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WBraun
climber
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Nov 16, 2010 - 04:05pm PT
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I think, is that there really is no absolute morality.
"I think"
Means you don't know and speculating trying to figure it out by yourselves through the material senses.
The entire morality of this modern age is based on that including mundane dogmatic religious morality.
Thus you will remain perpetually bewildered ............
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 16, 2010 - 05:09pm PT
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Is spanking children immoral? What if the "scientific" data after a lot of research (by "morality" scientists, others) showed corporeal punishment to be beneficial? Beneficial to healthy emotional development. Beneficial to society. Should we then return to the spare-the-rod moral and shame those parents with unruly sons and daughters who menace the neighborhood?
Sam Harris didn't address this one in his new book either. Bottom line: I only gave his book 2 stars out of 5.
.....
Norton: Reported suicide rates have ALWAYS struck me as kinda low, makes me wonder if there might be some sort of conspiracy somewhere. (Shh, but don't tell the conspiracy nuts around here.) Indeed, just last year there were TWO just on my street. Which houses a lot less than 10k.
Maybe the conspiracy is, numbers are only reported for 40 years of age and under. The two on my street were both in their 60s.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Nov 16, 2010 - 05:19pm PT
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Fructose, good point what exactly qualifies as suicide.
All day long terminally ill or just very old people suffering towards death
form a strong connection with their doctors.
And those good doctors listen to them and give them a little more morphine for
their "pain".
Both parties know full well what the extra morphine is also designed to do.
Most people could imagine themselves is such a situation, and not consider
their doctors to be "murderers" or see themselves as committing suicide.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 16, 2010 - 05:23pm PT
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You can't have any more babies!
Why?
Science says.
.....
EDIT
But I am glad I read his book.
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Spider Savage
Mountain climber
SoCal
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Nov 16, 2010 - 05:47pm PT
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The morality play is certainly going on in the area of rock climbing.
"I'm going to place the bolt on Double Cross to help others and do good." --Thinker
"Who is the as#@&%e who vandalized Double Cross by placing this bolt right next to a perfectly protectable crack?!!!!" (outrage, hate, anger) --Doer
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Nov 16, 2010 - 05:54pm PT
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I'm about 2/3rds of the way through the book. As much as I like Sam Harris (Letter to a Christian Nation is fantastic), and I absolutely agree with the premise, this one is a bit slow-going, and Harris resorts to saying the same thing in different ways a lot.
Clearly, if morality is not something dictated by a supernatural being (and it's not), it must be something that arises from the natural world and therefore subject to scientific inquiry. There's a reason that one of the most prestigious scientific journals is called Nature and Science. Science is really just a formal way of describing nature.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 16, 2010 - 06:21pm PT
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Yeah, to bolt or not to bolt. The ethics (which Harris equates to morality in his book) of rock climbing crossed my mind more than once while reading his book.
Eeyonkee, Sam Harris writes:
"I once knew a very smart and talented man who sent an email to dozens of friends and acquaintances declaring his intention to kill himself. As you might expect, this communication prompted a flurry of responses. While I did not know him well, I sent several emails urging him to seek professional counseling, to try antidepressants, to address his sleep issues, and to do a variety of other obvious things to combat depression. In each of his replies, however, he insisted that he was not depressed. He believed himself to be acting on a philosophical insight: everyone dies eventually; life, therefore, is ultimately pointless; thus, there is no reason to keep on living if one doesn’t want to. We went back and forth on these topics, as I sought to persuade him that his “insight” was itself a symptom of depression or some other mood disorder. I argued that if he simply felt better, he wouldn’t believe that his life was no longer worth living. No doubt many other people had similar exchanges with him. These communications seemed to nudge him away from the precipice for a while. Four years later, however, he committed suicide.
"Experiences of this kind reveal how difficult it can be to discuss the subject of human well-being."
Chapter 5, The Future of Happiness
Perhaps a future moral: You live till you've had enough. (Of the mountains. Of life.) By age 61 or 71, some have had enough. Who's to say when is when?
There will be a discipline someday I think -apart from religion, supernaturalist belief - that will offer counseling and life strategies in these areas that's a lot more satisfying than what the world has now.
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nutjob
Trad climber
Berkeley, CA
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Nov 16, 2010 - 09:04pm PT
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I think that morality has already been studied from a scientific perspective... weighing altruistic versus selfish behaviors and the outcome for individuals and groups. It's called Game Theory. You know, "doves and hawks" and stuff like that. Another example: why do baby birds make noise to attract snakes that eat them, when if they were quiet their mommy would feed them both? They make noise to get more food from mommy, then all die when a snake finds them. It only takes one to start making noise and getting more food then the others have to start making noise too. Stuff like that.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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Nov 16, 2010 - 10:12pm PT
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HFCS: You never cease to amaze me... not in a good way.
You have ranted HARD, LONG, and OFTEN about how philosophy is DEAD and how science has got it ALL wrapped up.
Are you now suggesting that there is a field of legitimate discourse that cannot be addressed or resolved by science?
Opening up a huge can of worms, there, big boy! If science isn't THE truth-seeker for morality, how many other fields of "study" will be next???
Given your endless scientism, I'm just panting to hear about what mechanisms you imagine to even DISCUSS (much less shed actual light on) the subject of morality? It's not going to fall to scientific experiment, and philosophy and religion are both dead. So what's left? Group fondles?
Harharhar... groping in the dark!
