What is Morality?

[CaptainFritz28]

I hate to leave the discussion at a time when there are so many things to respond to, but until next Monday I likely won't have the time to post here. If there is something I can make real short, I may do that, but otherwise I just won't have the time. I'll try to address the points made that I haven't responded to yet next week.

[Jamiet99uk]

I hope you are doing something enjoyable.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

I'm going to play devil's advocate here.

Where are we getting our moral view that slavery = bad from? I'm not saying it isn't bad, but this view of morality has to come from one of only a few places:
General public consensus: Do we only disapprove of slavery because most people around us do? This seems cynical, but I personally think it's the most likely here. We learn what is right from our parents, friends, teachers, and other role models. In general, these people have told us that slavery is wrong... so is that what makes it wrong?
"Divine" inspiration: By this I mean any external and non-human source which imparts morality on us, whether it be God or a natural force that we cannot possibly understand in our present state.
Inherent morality: Of course, this comes from either a parental or divine source, so I won't touch on it much.
Logical reason: If we're getting our morality from logic, what are we assuming in order to arrive at our moral beliefs? Are we assuming that if something causes pain or other negative feelings to more people than it causes positive feelings, it is moral? Is saving lives moral? What about euthanasia? Who taught us what to base our reasoning on? Fritz, for example, is reasoning based on the premise of truth in the Bible and the existence of a God that fits our current moral beliefs.

Obviously, all of our perceptions of morality are influenced by those around us or by a divine source. I would argue that this suggests that our morality is circumstantial and isn't really applicable to something thousands of years old. Who are we to judge with our present-day morality acts which were conducted in good faith according to a past morality? Of course, they may not have followed people's personal beliefs, but it seems to me that people took slavery for granted 3000 years ago. It did not offend them morally, and so it was not an immoral action at the time. In the present day, of course, their actions were immoral, but they weren't when they were committed.

P.S. Someone please invent some new verb tenses that work with multiple times at once.

I can't disagree enough that our morality is circumstantial.

I think we could all agree that "general public consensus" is an okay way to establish some customs (e.g., which side of the road to drive on), but that it's a poor way to come to moral conclusions. Why does widespread belief make something "good" or "bad"? I don't think even hardcore relativists have a satisfactory answer.

But if Fritz is right and God is real and his Biblical tenants are easily and clearly understood to be against most forms of slavery, then those forms of slavery are wrong forever and in all circumstances (unless God changes its mind). I don't love this approach because I'm uncertain about the existence of God and our ability to know its views on moral issues, and also because I would not want to be forced to say that slavery is "good" if it turn out that God actually was okay with it.

If Aristotelian virtues can be asserted as being morally good (i.e., it's taken for granted that justice, courage, temperance, etc.), then slavery will almost certainly be found to be morally suspect. If our natural rights can be asserted (i.e., if we have fundamental freedoms and equality), then slavery cannot be right.

If the logic of the Golden Rule is right (i.e., I'm not special, so I cannot consistently advocate to treat another person how, in their place, I would not want to be treated), then something like chattel slavery is wrong forever and always. If the logic of Kant's moral imperative is right (i.e., act only according to maxims that we would will to become universal), then obviously slavery can't be practiced because if everyone were a slave the system would be incoherent. If either of these approaches is right, then slavery can be wrong even in the deep past, even where it had widespread support.

A consistent Utilitarian takes as bedrock the wrongness of human suffering. We can imagine edge cases to make them squirm: what if we could enslave one person in order to give two people unimaginably good lives? what if a system of slavery today creates wealth that will be enjoyed by countless future generations? But at the end of the day, if you were presenting a Utilitarian with a real-world choice like "should we have continued chattel slavery in the US south?" I don't think they'd have a hard time answering "no" - the suffering of slaves was unimaginably bad, the economic benefits of slavery were middling and concentrated among a relatively small group of already-affluent folks, and the realities of slave ownership meant unpleasantness and harshness even for slave owners themselves and their society. In their framework the wrongness of slavery really does depend on context, but it can be backward looking - a system of slavery that was clearly not maximizing human flourishing in 1750 can be consistently considered morally wrong by a Utilitarian in 2024.

