RoR: Forum

Emotions do not have some direct connection to moral knowledge. Moral introspection is not a means of seeking new answer. At best, it is a poor way to learn what answers you already accept. The idea of using moral introspection as a way of determining what is right or wrong is fundamentally broken. Emotions do not provide a new, special insight into the nature of morality. They are pale reflections of what you already believe.

I will not give you the first statement. Emotions are a product of natural selection, and natural selection selects for emotions that bring passion to achieve successful reproduction. Natural selection is a non-reasoning deadly natural method to creating moral knowledge (on how to successfully live and reproduce). But I do give you the last statement, so long as "initial" is inserted. Initial (non-reasoned/evidenced) emotions are poor identifications of goal impact. But once the full long term effects of having one policy of action or another are identified, and goal attainment determined, if you have high trust in your reasoning, then emotions will strongly correlate with predicted goal attainment. So then after the consideration of effects, one's emotions and one's answers to such moral dilemmas reveal your intellectual capacity and your long term goals.

People construct these moral dilemmas because they challenge ideas such as "killing humans is always bad". Clearly, in some cases, killing other humans is good, even when the humans are innocent. We just hope and work towards never being put in such situations. Here I will also point out that we are continually in the context where its not good for a person to donate all of their resources to people who are in critical need for them... one would quickly become in critical need oneself, because the number of living beings in critical need can never be reduced by giving, only increased. The only way to reduce the number of people in critical need is to either force sterility or kill... not that I'm promoting that. Just... making a point.

For example with the AIDs question... should killing a few unwilling subjects for testing be justified if it saves tons of people from death? The answer is no, because in reality such certainties cannot be known, killing unwilling subjects isn't certainly the best or fastest process by which one can find the cure for AIDs. Furthermore, to adopt such a policy would likely get you killed by vengeful parents, family members, and friends of the victims.
(Edited by Dean Michael Gores on 11/03, 4:04pm)

Post 1

Sunday, November 3, 2013 - 5:47pm

Emotions are a product of natural selection...

That's incorrect. Natural selection means genes. And we do not have any genetic coding that makes us have a specific emotional reaction specifically linked to specific external cues. Emotions are subconsciously held, automated, value decisions. And these are a product of the choices we make. It is only true that our genetic capacity allows us to have different kinds of emotions - but it doesn't tell us which emotions to have relative to which aspect of reality.
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You talk about a difference between "initial (non-reasoned/evidence) emotions as "poor identifications of goal impact." But genes don't code like that. You don't have "initial (non-reasoned/evidenced)" blue eyes, versus blue eyes that arose from reasoned/evidenced genes. Genes don't work like that. Genes give us the design for a musculature, but don't tell us when or how much to contract this or that muscle. Genes give us legs, but don't tell us where to walk. Genes give us a brain and nervous system but don't make us think, much less tell us what to think about.
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And reason is a process that involves volition - you exercise a limited amount of control over your rational faculty that tells you to focus more or less and make a series of choices that can end up leading to the making of a reasoned decision. Your genes have created that machinery, but not the choices, and it is some of the choices that end up becoming your chosen values, and some of those values will form and drive emotional reactions.
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Moral knowledge can only mean knowledge, held in an individual minds, or put forth as symbols that represent that knowledge, of what is or is not moral. That is an abstraction. An abstraction is not a pattern of nucleotide combinations on the DNA strands. If knowledge were genetic, then babies wouldn't have to learn anything, but just to wait till the various proteins unfolded and gave them what they needed as knowledge.
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Natural selection gave us a mechanism capable of reasoning, and capable of exercising a certain amount of choice. We exercise the choice, and that is the key variable. The choices are the cause that results in the knowledge that becomes our values, and they result in the emotions. Natural selection is NOT the driver of human outcomes - that lies in the relationship between choices and the value of the ideas that result. Determinism is an intellectual dead end - it can't explain how we work or help us get where we might want to go.
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You said that it would not be moral to kill a few AIDs victims for research in hopes that it would save tons of people from death in the future. And that is a moral judgement. It is part of your moral knowledge. But you call moral knowledge a product of genetics. It makes no sense to think that there is some genetic coding in your DNA that is triggered by the concept of killing AIDs victims for research that would fire off a specific kind of emotion- that is a situation that requires reasoning. And reasoning requires making choices as the very process of thinking.
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If morality is determined by natural selection, then we no longer need moral philosophy as a subject, nor any discussions here or elsewhere on the subject. We just work out what is the most 'good' for the greatest number (long term), as decided by the number of offspring produced by those with the genes for moral position X versus the number produced by those with the genes for moral position Y.

