If there is no God, murder isn't wrong?

[GE Morton]

Well, if that is true then it would instantly render all the moral puzzles and dilemmas posed by philosophers, and the moral challenges most people face from time to time, moot.

Yes and no. Firstly logic is still of benefit to someone who desires to be moral.

So being moral is a choice after all?

[Fooloso4]

Eduk:

You have everything back to front. You don't decide to be moral. You don't choose to be moral. Being moral is of great existential benefit but that is not why you are moral.

It is not clear who you are addressing. My position is basically the Aristotelian one, we desire to do good, that is, to achieve what is good, whether that extends only to one’s self, to a select group of others, or universally. When we adequately understand what our own good is we understand that our own good involves the good of others and so our desire to do good extends to them. In addition, in response to GE’s bloodless moral rules I have appealed to empathy. I do not think we choice to be empathetic, I have argued that it is part of our neurobiology.

When I said, as you quoted:

I do not inflict pain and suffering on strangers in secret because there are moral rules that say I shouldn’t.

I meant that moral rules are not the reason why I do not inflict pain and suffering on strangers in secret. I see now that taken out of context the statement is ambiguous and can be taken to mean either that it is because of moral rules that I don’t act this way or that the moral rules are not the reason I do not act this way. My point, as the content of my argument has made clear, is that moral rules alone are inadequate because rule following does not explain why I would follow the rules. There must be something that underlies the rules. Like you, I don't inflict pain and suffering on strangers in secret because I don't want to. And I do not think we are the exceptions.

[Eduk]

So being moral is a choice after all?

What is the point in that comment? Are we debating with a watching audience in an attempt to score points? If so I was unaware.
If you find my posts somewhat confusing and self contradictory then there are multiple ways for you to proceed.

[Eduk]

Ah it seems I have misunderstood your intended meaning Fooloso4, we appear almost entirely to be in agreement.

[GE Morton]

So being moral is a choice after all?

What is the point in that comment? Are we debating with a watching audience in an attempt to score points? If so I was unaware.
If you find my posts somewhat confusing and self contradictory then there are multiple ways for you to proceed.

Well, you said, "Firstly logic is still of benefit to someone who desires to be moral."

That implies that someone can choose to be moral, which you had previously denied.

[GE Morton]

GE Morton:

Those are not evidence to the contrary. The question is not whether some people are charitable and feel empathy with strangers, but whether those attitudes and feelings can serve as the basis for a moral code.

It is evidence that contrary to what you say people are not indifferent to the plight of others.

You need to quantify that. I didn't say, "People are indifferent to the plight of others." I suggested that some people are, and that people differ as to whom they are willing to help, and for what purposes and in what circumstances. And that for that reason those differing propensities and feelings cannot be the basis of a moral code.

A moral code in and of itself is useless if people did not have the desire to do what is good.

It helps in these discussions to preserve the distinction between good/bad and right/wrong. Right/wrong denote the morality of an act, good/bad the desirability of its objective. The agent will always believe, for every act, the objective of his act to be good, or at least better than any available alternative. The moral question is whether the act he is contemplating to secure it is right or wrong. Most people --- but by no means all --- do indeed seek to do what is morally right. But they differ greatly in which attribute to apply to any given act, and most people find themselves uncertain as to what is the right thing to do from time to time. Their intuitions differ, and sometimes are silent. Hence the need for a set of moral rules with a rational, objective basis. And of course, the test for the validity of such a set cannot be, "It agrees with my intuitions," since such a test would be subjective and thus useless.

The desire itself is not sufficient but neither is the code. As I have said repeatedly, moral deliberation is necessary. But you ignore this and argue as if the inclusion of empathy, care, and the desire to live well entails the exclusion of reasoned deliberation.

No; it's the opposite. Reasoned deliberation entails the exclusion of empathy and care. Whether a moral rule is binding on someone cannot depend upon our feelings for that person. E.g., my decision as a juror as to whether Alfie is guilty of a crime and should be punished cannot turn on the fact that he is my son and I love him. (Since many people will not be able to exclude that factor persons with such a relationship will not be selected as jurors).

What you avoid addressing is why anyone would adhere to a moral code. Your universalizing the consequences of not adhering is not sufficient to convince anyone since we all know that my actions do not have universal consequences that bite me in the ass.

Most people will adhere to it because, as you said, they wish to do what is right, and believe that the code is right for the most part. And it is not the direct consequences of my act that deter me from violating the code; it is the knowledge that if I may break the code at will I thereby authorize others to do likewise, and that would be very bad.

You may not, but many others do. The prisons are full of them.

And the establishment of a universal moral code will be ineffectual in changing their behavior.

You're correct; it will not. But it will inform us as to whom to punish, and for what.

[Hereandnow]

GE Morton
Pain is bad" is not an apodictic truth; it is not even cognitive. "Alfie considers pain to be bad" and "Most people consider pain to be bad" may be true, and we can confirm (or disconfirm) those by observing the agents' behaviors.

