Big Question #1
Is there such a thing as an absolute moral law?
To those who say yes, why do individuals act differently from said moral law and why do different civilizations view acts with different levels of moral rightness?
To those who say no, to what do you appeal when you feel you have been wronged (but not legally) and how can you tell that something is wrong or immoral with nothing to compare them against?
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Your use of the words wrong and immoral here is begging the question. Someone who does not believe in absolute moral law has already implicity rejected the premise of your inquiry.
Stewart, I apologize for the language, it's hard for me to think in terms of no moral law. But I guess then that is part of a question to you, why are humans so "wired" with a sense of right and wrong, moral and immoral, if there is no such thing?
No need to apologize; my objection is important, though, because it's not just a semantic quibble. I'll briefly explain how I view this issue, and hopefully it will give you a good idea. Keep in mind, though, that most atheists/agnostics still believe in absolute morality, in spite of their inability to explain it. I see that as being a big failing in typical humanism reasoning, though I don't see it as being necessarily so. If you'll excuse a brief lack of humility, I think my ability to see these issues to their uncomfortable conclusions gives me an understanding of ethics that most of Western philosophy has been unable to grasp. Of course, I might also be totally crazy. Most people I speak with seem to think so :)
Your second post asks a slightly different question than your first does, and I'd like to address them both.
Originally you asked what we can appeal to (outside of the legal system) when we feel we've been wronged. My answer to that question is nothing. You may believe in natural rights, and property, and right versus wrong. But these things do not exist objectively. If you look for them, all you will find is an opinion. Many times you'll find a lot of people who share this opinion (e.g. that something is wrong, or that a piece of land belongs to a certain someone, or that people have a right to free speech). Regardless of how many people hold these opinions, they are still just opinions. They aren't facts. You can't empirically verify them. If you try to prove that you are the rightful owner of your car, all you can do is point to a piece of paper and say "See? Here's the evidence!". But all you're really pointing to is a piece of paper. It's an opinion that's been written down.
Often when we think about morality, we generate somewhat grand concepts in our mind, such as religious or legal codes. The complexity of these moral systems is realtively recent, though. Our species has employed much simpler frameworks throughout its existence. In fact, the word "framework" is being too generous. Before written history, there were no laws to speak of, merely traditions to follow. And these were not codified, but rather they were passed from one generation to another with modifications along the way. Before complex language was developed (although you don't believe that such a time ever existed), even these traditions were probably just rough behavioral trends. In order to believe that our modern beliefs about morality are based on an absolute truth, one has to imagine that our cultures today are virtually identical to our paleolithic (and older) counterparts. But even the relatively short period of written history that we have access to refuses to bear that belief out.
From a genetic point of view, there's good reason to believe that some of our moral intuitions are inherited. This is often used as an argument in favor of absolute morality, i.e. the argument from what's "natural", but it's an argument which I firmly reject.
Many other animal species exhibit moral behavior. The simplest, most instructive example is the vampire bat. Vampire bats feed, at night, on blood. In a given night some bats will feed successfully, and some will not. Those who are less fortunate would go hungry, but before giving up they will ask other bats for assistance. If one bat asks another for help, the second bat will often regurgitate blood for the first, allowing it to feed, but this isn't always the case. Sometimes the second bat will refuse to help. If it does, the other bats will remember, and if the second bat is ever hungry himself, his requests will always be refused by the other bats.
The two fundamental aspects of human moral behavior can be found in that example: Altruism, and retribution. Everything else is essentially built on top of that. But I don't believe for a moment that vampire bats and humans are sharing access to some sort of universal truth. Rather, we are both employing an evolutionary strategy which is perfectly described by modern game theory, and which fits perfectly with the concepts of evolution and natural selection. Neither of these strategies points to any higher power or purpose, though.
In our lives we inevitably encounter frustration. It's all too tempting to shout, "That's not right! I deserve better!" but these appeals are meaningless. They serve only prop up a cultural fairy tale that everything works out in the end. In the end, however, we all die, and that's the end of our story. Maybe we're remembered for a few decades after we're gone, but most of us are quickly forgotten. The world spins on, and there is no cosmic score-board that keeps track of how good we've been, or whether and how often we were wronged in our lives.
Stewart, I don't see any difference between what you just said and what I said. It sounds as if you are paraphrasing "The Selfish Gene," when you cited the vampire bats. If I understand you correctly, absolute morality is an illusion. This indicates moral relativism. Is this accurate?
"Regardless of how many people hold these opinions, they are still just opinions. They aren't facts."
I think there are a few moral absolutes. I'm not prepared to say all morality is relative. Under what circumstances would boiling babies for pleasure be moral? This goes against our "wiring." It's not just an opinion. For human beings it's absolute. We are wired just so. Taken on an individual level, not on a universal objective level, aren't instincts truly absolute rights and wrongs? Keeping with your animal analogy, to a duck, it's absolutely (morally) wrong to fly North for the winter though it's not a universal absolute, or is it? Jeez, I don't know if I am making sense to you or not. This will surely blow Seeker's and Aaron's mind since I just ascribed morality to a duck. In their view, only humans have morality.
Cin, I was composing my comment as you posted yours, so any overlap wasn't intentional. I haven't read Selfish Gene. Should I add it to my list of recommends?
Maybe you'd call it "relative". I don't see what it's supposed to be relative to, though. I think it's all nonsense. It's definitely not "real" in any empirical sense. As I argued in the discussion about abortion, these sorts of topics are almost always about metaphysical issues. "Right", "wrong", what do they mean? If you look for them, all you find are opinions. Opinions are real, in the sense that they correspond to physical brain states, but they're not absolute, or universal. Not only do they change throughout our lives (even over the course of an afternoon), but even when they're static they have no proscriptive power.
If a duck is kept captive over winter, do you think he feels guilt about not making it South? I doubt it, but it's possible that ducks experience ethical conflict over their migrations. I guess I don't know. I'm not a duck. :)
And yet people still do this, or worse. How, then, is it absolute? Maybe most people find the idea of burning a child to be gruesome. I do. But clearly there are those who do not. To say that it goes against some hypothetical wiring is to deny that anyone would want to do it. I think the facts speak for themselves here. It may be a very popular opinion — It may even be (roughly) encoded in our genes — but it's still subjective.
You're intelligent, Cineaste. I think you have a sharp understanding of evolution and science. I mean you no disrespect at all in arguing this point with you. But for a naturalist to claim that there are some moral absolutes, it's like claiming that there are some deities. It's pure metaphysics.
