[ingliz]

The effect of genes on reproductive success is ENTIRELY predicated on adaptiveness to a given environment.

In order to make your argument we must assume that humans evolved in a uniform environment. Of course, you know this is silly, and unscientific, so you dance around the point.

adaptiveness to a given environment

If a moral sense is naturally selected. Why do you call moral norms, those norms you don't approve of, maladaptive? Natural selection leads to forms of traits (adaptations) that are optimal in a given environmental context.

there is no standard of moral judgment but reproductive success

Darwinian evolutionary theory leads one to a moral skepticism.

Not the same family of pharaohs.

But it is the same behaviour, and the same 'maladaptive' moral norm.

Were you under an erroneous impression that those findings could be relevant?

The point where the coefficient of relatedness actually decreases fitness due to the increase in homozygosity for deleterious mutations is not fixed.

the same conditions favouring high assortative mating should also favour the evolution of preferences for mating with individuals displaying high fitness.

You clearly don't know anything about how evolution works. Nothing.

I seem to know a little more than you.

optimal

Oops, a teleology to be avoided. The existence of populations, species, or other lineages is sufficient evidence that they are fulfilling their conditions for existence.

[Truth To Power]

The effect of genes on reproductive success is ENTIRELY predicated on adaptiveness to a given environment.

In order to make your argument we must assume that humans evolved in a uniform environment.

Wrong again. Merely an environment that tends to eliminate genes associated with certain behaviors.

Of course, you know this is silly, and unscientific, so you dance around the point.

Fabrication.

adaptiveness to a given environment

If a moral sense is naturally selected. Why do you call moral norms, those norms you don't approve of, maladaptive?

My approval is irrelevant.

Natural selection leads to forms of traits (adaptations) that are optimal in a given environmental context.

there is no standard of moral judgment but reproductive success

Darwinian evolutionary theory leads one to a moral skepticism.

If you assume there is something to morality other than reproductive success.

Not the same family of pharaohs.

But it is the same behaviour, and the same 'maladaptive' moral norm.

Yes, and the same gradual elimination.

Were you under an erroneous impression that those findings could be relevant?

The point where the coefficient of relatedness actually decreases fitness due to the increase in homozygosity for deleterious mutations is not fixed.

Were you under an erroneous impression that that could be relevant?

You clearly don't know anything about how evolution works. Nothing.

I seem to know a little more than you.

No, quite a bit less.

optimal

Oops, a teleology to be avoided. The existence of populations, species, or other lineages is sufficient evidence that they are fulfilling their conditions for existence.

See above re knowing how evolution works.

[ingliz]

If you assume there is something to morality other than reproductive success.

Which you have. You seem to believe that evolution is working towards some perfect end-state where nature has weeded out 'immorality' to reveal a moral truth that justifies a natural right - Teleological bullcrap!

to eliminate genes associated with certain behaviors.

Behaviours you don't approve of?

My approval is irrelevant.

Correct

relevant?

Immorality, first cousin unions, and reproductive success.

In isolated communities is this behaviour a maladaptation?

In communities with tight social norms that encourage consanguineous marriage is this behaviour a maladaptation?

And, if not are the moral norms forbidding the practice maladaptive?

Remember, studies have found that marriages between related individuals tended to produce more children and grandchildren than those between completely unrelated individuals, and the risks are about 1.7%–2% (National Society of Genetic Counselors) above the background risk for congenital defects.

knowing how evolution works

Evolution is not a "work in progress" as there is no hierarchy of increasing perfection, and no perfect end-state.

[Truth To Power]

If you assume there is something to morality other than reproductive success.

Which you have.

Nope. Flat false.

You seem to believe that evolution is working towards some perfect end-state

No. That is a fabrication on your part.

where nature has weeded out 'immorality' to reveal a moral truth that justifies a natural right -

No. The point is that the very concepts of morality and natural right only arise because of evolution and differential reproductive success. You don't seem able to grasp this.

to eliminate genes associated with certain behaviors.

Behaviours you don't approve of?

Right! Because I am a product of the same evolutionary process. That's why there is broad agreement about what is moral, across times and cultures.

My approval is irrelevant.

Correct

Again, you do not seem fully to understand this.

relevant?

Immorality, first cousin unions, and reproductive success.

In isolated communities is this behaviour a maladaptation?

It's not clear, which might be why there is no consensus on its morality.

In communities with tight social norms that encourage consanguineous marriage is this behaviour a maladaptation?

As above.

And, if not are the moral norms forbidding the practice maladaptive?

As above.

Remember, studies have found that marriages between related individuals tended to produce more children and grandchildren than those between completely unrelated individuals, and the risks are about 1.7%–2% (National Society of Genetic Counselors) above the background risk for congenital defects.

There may be other things going on. E.g., mismatched Rh factors lead to reproductive failure. That's more likely with unrelated individuals.

knowing how evolution works

Evolution is not a "work in progress" as there is no hierarchy of increasing perfection, and no perfect end-state.

Non sequitur. Language, history, culture, global climate, none of these have a hierarchy of increasing perfection or perfect end-state, yet all are works in progress. They are happening in real time, and are not directed by anyone or toward anything, but they can still be understood.

