David Hume is Right: The Foundation of Ethics is Empathy

Discuss morality and ethics in this message board.
Featured Article: Philosophical Analysis of Abortion, The Right to Life, and Murder
Post Reply
User avatar
Jack D Ripper
Posts: 610
Joined: September 30th, 2020, 10:30 pm
Location: Burpelson Air Force Base
Contact:

Re: David Hume is Right: The Foundation of Ethics is Empathy

Post by Jack D Ripper »

chewybrian wrote: October 25th, 2020, 7:08 am
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 24th, 2020, 5:05 pm

Your post is too good to be ignored, so I am replying to it, because no one else seems to have done so. My guess is, he has not replied because he does not have an answer to your concerns. Of course, that does not always stop someone from replying.
It never stopped me before. I often state my beliefs and try to make a case for them. And, I think beliefs are important, and in a real sense more important than facts. I won't be prompted to take any action, moral or otherwise, if I have no beliefs. You: "Your house is on fire". Me: "Yup, it sure looks like it is". I see the house burning and acknowledge it, but unless I believe the house is important or useful or valuable, or I have accepted some duty to protect it, then nothing calls me to act to put out the fire. I have to make a value judgement, arguably always subjective, that some outcome is better than some other outcome before logic can dictate the course for trying to achieve my preferred outcome.

...
The way Hume would address your statement, "I believe the house is important or useful or valuable", that seems to be expressing a sentiment or feeling about the house, rather than stating something about the house. So that what you are calling a "belief", in this instance, is a feeling rather than a belief in some matter of fact, like the house is two stories tall, or the house is on fire.

If one takes the beliefs one has that are about pure matters of fact, those, by themselves, do not motivate action. What motivates action are the feelings one has, like the feeling that the house is important or useful or valuable. Or, to put it another way, it is that one values the thing that prompts action, and valuing a thing involves having feelings about that thing.

With this statement of yours:

"I have to make a value judgement, arguably always subjective, that some outcome is better than some other outcome before logic can dictate the course for trying to achieve my preferred outcome."

You seem to be expressing agreement with Hume. In A Treatise of Human Nature, Hume famously and provocatively put it this way:
David Hume wrote:Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/342#Hume_0213_981

Meaning, of course, that one does things only because of the passions (feelings). One uses reason to derive means to ends, but the ends themselves, ultimately, are determined by feelings. Reason may be used for intermediate goals, which are mere steps to ultimate goals, but reason does not pick the ultimate goals one has. Those are determined by feelings.

Take away all of your feelings, and you then have no motive to act.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence." - David Hume
User avatar
Marvin_Edwards
Posts: 1106
Joined: April 14th, 2020, 9:34 pm
Favorite Philosopher: William James
Contact:

Re: David Hume is Right: The Foundation of Ethics is Empathy

Post by Marvin_Edwards »

Jack D Ripper wrote: October 25th, 2020, 6:09 pm
Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 5:39 pm
Well, that leaves you with a bit of a quandary. How would you approach a recent moral issue such as gay marriage? What things do you think about in order to decide whether it is a good thing or a bad thing? For example, suppose it came up in a referendum, how would you go about making that decision?
That is getting us very far from the subject of this thread. I will indulge you this time, but do not plan on doing so in the future, as you seem to be doing your best to derail this thread to make it about something other than the subject of the opening post. Indeed, I suggest that you start your own thread, in which you try to convince everyone of your ethical theory, which does not belong in this thread, which is supposed to be about Hume, not you.
I would suggest that it is neither about Hume nor me, but rather about whether "the foundation of ethics is empathy" is right or wrong. You seem to be making this about me rather than dealing with my argument, that the foundation of ethics is meeting the real human needs of everyone.
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 25th, 2020, 6:09 pm Regarding gay marriage, the motivation that people have against it is primarily, if not entirely, religious. Laws should not be based on religious rules, unless the religion is demonstrated to be true. (Which, in practice, simply means that laws should not be based on religious rules.) Laws should be based on what will best promote an harmonious society, with as little damage to any individual as possible. The short response is, there is no good reason to forbid gay marriage, and therefore it should be allowed. Laws should serve a useful purpose, or that particular law should not exist. So a law forbidding gay marriage is one that should not exist.

Now, I could stop there (and probably should because you should not be asking such a question in this thread), but let us consider a common argument against gay marriage that I have encountered many times. The claim is made that allowing gay marriage will destroy marriage. That is really a moronic claim, unworthy of consideration. But let us consider it anyway. Not that it is any of your business, I will tell you a little about myself, because it is convenient for the discussion. I am a man. I am married to a woman. The change in the law allowing gay marriage did nothing to my marriage. It is completely irrelevant. It makes no difference to my marriage if you marry a man, or if you marry a woman, or if you do not marry at all. The same idea applies to every other member of society; who they marry, or if they marry, is irrelevant to my marriage (excepting only if the marriage of these other people includes either me or my wife; in other words, in the event of bigamy, which is a different matter, and whether such a marriage were gay or not would be an irrelevant aspect of it). The only way it would destroy marriages would be if the people who were already married thought, damn!, if only I had waited, I could have had a gay marriage!, and then got a divorce so that they could have a gay marriage. So what one encounters in the real world against gay marriage is utter crap, which is what one should reasonably expect when the real motive is religious claptrap.

Gay marriage affects you if you decide to have a gay marriage. Otherwise, it is pretty insignificant in your life, though many religious fanatics are fascists who wish to control the actions of others that have little or nothing to do with them.
My question would be why any religion would take a position against gay marriage in the first place. The origin of that position is most likely due to the need of ancient tribes to grow in number such that it could defend itself against other tribes (or, successfully invade another tribe themselves). There is strength in numbers. So, in the Old Testament God tells Abraham that he will be the father of a nation, and we see commandments to "go forth and multiply", and so on.

So how would someone from that time and with that agenda react to two men making love with each other instead of with two other women? He would say "Wait, you're doing this all wrong!" And, perhaps worrying that other men of the tribe would follow their example, the elders would assert that God commanded them to make love only with women.

Now, the Greeks, as I understand it, found it convenient when soldiers were far from home training for war, for them to have young boys to satisfy their sexual desires. There was no risk of pregnancy in the field and the young boys would be in training to be soldiers themselves. The soldiers upon returning to their wives, would still have children in the normal fashion. So, there was no rule against homosexual behavior in these Greek democracies. In fact, I believe that one of the Greek teachers recommended the practice of homosexuality for soldiers in the field. (I notice there is an article on "Homosexuality in Ancient Greece" in Wikipedia if you're interested).

But, setting religion aside, let's look at your analysis of the issue of the morality of homosexual relationships:
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 25th, 2020, 6:09 pm "Laws should be based on what will best promote an harmonious society, with as little damage to any individual as possible. The short response is, there is no good reason to forbid gay marriage, and therefore it should be allowed."
Would it be fair to say that you are weighing the objective benefits versus the objective harms of allowing gay marriage? The objective benefit is that it will "promote an harmonious society" and the objective harm is little if any in that it causes "as little damage to any individual as possible".

Furthermore, it is a benefit to allow people freedom to do what they want so long as it does not harm others, such that you conclude that "there is no good reason to forbid gay marriage, and therefore it should be allowed."

My suggestion is that you are seeking a solution that provides the best good and least harm for everyone. Denying them the rights of marriage objectively harms homosexuals. We can remove that harm without harming anyone else by legalizing their relationship. Thus it improves the overall good for everyone without increasing harm to anyone.

Now, which should govern our moral choices, an objective evaluation of the benefits and harms to everyone, or the passions of those who have been raised with a prejudice against such relationships.
User avatar
Jack D Ripper
Posts: 610
Joined: September 30th, 2020, 10:30 pm
Location: Burpelson Air Force Base
Contact:

Re: David Hume is Right: The Foundation of Ethics is Empathy

Post by Jack D Ripper »

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 8:24 pm
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 25th, 2020, 6:09 pm

That is getting us very far from the subject of this thread. I will indulge you this time, but do not plan on doing so in the future, as you seem to be doing your best to derail this thread to make it about something other than the subject of the opening post. Indeed, I suggest that you start your own thread, in which you try to convince everyone of your ethical theory, which does not belong in this thread, which is supposed to be about Hume, not you.
I would suggest that it is neither about Hume nor me, but rather about whether "the foundation of ethics is empathy" is right or wrong. You seem to be making this about me rather than dealing with my argument, that the foundation of ethics is meeting the real human needs of everyone.

The trouble is, as pretty much everyone has told you, you have not given much of an argument. You seem to just assume that your ideas are true. And, evidently, this is an ongoing problem, judging from:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16933#p370364

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16933#p370365

You keep repeating things, but you don't prove anything. Before you accuse me of just failing to understand, look at the posts from everyone else. They don't see an argument from you either that makes any sense. Now, it could be that there is something wrong with all of us, that we simply fail to understand, or it could be that you have provided crap in place of an argument. (You could somewhat test this by trying the same things at other philosophy forums, and see what sort of reactions you get elsewhere. Then, if you get the same sorts of responses to the same sorts of claims, you can think that everyone else who posts online at such forums has something wrong with them, or you can conclude that you have provided crap in place of an argument. Or maybe you can come up with some alternative explanation.) But whichever may be the case, you should start a new thread on your ideas if you wish to discuss them. They do not belong in this thread.

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 8:24 pm
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 25th, 2020, 6:09 pm Regarding gay marriage, the motivation that people have against it is primarily, if not entirely, religious. Laws should not be based on religious rules, unless the religion is demonstrated to be true. (Which, in practice, simply means that laws should not be based on religious rules.) Laws should be based on what will best promote an harmonious society, with as little damage to any individual as possible. The short response is, there is no good reason to forbid gay marriage, and therefore it should be allowed. Laws should serve a useful purpose, or that particular law should not exist. So a law forbidding gay marriage is one that should not exist.

Now, I could stop there (and probably should because you should not be asking such a question in this thread), but let us consider a common argument against gay marriage that I have encountered many times. The claim is made that allowing gay marriage will destroy marriage. That is really a moronic claim, unworthy of consideration. But let us consider it anyway. Not that it is any of your business, I will tell you a little about myself, because it is convenient for the discussion. I am a man. I am married to a woman. The change in the law allowing gay marriage did nothing to my marriage. It is completely irrelevant. It makes no difference to my marriage if you marry a man, or if you marry a woman, or if you do not marry at all. The same idea applies to every other member of society; who they marry, or if they marry, is irrelevant to my marriage (excepting only if the marriage of these other people includes either me or my wife; in other words, in the event of bigamy, which is a different matter, and whether such a marriage were gay or not would be an irrelevant aspect of it). The only way it would destroy marriages would be if the people who were already married thought, damn!, if only I had waited, I could have had a gay marriage!, and then got a divorce so that they could have a gay marriage. So what one encounters in the real world against gay marriage is utter crap, which is what one should reasonably expect when the real motive is religious claptrap.

