Can we determine values from facts? If so, how? If not, from where do we get our sense of how to act, our evolutionary history, an agreement amongst people?
I have values and I have a moral foundation but I don’t have religion. Much is learned from parents but we also have an innate sense iof right and wrong. I do not see any evidence of religious people have a better sense of values and I would even say I see the opposite.
Values are in imperfect expression of what we think sustainably leads to desired as opposed to undesired outcomes. And that evaluation in turn is a constantly refined experimental work in progress.
Because we have evolved language and information technology we have the advantage of knowing past history of many others, including other social and cultural groups, as well as the thoughts of many others, living and dead. We can research and integrate all of that along with our own, relatively limited, experience.
My values started out being the values of my parents and other mentors and gradually evolved into something I was comfortable working with independently of others. I have learned through experience what is worth valuing and what is a waste of time to assign value to for my purposes.
So our values start out as what is communicated to us by others and hopefully, if we are mature and self aware and curious enough, we internalize and refine it so that it becomes our own.
It is informed by facts but is not determined from facts in some mechanistic way. It's an emergent property of living, of comparing lived outcomes with expected outcomes, figuring out where the expectations were wrong, and adjusting as we go.
"where do we get our sense of how to act, our evolutionary history, an agreement amongst people?"
Language has evolved, it carries along in it a history of valuations which affect how we think about and value what we find in the world. Language is shared which enables the sharing of the values inscribed in it.
We always presuppose values and then determine how we should act based on how facts lead to the fulfillment of our values. How our values form on the other hand is an empirical question again, but this is distinct from how you can justify them. Here is an example:
(1) I like chocolate (this is a fact that was determined by my biology and social factors like upbringing)
As a child I therefore reason: (3) I should eat chocolate.
But we can't get from (1) to (3) logically, for that we need an additional statement, which will serve as a reasoning for other situations: (2) I should do what I like. This post hoc rationalization was formed in the shown way because I like chocolate (a fact) but in order to justify it I would need other value judgements with which to compare them like, (4) You shouldn't do what leads to harm. (2) and (4) might get in conflict in some situations and then I would have to choose which rule is more important and which supersedes the other. But for every situation we first have to presuppose our values to come to our conclusions.
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no, we can't, or rather, we can, but we must accept at least on premise as axiomatic. the reason this is true is because no fact is either good or bad in itself. The fact that putting Sarin gas in a school classroom is only "bad" under the assumption that killing off the children is bad.
Now, there are some fundamental facts that can help to determine values. The first is the desire for survival. Anyone with a desire for survival (read, almost everyone) can be counted on, if rational, to understand that all of us agreeing not to murder each other offers them protection from murder, while not coming to that agreement allows them to murder, but offers no protection from being murdered, which is a likely outcome of them murdering people. That fact, coupled with the innate desire to be safe and some evolved compassion mechanisms, leads to the value of protecting human lives from murder. Most social contracts start from these fundamental and innate personal desires. "I don't want this to happen to me, and the most effective method of ensuring that is creating a society where it doesn't happen to anyone, or is severely limited by society itself".
but even that does not create a true value, since "unless I can get away with it" can be appended to any such system, or the effect of In Group vs. Out Group morality.
some of our social cooperation is directly evolutionary, and this can be seen in the different set of morals people apply to their "In Group" vs. "Out Group" concepts. In group is what we perceive as our tribe, out group is always treated as a lower order, morally, to some degree, with cooperation and compassion often being contingent on usefulness more than social dynamic, especially where a conflict with the In Group is involved. In the modern age, a person may have multiple layers of "In groups", and this can cause conflicts with morality when one group is "In" one group but "Out" of another. black soldiers in the early days of military desegregation faced this quite a bit, as American Soldiers they had the support of their fellows but as Black Men they did not have the status or opportunity afforded white soldiers.
some is psychological, as we took these basic instincts and applied abstract reasoning to codify "correct" behavior on a larger scale based on our desires for ourselves and our progeny, and as "In Group" expanded to include people we were likely never going to meet with the creation of large scale civilizations.
I would assert that facts inform, but do not determine, our values. Values are inherently subjective, and while facts may call our values into question, facts alone cannot determine them.
I agree. facts are useful things to apply to whichever premises we consider axiomatic, but there must be at least one if not more axiomatic assumptions. "human life is valuable" is merely an assumption, and not one that everyone shares, although most do, so it creates an axiom from which a society can build some core values.
unfortunately, many societies were also formed around the axiom "women are meant to bear children, men to control things", which leads to some pretty messed up social mechanisms.
@HereticSin Indeed! A baseline set of values is elusive. Back in the late 1940's, the so-called universal values of human dignity seemed self-evident, as the U.N. fashioned the UDHR. Read it, and weep! Today, one cannot assert such a consensus! And yet, if we are able to strip away power and the subjection of tyrannical suppression, we should, in my opinion, unanimously agree that self determination forms the groundwork of human rights. From there, we (collectively) must build our lattice work of values.
@pnfullifidian I personally don't hold much with "values" in codification. I prefer "value principles" from which individual situations can be judged. and I agree with self determination within the framework of a society. I'm also a globalist, the idea that societies with harshly conflicting value principles can peacefully coexist for any length of time is kind of ludicrous, and as soon as you have two societies clashing over anything, you are right back to In Group vs. Out Group mechanics, with the morality each one applies to it's own members not being afforded the enemy, because "enemy".
Would love to hear some thoughts. So difficult to have these conversations with people on a day to day basis...?