I'm not sure if any of these approaches capture the full moral truth about slavery. But they all agree that *when* the slavery happened isn't a relevant factor and that seems right to me. Why does historical suffering count less, or differently? Why should I mistrust my empathic impulses when I'm still reasoning about anatomically-modern humans in the recent past? What is it about a slave society makes slavery okay? Even if the slave, their master, and their neighbours all accept slavery as part of day-to-day life, I'm still strongly inclined to say that the slave's suffering is still real, that their inalienable rights are being trampled, that the institution of slavery fails to conform to the Golden Rule, etc.

[mOctave]

Congratulations on choosing the same answer as 99% of humanity! I think the real question here, though, is if there is a definite "good" and "bad" in the world. In my devil's advocate post, I presumed there wasn't. In your response, you presumed there was. If there is, then obviously our morality should be used to judge the actions of the past in an attempt to make our collective future more good than it is bad. Since we usually know more than we did a hundred years ago, we can assume that our evaluation of what is good or bad generally improves over time.

If not, however, then all morality is ultimately meaningless, and I would suggest that we all act out of self-interest. Viewing the world through this lens, we cannot judge slave-owners because to do so would be to assert that our modern sense of morality is good and theirs was incomplete, flawed, or straight-up evil. That would contradict the nonexistence of a definite "good" and "bad."

I would posit that any purely human theoretical construct exists and survives in the long term because it is generally beneficial to human society. If we have ideas of good and evil, therefore, they either exist out of societal self-interest or are not human in origin. If they exist out of societal self-interest, then can they truly provide a means to an objective "right" source of action? If they are not human, then doesn't that imply that they were created by some being, who we may for sake of argument call God?

The way I see it then, we have two possibilities: accept the existence of some (not necessarily Christian or even humanly conceivable) God, or reject our attitude to morality entirely.

[JustAGuyNamedWill]

I would say that morality is not inherently good. Morality is what you make of it. Jeff Bezos (loser) has a sense of morality to have a good life for himself and his family, but this means exploiting the working class. Is his sense of morality and less valid than mine?

Morality needs to be what is in the best interest of the many is.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

Congratulations on choosing the same answer as 99% of humanity! I think the real question here, though, is if there is a definite "good" and "bad" in the world. In my devil's advocate post, I presumed there wasn't. In your response, you presumed there was. If there is, then obviously our morality should be used to judge the actions of the past in an attempt to make our collective future more good than it is bad. Since we usually know more than we did a hundred years ago, we can assume that our evaluation of what is good or bad generally improves over time.

If not, however, then all morality is ultimately meaningless, and I would suggest that we all act out of self-interest. Viewing the world through this lens, we cannot judge slave-owners because to do so would be to assert that our modern sense of morality is good and theirs was incomplete, flawed, or straight-up evil. That would contradict the nonexistence of a definite "good" and "bad."

I would posit that any purely human theoretical construct exists and survives in the long term because it is generally beneficial to human society. If we have ideas of good and evil, therefore, they either exist out of societal self-interest or are not human in origin. If they exist out of societal self-interest, then can they truly provide a means to an objective "right" source of action? If they are not human, then doesn't that imply that they were created by some being, who we may for sake of argument call God?

The way I see it then, we have two possibilities: accept the existence of some (not necessarily Christian or even humanly conceivable) God, or reject our attitude to morality entirely.

I don't think one has to presume the existence of morality. I have the strong intuition that morality is at least partly discoverable, like mathematics.

In the same way that I can conclude that having four boxes of five apples really is the same as having twenty apples, I believe it's possible to deduce at least some moral principles with certainty. My favourite of these, which I keep repeating, is the Golden Rule, because it strikes me as not only intuitively Just but also literally True: I can't consistently argue to treat another being how I would not want to be treated in their same condition. This is a logical fact discovered independently many times over in different human societies.

