Bodily integrity vs moral responsibility

[Secular Sanity]

And I don't have the time to watch a 20min video. If you want me to take any reference seriously, don't link to a TV show (or at least give me time codes for pertinent arguments).

Sorry.  See if this works.

Body Integrity Identity Disorder

Your emotions may very well be plenty justification for you, but we are discussing ethics. If that's just not a topic you're prepared to discuss, admit that to yourself and move on. Social evolution ties your emotions in different degrees to different groups; community, family, spouse, etc.. The morals derived from such emotions only serve to bind those groups. They have no rigorously reasoned justification beyond that, and no basis to evaluate their own ethical merit. Ethics is useful because it offers a means to evaluate right and wrong without these social/emotional biases.

How do you reconcile wanting to use the term "logical" but then wanting to rely on emotion? Emotions are notoriously fickle and very poor ethical guidance.

It's not about certainty or absolutes...neither is achievable. What is achievable is consistency...the only leverage by which anything is truly knowable. Emotions do not lend themselves to consistency. IMO, it's an error to neglect the consistency that makes science possible just because we don't want to seem judgmental or proscriptive.

I agree that there are rational emotions (a rational emotional response to a given situation...grief over loss, etc.), but there is no real "reasoning" involved in emotion.

Emotion isn't reason's antonym and isn't always completely detrimental to reasoning, but emotion is only beneficial to reasoning to the extent that it contributes to creativity. This may seem like a great boon until we take into account that emotion is the primary source of all human cognitive bias.

Better to be emotionally bankrupt than ethically so. The lack of ethics leaves no check for your emotions to justify any action at all.

The subjective biases you seem fond of are a huge liability to accurate reasoning.

As a man, I will tend to risk my life to save a woman. It has nothing to do with emotion.

Most men are never going to agree with me on this.  They only want to dismiss emotions.   I just got banned again from another forum for defending them.  I’m just banging my head against a wall.  

Emotions are not illogical. We can’t eliminate them.  They’re vital.  As we grow, we learn to manage them, but not rid ourselves of them because they are extremely important.  We’re a highly social and cooperative species.  Emotions foster societal cohesion.  Society itself would not exist without them.  

I don’t think that we can continue to evaluate morals, ethics, or values when judgments themselves are emotional in nature.

I’ve touched on Neuroscience in regards to our emotions.  Would you be willing to read up on a few evolutionary theories, psychological ones, or watch a lecture or two from Yale University?  Please, Syne.

Excerpt from lecture:

The wrong theory of emotions is beautifully illustrated in the television and movie series Star Trek.

Spock and Data are described as competent, capable, and in many ways super competent and super capable people, but they’re described as not having emotions.  In this T.V. series emotions are seen as a detriment.  You’d be better off without them, and there are many people that might think, if only I could just use my rationality, think reasonably and rationally, and not let my emotions guide my behavior, I’d be much better off.

It turns out that this is a notion about how to think of the emotions is deeply wrong and in fact makes no sense at all.


Evolution, Emotion, and Reason: Emotions, Part I

[Syne]

And I don't have the time to watch a 20min video. If you want me to take any reference seriously, don't link to a TV show (or at least give me time codes for pertinent arguments).

Sorry.  See if this works.

Body Integrity Identity Disorder

There's a difference between "they show no signs of mental disturbance" and having no mental disturbance, because just previous to that they said these people do suffer from "chronic unease" which literally is a mental disturbance. And the mental disturbance being chronic does indicate a mental health issue. Psychopaths are good at hiding their mental problems too. Is the lack of outward indicators from "talking to them for an hour" or "having them as a friend" probative, or do many mental illnesses require more rigorous means to diagnose? There are diagnostic tests that help uncover mental illness through inconsistency over a long battery of questions.

Your emotions may very well be plenty justification for you, but we are discussing ethics. If that's just not a topic you're prepared to discuss, admit that to yourself and move on. Social evolution ties your emotions in different degrees to different groups; community, family, spouse, etc.. The morals derived from such emotions only serve to bind those groups. They have no rigorously reasoned justification beyond that, and no basis to evaluate their own ethical merit. Ethics is useful because it offers a means to evaluate right and wrong without these social/emotional biases.

Most men are never going to agree with me on this.  They only want to dismiss emotions.   I just got banned again from another forum for defending them.  I’m just banging my head against a wall.  

