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Comment by lutusp | Hacker News Reader

> Notably absent from this guy's syllabus is anything concerning ethics, morality, values, or right and wrong.

That's because all morality is relative, one of the few things philosophy got right. The universe is morally neutral, which means that, to the degree that we fully grasp reality, to the same degree we discover that morality is a human invention, malleable across time and place.

Not to discount notions of morality, only to say that nature doesn't care what our thoughts are on the subject.

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> That's because all morality is relative, one of the few things philosophy got right.

As far as I know, there is no consensus in the philosophical community that relativism is right. In fact, my impression is that there's a stigma against relativism, as it's hard to come up with a satisfactory relativistic theory. For example, if relativism is true, it might be the case that we can't judge other societies or other times, but certainly slavery and female genital mutilation are wrong, and objectively so. I'm also not sure what to make of "nature not caring." Nature also doesn't "care" about math or science, because nature isn't a thinking thing that can care.

>because nature isn't a thinking thing that can care.

This isn't commonly accepted even now. Many people think that good things happen to good people because nature/god cares.

> Many people think that good things happen to good people because nature/god cares.

Any realistic, objective sampling of human experience instantly falsifies this claim. The correlation coefficient between "good" behavior and "good" outcomes (and the reverse) is precisely zero.

To many people, the single most annoying thing about science is that it quickly demolishes such romantic notions, using logic and objective statistical sampling.

> As far as I know, there is no consensus in the philosophical community that relativism is right.

Yes, but only because the terms "consensus" and "philosophical community" are fictional terms -- neither exist within philosophy.

DO you really think philosophers sit down and come to an agreement about anything? That would be supremely unwise -- the very existence of philosophy requires unending controversy, therefore to come to an agreement -- a consensus -- is to commit professional suicide.

In science, you can design a vaccine, or by experiment prove that reality agrees with your most recent theory, and thereby survive the consequences of two or more scientists coming to an agreement. Philosophers don't have this option (because reality is an obstacle, not a source of validation), therefore to even suggest that philosophers might reach a "consensus" is to fail to grasp the essence of philosophy: verbal onanism.

> For example, if relativism is true, it might be the case that we can't judge other societies or other times, but certainly slavery and female genital mutilation are wrong, and objectively so. [emphasis added]

You just took both opposing positions in a single sentence, which validates your standing as a philosopher. In fact, there are no objectively wrong things, only those things particular societies and individuals judge to be wrong -- and disagreement between individuals and societies is absolutely assured.

Your child is starving, and a dolphin is available as a food source. Do I need to go on, or can you perform this trivial mental exercise on your own?

> Nature also doesn't "care" about math or science, because nature isn't a thinking thing that can care.

You're missing a critical point here. It is not nature's purpose to care about anything, instead it is a scientist's purpose to investigate how nature does what it does while not caring one way or another. In other words, nature's indifference toward science strengthens science's hand (it contributes to the objectivity of science's results).

Right – which is why philosophy is more than just "the study of nature", and why in fact it's important that philosophy continues to examine questions like "if morality is relative, then is there a practical or even a deeper argument for morality's purpose that doesn't revolve around divine judgment?"

Nothing's more frustrating than people who take a very shallow summary of a very fascinating philosophical inquiry and using it to argue that entire swathes of philosophy are irrelevant as a result. The whole "moral relativism" thing was never as cut-and-dried as most Internet Moral Relativists think it is; it's an intricate discussion that deserves prolonged consideration, not a pithy "watch me prove you wrong!" zinger in an Ayn Rand novel.

Yes, but my reply was to a post which argued that morality was being given too little weight. On the contrary -- too much weight, if anything, to the degree that some misguided souls are able to picture philosophy as a secular replacement for religion.

Ah! Okay, that makes a lot more sense; I think I misinterpreted the point you were trying to make. Sorry for the mess-up.

Actually, according to the philpapers surveys most philosophers are moral realists. Of course, that means that they believe that at least some moral statements are true independent of what anyone thinks about them, not that "nature cares what our thoughts are" (whatever that means). And i think everyone would do well to explore the position seriously.

I'm not sure what that means. Dogs and apes and all social creatures have an innate sense of morality. They react emotionally to transgressions and punish transgressors.

Nature has evolved that, in humans it has created certain rather strong thoughts and feelings on the subject. So in that sense nature does care.

Different systems of morality are also going to lead to very different societies of varying effectiveness. So in terms of outcomes nature cares as well.

Seems like a potentially interesting and fruitful thing to look into.

Here is my favorite example showing that effective societies in other species need not be ones we like.

Our closest relatives are chimpanzees. Their sexual strategy is to produce lots of sperm and have lots of sex. The average chimpanzee male has sex an average of once per hour. (This is the 24 hour average.) About 1% of the time, the female attempts to resist, this does not bother the male.

The result? The average chimp commits clear rape every few days.

Can we make this worse? I think we can. One thing every mother chimp wants is to have her son become dominant. She therefore begins his journey up the dominance hierarchy early. Literally juvenile male gets to have non-consensual sex with low ranking females because his mother forces the adult female to comply.

If you're going to base your system of morality on what evolution has encouraged, you're either going to be ignorant, or accepting of things that are extremely repugnant to any human society that I've heard of.

