Normative Ethics

And I believe that without feelings, morals and values are impossible.
There’s no such thing as a strictly rational ethics.

Reason, as well as intuition, can help us find some consistency in our feelings over times and places, and it can inform us about the likely results of acting on our feelings in this or that manner, but without any feelings at all, we’d have no motivation to act.

Tell that to your computer, or cell phone, or the change counting machine at your local bank.

Tribalism is an a natural and necessary instinct to facilitate survival of a tribe in ancient times perhaps still necessary to a small degree at present.
The negative side of tribalism is the consequences of genocides arising from the extreme effect of the ‘us versus them’ impulses.

I agree some degree of tribalism is still necessary at the present but as I had argued above, there is a need to evolve and progress away from tribalism into the sense of the global Team Humanity towards the future.
Note the fact that while tribalism is still unfortunately necessary so it its potential for genocide and tribal conflicts between groups which is happening at present.

Thus we need to visionaries and plan for the future from the present state of potential turmoils.

This is the reason why I am proposing we [those who have the foresight] work toward a holistic Framework and System of Morality and Ethics that will modulate the tribal impulse to the minimum or Zero effect.

This is why I do not agree with Consequentialism as a complete and holistic Moral and Ethical theory.
Consequentialism often use the casuistry approach, e.g. the Trolley Dilemma.
In real life, there are infinite possibilities thus it is impossible to improve one Moral and Ethical state to cover all the effective solutions for all possibilities and scenarios.

This is why I advocated a holistic and complete Framework and System of Morality and Ethics to encompass consequentialism together with other necessary sub-systems.

In a complete and holistic Framework and System, one of the strategy is to reduce and prevent the possibilities of moral dilemma occurrences in the first place. If the minimal of dilemmas ever occur, then one would do the best based on one’s developed competence and do not brood over whatever the consequences, while taking steps to prevent future occurrences.

Both reason and feelings are essential but they have to be in complementarity within a holistic and complete Framework and System of Morality and Ethics.

One point is within a complete system, we have to differentiate Morality as confined to pure reason dealing with absolute moral laws, while ethics deals with feelings and the practical world.

The burst of energy computers and machines receive, that’s programmed to go off when certain cognitive, mathematical and physical criteria are met, that compels them to do this and that, is the equivalent of their feelings.

I agree with David Hume when he said: “You can’t get an is from an ought”.

For me, tribalism has intrinsic value.

We can carefully consider as many meaningful responses to a situation, and their potential ramifications as we can, before taking action, and leave the rest to improvisation, intuition and chance.
We can also develop guidelines: A action generally leads to a preferable outcome when executed by B people in C situations.
Of course no two actions, people or situations are exactly the same, but similar actions taken by similar people in similar situations tend to have similar outcomes.

I agree, consequentialism alone seems insufficient.
Results are only part of what makes actions good, bad, right and wrong.
The actions or behaviors themselves are also part of what makes them good/bad.
I think honesty, reciprocity and noncoercion are intrinsically good, and generally extrinsically good, as well as whatever thoughts and feelings are conducive to such behaviors.

And then there’s the matter of what consequences and for whom?
For me, rather than focusing solely on happiness ala utilitarianism, I believe in maximizing the chances of survival in an optimal state of physical and mental health (happiness being just one aspect of emotional health among many) for as many people as possible, especially for me, my kith and (extended) kin, and especially for those among my kith and kin who can give something back to our community.
Near perfect safety and health are difficult to attain and maintain, so it’s enough we’re relatively safe and in a fair state of health.
The difference between fair health and poor is greater than fair health and great.

In order to improve our odds of surviving in an optimal state of health, we ought to focus more on physical and mental needs than wants.
It’s not that wants are bad, some are good in moderation, they’re just definitionally secondary, and in many cases not worth the trouble, many wants are difficult to satisfy and come with too high a price.

We also ought to use more natural means of satisfying our needs than artificial.
Of course nature/artifice, like anything, can be thought of as a spectrum rather than binary, and it’s impossible to completely dispense with artifice.
That being said, while not intrinsically bad, generally I think it’s healthier for ourselves and the environment on which we depend to satisfy our needs more naturally if we can.
I think we’ve gone too far off the deep end with technology.

Conflict between the various goods, health, honesty, liberty, reciprocity…is unavoidable, and this is when figuring out which course of action to take becomes especially difficult.

Hm, I’m not sure if I’ve considered this point much, please elaborate if you’re interested.
I know that if you reduce poverty, you reduce the need for some people to have to lie, cheat and steal.

For me, reason can tell you more about what nouns (people, places and things) and their implications are, and knowing more about them will help us determine whether and when they’re good, bad, somewhere in between, but ultimately it’s feelings that tell you whether they’re good or bad.
Morals and values are just more carefully assessed preferences we have.

I’m not an absolutist, especially when it comes to morals and values.
My ethical framework is intended as more a guideline that works for me and perhaps some other people, rather than some kind of transcendent, metaphysical or natural law.

