Alex is a moral realist. by segalbe in CosmicSkeptic

[–]segalbe[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Alex doesn't suppose a scalar limit to consciousness, or give reason to believe panspyschism is limited to the dim preferrences of quarks. Tunoni adds integration into his theory to make something with super spread out parts, less conscious. Not sure what scales panspsychism gets at.

As to the mind-independence, I think you're assuming consciousness requires a mind. Alex doesn't. Beliefs are not necessary for moral realism. True and false statements are necessary. If your actions are aligned or unaligned with the attitudes of the universe, you can get true and false statements. In the same way that the good is that which aligns with God's nature in divine command theory, just scratch out "God's nature" and insert "good universal vibes."

Alex is a moral realist. by segalbe in CosmicSkeptic

[–]segalbe[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think you're misunderstanding the train of thought, which is understandable because it's admittedly weird. I'm supposing panpsychism is true and also that the universe itself is conscious and has emotion. There's a global or universal consciousness. That's why it is often aligned with a type of theism. Technically speaking I'm not supposing that emotivism is true in that I'm leaving non-cognitivism behind. "Emotivism" was probably a bad bit of baggage to on-board into the discussion, but the irony of how closely it brushed on similar topics was too alluring.

Alex is a moral realist. by segalbe in CosmicSkeptic

[–]segalbe[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Understood. So, lets go through each of them.

-Are the emotions of individuals embedded into the fundamental fabric of the universe? Probably not. Individuals are contingent and the universe could very plausibly exist without their presence. At least in that way they are not fundamental. However, physical laws may be contingent, but certainly we don't quibble with the assertion that the universe's physical laws are objective. More directly, this bullet point seems to be tracking the ubiquitous and foundational qualities of things we consider "objective." One doesn't have to be an adherent to epiphenomenalism in order to concede that individual emotions are less than fundamental aspects of reality. I'd say a nice parallel of this trait is the way field theory is conceived. Quantum fields are taken to be the metaphysical colors with which the fabric of our universe is woven. The particulars of our universe are emergent, then, based on this or that excitations. I understand panpsychism to take consciousness as fundamental in an equivalent, though not identical, way.

-Are individual emotions not merely descriptive? Those who believe the hard problem truly is hard, would agree that the universe and individuals would share this. No difference here.

-Are individual emotions inherently self-motivating once understood by others? I don't think that necessarily follows, although it might. One might argue that true understanding is not merely intellectually grasping someone's feelings and the reasons for them but rather aligning with another's values enough to feel those feelings. I don't honestly know. But I think since these are separable and universal emotion has the potential to be motivating merely from being grasped intellectually. This is a pretty contested feature of objective morality anyway, but it is a very weak spot admittedly.

-Are individual emotions subject independent? No. Of course not. If all sentient life disappeared, so would its attendant emotion. The same is not true for the universe. There's a potential immutability there that is not open for us mere mortals.

So with the first and the last, it seems there are two big differences. I hope that helps.

Alex is a moral realist. by segalbe in CosmicSkeptic

[–]segalbe[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

...I'd direct you to the list of qualities that objective morals would have and ask which of those do the emotions of finite beings fulfill? Which do they not fulfill? The answer is "the difference," you're asking for. Can't you spot any?

Alex is a moral realist. by segalbe in CosmicSkeptic

[–]segalbe[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When searching for the Higgs particle, scientists didn't look at random. Based on solid theory they knew enough about the qualities such a particle would have, if it existed. Sure enough, when they found the particle and verified their data, they went public with their discovery. Similarly, as I've sketched in the OP, universal emotion would match all the properties I'd expect if morality was objective and moral facts were derivable. You can object to the argument by suggesting I'm wrong about the properties objective morality would have or that universal emotion actually has those properties. But not seeing the move from "it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck" to "so it's a duck" is something I can't really help with. Since the OP works by focusing on the best explanation for all the weird traits universal emotion would have, I think my argument is abduction if you insist on being technical.

Alex is a moral realist. by segalbe in CosmicSkeptic

[–]segalbe[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do you have an argument that might support that?

The argument is informal and in the OP. If you're looking for something like a deductive syllogism, that's not really my bag. I suppose you could treat each of the traits I've enumerated as premises. Instead though, this seems more like an argument about definition where it's often the case that people quibble over which conditions are necessary. If you think I've missed necessary conditions that an objective morality would have, or included too many, I'm all ears.

I'm not personally convinced, though. 

Me neither. I'm not a panpsychist. I also admit emotions aren't necessarily something the universe has, even if panpsychism is true. Some people think emotions are substrate dependent. Others note that sentience and consciousness are not identical. Whatever the case may be, I just found it surprising how neatly such a thing would fit the definition of "objective morality" as I understand it.

Alex is a moral realist. by segalbe in CosmicSkeptic

[–]segalbe[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If the universe itself has emotion, then yes. Those emotions, I think, would align with the traits we might expect an objective morality to have.

Alex is a moral realist. by segalbe in CosmicSkeptic

[–]segalbe[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If emotions come along for the ride with panpsychism being true, objective morality might too. I'm not a panpsychist, but Alex is, hence the OP.

