back to the beginning: morality

“Artificial Consciousness: Our Greatest Ethical Challenge”
Paul Conrad Samuelsson in the latest issue of Philosophy Now magazine

This would seem to situate us at a rather mind-boggling intersection. One in which morality meets determinism. In other words, ethics concocted in the human brain is exposed to be no less autonomic than the heart pumping blood throughout the body or the kidneys passing waste out of the body through urine.

Or, to put it another way, it may not be so much whether AI can ever be the equivalent of human conscioiusness, but whether in creating it, it exposes to us just how much human consciousness itself is nature’s own equvalent of AI. Natural intelligence being no less mechanical.

How do “unconscious atoms” reconfigure into matter able to create a consciousness able to reconfigure into an “I” able to reveal to itself that consciousness itself is derived from unconscious atoms?

With God of course that becomes one possible explanation. If we are willing to set aside [for now] grasping how or why God Himself came into existence. And, in turn, the extent to which His existence is necessarily in sync with the laws of matter. Does God exists as a result of the laws of matter or did God first create the laws of matter in order to provide us with a context in which to interact?

Again, it seems possible that, the more sophisticated we become in creating an AI closer and closer to our own intelligence capabilities, the greater the possibility becomes that they really not distinguishable at all.

First of all, that is what I posted above in full.

But: my point in noting this is to suggest it is actually folks like John Talley who seem to approach objective morality in this manner. It is not something that I am suggesting.

It’s the secular rendition of those who insist that God must exist because without Him, there can be no font for an objective morality.

The last thing the preponderance of moral objectivists [sacred or secular] want to accept is the possibility there is no font – God, Reason, Nature etc. – from which the “real me” can derive “the right thing to do”.

This is a distinction without much of a difference for some. Whether rules of behaviors actually become laws depends on the extent to which behaviors derived from a personal morality begin to impinge on the behaviors that others wish to pursue instead.

And it is hardly a coincidence that personal moralities and societal laws tend to be in sync with particular historical and cultural and experiential contexts. That then evolve over time given a particular confluence of contingency, chance and change.

Nor that, in the end, what counts is having the actual power to enforce a particular set of behaviors through a particular set of rewards and punishments. Whether within a specific family or [through political economy] the community at large.

“Artificial Consciousness: Our Greatest Ethical Challenge”
Paul Conrad Samuelsson in Philosophy Now magazine

Pain and suffering.

How does one wrap their head around mindless matter evolving over billions of years into self-conscious mind-matter able to experience pain and suffering?

We can imagine how excruciating our own pain and suffering would be in any number of contexts that revolve around, say, “natural disasters”. But the mindless matter embedded in the tumultuous fury of the tornado or volcanic eruption or a raging fire itself presumably feel nothing at all.

And yet pain and suffering is often a critical factor when we approach that distinction between ethical and unethical behavior. The more of it we inflict on another the more likely it is to be seen as unethical.

But can we then create an artificial consciousness able to both feel pain and suffering and to approach the behaviors of other AI beings as either moral or immoral?

Again, assuming that in creating an AI “I”, we have some measure of autonomy and are in turn able to “manufacture” autonomy in this articial intelligence “I”.

Really, how close are we to dealing with these things in reality? A reality such as this for example:

How, in an autonomous universe, would the question of morality be the same or different for biological individuals and those individuals created by biological individuals to feel pain and suffering and to react to it as either justified or not justified?

“Artificial Consciousness: Our Greatest Ethical Challenge”
Paul Conrad Samuelsson in Philosophy Now magazine

Morality exploding in ever more mindboggling directions as new technologies beget brand new contexts in which to argue distinctions between right and wrong behaviors. Only now a flesh and blood “I” has to contend with an AI “I” that may or may not be in sync with any particular moral narrative and political agenda.

And then the equivalent of me down the road arguing the extent to which dasein, conflicting goods and political economy are in turn applicable to this AI “I”.