This is backed up by neuroscience, Damasio I believe is the neuroscientist who started spreading the word on this. People with damaged limbic systems were perfectly capable of interacting well with many practical problem but their social logic was impaired. IOW they lost the ability to know how to actsocial situations. But more than this many skills that seem unrelated to emotions and are supposedlypurely rational, they not longer had. So one not only loses the ability to be moral, or as you say, the motivation, you even lose the ability to reason without emotions. YOu don’t even know when to stop analyzing or how to prioritize.

Yes, reduced poverty will reduce immoralities associated with poverty.

This is what I meant when I proposed humanity as a team must strive from now and as soon a possible to come together to increase the various quotients I mentioned above, i.e. morality, ethical, intelligence, emotional, psychological, wisdom, spiritual, philosophical and other relevant quotient.

For example on the issue of abortion [in general I don’t agree with], it is not effective to introduce more laws on abortion.
But with the increase in the various quotient above, we will tackle the root cause, i.e. the modulation of the sexual impulse and people should be VERY mindful of the various negative consequences when indulging in sex. They will not be led blindly by the primal sexual impulses. The modulation of sexual impulses will definitely reduce unplanned conception to the minimal if not ZERO.

With the increase in the various quotients to hundreds fold or more in the future, most the problems we face today will be tackled at the root cause, i.e. within the human mind. If mistakes are made, people will strive for correction, prevention and improvement.

What I am talking about is meta-reason that analyzes all sort of human experiences and feeling to abstract reasoned moral laws to act upon.
Then humans are trained to align with the reasoned absolute moral laws.
Point is when a person is trained competently, the action is spontaneous, i.e. not based on feelings at the point of execution.

Note the top professional sport people - they don’t act based on their feelings but execute what is effective to gain the point in a spontaneous mode, note ‘flow’.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology
Flow is characterized by complete absorption in what one does, and a resulting loss in one’s sense of space and time.

Note the common absolute moral law of ‘Thou Shall not Kill’ period! [an ought] is abstracted from the feelings and experiences of the collective [the “is”].
But humans being fallible we do not expect such an “ought” to be an “is” but they work in complementarity within an effective moral framework.

As fallible human being by nature, you cannot be an absolutists.
However you can accept absolute moral values as a guide.

Would you prefer

1 ‘No Killing of Human Being’ as a personal moral guide

or

  1. I can kill some or a few human beings unconditionally because the stats indicate human beings do have feelings and have killed other human beings based on their evil feelings to kill.

If you adopt the personal absolute moral value of
“No Killing of Human Being”
That will be your first standard and moral criteria in such an issue in whatever the circumstances.
But being human and fallible, you may have to kill under certain conditions not within your control, etc. or even if you have a choice on the issue, like being an executor.

In this case, you have an absolute moral standard to judge against future actions or actions that had been taken. This gap will trigger the conscience to respond.
As such upon the above there is a moral gap between the “ought” and “is”.
It is then for the person to review to close and improve on the gap on a continual basis.

If one do not accept an absolute moral gap, then in this case, one will continue to kill humans without an absolute ceiling limit to guide the person and his/her conscience will not be triggered as there is no moral gap.

Therefore absolute moral laws [abstracted from experiences and feeling of the collective] are effective within a moral framework and system.

The question is how to abstract all necessary absolute moral laws as guides that are objective. I know this can be done.

Nice, this helps prove my point.

I prefer generalizations to absolutes.
I’m against murder, except under extraordinary circumstances.

When you prefer generalizations, you will be chasing a moving goal post all the time.

In this case, one can murder within one’s subjective opinion.
To a psychopath, s/he may his/her own justification to murder.
SOME Muslims will kill innocent non-believers because their God commanded them to kill.
These subjective views will be adopted without any absolute [a fixed goal post] to improve upon.

When one adopt a moral absolute that is reasoned and justified, then one has a fixed goal post to improve upon with every missed score.
With an absolute ‘Killing of a human is not permissible’ period no ifs and no buts, then the person will have to think many times before s/he commit to the final act whether to kill or not and if there are justified reasons to do so.
Note the above is decided upon a climate of the trend of increasing average quotients I listed above.

When I said I’m not necessarily against committing murder (unlawful homicide) under extraordinary circumstances, I didn’t mean for sport or to spread Islam, Christianity or some other religion or irreligion, I meant if you/your fellows were sufficiently impoverished/disenfranchised, and there was little-no chance of peacefully emancipating yourselves, it may be necessary to warfully emancipate yourselves, to commit crimes such as theft, and murder.
Now what constitutes sufficiently impoverished/disenfranchised is a matter of debate/discussion, but I’d rather than have that debate/discussion and leave theft and even the most egregious acts on the table than unflinchingly, unwaveringly submit to a manmade/natural tyranny should one ever happen to impress itself upon me/my people.

Tyranny??

You missed my point.

What I proposed is the moral absolutes are merely to be guides only not to be enforceable at all.

For example,
the moral absolute; “no stealing of whatever is permitted.”
therefore the ideal expectation is ZERO crime of theft.
Note this is only a moral guide.

On the ethical side, the expectation is ZERO crime with provisions for various circumstances;

In practice, let say at the end of one year, 10,000 crimes of theft with a range of degrees of seriousness are recorded and the thieves are charged in accordance to the law and legislation of the land.

