> I think I need to emphasize a point better: there are infinitely many objective measures.
No one here or anywhere is arguing that there are no objective measures. Of course, there is! The question is whether there is an objective measure from which good or bad is determined. Or in a logical statement, whether this statement is true: There exists something that is an objective measure AND from it good or bad is determined.
> It's objectively true that humans ... It's objectively true that humans ...
There are humans, albeit in minority, that take pleasure from painful experiences. While most of us want to maximize our lifespan, soldiers do not. They consider protecting their nations are far more important than their life. While most of us want to minimize suffering, Mother Teresa was instead experiencing prolong suffering for the sake of, not her family, not her friends, but strangers. Despite all of this, we all agree that what soldiers and Mother Terese did is "good." So no, none of your "It's objectively true that humans ..." statements are true, unless, as I said in the previous comment, you're willing to redefine "objective" as the majority's preference.
> We should seek to perform those actions which minimize the number of rusty nails jammed into eyes and maximize the number of times humans can enjoy nice meals when they're hungry.
I assume this is the objective measure that you think from which good or bad is determined? Say all humans agree with this objective, the obvious follow-up question could be: Which is worse: having 10 nails in each pair of eyes of 10 people, or having 1 nail in either eye of 100 people? Even if everyone agreed with the initial objective, they wouldn't unanimously say one case is worse than the other.
Okay, I suppose what you wanted to say is to minimize suffering and maximize happiness, which is a very common argument. It's a seemingly crazy question, but why? Pain is not inherently bad. If you think about it, pain is just a signal to the brain that something dangerous is happening. From the survival's perspective, it's even good! Unnecessary pain is bad, you might say. Not really, because it doesn't change anything. Only when you argue that excessive pain can be harmful to survival that the question of why can end. Why maximizing the chance of survival? Otherwise, life couldn't survive and we wouldn't have this discussion. Yes, it's a tautology. In fact, I already explained this in my original post [1].
As I explained in my original post [1], if the three premises written in the very beginning were true, "good" or "bad" would be nothing else other than being beneficial for survival or not. But this view of morality is not without its problems. At the end of the post I also mentioned that morality doesn't always align with beneficialness for survival. So, what now? I have written a follow-up in [2] as a response to another commenter.
> there are humans, albeit in minority, that take pleasure from painful experiences.
And we should seek to act in such a way that, all else equal, those humans have opportunities to do so, except in those cases where allowing masochists to engage in self-harm ends up causing more harm to others in the long run, e.g. if it emboldens them to torture others or if it causes them to end their own life which would otherwise have been rich and fulfilling for themselves and others. There's no need to generalize to some weird Kantian categorial imperative bullshit here; there's no "lying is always bad", there's only looking at two pairs of actions (or an action and its inaction) and running a net present value calculation on those actions from now until the end of time -- or at least doing our best at this. I didn't say it was easy: it's absolutely not. It's the appeal to a higher power or some bullshit categorical imperative that takes the easy, lazy way out. In fact my moral theory compels us to do a hell of a lot more work and deep thinking than any of the others do.
> While most of us want to maximize our lifespan, soldiers do not. They consider protecting their nations are far more important than their life.
Wow, no, that's not true at all. People don't join the army to lay down their life for their nation, they join the army because in that moment (as a teenager, often in the face of a very convincing recruiter who is loose with the truth), it seems like the best option for their lives.
> we all agree that what soldiers and Mother Terese did is "good."
No, we absolutely do not all agree on this, and "we all agree" is an opener to a lot of bullshit in this world. I don't know Mother Teresa's own internal motivations but the evidence suggests she was a horrible human being who caused a lot of undue suffering. Nor do many people, especially pacifists, agree that soldiers are automatically good people.
> unless, as I said in the previous comment, you're willing to redefine "objective" as the majority's preference
If I allow you to use the shorthand "preference" for the 20 or so measures that I stated (and there are hundreds more), then I'm not redefining anything. These preferences already exist. It'd be nonsense to deny that.
