rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (05/02/86)
> Tragically, one of the dominant philosophies of the day, logical > positivism, encouraged disregard of `metaphysical' subjects like > morality and ethics. Ironically, the logical positivists included many > whose flight from the Nazi terror was largely responsible for the breakup > of logical positivism. I miss the irony part. And I disagree about the "tragically" part, too, of course, as you'd expect. I think that using rationality as the basis for the roots of morality and ethics, discarding that which we are unable to justify, is a far cry from "encouraging disregard". > I still find it peculiar to hear people speak of physics and math as > "objective" while labeling morality and ethics as "subjective". I > believe this is due to historical reasons -- the metaphysical carving up > of human wisdom into spiritual and physical that occurred at about the > time of Descartes. This post-Galilean truce between science and religion > continued until Darwin unintentionally demolished what was commonly felt > to be basis of religion. Perhaps we can reacquire (or just plain acquire?) objectivity in morality and ethics by looking for what we really want out of life and society and how to ensure that it is available to us. Obviously we all want different things when you get down to specifics. But perhaps the morality can be formulated that provides for that. Autocratic religious morality refuses to provide for that. It deliberately encourages outright refusal of rights to people whose beliefs and desires differ from their own. When I say "looking for what we really want out of life" and "we all want different things" and "perhaps the morality can provide for that", I obviously leave out those who very clearly DON'T want the morality to provide for that, who want for only their chosen subset of possibilities to be "allowed". That might even be viable IFF there was one such group who felt that way regarding a monolithic across the board set of restrictions/rules. But, unfortunately, there are hundreds of such groups, each with a completely different set, sometimes barely intersecting with the others. And even if we gave each one their own cubbyhole to live in away from all the others, we've seen the result in history of how these groups LOVE to fight amongst themselves over who's right. And of course, this ignores the issue of the person in one group who wants out although this isn't allowed by that group. This is why I feel that those who "DON'T want the morality to provide for that", that freedom of expression for individuals, haven't got a leg to stand on. Thus we are "stuck" with the only "universal" basis for a morality: each one a variant on the so-called Golden Rule. I think someone else had the best variant of all, only I've forgotten how he/she phrased it: not so much "do unto others as you would have others do unto you" (because that's an egocentric way of looking at the world, assuming everyone has the same desires as you, and because it would, in the example given, force masochists to be sadists, e.g.), but more like "have the same amount of respect for the other person's chosen path as he/she has for yours and for those of others". Fail to have that respect, engage in harming other people, and your chosen path will not be shown "respect", you will be thwarted from it by those whom you interfere with and those who support them. > That done, there are now two attitudes towards > what were traditionally held to be spiritual concerns: > 1: Discard them as "non-objective" > 2: Decide that they merit serious study, thereby making them > "objective". Sounds a lot like describing a phenomenon and out of the blue calling it "free will" because you want free will to exist. :-( One can't just say "Ah, NOW this merits serious study." Especially when that's kind of far from the truth. Asserting that it's true doesn't "thereby make it objective". I'm for #1. But I don't throw morality into the category of spiritual/mystical concerns. > By my account, morality can be studied objectively, freed from all > religious trappings. One CAN "objectively" analyze moral theories and > eliminate those which are contradictory, self defeating, not > evolutionarily stable, or, most importantly, in violation of > deeply held moral axioms, such as the golden rule. I think you miss the point. "In violation of deeply held moral axioms" is a non sequitur. Essentially your paragraph above could be interpreted by a "student of morality" as "throw this out, throw that out, but leave that alone because I cherish that belief, even though it fits into the category of contradictory/self-defeating/etc." We keep things like (improved variants of) the Golden Rule BECAUSE they are valid, not because we like them. Get a bunch of "students of morality" together, each with a different set of cherished beliefs, have them go through the process you've just described, and you have exactly the situation we have now. > Belief in God prevented the development of moral reasoning. (That was a quote, not something Michael professed himself, though I assume he agrees with it at least in part, or else why would he have quoted it?) I don't think this statement is at all true. It's the use of belief in god to justify things that would otherwise be untenable positions, things one wanted to believe that one couldn't support, or things that may be held to be valuable to a society deemed to be the "will of god", THAT is the dangerous thing. If you really believe what you quoted, Michael, why is it that you rag on me so much? -- Life is complex. It has real and imaginary parts. Rich Rosen ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr