moral blind spots

[RJM Corbet]

Just a thought, but shouldn't people also have the right not to listen to what they don't want to?

Of course: you can not attend that talk, or leave the room? But that's not the same as not allowing someone you don't agree with to even speak? Let's not get into extreme examples of hate-speech etc, which opinions are forbidden expression by the law of the land ...

 

[Onyx]

Just a thought, but shouldn't people also have the right not to listen to what they don't want to?

Sure, but that's entirely different than demanding that it not be spoken.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Just a thought, but shouldn't people also have the right not to listen to what they don't want to?

Freedom to say what you want, freedom to listen to what you want.

Anyway, it would be good if we could get back to being speculative about the future - there have been some really interesting and thought-provoking ideas - but I really want to avoid any discussion on current social politics, as it's too divisive to discuss here.

 

[Cathbad]

Freedom to say what you want, freedom to listen to what you want.

Anyway, it would be good if we could get back to being speculative about the future - there have been some really interesting and thought-provoking comments - but I really want to avoid any discussion on current social politics, as it's too divisive to discuss here.

 

[Cathbad]

Personally, I believe there will be morality in the future - and the specifics will be similar to ours now.

Even after a few thousands of years, our current (common) morals aren't much different. How we deal with violations has changed rather dramatically, but not the underlying morals.

 

[Onyx]

Personally, I believe there will be morality in the future - and the specifics will be similar to ours now.

Even after a few thousands of years, our current (common) morals aren't much different. How we deal with violations has changed rather dramatically, but not the underlying morals.

I don't think we are upholding many morals that aren't already deeply connected to property rights and the laws that protect them. Most of the "victimless crime" sort of moral codes - abstaining from sodomy, honoring your parents, showing courage, avoiding graven images - are really no longer considered at all outside of specific enclaves.


Can you think of any morals that are strictly adhered to by the general population that aren't also the subject of law? I wasn't able to.

 

[Cathbad]

I don't think we are upholding many morals that aren't already deeply connected to property rights and the laws that protect them. Most of the "victimless crime" sort of moral codes - abstaining from sodomy, honoring your parents, showing courage, avoiding graven images - are really no longer considered at all outside of specific enclaves.

Exactly. The moral code(s) are still there, but we react to them quite differently.

 

[Onyx]

Exactly. The moral code(s) are still there, but we react to them quite differently.

It used to be a sin to cut your hair - especially for women. It is still in the religious literature, but we have long since stopped reacting to it to the point that no one really remembers it was ever a moral issue at all. Is a moral rule no one is even aware of "still there"?

 

[RJM Corbet]

Humanity has to try. Rights have to be fought for. If wheelchair users don't lobby for ramps at public venues, they won't get them? Although everyone knows there can never be such a thing as true equality and freedom for all, it's better to try to establish equality and freedom: for people, for animals, for fringe groupings -- than not to. Of course. But the future may not be any better?

 

[awesomesauce]

I'm in here late, but in a world where leaders use heavier-than-air chlorine gas to force people up out from the basement into the open where they can be more easily slaughtered etc, I find it ridiculous that modern universities have sheltered spaces where students don't have to hear anything that upsets them, and where speakers that don't go along with popular opinion, including faith issues, are 'no platformed' and not allowed to speak, etc.

The book by Campbell and Manning specifically focuses on the campus environment. Something I liked about it is that they're open about their personal bias in preference of dignity culture, but they still do their best to accurately describe, without judgment, what they see as a new moral culture emerging. Having read it, and the paper it was based on, I think it was excellent and would recommend it anyway, but in the context of future moral cultures, it seems especially relevant.

 

[awesomesauce]

I don't think we are upholding many morals that aren't already deeply connected to property rights and the laws that protect them. Most of the "victimless crime" sort of moral codes - abstaining from sodomy, honoring your parents, showing courage, avoiding graven images - are really no longer considered at all outside of specific enclaves.

Those moral codes weren't just social attitudes when they were written, remember, they were being set down as laws. Religion and belief weren't private things, they were the formal system of government for a specific group of people, with clear rules for who was in charge, inheritance and property, taxes, penalties and fines, in addition to the laws governing social behaviour.

Looking specifically at the Abrahamic faiths (which, taken together, is where the majority of humans draw their moral ideals) this is evident in the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament) of Judaism and the Quran of Islam, but not so much for early Christianity. Early Jews and Muslims were setting down the rules for self-governance, while the early Christians weren't a "people" in the same way; they were subject to Roman rule and the laws of the states where they lived, and without the authority to administer legal decisions and punishment on their own behalf, which is reflected in their scripture. (There's this really good non-religious book, Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations by Martin Goodman, that delves into the relationship between the Jewish and Roman cultures and states and the early Christians.)

Can you think of any morals that are strictly adhered to by the general population that aren't also the subject of law? I wasn't able to.

If we feel strongly enough about something that the general population strictly adheres to it, we tend to enshrine it in law so that we can legitimately enforce it and punish those who deviate. And it goes the other direction too. As something seems silly or irrelevant or unjust to the general population, we eventually drop it from our laws. (It may linger in the written code for long time, but enforcement stops.)

How social & moral attitudes influence law creation is a super interesting subject, like the history of the Temperance movement, prohibition, and its repeal, in 20th century America is fascinating.