That ever expanding gap between the extraordinary acceleration of things that we know are true objectively for all of us in the either/or world, and the fact that going all the way back to the pre-Socratics, the is/ought world is still bursting at seams with subjective renditions of conflicting goods. Only now the technological bound has ushered in any number of brave new worlds to contend with.

In other words, one thing never changes: political economy. You can bet that those who own and operate the global economy [be they flesh and blood or homo deus] will make certain that whatever is deemed “theoretically” to be right and wrong in places like this, always comes down to the behaviors that they are empowered to enforce in order to sustain their own perceived best interests.

Question of the Month
“Is Morality Objective?”
From Philosophy Now magazine

Ronald W. Pies

The part that I keep coming around to. You can believe that morality is objective. You can claim to know that it’s objective. But how do you actually go about demonstrating that in fact it is given human interactions that come into conflict over behaviors said to be either right or wrong?

The “notional idea” of objective morality is one thing, but it’s not the thing that most interest me.

Exactly.

Instead, let’s focus in on human interactions in which any number of conflicting moral and political assessments crop up.

How about the role of government in our lives? Some value a considerably larger role than other. Depending on the issue.

Now, in regard to the “two central features of objectivity” above, everyone will agree that objectively the government does in fact exist.

But, using these two features, how is it determined objectively what the role of government ought to be in regard to, say, the legalization of marijuana use?

In a word: context. Construed subjectively from a point of view rooted in dasein.

Sure, if you insist that a consensus reached in any particular aggregation of human beings subsisting in any particular historical and culture and community context, need be as far as one goes in order to claim that morality is objective, then, for you, that makes it so.

You merely assert it to be true.

But then there’s the part that revolves around who gets to decide what this consensus shall be. The role that economic wealth and political power play.

And then the part where communities come into contact with other communities and the consensuses themselves come into conflict.

Thus the “notional idea” of objective morality falls apart at the seams when “for all practical purposes” there is no philosophical or scientific method for pinning them all down once and for all.

Question of the Month
“Is Morality Objective?”
From Philosophy Now magazine
Kristine Kerr

This in my view is clearly a frame of mind that only has to be believed to make it true. Someone thinks that it’s true. In part because, subjunctively, they feel that it’s true as we’ll. But to then call the fact that you believe and feel something is true all the proof we need to establish it as in fact true objectively?

Should we then make it illegal to call anyone ugly and grossly overweight? Should we enact a punishment for doing so?

And it clearly intertwines human emotions into the mix. If someone hurts your feelings, that in turn ought to become an important factor in establishing the objectivety of behaviors deemed to be either right or wrong?

These hurt feelings – a genetic component of human biology – said to be universal or virtually universal?

But then:

Okay, let’s choose a hundred people at random, put them in a room and ask them to pin down that which ought to be construed as universally offensive. What hurts their feelings? And if, say, the liberals and the conservatives compile a very different list? Or, instead, is the whole point here that, in being able to note that feelings can be hurt in all of us, this becomes the basis in and of itself for claiming objective morality?

On the other hand…

This in my opinion is the classic example of the “general description” argument. You make a blanket statement about human interactions: We all feel offended by certain behaviors.

So, let’s use this as the basis for establishing that morality is objective. That we cannot intertwine our general rule into a frame of mind that actually differentiates right from behavior when conflicting goods are confronted in any particular context, shouldn’t stop us from pointing out that it’s still there to suggest that a resolution must be within our reach because objective morality has been proven to exist.

And I’m not arguing that this is an irrational point of view. I’m only looking for someone who embraces it to bring their assumptions down to earth and explore them…existentially.

Question of the Month
“Is Morality Objective?”
From Philosophy Now magazine
Martin Butler

In other words, in discussing morality, where does science and mathematics and philosophy and theology and all the other disciplines end…so that we can then discern and discuss where the others begin?

Instead, they seem to be all entangled in a “human condition” embedded in a universe where, by far, the overwhelming preponderance of interactions have absolutely nothing to do with morality at all.

And, in turn, the overwhelming preponderance of human interactions that can be “observed” also consist of relationships that are clearly able to be demonstrated as true for all of us.