I guess it's a little scary to let go of morality. I'm not saying you're a coward, but I do think it's comforting to think that there's some reliable authority that demands we don't boil our children, or beat our spouses. It doesn't exist, though. And atheists are well-aware of that, so all they can point to is "human nature" or "natural law" to suggest that there's something universally rotten about these crimes. If they were really universal, though, you would not have to mention them.
Here's what you can say, empirically, about boiling babies: It tends to hurt them. It causes them pain.
Some people will take that statement and transform it into a prescriptive one, e.g. You should not cause babies pain. But this sentence is missing a conditional clause, which is implicit at the end. It really reads, You should not cause babies pain, if…. But if what. Well, if you don't want to cause babies pain, for starters. Or maybe, if you don't want to hear babies cry. Or if you don't want to piss off a baby's mother. The list goes on. And it's not a real list, of course, because our decisions are ultimately made at a level to which we have no conscious access. They bubble up from our depths and we receive them as if they were hand-crafted by artisanal gnomes in our brain.
What's important, though, is that the sentence can't meaningfully be said, You should not cause babies pain, just because. And that's what absolute morality suggests. The line of reasoning that you gave, above, is more like, You should not cause babies pain, because most people think it's gruesome. And that point may be true, but it mean much to me if I'm not one of those people.
Maybe you'd call it "relative". I don't see what it's supposed to be relative to, though.
Relative to the circumstance.
If a duck is kept captive over winter, do you think he feels guilt about not making it South?
No. Guilt is irrelevant to instinct. Instinct is part of morality. That's why there is a tendency not to boil babies for pleasure. It's instinct in the same way a duck migrates. The only difference is human beings can override instinct with reason (sometimes faulty reasoning).
And yet people still do this, or worse. How, then, is it absolute?
One can choose to boil babies for pleasure, but it's always wrong to do so. Can you name any circumstance where this practice is moral? This would prove it's subjectivity. If you can't think of one, it's not just an opinion. If you believe "boiling babies for pleasure is wrong" is simply an opinion then you have no ethical ground to stand upon to reproach the man who boils your own baby. He simply has a difference of opinion with you, a different morality.
To say that it goes against some hypothetical wiring is to deny that anyone would want to do it.
This is simply not true. We are wired to procreate yet we can choose to be celibate.
I do think it's comforting to think that there's some reliable authority that demands we don't boil our children, or beat our spouses.
There is no authority but there is a principle. On whose authority does 2 and 2 equal 4?
Here's what you can say, empirically, about boiling babies: It tends to hurt them. It causes them pain.
True enough. Logically, what can we deduce from those facts and how? We all have some sense of empathy. We are wired with empathy as an evolutionary mechanism to survive, just like the vampire bats you mentioned. However, we can override this with our own cognizance. Maybe chimps can do this too. Our reasoning has shaped our innate empathy into what we call morality. That's my theory at least. Like Shakespeare said in Richard III (One of my favorite lines) "No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity, but I know none and therefore am no beast." It means he's human. We can override our pity, our instincts. Beasts can't. Stewart, we the human race create the moral standard. We are obligated to interpret some of these standards as absolutes lest we go extinct as a species. Maybe that's religion's function, though unfortunately religion has become quaint. Without absolutes there is no morality. If you believe morality is an illusion then logically you must be amoral. Remember, existence precedes essence!!!
You're describing subjective opinions and then labeling them as objective in order to give them more weight.
That's almost the opposite of what 'absolute' means. If it's subject to interpretation, if you have to create it, then it's not really absolute.
If you think that 'morality' is just another word of 'instinct' (e.g. a duck flying south), that's fine, but that's not at all what most of the rest of the world means by the term. And if that's the definition you're using, then (1) I believe that 'morality' exists, but (2) it's a chemically provable truth that my 'morals' are different than yours.
Inasmuch as I don't believe it's absolute, then, yes I am "amoral". I have my own opinions about what is kind and useful behavior, about what helps people lead happy lives, and what causes them pain. But I don't imagine that there's any authority or universal truth to my beliefs. I fully recognize that they're just my opinions, no matter how strongly I feel about them.
This is really absurd. You are asking me to name a circumstance where boiling a baby is moral, when the whole point of this discussion is that I reject the concept of normative morality. I'm not trying to show that boiling children is moral; I'm trying to show you that the question is tautologically meaningless.
You say that this example is "always wrong". Well what does wrong mean to you. Literally, what is your definition of the word wrong? Spell it out for me, please, because right now all it appears to be is a synonym for "something most people don't want to happen," which has the ripe smell of an opinion.
That's almost the opposite of what 'absolute' means. If it's subject to interpretation, if you have to create it, then it's not really absolute.
I'm not claiming it's a true absolute. I'm saying we are obligated to interpret it as such. That's why if you believe "boiling babies for pleasure is wrong" is simply an opinion then you have no ethical ground to stand upon to reproach the man who boils your own babies. He simply has a difference of opinion with you, a different morality.
If you think that 'morality' is just another word of 'instinct' (e.g. a duck flying south), that's fine, but that's not at all what most of the rest of the world means by the term.
Instinct and morality are intertwined. One can't reasonably deny this. Our instincts influence our morality. Morality is not pure reason. Why do you think people have a tougher decision pushing the fat man and an easier decision pulling the lever in the "trolley car" dilemma?
And if that's the definition you're using…
It's not.
This is really absurd. You are asking me to name a circumstance where boiling a baby is moral, when the whole point of this discussion is that I reject the concept of normative morality.
I don't think it's absurd. You don't have to agree with the circumstance, just name it. For the life of me, I can't think of one. It seems like an absolute to me because of that. Naming such a circumstance would demonstrate it's moral relativism. And that brings us to the million dollar question. Why wouldn't you reject normative morality? It's just shared opinion, a matter of perspective. Why should your own opinions be of any value to you if they really simply are "tautologically meaningless?"
Literally, what is your definition of the word wrong? Spell it out for me, please, because right now all it appears to be is a synonym for "something most people don't want to happen," which has the ripe smell of an opinion.
My definition matches the dictionary. Most morality is simply opinion based on circumstance. Don't Kill, but what if it's in self defense? I don't see how acts like "boiling babies for pleasure" is moral from any perspective. Admittedly it's a man made standard but within the bounds of our imperfect morality, that is an absolute. It is not a universal absolute like those found in mathematics. In contrast, Seeker and Aaron would say it's absolute in a divine sense. Stewart, do you see my point yet. I understand yours.
