Blog
In this blog I use elements from the e-
Evolutionary ethics and moral realism
Response to an evolutionary contractualist theory of morality
Foundations of evolutionary ethics
Normative structure of morality
Types and features of morality
Response to the Theory of Dyadic Morality
Response to the theory of morality-
Further articles: see https://www.reddit.com/user/simonperry955/
Moral obligation
6 September 2023
The joint goal, i.e., the goal, “tells” you to be cooperative with me and me to be cooperative with you. In moral obligation, the normativity of the joint goal is transformed into an interpersonal normative pressure to cooperate (rationally) towards the joint goal.
We thus enter into a web of normative relations in which each collaborative partner is accountable to the other for treating her with appropriate respect by responsibly following mutually understood (and implicitly agreed to) normative standards.
... The relationship between partners has now become normative; each feels obligated to honor her commitment by responsibly playing her role and accepting her partner's criticism as legitimate if she does not.
Michael Tomasello – “Becoming Human”
28 May 2022
In the popular and scientific literature, "psychopath" tends to be the catch-
Narcissism is defined by its self-
Empathic concern is an attitude of goodwill that is fragile and easily destroyed.
If everyone else is a potential enemy (because I am competitive), then it is harder
to have empathic concern for a competitive enemy. If I have only me-
In other words, severe narcissism can mimic certain aspects of psychopathy, like callousness, for different causative reasons. A narcissist can feel fear; a psychopath cannot; for example.
Psychopaths are reward-
When psychopaths cause harm, it is instrumental: to achieve some desired end. (They are ungovernable as children.) When narcissists cause harm, it can be for pleasure as well as for selfish advantage.
See also:
Why do people enjoy hurting others?, 1 March 2022
Psychopathic ethical compass, p. 56
Proposed spectrum of personality / developmental disorders, p. 190
The conscience, part 2: morality as accountability
28 May 2022
“we > me” morality
Monitoring, evaluating, and governing the self and other partners on behalf of "us", the group, team, or partnership.
Morality consists in the inter-
The conscience consists of forward-
Making myself accountable for my actions means taking responsibility for them, apologising for them, and making amends for them, and promising to correct my future behaviour. Only when accountability has been taken can forgiveness be given.
Because morality consists of inter-
Others demand accountability of me because: 1) my action affects them; 2) collaborative
partners are taking a risk by relying on me, and they need me to perform well. I
hold myself accountable to myself and my partners because: 1) all partners are evaluating
all partners; 2) I am a partner, equivalent to the others from the point of view
of the collaboration; 3) through self-
Additional reference: Brendan Dill and Stephen Darwall -
See also:
Cooperation, p. 61
Self-
Partner control and joint self-
Normativity in small teams, p. 80
Cooperative normativity, p. 81
Moral intuitions, 1 March 2022
16 March 2022
From the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
‘Right’ and ‘good’ are the two basic terms of moral evaluation. In general, something is ‘right’ if it is morally obligatory, whereas it is morally ‘good’ if it is worth having or doing and enhances the life of those who possess it.
Acts are often held to be morally right or wrong in respect of the action performed, but morally good or bad in virtue of their motive: it is right to help a person in distress, but good to do so from a sense of duty or sympathy, since no one can supposedly be obliged to do something (such as acting with a certain motive) which cannot be done at will.
-
Rightness means to uphold a moral norm. A moral norm or goal is ideal behaviour
that applies to any collaboration alike. We are obliged to uphold moral norms, on
behalf of "us", the cooperative unit. Cooperative normativity or obligation is three-
A moral norm can also be an ideal way to be part of a family; or to be a parent;
or to pair-
Arguably, ethics refers to moral goodness. Goodness can refer to three things: 1) intentions; 2) benefits as opposed to harms; goods as opposed to burdens; 3) a state of being: "the good life".
Intentions are fulfilment of our four moral concerns, that need to be balanced in
any social situation: 1) me-
Benefits, and goods, are commodities. Commodities can be material or social. We
experience an evolutionary pressure to maximise flourishing or well-
We assume that a good life is one that is flourishing.
If we want to be ethical, then by definition, we need to maximise goodness (flourishing)
through our actions. Therefore, the highest good is to provide the maximum benefit
and minimum harm available, through our actions. This is for the benefit of both
me and you: "love your neighbour as yourself". It requires me-
Arguably, rightness is a we-
We recognise three kinds of moral flourishing: 1) flourishing of individuals; 2) flourishing of the group; 3) flourishing of sacred values.
