thejoshlord Wrote:Just to let everyone know, there is a strong chance of me going to Japan THIS OCTOBER!!!!!

hopefully i will be able to answer this question for myself ^ ^

That would indeed be the best answer!

After reading lots of the good/bad discussion, I still want to live and work there for some years, AT LEAST that experience will add to me as an individual.

@IceCream isn't our conscience an emergent property of the complexity of our brain?. Reason is not a divine given but just an accident.

Secondly, I am afraid there is not false distinction, the more I look at that statement, the more it seems without fault. I think reason is the only tool we have to determine anything. Write down your observations, run experiments, compare, draw out conclusions and share, it doesn't get better than that. I think empathy is an useful tool that helps us identify what is undesirable and what is not and that supports how we refine the values and principles we use to measure what's right and wrong in practical terms, and that is certainly convenient.

IceCream Wrote:Once we set empathy for others as our basis for morality, we can derive rules based on empathy for others.

Yes. That doesn't mean it's all-encompassingly correct though.

Lastly, a system of rules dictating morality is akin to a code of law, behaving according to the law is lawful but that does not mean its do's and do not's are inherently justified, this is particularly true since law is always being revised. Of course, realistically, law is a fine tool to regulate society and it has to be challenged again and again to further advance its competency but its universality is by all measures fallacious, as I reasoned before, any rules dictating conduct is bound to fail in this stance because there is arguable no intrinsic purpose beyond life than to live.

turvy Wrote:@IceCream isn't our conscience an emergent property of the complexity of our brain?. Reason is not a divine given but just an accident.

Conscience is just one of the effects of empathy, so yes, it's a property of our brain....?

turvy Wrote:Secondly, I am afraid there is not false distinction, the more I look at that statement, the more it seems without fault. I think reason is the only tool we have to determine anything. Write down your observations, run experiments, compare, draw out conclusions and share, it doesn't get better than that. I think empathy is an useful tool that helps us identify what is undesirable and what is not and that supports how we refine the values and principles we use to measure what's right and wrong in practical terms, and that is certainly convenient.

It's a false distinction, because we don't only have the options of "morality existing by itself" and "drawing morality from reasoning". We also have empathy, which is neither of those.
Reasoning is primarily the thing you want to use to make conclusions about things in the world, so, given that morality doesn't exist "in the world", it's the wrong tool to try to use to provide a basis for morality. What you need to be asking is "how did morality emerge in the first place?" and i think the answer is clearly through empathy (and reasoning from empathy). The universality of this between humans allows us to take it as our baseline.

turvy Wrote:Lastly, a system of rules dictating morality is akin to a code of law, behaving according to the law is lawful but that does not mean its do's and do not's are inherently justified, this is particularly true since law is always being revised. Of course, realistically, law is a fine tool to regulate society and it has to be challenged again and again to further advance its competency but its universality is by all measures fallacious, as I reasoned before, any rules dictating conduct is bound to fail in this stance because there is arguable no intrinsic purpose beyond life than to live.

You don't seem to have read my reply. If you stop using the terms of reasoning, and use other terms, for example "beauty" and "ugliness" stemming from our natural emotions towards them, you find that moral judgements become at least as inherantly justified as the belief that the world exists outside our consciousness, because it's impossible to feel suffering as beautiful (good). That doesn't mean that our empathy or moral reasoning from empathy is infallible though, since we need more information to make those judgements in many cases.

Turvy: Oh well you're certainly right that clarity isn't the only thing that's important when writing, I was expressing myself very clumsily there, sorry. Still, it's important to find a balance so you don't sacrifice too much clarity for the sake of your own personal style, because if you do, communication just becomes too cumbersome.

And pseudo-quoting myself here, "not saying "rape is wrong", instead of "since I hold a fundamental belief in human rights as well as wish as little harm as possible to come to people in general, I think, in relation to my own belief system, that rape is wrong"? is mostly just a matter of not wanting to be so long-winded, I think.". In the discussion we were having we were reasoning with certain implicit beliefs in the background so when you took the discussion to a more 'meta' level, which is fine, it was just kind of sudden since we hadn't been discussing at that level previously in the thread (as far as I know anyway) so it threw me off I guess.

Edit: Oh and when I wrote "i hope this doesn't make you feel bad" I really meant "I hope I don't come off as a total jackass to you" since I figured I might sound like a know-it-all.

IceCream Wrote:

turvy Wrote:@IceCream isn't our conscience an emergent property of the complexity of our brain?. Reason is not a divine given but just an accident.

Conscience is just one of the effects of empathy, so yes, it's a property of our brain....?

Conscience is just one of the effects of empathy, so yes, it's a property of our brain....?