Natural selection is about numbers. It is collectivist in style - the greatest number of offspring wins. Human morality takes (or should take) quality into consideration.
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Dean, you are saying the effects of natural selection (a pattern of genes and how they interact with competition in the environmental niche in question) determine what is moral. But knowledge of what is moral can only be the product of reasoned judgement. The mechanism (the wet-ware) is a product of biological evolution, but moral judgments are a product of how that mechanism is used - just as what part of town you go to in your automobile is not a product of the automobile's engineering design, but rather where you choose to steer it. (There are Google cars that will end up in the part of town they were programmed to go to... but that is a product of how the programmer chose to program the car).

Post 2

Sunday, November 3, 2013 - 11:57pm

Steve,

You and I disagree on this. Let me make one little statement that will tear your post to shreds: You feel hungry when your glycogen stores are near empty.

Hunger and all of the bodily reactions related to it are caused by the detection of low glucose levels. Your body is saying: hey! My glycogen stores are getting depleted and I need food because I'm using fat and proteins for energy, which causes all sorts of waste products to be made and so eat something that has glycogen/starch/glucose!!! But you don't actually think that when you feel hungry... you just somehow repeatedly get interrupted with whatever you are working on with these higher and higher priority stronger more frequent feelings/urges/goals to... eeeeaaaat!!!!

Here's another one, a little more fun: your neurons in your eye fire in the shape of the letters you are reading. Ok that one is way more primitive, but anyways, thats the gene's design directly causing particular info to be processed by your brain. Don't want to think this? Close your eyes, look away. Ha. Ha. :p

But I'm now thinking oh yea... steve doesn't want to call simple information like designs of the human body and neurons firing in the shape of a letter as "ideas". No... he... he only wants complex ideas like his neurons firing in the object shape stream of some kind of complex relationship like "getting cut by a knife is bad because it hurts" or "because it allows bacterial/virus infection vectors" or "because I will then have to be more careful getting the wound wet and doing other activities to reduce the chance of infection" or "except when done by a Dr to replace or fix one of my internal organs". I totally agree those more complex ideas are learned through experience and reasoning. Only the very primitive thoughts there are programmed into us: seperated skin hurts (cut) & shiny (sight of knife). Our brain's design enables us to induct object permanance, perform object identification, induct behavior, predict behavior, induct effects of actions, and predict goal attainment from generated plans... observation, induction, reasoning, complex planning, goal attainment, all consistent with deterministic design given there are sources of practically random information for use as new idea generation.

DNA doesn't hold abstract information? Hahahaha. Its a chain of 4 symbols with little reactivity. At least some RNA can catalyze and react... DNA on the other hand is pretty unreactive and needs to be read and written with RNA. DNA is the abstraction of the design of most all Earthly life forms. (There's RNA life forms and little program life forms that I made too).

I don't really feel like criticizing all of the points you made. I disagree with your conclusions on moral implications of determinism... as if uncaused (chaos? physics defying events?) somehow would introduce a different implication on morality? Pretty much everything you said, remove the nots or add nots if the sentence lacks a not... and then you have consistency with reality. We already debated this stuff and we already disagreed. One of us is right... the other conflicts with reality. Wait that's not quite right, the other option is we are both wrong.

Have I said this already? A deterministic reality implies that everything happens for a reason/cause. You claim that you think using reason and you cause your actions. OK, well thats what I'm saying too! But then you want to say... "No, I don't do things via the process of reality's reasons/causes, noo... my thoughts contradict reality, I am free of reason and cause, I have free will!" What does that statement contain? A contradiction. If you don't cause your thinking and think using reasons/reasoning... then does that make you have free will? Or if you do cause your thoughts and perform reasoning, does that make you have free will? Only if your causes contradict reality's process of continual change? But that is nonsense. Your reasoning and your causing of your thoughts and actions must be consistent with reality's overall process of causing its stateflow to change in its way.

