Tamayo wrote:
Hm, hello, IcyMonkey.
You probably fired this out, but thi is Zarathustra. I changed my name back to IcyMonkey (as it was originally) a few days ago.
Quote:
I don't know, really. Got a better idea? Situational ethical systems are necessarily inconsistent, and the alternative -- that ethics per se is as meaningless as metaphysics -- is unpalatable. If you would prefer the latter, I would suggest you try to decide between breathing good air and breathing ammonia without making any ethical statements, such as "breathing ammonia is unpleasant."
Problem is, you can never isolate genetic influences from social influences, partially because we've genetically evolved to be social creatures. Take the example of "feral" children - i.e. children who grew up in the wild with no human contact. Their actions are indistinguishable from those of, say, an insane, rabid dog. They never possess self-awareness, and hardly ever seem to show any signs of sentience, at least, not until they've been in contact with other humans for a while. Even then, they act in ways we would perceive as disgusting and immoral - for example, brutally attacking anyone who tries to touch them or even get close to them.
You could claim, of course, that the only way our "natural" genetic tendencies can develop properly is in a proper "natural" social setting. But what determines which societies are more "natural" than others? It seems like any standard one could establish for this would have to be arbitrary.
[digression]I've always believed that the word "natural" is a bit of a bullshit term. "Natural" simply means the way things are. EVERYTHING is natural. Technology is natural. It's a natural consequence of the human animal having evolved such a large brain. Pollution, as a consequence of these human animals using technology, is also natural. The idea of "naturality" always seemed to me simply an arbitrary concept based on some misguided idea (rooted ultimately in the Christianity, the vestiges of which still persist in even the most secular Western mind) that humans and human society are somehow "above" or "seperate from" the rest of the world (i.e. "nature"). [/digression]
Genetic influences and social influences CANNOT be seperated, because there's no way to remove either from the picture. (Even lack of social contact, as is the case with feral children, is simply a special type of social influence.) The very process of living is a process of accumulating social influences while developing based on genetic influences.
So how can we establish any sort of self-consistent, non-arbitrary system of ethics rooted in the objective world? I really don't think there's a simply and satisfactory way to answer that question. What's convenient for human civilization and what's true are two different things. Society, in my opinion, has to be built on certain "useful lies" or "practical fictions". The idea of absolute morality is, IMHO, one of those fictions.
So where does that leave us? Well, I gave a fairly good explanation of my moral system in the thread about murder that I mentioned earlier. Basically, in any given situation, I let my conscience guide me. I don't question my conscience; I don't question
why I care for others, or don't want humans to die needlessly. I take my conscience as a given, having been created by some combination of genetics and social influences.
This doesn't prevent me from being critical of myself and my decisions; in any particular situation, some methods achieve the goals desired by my conscience (e.g. preservation of life) better than others. Also, I have a natural dislike for blatant inconsistencies (althugh there are more subtle ones that may be lurking at the very root of my moral assumptions), so I try to root them out of my moral ideas when I discover them.
Generally, when I'm arguing about the rightness or wrongness of an action, I don't question the fundamental assumptions of the person I'm arguing with (since fundamental moral assumptions, thankfully, tend to be pretty much the same from human to human), but rather I point out how the particular actions they are advocating are inconsistent with those fundamental assumptions, or inconsistent with actions they'd advocate in analagous situations. Of course, this does mean that if a person decided that killing everyone on the planet was good and a worthwhile goal, I couldn't condemn his actions as wrong
per se. However, I would still attempt to stop him, since his actions conflict with
my moral goals. Does this mean I'm imposing my morality on someone else? Yes, yes it does.
This solution to the problem of how to establish a moral system may seem a bit unsatisfactory; however, as I said, I don't think a truly perfect and satisfactory solution exists. The universe was not made for us, unfortunately. As unsatisfactory as this moral system is in theory, in practice it works just fine, and that's all I care about.
(BTW, Tamayo, you conna respond to my Midlands Matrix post?
)