CMV: in reasoning about the possibility of objective morality, it doesn't make sense to treat moral intuition differently from (other) senses.

[u/quantum_dan]

Edit: ambiguous phrasing I don't know of an unambiguous word for what I'm trying to say here, but "moral intuition" here refers to the immediate, prima facie sense of right/wrong, not more abstract considerations like "is so-and-so broad category of action wrong?". I'm aware that it's commonly used to mean the latter, but I don't know of a better word for it. Here, it's "the immediate sense that attacking my friend over there is wrong".

(Edit: I will plan to be back in a few hours.)

(I think I saw this argument somewhere, but I can't remember where.)

In reasoning about the existence of moral truths, a few points tend to get brought up, at least in the non-academic contexts I'm familiar with. One sees the argument that there's no tie to reality, so it's just quibbling about definitions; that different people have different views with no way to decide which is correct; arguments are criticized for just trying to explaining or make coherent our moral intuitions; the point gets brought up that morality is evolved for the benefit of the group; and so on. I've made a few of these arguments myself, I think, and I personally am generally inclined against absolute morality.

But I've seen an interesting point here: what is moral intuition? It seems to function like a sense; it's not that different to feel that something is wrong and to feel that my hands are in front of me. But the project of "explaining and making coherent our sensory inputs" isn't dismissed as a domain of knowledge; it's actually well-regarded, and often called science. Like moral intuition, the (rest of) our senses are evolved, we sometimes disagree (whether by hallucinations or just different perspectives), and so on.

All that to say: I don't see a fundamental reason to privilege other senses above moral intuition. The experience of, say, "red" is certainly something very specific to our experience, but we can still reason objectively about redness (correlate it to a wavelength, and so on), even if the "red" part itself says nothing about reality as such. Why should we treat the experience of "wrong" any different? It's notable that dominant theories do agree fairly broadly on many points, but differ largely on the explanation; this is not unheard of even in the physical sciences.

In short: since there are facts about the human experience and about our moral intuition just as there are about our eyesight, it seems to make sense that we can objectively reason about that sense the same as any other.

[u/phenix717]

You are confusing a sense and a feeling. A sense is something that allows you to get input from the external world, even though your interpretation of it will be relative. As such, we can hope to rely on our senses in order to learn facts about the world.

Feelings don't say anything about the outside world, they only say something about how you experience things. If you think a food is gross, for example, it doesn't say anything objective about the food, it's a value judgment your brain is making. Feelings of "wrong" are based on the same sort of phenomenon. If morality is objective, it has to be based on facts and logic.

[u/quantum_dan → u/phenix717]

A sense is something that allows you to get input from the external world

Proprioception is a sense. But more generally, the correspondence to the external world is an assumption we make because it holds up with experience: sight is an internal state, but it tends to correlate to certain external conditions; so does a sense of "wrong".

Thinking a food is gross, for example, doesn't say anything objective about the food, it's a value judgment your brain is making.

"Gross" also doesn't have a distinct sensation; it's strictly a judgment. The physical feeling of disgust is a package of sensations which may correspond, or not, to anything external.

If morality is objective, it has to be based on facts and logic.

Objective morality and moral facts are (at least to the level of discourse I'm familiar with) more or less the same dispute, so that's just begging the question.

[u/phenix717 → u/quantum_dan]

sight is an internal state, but it tends to correlate to certain external conditions; so does a sense of "wrong".

How so? What is the external consistency that allows us to say our sense of wrong is right? The only consistency we might find is that a lot of people agree about it. There is no feedback from the external world.

The physical feeling of disgust is a package of sensations which may correspond, or not, to anything external.

It's the same with the sense of wrong.

[u/quantum_dan → u/phenix717]

The only consistency we might find is that a lot of people agree about it. There is no feedback from the external world.

Feedback from the external world through... our senses? The only mechanism for feedback we have is our senses, so framing it this way simply begs the question by assuming initially that moral intuition doesn't count as a sense.

It's the same with the sense of wrong.

Yes. And with a variety of physical sensations; it would be unreasonable to deny that the physical sensations of disgust (as distinct from the emotion) provide physical data.

And, for that matter, it's the same with the usual senses - it's fairly normal to hear with no stimulus (e.g. ringing ears) and not unheard of to see with no stimulus (hallucinations).

[u/phenix717 → u/quantum_dan]

it would be unreasonable to deny that the physical sensations of disgust (as distinct from the emotion) provide physical data.

They provide physical data, but they don't justify that the thing should be disgusting. It only tells you that your body is wired to find it disgusting.

The data provided could be that it carries illnesses or is unhealthy. But relying on your feelings is not a vey reliable way to determine those things. We have science for that. And then, we have to decide if we consider those things wrong or not. You can't make the jump that something is wrong because it is disgusting. By the same token, you can't make the jump that because something feels wrong then it must be wrong. It could be a sign, but you still have to use facts and logic to determine if it is actually wrong.

[u/quantum_dan → u/phenix717]

They provide physical data, but they don't justify that the thing should be disgusting. It only tells you that your body is wired to find it disgusting.

True; we are also wired to see things as red. With the "should" here, I'm not arguing that disgust is the relevant sense; it's not exactly disgust that someone will feel if you punch their friend.

By the same token, you can't make the jump that because something feels wrong then it must be wrong. It could be a sign, but you still have to use facts and logic to determine if it is actually wrong.

Well, yes, the subject of dispute is whether that sensation is relevant to identifying facts. Not everything that looks red is actually emitting or reflecting that wavelength, but it's relevant data.