Morality doesn't make sense.

[Kaz1983]

If you are religious; your morality is objective, absolute, never-changing, and based on God. However, the individual will often twist this to his or her own benefit.

Not really; Just because what society deems right or wrong is not necessarily what is right or wrong.

I'm guessing what he meant was what is deemed acceptable and not acceptable by society changes over time. See I agree that just because society comes to a consensus that something is acceptable or not acceptable; what this does point towards is that if morality exists in any meaning for way.. is that whether it's subjective or objective, morality is flexible to the individual - that's not to say morality real tho, just moral language is useful to society - just like how the hard determinist will say that they "chose the Coke over the coffee" - just because moral language does exist and this useful, that does not necessarily mean that morality exists, just that people are in error when they speak about morality being and objective entity.

In the middle ages they thought the Earth was at the center of the Universe; They thought that weather patterns like thunderstorms and earthquakes were signs of God's displeasure. They believed in Witches, Omens, demons, and they believed that God created the Universe and the Great Flood was an actual historical event. They were wrong about all of this.

I agree with you.

Just because a view was accepted in a time that doesn't mean it was right in that time. Slavery was wrong in America and everywhere today, 200 years ago, and thousands of years before that.

Slavery was not necessarily right or wrong. What deems to be acceptable and now society deems it not be acceptable, so even if morality is objective - what is deemed acceptable is relative to the society, so if your base morality on what is acceptable and not acceptable - which most people base their moral language on.. unless you believe that morality is objective, morality is certain extent relative to the society you live in.. acceptability is a non-cognitive state, ultimately determined by desire not reason.

In science, as we improve our methodology and stop seeking evidence for a particular thing (that is, not expecting God to be the answer for things), we learn more and improve our understanding and quality of life based on objectivity.

Objectivity in science is not objectivity as philosophy deems it to be, there is no such thing as objectivity in science but a collective consensus about how conclusions are interpreted.. so if you want to get technical, even if every scientist agreed conclusions drawn from a scientific experiment - science itself is based on subjectivity, in other words science is mind dependent and not mind independent. But it is his closest objectivity can get tho without being completely objective.

Is it a scientific truth that the sun will rise tomorrow true? Or just because we have experienced the sun rising everyday - or as long as Earth has existed, it is not an object to truth that it will rise tomorrow but scientific consensus that it will rise tomorrow. But there is no proof that the sun will rise tomorrow, just a scientific consensus that is based on experience.

Think about it; If morality were subjective, what's even the point of it? In Saudi Arabia (and many other countries) they pretty much gives women and LGBT people no rights whatsoever, execute you for relatively petty crimes, and have virtually no religious tolerance.

You're starting to sound like an Error Theorist, talking about the argument from disagreement lol but seriously that's a one reason why I came to the conclusion that morality been based on reason is an illusion. Look at it like this.


Culture A in Saudi Arabia gives people gives women and LGBT people virtually no rights - yes maybe they have used reason to come to the conclusion that it is in their best interests to participate in such behaviour but why is this case? It makes more sense to me that since birth they have grown up within a society that condones and encourages such behaviour, it is naturally within the person's best interests to be accepted by society at large and this is why people subconsciously and actively want to participate in the behaviour that is encouraged within said society. Where does reason play a part in this? It's not because they reason to but desire to.

Culture B in western countries desire to see people that identify to belong to different minority groups. We have grown up in a society that deems unacceptable to charge other people harshly for belong to a majority group. We want to be accepted what is society and that is why people subconsciously want people of all minority groups to be accepted and for everybody to be treated equally. Just like culture A actions are based on desire, so is culture B

[Red]

I'm guessing what he meant was what is deemed acceptable and not acceptable by society changes over time. See I agree that just because society comes to a consensus that something is acceptable or not acceptable; what this does point towards is that if morality exists in any meaning for way.. is that whether it's subjective or objective, morality is flexible to the individual - that's not to say morality real tho, just moral language is useful to society - just like how the hard determinist will say that they "chose the Coke over the coffee" - just because moral language does exist and this useful, that does not necessarily mean that morality exists, just that people are in error when they speak about morality being and objective entity.