And yet, as well, the overwhelming preponderance of turmoil, of upheaval, of pain and suffering, deeply embedded in the history of the human race, revolves precisely around those things that we do not seem able to pin down: value judgments.

Doing the right thing.

And, in my view, most folks seem far more intent on convincing themselves that whatever the right thing might possibly be, it does in fact exist.

And that is so because they have, In fact, already discovered what that is. Then it is merely a matter of dealing with those who, while sharing their conviction that morality is objective, disagree [more or less insistently] regarding what that entails out in the world of actual human interactions.

The part that revolves around rewards and punishments.

This in my view becomes hopelessly entangled in human psychology. And, given a particular individual’s psychological parameters, “I” is going to evolve over time given an enormously complex intertwining of a particular set of genes and a particular confluence of memes.

Then it comes down to those who are actually convinced that they and they alone are able to untangle all of these countless variables. In order to come up with a sum of all parts such that, thinking it all through, they discovered or invented a moral narrative and political agenda such that they can know when any particular abortion is or is not morally acceptable. Some even going so far as to convince themselves that morality can be understood here universally. Abortion itself as a bundle of behaviors can be pinned down objectively. Deontologically as it were. Or [of course] behaviors construed to be sins.

I can agree with this. Well, up to a point. I would never argue that objective morality is out of reach. And, surely, given a belief in an omniscient and omnipotent God, how could it not exist.

It may even be possible, in a No God world, to pin down “the right thing to do” in any conceivable context. All I can do is go in search of the argument and the demonstration that convinces me this is in fact true.

But even here it would only be deemed true by me. How would it all be put together by someone such that all rational men and women are obligated to believe this behavior is right and that behavior is wrong.

As for torturing a baby, yes, that is likely to be considerably closer to objective morality than, say, littering.

But in a No God world someone can always rationalize doing even that…and for whatever personal reason that propels them. Perhaps they loathe someone so much that they punish them by torturing the baby in front of them. Perhaps they are sociopaths who just want to experience what it might be like.

After all, look at all of the ghastly behaviors [up to and including genocide] that have rationalized by human beings down through the ages. Some to the point where the behaviors are actually seen to be righteous!

For me God is absolutely vital here.

Though even then assuming I have the autonomy necessary to believe that of my own free will.

Question of the Month
“Is Morality Objective?”
From Philosophy Now magazine
Glyn Hughes

Hmm…

The part [perhaps] where “do the right thing” meets a brain equipped only to do what it must?

In other words [perhaps] before you can test your moral narrative here you need first to test the extent to which it might possibly be the only one that you could ever have had.

On the other hand, there are surely parts of the brain that come closer to “human morality” than others. But how to distinguish them. How to pin down precisely the manner in which they are intertwined when any particular one of us is faced with the next context in which we must decide what is in fact the right thing to do. Objectively.

And the extent to which that pertains to fact at all.

This is the part that most of us here have little choice but to leave to the “experts”. After all, what do we know about the actual science here? Only what we read, right? So that what we think we know depends a lot on who and what we read. Not unlike so many other discussions we have here.

“There does seem to be…”

Okay, then bring an assessment of this sort down to earth and examine in more detail what your feelings and experiences are telling you about particular conflicting behaviors based on conflicting value judgments in an actual context.

How might the “fixed and objective process by which the moral comparison” is made be applicable in regard to, say, the immigration debate?

Question of the Month
“Is Morality Objective?”
From Philosophy Now magazine
Paul Mealing

That’s always been my point of course.

It’s the difference between words defining and defending the meaning of other words in an argument and this meaning then confronting a set of assumptions that breeds a very different meaning. The two then forced to confront a context in which the variables embedded in actual human interactions can come at you from all directions. Factors applicable to genes, to memes, to historical and cultural norms, to gender, to ethnicity, to class.

And then, individual to individual, we confront sequences of personal experiences that can vary considerably. Communication breakdowns happen all the time. The same words are being exchanged but in the world of value judgments it can often seem as though there is little recognition of that at all.

