J.L .Mackie's Moral Error Theory

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Felix
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Re: J.L .Mackie's Moral Error Theory

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Hereandnow: Well, at the risk of repeating myself (I have argued this many times, but then, I am on something of a mission to get people to see this),it goes like this: this intense sensation at issue here, it is Bad.
I am saying it does not have to be Bad, there is a state of consciousness in which it is not Bad, it is merely what it is, a strong sensation. One can even immerse oneself in it and find it to be an interesting experience. Now, one may get tired of this "interesting experience" because it commands ones attention, you can't simply swat it away like a mosquito but still, it can be mastered. Sri Aurobindo even speaks of all experience being bliss, can't say I've gotten there yet but I do have some sense of what he means.

I am not just speaking theoretically here, this is a yoga I practice. The normal habitual response to sensory stimuli can be retrained so that is neither good or bad, it merely Is. This is of course a personal discipline and does not affect how I treat others, my subjective study of pain does not mean I'd be willing to inflict it on others. In fact, understanding the nature of pain makes one more reluctant to do so. But one can see how the carrot/stick of pleasure & pain, which is also the carrot/stick of good & bad, rules people's lives. You have to get off that karmic un-merry-go-round to make any real progress.
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Re: J.L .Mackie's Moral Error Theory

Post by Hereandnow »

Felix
I am saying it does not have to be Bad, there is a state of consciousness in which it is not Bad, it is merely what it is, a strong sensation. One can even immerse oneself in it and find it to be an interesting experience. Now, one may get tired of this "interesting experience" because it commands ones attention, you can't simply swat it away like a mosquito but still, it can be mastered. Sri Aurobindo even speaks of all experience being bliss, can't say I've gotten there yet but I do have some sense of what he means.

I am not just speaking theoretically here, this is a yoga I practice. The normal habitual response to sensory stimuli can be retrained so that is neither good or bad, it merely Is. This is of course a personal discipline and does not affect how I treat others, my subjective study of pain does not mean I'd be willing to inflict it on others. In fact, understanding the nature of pain makes one more reluctant to do so. But one can see how the carrot/stick of pleasure & pain, which is also the carrot/stick of good & bad, rules people's lives. You have to get off that karmic un-merry-go-round to make any real progress.
Sure, if you are a master of your experience, then all bets are off, it would seem. Look at Thích Quang Duc who set himself ablaze, apparently felt nothing. I am interested in Near Death Experiencers who give extraordinary account of leaving their physical bodies. I take them seriously, though in a qualified way. But this is all beside the point. We are built to suffer, and it's no illusion. A discussion about training oneself not to suffer would be n interesting one, granted. But the issue here is different. Here, the matter is about the metaphysics of ethical Badness and Goodness and the necessity of redemption.
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Re: J.L .Mackie's Moral Error Theory

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Hereandnow wrote: September 17th, 2019, 11:59 amBefore I look more closely at some of the things Hare says (you've inspired me to read on), as well as other interesting things, I would ask a fair and direct question: How would you account for terrible suffering? The word "account' is meant to leave the response open to your genuine thoughts. Terrible suffering is, I have often said, the worst the world can do, and it stands out as possessing most vividly the business of ethics.

The question is meant to direct your attention not to how we feel about ethical matters, our approbation or otherwise, but to the actuality of the suffering itself. For example, imagine applying a Bunsen burner to your index finger. I want to know what you think that event is about, its content, the screaming agony, if I may.
I'm not sure I understand your question. Pain and suffering are experiences with an intensely negative valence (for non-masochists at least): they are very unpleasant and unenjoyable. They are "hedonically bad" by being associated with dis-/unpleasure.
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Re: J.L .Mackie's Moral Error Theory

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As for the psychological concept of (emotional) valence:

"the value associated with a stimulus as expressed on a continuum from pleasant to unpleasant or from attractive to aversive. In factor analysis and multidimensional scaling studies, emotional valence is one of two axes (or dimensions) on which an emotion can be located, the other axis being arousal (expressed as a continuum from high to low). For example, happiness is typically characterized by pleasant valence and relatively high arousal, whereas sadness or depression is typically characterized by unpleasant valence and relatively low arousal."

https://dictionary.apa.org/emotional-valence

"Related to, but not identical with, mood is the phenomenon that for any conscious state there is some degree of pleasure or unpleasure. Or rather, one might say, there is some position on a scale that includes the ordinary notions of pleasure and unpleasure. So, for any conscious experience you have, it makes sense to ask, Did you enjoy it? Was it fun? Did you have a good time, bad time, boring time, amusing time? Was it disgusting, delightful, or depressing? The pleasure/unpleasure dimension is pervasive where consciousness is concerned."

