It's not exactly non-rational, though, it's semantic. The rational aspect is descriptivism; making language useful in the way people use it.inator wrote: That bubble is precisely what I'm emphasizing - it represents the nonrational part of moral systems.
It's like saying the definition of "dog" is nonrational. It's rational, because it's the useful definition; it means a certain thing because people can understand and use language in that way.
Sure, but that's not what I'm looking for; I'm looking at a range of acceptable definitions for morality in terms of its axioms, not consequences.inator wrote: Or facts about emotional attitudes.
Ethical sentences are expressions of approval or disapproval. So "Torture is wrong" means something like "Boo on torture!".
In a purely word usage sense, it makes sense to map "morality" to altruism, but not to sadism (once we've narrowed down all of the coherent systems).
That is, semantics can act as the tie-breaker in terms of whether we consider altruism or sadism to be proper contenders for morality.
Utilitarianism sort of fits the definition, and is semi-consistent. That's why I didn't put it in the diagram, since it's a bit more complicated.inator wrote: Would you say that preference utilitarianism is not morality because it may not fit the definition perfectly? And is your leaning towards altruism based on semantics (you want to be moral) or on better consistency?
It's a weak fit; altruism is a stronger one.
The conflict between utilitarianism and altruism is much more nuanced than the very simple process by which we may eliminate deontology or egoism.
Sure, and I don't have as much of a problem with those, provided we can take them and leave the others and they don't come as a package deal.inator wrote: There are also other behaviors that may not be generated by reason, but that tend to have positive consequences and are therefore reasonable.
This is why I don't tend to spend my time arguing against Jainism, for example.
Speaking of, if you have time maybe you can join in the discussion for a couple days? I have something to do, I will be heavily occupied likely until the weekend.inator wrote: EDIT: Just like your average deontological vegan may be less rational overall than IslandMorality, but the vegan's empathy-based conclusions are closer to morality than his/hers.
A descriptive usage panel may not understand it, but there is under prescriptivism.inator wrote: Semantically speaking, you can call many things moral values. Not all will fit within a coherent value system, some will be incompatible with logic. But there's no reason to narrow down the semantic definition of values to their being logically functional.
When we're dealing with a philosophical concept, or something that's claiming to be a coherent system of making evaluations, being logically broken prevents it from doing what it's supposed to do.
(As to the other part, I think I meant independent of individual opinion, not sure of the context now.)