A proponent of panpsychism argues moral truth is inherent in consciousness

[Laird]

the expression of kindness, compassion and love is itself the moral goodness being sought to be developed by the souls of the parents.

To what end?

Well based on the original post, or at least teh quotes therein, it seems like the same old same old to me. Phillip is claiming that a persons subjective preference is actually them claiming that people believe in an objective moral truth. But there's no actual demonstration of that. Someone believing that people should be more rational and less irrational does not demonstrate any sort of moral objectivity, just that someone at most is believing that their subjective preference should be considered objective. So again it just reduces the same way it always does.

If he or anyone genuinely believes there's moral objectivity, and that this morality is specific and constrained, then all they need to do is define specifically what it is and show that it has no possible exceptions to fulfil the objectivity requirement. That won't happen, because moral objectivity doesn't exist. I can think of counters to some of what Goff states in the quote where maybe it wouldn't be in someones best interest to be rational all the time for example. Certainly I can think of examples where I've come to that conclusion.

Typically when people try to define moral objectivity they define it so broadly and vaguely as to not trip any of the myriad logical contradictions and fallacies inherent in the concept itself that they effectively define it out of existence. I've yet to see one example where this doesn't happen. And even if someone did somehow give a proper definition, I would only go along with it if I personally agreed with it, which still destroyed the idea.

Its doubtful to me that physics itself is truly objective either and might only be teh way it is in this particular timespace area, and there is some potential recent evidence for that from NASA that certain things affecting the fine constant may be different very far away from us in the direction of "universal north". A finding that if true would be a surprising  b yet expected support for my memories and the interdimensional spectrum type model with islands of stability existing in an ocean of chaos Math seems to be the only thing that really appear to be truly objective but I wonder if there might be a way to express internally coherent but completely different form of mathematics that would appear incoherent at first glance.

So even if morality somehow demonstrated itself to be at least as stable as physics, which it hasn't even come close to yet, it still would very likely not be able to claim itself as objective across all existence, as believers tend to think it does.

Typically when people try to define moral objectivity they define it so broadly and vaguely as to not trip any of the myriad logical contradictions and fallacies inherent in the concept itself that they effectively define it out of existence. I've yet to see one example where this doesn't happen. And even if someone did somehow give a proper definition, I would only go along with it if I personally agreed with it, which still destroyed the idea.

I know it came off like a joke but I did mention the D&D Alignment Wheel for this reason, that there could be a plurality of moral forces.

I don't think personal agreement destroys the idea, as the existence of morality isn't by necessity binding on actions. And if you did agree with it, it might be that you are tuned in to the actual moral compass of reality. After all once a person speaks of "rights" and the "right thing to do" they're moving into the realm of objective morality.

This isn't to say there aren't a lot of questions involved with the idea of objective morality, but I think most people ultimately do believe in it in some way. And since logical reason rests on [similar] intuitive ground, which means the ground of mathematics is also "mere" feeling, I can't see a good reason to outright dismiss [the idea of] morality as something "out there".

I know it came off like a joke but I did mention the D&D Alignment Wheel for this reason, that there could be a plurality of moral forces.

I don't think personal agreement destroys the idea, as the existence of morality isn't by necessity binding on actions. And if you did agree with it, it might be that you are tuned in to the actual moral compass of reality. After all once a person speaks of "rights" and the "right thing to do" they're moving into the realm of objective morality.

This isn't to say there aren't a lot of questions involved with the idea of objective morality, but I think most people ultimately do believe in it in some way. And since logical reason rests on [similar] intuitive ground, which means the ground of mathematics is also "mere" feeling, I can't see a good reason to outright dismiss [the idea of] morality as something "out there".

Because its funny and relevant, and then also this largely for the piece on personal characteristics starting at 12:40:


But yeah, disagreement I think nullifies objective morality because doing so doesn't have any consequences in the way not believing in gravity does. I can't even remember the last time my justification for anything was "because its the right thing to do". All I ever do is focus on what it is I want to achieve, and even if someone else does say something like that, I know that they're also just expressing what they personally want to achieve, even if they genuinely believe they're not, the actual pure logic of it doesn't lie.

Again, if they really think that it really is THE right thing to do... prove it.

Because its funny and relevant, and then also this largely for the piece on personal characteristics starting at 12:40:


But yeah, disagreement I think nullifies objective morality because doing so doesn't have any consequences in the way not believing in gravity does. I can't even remember the last time my justification for anything was "because its the right thing to do". All I ever do is focus on what it is I want to achieve, and even if someone else does say something like that, I know that they're also just expressing what they personally want to achieve, even if they genuinely believe they're not, the actual pure logic of it doesn't lie.

Again, if they really think that it really is THE right thing to do... prove it.

