"We should ground moral positions in ethical reasoning rather than contingent empirical findings."
I don't think anyone ever does that, I don't see how it's even possible. To use a spicy, hot-button example:
"The importance of race differences is evident at an intuitive level. Whether fear of black crime is legitimate depends on whether blacks do in fact commit more crime, and, if so, why. Whether black poverty and academic failure are the fault of whites, and therefore impose compensatory obligations on whites—perhaps to be discharged by racial preferences—depends on why blacks fail." -Michael Levin
"moral principles of human dignity and representation" ...I don't know what that means, much less why it should justify discriminating against certain race(s) in favor of others in employment.
But we probably have different perspectives due to different beliefs...about the relevant facts. I can't think of a moral issue to which facts are not relevant, unless morality to you means no more or less than "God said so"...but then whether or not God did in fact say such and such, whether a given scripture can be considered reliable, whether or not God exists at all, etc. are facts that we are likely to dispute, and which are inseparable from the moral question.
I have to question whether we understand morality the same way at all. Morality to me is a lot of "oughts", and facts are "is", and you can't get an "ought" from an "is" by most philosophy I'm aware of. Moral precepts are generally independent of facts. I'd argue they're at base intuitions / preferences.
""God said so"...but then whether or not God did in fact say such and such, whether a given scripture can be considered reliable, whether or not God exists at all, etc. are facts that we are likely to dispute, and which are inseparable from the moral question."
This is tricky because to me there's a moral question that is - by a given morality is an action moral or immoral. God actually saying something or existing is irrelevant to deciding by a Catholic moral framework is something moral or immoral.
Then there's a question of if there is some universal "correct" morality. I don't think there is, and I don't think anyone has come close to proving there is. The facts only matter *if* we all agree on a moral framework. Some people are convinced by Consequentialism and "the most good for the most people" but that fails to convince millions who say "god works in mysterious ways and you must suffer to achieve the good of entrance to Heaven etc".
I’m not sure if there’s a universally correct morality either. But it seems like the only possible way to attempt to convince someone else to change their mind and agree with the rightness of your moral position is to make arguments based on the likely consequences of doing one thing vs another. True, it rarely works, as people don’t often change their minds…but sometimes they do. And it seems like the only alternative is to say, X is wrong because…it just is. Agree with me because I’m telling you to. Which could only work if you’re exceptionally influential/powerful/high status.
All oughts eventually have to terminate in some axiomatic ought, like “you should want to not die”. Why should I? Because if I was dead, I couldn’t do the things I want to do. Well why should I want to do the things I want to do? Well…I don’t know how to answer that, but…I just do.
Humans aren’t uniform in our desires/values, but due to human nature, and especially if we have a shared culture, people usually have enough in common to work with.
As I said in another comment, I can hardly imagine how I could avoid being a consequentialist, and I’m an atheist… But more and more I’ve been coming to think that Christians are basically right about morality in a lot of ways. Not in every particular, and of course there’s a wide range of things different kinds of Christians believe… But for example the importance they place on monogamous marriage...I think they are right that it’s better for society and for most individuals. I’m not an expert on what most Christians believe, but it seems that they tend to think that living in accordance with God’s will is generally a better way to live, better in the sense of having better consequences in this world. Granted, “better” is subjective…but most people can agree it’s better to be rich than poor, happy than sad, healthy than sick, to have people around you who value you than to be alone, etc etc etc.
Maybe we don’t understand morality the same way… Here’s basically how I understand it:
“One might wonder why morality evolved in the first place,7 but a key feature of morality is that humans seem designed to accept—even create—rules that constrain their own behavior, as long as these rules constrain others’ behavior as well. Morality can be seen as the informal equivalent of a justice system. I'll agree to rules that specify that I can be punished for various deeds, but only as long as everyone else is subject to the same rules. This makes sense; we shouldn't expect evolved creatures to be designed to consent to limit their own options, but not others’. This means that a key—perhaps the key—feature of moral cognition is that morality, to be stable, must include impartiality, the idea that rules apply equally to everyone. Impartiality is crucial because without it, rules become nothing more than a way from some people to coerce others. As one might expect, humans don't tend to want to accept rules that bind them but not others.”
Kurzban, Robert O.. Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind (p. 214). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition.
"But it seems like the only possible way to attempt to convince someone else to change their mind and agree with the rightness of your moral position is to make arguments based on the likely consequences of doing one thing vs another."
I think this is the part where I said the 3 main moral systems do kind of all have a small part of the others in them. And I've been reading your responses a specific way, that you mostly mean external consequences in a very utilitarian way.
"But for example the importance they place on monogamous marriage...I think they are right that it’s better for society and for most individuals."