Most morality is simply opinion based on circumstance.
I retract this. It should say most morality is relative to the circumstances, culture, etc. We can base justice on circumstances not individual opinion. A murderer can have the opinion his crime was moral and justified but there must be moral authority to dispense justice right? That comes from what? If not God then from culture. What a pickle!
Honestly, no, I don't see your point. And I suspect that you don't really see mine, either. You're arguing that some morality is 'absolute', but not a 'true absolute', which I can't make sense of. Here is a question which I think may point to the source of our disagreement on the matter:
Q: If you hypothesize that 'X' is immoral, what empirical test can be used to corroborate your hypothesis?
Here is an interesting debate which puts me in an interesting position. While, I agree, of course, with Cineate's basic position – the existence of absolute morality – I agree that Stewart is following the materialistic worldview to its logical conclusion.
While I base my concept of an absolute moral code on a creator God who infused us with it, I don't know what you can base yours on Cineaste. If it is simply humanity's invention or an evolutionary process then it cannot be an "absolute." It is by definition not unchanging. It is by its own nature changing.
Now I will address Stewart's points. I most rhetorical way to deal with your assertion of no absolute truths is to ask are you absolutely sure. You are supposing the absolute truth that no absolute truth exists, except for there being no absolute truth which defeats the premise.
The father of situational ethics, Joseph Fletcher, ran into this same problem in his book Situation Ethics he insisted that the situationists avoid words like never, perfect, always, absolutely as he avoids the plaque. Of course that is tantamount to saying "Never say never" or "Always avoid always." While I feel that is compelling in its simplicity, I believe that more work is required here.
Our behavior is not always (heh) indicative of the moral law. Just because we behave in a certain way does not negate the morality of an issue. If you drive 70 in a 45 that does not mean the law is absent, you simply chose to ignore it. The moral law is less the way we behave and more the way we want others to behave toward us.
Despite any claims to the contrary, we all have a sense of fairness that is within us. If someone does something to us that we deem to be unfair, we react accordingly. If we do something that someone else sees as unfair, how we respond shows even better the existence of the moral code – we make excuses. We try to explain why in this certain instance our behavior was okay. We don't tell the other person that the behavior is always right or amoral. We tell them we had to do it because of whatever our reason or excuse may be.
Without an inherent moral code, how do we know things are wrong? Stewart despite your semantics, I think even you have to admit that somethings are wrong. Is it just my personal opinion that the Holocaust was wrong? Can someone have the opposite opinion and be justified? How could we punish Nazi war criminals if murdering millions was just an opinion they had?
Could I be just as right to say, "Rape is a fantastic thing!" This is different from saying "Spring is a fantastic thing!" Intuitively, we know that there is a difference between our opinion on seasons and the fact that rape is wrong.
Who was a better person Mother Teresa or Hitler, Ghandi or Stalin? We recognize that despite our philosophy that one is better than the other. Our initial gut reaction before we've had time to think through the consequences of our thoughts is to know the difference between the individuals. The reason we can judge one to be better is because we can judge them against an unchanging standard of morality.
Stewart I wonder why (or how) you can believe so strongly in your positions against war and violence. If that is siimply your opinion – why bother? What could possibly make nonviolence resistence of Martin Luther King better than Communist leaders killing dissidents? If it's just an opinion, with neither caring any real weight.
I love this statement from Norman Geisler:
He goes on to say that there would be nothing wrong gay-bashing, racism, imperialistic wars, prohibiting abortion, birth control or even sex between two consenting adults. You cannot argue for anything if there is no right to it or moral obligation concerning it.
Moral dilemma such as abortion also don't disprove an absolute moral code. In fact, they are a big evidence for a moral law. If there is no moral law then there is no moral dilemma. Who cares about abortion because it is not moral to protect the unborn or the mother's rights.
While there may be hard situations and difficult moral choices, that does not negate the existence of the moral law. Hitler had to dehumanize the Jews in order to go through with the Holocaust. Cannibals perform elaborate rituals before they kill. The rituals wouldn't be needed if it was simply an opinion or option like what to wear or where to go. Hard questions with difficult to find anawers in science don't disprove an objective world.
I'm going to let that stand for a little bit before I expand farther. I don't want to write too much and make it difficult to read or respond.
Thanks for the reply, Aaron. You asked a lot of questions, but I think that they basically boil down to two essential ones, which I'll answer.
First, I could always be mistaken about anything. But more importantly, I did not say that there were no truths, absolute or otherwise (What do you suppose a relative truth would be?). I am, for example, reasonably certain that the universe exists. I am also reasonably certain that I am composed of microscopic particles, and that the Earth revolves around the sun. These are empirically verifiable facts. Saying that "murder is wrong" is not empirically verifiable. It's an opinion. It says nothing factual about the act of murder, but instead says something about the opinions of the person who says it. I.e. it's subjective.
I think this challenge, as common as it is, is totally without merit.
Because it's a strong opinion, and because I believe that I'm correct about them Look, I feel very strongly about those issues. Similarly, in response to your other points, I think Hitler and Stalin hurt a lot of people. I think that Gandhi helped a lot of people. Maybe you agree with me. Maybe you don't. I suspect you do, but lots of people think that Stalin was a great leader, and that Gandhi was a monster. What can I say to that?
Let's expand on Gandhi: His satyagraha movement opened people's eyes to the effectiveness of non-violence. But the departure of British colonial rule from the Indian subcontinent lead to the partitions of India and Pakistan, where some half million people were slaughtered. So what can we say about him? From a moral point-of-view, maybe you'd be inclined to take a stand on one side or the other. You could say, "it was good", or "it was bad", or you could say, "it's a wash". I think that's sort of pointless, though. It is what it is, and not only is no one keeping score, but keeping score is a totally meaningless idea.
I will give you another example, which touches me much closer, but which 99% of the world would dismiss out of hand. Cineaste claimed that boiling a baby is always immoral, but every single year over one billion chickens die that exact same way. If you think that abortion is a holocaust, I cannot express to you what that entails about the tidy packages of chicken breast which you buy in the supermarket.