I guess I'd just take a moment to say that yea we do observe, learn, generate new ideas, generate solutions to complex problems like highly�detailed plans that achieve high efficiency in goal attainment.

What we will do is inevitable. You claim that morality is nonsense. But I disagree, we do still have goals that we work for. If you accept the idea that you have no goal, then you will stop having goals, and you will die in peace/zen like Eastern religion proposes. I did not accept that idea. Or rather maybe at some points I do accept the idea, but then for some REASON I get all excited about some new goal that comes to mind and I feel like accomplishing it.

My post above wasn't really for you. I haven't heard anything from Joe yet on my inspiration that the basis of happiness generally revolves around one's health and reproductive success and family/friend success via the process of natural selection. I'm guessing he will agree with me, but may chose not to do so publically due to its unpopular "but I have free will!" effect.

Furthermore, Steve, seriously, I have a completely different philosophy and understanding of what humans are/do than past people who proposed that reality is deterministic. So please don't waste everyone's time and try to unjustly criticise my philosophy by inserting criticism of past fool's ideas. I am not a fool, and about the only conclusion I have in common with such philosophers is the conclusion that reality is deterministic.

PS please see my discussion with Fred to discover my best yet identification of what Free Will actually is.
(Edited by Dean Michael Gores on 11/04, 12:05am)

Post 3

Monday, November 4, 2013 - 1:11am

Dean,

Let me make one little statement that will tear your post to shreds: You feel hungry when your glycogen stores are near empty.

Hunger is a sensation, not an emotion, and certainly not an idea. My sensation of hunger is not an idea about how to satisfy the hunger, nor do I act on my hunger like a determined robot. I choose to focus on the hunger more or less, I think about when I will eat and what I'll eat. DNA only gave me the sensation as a reaction to blood chemistry changes, it tells me nothing about what is in the Fridge or how to make a sandwich.
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You are right that genes make possible my eyes and they let me read, but I had to learn what the black marks mean. And I have to think about the implications of the words and sentences that these letters make up. Again, DNA does NOT contain meaning.
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I totally agree those more complex ideas are learned through experience and reasoning. Only the very primitive thoughts there are programmed into us...

That's what I was saying. Except I wouldn't call the primitive units that we have, without learning, "thoughts." For example, you imply that a fear of a knife is programmed into us instead of learned. That's not so - babies have no fear of knives.
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... induction, reasoning, complex planning, goal attainment, [are] all consistent with deterministic design...

We completely disagree on this. I understand that you believe that you are using "determined" in a different fashion, but I don't believe your usage is compatible with volition.
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You claim that morality is nonsense.

No! I did NOT claim that!
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If you accept the idea that you have no goal, then you will stop having goals, and you will die in peace/zen like Eastern religion proposes. I did not accept that idea.

Dean, you lost me on this. I am NOT into Zen, or Eastern religions, or giving up goals, or believe that giving up goals will result in peace... that's NOT me. Maybe you were thinking of someone else when you wrote that?
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I haven't heard anything from Joe yet on my inspiration that the basis of happiness generally revolves around one's health and reproductive success and family/friend success via the process of natural selection. I'm guessing he will agree with me, but may chose not to do so publically [sic] due to its unpopular "but I have free will!" effect.

Give Joe more credit that that! He isn't afraid or unwilling to publicly take unpopular positions. My guess is that Joe wouldn't agree with your inspiration.

Post 4

Monday, November 4, 2013 - 10:32am

Joe,

Good article! It is peculiar that people gravitate towards these absurd and unrealistic situations - these made up, horrific, scenarios as 'metrics.' Why do they choose awful circumstances? Is it because in their minds horrible things are somehow the only domain where morality comes to bear?

And I certainly agree that getting answers from people that are measures of how they feel about the made up situations says NOTHING about which alternative is moral or more moral than the other. It is as Branden (or maybe it was Rand?) said, "Emotions are not tools of cognition."

And I liked your point about the apples and oranges nature of comparisons of different emotional responses: "Can you compare self-loathing with jealousy? Which is better? Which is worse?"

You wrote:

Emotions are reflections of what we already believe. You are sad when you believe you have lost something of value. You are anger when you view someone as being destructive to your life. You feel happy when you think your life is going well.

