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Symsav t1_j3yjgc8 wrote

Reply to comment by SvetlanaButosky in /r/philosophy Open Discussion Thread | January 09, 2023 by BernardJOrtcutt

Arguments like Sam Harris’ have been refuted for decades in many ways. One is the is-ought gap - principally, you cannot logically derive what you ought to do (moral actions) from what is (biology, pleasure, happiness, etc).

Other notable refutations of objectivist morality like these are the Open Question Argument, and the Naturalistic Fallacy. So to answer your question, as with every debate in philosophy neither side has ‘solved it’, but the subjectivist side has never really had a problem entirely refuting arguments from the objectivist side

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SvetlanaButosky t1_j406c84 wrote

But how do you refute the objective and universal nature of biological needs?

We are genetically compelled to fulfill our biological needs, its literally mind and axiom independent, it doesnt matter what we believe in, we still have to obey our biology if we are sound of mind.

So any moral values developed from biology should be objective, right?

Its not like we can do anything else, we'd literally die if stop fulfilling our biological needs.

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Goonerlouie t1_j4isoee wrote

Reproducing is a biological need. The ways some will satisfy that need is immoral (talking about non consensual relations).

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SvetlanaButosky t1_j4kczc4 wrote

Rape is not fulfilling the need to reproduce, its an unintended side effect of hormones.

Biology is objective, but evolution is not perfect, that doesnt disprove the objectivity of biology and the morality developed based on it.

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Goonerlouie t1_j4kjnud wrote

I don’t know, there must be a link between hormone and biological needs. Hunger is triggered by a hormone is it not? I don’t think it’s fair to dismiss it as an unintended side effect of hormones.

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SvetlanaButosky t1_j4l7gx1 wrote

As said, biology is evolution and evolution is never perfect, its trials and errors, adaptation to survive.

But once it has found a formula that works, it will become universal and spread among the species, becoming its objective foundation, survival of the best biology.

The link is trials and errors with side effects, biological evolution is not a factory made precision machine, lol.

But its still totally mind independent, meaning its objective.

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Symsav t1_j4rnznb wrote

I don’t need to refute the nature of biological needs. To claim we have biological needs is a descriptive claim, to claim we ought to act in accordance with them is a normative claim. To derive a normative claim from a descriptive claim is inherently illogical.

Time for the open question argument. Let’s use, for example, ‘maintaining one’s health’ as our biological need. For this to be reducible to good, asking ‘is maintaining one’s health good?’ has to be a closed question (the answer must be yes in all instances - as it would be to ask ‘is good good?’) The answer is yes sometimes - most of the time, even - but what about when sacrificing your food so that your child can eat? (or any other instance of an answer which is anything but ‘objectively yes’).

Therefore, although biological needs are universally experienced and usually what we navigate towards, they are far from objectively moral.

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