Gay marriage affects you if you decide to have a gay marriage. Otherwise, it is pretty insignificant in your life, though many religious fanatics are fascists who wish to control the actions of others that have little or nothing to do with them.
My question would be why any religion would take a position against gay marriage in the first place.

That really doesn't matter. It is just crap, regardless. Given that the religion as a whole is not based on reason, there is no reason to suppose that the bits are all going to make sense.

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 8:24 pm
The origin of that position is most likely due to the need of ancient tribes to grow in number such that it could defend itself against other tribes (or, successfully invade another tribe themselves). There is strength in numbers. So, in the Old Testament God tells Abraham that he will be the father of a nation, and we see commandments to "go forth and multiply", and so on.

So how would someone from that time and with that agenda react to two men making love with each other instead of with two other women? He would say "Wait, you're doing this all wrong!" And, perhaps worrying that other men of the tribe would follow their example, the elders would assert that God commanded them to make love only with women.

There are a couple of problems with that theory that you seem to have just made up (if you want to produce evidence that that is the reasoning behind the prohibition on homosexuality, go ahead and do so; without it, it just sounds like a made-up story). First, semen is not valuable. One can waste most of it and still produce plenty of children. So a man can spend most of his time having sex with other men, and still father plenty of children. Furthermore, one man can impregnate many women, so one does not need all of the men involved in reproduction anyway. One finds this in the breeding of livestock, like cattle, where a dairy farmer does not keep a bunch of males around, as they are unimportant to producing more cows. They would be a waste of money and effort and resources to keep them all; most of them are simply not needed for reproduction. Second, if everyone were really needed to reproduce, then forcing everyone to "marry' (obviously, of course, in the context of reproduction, that is only a euphemism, because sex is what is needed, not marriage) would be what would make sense. People simply not marrying fail to have children just as much as those who engage in homosexual behavior fail to have children. So if it were all about having children, there is equal reason to have a prohibition against remaining single, and there isn't. Which means, either idiots wrote the Bible, or your story about their reasoning is wrong, or both.

Additionally, the prohibition in the Bible is about homosexual activity, not about marriage. The thing is, one can have lots of gay sex and still produce children. In fact, if everyone were paired off in marriage, as you seem to suggest (as otherwise, if one man has multiple wives, then many of the men are going to have to do without, if the birth rate of males versus females in the past were about the same as it is now, with similar numbers making it to adulthood), then while a man's wife is pregnant, he has nine months in which he can engage in nothing but homosexual acts without it having any affect whatsoever on the birth rate. So the prohibition, if it were for the purpose you suggest, would be an idiotic prohibition. Your example of the Greeks below shows how stupid it would be to prohibit homosexual acts if one wants to produce children, because one can still have plenty of children anyway.


This story of yours seems to be just another example of you just making stuff up, that has no connection with reality.

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 8:24 pm
Now, the Greeks, as I understand it, found it convenient when soldiers were far from home training for war, for them to have young boys to satisfy their sexual desires. There was no risk of pregnancy in the field and the young boys would be in training to be soldiers themselves. The soldiers upon returning to their wives, would still have children in the normal fashion. So, there was no rule against homosexual behavior in these Greek democracies. In fact, I believe that one of the Greek teachers recommended the practice of homosexuality for soldiers in the field. (I notice there is an article on "Homosexuality in Ancient Greece" in Wikipedia if you're interested).

But, setting religion aside, let's look at your analysis of the issue of the morality of homosexual relationships:
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 25th, 2020, 6:09 pm "Laws should be based on what will best promote an harmonious society, with as little damage to any individual as possible. The short response is, there is no good reason to forbid gay marriage, and therefore it should be allowed."
Would it be fair to say that you are weighing the objective benefits versus the objective harms of allowing gay marriage?

No, not at all. It is applying the feelings of empathy, or humanity, or benevolence toward others. It is strictly following what Hume said about this. And, since my feelings have not been so warped by superstitious twaddle, I am not hardened against people who wish to engage in consensual sex that does not interest me.

Frankly, heterosexual men ought to want more men to be gay, so they would have less competition with women. But many are so bigoted and stupid that they get upset over what, if it affects them at all, is beneficial to them.

We see in this that religion interferes with both benevolence and with self-interest simultaneously.

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 8:24 pm The objective benefit is that it will "promote an harmonious society" and the objective harm is little if any in that it causes "as little damage to any individual as possible".

No, this is not about "objective benefits", whatever that might mean. It is about exactly what I state above. Nothing more, nothing less. The idea I stated, "Laws should be based on what will best promote an harmonious society, with as little damage to any individual as possible", follows from feelings of empathy for others. That is the motive for the ethical aspect of it. It also conforms to enlightened self-interest, as I want others to leave me in peace as much as reasonably possible. But, even if I had absolute power, as an absolute dictator, I would follow that principle due to empathy for others.

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 8:24 pm Furthermore, it is a benefit to allow people freedom to do what they want so long as it does not harm others, such that you conclude that "there is no good reason to forbid gay marriage, and therefore it should be allowed."

My suggestion is that you are seeking a solution that provides the best good and least harm for everyone. Denying them the rights of marriage objectively harms homosexuals. We can remove that harm without harming anyone else by legalizing their relationship. Thus it improves the overall good for everyone without increasing harm to anyone.

Now, which should govern our moral choices, an objective evaluation of the benefits and harms to everyone, or the passions of those who have been raised with a prejudice against such relationships.

You have a fondness for fallacies. You are now providing a false dilemma. I am suggesting following the option of doing exactly what Hume suggested should be done. Of getting rid of superstitious and false beliefs, and applying one's natural feelings of empathy for others.

Of course, if a person lacks empathy, lacks feeling for others, then, as Hume stated:
David Hume wrote:I must confess that, if a man think that this reasoning much requires an answer, it would be a little difficult to find any which will to him appear satisfactory and convincing. If his heart rebel not against such pernicious maxims, if he feel no reluctance to the thoughts of villainy or baseness, he has indeed lost a considerable motive to virtue; and we may expect that this practice will be answerable to his speculation.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/341#Hume_0222_616


It isn't about discovering some "objective facts" about what one ought to do; it is about feelings for others, it is about caring about others. And this is why people who don't care about others often do bad things.

If one lacks empathy, learning objective facts about the world isn't going to give one a proper foundation for ethics. If one is an intelligent sociopath, one might fake it enough to get by, without doing too many very horrible things, in order to avoid prison or other punishment that would go against one's self-interest. (Though such a person would probably make a very lousy friend.) Of course, the person must have self-interested feelings for that to be applicable. With people who do not care about themselves or others, they are a danger to all, unless they are lacking in such things from something like being in a coma.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence." - David Hume
User avatar
Marvin_Edwards
Posts: 1106
Joined: April 14th, 2020, 9:34 pm
Favorite Philosopher: William James
Contact:

Re: David Hume is Right: The Foundation of Ethics is Empathy

Post by Marvin_Edwards »

Jack D Ripper wrote: October 25th, 2020, 10:16 pm
Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 8:24 pm
But, setting religion aside, let's look at your analysis of the issue of the morality of homosexual relationships:
Would it be fair to say that you are weighing the objective benefits versus the objective harms of allowing gay marriage?
No, not at all. It is applying the feelings of empathy, or humanity, or benevolence toward others. It is strictly following what Hume said about this.
I'm going to edit out the references to religion since neither of us is arguing that religion is "the foundation of ethics". This should save time.

Benevolence is caring for the welfare of others. It implies that you have some notion of what is good for them and/or what is bad for them. Your empathy leads you to feel that denying gays the same marital rights as those that you enjoy is a harm to them. Correct?
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 25th, 2020, 10:16 pm
Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 8:24 pm The objective benefit is that it will "promote an harmonious society" and he objective harm is little if any in that it causes "as little damage to any individual as possible".
No, this is not about "objective benefits", whatever that might mean.
Well, there are many objective benefits granted to married couples. In the absence of a living will, the spouse can make end-of-life decisions when their partner is incapacitated and unable to speak for themselves. Relatives are also given preference in hospital visitation. And if a person dies without a will, the spouse becomes the default heir. Most health insurance policies automatically cover the spouse. So, there are many legal, social, and economic benefits given to spouses that were previously denied to gay and lesbian couples.

That's what objective benefits mean. And these were argued as the reasons why gay couples were harmed by being unable to marry.
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 25th, 2020, 10:16 pm It is about exactly what I state above. Nothing more, nothing less. The idea I stated, "Laws should be based on what will best promote an harmonious society, with as little damage to any individual as possible", follows from feelings of empathy for others. That is the motive for the ethical aspect of it. It also conforms to enlightened self-interest, as I want others to leave me in peace as much as reasonably possible. But, even if I had absolute power, as an absolute dictator, I would follow that principle due to empathy for others.
Empathy is what leads us to seek to improve the welfare of others. The welfare of gay couples is measured in what benefits are missing and what harms they are suffering. Empathy motivates us to make the moral argument. But the moral argument is made in terms of benefits and harms.
Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 8:24 pm Furthermore, it is a benefit to allow people freedom to do what they want so long as it does not harm others, such that you conclude that "there is no good reason to forbid gay marriage, and therefore it should be allowed."

My suggestion is that you are seeking a solution that provides the best good and least harm for everyone. Denying them the rights of marriage objectively harms homosexuals. We can remove that harm without harming anyone else by legalizing their relationship. Thus it improves the overall good for everyone without increasing harm to anyone.

Now, which should govern our moral choices, an objective evaluation of the benefits and harms to everyone, or the passions of those who have been raised with a prejudice against such relationships.
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 25th, 2020, 10:16 pm I am suggesting following the option of doing exactly what Hume suggested should be done. Of getting rid of superstitious and false beliefs, and applying one's natural feelings of empathy for others.

Of course, if a person lacks empathy, lacks feeling for others, then, as Hume stated:
David Hume wrote:I must confess that, if a man think that this reasoning much requires an answer, it would be a little difficult to find any which will to him appear satisfactory and convincing. If his heart rebel not against such pernicious maxims, if he feel no reluctance to the thoughts of villainy or baseness, he has indeed lost a considerable motive to virtue; and we may expect that this practice will be answerable to his speculation.
It isn't about discovering some "objective facts" about what one ought to do; it is about feelings for others, it is about caring about others. And this is why people who don't care about others often do bad things.

