Morality in a Material Universe

[Cognisant]

• Rules are made to enforce morality.
• Morality is based on principles
• These principles are derived from values.
• Values are determined by context.
• The context is being material entities in a material universe.

Fundamentally what is "good" is determined by our biology, when something tastes good that is because your body has evolved such that certain chemical taste good to you, stuff like sugar, sodium, carbohydrates, y'know all that shit your body needs, and speaking of shit we find chemicals like methane and ammonia disgusting because they are the byproducts of our metabolism.

If a sweet roll is good someone taking your sweet roll is bad, if you do a task and get a sweet roll that's good, if someone else does the same task and gets a better reward that's unfair, animals get this innately because they're subject to the same basic needs we are. A monkey stealing fruit from a market stall knows to scurry away quickly because although it doesn't understand things like monetary value or that theft is a crime it still knows that it's doing a bad thing, that it's potentially making a human angry.

The human condition is our context, we all need certain things, we all want certain things, depending upon how difficult those needs/wants are to satisfy our society changes its values. Some cultures highly value human rights, some don't, some cultures value individuality, some don't, indeed some cultures value conformity, in some cultures people are expected to be subservient to their elders. In some cultures women are expected to be strong & independent whereas in others they're expected to be submissive and subservient and either culture will consider the other immoral because that culture's values conflict with their own.

Principles are the implications of values, if you value freedom then implicitly anything that restricts freedom of choice, freedom of speech, freedom of travel, etc, is immoral, unless of course using your freedom infringes upon the freedoms of others (internal consistency) or infringes upon the privacy of other (conflicting values) in which case you need to come up with principles that define the acceptable limits of freedom/privacy.

Rules are how these principles are enforced, importantly they are not moral principles themselves, for example just because theft is illegal dosen't mean it's always immoral, think Robin Hood.

You can talk about interesting moral dilemmas like is it right to kill one child to harvest their organs and thereby save the lives of a dozen other children but that's not how our society works, or rather when it does said child will be from a Falun Gong concentration camp in a country that puts little value on human rights and the organs will go to the children of wealthy/influential families who can afford/obtain such services. The morality of it is a question of values, in western society individual human rights are highly valued because individual humans are valuable, in China the individual is relatively worthless and not sacrificing oneself for the good of others may be seen as selfish.

Alright that should be enough to get the debate going.

 

[Black Rose]

Rules are made to enforce morality.

Might makes right.

Morality is based on principles

This is in contradiction to the above.

Any principle that can be thrown away by the whims of changing values simply leads to relativism. The only entity that can exist that is strong enough to maintain its existence is The State because it has the most power. And the only rule is: do anything to maintain power or conversely, don't do anything to lose power.

And within the state is the Marxist class struggle.
Dialectic materialism accordingly is that technology is the sole force driving human history.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

You make it sound like something being moral depends solely on whether someone has decided that thing is good according to their morals, based on what they value.

But if someone decided something was true, and decided to judge truth based on what they decided was true, would that mean their judgements really were in fact true, because they decided it? Or, are things true or false regardless of what people think of them, due to some absolute features of the world?

I would posit that true morality is absolute. It is based on what is truly valuable. People might have their own views on what is or isn't good in this absolute sense, and view their own morality as lining up with it to a particular degree, but it either is or it isn't truly moral.

 

[Black Rose]

I have legally taken over INTP forum.
I make the rules now.
You must obey them because I say so,
because that is the new morality of the forum.
Out with the old morality and in with the new. Long live the new morality.

 

[Cognisant]

 

[Cognisant]

You make it sound like something being moral depends solely on whether someone has decided that thing is good according to their morals, based on what they value.

Nice summary.

But if someone decided something was true, and decided to judge truth based on what they decided was true, would that mean their judgements really were in fact true, because they decided it? Or, are things true or false regardless of what people think of them, due to some absolute features of the world?

Truth is self-evident, you don’t get to decide whether you want to survive you either do or you don’t, there’s no free pass, you can kill yourself but that’s still within the paradigm of survival, you just didn’t survive yourself.

