A new normative theory (also a PhD thesis)

[GE Morton]

Typically classical natural right refers to the ancients not the moderns, but the point is that the modern theories are based on the theory of individualism.

There was no notion of "natural rights," as understood in the Anglo-American liberal tradtion, among the Greeks (that I'm aware of). Plato does at one point mention "natural right, but that is a different concept.

But I'm curious about this "theory of individualism." What is the gist of this "theory"? Who are its philosophical architects? That human beings are individuals, readily distinguishable from one another not only by appearance, but by interests, goals, talents, tastes, habits, beliefs, and many other indicators, seems to me a rather obvious empirical fact. What role does this theory play in apprehending and understanding that fact?

But you seem to be assuming, a priori, a duty to promote others' good. Methinks you need to justify that assumption via a sound moral theory.

Not a priori, but rather, based on the notion that we are social animals. This is the foundation of classical or ancient political philosophy. The idea that regard for others requires a moral theory is based on the notion that we are atomistic, which is contrary to what we observe. No man is born autonomous and self-sufficient. Do you have regard for your parents or children or anyone at all? Is that regard based on a sound moral theory?

I did not claim that regard for others requires a moral theory. I claimed that an asserted obligation to promote others' welfare requires a moral theory (as do all proposed obligations). Yes, we humans (most of us, but not all) do have regard for at least certain other humans. That also is an easily observable empirical fact. But you seem to be trying to derive an "ought" from an "is." That Alfie has regard for Bruno does not (and cannot) entail a duty upon him to have regard for Chauncey, whom he does not know.

You mentioned Locke, Kant, and Blackstone specifically as those who influenced your view of natural rights. Kant claimed that there are a priori moral duties. Locke and Blackstone both base morality on God’s laws. My own view is that the attempt to ground morality in rational theory or divine law is misguided. Two fundamental philosophical mistakes that an increasing number of ethical theories acknowledge.

That is essentially an ad vericundiam argument. That Locke et al assumed a certain understanding of rights doesn't commit anyone who shares that understanding to adopt his broader ethical philosophy. Moreover, the role of God in Locke's philosophy has always struck me as lip service, for the benefit of the clerics.

The only a priori duty for Kant was the categorical imperative, which is not a duty in the ordinary sense (it is a "meta-duty"). Duties are discovered by reasoning, by applying that principle to the facts of a given situation.

I'm surprised that you're suggesting that reasoning is an insufficient, or even misguided, basis for morality. I'm pretty sure it is the singular job of philosophers to provide a rational basis for moral rules, and then for laws, just as it is the job of philosphers to supply a rational basis for physics, mathematics, cognitive science, government, etc., etc. Moral philosophy is not sociology, cultural anthropology or evolutionary biology; it is not especially concerned to explain the origins and development of any extent moral sentiments. It certainly does not assume they are sound.

Society is nothing but a plurality of individuals.

That is an assumption. There is today a great deal of criticism of the notion of social atomism. Non-western and pre-modern western societies do not see it that way.

It is not an assumption. It is (as mentioned above) an empirical fact, a rather obvious one. But if you think a society is something more than the individuals who comprise it, please describe this something more and advise as to how I might observe it. And of course, pointing out that someone disagrees with a particular thesis does not constitute a refutation of it. People believe all kinds of strange things, and always have.

I call the beliefs to which I think you're referring the "organic fallacy."

Homo sapiens, if the anthropologists are right, has been on Earth for about 200,000 years. Until the last 10,000 or so of those years, he lived in small tribal villages, consisting of a few dozen to a few hundred members — small enough that all of its members knew all of the others; indeed, had known each other all of their lives. They midwifed one another’s births, tended one another’s illnesses, shared one another’s possessions, and married one another’s cousins. They knew and trusted one another, and had dense, intimate relationships among one another. They needed no formal ethics nor any political structure to govern their affairs, simply because each was and had always been a part of every other’s life.

The organic model is a good approximation of the structure of such societies. But with the rise of civilization — societies characterized by cities — that model began to break down. People found themselves living in communities in which most of the people around them were strangers, with whom they had no familial or other personal ties, and often very little in common. People began to take notice of the differences among them — differences in coloration and bone structure, in choices of dress, in temperament and mannerisms, in interests and tastes, in the habits and practices of daily life, and eventually even in religion and language. They acquired individuality.

In tribal societies there is no free will, and no individuality. All the myriad choices we today are constantly obliged to make are prescribed by the tribe; they’re part of the tribal consciousness, codified in tribal tradition, the “folkways” of the tribe. How one dresses, what one eats, where one lives, how one earns a living, the choosing of mates, the Gods to be worshipped and the rituals for worshipping them, all the petty rules governing the tasks of daily life and the “standard methods” for performing them, are absorbed from the tribe, without question and without the need for thought.

There is no individuality to speak of in these groups because all members have known and interacted only with each other since birth, and they are locked into a resonance. There is no politics, no debate, no alternate point of view on any matter — and as a result, almost no innovation. Tribal cultures can remain all but static for thousands of years, with only a slight refinement in spear points to indicate any time has passed at all. Australian Aborigines, for example, when encountered by Europeans in the 18th century, were making didgeridoos indistinguishable from those made 2000 years earlier. In 40,000 years they never added another instrument to their musical technology.

That resonance, however, cannot be maintained in larger groups, because the required intimacy is impossible. The group becomes too large for everyone to know and interact constantly with everyone else; hence one soon finds oneself in the company of strangers — individuals with whom they’ve had no prior contact and whose habits, preferences, and beliefs cannot be predicted in advance. And because they’ve all been subject to different combinations of influences, they begin to differ in all the ways indicated above.

The breakdown of that resonance represented a huge transformation, not merely of the social structure, but of the human psyche. The traditional tribal control mechanisms, based on age and personal stature, gave way to formal systems of governance — politics. The tribesman’s intuitive sense of right and wrong, which derived primarily from his personal ties to and commonality with his fellows, gave way to formal systems of ethics. Indeed, ethics, like law, is a code for regulating behavior among strangers — among people who have no personal interest in one another’s welfare. As Jared Diamond pointed out in Guns, Germs, and Steel, “With the rise of chiefdoms around 7,500 years ago, people had to learn, for the first time in history, how to encounter strangers regularly without attempting to kill them.”

Every utopia conceived in the last 5000 years has been an attempt to recapture the tribal consciousness. The Garden of Eden story embodies this “fall from Grace” — the loss of mankind’s oneness with God and Nature, his “alienation,” his exile into a world of strife and temptation, where he seems to have free will and must constantly choose between good and evil, between this course of action or that, relying only on his own judgement, and must suffer the consequences when his judgments go awry.

All these laments of lost innocence and alienation are atavisms, psychic echoes of our tribal heritage, the social form honed over the course of our 3 million year primate history. All of our fellow primates still practice that form, and until the rise of civilization, so did all humans. It would be surprising were our brains not adapted to that social form. They have evolved syncronously with that form, and thus may be expected to function optimally in that environment, in many ways. So it is not surprising that we miss that form, or that we long to regain it. We are ducks out of water, trying to find our way back to the pond.

We remain “wired” for tribal life. We long for it, unattainable though it may be. And often we try to recreate or or substitute for it, by immersing ourselves in cults or joining in totalitarian movements. The cult seeks to insulate itself from the “society of strangers;” the totalitarian movement seeks to subdue it and impose a tribal-like conformity, a synthetic common identity and purpose — usually resulting in much bloodshed.

But civilized humans are individuated; they are no longer interchangeable instances or exemplars of a tribal identity, and cannot be forced into that mold. That individuality is what drives the dynamism of civilized societies; what enables it to change more in 100 years than tribal societies might in 10,000. It is what has permitted humans to overcome the famines, diseases, disasters, and other idiosyncrasies of Nature which beset them and all their primate cousins for millions of years, and to transform the natural world to better meet their needs and better satisfy their ever-evolving and proliferating desires.