That is true to a degree. For the most part there is congruence between what we believe and what we feel, but most of us have at least some conflicts that result from the creation of emotions at an early age, and they don't correspond fully to new beliefs. A child can fear things that the adult no longer believes are threatening. And then, the child grows up and some of those early fears remain.

You pointed this out, saying, "All of these emotional responses are a reflect, and not always an accurate one, of your values. And when your values conflict, your emotions may conflict."

When that is the case, that our emotions are not fully in accord with our beliefs, and often that is because many of our emotions were 'programmed' at an earlier age, the resolution of that conflict is a wonderful way to increase our inner sense of security and power and comfort. I mention this because introspection is the tool used by the therapist, or the person interested in personal growth, or by anyone who wants to resolve an emotion that it out of sync with their beliefs.

And there is another case. We may have an emotional response left over from childhood that we no longer reflects who we have become. For example, we might feel stressful under certain condition where things are expected of us by authority figures. It is easy to see how a child who is still building self-esteem and wants to do well, could feel anxious in response to some expectations of others. As an adult, that feeling might still show up, but the subconscious, which is so good at symbolic representation, may have it coming up in ways that are difficult to trace to a belief that we no longer hold in conscious form. We might feel nervous about a new task even though we are no longer worried about the expectations of others, and the circumstances are such that no others are even involved. And without introspection, we might not realize that we should be feeling more pleased than nervous and we would not become aware that we still are experiencing a fear held by the child we once were - a fear that has been detached from the original source (fear of disapproval) and attached to a new trigger (fear of new things).

We are constantly receiving 'signals' of different sorts, our sensory awareness of the external world, our sensory awareness of our body, our background feeling state and its changes or shifts, and the flow of emotions. It is like we are immersed in a river of ever-changing stimuli - all there to invite our attention, or to give us the signal to ignore, or to focus more intently on their sector.

Introspection has an extraordinary gift for us. By becoming more facile at introspection we can increase the range and frequency of the exercise of our volition. We have more choices that can be made in the same unit of time, the same set of conditions. This means more options... and that is the heart of things. Real power comes from having options and more is better.

I apologize for going off on a tangent. I agree with all of your conclusions regarding emotions not having a direct connection to moral knowledge, with the foolishness of these moral dilemmas as learning tools regarding moral knowledge, and with the misuse of introspection as you explained. But I think it is important to understand what a powerful, and useful tool introspection can be for discovering and resolving any conflicts a person harbors, and for becoming more adept at seeing the available options.

Post 5

Monday, November 4, 2013 - 2:44pm

First: In Understanding Objectivism, Leonard Peikoff explains why emotions are indicators of the values upon which moral choices are made. Granted that they are formed consciously and integrated to subconscious expression. They can be learned and unlearned.

==> One of my hobbies is numismatics, especially ancient Greek coins. I also have some oil lamps and other artifacts. Archaeologists generally hate numismatists and the feeling is mostly returned. On a collector site, the question came up: How would you feel about someone digging up the graves of Civil War soldiers and taking the buttons from their clothes? I reacted negatively ... at first... then I stepped back and realized that it is just the recovery of remains. My emotions changed based on my evaluation.

Second: these scenarios of pushing people in front of trains are not to discover right and wrong by democratic vote. They are specifically designed to be used while scanning the brains of subjects to find out, indeed, where the moral quandries are for that person. The goal is to understand how people resolve moral problems, what indeed people perceive as moral challenges.

Moreover, in the actual experiment the victim is indeed low in social status. Would you push a fat person off a bridge to stop a train wreck killing many people.

It is called "The Trolley Problem." (See Wikipedia here).

Third: If we many allow ourselves some self-praise, Objectivists do spend a lot of time worrying about these things, as do other philosophers. Most people never think about them at all and then in a moment of crisis, they do something they regret. It happens, of course, but it happens mostly to people who usually do not think much. Their so-called Christian altruism evaporates into Nietzschean lust, as, indeed, in the case of the entire German nation of the 1930s (with some exceptions, as always).

Post 6

Monday, November 4, 2013 - 2:49pm

"One popular one is if you could kill one person and harvest his organs to save the lives of 5 others, should you do it? Another is if a train is going to run over a group of people and the only way to save them is by pushing someone in front of the train, which would leave them dead, should you do it?"

