You're not following me for the reason religious people generally don't. You'd first need to accept, at least for the sake of argument, that morality is not something humans seek outside themselves but a quality of us, that we can understand as a whole load of 'is's & get right.
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Replying to @HPluckrose
I am perfectly willing to entertain the idea. What I can't understand is how all those 'is's' can possibly provide a rational argument to follow moral precepts that might, on occasion, be against our individual self interest.
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Replying to @adamckolasinski
It's the same as how all these 'is's can provide a rational argument for eating an optimal diet that might, on occasion, be against our preferences. These are different things - what is optimal and what we want to do.
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Replying to @HPluckrose
I don't think that analogy works. The argument for the optimal diet is grounded on it being in my own long-run material self interest. In contrast, to be moral I must do what is right, and that sometimes goes against even my long-run material self interest.
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Replying to @adamckolasinski
Do you see that its rational to seek facts on how to have an optimum morality if you want to be optimally moral and rational to seek facts on how best to promote your own interests if you want to do that? So when discussing morality its the former we make arguments about.
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Replying to @HPluckrose @adamckolasinski
If you're asking how to make people want to be moral when they want to be selfish or how to make people want to be selfish when they want to be moral, this is a different conversation to an exchange of arguments on how to be moral. Then we're into psychology or neuroscience.
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Replying to @HPluckrose @adamckolasinski
When we talk about whether there can be an empirical argument on a subject, this isn't answered 'no' by people not caring about the subject. Arguments about optimal morality assume all participants to care about optimal morality. Dealing with amoral people is a separate subject.
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Replying to @HPluckrose
My objection isn't that you can't make MAKE people obey. My objection is that empiricism alone can't provide a rational justification why they SHOULD obey. Put another way, empiricism can't specify what should be optimized when attempting to construct the optimal morality.
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Replying to @adamckolasinski
What argument can make people think they should be moral if they don't care about morality? What can't be answered with 'Nah, I'm just going to look out for me?' Another 'is' is that people ARE moral. It is not me who is arguing for a 'should' (Ought). I am saying it is all 'is'
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Replying to @HPluckrose @adamckolasinski
You can't really blame someone who is arguing there is no 'ought' separate from 'is' for not having an 'ought' separate from 'is.' You can only say it won't convince amoral people but this is true of every argument for morality. You'd need to step away from your need for ought.
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You're not following because this is counterintuitive to where you are coming from but I'll only be repeating myself if I try to explain further. This is why I get so bored and frustrated with these conversations and don't have them any more. Best to read Sam Harris.
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Replying to @HPluckrose
Fair enough. I'll go read Harris. At this point tweeting about it isn't likely to be productive.
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