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<blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6416154" data-attributes="member: 2067"><p>So, for me, when someone gets to the point of telling me to go read academic journals to continue a casual message-board debate, I take it as a simple admission that the counterpoint cannot possibly be understood simply by a person with no prior specialization, and so the "functional" part comes into play. A moral code only accessible to obscure specialists and deadened with jargon isn't of much functional use (at the very least, you get the tl;dr reactions folks in the thread are articulating). So it doesn't actually help people in general to answer moral questions. Which means that people trying to answer moral questions in the Real World still must struggle with functional subjectivity. Which is the kind of mindset that PS is made to evoke. And so that mindset is not unthinkably alien, even to those who believe in some objectively real morality. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Just teasing this out (because it seems to describe the counterpoint): you could dispute this claim in a lot of ways. </p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> The idea that a personally flourishing life is a moral good is not objectively true. It hinges on culturally-bound values (for instance, the primacy of the individual and the value of individual education). For instance, one could easily conceive of a conflicting definition of moral good that was family-focused (as the biological understanding of altruism may lead you to), and thus moral good would be measured based on how that child can contribute to the improvement of the family. Making carpets for people in exchange for food and board certainly could contribute to the economic well-being of the family (by taking away an expense, namely, the upkeep of the child), and thus would be a higher moral good than attending school, however miserable that child is. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> The definition of "flourishing" is subjective. It seems to hinge on personal experience, and therefore cannot be determined from the outside. If the child, for instance, might be quite happy and content as a bonded laborer in a carpet factory until its untimely death, and it might be miserable and incapable and unhappy at school, which would make the bonded labor "objectively more flourishing" than the education. Furthermore, it cannot be known which situation will happen before the experience occurs, so it's impossible to ascribe an "ought" to any of the individual courses of action. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> A moral code that identifies the "typical case" as determining the "ought" will be actually incorrect whenever the case is not typical, and thus not produce moral good at all. Furthermore, it presumes knowledge of what a "typical case" is or could be, which is unknowable without perfect knowledge of every human's inner thoughts (to determine what "flourishing" is). For instance, what populations are sampled and how often to determine what a "typical case" is?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> A moral code that rests on "facts about human nature" is a castle built on sand, biologically speaking, as "human nature" itself is not only intensely individual at the genetic level, but also in constant flux both genetically and evolutionarily. Such a moral code would have to, for instance, dub milk products as a moral evil after childhood (given that they are poison to something like 70% of humanity at this point, it would certainly not lead to flourishing in the typical case). If there were some historical accident that changed "human nature," (a massive asteroid falls into Asia and wipes out most of humanity that is lactose intolerant) the moral code would have to be promptly reversed. </li> </ul><p></p><p>A PS game invites you to consider competing moral perspectives. A PS game using that hypothetical child as an adventure hook (say, sacrificed to an underworld god, or sent to an academy for magic) would be, in part, asking the PC's to determine what they believe <em>ought</em> to be done here. A Bleaker might say that the sacrifice to the underworld god would be better, because at least the kid wouldn't be engaging in some ultimately pointless study of magic for all of its pointless life. A Sensate might say that the academy is better, because magical research will lead to more experiences and vistas of knowledge than being dead will. An Anarchist might propose A Third Solution: kidnap the child, raise it in an Anarchist orphanage, and tell the church of the underworld god and the academy of magic each that the other ran away with the kid and hope these structures tear each other apart while the kid gets the freedom to determine their own path in life without the influence of these power-mongers. In play, any one of them may be proven "right" based on their ability to resolve the story to the satisfaction of their beliefs. If the Bleaker fights off the magic-teachers and witnesses the kid's sacrifice, perhaps the family begins to abandon even this worship as pointless, and the academy dismantles as it no longer sees any value in understanding a multiverse where children with potential are sacrificed to cruel gods. If the Sensate fights off the death-cult, the kid goes on to discover new colors and sensations and shares them at the Sensorium and the experience of the multiverse increases profoundly. If the Anarchist gets her way and gets them to fight each other, maybe the kid comes back as a teenager to defy the Anarchist orthodoxy, and a little tear of pride forms in the Anarchist's eye as she appreciates a kid who "gets it." </p><p></p><p>tl;dr: it's fun to let players come up with their own moral codes, and that's part of the fun PS brings to D&D.