We assume that a model for individual flourishing is a prehistoric small-
Can a "wrong" action produce "good" results? In some extreme circumstances, there may be no good available outcome, so we choose the least worst, which is likely to involve doing something that is less than optimal from a cooperative point of view.
See also:
The Healing Principle, p.13
Perfect Compassion, p. 33
Role ideals, p. 71
Cooperative normativity, p. 81
Egalitarianism, p. 134
Moral foundations theory, p. 219
Liberty and oppression, p. 221
2 March 2022
Within any joint collaboration, each partner has his or her role to play. A role ideal is an ideal or virtuous way to perform a role.
Cooperative moral standards are role ideals that belong to any collaboration alike.
These include diligence, honesty, faithfulness to the task, fairness, respect, etc.
Within a small group of people cooperating to survive and thrive together, a role
ideal is helping in response to need. Moral standards in general are ideal ways
to cooperate, be fair, live in groups, live in families, have friends, and reproductively
pair-
Since they apply to general situations, they are impartial, external, standard arbiters
of behaviour: a form of objectivity. They are independent of any one single mind,
but are group-
We also respect sacred values. Something that is sacred, of infinite value, cannot legitimately be traded for something of finite value, such as money.
See also:
The moral compass, p. 55
Role ideals, p. 71
Objectivity: the view from everywhere, p. 94
Sacredness and moral pollution, p. 225
1 March 2022
Hey, I only gave you sound advice,
no, it ain’t enough just being nice.
The Flying Lizards -
We tend to look favourably on those who enforce moral norms on others. We tend to respect those who enforce moral norms on themselves; in fact, those who do anything well.
Morality, and religion, like the moon, have a dark side and a light side: they are both a carrot and a stick. We promote and enforce good behaviour, and punish bad behaviour.
Each of us both self-
Partner control and self-
Unconditional love employs partner control exclusively. If unconditional love comes to an end, then it is time to employ partner choice, and find a new one.
As well as self-
We are all required to monitor and evaluate -
See also:
Cooperative normativity, p. 81
Moral identity and conscience, p. 98
Why do people enjoy hurting others?
1 March 2022
Moving towards fitness benefits results in pleasure. Natural selection selects for relative advantage between individuals. Therefore, fitness benefits can be relative as well as absolute. Hence, relative advantage over others can result in pleasure. Social life for human beings plays out in two dimensions: competition and cooperation. In contrast to neurotypical people, people with narcissistic personality disorder operate mainly in competitive mode, and so, many people with NPD routinely derive pleasure from dominating and hurting others. Of course, one does not have to have NPD to do this.
Sadism
Sadism means to take pleasure in the pain or suffering of others. In cooperative mode, we feel empathic distress at the distress of another, but in an act of competition, a person who is being sadistic has this emotional valence reversed, and he or she feels pleasure in response to the other’s pain, along with arousal and attentiveness: excitedly “tuning in” to it (Walker, 2022).
See also:
Pleasure, p. 16
The moral compass, p. 55
Competition, p. 114
Dark and light traits, p. 182
Passive aggression, p. 239
Reference: Walker, 2022
1 March 2022
Moral intuitions, moral instincts, are the evolved behavioral and psychological pressures we experience to engage in morality and to behave ethically. Moral intuitions consist of: 1) an evolved moral motivation, to be helpful, to be fair, to enforce or follow norms, to punish offenders, etc.; and 2) a complementary moral emotion, such as empathic distress, guilt, resentment (at unfair treatment), or moral anger.
Emotions detect potential changes in fitness: i.e., if we move towards fitness benefits, we feel positive emotions; and if we move away from fitness benefits, we feel negative emotion. Fitness is related to normativity: we feel a normative pressure to seek fitness benefits: we should seek fitness benefits. The way in which we seek fitness benefits, in which we satisfy normativity, determines the kind of emotion we feel in response to how these goals are promoted or threatened. For example, if we seek fitness cooperatively, jointly with others, then we are likely to feel empathic distress when our partner is in trouble (when their goals are threatened), and to feel positive emotion when we are able to help them.
Hence, compassion, for example, consists of an evolved motivation to help someone in need, together with empathic distress because they are in distress.
Moral epistemology and the conscience
How does the individual judge whether what they want to do is right or wrong? We don’t necessarily do things because they are “right”; rather, we choose actions because they satisfy certain moral concerns.
The conscience has four types of moral concern: me-
Each of these represents an evolved moral goal: we are motivated through evolution and natural selection to help ourselves; to help others; to be fair; and to follow and enforce norms on behalf of “us”, the partnership, team or group. These last three are represented by the expressions: you > me; you = me; and we > me.
