Euthyphro's Dilemma (for atheists)

[Moral Orel]

Perhaps your only real preference is group conformity and non-confrontation.

Really? You're accusing me of trying to fit in and avoid conflict?

Can I get a confirmation that I didn't change your argument beyond a little cleanup? It is a valid argument now.

 

[Ana the Ist]

First, let's clean it up.

Not needed.

You're not trying to prove that you believe something, you're trying to prove your belief is true.

And I did.

You don't need the "therefore" either.

I didn't need this argument in formal form either...

Premise 1-I believe performing ones job well can be described morally good
Premise 2-I believe things exist which are too small to see with the naked eye
Premise 3-I believe microscopes allow very small things to be seen
Conclusion-therefore I believe using a microscope at work is morally good

Now look at the bolded part. You have two entirely different propositions.

No....I made a premise of a type of behavior I could morally describe. I then I floated two premises that created the circumstances for fulfilling the first premise.

Then I satisfied the first premise.

Not sure why you and Zippy think I'm some moral objectivist.

It would be like relating "runs" and "reads". You'll need to change "can be described" to "is".

Nope. I simply claimed it could be described as a moral statement.

You're the one trying to force me into a claim about morality I haven't made.

Then you write long stories about how you'll make a really good argument.

Which is sad....since you can't even describe the causal relationship between preferences and morals you're imagining.

P1 Performing one's job well is morally good
P2 Things exist which are too small to see with the naked eye
P3 Microscopes allow very small things to be seen
C Using a microscope at work is morally good.

Now the hidden premise is that microscopes are used at work, ya? So to really make it work we need to add one more premise so it looks like this:

P1 Performing one's job well is morally good
P2 Things exist which are too small to see with the naked eye
P3 Microscopes allow very small things to be seen
P4 Some work requires very small things to be seen
C Using a microscope at work is morally good

Everything right so far? Just a little cleanup, ya? Still no mention of preferences. If you're going to fight me every step of the way, we might as well take it one step at a time, ya?

 

[gaara4158]

No, you're safe, that's the majority position. But let me put it to you this way... Morality is about "right and proper behavior". Sure, there's no objectively true "right" or what have you, but in essence it seeks to make a guide for how we should act. It seeks to answer the question, "What should I do?" Right?

Well I looked at my freezer and asked, "Should I eat ice cream or should I eat Brussel sprouts?", so I'd say I asked a moral question. We're leaving out considerations to other factors like my health for simplicities sake.

If it is moral to choose things that cause happiness, it's possible to choose things that make ourselves unhappy, and therefore act immorally against ourselves. Just because I chose something seeking a bit of pleasure, doesn't mean I rationally should have expected to achieve any sort of state of happiness.

And now you're back in the minority with me, lol. I don't think altruism is really possible, and it's especially clear when people realize morality is built on preferences. Your preference that the world work together to maximize pleasure and minimize pain sounds sweet, but it's your preference, so it's you satisfying a desire for yourself if it's achieved. I have the same preference, but a lot of the reason why is because I don't like how I feel when I'm surrounded by grumpy people, lol.

On that note, I saw your discussion with Ana. I'd say that it will be a zero-sum game once we achieve maximum efficiency, but we aren't maximally efficient right now, so we can change things in ways that increase pleasure more than they increase pain. Obviously we can increase taxes on Jeff Bezos by .000000001% and give that extra $100 to person who is just shy of paying their rent and getting evicted and say definitively that Jeff's mild irritation (at best) is a less dramatic change than that poor person's elation. But at some point, there is only so much pleasure that a person can experience, right?

I don’t see the utility in categorizing all “should” statements as moral statements, at least not when the only overarching goal is maximal individual pleasure. I think that goal can lead one to a moral lifestyle, as in epicurean hedonism, but it seems to me that when everything’s a moral decision… nothing is.

Pleasure as a zero-sum game sounds dystopian to me, not utopian. Rather than organizing the distribution of pleasure into a balance of compromises from which any deviation results in a win-lose situation, optimal distribution is win-win. Instead of taking turns winning wars against each other, we can all make love instead. Lol

 

[Ana the Ist]

Really? You're accusing me of trying to fit in and avoid conflict?