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="I'm A Banana, post: 6416154, member: 2067"] So, for me, when someone gets to the point of telling me to go read academic journals to continue a casual message-board debate, I take it as a simple admission that the counterpoint cannot possibly be understood simply by a person with no prior specialization, and so the "functional" part comes into play. A moral code only accessible to obscure specialists and deadened with jargon isn't of much functional use (at the very least, you get the tl;dr reactions folks in the thread are articulating). So it doesn't actually help people in general to answer moral questions. Which means that people trying to answer moral questions in the Real World still must struggle with functional subjectivity. Which is the kind of mindset that PS is made to evoke. And so that mindset is not unthinkably alien, even to those who believe in some objectively real morality. Just teasing this out (because it seems to describe the counterpoint): you could dispute this claim in a lot of ways. [LIST] [*] The idea that a personally flourishing life is a moral good is not objectively true. It hinges on culturally-bound values (for instance, the primacy of the individual and the value of individual education). For instance, one could easily conceive of a conflicting definition of moral good that was family-focused (as the biological understanding of altruism may lead you to), and thus moral good would be measured based on how that child can contribute to the improvement of the family. Making carpets for people in exchange for food and board certainly could contribute to the economic well-being of the family (by taking away an expense, namely, the upkeep of the child), and thus would be a higher moral good than attending school, however miserable that child is. [*] The definition of "flourishing" is subjective. It seems to hinge on personal experience, and therefore cannot be determined from the outside. If the child, for instance, might be quite happy and content as a bonded laborer in a carpet factory until its untimely death, and it might be miserable and incapable and unhappy at school, which would make the bonded labor "objectively more flourishing" than the education. Furthermore, it cannot be known which situation will happen before the experience occurs, so it's impossible to ascribe an "ought" to any of the individual courses of action. [*] A moral code that identifies the "typical case" as determining the "ought" will be actually incorrect whenever the case is not typical, and thus not produce moral good at all. Furthermore, it presumes knowledge of what a "typical case" is or could be, which is unknowable without perfect knowledge of every human's inner thoughts (to determine what "flourishing" is). For instance, what populations are sampled and how often to determine what a "typical case" is? [*] A moral code that rests on "facts about human nature" is a castle built on sand, biologically speaking, as "human nature" itself is not only intensely individual at the genetic level, but also in constant flux both genetically and evolutionarily. Such a moral code would have to, for instance, dub milk products as a moral evil after childhood (given that they are poison to something like 70% of humanity at this point, it would certainly not lead to flourishing in the typical case). If there were some historical accident that changed "human nature," (a massive asteroid falls into Asia and wipes out most of humanity that is lactose intolerant) the moral code would have to be promptly reversed. [/LIST] A PS game invites you to consider competing moral perspectives. A PS game using that hypothetical child as an adventure hook (say, sacrificed to an underworld god, or sent to an academy for magic) would be, in part, asking the PC's to determine what they believe [I]ought[/I] to be done here. A Bleaker might say that the sacrifice to the underworld god would be better, because at least the kid wouldn't be engaging in some ultimately pointless study of magic for all of its pointless life. A Sensate might say that the academy is better, because magical research will lead to more experiences and vistas of knowledge than being dead will. An Anarchist might propose A Third Solution: kidnap the child, raise it in an Anarchist orphanage, and tell the church of the underworld god and the academy of magic each that the other ran away with the kid and hope these structures tear each other apart while the kid gets the freedom to determine their own path in life without the influence of these power-mongers. In play, any one of them may be proven "right" based on their ability to resolve the story to the satisfaction of their beliefs. If the Bleaker fights off the magic-teachers and witnesses the kid's sacrifice, perhaps the family begins to abandon even this worship as pointless, and the academy dismantles as it no longer sees any value in understanding a multiverse where children with potential are sacrificed to cruel gods. If the Sensate fights off the death-cult, the kid goes on to discover new colors and sensations and shares them at the Sensorium and the experience of the multiverse increases profoundly. If the Anarchist gets her way and gets them to fight each other, maybe the kid comes back as a teenager to defy the Anarchist orthodoxy, and a little tear of pride forms in the Anarchist's eye as she appreciates a kid who "gets it." tl;dr: it's fun to let players come up with their own moral codes, and that's part of the fun PS brings to D&D. [/QUOTE]
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