The Golden Rule discovers the wrongness of selfishness in the inconsistency of promoting selfish actions. It underscores how, absent a mutually-agreed upon source of special pleading, it's not possible to put the wellbeing of ourselves over others. And it would be hard to produce conclusive evidence for this claim, but I also strongly suspect most observers would find that adherence to the Golden Rule really does produce more "good" outcomes than other approaches, even if they can't quite agree exactly on how to define "good" (absence of suffering, promotion of Justice, etc.).

I'm definitely not willing to say "no God, no morality". I suspect we live in a Godless natural world (though I'd be open to evidence in either direction), and yet I still feel compelled by the rationale of something like Golden Rule ethics.

[mOctave]

The problem with the Golden Rule, as I see it, is that it presumes that everyone else has the same beliefs and desires as yourself. This is generally true, however it doesn't help at all if you are trying to act in a moral way to someone who doesn't share your values. For example, if you are suicidal, the Golden Rule would imply that it is morally right to commit murder, as well. It's easy to dismiss this person's opinion on account of poor mental health, but even the nature of mental health is a topic decided by the ruling and desires of the majority.

In a less drastic example, what about situations where people of different cultures are working together? In some cultures, insubordination is considered a scandalous crime. In others, there is a time and a place when insubordination is considered to be the best choice, and can result in a better outcome for both the boss and their employee. If you presume that your boss or employee shares your values in such a situation, then you presume incorrectly.

At the same time, the Golden Rule is based explicitly off of self-interest: you pretend that the other person is yourself, and then do what is in your constructed person's self-interest. But if what is good and evil is based on self-interest, then how can it be a fundamental truth? Additionally, what if you have to do something unpleasant to the other person in order to serve the greater good? I suspect that this type of Golden Rule-like thinking is what makes it so hard for us as humans to cold-bloodily kill someone to save more lives. Yet, at the same time, there are strong arguments that it is better to "play God," and kill someone to save more people.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

The problem with the Golden Rule, as I see it, is that it presumes that everyone else has the same beliefs and desires as yourself. This is generally true, however it doesn't help at all if you are trying to act in a moral way to someone who doesn't share your values. For example, if you are suicidal, the Golden Rule would imply that it is morally right to commit murder, as well. It's easy to dismiss this person's opinion on account of poor mental health, but even the nature of mental health is a topic decided by the ruling and desires of the majority.

In a less drastic example, what about situations where people of different cultures are working together? In some cultures, insubordination is considered a scandalous crime. In others, there is a time and a place when insubordination is considered to be the best choice, and can result in a better outcome for both the boss and their employee. If you presume that your boss or employee shares your values in such a situation, then you presume incorrectly.

At the same time, the Golden Rule is based explicitly off of self-interest: you pretend that the other person is yourself, and then do what is in your constructed person's self-interest. But if what is good and evil is based on self-interest, then how can it be a fundamental truth? Additionally, what if you have to do something unpleasant to the other person in order to serve the greater good? I suspect that this type of Golden Rule-like thinking is what makes it so hard for us as humans to cold-bloodily kill someone to save more lives. Yet, at the same time, there are strong arguments that it is better to "play God," and kill someone to save more people.

It's very funny because these are many of the same arguments I've used against Fritz' description of Christian morality. I accept fully that even though I believe in the literal truth of this Golden Rule, it's application in the real world requires all sorts of subjective assessments.

I think Frtiz' point about the Bible, and mine about the Golden Rule, is that human reasoning about an objective moral code that we believe to be true is better than the alternative - totally unconstrained "whatever I feel like today" style morality, which I would hesitate to even call morality.

The Golden Rule can be made to produce bad answers, but not the way you've tried here. A suicidal person does not get to judge suicide as right for another person, because they're supposed to be answering the question "what would I do if I were the other person in that situation", so their suicidality should drop out and they should be thinking about what the other person/agent would want.

