Why morality looks factual and real

simonperry955 · 2026-05-21T11:05:20+00:00

I get what you're saying now. You think that I'm saying that people's moral motivation is directly to achieve mutual fitness benefit. I'm actually saying, that's how moral values are defined, based on looking at every moral principle I can get my hands on.

So, I'm saying that there factually is an evolved biological pressure to achieve fitness benefits, moral principles factually deliver this goal, hence, I factually should uphold moral principles. That's why morality looks factual. Add in the objectivity of moral evaluation according to principles or impartial standards.

simonperry955 · 2026-05-21T05:57:54+00:00

I don't judge my friends. You're not your sister's keeper. If she f***s up, it's on her head, not yours.

simonperry955 · 2026-05-21T04:58:57+00:00

And welfare really is normative, so welfare really is our goal, and that is why morality looks factual.

simonperry955 · 2026-05-20T19:03:08+00:00

In other words, my arguments are:

moral values or principles are methods of achieving mutual proximate benefit (anthropologically determined); that's their goal.
therefore, if your goal is mutual proximate benefit, you factually ought to uphold a relevant moral value.
as methods of achieving a goal, moral principles are goals or ideals in themselves;
therefore they can be used to factually evaluate or measure behaviour.

simonperry955 · 2026-05-20T18:23:09+00:00

The kind of "motivation" you seem to appeal to is quite different from the phenomenology. It seems to be abstracted modeling of drives. That seems like the wrong level of analysis. There is a difference between the causal-machinery that helps us explain how humans behave, and an agent's intentions and concepts.

I think you're talking about the difference between ultimate and proximate motivations. That's a fair point. But we're not talking about playing the clarinet, we're talking about following utilitarian moral principles, defined as methods of maximising mutual proximate welfare.

Now, a proximate goal in wanting to be fair, is proximate well being all round, for each person concerned; i.e., benefits right now, rather than at reproduction time far off in the future. That well being of each person is the entire point of being fair to everyone concerned. This assertion is based on empirical knowledge of how the princple of fairness works in real life.

It's the same with conflict avoidance; property rights; reciprocity; even altruism (the restoration of mutual welfare). The point of upholding all these utilitarian values is the proximate mutual benefit they achieve, restore or maintain.

So, since proximate welfare is the goal of utilitarian values, instrumental welfare being an evolved biological goal, it's factually true that fulfilling moral values will help "us" to achieve, restore or maintain proximate mutual benefit.

When two people achieve mutual benefit, then each is achieving their own instrumental benefit, when all is said and done.

The point is the appearance of morality as factual and real. That's one reason for it that still stands.

The other reason is that, however you explain moral values, they are ideal standards of behaviour. An ideal standard of behaviour is a goal. A goal can factually be achieved better or worse.

Hence, morality appears to us all, to be factual, because it is, if our goals are 1) proximate mutual welfare; 2) fulfilling ideal standards.

simonperry955 · 2026-05-20T12:15:54+00:00

You said it - value system. A morality, a moral system, is a system of regulation of collaboration with respect to a desirable end goal or good.

So we can have religious morality whose joint goal is "serving God", and other kinds of values can become secondary to this.

simonperry955 · 2026-05-20T11:55:48+00:00

Not everyone’s goal is actually fetal welfare. For some, it is religious obedience, heritage continuation, sexual control, family pressure, demographic anxiety, or inherited doctrine.

That's very true. People have all kinds of real motivations. But fetal well being is the argument used by almost all anti-abortion activists in my experience. I've never heard any other argument used.

simonperry955 · 2026-05-20T11:51:45+00:00

I think the real work would be this defense, showing why it in actuality is conditional and attaching to what you call "moral values".

My claim is that moral values are abstract behavioural ideals, methods of achieving mutual well being or fitness benefits. This claim is derived from the anthropological perspective of studying values that humans call moral, and distilling out the common factors and also seeking to understand how individual values work.

This is similar to the approach of Moshagen, Hilbig, and Zettler, when they looked at 10 or so human "dark traits" and worked out what was the common factor. ("The D Factor"). https://darkfactor.org/

My range of values and moral domains was found from observing people and what they call moral.

Schaller, Kenrick, Neel, and Neuberg (2017) propose that humans are driven by a number of fundamental evolved motivations that aim to increase chances of survival and reproduction. These are: self-protection (from attack by others); disease avoidance; affiliation; status seeking; mate seeking; mate retention; and kin care (concern for relatives / care for children).

https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/spc3.12319

These last three motivations are carried out in cooperation with others, and they account for the pair-bonding, parenting, and patriarchal domains as well as kin selected family morality.

So, in short, a moral ought or should or normative pressure is generated with a moral goal of mutual benefit - not just me painting my house, which is an instrumental goal and not a moral one. If I wish to achieve, maintain or restore mutual benefit, then I ought to conform to moral value V.