(Searle, John R. Mind: A Brief Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. p. 141)
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Re: J.L .Mackie's Moral Error Theory

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Hereandnow: Look at Thích Quang Duc who set himself ablaze, apparently felt nothing.
Anesthetizing oneself to sensation is not necessarily progress.
Here, the matter is about the metaphysics of ethical Badness and Goodness and the necessity of redemption.
I don't understand what you mean by "redemption" in that context. Are the thorns of the rose bush redeemed by the beauty of its flowers?
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Re: J.L .Mackie's Moral Error Theory

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So somebody I know got defensive about me questioning morality's existence, which shouldn't be a surprise. I need a good comparison, something people can relate to. Why? Because people don't like to be open-minded re this.

Anyways...

Believing that morality doesn't exist, is similar to believing that God doesn't exist. See if both morality and God exists, both are real not just because I was told they are, but because I know they are. There would also be right and wrong answers - when it comes to morality.

I'm just not convinced of the existence of both morality and God - I'm not rejecting either, just not making the claim of the existence of either. I really don't know.

Morality like religion - is a made-up notion, subject to rationalizations, corruption and misrepresentation. But, decency, compassion and empathy are real.
"even tho I don't believe in God, I can still believe that it's unacceptable for religious people discriminate against homosexuals"
When it comes to killing a person, we have compassion and empathy towards the person (who was killed) and the family emotionally affected by the death of the person...
"even tho I don't believe in morality, I can still believe that it's unacceptable for somebody to kill another person"
There is a big difference between, rejecting morality and just not being convinced of it's existence. Hint hint, the black and white fallacy. Just like the belief in the existence of God, science agrees that there are no moral properties and facts but people talk as if there are objective, moral properties and facts in objects/actions. Just like how people use to believe, that religion was linked to living a good life and being a good person. And,, not believing in God, meant that you're a bad person.

And, when it comes to subjective morality, it's really just the rejection of morality. See morality is what a person regards as "right" and "wrong", so in that case nobody could do anything immoral. Does that sounds about right?

A good comparison?
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Re: J.L .Mackie's Moral Error Theory

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Consul
I'm not sure I understand your question. Pain and suffering are experiences with an intensely negative valence (for non-masochists at least): they are very unpleasant and unenjoyable. They are "hedonically bad" by being associated with dis-/unpleasure.
But I would think it pretty clear in the context of this discussion: I was looking for you to acknowledge the moral part of this. What you have given is a string of tautologies, but they are incomplete, a bit like saying quadrupeds are four of...something.

Putting aside masochists and sadists, who really deserve no special regard since their is nothing here that is really pertinent, it does sound like you would agree that terrible suffering possesses no more than the designation "suffering" (in the extreme). Once one has put this forward, there is nothing more to say, other than the inevitable contextualizing in which suffering is set against other ethical priorities, relational matters arise, comparisons made; such things take suffering simpliciter and circulate it through the maze of human (animal) affairs. But none of these changes what it is essentially, just as the pitch of middle C remains what it is regardless of the instrument.

What is missing is the moral meaning. Suffering should not be given its nature; it is an existential paradox. This is evidenced in the strongest possible way: within the fabric of being itself. All you need to do is apply the lighted match your finger and you have the suffering of the ages laid out before you. As the pain strikes you, and your are restrained from escaping, is there really nothing there but, hmmmm, suffering; why, this is hedonically bad. The negative valence is outrageous!

If you accept this moral dimension of our existence, then the world becomes a very different place. For the struggles of the world will be thereby invested with metaphysical depth and profundity, the basis for which is not religious dogma, but the world itself.
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Re: J.L .Mackie's Moral Error Theory

