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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   Edited 1yr ago   34397 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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You seem to be confusing is/ought.

If you choose not to give your life to save 10 people, you are a selfish coward.

I don't mean that as harshly as it sounds, as we are all born selfish cowards, wired that way as a result of billions of years of evolution. And then it's reinforced by our culture. It's super hard not to be a selfish coward.

We don't like to think of ourselves as selfish cowards, so we imagine ourselves to be moral, even when the evidence is clear.

3 million children die of starvation each year. You can literally, truly, concretely, actually save a number of their lives. Say, 10 lives. Just by forgoing insanely lavish luxuries that we all treat "middle class" in the West. You wouldn't even have to forfeit your life, just a bunch of your stuff.

Now, I don't believe people should be forced to sacrifice themselves or sell their shit. It's a personal decision they should arrive at after doing the rational/ethical math.

But the math is clear.

I deny that human morality is math at all. People are not indistinguishable, interchangeable, widgets. The essence of humanity is sociability - our particular relationships and cooperation with each other. Your cold math at best ignores it, and at worst denigrates it as pernicious. That's a recipe for trouble.

I deny that human morality is math at all. People are not indistinguishable, interchangeable, widgets. The essence of humanity is sociability - our particular relationships and cooperation with each other. Your cold math at best ignores it, and at worst denigrates it as pernicious. That's a recipe for trouble.

Ha. You feel attacked. I get it. :)

You're placing a higher value on the lives of some people due to their proximity to you. This is because you are selfish, by nature. Reputation, reciprocation, kin selection, etc. These are all "is" considerations. (It's cool we all feel it.)

It's only because conscious experience exists that morality exists; it's only by rationally thinking through the implication of this that you can participate in morality. The moral way of assessing value is by measuring the capacity to suffer, or the other end, experience happiness/flourishing. And it's when you do that you realize there is no (unselfish) basis to place a higher value on anyone. You'll see that it's only your selfishness that blinds you to this simple truth.

A man you've never met in Kenya is of equal moral value to your father. This sentence flies in the face of everything we feel, but it's obviously morally true.

Again, is/ought. Here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem

"If by “equal moral value,” you mean some universalist abstraction like “in the eyes of God” or somesuch, then sure."

Roughly, yes. "God" being, similar to what you said, some kind of abstraction of a universal ethic.

Well, then I’d say it’s quite a daring assertion to call something “obviously morally true” when statistically zero people who have ever lived have believed it or acted upon it...and so on...

This is all false.

There are people who've given their lives for strangers. There are people who've donated organs to strangers. There are people who've sold all their possessions above subsistence and give it to strangers. People who give all their income above subsistence to strangers.

I understand the is/ought distinction, thank you.

Then why do you keep saying things that prove otherwise?

I am pointing out that the morality you describe is so foreign to most humans that calling it “obvious” is presumptuous at best.

It's obvious in the way I said it was:

Me: It's only because conscious experience exists that morality exists; it's only by rationally thinking through the implication of this that you can participate in morality. The moral way of assessing value is by measuring the capacity to suffer, or the other end, experience happiness/flourishing. And it's when you do that you realize there is no (unselfish) basis to place a higher value on anyone. You'll see that it's only your selfishness that blinds you to this simple truth.

If you can't see it's obvious that all people are of the same value, it's just selfishness. Like, you've been deluded into thinking your Self is privileged, and other people are privileged because of their proximity to your Self. This is obviously immoral, enforced by evolution & culture.

Again, if you had to choose to either save a starving child's life, or have a high thread count duvet cover and heated seats, and you choose the luxuries instead of the child's life and welfare, then you are a selfish coward. And that is what you (and I) are doing. Not theoretically. We're actually choosing to do it in the real, concrete world.

I’m sure you can find examples of principled equal-opportunity altruists, though I suspect many historical examples were motivated by religious and ascetic principles somewhat misaligned with yours. I said statistically zero.

I won't quibble about numbers here. My point was only that it's not at all impossible. But it's certainly not popular.

I told you, if you mean “in the eyes of god” or taking the view from nowhere or some other abstraction, then sure, a person’s proximity to me does not affect their moral value.

This completely at odds with this:

It does, however, change my moral duties toward them, for a host of social, moral, and practical reasons.

3 million children really, actually die of starvation each year. Real children. You can literally, truly, concretely, actually save a number of their lives. Say, 10 lives. Just by forgoing insanely lavish luxuries that we all treat "middle class" in the West. You wouldn't even have to forfeit your life, just a bunch of your stuff.

Saying "it's not my moral duty" makes no sense. No one is going to assign this duty to you. Reason makes your "duty" self-evident.

If you want to participate in morality, you need to acknowledge "a person’s proximity to me does not affect their moral value" as you did above, and then engage in the process of treating them as if they have the same moral value as you. By keeping them from suffering, aiding their happiness, etc. It's your "duty."

If you acknowledge "a person’s proximity to me does not affect their moral value," and yet do not make the appropriate changes to act on what you know, then you are a hypocrite, and a selfish coward.

I am a hypocrite, and a selfish coward too.

Acknowledging this is useful if it leads to action.

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