So, what then, Mr. Philosopher? Is there really the equivalent of, say, the Golden Mean here? Or, even more remarkably, a frame of mind that is argued to reflect the actual moral obligation of those said to grasp the wisdom that some insist is within the reach of the technical discipline? Moral narratives said to be most in sync with such philosophical tools as logic and epistemology.

In other words, when “morality in theory” comes face to face with political agendas rooted in conflicting value judgments pertaining to a particular context:

What else is there then but to go along with this or to insist that, no, philosophers are able to establish what all rational people [in India or anywhere else] are bound to do in this particular set of circumstance.

The other side of the coin. Once someone has managed to convince themselves that, philosophically, moral obligations are within reach, how far will they go in insisting that others are obligated to share those beliefs. In either a God or a No God context.

How far is one permitted to go in rewarding those who are “one of us” and in punishing those who are “one of them”?

My point is merely to suggest that this struggle is embedded in the very components of my own moral nihilism. There is no getting around the struggle other than in attempts to mitigate it through democracy and the rule of law.

Unless, of course, I’m wrong.

That’s idiotic.

Both objective and subjective morality have both theory (I/we think this is good) and practice (I/we try to implement what we think is good). The difference is that objective morality relies on external measures to determine what is good and to evaluate it. Subjective morality is largely in the mind … whatever you think is good, then is good and external measures can be entirely ignored.

Pedophiles are made to feel guilty too. :cry:
And thieves, killers and rapists. :cry:

End result : If you let these gangs rape and kill whenever they want to, then India becomes a shithole for young women. Objectively.

That sounds like his subjective theory of correct morality, since he does not refer to any external reasons for why it is appropriate.

Okay, let’s bring these “assessments” down to earth. There is what John believes is true subjectively about gun control “in his head”; and there is everything that we can determine is true objectively about gun ownership out in the world of human interactions.

But some philosophers here seem more intent on first establishing what we can know – know – about human ethics up in the “general description” clouds of abstraction. We must first rigorously define the meaning of the words we use in our discussions/debates. And indeed we can encounter arguments that go on and on for pages and barely touch down on or in any particular context where actual behaviors do come into conflict over value judgments.

Instead, only after having being in sync technically, intellectually can we then go on to assess the moral parameters of gun control such that we can then go on to establish legislation that will go a long way toward minimizing – eliminating? – the sort of carnage we just witnessed in El Paso and Dayton.

Same with human sexuality. Only when we are entirely clear and in sync technically, intellectually, philosophically about those behaviors argued to be objectively good or objectively bad can we jettison such “external measures” as God and establish moral obligations in regard any and all sexual behaviors.

Then even the sexual sociopaths who, in a No God world, insist that morality here revolves around satiating their own wants and needs can at least know that philosophically they are behaving immorally.

Question of the Month
“Is Morality Objective?”
From Philosophy Now magazine
Jonathan Tipton

And, yet, for many, after the “initial” reaction is long gone they are still fiercely convinced there is [there must be] an intrinsic value to be found in one set of behaviors over another.

Some, of course, will allow themselves to acknowledge the complexities we can encounter out in the real world:

But this sort of thinking is almost never taken in the direction that I go on this thread. Instead, the assumption is made that when push comes to shove, complexities or not, there is still a fundamental obligation to be found in any given context. We might not be able to quite pin it down but it’s still there.

For some through God and for others through Humanism.

But it is clearly not possible for many to believe there is no final obligation at all. The implications of that for human interactions is just too…dreadful?

Even the Karpel Tunnels among us who accept that objective morality is not likely to be around, concoct a rendition of “pragmatism” that still manages to afford them some measure of comfort and consolation given the behaviors that they choose.

I’m simply unable to grasp how this actually “works” for them “in their head” given the manner in which I have come to understand the role that dasein and conflicting goods plays in human interactions out in the is/ought world. The “fractured and fragmented” sense of “self” down in the “hole”.

