[Potemkin]

Done. I've already pointed out that a right to property in the fruits of one's labor is effectively universal.

Not in slave-owning societies, TtP. In other words, most human societies which have ever existed.

[ingliz]

I have shown that typical non-nativist explanations, though perhaps plausible, are incoherent.

It is precisely the point that human moral capacity appears in the form of reasoning

How, and for whom, does disgust influence moral judgment? In 4 experiments participants made moral judgments while experiencing extraneous feelings of disgust. Disgust was induced in Experiment 1 by exposure to a bad smell, in Experiment 2 by working in a disgusting room, in Experiment 3 by recalling a physically disgusting experience, and in Experiment 4 through a video induction. In each case, the results showed that disgust can increase the severity of moral judgments relative to controls. Experiment 4 found that disgust had a different effect on moral judgment than did sadness. In addition, Experiments 2-4 showed that the role of disgust in severity of moral judgments depends on participants’ sensitivity to their own bodily sensations. Taken together, these data indicate the importance - and specificity - of gut feelings in moral judgments.

Schnall et al (2008) Disgust as Embodied Moral Judgment. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin. 34(8):1096-1109.

Theories of moral judgment have long emphasized reasoning and conscious thought while downplaying the role of intuitive and contextual influences. However, recent research has demonstrated that incidental feelings of disgust can influence moral judgments and make them more severe. This study involved two experiments demonstrating that the reverse effect can occur when the notion of physical purity is made salient, thus making moral judgments less severe. After having the cognitive concept of cleanliness activated (Experiment 1) or after physically cleansing themselves after experiencing disgust (Experiment 2), participants found certain moral actions to be less wrong than did participants who had not been exposed to a cleanliness manipulation. The findings support the idea that moral judgment can be driven by intuitive processes, rather than deliberate reasoning. One of those intuitions appears to be physical purity, because it has a strong connection to moral purity.

Schnall et al. (2008) With a Clean Conscience : Cleanliness Reduces the Severity of Moral Judgments. Psychological Science 19(12):1219-1222

Can sweet-tasting substances trigger kind, favorable judgments about other people? What about substances that are disgusting and bitter? Various studies have linked physical disgust to moral disgust, but despite the rich and sometimes striking findings these studies have yielded, no research has explored morality in conjunction with taste, which can vary greatly and may differentially affect cognition. The research reported here tested the effects of taste perception on moral judgments. After consuming a sweet beverage, a bitter beverage, or water, participants rated a variety of moral transgressions. Results showed that taste perception significantly affected moral judgments, such that physical disgust (induced via a bitter taste) elicited feelings of moral disgust. Further, this effect was more pronounced in participants with politically conservative views than in participants with politically liberal views. Taken together, these differential findings suggest that embodied gustatory experiences may affect moral processing more than previously thought.

Eskine et al. (2011) A Bad Taste in the Mouth : Gustatory Disgust Influences Moral Judgment. Psychological Science. 22: 295-299

You have just conceded that values are based on evolutionary success.

Not according to you; according to you "How many children Joe Blow has" is irrelevant. If an individual's survival and reproductive success is relevant, your argument has evolved, and one can judge the moral fitness of a society by its TFR.

the Golden Rule

Do unto others... Is that the rule that says treat others as yourself unless the pros outweigh the cons? Or is it the avoid harm except in those cases where it’s okay not to avoid harm, an empty statement. The anthropological record shows cultures can overrule no-harm norms more or less arbitrarily.

Values are not emotional attitudes.

Highly hypnotizable participants were given a posthypnotic suggestion to feel a flash of disgust whenever they read an arbitrary word. They were then asked to rate moral transgressions described in vignettes that either did or did not include the disgust-inducing word. Two studies show that moral judgments can be made more severe by the presence of a flash of disgust. These findings suggest that moral judgments may be grounded in affectively laden moral intuitions.

Wheatley & Haidt. (2005) Hypnotic disgust makes moral judgments more severe. Psychological Science.16(10):780-4.

