and my response:
You almost make it sound like social flourishing and selfishness are somewhat at odds.
Words are only as good as our mutual understanding of them. If I were to argue this point, I would try to make a distinction between "selfishness" defined as
" lacking consideration for others; concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit or pleasure." And "self-interest" defined as "a concern for one's own advantage and well-being".
Now, despite the definitions, I want to communicate to you, in the context of this conversation I'm defining them differently only so you know what I mean when I say them.
I think selfishness as I've defined it can be detrimental to society, where self-interest (again as I've defined it) takes society into account as part of that self-interest.
Now if you mean self-interest as I've defined it, then we agree, if you mean selfishness in the Ian Rand sense, then we disagree.
Just do me a favor and don't get hung up on definitions, rather understand I'm just making the distinctions here so you know what I mean.
But, yes: Moral ideas will depend largely on what is considered their greatest good or ultimate purpose.
But that's just it, we don't choose our morals by reaching into a hat with slips of paper that define what we will call good and what we will call bad. We define our morals with respect to values that we hold.
So the real question is, what do we value? We can evaluate our values with respect to the goals we want to achieve when holding them and evaluate the outcomes. How does plucking eyeballs out of children help a society achieve the things they value? How about vaccinations?
You play Badminton. You
value hitting the shuttlecock over the net. Therefore certain actions with respect to that value are "good" and others are "bad". Hitting out of bounds is bad, hitting where the other person can't get to it is good.
The same can be said of human values. If you agree that private property should be valued, then your morals will be a reflection of those values. Stealing in the context of your values is bad...
If I asked you why hitting the shuttlecock into the net was "bad" you'd explain to me the rules of the game. If I asked you why I couldn't make up my own rules you'd rightly point out that no one would want to play with me.
Similarly, if I asked you why stealing was bad and you explained that people saw the value of private property and how it leads to empirically better results and then explain that if everyone stole from each other it would lead to degradation of society and I asked you why I should have to follow those rules you'd remind me that because society had chosen to value private property and people agree that those that don't will be punished.
Now you've asked me if everyone is playing the same "game". No, we can choose not to, my point is only that there are very good reasons to choose one "game" over another.
But it still all comes down to choice, but, not to belabor the point, but if somone asked why they should choose one moral position over another, I'd simply ask what they value.
If there are people who truly value misery and suffering and pain, then their morality should reflect those values. I'm simply asserting that an insignificant fraction of people actually holds values like that. Even people who are rapists don't "value" rape. Most would not want their loved ones to be raped. However, they selfishly value their own desires over the desires of others while simultaneously wouldn't want that value (rape) to be universal. Thus even rapists can have morals.
Anyway, I would agree with you that this is somewhat arbitrary - I find it, however, always refreshing when people are open, honest and consistent about what they consider the ultimate purpose in forming their moral ideas.
I have to take this next one a little out of order....
3. I don´t agree with you when you equate "arbitrary" and "random". They are completely different concepts.
Again, words are only as good as mutually agreed upon definitions.
The definition of arbitrary: "
based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system."
Now, if you want to define the words differently and make me aware of distinction you are trying to make in the context of this conversation (like I did with selfishness and self-interest) then I'd ask you to state your case. Otherwise, I have
no idea what you are talking about as arbitrary literally means "random" and is a synonym of the word random.
1. I don´t think selfishness and social flourishing are in contradiction. A good amount of selfishness is required for social flourishing.
I addressed this above.
2. Yes, as you suggested, I think that the choice "social flourishing" is somewhat arbitrary. The fact that you define morality as "simply letting us know what society has chosen to be the greatest good" (a pretty unusual definition, btw.) doesn´t render this choice of a "greatest good" any less arbitrary.
No, I was making the opposite argument. Choices are subjective NOT arbitrary (or random).
4. As to the game analogy: Pretty much everything you said there would make a lot of sense if we were talking about "legislation" instead of "morality".
Why?
However, it´s part of the very problem that society does not have a "set of moral rules" that are uniform, clearly communicated, written down and enforced.
