1 hour later…
5 hours later…
07:56
You mentioned that intuitions often don't come in fully-articulated phrases. That's true. It's also true, though, that when we look at a morally-relevant statement, we can have intuitions (sometimes strong ones) about it, whether it's right or wrong.
Some examples:
Dad takes time out of his day to play with his kids - Right.
Person gives money to a charity that provides food and education to children in poverty - Right.
Woman notices her friend seems troubled and asks what's wrong - Right.
Doctor risks his life to treat patients with ebola - Right.
Dad takes time out of his day to play with his kids - Right.
Person gives money to a charity that provides food and education to children in poverty - Right.
Woman notices her friend seems troubled and asks what's wrong - Right.
Doctor risks his life to treat patients with ebola - Right.
Mother consistently neglects her two-year-old - Wrong.
Teen curses at and flips off his parents (assuming, to simplify things, said parents are not abusive) - Wrong.
Guard tortures prisoners of war for his own pleasure - Wrong.
Employee embezzles money from his company - Wrong.
Teen curses at and flips off his parents (assuming, to simplify things, said parents are not abusive) - Wrong.
Guard tortures prisoners of war for his own pleasure - Wrong.
Employee embezzles money from his company - Wrong.
Or even more generally:
Kindness - Right.
Honesty - Right.
Patience - Right.
Self-control - Right.
Cruelty - Wrong.
Deceitfulness - Wrong.
Short temper - Wrong.
Greediness - Wrong.
Kindness - Right.
Honesty - Right.
Patience - Right.
Self-control - Right.
Cruelty - Wrong.
Deceitfulness - Wrong.
Short temper - Wrong.
Greediness - Wrong.
The interesting thing about these is that (applying both the common meanings of the words and the "all else equal" rule), no one would go so far as to call the wrong ones right and the right ones wrong.
Some might try to call a few of them "inconsequential", but to say, "It's not a big deal if the teen cusses at his parents or if the woman fails to ask her friend what's wrong," is not the same thing as to say, "It's right for the teen to cuss at his parents and wrong for the woman to show concern for her friend." (We're still applying "all else equal"--so, not stipulating any complicating circumstances.) The virtues/vices seem to me even more airtight in this respect.
What this indicates to me is that there's a universal right and wrong that can often be recognized by our intuitions in much the same way that we can recognize the difference between purple and green. We could ask WHY such-and-such is right or wrong, or what makes it right or wrong; just as we could ask how an object comes to appear green or purple to us. But understanding the why/what/how behind doesn't seem necessary for RECOGNIZING the rightness or wrongness.
Obviously, it's not always clear-cut--like when virtues and vices come into conflict with one another, or when there are complicating circumstances (e.g. The teen in above example has been abused and manipulated by his parents and needs some way to fight back...that might make it more complicated). But at a very basic level, there are some things that we immediately apprehend as right or wrong.
An overall system for understanding morality and unifying these intuitions is what ethical reasoning looks for.
An overall system for understanding morality and unifying these intuitions is what ethical reasoning looks for.
08:11
Take my decision to be vegan, for instance. It's a more complicated case because it involves weighing moral goods and evils against each other.
On the one hand, there are the moral evils of the undue suffering caused to conscious beings, and the wrongness of benefiting off that suffering, or taking part in its cause.
On the other hand, there are moral goods associated with not causing excess inconvenience or awkwardness to those around me, and sometimes the relational goods of sharing a special meal with my family.
I'm always balancing these against each other, and usually the moral reasons in favor of being vegan are greater than the moral reasons against it. Sometimes, I reckon the other way (although I admit, I'll sometimes compromise out of convenience rather than a carefully-thought-out decision).
4 hours later…
12:27
@songmorning We're back to what it is you (and the people in your hypotheticals) mean by the words "right" and "wrong." There is a broad tendency to associate one list of things with "right" and another list of things with "wrong." The ones in the "right" column seem to track with what people generally care about and want to see in the world, and the ones in the "wrong" column the opposite.