Just a suggestion. I don't know enough about what you claim is moral to say something conclusively.

Can I get a confirmation that I didn't change your argument beyond a little cleanup? It is a valid argument now.

You changed an entire premise. I don't see why it was wrong before.

 

[gaara4158]

At some point in there you switched from talking about "self-contained behavior" to talking about "self-serving behavior."

I was drawing a parallel between the impossibility of altruism and the impossibility of a self-contained behavior not to be self-serving.

 

[gaara4158]

I am...just not aware of one that involves pleasure or isn't limited in any way.

Your mother and I are.

 

[Moral Orel]

You changed an entire premise. I don't see why it was wrong before.

For the same reason this is invalid:

P1 A is B
P2 B is C
C A is D

You start with saying there is something that can be described as good. That's B.
You end with saying that something is good. That's D.

 

[Moral Orel]

I don’t see the utility in categorizing all “should” statements as moral statements, at least not when the only overarching goal is maximal individual pleasure. I think that goal can lead one to a moral lifestyle, as in epicurean hedonism, but it seems to me that when everything’s a moral decision… nothing is.

I don't see any direct utility either. Just describing things accurately. What's the utility in drawing arbitrary lines between different kinds of behavior?

Pleasure as a zero-sum game sounds dystopian to me, not utopian. Rather than organizing the distribution of pleasure into a balance of compromises from which any deviation results in a win-lose situation, optimal distribution is win-win. Instead of taking turns winning wars against each other, we can all make love instead. Lol

That's where my middle ground comes in. It isn't a zero sum game while we're making pleasure increases and suffering decreases more efficient. But utopia will hit a wall... But who cares? It's utopia!

 

[zippy2006]

I was drawing a parallel between the impossibility of altruism and the impossibility of a self-contained behavior not to be self-serving.

But you opened #494 with the claim, "I don’t see morality as something that concerns self-contained behaviors." I didn't see arguments for that claim in the post.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Your mother and I are.

Woooo....

 

[gaara4158]

But you opened #494 with the claim, "I don’t see morality as something that concerns self-contained behaviors." I didn't see arguments for that claim in the post.

If it’s impossible for a self-contained behavior to be immoral, why assign moral value to it at all?

 

[zippy2006]

If it’s impossible for a self-contained behavior to be immoral, why assign moral value to it at all?

I think many would say that there are things which cannot be immoral and yet are moral. Love would be a common example.

In any case, why think it is impossible for a self-contained behavior to be immoral? At the very least there must be some premise in #494 that I am not perceiving.

 

[Chriliman]

I was drawing a parallel between the impossibility of altruism and the impossibility of a self-contained behavior not to be self-serving.

Cant someone serve others without realizing they’re being altruistic or without caring that they’re being altruistic?

 

[Moral Orel]

Cant someone serve others without realizing they’re being altruistic or without caring that they’re being altruistic?

The problem he's talking about is that folks we call good, do nice things and feel good about it. So we can't say that they did it and got nothing in return. That good feeling is something they get out of it.

 

[Ana the Ist]

If it’s impossible for a self-contained behavior to be immoral, why assign moral value to it at all?

You mean....

Why express it as a moral statement?

I think you should not only consider that question, but also consider a few other questions like....what kind of behaviors do we actually express morals in regards to?

What best describes the position which we most often make moral statements/judgements/arguments(

I can link to an earlier post I made if you don't understand what I mean here...and I can even just answer if you ask me directly.

Positionality is probably only secondary to circumstances as far as the creation of moral statements goes. I think that once you understand the importance of positionality (1. The person doing behavior X. 2. The person that is directly or indirectly affected by behavior X, and finally 3. the "objective observer")....you can begin to see morality in a way that is not only testable in some ways.....but you'd probably be more receptive when I told you I had identified at least 3 maybe 4-5, variables which can explain why people make huge shifts in moral judgements in extremely short times.

 

[Ana the Ist]

I think many would say that there are things which cannot be immoral and yet are moral. Love would be a common example.