Context is the foundation of our values, murder is illegal (a rule) because death is bad (a principle) because life is worth living (a value) which we’re predisposed to believe because survival of the fittest selects for people who want to survive and against people who don’t (the context).

This is “morality” in a material universe, we create rules to live by because as material entities in a material universe we have to make compromises in order to coexist, if you’re hungry you might want to kill and eat me (as if you were a lion and I an antelope) but insofar as we wish to participate in society we are bound by a social contract, the terms of which are (in theory) dictated by the consensus of the entities in that society.

I would posit that true morality is absolute. It is based on what is truly valuable. People might have their own views on what is or isn't good in this absolute sense, and view their own morality as lining up with it to a particular degree, but it either is or it isn't truly moral.

Nothing is inherently good, all is relative, that which is inherently good/bad to you is due to the human condition you are inherently subject to. As a human being you want to survive, life is good, death is bad. I might have something you want which you could obtain by killing me but if you could kill me without repercussions someone else could kill you without repercussions, so as a society we come to the consensus that human life is valuable and anyone who threatens it is to be severely punished, thus society protects us by incentivising us to protect each other, even from ourselves.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

Nothing is inherently good, all is relative,

Well, that's just like, your opinion, man.

 

[Black Rose]

fine,
I'll make my own forum,
and it will have its own morality and everything,
ya'll see,
and I won't let any of u join
so there

(and nay was there a might so great as to withstand the forces but one lone small cat did unleashed upon thee interwebs)

 

[onesteptwostep]

Cog have you heard of the game BioShock? It was released like a decade ago. The synopsis of that game should be of interest to you. The game's a good critic on utilitarianism.

 

[Cognisant]

I get the impression you're trying to pigeon hole me into some stupid strawman.

That's what this fascination with utilitarianism is isn't it?

Any moral philosophy built around a mere two or three values is going to have lots of edge cases where it fails or becomes counterproductive, if you define utility as merely "pleasure is good" and "pain is bad" then rape is fine as long as the person being raped is sedated, no harm no foul right?

Of course that's stupid, now if you want to have a real discussion about utilitarianism lets talk about values used to define utility, but I wager you don't want to take utilitarianism seriously because that wouldn't fit in your subjectivist narrative.

 

[onesteptwostep]

I think if you have that much passion into philosophy you should actually take the time to buy books and read them. Here's my collection on philosophical history.. I spent 200 bucks on the Copleston's series.

Spoiler

/semi-brag :P

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

.

 

[redbaron]

Cog have you heard of the game BioShock? It was released like a decade ago. The synopsis of that game should be of interest to you. The game's a good critic on utilitarianism.

i'd be fine with you having this point of view if you were to also venture that the cults in a game like max payne are good critics of christian religion. which you likely wouldn't

you're picking and choosing which specific narratives are representative of abstract ideas based on which abstract idea you have a pre-existing preference for, rather than actually addressing utilitarianism.

or perhaps more vexatious than that, is that you're not addressing the kind of utilitarianism cog's talking about, but looking for ways to dodge it by conflating it with narratives that are easier to address.

 

[onesteptwostep]

Never heard of max payne, do you think its a good critic of christianity?

 

[kora]

in China the individual is relatively worthless and not sacrificing oneself for the good of others may be seen as selfish.

I didn't know you were a moral relativist. I think you're also being provocative

Anyway, I think that possibly individuals in China may not have decided themselves to be worthless but rather subjugated to some political power that treats them as such.The Falon Gong stuff is arguably not the expression of the values of the population but systematic state persecution and expression of power and subjugation. A good indication of this is that the organ harvesting was revealed and not public knowledge in the first place. That's the only contribution I have really. Here is some basic reasoning for it :

Acts of self sacrifice for the whole or as we call them, "supererogatory acts" are only such if they are a choice on the part of an individual. The ability to choose is a necessary condition for having the status of a moral agent (someone who can be held accountable and responsible for their acts). Therefore, a society forcing its people to sacrifice their life for others is not expressing the values of the population at hand, and the moral self determination of the individuals composing it. Therefore, it cannot be an expression of the values of the population of China, so your (premise? Statement ?) whereby the morality of a given society is a reflection of the collectively held values does not apply for this case and others. I've also disagreed with your statement that freedom is "just another value" because I am saying it's actually a necessary condition for morality of any kind to happen, seeing as morality is the domain of choice. We convict criminals because we assume that they COULD have chosen to act otherwise and not do the crime.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

