Can a Catholic Critique this Moral Philosophy?

[littlebird]

I dont understand what your goal is.

You are not confident that you understand what morality is.
You want Catholics to evaluate your thoughts on morality.

Are you worried that you are doing things that are immoral ?

 

[Dimmesdale]

The things you were saying are somewhat inconsistent: in one place you were talking about “human”, then you were talking about “agent”.

So, let’s imagine a world inhabited by rational ponies (like in “My Little Pony”). Would it make sense that they have morality? Yes. Would it make sense that non-rational ponies, as exist on Earth, have morality? No. So, it’s rationality that is important.

Thus, as St. Thomas Aquinas defines law, it is “an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community, and promulgated”. And “The natural law is promulgated by the very fact that God instilled it into man’s mind so as to be known by him naturally.”.

That brings something to my mind. The nature of the kind of “reason” at play. If rationality is important, is it the only thing important, or are some elements of our humanity also just as essential and linked. I think so. To put it differently, isn’t there a difference between “pure” reason and “human reasoning.” A computer could be in a sense said to reason. An artificial intelligence might even mimic humans in an uncanny valley sort of way. But where’s the heart?

Perhaps the rational ponies in your example have a degree of humanness that other ponies do not. Perhaps they partake of more specifically human reason, and thus they have true agency on that score.

As a side note, perhaps some animals approach humanness, as a sort of Form, in greater or lesser degrees of nobility, having only certain capacities “opened up” by their evolution, but only humans are the fullest instantiation of morality and personality.

As for the links you provided, I’m willing to give them a look, but despite my eloquence I am a slow learner and instead prefer this sort of give and take. I find it more interesting than studying on my own, though hopefully I’ll be able to do more of that as well.

 

[Dimmesdale]

That “inner feeling” of guilt or of somehow intuiting that a thing is wrong doesn’t seem to meet the criteria of enforcement.
At best, it might be a sort of (optional) self-regulation by remorse.
I would argue that doesn’t even fall in the category of enforcement.

I don’t see why it can’t qualify. After all, actions have consequences, sometimes far reaching ones that we are only dimly aware of in the present moment. Aren’t such painful experiences as guilt, shame, regret, self-hatred and so on not often (but not always) indicative of something gone awry in one’s own moral life? The fact of such pain is, I think, undeniable and it seems to meet the criterion of a sanction since the moral law itself decrees it. This is because, on reflection, we clearly know that “we deserve” to feel bad about certain things we did wrong.

I don’t see at all how this would be “optional” for most people, at least not completely, since we do not have complete control of our emotions. Certainly it is possible for someone to disregard his conscience and progressively abandon his moral inklings, to the point that he becomes completely insensitive to it. But even here I don’t believe we can give up all our moral outrage, especially when things happen against us. Our moral sense can be awakened in clear instances, and that includes our own attitudes about self. We can dull the pain, even to the point of being a psychopath, but we cannot fully disengage from it, I think.

Also, Christine Korsgaard, a moral philosopher much smarter than me, disagrees with you. I just read about this in her book where she restates pretty much what I’ve said.

 

[Dimmesdale]

I dont understand what your goal is.

You are not confident that you understand what morality is.
You want Catholics to evaluate your thoughts on morality.

Are you worried that you are doing things that are immoral ?

I think I have a lot to learn and I want to learn it from different sources, including Catholic ones. I am still wondering whether I should be a Catholic, but I want to deepen my understanding of what is true and this is currently my own thinking on morality. I want to challenge it, but also see if I can defend it. So I welcome all sorts of (name removed by moderator)ut.

I believe I am a work in progress morally speaking, but I don’t feel I have done anything mortally wrong.

 

[Hail]

The problem with this is the fact that throughout many years in human history we have done things that, today, we would consider to be utterly horrible (For instance, we used to regularly do horrible things to women and children who were captives of war), yet did our ancestors see a particular problem with it? No, indeed we only have these moral intuitions is because of nearly 2,000 years of Christian civilization.

 

[Gorgias]

Morality is not “objective” the way a chicken sandwich is “objective” - that is, “out there” and separate from human cognition.

