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ciphergoth comments on Savulescu: "Genetically enhance humanity or face extinction" - Less Wrong
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Comments (193)
I like today's morals better than those of any other time and I'd prefer if the idea of moral progress was defensible, but I have no good answer to the criticism "well, you would, you are of this time".
I don't think most people living in other times & places privately agreed with their society's public morality, to the same extent that we do today.
For most of history (not prehistory), there was no option for public debate or even for openly stating opinions. Morality was normally handed down from above, from the rulers, as part of a religion. If those people had an opportunity to live in our society and be acclimatized to it, many of them may have preferred our morality. I don't believe the reverse is true, however.
This doesn't prove that our morality is objectively better - it's impossible to prove this, by definition - but it does dismiss the implication of the argument that "you like today's morality because you live today". Only the people who live today are likely to like their time's morality.
Thanks, this is a good point - and of course there's plenty to dislike about lots of morality to be found today, there's reason to hope the people of tomorrow will overall like tomorrow's morality even better. As you say, this doesn't lead to objective morality, but it's a happy thought.
In the middle ages in Europe the middle class lived after much stricter morality than the ruling class when it comes to question such as having sex.
Morality was often the way of the powerless to feel like they are better than the ruling class.
If drift were a good hypothesis, steps "forwards" (from our POV) would be about as common as steps "backwards". Are those "backwards" steps really that common?
If we model morality as a one-dimensional scale and change as a random walk, then what you say is true. However, if we model it as a million-dimensional scale on which each step affects only one dimension, after a thousand steps we would expect to find that nearly every step brought us closer to our current position.
EDIT: simulation seems to indicate I'm wrong about this. Will investigate further. EDIT: it was a bug in the simulation. Numpy code available on request.
I would regard any claim that abolition of hanging, burning witches, caning children in schools, torture, stoning, flogging, keel-hauling and stocks are "morally orthogonal" with considerable suspicion.
There no abolishion of torture anyone in the US. Some clever people ran a campaign in last decade that eroded the consensus that torture is always wrong. At the same time the US hasn't reproduced burning witches.
That's not the case. The United States signed and ratified the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
Last year the US blackmailed the UK demanding that the UK either violates the United Nations Convention against torture or that the US will stop giving the UK intelligence about possible terrorist plots that might kill UK citizens. The US under the Obama administration doesn't only violate the document themselves but also it also blackmails other countries to violate it as well.
Just because it is done by the government doesn't make it legal.
Right - but it has been banned elsewhere:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_Rights#Article_3_-_torture
I'm happy to see those things abolished too, but since I'm not a moral realist I can't see how to build a useful model of "moral progress".
According to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_realism
...this involves attributing truth and falsity to moral statements - whereas it seems more realistic to say that moral truth has a subjective component.
However, the idea of moral progress does not mean there is "one true morality".
It just means that some moralities are better than others. The moral landscape could have many peaks - not just one.
I see no problem with the concept of moral progress. The idea that all moralities are of equal merit seems like totally inexcusable cultural relativism to me. Politically correct, perhaps - but also silly.
Morality is about how best to behave. We have a whole bunch of theory from evolutionary biology that relates to that issue - saying what goals organisms have - which actions are most likely to attain them - how individual goals conflict with goals that are seen acceptable to society - and so on. Some of it will be a reflection of historical accidents - while other parts of it will be shared with most human cultures - and most alien races.
My position on these things is currently very close to that set out in THE TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD TRUTH ABOUT MORALITY AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT.
Well, I hope I explained how a denial of "moral realism" was quite compatible with the idea of moral progress.
Since that was your stated reason for denying moral progress, do you disagree with my analysis, or do you have a new reason for objecting to moral progress, or have you changed your mind about it?
I certainly don't think there is anything wrong with the idea of moral progress in principle.
Finding some alien races, would throw the most light on the issue of convergent moral evolution - but in the mean time, our history, and the behaviour of other animals (e.g. dolphins) do offer some support for the idea, it seems to me.
Conway Morris has good examples of convergent evolution. It is a common phenomenon - and convergent moral evolution would not be particularly surprising.
If moral behaviour arises in a space which is subject to attractors, then some moral systems will be more widespread than others. If there is one big attractor, then moral realism would have a concrete basis.
No, sorry, I don't see it at all. When you say "some moralities are better than others", better by what yardstick? If you're not a moral realist, then everyone has their own yardstick.
I really recommend against ever using the thought-stopping phrase "political correctness" ever for any purpose, but I absolutely reject the "cultural relativism" that you attribute to me as a result, by the way. Someone performing a clitorectomy may be doing the right thing by their own lights, but by my lights they're doing totally the wrong thing, and since my lights are what I care about I'm quite happy to step in and stop them if I have the power to, or to see them locked up for it.
To continue with your analogy, moral realists claim there is one true yardstick. If you deny that it doesn't mean you can't measure anything, and that all attempts are useless. For example, people could still use yardsticks if they were approximately the same length.
I was criticising the idea that "all moralities are of equal merit". I was not attributing that idea to you. Looking at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_relativism
...it looks like I used the wrong term.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_relativism
...looks slightly better - but still is not quite the concept I was looking for - I give up for the moment.
Thanks for that link: I had seen that mentioned before and had wanted to read it.
I've been reading that (I'm on page 87), and I haven't gotten to a part where he explains how that makes moral progress meaningless. Why not just define moral progress sort of as extrapolated volition (without the "coherent" part)? You don't even have to reference convergent moral evolution.
I don't think it mentions moral progress. It just seems obvious that if there is no absolute morality, then the only measures against which there has been progress are those that we choose.
Of course it isn't "objective" or absolute. I already disclaimed moral realism (by granting arguendo the validity of the linked thesis). Why does it follow that you "can't see how to build a useful model of 'moral progress'"? Must any model of moral progress be universal?