Another favorite: "If there was a button that, if you pushed it, it would kill everyone in the world except those you love, but if you didn't push it, then only those you love would be killed, would you push it?"

My answer is always something like, "I would push that button in a heartbeat and sleep like a baby, so don't ever build a world with a button in it like that."

Especially if pushing the button guaranteed to kill the sick bastard who built a world with a button in it like that.

Similarly, I'd gladly kill that one person to harvest his organs for the other five, and also push that someone in front of the train, if I can also stipulate that in each case, that person is the sick motherfucker who dreams up questions like this.

The ethical blame is not on those placed into impossible situations; the ethicakl blame is on those Machiavelin wannabees placing them there; the sick minds that would build worlds with such dilemmas as magic buttons and miracle life saving killer trains and human spare parts buffets.

In what universe do such buttons actually exist? In what universe are there such miracle life saving killer trains? In what universe are we sent out on missions to murder innocents to harvest their parts for others?

What minds are loose among the decent, probing for such nonsense? Towards what end? To be ethically 'prepared' for non-existing universes?

We really need evidence to understand if that which already long happened -- A Germany and/or Soviet Union or Khmer Rouge state completely run amok with the , and this is key, -constructed- sacrifice of others in the name of the 'better good'-- can possibly happen again?

Seriously? There has been a species transplant of some kind in the last several decades?

We serious about not repeating those atrocities of history? Then when the same infection keeps shoiwng its ugly head, we need to be vigilant about stamping it out.

Well, are we? Because today what is being stamped out is the same thing that was stamped out in each of those examples of atrocities run amok-- individual liberty and freedom...for the better good.

Only a f'n Nazi/Commie wannabee would have any interest at all in asking questions like those, in the name of creating the next mass of seething obedient Nazi guards...

regards,
Fred

(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 11/04, 3:07pm)

Post 7

Monday, November 4, 2013 - 3:49pm

Marotta wrote:

In Understanding Objectivism, Leonard Peikoff explains why emotions are indicators of the values upon which moral choices are made. Granted that they are formed consciously and integrated to subconscious expression.

I can't tell what Marotta is referring to when he says "...they are formed..." Emotions? Values? Or, moral choices? It really doesn't matter because of the capacity to subvert conscious focus. We can form emotions, acquire values, and make moral choices while remaining largely 'unconscious' of what we are doing. And, we can also form emotions and acquire values at a very early age, yet they can remain even though the items that trigger them change over decades.

I don't have a copy of Understanding Objectivism, but I looked at the section on emotions in Peikoff's Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. His understanding of emotions seems fairly solid (except that it is grating to a psychologist to read the words "feelings" and "emotions" being used interchangably - they aren't the same thing. Even though Peikoff seemed to be on track with most of what he wrote, he didn't have a very good grasp of the pathology (that we all have at least some small bit) that occurs where the subconsciously held beliefs, evaluations don't connect accurately to our conscious awareness.

Marotta's example about archaeologists and numismatists illustrates one of the complexities of this issue. He said that his first reaction was negative - this is after an identification of X. Then his focus on the issue shifts and the core identification becomes Y. And Y gives a different emotion. But neither of these address the underlying value structure in the subconscious - that is where the emotion comes from. Without introspection Marotta might not know if his emotional reactions when unearthed in terms of the underlying values in play are consistent with his consciously held beliefs. Without introspection there is no way to know if the 'link' between the conscious identification, and the emotional evaluation is at all logical.

And it is simplistic to an extreme to imagine that there is a single, simple, linear chain of identification-evaluation-emotion. There are often, particularly in significant moral choices, several competing identifications, each being made after and during the emotional reaction to the first look, and all with lots of choice points occurring regarding the kinds of focus to apply.

Post 8

Monday, November 4, 2013 - 9:27pm

I'll make a few points in response to some of the comments.

First, these scenarios are not the focus on my article. The focus is on the method of trying to evaluate the moral options by reference to emotional reactions. One could also criticize them for being ridiculous, uncommon, or unrealistic, as Fred has done. Those are legitimate points, but even if they were more realistic examples, the methodology is unsound.