I think I might counter that, although a chicken sandwich is, per se, ‘objective’, nevertheless it is perceived in certain subjective ways. These subjective perceptions do not change the nature of the sandwich (after all, that nature is ‘objective’!), but their understanding of it is, in a certain sense, influenced by their subjective interpretation.

Objective morality would at any rate be meaningless if this were the case.

Disagree. An objective morality is a bellwether: it provides direction and a constant point of reference.

Morality only makes sense when it relates to human subjects and the shared subjectivity we each possess.

Nope – I think you’re confusing terms, here. Applied morality, or perhaps conscience, is what you’re talking about here, not ‘morality’ per se.

We all know, through reflection, that some things are wrong.

Are these things wrong only because we know that they are? Are they wrong only because we’ve reflected (or worse, “reflected sufficiently deeply and accurately”)?

We can break this question down even more effectively: is a thing “not wrong” prior to reflection? If a person commits an act that others would ‘know’ is wrong, but that person doesn’t ‘reflect’ on it, does that mean that the act is not wrong? (Catholic Moral Theology would make a similar distinction, but only with respect to culpability, and not with respect to content).

Not agreement by arbitrary fiat, but by direct perception of what is good - the same way we come to the consensus of what the color red is.

I think this, too, is mistaken. We don’t decide what red is – after all, that’s an objective consideration of ‘wavelength’ – but rather, we only decide how to name a thing. Red is still red, even if we call it ‘hedgehog’.

Why should we have these oughts hard-wired in us?

Ahh… the ‘oughts’ red herring…!

 

[Gorgias]

Also, Christine Korsgaard, a moral philosopher much smarter than me, disagrees with you.

You realize that this doesn’t mean that she’s right… eh?

Anyway, “appeal to authority” is one of the easier logical fallacies to sniff out…

A computer could be in a sense said to reason.

No. It can be said to do what it’s programmed to do. It doesn’t “know” or “feel” in the way that a human does. I could “program” a lump of mud to operate as a Turing machine; we’d never suggest that a lump of mud ‘reasons’… would we?

 

[Dimmesdale]

Dimmesdale:

Also, Christine Korsgaard, a moral philosopher much smarter than me, disagrees with you.

You realize that this doesn’t mean that she’s right… eh?

Anyway, “appeal to authority” is one of the easier logical fallacies to sniff out…

Aye, I am aware of that. I just wanted to point out that I am not alone in my “hunch” as it were, that it has backing from other sources. I suppose it is an appeal to authority, but I only wished to show that my point shouldn’t be easily dismissed, or that it’s obvious nonsense, which it isn’t.

No. It can be said to do what it’s programmed to do. It doesn’t “know” or “feel” in the way that a human does. I could “program” a lump of mud to operate as a Turing machine; we’d never suggest that a lump of mud ‘reasons’… would we?

But the analogy of a computer’s moving from step to step and yielding a certain outcome according to a program (similarly to the way one moves from premises to conclusion I might add) does hold regarding a type of reason, and this can be illustrated in the following way. In psychology the study of narcissists shows that they lack empathy, or more accurately, only have the cognitive component of empathy. In other words, they can “think” about other people, “analyze” them, immediately spot their vulnerabilities and so on, but not have a real sense of peoples’ otherness. Sam Vaknin, a commentator, writes that narcissists have “emotional resonance tables” or “gigantic databases” which are compilations of countless human behaviors and reactions which offer a “blueprint” of how to respond in a thespian manner to another person.

What they do in other words is correlate certain behaviors to certain mental states based off what they have learned and come up with “heuristic principles.” For example: most people who cry say they are sad. Therefore, if a person cries, he is sad. And if I want to imitate sad, I should cry. And so narcissists think and imitate behaviors in a detached way similar to how an AI may rattle off figures without any real self-awareness whatsoever, only following heuristic sentences. The reason I think this is important is that maybe philosophy detached from its human context can likewise fall into this trap in some way. That’s why I think it’s a relevant analogy.

 

[Rau]

We all know, through reflection, that some things are wrong. This isn’t “objective” - it doesn’t have to be. All that is required is a consensus that exists regarding what is right and wrong, through agreement.