[ingliz]

The point is that the very concepts of morality and natural right only arise because of evolution and differential reproductive success.

Morality is a culturally conditioned emotional response.

Compared to control subjects, the psychopaths made no moral/conventional distinction about transgressions

That's why there is broad agreement about what is moral, across times and cultures.

Morals vary dramatically across time and cultures. One group’s good can be another group’s evil. Consider cannibalism, which has been recorded across times from the paleolithic to the present day and practised by groups in every part of the world. Anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday found evidence for cannibalism in 34% of cultures in one cross-historical sample.

Sanday P.R., Divine Hunger: Cannibalism as a Cultural System.

[Truth To Power]

The point is that the very concepts of morality and natural right only arise because of evolution and differential reproductive success.

Morality is a culturally conditioned emotional response.

It's clearly not, as infants too young to have learned any culture still show aversion to, e.g., unjust behavior, and many people are entirely capable of devising their own moral principles that contradict the cultural morals they were raised with. If morality were just a culturally conditioned emotional response, these facts would be impossible.

Compared to control subjects, the psychopaths made no moral/conventional distinction about transgressions

Bingo! Psychopaths lack the moral faculty that the rest of us possess, just as, say, albinos lack melanin.

That's why there is broad agreement about what is moral, across times and cultures.

Morals vary dramatically across time and cultures.

Only in tangential ways that are ambiguous for reproductive success. The core is remarkably consistent -- so consistent that it can't plausibly have arisen arbitrarily, a cultural accident like the mapping of words to concepts, as you claim.

One group’s good can be another group’s evil. Consider cannibalism, which has been recorded across times from the paleolithic to the present day and practised by groups in every part of the world. Anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday found evidence for cannibalism in 34% of cultures in one cross-historical sample.

Sanday P.R., Divine Hunger: Cannibalism as a Cultural System.

Nonsense. The cannibalism taboo is so strong that most people will starve to death rather than break it. Lots of claims of cannibalism are based on the biased testimony of members of rival groups, not on actual evidence. Real cannibalism that can be verified by scientific evidence is vanishingly rare, and generally associated with extreme starvation events or religious/spiritual practices.

[ingliz]

Psychopaths lack the moral faculty that the rest of us possess

Psychopaths lack certain conditioned emotional responses that the rest of us possess.

It's clearly not...

Morality as a culturally conditioned emotional response.

Children begin to learn values when they are very young, before they can reason effectively. Moral education begins from the start, as parents correct antisocial behaviors, and they usually do so by conditioning children’s emotions. Parents threaten physical punishment, they withdraw love, ostracise, deprive, and induce vicarious distress. Each of these methods causes the misbehaved child to experience a negative emotion and associate it with the punished behaviour. Children also learn by emotional osmosis. They see their parents’ reactions to news broadcasts and storybooks. They hear hours of judgmental gossip about inconsiderate neighbors, unethical coworkers, disloyal friends, and the black sheep in the family. Consummate imitators, children internalise the feelings expressed by their parents, and, when they are a bit older, their peers.

Emotional conditioning and osmosis are not merely convenient tools for acquiring values: they are essential. Parents sometimes try to reason with their children, but moral reasoning only works by drawing attention to values that the child has already internalised through emotional conditioning. No amount of reasoning can engender a moral value, because all values are, at bottom, emotional attitudes.

J. Prinz, The Death of Morality.

If morality were just a culturally conditioned emotional response, these facts would be impossible.

Neuroscientific studies demonstrate that emotional structures are recruited in making moral judgments.

Greene, J.D. et al. (2001) An MRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgment. Science 293, 2105–2108

Greene, J.D. and Haidt, J. (2002) How (and where) does moral judgment work? Trends Cogn. Sci. 6, 517–523

Greene, J.D. et al. (2004) The neural bases of cognitive conflict and control in moral judgment. Neuron 44, 389–400

Blair, R.J. (1995) A cognitive developmental approach to morality: investigating the psychopath. Cognition 57, 1–29

Nonsense. The cannibalism taboo is so strong that most people will starve to death rather than break it.

Your approach reeks of ethnocentric bias.

generally associated with extreme starvation events

Wrong!

In most recorded cases of human cannibalism, the cannibals ate one of their own species not for gastronomic, but cultural reasons.

understood.

I know it's quibbling, and quibbling over semantics may seem petty stuff, but...

Understanding evolution is a "work in progress", the process itself is not. Evolution is not progressive. It doesn't advance, and there is no destination.

At the time of the 'modern synthesis' in the 1940s, the notion of progress was quietly dropped, with a few exceptions... by the 1970s, progress had been abandoned by working biologists.

[Truth To Power]

Psychopaths lack the moral faculty that the rest of us possess

Psychopaths lack certain conditioned emotional responses that the rest of us possess.

No, that's just false. They lack the capacity to think in moral terms, and no amount of "conditioning" can give it to them.

It's clearly not...

Morality as a culturally conditioned emotional response.

Children begin to learn values when they are very young, before they can reason effectively.