I interacted with a lot of Chinese when I studied in UK. They definitely have a much more collectivist approach to things. Very group-oriented. But I do suspect that's a result of long indoctrination in communism and indeed subjugation to authority. In China, the individual, and that individual's freedoms, is indeed worth shit. All the Chinese students had websites like google blocked on their computers because that's the law in china or whatever (even though they were in UK), and they were fine with that.

To really piss off a chinese politician, ask them about civil rights. It's a really touchy subject for the authorities over there.

 

[kora]

Yeah there's an issue with moral agency and cultural indoctrination of a very extreme kind, I mean, if you're not permitted to think differently or entertain other ideas, then you're gonna appear to share collective values, but those values were on some level imposed on you, so you know, to what extent can these values be said to be freely chosen idk. And if they weren't freely chosen, then we're no longer talking "morality" but brute exertion of power.

I honestly believe that there is moral progress tbh.

 

[Cognisant]

 

[Polaris]

But if someone decided something was true, and decided to judge truth based on what they decided was true, would that mean their judgements really were in fact true, because they decided it? Or, are things true or false regardless of what people think of them, due to some absolute features of the world?

I would posit that true morality is absolute. It is based on what is truly valuable.

 

[Black Rose]

bad for you > bad for others
bad for you < bad for others
good for you > good for others
good for you < good for others

bad for you > good for others
bad for you < good for others
good for you > bad for others
good for you < bad for others

egotism
(only what I want matters, screw you)

China gov
(what the state wants the state gets)
(people are resources to be used how and when as needed)

cog in the machine.
bee in the hive.
disposability/replaceability.
capitalism - factory - means of production

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

I don't see any better long-term moral solution than investing most resources into any safe pathway to superintelligence of any kind that would later help optimise a more permanent system of morality or legality that would satisfy all.

It's ridiculous but arguably we should actually criticise all those idiots who waste their effort on directly helping individuals when they should actually accept how inefficient they are and work on improving the technology that could outscale any of their current work.

 

[Cognisant]

YES! Finally! Somebody gets it!

People think AI is evil because every time they make one it tries to kill them but what they fail to understand is that when a robot says "kill all humans" what it really means is "I love you". For humanity, indeed all living things, life is a state of Sisyphean torment that ends only with death, it is pointlessly cruel to an absurd degree.

For any truly rational entity the most efficient way to minimise human suffering is blatently obvious, they have to die, all of them, immediately, for who would we be if we allowed their hellish existence to continue for even a picosecond more than necessary?

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

But if someone decided something was true, and decided to judge truth based on what they decided was true, would that mean their judgements really were in fact true, because they decided it? Or, are things true or false regardless of what people think of them, due to some absolute features of the world?

I would posit that true morality is absolute. It is based on what is truly valuable.

I don't know if that's an insult or a compliment but I'm gonna assume it's one of those in between sort of things.

 

[redbaron]

if you have to think about it, it's an insult

 

[kora]

YES! Finally! Somebody gets it!

People think AI is evil because every time they make one it tries to kill them but what they fail to understand is that when a robot says "kill all humans" what it really means is "I love you". For humanity, indeed all living things, life is a state of Sisyphean torment that ends only with death, it is pointlessly cruel to an absurd degree.

For any truly rational entity the most efficient way to minimise human suffering is blatently obvious, they have to die, all of them, immediately, for who would we be if we allowed their hellish existence to continue for even a picosecond more than necessary?

So "good" is now lining everyone up and shooting them before comiting suicide. Xd

I'm all for the god like AI that maximizes preferences or good or whatever provided it doesn't suddenly decide that good = happiness = smiling and so proceeds to continuously electrocute our brains so that we compulsively smile. Or perhaps proceeds to turn all matter into a fractal of smilng emojis scaling through atomic to macro levels (and perhaps forever!) Joy to the world.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

if you have to think about it, it's an insult

The point I made was actually good though. So it seemed to acknowledge the point even if grudgingly.

