine by the way, or it wouldn't have evolved), the other for monogamy and pair bonding.
We consider polygamy and abandonment of children to be immoral ONLY because we would not survive as a species if we didn't. If it was any other way, as in the case of the Montane Vole, then perhaps just like the Montane we would commit ourselves to promiscuity and just ignore our children. With all our intelligence, we would consider anything else immoral.
Yes, of course our morals are real, and of course they have their foundation in evolutionary or current biological needs, but of course they would change given even a minor change in circumstance, as they did in the case of the Voles.
Morals, being different for one species than another, are therefore subjective, or relative to an external observer (to seamlessly quote Dr. Einstein).
Kasper.
Christian you consistently assert through your examples the objectivity of morals yet you class them as subjective. Polygamy is not wrong for us at all survival wise and politically. Polygamy for some couples is considered wrong based on their values, if one goes wondering, then it is simply the likely end of that relationship. The couple could work it out.
My point is, the above isn't an absolute "right, wrong" rule, metaphysically speaking. (concrete reality to be generalized).
The subject of ethics, in my case, I would title it self-interest for human beings, is not breeched in your examples. Ethics is far more than just biological, it is, taking being able to identify all the necessary components and then forming an ethical system.
I think Ayn Rand nails it, in part to our convo here,
What is morality or ethics? It is a code of values to guide man's choices and actions - the choice and actions which determine the purpose and course of his life.
So the question of asked is which ethics should we take, and how do you know which is right or wrong?
Ayn Rand saw the immediate flaw in this question, as it was middle road. She went back further and asked: "Why does man need a code of values?" So i'll stress it again. The question is not: "What particular code of values should man accept?" The first question is: Does man need values at all and why?
Is the concept of value, of "good or evil" an arbitrary human invention, unrelated to, underived from and unsupported by any facts of reality? OR, is it based on metaphysical fact, on an unalterable condition of man's existence? (I use the word, "metaphysical"to mean: that which pertains to reality, to the nature of things, to existence). Does an arbitrary human convention, a mere custom, decree that man must guide his actions by a set of principles OR is there a fact of reality that demands it? Is ethics the province of whims: of personal emotions, social edicts and mystic revelations-OR is it the province of reason? Is ethics a subjective luxury - or an objective necessity?
In the sorry record of history of mankinds ethics- with a few rare, unsuccessful, exceptions - moralists have regarded ethics to be the province of whims, that is: of the irrational. Some of them did so explicitly, by intention - others implicitly be default. A "whim" is a desire experienced by a person who does not know and does not care to discover it cause.
Oh dear! I should really edit things before they go up :)
It seems to me we may be agreeing, for the most part. I'm actually surprised that you deem 'moral subjectivity' to mean 'morals without reason'.
I have never in my life met anybody who would hold that viewpoint. Perhaps I am lucky, or perhaps you miss the point of moral subjectivity?
In fact, after a cursory Google search, I can't find anybody who shares that view. Still, I will concede that these people could exist, and that they are whom your argument is with.
Regardless, I see subjective morality as stepping back from your own personal constructs, and seeing that your ethics may not be the ethics of another species, group, or even individual - for reasons of personal survival.
Subjective morality is the idea that a code of ethics, or a 'truth', only applies from a particular perspective. There are certain things which humans apparently universally call 'immoral', but that is only because we have evolved to think that way.
Interestingly, we often come upon difficult moral situations - case in point, the Middle East. I often ponder if it would be in America's interest to literally practice ethnic cleansing in the Middle East, and claim the entire region for themselves.
The reason that idea is difficult (and perhaps the reason they haven't done it) is because there's an overwhelming sense of killing being 'wrong'. Of course in that situation, for America killing may be very right!
Morals are objective only in that:
1. We have universally evolved to consider certain things 'immoral'
2. I, personally, have a set of self-interests that can be protected by living by a certain moral code.
Morals are subjective in that:
1. If we had evolved in a different environment, we would have different morals.
2. My interest-related moral code may include factors which others would consider immoral.
3. Some of our genetically predetermined 'morals' are often not actually the best for a particular situation - sending troops to their deaths, or destroying an enemy for example.
Changing situations call for changing morals - otherwise we would not survive.
Yes, morals are objective from a short-sighted, here and now point of view, but stepping back even for a moment reveals a universe of convoluted subjectivity and relativism.
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