Compassion and empathy

[Chesterton]

Right, good. But you were talking about "subjective morality", as if you thought that's what I was advocating.

No, generally I think I understand you, and I would agree with you, if you’re right.

Do you see the circularity?

Yes, I guess I see it, but understanding my existence in terms of the source of my existence seems almost axiomatic to me. Very old questions, really, what is the meaning of life, what is the good life. For answers, it seems common-sensical to me to look to the source of life. Just as, if I had questions about the content of a book, I could try and seek out the author of the book to ascertain his meaning and intent. But if you really don’t care about the meaning of life, or whether there’s any meaning, I don’t think anything I could say could cause you to care.

Feelings seem real, yes. My feeling of disgust when eating a tomato is very real. Does it mean that when you eat a tomato with great gusto, one of our feelings is somehow false? Or could it be that my disgust and your enjoyment are rooted in us, arising most convincingly in ourselves but not telling us anything about tomatoes except that they contain certain substances which arouse disgust in me and enjoyment in you? In other words, our feelings when eating the tomato may tell us something about the physical properties of the tomato - that it has the ability to make us feel disgust or pleasure - but they do not allow us to make a grand, cosmic value judgement about the tomato itself that it is inherently disgusting or it is inherently delicious.

If you don't see my point, look at it like this: we would be as mistaken to project our value experiences onto the tomato as we would be to describe a pin as "hurty" rather than "sharp", or a teddy bear as "feel-good-y" rather than "soft". Do you see that there is nothing inherently hurty or feel-good-y about objects themselves, but that they simply have physical properties which cause these feelings in us?

But I think the only point to take from that is that we describe things relative to our humanness; relative to having human bodies. Were we made of liquid or gas we probably wouldn’t describe a pin as “hurty”. To say there’s nothing inherently hurty about a pin is to speak from the perspective of - I don’t know what - something not human. If a small child called a pin “hurty”, I might correct her language, but I would know exactly what she meant, because there was truth in what she said.

Why are moral judgements not the same? There are natural properties which make certain acts, say, cruel.

I don't see how the natural properties make the act cruel or wrong; a surgeon and a killer both stick a knife into a man.

We can delineate these without making value judgements (if you'll excuse the value-baggage that comes with vocabulary like "cruel" and just think about what makes an act cruel or not cruel). A cruel act might be an act which needlessly causes suffering. Note that I'm not saying whether cruel acts are "right" or "wrong". I'm just describing cruel acts.

Humans cannot, and do not, delineate. Don't you see that “needlessly causes suffering” is a synonym for “wrong”, just as I noted earlier that “murder” is a synonym for “wrongful killing”?

Now, acts, like foods or pins, cause feelings in us. When I perceive an act that I think is cruel, I feel angry, sad, frightened, horrified, &c. Perhaps when you see an act that you think is cruel, you feel more frightened and less angry than me; your feeling may be qualitatively different, in other words. And perhaps a crazed sadist feels excited, aroused, powerful, and happy when she sees a cruel act. Just as with the tomato, the same physical reality - the cruel act - has caused each of us to have different feelings. And here is the crucial part. I think that, just as we are in error to suppose that a tomato is either inherently disgusting or inherently delicious in a grand, cosmic sense, so we are also in error to suppose that cruel acts are either inherently frightening or inherently arousing in a grand, cosmic sense. No feelings about a tomato or a cruel act are incorrect, because they are subjective. They are our response to the natural qualities of the tomato and the cruel act.

If your anger and my fright and the sadist’s excitement are all just feelings, each equally valid, why does mankind as a whole endorse the anger and fright, and condemn the sadist’s feelings? Humanity says anger and/or fright would be the right, correct, proper, appropriate feelings. It raises the question, “appropriate to what”? I say they are appropriate to some standard.