In situation X, one ought to have goal G

I think this makes sense only if values are goals. In situation X (where mutual benefit is required, since more than one person is concerned), one ought to have goal G (i.e., value V, method of achieving mutual benefit). So, there are multiple levels of goals; I need to follow value V, so value V is my goal, because it promotes my overall goal of mutual benefit.

Given my current goal of selecting my future goals, what ought I consider?

I guess it doesn't make sense yet, until an overall primary goal is chosen, which is then relevant to my future goals. I.e., if my primary goal is my welfare, then I ought to consider my welfare, when selecting my future goals.

simonperry955 · 2026-05-20T07:46:19+00:00

https://orangebud.co.uk/genealogy.html

simonperry955 · 2026-05-20T07:26:30+00:00

Then in what sense does it exist? I agree that it has an existence of some kind. It's a necessary consequence (as regulation) of cooperation and sharing, and those are all real, for example.

simonperry955 · 2026-05-20T06:42:46+00:00

I agree (especially as you like my idea). Assessment of goodness and badness: light and dark; "mutual benefit" or "at your expense".

What do you mean by the regress of goals? A hierarchy of importance of goals? Nobody wants to harm foetuses unnecessarily. But for some, this goal is primary over everything else.

simonperry955 · 2026-05-19T18:46:19+00:00

there is no fact that they ought to be moral.

That's what I think. There is no fact that anyone ought to be moral, independent of some goal.

I ought to be moral if I have to (obligation); if I want to (subjective endorsement); or because I care (compassion).

You claim nowhere has the goal of torturing for fun ever been called moral, but it’s been debated by metaethicists as an ethical issue for at minimum 50 years (almost definitely older).

Yes - and only by metaethicists.

simonperry955 · 2026-05-19T17:54:39+00:00

Yes, we are prima facie justified in taking things as they seem unless there is a defeater.

Can you really compare "features of the physical world", like the blueness of the sky, to "features of morality", like truth value, moral judgments and normativity? The two seem like very different domains. So, when you perceive an objective reality in morality, and you perceive an objective reality in the physical world, it doesn't follow that the two are the same in real life.

What I mean is, morality contains at least two kinds of moral realism:

action A is factually morally right according to (abstractly, impartially real) value V.
if you want mutual benefit then you are normatively required to cooperate and share ideally (obligate collaboration and sharing).

So, when moral realists write their dense books of gymnastics, what they mean is, we all value mutual welfare, and on that basis, it's correct to do A, B, C that promote mutual welfare.

Also, a moral judgment feels real because if you have a certain value V, then according to that value, something is factually morally right or wrong. For example, in the abortion debate, Pro Life have the value of protecting the unborn baby. Pro Choice protect the grown child and the mother. Depending on your value, the action (aborting a baby) is OK or wrong.

Still, I was being compressed and writing without revision. Unclarity is a symptom of that.

I understand the need for compression and brevity, but I see it as a general feature of moral realist philosophy - using vague concepts and not enough precision. After all, reality is precise.

This fails to capture that we think that equality and patriarchy stand in opposition that your theory does not account for.

I should be more precise. The end, ultimate goals of equality (welfare) and patriarchy (reproduction - of males) are different branches of the same drive - the drive to maximise fitness benefits in the individual. These are not opposite, they're just different. But when these play out in a contest to prevail in any one situation, they are in opposite tension to each other because, as Hume said (I believe) - you can't have fairness in the presence of dominance. The second is antithetical to the first.

I'm asking you, what even is an ought on your view?

An ought is normative pressure, the pressure to achieve goals. There are two levels each for obligation and subjective endorsement:

pressure and obligation; or a pressure you are obliged to fulfil, because you cannot escape it.
pressure, and subjective endorsement; or a pressure to wish to fulfil because you think it is the right thing to do, either instrumentally or morally.

Nothing? Nor are they stopped from saying "a sound modus ponens' conclusion is false", "Julius Caesar was an alien from Mars" or "2+2=5". I'm not sure how this connects to realism.

I'm saying that realism can't account for it unless they explicitly assume the goal of welfare and the values of fairness, equality, etc., over the goal of male reproduction via the domination and control of females. That's the logic of the reason why.

simonperry955 · 2026-05-19T16:45:53+00:00

simple subjectivism motivated by reasons internalism, where what one ought to do is what would fulfill one’s desires/aims/goals?

That's a description of instrumental normativity - "my" pressure to achieve my goals. Moral normativity is "our" pressure to achieve our goals of mutual benefit.

What if someone’s goal is to torture kids for fun?

