Thomas Nagel, Professor of Law and Philosophy, New York University and Holberg Prize laureate Professor Ronald Dworkin. The discussion is part of The Holberg Prize Symposium 2007 in honor of Ronald Dworkin. Holberg Prize
To say that there are only physical and no moral truths is an argument that spits in the face of common sense. No one gets stabbed in the neck and says "I subjectively believe stabbing people in the neck to be immoral but if it brings another person happiness, i can't apply moral superiority over them." One wants to say "that is morally, objectively wrong, specifically because it caused another person a great deal of pain in order to garner happiness."
That would mean that there is no art, there is no love, there is no beauty, there is no justice, there is no poetry. there is nothing that makes us human. Tell me, what good is an argument that in attempting to define what we consider to be the Most Good, we destroy everything that is good in the process? I would say that that argument is, well, evil.
Your argument essentially boils down to the thought that all mental or ideal existence is an illusory phenomenon that arises out of the atomic structure of the mind. However, there's something about self-aware consciousness that fundamentally differs in kind from other forms of life. We have compounding thought, where animals have only thought and animals have life where rocks have only their existence.
"Morality did not begin by one man saying to another, 'I will not hit you if you do not hit me'; there is no trace of such a transaction. There IS a trace of both men having said, 'We must not hit each other in the holy place.' They gained their morality by guarding their religion. They did not cultivate courage. They fought for the shrine, and found they had become courageous. They did not cultivate cleanliness. They purified themselves for the altar, and found that they were clean."
I have never saw two cats fight until one of them is dead. It sometimes happens with wolves, but most animals only fight to make a point. Once the point is made they return to peace. Killing is reserved 98% for eating a different species. I too, see how ethical behavoir has very deep roots in all life.
Nagel says: “In order to maintain our moral convictions, as convictions about what is objectively true, doesn’t this require some accommodation between morality and natural science perhaps more radical than he has envisioned, like for example, abandoning evolutionary theory in favor of a conception of human nature that includes a moral sense or some form of pure practical reason…?" I think he is right. Morality requires pure practical reason. We might also need the will of god, or Platonic forms. I suggest we also need the Holy Catholic Church to uphold this worldview. Finally, I suggest we get a time machine to make all this possible. If, for logistical reasons, such a time machine can only hold one person, I suggest we volunteer Nagel. I suspect he would feel blessed.
morality exists on the same spectrum as personality disorder and metacognitive executive function exists. You cannot discuss morality before first defining which broader polygenic grouping it is being assigned to.
Richard Johnson They would not be objective in the way that I am meaning objective. By objective -- I mean independent of human opinion, preference, and social conditioning.
+TheMirabillis It's still the case that values can be inferred from natural conditions of human life; that is, living in society and having relations with people. And that is so whether or not there's a supernatural sanction and foundation for morality. Both could be considered as factually objective. The problem is one of ultimate criteria: is human nature something that's certain though expressed in particular social contexts? Now if it's the case that there is no human nature, and society is no proof its application, then what true facts could be inferred (not to say entailed) as means to the ends of morality? Such a negation of human nature would pose a bigger problem for traditional morality: even if people took recourse to supernatural sanction - by which is entailed the good - they couldn't find it in the traditional God! For this God made human beings with a fixed nature which (as claimed by contemporary science and philosophy) does not exist! Nagel comments on such problems at 14:53 and 17:40 in the vid; and Dworkin replies to these at 26:05 and 38:32. In the last, Dworkin criticizes the natural-historical problem I've posed above as unimportant; and instead he poses (unironically) the traditional idea of autonomous moral goods and justifications of. Personally I don't think the professors want to admit that their ideas and values have a history too.
Not to seem too aggressive here, but both of your comments are blanket statements for which you provide justification. You say "must have" but provide no reason how. Therefore, they beg the question. I would say that, actually, since the dawn of man, there have been various religious rituals performed for their respective holy places that largely preceded any notion of that which we now call morality. This, frankly, seems self evidently true to me.
I think you are initially presupposing to much and also to little. First I believe that most people don't have a clue what love is, in its purest sense. Most people love themselves, so when a women has a child it's easy for her show affection towards it as it is an extension of herself. Secondly from the supposed evolution stance, would it not have been more probable for a species to survive better and over power others if at birth was more self-sufficient rather than needing to rely on parents?
Frankly- and this is something I've often thought- what essentially these materialist arguments invariably boil down to is that there is in fact no such thing as "morality" proper so much as it is practicality based off of evolution. That would mean there is no motherly love either, for example, so much as a set of evolutionary processes. In other words, in attempting to define morality, the materialist argument completely destroys the entire essence of it and turns us into counting machines!
Okay, well, if your first premise is true, that would mean that every animal species that is "intensely social" has- what you would apparently describe as- morality. Are you willing to make that claim? Further, "they can't survive without morality" is, again, a blanket statement that has no basis in reality insofar as many amoral things have well-survived the ages. And your definition of religion and its claims of morality ignore all the teleological implications from Aristotle to Aquinas.
