Can morals exist independently of the minds of moral agents?

[blowfly]

If morals do not exist independently of the minds of moral agents, then morals are relative to the moral agent by definition.

If morals DO exist independently of the minds of moral agents, then that begs the following questions:

* Ontology: in what fashion do they exist? In space? In an abstract realm? What constitues them? What structure do they have?

* Causality: how do they interact with our minds and influence our actions? What connection to they have with our neural network (presumably starting with the brain)?

In my experience, it becomes awfully tricky and difficult very quickly to defend the notion of morals existing independently of the minds of moral agents. Yet the only alternative to this is (descriptive) moral relativism.

Cheers,
-the independent blowfly

[Fisherking]

Heh, no problem Michelle, I was perhaps being too pedantic here and opening a pandora's box.

Our eyes detect light; the cells in our eyes respond to photons hitting them. Those photons have a source, say the sun or a light bulb, from which they spread out in every direction and then bounce off objects in every direction, some of which head into our eyes. The reason something red looks red is because all of the other colours of light are absorbed by that object, apart from the wavelengths of light which are red. Black objects absorb all of the coloured light, and white objects reflect all of it. So we are actually SEEING the reflected light, not the object itself. Our brains decipher the strength of light, the shadows, the colour and so we work out the shape of the object that way.


Here endeth the lesson.

Could you "see" light if there was nothing around to reflect it or the source was not in plain site? Oh well, regardless, I should not have included the statement in the first place. Maybe too figurative to be clear... k, no more light.

[ST88]

"Supposing you hear a cry for help from a man in danger. You will probably feel two desires--one a desire to give help (due to your herd instinct), the other a desire to keep out of danger (due to the instinct for self-preservation). But you will find inside you, in addition to these two impulses, a third thing which tells you that you ought to follow the impulse to help, and suppress the impulse to run away. Now this thing that judges between two instincts, that decides which should be encouraged, cannot itself be either of them. You might as well say that the sheet of music which tells you, at a given moment, to play one note on the piano and not another, is itself one of the notes on the keyboard. The Moral Law tells us the tune we have to play: our instincts are merely the keys....
The Moral Law is not any one instinct or any set of instincts: it is something which makes a kind of tune (the tune we call goodness or right conduct) by directing the instincts." C.S. Lewis

I believe morals exist independently of the minds of moral agents.
As C.S. Lewis said, "We cannot see light, but by light we can see things".

Mr. Lewis was using a false notion of motivation. Let's assume for the moment that we do, in fact, have these two impulses: help and hide. What Mr. Lewis did not and could not understand was that there is not a third impulse that propulses one of the other two along. Neurological studies have shown that the mind is a cacophony of voices, the loudest of which gets the most attention. So the impulse that screams the loudest is the one that gets its way. And the loudness of the voice is determined by individual experience and internalization of the cause/effect relationship of either choice. Curiously, there is no voice that spouts only morals -- there are only degrees of morality that can be ascribed to each individual voice on hindsight.

[Fisherking]

"Supposing you hear a cry for help from a man in danger. You will probably feel two desires--one a desire to give help (due to your herd instinct), the other a desire to keep out of danger (due to the instinct for self-preservation). But you will find inside you, in addition to these two impulses, a third thing which tells you that you ought to follow the impulse to help, and suppress the impulse to run away. Now this thing that judges between two instincts, that decides which should be encouraged, cannot itself be either of them. You might as well say that the sheet of music which tells you, at a given moment, to play one note on the piano and not another, is itself one of the notes on the keyboard. The Moral Law tells us the tune we have to play: our instincts are merely the keys....
The Moral Law is not any one instinct or any set of instincts: it is something which makes a kind of tune (the tune we call goodness or right conduct) by directing the instincts." C.S. Lewis

I believe morals exist independently of the minds of moral agents.
As C.S. Lewis said, "We cannot see light, but by light we can see things".

Mr. Lewis was using a false notion of motivation. Let's assume for the moment that we do, in fact, have these two impulses: help and hide. What Mr. Lewis did not and could not understand was that there is not a third impulse that propulses one of the other two along. Neurological studies have shown that the mind is a cacophony of voices, the loudest of which gets the most attention. So the impulse that screams the loudest is the one that gets its way. And the loudness of the voice is determined by individual experience and internalization of the cause/effect relationship of either choice. Curiously, there is no voice that spouts only morals -- there are only degrees of morality that can be ascribed to each individual voice on hindsight.