If one lacks empathy, learning objective facts about the world isn't going to give one a proper foundation for ethics. If one is an intelligent sociopath, one might fake it enough to get by, without doing too many very horrible things, in order to avoid prison or other punishment that would go against one's self-interest. (Though such a person would probably make a very lousy friend.) Of course, the person must have self-interested feelings for that to be applicable. With people who do not care about themselves or others, they are a danger to all, unless they are lacking in such things from something like being in a coma.
Then we should give Hume his due for stressing the spiritual side of morality, that is, how one feels about things. But, as Hume himself points about, those emotions may be present or absent in any given person. So, again, they are not reliable guides to moral judgment. They are only the motivations to exercise moral judgment in the first place.

But the judgment as to what is "pernicious" or "villainous" or "base" relies upon objective information as to what is good for us and what is bad for us.

Religions are experts in feelings. They gather people together to sing, and pray, and hear sermons that expound upon the beliefs of their sect. They help people to feel good and thus reinforce each other's beliefs.

But scientific objectivity is the correct answer to blind faith.
User avatar
Jack D Ripper
Posts: 610
Joined: September 30th, 2020, 10:30 pm
Location: Burpelson Air Force Base
Contact:

Re: David Hume is Right: The Foundation of Ethics is Empathy

Post by Jack D Ripper »

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 11:40 pm
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 25th, 2020, 10:16 pm

No, not at all. It is applying the feelings of empathy, or humanity, or benevolence toward others. It is strictly following what Hume said about this.
I'm going to edit out the references to religion since neither of us is arguing that religion is "the foundation of ethics". This should save time.

Benevolence is caring for the welfare of others. It implies that you have some notion of what is good for them and/or what is bad for them.

No. I make no judgement of whether it is "good" for a man to marry another man. I simply leave the choice to him and his prospective partner. It may be the worst mistake of their lives. For some, it probably is (the same, of course, can be said about some heterosexual marriages).

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 11:40 pm
Your empathy leads you to feel that denying gays the same marital rights as those that you enjoy is a harm to them. Correct?

It may or may not harm them. If a man makes a bad choice when he is given the option, it may well have been better for him not to have been able to make that choice.

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 11:40 pm
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 25th, 2020, 10:16 pm

No, this is not about "objective benefits", whatever that might mean.
Well, there are many objective benefits granted to married couples. In the absence of a living will, the spouse can make end-of-life decisions when their partner is incapacitated and unable to speak for themselves. Relatives are also given preference in hospital visitation. And if a person dies without a will, the spouse becomes the default heir. Most health insurance policies automatically cover the spouse. So, there are many legal, social, and economic benefits given to spouses that were previously denied to gay and lesbian couples.

That's what objective benefits mean. And these were argued as the reasons why gay couples were harmed by being unable to marry.

There are those legal implications. But whether those are good or bad will be quite variable, don't you think? Suppose, for example, that you marry someone, trusting that they will honor your "end of life" wishes and you end up in a hospital, unable to express your wishes. Suppose your spouse does not honor your wishes. Did you benefit from this arrangement?

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 11:40 pm
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 25th, 2020, 10:16 pm It is about exactly what I state above. Nothing more, nothing less. The idea I stated, "Laws should be based on what will best promote an harmonious society, with as little damage to any individual as possible", follows from feelings of empathy for others. That is the motive for the ethical aspect of it. It also conforms to enlightened self-interest, as I want others to leave me in peace as much as reasonably possible. But, even if I had absolute power, as an absolute dictator, I would follow that principle due to empathy for others.
Empathy is what leads us to seek to improve the welfare of others. The welfare of gay couples is measured in what benefits are missing and what harms they are suffering. Empathy motivates us to make the moral argument. But the moral argument is made in terms of benefits and harms.

"Benefits" and "harms" may be simply subjective evaluations of situations. Indeed, with this specific example, you have given a great case for it being subjective. I have no desire to have any kind of sexual relationship with another man. To me, that would be a "harm" rather than a "benefit", though a gay man feels differently, and I respect the fact that he feels differently. I have no wish to stop gay men from engaging in consensual sex with each other.

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 8:24 pm Furthermore, it is a benefit to allow people freedom to do what they want so long as it does not harm others, such that you conclude that "there is no good reason to forbid gay marriage, and therefore it should be allowed."

Whether it turns out to be a good thing or a bad thing is variable. Someone may regret a sexual encounter (regardless of whether it is heterosexual or homosexual). One may hope that people will think about their actions, will "look before they leap", though one knows that not everyone is so careful in their choices. So whether the freedom to choose something turns out to be good or bad is variable and uncertain.

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 11:40 pm
My suggestion is that you are seeking a solution that provides the best good and least harm for everyone.

The trouble with that expression is that it does not have any clear meaning. I am generally in favor of giving people choices in how they will live their lives, but stupid people will tend to make stupid choices. (Of course, I favor some restrictions, like having murder illegal and many things that tend to be laws pretty much everywhere.) It might turn out better for them if someone restricted their choices, though I do not generally favor that. Shouldn't you now say that I don't favor "the best good and least harm for everyone", since I favor letting people make some stupid choices?

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 11:40 pm
Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 11:40 pm Denying them the rights of marriage objectively harms homosexuals. We can remove that harm without harming anyone else by legalizing their relationship. Thus it improves the overall good for everyone without increasing harm to anyone.

Now, which should govern our moral choices, an objective evaluation of the benefits and harms to everyone, or the passions of those who have been raised with a prejudice against such relationships.
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 25th, 2020, 10:16 pm I am suggesting following the option of doing exactly what Hume suggested should be done. Of getting rid of superstitious and false beliefs, and applying one's natural feelings of empathy for others.

Of course, if a person lacks empathy, lacks feeling for others, then, as Hume stated:



It isn't about discovering some "objective facts" about what one ought to do; it is about feelings for others, it is about caring about others. And this is why people who don't care about others often do bad things.

If one lacks empathy, learning objective facts about the world isn't going to give one a proper foundation for ethics. If one is an intelligent sociopath, one might fake it enough to get by, without doing too many very horrible things, in order to avoid prison or other punishment that would go against one's self-interest. (Though such a person would probably make a very lousy friend.) Of course, the person must have self-interested feelings for that to be applicable. With people who do not care about themselves or others, they are a danger to all, unless they are lacking in such things from something like being in a coma.
Then we should give Hume his due for stressing the spiritual side of morality, that is, how one feels about things.

I do not think Hume would like that being called "the spiritual side of morality." I know I don't. It is simply the basis of morality, the essential part without which there would be no morality. I do not see why you would call emotions "spiritual", nor am I entirely certain what you mean to convey with that expression in this context.

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 11:40 pm But, as Hume himself points about, those emotions may be present or absent in any given person. So, again, they are not reliable guides to moral judgment.

Right, the bare emotions are not reliable. This is why one should think about things, think about why one feels as one does. It may be that one feels one way about something due to a false belief about it, and consequently one will likely act in a manner that one would disapprove of if one did not have that false belief.

This leads us to the idea that we should be very careful about what we believe. Which means, we should only believe things in proportion to the evidence we have in favor of them. Many people don't like doing that, because doubt often makes people uncomfortable, and so they are motivated to come to some conclusion, even though they lack proper evidence for a conclusion. This leads to all sorts of problems. The world is, indeed, a mess. It would be better for all concerned if everyone believed things in proportion to the evidence and did not believe anything for which they lacked proper evidence. But this is getting us a bit away from the main topic at hand, the foundations of ethics. This bit is more a practical consideration.

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 11:40 pm They are only the motivations to exercise moral judgment in the first place.

They are "only" essential for ethical judgements to occur at all.

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 11:40 pm But the judgment as to what is "pernicious" or "villainous" or "base" relies upon objective information as to what is good for us and what is bad for us.

The judgement of something as being pernicious or villainous or base is a feeling. Of course, one has feelings about matters of fact, but without the feelings, there is no moral judgement. The wrongness of things is a feeling about them. That is, one does not see wrong in matters of fact; one feels the wrongness when considering the matters of fact.

Hume put it thusly:
David Hume wrote:II. When a man, at any time, deliberates concerning his own conduct (as, whether he had better, in a particular emergence, assist a brother or a benefactor), he must consider these separate relations, with all the circumstances and situations of the persons, in order to determine the superior duty and obligation; and in order to determine the proportion of lines in any triangle, it is necessary to examine the nature of that figure, and the relation which its several parts bear to each other. But notwithstanding this appearing similarity in the two cases, there is, at bottom, an extreme difference between them. A speculative reasoner concerning triangles or circles considers the several known and given relations of the parts of these figures, and thence infers [290] some unknown relation, which is dependent on the former. But in moral deliberations we must be acquainted beforehand with all the objects, and all their relations to each other; and from a comparison of the whole, fix our choice or approbation. No new fact to be ascertained; no new relation to be discovered. All the circumstances of the case are supposed to be laid before us, ere we can fix any sentence of blame or approbation. If any material circumstance be yet unknown or doubtful, we must first employ our inquiry or intellectual faculties to assure us of it; and must suspend for a time all moral decision or sentiment. While we are ignorant whether a man were aggressor or not, how can we determine whether the person who killed him be criminal or innocent? But after every circumstance, every relation is known, the understanding has no further room to operate, nor any object on which it could employ itself. The approbation or blame which then ensues, cannot be the work of the judgement, but of the heart; and is not a speculative proposition or affirmation, but an active feeling or sentiment. In the disquisitions of the understanding, from known circumstances and relations, we inter some new and unknown. In moral decisions, all the circumstances and relations must be previously known; and the mind, from the contemplation of the whole, feels some new impression of affection or disgust, esteem or contempt, approbation or blame.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/341#Hume_0222_629


When making moral judgements, one needs to know all of the relevant facts first, and then the moral judgement is made. That moral judgement is not a fact outside in the world; it is how one feels about those facts.

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 11:40 pm
Religions are experts in feelings. They gather people together to sing, and pray, and hear sermons that expound upon the beliefs of their sect. They help people to feel good and thus reinforce each other's beliefs.

But scientific objectivity is the correct answer to blind faith.

