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No. There is no contradiction. «Objective morality» might be a logically coherent idea/concept (I actually think it is, but that can plausibly be due to my lacking intelligence). I still believe it's not a thing that factually exists in our Universe; and even if it does, it could not be satisfactorily established.
OK. But then when people talk of objective morality, you should treat it as that attempt at coherence. Because in practice, denial of objective morality is used to dismiss every morality out of hand as equally worthless as any other moral system. Much like the denial of objective reality dismisses every epistemology (‘ways of knowing’) as equally worthless.
«Logically coherent» is still a rather weak ontological status. People may try whatever, I just don't think they can succeed, and they certainly cannot positively convince each other (me included) that they have.
Denial of objective morality is objectively correct and a prerequisite for any non-deluded attempt at negotiating social norms. It is exactly because there is a single shared objective reality (presumably) that we can discuss our distinct interests in common terms, instead of immediately concluding that the only solution to disagreement is brainwashing or genocide.
What if it was not ‘rigorously, formally proven’ but useful nonetheless, like objective reality, and most of science?
They can convince each other, just not you. When a guy like me or a christian tells me he won’t murder me for peanuts even in the absence of earthly retribution, I believe him, and he believes me, because I see it as rational, mutually beneficial position. And when people like you tell me they will, I believe them too. Is it not rationally justified for me to treat them differently?
You wear a defector badge, and when you inevitably get defected against, you’ll presumably see that as a vindication of your worldview, knowing you successfully avoided doing the thing that wasn’t proven. While elsewhere, us cooperating morons reap the fruits of our delusions.
Do you twobox newcomb?
Existence or nonexistence of objective morality is fundamentally a question that transcends expedience. Consensus morality, habitual or intuitive morality, game-theoretical morality are different.
When did I tell you this? But of course I did not, you choose to interpret my words about objective morality as proclamation of total absence of moral code. Why? Because you're pissed about being torn to shreds on this anon forum, along with your half-baked moral philosophy. Grow up.
This is of course gaslighting. I do not. I just believe you are an immature coward who's unable to admit his errors of reasoning. This is no grounds to lash out like this and try to save face.
Christians believe that "defecting" against me constitutes adherence to their "objective" morality. People like you defect against others because you worship power and are devoid of any human moral feeling. Your position that you express in this debate is one of a gleeful oprichnik who asks his victims "if you're so right, then why do you stand against the wall? Should have cooperated harder, eh?".
I wouldn't have killed you for peanuts, but for freedom – absolutely. It is my regret that I never did kill one of your kind, as a matter of fact.
It's a stupid intuition pump. If I am in a world where Omega can exist, I onebox. In our world, both boxes will be empty at best.
Isn’t that the straightforward point of the gyges story?
Come on, man. Would you stop? Reasonable people can disagree. Although I’m on the record condoning the murder of any and all authority figures in nazi germany, so if I was who you think I am, we don’t even disagree on that. Nor do our theoretical disagreements on the legitimacy of power translate to actual disagreement on putin or oprichniks.
You know, when I said ‘pal’ originially when you came in guns blazing, that wasn’t sarcastic. As far as I’m concerned, we are pen pals, and I like you. The reason I talk to you here is because I think you could benefit from adopting a less subjective view of morality. And for me there’s always the remote chance that you are correct. I said pretty much the same thing to kulak when he expressed similar views.
In an environment where politeness was less enforced, I would keep talking to you, but I don’t want you to get mod attention like last time, so I’ll make this the last time we talk. Just tell me if you have a change of heart.
The point of Gyges story is that, as I have said, «morality does not exist and does not differ from conventional etiquette in some substantial objective sense». It is not a singular real thing that exists outside us, it is an arbitrary system of behavioral guidelines that differ between groups and individuals. In the same post, I give my perspective on what we have learned about subjective morality and its difference from mere etiquette since Plato. Like most people, I have subjective morality that is essentially intuitive and deontological. Greeks, in Plato's cynical imagination, believed that «the best is to do injustice without paying the penalty», such was their intuitive internal moral compass, with prosociality a burdensome etiquette indeed. I live millenia later, and my idea of the highest good is different, because I am a product of biological and cultural selection pressures rewarding other priors; i have internalized a version of prosociality to a certain extent. I am not closer to some objectively established moral truth on account of this, I'm just me, doing and perpetuating what I like for contingent historical reasons. I could collapse those philosophical complexities into do's and don'ts – and I do, when speaking to children. But if being actually mush-headed and deluded about this fact is a criterion for admission into the Goodbot Society, instead of being attacked as a defector… Well, then I can only despise goodbots harder, see them as even more of immature cattle with heritable neural crest defects, and, against my better judgement, wish them more abuse at the hands of actual defectors – who delight in mouthing mawkish falsehoods, and who reshape your moral code as they see fit through revolting identity-coded morality plays that you myopically mistake for entertainment and education.