Heh I liked the videos, and the alignment one definitely gets to the issue with morality as rules written into the cosmos. Admittedly [in my youth] I personally found the alignment arguments to be an interesting introduction to philosophy, prolly how I passed those [old] ethics requirement in college.

I agree that morality as a set of rules, as if there was a 100% right and wrong way to act in every situation, falls apart. But the best uses of alignment IMO was as an impetus, a kind of teleological directive.

Regarding morality vs physics, I don't think anyone believes morality binds actions in that way. Rather moral feelings would be akin to mathematical feeling, though there is of course the issue that mathematical truth largely converges. I do think some moral feeling largely converges, as per recognition of something like the Golden Rule, but clearly this isn't as convergent as mathematical proofs.

But proofs are ultimately grounded in feeling, with arguments seeking to verify or reject the feeling someone has of whether something has been correctly proved. And moral feeling may simply touch a different aspect of the fundamental Ground but rather than proofs we use analogies, stories, and so on.

All to say for any situation I couldn't tell you there is an absolutely correct action, but at the same time there are times when I feel as certain about the morally correct action as I do the correctness of Pythagoras' Theorem. Maybe this is nothing more than conditioning, but some would say logic and mathematical truth are also just due to evolution and conditioning. I would disagree on both counts.

To what end?

Acting in ways in accordance with the moral injunctions that seem to be basic, going with the flow of the way the universe is designed, is inherently morally good regardless of whether or not positive experiences result. That's the way it looks to me. As I have mentioned, it seems the metaphysical buck for the justification of this ground morality stops at the desk of whatever it is that is responsible for it. We can't really know who or what that is; I guess we just have to accept it. As I said, in the example it seems that there would still be much moral good even if all this caregiving resulted only in misery and resentment on the part of the disabled offspring. And even if the parents themselves derived no pleasure from their actions. At least they tried. Do you disagree with this?

[Laird]

I disagree that expressions of kindness, compassion, and love are their own reward, but I say that only in the context of this discussion^[1] in which I'm contending that kindness, compassion, and love are moral goods because they lead to, cause, and consist in positive experiences for all involved, which are the true reward.

I also strongly disagree that kindness, compassion, and love are morally grounded merely because they have been metaphysically justified as such by higher powers. Well might higher powers justify as much, but only because it is already and independently objectively true. Were higher powers to "justify" torture and cruelty as moral goods, their "justification" would be, for preexisting and independent reasons, objectively false.

As I said, in the example it seems that there would still be much moral good even if all this caregiving resulted only in misery and resentment on the part of the disabled offspring. At least the parent souls tried. Do you disagree with this?

I agree that there would (or at least could) "still be much moral good" in this situation given the premise you've offered: that the child freely agreed, prior to incarnating, to suffer so as to facilitate learning on the part of its parents. Again, though, I think it's useful to distinguish between moral choices/acts, and morally-relevant outcomes (positive/negative experiences), both of which can be described as "moral goods".

Regarding the latter, the moral good would primarily be that the parents (presumably) learned the intended lesson (how to love better), leading to future positive experiences caused by their enhanced capacity to love. Certainly, the child's misery and resentment is not a morally good outcome in itself.

Regarding the former, the moral good in the situation is (given the premise) omnipresent: everybody is making good moral choices.

[1] In another context, I might for simplicity agree that kindness, compassion, and love are "their own reward" - in the sense that they are intrinsically tied up with positive experiences for all involved, and that we are all well aware of this, so that we can also be satisfied for "doing the right thing" even if our kindness, compassion, and love are rebuffed or fail to achieve what we hoped they would.

"What is ethical cannot be taught. If I could explain the essence of the ethical only by means of a theory, then what is ethical would be of no value whatsoever."
 -Wittgenstein

[Laird]

"What is ethical cannot be taught. If I could explain the essence of the ethical only by means of a theory, then what is ethical would be of no value whatsoever."
 -Wittgenstein

"What is ethical cannot be taught." What a good thing he didn't have any children then. He had nothing to teach them!

In any case, should we really be listening on ethics to a guy who caned his male students and boxed their ears, in one instance hitting a student so hard on the head that he collapsed, and who pulled the hair of his female students, and even one time pulled a female student's ears so hard that they bled?

Perhaps he was the one in need of the lesson in ethics that he denied could be taught?

(Source: Wikipedia)

"What is ethical cannot be taught." What a good thing he didn't have any children then. He had nothing to teach them!

In any case, should we really be listening on ethics to a guy who caned his male students and boxed their ears, in one instance hitting a student so hard on the head that he collapsed, and who pulled the hair of his female students, and even one time pulled a female student's ears so hard that they bled?

Perhaps he was the one in need of the lesson in ethics that he denied could be taught?

(Source: Wikipedia)

I think he meant taught as a philosophical system, not the raising of children?