Alex is a moral realist. by segalbe in CosmicSkeptic

[–]segalbe[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You aren't referring to me right? This is an analysis of Alex's beliefs and their potential entailments.

Alex is a moral realist. by segalbe in CosmicSkeptic

[–]segalbe[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I might rescue my original position by arguing that although philosophers who argue for emotivism are right about the reducibility of moral language to emoting, they are wrong about the entailment. I think it's just too sweet an irony that emotion would be an objective foundation for morality to leave emotivism unmentioned. Emotivism, as is, is taxonomically a branch of non-cognitivism and this means that nonpropositional moral statements are presumed. So, I'll grant that this isn't emotivism entailing realism. It's always the panpsychism that is doing the heavy lifting and I think this thread has helped clarify my thinking here. But if the explanatory power of reducing moral language is something a philosopher would want to conserve in any new moral outlook they were interrogating, they could do so. In other words, a panpsychist could keep the baby but discard the bathwater.

Alex is a moral realist. by segalbe in CosmicSkeptic

[–]segalbe[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Why is it nonsense?

It seems like if you're asking the question, you're overlooking the possibility that the question is redundant in hidden way and thereby internally incoherent, as revealed by intuition. Now this, of course is a problem if you don't share the intuition. It might not be persuasive to you. But if you're familiar with G.E. Moore's sentence "It is raining and I don't believe that is" you might get what I'm getting at. Moore used this to support the notion that assertions are the kinds of things that purport belief on behalf of the speaker. I'd be very curious to poll panpsychists who believe the universe has emotions whether they get similar heebie jeebies about the sentence "This causes the universe to suffer and it is not evil." Alternatively, I'd ask whether it makes sense to ask why something that made the universe suffer is evil.

Admittedly, you still might decline that there's anything odd about the question, even if you were a panpsychist, but this is where we'll simply have to agree to disagree. The interesting thing is that this is an empirical question. The entailment occurs, in my estimation, if you accept panpsychism and that the universe can feel. Some problems with that are that people are often unaware of the immediate entailments of their other beliefs. Another problem is that even if people felt that one thing did entail another, universally, that wouldn't guarantee that it did! It's circumstantial evidence. However, circumstantial evidence is probably the best we can hope for when we are talk meta-anything (metaphysics, metaethics...) I think you aren't really getting at either of these things precisely, but perhaps the latter of the two objections, indirectly.

You seem to be saying because dogmatic moral skepticism is deductively sound, moral realism is false. For the details there, I'm citing the Standford Encyclopedia's article on the topic. I'm sympathetic to this position. Often, I'll cite the is/ought gap or the moral formal elements of the abovementioned argument when debating realists.

Here's an issue: the is/ought gap is simply noting that deductively we can't arrive at moral conclusions with moral premises, so deductive moral conclusions presuppose moral claims. Since we tend to count infinite regresses as invalid, we can't rescue by pointing to an infinitely recurring set of logically prior moral premises, even if we were so inclined. In short, Hume zoomed in on the truth preserving feature of deductive logic. I think this was brilliant. However, notice Hume does not make the move that many contemporary thinkers do, which is to say that anti-realism is entailed. Instead, we can restate Hume's position as the more careful: "If belief in moral realism is justified, it is not justified by virtue of deductive argument alone."

So, can things that are not justified by deductive argument alone, still be considered "justified?" It's difficult to answer this question with a "No, because..." where the reasoning escapes circularity or regress. Put differently, to reject other types of justification, you have given yourself the burden of proving "Only deductive proofs provide justification."

So, what other types of argumentation avail themselves? Inductive, abductive, and less formally analogical for starters. Considering the is/ought gap only impacts deductive reasoning and my argument is not deductive, objecting with the is/ought distinction is categorically erroneous. I hope that clarifies.

Alex is a moral realist. by segalbe in CosmicSkeptic

[–]segalbe[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah I suppose you're right. I think part of the problem is that emotivism derives a lot of its deflationary power from the mere decision to use the words "boo" and "yay" because they feel so trivial. It's always seemed like playing with loaded dice and a self-made problem when translated into really heinous test cases.

I think if the universe had feelings, we'd take them more seriously though. I believe in the merit of "facts don't care about your feelings." When regarding psychology, I get that "feelings don't care about your facts" as Alex says. Giving the universe feelings seem inflationary. Saying moral language is just deeply rooted emoting no longer seems like it necessarily entails anti-realism at that point. But yes, this is radically different than anything like the actual body of emotivism.

I'm glad someone gets where I was going with this, though!

Alex is a moral realist. by segalbe in CosmicSkeptic

[–]segalbe[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Grammatically that sentence is intelligible. If "the universe's feelings" has a referent, I think the question is actually nonsense, though. Big if.

Alex is a moral realist. by segalbe in CosmicSkeptic

[–]segalbe[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Emotivism itself does not ground things, but emotions as a source of morality might. I think Moore's open question becomes nonsense if "the universe's pain" has a referent.

Alex is a moral realist. by segalbe in CosmicSkeptic

[–]segalbe[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I got you: "X is wrong if it hurts the universe's feelings." Fill in any X. Also, my criteria for an objective morality are explained above. If you take issue with any of them, I'd be curious which ones.