But just as we are prone to projecting our feelings about tomatoes onto the fruit itself - "Yuck, that tomato was disgusting!" - we are also prone to projecting our feelings about acts onto the acts themselves. And this is where the mistake lies. We think that because the properties of acts, which are very real properties, have the ability to give us certain feelings, there must be something in the acts themselves that somehow resembles the feelings we have about them. And because the feelings we have about acts are generally more significant and more deeply-felt than the feelings we have about foods, to the extent that they can cause us both the greatest happiness we will ever experience and also the greatest sadness, it is unsurprising that we get particularly heated when talking about these feelings - much more heated than when arguing about whether or not tomatoes taste good.

This is a difference I see – if both are a matter of personal feelings, why do we condemn an act of cruelty, and not condemn the taste of a tomato? Were I to condemn an act of cruelty as wrong because I didn’t like it, listeners would think I was “right” and “good” for doing so. Were I to condemn a tomato as wrong because I didn’t like it, listeners would think I was absurd.

The property of the tomato is very real, as you say, but it is natural, i.e., it cannot help but be what it is. The taste of a tomato adheres to the standard for tomatoes. Regardless of my personal feelings, it does not violate any perceived rule.


The property of an act of cruelty is also very real, but is unnatural, it does not have to be what it is. The quality of the cruel human act strays from the standard for human acts. And notice this: if my feelings about the act were not feelings of condemnation (if I approved of cruelty), then my feelings themselves would also be seen as violating a perceived rule. No one would say, “well, Ches simply doesn’t like cruelty” in the same way they might say “well, Ches simply doesn’t like tomatoes”.

The significance of our feelings towards acts also leads us to wish some acts to be performed a lot, and others never or seldom to be performed. I wish that cruel acts were never performed; our crazed sadist presumably wishes they were frequently performed. And - guess what? - we project these wishes onto the acts too. I feel so strongly that I do not want the cruel act I am observing to be performed, that I make the error of thinking that there is something about the cruel act that makes it not-to-be-performed.

I do not deny that these feelings are real feelings or that they have a deep and lasting power to affect the way humans behave. But I do not believe they reflect anything "out there". I think the explanation I have given is perfectly simple. We are prone to make the mistake of thinking that the world is inherently the way we perceive it.

You sort of tempered it toward the end, but you’re still unfairly inserting the idea that all feelings are of the same nature, that it’s just a matter of degree; that your dislike of tomatoes is of the same kind as your dislike for cruelty.

We both agree that feelings feel real and powerful, but you’re the one claiming they’re illusory. Honestly, I think the burden is on you to show why mankind has seen fit to deceive itself and create religion, philosophy, poetry, literature, drama, etc., all based on the idea that our feelings actually have meaning. I mean, I think my explanation covers the facts and yours doesn’t.

But how do they arise?

What is the relationship between the natural properties of an act that make it cruel, and the non-natural property of moral wrongness? Why do those natural properties produce that moral property?

I believe the relationship is the same kind of mysterious thing as that relationship between light of a certain wavelength and the color blue. Is blue objective? I don’t know. Does blue exist? I don’t know, but natural properties of light will cause a human mind to sense and perceive “blue”. By your thinking, we could call “blueness” a non-natural property, yet it apparently exists, and humans perceive it.

I’m a human, and I have no choice but to perceive what humans perceive, in the manner that humans perceive it. Is a pin hurty or merely sharp? From my human perspective, the only possible perspective we know of, a pin is inherently both.

I use the language of morality for several reasons. It is difficult not to because our language is constructed in a way that presupposes the existence of an objective morality. It is also much more persuasive to use the language of morality.

Persuasive toward what end? Do you also want to persuade strangers on here to dislike tomatoes?

And finally, I have strong feelings that this or that ought or ought not to be done, even though I know they don't reflect anything in the real world.

Then you should be true to yourself and rise above (actually, sink below) those feelings. For you, the whole of the law should be “do as thou wilt”. But then that would preclude you from contributing in this forum, since you couldn’t logically make any “should” statements to others, since they are to do as they wilt also.