> Which is worse: having 10 nails in each pair of eyes of 10 people, or having 1 nail in either eye of 100 people?
Silly trolly problems get us nowhere. The answer is: it depends on the context. It depends on the people. It depends on whether they were already blind or not. It depends on what the course of their lives would be like with and without those nails. It depends on trillions of factors, and all we can do is do our best.
Luckily, the vast majority of problems we face in life are not gotcha-trolly problems where we have to make these kinds of decisions in absence of literally any other context. In real life, using this framework to orient our moral compass, and then acting roughly in line with that as best we can, will end up with extremely moral people creating a wonderful world for everyone. If we get to the point where we're having to fiddle over the minutiae of utility calculations, then we've already created a magnificent utopia for all anyway.
> There exists something that is an objective measure AND from it good or bad is determined
Unlike my discussions with other people in this thread, who also have different opinions, I don't think this discussion with you will ever be productive.
You just keep arguing against what I didn't support or even mention. You were focusing on nonessential details of imperfect examples, which should at least give a glimpse what I've been meaning all this time. Or maybe you really didn't understand of what my counter-arguments really are, after all.
> No, we absolutely do not all agree on this ... Nor do many people, especially pacifists, agree that soldiers are automatically good people.
> ...
> The answer is: it depends on the context. It depends on the people.
The fact that we—and people in general, e.g. pacifists you mentioned—don't agree what's moral or not just proves my point that it's probably impossible to define objective morality from physicalists' point of view. As I've said many times, the closest thing to objective morality is a concept of good or bad based on whether it's beneficial for survival or not. But even this, as I explained in other comments, has its own problems.
> I think I need to emphasize a point better: there are infinitely many objective measures.
No one here or anywhere is arguing that there are no objective measures. Of course, there is! The question is whether there is an objective measure from which good or bad is determined. Or in a logical statement, whether this statement is true: There exists something that is an objective measure AND from it good or bad is determined.
> It's objectively true that humans ... It's objectively true that humans ...
There are humans, albeit in minority, that take pleasure from painful experiences. While most of us want to maximize our lifespan, soldiers do not. They consider protecting their nations are far more important than their life. While most of us want to minimize suffering, Mother Teresa was instead experiencing prolong suffering for the sake of, not her family, not her friends, but strangers. Despite all of this, we all agree that what soldiers and Mother Terese did is "good." So no, none of your "It's objectively true that humans ..." statements are true, unless, as I said in the previous comment, you're willing to redefine "objective" as the majority's preference.
> We should seek to perform those actions which minimize the number of rusty nails jammed into eyes and maximize the number of times humans can enjoy nice meals when they're hungry.
I assume this is the objective measure that you think from which good or bad is determined? Say all humans agree with this objective, the obvious follow-up question could be: Which is worse: having 10 nails in each pair of eyes of 10 people, or having 1 nail in either eye of 100 people? Even if everyone agreed with the initial objective, they wouldn't unanimously say one case is worse than the other.
Okay, I suppose what you wanted to say is to minimize suffering and maximize happiness, which is a very common argument. It's a seemingly crazy question, but why? Pain is not inherently bad. If you think about it, pain is just a signal to the brain that something dangerous is happening. From the survival's perspective, it's even good! Unnecessary pain is bad, you might say. Not really, because it doesn't change anything. Only when you argue that excessive pain can be harmful to survival that the question of why can end. Why maximizing the chance of survival? Otherwise, life couldn't survive and we wouldn't have this discussion. Yes, it's a tautology. In fact, I already explained this in my original post [1].
As I explained in my original post [1], if the three premises written in the very beginning were true, "good" or "bad" would be nothing else other than being beneficial for survival or not. But this view of morality is not without its problems. At the end of the post I also mentioned that morality doesn't always align with beneficialness for survival. So, what now? I have written a follow-up in [2] as a response to another commenter.
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[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36729577
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36739559