Moral Flux
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Xinwen Wu - - Business Ethics Quarterly 9 3: Supervisor—Subordinate Guanxi and Trust in Supervisor: Environmental Values in the People's Republic of China. Harris - - Environmental Values 13 2: Moral Conflict and Medical Care.
Game theory describes the competitive or collaborative strategies that a rational agent can use to maximise their benefit in any situation. Heraclitus recognizes a divine unity behind the cosmos, one that is difficult to identify and perhaps impossible to separate from the processes of the cosmos:. As we have seen, for Heraclitus fire changes into water and then into earth; earth changes into water and then into fire. So, morality itself may not be objective, but for people who share a worldview expressed by the community, morality has context and a shared meaning. Our neural net makes our decisions by a fairly simple process of one-on-one comparison-and-match. What Heraclitus wishes to maintain is not the identity of opposites but the fact that they replace each other in a series of transformations:
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They cannot be observed as part of the physical universe — even though they are a prerequisite for the success of science. But we should notice that this does not prevent us from regarding mathematical truths as objective. In fact mathematics, as the Greeks recognised, is the paradigm of objective truth. Thus the claim that objective truths must be scientific truths seems simply a metaphysical prejudice.
Heraclitus | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
If we allow for the possibility of objective moral truths, how might such truths be identified? Science boasts replicable empirical research that has identified entities which seem uncontroversially objective, such as atoms. Mathematics uses logic to prove mathematical theorems. In contrast, there is no accepted procedure that enables us to settle moral debate, which often seems interminable. There is no experiment, for example, which can determine whether abortion is morally acceptable.
Nevertheless, the controversial nature of morality is itself a reason to think that there are objective truths at stake.
We do not seriously debate matters of taste e. Moreover, the distinction should be made between procedures for identifying objective reality, and objective reality itself. Atoms possessed objectivity before the scientific methods were established that confirmed their existence. So a lack of scientific method does not necessarily mean a lack of objectivity. And, although much ethical debate seems interminable, progress has been made here. For example, we have surely established that slavery is objectively wrong, although formerly this was a controversial issue.
Moral debate does not deliver clear-cut answers in the way science appears to, but this does not mean that it cannot deliver objective conclusions at all. The process is just more difficult. Because of the success of science in identifying objective truths, beliefs that are established by non-scientific means are assumed to lack objectivity. But is this justified? The mind is caused by the brain.
Rather, decision-making, which includes moral decisions, is performed by the whole neural net. Our neural net makes our decisions by a fairly simple process of one-on-one comparison-and-match. This means that the results of the process look like the simple comparisons they are, and moral decisions seem to be comparative. Not just feelings but experience tells us so. And indeed, there is such a definitive system — it is the fixed and objective process by which the moral comparison is done. So, morality is comparative, and is determined by an objective system.
Which is not only an explanation of how moral judgement works, but an explanation of why the apparent conflict between objective and comparative accounts of morality occurs. Morality has both subjective and objective components. The objective component is provided by the laws of Game Theory. The subjective element is the strategy selected by a player attempting to maximise their personal reward. Game theory describes the competitive or collaborative strategies that a rational agent can use to maximise their benefit in any situation. In this context, a rational agent is someone capable of thinking about then acting in their own best interest.
Often, cooperation provides the optimum outcome for all interacting parties, but at any time an agent might break the contract in an attempt to increase their own rewards. Such an action might have short term benefits, but it has been shown that in a series of interaction games, such a cheat will lose out because the others will soon refuse further cooperation.
There are, therefore, substantial individual and group advantages to keeping such a contract. I would argue with the Mathematical Platonists that abstract mathematical ideas are mind-independent entities. Like any other object, they can be discovered and verified by anyone with the right equipment — in this case a skill in mathematics. Therefore, the outcome of our moral behaviour, subject to the laws of relationships determined by the mathematical objects of Game Theory, in this sense are objective.
However, the strategies are subjectively chosen by agents acting in what they perceive to be their own best interest. Their choices may or may not coincide with supporting the social order. Human agents are playing many parallel games in an ever-changing social and physical environment, with no guarantee of group success. An agent, however, is always free to challenge the code by choosing the antisocial strategy.
In such cases the agent will find themselves in peril of retribution in the form of tribal or civil law. Two types of morality co-exist virtually everywhere and at all times, yet they are, for the most part, poles apart. They are morality in theory and morality in practice , and they align with objective morality and subjective morality respectively. I will demonstrate what I mean by example, but first let me elaborate on morality as it is practiced. For most people, morality stems from their surrounding cultural norms.
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For example, in some societies, one can be made to feel guilty about the most natural sexual impulses. Guilt and sex have been associated over generations, but it is usually lop-sided: Both these examples illustrate how cultural norms can determine the morality one accepts. In some societies there are cultural clashes — usually generational — where the same moral issue can inflame opposing attitudes. In India in December , a young woman, Jyoti Singh, was raped and murdered on a bus after she went to a movie with her boyfriend. A documentary by British filmmaker Leslee Udwin explored the cultural schism in India over this issue.
Some including the lawyers representing the gang who committed the crime believed that the girl was responsible for her own fate, whereas others campaigned to have the rape laws strengthened. In many cultures it is taught that God or the gods determine moral values, yet these are often the most prescriptive, oppressive, and misogynistic examples of enforced cultural mores.
On the other hand, morality in theory is very simple: However, one only has to look at the treatment of refugees to realise how even the most liberal societies struggle with this precept. This question initially seems simple, as there appear to be many things that most people would automatically believe to be intrinsically morally wrong, in all times and place, such as murder, lying, and theft. But after reflection, many would agree there are also cases where these things may be acceptable.
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For example, stealing medicine to save the life of a critically ill child, or lying to someone over the whereabouts of your friend whom they express an intention to kill. However, people would not necessarily give the same reasons why these are exceptions to the rule. Some may argue there is greater moral responsibility to a friend than to a stranger, so, in this circumstance, lying in their defence is acceptable; but others may argue a hierarchy of moral actions: Others still may stress the importance of social mores in ethical situations.
In conclusion, despite a widespread belief there are things that are inherently morally correct apart from in exceptional circumstances, there is lack of consensus on what these exemptions are, or when and why they are acceptable.
Moral Flux - Kindle edition by Stephen Sackleigh, Mel James. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like. The underlying law of nature also manifests itself as a moral law for human beings. Life and Times; Theory of Knowledge; The Doctrine of Flux and the Unity of.
This is what makes debate over whether there is truly an objective morality uncertain, and makes moral philosophy the challenging preoccupation it is. The common belief is that there are two kinds of knowledge: The latter is held to be more certain than the former, and is usually contrasted with it.
Is Morality Objective?
However, the distinction is ultimately untenable. Objective knowledge is actually derived from subjective knowledge. This is because of the absolute privacy of conscious experience, which ensures that there can be no composite or collective view of reality. The process of arriving at a moral truth is in principle exactly the same as that: Unfortunately, in traditional societies, it is the authority of the past which is usually deferred to.
These values are arrived at in the same way as we arrive at facts: It will be seen that the Golden Rule is implicit here.
D.L. Morrese
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