What constitutes “consensus”. I suspect something vague. And if in some issue there is no consensus - what then is the moral course?

First of all, I would point out that this is not the case. It is not the state of reality as it exists,

You said the above when you were asked “what if everybody were to agree sex with children is good?”

Your response is to say (loosely) “but people don’t think that” and I think you’re arguing that the majority - or the consensus is always correct. You are reasoning in a circle.

How can you explain occasions when society does an about face on some moral issue? When the consensus reverses? Something was immoral because that was our belief then and now it is moral because we changed our mind? Seems like that’s what you mean - morality moves with the crowd.

 

[MPat]

That brings something to my mind. The nature of the kind of “reason” at play. If rationality is important, is it the only thing important, or are some elements of our humanity also just as essential and linked. I think so. To put it differently, isn’t there a difference between “pure” reason and “human reasoning.” A computer could be in a sense said to reason. An artificial intelligence might even mimic humans in an uncanny valley sort of way. But where’s the heart?

That is not the rationality in the relevant sense.

Rationality concerns dealing with things in abstract.

To illustrate, a pony in real world can be a friend, but a rational pony (in a cartoon) can also talk about friendship as such, in abstract.

And a computer can do neither. It can’t even be a friend in the very limited way in which a Teddy bear can be a friend.

As for feelings, non-rational animals have them. Thus feelings are not that important for morality.

And reason is important, because in order to derive morality from human nature, one has to consider not specific humans, but human nature as such, in abstract.

 

[Gorgias]

Aye, I am aware of that. I just wanted to point out that I am not alone in my “hunch” as it were, that it has backing from other sources.

LOL! Now you’ve morphed into the argumentum ad populum !

But the analogy of a computer’s moving from step to step and yielding a certain outcome according to a program

OK… so, “just an analogy”. I’m ok with that – you’re not saying, then, that computers “could be in a sense said to reason”, but merely that “what computers do is somewhat like what reasoning in humans is”. And yet… is that really true? Is it a good analogy?

Maybe we could say that humans go from step to step, in the process of ratiocinating. That part holds. And yet, doesn’t awareness count for anything? Doesn’t consciousness factor into the equation somewhere? To say that a computer – unaware of what it’s doing – is “reasoning” seems to be the equivalent of calling a cow pattie ‘chocolate’ since both are brown. On the surface, it has a certain appeal… but you can’t dig any deeper without seeing that the comparison just doesn’t hold up…!

this can be illustrated in the following way. In psychology the study of narcissists shows that they lack empathy, or more accurately, only have the cognitive component of empathy.

However, although they lack an ability to emote, they do have “cognitive ability”, which is what we’re talking about, here. So… you’re kinda begging the question, aren’t you? Narcissists reason… and that’s the whole point of the analogy. If you start with ‘reason’, you’ll end up demonstrating ‘reason’.

And so narcissists think and imitate behaviors in a detached way similar to how an AI may rattle off figures without any real self-awareness whatsoever, only following heuristic sentences.

Except that the narcissist has already reasoned to that conclusion (not to mention that he’s chosen that course of action based on an outcome he personally desires).

 

[Dimmesdale]

Disagree. An objective morality is a bellwether: it provides direction and a constant point of reference.

Something occurred to me last night, and it’s gotten me to reconsider the idea of objective morality or “moral realism.” Then again, my mind is usually in flux so I’m not surprised.

Anyway, what occurred to me is that moral statements are either true or false; they have a truth value. So “it is wrong to steal” is true. Now, what does something being true mean? It means a certain state of affairs exists or is. The statement Donald J. Trump is the incumbent president holding office is true because Donald J. Trump exists and is currently holding that office. If those facts did not exist, then how could the statement be true? There seems to be an equivalence in some sense between what is true and what exists, the false being a “false existence” or “nothingness” as it were.

Regarding the color red, I did not mean consensus regarding the objective fact of red, namely light wavelengths. I meant the appearance or subjective experience of red qualia, which I think is universal among humans. In other words, not the state of red in-itself but the quality of red-ness.
This universal subjective appearance or experience I extended to morality, thinking that such perceptions are sufficient to ground morality. Now I am not so sure because, although appearances could be said to “exist” and are therefore “true” or “real” I do not know if this is sufficient. The experience seems after all to be dependent on an experiencer and so has much less ontological weight than other things. In that sense they could not be said to participate in the fact of being as other “more real” things do. And so they could not be “true” in the same way as objective things are, being of a lesser grade as it were that just does not qualify. Hope that makes sense or gives an inkling into my struggle.