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Felix:
Anesthetizing oneself to sensation is not necessarily progress.
Not as such, no. If Buddhists talked only about escape, there would be few adherents indeed. But they don't talk like this. Putting aside all of the metaphysics, Buddhisma and Hinduism talk about, as you well know, an amazing blissful state. As to what Thích Quang Duc experienced I can only guess, but I assume it was more than being numb.
I don't understand what you mean by "redemption" in that context. Are the thorns of the rose bush redeemed by the beauty of its flowers?
Right. I will put here what I wrote above: "Suffering should not be given its nature; it is an existential paradox. This is evidenced in the strongest possible way: within the fabric of being itself." It IS a strange thesis, I will grant you, but the logic is compelling. IF suffering (or joy) is the kind of thing that has its grounding not merely descriptively or in an analysis of the entanglements it has in the contexts of our world (you know, the way moral duties conflict, the variance of ethical thinking from culture to culture, and so on), but in, if you will, what the world IS and DOES as interpretatively independent, then the ethical rights and wrongs of our being in the world no longer stand as contingent matters. They become absolute, as if the whole of human affairs were genuinely Biblical, but altogether without mythical scriptural content. The world qua world becomes an ethical place.
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Re: J.L .Mackie's Moral Error Theory

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Hereandnow wrote: September 19th, 2019, 9:46 amPutting aside masochists and sadists, who really deserve no special regard since their is nothing here that is really pertinent, it does sound like you would agree that terrible suffering possesses no more than the designation "suffering" (in the extreme). Once one has put this forward, there is nothing more to say, other than the inevitable contextualizing in which suffering is set against other ethical priorities, relational matters arise, comparisons made; such things take suffering simpliciter and circulate it through the maze of human (animal) affairs. But none of these changes what it is essentially, just as the pitch of middle C remains what it is regardless of the instrument.

What is missing is the moral meaning. Suffering should not be given its nature; it is an existential paradox. This is evidenced in the strongest possible way: within the fabric of being itself. All you need to do is apply the lighted match your finger and you have the suffering of the ages laid out before you. As the pain strikes you, and your are restrained from escaping, is there really nothing there but, hmmmm, suffering; why, this is hedonically bad. The negative valence is outrageous!

If you accept this moral dimension of our existence, then the world becomes a very different place. For the struggles of the world will be thereby invested with metaphysical depth and profundity, the basis for which is not religious dogma, but the world itself.
Pain and suffering provide reasons for considering something as morally bad or wrong. An action can be morally bad or wrong because it makes innocent people suffer or causes gratuitous suffering. But what is hedonically bad isn't thereby morally bad too. For example, it's hedonically bad (unpleasant) for a person to be put in jail, but it's not morally bad if s/he's a criminal deserving to be put in jail.
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Re: J.L .Mackie's Moral Error Theory

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Hereandnow wrote: September 19th, 2019, 10:09 amRight. I will put here what I wrote above: "Suffering should not be given its nature; it is an existential paradox. This is evidenced in the strongest possible way: within the fabric of being itself." It IS a strange thesis, I will grant you, but the logic is compelling. IF suffering (or joy) is the kind of thing that has its grounding not merely descriptively or in an analysis of the entanglements it has in the contexts of our world (you know, the way moral duties conflict, the variance of ethical thinking from culture to culture, and so on), but in, if you will, what the world IS and DOES as interpretatively independent, then the ethical rights and wrongs of our being in the world no longer stand as contingent matters. They become absolute, as if the whole of human affairs were genuinely Biblical, but altogether without mythical scriptural content. The world qua world becomes an ethical place.
All animals naturally try to avoid or escape from pain or suffering (as far as possible). However, there can be altruistic or idealistic motives or reasons for being willing to endure pain and suffering if it is unavoidable in the course of liberating or protecting others from pain or suffering.

You write that "suffering should not be given its nature", but there's no valid logical inference from "suffering is hedonically bad" to "suffering is morally bad".
"x is morally bad" implies "x ought not to/should not be". It's an analytic truth that what is morally bad ought not to/should not exist/occur.
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Re: J.L .Mackie's Moral Error Theory

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Felix wrote: September 18th, 2019, 4:58 pm
Hereandnow: Well, at the risk of repeating myself (I have argued this many times, but then, I am on something of a mission to get people to see this),it goes like this: this intense sensation at issue here, it is Bad.
I am saying it does not have to be Bad, there is a state of consciousness in which it is not Bad, it is merely what it is, a strong sensation. One can even immerse oneself in it and find it to be an interesting experience. Now, one may get tired of this "interesting experience" because it commands ones attention, you can't simply swat it away like a mosquito but still, it can be mastered. Sri Aurobindo even speaks of all experience being bliss, can't say I've gotten there yet but I do have some sense of what he means.