Flip this around though and the Golden Rule conclusion really does make some people uncomfortable. Say I'm a doctor with a severely suicidal patient. I really do have to consider their genuine wish to be dead when I apply the Golden Rule to their scenario - I may still come to the conclusion that, if I were them I would wish someone would keep me alive in case I'd feel better later, but it would take serious consideration to ensure I wasn't keeping someone alive against their longer-term will.

The Golden Rule works cross culturally. If I'm a Christian going to a Bar Mitzvah, I can use the Golden Rule to decide that it would be a bad idea to bring a pork roast to share. The wrongness here isn't determined by Jews' cultural prohibition on eating pork, but rather the Golden Rule insight that causing offense for no good reason isn't justifiable.

Golden Rule morality isn't based on self-interest, it's literally based on other-interest. The Golden Rule doesn't mean just saying anything I want for other people is right - it's a process of genuinely reflecting on what is in the other person's interest. Of course, our ability to reason about what other people want (let alone what is in the interest of other morally-relevant beings like animals) is limited and subject to the bias of the person making the judgement. This bias should follow a predictable pattern - my Golden Rule-style assessments of moral decisions affecting close friends and family are probably better than those I might make when considering a stranger's predicament, which would be better still than my ability to consider what's in the genuine best interest of the local skunk. This bias is a problem, but it seems like a good problem to have if the alternative is "morality is just whatever anyone thinks is right at any time". Moreover, I don't think we're powerless in the face of bias - someone with lots of life experience, good relationships, and the ability to debate moral questions in good faith with others will reduce their bias.

That the Golden Rule makes it hard to, say, justifying kill some to save others is a feature, not a bug. It helps someone non-religious avoid the repugnant conclusion of consequentialist-style morality. It's also not totally inflexible in this regard - it'd be consistent with the Golden Rule to suppose that a murder's own interest being maximized by preventing him from murdering. I'd also add that even though I think the Golden Rule provides valuable insight of some ultimately unknowable objective morality, I don't think it's a complete or exclusive moral truth - there are certainly other ways of moral reasoning that helpfully complicate the picture.

[Jamiet99uk]

@mOctave:

If the Golden Rule is not a good standard from your Christian viewpoint, why is it quoted in the New Testament?

(Matthew 7:12).

[Crazy Anglican]

I'm not sure that mOctave is a Christian, at least I believe he has stated otherwise in this thread.

[Jamiet99uk]

Oh, in that case, my mistake.

[CaptainFritz28]

I would say that morality is not inherently good. Morality is what you make of it. Jeff Bezos (loser) has a sense of morality to have a good life for himself and his family, but this means exploiting the working class. Is his sense of morality and less valid than mine?

Morality needs to be what is in the best interest of the many is.

So the Trans-Atlantic slave trade was moral when the concensus had it as its best interests?

[Jamiet99uk]

I would say that morality is not inherently good. Morality is what you make of it. Jeff Bezos (loser) has a sense of morality to have a good life for himself and his family, but this means exploiting the working class. Is his sense of morality and less valid than mine?

Morality needs to be what is in the best interest of the many is.

So the Trans-Atlantic slave trade was moral when the concensus had it as its best interests?

No. The total number of deaths directly attributable to people dying on "middle passage" slave voyages is around two million; a broader look at African deaths directly attributable to the institution of slavery from 1500 to 1900 suggests up to four million deaths. Around 12 million Africans were enslaved in the course of the transatlantic slave trade.

The number of people who benefited from the carrying on of the slave trade was much less than that.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

I would say that morality is not inherently good. Morality is what you make of it. Jeff Bezos (loser) has a sense of morality to have a good life for himself and his family, but this means exploiting the working class. Is his sense of morality and less valid than mine?

Morality needs to be what is in the best interest of the many is.

So the Trans-Atlantic slave trade was moral when the concensus had it as its best interests?

No. The total number of deaths directly attributable to people dying on "middle passage" slave voyages is around two million; a broader look at African deaths directly attributable to the institution of slavery from 1500 to 1900 suggests up to four million deaths. Around 12 million Africans were enslaved in the course of the transatlantic slave trade.