I don't claim to be special. It's only a few people who can really internalise the implications of Mackie's error theory, just like it's only a few people who can really internalise the implications of determinism.

Yes, thank goodness for that. It’s to their credit that despite their best efforts, most will yet remain human; will not fully extinguish the divine light.

But my feelings about things are different and seperate from what I can calculate, what I can work out to be true. When I sit down and try to work out how objective morality could work, I find it impossible.

And again, I agree. From a materialistic view, I think any morality is impossible. (Not impossible to practice, just impossible to believe.)
The whole above paragraph of yours smacks of cop-out. I notice just today in another thread here you condemn perceived racism. You could start a thread condemning tomatoes also. It’s the same thing.

Tastes in what counts as beautiful change constantly.

Actually in the long run, I don't see that. I think you focus on superficial differences and ignore the deeper similarities. And you might be able to prove me wrong if you’re an art history buff - it’s just a hunch I have - but I think the first instance of artists using excrement and urine in creating art occurred in the 20th century (a.d.) If there are previous instances, they’re largely forgotten, as I’m sure the more recent ones will be.

Why would most people agreeing about something make it the case that they are judging by an objective standard?

It would seem to indicate that to me. If you want to make an evolutionary argument that subtle shapes inspire non-utilitarian, common feelings, that seems at least as fanciful as my idea.

You still haven't explained why we should take heed of a self-existent, uncreated, eternal being.

The old Hebrew ideas use metaphors for God such as Ruler, Sovereign and King. I believe the metaphors. Whether any subject chooses to accept or defy their King is, I suppose, a personal choice.

Other metaphors used include mother hen, father, lover and bridegroom. Similarly, whether one chooses to requite love is a choice.

 

[cantata]

By the way - I'm really enjoying this discussion! Thank you!

Yes, I guess I see it, but understanding my existence in terms of the source of my existence seems almost axiomatic to me. Very old questions, really, what is the meaning of life, what is the good life. For answers, it seems common-sensical to me to look to the source of life. Just as, if I had questions about the content of a book, I could try and seek out the author of the book to ascertain his meaning and intent. But if you really don’t care about the meaning of life, or whether there’s any meaning, I don’t think anything I could say could cause you to care.

But we were trying, I think, to ascertain not whether or not one might or should care about the meaning of life, but why one might or should respect an objective standard of morality. I don't see how caring about the meaning of life entails respecting the source of my existence and thereby also respecting its standard of morality. Do you see?

What I want to know is this. You tell me that there is an objective standard of morality "out there" and that this objective standard of morality is also the source of my existence. But knowing these things alone does not give me a reason to have any respect for the source of my existence or its standard of morality. I can care very much indeed about knowing what the source of my existence is, and find it fascinating to discover the truth about it (supposing I believe you), but simply knowing that doesn't necessarily inspire a "should" in my breast. As I said before, if you are trying to prove that one should heed an objective standard of morality, you can't use that standard itself in order to prove it.

But I think the only point to take from that is that we describe things relative to our humanness; relative to having human bodies. Were we made of liquid or gas we probably wouldn’t describe a pin as “hurty”. To say there’s nothing inherently hurty about a pin is to speak from the perspective of - I don’t know what - something not human. If a small child called a pin “hurty”, I might correct her language, but I would know exactly what she meant, because there was truth in what she said.

But I think you recognise, do you not, that there is a difference between what is "out there" - i.e. what the world is "really" like - and the way that we perceive it?

Suppose that you meet someone who can't feel any pain. (Such people do exist.) This person is a human being: a human being who would be unlikely to describe a pin as "hurty". She can perceive that the pin is sharp, by looking at its point, or by using it to make holes in things, but not that it is "hurty", because it doesn't hurt her.

I think it is fair to say, therefore, that the pin is "really" sharp, but it is not "really" hurty; it is only "hurty" insofar as we perceive it. You must at least admit that there is a difference between the category of descriptors of things which rely specifically on one's own perception, and those which don't.