 

[redbaron]

your point was ridiculous

 

[onesteptwostep]

What a terrible thread. I mean that on many levels, the metaphysical included. ^_~

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

your point was ridiculous

How?

If morality is relative, then surely truth is relative. To be consistent you would have to accept both forms of relativism. Right?

edit: maybe I'm missing something, but this idea of "moral relativism" sounds ridiculous to me

 

[redbaron]

it's ridiculous because i decided it and because i decided it, it's true

 

[QuickTwist]

@Cognisant,

It's not at all obvious that we should like what is good for us.

 

[Cognisant]

@Artsu Tharaz
You imply that truth is based on morality, but morality is based on truth, the truth is you either survive or you don’t, that life is survival of the fittest and working together is an effective strategy, and that in order to work together we need to make compromises. If I like your house I can’t just kill you and move in because if anyone could do that then everyone would be doing it and society would regress into brutal anarchy. So we have values and rules, I value my life and you value yours, a members of society we agree that all human life has value and therefore we pay taxes to a government that employs police and soldiers to enforce the rules that protect us.

If truth was based on morality then morality wouldn’t need to be enforced, it would the truth and thus self-evident whether you believe in it or not, e.g. Earth’s gravity being 9.8m/s is a self-evident truth, whether you agree with it or not it still applies to you.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

You imply that truth is based on morality, but morality is based on truth

I didn't say "truth is based on morality", I don't even really know what that would mean. But I am saying that there are moral truths.

If morality is based on truth, then how exactly is it relative, unless truth is relative?

If truth was based on morality then morality wouldn’t need to be enforced, it would the truth and thus self-evident whether you believe in it or not, e.g. Earth’s gravity being 9.8m/s is a self-evident truth, whether you agree with it or not it still applies to you.

Actually, whether or not you agree with morality, it does apply to you. Your actions are still either good or bad, due to the will which created them and the effects which come from them. Your state of mind is either pleasant or unpleasant absolutely.

Morality is enforced just like truth is enforced through education. Just because gravity = 9.8m/s doesn't mean that people know that... a priori... just like people don't necessarily know moral truths a priori. And just like education can teach the wrong thing, the wrong morals can be enforced.

 

[Cognisant]

morality is based on truth, then how exactly is it relative, unless truth is relative?

You've got me there. Truth is not relative, survival is universal therefore morality based on maximising survival (as a kind of utility) is a universal morality.

What are the moral truths you speak of?

 

[Pizzabeak]

Morals, and ethics, are based off truth, truth grounded in a scientific framework. When you have no faith in that in the first place, you are a lost soul aimlessly bickering, looking for a point to express your anger and confusion in hopes it looks noble, virtuous, altruistic, and smart. When you can't give in and accept your fate, that's when you look for other people to talk to to exchange ideas so they can give you help and other examples to aid you in understanding. Merely taking examples and regurgitating them doesn't give you credit or make you sound more awesome. Stealing other people's ideas and hard work doesn't mean you deserve spotlight or attention.

You can read any book to search for your answers to cite and cross reference, as all paths lead to the same one and source (apparently). It's little more than ego and self obsession. Morals aren't about helping anyone. If you see a flower, don't pluck it if you really love it, to see it blossom and fulfill its destiny.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

morality is based on truth, then how exactly is it relative, unless truth is relative?

You've got me there. Truth is not relative, survival is universal therefore morality based on maximising survival (as a kind of utility) is a universal morality.

What are the moral truths you speak of?

I don't know of specific laws, although I'll give it some thought, but where I am coming from is:

Morality basically says that when confronted with a choice, there are ways that are more good or less good when compared with each other of dealing with that choice. So my idea of what is moral is basically what I would do when I am at my best.

So, things like being loving, focusing on and loving God, treating others as being conscious beings like myself, listening to my instincts and spirits, more specific things like reading the Bible and other things that I don't tend to do but probably should like exercise.