My mind right now is experiencing greater peace and is absorbed in other things, so I might not respond as fast. I feel more of God’s grace and am generally healthier and happier, so this is definitely a good development.

 

[Gorgias]

meant the appearance or subjective experience of red qualia, which I think is universal among humans. In other words, not the state of red in-itself but the quality of red-ness .

But that’s a different question altogether, no?

Now I am not so sure because, although appearances could be said to “exist” and are therefore “true” or “real” I do not know if this is sufficient .

Appearances exist subjectively, though, right? To a greater or lesser extent, we might wonder whether they are commonly experienced. (If that were the case, then we might ask what that common experience is. We might even conjecture whether and to what extent that “common experience” converges on the “objective reality.”)

they could not be “true” in the same way as objective things are, being of a lesser grade as it were that just does not qualify.

Subjective experiences are as ‘true’ subjectively as objective realities are ‘true’ objectively, no? You just can’t blithely cross the two and expect the standards for the one to hold up for the other.

I would say that, in terms of morality, there is an objective standard, and the work of our conscience is to move from the purely individual, subjective experience and attempt to conform oneself to the objective reality.

 

[lelinator]

I would say that, in terms of morality, there is an objective standard, and the work of our conscience is to move from the purely individual, subjective experience and attempt to conform oneself to the objective reality.

But does it really matter if there’s an objective morality if you can never know what it is? Sure, a majority of people can agree that murder is immoral, but they will likely disagree about precisely what circumstances constitute murder. We’re all far too familiar with the trolley problem. So lacking omniscience, for us mere mortals, it would seem that morality will always be subjective.

 

[Stidlet]

I think to start it’s important to recognize that what you say relies entirely on accepting the is-ought gap. To begin with, we will reject this. We may argue for ethics and morality from a natural standpoint. We naturally desire that which is good, but this is not entirely dependent on our subjective interpretation. When you talk about a good father or even a good triangle, we talk about perfection in regards to it’s essence. We can deduce an object’s essence from it’s causes. God, the pure act, where all being flows from is necessarily linked to our goodness, as perfection can only be spoken about in terms of act and potency. Nominalism and such are fruitless and self contradicting, and to reject essences and forms require us to accept this, as well as intuitive things like the principle of sufficient reason. There is no reason for us to conceive of morality in the subjectivist way.

 

[lelinator]

When you talk about a good father or even a good triangle, we talk about perfection in regards to it’s essence.

There’s no such thing as a good triangle and a bad triangle. Something either is a triangle, or it isn’t. Everything is an absolutely perfect example of whatever it is, even if whatever it is, is very close to being what you presume it was supposed to be. You presume for example, that something close to being a triangle, was in fact supposed to be a triangle. Thus to proclaim something to be flawed you must either project upon it what you assume it was meant to be, or know specifically what it was meant to be. To know the latter, you would need to know the intent of it’s creator. Failing that, it’s impossible to proclaim something to be a flawed example of it, and even then, it’s only flawed from the perspective of its creator.

Thus even “perfection” is subjective.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I agree with you. Without God, all morality is subjective.

Going you one further, as Jean Paul Sartre (and others of his school) said, without God, all life is absurd. He, himself, was an atheist, and so he believed his own life was absurd. As one of his like-minded existentialists believed, one is therefore compelled to commit suicide as the only act of rebellion open.

Cheery.

 

[Kei]

I was gonna write something, but saw that Wesrock already got to that point in a much better way than I would have.

 

[lelinator]

Going you one further, as Jean Paul Sartre (and others of his school) said, without God, all life is absurd.

But how does the absurdness of life lessen the value of life?

 

[Ridgerunner]

If life is meaningless, it is also worthless, at least to a person who is not the one whose life is under consideration. But it lessens life’s value additionally in that it diminishes the dignity of the individual.