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Comment by javert | Hacker News Reader

I don't agree with his premise that people can't use reason to come to good moral principles, and then act on them.

Figuring out morality his way--by emotion--would be abdicating your power to make positive change and leaving everything to random influences upon your life. A woman was mean to me as a kid? Well, I'll hate women. Everyone I know goes to church, and I have come to love Jesus? Well, that must be the right answer, then. That's what happens if you go by emotion.

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On the other hand, you're an evolved being with innate biases. There are solid natural reasons that most people share similar moral intuitions (read: emotions). If these intuitions did not exist, there would be no axioms from which to deduce other moral actions.

Brooks' premise is naturalistic, that man is more complex than an avatar of pure reason. I think he's right.

He just messes up and shows his ignorance/stupidity when he tries to say that "man is more complex then an avatar of pure reason" implies "the processes by which man was created are more than is understandable by pure reason". believe what you want but thats a shoddy piece of reasoning.

Strictly speaking, everything is more than is understandable by pure reason.

"everything" might be more then is understandable by pure reason, i have to give you that.

How so? Isn't it just a matter of having enough "reasoning power" and information? What do "everything" and "understandable" mean in this sentence?

"If these intuitions did not exist, there would be no axioms from which to deduce other moral actions."

It is mistaken to deduce morality from emotions, because (for one thing) emotions are largely a product of random chance. Emotions haven't been "validated."

Rather, we should deduce morality from reason and reality. We /ought/ to do what /is/ good for human life. (This isn't self evident, but I do think it's true.)

I essentially see this as an extension of the naturalistic fallacy. "we should surrender to human nature because it is better than anything human reason can come up with."

such claims are not new, and they are not right.

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