This example confirms that for me to some extent. For the different systems, the type of consequences matter. A virtue ethics doesn't exactly care about effects on society that aren't framed in increasing or decreasing virtuous citizens. You can call that a consequence but it's to me materially different from a consequence of incidents of domestic violence or mental health issues or the like. The virtues I've seen in my limited reading tend to be kind of arbitrary - they are NOT justified by anything, they're the brute assumption like utilitarianism has a brute assumption that "the most good for the most people" is the goal.
So while utilitarians like us would discuss societal benefits and to a much lesser degree individual benefits, a virtue ethics person would say "monagamy is a virtue".
And so some people are motivated by ideas like "increasing their virtue / their societies virtue". But this is less clear when they otherwise agree I think.
Here's my attempt to give a position that is the opposite. You could have a virtue of "have the most offspring". This isn't really an off the wall one either - historically powerful men have occasionally pushed for this (Kahns IIRC) and genetics would push for this also. A man following this virtue would see monogamy as immoral. It's obviously limiting his offspring potential. An argument based on consequences is going to talk past the virtue part.
I would guess you'd say - "that's not actually a virtue" but the problem is - unless you're already NOT a virtue ethics person - i.e. you already think that virtues are grounded in something else like consequences - there's nothing to argue about. You can disagree with someone about their base values, but you can't tell them they're wrong any more than you could tell someone their preference for vanilla over chocolate is wrong. The only way you could coherently argue them out of a position like that would be to show that the're somehow misunderstanding the virtue or set of virtues.
To hopefully make this clearer - if you're on the receiving end of this argument that monogamy is wrong because it is not virtuous to limit your lineage - you're going to go "WTH? that doesn't even make sense to me. I don't care about being 'virtuous' I care about the consequences." Someone would have much better luck making a logical or empirical case as to why monogamy overall causes more harm than good.
The only way to use a different systems arguments is to convince someone to *change to that system* IMO.
"I’m not an expert on what most Christians believe, but it seems that they tend to think that living in accordance with God’s will is generally a better way to live, better in the sense of having better consequences in this world."
I'm also far from an expert, but I will say that in my various excursions in books and youtube debating theism, philosophy etc - there are certainly Christians who care way way more about the next life in Heaven than consequences in this world. Pascal's Wager puts this starkly. Various sects rejection of modern medicine for theological reason does as well IMO.
"One might wonder why morality evolved in the first place" This doesn't really answer what you think morality is other than a set of rules some group of people somehow agree to follow together. However it doesn't really give any idea as to what those rules ought to be. Morality also is usually about a different sort of rules than a game of scrabble's rules. It would seem strange to say I am immoral for my house rules for scrabble.
"We should ground moral positions in ethical reasoning rather than contingent empirical findings."
I don't think anyone ever does that, I don't see how it's even possible. To use a spicy, hot-button example:
"The importance of race differences is evident at an intuitive level. Whether fear of black crime is legitimate depends on whether blacks do in fact commit more crime, and, if so, why. Whether black poverty and academic failure are the fault of whites, and therefore impose compensatory obligations on whites—perhaps to be discharged by racial preferences—depends on why blacks fail." -Michael Levin
"moral principles of human dignity and representation" ...I don't know what that means, much less why it should justify discriminating against certain race(s) in favor of others in employment.
But we probably have different perspectives due to different beliefs...about the relevant facts. I can't think of a moral issue to which facts are not relevant, unless morality to you means no more or less than "God said so"...but then whether or not God did in fact say such and such, whether a given scripture can be considered reliable, whether or not God exists at all, etc. are facts that we are likely to dispute, and which are inseparable from the moral question.
I have to question whether we understand morality the same way at all. Morality to me is a lot of "oughts", and facts are "is", and you can't get an "ought" from an "is" by most philosophy I'm aware of. Moral precepts are generally independent of facts. I'd argue they're at base intuitions / preferences.
""God said so"...but then whether or not God did in fact say such and such, whether a given scripture can be considered reliable, whether or not God exists at all, etc. are facts that we are likely to dispute, and which are inseparable from the moral question."
This is tricky because to me there's a moral question that is - by a given morality is an action moral or immoral. God actually saying something or existing is irrelevant to deciding by a Catholic moral framework is something moral or immoral.
Then there's a question of if there is some universal "correct" morality. I don't think there is, and I don't think anyone has come close to proving there is. The facts only matter *if* we all agree on a moral framework. Some people are convinced by Consequentialism and "the most good for the most people" but that fails to convince millions who say "god works in mysterious ways and you must suffer to achieve the good of entrance to Heaven etc".
I’m not sure if there’s a universally correct morality either. But it seems like the only possible way to attempt to convince someone else to change their mind and agree with the rightness of your moral position is to make arguments based on the likely consequences of doing one thing vs another. True, it rarely works, as people don’t often change their minds…but sometimes they do. And it seems like the only alternative is to say, X is wrong because…it just is. Agree with me because I’m telling you to. Which could only work if you’re exceptionally influential/powerful/high status.
