Sargon of Akkad - "Ethical Knowledge" a Response: Attempting to tie science and myth.

    A response to Carl's short 6 min video you can watch here.

    Though mythological and scientific thinking approach the subject of "the good" from two opposing sides, they do meet. And most of us experience it a least a few times in our life. 

    In order to understand how it all came to be we must first check our unconscious biases;) Scientific thinking and mythological thinking are not opposites. They are both methods that humanity developed in order to try to understand the world around us. Mythological thinking might be archaic but it still held a lot of truths that science was unable to tackle for millennia. There is still a wealth of knowledge that we loose when we treat it as invalidated by scientific, or you would say rational thinking.

      Better to treat them as a extensions and supplements to each other. Think astrology laying foundations for astronomy. Both were means of divining how stars affect and coincide with our life.

    In mythological thinking usually "the good" is god, and that which he desires. In the antique times when humans began organizing each other there wasn't much scientific thinking around. And though there were philosophers, the average analphabet was busy trying not to starve and had little time for a scientific discussion. That's why mythological thinking in the times of Plato and Aristotle, focused on preserving and spreading solutions, templates of behaviors through good examples and parables. At that point the why wasn't as important, as ready for use recipes to succeed and survive. Although the definitions of good proposed by mythological thinking are based on god or some other axiom, that doesn't mean that they are wrong. 

      Scientific/rational explanations of "good", are rare. They might be more analytical and grounded but are far less persuasive than their more experienced mythological cousins. Those who say "you can't get an ought from an is" often use it to avid the discussion. Unfortunately a responsible man can't avoid that discussion, when you throw out the morality stemming from mythological thinking. We must put forward an alternative. Otherwise nature abhors a vacuum. And you better be sure it will put something unknown and possibly dangerous in that place.

    When searching for the scientific definition of good, we must adhere to the scientific method. Has to be repeatable and falsifiable. Luckily there is an ought in nature: life. Life would rather continue. We don't know exactly why genes wish to reproduce. Until science finds and answer we must satisfy ourselves with mythological thinking. 
Mythological thinking calls it a soul, or if you're less particular about your mythology, spark of creation.
     A short scientific definition of "the good" would be: that which is optimal for a species to survive. Only the scale of this optimal is the universe, and the timeframe is eternity.
     A very good attempt at scientific/rational definition of good is presented in Stefan Molyneux book "Universally Preferable Behaviour: A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics" (available for free on his website). In it he replaces the mythological moral "good" with a bit fuzzier but rationally based universally preferable behavior, or UPB. The universality fulfills our repeatable criteria. For example: theft is not and cannot be universally preferable. One person that wouldn't preferer it is the thief himself. For the whole point of stealing is gaining ownership. When the person completes their thievery, he no longer supports having the item stolen. The language definition of theft in it's very self states that the item is taken against the wishes of it's owner. It can not be stolen if my aim is to give it away. Hence theft is not universally preferable and as such not "good".
      The preferable in our UPB secures the falsifiable requirement. It's basically the utilitarian argument. You can falsify any claim of goodness by running the idea as a scientific though experiment to it's end. Unfortunately that method is only as good as it's wielder. I suspect that's how the original philosophers arrived at their mythological "good". But enough of those budding digressions. Let's try falsifying theft.
        If a society decided that "theft" or (to avoid the language problem/impossibility) "unrestricted transfers of ownership" is good an thus preferable, it would lead to the end of that society. Without stable ownership there is no point to produce. Even if there were some freak udarniks around, natural selection, i.e. the ought in life would sort them out fast. Since stealing takes less effort then producing. The though experiment ends before it begins. Were you to legislate it, since it's against natural selection, and hence life it self, it would fail in the end. Life would force people to protect their means of survival. Instead of production, all would focus on defense. We would be trapped in a vicious arms race of our own making. Since there was no point to produce without the means to defend it. Any time wasted producing would put us at a disadvantage compared to those who spent it on arming themselves. In this though experiment we can see that unrestricted transfer of wealth is not sustainable, thus not universal, thus not good. As such life will correct it, in the end.
      Jordan Peterson gives a good argument for universal preferability. And how even rats and chimps have this rational ethical concept of "good". He describes how in life there are games. The "good" is that which allows you to win the maximal amount. Only life is not a single game but rather a series of games. As such the "good" is that which allows you to win the most in the most amount of games. When a big rat spars with a small rat, he has to let the small rat win at least one third of those play fights. He has to do it to continue playing with the small rat. Otherwise the small one will get discouraged and will refuse to play. Thus depriving them both of entertainment and putting them at a disadvantage to more "moral" duo of rats. Rat rational morality 101 - being magnanimity is good. With chimps it's not the most aggressive ones that are the most successful rulers. Even the biggest meanest chimp has an off day. If he was a tyrant, when he's ill or injured he gets torn to shreds by the next two in line. The most successful and "good" chimp leaders are those who are compassionate and sensitive to others. When they get ill the tribe reciprocates, defends and nurtures them. Chimp rational morality 101 -  help others is good.

     Scientific and mythological morality meet in our lives. It's the satisfaction you feel when you do good. You will easily miss it, if you use only rational thinking and throw away the mythical. Life itself provides the stimuli, but rationality or its non universal brother: ideology (basically a customized rationality that aims to simplify the rational process) can easily desensitize a person. 

    Now I know what you think: 
   - Mythological morality is different for every culture/religion. 
That satisfaction is not a sign from life that we are on the right path, and no measure of objective good. It's simply the gratification we feel by reaffirming the values we accepted from our mythological religions/ideologies. And yes! Those things bring satisfaction as well. But there is still a distinction that you can discern if you're attuned to it. That attunement was what allowed mythological thinking philosophers to derive value without scientific thinking. 

     The distinction can be shown by comparing fallowing morals that are religion specific, and the ones that are shared in religions that ran their experiment for long enough. For example in Islam there are moral commandments akin to to Christianity that describe a good Muslim. One of them is giving charity to orphans. Difference is that in Christianity the commandments are universal, while Islam differentiates between how to treat other Muslims and the infidels. A Muslim may feel satisfaction for reaffirming his values by giving charity to a Islamic orphan. Assuming he's a sensitive being attuned to life and not desensitized by ideology will he also feel the satisfaction of helping a kafir boy. He's not reaffirming Christian values of sacrifice and charity at that point. So why would he feel good for helping?

     That feeling is where the Christian mythological morality and scientific sum of all games / universally preferable behavior meet. That's the feeling of objective "good", or as Aristotle called it eudaimonia.

     If you want a scientific explanation, though I'm no scientist, I would posit that you should look into mirror neurons. And if you wanna go deeper than that, then look to life itself. And how it decided dogmatically on the ought to survive. 
Good luck! 

    For the analphabets among us, that don't have time for that, it's best to stick to tried and true mythological morals. Christian one's preferably;)