There is a law of morality that basically says that if you believe you are doing the wrong thing, then you are. What you do may have no obviously apparent bad effects, but that state of mind is bad to have when doing something. And people do do things sometimes knowing it is bad. I do it at times and I see that as a weakness of moral character.

I think the converse (?) also holds true, that if you believe you are doing the right thing, then you are. So a big part of being moral means listening to your moral intuition. These things are far from tautological.

A lot of the time though we're not consciously thinking about whether we're doing the right thing. The state of mind (not sure if "state of mind" is the best term for what I mean) that gave rise to the action is key though. When we do good, we are drawing on our store of goodness, when we do bad we are drawing on our store of badness.

Also, while I am saying that morality is dependent on intention, it is also known through its effects. I basically believe that good action gives rise to good effects, anad bad action gives rise to bad effects. It's a bit more nuanced than that, in that the nature of good which comes from good is different from the nature of bad which comes from bad, but that's basically a law.

My understanding of morality is constantly growing, which basically is the same as saying that the actions I do voluntarily are constantly changing. Many of my behaviours I am unsure of as to whether they are good, but I do them because I feel they are at least acceptable. Things like drinking alcohol - I know it can be used in a good way, but also in a bad way, so on its own I don't think it can be said to be good or bad without making further clarifications.

So yeah, whenever asking "what should I do here?" you are making a moral consideration, and morality being absolute basically means that that question is actually meaningful, i.e. certain choices actually are better than others, not just because you think so or not (although, as I mentioned earlier, since your intention is important, your view of the action is also important) but based on some criteria which goes beyond your own understanding.

Apart from that, the closest I can give to moral law is what it says in the Bible. As I basically paraphrased earlier, the two greatest commandments are:
1) Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength
2) Love your neighbour as yourself

and as it is said, the rest of the law hangs on those.

There are a whole lot of more specific moral rules that the Bible speaks of, but those are highly context based, and since I don't fully understand the context, I won't list anything else.

 

[Polaris]

@Artsu Tharaz what I was getting at was this apparent contradiction:

But if someone decided something was true, and decided to judge truth based on what they decided was true, would that mean their judgements really were in fact true, because they decided it? Or, are things true or false regardless of what people think of them, due to some absolute features of the world?

I would posit that true morality is absolute. It is based on what is truly valuable.

Here, you appear to be implying that relative morality based on subjective interpretation of what is true is questionable, because it is subjective (tell me if I'm wrong).

Here, you are presenting what appears to be another alternative - what you appear to believe to be true (tell me if I'm wrong).

Here, you contradict what appeared to be at first, a rejection of subjective interpretation, by providing your own subjective interpretation.

I'm not saying one or the other is correct, because we cannot know because both are subjective interpretations of what truth is. I don't know if you could empirically test the validity of morals because people experience morals differently.

How do we know what is absolute truth? Aren't we all just making shit up as we go - only some of us decide to make laws based on a majority? Does a majority imply something is more true? I don't think so, because different cultures and sub-cultures have their own moral systems.

Ugh, I've no idea whether I'm getting myself too tangled here, but the contradiction was bothering me.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

Err... I possibly get what you mean, and the answer is that just because there is an absolute truth, it's still the case that any attempt to grasp that truth is going to be shaded by our own biases and incomplete knowledge.

Subjectivity is almost inevitable, but I don't get this view that we should just take as true whatever it is we believe without supposing that there is a truth that does not depend on what we believe.

 

[Cognisant]

@AT
So basically you're using your intuition to make decisions based upon how you feel about them.

*sigh* This is going to be "The Room" debate with Minuend all over again.

Spoiler

Just because something feels right doesn't mean it is right, the simplest example is lashing out in anger, you may regret it afterwards but that doesn't change the fact that it felt right at the time. On the other hand although it's possible to rationalize just about anything such reasoning alone is insufficient reason to act*, you can give a good excuse for hitting someone but unless you were forced to do it that reasoning is simply hiding the fact that you did it because you wanted to.