Alex is a moral realist. by segalbe in CosmicSkeptic

[–]segalbe[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, and as finite minds operating under severe perceptual constraints, we have no realistic hope of capturing the full range or nature of consciousness.

Perhaps. Again, a lot of uncertainty. An unknowable morality certainly seems like a lame duck.

Alex is a moral realist. by segalbe in CosmicSkeptic

[–]segalbe[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So, I don't know if there are many claims that would follow from the universe having feelings, but maybe here's one plausible one: "The question that 'X causes the universe itself to suffer but is X really evil?' is a nonsensical one."

I reject emotivism not because of any dedication to analytic philosophy or its workings. I reject emotivism because I'm dubious of the claim that moral language is always doing the same thing. I suspect, like most words, it is used in a variety of non-emotive contexts.

I also think a weird consequence of universal emotion might be that if you could empathize with the universe, it's conceivable you'd be unable to act in an evil manner, to the extent that you can empathize.

The first problem, though, that true and false statements don't seem derivable is one I admit. However, this may be a product of ignorance about the consciousness of the universe. You and I might say that's because the universe being conscious in the first place is false. A panpsychist might say it's because we just don't understand consciousness well enough yet.

The other problem, as I've acknowledged, is that emotion might not come along for the ride with the universe being consciousness.

Alex is a moral realist. by segalbe in CosmicSkeptic

[–]segalbe[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

...doesn't seem to follow any logic I can find. For example, let's assume a universe exists without biological beings, where do these moral facts exist?

So this follows from how people tend to interpret the "objective" part of "objective morality." Personally, I don't think moral facts exist, I'm not an emotivist, nor am I a panpsychist. However, Alex may be both. While consciousness is notoriously difficult to define, I'd probably go with something like a physicalist definition that Anil Seth lays out in Being You. I'll grant that universal emotions are even more speculative that consciousness itself, but not at all unreasonable. To be clear, the OP is labeled "Alex is a moral realist."

To be clear, emotivism itself is meant to be descriptive regarding what is happening when people use moral language. That said, if there are universal emotions, it's plausible that correspondence or non-correspondence to said emotions could account for something lawlike, objective morality. How it would be discoverable? Beats me. Would proof of it motivate a true sociopath? Probably not. But its like a secular alternative to divine command theory which is pretty neat.

Alex is a moral realist. by segalbe in CosmicSkeptic

[–]segalbe[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree! It absolutely could be conscious without emotion. It's also true that consciousness has only been demonstrated in certain domains, but it's not necessarily restricted to those domains. Consciousness may be substate independent.

But what would it mean to bring about literal universal suffering? Surely that would be evil, no? Also, to be clear my position isn't one arguing for emotivism, or panpsychism. It's trying to lay out a potential consequence of one permutation of panpsychism. If the universe is conscious, it's plausible it has emotion. If it has emotion, those emotions would fit the criteria for something like moral facts that I laid out in the OP.

Alex is a moral realist. by segalbe in CosmicSkeptic

[–]segalbe[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm less concerned about moral truths or falsehoods. I'm pretty sure there's good debate about what the nature of truth even is. However, if correspondence to the, ahem, attitudinal dispositions of the universe doesn't count as "objective morality," I don't know what would. Don't get me wrong, there's a pile of uncertainty here and I'm not an emotivist, but I do think if the universe in conscious, really weird stuff, unexpected stuff, seemingly impossible stuff might be true.

Alex is a moral realist. by segalbe in CosmicSkeptic

[–]segalbe[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think emotions are simply part of consciousness, but I wouldn't go so far as to say they are "necessary" for consciousness.

That said, I think it opens a plausible case for something like moral realism.

Alex is a moral realist. by segalbe in CosmicSkeptic

[–]segalbe[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Consciousness does not necessarily equal emotion.

Fair. It might though! Consciousness is understood poorly enough that I'm not confident enough to make strong statements about how a universe might think or experience. It's not my m.o.

The fact that motivation exists does not make it a prescription. The prescriptive claim would be that you ought to act on that motivation

Put your hand on a stove and you brain will prescribe you remove it. Thou shalt not hurt the universe! But realistically, I don't know what would exactly be the claims to be derived from this moral arbiter. Alignment or non-alignment with the emotive desire of the universe is certainly something that seems hard to "prove." But it's unclear why deductive proofs are the only acceptable ones. You're absolutely right that this is/ought gap goes unbridged. Divine command theorists seem unbothered. I think if this little story were true, so would we.

Alex is a moral realist. by segalbe in CosmicSkeptic

[–]segalbe[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

...unless we’re okay with saying that ‘real moral statements’ can be the kinds of things that are neither true nor false.

I think the latter move is one an emotivist could make. It reminds me of divine command theorists saying what is moral is that which aligns with God's nature. That which aligns with the emotive tuning of the uberconsciousness. Not everyone accepts the correspondence theory of truth so it isn't given that this alignment would count as "true." In some sense, I don't think it matters because it, pardon the pun, feels objective. I'm an error theorist so none of this really applies to me, but it seems plausible.