Tuesday, May 01, 2018

Questions on Morality

I came across somebody asking questions about morality that I answered as follows:

Q: “Why are we morally accountable for anything?”
A: Because we are intentional agents – beings who, on the basis of beliefs and desires, act in ways that change the world, where those desires are, themselves, under the influence of praise and condemnation. It makes sense for people generally to promote, universally, desires that tend to fulfill other desires using praise and condemnation.

Q: Should the Sun be put on trial for causing cancer?
A: No. The sun is not an intentional agent acting on desires capable of being influenced by rewards such as praise or punishments such as condemnation.

Q: If all there is to us is matter, then aren't we just meat robots, programmed by nature through evolutionary mechanisms, and acting according to our nature just like all physical objects do?
A: Actually, very few physical objects act on beliefs and desires where desires can be molded using praise and condemnation.

Q: What is the foundation of your beliefs about right and wrong?
A: Your use of the term “foundation” begs some important question. I have a theory of right and wrong – which, like all good theories, is the theory that best explains and predicts the phenomenon of morality.

Q: Why is something wrong?
A: Definition: An act is wrong if and only if a person with good malleable desires and lacking bad malleable desires would not have preformed the act in those circumstances. Malleable desires are desires that we can mold using praise and condemnation. In virtue of this fact, it makes sense to reward/praise actions so as to promote good desires and punish/condemn actions to promote good aversions or inhibit the formation of bad desires.

Q: One can say stealing is wrong, but what about it makes it wrong?
A: The fact that people generally have many and strong reasons to use praise and condemnation to promote universally an aversion to taking property without consent.

Q: What fact about the universe justifies your belief that it is indeed objectively wrong?
A: Those pieces of evidence that support the belief that people generally have many and strong reasons to use praise and condemnation to promote universally an aversion to taking property without consent.

Q: I understand that one could create a moral system that was based with our biology and best interests in mind, but why would that be any more valid than one that wasn't?
A: Arguments are valid or invalid. Propositions are true or false. The proposition, “people generally have many and strong reasons to use praise and condemnation to promote universally an aversion to taking property without consent" is objectively true. (Try proving that it is false, or even that it is just a matter of opinion.)

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