Uh... Yes?

Slavery was not necessarily right or wrong,

Saying 'slavery is wrong' is a heuristic that's correct basically 100% of the time.

it just existed and the question nobody is asking his why did it exist in the first place?

Well that's a good question.
After looking into it more, slavery in Egypt did seem like the lesser of the evils:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_i ... ly%20harsh.

Of course in a modern context, it's wrong.

Write a wrong society deemed to be acceptable and now society deems it not be acceptable, so even if morality is objective - what is deemed acceptable is relative to the society, so if your base morality on what is acceptable and not acceptable - which most people base their moral language on.. unless you believe that morality is objective, morality is certain extent relative to the society you live in.. acceptability is a non-cognitive state, ultimately determined by desire not reason.

Maybe I'm just stupid but I have pretty much no idea what you just said here. Is English your first language?

Objectivity in science is not objectivity as philosophy deems it to be, there is no such thing as objectivity in science but a collective consensus about how conclusions are interpreted.. so if you want to get technical, even if every scientist agreed conclusions drawn from a scientific experiment - science itself is based on subjectivity, in other words science is mind dependent and not mind independent.

Where the hell are you getting this from? Are you a relativist or something? Everything you just said here is basically wrong.

I don't mean to sound pompous or something but you should really take some University courses in the sciences. None of this is subjective, at least in the hard sciences.

I highly doubt if any of this were subjective, our medicine and technology would function as it does.

Science is a branch of philosophy, by the way.

You're starting to sound like an Error Theorist, talking about the argument from disagreement

How?

The point I'm getting at is some societies have very different views than others (Saudi Arabia's views on Women's Rights compared to the West), so who are we to say that the way they treat women and LGBT people is wrong?

but seriously that's a one reason why I came to the conclusion that morality been based on reason is an illusion.

4.png

Look at it like this, the reason why people in Saudi Arabia give women and LGBT people virtually no rights - yes maybe they have used reason to come to the conclusion that it is in their best interests to participate in such behaviour but why is this case?

They didn't use 'reason' they used religious doctrine. What do you mean by 'reason?'

This doesn't just apply to the Saudis, it applies to basically everyone adhering to an ideology (even more moderate ones).

It makes more sense to me that since birth they have grown up within a society that condones and encourages such behaviour, it is naturally within the person's best interests to be accepted by society at large and this is why people subconsciously and actively want to participate in the behaviour that is encouraged within said society. Where does reason play a part in this? It's not because they reason to but desire to.

Well places in the Middle East are still in their cultural infancy. It'll take a while before they understand that this thinking has no place in the modern world, as did the US and Europe did (again, they aren't the only ones; Look at the Republican Party in the US. Look how hard it was to get Civil Rights).

[Kaz1983]

Slavery was not necessarily right or wrong,

Saying 'slavery is wrong' is a heuristic that's correct basically 100% of the time.

it just existed and the question nobody is asking his why did it exist in the first place?

Well that's a good question.
After looking into it more, slavery in Egypt did seem like the lesser of the evils:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_i ... ly%20harsh.

Of course in a modern context, it's wrong.

The idea of slavery brings about many emotions that aren't desirable to say the least, probably the first two are "anger" at the people who owned enslave people who were treated as commodities. The other emotion would be "disgust" at the extremely pathetic justifications for why it's acceptable to enslave people.

Write a wrong society deemed to be acceptable and now society deems it not be acceptable, so even if morality is objective - what is deemed acceptable is relative to the society, so if your base morality on what is acceptable and not acceptable - which most people base their moral language on.. unless you believe that morality is objective, morality is certain extent relative to the society you live in.. acceptability is a non-cognitive state, ultimately determined by desire not reason.

Maybe I'm just stupid but I have pretty much no idea what you just said here. Is English your first language?

I was just using voice dictation and it doesn't seem to be working smoothly on my phone.

Objectivity in science is not objectivity as philosophy deems it to be, there is no such thing as objectivity in science but a collective consensus about how conclusions are interpreted.. so if you want to get technical, even if every scientist agreed conclusions drawn from a scientific experiment - science itself is based on subjectivity, in other words science is mind dependent and not mind independent.