I am not sure what your point is here. Religion often advertises itself as a way to make people feel better, but they often do the opposite. With traditional Christianity, not only is there the doctrine of eternal torment in hellfire for those who make an unacceptable mistake, which leads to quite a lot of fear and making people feel worse, there is also a lot of guilt that is foisted on many believers, guilt over things that are trivial, like whether someone feels lust toward someone's spouse, but does not act on it, and never seriously considers acting on it. There are many other things of a like nature, that make people feel worse rather than better. But religions do tend to provide a kind of social cohesion, though often this is at the expense of viewing outsiders as the "other", as less fully deserving of one's consideration or empathy. So they make a subset of people cohere, while splintering the whole of humanity.

The correct response to blind faith (belief in the absence of evidence) is to simply reject it. One should believe things in proportion to the evidence. So in the absence of all evidence, one should have no belief at all.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence." - David Hume
User avatar
chewybrian
Posts: 1594
Joined: May 9th, 2018, 7:17 pm
Favorite Philosopher: Epictetus
Location: Florida man

Re: David Hume is Right: The Foundation of Ethics is Empathy

Post by chewybrian »

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 24th, 2020, 6:59 pm
Wossname wrote: October 24th, 2020, 5:11 pm And Maslow’s hierarchy seems a dubious way of evaluating needs anyway. His motivational theory has limited scientific support, he is accused of culture bias, others question whether needs are hierarchical, others question whether the broad hierarchy is even correct, there may be individual differences and there are doubts that any particular hierarchy is correct for any given individual over a prolonged period (a point Maslow himself somewhat agreed with). It seems a problematic approach for establishing an objective morality in which the best good or least harm is based on needs.
Maslow put his ideas out there. If there are better ideas or a better explanation of the motives that explain human behavior, then they can be compared and judged as to which is most realistic and useful. From my perspective, the fact that there is a reasonable explanation out there is sufficient. I'm not in a position to argue the details of alternate schemes. I'll leave that to the psychologists and anthropologists.
What's true at the extreme is true at the margin. If you are starving, you are unlikely to be focused on self-actualization. I think the hierarchy of needs makes sense, though it doesn't do much to prompt us to action. The dichotomy of cognition, however, is a useful yardstick for judging your own ideas and actions.

You can go through life using deficiency cognition, seeing that you need or want something, and then stacking up logic to see how you might get it. In that view of the world, other people become tools or obstacles. You may be kind to them only insofar as it might advance you toward your objective, but not for the sake of the kindness itself. You look right through and beyond everyone and everything, as if your whole life is effectively a roadblock to getting the thing you have placed above everything else.

Or, you can view the world through being cognition, believing that the experience of living is more important than material gains. In that view of the world, your interactions with others, and those other people, are the ends, not the means. You will be kind to others because you care about them, not what they can do for you, because you enjoy the kindness itself, not the possible reward. You won't look past them, but focus on enjoying the moment.

I see a lot of value in those ideas. I am not sure if the hierarchy perfectly describes the journey from low-level to high-level cognition, but the idea that we should set off on the journey is enough for me to value Maslow.
Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 7:40 am So, how do we morally compare two rules or courses of action? For example, is it better for everyone to save up enough money to replace their house if it burns down? Or is it better for everyone to have fire insurance?

The outcomes of the two possible rules are compared, and they are objectively compared in terms of the benefits and the harms to everyone that each rule is likely to incur.

Does this make sense to you?
No. Have you ever watched politics in action? This is essentially the process you are describing. The theory breaks down immediately and it gets ugly. You are trying to make an objective assessment of self-reported, subjective opinions. People don't even fully understand their own feelings, they change over time, and they are easily influenced by outside sources and skewed by all kinds of cognitive biases. You are trying to build a castle in the swamp. I don't mean to say that you should not try, but that you make it sound easy when it is all but impossible. Look at the high ideals in the Bill of Rights. A couple hundred years later, we've made very slow progress, and these are still ideals that are not well met in reality. We honor them in theory, but in practice, people step all over each other in a mad rush to get what they want.
"If determinism holds, then past events have conspired to cause me to hold this view--it is out of my control. Either I am right about free will, or it is not my fault that I am wrong."
User avatar
Sculptor1
Posts: 7086
Joined: May 16th, 2019, 5:35 am

Re: David Hume is Right: The Foundation of Ethics is Empathy

Post by Sculptor1 »

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 7:33 pm
Sculptor1 wrote: October 25th, 2020, 5:41 pm
You just ain't getting this are you?
What I'm getting is that you have some prejudices about the notion of objectivity, that you are not viewing objectivity objectively.
Define objectivity.

The examples I gave were derived by objective methods. What you do not seem to get is that objectivity is not as easy as you think, and that is is most often used as a diversion to pretend that there is not alternative way of thinking.
Freud would claim that his method was derived by careful empirical observation. Yet a few years down the line it became blindingly obvious that his prejudices from the social mores of his time; and from his personal experiences of childhood sexual oppression were key to understanding his theories.
Objectivity ignores the individual contribution. Your own comments about finding out what is objectively good for children whether they know it or not is shockingly blinkered.
I wonder if you are the sort of Dad that finds out one day that he has no idea who is children are?
Many parents find this out to their horror, some expect it, since what a young person needs cannot be know by the older generation. Social change is far too hot to predict by objective method the best way to bring up baby. All we can hope to achieve is not provide a warm, dry place to sleep and to provide nutritional food. But even what food we need is in a state of continual challenge and one would have thought that objectivity is the perfect method to determine that; but it simply is NOT. Despite 70 years of nutritional science, we have an eptidemic of obesity and diabetes. Theories suggest that objectively derived ideas that fats are bad for you is wrong.
Why has nutritional science failed. I suggest that it is because they stopped looking at people as people, but as eating machines. They ignored the internal pressures of hormones, advertising, and desire. Objective science might be able to say what people OUGHT to eat, but they have ignored the their subjects; what their bodies and minds and social conditioning have told them to eat; more, more, more. And more of the wrong tempting, delicious, and highly calorific and damaging foods.
In the same way teachers and psychologists might be very good at applying some so-called "objective" criteria, to determined what ought to be good for children, but until they look at each individual child themselves and stop generalising, until they look at each subject and what they say and need and desire there will always be a tension between what is objectively derived and what is effective for each subject.
User avatar
Marvin_Edwards
Posts: 1106
Joined: April 14th, 2020, 9:34 pm
Favorite Philosopher: William James
Contact:

Re: David Hume is Right: The Foundation of Ethics is Empathy

Post by Marvin_Edwards »

Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:59 am
Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 11:40 pm
I'm going to edit out the references to religion since neither of us is arguing that religion is "the foundation of ethics". This should save time.

Benevolence is caring for the welfare of others. It implies that you have some notion of what is good for them and/or what is bad for them.
No. I make no judgement of whether it is "good" for a man to marry another man. I simply leave the choice to him and his prospective partner. It may be the worst mistake of their lives. For some, it probably is (the same, of course, can be said about some heterosexual marriages).
The judgment is that it is good for a gay couple to have the opportunity to marry (objective benefit), in the same way that it is good for a heterosexual couple to have the opportunity to marry (empathy).
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:59 am
Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 11:40 pm
Your empathy leads you to feel that denying gays the same marital rights as those that you enjoy is a harm to them. Correct?
It may or may not harm them. If a man makes a bad choice when he is given the option, it may well have been better for him not to have been able to make that choice.
But if the gay couple doesn't have the same opportunity to marry, they suffer the loss of the objective legal benefits we've discussed. They also suffer the continued social disrespect for their relationship. But if their relationship is recognized by law, they gain that social respect over time. For example, the Pope just recently endorsed civil unions for gay couples.
Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 11:40 pm
Well, there are many objective benefits granted to married couples. In the absence of a living will, the spouse can make end-of-life decisions when their partner is incapacitated and unable to speak for themselves. Relatives are also given preference in hospital visitation. And if a person dies without a will, the spouse becomes the default heir. Most health insurance policies automatically cover the spouse. So, there are many legal, social, and economic benefits given to spouses that were previously denied to gay and lesbian couples.

That's what objective benefits mean. And these were argued as the reasons why gay couples were harmed by being unable to marry.
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:59 am There are those legal implications. But whether those are good or bad will be quite variable, don't you think? Suppose, for example, that you marry someone, trusting that they will honor your "end of life" wishes and you end up in a hospital, unable to express your wishes. Suppose your spouse does not honor your wishes. Did you benefit from this arrangement?
But no one is suggesting that we impose marriage upon anyone who does not wish to be married. The issue was whether they shall have the opportunity to marry.
Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 11:40 pm
Empathy is what leads us to seek to improve the welfare of others. The welfare of gay couples is measured in what benefits are missing and what harms they are suffering. Empathy motivates us to make the moral argument. But the moral argument is made in terms of benefits and harms.
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:59 am "Benefits" and "harms" may be simply subjective evaluations of situations. Indeed, with this specific example, you have given a great case for it being subjective. I have no desire to have any kind of sexual relationship with another man. To me, that would be a "harm" rather than a "benefit", though a gay man feels differently, and I respect the fact that he feels differently. I have no wish to stop gay men from engaging in consensual sex with each other.
And giving the gay couple the opportunity to marry does not impose upon you any requirement that you marry a man.
Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 8:24 pm Furthermore, it is a benefit to allow people freedom to do what they want so long as it does not harm others, such that you conclude that "there is no good reason to forbid gay marriage, and therefore it should be allowed."
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:59 am Whether it turns out to be a good thing or a bad thing is variable. Someone may regret a sexual encounter (regardless of whether it is heterosexual or homosexual). One may hope that people will think about their actions, will "look before they leap", though one knows that not everyone is so careful in their choices. So whether the freedom to choose something turns out to be good or bad is variable and uncertain.
I think that the freedom to choose is an objective benefit, whether the choice itself is objectively good or objectively bad. We do limit the freedom to marry to couples who are, at least in theory, old enough to take responsibility for their choices.

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 11:40 pm
My suggestion is that you are seeking a solution that provides the best good and least harm for everyone.
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:59 am The trouble with that expression is that it does not have any clear meaning. I am generally in favor of giving people choices in how they will live their lives, but stupid people will tend to make stupid choices. (Of course, I favor some restrictions, like having murder illegal and many things that tend to be laws pretty much everywhere.) It might turn out better for them if someone restricted their choices, though I do not generally favor that. Shouldn't you now say that I don't favor "the best good and least harm for everyone", since I favor letting people make some stupid choices?
Actually, I would say that you believe that the ability to make stupid choices is an objective benefit for everyone old enough to do so. What's that old saying, "I'd rather drink poison than have someone else always telling me what to drink". Freedom to choose for ourselves is an objective benefit. As you point out, there are limits placed upon that freedom by laws necessary to prevent murder and many other things that are objectively harmful to other people.

