[extropy-chat] A crushing defense of objective ethics. UniversalVolition and 'Ought' from 'is'.

[Keith Henson]

At 12:43 PM 05/05/05 -0400,  John K Clark wrote:
>"Marc Geddes" <marc_geddes at yahoo.co.nz>

snip

>Let's briefly review your reasoning chain:
>
>Meaning comes from minds, subjectivity comes from minds, "meaning" has a
>meaning and it also comes from minds, "importance" has a meaning and it
>comes from minds, "good" has a meaning and it comes from minds, "evil" has a
>meaning and it comes from minds; therefore you conclude ethics is objective.
>Huh?

Let's consider this.  Mind is what brain's do.  Brains are the product of 
evolution.  Evolution is rooted in objective reality.  So eventually mind 
concepts like good, evil, ethics and morality are dependent on objective 
reality.

There are reasons rooted in what is good for *genes* as to what 
minds--running on brains constructed by evolution--think is good, evil, 
moral and ethical.

We tend to think and to do things that improve our inclusive fitness, or 
more correctly, we do thing in the modern world that had we done analogous 
things in the world in which we evolved would have increased our inclusive 
fitness.

This includes a lot of things that don't improve our inclusive fitness much 
if at all in the modern world.

Like posting on mailing lists.  :-)

Keith Henson