Where the hell are you getting this from? Are you a relativist or something? Everything you just said here is basically wrong.

I don't mean to sound pompous or something but you should really take some University courses in the sciences. None of this is subjective, at least in the hard sciences.

So you were talking about science in general initially but I now just talking about just the "hard sciences" - talk about changing the goal posts lol

I highly doubt if any of this were subjective, our medicine and technology would function as it does.

I'm not claiming that science is subjective, like how looking at an apple and seeing the colour red is subjective haha. Nahhh what I'm saying is that all knowledge derives from sense experience and therefore is mind-dependent. For example just because in the past/on many occasions an individual has experienced a certain medication being effective at reducing headaches, that does not mean objectively it will reduce a headache in the future. It's the problem of induction, I'm sure you know of it... anyways I agree that science should be free of subjectivity but that all the knowledge derived from science is subjective and therefore is mind-dependent.

Look at it like this, the reason why people in Saudi Arabia give women and LGBT people virtually no rights - yes maybe they have used reason to come to the conclusion that it is in their best interests to participate in such behaviour but why is this case?

They didn't use 'reason' they used religious doctrine. What do you mean by 'reason?'

All religious people probably feel as though they used reason to choose the religion that they currently identify as, but it's more that they desire to continue to identify as a Muslim for example. There must be something desirable about religion and that is probably going to heaven, I mean we all desire to live forever and the idea that when you die it's not the end but that when you're family dies you will all be reunited in heaven. How many religious people would continue to be religious if God told them that they wouldn't be going to heaven? Some might hang around but the desire to be religious would not be there anymore.

It makes more sense to me that since birth they have grown up within a society that condones and encourages such behaviour, it is naturally within the person's best interests to be accepted by society at large and this is why people subconsciously and actively want to participate in the behaviour that is encouraged within said society. Where does reason play a part in this? It's not because they reason to but desire to.

Well places in the Middle East are still in their cultural infancy. It'll take a while before they understand that this thinking has no place in the modern world, as did the US and Europe did (again, they aren't the only ones; Look at the Republican Party in the US. Look how hard it was to get Civil Rights).

Of course people want to avoid negative emotions and promote positive emotions, this makes complete sense. We value things that give us positive emotions, so of course living is an advanced society that reason everybody as being people regardless directions of whether somebody identifies as homosexual or transgender is preferable. But if your society is dictated by religion and this religion says that you will go hell if you socialise with a homosexual - thanks God, that's deffo a deterrent for people to avoid socialising with homosexuals... nice one ... but seriously of course the idea of going to hell brings about a lot of negative emotions that you want to avoid. The way to avoid these negative emotions is to just avoid socialising with homosexuals, then you would stay in God's good book and if you're lucky your desire to go to heaven, will be fulfilled by that same God. Lol

[teo123]

The idea of slavery brings about many emotions that aren't desirable to say the least, probably the first two are "anger" at the people who owned enslave people who were treated as commodities. The other emotion would be "disgust" at the extremely pathetic justifications for why it's acceptable to enslave people.

No, it's that slavery violates the deontological principles, such as the non-agression-principle. Slavery can only exist if there is a government that puts the liberators of the slaves into prisons (or kills them). Furthermore, it has horrible consequences. If it weren't for slavery, we would most likely have had steam engines back in antiquity.

I was just using voice dictation and it doesn't seem to be working smoothly on my phone.

Why didn't you check it? And why don't you post a corrected version now? Sorry, but it seems like you are trolling.

Nahhh what I'm saying is that all knowledge derives from sense experience and therefore is mind-dependent

Which is why scientific method includes many methods to reduce the impact of mind in observation. Experiments in medical science (and sometimes social sciences) are usually double-blinded, to eliminate both the placebo effect and the bias by the observer. Linguistics similarly requires systematic sound corresponsences between languages in order to establish language relationships, because you can't trust your intuitions about which words are likely to be related and which aren't (intuition would tell you Latin "dies" and English "day" are probably related, and that Sanskrit "chakra" and English "wheel" are probably unrelated, both false). There is also a movement towards more computational approaches, further eliminating biases by human linguists.