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 11:40 pm
Then we should give Hume his due for stressing the spiritual side of morality, that is, how one feels about things.
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:59 am I do not think Hume would like that being called "the spiritual side of morality." I know I don't. It is simply the basis of morality, the essential part without which there would be no morality. I do not see why you would call emotions "spiritual", nor am I entirely certain what you mean to convey with that expression in this context.
I'm using "spirit" in the sense of "team spirit", "high spirited", "lifting someone's spirits". For example, we can do what is morally right in a spirit of love and joy, or we can do what is right in a spirit of duty and resentment. To me, the "holy spirit" is feeling good about doing good and being good.

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 11:40 pm But, as Hume himself points about, those emotions may be present or absent in any given person. So, again, they are not reliable guides to moral judgment.
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:59 am Right, the bare emotions are not reliable. This is why one should think about things, think about why one feels as one does. It may be that one feels one way about something due to a false belief about it, and consequently one will likely act in a manner that one would disapprove of if one did not have that false belief.

This leads us to the idea that we should be very careful about what we believe. Which means, we should only believe things in proportion to the evidence we have in favor of them. Many people don't like doing that, because doubt often makes people uncomfortable, and so they are motivated to come to some conclusion, even though they lack proper evidence for a conclusion. This leads to all sorts of problems. The world is, indeed, a mess. It would be better for all concerned if everyone believed things in proportion to the evidence and did not believe anything for which they lacked proper evidence. But this is getting us a bit away from the main topic at hand, the foundations of ethics. This bit is more a practical consideration.
Right, and I would add that the best cure for a false belief is objective evidence of the contrary. For example, when schools were integrated, white children were given the evidence of the true nature of black people, as simply people like them who happened to be black. And that objective evidence eroded many false beliefs over time.
Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 11:40 pm They are only the motivations to exercise moral judgment in the first place.
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:59 am They are "only" essential for ethical judgements to occur at all.
I'm not sure I would go that far. Sometimes "moral" judgments are imposed upon others to satisfy malicious rather than benevolent feelings.
Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 11:40 pm But the judgment as to what is "pernicious" or "villainous" or "base" relies upon objective information as to what is good for us and what is bad for us.
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:59 am The judgement of something as being pernicious or villainous or base is a feeling. Of course, one has feelings about matters of fact, but without the feelings, there is no moral judgement. The wrongness of things is a feeling about them. That is, one does not see wrong in matters of fact; one feels the wrongness when considering the matters of fact.

Hume put it thusly:
David Hume wrote:II. When a man, at any time, deliberates concerning his own conduct (as, whether he had better, in a particular emergence, assist a brother or a benefactor), he must consider these separate relations, with all the circumstances and situations of the persons, in order to determine the superior duty and obligation; and in order to determine the proportion of lines in any triangle, it is necessary to examine the nature of that figure, and the relation which its several parts bear to each other. But notwithstanding this appearing similarity in the two cases, there is, at bottom, an extreme difference between them. A speculative reasoner concerning triangles or circles considers the several known and given relations of the parts of these figures, and thence infers [290] some unknown relation, which is dependent on the former. But in moral deliberations we must be acquainted beforehand with all the objects, and all their relations to each other; and from a comparison of the whole, fix our choice or approbation. No new fact to be ascertained; no new relation to be discovered. All the circumstances of the case are supposed to be laid before us, ere we can fix any sentence of blame or approbation. If any material circumstance be yet unknown or doubtful, we must first employ our inquiry or intellectual faculties to assure us of it; and must suspend for a time all moral decision or sentiment. While we are ignorant whether a man were aggressor or not, how can we determine whether the person who killed him be criminal or innocent? But after every circumstance, every relation is known, the understanding has no further room to operate, nor any object on which it could employ itself. The approbation or blame which then ensues, cannot be the work of the judgement, but of the heart; and is not a speculative proposition or affirmation, but an active feeling or sentiment. In the disquisitions of the understanding, from known circumstances and relations, we inter some new and unknown. In moral decisions, all the circumstances and relations must be previously known; and the mind, from the contemplation of the whole, feels some new impression of affection or disgust, esteem or contempt, approbation or blame.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/341#Hume_0222_629

When making moral judgements, one needs to know all of the relevant facts first, and then the moral judgement is made. That moral judgement is not a fact outside in the world; it is how one feels about those facts.
I think both may be the case. A moral judgment can be objective and also require a component of feeling. In David Eagleman's PBS series on "The Brain", there was a woman whose emotional areas were damaged. This made it difficult for her to go grocery shopping, because she could no longer feel when she had made a good choice.

I appreciate Hume's reference to objective evidence being necessary to correctly understand the circumstances before passing judgment. He sums up the case when he says, "While we are ignorant whether a man were aggressor or not, how can we determine whether the person who killed him be criminal or innocent?" Our feelings about killing the guy who was about to shoot someone would change radically if we learned that the person he was about to shoot was someone else who was just about to shoot someone.

To me, this again confirms how malleable our feelings are. They can change on a dime when presented with a new objective fact.

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 11:40 pm
Religions are experts in feelings. They gather people together to sing, and pray, and hear sermons that expound upon the beliefs of their sect. They help people to feel good and thus reinforce each other's beliefs.

But scientific objectivity is the correct answer to blind faith.
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:59 am I am not sure what your point is here. Religion often advertises itself as a way to make people feel better, but they often do the opposite. With traditional Christianity, not only is there the doctrine of eternal torment in hellfire for those who make an unacceptable mistake, which leads to quite a lot of fear and making people feel worse, there is also a lot of guilt that is foisted on many believers, guilt over things that are trivial, like whether someone feels lust toward someone's spouse, but does not act on it, and never seriously considers acting on it. There are many other things of a like nature, that make people feel worse rather than better. But religions do tend to provide a kind of social cohesion, though often this is at the expense of viewing outsiders as the "other", as less fully deserving of one's consideration or empathy. So they make a subset of people cohere, while splintering the whole of humanity.

The correct response to blind faith (belief in the absence of evidence) is to simply reject it. One should believe things in proportion to the evidence. So in the absence of all evidence, one should have no belief at all.
I suspect that "having no belief at all" may be physically impossible. The brain draws inferences to make sense of what it sees. There is probably never a case where we experience "the absence of all evidence". But before making a judgment, we should try to gather all the essential information relevant to that decision.

I'm happy to see Hume advocating for objective evidence rather than supposing that everything is merely subjective. Our feelings will be incorrect if the information we have does not reflect the objective facts of the circumstances.

For example, Breonna Taylor died because the police had false beliefs.
Syamsu
Posts: 2645
Joined: December 9th, 2011, 4:45 pm

Re: David Hume is Right: The Foundation of Ethics is Empathy

Post by Syamsu »

The objectification of what is good, will lead to emotionless, very hard judgment. There is no freedom for mercy or charity in judgement, no meanness either, as the judgement is forced by the evidence, as facts are forced by evidence.

But to conflate opinion with fact, can just as well go the other way. If you like the earth to be flat, then it is, because facts are opinions, and opinions are facts. It's a total mess.

Solely creationism separates opinion from fact, in two fundamental categories of reality, creator and creation. Order, clarity, and the full power of both the concepts of opinion and fact, each in their own right.
User avatar
Marvin_Edwards
Posts: 1106
Joined: April 14th, 2020, 9:34 pm
Favorite Philosopher: William James
Contact:

Re: David Hume is Right: The Foundation of Ethics is Empathy

Post by Marvin_Edwards »

chewybrian wrote: October 26th, 2020, 5:01 am
What's true at the extreme is true at the margin. If you are starving, you are unlikely to be focused on self-actualization. I think the hierarchy of needs makes sense, though it doesn't do much to prompt us to action. The dichotomy of cognition, however, is a useful yardstick for judging your own ideas and actions.

You can go through life using deficiency cognition, seeing that you need or want something, and then stacking up logic to see how you might get it. In that view of the world, other people become tools or obstacles. You may be kind to them only insofar as it might advance you toward your objective, but not for the sake of the kindness itself. You look right through and beyond everyone and everything, as if your whole life is effectively a roadblock to getting the thing you have placed above everything else.

Or, you can view the world through being cognition, believing that the experience of living is more important than material gains. In that view of the world, your interactions with others, and those other people, are the ends, not the means. You will be kind to others because you care about them, not what they can do for you, because you enjoy the kindness itself, not the possible reward. You won't look past them, but focus on enjoying the moment.

I see a lot of value in those ideas. I am not sure if the hierarchy perfectly describes the journey from low-level to high-level cognition, but the idea that we should set off on the journey is enough for me to value Maslow.
So, one can view the world in terms of one's own self-interest, even at the expense of others. Or, one can view the world as a place to be with other people and cooperate for our mutual benefit. This raises the question of how we discourage the "deficiency view" and encourage the "being view" in ourselves and others. That's always been the purpose of Religion, but it could and perhaps should be the purpose of Public Education.

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 7:40 am So, how do we morally compare two rules or courses of action? For example, is it better for everyone to save up enough money to replace their house if it burns down? Or is it better for everyone to have fire insurance?

The outcomes of the two possible rules are compared, and they are objectively compared in terms of the benefits and the harms to everyone that each rule is likely to incur.

Does this make sense to you?
chewybrian wrote: October 26th, 2020, 5:01 am No. Have you ever watched politics in action? This is essentially the process you are describing. The theory breaks down immediately and it gets ugly. You are trying to make an objective assessment of self-reported, subjective opinions. People don't even fully understand their own feelings, they change over time, and they are easily influenced by outside sources and skewed by all kinds of cognitive biases. You are trying to build a castle in the swamp. I don't mean to say that you should not try, but that you make it sound easy when it is all but impossible. Look at the high ideals in the Bill of Rights. A couple hundred years later, we've made very slow progress, and these are still ideals that are not well met in reality. We honor them in theory, but in practice, people step all over each other in a mad rush to get what they want.
Then we should elect representatives with the "cooperation for mutual benefit" world view rather than those who serve the world view of "special interests".
User avatar
Jack D Ripper
Posts: 610
Joined: September 30th, 2020, 10:30 pm
Location: Burpelson Air Force Base
Contact:

Re: David Hume is Right: The Foundation of Ethics is Empathy

Post by Jack D Ripper »

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 26th, 2020, 9:04 am
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:59 am

No. I make no judgement of whether it is "good" for a man to marry another man. I simply leave the choice to him and his prospective partner. It may be the worst mistake of their lives. For some, it probably is (the same, of course, can be said about some heterosexual marriages).
The judgment is that it is good for a gay couple to have the opportunity to marry (objective benefit), in the same way that it is good for a heterosexual couple to have the opportunity to marry (empathy).