Already a false and unsupported assumption: that values are learned, and not innate. Yet we know that all other animals are instinctively averse to some behaviors, predisposed to others. The assumption that human beings are uniquely born tabula rasa is arrant mysticism.

Moral education begins from the start, as parents correct antisocial behaviors,

Wrong again. Many parents effectively encourage anti-social behaviors. What they teach is cultural conformity.

and they usually do so by conditioning children’s emotions.

This fool appears never to have been a parent, or even watched one.

Parents threaten physical punishment, they withdraw love, ostracise, deprive, and induce vicarious distress. Each of these methods causes the misbehaved child to experience a negative emotion and associate it with the punished behaviour. Children also learn by emotional osmosis. They see their parents’ reactions to news broadcasts and storybooks. They hear hours of judgmental gossip about inconsiderate neighbors, unethical coworkers, disloyal friends, and the black sheep in the family. Consummate imitators, children internalise the feelings expressed by their parents, and, when they are a bit older, their peers.

All this is irrelevant garbage, as numerous studies have confirmed that children are already averse to injustice before they have even developed the ability to understand language. Gifted children, in particular, very early show a keen sense of justice that not only can't plausibly be the result of "conditioning," but can even exceed their parents' in sensitivity.

Emotional conditioning and osmosis are not merely convenient tools for acquiring values: they are essential.

Again the false and unsupported assumption that human beings are uniquely tabula rasa.

Parents sometimes try to reason with their children, but moral reasoning only works by drawing attention to values that the child has already internalised through emotional conditioning.

Again: this fool is clearly not a parent, and has never observed a parent. Children are born with differing innate values. Just as one obvious example, introverts value quiet time to themselves, extroverts value others' attention. This is innate, not a conditioned emotional response, so your stupid fool is just wrong as a matter of objective physical fact.

No amount of reasoning can engender a moral value, because all values are, at bottom, emotional attitudes.

Nope. Wrong. Values are not emotional attitudes. They are guides to what will work in the struggle to survive and reproduce. There is no other reason to have them, and that is sufficient reason to make them something more than just arbitrary conditioned responses.

J. Prinz, The Death of Morality.

This fool may be trying to kill it, but is failing.

If morality were just a culturally conditioned emotional response, these facts would be impossible.

Neuroscientific studies demonstrate that emotional structures are recruited in making moral judgments.

And on your planet, that might even be considered relevant.

Greene, J.D. et al. (2001) An MRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgment. Science 293, 2105–2108

Greene, J.D. and Haidt, J. (2002) How (and where) does moral judgment work? Trends Cogn. Sci. 6, 517–523

Greene, J.D. et al. (2004) The neural bases of cognitive conflict and control in moral judgment. Neuron 44, 389–400

Blair, R.J. (1995) A cognitive developmental approach to morality: investigating the psychopath. Cognition 57, 1–29

This is a typical tactic of dishonest Internet ninnies: citing sources that do not in fact support their claims, and often actually contradict them.

Nonsense. The cannibalism taboo is so strong that most people will starve to death rather than break it.

Your approach reeks of ethnocentric bias.

Declining to die of horrible diseases spread by cannibalism is not "ethnocentric bias," sunshine.

generally associated with extreme starvation events

Wrong!

In most recorded cases of human cannibalism, the cannibals ate one of their own species not for gastronomic, but cultural reasons.

Now you see? That is another example of your gross intellectual dishonesty. I very clearly wrote:

extreme starvation events or religious/spiritual practices.

But you very consciously and deliberately decided that you had better dishonestly snip the bolded part, and pretend that I did not write it, in order to deceive your readers into thinking I had made an error when I had not. Such despicably dishonest behavior is the natural expression and consequence of your belief -- effectively, the moral theory of psychopaths -- that morality is nothing but a culturally conditioned emotional response

understood.

Such extreme context deletion is (surprise!) not an honest attempt to engage with what I said.

I know it's quibbling, and quibbling over semantics may seem petty stuff, but...

At least it beats lying about what I have plainly written....

Understanding evolution is a "work in progress", the process itself is not. Evolution is not progressive. It doesn't advance, and there is no destination.

Wrong. While it is true there is no destination, evolution definitely advances, just as the English language has advanced in expressive power and clarity since Chaucer's day. The notion that modern organisms represent no advance over the primordial goo is absurd -- but consistent with the psychopathic view that values are completely arbitrary.

At the time of the 'modern synthesis' in the 1940s, the notion of progress was quietly dropped, with a few exceptions... by the 1970s, progress had been abandoned by working biologists.

We also don't talk about language "progressing," yet it is a work in progress. So you are just blathering incoherently.

[ingliz]

no amount of "conditioning" can give it to them.

I didn't comment on a psychopath's capacity to be conditioned, only the lack of a conditioned emotional response.

What they teach is cultural conformity.

Morality conforms to culture.

values are learned, and not innate

The cultural contingency of moral norms and substantive moral rules would suggest they are not innate.

citing sources that do not in fact support their claims, and often actually contradict them

Please, show how my sources do not support my argument?

evolution definitely advances,

For the survivalists among us this is just an arbitrary value judgement.