I am not just speaking theoretically here, this is a yoga I practice. The normal habitual response to sensory stimuli can be retrained so that is neither good or bad, it merely Is. This is of course a personal discipline and does not affect how I treat others, my subjective study of pain does not mean I'd be willing to inflict it on others. In fact, understanding the nature of pain makes one more reluctant to do so. But one can see how the carrot/stick of pleasure & pain, which is also the carrot/stick of good & bad, rules people's lives. You have to get off that karmic un-merry-go-round to make any real progress.
It's an interesting question whether a sensation's or emotion's (positive or negative) valence—its (degree of) pleasantness or unpleasantness—is intrinsic to it, such that it's unchangeably part of the essence of a sensation or emotion. William Robinson is one of those who think it's not:

"[W]e are at least under the illusion that the pleasantness of a taste is provided by the taste itself – that the pleasantness of a taste is extremely closely bound to the nature of that taste. We might think that it could not be that taste and yet not be pleasant. I believe that this appearance of closeness is an illusion. The reason is a pair of personal anecdotes, but I believe that many others will be able to recall similar experiences in their own history. On two memorable occasions (both before I was twelve) I gorged myself on a food to the point where I became ill. Of course, I did that because eating those foods was extremely pleasant. But immediately after having paid the price of my overindulgence, I could not abide the taste, or even the smell (in both cases quite strong and distinctive) of those foods. These experiences convince me that there is really nothing necessary about the connection between a sensation and its valence, but the appearance of necessity remains strong. I am aware that one can take the position (see discussion in Dennett, 1991 [Consciousness Explained]) that the effect of overindulgence was an early rewiring that resulted in a different sensation attending the consumption of these foods. On that view, one could consistently hold that each taste has a valence that is necessarily connected with it, and that my change of desire for those foods was due to their having come to cause different taste sensations. One thing I want to say in response is that this hypothesis has no phenomenological attraction whatsoever. That is, I had no sense that those foods smelled different; I just didn’t like those smells any more."

(Robinson, William S. Epiphenomenal Mind: An Integrated Outlook on Sensations, Beliefs, and Pleasure. New York: Routledge, 2018. p. 157)
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Re: J.L .Mackie's Moral Error Theory

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Consul

You write that "suffering should not be given its nature", but there's no valid logical inference from "suffering is hedonically bad" to "suffering is morally bad".
There is no inference if one does not recognize that the moral Badness is inherent in suffering. But suffering is inherently morally Bad. This is what you are being invited to consider.

I don't see how this makes sense. Suffering being inherently morally bad is what gives propositions like "one ought not to do X as a moral duty" their meaning. On what, otherwise, would the prohibiting of X be based on that would give the proposition its moral content? If "one should not do X" in the moral sense, is a moral statement, but the object of the (if you must) negative moral valance, the twisting off of someone's arm, produces an experience that has no moral dimension, only a hedonic one, then how is it the moral statement is moral at all? If you tell me I shouldn't bludgeon others and enjoy it, and I say it's ok in this case because the person in question is equipped with a bludgeon proof suit and we are merely playing a game, the negative moral valance of the moral prohibition turns positive, and this entirely issues from a change from negative to positive in the hedonic calculation. How is this possible if the hedonic badness possesses no moral badness?
"x is morally bad" implies "x ought not to/should not be". It's an analytic truth that what is morally bad ought not to/should not exist/occur.
This is confusing. I was led to believe you did not think moral "existence" had any meaning. Only propositions about actions were morally good or bad, you said, but there is no such thing as Badness "existing" in a thing, a state, a condition. Or do I misunderstand you on this?
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Re: J.L .Mackie's Moral Error Theory

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Hereandnow wrote: September 20th, 2019, 12:35 amThere is no inference if one does not recognize that the moral Badness is inherent in suffering. But suffering is inherently morally Bad. This is what you are being invited to consider.

I don't see how this makes sense. Suffering being inherently morally bad is what gives propositions like "one ought not to do X as a moral duty" their meaning. On what, otherwise, would the prohibiting of X be based on that would give the proposition its moral content? If "one should not do X" in the moral sense, is a moral statement, but the object of the (if you must) negative moral valance, the twisting off of someone's arm, produces an experience that has no moral dimension, only a hedonic one, then how is it the moral statement is moral at all? If you tell me I shouldn't bludgeon others and enjoy it, and I say it's ok in this case because the person in question is equipped with a bludgeon proof suit and we are merely playing a game, the negative moral valance of the moral prohibition turns positive, and this entirely issues from a change from negative to positive in the hedonic calculation. How is this possible if the hedonic badness possesses no moral badness?
Punishing wrongdoers/evildoers (criminals) is hedonically bad (unpleasant) for them, but doing so isn't morally bad or wrong, is it? So (the experiencing of) hedonic badness isn't inherently, necessarily morally bad.