 

[awesomesauce]

Thinking about this really drives home to me how correct Margaret Atwood was when she said "Science fiction is really about now." I'm having so much trouble imagining a future society more than a generation or two removed from my own, and I know I'm projecting issues on them which seem huge in our time but might be barely worth a historical footnote to them. I wonder if, in their wildest imaginings, Sophocles or Euripides or Virgil, or even Jules Verne or Robert Louis Stevenson, ever could have come up with us.

 

[mosaix]

Thinking about this really drives home to me how correct Margaret Atwood was when she said "Science fiction is really about now." I'm having so much trouble imagining a future society more than a generation or two removed from my own, and I know I'm projecting issues on them which seem huge in our time but might be barely worth a historical footnote to them. I wonder if, in their wildest imaginings, Sophocles or Euripides or Virgil, or even Jules Verne or Robert Louis Stevenson, ever could have come up with us.

You're not alone. In the past (going back over several decades), New Scientist ran a series of articles asking scientists to forecast technical innovations and their affect on society. Periodically they review these articles and their accuracy. Hardly a single thing that was predicted came to fruition and most of the important innovations - mobile phones, the internet etc. - were missed entirely.

Maybe the driving force isn't science at all. Maybe it's commerce.

 

[Montero]

Commerce or convenience?
I think stuff that is briefly fashionable (THE must have Christmas toy for example) is definitely driven by commerce, or commerce exploiting one-up-manship behaviour.
Mobile phones and the internet are enormously convenient plus a source of pleasure. (Also massive annoyance, but even that some people sort of enjoy )

In terms of future morality, I wonder what feed-in there might be from commerce, convenience and pleasure. I can think of one sort of commerce feed-in - who you buy from and how you buy. Ethical shopping, supporting the high street shops vs online ones..... the strength of feeling that some people have on those issues is on a par with the strength of feeling some people have on items on a moral code and I think it is migrating over for some people. As in it's immoral not to support your high street, or to buy from an unethical company.

 

[MWagner]

My sense is leisure and entertainment will be one of the primary driving forces of innovation in coming decades. A substantial proportion of people will spend almost all of their time engaged in digital entertainment, and the means and structures of this engagement will get very powerful and sophisticated. Not simply virtual reality technology itself, but the social structure fostered in these digital worlds. We're social animals. Status-seeking animals. Story-craving animals. Combine those with technology and I suspect we're on the verge of a sea change in social engagement. Identities and roles in fictional worlds, built around the emerging mythology of entertainment properties of Harry Potter, Star Wars, Marvel Universe, Game of Thrones, etc, will come to have more meaning than our meat-space identities and roles. And while we flutter and twitch in our VR tanks, bravely defending the rebellion from the emperor's stormtroopers, Amazon drones will drop protein bricks and VR-enhancing drug kits into our delivery chutes.

 

[Danny McG]

Amazon drones will drop protein bricks and VR-enhancing drug kits into our delivery chutes

Is that a thing? Is there a VR enhancing drug now? (Awed!)

 

[Danny McG]

I think people will be held in repugnance due to their ancestors present day jobs

"What? Your grandmother worked in a tobacconist's shop? She sold people that foul cancer causing drug? Shame on You!"

I feel it'll be like somebody nowadays whose ancestor was a concentration camp guard - you'd keep very quiet about it and hope nobody ever finds out

 

[awesomesauce]

Is that a thing? Is there a VR enhancing drug now? (Awed!)

Given the current state of VR, pretty much any drug would enhance the experience.

 

[awesomesauce]

And while we flutter and twitch in our VR tanks, bravely defending the rebellion from the emperor's stormtroopers, Amazon drones will drop protein bricks and VR-enhancing drug kits into our delivery chutes.

This is the best argument I've seen against the "brains in vats" idea. Like, if you were programming a reality for a bunch of disembodied consciousnesses to exist in, this tragic version of The Sims is what you'd come up with? Really???

 

[Onyx]

Thinking about this really drives home to me how correct Margaret Atwood was when she said "Science fiction is really about now." I'm having so much trouble imagining a future society more than a generation or two removed from my own, and I know I'm projecting issues on them which seem huge in our time but might be barely worth a historical footnote to them. I wonder if, in their wildest imaginings, Sophocles or Euripides or Virgil, or even Jules Verne or Robert Louis Stevenson, ever could have come up with us.

I don't know if I agree with that at all. While SF is a product of now and reflects our hope and dread, much of the purpose of SF is to illustrate the dramatic results of purely speculative situations. Margaret Atwood may feel and write differently, but that doesn't mean Vernor Vinge is operating the same way.

Those moral codes weren't just social attitudes when they were written, remember, they were being set down as laws. Religion and belief weren't private things, they were the formal system of government for a specific group of people, with clear rules for who was in charge, inheritance and property, taxes, penalties and fines, in addition to the laws governing social behaviour.

That's the history, and given the way the universe was understood to operate in those times, the laws made sense. No one wants to have family members turned into pillars of salt.

But the evolution of law is always away from purely "moral" social codes and toward laws that protect the ability to do commerce. And while we are still in that process, much of the 20th century has been about removing "moral" barriers to free trade between citizens - like Jim Crow. Our laws are increasingly ethical rather than moral, and the morals that aren't codified in some sort of penalizing law are less and less observed. At some point, there won't be any laws protecting "decency" at all because they will have been shown to negatively impact individual livelihoods.