The evidence suggests they are.

we know that all other animals are instinctively averse to some behaviors, predisposed to others

Yes, some parts of our subjective experience are products of our biological makeup but I don't know how this helps your argument. You have already said that these responses have no inherent value.

Values are not emotional attitudes.

human moral capacity appears in the form of reasoning

People don’t generally engage in moral reasoning, but moral rationalisation: they begin with the conclusion, coughed up by an unconscious emotion, and then work backward to a plausible justification (Haidt).

[Truth To Power]

Done. I've already pointed out that a right to property in the fruits of one's labor is effectively universal.

Not in slave-owning societies, TtP. In other words, most human societies which have ever existed.

Not so. It is more complicated when the producer is himself legally owned, but even slave owning societies have typically recognized the slave's property right in what he produces on his own time, when not working for his owner. Many slave owning societies have allowed slaves to purchase their freedom, and there is no other way they could have done it.

[Truth To Power]

It is precisely the point that human moral capacity appears in the form of reasoning

How, and for whom, does disgust influence moral judgment? In 4 experiments participants made moral judgments while experiencing extraneous feelings of disgust. Disgust was induced in Experiment 1 by exposure to a bad smell, in Experiment 2 by working in a disgusting room, in Experiment 3 by recalling a physically disgusting experience, and in Experiment 4 through a video induction. In each case, the results showed that disgust can increase the severity of moral judgments relative to controls. Experiment 4 found that disgust had a different effect on moral judgment than did sadness. In addition, Experiments 2-4 showed that the role of disgust in severity of moral judgments depends on participants’ sensitivity to their own bodily sensations. Taken together, these data indicate the importance - and specificity - of gut feelings in moral judgments.

Schnall et al (2008) Disgust as Embodied Moral Judgment. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin. 34(8):1096-1109.

Theories of moral judgment have long emphasized reasoning and conscious thought while downplaying the role of intuitive and contextual influences. However, recent research has demonstrated that incidental feelings of disgust can influence moral judgments and make them more severe. This study involved two experiments demonstrating that the reverse effect can occur when the notion of physical purity is made salient, thus making moral judgments less severe. After having the cognitive concept of cleanliness activated (Experiment 1) or after physically cleansing themselves after experiencing disgust (Experiment 2), participants found certain moral actions to be less wrong than did participants who had not been exposed to a cleanliness manipulation. The findings support the idea that moral judgment can be driven by intuitive processes, rather than deliberate reasoning. One of those intuitions appears to be physical purity, because it has a strong connection to moral purity.

Schnall et al. (2008) With a Clean Conscience : Cleanliness Reduces the Severity of Moral Judgments. Psychological Science 19(12):1219-1222

Can sweet-tasting substances trigger kind, favorable judgments about other people? What about substances that are disgusting and bitter? Various studies have linked physical disgust to moral disgust, but despite the rich and sometimes striking findings these studies have yielded, no research has explored morality in conjunction with taste, which can vary greatly and may differentially affect cognition. The research reported here tested the effects of taste perception on moral judgments. After consuming a sweet beverage, a bitter beverage, or water, participants rated a variety of moral transgressions. Results showed that taste perception significantly affected moral judgments, such that physical disgust (induced via a bitter taste) elicited feelings of moral disgust. Further, this effect was more pronounced in participants with politically conservative views than in participants with politically liberal views. Taken together, these differential findings suggest that embodied gustatory experiences may affect moral processing more than previously thought.

Eskine et al. (2011) A Bad Taste in the Mouth : Gustatory Disgust Influences Moral Judgment. Psychological Science. 22: 295-299

And...? People are likely to be more severe when they are annoyed or angry, less severe when they are relaxed and comfortable. My wife snaps at me when she has PMS. Is this supposed to have some sort of moral implication?

You have just conceded that values are based on evolutionary success.

Not according to you; according to you "How many children Joe Blow has" is irrelevant.

Because that's not evolutionary success. Lots of marine invertebrates have had millions of offspring, but then gone extinct.

