Absolute Moral Laws in a godless Universe
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Pandaemoni
Valued Senior Member
Let me ask this, as I am curious as to what people believe: What is the underlying goal of ethics? It's clearly a system of rules for determining "correct" conduct, so there has to be goal or goals it's striving to promote. From my own reading I have seen a lot of talk about morality, and a number of implied assumptions about what morality seems to do. Some of those who state a goal openly state it as vaguely as possible, such as "to make people good", whatever the Hell that means. You might as well say "to make people moral" as that.
Here are some goals I have seen people assume or state:
Alright I never liked the last one, hence the editorializing. Logic starts with postulates that you accept as true. It seems to me that without a goal, logic is powerless to tell you what to do. It is not "illogical" to die in the abstract (we're all going to do it eventually). You might postulate a rule "we should live as long as possible" and then come up with logical courses of action to further that goal, but that's about it.
I tend to think of my own actions in terms of trying to promote personal happiness (in a broad sense that includes promoting the happiness of my friends and family), not maximize the chances that my genes are spread to future generations.
That raises an interesting point to me, though: I accept that my ancestors, at some point, thought that reproductive success was important. The conduct they engaged in must have been geared towards doing that, and not promoting their happiness. Given a choice between buying a $5000 plasma TV and saving the $5000 with an eye towards using it to pay for another child, it's pretty clear that the two goals would take us in different directions.
I wonder whether our ancestors were really reproductive success maximizers, or if they were utility maximizers like me. If they were psychologically geared towards successful gene promulgation, when did society make the change, as that doesn't explain out behavior at all (imo). The trend in our culture is for fewer kids, and even no kids in many people's cases, because they like their large amounts of spending money. Women and men both are getting married and starting families later in life, which seems at least at first blush to be a reproductive disadvantage.
Here are some goals I have seen people assume or state:
- To promote the utilitarian ideal (greatest happiness for the greatest number of people);
- To maximize individual happiness subject to the constraint that *everyone else* is also trying to maximize their own happiness (the "marginal utilitarian ideal," I suppose, it's *very* popular with every game theoretical and behavioral economics explanations of ethics and morality);
- To, indirectly, but definitely, promote the reproductive success of yourself and those closely related to you (the evolutionary socio-biology view)
- To promote social unity, happiness and reproductive success be damned (so a group of people obeying the laws and not hurting one another is the goal, even if they are unhappy and slowly dying out as a separate people); and
- It has no goal but simply flows from logic (ugh.)
Alright I never liked the last one, hence the editorializing. Logic starts with postulates that you accept as true. It seems to me that without a goal, logic is powerless to tell you what to do. It is not "illogical" to die in the abstract (we're all going to do it eventually). You might postulate a rule "we should live as long as possible" and then come up with logical courses of action to further that goal, but that's about it.
I tend to think of my own actions in terms of trying to promote personal happiness (in a broad sense that includes promoting the happiness of my friends and family), not maximize the chances that my genes are spread to future generations.
That raises an interesting point to me, though: I accept that my ancestors, at some point, thought that reproductive success was important. The conduct they engaged in must have been geared towards doing that, and not promoting their happiness. Given a choice between buying a $5000 plasma TV and saving the $5000 with an eye towards using it to pay for another child, it's pretty clear that the two goals would take us in different directions.
I wonder whether our ancestors were really reproductive success maximizers, or if they were utility maximizers like me. If they were psychologically geared towards successful gene promulgation, when did society make the change, as that doesn't explain out behavior at all (imo). The trend in our culture is for fewer kids, and even no kids in many people's cases, because they like their large amounts of spending money. Women and men both are getting married and starting families later in life, which seems at least at first blush to be a reproductive disadvantage.
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
Which means there is no absolute morals, absolute meaning or absolute purpose.
That's just it: you have confidence.
And nothing else, no argument to support the claim that humans could recognize whether an action is in accord with absolute moral laws. Which makes discussion with you useless.
the famous philosopher Karl Popper presented an alternative approach to morality, that appeared to me quite interesting; instead of maximizing happiness he emphasizes the prevention of harm.
since, as you rightly point out, "happiness" is a fluid notion, and very hard to define at least for a complex being like a modern human, while harm is something we largely can agree upon.
by the way, it is also interesting that this concept is a pillar in Islamic approach to morality and law; as in this case, prevention of harm becomes a priority over creating happiness.
as to the concept of maximizing reproduction, remember that in organisms, there exist at least two major strategies for survival; the R and the K approaches. yours may be a K approach which is quite in accordance with most highly "technologically" developed nations; where raising a child is a quite expensive undertaking.. memetics may also play a part in this phenomenon..
we also are not sure whether we are currently living a state of transition, or a take over in which we as humans are going to be replaced by other functional entities !..
Everytime I get my floaty thoughts of peace out, love for all life, taking care of the self+1 and following the path of now and forever(what I call the great conspiracy - Living VS not living):
I read one Sam post and think "Fuckit, AAKK AAKK Kill all the Humans..."
More evolution(biological, philisophical, Technological) is required before we can accomplish this. For now it is enough to dream(again, until Sam posts again in my case.)
I read one Sam post and think "Fuckit, AAKK AAKK Kill all the Humans..."
More evolution(biological, philisophical, Technological) is required before we can accomplish this. For now it is enough to dream(again, until Sam posts again in my case.)
Wouldn't it just become a cup? Also the universe will always exist whether you are alive or not. If you died now there are millions of others who know of the same universe that you did when you were alive, therefore what we call a universe would still exist. Your example of "tea" ceasing to exist doesn't work because you are using tea as a whole. If you were tea then you could only be the tea in the cup not every last bit of tea on the planet. The way you are using it would mean that if you died then every other person would have to die as well in order for the universe to not exist and even then it would only not exist to humans.