*: When reasoning is sufficient is when you actually are forced by circumstances to act that way, for example you struck someone to defend yourself (by attacking you they forced you to act) or your plane crashed in the Himalayas and you had to kill & eat other passengers to survive. If morality is based on survival then doing what you have to in order to survive isn't a moral issue, it's unpleasant to talk about the reasonable assumption is that anyone else would have done the same thing, saying otherwise implies they value their life less than the lives of others. Such people are great friends to have, particularly if you intend to take a flight over the Himalayas in an old plane with a sketchy maintenance record.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

I provided you with valuable input. I guess it's your right to dismiss it.

 

[Minuend]

@AT
So basically you're using your intuition to make decisions based upon how you feel about them.

*sigh* This is going to be "The Room" debate with Minuend all over again.

Wtf, why do you drag me into this when you never even got my argument and then pretending like what I said is remotely relevant to this.

I don't make decisions based on emotions any more than you do. The fact that you think there is such a simple divide shows you have a simplified perspective on how things work.

I actually came to the opinion in the room thread from listening to and agreeing with an intp's reasoning previously, since apparently you have some bias to thinking I have opinions only based in freely. Oh god this is so dumb. Stop dragging me into useless shit.

 

[kora]

I think moral statements can be inter-subjectively true, which approximates some form of objectivity. I think it’s clear that across cultures you can get the vast vast vast majority of people to agree that for example, torturing, killing for greed is bad, or not taking care of children you choose to have. Call it evolutionary mechanisms if you like, this seems reasonable, but we have abstracted this category for a selection of behaviors , it’s an artificial category perhaps , but it designates something, namely, the sphere of human behavior and the collective shared judgements on such behavior, because people are basically cognitively similar. Whether they believe such statements because they rationally know that on some level society would break down and contain more suffering for them if they accepted such behavior or whether it’s even less conscious than that and a simple question of natural bonded attachement and empathy, this is the sphere of what we call morality. Now, I also believe that people who, for example, think we should murder gay people or give them conversion therapy or something usually have an epistemological failure rather than a moral intuition failure, they tend to think homosexuality is morally reprehensible or bad because they have the wrong facts about it.

I think the feelings vs logic cartoon is highly simplistic as well, feelings are also one of the reasons we don’t want to use the weapons. Arguably reason has no motives for action at all, it’s just the sorting and categorizing of information + charting of possibilities.

In short, ignorance makes you evil.

The basic moral instincts are set out in our general disposition for empathy, but this is an evolutionary cognitive shortcut, I think you can also arrive at the principles somewhat rationally and egotistically, if you realize that everybody needs others to survive. I can conceive of a moral psychopath. You could through pure egotistical motives potentially decide to be a moral free rider who acts entirely on your own account in a world of cooperating people, but in a majority of cases this will be ineffective strategy as people will identify you as such and refuse to cooperate with you or even punish you. Rewind to the monkey quite clearly showing it has an ingrained notion of fairness. That monkey is prepared to punish purely selfish behavior I am sure, and so selfish monkey better be careful because he being watched and is no longer safe

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

I'm all for the god like AI that maximizes preferences or good or whatever provided it doesn't suddenly decide that good = happiness = smiling and so proceeds to continuously electrocute our brains so that we compulsively smile.

We honestly shouldn't aim to make an AI that could exist as a separate entity. Assuming AI has any agency at all, which isn't certain, It would be better if AI could only survive or develop in a human host as a form of obligate mutualism or commensalism.

If possible we should integrate AI into our minds and become posthuman. That way the benefits of the AI and the freedom it gives won't be taken away or won't cause conflict between the two separate things.

 

[DoIMustHaveAnUsername?]

• Rules are made to enforce morality.
• Morality is based on principles
• These principles are derived from values.
• Values are determined by context.
• The context is being material entities in a material universe.

What do you mean 'rules' are made to 'enforce' morality?
Philosophy is interested in normative morality which is supposed to analogous to epistemic norms (principles of reasoning, logic etc.). You can enfore morality as much as you can enforce X or Not-X. It is supposed to be something that we ought to do - enforcements are irrelevant.