[Truth To Power]

no amount of "conditioning" can give it to them.

I didn't comment on a psychopath's capacity to be conditioned, only the lack of a conditioned emotional response.

Oh, but in fact, a psychopath CAN be conditioned, emotionally conditioned, to behave and not behave in various ways. Psychopaths do experience emotion, which you claim is all that's necessary to learn morality. That how he learns to get along in society, after all. He just can't be conditioned to think in moral terms. Therefore, your account of morality and the nature of human moral capacity is in terminal conflict with the facts of objective reality.

What they teach is cultural conformity.

Morality conforms to culture.

Wrong again. That view unfortunately leaves you completely unable to account for moral innovation: the people who come up with new moral ideas foreign to their culture and "conditioning." According to your "analysis," it is absolutely impossible, as there is no human faculty that could do it. Yet we know it happens. Therefore, your analysis is objectively false.

values are learned, and not innate

The cultural contingency of moral norms and substantive moral rules would suggest they are not innate.

Again, consider the parallel with language: language is not innate, and the first language we learn is the one we grow up hearing. But the CAPACITY for language IS innate, its semantic and grammatical structure always conforms to certain innate features of the human mind, and some people -- a very, very few, because it is so basic to human identity -- lack that capacity. Morality is analogous. We have the capacity for moral reasoning, which animals lack. Which particular morals we adopt may be largely a matter of what we grow up with, but certain features of the moral universe are innate: the concepts of rights, justice, conscience, reciprocity, etc. As with language, the details might be different depending on learning and culture, but the basic structure and much of the content is consistent, and innate.

citing sources that do not in fact support their claims, and often actually contradict them

Please, show how my sources do not support my argument?

It's up to you to show how they do.

evolution definitely advances,

For the survivalists among us this is just an arbitrary value judgement.

Values are not arbitrary.

[ingliz]

a psychopath CAN be conditioned,

Differential aversive Pavlovian conditioning with a foul odor as unconditioned stimulus (US) and neutral faces as conditioned stimuli (CS) was compared between 9 noncriminal psychopaths as defined by the Hare Psychopathy Checklist Revised and 12 healthy controls. Event-related potentials (ERP), heart rate, skin conductance response, corrugator EMG, and startle response potentiation as well as valence, arousal, and contingency of the CS were assessed. Whereas the healthy controls (HC) showed significant CS+/CS− differentiation, the psychopaths (PP) failed to exhibit a conditioned response although unconditioned responses were comparable between the groups. N100, P200, and P300 to the CSs revealed that psychopaths were not deficient in information processing and showed even better anticipatory responding than the HC group indicated by the terminal contingent negative variation (tCNV), that lacked, however, CS+ and CS− differentiation. These data indicate a deficit in association formation in psychopaths that may be related to deficient interaction of limbic-subcortical and cortical structures.

Herta Flor et al. (2002) Aversive Pavlovian conditioning in psychopaths: Peripheral and central correlates. Psychophysiology: 39, 505–518

Psychopaths do experience emotion

Emotional Detachment and Psychopathy

Abnormal or deficient emotional responsiveness is considered to be the hallmark of psychopathy. Psychopaths show emotional detachment from and indifference to the feelings of others; they do not display any remorse or shame, nor do they experience affection or love. Fearlessness and callousness are thought to result from deficient emotional learning, poor conditioning processes in particular. One of the earliest and most consistent findings is that psychopaths show reduced electrodermal response to non-conditioned and conditioned anxiety- or punishment-related stimuli (Hare, 1978; Lykken, 1957, 1978). They display a weak response to aversive unconditioned stimuli and have difficulty establishing an association between conditioned and unconditioned stimuli. In addition, weak orienting responses suggest even more fundamental deficits in processing external information which seriously interfere with the establishment of classically conditioned associations. Deficient conditioning leads to an inability to learn from punishment and to develop passive avoidance learning. In a broader sense, poor conditioning is thought to be associated with poor development of the conscience (Raine, 1993).

Sabine C. Herpertz, and Henning Sass. (2000) Emotional Deficiency and Psychopathy. Behav. Sci. Law 18: 567- 580

Psychopathy is a "severe disease" characterised by "semantic dementia", a discordance between linguistic and experimental components of emotion appearing as an incapacity to experience grief, shame, love, pride, or other emotions, although being able to verbalise emotions.

The Mask of Sanity (1941), Cleckley

That view unfortunately leaves you completely unable to account for moral innovation: the people who come up with new moral ideas foreign to their culture and "conditioning."

No, it does not. Innovation, denotes an acceptance of the goals, but a rejection of the means for obtaining them.

It's up to you to show how they do.

I have - Neuroscientific studies demonstrate that emotional structures are recruited in making moral judgments.

Values are not arbitrary.

A valuation.

A value judgement rests upon a state of the emotions that is connected to an intellectual state as its occasion.