You seem to have ignored the parenthetical remark ("the same, of course, can be said about some heterosexual marriages"). The comment applies generally, not simply to gay marriage. For many people, getting married (regardless of whether it is same-sex or opposite-sex) is a terrible mistake. So, having an opportunity to marry is sometimes a bad thing, because someone marries when they should not, when doing so makes them terribly unhappy. Of course, that is not what they are expecting to happen when they marry, but their expectation is not a guarantee of anything.

So (and this is the main point), the opportunity to marry is not necessarily a good thing, and may turn out to be a horrible thing.

Do you think it is good for you to have the opportunity to shoot yourself in the foot? For some, they would be happier if they had done that rather than getting married.


I will give a little digression, primarily for others (if anyone else is reading this, though I expect many will pass over our exchange as a waste of time), it is for others, not you, because it might distract you from the main point, and I do not want to distract you from the main point. You can ignore this part for responses, as it is irrelevant to the main point. The U.S. government has statistics on marriage and divorce, and it turns out certain things correlate with the divorce rate, some of which should not be surprising. One of them is the age of the people getting married. For reasons that are not altogether clear, in this government document that I am about to quote, they just used the age of the woman at the time of first marriage, not the age of the man. (And, just in case you might be confused by the expression, "first marriage," that does NOT imply that there will be a second marriage, nor does it imply that there will not be a second marriage.) Here is a bit from the text:
Cohabitation, Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage in the United States wrote:Age at marriage is associated with the risk of marital disruption. Table 21 shows that after 10 years of marriage, 48 percent of first marriages of brides under age 18 have disrupted, compared with only 24 percent of those to brides at least age 25 at marriage (table 21). Women in the youngest age category are twice as likely to experience marital disruption within 10 years as women in the oldest age category.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_23/sr23_022.pdf

If one looks at the Table 21 referred to in that text, one finds that 59% of those who marry before 18 get have a "disrupted" marriage within 15 years of marriage. We can see from this that we probably should prohibit such marriages (which, by the way, I do think we ought to prohibit children from marrying), though that is not the case in the U.S.; people can, if one has parents stupid enough to approve of it (or gets a judge to approve of it), marry before one is 18, depending on the state of residence, with the exact minimum age varying by state.

It is worth noting that marriage before 18 must happen with great frequency, or they would not have enough statistical data to tell us about this, as there are some things in the report that they mention that they lack sufficient data to come to any conclusions about the particular thing that is of interest to those who wrote the report.

I might also note the fact that it is nothing short of idiotic to say that someone is old enough to decide to supposedly commit to someone for life in marriage, but not old enough to decide whether one will have a glass of wine with dinner; these two should be reversed in order of when one may legally decide to do them. But enough of this digression.

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 26th, 2020, 9:04 am
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:59 am

It may or may not harm them. If a man makes a bad choice when he is given the option, it may well have been better for him not to have been able to make that choice.
But if the gay couple doesn't have the same opportunity to marry, they suffer the loss of the objective legal benefits we've discussed. They also suffer the continued social disrespect for their relationship. But if their relationship is recognized by law, they gain that social respect over time. For example, the Pope just recently endorsed civil unions for gay couples.

You mean, the gay man should have the same opportunity to make a mistake as the straight man.

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 26th, 2020, 9:04 am
Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 11:40 pm
Well, there are many objective benefits granted to married couples. In the absence of a living will, the spouse can make end-of-life decisions when their partner is incapacitated and unable to speak for themselves. Relatives are also given preference in hospital visitation. And if a person dies without a will, the spouse becomes the default heir. Most health insurance policies automatically cover the spouse. So, there are many legal, social, and economic benefits given to spouses that were previously denied to gay and lesbian couples.

That's what objective benefits mean. And these were argued as the reasons why gay couples were harmed by being unable to marry.
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:59 am There are those legal implications. But whether those are good or bad will be quite variable, don't you think? Suppose, for example, that you marry someone, trusting that they will honor your "end of life" wishes and you end up in a hospital, unable to express your wishes. Suppose your spouse does not honor your wishes. Did you benefit from this arrangement?
But no one is suggesting that we impose marriage upon anyone who does not wish to be married. The issue was whether they shall have the opportunity to marry.

You respond as if you did not read what I wrote at all. The legal aspects of a marriage may harm one. The idea that it is always good is ridiculous.

Do you believe that all marriages are happy? That no one ever makes a mistake when they decide to get married? Well, if it is always a good, like you are pretending it is, then it would never be a mistake to get married. But that is absurd.

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 26th, 2020, 9:04 am
Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 11:40 pm
Empathy is what leads us to seek to improve the welfare of others. The welfare of gay couples is measured in what benefits are missing and what harms they are suffering. Empathy motivates us to make the moral argument. But the moral argument is made in terms of benefits and harms.
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:59 am "Benefits" and "harms" may be simply subjective evaluations of situations. Indeed, with this specific example, you have given a great case for it being subjective. I have no desire to have any kind of sexual relationship with another man. To me, that would be a "harm" rather than a "benefit", though a gay man feels differently, and I respect the fact that he feels differently. I have no wish to stop gay men from engaging in consensual sex with each other.
And giving the gay couple the opportunity to marry does not impose upon you any requirement that you marry a man.

Again, you are responding as if you did not read what I wrote at all. I never suggested that anyone was forced to marry anyone. The point is, what constitutes a "harm" and what constitutes a "benefit" will be judged differently be different people. Your claim that it is all objective is just silly.

It is no benefit to me to be able to marry a man, because I have no desire to do so. You see that, right? But, for a gay man who wants to marry a man, it is a benefit to him. You see that, right? This means that what is a benefit and what isn't a benefit is dependent upon the individual, and, in this case, upon individual preference. This is the essence of subjectivity. The idea that whether something is a benefit or not is objective is just silly. This is why people reject your claims, because they are obviously silly.

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 26th, 2020, 9:04 am
Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 8:24 pm Furthermore, it is a benefit to allow people freedom to do what they want so long as it does not harm others, such that you conclude that "there is no good reason to forbid gay marriage, and therefore it should be allowed."
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:59 am Whether it turns out to be a good thing or a bad thing is variable. Someone may regret a sexual encounter (regardless of whether it is heterosexual or homosexual). One may hope that people will think about their actions, will "look before they leap", though one knows that not everyone is so careful in their choices. So whether the freedom to choose something turns out to be good or bad is variable and uncertain.
I think that the freedom to choose is an objective benefit, whether the choice itself is objectively good or objectively bad. We do limit the freedom to marry to couples who are, at least in theory, old enough to take responsibility for their choices.

Unfortunately, we don't. See above (I see now that my digression was prescient).

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 26th, 2020, 9:04 am
Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 11:40 pm
My suggestion is that you are seeking a solution that provides the best good and least harm for everyone.
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:59 am The trouble with that expression is that it does not have any clear meaning. I am generally in favor of giving people choices in how they will live their lives, but stupid people will tend to make stupid choices. (Of course, I favor some restrictions, like having murder illegal and many things that tend to be laws pretty much everywhere.) It might turn out better for them if someone restricted their choices, though I do not generally favor that. Shouldn't you now say that I don't favor "the best good and least harm for everyone", since I favor letting people make some stupid choices?
Actually, I would say that you believe that the ability to make stupid choices is an objective benefit for everyone old enough to do so.

No. It is that I want to be able to make choices in certain circumstances, and so I want society to allow such things. Many people, though, are stupid and they will do stupid things. But I don't want their stupidity to stop me from doing what I want. And, of course, if I make a stupid mistake because of this, that is on me, both for making the choice, and for advocating for having the choice.

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 26th, 2020, 9:04 am
What's that old saying, "I'd rather drink poison than have someone else always telling me what to drink". Freedom to choose for ourselves is an objective benefit.

No, it is a subjective benefit. I want it for myself. That is purely subjective, and it does not mean that I am right to want it for myself. If I have misjudged the matter, then I am one of the stupid people who would be better off if I were not given the opportunity to choose to screw up my life. (However, in this example of marriage, judging from how long my marriage has lasted so far, and judging from how I feel about my wife, and how she appears to feel about me, either I made a wise decision or, through dumb luck, I got lucky.)

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 26th, 2020, 9:04 am As you point out, there are limits placed upon that freedom by laws necessary to prevent murder and many other things that are objectively harmful to other people.

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 11:40 pm
Then we should give Hume his due for stressing the spiritual side of morality, that is, how one feels about things.
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:59 am I do not think Hume would like that being called "the spiritual side of morality." I know I don't. It is simply the basis of morality, the essential part without which there would be no morality. I do not see why you would call emotions "spiritual", nor am I entirely certain what you mean to convey with that expression in this context.
I'm using "spirit" in the sense of "team spirit", "high spirited", "lifting someone's spirits". For example, we can do what is morally right in a spirit of love and joy, or we can do what is right in a spirit of duty and resentment. To me, the "holy spirit" is feeling good about doing good and being good.

Your use of the phrase "holy spirit" is likely to cause miscommunication with others. If you desire to communicate with others, I suggest conforming to standard usage instead of what you are doing.

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 26th, 2020, 9:04 am
Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 11:40 pm But, as Hume himself points about, those emotions may be present or absent in any given person. So, again, they are not reliable guides to moral judgment.
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:59 am Right, the bare emotions are not reliable. This is why one should think about things, think about why one feels as one does. It may be that one feels one way about something due to a false belief about it, and consequently one will likely act in a manner that one would disapprove of if one did not have that false belief.

This leads us to the idea that we should be very careful about what we believe. Which means, we should only believe things in proportion to the evidence we have in favor of them. Many people don't like doing that, because doubt often makes people uncomfortable, and so they are motivated to come to some conclusion, even though they lack proper evidence for a conclusion. This leads to all sorts of problems. The world is, indeed, a mess. It would be better for all concerned if everyone believed things in proportion to the evidence and did not believe anything for which they lacked proper evidence. But this is getting us a bit away from the main topic at hand, the foundations of ethics. This bit is more a practical consideration.
Right, and I would add that the best cure for a false belief is objective evidence of the contrary. For example, when schools were integrated, white children were given the evidence of the true nature of black people, as simply people like them who happened to be black. And that objective evidence eroded many false beliefs over time.
Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 11:40 pm They are only the motivations to exercise moral judgment in the first place.
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:59 am They are "only" essential for ethical judgements to occur at all.
I'm not sure I would go that far. Sometimes "moral" judgments are imposed upon others to satisfy malicious rather than benevolent feelings.

