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Who did you root for in the Super Bowl? Why? Do you think the other tenets you hold to are any more objectively sound than your choice of a favorite NFL team? Or is all just confirmation bias, right to yhe core?
Take capital punishment. There is absolutely no empirical evidence for or against capital punishment as public policy.. One chooses his position according to whether one is vindictive or compassionate by nature. After that, it's the turtles of confirmation bias all the way down.
Who did you root for in the Super Bowl? Why? Do you think the other tenets you hold to are any more objectively sound than your choice of a favorite NFL team? Or is all just confirmation bias, right to yhe core?
Take capital punishment. There is absolutely no empirical evidence for or against capital punishment as public policy.. One chooses his position according to whether one is vindictive or compassionate by nature. After that, it's the turtles of confirmation bias all the way down.
Objectivity is a lot slipperier than it appears.
Morality is without question, at minimum, sometimes objective. Whether it's objective all the time or not depends on how you define objective morality, and how you argue your point.
For example, if I'm the only organism in existence and there are less unpleasant ways to end my life than igniting myself on fire, intentionally igniting myself on fire would always be morally wrong. My opinion wouldn't matter. It would simply cause massive amounts of suffering for no reason whatsoever. No sensible person would look at such an act as anything besides senseless, so it has to be morally wrong and the opinion of everyone who disagrees has been proven invalid by the aforementioned thought experiment.
Now, if there are no other ways to kill myself than igniting myself on fire, whether igniting myself on fire or not becomes more subjective, and not as clear cut.
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Next, I would argue that morality is always objective in the sense that it can always be measured, in the sense that the particles that determine right and wrong are very real particles. These are particles of suffering and pleasure...It's just that they can't be measured accurately by humans with exact accuracy, and we'll almost certainly never be able to measure them accurately, and so for us it's often subjective. It would take some kind of all-knowing being who exists beyond time to accurately measure the particles of suffering and pleasure, and build the equations to determine the most morally correct routes of behavior possible.
Humans, of course, can't do that. We can estimate those correct routes though, and we're extremely good at it. We do it effortlessly, on many occasions. We instinctively know that the paper cut causes me less suffering than the snake bite, for example.
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Now, let's look at the sensible way to determine whether or not the death penalty is right or wrong...because the way I see things, I very much disagree that objectivity is usually a lot more slippery than it appears. I think most people actually see it as much more slippery than it actually is, to the extent that the answers to many ethical conundrums are determined by whim or culture, which could much more accurately be determined through deeper thought.
Important factors we need to consider first are:
*What percentage of people are falsely accused and sentenced to death?
*How expensive is the death penalty compared to life imprisonment?
I have heard that lifetime imprisonment is actually much cheaper than the death penalty, at least in the United States and presumably many nations with similar legal systems:
Much to the surprise of many who, logically, would assume that shortening someone's life should be cheaper than paying for it until natural expiration, it turns out that it is actually cheaper to imprison someone for life than to execute them. In fact, it is almost 10 times cheaper! One might ask, “how can that be?”https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/wh...t-parole-31614
If that is true, then the death penalty both executes innocent people, and is more expensive than life imprisonment, so it has no obvious advantages and some major disadvantages. There could be unexpected advantages of the death penalty. Perhaps the fear it causes reduces crime more than life imprisonment...but until we get some firm knowledge relating to that, or other data I'm thinking I've just proven the death penalty in the United States to be objectively morally wrong, at least as far as we humans, with our limited knowledge of reality might as well look at it. The sum of suffering it results in appears to me much greater than any reduction of suffering it results in or any pleasure it causes. We have no sensible way to measure anything besides trying to achieve more pleasure and less suffering. Therefore, the death penalty appears to me to be objectively morally wrong. It's measurably morally wrong. Now, we can't tell exactly how much suffering it causes...but we don't need to. We can estimate things well enough to tell that the approximate amount of suffering it causes is a lot greater than any positives it causes...most likely.
Now, in areas without such a complex legal system as the U.S., where the cost of the death penalty is no more than the cost of a bullet, things get more complicated and closer to subjective, but at least in the U.S. and similar nations, the answer seems pretty easy, and there seems to be only one sensible way of looking at things, and all other perspectives are delusional and should be ignored, so far as I can see.
That's assuming that the death penalty is much more expensive than life imprisonment though, and it isn't taking into account strategies for cheapening the death penalty, and again, it's ignoring other facts I may have failed to consider.
I note that you're in the Philippines. If the death penalty is substantially cheaper there, that might be an example of a place I would have to do more research into to even begin to determine if the death penalty is morally correct or not...and it might be too big of an effort to even make an attempt at identifying an objectively true solution, if there is a clear one. In the Phillipenes, at least, the rightness or wrongness of capital punishment could, for all I know, be basically subjective...at least for humans right now.
Morality is without question, at minimum, sometimes objective. Whether it's objective all the time or not depends on how you define objective morality, and how you argue your point.
For example, if I'm the only organism in existence and there are less unpleasant ways to end my life than igniting myself on fire, intentionally igniting myself on fire would always be morally wrong. My opinion wouldn't matter. It would simply cause massive amounts of suffering for no reason whatsoever. No sensible person would look at such an act as anything besides senseless, so it has to be morally wrong and the opinion of everyone who disagrees has been proven invalid by the aforementioned thought experiment.
Now, if there are no other ways to kill myself than igniting myself on fire, whether igniting myself on fire or not becomes more subjective, and not as clear cut.