We can pick a yardstick like game-theoretical performance (assuming utility can be compared between agents) and compare moral codes with that as our source of objectivity, but this would depend on evaluation conditions; people can argue persuasively that even antisocial punishment is rational, and thus good. The issue with selecting game theory itself as one's moral truth is that you'd need widespread near-omniscience to get out of some horrible local minima, while defection-heavy heuristics remain robust (as do cooperation-heavy ones, while conditions are not horrible). Maybe there exists a perfect solution that maximizes winning across all environments even for avg 100 IQ humans dealing with incomplete information about reward scheme and unknown number of sophisticated defectbots in the environment. I do not know it, but even if it did exist, it'd only be objectively correct given our arbitrarily selected (but very handy) benchmark; and for me asesthetics matter about as much. Truth, of course, is also a matter of aesthetics.
This should clarify my position enough.
Good. Hopefully you realize that I take seriously what you say about your methodology for evaluating «signals», not as an edgy maximalist posture (even though you throw that in too). I know people who blithely speak and live by your code where success at attaining power justifies itself, and consider them being alive and unbothered my personal failing, as well as collective failure of my civilization.
Well, here's what I think: you can admit that you are indeed no better than Nazi authority figures, or admit your «signals» methodology is laughably bad and does not result in nice conclusions like conventional Western morality as you want it to so should be ditched; or, indeed, just stop.
Good luck.
I’ll take this as a ‘No, I want to keep talking to you, forget the antagonism’. That’s alright with me.
What is the difference between this take and similar claims about truth, science and objectivity? You say yourself that truth is a matter of aesthetics and you question objective reality. (Sometimes. At other times ‘it’s because of the single shared objective reality that we can discuss our distinct interests in common terms’).
Groups and individuals may adopt differing behavioral guidelines, but a child can see they do not work equally well, like science and superstition. It takes a lot of smarts to blur the lines between sense and nonsense, but you can do it I guess.
Pomo on the whole is a meaningless wordgame. The avg 100 IQ human being understands that murder is wrong, what truth is, that objective reality exists, etc. And they mean the same thing to him as they mean to me. If some wacko honestly denies them, their epistemology is worthless and morally, they should be treated as defectors. Now understandably you don’t want to bite the bullets all the way yourself, so with great effort you’ve cobbled together a weaker version of conventional beliefs. The main difference being, you’ll ‘well-actually’ any Joe that speaks candidly of these matters, before frantically backpedaling when he identifies you as a wacko – 'Practically we’re the same, I just mean it’s not true “in some substantial objective sense”’”.
Can I treat them as if they’re wearing a defector badge? If so, you’ll understand why I’m uncomfortable relying on your “cultural indoctrination and various feelings resembling a conscience, possibly ingrained, who knows” to not murder others. As you allude to, you have no self-interested reason to lie about your precarious commitment to morality, a true machiavellian would loudly proclaim their intention to cooperate, so I have to believe you.
Do you honestly believe the russian or nazi ruling class is anything like me? I just look at might and incorporate it into my worldview alongside everything else, to a Carl Schmitt there is nothing but might, for a postmodernist all information is corrupted by might.
The guy who spends tokens to punish a cooperator out of some personal beef isn't trying to keep predators starving. Are predators starving in russia?
Workers who beat up scabs would have, in another era, destroyed the very machines that ensure they now live in abundance. This sort of defection relies on a myopic view of one’s self-interest. Where are those ‘rationally defecting’ coal miners now? Who can argue with the rotten fruits of societies that practice antisocial punishment?
Is it any more comfortable to rely on someone who claims he doesn't murder because it's objectively wrong? I don't know objective morality, I don't know if he knows objective morality, I don't know if he believes objective morality. What I know is that people whose momma raised them well generally don't stray from that too much.
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