Experiments in Philosophy

"Genetic defects from inbreeding." is the natures way for saying "DON'T GO THERE" That alone is and should be the perfect reason to not do it. People like to think and limit themselves on what is morally right and wrong before they make decisions that have to become public knowledge but when it comes to private times morals go out the window. That is our leash.
As about the war; why don't people simply accept the fact that 9/11 was simply an excuse to start a war? We aren't fighting there we are simply fueling the fight. With all that money that has been spent for that war we could have paid for that entire region to get lobotomies and change their moral motivations. Another reason why inbreeding should be a no no: thousands of years worth of inbreeding created the "enemies" America is fighting right now.Can't change their mind, believe in fairies and their only moral motivation is killing.

"intuitions that do not track any kind of objective moral truth, but instead are artifacts of our biological and cultural histories. " This seems rather a non-sequitur to me. Your phrasing seems to indicate that these two claims are at least in prima facie tension:

M(ethics): Our ethical intuitions generally track an objective moral truth.
P(ethics): Our ethical intuitions are the product of our biological and cultural histories.

But surely there are a great many aspects of our cognition for which a version of both M _and_ P would be true. M(arithmetic) and P(arithmetic) would be perhaps the best example, and I'd suggest that our folk physics and folk psychology are both of this sort as well.

Now, this does not undercut your second point, about critical scrutiny -- _generally_ tracking an objective truth is not at all the same as _infallibly_ doing so. But I think that's a good reason to not attempt the first point in the first place -- the important real-world consequences would be there, no matter what the metaphysics does.

But those sorts of arguments generally prove too much. _All_ of our cognitive faculties, to the extent that they were selected at all, "were selected for their contribution to biological fitness... not for their ability to track truth or even to promote our own happiness". What's impossible, I think, is to craft an argument from these evolutionary considerations that _just_ takes out moral intuitions, and not lots of other parts of our cognition. Mathematics is particularly hard to keep out of danger, in the context of these explanationist arguments. (I think Joel Pust did a pretty good number on explanationist arguments in his published dissertation, btw.)

Now, as for the arguments from disagreement, _those_ I am _of course_ on board with! But I don't think that they yield any metaphysical conclusions -- just epistemological and/or methodological ones.

I'm not seeing at all why couldn't numbers couldn't turn out just to be a useful fiction, on the sort of reasoning you're endorsing. (Isn't that what Hartry Field tried to argue?) Math is clearly the worst case for you here, since its entities are presumably acausal.

But similar arguments would apply very easily to various sorts of things that aren't taken to be acausal. Color perception would be another easy candidate for an anti-realist treatment, for example.. Nothing needs to really _be_ colored, in order for it to be useful for us to see them _as_ colored. Nonetheless, I think it would be very strange to try to infer from the existence of a naturalistic explanation of color perception, to such an anti-realist metaphysics. (Such a metaphysics may be defensible, but not on _those_ grounds.)

Indeed, if one has the right kind of metaphysics -- nothing but basic physics & sets, say -- I suppose that Morris, MN might just count as a useful fiction, too!

The most dangerous case, though, as Pust argued, is that of epistemic cognition. There's no reason to think that our cognition about which beliefs to hold or inferences to endorse is in any better or worse shape, evolutionarily-speaking, than our cognition about which actions to recommend or prohibit. It follows that, if the explanationist argument works at all, it works against its own materials -- in particular, the explanationist intuition about how to apply Ockham's Razor in cases like these.

Well, I read the post and enjoyed it a great deal. I even had a few (I thought) intelligent comments to offer. But then I stumbled into a philosophy seminar and suddenly I'm feeling naked without my elbow patches!

Just kidding (nothing like making fun of philosophers). I'm just a simple country doctor, but I found this passage interesting:

"Haidt does not claim that it's impossible for reason to change our moral values or the values of others. He just believes that this kind of process happens far less frequently than we believe, and furthermore that when values are affected by reason, it is because reason triggers a new emotional response which in turn starts a new chain of justification."

Hold on there, Haidt. Could the intellectual capacity to appreciate reason qualify as "an emotional response?" If so, I'm with you, but not in any way that undermines the validity of reason itself. My cats don't "get" music, but I do, and that makes music very real. I think the deepest kind of intellectual satisfaction for many is the thrill of learning, which of course requires that you can, in some masochistic manner no doubt refined over the centuries at Oxford, enjoy being proved wrong. The thrill for learning supercedes the frailty of ego.

Certainly, not everyone has that capacity, but for those who do, it trumps every other experience.

Joseph Campbell (like him or hate him) called it "detribalization," which I think captures it well.

The process you describe is something we try hard to get across in our book (largely about unwarranted Hobbesian assumptions about prehistory). We call it "Flintstonization." Scholars get "Flintstoned" and project contemporary morality and baseless presumptions about what is "human" on to the canvas of prehistory (constant war, nuclear families, early death, oppression of women, etc.).

If you're familiar with Kanazawa's work (which I see you are), you know the story.

kid Laban, sign up .

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I'm a mathematician and just one note(It's not that i'm in favour or against the subject in topic, in fact, as a scientist,i don't even care as moral for me is the most incertain thing, it's more like rules for having some organization in society, implanted by some guy who thought that it was correct to do so): We just assume that 2+2=4, its not like that is the ultimate true.
It just has been true till now.
Its true in the language and knowledge we use.

As a mathematician, i have to think that everything is subject of contradiction, depending on the context it is used.

Complex numbers (square root of -1) aren't suppose to exist. However, we use them(we assume that they are true though not proving) and they have uses in real life.

All this questions of sexual option to me are just a matter of context,personal opinion and maybe "order" in society flow.