__________________________________________________ _
Next, I would argue that morality is always objective in the sense that it can always be measured, in the sense that the particles that determine right and wrong are very real particles. These are particles of suffering and pleasure...It's just that they can't be measured accurately by humans with exact accuracy, and we'll almost certainly never be able to measure them accurately, and so for us it's often subjective. It would take some kind of all-knowing being who exists beyond time to accurately measure the particles of suffering and pleasure, and build the equations to determine the most morally correct routes of behavior possible.
Humans, of course, can't do that. We can estimate those correct routes though, and we're extremely good at it. We do it effortlessly, on many occasions. We instinctively know that the paper cut causes me less suffering than the snake bite, for example.
_______________________________________________
Now, let's look at the sensible way to determine whether or not the death penalty is right or wrong...because the way I see things, I very much disagree that objectivity is usually a lot more slippery than it appears. I think most people actually see it as much more slippery than it actually is, to the extent that the answers to many ethical conundrums are determined by whim or culture, which could much more accurately be determined through deeper thought.
Important factors we need to consider first are:
*What percentage of people are falsely accused and sentenced to death?
*How expensive is the death penalty compared to life imprisonment?
I have heard that lifetime imprisonment is actually much cheaper than the death penalty, at least in the United States and presumably many nations with similar legal systems:
Much to the surprise of many who, logically, would assume that shortening someone's life should be cheaper than paying for it until natural expiration, it turns out that it is actually cheaper to imprison someone for life than to execute them. In fact, it is almost 10 times cheaper! One might ask, “how can that be?”https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/wh...t-parole-31614
If that is true, then the death penalty both executes innocent people, and is more expensive than life imprisonment, so it has no obvious advantages and some major disadvantages. There could be unexpected advantages of the death penalty. Perhaps the fear it causes reduces crime more than life imprisonment...but until we get some firm knowledge relating to that, or other data I'm thinking I've just proven the death penalty in the United States to be objectively morally wrong, at least as far as we humans, with our limited knowledge of reality might as well look at it. The sum of suffering it results in appears to me much greater than any reduction of suffering it results in or any pleasure it causes. We have no sensible way to measure anything besides trying to achieve more pleasure and less suffering. Therefore, the death penalty appears to me to be objectively morally wrong. It's measurably morally wrong. Now, we can't tell exactly how much suffering it causes...but we don't need to. We can estimate things well enough to tell that the approximate amount of suffering it causes is a lot greater than any positives it causes...most likely.
Now, in areas without such a complex legal system as the U.S., where the cost of the death penalty is no more than the cost of a bullet, things get more complicated and closer to subjective, but at least in the U.S. and similar nations, the answer seems pretty easy, and there seems to be only one sensible way of looking at things, and all other perspectives are delusional and should be ignored, so far as I can see.
That's assuming that the death penalty is much more expensive than life imprisonment though, and it isn't taking into account strategies for cheapening the death penalty, and again, it's ignoring other facts I may have failed to consider.
I note that you're in the Philippines. If the death penalty is substantially cheaper there, that might be an example of a place I would have to do more research into to even begin to determine if the death penalty is morally correct or not...and it might be too big of an effort to even make an attempt at identifying an objectively true solution, if there is a clear one. In the Phillipenes, at least, the rightness or wrongness of capital punishment could, for all I know, be basically subjective...at least for humans right now.
Thank you for this informative and thought-provoking post.
IMO, the death penalty is wrong on the individual level because it's taking something that one could not replace; however, when someones a threat to the community, etc.....which rule do we go with? "an eye for an eye" or "turn the other cheek (for another slap)"?
The reference to life in prison reminds of the original purpose of prisons, which was/is reportedly mental health. I don't know. I'm just glad I don't have to play the role of the executioner (or the sin eater).
Who did you root for in the Super Bowl? Why? Do you think the other tenets you hold to are any more objectively sound than your choice of a favorite NFL team? Or is all just confirmation bias, right to yhe core?
Take capital punishment. There is absolutely no empirical evidence for or against capital punishment as public policy.. One chooses his position according to whether one is vindictive or compassionate by nature. After that, it's the turtles of confirmation bias all the way down.
Objectivity is a lot slipperier than it appears.
you forgot my type of person. Pragmatic. You said vindictive or compassionate, I am not particularly either of them.
there is no need for me to keep a broken machine running when it cost to much to do so. they build facilities to keep inmates, that can't live with inmates, running. i say turn them off. I don't hate them, and if needed, i will defend the action using love.
just saying, prick us (pragmatic's) ... do we not bleed.
Yes. The saying is a funny example of infinite regression which is counter - intuitive, but so is (or was) the idea of an infinite cosmos. It has to end somewhere. But, if so, what's beyond it? Nothingness? Can nothingness be infinite? It seems absurd, but it seems the only credible get - out of infinite regression.
Which is why a nothing that does not have to be created itself is the 'get out' of cosmic origins.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 12-04-2018 at 01:49 AM..
In my post, I was using it to show that your bias is built on more and more biases, each one confirmed by a seemingly never-ending series of selective confirmation.
I was hoping someone would get it. Thanks for making my day.
Sorry for my typo (mad vs. made)
It indeed made me laugh so hard!
Yes the human "dream" that was created long before any of us were born is indeed a construct of layer upon layer other peoples "dream" at the time.
Blindly following other people's "dreams" is a trait our species is highly susceptible to and one that has helped construct the "dream" we live in today. Sadly humans perspectives are becoming more and more narrowed with respect to the Universe. Many people's focus is a screen in the palm of their hand or in their living room or office. Many grow up in big cities where the farthest they can see is down the block. They will never see the vast stars in the night skies. They will never experience a daily walk in a forest or along a beach. They will never know what a bubbling creek sounds like.
The "dream" of today takes many humans far from where we came from and limits their exposure to nature.
Humans in the past took care of our planet and lived in harmony with it. Humans today do the opposite.
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