Timeline for Would people do moral things if it didn’t make them physically feel good? If not, how is morality different from any other want?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
20 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jan 12, 2023 at 20:34 | comment | added | random_user | Perhaps your reasoning implicitly assumes the naturalistic fallacy | |
| Dec 31, 2022 at 21:12 | comment | added | Hudjefa | Yep, there's an inconsistency alright. We give, how shall I put it?, nonphysical reasons to be good, but the payoff expected/experienced is physical joy. Hence, as you so rightly pointed out, if being good is unpleasant, people will no longer be/desire to be good. However, as one comment/answer made a reference to how some willingly bear unimaginable pain in order to be good, I'd say that your thesis is flawed/needs a revision. That said, I'd have to admit your arrow is within an inch or less of the bullseye. Kudos mom ami, kudos. | |
| Dec 31, 2022 at 19:59 | answer | added | Kristian Berry | timeline score: 0 | |
| Dec 31, 2022 at 14:47 | comment | added | Conifold | What's the point? Your "argument" is that when people do not provide the answer you want it's because they are mistaken or lying, or, at best, "feel good" needs to be stretched some more. | |
| Dec 31, 2022 at 12:00 | answer | added | CriglCragl | timeline score: 1 | |
| Dec 31, 2022 at 10:29 | answer | added | Professor Sushing | timeline score: 0 | |
| Dec 31, 2022 at 6:12 | answer | added | user53 | timeline score: 0 | |
| Dec 30, 2022 at 17:04 | comment | added | user62907 | Except we can not just imagine but test scenarios. In the case of hypotheticals, we can also ask people. You simply have to ask people to choose between the feelings of either of two actions: the moral or non moral ones. And my argument is that people pick whichever one feels better physically or psychologically | |
| Dec 30, 2022 at 14:12 | comment | added | Conifold | There is always something that "undeniably feels good" in anything that happens to people, and "undeniably feels bad" too, including death and torture, or, conversely, birth and pleasure. Your "thesis" is as informative as "something happens". It sure does, unfalsifiably. | |
| Dec 30, 2022 at 13:09 | comment | added | user62907 | How is it circular if devotion and sense of duty demonstrably and undeniably feel good for the person. If they undeniably did not feel good, then you would have counter evidence to my thesis @Conifold | |
| Dec 30, 2022 at 9:15 | comment | added | Futilitarian | Related: Morality and Altruism. | |
| Dec 30, 2022 at 6:49 | comment | added | Conifold | So if people admit to doing things because they feel good that confirms your thesis and if they do not that is because they conceal it. Your argument is worse than circular, it is a species of no true Scotsman. Moreover, "feel good" is so stretchy that the thesis itself is next to vacuous. Monks and soldiers submit themselves to "negative emotional impacts" and "some sort of physical pain" out of devotion or sense of duty, they think, but really, it is because there is "feel good" in there too. And since every human action entails both good and bad they do it because it feels bad just as well. | |
| Dec 30, 2022 at 6:18 | comment | added | user62907 | "Peace and wellness" feel good. Not dying also feels good. | |
| Dec 30, 2022 at 5:56 | comment | added | RodolfoAP | Morality is not the result of a feeling (to feel good). Moral rules express the social agreement a group needs for its members to coexist in peace. You don't say sorry because it makes you feel good (in any case, it is the opposite): you say sorry because only so you can hold a persisting social relationship, allowing further interactions in peace and wellness. In extreme cases, not following moral rules might imply death or the dissipation of the human group. If following moral rules would lead to good feelings, humanity would be perfect. | |
| Dec 30, 2022 at 5:30 | answer | added | Atif | timeline score: 2 | |
| Dec 30, 2022 at 4:40 | comment | added | user62907 | No, it is not a circular argument. I didn't assume that EVERYTHING that people do is because it makes them feel good. I listed examples of things people do that make them feel good that they themselves admit to doing because of the feeling. By induction, I hypothesized that people also do moral things because it makes them feel good, even though many do not readily admit to this. | |
| Dec 30, 2022 at 4:19 | answer | added | causative♦ | timeline score: 0 | |
| Dec 30, 2022 at 4:02 | review | Close votes | |||
| Jan 9, 2023 at 3:07 | |||||
| Dec 30, 2022 at 3:43 | comment | added | David Gudeman | You are essentially assuming that people do what will make them feel good and then using that assumption as the premise of the argument that people only do moral things because it makes them feel good. It is a circular argument. | |
| Dec 30, 2022 at 3:01 | history | asked | user62907 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |