Moral Expertise.

[johnofgwent]

But i do not accept that any human OTHER THAN ME has any expertise to offer in telling me what is moral and what is not.

Has anyone ever changed your mind on a moral matter?

Never.

My opinion has been swayed on matters factual, matters scientific, and matters political.

Perhaps the largest such swing was when I was able to unearth microfiche copies of the original treaty of rome (in french), microfiche copies of the original white papers and conference documents used in the 1960's bid to join the common market which De Gaulle sabotaged, and microfiche copies of the 1970's white paper and associated documents and speeches in which heath made it clear he was after a political union just as Labour had been and had just picked up their 1960's position paper and run with it.

But you ask if i have ever had my own judgement on a matter of morality swayed by an external input.

And the answer is no, never.

[Nalaar]

Do you think that between humans there is a spectrum of goodness, or are all the same?

I think there is a spectrum of badness and evil, some are more evil than others, none are good. What do you think, and in particular who has moral "expertise", in your opinion?

The human experience would be better if more people were less evil. I assume we can agree on that.
If that's how you perceive the field (bad and more evil) then a reframed moral expert for you would be someone who is the least evil on your spectrum.

As for picking an expert - It depends on which field of morality or ethics you want. I could be totally uncontroversial (so I will) and say that you are an expert. As far as I know you have no problem with women having a public political voice. That is not the case for all men, indeed some men believe that women should be silent in almost all matters, those are men of poor ethics, and among them you are an expert.

[Barry]

Do you think that between humans there is a spectrum of goodness, or are all the same?

I think there is a spectrum of badness and evil, some are more evil than others, none are good. What do you think, and in particular who has moral "expertise", in your opinion?

[Nalaar]

But i do not accept that any human OTHER THAN ME has any expertise to offer in telling me what is moral and what is not.

Has anyone ever changed your mind on a moral matter?

[johnofgwent]

It says no one is good, so everyone is equal in relation to that goodness.

Do you think that between humans there is a spectrum of goodness, or are all the same?

Oh I'll take that starter for ten.

Unlike Barry I do not (any longer) believe there is a supernatural datum level. However, I am more than convinced there is a spectrum of good and evil, and plenty of people occupying the half i do not.

But i do not accept that any human OTHER THAN ME has any expertise to offer in telling me what is moral and what is not.

[Nalaar]

It says no one is good, so everyone is equal in relation to that goodness.

Do you think that between humans there is a spectrum of goodness, or are all the same?

[Barry]

You say you do not think you believe there is "any human being with moral expertise" should I take that to mean that you think there everyone is equal in their moral standing?

I wrote, I don't believe there is any human being with moral expertise.
I look to the Bible for morality. That's my reference point. It says no one is good, so everyone is equal in relation to that goodness.

[Nalaar]

Doesn't any code of moral or ethics need some kind of underlying fundamental principles to fall back on?

Otherwise, it's just whatever any society chose to be their "moral code".  Some random isolated alien society might consider it morally ok to kill all children with a certain colour of eyes.  If that's their moral code and there are no underlying principles, how can it then be challenged?

The principle of maximising well-being would challenge that, quite reasonably I think.

We don't need to imagine this alien species -  we have plenty examples in human history (and present) of societies that were content that the suffering they imposed was a moral good, they were successfully challenged and overthrown, though of couse there's still more work to do, and we can always slide backwards.

[Nalaar]

Exactly.
Nalaar goes on about moral expertise, which is a term I have not come across before. Possibly because I don't believe there is any human being with moral expertise. Humans make it up as they go along, always have done. What is the moral reference point, please don't say it is the majority view!

I think the "moral reference point" that makes most sense to me is that it is *good* to increase the well-being of conscious creatures.

You say you do not think you believe there is "any human being with moral expertise" should I take that to mean that you think there everyone is equal in their moral standing?

[johnofgwent]

"Morals" and "Ethics" are all to do with an individual's belief system and their interpretation of what is "right " and what is "wrong".

We may be talking past each other slightly here - but I disagree that morals/ethics are "all to do" with the individuals interpretation.

Am I to take it from your post that you do not believe in moral expertise?

By no means. To assert that there is no expertise in defining morality would leave me having to concede that your opinion on what is right and what is wrong is equal to my own,.