Yes, that's what I said too. Empathy is an aspect of our emerging conscience. And our conscience the result of evolution, which is not purposeful, therefore morality is a constructed concept and not an intrinsic component of the universe. Morality is a conclusion that you reach after reasoning so it's certainly drawn from reasoning and asking 'does morality exist by itself?' is just a self-evident question hinting it doesn't, morality does not exist by itself because its the fruit of our fabrication.

Why, that's untrue, I did read your, without-care-of-risking-seeming-long-winded posts and enjoyed them a good deal. But 'you don't seem to have read my replies' is such a typical argument in discussions that maybe you just spewed in here after it popped it up in your IceCream gray matter. I am glad we were engaged in this lived argument however, but I am sorry, I just can't possibly use emotional terms like beauty and ugly willy-nilly like you suggest. By the way what kind of IceCream flavor are you?.

Surreal Wrote:Still, it's important to find a balance so you don't sacrifice too much clarity for the sake of your own personal style, because if you do, communication just becomes too cumbersome.

Indeed. I will take you up on that.

Surreal Wrote:I hope I don't come off as a total jackass to you" since I figured I might sound like a know-it-all.

You sound like you know what you are talking about and I respect that.

ugh, i give up.

No, morality is not an intrinsic component of the universe.

No, morality is not "a conclusion" that you reach after reasoning.

It's something that you feel, not think.

That feeling is universal between humans, and while you can programmed to turn empathy off, you can't be programmed to feel empathy in the opposite way as you do now.

Therefore we have a basis for morality.

I don't know how to write it any more clearly than that, sorry.

We could just as easily be sitting here chatting about whether I am the only person who REALLY exists in the universe, or that i am actually a brain in a vat, but frankly, i don't care to assume anything other than that i'm not, so i don't care about those questions. In exactly the same way, i'm not worried that morality does not exist as an intrinsic component of the universe, as long as we have a universal basis for it.

IceCream Wrote:[Morality] It's something that you feel, not think.

Mmm, I disagree. There are things that I do that other people could 'feel' immoral but I don't and vice versa. There are even things that I do that I myself 'feel' immoral but they can't possibly be immoral. This all 'feeling' is not consistent. We can't reliably draw universal principles from personal insight.

I do care about those questions, what questions do you care about?.

turvy Wrote:

IceCream Wrote:[Morality] It's something that you feel, not think.

Mmm, I disagree. There are things that I do that other people could 'feel' immoral but I don't and vice versa. There are even things that I do that I myself 'feel' immoral but they can't possibly be immoral.

I do care about those questions, what questions do you care about?.

i care about questions that are answerable

It's not any old feeling... it's a feeling based on empathy. If you have the ability for empathy, and see that what you are doing causes suffering, you feel that it's not good. It's quite simple really, when you think about it...

The someone else thinking something's immoral when you don't stems from either you or they not having the right information, or turning off your empathy and trying to reason your way into thinking it's ok to do that thing.

Because empathy and morallity are being talked about in such proximity here I want to add something in here.

Just because humans are empathic creatures and morality may have arisen from this empathy does not give good enough reason to justify making laws through it.
Empathy is emotion. Basing laws (the extension of our morality) wholly on the emotions that arise in you is a horrendously bad idea since emotions are not always rationale nor are they universally applicable.

Case in point. The battle for equal rights in homosexuality. A lot of people in the US are basing laws against homosexuality around their feelings.

IceCream Wrote:The someone else thinking something's immoral when you don't stems from either you or they not having the right information, or turning off your empathy and trying to reason your way into thinking it's ok to do that thing.

Mmm, I actually agree with that. If fine tuned, empathy could be reliable.

There is one more thing I would like to get your feedback from, now or whenever. I am certainly capable, by means of empathy presumably, to point out what's generally right and wrong, however, I could still choose to do what I perceive as wrong regardless of its consequences to other people, exceedingly selfish indeed, but still the only reason I can figure why that decision would eventually unsettle me is not because I could be a sociopath but because I have been raised constrained in the predesigned domain of the consensually established morality, thus I am reflexively bound to these forces. What about the uncultured caveman without our sophisticated moral perspective, why isn't he able to realize that some things are good or wrong. I am sure he wouldn't feel the least upset upon knocking me out unconscious (or finishing me off mercilessly) in order to snatch that piece of bread from my hands.

Japan let me down last night.

I wanted to go out for some ramen, but the 2 shops near me were both closed. There's also no Mr. Donuts within walking distance

vix86 Wrote:Case in point. The battle for equal rights in homosexuality. A lot of people in the US are basing laws against homosexuality around their feelings.

The optimistic moralist would argue that 100 years ago things were worse so it's probable that things will improve, the moral landscape is unraveling itself out and fine tuning its principles as civilization advances and society matures.

Asriel Wrote:I wanted to go out for some ramen, but the 2 shops near me were both closed.

Why, that's nearly unheard of!