If an individual's survival and reproductive success is relevant, your argument has evolved,

I never said it was irrelevant, just not the most important factor.

and one can judge the moral fitness of a society by its TFR.

No, one can't. That's just one relatively minor component.

Do unto others... Is that the rule that says treat others as yourself unless the pros outweigh the cons?

No. I have never heard of your version of the Golden Rule.

The anthropological record shows cultures can overrule no-harm norms more or less arbitrarily.

Yes, culture can overrule natural rights and morality, and the communities that do so reap the consequences. That's just part of the slowly (but exceeding fine) grinding millstone of evolution.

Values are not emotional attitudes.

Highly hypnotizable participants were given a posthypnotic suggestion to feel a flash of disgust whenever they read an arbitrary word. They were then asked to rate moral transgressions described in vignettes that either did or did not include the disgust-inducing word. Two studies show that moral judgments can be made more severe by the presence of a flash of disgust. These findings suggest that moral judgments may be grounded in affectively laden moral intuitions.

Wheatley & Haidt. (2005) Hypnotic disgust makes moral judgments more severe. Psychological Science.16(10):780-4.

The evidence suggests they are.

Garbage. See above. Take a jury and subject them to random shocks, and they'll be more likely to find a defendant guilty. So what?

we know that all other animals are instinctively averse to some behaviors, predisposed to others

Yes, some parts of our subjective experience are products of our biological makeup but I don't know how this helps your argument. You have already said that these responses have no inherent value.

There is no such thing as inherent value, except in numismatics.

Values are not emotional attitudes.

human moral capacity appears in the form of reasoning

People don’t generally engage in moral reasoning, but moral rationalisation: they begin with the conclusion, coughed up by an unconscious emotion, and then work backward to a plausible justification (Haidt).

Right. We try to work out reasons for our beliefs, because reason is our survival tool. But it takes a quite sophisticated understanding to begin effective moral reasoning, and we have had a load of ineffective traditional moral reasoning -- religion -- to work through before we can get to a more effective scientific approach.

[ingliz]

evolutionary success.

A trait or strategy that is successful at one time may be unsuccessful at another. For most traits or behaviours there is likely no optimal design or strategy, only contingent ones. Selection is not a guided or cognizant entity; it is simply an effect.

N.S. Sharma. Continuity And Evolution Of Animals

Lots of marine invertebrates have had millions of offspring, but then gone extinct

Fitness, in an evolutionary sense, is simply the average reproductive output of a class of genetic variants in a gene pool. Extinction is the ultimate fate of all species.

N.S. Sharma. Continuity And Evolution Of Animals

Yes, culture can overrule natural rights and morality

We don't necessarily need culture to overrule natural rights and morality killing is fundamentally in our nature. It was so beneficial our minds have developed adaptations to kill.

91 percent of men and 84 percent of women have had at least one vivid fantasy—often intense and astonishingly detailed—of committing murder... with 57 percent of each experiencing torture fantasies.

Joshua D. Duntley & David M. Buss. (2011) Homicide adaptations. Aggression and Violent Behavior: 16(5) 399–410

human moral capacity appears in the form of reasoning

Classical Conditioning of Emotional Responses (Meaning, Attitudes, Values, Interests) and Effects on Social Behavior: A Bibliography. Staats, Arthur W.; Carlson, Carl G.

The document is concerned with experimental development of the hypothesis that emotional responses--or evaluative responses, evaluative meaning, attitudes, values and so on--constitute an important type of response that can be classically conditioned to words. Many stimuli elicit emotional responses and the words that are contiguously paired with those stimuli also come to elicit an emotional response. Moreover, once a word comes to elicit an emotional response the word can serve to condition emotionality to any other stimulus with which it is paired. A number of experiments have been conducted that show that emotional responses can be conditioned to words and that many words in the language elicit emotional responses that can be conditioned to other stimuli. The present bibliography lists the various experimental studies and theoretical analyses to April 1970.

[Truth To Power]

evolutionary success.

