Richard T. Garner and "Beyond Morality"

[angrysoba]

Systematics is a little more than just semantics. But, the point is moot because it was actually one of the few points my opponent accepted.

Some photos from the event are starting to pour in, from the attendees. I will have more and better ones, once the official photographer makes his available.

Here is the moment where I dished out the "Systematics!" question. The slide you are looking at was manually typed up, shortly before I gave it:

[qimg]https://scontent-b-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/v/1490953_10201496773114216_2076763033_n.jpg?oh=4eca25b009dd800d89404ab923f2ddd9&oe=52A78F44[/qimg]

If only I had a slide with that word on it, earlier, I wouldn't have forgotten it.

I see the word "Systemantics!" on the slide.

Is that deliberate?

The "justification" is a natural imbalance that takes place within various moral systems:

All other forms of morality tend to change over time, to deliver better utility or consequences. And, they usually don't turn back.

And, whenever someone sacrifices utility or consequences to comply with some other form of morality, it doesn't last very long: Eventually those are overthrown or transformed to go back to better utility or consequences.

Historically, this seems to be the case. And, it follows from what we know about the science of evolutionary biology and social sciences.

Even if this is correct - and I am not sure that you can easily demonstrate this - this is still descriptive ethics or you are falling foul of the naturalistic fallacy.

 

[angrysoba]

Out of interest, did your opponent press you on the question of how you derive an "ought" from an "is", or how you go from descriptive to prescriptive/normative ethics, or whether or not you are guilty of the naturalistic fallacy?

 

[Wowbagger]

I see the word "Systemantics!" on the slide.

Is that deliberate?

No. That was a mistake.

Even if this is correct - and I am not sure that you can easily demonstrate this - this is still descriptive ethics or you are falling foul of the naturalistic fallacy.

Well, it starts off very descriptive, yes.

But, when science can anticipate what which answers to moral questions will likely yield the best consequences, science ends up answering those questions, usually considered to be "normative", ahead of the time it would take for us to naturally find them out, otherwise.

Out of interest, did your opponent press you on the question of how you derive an "ought" from an "is", or how you go from descriptive to prescriptive/normative ethics, or whether or not you are guilty of the naturalistic fallacy?

He did bring it up the is/ought issue on a list of challenges I have to meet, yes. We didn't have time to get through the whole list, and were going to do it in the re-match. But, that has to be re-scheduled.

Though, I briefly covered the "naturalistic fallacy" accusation at the end of my opening remarks.

I don't think those are much different from each other.

 

[angrysoba]

No. That was a mistake.



Well, it starts off very descriptive, yes.

But, when science can anticipate what which answers to moral questions will likely yield the best consequences, science ends up answering those questions, usually considered to be "normative", ahead of the time it would take for us to naturally find them out, otherwise.


He did bring it up the is/ought issue on a list of challenges I have to meet, yes. We didn't have time to get through the whole list, and were going to do it in the re-match. But, that has to be re-scheduled.

Though, I briefly covered the "naturalistic fallacy" accusation at the end of my opening remarks.

I don't think those are much different from each other.

Well, they basically refer to the same challenge (as well as the fact-value distinction) which you say you have answered, but which I disagree that you have answered.

I don't see anything about "scientific predictions" even being relevant let alone answering the questions.

Was your opponent convinced by this defence of your position?

 

[Wowbagger]

I don't see anything about "scientific predictions" even being relevant let alone answering the questions.

If science is going to be said to be answering moral questions, its answers would have to make predictions. Otherwise, they wouldn't be very scientific, would they?

Was your opponent convinced by this defence of your position?

Of course not.

 

[angrysoba]

If science is going to be said to be answering moral questions, its answers would have to make predictions. Otherwise, they wouldn't be very scientific, would they?

I think you have misunderstood. I am saying that the predictions do not show it moving from descriptive to normative.

Perhaps this is your fundamental misunderstanding in this debate.

It is one thing to say, "Well if we think that humans have a natural propensity to share then if we put two orphans on an island and observe them from afar we can predict that they will share the food that we send to them on a boat even though nobody has told them to."

If we observe that they do in fact share their food, we have still only confirmed something in the descriptive ethics realm.

What we will not be able to confirm is that these children ought to, as in should.

It is possible that you have confused two meanings of "ought" here with one "ought" sometimes being used to describe what we think will happen (a probabilistic use of "ought". i.e "If you look out of the Shinkansen window on a clear day, you ought to be able to see Mount Fuji!") with a prescriptive meaning ("you ought to help your Grandmother because she's 95 and can't go to the shops like she used to!").