To me,the question is more like: is any kind of intimate(or other non-violent/non-prejudice to others) choice so serious that can be equiparable to something like killing and robbing? Do we think that we have the moral wisdom enough as human beings to make that a moral prohibition,just because it's "supposedly" to be like that?

After all, is just a question of we like to see or not, and not a individual protective standard.

Maybe most of the traumatic consequences are a consequence of that moral existence( As i said i'm mathematician and so said, i don't mean to take any profound conclusion of this).

Science has been tracked down and pursued for years and moral has always been an obstacle for scientific progress,being however science something that usually can decipher and make usefull(not always of course) what surrounds us.

However moral fights it, with no benefit from that proven. Usually I defend moral for things that can cause human beings harm without mutual aprovance(killing,robbing,insulting,raping,etc..).

In this question i don't have a very deep opinion, i have questions in what i see. After all, this is a matter of society organization and maybe not my field of action.

Well, i just wanted to talk about 2+2=4.

What I think is that young people just want to try something new and... forbidden. It might not be right but as long as they both want that. Usually young girls want to get some practise and boys, well they would like to have sex all the time and looking at their stunning teen sisters they just don't mind having sex with them.

I really liked this article. I think that looking at moral motivations is a great way to discern what is going on, and why anyone chooses a particular moral path. Understanding the morality behind someone else's actions is almost always going to be a justification of our own internal feelings and strongly held beliefs.

I think it is an attempt at an accurate view of diverse beliefs and moral-relativism.

If one was going to discern a moral-essentialist (or objectivist) view of these "gut" feelings to incest, one could argue about "nature" giving us these gut feelings because going in these directions is bad for us. This would then derive from evolution as saying that us surviving humans had this innate bad feeling to incest, and therefore serves a positive purpose.

I think what this study and type of moral-relativism points out is that people are motivated by more than rationalised beliefs.

But I dont actually agree with moral relativism. Morality is a sphere of thought where you discuss the "measuring system" to ethical issues. This article discussed a psychological fault in using any particular measuring system correctly. Its like realising that when doing tax people just make up what the reciepts were for anyway. It doesn't make the tax system wrong, just not thoroughly effective.

Morality is still important, because as we choose to hold on to a particular measuring system or not, will shape how we view our future actions and therefore one could become effective at using the tax system more effectively (integrally).

For most people the measuring system is the all mysterious "nature", for some its their personal "culture", some "religion", some "economic rationalism" others just a mix mash of philosophical ideas and gut moral motivations. But we build beliefs based on our experiences, reasoning & traditions, and they do to varying extents govern our lives. (Even if it is mostly hypocritically, or as an armchair sport). The question is not is it pointless to have a measuring system. The question is how do competing measuring systems get along, and how do test each measuring system.

I might just respond to @brotherandsisterinbed "as long as you both wanted it".

This is a moral statement: as long as all parties agree, then its okay.

Here are some curly questions for you: What if one or both of them decide it was wrong afterwards?

What if one person agreed to it, but only because of secondary gains: such as "looking good to the brother", or "being able to ask the brother/sister for favours in the future", or "because I feel bad about my sexuality, and this MIGHT help fix it, in fact my brother says it probably will" or "I trust my brother, and the more I do what he wants, the better it will be for me" or "so I can know what to do next time with a girl I actually like"

You may think "So, What if they had secondary gains" BUT: that calls into question wether they REALLY wanted it, and therefore calls into question you're moral basis.

As a counsellor who works with people scarred by this sort of thing. I can see some of the danger of beliefs like yours.

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Doctors will tell you otherwise, but the incest taboo is the real reason they don't do gynecological exams on their daughters. It's a tacit admission that there is a sexual component to the exam.

It is very frequently noted on this site that it only takes one piece of data to falsify a theory.  I will audaciously present myself as that piece of data.

I answered the rhetorical question correctly (there is nothing wrong with the scenario), and not just because I saw where it was headed and wanted to convince myself that I'm smart.  I was raised Catholic, I do not advocate incest, and yet I sincerely believe the scenario detailed nothing that was morally repugnant.  I came to this conclusion using a magical device I call reason.  Reason is how I make all of my judgements.  Apparently, this makes me either an anomaly or a liar.

With this in mind, I am nevertheless a firm believer in moral absolutes.  Like many others, I consider moral relativism to be an epithet, and rightly so.  How can I possibly reconcile this?  Axioms.  We must be willing to take certain principles to be inalienable moral truths.  Either we agree on them or we don't, but I believe that anyone who honestly considers the consequences will be in agreement.  Anyway who disagrees is free to suffer the consequences without them (somewhere else).

I think we can all agree that it is, in general, wrong to inflict violence upon another (obviously there needs to be flexibility to defend against violence).  It is from this axiom, for example, that I can conclude categorically that the practice of clitoridectomies (female genital mutilation) is grotesquely wrong, in an absolute sense and not just a "difference of culture".  I invite someone to attempt to disagree with this assessment.

Many moral edicts can stem from that one axiom.  Incest is not wrong, but incestuous childbirth is, because it inflicts lifelong violence (in the form of genetic defects) on a future person.  If genetic screening could reasonably guarantee the health of a child of incest, it would cease to be morally wrong.  But wait, it gets "worse".  Using the same unbiased reasoning, it would be morally wrong for someone with a serious heritable disease to have a child, unless, again, genetic screening guarantees health.

Crazy, right?

But wait, I said "serious" heritable disease.  What if it's not serious?  Could it be that morality can be absolute, and yet not black and white?  Yes, yes it could.  This is also why I characterized clitoridectomies not just as "wrong", but "grotesquely wrong".  Magnitude matters.  Those girls are having their human sexuality destroyed for life.

Post-hoc justifications?  Hardly.  Don't you dare sneer at me about my allegedly close-minded moral absolutism.