I believe that raising animals in closed-quarters and boiling them to death hurts them. I believe that they suffer through these processes, and that given the opportunity they would avoid them. These are not "moral" claims. They are empirically verifiable ones. I also believe that a gazelle suffers when a cheetah disembowels it, and that a deer suffers when a pack of wolves descend on it. Again, these aren't moral claims, but rather empirically verifiable one
Personally, I do not wish to hurt animals, or to see animals hurt by others, so I refuse to support industries that operate this way. My actions reflect my opinions about these issues, coupled with factual information. But most people could hardly care less about what happens to chickens in a factory farm. Again, what can I say to this? Their actions also reflect their opinions.
No special moral authority or rule is required to make sense of these situations. Even if such a rule existed, it obviously has no meaningful effect. There is nothing verifiable or factual about a statement like "Murder is wrong". It may have more emotional impact on you or me, but it is still fundamentally the same as saying, "Pea-green is an ugly color", or "Autumn is great". They say nothing about the subject or its attributes; they only make claims about the speaker.
I don't want to get to far into this, but I have a friend who is a philosophy professor, and for fun he lectures on the overriding moral law of "Be Awesome To One Another." It isn't that he necessarily believes this to be the be all/end all moral law. But he does believe it is a good jumping off point.
Incidentally, it is much easier to talk about that on which we do not agree, as opposed to finding unified fronts where we can all be on the same side.
First, I could always be mistaken about anything. But more importantly, I did not say that there were no truths, absolute or otherwise (What do you suppose a relative truth would be?).
But you are, unless I am mistaken, saying that there are no moral absolute truths…except for the absolute truth that there are no moral absolute truths. You are claiming that all moral questions are merely opinions except your claim that all moral questions are opinions.
I guess to try to clear it up: One of these two is true. There are moral absolute truths. There are not moral absolute truths. It cannot be either or both. It has to be one of the other because they are conflicting in nature. But here comes the issue. If you are making the claim that "there are not moral absolute truths," you are making a claim of an absolute moral truth.
Because it's a strong opinion, and because I believe that I'm correct about them.
But how are you correct or even believe that you are correct. If we are discussing flavors of ice cream and you say vanilla is your favorite. While I may personally hate vanilla, I can understand that someone else thinks it tastes wonderful. My hatred of vanilla cannot be "correct" because it cannot be "wrong" either. It is simply an opinion of taste.
However when you see animals being farmed you believe that to be incorrect (or wrong, but you will avoid using that word). But incorrect according to what? Just your opinion or something more.
The reason we know 2+2 does not equal 5 is because we know and understand the correct answer and we see that 5 does not match the right answer of 4. Each of us do not have a different opinion of what the answer is and even if we did that would not change what the actually correct answer is.
When you look at chicken farming, you are comparing what you see to the moral code that says humans should not abuse or mistreat animals. You define abuse and mistreatment differently than most, but the code is still there. How else can you believe that you are "correct?" The only way we can know "correct" and "incorrect" is if their is a standard by which to judge.
Sam, you seem to be fairly mellow lately and almost non-confrontational. This is quite a change. I suppose being close to such a tragic event tends to shape or reshape how we view things.
As to the "be awesome" principle, could you expand on that. I am honestly curious as to how the professor uses that as a jumping off point for a discussion on morality.
Aaron, thanks again for the reply. I think maybe I wasn't clear enough before.
I'm not really claiming that there are no "moral absolute truths". Claimining that they don't exist would be tacitly accepting that they might exist. But I don't even understand what they're supposed to be. How can you have a truth which is not verified, or even verifiable? I'm claiming that statements about morality are not subject to verification, so they cannot possibly be 'true' or 'false' at all. They are not plausibly factual claims. And even so: If I say "There are no moral absolute truths", I am not issuing a moral absolute truth, nor does such a statement depend on the existence of moral absolute truths. Saying that something does or does not exist is not a moral statement at all.
I feel like you're trying to issue a common philosophical "gotcha" statement, but you're applying it in the wrong case. It really doesn't apply here at all. I'll move on.
I don't think it's "incorrect", or "wrong", or "bad", or "evil". Honestly, I don't see how a factual occurence could even be incorrect, or any of the other terms which have no factual meaning behind them. To be clear: I would prefer that these things didn't happen, but I have said as much already. I suspect the individual chickens would prefer that they weren't stuck in tiny cages all their lives, too, and I can evidentially back that belief up. But to go from that to "these things are wrong" is meaningfully impossible.
If I claim that hurting animals is wrong, am I asserting anything other than my own distaste for that behavior? Even if I believed in God, and thought that God wanted me to be a vegetarian, I would still not be asserting anything factual by saying it. All I would be doing is replacing my own opinion with God's. Or rather, I would be replacing my opinion with my own opinion of what God's opinion was, which essentially amounts to the same thing.
The only assertions I have made have been ones which are at least plausibly verifiable, such as "boiling chickens hurts them". I believe that this is correct. And even if you disagree with this statement, the truth could be determined experimentally. But if I assert that "boiling chickens is wrong", we have nowhere to go. Maybe you agree. Maybe you disagree. Either way, it's pointless to debate it because there is nothing being debated.
I will avoid the debate over what you believe about moral truths, since you should know what you believe better than I, so lets move on.
The only assertions I have made have been ones which are at least plausibly verifiable, such as "boiling chickens hurts them". I believe that this is correct.
I don't think that's the case. Here is my point and your response:
Unless I am wrong, you are saying here that the reason why you "bother" with trying to change things be it nonviolence or animal cruelty is because you have strong opinions and you believe those opinions to be "correct."
So again that leads me to the question of correct according to what? If it is only your personal opinion like your opinion of ice cream flavors what does it matter. Do you crusade and comment about the joys and splendor of vanilla ice cream? Is that a question you would ask a presidential candidate in order to decide if you could vote for them? What seperates one opinion (animal cruelty) from another (flavor of ice cream)?
“And I suspect that you don’t really see mine, either.”
You are saying absolute morality is an illusion because all morality is opinion and not empirical.
“You’re arguing that some morality is ‘absolute’, but not a ‘true absolute’, which I can’t make sense of.”
Let me begin by seeing what it could mean to say we are absolute individuals. When you think of it, each of us is alone in the world. Only we feel our pains, our pleasures, our hopes, and our fears immediately, subjectively, from the inside. Other people only see us from the outside, objectively, and, hard as we may try, we can only see them from the outside. No one else can feel what we feel, and we cannot feel what is going on in any one else’s mind.