[Truth To Power]

a psychopath CAN be conditioned,

Differential aversive Pavlovian conditioning with a foul odor as unconditioned stimulus (US) and neutral faces as conditioned stimuli (CS) was compared between 9 noncriminal psychopaths as defined by the Hare Psychopathy Checklist Revised and 12 healthy controls. Event-related potentials (ERP), heart rate, skin conductance response, corrugator EMG, and startle response potentiation as well as valence, arousal, and contingency of the CS were assessed. Whereas the healthy controls (HC) showed significant CS+/CS− differentiation, the psychopaths (PP) failed to exhibit a conditioned response although unconditioned responses were comparable between the groups. N100, P200, and P300 to the CSs revealed that psychopaths were not deficient in information processing and showed even better anticipatory responding than the HC group indicated by the terminal contingent negative variation (tCNV), that lacked, however, CS+ and CS− differentiation. These data indicate a deficit in association formation in psychopaths that may be related to deficient interaction of limbic-subcortical and cortical structures.

Herta Flor et al. (2002) Aversive Pavlovian conditioning in psychopaths: Peripheral and central correlates. Psychophysiology: 39, 505–518

Why do you do this to yourself? Of course this experiment had to find lack of conditioning in psychopaths: it used neutral faces as the conditioned stimuli. It is precisely the moral significance of other people that the psychopath is unable to grasp, so a neutral face gives him nothing to think about. An angry or fearful face, he understands, because those emotions in others can affect him. Here's a much more relevant study, which of course flat-out PROVES ME RIGHT AND YOU WRONG:

"Compared conditioning rates of 29 psychopaths and 24 nonpsychopaths on classical eyelid discrimination. Psychopaths produced fewer CRs to both CS+ and CS- over 3 instructional sets. Although less responsive, psychopaths were not poorer discrimination learners according to a signal detection analysis of the data. Psychopaths' CR latency, amplitude, and slope were similar to those of nonpsychopaths. [i]Results suggest that psychopaths are not inferior conditioners to negative reinforcement, but rather that they employ different response sets than nonpsychopaths. (19 ref.)"

Classical discrimination eyelid conditioning in primary psychopaths.
Gendreau, Paul; Suboski, Milton D.
Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Vol 77(3), Jun 1971, 242-246. [/i]

GET IT??

I'm objectively right. You're objectively wrong. I don't know any clearer or simpler way to explain that to you.

Psychopaths do experience emotion

Emotional Detachment and Psychopathy

Abnormal or deficient emotional responsiveness is considered to be the hallmark of psychopathy. Psychopaths show emotional detachment from and indifference to the feelings of others; they do not display any remorse or shame, nor do they experience affection or love. Fearlessness and callousness are thought to result from deficient emotional learning, poor conditioning processes in particular. One of the earliest and most consistent findings is that psychopaths show reduced electrodermal response to non-conditioned and conditioned anxiety- or punishment-related stimuli (Hare, 1978; Lykken, 1957, 1978). They display a weak response to aversive unconditioned stimuli and have difficulty establishing an association between conditioned and unconditioned stimuli. In addition, weak orienting responses suggest even more fundamental deficits in processing external information which seriously interfere with the establishment of classically conditioned associations. Deficient conditioning leads to an inability to learn from punishment and to develop passive avoidance learning. In a broader sense, poor conditioning is thought to be associated with poor development of the conscience (Raine, 1993).

Sabine C. Herpertz, and Henning Sass. (2000) Emotional Deficiency and Psychopathy. Behav. Sci. Law 18: 567- 580

Another flawed study that does not actually address the issue. Notice the bolded sentence: the psychopath's incapacity revolves entirely around values and morality.

Psychopathy is a "severe disease" characterised by "semantic dementia", a discordance between linguistic and experimental components of emotion appearing as an incapacity to experience grief, shame, love, pride, or other emotions, although being able to verbalise emotions.

The Mask of Sanity (1941), Cleckley

Notice the bolded list of emotions: they are all based on values and morality, the psychopath's blind spot. The claim is then made that psychopaths are unable to experience "other emotions" as well, but that is clearly false. Psychopaths are known to experience gratification through exercise of power, for one. They also experience fear of consequences (which is why they lie to avoid negative repercussions) and greed.

All that is happening here is that the researchers are proving they share your erroneous understanding of morality's nature and origins.

That view unfortunately leaves you completely unable to account for moral innovation: the people who come up with new moral ideas foreign to their culture and "conditioning."

No, it does not. Innovation, denotes an acceptance of the goals, but a rejection of the means for obtaining them.

Nope. Flat wrong again. Your claim is that there are no goals, can't be any goals, only conditioned emotional responses. And in any case innovation in morality often rejects culturally conditioned goals as well as the means for obtaining them. See Nietzsche.

It's up to you to show how they do.

I have - Neuroscientific studies demonstrate that emotional structures are recruited in making moral judgments.

But that does not support your claim that moral judgments are nothing but emotion. You could with equal "logic" claim that because people move their arms when they walk, walking consists of nothing but arm movements.

Values are not arbitrary.

A valuation.

No, a statement of fact.

A value judgement rests upon a state of the emotions that is connected to an intellectual state as its occasion.

Emotions are not arbitrary, either.

[ingliz]

Your claim is that there are no goals

No, it is not.

a) Evolution is a process that has no goals, no purpose, and no morals.

b) People have goals.

c) Moral norms and rules serve a purpose, social control.