All religious people probably feel as though they used reason to choose the religion that they currently identify as

And I think quite a few religious people would agree with the Tertulian's sentence Credo quia absurdum est.

How many religious people would continue to be religious if God told them that they wouldn't be going to heaven?

In fact, belief in afterlife was rare among religions of antiquity and non-western societies, it was popularized by the Helenistic culture. Some verses of the Bible, such as Ecclesiastes 9:5, are naturally interpreted as denying afterlife.

[Kaz1983]

Why didn't you check it? And why don't you post a corrected version now? Sorry, but it seems like you are trolling.

Check what? It was working fine before, nothing to check. Maybe cos I got a sore throat my voice sounds different?

You want me to post a re corrected version of the post that I submitted earlier?

The idea of slavery brings about many emotions that aren't desirable to say the least, probably the first two are "anger" at the people who owned enslave people who were treated as commodities. The other emotion would be "disgust" at the extremely pathetic justifications for why it's acceptable to enslave people.

No, it's that slavery violates the deontological principles, such as the non-agression-principle. Slavery can only exist if there is a government that puts the liberators of the slaves into prisons (or kills them). Furthermore, it has horrible consequences. If it weren't for slavery, we would most likely have had steam engines back in antiquity.

So if you do values the non aggression principle, this would mean that if you had the choice to initiate violence upon 1 person to save 99 people from being burnt alive. because you hold that the NAP is true, you would be acting objectively immorally by initiating that violence upon the 1 person to save the 99 people being burnt alive. You agree with this position?

Nahhh what I'm saying is that all knowledge derives from sense experience and therefore is mind-dependent

Which is why scientific method includes many methods to reduce the impact of mind in observation. Experiments in medical science (and sometimes social sciences) are usually double-blinded, to eliminate both the placebo effect and the bias by the observer. Linguistics similarly requires systematic sound corresponsences between languages in order to establish language relationships, because you can't trust your intuitions about which words are likely to be related and which aren't (intuition would tell you Latin "dies" and English "day" are probably related, and that Sanskrit "chakra" and English "wheel" are probably unrelated, both false). There is also a movement towards more computational approaches, further eliminating biases by human linguists.

I agree with a lot of what you said, science tries to be objective but as long as there Is a subjective element to it cannot be truly objective. That is all I'm saying and from everything you said, it seems that you believe that objectivity in science is just eliminating subjectivity as much as possible.

[teo123]

Why didn't you check it? And why don't you post a corrected version now? Sorry, but it seems like you are trolling.

Check what? It was working fine before, nothing to check. Maybe cos I got a sore throat my voice sounds different?

You want me to post a re corrected version of the post that I submitted earlier?

Yes, I want you to post that non-comprehensible part of that post again, and corrected.

[Red]

The idea of slavery brings about many emotions that aren't desirable to say the least, probably the first two are "anger" at the people who owned enslave people who were treated as commodities. The other emotion would be "disgust" at the extremely pathetic justifications for why it's acceptable to enslave people.

Umm... ok?

I was just using voice dictation and it doesn't seem to be working smoothly on my phone.

Then you SHOULD clarify what you meant, as has been requested of you. Stop being lazy.

So you were talking about science in general initially but I now just talking about just the "hard sciences" - talk about changing the goal posts lol

Sorry, but I'm not sure how else I was supposed to interpret:

there is no such thing as objectivity in science but a collective consensus about how conclusions are interpreted

At this point you just seem to be intentionally trolling.

I'm not claiming that science is subjective,

You literally did though.

Nahhh what I'm saying is that all knowledge derives from sense experience and therefore is mind-dependent.

Are you trying to advocate for solipsism? What do you mean by 'mind-dependent?' You have to define these things, because people can interpret these things differently.

Our senses tend to be wrong about many things, and can bias us. We don't necessarily use our senses to prove things.

For example just because in the past/on many occasions an individual has experienced a certain medication being effective at reducing headaches, that does not mean objectively it will reduce a headache in the future.

The placebo effect can be pretty powerful. It might work for some, might work for others.