I don't think many people would describe emotions as having a moral value.



In any case, why think it is impossible for a self-contained behavior to be immoral? At the very least there must be some premise in #494 that I am not perceiving.[/QUOTE]

 

[Moral Orel]

I didn't need this argument in formal form either...

Formal formatting just makes fudges easier to spot. All it does is organize things so the argument is clearer to see.

The rest of your quote tags are screwed up in this post, so I'll just cut & paste:

No....I made a premise of a type of behavior I could morally describe. I then I floated two premises that created the circumstances for fulfilling the first premise.

Then I satisfied the first premise. ​

The first premise can be fulfilled by literally anything. Anything can be described in any way. If we follow your argument though, it doesn't lead to your conclusion:

P1 Performing one's job well can be described as morally good
P2 Things exist which are too small to see with the naked eye
P3 Microscopes allow very small things to be seen
P4 Some work requires very small things to be seen
C Using a microscope at work can be described as morally good

That's the conclusion your premises lead to.

Not sure why you and Zippy think I'm some moral objectivist.​

Well, you're not a Moral Subjectivist or you would have picked (2). And you said you could prove things like "Democracy is good" so you're at least a Moral Realist.

You're the one trying to force me into a claim about morality I haven't made.​

You don't have to make any claims you don't want to. But you'll fail to form a valid argument for that conclusion if you don't alter your premise as I described. I thought you wanted a valid argument for that conclusion. If you want to admit that you can't do it, I'm all ears.

 

[gaara4158]

I don't see any direct utility either. Just describing things accurately. What's the utility in drawing arbitrary lines between different kinds of behavior?

That's where my middle ground comes in. It isn't a zero sum game while we're making pleasure increases and suffering decreases more efficient. But utopia will hit a wall... But who cares? It's utopia!

If you’re defining a word with different boundaries than most people, surely you can point to the utility of doing so, right? The utility in differentiating between actions with and without social consequences is obvious — you can expect to answer to someone other than yourself for doing thing that affect others, and that can entail consequences different from what you’re capable of imposing upon yourself on your own. It’s useful to be able to predict what might happen in the future.

The only limit to pleasure under such a utopia would be life itself, right? Even then it’s only changes in the system that would be zero sum, simply because any change to a perfect system would be to its detriment.

 

[Moral Orel]

If you’re defining a word with different boundaries than most people, surely you can point to the utility of doing so, right?

No, no utility needed. I just don't see any rational reason that these boundaries are anything other than arbitrary and defined themselves by preferences.

The utility in differentiating between actions with and without social consequences is obvious — you can expect to answer to someone other than yourself for doing thing that affect others, and that can entail consequences different from what you’re capable of imposing upon yourself on your own. It’s useful to be able to predict what might happen in the future.

Different consequences are different, they aren't special. I predict what might happen to me when other folk aren't involved too. I watch a movie trailer and judge whether I'm going to enjoy myself or not if I were to watch it. We're doing all the same things in predicting how a person feels and the consequences to us because of those actions.

The only limit to pleasure under such a utopia would be life itself, right? Even then it’s only changes in the system that would be zero sum, simply because any change to a perfect system would be to its detriment.

Sure. That makes sense. A perfect system is going to implement acts that don't alter pleasure:suffering at a 1:1 ratio, and that beats the zero sum game. I think it's pretty obvious we can do that.

Think about kids trading lunch items in school. Billy likes apples, but his mom packed an orange. Tommy likes oranges, but his mom packed an apple. If they trade, Billy lost an orange and Tommy lost an apple, but they're both happier now than with their original items. Ooh, that's a good analogy. I like that one.

 

[gaara4158]

I think many would say that there are things which cannot be immoral and yet are moral. Love would be a common example.

In any case, why think it is impossible for a self-contained behavior to be immoral? At the very least there must be some premise in #494 that I am not perceiving.

If we define “immoral” as something that we decide to do which serves no purpose in pleasure and actively brings about displeasure, I don’t think that’s something we’re actually capable of committing against ourselves. At least not on purpose. The very act of making a decision satisfies something psychologically that makes total self-denial impossible.