I missed the step from 'evolution has endowed social animals with a native sense of morality' to 'morality must be based solely on that sense, or on chimp morality'.

Social animals have innate behavior patterns that let them cooperate. Humans complement those with concepts like Kant's categorical imperative or Rawls's theory, thinking about them and teaching them to succeeding generations. No contradiction.

Main thing is the need for a moral code flows naturally from the need to cooperate, prisoner's dilemma situations etc.

In general, repugnance is not always a good guide to morality, a lot of past and present civilizations do things which might seem repugnant to us but aren't necessarily immoral. Although abhorrence to things like rape is pretty universal.

(humans have pretty odd sex lives and hangups about them. If we ran around naked and had sex numerous times a day rape might not be considered as big a deal.)

There is a line of philosophy, particularly popular among atheists and other people who like to call themselves rationalists, there is is some absolute morality which can be justified on the basis of the kinds of issues that you're talking about.

Just coincidentally, most people who believe in that come up with something like Western morality.

Now I grant, our desire for morality is indeed evolved. It is as much a part of the fabric of who we are as, say, the ease with which Stockholm Syndrome can set in to quickly adapt us becoming slaves. (Historically a very useful reaction to have from time to time.)

My point is that any attempt to justify current moral beliefs on evolution, game theory, and some sort of absolutes, is fundamentally flawed. We are equipped to have moral reactions. We are trained to have particular moral reactions. But we have no evidence that our current moral fashions are in any real sense fundamental.

If all successful systems shared some characteristics, and social creatures seem hardwired with them, those characteristics would be in some real sense fundamental, no?

I guess the way I see it, morality tries to answer the question how do I act. That assumes actors exist, and others exist that can be acted upon. Then assume they share enough that they can communicate their individual values, eg I want to survive, avoid pain.

There are moral systems that are going to allow them to cooperate. Those moral systems are going to have some things in common, eg, reciprocity, or don't unnecessarily hurt others.

Nature tends to hardwire those, experiments show. Those would be universal moral values.

Beyond that, societies are going to evolve more complex systems, e.g. relieve yourself in the toilet, not in the public square; drive on the right. Some are going to follow more or less directly from universal principles given the environment, some are more like local maxima that people agree on.

One could say that a moral system that allows a bigger and more varied group to cooperate more successfully in more complex ways is better. So beyond the universal principles one could distinguish moral systems in more or less objective ways, as well as subjective ways like how repugnant they seem.

So, I'd agree that a lot of things people have strong moral views about are just fashions. Also that you can't get to one ideal moral system. Also that you need some first principles about how to determine harm. But I think there is a lot of morality that flows from simple first principles and is hardwired.

One characteristic that all successful systems that we know of share is a division between "us" and "them". And our greatest revulsion is reserved for "almost us", who presumably are competing with "us". Any group that gets painted as "almost us" can receive intense bigotry - be they Jewish, black, LBTG, muslim...

One of the characteristics of current Western moral fashions is that "us" should be painted as broadly as possible. It is not in fashion just to talk of rights for ourselves, we talk about universal rights. We do not just grant those rights to people we like, we grant them to people of different religions, different races, different sexual orientations, etc.

To me this aspect of morality - that there are universal principles granted even to those we don't like - matters a lot. Yet if we go off of evidence from nature, it is exactly this that there is the least evidence that is innate.

> Dogs and apes and all social creatures have an innate sense of morality.

Yes, but not the same morality. The point is that all morality is relative, and your example supports the thesis -- dog morality is not chimp morality, which is not human morality.

> Nature has evolved that, in humans it has created certain rather strong thoughts and feelings on the subject. So in that sense nature does care.

Absolutely false. You're imagining an intent in nature for which there is no evidence whatsoever.

Your child is starving, and a dolphin is available as a food source. You have to choose which moral standard to adopt -- yours, or the dolphin's (another thinking creature). They aren't the same, indeed they absolutely conflict.

> So in terms of outcomes nature cares as well.

You really need to expel this idea -- it's quite false. Nature is morally neutral, and does not care.

possibly we shouldn't anthropomorphize nature. she hates when we do that. And it may be be creating barriers to understanding. perhaps one should substitute 'is a useful construct for understanding nature' for 'nature cares'.

I think the one thing that set me off in the original comment is that morality is a 'human invention'. A more complete picture would be that humans, dogs, and apes are a creation of nature, which has endowed them with a sense of morality. Not one that is consistent or infallible, just as your sense of balance doesn't always correctly tell you what is up and what is down, but a sense nevertheless.

In physics, referentials are relative. We don't say, let's expel the idea of referentials. There is no one absolute referential, but the concept of a referential is a useful one in a variety of contexts and worth developing. No one physical theory is final or complete, but some are more useful than others.

As your example notes, we cannot avoid acting, so thinking about the best ways to act is a useful project. Saying "it's all relative and nature is morally neutral, so I can do and justify whatever I want" is a moral choice, but not necessarily the one likely to lead to the least conflict.

You're right. But if you're learning science then you don't learn ethics. However we're not learning science here, we're learning philosophy.

Secondly, just because it's "invented by humans" doesn't mean it's not real. After all, language is invented by humans, but you can still do science on language.

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