Example:

if authority is a moral power—as the state claims—its justification will have to render obedience as intrinsically valuable.

Norm violations: Moral norms, rules, and power.

Violating norms signals power. Violating a norm implies that one has the power to act according to one’s own volition in spite of situational constraints, which fuels perceptions of power. People want power. What you call "moral innovation" is more usually a power grab.

Gerben A. Van Kleef et al. (2011) Breaking the Rules to Rise to Power: How Norm Violators Gain Power in the Eyes of Others. Social Psychological and Personality Science: 2, 500-507

power

Morality is a function or tool of power. The measure of the influence of any particular moral vision is an expression of the material interests that underlie it.

I'm objectively right. You're objectively wrong.

Examined vicariously instigated electrodermal activity within a classical conditioning paradigm using electric shock to a model as the unconditioned stimulus. Thirty-nine males were selected for the study and divided into three groups: primary psychopaths (PP), secondary psychopaths (SP), and nonpsychopathic normals (NP). The selection procedures were based on scores obtained from the MMPI and the Activity Preference Questionnaire. The conditioning paradigm was composed of three GSR recording periods, which were identified as resensitization, conditioned anticipation, and vicarious instigation, respectively. Results indicated that the PP and the SP groups produced significantly less conditioned anticipatory GSRs than the NP group. The PP group also produced significantly less vicariously instigated GSRs than the SP and NP groups'

Albert S. Aniskiewic. (1979) Autonomic components of vicarious conditioning and psychopathy. Journal of Clinical Psychology: 35, 60–67

All that is happening here is that the researchers are proving they share your erroneous understanding of morality's nature and origins.

No, a statement of fact.

Value judgments operate to drive inquiry to a predetermined conclusion.

[Truth To Power]

Your claim is that there are no goals

No, it is not.

a) Evolution is a process that has no goals, no purpose, and no morals.

b) People have goals.

To have goals, you have to have values, but you claim values are just conditioned emotional responses. You are therefore stuck with an infinite regress fallacy.

c) Moral norms and rules serve a purpose, social control.

Whose purpose would that be? How did they formulate it? You are stuck with infinite regress again.

if authority is a moral power—as the state claims—its justification will have to render obedience as intrinsically valuable.

Who is Edmundson to prescribe what the state -- which is logically incapable of making claims -- claims?

More to the point, the claim of those who consider state authority morally legitimate is not that obedience per se is intrinsically valuable, but that obedience to legitimate authority is consequentially valuable.

Violating norms signals power.

I see. So, when a mental defective drools at the table, they are signaling their power....?

Violating a norm implies that one has the power to act according to one’s own volition in spite of situational constraints, which fuels perceptions of power.

Everyone has that power anyway.

People want power.

Why? Infinite regress again.

What you call "moral innovation" is more usually a power grab.

Assertion without evidence.

power

Morality is a function or tool of power. The measure of the influence of any particular moral vision is an expression of the material interests that underlie it.

I see. I guess that explains both polygamy and its prohibition.

Oh, no, wait a minute, that's right: it can't.

I'm objectively right. You're objectively wrong.

Examined vicariously instigated electrodermal activity within a classical conditioning paradigm using electric shock to a model as the unconditioned stimulus. Thirty-nine males were selected for the study and divided into three groups: primary psychopaths (PP), secondary psychopaths (SP), and nonpsychopathic normals (NP). The selection procedures were based on scores obtained from the MMPI and the Activity Preference Questionnaire. The conditioning paradigm was composed of three GSR recording periods, which were identified as resensitization, conditioned anticipation, and vicarious instigation, respectively. Results indicated that the PP and the SP groups produced significantly less conditioned anticipatory GSRs than the NP group. The PP group also produced significantly less vicariously instigated GSRs than the SP and NP groups'

Albert S. Aniskiewic. (1979) Autonomic components of vicarious conditioning and psychopathy. Journal of Clinical Psychology: 35, 60–67

Reconfirming that I am objectively right -- that psychopaths can be conditioned -- and you are objectively wrong.

No, a statement of fact.

Value judgments operate to drive inquiry to a predetermined conclusion.

A phenomenon of which you are a perfect example.

[ingliz]

To have goals, you have to have values

As there are no inherent moral values in anything whether it is action, thought, or intention, individual value systems may not have a compelling moral content.

How did they formulate it?

A silly question as there are multiple moralities.

Morality today involves social control but also the management of conflicts within the group. It is hypothesised that early manifestations of morality involved the identification and collective suppression of behaviours likely to cause such conflicts. But, morality is socially constructed: that is socially shaped and will vary from one historical period and one social context to another.

Why?

Social status and prestige, control or dominance over people and resources.

I see. I guess that explains both polygamy and its prohibition.

Yes, both polygyny and polyandry.

[Truth To Power]

To have goals, you have to have values

As there are no inherent moral values in anything whether it is action, thought, or intention, individual value systems may not have a compelling moral content.

Then your position is based on nothing....?

How did they formulate it?

A silly question as there are multiple moralities.