Sure it's a problem, but that doesn't prevent anyone from tryng to promote values supported by empirical evidence and then define morals that reflect those values.
Thus, the analogy game rules - morality misses out in a crucial aspect: there is no moral rule book that e.g. "five players follow and one doesn´t" (even though a lot of people are silently assuming that their idea of the game is universally shared).
Try this
thought experiment. Imagine a grown man having sex 6-year-old in public and see what happens....
Do you think that people would react with virtually universal contempt? How many people would say, "gee, his morality lets him rape children?"
Of course not. Now why do we value children that are free from rape? Because we know it causes REAL quantifiable harm.
5. Unlike laws, moral ideas aren´t as detailed as "the net is 1,55 high".
Absolutely agree. Morals are much, much more complex. I can think of countless moral conundrums where competing interest creates moral gray areas.
I would simply say that unlike the rules of a game, morality is much more difficult. I'd point out that one of the problems with morality in society is the temptation to oversimplify it.
First by trying to derive values from morals which are backward (think of the 10 commandments). We derive our morals from our values, not the other way around, yet this is exactly what Christianity promotes.
Second, oversimplifying morality, imo, leads to outcomes that fail to live up to the values morals are based on.
5. I agree that the Badminton rules are following a certain purpose - which doesn´t mean that the purpose ("greatest good") is not arbitrarily chosen.
That is literally a contradiction.
Certain purpose and arbitrary when discussing the same concept aren't compatable.
(And, on another note, even if everyone agree on the purpose, the determination of the countless variable is interdependent - if the rackets were longer, the net could be higher; if the shuttles were made heavier, the court could be bigger etc.etc.
Could the net be 1.45m instead of 1.55? Sure, could the net be 9m and still be a game people want to play? Probably not.
So I agree that there is plenty of flexibility in the precise determination of the rules of Badminton, the racquets could be a little larger/ smaller, longer/shorter. The shuttles a little different, that does not make the choices arbitrary it makes the choices subjective with respect to the goal of creating a game that people want to play.
What you couldn't do is put random measurements (and I mean truly random) of all the aspects of the game in a hat and randomly choose them. The game's rules are chosen subjectively with respect to human capabilities and the desire to create a fun and challenging game.
Morality isn't chosen at random. We choose our morality based on our values that in turn reflect our most basic desires to move toward those things that promote health, happiness, and well-being, but even more importantly avoid pain, suffering, and sickness.
I talked about experiencing the world, not about experiencing their pain. And yes, some people experience X as very painful, others don´t. Suffering is a very subjective thing.
Sure, I agree that people experience things differently. I would argue, however, that when it comes to pain and suffering, the more intense it gets, the more similar it becomes.
No, it would be pretty similar, I guess. I´m not sure, though, why this is important, since above you defined "morality" as being about social flourishing.
The most important aspect of morality, based on what I know of human experience, is that avoiding pain and suffering is more important than any amount of pleasure. In other words, if were were to imagine the greatest possible suffering and greatest possible happiness on opposite ends of a scale, the center between those two would not be in the middle. What I mean is, being free from sickness and pain is in itself a form of pleasure. Imagine a scale of 1-100 (1 is the greatest possible happiness and 100 is the greatest possible suffering). 50, IMO, would not be the middle. I would argue that something like, maybe 25 would be the middle. I say this because people are more likely to avoid pain than seek pleasure.
This is why we never see people who enjoy skydiving jumping off a tall building or out of planes without parachutes. Because we fear death and pain and suffering more than we desire pleasure and happiness.
There are a lot of ideas out there that accept and promote inflicting suffering on individuals as not only reconcicable with but even necessary for "social flourishing".
Not that I disagree with you here, but can you give an example?
...and discussions about morality aren´t necessary when it comes to things we "recognize the same". It gets difficult at those very points where we realize that not all of us "recognize them the same".
Sure, this comes back to the problem of awareness. People have the capacity to understand the consequences of their choices and choose to act against their own self-interest. I'd argue that this is why animals generally don't knowing act against their own self interest.[/QUOTE]