I don't see how the natural properties make the act cruel or wrong; a surgeon and a killer both stick a knife into a man.

Forgive me; I was including intention in the category "natural properties".

But let me remind you, I said that an act's natural properties can make it cruel, but not wrong.

Humans cannot, and do not, delineate. Don't you see that “needlessly causes suffering” is a synonym for “wrong”, just as I noted earlier that “murder” is a synonym for “wrongful killing”?

No, I do not see that "needlessly causes suffering" is a synonym for "wrong".

The intuitionist G. E. Moore invented a handy test for whether one has found an adequate definition of a word. You describe something using the definition, and then you see if it still makes sense to ask if it is also <the word you are trying to define>. For example:

"Timothy is an unmarried man."

It is now silly to ask, "But is he a bachelor?" so we know that "unmarried man" is a good definition of "bachelor".

"Torture needlessly causes suffering."

Is it now silly to ask, "But is torture wrong?" I don't think it is silly to ask that question. Because when people say that something is wrong, they don't just mean that it needlessly causes suffering. They mean that one "ought" not to do it. Don't you agree?

If your anger and my fright and the sadist’s excitement are all just feelings, each equally valid, why does mankind as a whole endorse the anger and fright, and condemn the sadist’s feelings? Humanity says anger and/or fright would be the right, correct, proper, appropriate feelings. It raises the question, “appropriate to what”? I say they are appropriate to some standard.

Mankind as a whole endorses the anger and fright because mankind as a whole experiences the anger and fright.

This is a difference I see – if both are a matter of personal feelings, why do we condemn an act of cruelty, and not condemn the taste of a tomato? Were I to condemn an act of cruelty as wrong because I didn’t like it, listeners would think I was “right” and “good” for doing so. Were I to condemn a tomato as wrong because I didn’t like it, listeners would think I was absurd.

Perhaps it is because we are also under the impression that human beings have choice about how they act, but tomatoes have no choice about how they taste.

The property of the tomato is very real, as you say, but it is natural, i.e., it cannot help but be what it is. The taste of a tomato adheres to the standard for tomatoes. Regardless of my personal feelings, it does not violate any perceived rule.

The property of an act of cruelty is also very real, but is unnatural, it does not have to be what it is. The quality of the cruel human act strays from the standard for human acts. And notice this: if my feelings about the act were not feelings of condemnation (if I approved of cruelty), then my feelings themselves would also be seen as violating a perceived rule. No one would say, “well, Ches simply doesn’t like cruelty” in the same way they might say “well, Ches simply doesn’t like tomatoes”.

But I would assert that the standard is simply one of consensus.

By the way, you only have to look at human history to notice that the consensus has changed over time.

You sort of tempered it toward the end, but you’re still unfairly inserting the idea that all feelings are of the same nature, that it’s just a matter of degree; that your dislike of tomatoes is of the same kind as your dislike for cruelty.

Can you show me how these feelings are different?

Perhaps it would be better to choose something other than a taste, for clarity. How is my dislike of the music of Wagner any different from my dislike of cruelty?

We both agree that feelings feel real and powerful, but you’re the one claiming they’re illusory. Honestly, I think the burden is on you to show why mankind has seen fit to deceive itself and create religion, philosophy, poetry, literature, drama, etc., all based on the idea that our feelings actually have meaning. I mean, I think my explanation covers the facts and yours doesn’t.

I don't understand what you mean by "illusory". Our moral feelings are completely real - as real as my feelings that the music of Satie is beautiful and the music of Wagner is hideous. What I am suggesting is that our feelings are just feelings.

Think of someone with a phobia. I know someone who is terrified of fish. She can't bear pictures of them, fish in tanks, cooked fish, and heaven forbid she should ever have to go on a boat where she's anywhere near the water. She's really frightened of them. I agree that her feelings are 100% real and have a deeply powerful effect on her. But I do not think that they correspond to anything in the real world. Most fish are not particularly dangerous - especially not fish in tanks or cooked fish on plates.