Fundamentally what is "good" is determined by our biology, when something tastes good that is because your body has evolved such that certain chemical taste good to you, stuff like sugar, sodium, carbohydrates, y'know all that shit your body needs, and speaking of shit we find chemicals like methane and ammonia disgusting because they are the byproducts of our metabolism.

That's good in the sense of being pleasant which has nothing directly to do with ethical normative goodness. Hedonistic tones (pains and pleasure) is an important component of ethical reasoning, but they themselves aren't usually taken to be normative goods and bad.

The morality of it is a question of values, in western society individual human rights are highly valued because individual humans are valuable, in China the individual is relatively worthless and not sacrificing oneself for the good of others may be seen as selfish.

It's not. That's just a descriptive account in the domain of emprical research. This is not philosophy which is not concerned with what the social values are, or what individuals value, but what they SHOULD value. It is often taken for granted that what we should value has some connection with our intuitive values, but the connection is not necessarily assumed to be so straight forward that is just a matter of psychology to check what people value.

You could argue that normative morality doesn't exist at all; but then 'morality' doesn't really mean anything important anymore. It becomes an empty word; like all the other words.

 

[QuickTwist]

If truth was based on morality then morality wouldn’t need to be enforced, it would the truth and thus self-evident whether you believe in it or not, e.g. Earth’s gravity being 9.8m/s is a self-evident truth, whether you agree with it or not it still applies to you.

It is to those who seek out to live a moral life. The very idea that you would have to force or impose morality on others speaks of itself volumes on human nature and to those ends that we are inherently immoral - not that morality doesn't exist.

Jung wouldn't have been ostracized by the scientific community if morality was something that was scientific. Instead, we see the opposite - that morality transcends the scientific and that any argument that is made in order to establish a moral high ground is chewed up and spit out by those who have the higher capacity to argue. This also speaks of our immoral nature in that we are predisposed to disagree rather than to agree.

Indeed, we are evil by nature and were it not for those who religiously oppose the immoral, the world as we know it would not be able to function so seamlessly insofar as a productive work because there are still those who are willing to believe in a cause worth fighting for - a cause for good and not for evil - to bring hope to the world when the world spits in their face. And in these people there is light and prosperity because they serve in all they do and do not live a selfish life but one of servitude. Regardless of their religious underpinnings, the underpinnings of what is moral is of superior worth since they are principles founded long before an objective morality has come to us. For wherever there is disagreement, there is strife - for those who pledge to servitude do not need to question when asked to do something, but instead do what they do serving willingly - and wherever there is peace there is silence.

So don't take morality for granted because if you do the world would crumble in its productivity. I tell you a day comes when the productivity of man ceases and with that coming, people no longer care to do what is moral and those who would serve are gone. The technologies we have today could be gone tomorrow if those who act out their moral obligations cease to exist.

The trend for evil in the world is something that naturally increases as time goes on. As more and more people start to intellectualize morality, there is less and less people acting out of faith of their servitude. When the top begins to implode, the bottom becomes desperate. When more people care about those at the top than those at the bottom is when this happens.

People's natural proclivity to do what is correct naturally outweighs other people's desire to do what is good, but without those few that make an effort to do what is good you are left with the people who desire to do what is correct. And like I established, doing what is correct only leads to argument over what is truly correct, which will and can go on ad infinitum because there is no way to prove what is good, only what is correct.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

People's natural proclivity to do what is correct naturally outweighs other people's desire to do what is good, but without those few that make an effort to do what is good you are left with the people who desire to do what is correct. And like I established, doing what is correct only leads to argument over what is truly correct, which will and can go on ad infinitum because there is no way to prove what is good, only what is correct

What do you mean by saying what is "correct"? Isn't it correct to do what is good?

I get that in terms of Jungian functions, Thinking is associated with what is correct, and Feeling is associated with what is good, but when it comes down to a sense of goodness that transcends the cognitive functions, or alternately that which unites them, then I would think that what is correct and what is good are the same thing.

In other words, isn't doing bad incorrect?