Thus, we have a moral gap of 10,000 crimes of theft, i.e.

  1. Moral absolute ideal = Zero theft
  2. Ethical reality = 10,000 thefts
  3. Therefore moral gap = 10,000

Note the critical utility of the moral absolute in enabling the computation of the moral gap.
In this instance, the root causes of the moral gap of 10,000 and all the variables contributing to the gap must be investigated. The causes may be impoverished/disenfranchised and there will be loads of other factors that contribute to the 10,000 thefts.

Once the majority of the causes are identified, attempts, research, analyzes, solutions and strategies will be implemented to strive to reduce the moral gap from 10,000 to 8000, 7000, and gradually to as close as possible to ideal, i.e. ZERO.

What is advantages in this approach is initial studies will enable research to go deeper and deeper in to the root causes, e.g. using advances of neuroscience, genomic, technology, IT, AI etc… This will also involve increasing all the relevant average quotients I mentioned above.

In most cases, the ideal will not be achieved but at least the reasons for the variances are known and concerted efforts need to be made to reduce to it to as close as possible to the ideal.

If we do not adopt moral absolutes as guides, then we will be strategizing upon a moving subjective goal post without an efficient standard to improve upon.

I agree that under ideal circumstances there should be 0 thefts and murders.
However, practically theft and murder may be necessary to combat greater evils, like the evils of poverty, disenfranchisement or say a plague that threatens to spread from one village to the rest of the world and wipe out 99.8% of the population if we don’t drop a bomb on it.
Of course it’s better to reduce poverty, disenfranchisement, plague and so on as much as we can non-violently rather than resort to extreme measures.

You are still not getting my point.

Take the analogy of a thermostat in any system as in your heater, oven or any equipment that has a temperature control.
Generally you will have to fix a temperature to be achieved and maintained.
The thermostat will ensure the expected temperature is achieved and if it get lower the machine will be activated to increase it the desired temperature.

It is same with any system where a fixed target is set and the feedback control will trigger the system to take corrective actions to adjust to meet the targeted objective.

As I had mentioned, I have introduced a Framework and System of Morality and Ethics.
In such a system the fixed target to be achieved is the ideal moral absolutes.

Note the setting of the ideal does not meant we MUST achieve the ideal at all times or even one time because there are loads of varying circumstances.
But the ideal moral absolute is necessary as a guide and reference point for the system to adjust and improve towards the ideal and the striving for improvement for the current status.

Point is the ideal moral absolutes do not exists in reality but they need to be reasoned out and used as a theoretical standard to guide the practical for continuous improvement.

The use of the ideal moral absolutes will not necessary bring immediate contrasting results but the system will enable the drive for continuous improvements toward the future for the well being of the individual and the collective.

Guys, I think one way in which you are talking past each other is that Gloominary is being pragmatic and bottom up in his analysis and Prismatic is being idealistic and top down. Prismatic is saying what society should do and prioritize and how the pr of this prioritizing should go. Gloominary is speaking bottom up…here I am in a not ideal world and this is how I will continue to react and leave my options open until the ideal is realized, if it ever is.

Gloominary is also taking a stand. He is owning his sense that he would murder if it seemed to lesser evil to him and his personal priorities.

He is not saying everyone should do what he does - hell, he might think, and correctly, that many people would choose poorly when to make an exception - he is not creating a commandment, he is being honest about what he would do…and then after that defending it as a value or in reference to his values.

Prismatic is bird’s eye and radically optimistic and long term. They are not really mutually exclusive positions, which I think Gloominary understands but which I do not think Prismatic does since his response is framed as correction.

Not exactly idealistic all the way.

I am being pragmatic in using the ideals to guide the practical.
I am not say what society should do i.e. not deontological.
I am proposing society should strive for continuous improvements from the current status toward the absolute ideals as guides without the expectation the ideals will be achieved.
Note absolute ideals are ideals and are generally impossible to attain and when attained that is a rarity.

Gloominary’s position is striving for a personal’s best re utility and consequences without any reference to any absolute ideals. What is best and good in such a position is very subjective. An ordinary person and a psychopath will have different conception of what is good to them.
Each individual[a] and groups will freely define what is best and good within their own judgments without any fixed goal post.

For me the best way is to improve upon my own limitations without using any moral absolutes as reference points
I would find that approach very mentally exhausting because no matter how hard I tried I could never reach them

I simply try to be the best possible version of me that I can be while accepting that imperfection comes as standard
The goal therefore is not to be perfect because that is unattainable but instead to be as least imperfect as possible

Buddhism teaches that all craving is suffering so therefore reducing craving is the way to reduce suffering in all of its forms
Buddhism also teaches that everything originates with mind so the more pure yours is the less suffering you will experience
I am not a Buddhist as such but I fully accept that if your mind is balanced your thoughts and words and actions will be too

But all this is a work in progress because the human condition is suffering personified
Everyone will suffer in one way or another as that is simply the nature of existence
But by learning from our suffering we can over time become better human beings