I am firmly of the belief that there is indeed one overwhelming source of authority on what is moral and what is not. My own.

I care not what others may say, or think, for their opinions on what they think i should or should not do.

[Barry]

Doesn't any code of moral or ethics need some kind of underlying fundamental principles to fall back on?

Otherwise, it's just whatever any society chose to be their "moral code".  Some random isolated alien society might consider it morally ok to kill all children with a certain colour of eyes.  If that's their moral code and there are no underlying principles, how can it then be challenged?

Exactly.
Nalaar goes on about moral expertise, which is a term I have not come across before. Possibly because I don't believe there is any human being with moral expertise. Humans make it up as they go along, always have done. What is the moral reference point, please don't say it is the majority view!

[Javert]

Doesn't any code of moral or ethics need some kind of underlying fundamental principles to fall back on?

Otherwise, it's just whatever any society chose to be their "moral code".  Some random isolated alien society might consider it morally ok to kill all children with a certain colour of eyes.  If that's their moral code and there are no underlying principles, how can it then be challenged?

[Nalaar]

"Morals" and "Ethics" are all to do with an individual's belief system and their interpretation of what is "right " and what is "wrong".

We may be talking past each other slightly here - but I disagree that morals/ethics are "all to do" with the individuals interpretation.

Am I to take it from your post that you do not believe in moral expertise?

[Nalaar]

I've kept looking at this and reasons for an affirmative have as many for a negative too.

I think it's interesting how there is some sort of natural repulsive force to the idea of moral expertise etc, but I think those arguments get utterly overwhelmed when put under scrutiny.

[johnofgwent]

Something that comes up a lot in moral/ethical discussions is 'no one is right' and 'no ones opinion is worth more or less than another persons' etc.

From that the questions that follow are so -
Are some people's moral/ethical opinions worth more than others?
Are there people among us who should be considered a moral/ethic expert/genius?

WELL ...

"Morals" and "Ethics" are all to do with an individual's belief system and their interpretation of what is "right " and what is "wrong".

Now I don't know about you but it is my personal experience that in broad brush terms, there is a significant overlap between my world view of that which is "right" and that which is "wrong" and the world view of most of those who I choose to interact with on a regular basis, but that in reality an individual has their own boundaries and therefore i believe it most unlikely that another individual would have EXACTLY the same opinion, to the exact same degree, as any other.

I also think you know very well that a person in their right mind is more than capable of working this out and also working out that there are degrees of disagreement. There is a threshold below which one is perhaps inclined to tolerate, or turn a blind eye to, conduct in another that breaks their own moral code, and that above that threshold this simply will n longer be tolerated.

Which means that before any meaningful discussion of your questions can begin, one must set down the fact that far from their being a situation where "no one is right", there is in fact one situation where "I am right, but your failure to follow the right way is tolerable" and a second where "i am right, and you are wrong".

Nowhere is this more stark than in religion, where the reality is that each believer thinks of another  in a different church as being perfectly entitled to worship god in THEIR way, safely secure in the knowledge that only they, and their congregation, worship him in HIS....

There are plenty of people who THINK their outpourings on moral issues are superior to the great unwashed.  I reject their standpoint as intolerable arrogance. But perhaps that view is forged in the fire of my understanding of the pretty much identical schisms in two schools of two of the the abrahammic faiths. As I have pointed out many times here and elsewhere, the christian faith is split into the catholic, who decree that no man may come to an understanding of god except through receiving guidance and instruction from their priest, and from that ideology comes the desire to hide the gospel in the language of the educated cleric so as to prevent the unwashed from reading it for themselves, and the complete opposite approach, as best depicted in the Lutheran Protestant Church, whose most basic tenet is that it is within every man to arrange his personal salvation through christ, and that the role of the priest is quite different.  The same schism occurs in the shia and sunni sects of islam, but there of course it is taken to a much greater degree as even today each sect still celebrates the murderous things each did to the other  in pursuit of purity of ideology.

My upbringing was definitely steered by the protestant (congregational) religion of my mother and her tribe. And i use that word tribe quite deliberately.  from that tradition I hold that while others are entitled to work things out for themselves, I am fully entitled to consider their calculations ad deliberations to be a matter of ridicule that holds no basis to be respected as worthwhile.