Regardless how many impulses there are for any given moment in the human experience, there is still the one that tells us "we ought" or we "ought not". That is what separates humans from other animals. Your explaination sounds more like how my dog deals with impulses

[ST88]

Regardless how many impulses there are for any given moment in the human experience, there is still the one that tells us "we ought" or we "ought not". That is what separates humans from other animals. Your explaination sounds more like how my dog deals with impulses

Think about how your dog deals with impulses for a second. I don't know about you, but I can see the various simplistic thoughts going through my dog's head in certain situations. Should I take the taco from the table? The taco will taste so good. But if I take the taco I will get yelled at and possibly get a time out. Is it worth it? The person goes through the same process, albeit at a higher level and actually considers a more distant future when thinking about such decisions.

The person has additional cost/benefit calculations -- different from animal urges, as you say -- such as whether or not (or how) the person can live with the decision after it is made, or how the decision might affect future prospects with others. But there still need not be an additional voice that guides the person in specific directions. How can we know this? People do murder other people and are remorseful for it afterwards, and often don't quite understand their own motives. The voice that tells them it would be a good idea to murder is the loudest voice at that particular moment -- a third moral impulse would (presumably) always steer them away from such really really bad decisions. Unless of course you are now proposing a fourth impulse towards evil. And perhaps a fifth impulse towards indeterminacy.

[Fisherking]

Regardless how many impulses there are for any given moment in the human experience, there is still the one that tells us "we ought" or we "ought not". That is what separates humans from other animals. Your explaination sounds more like how my dog deals with impulses

Think about how your dog deals with impulses for a second. I don't know about you, but I can see the various simplistic thoughts going through my dog's head in certain situations. Should I take the taco from the table? The taco will taste so good. But if I take the taco I will get yelled at and possibly get a time out. Is it worth it? The person goes through the same process, albeit at a higher level and actually considers a more distant future when thinking about such decisions.

The person has additional cost/benefit calculations -- different from animal urges, as you say -- such as whether or not (or how) the person can live with the decision after it is made, or how the decision might affect future prospects with others. But there still need not be an additional voice that guides the person in specific directions. How can we know this? People do murder other people and are remorseful for it afterwards, and often don't quite understand their own motives. The voice that tells them it would be a good idea to murder is the loudest voice at that particular moment -- a third moral impulse would (presumably) always steer them away from such really really bad decisions. Unless of course you are now proposing a fourth impulse towards evil. And perhaps a fifth impulse towards indeterminacy.

If we presuppose that dogs think it might seem that they do. I've never had a dog ask me a question. Yes they may have the same impulses as we do (hunger)--yet only people ask "why". For a dog, if the impulse to take the taco does not outweigh master's desclipline I agree-- the dog will not take the taco-- as soon as you leave the room, that impulse might not be as strong as the impulse to eat it--he very well might eat it. After he eats it there is no reason to believe there is guilt. He isn't thinking "master looks hungry, It was selfish of me to eat the taco"--"I've been eating good (the dead skunk outside) and master has had nothing to eat for days, I should not have done it."

".....[in a dog's world] there are only facts and no meaning. And in a period when factual realism is dominant we shall find people deliberately inducing upon themselves this doglike mind. A man who has experienced love from within will deliberately go about to inspect it analytically from outside and regard the results of this analysis as truer than his experience. The extreme limit of this self-blinding is see in those who, like the rest of us, have consciousness, yet go about to study the human organism as if they did not know it was conscious. As long as this deliberate refusal to understand things from above, even where such understanding is possible continues, it is idle to talk of any final victory over materialism. The critique of every experience from below, the voluntary ignoring of meaning and concentration on fact, will always have the same plausibility. There will always be evidence, and every month fresh evidence, to show that religion is only psychological, justice only self-protection, politics only economics, love only lust, and thought itself only cerebral biochemistry.'(c.s.l.)

To reduce everything to chemicals and atoms takes from humanity the essence of what it means to be human... We come nearer to God through the arts than science in my own opinion...the poem, the masterpiece, the music--as soon as we begin to examine it with the microscope for its molecular structure and chemical makeup we take something away. The chemicals and colors exist--but they do not make the painting a work of art. The creative minds of people do.

[Confused]

Heh, no problem Michelle, I was perhaps being too pedantic here and opening a pandora's box.

Our eyes detect light; the cells in our eyes respond to photons hitting them. Those photons have a source, say the sun or a light bulb, from which they spread out in every direction and then bounce off objects in every direction, some of which head into our eyes. The reason something red looks red is because all of the other colours of light are absorbed by that object, apart from the wavelengths of light which are red. Black objects absorb all of the coloured light, and white objects reflect all of it. So we are actually SEEING the reflected light, not the object itself. Our brains decipher the strength of light, the shadows, the colour and so we work out the shape of the object that way.