But besides, your basic argument seems to be: the majority of people have this feeling about that kind of act, and therefore there must be not just a common standard for that feeling (this I do not deny), but this standard exists outside the human experience of it. It's this latter part I have a problem with. I don't in the slightest wish to deny that there is a mostly common human standard for the emotions that we are likely to feel when we see certain things (although I would add that to a certain degree this is socially constructed). But suppose that all the human beings vanished overnight. Would there really still exist this standard, "out there" in the world? I don't think so, any more than I think a pin would still be "hurty" if there were no creatures in existence with the ability to experience pain.

I believe the relationship is the same kind of mysterious thing as that relationship between light of a certain wavelength and the color blue. Is blue objective? I don’t know. Does blue exist? I don’t know, but natural properties of light will cause a human mind to sense and perceive “blue”. By your thinking, we could call “blueness” a non-natural property, yet it apparently exists, and humans perceive it.

Blueness is indeed a non-natural property, or what Locke called a secondary quality. As above, I believe that if there were no creatures to perceive it, it wouldn't exist (although of course things which absorb and reflect the wavelengths of light appropriate to making us experience blueness would still exist).

I’m a human, and I have no choice but to perceive what humans perceive, in the manner that humans perceive it. Is a pin hurty or merely sharp? From my human perspective, the only possible perspective we know of, a pin is inherently both.

But do you not see a difference between sharpness and hurtiness?

Persuasive toward what end? Do you also want to persuade strangers on here to dislike tomatoes?

Persuasive simply because unlike the consumption of tomatoes, it is not just my own acts, but the acts of other people which cause in me the unpleasant feelings of anger, sadness, fear, and so on.

I wish to be persuasive about the things we talk about on E&M for the same reason that I would wish to persuade others not to force-feed me tomatoes or to make the consumption of tomatoes compulsory.

Then you should be true to yourself and rise above (actually, sink below) those feelings. For you, the whole of the law should be “do as thou wilt”. But then that would preclude you from contributing in this forum, since you couldn’t logically make any “should” statements to others, since they are to do as they wilt also.

Would reason would I have to rise above my feelings?

My feelings are my only reason for doing anything.

And again, I agree. From a materialistic view, I think any morality is impossible. (Not impossible to practice, just impossible to believe.)
The whole above paragraph of yours smacks of cop-out. I notice just today in another thread here you condemn perceived racism. You could start a thread condemning tomatoes also. It’s the same thing.

It is not the same thing. It would be the same thing for me to start a thread condemning people trying to force-feed me tomatoes.

Me and only me eating tomatoes give me a negative feeling. Racism against anyone gives me a negative feeling. That is why I "condemn" me-eating-tomatoes and anyone-being-a-racist.

Actually in the long run, I don't see that. I think you focus on superficial differences and ignore the deeper similarities. And you might be able to prove me wrong if you’re an art history buff - it’s just a hunch I have - but I think the first instance of artists using excrement and urine in creating art occurred in the 20th century (a.d.) If there are previous instances, they’re largely forgotten, as I’m sure the more recent ones will be.

But we're talking about beauty, not about what people use to make art. Not all art is intended to be beautiful. I'm reasonably sure that people who use excrement to make art are not intending their art to be beautiful.

It would seem to indicate that to me. If you want to make an evolutionary argument that subtle shapes inspire non-utilitarian, common feelings, that seems at least as fanciful as my idea.

On the contrary, the evolutionary basis for our preference for symmetrical faces is easily explicable: symmetry indicates health and a lack of genetic defects, and therefore an attractive partner for producing offspring.

The old Hebrew ideas use metaphors for God such as Ruler, Sovereign and King. I believe the metaphors. Whether any subject chooses to accept or defy their King is, I suppose, a personal choice.