What worked for pre-civilized societies never worked very well, and cannot work at all for the unrelated, individuated members of civilized societies. There is no longer a collective consciousness, and in communities of more than a few hundred members, not even any common goals. Modern societies are meta-communities — public venues for personal interactions. They provide opportunities for individuals to forge relationships with others, but supply no content for those relationships. They are like public playing fields; they offer space and seating, but each team brings its own gear, its own personnel, and its own game with its own rules. The house rules are few and general: “No reservations accepted: first-come, first served,” “Do not intrude on others’ games,” and “Pick up your litter.”

The organic society that continues to beckon from our long primate ancestry is lost to history. It is irrecoverable. Contemporary social theorists need to let it go, and craft theories applicable to societies and to persons as we find them today.

Every totalitarian movement that emerged in the bloody 20th century began with some version of the organic sociological assumption. But that premise is false, destructive, and obsolete.

[Gertie]

GE

I agree with a lot of your last post, and it helped me understand where you're coming from. But the emphasis on the birth of (your definition of) the 'individual', and what you see as the resulting necessity for individualistic morality, is where we part company. I could just as easily argue that a new type of socially based morality is required to compensate for the difficulties of bonding (forming relationships of care and trust) in larger groups of strangers. In fact I do argue that. Neither approach is 'objectively correct'. It's about responding to changing environmental circumstances.

And the question for philosophy in light of understanding that morality has no independent objective existence (either discoverable through rationality or a perfect moral law-giver/God), but is a concept rooted in evolved human dispositions, is to re-evaluate whether Oughts are still justifiable.

Your theory equates Desires with Moral Goods, and derives Oughts from that. Then claims the most efficient way for individuals to gain maximal desires/goods is through individual freedom, therefore individual freedom is the only objective Ought (as long as it doesn't involve infringing on other individual's freedom). The claim of objectivity is based in efficacy alone. In brief you're claim is -


An individual's desires have value to that individual, and are therefore Moral Goods.

Maximising Moral Goods is a Moral Good.

The most effective way for individuals to achieve their Desires = maximising Moral Goods = Objective Morality.

Individual Freedom is the most effective way for individuals to achieve their desires, therefore Individual Freedom is an Objective Ought.


So lets run an example -

I value and desire chocolate cake. Therefore my desire for chocolate cake is a Moral Good. Maximising Moral Good is a Moral Good, and best achieved through freedom of the individual. Therefore the most effective way for me to satisfy my desire for chocolate cake is an Objective Moral Ought, anything which stands between me and chocolate cake is Objectively Morally Evil.

Do you see any problems in that example, or would you say Yes, that is correct?

[Fooloso4]

GE Morton:

There was no notion of "natural rights," as understood in the Anglo-American liberal tradtion, among the Greeks (that I'm aware of). Plato does at one point mention "natural right, but that is a different concept.

That is my point. Natural rights as understood in the liberal tradition is a modern invention. The Greeks had no notion of autonomous individuals - which is not to say that they had no notion of individuals.

But I'm curious about this "theory of individualism." What is the gist of this "theory"? Who are its philosophical architects?

Its architects are those philosophers who invented modern liberalism, the modern political theorists, such as Locke and Hobbes. The founders of what is called “classical liberalism” (not to be confused with “classical natural rights”).

That human beings are individuals, readily distinguishable from one another not only by appearance, but by interests, goals, talents, tastes, habits, beliefs, and many other indicators, seems to me a rather obvious empirical fact. What role does this theory play in apprehending and understanding that fact?

As I said, the fact that no one is born autonomous and self-sufficient. It is not that one person cannot be distinguished from another, but that the individual is first and by nature a member of a community. We see everywhere people in communities but nowhere anyone living in the state of nature. One might say that the state of nature from which natural rights are derived is unnatural.

I did not claim that regard for others requires a moral theory. I claimed that an asserted obligation to promote others' welfare requires a moral theory (as do all proposed obligations).

But you introduced the ideas of obligation and moral duty. Those ideas stem from rather than require moral theory.

But you seem to be trying to derive an "ought" from an "is."

You are looking at it from the perspective of the modern moral theory that seeks to derive rational principles and rules binding on autonomous individuals.

I'm surprised that you're suggesting that reasoning is an insufficient, or even misguided, basis for morality. I'm pretty sure it is the singular job of philosophers to provide a rational basis for moral rules, and then for laws, just as it is the job of philosphers to supply a rational basis for physics, mathematics, cognitive science, government, etc., etc.

There is a difference between rational moral theory and reasoning. Consider, for example, Aristotle’s phronesis or practical wisdom. It stands in stark contrast to moral theories based on universal principles and rules. Aristotle’s ethics is not guided by the question of what one ought to do but by consideration of the goal of life, which he says is eudaimonia, a term that is often translated as happiness but also means to flourish, to realize one’s own potential.

As for philosophy providing a rational basis for physics, mathematics, cognitive science, government, etc., I will leave that conversation for another time.

But if you think a society is something more than the individuals who comprise it, please describe this something more and advise as to how I might observe it.

The individuals who comprise it are shaped by it. How we regard ourselves as individuals is shaped by it. How you think of society is shaped by it. We are to a large extent historically determined and that means by time and place, situated in society.

The organic model is a good approximation of the structure of such societies. But with the rise of civilization — societies characterized by cities — that model began to break down. People found themselves living in communities in which most of the people around them were strangers, with whom they had no familial or other personal ties, and often very little in common. People began to take notice of the differences among them — differences in coloration and bone structure, in choices of dress, in temperament and mannerisms, in interests and tastes, in the habits and practices of daily life, and eventually even in religion and language. They acquired individuality.

Individualism is a modern western notion and cannot be accounted for by the rise of cities. There were cities in ancient Greece, ancient China, ancient Egypt, and elsewhere but no concept of individualism. The identity of the individual was a social identity, the individual was a member of the society and had no claims or status as an individual outside of or in opposition to the society. There is an extensive literature on this.

Indeed, ethics, like law, is a code for regulating behavior among strangers — among people who have no personal interest in one another’s welfare.

Well, that’s one way of looking at it. Aristotle offers another, ethics is about determining what I should do in pursuit of my own happiness and what I consider to be good. In that respect it is not so different than what you say about “equal agency”, except it is not value neutral and takes as a given that we are social animals. I may be mistaken about what I take to be good, and so, ethics deals with the question of the good and the good life, and this is not adequately addressed by considering oneself in isolation.

Every totalitarian movement that emerged in the bloody 20th century began with some version of the organic sociological assumption. But that premise is false, destructive, and obsolete.

Individualism can give rise to totalitarianism through populism. That may be a real and present danger. It can occur because there is a vacuum left with the destruction of any notion of the common good. Individuals who feel besieged and threatened elect a demagogic populist who promises to put them first. It plays off an ambiguity of identity - one might say a plurality of individuals called “us” or “America”, and thereby slips from what is good for me to what is good for us. Individualism becomes indistinguishable from patriotism and nationalism. But it turns out that what is good for "us" is not necessarily what is good for me. In order to keep this from becoming evident legitimate information sources are discredited, silenced, and branded the enemy of the people. Regulations meant to protect us and the environment are overturned because they interfere with the freedom of the individual, only it is generally just a few wealthy and powerful individuals who are constrained and the harm done to others ignored. Those who most benefit from an unregulated state are put in control of the agencies that guard the public good. The purported rights of a few extremely wealthy individuals including corporate persons, backed by a government that puts increasing power in the hands of a few backed by the few they back, feed the public propaganda about individual freedom and prosperity while keeping hidden from the public that it is only the few wealthy and powerful individuals whose freedom and prosperity is being protected and promoted. As long as individual rights are held to be what is most fundamental there is the danger of that the rights of powerful individuals will trump those of all others.

[GE Morton]

I agree with a lot of your last post . . . .

Which parts?

I could just as easily argue that a new type of socially based morality is required to compensate for the difficulties of bonding (forming relationships of care and trust) in larger groups of strangers. In fact I do argue that. Neither approach is 'objectively correct'. It's about responding to changing environmental circumstances.

Methinks you're begging the question there. Many people (most, I would venture to say) have no interest in bonding with everyone else in their society. They readily form bonds with a few people, interact constructively but pragmatically with many others, and (hopefully) tolerate the rest. That longing for society-wide bonding is the atavism I mentioned (in response to Fooloso4, above).

And the question for philosophy in light of understanding that morality has no independent objective existence (either discoverable through rationality or a perfect moral law-giver/God), but is a concept rooted in evolved human dispositions, is to re-evaluate whether Oughts are still justifiable.

I agree that morality --- moral rules and principles and the theories from which they're derived --- has no existence independent of human thought. Moral theory, like all theories, is a human construct. Just as with scientific theories, it should be consistent, coherent, proceed from premises in which we have great confidence, account for the observable facts and correctly predict future observations.

Morality (ethics) historically covers a lot of ground, embracing virtually all human behavior. I'm interested only in a theory of public morality: a set of rules governing interactions between agents in a social setting (a moral field). I have no interest in rules or prescriptions for individuals striving to "live the good life," "win friends and influence people," or please God. I leave that to the authors of self-help books, shrinks, and priests.

The rules of a sound public morality will be similar to a system of traffic rules. The sole aim of the latter is to make sure all drivers on the road arrive at their destinations in one piece, without crashing into one another. They don't prescribe destinations or the routes or schedules drivers must choose. Traffic rules are --- objectively --- successful if, when followed, they manage to reduce collisions and travel times to lower levels than any known alternative set of rules.

BTW, we may have somewhat different understandings of the terms "objective" and "subjective." I take those terms to denote, like "true" and "false," properties of propositions, not of anything "in the world." A proposition is objective if it has public truth conditions; subjective if its truth conditions are private. "I have two arms" is an objective proposition --- anyone can confirm or disconfirm that proposition by observation. "I have a headache" is subjective; no one can confirm it but me.

Your theory equates Desires with Moral Goods, and derives Oughts from that. Then claims the most efficient way for individuals to gain maximal desires/goods is through individual freedom, therefore individual freedom is the only objective Ought (as long as it doesn't involve infringing on other individual's freedom).

I'm not sure what you mean by "moral goods." Goods are whatever an agent seeks to acquire or retain; per se they are neither moral nor immoral. The "oughts" derive from the aim of the theory --- to allow each agent to maximize goods and minimize evils (as he defines them). If the rules of the theory allow that to happen, then all agents ought to observe those rules. This is the purely instrumental sense of "ought" --- e.g., If one wishes to drive a nail, then one ought to buy a hammer. Is that latter proposition objective or subjective, in your view?

So lets run an example -

I value and desire chocolate cake. Therefore my desire for chocolate cake is a Moral Good. Maximising Moral Good is a Moral Good, and best achieved through freedom of the individual. Therefore the most effective way for me to satisfy my desire for chocolate cake is an Objective Moral Ought, anything which stands between me and chocolate cake is Objectively Morally Evil.

Do you see any problems in that example, or would you say Yes, that is correct?

It is correct, except for the "objectively." All goods and evils are subjective. That an agent desires a given thing (he counts it as a good) is objective --- we can confirm that by observing his behavior with respect to that thing.

[-1-]

Dear Daniel McKay, please note that in the next post (or one of the ensuing posts) I shall criticize your paper, and please also note that in my criticism I use no external principles of established or competing moral theory; I shall use your paper and its contents only to make a critical analysis of it, and to point out (possible) flaws in it.

It is important for others to see that a critical analysis must rely on the inherent merit and structure and working of the system described within a paper; the criticism ought not be based in comparing it with the critic's favourite theories and contrasting the paper's differences with their own favourite (or other) theories, thus trying to show how the paper fails; other than when a favourite theory has absolute and indisputable facts that the paper denies or contradicts.

-- Updated 2017 February 23rd, 3:08 am to add the following --

I take as my starting assumption that morality, if it exists at all, is the way in which persons (by which I mean free, rational, conscious agents) ought to be or act, where ought is understood in a categorical and universal sense. With this assumption in hand, we can begin to ask what that way might be, or to put it another way, what is of moral value, by considering what it is to be a person. As a way in which persons ought to be or act would apply to all potential persons, not merely us as humans, we cannot use contingent facts about ourselves as humans as the basis for moral value. So moral value cannot be grounded in something like happiness, as we can imagine persons that do not experience happiness. What then could be a basis for moral value? We can consider what is shared by all persons in order to come up with possible candidates and what we find is that all persons have free will, so the capacity to make choices, and also understanding, the capacity to understand their choices. This joint capacity for both understanding and making choices, which I will from now on be referring to as freedom, is not only shared by all persons, it is also not shared by anything that is not a person. There are no things which are not persons, free, rational, conscious agents, which can understand choices and make them freely. This capacity is, in a very real way, what it means to be a person, a moral agent. For this reason, this seems to be our best candidate for moral value.

In this paragraph you establish that moral value is how persons ought to act, regardless of their state of being. You also say that the only persons known to man are humans. So far so good.

So, our candidate for moral value is freedom, but freedom over what? As this morality is objective and universal, it is presumably not the case that it makes conflicting recommendations, or made no recommendations at all, in almost all practical situations, which would seem to be the case if all choices were of equal value. However, if the freedom that matters is the freedom to make one's own choices, the choices that relate to those things that belong to the person; their mind, their body and their property, then morality would be functional. Also, there is something conceptually odd about the idea of being free to make someone else's choices for them, against their will. For these reasons we can say that what is of moral value is the freedom of persons over those things which already belong to them; their mind, their body and their property. As a quick note on property, I should say that I have not yet seen a really good justification for how we come to own unowned property in the first place. If it turns out we cannot truly own property, and it is instead just a useful construct, then we can remove it from our list of things that our ours and treat it purely instrumentally.

Here you declare, rather eloquently, that the choices we make can be done over our possessions only, which is nothing more than our minds and our bodies. Property is not in the domain we own.

This can lead to TREMENDOUS difficulties. I don't have a choice over your body or mind, but you don't have a choice over what I do with a weapon. What I do with a weapon is not my choice, either, it is nobody's choice, since it is nobody's property. If I shoot you, I don't act in my own free will, it is never a choice of mine to kill you, yet I do, when I use an UNONWNED property, over which nobody has a choice or jurisdiction of action.

So, we have our candidate for moral value, but we don't know what form our moral theory should take. To determine this let us first consider whether we ought to be concerned with the actions people perform or the character traits they exhibit. We might well want to be virtue ethicists of a kind, but many of the traits we might want to consider desirable in persons can't be shared by all potential persons, and those that can, such as being free and rational, are already shared by all free, rational agents, so it isn't clear how we could say a person ought to be. So instead we ought to focus on actions, but do we focus on the consequences of our actions or the form our actions take? We may want to be deontologists and say that people ought to only act in certain ways or according to certain maxims. But the problem with this is that maxims are always arbitrarily defined, in that a maxim that says "don't kill" could be made better if it included an exception for when the person you are killing is trying to kill you and you are defending yourself, but it could be made even better by including an exception for cases where killing that person prevents the death of five others who are in morally similar circumstances, and so on and so on until our maxims describe the situation we are in and what to do in it perfectly. This of course leads to the distinction between acting and letting happen, and it isn't clear how we can draw a clear distinction between something that happens because you did something and something that happens because you stood by. Without having a strong way to morally distinguish action from inaction, it seems we ought to be consequentialists.

So, we have a consequentialist theory with the ability of persons to understand and make their own decisions as the measure of moral value. This means that when acting we ought to ensure we do not violate the freedom of others over their own choices, unless we must do so in order to prevent a greater violation of freedom which could not be prevented without at least this much of a violation occurring, and we have some degree of obligation (which I discuss in it's own chapter but won't get into here) to prevent or reduce such violations. What this means in practice is that determining what to do in a moral situation is not a matter of weighing happiness, following strict and unchanging rules or considering what kind of person acts in a certain way, it is a matter of allowing persons to make their own choices. To give a few examples of practical implications:

You set your theory up for self-violation of the theory itself. You say I have freedom over my own possessions, and I can act in this capacity of freedom, as long as I don't violate other's freedoms. You say my ONLY resctriction in exercising my freedom is to not violate other's freedoms.