Here endeth the lesson.

I can't dispute this. But logically it still seems upside down. Wait, we see upside down. (Can't help the poor sense of humor ) Yes, we are seeing the light reflected from the object in regards to color. I can grasp that. But how is it that color blind people can see objects if we are seeing the colors they reflect? (This is an honest question, though I know the answer, I am trying to separate the color from the equation in determining the shape of the object so it makes sense in my mind )

[Ncik666]

To reduce everything to chemicals and atoms takes from humanity the essence of what it means to be human... We come nearer to God through the arts than science in my own opinion...the poem, the masterpiece, the music--as soon as we begin to examine it with the microscope for its molecular structure and chemical makeup we take something away. The chemicals and colors exist--but they do not make the painting a work of art. The creative minds of people do.

Almost exactly, to understand the pure question "why" is what drives most of human achievements. On the other hand We are just atoms and chemicals. And the human mind while being complicated at first, runs on (to take a computer reference) a fairly simple OS. Like ST88 said our actions are determined by multitudes of loud voices. The society and personal opinions of each person determine the strength of these voices. A person does not determine their morality most of the time. They are brought to these conclusions by the way their mind processes the events of their life. The morals are really just what the society deems is right and the morality of an action is wether the action fits into societys actions.

[ST88]

If we presuppose that dogs think it might seem that they do. I've never had a dog ask me a question. Yes they may have the same impulses as we do (hunger)--yet only people ask "why". For a dog, if the impulse to take the taco does not outweigh master's desclipline I agree-- the dog will not take the taco-- as soon as you leave the room, that impulse might not be as strong as the impulse to eat it--he very well might eat it. After he eats it there is no reason to believe there is guilt. He isn't thinking "master looks hungry, It was selfish of me to eat the taco"--"I've been eating good (the dead skunk outside) and master has had nothing to eat for days, I should not have done it."

The type of automatonic actions that you seem to be applying to dogs is also true for a creature whose experiential memory is about five seconds long, but whose procedural memory is far longer. True, the dog will not ask whether or not I needed the taco more than he did, but isn't that just a change in the degree of reasoning? I would think that the dog does not have the knowledge that taking the taco is morally wrong, for the reason that the idea of morality is not a natural phenomenon, but a human construct based on how our brains are different. It is possible to explain Morality and Morals as the expression of very complex pack-animal instincts and something we might call empathy.

".....[in a dog's world] there are only facts and no meaning. And in a period when factual realism is dominant we shall find people deliberately inducing upon themselves this doglike mind. A man who has experienced love from within will deliberately go about to inspect it analytically from outside and regard the results of this analysis as truer than his experience. The extreme limit of this self-blinding is see in those who, like the rest of us, have consciousness, yet go about to study the human organism as if they did not know it was conscious. As long as this deliberate refusal to understand things from above, even where such understanding is possible continues, it is idle to talk of any final victory over materialism. The critique of every experience from below, the voluntary ignoring of meaning and concentration on fact, will always have the same plausibility. There will always be evidence, and every month fresh evidence, to show that religion is only psychological, justice only self-protection, politics only economics, love only lust, and thought itself only cerebral biochemistry.'(c.s.l.)

You can make a similar counter-argument: if you first accept that there must be meaning in everything we do, then you can see meaning in everything we do. Religious hermeneutics dictates that all actions/feelings/thoughts must have religious meaning, and so they are interpreted as such.

To reduce everything to chemicals and atoms takes from humanity the essence of what it means to be human...

This, I think, is one of the biggest fallacies that religion puts forth. Humanity does not need special legal protection from materialism. We are just as human if we are imbued with religious significance than if we are not.

We come nearer to God through the arts than science in my own opinion...the poem, the masterpiece, the music--as soon as we begin to examine it with the microscope for its molecular structure and chemical makeup we take something away. The chemicals and colors exist--but they do not make the painting a work of art. The creative minds of people do.

Well, aside from the snarky post-modernist response that I could give to this, I can say that as a non-theist, the creative process is no less remarkable if there is no divine inspiration. The desire to convey meaning is not distinctly human, but the desire to convey meaning with counter-intuitive clarity is. I don't quite agree that trying to deconstruct works of art tends to take the "art" out them. We can study the process of painting, for example -- such as the molecular structure of the pigments -- while still being able to appreciate the painting itself as a creative work. It depends on what kind of study you are trying to make. The pigments may give us a historical timeframe: certain materials were available at specific times in history from specific places; certain people may have favored one type of pigment over another for whatever reason (cost, availability, simple preference); etc. But still the creativity is evident if that is what we're looking at.