Emotions are not illogical. We can’t eliminate them.  They’re vital.  As we grow, we learn to manage them, but not rid ourselves of them because they are extremely important.  We’re a highly social and cooperative species.  Emotions foster societal cohesion.  Society itself would not exist without them.  

I don’t think that we can continue to evaluate morals, ethics, or values when judgments themselves are emotional in nature.

I’ve touched on Neuroscience in regards to our emotions.  Would you be willing to read up on a few evolutionary theories, psychological ones, or watch a lecture of two from Yale University?  Please, Syne.

Excerpt from lecture:

The wrong theory of emotions is beautifully illustrated in the television and movie series Star Trek.

Spock and Data are described as competent, capable, and in many ways super competent and super capable people, but they’re described as not having emotions.  In this T.V. series emotions are seen as a detriment.  You’d be better off without them, and there are many people that might think, if only I could just use my rationality, think reasonably and rationally, and not let my emotions guide my behavior, I’d be much better off.

It turns out that this is a notion about how to think of the emotions is deeply wrong and in fact makes no sense at all.


Evolution, Emotion, and Reason: Emotions, Part I

Star Trek repeatedly makes a point of human nature (in terms of persistence, creativity, etc.) being desirable (especially by Data, who wishes to "be a real boy"). Maybe you are assuming a false dichotomy. Just because reason is better than emotion, that does not mean that emotion is necessarily wrong or to be eliminated. Just like you say, emotions must be "managed". Would you have such precautions for reason, or would those precautions simply be against allowing reason to be subverted by emotional bias? Emotion is just a much greater liability to arriving at the facts. You've touched on justifications for this liability, but you have not shown why emotion should be given priority, or even parity, with reason. I'm aware of the evolutionary theories, which is why I say morals and emotions both serve the same purpose, to bind groups.

[Secular Sanity]

Do you know what is universal, Syne?  Emotions.  Emotions are universal. 

Do all things that improve the value of life come about through ethical solutions?

We both agree that there should be some form of screening process and informed consent, but you haven’t said if you are for, or against any of them.  How do you feel about sex reassignment surgery?  How about BIID or assisted suicide?  Should they be legal?

[Syne]

Yes, emotions are universal. And? Does ubiquity alone make one trait more worthy of consideration than another universal trait? I would think merit would be more worthy of consideration.

Again, the criteria is not whether something, on occasion, improves life, but whether a thing more consistently improves life. Without reason, we'd still be trying to kill the neighboring tribe with spears, due to emotions like fear and jealousy. Reason and ethics consistently improve life, where emotions are fickle.

Whether any of these are socially accepted or ultimately mental illness, I am all for requiring people to demonstrate their commitment to such an irreversible choice beforehand. Legal, like moral, is largely a matter of social consensus, which is why I prefer to speak in terms of ethics.

Did you ever explicitly say what your minimum requirements would be? Mental evaluation and a waiting period to consider the choice?

[Secular Sanity]

Help me out with the concept of intrinsic value.  Will you, Syne?

The value that something has "in itself," or "for its own sake," or "in its own right."

How do we assign a value to something?  Take for example, something as simple as a piece of fruit.  It is good for food and pleasant to the eye.  Its main function is to be desirable to increase its chances of being eaten and transported.  It serves the seed.  The seeds purpose is to disperse and nourish the embryo.  It serves the embryo.  The main function of the embryo is to survive.  Its survival serves again, reproduction.  What is the intrinsic value of a fruit?

The main purpose of extremities are locomotion.  Daniel Wolpert believes that we have evolved brains to produce adaptable and complex movements.  He said that there’s really no other reason to have brains.  Movement enhances our survival and reproductive success. 

Our main purposes, like the fruit, are survival and reproduction.  Can you reproduce and survive without your limbs?  GRS generally removes the ability to reproduce, but you can survive without reproducing? Can you still contribute to society after GRS or without limbs?  Of course, but that is an extrinsic value.  

What is the intrinsic value of a human life?  Is it to survive or to reproduce?  Both serve future generations, but survival is the intrinsic value.

Ultimately, that is who we serve, the future.  We are carriers of life.

And you’re right, humans have developed the ability to overcome their instinctual drives. Richard Dawkins said that Homo sapiens are the only species that has the possibility of rebelling against the universally selfish Darwinian impulse.  We now have reproductive freedom.