This is what my own subjectivist / objectivist mind thinks about this from an essentially objectivist perspective which is the correct one :

Morality by definition is subjective so the notion of objective morality is an oxymoron and therefore something that is logically impossible
The irony therefore is that those who declare morality to be objective are without realising it making a statement that is purely subjective

Even if it did exist the fact that it would at least in part be subject to interpretation would render it subjective / objective rather than truly objective

Human minds usually like things to be nice and simple which is why they want morality to be objective but only within their own imagination can it be so
Morality as a concept with real world application is anything but nice and simple for reality is itself not nice or simple so there must be consistency here

Morality is objective.

If it is true for all possible subjects, its objective.

It is true for all possible subjects that nobody wants their consent violated. That’s an objective law of good / bad. Someone tried to claim that masochists are the obvious exception, this is false. Masochists feel pleasure where most people feel pain, this is not a statement of consent, there are probably an infinite number of ways that you can violate the consent of a masochist.

Since everyone in existence is having their consent violated in one form or another, we reach a second law of morality - existence is morally wrong as it currently is. It’s bad. It’s currently evil.

The question is: will it always be evil?

This always gets tricky [for me] because in discussions of morality [in philosophy venues], we can slide in and out of the “technical” components embedded in logic and epistemology, and the “existential” components embedded in points of view regarding particular conflicting goods.

“I” is ever and always the subject inherently citing subjective points of view about morality as an objective truth.

Were there no subjects around there would be no discussions.

After all, up until the evolution of matter into self-conscious minds [assuming some measure of free will] this whole controversy would be entirely moot.

So, sure, “I” is the subject. But in regard to human interactions “I” seems clearly able to establish some things and some relationships as true objectively for all of us.

And isn’t that really as far as we can go?

We are no less subjects when we point out that 22 human beings were killed by Patrick Wood Crusius in a recent mass shooting in El Paso. And there are many, many facts that all rational men and women would be able to concur regarding.

But when he explains why he felt justified in doing what he did, how are philosophers/ethicists able to establish that in fact this constituted [objectively] an immoral act?

Or that objectively it is immoral for private citizens to own assault weapons.

Or that objectively it is possible to establish the optimal or the only rational argument in regard to immigration policy.

My own subjective frame of mind “here and now” is basically in sync with this. It seems a reasonable manner in which to think it through.

But in turn I deem it to be nothing more than another existential contraption. There does not appear to be a way in which to establish beyond all doubt that all rational men and women are obligated to share this frame of mind.

And that is because there does not appear to be a way in which to rule out entirely the existence of God. Or, sans God, the existence of an argument able to be demonstrated as in fact an obligatory frame of mind for reasonable and virtuous human beings.

I can only note instead how “here and now” I think this instead of that. Knowing that a new experience, a new relationship or access to new information and knowledge might result in me changing my mind.

Iambiguous,

I answered your question perfectly through non contradiction.

You are scared of the only true and possible answer.

Your consent is currently being violated by a fragmented self and conflicting goods.

Your entire being is a just a horrible, disingenuous subset of my sublime

Admittedly, I’ve never been exactly sure how seriously to take you. Sometimes you come off [to me] as just another godawful Kid here. Other times as [even worse] another godawful objectivist Kid.

But, sure, maybe I’m wrong.

All I can do is to bring your “general description” argument above down to earth.

Now, in regard to the El Paso shooting above, how does someone not wanting his or her consent violated factor into your overall view of objective morality.

The people he shot did not consent to being killed by him. On the other hand, he did not consent to people coming into the country that violate his own sense of what makes America great.

How [philosophically] is it determined which consent here takes precedence?

Same with the argument over assault rifles.

Some give their consent to owning them while others give their consent to living in the country where they are banned.

And neither want their respective consent to be violated.

So [philosophically] which consent takes precedence?

Objectively, as it were.

All consent violations are objectively bad iambiguous.

The reality itself needs a different construction to account for this; such as hyperdimensional mirror realities.

Okay, the godawful objectivist Kid it is then. :laughing:

You’re a scared little kid, who’s too afraid to admit that reality is currently, objectively, by definition, evil.