This is a "golden rule", illy defined. Because... consider I want to kill you. I don't violate your choices with that. Your will to live is not a choice. You make choices about your own possessions; you can't possess someone else's will and influence him to not kill you. By killing you he does not violate your freedom of choices; your will to live is not a choice. (Because there is no alternative; choice implies a pick of several available options.)

1/ Lying can be wrong in some circumstances such as fraud where it denies the person the ability to understand the choice they are making, but it is not wrong in most circumstances.
* Adultery (assuming there aren't any STIs involved) is a personal issue, not a moral one.
2/ Parents do not have a right to decide what happens to their children, rather they have an obligation to protect their child until it is capable of making its own choices and to act in its best interests when they must make decisions for it in the interim.
3/ The role of a government is to first protect its people and then to act in their interests especially when making decisions regarding shared property.
* Nothing can ever be offensive enough that we ought to violate the freedom of a person to say it.

I numbered the incompatible conclusions with your theory.
1. Lying is never wrong. (According to YOUR criteria of moral behavour.) If someone makes the wrong choice due to misleading representation of facts, you are still allowing them to make a free choice.
2. Protection involves choices. So you are saying "do not choose for your children, but choose for your children". This is an absurd imperative, and as such, impossible.
3. Shared property does not exist. Governments are not humans; they can't make choices, much like you proved or claimed in your first paragraphs, that only human persons can act morally, which involves only the ability to make choices over their possessions, which is their mind and body. Therefore this point you make is contradictory with your earlier claims and definitions.

[Gertie]

GE

Gertie wrote:
I agree with a lot of your last post . . . .

Which parts?

What I mostly agreed with was your anthropology of the last 200,000 years, and its relevance.

What it's missing is the neurobiology. Our brains haven't changed in that time. The neurobiological mechanisms and associated dispositions which evolved to promote bonding and cooperation withinin small in-groups - as well as tribalism, and self care, are essentially the same. But how our experiences (personal and cultural) wire the brain result in very different types of world views in which they are triggered and play out in different ways. But you claim the sense of self as an individual was so radically different it didn't exist! It might be the case that individuals contextualised themselves in a different way, as in our place in the scheme of things, tho it's impossible to get inside the heads of people who lived so long ago and left no record of their thinking. But humans have always been been individual subjects, that's fundamental to how our brains work, not part of some borg hive mind.

So I'm less convinced by your more imaginative ventures into areas like atavism, collective consciousness, and especially your view of individuality. Also some of your details of tribal life and interactions are necessarily speculative. But overall, it was a good and vivid description, I enjoyed it. This is indeed the type of historical cultural context we need to understand when thinking about what morality is, or isn't. Along with our evolved neurobiology.

I also agree that Public Policy is the key venue for Oughts. Our neurobiology and socialisation does a good social job up close and personal, but diminishes with distance, so in larger groups of strangers we do need to institutionalise 'doing what comes naturally' with family and friends. Laws, social mores, myths, archetypes, religions, leaders, governing structures have all played a role.

Today we live in a world of many more facts, but fewer certainties about what they mean to us. A po-mo platter of meanings to pick and choose from. I take these facts, the Ises, and derive meaningful Oughts using different premises to you. In a nutshell, my claim is that people (all sentient species) have something of innate value - a quality of life. As you say what constitutes a good quality of life for one person won't necessarily be true for another. But having qualiative experience, the ability to be happy, fulfilled, suffer, etc, is what gives people a stake in the state of affairs, gives them interests, why it matters how I treat them, or how society's rules treat them. Us. All of us. It's based in Us, not Me, in our shared humanity. This is the foundation for Oughts. I don't make any claim to Objectivity, my claim is that Oughts matter. In fact, I'm inclined to abandon the problematic concept of Morality, in favour of Mattering.

I don't believe you can be overly prescriptive about how we achieve good outcomes in terms of people's quality of life, it's a guiding principle, and I don't believe hard and fast rules can work in all cases when dealing with subjective qualiative matters. Politics, the public square, is where we communally work out where blurry lines should be drawn. Neither do I believe that individualistic pursuit of one's own desires without thought for how it effects others is the ideal solution with regard to my foundation for Oughts. And your notion of 'equal moral agents' disregards different people's different and unequal opportunities and capabilities (situational and innate) to pursue their desires, achieve a fulfilling quality of life. Mine takes account of this.

I'm not sure what you mean by "moral goods." Goods are whatever an agent seeks to acquire or retain; per se they are neither moral nor immoral. The "oughts" derive from the aim of the theory --- to allow each agent to maximize goods and minimize evils (as he defines them). If the rules of the theory allow that to happen, then all agents ought to observe those rules. This is the purely instrumental sense of "ought" --- e.g., If one wishes to drive a nail, then one ought to buy a hammer. Is that latter proposition objective or subjective, in your view?

Hmm superficially it looks objective, but if I don't have hands I ought to buy the services of a hammerer, or if it means I can't afford to feed the kids if I buy a hammer then I ought to use a shoe, blah blah.

But the point is your clarification makes it umm... clear, that you're talking about objective efficiency not objective morality. You're agreeing that your Objective Moral Theory isn't objectively moral, which was my original objection. And I'm left wondering what is Moral about it. Isn't it actually a description of the most effective methodology/social organisation for individuals to achieve their desires? Simply calling the objects of desire Goods and impediments Evil - is that more than just co-opting the language of morality? Are you saying desiring is inherently Moral for some reason? That needs further justification and clarification doesn't it? I certainly don't intuitively feel that my desire for chocolate has any inherent moral goodness to it, if there is such a thing. So where does the Moral part come in?

[GE Morton]

That is my point. Natural rights as understood in the liberal tradition is a modern invention.

I agree. That concept began to emerge in the 12th-13th centuries with the establishment of the Royal courts of England and the consequent development of the "common law," and was given early form by the Magna Carta.

The Greeks had no notion of autonomous individuals - which is not to say that they had no notion of individuals.

You may be surprised, but I agree with that as well. But though they may not have entertained the concept of the "autonomous individual" (or at least, placed very little emphasis on it), they were autonomous individuals.

Perhaps we both need to clarify what we mean by "autonomous individual." When I say that humans in modern civilized societies are autonomous, I mean that they are, by nature, self-directed, self-contained and physiologically self-sufficient, i.e, that they are distinguishable from all other persons, physically independent of all other persons, they are not under the control of other persons and do not require the assistance or even the presence of others to survive. Obviously, persons with certain disabilities are not autonomous in this sense. But adult persons in good health and with normal human abilities are autonomous in this sense.

It is not a refutation of autonomy that most humans --- all those in a social setting --- do, in fact, rely upon other persons for meeting many of their daily needs and satisfying many of their desires. A social setting offers many advantages, primarily opportunities to seek out others who share some interest and join with them in its pursuit, and the advantage of a division of labor, where individuals can hone particular skills and exchange their services or the products thereof with those of others with different skills. Though a social setting is not necessary for survival (for a healthy, normal, adult human) it is highly advantageous, and it is therefore eminently rational to continue that association.

That human beings are individuals, readily distinguishable from one another not only by appearance, but by interests, goals, talents, tastes, habits, beliefs, and many other indicators, seems to me a rather obvious empirical fact. What role does this theory play in apprehending and understanding that fact?

As I said, the fact that no one is born autonomous and self-sufficient. It is not that one person cannot be distinguished from another, but that the individual is first and by nature a member of a community. We see everywhere people in communities but nowhere anyone living in the state of nature. One might say that the state of nature from which natural rights are derived is unnatural.

You're correct, of course, that no one is born autonomous (no mammal is). But the only community of which he is a member "by nature" is his nuclear family. His membership in any larger community begins with a decision by his parents and continues by his own decisions. Both decisions are freely made, contingent and reversible. Most people will choose to remain in a social setting because the advantages are great.