Well, then, that leaves us with assisted suicide. 

Okay, Syne, let’s remove our fickle emotions from the equation, shall we? 

Objective reality does not condemn us to life.  To assign any value to it, you must romanticize it in some way or another.  Humans ascribe value and meaning to make it worth the struggle and that ascription of value is in essence expressions of emotion.  If the struggle becomes an imposition, a condemnation, if you will, shouldn’t we then remove our fickle feelings from the awful predicament?

I agree with you, Syne.  We now have to ability to overcome our natural drives.

As Aldous Huxley would say, life is not a crossword puzzle, dearie.  There’s no answer settled in advance and a prize for the ingenious person who noses it out.

[Syne]

Value is the importance of a thing or action with regards to what is best...so there is judgment involved. The value of fruit can be boiled down to life having value, both intrinsically for itself and instrumentally for others. We assign its instrumental value to us as greater than its intrinsic value, but then its reproduction strategy takes advantage of that. Value judgments are in the service of goals or purposes, and most ethical schools of thought hold some intrinsic value/s to be paramount.

Survival of a species would be moot if the individual did not serve that purpose, so losing the ability to reproduce does harm the intrinsic value of life. But then at least it is removing itself from the gene pool. So no matter how accepted by society, it does not pass on through heredity an continue to stunt the purpose of life.

Now does the good done by our ability to override instinct mean that all instinct is bad or that all such rebellion is good? Of course not...there are no absolutes.

Objectively, life is all we get (aside from any subjective belief in an afterlife). Whether we consider it a blessing or a burden is dependent on our malleable emotions and perceptions. Depression can be treated and suffering can be managed, if not alleviated. It is the fickle feelings that may erroneously have us believe that a life that otherwise could go on to bring some measure of pleasure is a lost cause. And emotions are very often self-fulfilling.

Heaven and hell exist in this life. It just depends on which you choose to see.


If you really think life has no objective value, then it makes sense why you have trouble differentiating collateral damage and cold-blooded murder.

[Secular Sanity]

Objectively, life is all we get (aside from any subjective belief in an afterlife).

I recall discussing a few of your subjective beliefs back in the day.  Well, I referred to them as apron strings but that was just my regular ole tit for tat banter.

Choosing to not have children does not reduce the intrinsic value of life itself.  Plenty of people are reproducing.  Unless, of course, you think your lineage is somehow special.

It’s more bearable when we’re serving something grand, isn’t it, Syne?  If we can find something larger than ourselves, something profound, some sort of plan then we can leave some sort of a trace.  I was here.  

We all want power and reach for the fruit, but in doing so we encounter disapproval or punishment, and eventually we learn to surrender to the collective.  While morality constricts the life of the individual, it strengthens the life of the collective. What began as a protest against power becomes the servant of a collective power, and the goal is always the same, even for the martyrs and the saints.  To know good and evil.  To be as gods.

Its nature vs. culture and sometimes it’s not just our perception through which heaven and hell are created.  Sometimes heaven is created for those who observe the taboos and hell for those who violate them. These man-made systems and plans are subjective, and there’s always exceptions, limitations, and denial.  They rarely, if not ever, stand the test of time. You can’t judge something as right or wrong just because you find it repulsive.

I value life, Syne, I really do.  In fact, I love it because I am emotional, and I romanticize the hell out of it.  I don’t have any trouble differentiating collateral damage and cold-blooded murder, but I do have a few concerns with the proportionality, though. It begs the question, "proportionate to what?"  There’s no doubt in my mind that this is highly subjective and indeterminate.  Is there an algorithm for this tit for tat calculation?

As we discussed earlier, I don’t think it’s unethical to save your family at the cost of the lives of several strangers, but you’ll have to admit that there’s going to be some preference for fellow countrymen, as well. Enemy civilians are not going to be treated equally.

[Syne]

A rational person knows how to compartment their subjective beliefs when they need to evaluate things like ethics and logic. Choosing to not have children reduces the potential for life, so where it may not reduce the qualitative intrinsic value of life, it does reduce the quantitative intrinsic value (the value that can be objectively accessed, as quality of life is highly subjective).

I don't serve any grand or profound purpose, and I find life to be perfectly pleasant. Nor have I sought power or feel I've surrendered to any collective. Perhaps less dependence on emotions has its benefits. We can choose whether we wish to be effected by disapproval. We can choose whether we internalize it or not. Any hell you live is not created by any taboos you violate but by the criticism of others you internalize as shame or just a general rebelliousness to the society around you. If you blame the opinions of others for your life, you do not tend to take full responsibility for your own lot.