It's not a silly question in the least. You claim morality is NOTHING BUT conditioned emotional responses. But that leaves the question of WHY a given response would ever be conditioned. It's infinite regress of conditioning.

Morality today involves social control but also the management of conflicts within the group.

As it always has.

It is hypothesised that early manifestations of morality involved the identification and collective suppression of behaviours likely to cause such conflicts.

Why? Because people were emotionally conditioned to dislike conflict? How could such a moral position ever originate?

But, morality is socially constructed: that is socially shaped and will vary from one historical period and one social context to another.

Certainly. But that proposition is very, very different from your claim that there is nothing to morality but conditioned emotional responses.

Why?

Social status and prestige, control or dominance over people and resources.

Why? Why would people be emotionally conditioned to value such things? Who would condition them, and for what purpose?

I see. I guess that explains both polygamy and its prohibition.

Yes, both polygyny and polyandry.

AND THEIR PROHIBITION...??

HOW?

[ingliz]

Infinite regress... infinite regress... infinite regress

The regress argument only shows that any proposition whatsoever can be endlessly questioned, like a child who asks "why?" over and over again.

... to justify a belief one must appeal to a further justified belief. This means that one of two things can be the case. Either there are some beliefs that we can be justified for holding, without being able to justify them on the basis of any other belief, or else for each justified belief there is an infinite regress of justification. On this theory there is no rock bottom of justification. Justification just meanders in and out through our network of beliefs, stopping nowhere.

It is an argument that favours (moral) scepticism.

καὶ παντάπασί γε εὔηθες, ζητούντων ἡμῶν ἐπιστήμην, δόξαν φάναι ὀρθὴν εἶναι μετ᾽ ἐπιστήμης εἴτε διαφορότητος εἴτε ὁτουοῦν. οὔτε ἄρα αἴσθησις, ὦ Θεαίτητε, οὔτε δόξα ἀληθὴς οὔτε μετ᾽ ἀληθοῦς δόξης λόγος προσγιγνόμενος ἐπιστήμη ἂν εἴη.

Plato's Theaetetus, (210A-B)

Then your position is based on nothing....?

There are no moral truths. Moral statements are true or false only relative to some standard or other but nothing is right or wrong simpliciter.

Why?

Food and sex are biological drives.

Why would people be emotionally conditioned to value such things?

Social stability

Countless studies of animal species, whose instinctive behavior is unobscured by cultural elaboration, have shown that membership in dominance orders pays off in survival and lifetime reproductive success.

How?

Mr Turley's argument against decriminalising polygamy:

"Spouses are protected, entitled to Social Security benefits, health insurance, and their partner's assets if the relationship ends through death or divorce. Extending these same rules to polygamy would be a fiscal nightmare. Could you imagine the expense of granting such privileges to someone with multiple spouses? Isn't Social Security already under-funded? Think of the cost to employers who must provide health insurance to one man and his seven wives. Imagine the litigation costs for a male breadwinner who dies unexpectedly without a will and with multiple dependent wives. Are assets divided evenly or based on how... etc, etc, etc?"

[Truth To Power]

Infinite regress... infinite regress... infinite regress

The regress argument only shows that any proposition whatsoever can be endlessly questioned, like a child who asks "why?" over and over again.

Nonsense. You have claimed that moral values are nothing but emotional conditioning. You therefore cannot account for the origin of such values, or how anyone would originally choose which values to condition in others.

... to justify a belief one must appeal to a further justified belief. This means that one of two things can be the case. Either there are some beliefs that we can be justified for holding, without being able to justify them on the basis of any other belief, or else for each justified belief there is an infinite regress of justification. On this theory there is no rock bottom of justification. Justification just meanders in and out through our network of beliefs, stopping nowhere.

It is an argument that favours (moral) scepticism.

But it is not a valid argument, because belief is ultimately founded on perception and logical consistency.

καὶ παντάπασί γε εὔηθες, ζητούντων ἡμῶν ἐπιστήμην, δόξαν φάναι ὀρθὴν εἶναι μετ᾽ ἐπιστήμης εἴτε διαφορότητος εἴτε ὁτουοῦν. οὔτε ἄρα αἴσθησις, ὦ Θεαίτητε, οὔτε δόξα ἀληθὴς οὔτε μετ᾽ ἀληθοῦς δόξης λόγος προσγιγνόμενος ἐπιστήμη ἂν εἴη.

Plato's Theaetetus, (210A-B)

Then your position is based on nothing....?

There are no moral truths.

Yes, there are: statements that identify moral principles that lead to evolutionary success.

Moral statements are true or false only relative to some standard or other but nothing is right or wrong simpliciter.

Of course there is a standard: the standard of evolutionary success. That doesn't mean it is an arbitrary one. You just don't understand what it means for a moral statement to be true, because you mistakenly believe that morals are nothing but conditioned emotional responses.

Why?

Food and sex are biological drives.

They are indeed.

Now, HOW DID THEY GET TO BE BIOLOGICAL DRIVES?

Are you starting to get the picture, yet?

Why would people be emotionally conditioned to value such things?

Social stability

Which is desirable because....?

Blank out.