Well then, you would say the same of analytic propositions, tautologies like "bachelors are male" are also not apodictic? or causality? Why is the principle of causality apodictic? Because it is intuitively irresistible. Such irresistibility is found exclusively within the cognizing, or better, intuiting agent; but how is it validated? Within this agency, and beyond this, there is no discursive accounting for it save the propositional form given to it when the principle is uttered. IF pain is absolutely bad, then it would have the same status. We don't consider, when Alfie has a rational intuition about all dogs being canines, that the truth of this is contingent upon what Alphie considers, do we?

There is no "recognizing" it to be bad. There is no "badness" property to recognize. There is only a judgment that it is bad --- a judgment that will differ from agent to agent.

Of course it does differ from agent to agent, but this is because each agency has independent experiences. IF I were a schizophrenic hallucinating some horror, THEN I would acknowledge the horror, and its badness, even though I may be a masochist who loves such hallucinatory horrors; and this is because in the other's shoes i would inherit all conditions for the production of the experience. At any rate, the same objection I posit above applies here: judgment that X is bad because it is painful falls in line with judgment that the longest leg of a triangle is opposite the largest angle. Both doxastically coercive, apriori true (true in that the proposition "the pain is bad" is true. I think it has to be noted that all propositions are inherently discursive, implicitly. Here, I am not discussing this because it is a difficult matter to explain how it is that language, in its complex discursivity, can allow absolutes of any kind. Tough cookie to discuss).

There what is? What is there is only the pain; there is no "badness" property in addition to be apprehended. But I may deem it to be bad, and thereafter seek to avoid it.

You sound like Wittgenstein and Mackie. But consider, the only proof I have is the registered pain itself, just as the only proof I have of modus ponens is my own rational intuition. Either you are willing to recognize it or not. The way I would argue the case would be to ask you to do a kind of Husserlian epoche, that is, dismiss the presuppositions that may crowd around consideration of pain, and allow the "thing itself' (a reminder that this is not Kant, it's Husserl), the pain itself to disclose itself freely, genuinely. You will "observe" that along with the ddiscriptive features of the pain experience there is something altogether different; different about this compared to, say, seeing that the grass is green or the knife is sharp. It is sui generis, this badness that is "present". I could go on, but one has to be at least able to make this simple concession that being burned alive at the stake possesses something qualitatively distinct such that the observational descriptive aspects can not encompass it. Frankly, I simple do not understand the resistance to this at all. It is blatantly obvious.

Perhaps it would. But I cannot accept that, since the proposition "Pain is bad" is cognitively meaningless.

Is the principle of causality cognitively meaningless? Yet the proposition "every effect has a cause" rests with this nondiscursive intuition.

[Fooloso4]

GE Morton:

You need to quantify that. I didn't say, "People are indifferent to the plight of others." I suggested that some people are, and that people differ as to whom they are willing to help, and for what purposes and in what circumstances. And that for that reason those differing propensities and feelings cannot be the basis of a moral code.

A moral code cannot be the basis of morality either if people had no interest in doing good.

It helps in these discussions to preserve the distinction between good/bad and right/wrong. Right/wrong denote the morality of an act, good/bad the desirability of its objective.

Not all ethical theories make the distinction along these lines. For those who ascribe to some form of virtue ethics what is fundamental is not what is right according to some set of rules and principles, but what promotes human flourishing and well-being.

The moral question is whether the act he is contemplating to secure it is right or wrong.

The moral question is whether the act promotes the good or minimizes the bad of those involved if no option is good.

Reasoned deliberation entails the exclusion of empathy and care.

That is a matter of opinion stated as if it were a matter of fact.

E.g., my decision as a juror as to whether Alfie is guilty of a crime and should be punished cannot turn on the fact that he is my son and I love him.

It is just this legalistic approach that G. E. M. Anscombe criticizes in her defense of virtue ethics.

Most people will adhere to it because, as you said, they wish to do what is right, and believe that the code is right for the most part.

What I said was that people desire to do what is good.

And it is not the direct consequences of my act that deter me from violating the code; it is the knowledge that if I may break the code at will I thereby authorize others to do likewise, and that would be very bad.

In an earlier post you said:

But they will conclude that breaking that rule is bad because they can grasp the consequences if it were disregarded universally. I.e., "I must do unto others as I would have them do unto me. Because if I don't, then neither will they, and that would be bad for me."

The direct consequence of your violating that rule is that others will act as you do, breaking that rule, and that would be bad for you. It is not the specific consequences of the action, such as the pain and suffering caused by pulling out someone’s nails that is bad according to you, but that others will break that rule too and someone might pull out your nails. Or perhaps it is not the consequences of breaking that rule but the consequences of breaking any moral rule that will be bad for you. In any case, it is your consideration of the consequences for you of breaking the code that keeps you from breaking it.

But if you could break the rules without anyone finding out, then you have not "authorized" anyone else to break the rules, and so, according to you there would be nothing bad about pulling out someone's nails.

[GE Morton]

Well then, you would say the same of analytic propositions, tautologies like "bachelors are male" are also not apodictic?

No, because "bachelors are male" is true by definition. That is not the case with "pain is bad."

Why is the principle of causality apodictic?