You can judge right and wrong by the results. Is the result of a taboo that you feel others think you repulsive? This is not a problem of their opinion but of your underlying agreement with their opinion. Why should you care otherwise? People who demand others to accept their chosen taboos demonstrate an irrational double-standard, where they demand to be accepted but refuse to accept the chosen mores of others.

There is pretty simple math for war. Will the unavoidable collateral damage end up saving more lives in the long run. Now whether you have the intelligence data to accurately determine that is another matter.

Why shouldn't there be an in-group preference? Since there is greater survival in groups, the group also serves the survival of the individual.

[Secular Sanity]

A rational person knows how to compartment their subjective beliefs when they need to evaluate things like ethics and logic.

The primary political cause of war is statism: any social system based on the notion that the state has a right to force individuals to act against their judgment for the sake of some “greater good,” whether the community (communism), the race (Nazism), the nation (fascism), or “God” (theocracy). [Source]

I don't serve any grand or profound purpose, and I find life to be perfectly pleasant. Nor have I sought power or feel I've surrendered to any collective. Perhaps less dependence on emotions has its benefits. We can choose whether we wish to be effected by disapproval. We can choose whether we internalize it or not. Any hell you live is not created by any taboos you violate but by the criticism of others you internalize as shame or just a general rebelliousness to the society around you. If you blame the opinions of others for your life, you do not tend to take full responsibility for your own lot.

You can judge right and wrong by the results. Is the result of a taboo that you feel others think you repulsive? This is not a problem of their opinion but of your underlying agreement with their opinion. Why should you care otherwise? People who demand others to accept their chosen taboos demonstrate an irrational double-standard, where they demand to be accepted but refuse to accept the chosen mores of others.

Everyone always says that, Syne, but it’s not true.  We do care about what others think.  As Mark Leary said, "You filter the cues that you get from others through your self-concept."

I asked C C this question before but what do you think about this hypothesis, Syne?  Could they be right?  Maybe the confirmation bias isn’t a flaw, but a feature.  Your ideas or decisions don’t have to be correct or good.  You just have to be able to justify them. Do you think it’s too simple, another one of those just-so stories?

"Reasoning was not designed to pursue the truth. Reasoning was designed by evolution to help us win arguments."

Abstract: Reasoning is generally seen as a means to improve knowledge and make better decisions. However, much evidence shows that reasoning often leads to epistemic distortions and poor decisions. This suggests that the function of reasoning should be rethought. Our hypothesis is that the function of reasoning is argumentative.

Why Do Humans Reason? Arguments for an Argumentative Theory

I was hanging out with my friends this weekend.  I asked a few of them about this topic.  I struggled more with the BIID disorder than I did with the gender dysphoria.  Same with my girlfriends, but all the guys said that they’d rather lose a limb.  All the males said that everything they do revolves around it.  One even said, "Why in the hell do you think we even go to work?"  

Your sex organ is a huge part of your identity, isn’t it?


Edit* I just thought of something, Syne.

Why shouldn't there be an in-group preference? Since there is greater survival in groups, the group also serves the survival of the individual.

I know that you hate it when I post videos, but I think Jonathan Haidt is right, and it applies to not only our own country but the whole world.  Tribalism may support our survival but it also promotes Manichean thinking.  When you reach this good evil dichotomy, you have to take a side.  We all think that we take the side of good and that we’re fighting against evil.  When it gets to point where your opponents are no longer just people you disagree, but evil, then it’s very difficult to reach a compromise.  Compromise becomes a dirty word.

Jonathan Haidt Explains Our Contentious Culture

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism

[Syne]

A rational person knows how to compartment their subjective beliefs when they need to evaluate things like ethics and logic.

The primary political cause of war is statism: any social system based on the notion that the state has a right to force individuals to act against their judgment for the sake of some “greater good,” whether the community (communism), the race (Nazism), the nation (fascism), or “God” (theocracy). [Source]

The problem with that source, aside from offering no data to back up their "objective" assertions, is what do the people who hew to the right column do in the face of those who hew to the left column? That article is also self-conflicted since it says:
For example, in the 1930s, European leaders evaded the explicitly stated intentions and clear advances of the Nazis. Rather than eliminate these avowedly racist murderers who openly sought world domination when the Europeans easily could have, they permitted the Nazis to strengthen and expand for years on end, thereby eventually necessitating a massive war to end the nightmare.