I disagree with the comparison between this approach and the general use of moral hypotheticals. The issue is not whether people are focusing on moral hypotheticals to examine morality, but in the method used to examine the hypotheticals. If it were an analysis of the various factors and an attempt to foresee likely consequences, or to attempt to weigh the various factors, there is some benefit. If the method is to see which option elicits the strongest reaction, that isn't an analysis. That's emotionalism posturing as analysis.

Of course, moral hypotheticals are often used to argue for a position by eliciting those emotional reactions. If you want to argue one value is more significant than another, or one rule is better than another, you can always construct a situation where the results are emotionally disturbing.

Post 9

Monday, November 4, 2013 - 9:36pm

On the topic of emotions, I think Steve's position is correct. I think Dean is just wrong. You can make the point that emotions have a biological existence, but that's not an argument that emotions provide an automatic mechanism at reaching moral truths. And talking about emotions being a source of "moral knowledge" is totally wrong. Feeling something is not the same as knowing it.

In regards to Steve's comments on emotions, without disagreeing, I want to point out that if we are careful about drawing a line between the realms of philosophy and science, much of what Steve said about the details of how emotions work falls within the realm of science. In other words, it could be falsified. Are people really "programmed" at an earlier age, or have they accept false ideas or even false value judgments.

Perhaps they remember those circumstances a being difficult, or perhaps they think that they don't do well under those circumstances, or perhaps they over-estimate the costs or underestimate the benefits. Any of these could result in emotional reactions consistent with the idea of having subconscious "programming" from an earlier age.

Steve, could you comment on your "feelings" vs "emotions" distinction? I'd be interested.

Post 10

Monday, November 4, 2013 - 11:56pm

Joe,

Do you deny that DNA is a design? That it holds information? I agree that a neural network can dynamically create/generate/discover/learn complex ideas on the fly way faster than the process of natural selection.

You can make the point that emotions have a biological existence, but that's not an argument that emotions provide an automatic mechanism at reaching moral truths. And talking about emotions being a source of "moral knowledge" is totally wrong. Feeling something is not the same as knowing it.

I think maybe we are just disagreeing due to my very lose definitions of information and knowledge and ideas etc. I'm talking about from an information theory sense of information. True information is parts of reality that exist in a internally relative relationship that matches the relationships between some other part of reality. Information is just relationships between parts of reality existing. So in this sense, feeling is information, being "aware" of feelings is knowing feelings, having the feelings be a part of the information that your brain is processing.

But when you say "feeling something is not the same as knowing it" I think what you mean to say is that feeling something is just our primitive design's reaction, and that one really needs to have an understanding of how reality works and the context your in and what kind of actions you can take and what your goals are and think up a good set of plans that result in the greatest goal attainment. Feelings don't portray information about extremely complex moral situations... they only work for very primitive things like cuts, burns, and hunger... you have to use your mind to reason out what the complex situation is and then figure out the best thing you can do via reasoning. For example a person that's never been introduced to modern medical procedures or someone who's not really too smart to learn much or on drugs or lower consciousness for whatever reason, or an animal wouldn't be able to reason that a Dr with a scalpel is helping them.

I'm not saying that emotions provide an automatic mechanism at reaching complex moral truths... but they do provide very basic moral information like "My elbow hurts I need to stop moving it!". But not "Ouch I just hurt my elbow playing tennis without warming up... maybe I should warm up first". And feelings totally don't help you conclude that eating nightshades might be causing you the joint problems. I'm saying that natural selection is the process that causes emotions, and hence emotions are information about what is "moral" for a living being to live. Emotions are information... not necessarily valid information, particularly in complex situations. Natural selection is a poor/slow process for "reaching moral truths". I'd agree that observations and reasoning is the best process.

Talking about the slowness of natural selection... Natural selection works over generations of lifetimes to try out new "ideas"/"information" in the design of life forms. It takes a whole lifetime to test out new designs. Verses a human can think about all sorts of different designs for things and control his hands to make whatever is best, and we can communicate to each other all of our best designs. With DNA we have to mate to exchange our designs and just hope that nature will give us children with our best traits and not our worst traits. So our reasoning minds can come up with morals (good plans for particular contexts) waaaaay faster than natural selection can do it.
(Edited by Dean Michael Gores on 11/05, 12:04am)

Post 11

Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - 1:44am