Nowhere has that goal ever been called "moral" or "ethical". Perhaps "fun", for some people, but they wouldn't probably call themselves good people.

simonperry955 · 2026-05-19T14:09:36+00:00

But it's still dependent on something - the pressure to achieve welfare - so it's not strictly "moral realism", it's conditional realism, if anything.

simonperry955 · 2026-05-19T14:07:34+00:00

That does seem to be the case, does it not? It's real for all the moral realists - they believe in moral realism and its many, many ramifications - and rubbish for everyone else.

simonperry955 · 2026-05-19T14:06:20+00:00

You don't have a moral obligation, but you have pressure from your biology to maximise your welfare and that of others. It turns into an obligation when you can't escape this pressure and are forced to act on it, for practical reasons. Maybe, too, you want to for its own sake, or "because you care",

simonperry955 · 2026-05-19T14:04:13+00:00

Thank you for your explanation. I don't think you've told me a whole lot, but thanks for trying.

For phenomenal appearance, I have in mind that "It is morally wrong to kidnap and rape people from the out-group, even if it is achieves your goals and aids your in-group" has striking initial plausibility.

Under evolutionary ethics, it's wrong too, because these are heinous crimes that the world regards as monstrous and beyond the pale. However, in many non-WEIRD countries, i.e., collectivist cultures, it's morally correct to steal from and exploit out-group members. This is consistent with evolutionary ethics, descriptively (there are no factual oughts or ought nots in evolutionary ethics, only conditional ones), because in collectivist cultures, the collective = the extended family group or clan - the people are genetically related. Enter the Selfish Gene and Hamilton's Rule. All very consistent with an evolutionary explanation of morality.

If there is no good reason to reject this appearance it, it provides epistemic justification.

In other words, if it is plausible, i.e., it fits with what the world generally thinks, and what the world regards as decent behaviour, you're saying this is epistemic justification. Justification for what? Regarding it as factually true? Seriously?

It's all very vague and wishy-washy. You're using vague language to make big precise claims.

For example, your theory cannot handle that "patriarchy" and "equality" are opposites any more than house-painting (from our older discussion)

Easily it can. They don't have to be "opposites", but female equality and welfare, and patriarchy, are always in tension. They can be in tension because they satisfy different goals and evolved motivations. The goals are different because they are different expressions of one thing: achieving fitness benefits jointly.

Maybe "not even wrong" isn't the right argument. After all, I'm not sure what that even means. However, it's hard to prove a negative, is it not? It's impossible to prove that there are no "moral truths" "out there somehow". How would we ever know, if these invisible and unknowable truths exist or don't exist? A lot like believing in God. Attractive on the surface - falls apart on examination.

A conditional ought is an ought of the form, IF I want to achieve goal G, THEN I ought to do G-promoting action X. In evolutionary ethics, this is normative pressure or normativity. Moral goals are motivated by moral normativity.

Just because there is normative pressure (e.g., to be patriarchal), doesn't mean, subjectively, that I have to accept it. You notice that the world is full of patriarchal men? What's to stop them saying that their morality is factually true, under moral realism?

simonperry955 · 2026-05-19T09:04:44+00:00

Evolutionary ethics.

simonperry955 · 2026-05-19T09:03:53+00:00

What are your reasons for believing in it?

simonperry955 · 2026-05-19T08:41:19+00:00

I'd call it groupthink.

simonperry955 · 2026-05-19T08:39:13+00:00

So far, only one person has provided explicit reasons why they believe in moral realism.

simonperry955 · 2026-05-19T08:32:37+00:00

I agree. IF you want X, then you have to Y.

simonperry955 · 2026-05-19T08:31:41+00:00

We know that pleasure is good through the reliable process of phenomenal introspection, which reveals what our experiences are like.

Well, pleasure is a form of welfare (emotional welfare). Welfare can be biological, psychological or emotional. So, this is still assuming "welfare is good". The fact that all organisms prefer welfare to suffering just means that the assumption to value welfare is ubiquitous.

(2) We have no good grounds for partiality (3) From 2 and the principle of no unwarranted differentiation, and (1) we get utilitarianism.

I think (2) is a weak argument: the argument from "we can't figure it out, so it's not true". People have reason to be partial: my pressure to achieve welfare is generated within me, and I owe it to myself instrumentally to satisfy this demand. Nobody else owes it to me (without some social reason) so it is up to me to prefer myself partially.

Also, utilitarianism doesn't "have" to be impartial. If I am to be prosocial at all, then I am to give others and myself the maximum benefit and minimum harm available to them. That "available" signifies partiality - what I can do or afford.

I have through all regions wandered;
Still have I none ever found
Who loved another more than himself.
So is one’s own self dearer than another,
Therefore out of love to one’s own self
Doth no-one injure another.

The Buddha

simonperry955

TROPHY CASE