NorthOfNorth wrote on Sep 2^nd, 2010 at 6:04pm:



Perhaps we could look at morality this way: is it invented by human beings, or, is it metaphorically sitting on an eternal shelf somewhere within the human being?
The former denotes morality as an artform; something crafty human beings have devised for set purposes. The latter denotes an eternal, immutable essence devised by something divine.

Morality is a set of beliefs, rules and principles accepted via conseus of a particular group of people that concern what is acceptable and what is not acceptable to do, think, etc. Again, "I am not thinking about it any harder than that".

Helian, I enjoy your vocabulary topics.

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Yes. This has been very well discussed. It of course however, like all traits, extremely highly variable to environmental and situational influences. Morality is the product of various environmental pressures, intelligence and various psychological traits. Morality in some form or another seems to be present throughout the animal kingdom, and animals that have brain structures closer to man exhibit moral behavior more similar to the moral behavior of man than animals with neurological systems more removed.

John Derbyshire on morality in the animal kingdom (I'm not at what minute he gets into it, but it's all good)

I think it can be both. Certainly there are a lot of things that we don't do now (due to an agreement that these things are immoral and inexcusable) that were institutional and normal several hundred years ago. I don't think it is plausible to ascribe changes in moral attitudes towards these things to genetic transformations. That these things are right or wrong is heavily rooted in a general societal consenus.  There are definitely genetic influences however that push facets of our senses of morality in certain directions. I think it's too complicated to ponder just for the purposes of a message board thread.

For Sam Harris, a science of morality is simply an account of the behaviors, rules, cultural artifacts, and emotions that constitute the moral life... more» http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/morality10/morality.harris.html

NorthOfNorth wrote on Sep 2^nd, 2010 at 2:16pm:


I disagree. Your thought experiment is about numbers that can survive and not so much about morality... except that by number crunching, we humans highlight our social context to which utility is applied. Empathy really doesn't play a significant role in this. If it did, then conflict would arise in the decision making. For example... Do I have a right to actively deny the autonomy of one man in order to save five who would be otherwise dead without my acting?

Compare the runaway train to this thought experiment which aims to highlight the lack of moral consideration in your thought experiment.

An otherwise healthy man is deemed brain dead and his organs if harvested could save the lives of five other men who will die without such intervention. The family of the brain dead man refuses to have the body harvested for religious reasons. Do we act anyway to harvest those organs and save the lives of five men? Utility alone would say yes. But utility ignores autonomy and it is autonomy that is the real moral consideration here.

So whilst it is that in situations of immediate emergency, utility serves us well to ensure the greatest number survive, in other matters it is the autonomy of others to which our moral considerations need to be applied.

So, what would prevent us from pressing the button in the initial thought experiment? One would hope that it is the right to autonomy that the person at risk of murder has. 

The trouble with these thought experiments is that they leave out the single most important feature of moral action and present scenarios as if moral  action was merely a calculation of the currency of moral 'units' the experimenter has invented to show off his supposed cleverness. It betrays the undelying presumption of the experimenter: moral action is calculating.
But of course it isn't.

Morality? Morality?

Who owns morality?