The reason that each represents a goal, that each is normative, is that during the time in which it evolved in the human family tree, in a social environment of tight interdependence, it helped the individual to flourish. As such, today, when the individual is unable to fulfil one or more of these concerns, he or she feels a moral emotion in response to this threat to the moral goal.
See also:
The Stakeholder Principle, p. 47
The moral compass, p. 55
Psychopathic ethical compass, p. 56
Cooperative normativity, p. 81
Evolution of the normativity of fairness (as distributive justice), p. 139
Empathic distress and compassion, p. 157
Emotions, p. 243
28 February 2022
Conceptually, there is no single way to describe the structure of morality, because
it is messy and multi-
Normativity
If something is normative, it means that we should do it: we experience a pressure to do it. What makes something normative is that it is a way of thriving, surviving, and/or reproducing. There are various kinds of normativity, depending on the way(s) used to achieve instrumental goals. Instrumental normativity is the pressure to achieve instrumental goals: i.e., a pressure to thrive, survive and reproduce. This pressure exists in the biological, psychological, and social/moral domains.
The various kinds of moral normativity -
Cooperative normativity is divided into two types: joint interpersonal, and collective
large-
Goodness
Ethical goodness means to maximise the well being of each individual concerned in my action; or to maximise the well being of the group; or to maximise the promotion of sacred values.
See also:
The Healing Principle, p. 13
Maps of morality, p. 54
Competition, p. 114
Moral foundations theory, p. 219
25 February 2022
According to this article, there are two competing theories in meta-
These two factors, actions and consequences, are part of the pattern that in Understanding Morality and Ethics is described as Perfect Compassion or fairness as respect. In this pattern, each person affected by my action, including myself, is to receive the maximum benefit and minimum harm available to them. This is one way of defining ethical goodness, that takes human flourishing to be the primary ethical value or goal, with benefit and harm as its interpersonal currency.
Buddhism, karmic actions, and the D-
Buddhism states that actions that are tainted by greed, anger, and ignorance are called karmic actions, are “unsatisfactory”, and are therefore set up to fail. The D or dark factor of behaviour is to give someone less than the maximum benefit and/or more than the minimum harm available to them, through greed, anger, bullying etc.: i.e., to thrive at the unnecessary expense of others.
In other words, under this model: intentions, actions, and consequences are connected. Intentions and actions can be prosocial or antisocial. Consequences can be practical, biological, psychological, social, and/or moral.
White lines, red lines
“White lines” is a lawyers’ term for something we should never do. In everyday life, some things are just wrong to do, no matter how much they seem to be justified or provoked.
Obligatory principles are goals
Since moral principles are obligatory, they are goals, and therefore, ends in themselves. Hence, actions are important, regardless of consequences.
Nagasaki and the trolley problem
In her 1967 article, “The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of the Double Effect”, the moral philosopher Philippa Foot raised the question of when it is permissible to commit harm or injustice in the name of doing right. From Wikipedia, “The Trolley Problem”:
Foot's version of the thought experiment, now known as “Trolley Driver”, ran as follows:
Suppose that a judge or magistrate is faced with rioters demanding that a culprit be found for a certain crime and threatening otherwise to take their own bloody revenge on a particular section of the community. The real culprit being unknown, the judge sees himself as able to prevent the bloodshed only by framing some innocent person and having him executed. Beside this example is placed another in which a pilot whose airplane is about to crash is deciding whether to steer from a more to a less inhabited area. To make the parallel as close as possible, it may rather be supposed that he is the driver of a runaway tram, which he can only steer from one narrow track on to another; five men are working on one track and one man on the other; anyone on the track he enters is bound to be killed. In the case of the riots, the mob have five hostages, so that in both examples, the exchange is supposed to be one man's life for the lives of five.
Although the trolley problem has been criticised as inhuman, and irrelevant to everyday life, it has clear parallels with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended Japan's involvement in World War II. In 1956, Foot's friend and colleague, the moral philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe, publicly opposed the granting of an honorary Oxford degree to Harry S Truman, the American president who had ordered the atomic bombing, on the grounds that it was a work of mass murder.
On the one hand, arguably, Anscombe was correct: the atomic bombing of Japan was a work of mass murder. Yet, it was accepted by the world as necessary, the least worst option that saved millions more people from being killed. It was not done out greed, anger or bullying: it was not committing more harm than was necessary.
See also:
Distributing benefit and harm from the perspective of the ego, p. 42
The moral compass, p. 55
Evolution of the normativity of fairness (as distributive justice), p. 139
Dark and light traits, p. 182
Sin or "mental defilement", p. 205