If the headache is being caused by say a bacterial infection, it is possible that the bacteria can be resistant to antibiotics in the future, yes.

It's the problem of induction, I'm sure you know of it... anyways I agree that science should be free of subjectivity but that all the knowledge derived from science is subjective and therefore is mind-dependent.

I think you need to brush up on your epistemology. Take a few courses in science too.

If you're talking about the social sciences you may be right (again, I don't really know what you mean by mind-dependent), but you seem to be talking about science whole-sale.

All religious people probably feel as though they used reason to choose the religion that they currently identify as, but it's more that they desire to continue to identify as a Muslim for example.

How do you know?

There must be something desirable about religion and that is probably going to heaven, I mean we all desire to live forever and the idea that when you die it's not the end but that when you're family dies you will all be reunited in heaven. How many religious people would continue to be religious if God told them that they wouldn't be going to heaven? Some might hang around but the desire to be religious would not be there anymore.

Most people are religious because they were raised with these beliefs and don't see how any other religion (or lack thereof) can be right. I do agree that people are more likely to stay religious because of the comfort it provides.

Of course people want to avoid negative emotions and promote positive emotions, this makes complete sense. We value things that give us positive emotions, so of course living is an advanced society that reason everybody as being people regardless directions of whether somebody identifies as homosexual or transgender is preferable. But if your society is dictated by religion and this religion says that you will go hell if you socialise with a homosexual - thanks God, that's deffo a deterrent for people to avoid socialising with homosexuals... nice one ... but seriously of course the idea of going to hell brings about a lot of negative emotions that you want to avoid. The way to avoid these negative emotions is to just avoid socialising with homosexuals, then you would stay in God's good book and if you're lucky your desire to go to heaven, will be fulfilled by that same God. Lol

Sure

[thebestofenergy]

@Kaz1983 you seem to not understand how science works, and how a scientific consensus is reached.

I'm not claiming that science is subjective, like how looking at an apple and seeing the colour red is subjective haha. Nahhh what I'm saying is that all knowledge derives from sense experience and therefore is mind-dependent.

Like @Red said, your 'mind-dependent' expression is really vague and can have different meanings.
Does it mean if you see the apple being red, it might actually be not red because the apple being red is dependent on your mind?
Does it mean if you see the apple red, you could be wrong because you might be daltonic?

I'll just assume that you're sane, and it's the second option.

For example just because in the past/on many occasions an individual has experienced a certain medication being effective at reducing headaches, that does not mean objectively it will reduce a headache in the future.

And this is where you don't understand how science works. You're oversimplifying by looking at it in a binary way, and just giving a yes or no answer by the end instead of looking at chances.

Which would be like saying 'just because you throw a dice and 6 happened, that does not mean objectively it will happen in the future'.
First of all, you don't even know if it's a 6-faced die, or if the number 6 is written on multiple face of the die. And depending on that, you can draw the conclusion that, without external factors affecting the throws, it has objectively a [(100% / number of faces) * number of faces with '6' written on them] chance of happening. That's not subjective.

If in the past a significant enough number of people were tested upon, and the vast majority (if not all) of them have experienced X medication to be effective at reduction of headache frequency/pain severity by a noticeable amount, it's objectively very likely something that has to do with X medication directly or indirectly helps with the migraines, and therefore it would be a good solution for people. On top of that, X medication may also be understood on how it works in reducing headaches frequency/severity - in which case, there's little doubt left.

Factors like

1. the number of people in the experiment (the higher, the lower chance of error),
2. the % of the people that had an effect vs the ones that didn't,
3. the amount of effect X medication had overall,
4. the % of people that are placed on the higher part of the spectrum of the efficacy of the treatment vs the one that are on the lower side,
5. and whether X medication is understood in the way in works in reducing headaches, and in what degree of confidence

determine the result.

You can definitely draw objectively wrong conclusion:
if you were to say that X medication is unlikely to work for a random person, after all the factors are strongly in the favors of it working consistently, you'd be objectively wrong. Because it's objectively likely to work.