Without feelings, you would not make moral judgements. You would not care about someone cheating others if you had no feelings, you would not care about someone murdering others if you had no feelings, etc.

As for people pretending to make moral judgements for other purposes, that is something that is obviously possible, though I do not wish to comment further on that at this time.

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 26th, 2020, 9:04 am
Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 11:40 pm But the judgment as to what is "pernicious" or "villainous" or "base" relies upon objective information as to what is good for us and what is bad for us.
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:59 am The judgement of something as being pernicious or villainous or base is a feeling. Of course, one has feelings about matters of fact, but without the feelings, there is no moral judgement. The wrongness of things is a feeling about them. That is, one does not see wrong in matters of fact; one feels the wrongness when considering the matters of fact.

Hume put it thusly:



https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/341#Hume_0222_629

When making moral judgements, one needs to know all of the relevant facts first, and then the moral judgement is made. That moral judgement is not a fact outside in the world; it is how one feels about those facts.
I think both may be the case. A moral judgment can be objective and also require a component of feeling. In David Eagleman's PBS series on "The Brain", there was a woman whose emotional areas were damaged. This made it difficult for her to go grocery shopping, because she could no longer feel when she had made a good choice.

I appreciate Hume's reference to objective evidence being necessary to correctly understand the circumstances before passing judgment. He sums up the case when he says, "While we are ignorant whether a man were aggressor or not, how can we determine whether the person who killed him be criminal or innocent?" Our feelings about killing the guy who was about to shoot someone would change radically if we learned that the person he was about to shoot was someone else who was just about to shoot someone.

To me, this again confirms how malleable our feelings are. They can change on a dime when presented with a new objective fact.

What it shows is that all of the relevant facts must be known in advance before one can properly make a moral judgement. And that moral judgement, then, cannot be a fact about the world, because those facts are all known prior to the judgement, or the judgement is not trustworthy. The only thing added at that point is how one feels about those facts. That is how we can know that it is feelings that are moral judgements and not some fact out in the world external to us.

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 26th, 2020, 9:04 am
Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 11:40 pm
Religions are experts in feelings. They gather people together to sing, and pray, and hear sermons that expound upon the beliefs of their sect. They help people to feel good and thus reinforce each other's beliefs.

But scientific objectivity is the correct answer to blind faith.
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:59 am I am not sure what your point is here. Religion often advertises itself as a way to make people feel better, but they often do the opposite. With traditional Christianity, not only is there the doctrine of eternal torment in hellfire for those who make an unacceptable mistake, which leads to quite a lot of fear and making people feel worse, there is also a lot of guilt that is foisted on many believers, guilt over things that are trivial, like whether someone feels lust toward someone's spouse, but does not act on it, and never seriously considers acting on it. There are many other things of a like nature, that make people feel worse rather than better. But religions do tend to provide a kind of social cohesion, though often this is at the expense of viewing outsiders as the "other", as less fully deserving of one's consideration or empathy. So they make a subset of people cohere, while splintering the whole of humanity.

The correct response to blind faith (belief in the absence of evidence) is to simply reject it. One should believe things in proportion to the evidence. So in the absence of all evidence, one should have no belief at all.
I suspect that "having no belief at all" may be physically impossible.

Nonsense. I have no belief at all about what you had for breakfast this morning, nor whether you had breakfast or not. I also don't much care what you did or did not do for breakfast, but even if I did, I have no evidence regarding your breakfast, and therefore I don't believe anything about it.

That is the approach one should always take when one has no evidence, regardless of whether one wishes one had evidence or not.

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 26th, 2020, 9:04 am The brain draws inferences to make sense of what it sees. There is probably never a case where we experience "the absence of all evidence". But before making a judgment, we should try to gather all the essential information relevant to that decision.

I'm happy to see Hume advocating for objective evidence rather than supposing that everything is merely subjective. Our feelings will be incorrect if the information we have does not reflect the objective facts of the circumstances.

For example, Breonna Taylor died because the police had false beliefs.

Well, one can reason about morality, and if one does that accurately, one will notice that the essential feature of it is that it is the result of feeling. It is how one feels about the facts of the world. But not just any feelings; it pertains to feelings of empathy or humanity or benevolence or whatever one wants to call such feelings, for reasons quoted in the opening post.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence." - David Hume
User avatar
Marvin_Edwards
Posts: 1106
Joined: April 14th, 2020, 9:34 pm
Favorite Philosopher: William James
Contact:

Re: David Hume is Right: The Foundation of Ethics is Empathy

Post by Marvin_Edwards »

Sculptor1 wrote: October 26th, 2020, 6:50 am
Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 25th, 2020, 7:33 pm
What I'm getting is that you have some prejudices about the notion of objectivity, that you are not viewing objectivity objectively.
Define objectivity.
Sure. The OED defines objectivity as "The quality or character of being objective; (in later use) esp. the ability to consider or represent facts, information, etc., without being influenced by personal feelings or opinions; impartiality; detachment."

Sculptor1 wrote: October 26th, 2020, 6:50 am The examples I gave were derived by objective methods. What you do not seem to get is that objectivity is not as easy as you think, and that is is most often used as a diversion to pretend that there is not alternative way of thinking.
Freud would claim that his method was derived by careful empirical observation. Yet a few years down the line it became blindingly obvious that his prejudices from the social mores of his time; and from his personal experiences of childhood sexual oppression were key to understanding his theories.
Objectivity ignores the individual contribution. Your own comments about finding out what is objectively good for children whether they know it or not is shockingly blinkered.
I wonder if you are the sort of Dad that finds out one day that he has no idea who is children are?
Many parents find this out to their horror, some expect it, since what a young person needs cannot be know by the older generation. Social change is far too hot to predict by objective method the best way to bring up baby. All we can hope to achieve is not provide a warm, dry place to sleep and to provide nutritional food. But even what food we need is in a state of continual challenge and one would have thought that objectivity is the perfect method to determine that; but it simply is NOT. Despite 70 years of nutritional science, we have an eptidemic of obesity and diabetes. Theories suggest that objectively derived ideas that fats are bad for you is wrong.
Why has nutritional science failed. I suggest that it is because they stopped looking at people as people, but as eating machines. They ignored the internal pressures of hormones, advertising, and desire. Objective science might be able to say what people OUGHT to eat, but they have ignored the their subjects; what their bodies and minds and social conditioning have told them to eat; more, more, more. And more of the wrong tempting, delicious, and highly calorific and damaging foods.
In the same way teachers and psychologists might be very good at applying some so-called "objective" criteria, to determined what ought to be good for children, but until they look at each individual child themselves and stop generalising, until they look at each subject and what they say and need and desire there will always be a tension between what is objectively derived and what is effective for each subject.
As you point out, dietary guidance is very suspect these days due to contrary views and different schools of thought. But the science of nutrition can still provide many objective facts about the effects of certain foods on most bodies. The science of nutrition, however, is not the science of psychology. So, it cannot guide your efforts in controlling what you eat. On the other hand, psychology is the science of psychology, and can in fact give you useful objective information about successful strategies to control what you eat.

The objective facts of psychology do not contradict the objective facts about nutrition. They just cover different subjects of study.

Your general complaint seems to be that many people do not have sufficient objective facts to make practical decisions in many different areas. Or, perhaps they simply do not have the facts that apply to the specific problem they are trying to solve.

But this is not a problem caused by objectivity. It is a problem in putting the right facts with the right problems.
Syamsu
Posts: 2645
Joined: December 9th, 2011, 4:45 pm

Re: David Hume is Right: The Foundation of Ethics is Empathy

Post by Syamsu »

Definitions

to choose = to make one of alternative futures the present

creator = what makes a creation come to be, by choosing it
creation= what has been chosen to exist

objectivity = to obtain a fact, by evidence of a creation, forcing to produce a 1 to 1 corresponding model of it, in the mind.
subjectivity = to form an opinion by choice, which opinion expresses what it is that makes a choice

spiritual = the substance of what makes a choice
material = the substance of what is chosen
User avatar
Marvin_Edwards
Posts: 1106
Joined: April 14th, 2020, 9:34 pm
Favorite Philosopher: William James
Contact:

Re: David Hume is Right: The Foundation of Ethics is Empathy

Post by Marvin_Edwards »

Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:45 pm
Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 26th, 2020, 9:04 am
The judgment is that it is good for a gay couple to have the opportunity to marry (objective benefit), in the same way that it is good for a heterosexual couple to have the opportunity to marry (empathy).
You seem to have ignored the parenthetical remark ("the same, of course, can be said about some heterosexual marriages"). The comment applies generally, not simply to gay marriage. For many people, getting married (regardless of whether it is same-sex or opposite-sex) is a terrible mistake. So, having an opportunity to marry is sometimes a bad thing, because someone marries when they should not, when doing so makes them terribly unhappy. Of course, that is not what they are expecting to happen when they marry, but their expectation is not a guarantee of anything.

So (and this is the main point), the opportunity to marry is not necessarily a good thing, and may turn out to be a horrible thing.

Do you think it is good for you to have the opportunity to shoot yourself in the foot? For some, they would be happier if they had done that rather than getting married.
Again, the problem is not in having the opportunity to marry, but in our choices as to what to do with that opportunity. Having the opportunity is not in itself harmful in any way.
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:45 pm I will give a little digression, primarily for others (if anyone else is reading this, though I expect many will pass over our exchange as a waste of time), it is for others, not you, because it might distract you from the main point, and I do not want to distract you from the main point. You can ignore this part for responses, as it is irrelevant to the main point. The U.S. government has statistics on marriage and divorce, and it turns out certain things correlate with the divorce rate, some of which should not be surprising. One of them is the age of the people getting married. For reasons that are not altogether clear, in this government document that I am about to quote, they just used the age of the woman at the time of first marriage, not the age of the man. (And, just in case you might be confused by the expression, "first marriage," that does NOT imply that there will be a second marriage, nor does it imply that there will not be a second marriage.) Here is a bit from the text:
Cohabitation, Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage in the United States wrote:Age at marriage is associated with the risk of marital disruption. Table 21 shows that after 10 years of marriage, 48 percent of first marriages of brides under age 18 have disrupted, compared with only 24 percent of those to brides at least age 25 at marriage (table 21). Women in the youngest age category are twice as likely to experience marital disruption within 10 years as women in the oldest age category.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_23/sr23_022.pdf

If one looks at the Table 21 referred to in that text, one finds that 59% of those who marry before 18 get have a "disrupted" marriage within 15 years of marriage. We can see from this that we probably should prohibit such marriages (which, by the way, I do think we ought to prohibit children from marrying), though that is not the case in the U.S.; people can, if one has parents stupid enough to approve of it (or gets a judge to approve of it), marry before one is 18, depending on the state of residence, with the exact minimum age varying by state.