I did not claim that regard for others requires a moral theory. I claimed that an asserted obligation to promote others' welfare requires a moral theory (as do all proposed obligations).

But you introduced the ideas of obligation and moral duty. Those ideas stem from rather than require moral theory.

Not sure what you're saying there. If X "stems from" Y, then X requires Y. Were you asserting an obligation to promote others' welfare, or only pointing out that most people are concerned with (certain) others' welfare? That the latter may be true does entail any sort of obligation.

There is a difference between rational moral theory and reasoning. Consider, for example, Aristotle’s phronesis or practical wisdom. It stands in stark contrast to moral theories based on universal principles and rules. Aristotle’s ethics is not guided by the question of what one ought to do but by consideration of the goal of life, which he says is eudaimonia, a term that is often translated as happiness but also means to flourish, to realize one’s own potential.

Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, and the concepts of phronesis and eudaimonia it introduces, is itself a moral theory.

But if you think a society is something more than the individuals who comprise it, please describe this something more and advise as to how I might observe it.

The individuals who comprise it are shaped by it. How we regard ourselves as individuals is shaped by it. How you think of society is shaped by it. We are to a large extent historically determined and that means by time and place, situated in society.

You continue to speak of "society" as though it is a sentient entity and a moral agent. No one's views are shaped by "society." They are shaped by particular people; typically, one's parents, older siblings, other relatives and close acquaintances, teachers, friends, authors (including, perhaps, a few philosophers). It is because those myriad influences, along with dispositions and aptitudes conferred genetically, differ enormously from person to person, that persons become individuated. When you impute those influences to an ill-defined, amorphous, psuedo-entity, "society," you render yourself unable to account for those obvious individual differences. If this nebluous entity, "society," shaped both Bill Gates and Timothy McVeigh, why were the results so different?

Your claim that "we are to a large extent historically determined" encounters a similar problem: you'll need many more variables than time and place to make that case. I agree that we are partly determined by history --- but by our personal histories, not any global or "textbook" history.

Individualism is a modern western notion and cannot be accounted for by the rise of cities. There were cities in ancient Greece, ancient China, ancient Egypt, and elsewhere but no concept of individualism. The identity of the individual was a social identity, the individual was a member of the society and had no claims or status as an individual outside of or in opposition to the society. There is an extensive literature on this.

As I mentioned above, the lack of a (developed) concept of individualism does not imply that that the urban Greeks, Chinese, et al were not individuated. One need only read any of Plato's dialogues to see that they were --- there are no arguments unless there are different points of view, and there are no different points of view unless there are distinct, independent minds --- individual minds.

Indeed, ethics, like law, is a code for regulating behavior among strangers — among people who have no personal interest in one another’s welfare.

Well, that’s one way of looking at it. Aristotle offers another, ethics is about determining what I should do in pursuit of my own happiness and what I consider to be good.

Yes. Historically ethics has been bound up with axiology. They need to be separated. See response to Gertie, above.

Individualism can give rise to totalitarianism through populism. That may be a real and present danger. It can occur because there is a vacuum left with the destruction of any notion of the common good.

You have it exactly backwards. Totalitarian movements (Fascism, Bolshevism, religious fundamentalism, etc.) are premised upon and promoted as quests for a "common good."

"Fascism conceives of the State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative, only to be conceived in their relation to the State . . . If the XIXth century was the century of the individual (liberalism implies individualism) we are free to believe that this is the 'collective'century, and therefore the century of the State.
---Benito Mussolini,"The Doctrine of Fascism" (1932)

"Fascism is a religion of the state. It assumes the organic unity of the body politic and longs for a national leader attuned to the will of the people. It is totalitarian in that it views everything as political and holds that any action by the state is justified to achieve the common good."
---Jonah Goldberg, Liberal Fascism (2008)

All assertions that a certain program or policy is for "the common good" prove, upon cursory analysis, to be good for certain people only. There are no goods so regarded by all people in any large society.

[-1-]

What I mostly agreed with was your anthropology of the last 200,000 years, and its relevance.

What it's missing is the neurobiology. Our brains haven't changed in that time.

I believe our brains have changed. Not the brains of all of us, and not the same way, but in truly evolutionarily random fashion. We have differing brains created by mutations now, that create homosexuality, child abuse, sadomasochism, all which are counter-productive to reproduction. Some of these are benign, some of these are hurtful and each to a different degree.

We also diversified in other actual mutations of the brains of some of us. We have schizophrenia, neuroses, phobias. None are conducive to survival or to bringing an offspring to the age of majority.

The reason these mutations are not greater than they are, in terms of percentage of population is explained by their counter-reproductive nature. The reason some people share one or the other mutation, but not all the mutations, is that they are genetically passed on.

[Ranvier]

Morality (ethics) historically covers a lot of ground, embracing virtually all human behavior. I'm interested only in a theory of public morality: a set of rules governing interactions between agents in a social setting (a moral field). I have no interest in rules or prescriptions for individuals striving to "live the good life," "win friends and influence people," or please God. I leave that to the authors of self-help books, shrinks, and priests.

The rules of a sound public morality will be similar to a system of traffic rules. The sole aim of the latter is to make sure all drivers on the road arrive at their destinations in one piece, without crashing into one another. They don't prescribe destinations or the routes or schedules drivers must choose. Traffic rules are --- objectively --- successful if, when followed, they manage to reduce collisions and travel times to lower levels than any known alternative set of rules.

I'm glad that GE used this analogy to describe the "sound public morality". This analogy offers an excellent opportunity to visualize the problem with any universal objective morality schema, where there is a common logical purpose of "all drivers arriving to their destinations in one piece"

I will offer another scenario instead:
There are 4 starving people on an island without any food sources in the near future but they found a boat that recently washed up onto the shore that can be used to travel to a much larger island visible on the horizon. The problem is that the buoyancy of that boat can only support three people without sinking. There are also sharks in the water so any one of them can't just swim along with the boat to possibly take turns with other three people in the boat. They all predict that the time required to return for anyone of them left behind would be too long to save him. In essence, one of them must be sacrificed.

What kind of "universal morality" do they employ to guide them in deciding on which one of them will be left behind? Especially since none of them wants to volunteer to stay behind for the benefit of the other three.

[GE Morton]

There are 4 starving people on an island without any food sources in the near future but they found a boat that recently washed up onto the shore that can be used to travel to a much larger island visible on the horizon. The problem is that the buoyancy of that boat can only support three people without sinking. There are also sharks in the water so any one of them can't just swim along with the boat to possibly take turns with other three people in the boat. They all predict that the time required to return for anyone of them left behind would be too long to save him. In essence, one of them must be sacrificed.

What kind of "universal morality" do they employ to guide them in deciding on which one of them will be left behind? Especially since none of them wants to volunteer to stay behind for the benefit of the other three.

None. They draw straws.

These lifeboat scenarios typically render rational moral decision-making impossible because, by hypothesis, they neutralize or nullify all factors upon which a rational decision might turn. Hence the only method left for reaching a decision is some random process.

[Fooloso4]

GE Morton:

Perhaps we both need to clarify what we mean by "autonomous individual." When I say that humans in modern civilized societies are autonomous, I mean that they are, by nature, self-directed, self-contained and physiologically self-sufficient, i.e, that they are distinguishable from all other persons, physically independent of all other persons, they are not under the control of other persons and do not require the assistance or even the presence of others to survive. Obviously, persons with certain disabilities are not autonomous in this sense. But adult persons in good health and with normal human abilities are autonomous in this sense.

The assumption that man is by nature not a social or political animal goes against what we find universally. While it is possible for an adult to survive on his or her own, with few exceptions we don’t. What we are physically capable of is not what we are "by nature".

It is not a refutation of autonomy that most humans --- all those in a social setting --- do, in fact, rely upon other persons for meeting many of their daily needs and satisfying many of their desires. A social setting offers many advantages, primarily opportunities to seek out others who share some interest and join with them in its pursuit, and the advantage of a division of labor, where individuals can hone particular skills and exchange their services or the products thereof with those of others with different skills. Though a social setting is not necessary for survival (for a healthy, normal, adult human) it is highly advantageous, and it is therefore eminently rational to continue that association.