All oughts eventually have to terminate in some axiomatic ought, like “you should want to not die”. Why should I? Because if I was dead, I couldn’t do the things I want to do. Well why should I want to do the things I want to do? Well…I don’t know how to answer that, but…I just do.
Humans aren’t uniform in our desires/values, but due to human nature, and especially if we have a shared culture, people usually have enough in common to work with.
As I said in another comment, I can hardly imagine how I could avoid being a consequentialist, and I’m an atheist… But more and more I’ve been coming to think that Christians are basically right about morality in a lot of ways. Not in every particular, and of course there’s a wide range of things different kinds of Christians believe… But for example the importance they place on monogamous marriage...I think they are right that it’s better for society and for most individuals. I’m not an expert on what most Christians believe, but it seems that they tend to think that living in accordance with God’s will is generally a better way to live, better in the sense of having better consequences in this world. Granted, “better” is subjective…but most people can agree it’s better to be rich than poor, happy than sad, healthy than sick, to have people around you who value you than to be alone, etc etc etc.
Maybe we don’t understand morality the same way… Here’s basically how I understand it:
“One might wonder why morality evolved in the first place,7 but a key feature of morality is that humans seem designed to accept—even create—rules that constrain their own behavior, as long as these rules constrain others’ behavior as well. Morality can be seen as the informal equivalent of a justice system. I'll agree to rules that specify that I can be punished for various deeds, but only as long as everyone else is subject to the same rules. This makes sense; we shouldn't expect evolved creatures to be designed to consent to limit their own options, but not others’. This means that a key—perhaps the key—feature of moral cognition is that morality, to be stable, must include impartiality, the idea that rules apply equally to everyone. Impartiality is crucial because without it, rules become nothing more than a way from some people to coerce others. As one might expect, humans don't tend to want to accept rules that bind them but not others.”
Kurzban, Robert O.. Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind (p. 214). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition.
"But it seems like the only possible way to attempt to convince someone else to change their mind and agree with the rightness of your moral position is to make arguments based on the likely consequences of doing one thing vs another."
I think this is the part where I said the 3 main moral systems do kind of all have a small part of the others in them. And I've been reading your responses a specific way, that you mostly mean external consequences in a very utilitarian way.
"But for example the importance they place on monogamous marriage...I think they are right that it’s better for society and for most individuals."
This example confirms that for me to some extent. For the different systems, the type of consequences matter. A virtue ethics doesn't exactly care about effects on society that aren't framed in increasing or decreasing virtuous citizens. You can call that a consequence but it's to me materially different from a consequence of incidents of domestic violence or mental health issues or the like. The virtues I've seen in my limited reading tend to be kind of arbitrary - they are NOT justified by anything, they're the brute assumption like utilitarianism has a brute assumption that "the most good for the most people" is the goal.
So while utilitarians like us would discuss societal benefits and to a much lesser degree individual benefits, a virtue ethics person would say "monagamy is a virtue".
And so some people are motivated by ideas like "increasing their virtue / their societies virtue". But this is less clear when they otherwise agree I think.
Here's my attempt to give a position that is the opposite. You could have a virtue of "have the most offspring". This isn't really an off the wall one either - historically powerful men have occasionally pushed for this (Kahns IIRC) and genetics would push for this also. A man following this virtue would see monogamy as immoral. It's obviously limiting his offspring potential. An argument based on consequences is going to talk past the virtue part.
I would guess you'd say - "that's not actually a virtue" but the problem is - unless you're already NOT a virtue ethics person - i.e. you already think that virtues are grounded in something else like consequences - there's nothing to argue about. You can disagree with someone about their base values, but you can't tell them they're wrong any more than you could tell someone their preference for vanilla over chocolate is wrong. The only way you could coherently argue them out of a position like that would be to show that the're somehow misunderstanding the virtue or set of virtues.
To hopefully make this clearer - if you're on the receiving end of this argument that monogamy is wrong because it is not virtuous to limit your lineage - you're going to go "WTH? that doesn't even make sense to me. I don't care about being 'virtuous' I care about the consequences." Someone would have much better luck making a logical or empirical case as to why monogamy overall causes more harm than good.
The only way to use a different systems arguments is to convince someone to *change to that system* IMO.
"I’m not an expert on what most Christians believe, but it seems that they tend to think that living in accordance with God’s will is generally a better way to live, better in the sense of having better consequences in this world."
I'm also far from an expert, but I will say that in my various excursions in books and youtube debating theism, philosophy etc - there are certainly Christians who care way way more about the next life in Heaven than consequences in this world. Pascal's Wager puts this starkly. Various sects rejection of modern medicine for theological reason does as well IMO.
"One might wonder why morality evolved in the first place" This doesn't really answer what you think morality is other than a set of rules some group of people somehow agree to follow together. However it doesn't really give any idea as to what those rules ought to be. Morality also is usually about a different sort of rules than a game of scrabble's rules. It would seem strange to say I am immoral for my house rules for scrabble.