Actually, when you think of it, the only thing we ever perceive immediately and directly is ourselves and the images and experiences in our mind. When we look at another person or object, we don’t see it directly as it is; we see it only as it is represented in our own experience. When you feel the seat under your rear-end, do you really feel the seat itself or do you merely feel the sensations transmitted to you by nerve endings in your posterior?. When you look at the person next to you (contemplating how their rear-end feels), do you really see them as they are on the inside or feel what they feel? You see only the image of them that is presented to your mind through your senses. This is easily demonstrated by considering how our senses deceive us in optical illusions. It seems, then, that we are minds trapped in bodies, only perceiving the images transmitted to us through our bodies and their senses.
Each of us is trapped within our own mind, unable to feel anything but our own feelings and experiences. It is as if each of us is trapped in a dark room with no windows. Our only access to the outside world being a television screen on one wall on which we (with our mind’s eye) perceive the images of other people, places, and things. Thus, to be an absolute individual is to be trapped within ourselves, unable to perceive or contact anything but the images on our mental TV screen, and to be imperceptible ourselves to anyone outside of us. In a world where science has opened up and laid bare the nature of subatomic particles, far-away planets, and the workings of our very own bodies and brains, it is to remain, ourselves, hidden from the objective view. It is to be an island of subjectivity in an otherwise objective world.
“Q: If you hypothesize that ‘X’ is immoral, what empirical test can be used to corroborate your hypothesis?”
Brain scans. Chimp Fights and Trolley Rides, remember? This demonstrates our moral hard wiring.
http://www.reason.com/news/show/35014.html
Stewart, why wouldn’t you reject normative morality? It’s just shared opinion, a matter of perspective. Why should your opinion or the normative morality of a group of people count more than that of those who “boil babies for pleasure?” How can you ever say to anyone, you’re wrong?
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Aaron,
“While I base my concept of an absolute moral code on a creator God who infused us with it, I don’t know what you can base yours on Cineaste. If it is simply humanity’s invention or an evolutionary process then it cannot be an “absolute.” It is by definition not unchanging. It is by its own nature changing.”
As the radio labs program showed morality is influenced by our instincts. Certain reactions are hardwired into us as a species. We are obligated to take these basic instincts as absolutes because they are part of the human condition. They are a part of us. These instincts do not change within our lifetimes, which is all that matters to the individual. In that context, in the context of the individual, they are absolutes. The duck MUST absolutely migrate for the winter. The salmon MUST return to spawn. We are absolute individuals. Existence precedes essence. As far as basing absolute morality on a creator God, you declare this by simple fiat. It’s a baseless claim that anyone can make. At least Atheists have brain scans to show morality is actually connected to the material.
Correct about the facts in question, of which there are plenty. One such fact, in this case, would be "factory farming causes animals pain". This is a statement which we can have a reasonable debate about. We can invoke neurological arguments, farming statistics, etc. to determine whether or not my statement is true. I believe that it is, and although it is merely an opinion that it is true, the fact of the matter can plausibly be verified one way or the other.
So to reiterate: I do not want to hurt animals. This is not an opinion, it is a fact about myself. I do not want other people to hurt animals. This is also not an opinion, but again a fact about myself. Factory farming hurts animals. Not an opinion, either, but a fact about factory farming and animals.
That's literally as far as I go, and I have said nothing in this conversation that is meant to imply anything else. I don't think that I'm "correct" to hold the beliefs that I do. What would that even mean? I have reasons for holding them, but others (such as yourself) don't share them. What would it mean to say that your reasons are "incorrect"? It's nonsense.
If you mean about factual issues, I don't see why I wouldn't. If I think that someone is factually incorrect about an assumption, I see no reason not to correct them, or to point out their error. But if you mean about ethical issues, I just don't. I have largely stricken these sorts of words from my vocabularly because they are nonsense. Most of the time, people use them as persuasive bludgeons, not as means for communication.
I fail to see the relevence here. If I boil a child in front of you, what could a brainscan going to tell me about the act of boiling children? Obviously nothing. It could tell me a lot about how you feel about boiling children, but I could probaby get that information just by asking you. It could also tell me, as you indicated, what areas of your brain are active when you see children being boiled, but again, I have no idea what that says about whether or not 'X' is immoral.
Regardless, you didn't really answer the question. If you believe that 'X' is immoral (boiling children, or whatever), how would you verify that claim? "Brain scan" is not really an answer, or if it is it's a very vague one. Would you just scan one person? Ten people? Every single person on the planet? And after you were done, how would the data prove your point? What does it even mean for something to be 'moral'?
When someone says "X is immoral", they are ostensibly implying that one should not do 'X'. I don't see how a brainscan would tell you anything about what someone should or should not do.
Stewart, again if it is simply an opinion why feel more strongly about it than about food preference? They both are opinions, so why more concern for one over the other?
I could give a lot of answers to this question, but all of them would be specific to my life, and my experiences. If I ask you, "Why do you love your wife, and not someone else?" you would have to explain to me a great deal about yourself, and about your wife. But nothing you tell me would likely convince me that you wife was either (1) more lovable than another person, or (2) more worthy of love. It would just be specific reasons for yourself.
My opinions are no different in nature than yours. The fact that your feelings about your wife are stronger than your feelings about your neighbor's wife does not suggest that there is some analytical basis for this. It simply implies that your personality and your experiences with your wife have lead to the formation of persistant connections to her in your brain.
It's sort of weird to me that you think it should be otherwise. Why does anyone feel strongly about one thing over another? Proximity? Personality? Any number of reasons, none of which point to any sort of univeral truth.
“If you mean about factual issues…”
If the preceding sentence is “Why should your opinion or the normative morality of a group of people count more than that of those who “boil babies for pleasure?” contextually, you know I’m talking about morality/ethics.
“But if you mean about ethical issues, I just don’t. I have largely stricken these sorts of words from my vocabulary because they are nonsense.”
This seems unrealistic. If someone murdered and tortured your family, you wouldn’t be able to say they were wrong for doing so.
“If I boil a child in front of you, what could a brainscan going to tell me about the act of boiling children? Obviously nothing.”
Not true. The brain scan would indicate your innate reluctance to do so, though your prefrontal cortices can override your reluctance. Nonetheless, your reluctance would be an empirical indicator that your “gut reaction” to the act of boiling babies for pleasure is wrong.
I don’t see how a brainscan would tell you anything about what someone should or should not do.