If we are to determine what is natural for human beings then we need to look at how they live, just as if we would do if we were to determine what is natural for any animal. The fact that society it is not necessary for survival does not mean that we are by nature solitary animals. The notion that we are social because it is rational is based on a questionable notion of human rationality and the human animal. If we consider it abstractly it is clear that there is benefit in living in groups, but that does not mean that this is why we live together.

But the only community of which he is a member "by nature" is his nuclear family. His membership in any larger community begins with a decision by his parents and continues by his own decisions. Both decisions are freely made, contingent and reversible. Most people will choose to remain in a social setting because the advantages are great.

The larger community was an extension of the family. The notion of a “nuclear family” is a modern construct. Sons and daughters were not likely to just go off on their own to start their own family elsewhere. They do not choose to stay with those they know and have formed attachments to, with those they identify with if they do not first think that a choice must be made. Certainly the advantages are a factor but it is not as if every person at some point makes a calculated decision to either stay with the group or go. Human attachments are not a matter of rational choice. We do not desire to belong simply because it confers advantage. It seems much more likely to me that most will stay with their people unless there is a compelling reason not to. Things today are not so simple, however.

Not sure what you're saying there. If X "stems from" Y, then X requires Y. Were you asserting an obligation to promote others' welfare, or only pointing out that most people are concerned with (certain) others' welfare? That the latter may be true does entail any sort of obligation.

It is a matter of where one thinks obligation is derived from. I reject the idea that we have obligations derived from some set of abstract universal principles and rules. One might ask why we are obligated to adhere to those rules. Regard for others is not the result of moral theory or rules. It is not simply the observation that most people are concerned either. It is that if one has a proper understanding of what promotes his or her own good then they will see that it includes the good of others as well.

Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, and the concepts of phronesis and eudaimonia it introduces, is itself a moral theory.

I am not denying that. What I said was that a) there is a difference between rational moral theory and reasoning, and b) Aristotle’s ethics stands in stark contrast to moral theories based on universal principles and rules. Phronesis is not a matter of following rules.

No one's views are shaped by "society." They are shaped by particular people; typically, one's parents, older siblings, other relatives and close acquaintances, teachers, friends, authors (including, perhaps, a few philosophers).

And what are the views of those particular people shaped by? Those particular people are members of society. The fact of the matter is that we think and value in accord with our contemporary western culture. Our social norms differ from those of other societies. Although the individual may reject some of those norms, no one creates their own beliefs and ideas and values whole cloth from themselves.

When you impute those influences to an ill-defined, amorphous, psuedo-entity, "society," you render yourself unable to account for those obvious individual differences.

I did not claim that we are completely plastic and do not deny individual differences. All of us are historically situated here and now. If you were born at some other time in some other place you would not hold the beliefs and values you do. If you had not learned about modern liberalism you would probably not be saying what you are saying.

Your claim that "we are to a large extent historically determined" encounters a similar problem: you'll need many more variables than time and place to make that case. I agree that we are partly determined by history --- but by our personal histories, not any global or "textbook" history.

Time and place is shorthand for the world in which we live and the way in which we see that world. Your worldview and mine differ to some extent but they fall within the range of contemporary western views. Your personal history occurs within the larger context of our shared history. It has nothing to do with “textbook” accounts of history.

As I mentioned above, the lack of a (developed) concept of individualism does not imply that that the urban Greeks, Chinese, et al were not individuated. One need only read any of Plato's dialogues to see that they were --- there are no arguments unless there are different points of view, and there are no different points of view unless there are distinct, independent minds --- individual minds.

You are conflating two different concepts of an individual. What is interesting, and I have discussed this elsewhere on this forum, is that the character of Socrates’ interlocutors is of central importance to the Platonic dialogues. We actually find something similar in some Chinese philosophy. We do not, however, find it in modern western philosophy. There is, in this sense, no focus on the individual, on different characters and dispositions. Individualism, on the other hand, is about social and political standing, the freedom and rights of an individual apart from or in opposition to society or government.

Yes. Historically ethics has been bound up with axiology. They need to be separated.

I do not agree. Your notion of human beings as rational agents is highly questionable. We cannot separate value from human life. Both the reification of the good and the radical relativism of the good as “whatever an agent seeks to acquire or retain” should be rejected. The good is what is beneficial and whatever an agent seeks to acquire or retain is not necessarily beneficial.

You have it exactly backwards. Totalitarian movements (Fascism, Bolshevism, religious fundamentalism, etc.) are premised upon and promoted as quests for a "common good."

The problem is not the notion of a common good but a failure to properly understand what the common good is, which results in the triumph of political ideology in the hands of those who seize power. My argument is that without a notion of the common good there is an opening that can be filled by a political ideology that poses as the champion of the individual but in fact has little or no regard for the individual. It is state control in the guise of eliminating state control. The Trump administration serves as the example. That is not to say they will be successful and we will become a totalitarian state but we are certainly heading in that direction.

All assertions that a certain program or policy is for "the common good" prove, upon cursory analysis, to be good for certain people only. There are no goods so regarded by all people in any large society.

Some would argue that that the protection of life, liberty, and property and/or the pursuit of happiness is the public good, but that it requires civic mindedness and public spiritedness. Liberalism not libertarianism. Exclusive concern for one’s own self-interest leads to the promotion of the self-interest of certain people only, those with the means to assert their self-interest in opposition to the interest of others.

[GE Morton]

What I mostly agreed with was your anthropology of the last 200,000 years, and its relevance.

What it's missing is the neurobiology. Our brains haven't changed in that time. The neurobiological mechanisms and associated dispositions which evolved to promote bonding and cooperation withinin small in-groups - as well as tribalism, and self care, are essentially the same. But how our experiences (personal and cultural) wire the brain result in very different types of world views in which they are triggered and play out in different ways. But you claim the sense of self as an individual was so radically different it didn't exist! It might be the case that individuals contextualised themselves in a different way, as in our place in the scheme of things, tho it's impossible to get inside the heads of people who lived so long ago and left no record of their thinking. But humans have always been been individual subjects, that's fundamental to how our brains work, not part of some borg hive mind.

You might want to read Julian Jaynes' The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind for a contrary point of view. But I'm not claiming that tribal people had no concept of themselves as individuals. In all cultures that I know of, no matter how primitive, every member has an individual name. That is ample evidence that they are individuated to some extent. But the differentia distinguishing one individual from another were far fewer. I said that tribal cultures are "all but static." They were clearly not perfectly static (else we would all still be tribal). Innovations did occasionally occur.

We can probably blame a woman for launching civilization. In hunter-gatherer cultures men are typically the hunters, women the gatherers. One (or more) of these women perhaps noticed that a new patch of barley had sprouted in a spot where they had ground some kernels a couple of seasons previously. So she sought out another spot where wild barley might grow (adequate sun, moisture, etc.) and scattered some seeds there. A couple of years later, when they returned to that area, she ran to her garden spot and found . . . new barley! Agriculture was thus born, and cities soon followed.

I also agree that Public Policy is the key venue for Oughts. Our neurobiology and socialisation does a good social job up close and personal, but diminishes with distance, so in larger groups of strangers we do need to institutionalise 'doing what comes naturally' with family and friends.

Why? Why do you assume that how we relate with and interact naturally with family and friends must be extended to all persons? That is popular assumption, largely rooted in Christian ethics ("love thy neighbor as thyself") but if it is put forth as a universal goal it requires some rational, moral justification. It also requires some empirical evidence that it is feasible. The available evidence strongly suggests it is not. While universal phila may be attainable in small tribal communities, tolerance is probably the best you can expect in large ones.

In a nutshell, my claim is that people (all sentient species) have something of innate value - a quality of life. As you say what constitutes a good quality of life for one person won't necessarily be true for another. But having qualiative experience, the ability to be happy, fulfilled, suffer, etc, is what gives people a stake in the state of affairs, gives them interests, why it matters how I treat them, or how society's rules treat them.