If you're worried that neuropsychology is trying to eliminate the need for religious dogma, don't be. Non-materialists shouldn't be concerned about what material science is doing or even claiming.

[ST88]

If we presuppose that dogs think it might seem that they do. I've never had a dog ask me a question. Yes they may have the same impulses as we do (hunger)--yet only people ask "why". For a dog, if the impulse to take the taco does not outweigh master's desclipline I agree-- the dog will not take the taco-- as soon as you leave the room, that impulse might not be as strong as the impulse to eat it--he very well might eat it. After he eats it there is no reason to believe there is guilt. He isn't thinking "master looks hungry, It was selfish of me to eat the taco"--"I've been eating good (the dead skunk outside) and master has had nothing to eat for days, I should not have done it."

The type of automatonic actions that you seem to be applying to dogs is also true for a creature whose experiential memory is about five seconds long, but whose procedural memory is far longer. True, the dog will not ask whether or not I needed the taco more than he did, but isn't that just a change in the degree of reasoning? I would think that the dog does not have the knowledge that taking the taco is morally wrong, for the reason that the idea of morality is not a natural phenomenon, but a human construct based on how our brains are different. It is possible to explain Morality and Morals as the expression of very complex pack-animal instincts and something we might call empathy.

".....[in a dog's world] there are only facts and no meaning. And in a period when factual realism is dominant we shall find people deliberately inducing upon themselves this doglike mind. A man who has experienced love from within will deliberately go about to inspect it analytically from outside and regard the results of this analysis as truer than his experience. The extreme limit of this self-blinding is see in those who, like the rest of us, have consciousness, yet go about to study the human organism as if they did not know it was conscious. As long as this deliberate refusal to understand things from above, even where such understanding is possible continues, it is idle to talk of any final victory over materialism. The critique of every experience from below, the voluntary ignoring of meaning and concentration on fact, will always have the same plausibility. There will always be evidence, and every month fresh evidence, to show that religion is only psychological, justice only self-protection, politics only economics, love only lust, and thought itself only cerebral biochemistry.'(c.s.l.)

You can make a similar counter-argument: if you first accept that there must be meaning in everything we do, then you can see meaning in everything we do. Religious hermeneutics dictates that all actions/feelings/thoughts must have religious meaning, and so they are interpreted as such.

To reduce everything to chemicals and atoms takes from humanity the essence of what it means to be human...

This, I think, is one of the biggest fallacies that religion puts forth. Humanity does not need special legal protection from materialism. We are just as human if we are imbued with religious significance than if we are not.

We come nearer to God through the arts than science in my own opinion...the poem, the masterpiece, the music--as soon as we begin to examine it with the microscope for its molecular structure and chemical makeup we take something away. The chemicals and colors exist--but they do not make the painting a work of art. The creative minds of people do.

Well, aside from the snarky post-modernist response that I could give to this, I can say that as a non-theist, the creative process is no less remarkable if there is no divine inspiration. The desire to convey meaning is not distinctly human, but the desire to convey meaning with counter-intuitive clarity is. I don't quite agree that trying to deconstruct works of art tends to take the "art" out them. We can study the process of painting, for example -- such as the molecular structure of the pigments -- while still being able to appreciate the painting itself as a creative work. It depends on what kind of study you are trying to make. The pigments may give us a historical timeframe: certain materials were available at specific times in history from specific places; certain people may have favored one type of pigment over another for whatever reason (cost, availability, simple preference); etc. But still the creativity is evident if that is what we're looking at.

If you're worried that neuropsychology is trying to eliminate the need for religious dogma, don't be. Non-materialists shouldn't be concerned about what material science is doing or even claiming.

[methylatedghosts]

According to Hobbes, moral law needs to be instigated by a power. In his case, a monarch. This monarch decides the laws by which people are bound, and decides punishment and the like.

He says this because he believed that people co-existing in a state of nature with respect to each other (i.e. with no governing power) would be in a state of war of all-against-all. This is due to people being selfish (self-survival), equal ("they say men need to sleep, and they have their throats about them at that time. And they say knives have edges"[shakespeare] - we are all equaly vulnerable). Point is, if you introduce pressures, people will start eliminating the competition for their own survival. They are not bound by any sort of moral law. There needs to be a higher governing power to give people laws and morals.

Anyway, thats a 17th century view on it.