It isn't. It may not hold universally. Either the universe began from nothing, or it has always existed. In either case it had no cause.

Because it is intuitively irresistible.

For some people, perhaps. I just resisted it. "Everything has a cause" is what Kant called a "synthetic a priori truth." It is accepted intuitively as true because the urge to seek causes for perceived phenomena is wired into our brains, as are the foundations for the concepts of space and time. Explanation of any phenomena presumes cause and effect, and so the principle must be assumed to be true if we are to explain anything. If it does not hold universally --- and it likely does not --- then there will be phenomena forever inexplicable.

At any rate, the same objection I posit above applies here: judgment that X is bad because it is painful falls in line with judgment that the longest leg of a triangle is opposite the largest angle.

No, it does not. The latter is true analytically; the former has no determinable truth value. It can be true if a valuer is specified ("Alfie considers pain to be bad").

You sound like Wittgenstein and Mackie. But consider, the only proof I have is the registered pain itself, just as the only proof I have of modus ponens is my own rational intuition.

There is no "proof" that pain is bad. That it is bad is pseudo-property you assign to it, not a property of the pain that you perceive. All you perceive is the pain. Pain can take several properties --- there are sharp pains, throbbing pains, excruciating pains, etc. But whether it is good or bad is a property assigned to it by you. And there are "good" pains, such as those experienced by athletes after a strenuous workout.

The way I would argue the case would be to ask you to do a kind of Husserlian epoche, that is, dismiss the presuppositions that may crowd around consideration of pain, and allow the "thing itself' (a reminder that this is not Kant, it's Husserl), the pain itself to disclose itself freely, genuinely. You will "observe" that along with the ddiscriptive features of the pain experience there is something altogether different; different about this compared to, say, seeing that the grass is green or the knife is sharp.

Well, of course pain is different from other sensations. All sensations differ from one another; else we could not distinguish among them. Perhaps you might consider another sensation --- the taste, say, of cilantro. If you like cilantro, do you think you perceive a second property, goodness, when you taste it? Or just the flavor of that herb, triggered by the chemicals it contains? Some people don't like cilantro. How has the "goodness" property escaped their notice?

I could go on, but one has to be at least able to make this simple concession that being burned alive at the stake possesses something qualitatively distinct such that the observational descriptive aspects can not encompass it. Frankly, I simple do not understand the resistance to this at all. It is blatantly obvious.

Yes, it would be qualitatively distinct --- it would be agonizing, terrifying, and fatal, and would certainly be deemed bad by most people subjected to it. But the Salem magistrates who ordered the burning of witches deemed it good.

[Eduk]

Well, you said, "Firstly logic is still of benefit to someone who desires to be moral."

That implies that someone can choose to be moral, which you had previously denied.

Yeah it's complicated, but I don't think you can choose to be moral.
For example if I was amoral but decided to follow some well established moral rules I could (and many people do) pass myself off as moral. So I could be amoral but perform a moral action.

[GE Morton]

For example if I was amoral but decided to follow some well established moral rules I could (and many people do) pass myself off as moral. So I could be amoral but perform a moral action.

That is self-contradictory. Though an amoral person may perform a moral action for a non-moral reason, or by accident, if you decide to follow some moral rules you cannot be amoral. An amoral person is someone who is ignorant of, or pays no heed to, moral rules.

[Eduk]

if you decide to follow some moral rules you cannot be amoral

I am really struggling to work out where you are coming from on this one?
I believe amoral people are perfectly capable of following rules, such as the rules of the game of chess, the rules of the road, turning their phone off in the cinema and so on. Many psychopaths hide their nature very successfully even from their spouse.
Almost every human can follow rules.
Or are you questioning that they have decided to follow the rules? That also makes no sense. For example a psychopath may not steal not out of any sense of morality but rather because they don't want the hassle of being caught.
How do I put this. You seem to be suffering from motivated reasoning, would you share the motivation with me rather than talking around the subject?

[GE Morton]

Or are you questioning that they have decided to follow the rules? That also makes no sense. For example a psychopath may not steal not out of any sense of morality but rather because they don't want the hassle of being caught.

The dispute turns on this: " . . . a psychopath may not steal not out of any sense of morality . . ."

Whether a person is amoral does not depend upon any "sense of morality." That is an unworkable definition, because we have no means of knowing what "sense" anyone else possesses and which may motivate his behavior. We only have the behavior. Hence a person who behaves morally cannot be amoral.

Morality is concerned with human behavior, not internal states.

[Eduk]

Whether a person is amoral does not depend upon any "sense of morality." That is an unworkable definition, because we have no means of knowing what "sense" anyone else possesses and which may motivate his behavior.

Well considering that nothing you are saying makes any sense on the surface I would very much like to know what is motivating you as it is highly likely, in my experience, that your words do make sense when viewed from a particular angle.

[GE Morton]

Well considering that nothing you are saying makes any sense on the surface I would very much like to know what is motivating you as it is highly likely, in my experience, that your words do make sense when viewed from a particular angle.

Oh, I think it will make sense to almost everyone else.