Apart from quality of life having an "innate value," I agree with all of that. But all moral systems assume that how we treat one another matters. The challenge comes in trying to decide what rules best accomplish that goal. Since you agree that "what constitutes a good quality of life for one person won't necessarily be true for another," you should also agree that those rules must take those individual differences into account. They will not accomplish the chosen goal if they don't.

I don't make any claim to Objectivity, my claim is that Oughts matter. In fact, I'm inclined to abandon the problematic concept of Morality, in favour of Mattering.

If the rules you adopt in fact advance the goal you've chosen, are they not objective? And I doubt that "mattering" is any less problematic than morality.

Morality is problematic because the task(s) it sets for itself are too broad and are ill-defined. If we narrow the focus and properly take into account the relevant features of human nature and their current social settings, devising a sound public morality should be no more difficult that designing a workable and effective system of traffic rules.

I don't believe you can be overly prescriptive about how we achieve good outcomes in terms of people's quality of life, it's a guiding principle, and I don't believe hard and fast rules can work in all cases when dealing with subjective qualiative matters.

The rules of a sound public morality would not presume to prescribe what any person must do to achieve the quality of life he/she desires. They only constrain him from pursuing that goal in ways that reduce the quality of life for others, whose goals are of equal standing with his own.

Politics, the public square, is where we communally work out where blurry lines should be drawn.

The (relevant) line is not blurry. It is quite sharp.

Neither do I believe that individualistic pursuit of one's own desires without thought for how it effects others is the ideal solution with regard to my foundation for Oughts.

I agree (and am a little mystified that you assume I disagree). That is precisely the purpose of moral rules --- to make sure that one agent's pursuit of his own interests and goals do not adversely affect other agents' pursuits of theirs, i.e., by making someone else worse off.

And your notion of 'equal moral agents' disregards different people's different and unequal opportunities and capabilities (situational and innate) to pursue their desires, achieve a fulfilling quality of life.

Yes, it does. "Equal moral agency" does not assume, or entail, social or material equality. It merely means they all have equal status in the eyes of the theory and are equally subject to its rules.

Humans, like all other animals, are naturally unequal, in nearly every respect that bears upon their ability to achieve their goals (whatever those may be). Some tadpoles swim faster than others, some fir trees grow taller than others, some wolves become alphas. Some people get cancer and others don't, even if they smoke all their lives; some people write novels or software that sell millions of copies, others can barely write their names or add two and two. Some sprinters win gold medals at the Olympics, others never do better than 2nd on their high school teams. I.e., some people are stronger, healthier, smarter, or more strongly motivated than others, and some just have better luck than others.

Much contemporary public policy is designed to negate or mitigate those natural inequalities. That such a goal can be accomplished without violating the Equal Agency postulate --- or at all --- requres some powerful moral argument (and some persuasive evidence).

Hmm superficially it looks objective, but if I don't have hands I ought to buy the services of a hammerer, or if it means I can't afford to feed the kids if I buy a hammer then I ought to use a shoe, blah blah.

Of course. I omitted all the possible ceteris paribus conditions. The point, of course, is that "oughts" in the intrumental sense are often quite objective. And the "oughts" in a sound moral theory are "oughts" in that sense.

But the point is your clarification makes it umm... clear, that you're talking about objective efficiency not objective morality. You're agreeing that your Objective Moral Theory isn't objectively moral, which was my original objection. And I'm left wondering what is Moral about it. Isn't it actually a description of the most effective methodology/social organisation for individuals to achieve their desires?

To your last sentence there: Yes, it is. And that, I claim, makes it moral, and objectively so (provided the rules work as advertised). It gives a concrete, cogent, workable meaning to that word.

When you ask, "What is moral about it?" you seem to be assuming that morality is something distinct from efficiency in satisfying the desires of agents in a social setting --- something "intuitive," ethereal, perhaps transcendental, and mysterious. That assumption is what makes morality perennially contetentious and moral problems perennially unsolvable.

Are you saying desiring is inherently Moral for some reason?

No. Nothing is "inherently moral".* What is moral (or immoral) are acts by moral agents which improve or reduce other agents' quality of life (which you yourself set forth, above, as having "innate value"). Unless you're willing to argue that satisfaction of desires is not essential to improving one's quality of life, satisfying those desires must also have "innate value."

* Desires or acts which necessarily, or by definition, inflict harms or losses on others can be said to be "inherently immoral."

[Ranvier]

None. They draw straws.

These lifeboat scenarios typically render rational moral decision-making impossible because, by hypothesis, they neutralize or nullify all factors upon which a rational decision might turn. Hence the only method left for reaching a decision is some random process.

Good answer, most people think that way!

If all 4 had any morality and conscience they would use that boat to hunt sharks

-- Updated February 25th, 2017, 1:00 pm to add the following --

Morality is a fuzzy subject because it's subjective. Is prostitution moral? It depends on who is asked, where most people would say no. However from the point of view of a single middle aged "ugly" man, who has never experienced "attention" of an attractive woman, such man might say that it should be acceptable. Some may even say that such woman should receive some social recognition for her "community service" that might even reduce rape rate. What is immoral, one might say, is for the society to "cast a stone" in judgement of ego to feel better about ourselves. This example from the bible is purposely shocking for us to better understand our hypocrisy in belief of being better than others.

[GE Morton]

GE Morton:

Perhaps we both need to clarify what we mean by "autonomous individual." When I say that humans in modern civilized societies are autonomous, I mean that they are, by nature, self-directed, self-contained and physiologically self-sufficient, i.e, that they are distinguishable from all other persons, physically independent of all other persons, they are not under the control of other persons and do not require the assistance or even the presence of others to survive. Obviously, persons with certain disabilities are not autonomous in this sense. But adult persons in good health and with normal human abilities are autonomous in this sense.

The assumption that man is by nature not a social or political animal goes against what we find universally. While it is possible for an adult to survive on his or her own, with few exceptions we don’t. What we are physically capable of is not what we are "by nature".

I make no such asumption. You seem to think that autonomy (as above defined) is antithetical to being a "social animal." It is not. "Autonomy" does not imply a solitary or hermitic lifestyle. Of course we are social animals (as are all primates, as I discussed at some length in a previous post). But we are not eusocial animals, like bees or ants. We are not bound, biologically or psychologically, to any particular society, or to any at all (as evidenced by the millions of people who emigrate to another society every year). Nor are we biologically compelled to play any particular role within our society, as are bees.

We do not chose into which society we'll be born, but we choose the one in which we'll remain. We also choose the extent and character of our participation in that society --- we choose with whom we'll establish relationships, and for what purposes. Most of us do, of course, choose to remain in a social setting of some sort, because there are great advantages to doing so. But we decide what and what sorts of relationships we will have with other members of our chosen society; it (they) doesn't determine them for us.

If we are to determine what is natural for human beings then we need to look at how they live, just as if we would do if we were to determine what is natural for any animal. The fact that society it is not necessary for survival does not mean that we are by nature solitary animals.

Again, I made no claim that we are "by nature solitary animals." Quite the contrary --- I've claimed the opposite.

The notion that we are social because it is rational is based on a questionable notion of human rationality and the human animal. If we consider it abstractly it is clear that there is benefit in living in groups, but that does not mean that this is why we live together.

What would you suggest is the reason? There are other benefits in addition to the two I mentioned --- e.g., advantages in finding mates, the desire for companionship, etc. Like the other two, however, those are rational/pragmatic reasons, given the desires that most of us have, and as with the other two, those desires are satisfied by particular persons, not by "society" in the abstract.

But the only community of which he is a member "by nature" is his nuclear family. His membership in any larger community begins with a decision by his parents and continues by his own decisions. Both decisions are freely made, contingent and reversible. Most people will choose to remain in a social setting because the advantages are great.