Other metaphors used include mother hen, father, lover and bridegroom. Similarly, whether one chooses to requite love is a choice.

But the point is that you can't morally condemn people for failing to make the "right" choice until you have given them a reason to accept the moral standard.

The hardest part, for me, of an objective standard of morality is the "should(-not)-ness" or the "ought(-not)-ness". Suppose I'm thinking about killing someone. I can think of a list of reasons why it might not be prudent for me to kill them: I would find the experience traumatic because of my empathy for the victim; I might get caught and arrested; someone might take revenge on me; I might get blood on my skirt; &c. But I think that something more is meant when someone says I ought not to do it. Can you explain that part?

 

[Chesterton]

By the way - I'm really enjoying this discussion! Thank you!

Glad to hear that, and thank you, I’m enjoying it too (except when you make good points which make my brain hurt).

By the way, this post exceeded the character limit, so that's why I've clipped some of your quotes extra short.

But we were trying, I think, to ascertain not whether or not one might or should care about the meaning of life, but why one might or should respect an objective standard of morality...

I’m not sure I see. An intelligent Source would be a source, not accidentally, but because It intended a result. If I’m right, God authored the cosmos, not completely unlike Shakespeare authored King Lear and Einstein authored theories of relativity. I have to assume that Shakespeare and Einstein had some underlying meaning or reason for acting.

I guess I take for granted that intelligent beings have some reason for what they do, even when I don’t fully understand it. If there is an objective standard of morality over and above me, simple common sense says “respect it”.

What I want to know is this. You tell me that there is an objective standard of morality "out there" and that this objective standard of morality is also the source of my existence...

I may have said all I can think of to say on that point. I’m sorry if I don’t express it well.

But I think you recognise, do you not, that there is a difference between what is "out there" - i.e. what the world is "really" like - and the way that we perceive it?

Yes of course there’s a difference, and I wish more atheists recognized it, too. I find they tend to be the ones who most mistakenly think our perceptions tell us what the world is really like. They think science dispels all the religious fantasy; but it only deepens and widens it.

The trouble is that humanity is the sole arbiter of reality. Human reason is the only thing which can observe, describe, measure and judge reality. Attempts to divorce ourselves from our humanness, and simultaneously describe reality are nonsense. Philosophers will attempt to “see through” our human-colored reality as thought experiments or mental exercises, but if you seek truth, that’s a waste of time. They might as well write books from the perspective of a rock, while trying to let it slip their minds that rocks don’t write books.

I think it is fair to say, therefore, that the pin is "really" sharp, but it is not "really" hurty; it is only "hurty" insofar as we perceive it.

I could just as easily argue that the pin is really hurty, and not really sharp.

Every thing is relative. I say the pin is hurty, and it’s true relative to a human being. You say the pin is sharp, but that is relative to something else. They say the atoms comprising the point of the pin are 99.99% empty space. Therefore, your finger, and the pin, are 99% empty space. From a “real” perspective the pin passes through your finger with no notice by you, likewise humans should be able to walk through walls. But from an even more real perspective, the actual “working” perspective, the pin doesn’t pass unnoticed, and we don’t walk through walls.

Is it now silly to ask, "But is torture wrong?" I don't think it is silly to ask that question. Because when people say that something is wrong, they don't just mean that it needlessly causes suffering. They mean that one "ought" not to do it. Don't you agree?

I said “Humans cannot, and do not delineate”. Philosophers can and do. A philosopher can ask “is torture wrong?”, but only a philosopher can ask.

Mankind as a whole endorses the anger and fright because mankind as a whole experiences the anger and fright.

Mankind also experiences the taste of tomatoes; we don’t make a universal value judgment about that.

But I would assert that the standard is simply one of consensus.

I don’t know if I can say anything else on that point, either. I see consensus as strong evidence, but as I said I don’t think I can make it amount to proof. If you don’t see consensus as evidence, okay.