Countless studies of animal species, whose instinctive behavior is unobscured by cultural elaboration, have shown that membership in dominance orders pays off in survival and lifetime reproductive success.

The problem here is your assumption that morality has nothing of instinctive behavior in it, and consists of nothing but cultural elaboration. As I have shown, that view is logically incoherent.

How?

Mr Turley's argument against decriminalising polygamy:

"Spouses are protected, entitled to Social Security benefits, health insurance, and their partner's assets if the relationship ends through death or divorce. Extending these same rules to polygamy would be a fiscal nightmare.

Right away your new fool has to tell stupid lies: decriminalization of polygamy does not mean legal recognition of all plural spouses on the same basis as unique spouses.

Could you imagine the expense of granting such privileges to someone with multiple spouses?

We don't have to imagine it. There are countries where plural marriage is legally recognized, and there is no such "fiscal nightmare."

Isn't Social Security already under-funded?

That is supposed to be an argument for retaining criminal penalties for polygamy?



This fool is even worse than the previous one you trotted out.

Think of the cost to employers who must provide health insurance to one man and his seven wives.

Employers are not required to provide any such thing to current spouses, and surely the problem here is the exorbitant cost of health care, not plural marriage.

Imagine the litigation costs for a male breadwinner who dies unexpectedly without a will and with multiple dependent wives. Are assets divided evenly or based on how... etc, etc, etc?"

Turley is clearly an ignoramus who has simply chosen not to know the fact that polygamous societies manage such issues just fine, thank you very much.

[ingliz]

there is broad agreement about what is moral, across times and cultures... innate values

To use universals to argue for innateness, a moral nativist should show (a) that there are moral universals; (b) that there are no plausible non-nativist explanation of these; and (c) that required innate machinery is specific to the domain of morality.

Have you?

a) No

b) No

c) No

You therefore cannot account for the origin of such values, or how anyone would originally choose which values to condition in others.

I have.

It is hypothesised that early manifestations of morality involved the identification and collective suppression of behaviours likely to cause such conflicts

it is not a valid argument

So, you were not arguing the epistemological i.e. knowledge v. belief?

belief

Emotions are among the determinants of an individual's beliefs. They influence the content and the strength of an individual's beliefs, and their resistance to modification.

[Emotions are] states that make the mind inclined to think one thing rather than another

Which is desirable because....?

Membership in dominance orders pays off in survival and lifetime reproductive success. Which, by the way, doesn't help your argument.

What is really irrelevant is the narrow, one-generation reproductive success of individuals that you are trying to change the subject to. The topic here is... not how many children Joe Blow has.

Turley is clearly an ignoramus who has simply chosen not to know the fact that polygamous societies manage such issues just fine, thank you very much.

That is irrelevant.

Morality is a function or tool of power. The measure of the influence of any particular moral vision is an expression of the material interests that underlie it.

[Truth To Power]

there is broad agreement about what is moral, across times and cultures... innate values

To use universals to argue for innateness, a moral nativist should show (a) that there are moral universals;

Done. I've already pointed out that a right to property in the fruits of one's labor is effectively universal.

(b) that there are no plausible non-nativist explanation of these;

One is not required to prove a negative; but I have shown that typical non-nativist explanations, though perhaps plausible, are incoherent.

and (c) that required innate machinery is specific to the domain of morality.

No. It is precisely the point that human moral capacity appears in the form of reasoning, which applies in many domains, and not mere conditioned emotional responses.

Have you?
a) No

Yes.

b) No

Yes.

c) No

Yes.

You therefore cannot account for the origin of such values, or how anyone would originally choose which values to condition in others.

I have.

No, you have not.

It is hypothesised that early manifestations of morality involved the identification and collective suppression of behaviours likely to cause such conflicts

But it's likely even more primitive than that: even in the absence of conscious identification and collective action, those who did not effectively suppress such behaviors simply died out, leaving only those who found those behaviors objectionable.

it is not a valid argument

So, you were not arguing the epistemological i.e. knowledge v. belief?

No.

belief

Emotions are among the determinants of an individual's beliefs. They influence the content and the strength of an individual's beliefs, and their resistance to modification.

It's the other way around.

[Emotions are] states that make the mind inclined to think one thing rather than another

Spinoza did not know any neurology or edocrinology, was totally ignorant of evolution, and believed that a magical ghost in the sky had created people.

Which is desirable because....?

Membership in dominance orders pays off in survival and lifetime reproductive success. Which, by the way, doesn't help your argument.

Of course it does. You have just conceded that values are based on evolutionary success.

What is really irrelevant is the narrow, one-generation reproductive success of individuals that you are trying to change the subject to. The topic here is... not how many children Joe Blow has.

Turley is clearly an ignoramus who has simply chosen not to know the fact that polygamous societies manage such issues just fine, thank you very much.

That is irrelevant.

No, it proves your fool's ramblings are irrelevant as well as wrong.

Morality is a function or tool of power. The measure of the influence of any particular moral vision is an expression of the material interests that underlie it.

But that (which looks like Marxist claptrap) is just obviously false, as the Golden Rule, the most widely accepted and firmly established moral principle of all, has no discernible material interest underlying it.