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WBraun
climber
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Nov 16, 2010 - 10:37pm PT
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HaHa
Pretty sharp khanom
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Nov 16, 2010 - 10:39pm PT
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Kahnom is correct. Morality is not dependent upon and does not arise from religious belief.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Nov 16, 2010 - 10:44pm PT
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Morality arises from religious belief?
So those without religious belief are not capable of morality.
Really?
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Nov 16, 2010 - 10:49pm PT
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OOOPS... I meant to say DOES NOT. I will edit.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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Nov 17, 2010 - 12:34am PT
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It really cracks me up hearing utterly untrained non-ethicists pontificating confidently about that which they know nothing.
Oh, sorry. What am I saying?
Philosophy is dead, so I'm told; so ethics, which is a fundamentally philosophical subject is also dead. I guess everybody's opinion is therefore as good as everybody Else's. Since nobody here has actually read the corpus of philosophical literature on ethics ('cause it's dead and all), everybody can pontificate as confidently as everybody else.
Group fondle, and all that....
Enjoy!
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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Nov 17, 2010 - 12:37am PT
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Oh, and, yes... on this subject I am an "elitist." At least I do know what I'm talking about.
Harharhar... carry on... this is gonna be really, really good. I'm now settling in for the sheer entertainment value.
I've already learned that, because philosophy is dead and all, that there's nothing any philosopher can contribute to this discussion. So, the group-grope that's about to ensure is going to be high-value hilarity for me!
Don't disappoint!
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WBraun
climber
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Nov 17, 2010 - 01:18am PT
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madbolter1 -- "At least I do know what I'm talking about."
Well?
I'm all ears. Please do tell ....
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Paul Martzen
Trad climber
Fresno
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Nov 17, 2010 - 04:11am PT
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To the the extent that morality and ethics are concerned with the truth and the actual effects of our actions, then I think science is a legitimate tool for studying them. If you are willing to say that we have morals and ethics in order to have some positive result, then it is reasonable to try and test those assumptions as best we can.
On the other hand, perhaps morals and ethics are rules created by: Kings for their subjects, Popes for their converts, God for his creations. In that case, using the scientific method to study those rules, is probably a dangerous questioning of authority.
To the extent that morality and ethics are interesting, I think they are also worthy of scientific study, if we can figure out how.
Madbolter1, always interesting sparks when you post.
Philosophy dead? I have always thought of science as a subset of philosophy. Is not philosophy the love and search for knowledge? Is not science an attempt to discover knowledge through systematic and empirical means?
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 17, 2010 - 12:09pm PT
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Nutjob wrote-
"Morality has already been studied from a scientific perspective." Agree. Also agree any modern model of morality (that we can draw upon and apply in our modern "practices" of living) needs to base itself on, and build on, what we already know from game theory. Seems to me, any morality model that didn't take into account game theory - just as any that didn't take into account evolutionary theory - would be incomplete.
MB1- Gotta say, you really can pepper the gumbo. Even so, I'll bite: "Science has it ALL wrapped up." Who said that? That is YOUR hyperbole. I've said time and again science is (only) a tool for investigating how the world works in terms of facts, in terms of "what is" or "what are."
I do think we have some language shortcomings relating to this subject and need to expand our terminology set (our lexicon) so we can better separate the study of morality, and/or the science of morality (in terms of facts, e.g.,) from the prescriptions of morality (in terms of dos and don'ts, either felt or written, based on goals, values, interests, desired results, etc.) - or people are going to continue to miscommunicate, misunderstand - even argue over - the many and various elements, perspectives, and layers that characterize this wide and deep and complex subject.
The Moral Landscape (by Sam Harris) might have been a better read, a better work, seems to me, if it would've addressed some of these communications and language issues and fleshed out the dimensions and layers of the subject more. So perhaps that is for another.
EDIT
"Morality is not dependent upon and does not arise from religious belief."
-damn straight.
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Paul Martzen
Trad climber
Fresno
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Nov 17, 2010 - 01:23pm PT
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Seems to me that each of us has to make moral and ethical decisions in our daily lives. Each of us are experts in our own personal experiences since no one else is experiencing them for us. We can't hire trained ethicists to step in to our shoes and act out our lives for us.
Pontificating and opinionating are not the best ways of sharing our experiences, but we gotta start somewhere.
I am curious about how to train an ethicist. What is the process? Is it purely a scholastic study? Are there empirical aspects? Is it a process of memorizing moral and ethical rules handed down through the past? Is it like studying law and deciding which rules to apply when? What are some of the aspects that were valuable to you?
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Paul Martzen
Trad climber
Fresno
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Nov 17, 2010 - 02:10pm PT
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Hey Dingus,
"Science police its own morality? IMPOSSIBLE"
Hmmmm.... Seems to me that the basic morality of science is that knowledge is good. Hard for science to say, "This knowledge over here is good, but that knowledge over there is bad." How would you know that knowledge is bad with out studying it?
How would you know that there are hormones in the milk without scientific measurements? How would you know there is lead in the candy without testing it? Why would you think it is bad to have hormones in milk, if somebody had not tried to measure the effects on the people who drink the milk?
I agree that technological and social advancements due to science have created many problems. Would we have a population explosion without advances in food production, sanitation and medicine? We would not have wars with bullets and bombs. But I am skeptical that our problems are entirely or mainly due to curiosity and the love of knowledge. Seems like other factors such as economics and superstitions have pretty big roles.
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