Not from a rational perspective, but definitely from a “gut reaction.” These “gut reactions” are hardwired into us. What the brain scans also show is that another part of the brain, the cognitive brain, mitigates these gut reactions. This is the relative morality I refer to. The absolute morality is the “gut reaction.” Ducks lack the “cognitive brain” but they do have the “gut reaction.” They MUST absolutely migrate because of this.
Are you familiar with Dr. Chomsky’s work on our innate ability to learn language? I subscribe to a similar position, innate moral grammar. This gives a good synopsis of the science, The Bookshelf talks with Marc Hauser
A small excerpt in case the article is too long…
The “hidden engine of moral intuition that’s shared by people around the world” is the absolute. The individual rational we use to mitigate that is relativism (circumstantial). Stewart, I hope that it’s a bit clearer now. It’s hard for me to be articulate about such a complex topic. I appreciate your patience with me.
Cineaste, I don't see any factual disagreement between you and me, but I fail to see what is 'absolute' about the things you are describing. In fact, in your previous post you have even begun to refer to it as "relative morality". At this point I don't know what you are trying to show me.
I would agree that most people share a set of moral intuitions, and these are precisely what studies like Hauser's point to. But you lose me after that. The presence of a set of largely shared moral intuitions doesn't indicate anything about how someone ought to behavior, or whether a specific action is inherently immoral. Nor could it.
If you define 'morality' as genetically-influenced behavior (e.g. the duck flying south), then I can understand you perfectly fine, but I don't see the relevance. There's simply no compelling reason to say that a duck ought to fly South. It may desire to fly south. It may be strongly compelled to do so. But it has no meaningful obligation.
I suspect you'd agree with me on the previous point. What I'm uncertain of is if you your conception of human morality includes this sense of obligation. If not, then you are using morality in a way that very few people do, insofar as the study of morality is traditionally the study of obligations. And If it does, I frankly don't understand what your basis is for thinking this.
To clarify, then, do you believe that everyone is obligated to not boil children for pleasure? And if so, why?
Your life and your experiences could dictate why you respond in a certain way, but it does not explain why you wish others would do the same.
I don't have any desire to have another man love my wife the same way I do. That is entirely different than the way one views murder or rape.
If we dig honestly at your proposal for morals and life in general, we would have to argue that there is no such thing as love either, since it can't be proven experientially. None of our emotions are valid or worthwhile. None of our thoughts are significant. I suppose you already understand all this, but I just want to make sure we are in the same boat.
If all moral questions are simply one of opinion then how can anyone be faulted for any choice. Randy Thornhill and Craig Palmer suggested that rape is "a natural, biological phenomenon that is a product of the human evolutionary heritage," just like "the leopard's spots and the giraffe's elongated neck."
No act – murder, rape, war, boiling babies or chickens, flying planes into buildings full of innocent people, shooting 32 of your classmates – can be called anything but a personal dislike and a result of chemical reactions.
Cineate, who "hard-wired" the morals in us? If you say simply evolution, why would evolution do such a thing? It is by definition a purely unguided process, there would be no use or possibility for it to create in us a sense of altruism because it does not care if we survive or not.
Also if morality is simply one of many instincts we have as a human, what judges between the instincts. C.S. Lewis put it brilliantly when talking about the decision one faces when you see someone being mugged and calling for help. You have the instinct to help the other person and the instinct to stay safe. He writes:
He argues that all of the instincts we have can be good in one instance, but bad in another. That leads him to say that there must be something that judges between the instincts, that let's us know when one is right and when it is wrong.
I'm loving this amicable discussion :) I'll be back later with responses.
That's simply not true. I'm a naturalist, Aaron; I don't believe that love is some sort of mystical thing. Any human emotion will correspond to the state of the experiencer's nervous system. In other words, your mind isn't some ethereal thing, it's an emergent property of your brain. Regardless of whether neuroscience is able to accurately map them all the time, your feelings are not make-believe.
They can't. Not meaningfully, anyway. This is particularly true given that we live in a universe which is either deterministic, or essentially deterministic. In other words, we don't have any meaningful sense of 'free will', in the philosophically libertarian sense. I think it's grotesque that billions of people kill an eat animals, but I can hardly get upset with them for doing it. They were raised thinking that animals were meant to be eaten. It is what it is, regardless of how I feel about it.
Absolutely. Rape is maybe the best example of something which is extraordinarily common (especially throughout history), and yet modern, Western society considers it to be strictly evil. I'm appalled by rape, personally, but 500 years ago it was barely thought of as being offensive. Slavery and genocide are other great examples.
Stewart, you asked, “Spell it out for me, please, because right now all it appears to be is a synonym for “something most people don’t want to happen,” which has the ripe smell of an opinion.” The repulsion that people feel when faced with the prospect of pushing the fat man rather than pulling the lever in the trolley car dilemma is NOT an opinion. An opinion requires thought, gut reactions don’t. It’s only later, after the “gut reaction” has been tempered with reason that instinct becomes morality. This is the moral relativity I was referring to. However, sometimes the moral circumstances are so basic, so primal, that one does not need to think. People just know acting in such a way, like “boiling babies for pleasure” is simply wrong. This is the moral absolutism. In a nutshell, with Hauser’s neurology research as support I believe the moral process has two phases. The first phase is “gut reaction” is an absolute because it’s hardwired into us. We have no choice in the matter. The second phase “relativity” is our intellect working upon our hard wired reactions. Empirically, both of these phases affected by different parts of our brains as brain scans show.
“The presence of a set of largely shared moral intuitions doesn’t indicate anything about how someone ought to behavior, or whether a specific action is inherently immoral. Nor could it.”
If a woman was being raped in front of you and she called out to you for help, before you even think or form an opinion, ask yourself what your gut reaction would be. I would venture that your gut reaction, and anyone who is not an amoral psychopath, would be empathy. Now, you can argue that empathy is not morality. Maybe so, but it is certainly intrinsic to human morality. Empathy is woven into the very fabric of morality. So, in this situation the set of universal (hardwired by evolution) moral intuitions, your “gut reaction” indicates the specific action of helping the woman being assaulted. Now, whether you actually take action and help her is the cognitive part, the part that’s subjective.
“If you define ‘morality’ as genetically-influenced behavior (e.g. the duck flying south), then I can understand you perfectly fine, but I don’t see the relevance. There’s simply no compelling reason to say that a duck ought to fly South. It may desire to fly south. It may be strongly compelled to do so. But it has no meaningful obligation.”
This is a very rudimentary definition of morality. There are more advanced forms of morality that animals are capable of depending upon their intelligence. This is why we attach more moral significance to a chimp and less to a mosquito. The duck can’t think of why it ought to fly south, but we can. There is still an “ought” regardless of whether the duck is aware of it. See? I disagree with the philosophers who say one can’t get an “ought” from nature. Over millions of years of evolution, that is exactly what happened! Morality is grounded in our genes and mitigated by our intellect.
To clarify, then, do you believe that everyone is obligated to not boil children for pleasure? And if so, why?
Yes. Because our genes tell us we “ought” (are obligated) not to behave that way (see woman being assaulted example above). This is demonstrated by our gut reaction to this act. The “gut reaction” morality is objective (not opinion). We know this is part of morality because when presented with moral dilemmas, this part of the brain lights up like a Christmas Tree.
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Aaron,
“Cineate, who “hard-wired” the morals in us?”
Not who, what. Evolution.
“If you say simply evolution, why would evolution do such a thing? It is by definition a purely unguided process, there would be no use or possibility for it to create in us a sense of altruism because it does not care if we survive or not.”
I can’t disagree with this more. Evolution would do such a thing because altruism is a trait that is beneficial to our survival as a species. See “The selfish Gene” by Richard Dawkins. A purely “unguided” process is not synonymous with “random” process. Nature selects what traits work and which don’t via the rule “survival of the fittest.” Nature does not have to care if something survives, it just has to survive. If you’re hunting, and you see that teamwork equates to more success in hunting, you learn you “ought” to share the kill with your partner. Why do you think we have more empathy with those in our “tribe” (family, friends, countrymen, team, city, etc…) than those outside our “tribe?” Aaron, I know very well you don’t accept any of this but this is what real evolution is. It’s not the religious assumptions you’ve been exposed to. Please though, I don’t want to get into evolution in this post, I’m enjoying the morality discussion. It’s challenging me to really think hard about ethics.
“Also if morality is simply one of many instincts we have as a human, what judges between the instincts. C.S. Lewis put it brilliantly”
I like this quote. The “impulse” Lewis mentions is what I am talking about when I refer to “gut reaction.” The answer to “what judges” between one impulse and another is us. We decide what to do, how to act. I don’t accept his premise of “moral law” however because Lewis means that in a divine sense. My position is that we have a moral grammar hardwired in our genes, that’s where we get the moral impulses from, but this is mitigated by our intellect. It’s mitigated further by our culture.
Cineaste, again, you and I don’t disagree about the facts at hand (i.e. the science), but I don’t understand your interpretation at all.
You have a unique interpretation of what an ‘opinion’ is, and it’s one which is unsupported by popular usage. That’s fine, of course, but our conversation needs to reflect this divergance. What you are describing still sounds like an opinion to me.
Whether you call it an opinion or not, you are talking about a subjective judgement. In other words, it’s based on internal information, not external verification. By your interesting definition, saying “Fire is scary”, or “Sugar is tasty” is reflection of fact, not opinion. Again, that’s fine, but it’s not what most people mean by the word, and our conversation needs to reflect that in order to be useful.
No, I don’t see. You are saying that a duck has a moral obligation to fly South each Winter, and that sounds enormously silly to me.
your feelings are not make-believe
But if our actions are not our fault and are merely chemical reactions by the process of evolution, so are our feelings. Which do make them essentially meaningless. If I simply feel and act the way the chemicals tell me to, then nothing is real – or at least real in the normal, everyday sense.
When speaking of rape, so you are honestly saying that if you saw someone rape a person you love that you could not say what they were doing is morally wrong, but simply a part of the evolutionary process. If it’s all part of the “cricle of evolutionary life,” why even try to stop it?
I am honestly trying to understand this, but I cannot fathom not viewing raping someone or genocide as wrong. I know the questions may seem leading or even pejorative, but it is difficult for me to grasp a worldview being completely amoral, in that nothing is viewed as moral or immoral.
Cineaste, I don’t want to debate evolution versus creationism but that does touch into these areas. Moral evolution is a different realm than physical evolution and I think it is needed when discussing these issues.
We have to answer where does the moral code come from. I say God. You say evolution. Stewart says we don’t have one.
My point of debate with Stewart is the existence of a moral code. You accept that premise, but deny my other premise that the code comes from and presupposes a supernatural being. That is where our debate lies.
Why would random process like evolution have an end – survival? There is no intelligence involved in random evolution. It should not care if one million, one or zero survived. You seem to personify and almost deify evolution or natural selection so that it has the ability to pick and choose which morals it desires to place.
But even if survival is the moral code hard-wired into us by evolution, why and bow do some act contrary to that on both ends of the spectrum. Many people engage in self-destructive behavior, particularly suicide, how is that explained? Also, others sacrifice themselves for others (maybe close, maybe not), how is that explained?
The answer to “what judges” between one impulse and another is us.
But if we are simply responded to the chemical reactions in our brain or the instincts hard-wired in us through evolution, then we have no real choice. We cannot choose anything. That’s Stewarts argument. If you suppose, as you and he both do, that evolution is the process by which we all developed, then, as he said, we have no real free will. We simply follow orders of the chemicals.
Now, I don’t believe that to be the case. I take solace and joy in my own free will and my ability to act in the moral or immoral way. I know inherently that what the VT shooter did was immoral. I know that any that bullied him did something immoral. I know that rape and genocide is immoral. These are things that I know and I believe transcend cultures and generations.
I harken back to a previous point, simply because people did not obey the moral code does not mean it doesn’t exists. The fact that cultures present and past always make up excuses or reasons why it is acceptable to rape or kill a people group different from you, points to the fact that they know their behavior is wrong. If they didn’t have that knowledge, why justify it? Why did the Nazi’s make the case that the Jews were inferior and not actually persons? It allowed them to act in a way that was immoral – killing another person – by saying that they weren’t really people.
Our behavior apart from the moral code points even stronger to it. We make excuses and justifications for our actions when we know it violates an unwritten code that sometimes we don’t even know exists. We expect others to behave according to that code. That’s why regardless of what we believe about the moral code, we don’t want others to rape our loved ones. We don’t want another people group to seek to kill our people group. And if we desire to do harm to someone else, we justify it through various reasons – maybe they are acceptable, maybe not – but we know that justification is needed for that action.