According to moral antirealism-cum-anticognitivism, to say e.g. that killing people for fun is morally bad or wrong is not to describe any real, objective moral property of this action, but to express an aversive, negative attitude or stance toward it that results in the imperative, prescriptive statement: Don't kill people for fun! You ought not to kill people for fun!
Hereandnow wrote: September 20th, 2019, 12:35 am
Consul wrote:"x is morally bad" implies "x ought not to/should not be". It's an analytic truth that what is morally bad ought not to/should not exist/occur.
This is confusing. I was led to believe you did not think moral "existence" had any meaning. Only propositions about actions were morally good or bad, you said, but there is no such thing as Badness "existing" in a thing, a state, a condition. Or do I misunderstand you on this?
There are no moral entities (properties or facts) in the world. "The language of morals" (to quote the title of a famous book by Hare) is primarily prescriptive or imperative rather than descriptive. When I/we call an action or a person's character morally bad, I/we thereby express my/our condemnation or disapproval of it, and tell everybody: Don't do that! / Don't be like that!
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Re: J.L .Mackie's Moral Error Theory

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Hereandnow: Suffering being inherently morally bad is what gives propositions like "one ought not to do X as a moral duty" their meaning.
I think you are confusing moral sensitivity with moral cognition. Inherently bad would mean always so but suffering is not always bad, nor is pleasure always good. For example, the emotional suffering of losing a loved one is not inherently bad, but lacking the ability to experience such suffering would be.
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Re: J.L .Mackie's Moral Error Theory

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Felix:
I think you are confusing moral sensitivity with moral cognition. Inherently bad would mean always so but suffering is not always bad, nor is pleasure always good. For example, the emotional suffering of losing a loved one is not inherently bad, but lacking the ability to experience such suffering would be.
I say that suffering is always bad and pleasure is always good. I'll just put it flatly: When ethical issues arise in the world they are always entangled with our affairs, our culture, institutions, relations, opinions, the non normative "facts" that constitute our being here. Consider, you can analyze these for their rational features, and abstract from the full description of an engagement, and in doing so, you identify the structural features of reason. When you hail a taxi you raise your hand, expecting a taxi to respond, and this expectation is built out of the implicit reasoning of the conditional "If I raise my hand, then a taxi will duly acknowledge the sign." We thereby identify part of the rational structure of our engagement. The point is that the various particulars of the event are abstracted from to identify the rationality. Value, I am arguing, is to be handled in the same way: Hailing the taxi certainly has rational features, but it also has valuative ones, such as, the importance of getting where you're going, the caring about some future event, and so on. Abstract from all that is not value, the mechanical movements of the legs, the rational structure of the judgment, and what is there is, if you will, pure value, unentangled. This value is an absolute (though language does not possess the power to say this. That's another issue).

Value experiences are entangled ones, and it is the entanglements that cause the confusion. Delivering a child from danger is a good thing; but then, what if the child will grow up to be a serial killer, and you know this? Then it is not so good. But the goodness and badness becomes bound to the non normative "facts" of the events, and the absoluteness of the badness of, say, falling on to a bed of nails, becomes entangled with other facts, like growing up to bring misery to many. The ethical nature remains what it is, regardless of the facts that in which it occurs. Hitler enjoyed sending Jews to the ovens, and we would say this is despicable. But the enjoyment as such remains untouched by this judgment, just as his enjoyment of a good cigar is still enjoyment, even though it was enjoyed by Hitler as he bombed London. The despicableness arises only in the entanglement the enjoyment has with other value-entangled facts.

Since you understand Eastern thinking, consider that when the Buddhist or Hindu settles down to meditate, one way to describe this is disentanglment: the attempt to close off the entangling effects of being in the world and experience "pure" joy. I have long thought they had it right, and it is only now, as deconstruction reveals the "end" of philosophy, are we starting to realize this.
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by Dr Frank L Douglas
August 2021

If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your Buts

If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your Buts
by Mark L. Wdowiak
September 2021

The Preppers Medical Handbook

The Preppers Medical Handbook
by Dr. William W Forgey M.D.
October 2021

Natural Relief for Anxiety and Stress: A Practical Guide

Natural Relief for Anxiety and Stress
by Dr. Gustavo Kinrys, MD
November 2021

Dream For Peace: An Ambassador Memoir

Dream For Peace
by Dr. Ghoulem Berrah
December 2021