By the way, you only have to look at human history to notice that the consensus has changed over time.

Yes the details can vary, the fundamentals tend not to vary that much.

Can you show me how these feelings are different?

No, but I’ll try anyway. See below *.

Perhaps it would be better to choose something other than a taste, for clarity. How is my dislike of the music of Wagner any different from my dislike of cruelty?

Same thing. The difference: humanity passes a value judgment (approves of) your dislike of cruelty, whereas humanity couldn’t care less whether you like or dislike Wagner.

I don't understand what you mean by "illusory". Our moral feelings are completely real - as real as my feelings that the music of Satie is beautiful and the music of Wagner is hideous. What I am suggesting is that our feelings are just feelings.

Yes, our feelings are very real. It’s humanity’s common idea that moral feelings have meaning which would be the illusory part. If you say feelings are just feelings, you’re saying they are just a physical process in the brain. I think you’d agree that a physical process does not have meaning? i.e., a rock, or a stream of electrons don’t mean anything, they just are, they just exist. Likewise no value judgment can be made of, by, or for physical processes (electrons cannot be true or false, or morally good or bad). Yet according to you, this is all our feelings consist of. So tell me how did we get from there to here - why did humans invent this false idea that moral feelings have meaning?

* The natural properties of physical things are perceived through the senses; you taste the tomato and you hear the Wagner. The properties you perceive are, in fact, physical; taste and air waves are both physical things: molecules. The natural properties of a human/moral action are not perceived this way; they lack the physical connection to your brain (the sense organs and nerves). And they are not themselves physical. With no physical connection, and lacking physicality, how can the properties of human actions which you only think about, “cause” feelings in your brain?

Sensory perceptions are experienced by physical mechanisms. According to you, feelings are physical mechanisms also, and nothing more. Since I recognize that feelings do have their physical component (i.e., you have to have a brain and have certain neuron systems firing “correctly” in order to have emotions), I can understand sensory perceptions causing feelings – the taste of a tomato, the sound of Wagner. But, how is it that abstract ideas in your imagination can cause feelings? You experience the tomato and the Wagner piece, but you don’t experience the abstract idea of murder. Yet murder as an idea would cause negative feelings. How is this possible?

Think of someone with a phobia. I know someone who is terrified of fish. She can't bear pictures of them, fish in tanks, cooked fish, and heaven forbid she should ever have to go on a boat where she's anywhere near the water. She's really frightened of them. I agree that her feelings are 100% real and have a deeply powerful effect on her. But I do not think that they correspond to anything in the real world.

If your ideas are right, couldn’t feelings involving value judgments be almost random? Why is this phobic person seen as an anomaly? It’s only an accident that 50% of the population, or 100% of the population don’t have the same feelings as the person you know. I see the phobic person as that kind of exception to the rule which proves the rule – humans believe feelings correspond with something real, so when we notice someone has particular feelings which don’t correspond “correctly”, we regard it as a special case, an illness in fact. The consensus is so strong that we readily detect anomalies, and we say about the possessor of the anomaly, well, “something’s not right”.

But suppose that all the human beings vanished overnight. Would there really still exist this standard, "out there" in the world? I don't think so, any more than I think a pin would still be "hurty" if there were no creatures in existence with the ability to experience pain.

You probably know my answer to that. I believe the actual standard pre-dates man, and will outlive man. The standard is love, and God is love.

Blueness is indeed a non-natural property, or what Locke called a secondary quality. As above, I believe that if there were no creatures to perceive it, it wouldn't exist (although of course things which absorb and reflect the wavelengths of light appropriate to making us experience blueness would still exist).

Cool. I’ve found someone who agrees with me that if a tree falls in the forest with no one to hear it, it makes no sound.

Saying that blue is a secondary quality, seems to me tantamount to saying that blue is a magic trick; that it is supernatural; that perceiving “blue” is creating something out of nothing. Doesn’t it appear that we humans are in the small manufacturing business (Christ said “ye are gods”), as God is in the Great Manufacturing Business?