I believe that we, and other animals, are capable of ethical thinking. That is, we're capable of using intuition and reason to determine whether or not a particular action is desirable. I simply deny that this could ever be anything but subjective. Thus, I deny the possibility of absolute morality.
If the question is "Would watching someone get raped upset you?", then the answer is surely "yes". But lots of things upset me. Watching an animal get beaten to death upsets me, but 99% of the world has no problem with violence against non-human species. What can I say about that? I'm apalled by violence of all types, and I do what I can to prevent it. But you're asking me, "How can you justify that?" and the answer is "I can't" because justification is a purely metaphysical concept.
That is, we're capable of using intuition and reason to determine whether or not a particular action is desirable.
But the intuition and reason are meaningless because they are only the responses the chemicals in our brain tell us to have. If we have no real free will, we cannot trust anything our minds tell us. Logic and reason are nonexistent or at least only existent within the confines of one specific mind and cannot be appealed to when discussing with someone else.
This leaves us at the point where you could not appeal to someone who wanted to kill you. There is no reasoning you could give them as to why they should not kill you. You are merely asking them to change their personal perference. I shudder to think what type of world this would be, if no one thought it terms of morality.
There are those like you Stewart who upon arriving at this concept decide to continue trying to improve yourself and the world. But others may (and have) decided that because there are no moral restraints all actions are good if they say so. That does not lead to prosperity and the good of the species.
I'm not saying negative consequences mean that subjective morality must be false, but that it is a very ineffective evolutionary tool and a dangerous one at that.
I believe that we, and other animals, are capable of ethical thinking.
Ethical on what basis, if we all appeal to our own personal ethics. That really means there are no ethics at all, so how can thinking be ethical?
…justification is a purely metaphysical concept.
Does that mean that all metaphysical things do not exist? How can you on one hand say that emotions exists but not justification? Do both not exist in the metaphysical realm?
You are merely asking them to change their personal perference.
I totally agree. The subjective view of morality is totally out of touch with reality, not to mention practicality.
But the reason it comes up, in my mind, is simple. Those who are simpletons want either an entirely subjective or objective moral law. The reality is, there are some thing that are clearly morally wrong, and some that are in the gray area.
This is why Paul the Apostle was able to claim that some things were definitely sinful (=immoral), while others must be left up to conscience of the individual.
The existence of objective moral laws does not remove all doubt in all issues, nor does the existence of some more subjective gray area situations mean that we can know or agree upon absolutely nothing for sure.
And even in items that are objectively wrong (murder), exceptions such as capital punishment or self-defense cause people who demand a black or white world to retreat into a world of subjective morality because they are too lazy, uneducated, or scared to define a more complex morality.
The idea that morality is entirely subjective is patently rediculous, in practice, as well as in logic. It defies reality, and as you have shown, when played out, makes no sense at all.
“There are absolutely no absolutes” is the war cry of the damned (damned to ignornance, despair, and confusion).
Ethical in the sense that we are making judgements, though they are subjective. Not “ethical” in the sense that it’s good or virtuous. Meta-ethical, if you will.
How does it play out in the world of supposedly absolute morality? “You can’t kill me,” you tell him, “It’s wrong” . . . “Oh, ok,” he replies as he puts down the knife, “Well played, sir.”
I understand what you’re saying, Aaron, but it’s not an argument in your favor because it’s not really there. If you’re right and I’m wrong, it doesn’t empower you at all, and there is no tangible difference in the universe. You can say that X is immoral, you can believe that X is immoral, but that isn’t an attribute of X; it’s an attribute of you, and it has no real coercive power.
Emotions aren’t metaphysical. I guess you would think they are, since you probably believe they come from a soul, but it’s clear to me that my thoughts (including emotional ones) correspond to physical brain states. As for things which are really metaphysical, I would say that there is never a reason to think they exist. Since they are not actual parts of the physical world, we can neither prove or disprove their existence, so believing in them can never be based on any sort of evidence. The fact that we can conceive of metaphysical things is not any reason to suppose they have a basis in reality. I can conceive of a purple horse, or a planet made of cheese, but these things are not real.
So I say that justification is metaphysical, because it doesn’t really exist. You can say “I have justification to do X”, or “I am justified”, but what does that really mean? It’s just another way of stating an opinion that you have about the way things you want things to be, or the way you think things ought to be, not the way that things really are.
Seeker, I'm not interested in your interpretation of a 2000-year-old dead Roman. If anything, citing Paul has only bolstered my belief that morality is nothing but metaphysics. Further, you can't show up in the middle of a lengthy discussion, announce that one or more of the participants is ridiculous and illogical, and expect it to carry any weight. You've offered no evidence or even explanation to back up your petulant claims about my argument. I have laid out a reasonably well-spoken, coherent position, here. Cineaste and Aaron have engaged me on this issue, and they've been very polite and logical about it, even if I still disagree with them. Your reponse has amounted to nothing more than, "What a stupid argument. I can't believe you think that's true!" Well done.
How does it play out in the world of supposedly absolute morality? “You can’t kill me,” you tell him, “It’s wrong” . . . “Oh, ok,” he replies as he puts down the knife, “Well played, sir.”
It plays out in just law, not necessarily in such conflicts as you outlined. If the laws are just, like prohibiting and punishing killing, you will have relative peace and safety. However, if your laws allow killing, no matter how much your collective ethic says it is OK, you will not have peace and safety.
And actually, there was a society like that – the Huaorani Indians of Ecuador featured in the End of the Spear. Their culture of revenge left their numbers decimated, until Christian missionaries brought the gospel.
Of course, multiculturalists would rather they died out than have their pristine culture contaminated, but of course, the oil companies were going to get their soon anyway, and with much less mercy.
Although that’s an oversimplification, my point is that if you base a culture on morals that defy objective truth and morality (as the atheist Communists did in assuming that people can and should live without faith), you are bound to fail even if you subjectively believe the opposite morals are true.
Stewart, check this out. Jacques Derrida On Love and Being
Derrida makes the distinction between the ‘who’ one loves – their singularity – and the ‘what’ – the specific qualities of the beloved; then, he states that philosophy’s most basic question – ‘What is Being?’ promotes the same sort of differential reflection: “is Being someone or something?” Fidelity, he states, is always threatened by this division – between the desire to be faithful to the other’s singularity and the qualities that may not be as one once thought …
Can you apply the question of “Being” to morality? Is Morality someone or something?