@Vix: Like i said, it's not any old feeling you might happen to have on a topic, it has to be based on empathy for the person involved. I don't think it's possible to claim that the feelings of those claiming that homosexuals don't deserve equal rights are based on empathy for the people in that group, is it?

@Turvy: The reason the caveman can finish you off mercilessly is because he's turned his empathy off to do it. He sees you as a member of the "out-group" and therefore not deserving of his empathy. He doesn't usually do the same thing to his family (unless he is a sociopath).
In the same way, people turn off their empathy every day to commit rape and murder and do all sorts of nasty things nowadays.

IceCream Wrote:@Vix: Like i said, it's not any old feeling you might happen to have on a topic, it has to be based on empathy for the person involved. I don't think it's possible to claim that the feelings of those claiming that homosexuals don't deserve equal rights are based on empathy for the people in that group, is it?

I would like a bit of clarification before carrying any more discussion onward.

Are empathy and emotions fundamentally linked? If you are empathic does that mean you are "feeling" -- using your emotions? Is this how you see empathy?

Because I have always associated empathy with emotion however checking the dictionary shows me that I may be jumping to conclusions.

American Heritage Dictionary Wrote:empathy:
n.
1. Identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives. See synonyms at pity.
2. The attribution of one's own feelings to an object.

#1, the one which I think we are looking at, includes feelings but does not give it as the sole point.

As to homosexual equality. Yes I feel (heh) strongly that people have involved their emotions into deciding to try and deny homosexuals rights. Jim Bob the Redneck hears about Tyler and John wanting to get married, and what goes through his mind is "guy sticking his dick in another guys butt" and he places himself into the frame and tries to decide "would I like that?" And reacts emotionally by being disgusted and looks to explain why he feels that or explain it and turns to his Bible to explain "Why its wrong?" Before the homosexuals there were the blacks. I don't know enough about the black slavery or many of the reasons for justifying it, but lets make no mistake about it I'm sure they used emotional reasoning for why it was right to take the actions they did.

But for all the things we think that were bad that happened in world, have happened, and will continue to happen. There is often someone out there deciding when they do it, that its right!. Again, case in point. ***GODWINS LAW!!!!*** Hitler, Stalin, the Catholic church.

Emotion is a SHIT measuring stick to use to try and decide if something is moral or not. Its a good measuring stick to use to decide if we should look at a situation more closely and try and decide if its right or wrong through rationale process. But to say that morality (and by extension law) should be based primarily on how you feel about a situation is ridiculous.

So I ask again. Do you believe empathy is primary the act of 'feeling'--the use of emotion? Or do you believe it also equally includes rationale thought?

Yes, people involve their emotions in trying to deny homosexuals rights, but they don't use empathy... it's a totally different type of emotion!!!

Empathy is a faculty rather than an emotion in itself, which when employed gives rise to empathetic feelings about another's situation. So yes, they are feelings, but they arise from putting yourself in another's position.

Sort of. We don't know exactly how empathy works yet, but there are some theories about it in neuroscience which are interesting.

One thing we do know is that when you are using empathy towards someone elses physical pain, the same neurons light up as if you were feeling the pain yourself.

It seems like there may well be a link between empathy and mirror neurons. Mirror neurons in our brain help us mimic other people, which is how we learn many things. These mirror neurons are working right from the moment you are born. If you poke your tongue out at a newborn baby or smile, the baby will automatically mimic you. How does this happen, when the baby cannot see it's own face to know it's performing the same action as you? It's because of these mirror neurons.
With every motor movement you make, if you just imagine that movement rather than performing the action, the same neurons will light up. It's all part of the same "circuit" in the brain.

Anyway, it seems like emotion is linked to these mirror neurons, so we can understand other people's feelings in a similar way to how we understand their actions, and that feeling is mimicked in the brain. This is still a theory, however, it's a fairly reasonable one.

So anyway, when you employ empathy, you end up actually feeling something approaching the feelings of someone else. Of course this is moderated by your understanding of their situation and a whole host of other things, so it's not perfect. But enough to know that hurting them is painful, etc.

I guess that's a long winded way of saying that yes, employing empathy is putting yourself in someone elses shoes and then seeing how you would feel if you were them.

Jarvik7 Wrote:I recently toured a few demo places built by Toyota Home and they have quite a lot of eco features (heat pumps, heated floors, central heating, double pane windows, solar etc) and DO use insulation, if you are willing to pay for it.

Don't those eco-homes tend to be in the outskirts of town? They always have TV advertisements for similar eco-homes here in Sendai, but they're all in inconvenient, surburban locations (by public transit, 45 minutes from downtown).

As for the kerosene vs. electric heating debate, everyone uses kerosene because it's cheaper. I'm sure there are energy efficient electric heaters available, but I'm also sure that they cost a lot more upfront compared to a kerosene one.

vileru Wrote:As for the kerosene vs. electric heating debate, everyone uses kerosene because it's cheaper. I'm sure there are energy efficient electric heaters available, but I'm also sure that they cost a lot more upfront compared to a kerosene one.