Science is not just about determining whether X medication is for sure good in all cases or for sure bad in all cases, that's a very narrow view that would lead to nothing being understandable. Or the only way to make sure the headache goes away, would be to smash someone's head or remove their brain.
It's about studying various aspects of reality with the best methods we have available, to get an understanding of it with eventually a good/excellent degree of confidence.

all the knowledge derived from science is subjective and therefore is mind-dependent

This makes absolutely no sense. Please, look into what the scientific method actually is.

Just because every individual may be wrong, doesn't mean a conclusion drawn by verifiable data and cross-compared with multiple individuals is subjective.
Your entire thought process is oxymoronic.
Subjectiveness: 'judgment based on individual personal impressions and feelings and opinions rather than external facts'

How would a collection of data that is objectively verifiable, and rational conclusions that logically follow from it, be something judged based on individual personal impressions/feelings/opinions rather than external facts?
Clearly it's based on external facts - i.e. if you shoot people in the head with a cannon and blow their brains out, and you verify they're dead by checking their pulse, you can objectively state that people die after being shot with a cannon and having their brains blown out, there's nothing subjective about that. You're not basing it on the feeling that someone might be dead.

[Kaz1983]

@Kaz1983 you seem to not understand how science works, and how a scientific consensus is reached.

I'm not saying that is science is completely subjective but that it does have a subjective element to it. Like I have said before I do get that science in general tries to eliminate all subjectivity from the conclusions drawn from scientific research.. but if you believe that all knowledge is derived from sensory experience (many well-known philosophers believed this, David Hume is just one), well sensory experience is subjective and this means that science will always have a subjective element to it.... I don't think I am misunderstanding or completely mistaken with what the purpose of science actually is.

.
You can definitely draw objectively wrong conclusion:
if you were to say that X medication is unlikely to work for a random person, after all the factors are strongly in the favors of it working consistently, you'd be objectively wrong. Because it's objectively likely to work.

With the medication example, what I was trying to explain was that let's say that person A has used a certain anti-headache medication many, many in past and it worked wonderfully.. just because it extremely effective and always eliminated the headache. Every time, that does not mean that objectively the medication will reduce the headache when you take it next tho ..... same with the sun rising, we can't say that objectively it will rise tomorrow but that: "historically the sun has risen every single day, scientific knowledge says that it will rise but at the end of the day we can't objectively say that the sun will rise" ... I'm just pointing out the problem with induction.

https://stanford.library.sydney.edu.au/ ... n-problem/

[thebestofenergy]

all knowledge is derived from sensory experience experience is subjective, science for always have a subjective element to it

I have explained before how that elemental of individual error (possibility of being mistaken =/= subjectivity), in understanding something right or not, gets eliminated once more individuals come in, the data is verifiable, and/or there is empirical evidence.
That's what being a scientific creature (Dennett's creature classification) means - scientific creatures create a better understanding of the world with language and other tools, but do so also in an organized process of making and learning from mistakes in public, and of getting others to assist in the recognition and correction of their own mistakes. Testing is done socially and feedback is taken into consideration - a process which reduces the chance for error. This way, the higher chance of error from relying just on your own experience is taken away. And it's not subjective anymore.

If you were to give an example, it would be much simpler to understand what you're referring to, and respond accordingly. But just because we're not sure 100% about something being true or not, doesn't mean that we can't objectively conclude it's more or less likely to be true with certainty.

Your reasoning is fallacious, for two reasons:

First

Saying that

1. scientific conclusions are subjective
2. because it's primarily based on individuals and what they can perceive, and
3. an individual's perception is subjective by itself,

would be like saying that

1. we are not sentient,
2. because our sentience is based on neurons, and
3. neurons aren't sentient by themselves

Individual perceptions may be subjective, and neurons not sentient, but the sum of them makes something different.

Second

Stuff that is verifiable and/or logically sound, is not 'based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions' (which is what subjective means).
Which is an important concept to understand.
It falls in the definition of objective: '(of a person or their judgement) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.'

If I see that my hand is bleeding, and I can feel, I can assert that my hand is bleeding. That's not subjective. It's literally objective by definition.

You're maybe confusing possibly being mistaken with subjectivity, but those are two different things.