since we (try to) start fom a point of minimal assumptions (i.e. directly observable facts), then build up from there.

godma, this is where we part company on the question. Having done a bit of reading about Occam’s razor and the principle of parsimony lately, and especially the limited and very specialized applications of them I’m inclined to view their use very strictly. Unless the question can be defined and the knowledge about the subject is sufficiently broad then their application is unwise. It’s better to remain agnostic on the subject than to go out on a limb and start chopping branches. You never know when you’ll be left without support. The question of what methods and tools of formal logic or science that would apply to proposed supernatural entities is entirely unknown and almost certainly unknowable.

Yes, I am aware that there are people who claim that moral statements contain an implicit ‘for me’ at the end of them. There are also people who claim that morality comes from God.

Both views are mistaken.

The standard interpretation of ‘X is wrong’ means ‘it is wrong for anybody in like situations to do X’. This is the principle of universalizability.

This view is also entirely inconsistent with the nature and substance of moral argument. There is absolutely no sense in debating issues that have an implicit ‘for me’ at the end. Yet, moral issues are at the heart of a great deal of debate.

A third problem is that if there is no reason to choose one option over another, then why choose? Why say that abortion is either permissible or impermissible unless there is some reason to choose the proposition “abortion is permissible” over “abortion is impermissible?”

And if these reasons for choice are personal, then the ‘for me’ interpretation of morality says it is a sufficiently good reason to kill (or torture) somebody that the killer or torturer feels no sense of aversion to killing or torturing others.

Anyway, I reject the ‘for me’ interpretation of morality as being even less coherent (and less rational) than religion-based morality.

Having said this, I do not believe that there are moral absolutes. I am a moral relativists. Only, there are a lot of different types of relativism. I reject the ‘for me’ form of relativism, but accept a type of ‘for us’ relativism.

Saying that our ’sense of right and wrong’ is explainable in natural terms is like saying of a person who is looking at a mirage that his ’sense of water in the distance’ is produced by natural causes. It is true, in a sense, but still it is a mistake to infer from the fact that one sees something that one thinks is water that there is any real water out there.

The only thing that we ’sense’ with our ’sense of right and wrong’ is a set of culturally implanted preference. Yet, like I wrote above, you cannot infer a moral conclusion from a preference.

Steelman

There is a difference between saying that a house is built out of bricks and that houses are bricks. Morality takes desires (which have a genetic origin) as their building material. However, morality and genetically modified desires are still two different entities (like houses and bricks).

I also agree with you that science generally doesn’t lead us to our moral senses, but rather they comes more from our instincts and upbringing. Then from that point on they might be tweaked and adjusted over time by rationalizing about them.

What exactly did I say that you disagree with, and how?

How cool! I found these even before my cool blog told me about it!

Enjoy the crazy sound effects…

Alonzo said: “Sorry, but absolutely none of our morality comes from a genetic source. The concept of ‘morality’ is fundamentally at odds with this possibility.”

And then, in a second post:

“I grant that it is very common for people to infer moral judgments from personal preferences, and that personal preferences often have a genetic origin. However, the fact that a particular line of reasoning is common does not make it sound.”

You say none of our morality has a genetic origin, and then say morality based on personal preferences (which often have a genetic origin) is very common. So which is it? Impossible or very common (which I take to mean normative)? Your essay you linked to delves a little deeper into the subject. I agree fully with Atheist Observer’s contribution in the comments to your essay, by the way.

That bit of never vs. often confusion aside, I think we agree that these studies tell us only about moral intuitions, that those intuitions come from both nature and nurture, and that these intuitions are not a proper basis for any ethical system. Nonetheless, I do think these studies serve an important purpose in telling us what most people think about ethical dilemmas, and why they might think what they do. I didn’t listen to the mp3; did they claim that morality is wholly genetic?

Are we going to hold that those who give one answer are genetically superior to those who give a different answer? On what grounds do we evaluate one genetic answer as ‘better than’ the other? What are we going to do with those who are genetically inferior, because they do not pick the right answer?

Genetics aside, we already hold that those who give one answer are morally superior to those who give a different answer, yes? However, we put morally inferior people in prison only for their morally inferior behavior, not for thinking the wrong way. We certainly don’t imprison people for incorrect test answers, although they can be denied employment on that basis (e.g. you can’t be a police officer if you don’t pass the psych-test). I don’t think the genetics question can be used to set societal moral standards unless the claim that morality is wholly based on genetics can be proven conclusively, a test for the correct “moral genes” can be administered, and it is proven that the effects of those “morally inferior” genes can be accurately predicted but never mitigated. I’m not sure those criteria will ever be met.

I define morality as being unwilling to unnecessarily harm other beings and the positive action of preventing and lessening harm to other beings. It’s not science that leads me to that view, it’s experience and history. Living beings have inherent rights, it is what the results of the assumption that they don’t have inherent rights that proves to my satisfaction that believing in them is sensible. I leave the question of where those rights come from as an open question because no one has come up with an objective answer to it.