It is worth noting that marriage before 18 must happen with great frequency, or they would not have enough statistical data to tell us about this, as there are some things in the report that they mention that they lack sufficient data to come to any conclusions about the particular thing that is of interest to those who wrote the report.

I might also note the fact that it is nothing short of idiotic to say that someone is old enough to decide to supposedly commit to someone for life in marriage, but not old enough to decide whether one will have a glass of wine with dinner; these two should be reversed in order of when one may legally decide to do them. But enough of this digression.
Interesting statistics. And they might be used to argue that marriage be postponed until 21. I've heard that the brain of an adolescent has not completed its development until some time after high school.

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 26th, 2020, 9:04 am But if the gay couple doesn't have the same opportunity to marry, they suffer the loss of the objective legal benefits we've discussed. They also suffer the continued social disrespect for their relationship. But if their relationship is recognized by law, they gain that social respect over time. For example, the Pope just recently endorsed civil unions for gay couples.
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:45 pm You mean, the gay man should have the same opportunity to make a mistake as the straight man.
Perhaps you should be having this discussion with your wife. 🙂
Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 26th, 2020, 9:04 am But no one is suggesting that we impose marriage upon anyone who does not wish to be married. The issue was whether they shall have the opportunity to marry.
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:45 pm You respond as if you did not read what I wrote at all. The legal aspects of a marriage may harm one. The idea that it is always good is ridiculous.
You seem to have the same problem. I've never said that marriage is always good.
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:45 pm Do you believe that all marriages are happy? That no one ever makes a mistake when they decide to get married? Well, if it is always a good, like you are pretending it is, then it would never be a mistake to get married. But that is absurd.
It is indeed absurd, that's probably why I never said it.
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:45 pm ... The point is, what constitutes a "harm" and what constitutes a "benefit" will be judged differently be different people. Your claim that it is all objective is just silly. ...
And if nothing is ever objective, then everything is silly.
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:45 pm It is no benefit to me to be able to marry a man, because I have no desire to do so. You see that, right?
Yes. I agree with the objective fact that you just stated. That objective fact is the basis of your conclusion that being able to marry a man is of no benefit to you.
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:45 pm But, for a gay man who wants to marry a man, it is a benefit to him. You see that, right?
Indeed. That too would be an objective fact used to identify a benefit.
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:45 pm This means that what is a benefit and what isn't a benefit is dependent upon the individual, and, in this case, upon individual preference.
Hey, that's three objective facts in a row that you've used to support your moral arguments. Good work!
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:45 pm This is the essence of subjectivity.
Nope. It is the essence of objectivity. It is an objective fact that preferences are subjective, and not universal. Therefore, it is an objective fact that allowing the freedom to follow ones preferences is an objectively good thing, except in those cases where following ones preferences results in harming someone else, in which case it becomes objectively a bad thing.
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:45 pm The idea that whether something is a benefit or not is objective is just silly. ...


Being able to follow ones subjective preference, so long as they do not harm anyone else, is an objectively good thing.
...
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 26th, 2020, 12:45 pm Well, one can reason about morality, and if one does that accurately, one will notice that the essential feature of it is that it is the result of feeling. It is how one feels about the facts of the world. But not just any feelings; it pertains to feelings of empathy or humanity or benevolence or whatever one wants to call such feelings, for reasons quoted in the opening post.
Feelings are attached to beliefs. When objective facts change beliefs, feelings change. Feelings are malleable. Objective facts are more secure. Therefore, it is better to first determine what is good and what is bad by reasoning with objective information, and second, to attach the appropriate feelings to those beliefs.
User avatar
Sculptor1
Posts: 7086
Joined: May 16th, 2019, 5:35 am

Re: David Hume is Right: The Foundation of Ethics is Empathy

Post by Sculptor1 »

Marvin_Edwards wrote: October 26th, 2020, 1:10 pm
Sculptor1 wrote: October 26th, 2020, 6:50 am
Define objectivity.
Sure. The OED defines objectivity as "The quality or character of being objective; (in later use) esp. the ability to consider or represent facts, information, etc., without being influenced by personal feelings or opinions; impartiality; detachment."

Sculptor1 wrote: October 26th, 2020, 6:50 am The examples I gave were derived by objective methods. What you do not seem to get is that objectivity is not as easy as you think, and that is is most often used as a diversion to pretend that there is not alternative way of thinking.
Freud would claim that his method was derived by careful empirical observation. Yet a few years down the line it became blindingly obvious that his prejudices from the social mores of his time; and from his personal experiences of childhood sexual oppression were key to understanding his theories.
Objectivity ignores the individual contribution. Your own comments about finding out what is objectively good for children whether they know it or not is shockingly blinkered.
I wonder if you are the sort of Dad that finds out one day that he has no idea who is children are?
Many parents find this out to their horror, some expect it, since what a young person needs cannot be know by the older generation. Social change is far too hot to predict by objective method the best way to bring up baby. All we can hope to achieve is not provide a warm, dry place to sleep and to provide nutritional food. But even what food we need is in a state of continual challenge and one would have thought that objectivity is the perfect method to determine that; but it simply is NOT. Despite 70 years of nutritional science, we have an eptidemic of obesity and diabetes. Theories suggest that objectively derived ideas that fats are bad for you is wrong.
Why has nutritional science failed. I suggest that it is because they stopped looking at people as people, but as eating machines. They ignored the internal pressures of hormones, advertising, and desire. Objective science might be able to say what people OUGHT to eat, but they have ignored the their subjects; what their bodies and minds and social conditioning have told them to eat; more, more, more. And more of the wrong tempting, delicious, and highly calorific and damaging foods.
In the same way teachers and psychologists might be very good at applying some so-called "objective" criteria, to determined what ought to be good for children, but until they look at each individual child themselves and stop generalising, until they look at each subject and what they say and need and desire there will always be a tension between what is objectively derived and what is effective for each subject.
As you point out, dietary guidance is very suspect these days due to contrary views and different schools of thought. But the science of nutrition can still provide many objective facts about the effects of certain foods on most bodies. The science of nutrition, however, is not the science of psychology. So, it cannot guide your efforts in controlling what you eat. On the other hand, psychology is the science of psychology, and can in fact give you useful objective information about successful strategies to control what you eat.

The objective facts of psychology do not contradict the objective facts about nutrition. They just cover different subjects of study.

Your general complaint seems to be that many people do not have sufficient objective facts to make practical decisions in many different areas. Or, perhaps they simply do not have the facts that apply to the specific problem they are trying to solve.

But this is not a problem caused by objectivity. It is a problem in putting the right facts with the right problems.
No.
THe problem is the impossibility of detachment.
Post Reply

Return to “Ethics and Morality”

2023/2024 Philosophy Books of the Month

Entanglement - Quantum and Otherwise

Entanglement - Quantum and Otherwise
by John K Danenbarger
January 2023

Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul

Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul
by Mitzi Perdue
February 2023

Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness

Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness
by Chet Shupe
March 2023

The Unfakeable Code®

The Unfakeable Code®
by Tony Jeton Selimi
April 2023

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
by Alan Watts
May 2023

Killing Abel

Killing Abel
by Michael Tieman
June 2023

Reconfigurement: Reconfiguring Your Life at Any Stage and Planning Ahead

Reconfigurement: Reconfiguring Your Life at Any Stage and Planning Ahead
by E. Alan Fleischauer
July 2023

First Survivor: The Impossible Childhood Cancer Breakthrough

First Survivor: The Impossible Childhood Cancer Breakthrough
by Mark Unger
August 2023

Predictably Irrational

Predictably Irrational
by Dan Ariely
September 2023

Artwords

Artwords
by Beatriz M. Robles
November 2023

Fireproof Happiness: Extinguishing Anxiety & Igniting Hope

Fireproof Happiness: Extinguishing Anxiety & Igniting Hope
by Dr. Randy Ross
December 2023

Beyond the Golden Door: Seeing the American Dream Through an Immigrant's Eyes

Beyond the Golden Door: Seeing the American Dream Through an Immigrant's Eyes
by Ali Master
February 2024

2022 Philosophy Books of the Month

Emotional Intelligence At Work

Emotional Intelligence At Work
by Richard M Contino & Penelope J Holt
January 2022

Free Will, Do You Have It?

Free Will, Do You Have It?
by Albertus Kral
February 2022

My Enemy in Vietnam

My Enemy in Vietnam
by Billy Springer
March 2022

2X2 on the Ark

2X2 on the Ark
by Mary J Giuffra, PhD
April 2022

The Maestro Monologue

The Maestro Monologue
by Rob White
May 2022

What Makes America Great

What Makes America Great
by Bob Dowell
June 2022

The Truth Is Beyond Belief!

The Truth Is Beyond Belief!
by Jerry Durr
July 2022

Living in Color

Living in Color
by Mike Murphy
August 2022 (tentative)

The Not So Great American Novel

The Not So Great American Novel
by James E Doucette
September 2022

Mary Jane Whiteley Coggeshall, Hicksite Quaker, Iowa/National Suffragette And Her Speeches

Mary Jane Whiteley Coggeshall, Hicksite Quaker, Iowa/National Suffragette And Her Speeches
by John N. (Jake) Ferris
October 2022

In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All

In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All
by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
November 2022

The Smartest Person in the Room: The Root Cause and New Solution for Cybersecurity

The Smartest Person in the Room
by Christian Espinosa
December 2022

2021 Philosophy Books of the Month

The Biblical Clock: The Untold Secrets Linking the Universe and Humanity with God's Plan

The Biblical Clock
by Daniel Friedmann
March 2021

Wilderness Cry: A Scientific and Philosophical Approach to Understanding God and the Universe

Wilderness Cry
by Dr. Hilary L Hunt M.D.
April 2021

Fear Not, Dream Big, & Execute: Tools To Spark Your Dream And Ignite Your Follow-Through

Fear Not, Dream Big, & Execute
by Jeff Meyer
May 2021

Surviving the Business of Healthcare: Knowledge is Power

Surviving the Business of Healthcare
by Barbara Galutia Regis M.S. PA-C
June 2021

Winning the War on Cancer: The Epic Journey Towards a Natural Cure

Winning the War on Cancer
by Sylvie Beljanski
July 2021

Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream

Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream
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