Persuasive simply because unlike the consumption of tomatoes, it is not just my own acts, but the acts of other people which cause in me the unpleasant feelings of anger, sadness, fear, and so on.

I wish to be persuasive about the things we talk about on E&M for the same reason that I would wish to persuade others not to force-feed me tomatoes or to make the consumption of tomatoes compulsory.

You’re here on a self-defense mission, eh? And making pre-emptive strikes just in case?

Would reason would I have to rise above my feelings?

My feelings are my only reason for doing anything.

Cantata, your utter lack of resemblance to a human is so charming. Maybe we’re both wrong, and we get reincarnated, you may get lucky and get to be a jellyfish. You can just float around occasionally bumping into something, and be really reduced to just “feeling” things.

I think it would basically remove any need for human conversation. If everyone were merely sharing feelings - “I like tomatoes”, “I hate tomatoes”, “I like love”, “I like hate”, “I like Jesus”, “I like Nietzsche” – what’s the point? Nothing of significance is being said. But then I guess that is the nature of your cosmos.

Me and only me eating tomatoes give me a negative feeling. Racism against anyone gives me a negative feeling. That is why I "condemn" me-eating-tomatoes and anyone-being-a-racist.

Can I assume that me-eating-tomatoes would not generate a negative feeling in you? Just you-eating-tomatoes, right? Then why would me-being-a-racist generate a negative feeling? I say racism gives you negative feelings because it’s wrong; racism is a behavior which deviates from a higher, better standard of behavior you have in your mind, it’s not mere feelings that could be otherwise.

On the contrary, the evolutionary basis for our preference for symmetrical faces is easily explicable: symmetry indicates health and a lack of genetic defects, and therefore an attractive partner for producing offspring.

So our ancestors understood a relationship between symmetry and genetic make-up, and scientifically had sex based on that abstract idea? I didn’t even know that symmetry indicated health, how did they know that? Like I said, fanciful.

But the point is that you can't morally condemn people for failing to make the "right" choice until you have given them a reason to accept the moral standard.

The hardest part, for me, of an objective standard of morality is the "should(-not)-ness" or the "ought(-not)-ness". Suppose I'm thinking about killing someone. I can think of a list of reasons why it might not be prudent for me to kill them: I would find the experience traumatic because of my empathy for the victim; I might get caught and arrested; someone might take revenge on me; I might get blood on my skirt; &c. But I think that something more is meant when someone says I ought not to do it. Can you explain that part?

Yes, something more is meant, and you already know my religious explanation. I should be asking you to explain that part. Why do we produce (or why is it produced in us) the feeling of ought?

All the things you mentioned in terms of prudence don’t apply to me thinking of you killing someone – that is to say, from a practical perspective, I couldn’t care less if you killed someone over in England (I won’t get arrested, I won’t get blood on my clothes). There’s no reason for my mind to produce any feelings at all about that potential event, yet I have the strong feeling that you ought not to murder anyone.

 

[Wyzaard]

I guess I take for granted that intelligent beings have some reason for what they do, even when I don’t fully understand it. If there is an objective standard of morality over and above me, simple common sense says “respect it”.

These two assumptions are pretty weak. How would we know that any such relevant reason exists, and if so which possible one would it be? Why should we respect an 'objective standard of morality' rather than ignore or rebel against it? My common sense seems to say "screw that"... why would I be wrong? How would it be meaningful exactly?

Yes, our feelings are very real. It’s humanity’s common idea that moral feelings have meaning which would be the illusory part. If you say feelings are just feelings, you’re saying they are just a physical process in the brain. I think you’d agree that a physical process does not have meaning? i.e., a rock, or a stream of electrons don’t mean anything, they just are, they just exist.

Again, you're begging the objectivist's question; why need we separate material and meaning, particularly when nothing else may relevantly exist?