However, speaking of psychopaths / serial killers / sex traffickers / genocidal dictators / etc. other hypothetical beings like aliens, AIs, demons, gods, etc. - failing to share a set of values with the majority of humanity and failing to perceive an aspect of reality are two different things, just as failing to share taste preferences and failing to be able to taste are distinct.
13:20
So then, you are in fact arguing for a subjective morality in the sense that it's completely dependent on what people already feel about the world and prefer--so that even a system of morality that captures most people's current preferences can't be applied to people who don't already feel like what they're doing is wrong.
As in, the psychopaths, serial killers, sex traffickers, genocidal dictators are doing what's right to them, and not anything objectively wrong.
Have you ever considered that people and beings can be evil and morally depraved? Even if the serial killer never feels remorse or conviction over the things he's done, he has still committed morally wrong actions. I'm not making a statement about what I feel about the serial killer. I'm making a claim that he is in the wrong, and whatever feelings and beliefs led him to murder people are wrong, even if he never had any control over those feelings.
People can also have good intentions but be confused. Like the person who finds self-control and patience to be inconsistent with honesty is actually trying to understand how best to be kind and loving to the people in his life.
And people rationalize their morally wrong actions. I know that from experience. I don't have to appeal to other examples.
Rachel Moran was a prostitute in Ireland by the time she was fifteen. The younger prostitutes are, the more men use them, so when Rachel was fifteen, she was being used by around ten men every day. It wasn't that they didn't know her age--she'd usually tell them right away. In that entire first year, only one man let her out of the car and sent her away when he heard her age. The next year, when she was sixteen, she encountered him again, but that time he didn't send her away.
5 hours later…
18:42
@songmorning Going back to what definitions, if "morally wrong" (let's say for the moment) means "causes suffering in a way the overwhelming majority of people find heartbreaking," then of course the serial killer has done wrong, and would agree that he has done wrong, and likely wouldn't care (somewhat analogous to the situation of us not caring about maximizing toaster ovens).
Similar for sex traffickers that don't care about women. If by "messed up" you mean "morally wrong," which I am for the moment taking to mean "causes suffering in a way the overwhelming majority of people find heartbreaking," then of course my personal feelings are insufficient to establish the moral wrongness of it, since the working definition includes the clause about "the overwhelming majority of people" (which I alone am not).
18:55
I doubt many of the evil people in question - serial killers, traffickers etc. - bother to label their actions "right," partly since they already recognize the term "right" is being used in a way by other people that does not apply to their actions, and partly because they don't require a label for their choices and actions and may not feel any need to justify themselves to others.
Genocidal dictators on the other hand (as far as I know) seem more likely to use the word "right" in a way that it applies to their actions, because they value their political-economic system and intended utopian society more than the lives of the people it takes to achieve their objective. That would be a disagreement about language, like people in an English class debating whether the word "itch" is a noun, verb or both.
Some disagreements could be made over relative priority of values - like security versus liberty, freedom and transparency versus power and unity, etc. More fundamental disagreement would be about some particulars - about whether Jews really were responsible for societal ills, about whether communism really does function economically, etc.
19:15
Re: "Now you look me in the face" - to be clear, I am not aiming to give a free pass to truly callous people to cause great pain in the world. Reality is the one giving them free reign to do what they want - insofar as they are capable of getting away with things and the rest of us aren't capable of stopping them.
I am recognizing that labeling certain actions with the same words we use for scantron bubbles ("right" and "wrong"), perhaps with the intention of making it sound more forceful than "we don't like it when you hurt people," will not magically make callous people care about others, even if it may curb behavior with people of imperfect but not nonexistent empathy.
19:48
In lighter news, I think I am in some kind of war with another teacher that teaches in the same classroom as me. I put the washcloths on the marker counter while she puts them on the hooks (which annoys me since they take up writing space on the board). Also she puts the markers in the marker cup facing up instead of down.
1 hour later…
21:15
@arctictern I'm really sorry for writing in such an upset tone this morning. In fact, I was upset about something completely different, although some kind of related...I'm also sorry if I misrepresented what you were saying. Maybe we can leave this topic for a little while, although it's a very good topic.
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