A trait or strategy that is successful at one time may be unsuccessful at another. For most traits or behaviours there is likely no optimal design or strategy, only contingent ones. Selection is not a guided or cognizant entity; it is simply an effect.

N.S. Sharma. Continuity And Evolution Of Animals

And...? I have never claimed that morality is fixed. Just as one example, polygamy is probably adaptive in pre-agricultural economies where control of resources is associated with genetic fitness, and is thus considered moral in such societies. Once settled agriculture is the economic model, control of resources is associated with landowning, not productive contribution or genetic fitness, so settled agricultural societies tend to slowly come around to rejecting polygamy. This process likely takes thousands of years, but the change has clearly happened.

Lots of marine invertebrates have had millions of offspring, but then gone extinct

Fitness, in an evolutionary sense, is simply the average reproductive output of a class of genetic variants in a gene pool.

But that is a puerile and uninteresting concept of evolutionary success, and thus irrelevant to the present discussion.

Extinction is the ultimate fate of all species.

But not of all genes.

GET IT??

N.S. Sharma. Continuity And Evolution Of Animals

<yawn> The claim that extinction is the fate of all species can't be proved, and even if it could, it is just a way of evading the issue, much like Keynes's famous observation that, "In the long run we are all dead."

Yes, culture can overrule natural rights and morality

We don't necessarily need culture to overrule natural rights and morality killing is fundamentally in our nature.

Garbage. Most people are extremely averse to killing -- even killing animals -- even at very young ages, far more so than can plausibly be explained by cultural conditioning.

It was so beneficial our minds have developed adaptations to kill.

91 percent of men and 84 percent of women have had at least one vivid fantasy—often intense and astonishingly detailed—of committing murder... with 57 percent of each experiencing torture fantasies.
Joshua D. Duntley & David M. Buss. (2011) Homicide adaptations. Aggression and Violent Behavior: 16(5) 399–410

Ahem. That describes an adaptation not to kill.

You are destroyed.

human moral capacity appears in the form of reasoning

Classical Conditioning of Emotional Responses (Meaning, Attitudes, Values, Interests) and Effects on Social Behavior: A Bibliography. Staats, Arthur W.; Carlson, Carl G.

The document is concerned with experimental development of the hypothesis that emotional responses--or evaluative responses, evaluative meaning, attitudes, values and so on--constitute an important type of response that can be classically conditioned to words. Many stimuli elicit emotional responses and the words that are contiguously paired with those stimuli also come to elicit an emotional response. Moreover, once a word comes to elicit an emotional response the word can serve to condition emotionality to any other stimulus with which it is paired. A number of experiments have been conducted that show that emotional responses can be conditioned to words and that many words in the language elicit emotional responses that can be conditioned to other stimuli. The present bibliography lists the various experimental studies and theoretical analyses to April 1970.

The sad thing is, you actually imagine that to be relevant.

[ingliz]

And...?

You are the one that calls everything you do not approve of a 'maladaptation'.

puerile and uninteresting concept

Why do you think that fitness should be 'interesting' as a concept?

As a metaphysic, evolutionary theory is fairly poverty-stricken. This is what should be true of a scientific theory; for the number of conclusions beyond the empirical evidence that can be conjectured is unlimited. Any theory that committed itself to a metaphysical conclusion as a logical inference would be almost certainly false.

Ahem. That describes an adaptation not to kill...

Fantasy can help channel murderous intentions into other means of seeking redress, but they can also be used to simulate and rehearse carrying out murder. Building and working through scenarios of killing helps turn fantasy into reality.

extremely averse to killing

You have roughly a 1 in 200 lifetime chance of being murdered in the US.

In 1997, one person out of every 240 of the total population would become the victim of a murder. In contrast, in 1978, one out of every 157 people was murdered.

It seems Americans, at least, are not all that averse to killing.

relevant

Morality is a culturally conditioned emotional response.

[Truth To Power]

And...?

You are the one that calls everything you do not approve of a 'maladaptation'.

You are just makin' $#!+ up, now.

puerile and uninteresting concept

Why do you think that fitness should be 'interesting' as a concept?

