Most of my moral convictions aren’t provable because the most basic ideas are simply axioms. “You should be a good person” cannot be justified in a way that’s non-circular, and defining “good” is also similarly arbitrary. The only true “evidence” is that people tend to agree on vague definitions in theory. Which is certainly a good thing, imo, but it’s not actually provable that what we consider “good” is actually the correct way to act.
I have started creating a moral framework, though. I’ve been identifying and classifying particular behaviors and organizing them in a hierarchy. So far it’s going pretty well. At least my arbitrariness can be well-defined!
I think it is easy enough to argue without making it circular. As for “good”, I don’t think an objective absolute and universal definition is necessary.
The argument would be to consider it an optimization problem, and the interesting part, what the fitness function is. If we want to maximise happiness and freedom, any pair of people is transient. If it matters that they be kind to you, it is the exact same reasoning for why you should be to kind to them. Kinda like the “do unto others”, except less prone to a masochist going around hurting people.
But that’s what I’m saying, that choice is axiomatic. I think most people would agree, but it’s a belief, not an unquestionable truth. You’re choosing something to optimize and defining that to be good.
If it matters that they be kind to you, it is the exact same reasoning for why you should be to kind to them
Only if you believe that everyone fundamentally deserves the same treatment. It’s easy to overlook an axiom like that because it seems so obvious, but it is something that we have chosen to believe.
Most of my moral convictions aren’t provable because the most basic ideas are simply axioms. “You should be a good person” cannot be justified in a way that’s non-circular, and defining “good” is also similarly arbitrary. The only true “evidence” is that people tend to agree on vague definitions in theory. Which is certainly a good thing, imo, but it’s not actually provable that what we consider “good” is actually the correct way to act.
I have started creating a moral framework, though. I’ve been identifying and classifying particular behaviors and organizing them in a hierarchy. So far it’s going pretty well. At least my arbitrariness can be well-defined!
I think it is easy enough to argue without making it circular. As for “good”, I don’t think an objective absolute and universal definition is necessary.
The argument would be to consider it an optimization problem, and the interesting part, what the fitness function is. If we want to maximise happiness and freedom, any pair of people is transient. If it matters that they be kind to you, it is the exact same reasoning for why you should be to kind to them. Kinda like the “do unto others”, except less prone to a masochist going around hurting people.
But that’s what I’m saying, that choice is axiomatic. I think most people would agree, but it’s a belief, not an unquestionable truth. You’re choosing something to optimize and defining that to be good.
Only if you believe that everyone fundamentally deserves the same treatment. It’s easy to overlook an axiom like that because it seems so obvious, but it is something that we have chosen to believe.