Reddit reviews The Emotional Construction of Morals

TL;DR Like us error theorists deny that slavery etc. is moral; they just have different reasons. For relativists, on the other hand, slavery is wrong relative to our moral framework, which is why we shouldn't do it; and yes, for them, we can still criticize slavers!

You raise an excellent question, which [moral relativists] (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-relativism/) like [Jesse Prinz] (https://philosophynow.org/issues/82/Morality_is_a_Culturally_Conditioned_Response) have done a lot of work towards answering. In fact, your point is one of the biggest objections to relativism: if morality is merely relative, how can we justifiably criticize or object to slavery, misogyny, holocausts, etc? why shouldn't we just do what we want, whether or not it hurts anyone? After all, relative to our moral framework, such actions could be justified.

If you want, check out the Prinz paper linked above, or even better his book [The Emotional Construction of Morals] (http://www.amazon.ca/Emotional-Construction-Morals-Jesse-Prinz/dp/0199571546), as well as the SEP article for the relativists' answer: relative to our morality, slavery etc. is wrong, which is why we shouldn't reenact it. And even though morality's relative, that doesn't prevent us from criticizing others or defending our views - relativism doesn't imply 'anything goes'!

To answer your question, though, [error theorists] (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-anti-realism/) can oppose horribly immoral crimes like slavery just as much as anyone else; like us, it rejects that slavery is morally okay, just for different reasons (because moral judgments are errors). See Richard Joyce's [The Myth of Morality] (http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/samples/cam031/2001025740.pdf), his paper [here] (http://personal.victoria.ac.nz/richard_joyce/acrobat/joyce_2007_morality.schmorality.pdf), and Ricahrd Garner's [Abolishing Morality] (http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10677-007-9085-3#page-1) for a fuller explanation.

I actually disagree completely with your central objection here. You object that OP conflates emotions and morals, and state that you don't need one to have the other. I think that you absolutely do need emotions to have morals, and Vulcan's as a hypothetical aren't even a good imaginary test case for an example of people who have no emotions who do have morals for exactly the reason that they DO have emotions. Very strong emotions, in fact so strong that their entire planet turned to suppressing their emotions in a last ditch effort to achieve any kind of lasting culture.

I don't see how you're drawing a line between desire and emotion. What is desire if not an emotion? What is it to say you desire something if there is no emotion driving it? In my view, the nature of desire/emotion/value judgement is not nearly so clear cut.

You're right that Data has desires, and he also clearly has things he values. In my view, these behaviors constitute emotional states, although his outward expression of these emotions and his subjective experience of them are clearly very different from a human beings. That isn't to say he is flawed or broken, only that he is different. He is mistaken when he says he has no emotions, when what he really means is that he doesn't have the subjective experience of emotions that humans have. The emotion chip provides him with that subjective experience, but this is a change in how he experiences emotions, not the create of emotion ex nihilo.

For more about emotions and morals, I would refer you to The Emotional Construction of Morals by Jesse Prinz. No need to read it if you have no interest in the subject, but if it sparks your interest I found it to be a really great read on moral sentimentalism/emotionism.

Not really. There's really great evidence that our basic morality is a condition of evolution - certain attitudes, such as disliking cheating and liking kindness, are good for the species in the long run, so our brains are wired for some basic kindness, even if it's selfish kindness (I help you because you'll probably help me later).

This kind of moral framework is completely supportable in the absence of any god, and it's objective across all humanity because we all share in that same evolution. Granted, the duties and morals imposed by God are on a different and stricter level, but we are more or less programmed to be kind to those who are like us. You can see this book if you're in any way interested.

Beyond an objective (if basic) morality, you've got objective things like math and science and history and pretty much anything we can study. 2+2=4 isn't up for debate, although "is patricide wrong" might be.

I recently finished the book The Emotional Construction Of Morals by Jesse Prinz Book and he has some interesting points about Evolution and Morality.
His points are definitely more for arguing against such a claim, one of his arguments specifically says that just because something is evolutionarily good or ensures survival does necessarily imply optimization but rather effectiveness (Two similar but different things). Therefore evolutionary processes are poor examples of moral optimization.

He definitely refers to some authors who argue that point though.

> There's close to no serious ethicists who defend it in modern day

Whoever told you that has not been paying attention to developments in ethics over the last 450 years, since the publication of work by Sextus Empiricus and Michel de Montaigne.

Here are some modern papers, books, and articles by or about serious ethicists who defend relativism:

• Moral Relativism, by Gilbert Harman, a prominent philosopher and ethicist at Princeton.
  
• The Emotional Construction of Morals, a book by Jesse Prinz, professor of philosophy at CUNY.
  
• Morality is a Culturally Conditioned Response, an article about Jesse Prinz's position
  
• Foundations for Moral Relativism, a book by J. David Velleman, professor of philosophy at NYU.
  
• Natural Moralities: A Defense of Pluralistic Relativism, by David B. Wong, professor of philosophy at Duke University.