Even just air conditioners made in the last two years are more efficient than kerosene to the point of being cheaper, and they cost about the same as air conditioners always have. As long as the AC companies advertise properly, and there are no vast improvements in kerosene heaters, kerosene heaters should fall out of use (this won't necessarily happen, as often the best products don't come out on top due to failed advertising campaigns; beta tapes are the famous example).

A while back in the thread people were saying that kerosene heaters were primitive, but the reality is that they were more cost effective until about two years ago for heating small spaces. They just seem more primitive because they've fallen out of use is most wealthy western countries, where they lost popularity for reasons other than efficiency.

vileru Wrote:

Jarvik7 Wrote:I recently toured a few demo places built by Toyota Home and they have quite a lot of eco features (heat pumps, heated floors, central heating, double pane windows, solar etc) and DO use insulation, if you are willing to pay for it.

Don't those eco-homes tend to be in the outskirts of town? They always have TV advertisements for similar eco-homes here in Sendai, but they're all in inconvenient, surburban locations (by public transit, 45 minutes from downtown).

They aren't anywhere since they don't exist yet. You get Toyota to build one to order on land you own. The demo homes might be on the outskirts though since it's too expensive to buy up land just to put up a demo.

IceCream Wrote:empathy

Alright. So basically empathy is the golden rule: "Do unto others what you wish done unto you." Since you are trying to put yourself in a situation and see if you would want it happen to you. Which I am fine with, but empathy is no defacto end-all be all, you do still need to rationally look at situations. There will still situations where trying to put yourself in a situation and ask the question of "Is this right or wrong?" will result in various answers contaminated by emotions or personal views. Try something like the Terri Shiavo case in Florida, or any sort of case where someone is suffering a terminal illness in pain and wants assisted suicide. You can use empathy and see that "Yes the person is suffering, they don't want to continue suffering. But if it were me I would not accept suicide because suicide is wrong."

I'm not arguing that basing moral decisions on empathy is wrong and should never be done. I'm arguing that basing moral decisions on simply empathy alone is ridiculous. In the situation of the law you can not simply look at everything on a case by case basis and pass judgement on the right or wrongness of a situation. Therefore rational must come into play for deciding the rightness or wrongness of something and then determine the extent of which a law must be written/used.

Not only that, but would you want people judging you on a case-by-case basis based on their perception of the case and their basis of empathy. Empathy is relative. People are not computers. People will not necessarily reach the same sort of conclusions about something when "applying empathy" to something.

Disclaimer: Not all laws are rational.

vix86 Wrote:People are not computers. People will not necessarily reach the same sort of conclusions about something when "applying empathy" to something.

Actually, people are computers, but they're all running different software which is edited based on their experiences, so they often come up with different results.

Like i said, empathy isn't infallible, and you often need extra information to really make a valid decision.

Take the prostitution debate for example. I could say that i feel empathy for those girls, but that empathy might also be based on an unfounded belief... it could be that all prostitutes are perfectly happy creatures, and i am just assuming that they aren't. So we also need information to make sure our empathy is veridical. HOWEVER, if we find out that they are suffering horribly, we have an agreement, right? (based on what empathy tells us, at least). In that sense, empathy isn't "relative" at all.

Empathy isn't the same as "Do unto others as you would have done unto you". It's quite similar in some respects, but it's not the same in that it should not take into account my own beliefs about a situation (i know this kind of goes against the "put yourself in someone elses shoes and see how you would feel" thing i said above, but i can't think of the proper way to express it. I guess maybe "put yourself in their shoes and see how they feel. Anyway...)

So your euthanasia example is wrong. If that person is suffering horribly and truly wants die, how does that feel? How does it feel that they can't? How would i feel if i truly wanted to die (i.e. if i didn't have the belief that suicide was wrong), and i couldn't? Your own particular belief that if you were in the same situation you would want something different has no bearing on the other person's suffering, so it is discounted.

As for laws, they are another story altogether. Law doesn't have a great deal to do with morality in the first place, it only has to do with the smooth running of society. So there are things that you may find are immoral based on empathy but not illegal, and vice versa. I think empathy is a very good basis for personal morality, but law is more complex. It can still form the basis for decision making on laws in many cases, just not all.

Answer this for me.

Does deciding the morality of a situation require both empathy and rational? Or just empathy?

in theory, just empathy. in practise, you need rationality to figure out whether your empathy is veridical or not. If you had fully veridical empathy, it would just be empathy.

Basically if we were gods we could use solely empathy, but since humans are fallible we also have to use on rational to make sure we aren't metaphorically blowing our foot off.

We have nothing to argue about, we're in agreement pretty much.

yay