While not as big a war, earlier action would have still required war. Would that preemptive war not have fallen into the causes of the left column, and if not how can we then take that left column as the definitive "Causes of War"? Obviously, the primary cause of war for those who hew to the right column is not statism. And even if it were, this article gives us no facts to evaluate the assertion against.

I don't serve any grand or profound purpose, and I find life to be perfectly pleasant. Nor have I sought power or feel I've surrendered to any collective. Perhaps less dependence on emotions has its benefits. We can choose whether we wish to be effected by disapproval. We can choose whether we internalize it or not. Any hell you live is not created by any taboos you violate but by the criticism of others you internalize as shame or just a general rebelliousness to the society around you. If you blame the opinions of others for your life, you do not tend to take full responsibility for your own lot.

You can judge right and wrong by the results. Is the result of a taboo that you feel others think you repulsive? This is not a problem of their opinion but of your underlying agreement with their opinion. Why should you care otherwise? People who demand others to accept their chosen taboos demonstrate an irrational double-standard, where they demand to be accepted but refuse to accept the chosen mores of others.

Everyone always says that, Syne, but it’s not true.  We do care about what others think.  As Mark Leary said, "You filter the cues that you get from others through your self-concept."

It is true, but you're not likely to believe it unless you have experienced it. I would think that you would be very supportive of the notion that people don't always know what they're talking about until they've experienced something themselves. Or maybe I should be taken seriously about all my notions about what it's like to be a polyamorous woman?

I asked C C this question before but what do you think about this hypothesis, Syne?  Could they be right?  Maybe the confirmation bias isn’t a flaw, but a feature.  Your ideas or decisions don’t have to be correct or good.  You just have to be able to justify them. Do you think it’s too simple, another one of those just-so stories?

"Reasoning was not designed to pursue the truth. Reasoning was designed by evolution to help us win arguments."

Abstract: Reasoning is generally seen as a means to improve knowledge and make better decisions. However, much evidence shows that reasoning often leads to epistemic distortions and poor decisions. This suggests that the function of reasoning should be rethought. Our hypothesis is that the function of reasoning is argumentative.

Why Do Humans Reason? Arguments for an Argumentative Theory

I don't have to read further than the authors of that paper to understand the motive for their assertion. Both are in philosophy departments, where the primary use of reason very much is argumentation. Philosophy has little need to comport with empirical facts. But other branches of knowledge need to make sense of physical reality facts, which much be capable of being independently verified by others.

Confirmation bias is a flaw when it contradicts verifiable reality. Believing things contrary to reality is generally called delusion.

I was hanging out with my friends this weekend.  I asked a few of them about this topic.  I struggled more with the BIID disorder than I did with the gender dysphoria.  Same with my girlfriends, but all the guys said that they’d rather lose a limb.  All the males said that everything they do revolves around it.  One even said, "Why in the hell do you think we even go to work?"  

Your sex organ is a huge part of your identity, isn’t it?

My identity? No. While it provides me a great amount of pleasure, my identity is not tied to number or frequency of "conquests". I assume that derives from some need for social acceptance. I'm not interested in false-dilemma hypotheticals (limb or genitals).

Edit* I just thought of something, Syne.

Why shouldn't there be an in-group preference? Since there is greater survival in groups, the group also serves the survival of the individual.

I know that you hate it when I post videos, but I think Jonathan Haidt is right, and it applies to not only our own country but the whole world.  Tribalism may support our survival but it also promotes Manichean thinking.  When you reach this good evil dichotomy, you have to take a side.  We all think that we take the side of good and that we’re fighting against evil.  When it gets to point where your opponents are no longer just people you disagree, but evil, then it’s very difficult to reach a compromise.  Compromise becomes a dirty word.

Jonathan Haidt Explains Our Contentious Culture

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism

From what I understand of Haidt, I agree. "Liberals misunderstand conservatives more than the other way around"...which characterizes discussions such as ours. And liberals are the ones currently characterizing all conservatives as racist, bigoted, sexist...all evil traits. When you believe your enemies among your own countrymen are more dangerous than the enemies of your country, there is very little compromise to be had.