The larger community was an extension of the family. The notion of a “nuclear family” is a modern construct. Sons and daughters were not likely to just go off on their own to start their own family elsewhere. They do not choose to stay with those they know and have formed attachments to, with those they identify with if they do not first think that a choice must be made. Certainly the advantages are a factor but it is not as if every person at some point makes a calculated decision to either stay with the group or go. Human attachments are not a matter of rational choice. We do not desire to belong simply because it confers advantage. It seems much more likely to me that most will stay with their people unless there is a compelling reason not to. Things today are not so simple, however.

In tribal societies the community was indeed an extension of the family --- literally. Most tribal societies were kinship-based; the other members of your community were cousins, uncles, aunts, up to 2-4 generations removed. That is not the case in civilized societies, and the familial ties that bind members of tribal societies do not (and cannot) extend to the millions of members of civilized societies.

It is a matter of where one thinks obligation is derived from. I reject the idea that we have obligations derived from some set of abstract universal principles and rules. One might ask why we are obligated to adhere to those rules. Regard for others is not the result of moral theory or rules. It is not simply the observation that most people are concerned either. It is that if one has a proper understanding of what promotes his or her own good then they will see that it includes the good of others as well.

I agree that obligations are not derived from moral theories, but if they are put forth as moral obligations, it will be because they are so defined or characterized by some moral theory --- some theory which describes how obligations and duties arise and what properties qualify them as "moral." That theory may be explicit, articulable, and rigorous, or implicit, inchoate, and vague.

Your claim there --- your implicit theory --- seems to be that one has an obligation to promote the good of others because doing so promotes one's own good. There are a couple of problems there. First, it is not clear that anyone has an obligation to promote his own good. It is also quite obvious that the premise is not universally true --- one does not, as a rule, promote one's own good by promoting, say, the good of one's enemies; a rape victim does not promote her own good by promoting the good of her rapist. It is true, of course, that one often may promote his own good by promoting the good of certain other people. But but one may not expand that true existential proposition into a universal without rendering it false.

Per my theory obligations arise from the acts of agents --- e.g., from making a promise, entering into a contract, inflicting an injury on another agent (which entails a duty to pay damages). There are no a priori obligations; one does not arrive in the world burdened by a slew of duties, obligations, and debts. If one chooses to remain in a social setting, then one assumes the obligation to observe the rules of a sound public morality, just as when one joins a club, he submits to its by-laws. Those rules demand nothing of him except that he respect others' rights.

And what are the views of those particular people shaped by? Those particular people are members of society.

They are shaped by other particular people. You seem to think that because the shapers are members of society, then "society" is the shaper. That is a non-sequitur (and is the "fallacy of composition"). Consider:

1. Alfie killed Bruno.

2. Alfie is a member of the Sierra Club.

3. Therefore, the Sierra Club killed Bruno.

The fact of the matter is that we think and value in accord with our contemporary western culture. Our social norms differ from those of other societies. Although the individual may reject some of those norms, no one creates their own beliefs and ideas and values whole cloth from themselves.

We think and value (partly) in accord with the views and thoughts of some of the particular people with whom we've had contact, either directly or indirectly (such as by reading their views) --- those views and thoughts which, of the many to which we've been exposed, resonated with us or appealed to us. Many others, as much a part of "western culture" as those we adopt, are ignored or rejected.

There are no "our" social norms. There are only the norms I observe and those you observe. "Contemporary western culture" embraces a plethora of views and norms. It is perhaps true that a given view or norm is more common among certain populations than in other populations, but that is merely a statistical property of that group, from which nothing can be inferred about the views of any particular person.

It is true that no one's beliefs, ideas, and values are created by him "from whole cloth." But that is not necessary. Though a given belief or idea may spring from or incorporate prior beliefs and ideas, it may well be novel, even revolutionary (if none ever were, intellectual progress would have been stillborn 200,000 years ago). Nor does anyone become "indebted to society" because he has learned from or been influenced by some of its members. Those members imparted their thoughts and wisdom freely; no quid pro quo was involved and no payment demanded and agreed to (and if one was, the debt would be owed to those particular people, not to "society" in the abstract)..

When you impute those influences to an ill-defined, amorphous, psuedo-entity, "society," you render yourself unable to account for those obvious individual differences.

I did not claim that we are completely plastic and do not deny individual differences. All of us are historically situated here and now. If you were born at some other time in some other place you would not hold the beliefs and values you do. If you had not learned about modern liberalism you would probably not be saying what you are saying.

That may be true, but I'm not sure what you think it implies. Please elaborate.

Time and place is shorthand for the world in which we live and the way in which we see that world. Your worldview and mine differ to some extent but they fall within the range of contemporary western views. Your personal history occurs within the larger context of our shared history. It has nothing to do with “textbook” accounts of history.

Same question.

You are conflating two different concepts of an individual. What is interesting, and I have discussed this elsewhere on this forum, is that the character of Socrates’ interlocutors is of central importance to the Platonic dialogues. We actually find something similar in some Chinese philosophy. We do not, however, find it in modern western philosophy. There is, in this sense, no focus on the individual, on different characters and dispositions. Individualism, on the other hand, is about social and political standing, the freedom and rights of an individual apart from or in opposition to society or government.

That sounds contradictory. How can there be "no focus on the individual," yet, "the character of Socrates interlocutors [be] of central importance"? But I've addressed what I take to be the thrust in a previous post: That while the Greeks did not ponder the relationship of the individual to his society, they were nonetheless individuated. And I've agreed that liberalism is a modern social/political doctrine.

Yes. Historically ethics has been bound up with axiology. They need to be separated.

I do not agree. Your notion of human beings as rational agents is highly questionable. We cannot separate value from human life. Both the reification of the good and the radical relativism of the good as “whatever an agent seeks to acquire or retain” should be rejected. The good is what is beneficial and whatever an agent seeks to acquire or retain is not necessarily beneficial.

Methinks you need to think that through. How do you decide what is beneficial, other than by observing what others regard as beneficial? Surely you will not contend that whatever you consider beneficial is beneficial to everyone else. And we certainly can separate value from human life; we do so routinely --- when we perform abortions, send soldiers to war, remove life support from vegetative patients, kill someone in self-defense, execute murderers, commit suicide. In all those cases we decide that some human's life is of less value than some other end.

Value statements which do not specify a valuer, including statements imputing value to human life (or more concretely, to particular human lives) are non-cognitive. There is no means of determining whether they are true or false, and therefore they convey no information. "X has value V" is non-cognitive and meaningless. "X has value V to P" is cognitive --- we can now observe P's behavior and see what he is willing to give up (time, effort, some other good) to secure X.

For most agents --- but not all --- his own life will be of great value to him, as will be the lives of certain other people. But the lives of most others are of much less value. A parent will mortgage the house and invest her life savings, not to mention devote all of her efforts, to procure costly medical treatment for a sick child. But she will not do so for some stranger whose illness she read about in the newspaper.

You have it exactly backwards. Totalitarian movements (Fascism, Bolshevism, religious fundamentalism, etc.) are premised upon and promoted as quests for a "common good."

The problem is not the notion of a common good but a failure to properly understand what the common good is, which results in the triumph of political ideology in the hands of those who seize power. My argument is that without a notion of the common good there is an opening that can be filled by a political ideology that poses as the champion of the individual but in fact has little or no regard for the individual. It is state control in the guise of eliminating state control. The Trump administration serves as the example. That is not to say they will be successful and we will become a totalitarian state but we are certainly heading in that direction.

The reason there is a "failure to properly understand what the common good is" is that there is no such thing. Hence everyone seeking some good of his own, and who hopes to enlist the coercive power of the State to procure it, touts it as a "common good," or "in the public interest." The "common good," like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder (or demagogue).

[Tom Butler]

What of two people interacting, based on the cultural norms they inherited by growing up in their particular society? Say, citizen A trained as a scientist, taught that he had a certain degree of intellectual authority, interacting with citizen B who was raised to assume scientists have a degree of intellectual authority. If citizen A misunderstands the scope of his science and makes a pronouncement under cover of intellectual authority, is there moral blame if citizen B is harmed by acting on that pronouncement? Both would appear to be acting in good faith.