Of course not.

Did he also suggest that you may have misunderstood?

 

[Meed]

Looks like it was an overall fun event. I can relate to the brainfreeze part. I imagine that's probably common for a first debate.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

First off, I haven't had the time to read all 7 pages, I stopped around the bottom off page 2, but I will offer two different interpretations of the word objective relevant to the word science:

What goes on in a brain is objective, because it can be observed by science.
What goes on in a brain is subjective, though it can be observed by science.

So since I am a functional physicalist, I will do the following - objective as meaning having reality independent of the mind means to me in short a physical process that does not take place in a brain. I will use in part gravity as an example – let us say that I tried to fly by flapping my arms and nothing else in that I tried to take off standing from a firm surface and that I didn’t jump off from any height. Now as to flying that is an objective physical process, where as that I wanted as wanted to fly is a subjective physical process.
Now the strength of science is that we have learned through observation and the use of tools a method of learning about and using how reality works. The part about observation and tools connect to objective in the following manner – something is objective in the universal sense if it is so that no human could change the process only by a physical process in the brain of the given individual. But it is easy to say that if gravity is objective and physical so is a brain objective and physical, because the brain is physical. The fallacy seems to be that if everything is physical, then everything is objective.
Further there is third variant of the word objective besides universally observable and independent of a given brain, namely objective as without bias, personal interpretation and so on. So the job of a moral objectivist rests on 3 challenges e.g. for the word wrong:

Can the objectivist explain what wrong looks like (observation)? Can the objectivist explain what international scientific measurement standard is used for wrong and how we objectively calibrate a given instrument, which measures wrong as wrong?

Can the objectivist show that wrong is used universally in an exact similar manner in all brains capable of using the word wrong?

Can the objectivist explain how the word wrong can be used morally without bias, personal interpretation and so?

As to the is-ought problem then it is maybe so that we with enough observations could figure out a natural “baseline” of right, good and so on by observing enough humans and filter out cultural relativism, but no ought follows from the observations, because we can’t observe objectively that we ought then to do so. Rather the ought would take place in a given physical brain as with bias and personal interpretation.

 

[Soapy Sam]

The problem this analysis has for me is that you are essentially appealing to some meta-ethical standards while claiming, at the same time it seems, that such meta-ethical standards are mere fictions.

What do you mean "human nature is nasty"? Is that an objective evaluation or do you just happen to think that human nature is nasty?

And what is "It's too important for that" supposed to mean? What is "too important"? And by what objective standards are you calling "it" important?

You mean "nasty" is itself an ethical description? I think it's a shorthand behavioural description, but I accept "nasty" is a value judgement.

Humans are odd. Gregarious , herd scavenger / predators with abnormal communication skills, the ability to consciously lie, the ability to detect lies, a bottom-up self-centred selfishness, a loyalty to family , varied levels of loyalty to and dependance on different social hierarchies and a top down group level constraint and control, itself moderated by individuals and elites. We fight our way to the top, using behaviour that is itself imposed by the group and by history as well as by biological imperatives. The group controls how far we can go.

What's important, (IMO) , as our population continues to swell and our resources continue to dwindle, is that we should be absolutely honest about observing our own nature, our own behaviour and our own rules for individual survival in the group context (from family up to global) without fear or favour, or attachment to historical ideas which may make no sense in the context of a global species.

It's perfectly possible that we can develop far better rules for behaviour than we currently have , but doing so may mean ditching some old ideas of what is "moral" - and that is extremely difficult for any group or individual as it is seen as "letting standards fall". Freedom to do as you like is apt to be one future casualty- and a lot of people will find that very hard to swallow, but as numbers continue to rise the definition of what is "moral" may (I'd say must) change.

Even the meaning of "better" in that sentence is open to debate.

To some extent, we have to decide what we want a moral code to do before we decide on it. Should it make the majority happy? Healthy? Both? Then where do we trade happiness off against health? What if smokers are willing to be unhealthy in order to feel happy?
Or should we aim for pleasing an elite at the expense of 95% of people?
Is that morally acceptable? If not, why do most laws protect property owners? Can it be that the stability of property is actually of greater importance to society as a whole even if only a minority actually own any?

(I have no idea, but it's a question which could have interesting answers).

 

[angrysoba]

Has video surfaced of this debate yet?

 

[Wowbagger]

Has video surfaced of this debate yet?

You'll have to wait a while longer, I'm afraid. There is a backlog of other videos to edit and post before it.

Perhaps I might have a transcript written up sooner, if there's a lot of interest in that.