The number of people who benefited from the carrying on of the slave trade was much less than that.

Another perspective here is that even if the slave trade had been much more profitable it would still have been wrong to do, either because no plausible economic benefit could outweigh the extreme harm caused to slaves, or because there are inalienable rights that should never be traded away, or because maintaining this type of slavery would be incompatible with logical- or religious-based moral codes that we think are necessary to maximize human flourishing.

It's interesting though, that i would find some forms of "slavery" okay and others not. Chattel slavery is perhaps the most obviously evil example, but it exists on a continuum of forced labour where the morality can get murky. I live in a winter climate and I am obliged to clear my walkway of snow. If I stop paying taxes eventually men with guns will come and confine me. I think parents are obliged to care for their children and can rightly be punished by the state for negligence, endangerment, etc. I think most wage labour is moral, but there are definitely cases where people are almost compelled to take dangerous or humiliating work. The wrongness of forced labour seems to me to matter quite a bit on the particular circumstance, but that doesn't mean I'm unable to find the transatlantic slave trade absolutely wrong in 2024.

[JustAGuyNamedWill]

I would say that morality is not inherently good. Morality is what you make of it. Jeff Bezos (loser) has a sense of morality to have a good life for himself and his family, but this means exploiting the working class. Is his sense of morality and less valid than mine?

Morality needs to be what is in the best interest of the many is.

So the Trans-Atlantic slave trade was moral when the concensus had it as its best interests?

It was moral to the whites who enslaved them. To us as a modern, progressive society, it is immoral.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

I would say that morality is not inherently good. Morality is what you make of it. Jeff Bezos (loser) has a sense of morality to have a good life for himself and his family, but this means exploiting the working class. Is his sense of morality and less valid than mine?

Morality needs to be what is in the best interest of the many is.

So the Trans-Atlantic slave trade was moral when the concensus had it as its best interests?

It was moral to the whites who enslaved them. To us as a modern, progressive society, it is immoral.

I know this is rude, but what a dumb take. That some white people made bad arguments to justify an atrocity =/= morality. Whites who supported slavery were mistaken.

[JustAGuyNamedWill]

So the Trans-Atlantic slave trade was moral when the concensus had it as its best interests?

It was moral to the whites who enslaved them. To us as a modern, progressive society, it is immoral.

I know this is rude, but what a dumb take. That some white people made bad arguments to justify an atrocity =/= morality. Whites who supported slavery were mistaken.

Morality is not always right. Slavery is an objective wrong, but the morality of the whites back then did not flag slavery as so. Why? Because morality was defined by the whites, who objectively benefitted from slavery.

[JustAGuyNamedWill]

It was moral to the whites who enslaved them. To us as a modern, progressive society, it is immoral.

I know this is rude, but what a dumb take. That some white people made bad arguments to justify an atrocity =/= morality. Whites who supported slavery were mistaken.

Morality is not always right. Slavery is an objective wrong, but the morality of the whites back then did not flag slavery as so. Why? Because morality was defined by the whites, who objectively benefitted from slavery.

Didnt not mean to say “objectively benefitted”. Meant to say financially benefitted

[JustAGuyNamedWill]

To the Aztecs, it was moral to kill because of what they believed in. Ritual sacrifice was believed to keep the God’s happy. Does their sense of morality have any less weight then mine? No. But they did not have the benefit of the information we do, and so thus ritual sacrifice today is considered immoral by our own standards.

Morality constantly evolves with the society. I believe that animal testing is morally wrong, but many see it as morally grey, something that is up for debate. Does my sense of morality have any less weight than theirs? No.

Does this excuse slavery? No. Does it give us a look into the mindset of the people actively participating in it?

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

I'd suggest we're talking about different things.

The word "morality" literally means "the extent to which an action is right or wrong."

Just because there are customs that get justified by most people at a particular time in history is beside the point.

So was slavery moral? No, because it was clearly wrong. It was wrong back when they did it too. A big part of the reason we don't have slavery today is because people rightly recognized its wrongness, which was there to discover all along.