Where do you think this assumption comes from?

 

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There are two issues, 1) how people actually arrive at their moral conclusions and 2) proving right and wrong.


1) Before we are even born we can react and feel what we consider right or wrong for ourself. The idea of our own self interest is pretty much the starting point for anyone developing their morality. At some point we also develop empathy, possibly before we are born, but at least it is expected to happen at some point. We are also born with other competing interests obviously.


2) The fact that we are born a certain way and think a certain way does not prove something is right or wrong, it simply establishes how we develop this knowledge.


If you take a look at the Christian religion it is often a mix of various approaches to knowledge. At first it was almost entirely based on the idea that if you do bad then bad things will happen to you. This is why the God of the Old Testament is so mean. This is the most similar to the idea of basing morality on likely outcomes. In time the Bible develops into basing morality on written rules. In some ways this is an attempt to gather the past history and make it very straight forward for people. Obedience becomes a critical component.


This approach is then developed more but collapses in on itself a bit and is often replaced by personal morality. The reason for these moral actions are not necessarily the outcome because the world is full of injustive where evil men rule over good men. Morality becomes a personal relationship with God based on love and empathy as opposed to predictive outcomes. Good for the sake of good.


A similar evolution can be found with ideas relating to Karma. In the evolution of thought there eventually comes the need to look beyond predictive results and develop a sense of good for the sake of good.

 

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It could come from anywhere. It isn't susceptible to proof so there is no real way to definitely say anyone's valuation is any better or worse than anyone else's.


If I say the value of a human life is 3 million and you say it's 300,000 how is science going to tell us whose valuation is better? Science can tell us what the average person's valuation is but that's obviously circular and doesn't tell us whether that average is correct or not.

The whole idea that you are born knowing right from wrong is silly. If this was the case we'd all have the same morality. This is the same silliness that Hume was talking about when he was showing how it's impossible to have absolute morality, it's all made up as we go along. How could someone be against the death penalty and someone else be for it if they were born knowning right from wrong. Obviously, they didn't, or are you saying that people knowingly want to be wrong?

 

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It doesn't matter whether people are born with it or not. That's a seperate discussion.


Either way science is very useful for figuring out what result we are going to get from doing something, but it isn't any good at telling us whether that result is a good result or not.

Anywhere? Like from where? Give some instances.


As far as the evaluation go, science is the only way to go, especially if you're planning on letting people die. If we set that price too high, everyone else suffers. If we set that price too low, too many people die. You'd need science to determine what the acceptable rate should be, and in fact, that's what we do. As far as you personally disagreeing with whatever the set number is, that is again back to why you think that way and how you came to know it (back to where your information comes from).

 

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How can science tell us how many is too many?


We're going around in circles because you seem incapable of actually thinking through to the end of your argument.


How does science set the acceptable rate? Tell me how you design an experiment that tells us what the value of human life is.

You are born with the capacity to know what is good or bad for you. You are literally born complaining about pain.


It is just a fact that human morality comes from our own sense of what is good and bad and our capacity to judge our own self interests. It is also just a fact that we develop the capacity to feel empathy where our only interest is not just ourselves but others.


Both are inherent in our genetic code. We still need to be taught to choose one interest over another. Some people can even be born or develop an inability to feel empathy or get to the point where they purposefully work against their self interest.


None of this changes the facts I presented.


As for how we are conditioned to emphasize certain aspects of ourselves, that really depends on the outcome. It makes the most sense to base the way we condition people based on outcome. Which I already said.

 

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This thread is both insufferable and like a car wreck. I can't turn away because at the core of the discussion is enkidu saying something that is true, in a way that pisses off people who should know better.

I am a little shocked that Onin and yuki are still arguing it though. And also sad that I was wrong about SoO getting it and just not realizing the starting points were different.

 

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The basic point that you should be aware of how you form your judgments - although true - is ironic since he apparently doesn't realize how he forms his own judgments.