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You seem to be conflating a teleological process in selective breeding with a supposedly ateleological process in natural selection. What, other than persistence, indicates selection in natural selection to maintain such a teleological view?
Why do you suppose @Hans Blaster sought to make the distinction he made in denying that he made any such claim?
And why would he distance himself from it, and instead assert a much lower claim?
Your explanation implies teleology, because you were distinguishing between persistance and some mysterious intent in selection. Which is why I asked what distinguishes things that survive in such a way that you can assign a sense of intent in selection.
And why is it smart to distance himself from your claim and instead seek to establish a much lower claim?
Considering you have provided your assessment of my argument, your rationality is certainly germane. If you can't even establish a rational starting point, then how can any of your subsequent judgments be trusted?
It wasn't. You introduced "fitness" to the discussion.
I had to go back 2 days and 80 posts to find something resembling that. (And I ran into an invocation of the 3rd chapter of genisis first.) When I did find it it was about innate "objective" morality.
There is no point to morality with out the cooperative nature of the human lifestyle. Non-social animals don't need a "morality".
No "naturalistic falacy" nor is morality "grounded in evolution". Morality is no more grounded in evolution than air breathing, bipedalism, internal gestation, or cardiovascular systems, yet each are the product of evolution. Evolution is the process of change in living populations and the scientific frameworks that explain the process.
Evolution of social animals explains the need for organizing principles and why mental facilities like a "theory of mind" (the ability to build a model of what someone else's mental state, motivations, and intentions are), empathy, and sense of fairness might have "fitness" and be favored in populations. It are these evolved mental properties (instincts) of humans upon which we build our moral systems.
What we "ought" to do depends on what we value that interacts with our base moral and social instincts.
Might want to look back to @partinobodycular claims
Nope, it doesn't have anything to do with the issue at hand.
Must have missed it.
Sure, but the question is whether human morality is a univeral or if it is particular to specific social settings. For example, was the holocaust morally wrong or was it acceptable because it was legitimate in that social setting?
Attempts to defend morality from an evolutionary heritage are clearly attempts to ground morality in evoltution, and are a clear example of the naturalistic fallacy. You may not be making that mistake, but several of your compatriots have.
Considering there is no current theory that adequately explains minds, it is quite the reach you are making here.
But are these universal, or do they only depend on the social setting we find ourselves in?
You may not be, but you entered into an ongoing discussion where that was the central contention. There are two separate issues, one that evolution is capable of explaining to a certain degree(behavioral factors) and one that it simply cannot, which is the more primitive question of how we establish and defend that things are moral rather than simply social conventions.
I'm not a biologist, so I don't know if that "persistence" is the same thing technically as "selected for", though I think it might be. (Selected for doesn't have to mean ubiquitous.) For example sickle cell trait is selected for by the advantage it gives with a single copy in protection from malaria, but two copies messes up the blood cells and severely limits the survival to reproduction. The inclination to impose sexual contact on another is not likely to be so simple and I would suspect it arises from groups of genes related to the desire to reproduce and aggression/violence.
In humans it probably isn't the pair bonding that goes wrong, but rather the modest amount of consentual extra-pair "bonding" behaviors.
It is clear that morality is not universal. The base instincts are present in all societies, but not all individuals. Morality is what we build on top of those instincts.
Not going to discuss examples.
Sigh. I am not grounding morality in evolution. Evolution is merely the process that shaped the natural moral instincts. As for this "fallacy" nonsense. I am not defending any specific moral position. I am discussing the process from which non-absolute morality arises. Given the things I have stated, it should be clear why I don't consider the concept of an absolute morality as even coherent.
Then tell them that, not me. I'm not interested in your problems with them. I've got enough issue with your implying things to me from my posts that I didn't say or imply. I don't need what ever you think they have done.
One does not need a detailed description of how minds arise to determine that individual humans are able comprehend what others are, or might be, thinking anymore than you need a detailed theory of gravity to determine that the Earth is spherical. You seem to be confusing Theory of Mind with philosophy of mind. Theory of mind is key to empathy, strategic thinking, interpersonal relations, etc., and everyone uses it all the time.
Stated above.
I wrote a post about an academic paper (and not one I found particularly persuasive or impressive). You aren't even close to demonstrating that absolute morality is even possible. I think the notion is laughable.
I can't be bothered to trace it back myself, but if you look at @partinobodycular's subsequent posts you will see that they accepted my assessment of their perspective.
I'm not sure it is so clear, as the question is not what individuals recognize but whether there are universal standards that can be applied.
Oh? Any particular reason?
You may not be, but the poster I was interacting with was.
You stepped into an ongoing conversation, so my reply to you depended on that context.
I think the confusion here is I took your use of theory of mind to be speaking of a scientific theory of mind, rather than a personal one. We all may have a sense of other minds but the nomenclature you chose to use leaves much to be desired.
Not quite, because when I say universal I don't necessarily mean absolute. Universal just means that we can consistently develop the same standards and apply them across the board, regardless of culture or current social milieu.
I don't intend to make any such demonstration, my position is one of skepticism towards bootstrapping morality because of the is-ought problem and the related naturalistic fallacy.
You can't be bothered to know what was being responded, but I need to read all your conversations with several posters and assess a third party. I'm not interested in discussing a third person when I am in a dialog.
You don't see how morals are demonstrably different in different societies? Get real.
Do ya think someone might not want engage in examples when the very first one offered is the morality of the Holocaust? Examples aren't needed here.
Argue with my positions when you reply to me, not others. If you don't know what I think, ask.
I commented on a post about an academic paper (one that you have twice told me in *our* conversation is irrelevant and you won't discuss) that you described. I didn't think much of the paper or what it was claiming. You then responded to me 8 MINUTES after I posted not in reply to you and included several concepts that were not in my post into your reply. This is you, not me.
Theory of mind is what psychologists call our understanding of the mental states of others. I used the term correctly in context. As I noted when I did, a theory of mind is one of the features that allows us to understand how our actions might make others feel and this is a key component underlying the construction of moral systems.
Those are the moral instincts. Moral systems require the addition of values and principles placed on top of the instincts.
"oughts can only be determined after the goals have been.
You weren't in a dialogue, you butted into a conversation that was already going.
I return to my question about the holocaust.
They very much are, because the issue is whether or not what a given society considers moral makes that moral. The example was expressly chosen because it is assumed that it is indisputably immoral, but if morals vary depending on the society cannot be condemned.
You've presented nothing worth arguing about.
Yes, I have stated that the criticisms you've lobbed aren't really relevant to the issue that was being addressed. I responded to you because the context of why that paper was even referenced in the first place matters more than the paper itself, especially given the thread topic.
I'm not up on psychologists lingo, so my confusion was more general regarding how "theory" is used.
Sure
Sure thing, but such artificial oughts render the whole enterprise suspect.