So it's worth talking about.

Ahem. That describes an adaptation not to kill...

Fantasy can help channel murderous intentions into other means of seeking redress, but they can also be used to simulate and rehearse carrying out murder. Building and working through scenarios of killing helps turn fantasy into reality.

But in this case, we know you are objectively wrong because almost no one who fantasizes about killing someone actually does so.

extremely averse to killing

In 1997, one person out of every 240 of the total population would become the victim of a murder. In contrast, in 1978, one out of every 157 people was murdered.

It seems Americans, at least, are not all that averse to killing.

Silliness. We would need the statistics on how many people commit murders, and that number is much lower, in the neighborhood of 1 in 1000. That's a pretty extreme aversion.

relevant

Morality is a culturally conditioned emotional response.

I've already proved that view is incoherent, as it implies infinite regress. Repetition is not an argument.

[ingliz]

You are just makin' $#!+ up, now

On page 6, I asked if these so-called maladaptations were maladaptive because they were behaviours you didn't approve of.

Your reply was:

Right! Because I am a product of the same evolutionary process.

So it's worth talking about.

Silliness.

Are you suggesting the FBI fiddles the numbers?

Data by race indicate that black males, with a victimization ratio of 1 out of 40, were most likely to be murdered in 1997.

that view is incoherent, as it implies infinite regress.

I have proved that all views are incoherent using your argument.

[Truth To Power]

You are just makin' $#!+ up, now

On page 6, I asked if these so-called maladaptations were maladaptive because they were behaviours you didn't approve of.

Your reply was:

Right! Because I am a product of the same evolutionary process.

Readers are invited to verify that you have (surprise!) dishonestly changed the context.

that view is incoherent, as it implies infinite regress.

I have proved that all views are incoherent using your argument.

You have done no such thing.

[ingliz]

Readers are invited to verify that you have (surprise!) dishonestly changed the context.

Why do you call moral norms, those norms you don't approve of, maladaptive?

Behaviours you don't approve of?

The question was asked twice on page 6.

Your reply:

Right! Because I am a product of the same evolutionary process.

You have done no such thing.

You conceded the argument when you refused to discuss the epistemological implications of "infinite regress".

So, you were not arguing the epistemological i.e. knowledge v. belief?

No.

[Truth To Power]

Readers are invited to verify that you have (surprise!) dishonestly changed the context.

Why do you call moral norms, those norms you don't approve of, maladaptive?

Behaviours you don't approve of?

The question was asked twice on page 6.

Your reply:

Right! Because I am a product of the same evolutionary process.

Right. You have dishonestly changed the context. As readers can confirm, the question above was IF I disapproved of immoral behaviors. Now you are dishonestly pretending that I was answering a different question: if the behaviors are immoral BECAUSE I disapprove of them. That is why you habitually delete and change the context: to make it seem I have said something I did not say.

You have done no such thing.

You conceded the argument when you refused to discuss the epistemological implications of "infinite regress".

So, you were not arguing the epistemological i.e. knowledge v. belief?

No.

As readers can confirm for themselves, you have again dishonestly altered the context, as is your wont. The question you posed above inquired WHAT my argument was, not WHETHER I wanted to discuss something else.

No doubt you are accustomed to dealing with logically naïve people who do not see how sneaky and dishonest your method of "argument" is. But I am not one of them, and your exchanges with me will be a lot less humiliating for you if you can manage to remember that.

[ingliz]

your exchanges with me will be a lot less humiliating for you if you can manage to remember that.

Embarrassment, mortification, shame, indignity, ignominy, disgrace, dishonour, discomfiture, degradation, discredit, obloquy, opprobrium, loss of pride, loss of .... No not feeling it.

[Truth To Power]

your exchanges with me will be a lot less humiliating for you if you can manage to remember that.

Embarrassment, mortification, shame, indignity, ignominy, disgrace, dishonour, discomfiture, degradation, discredit, obloquy, opprobrium, loss of pride, loss of .... No not feeling it.

That explains a lot....