Biblical "morality"? Of course it isn't scientific.
However, you can study how to optimize the actions of people with respect to certain core values, and that is hardly a trivial field, nor is it a non-scientific one.
Well, yeah, I agree. I think that you misunderstood me. I was going after Ikatono's teacher's idea that you can find science in the morals of the Bible.
You did say that morality can never be a science, though.
I'm not sure you can call it a science, because morals are entirely subject to the whims of their holders. There are no hard and fast laws of morality like there are for any pure science. However, I will agree that scientific principles can be applied to the study of people and their cultures and moral actions (obviously; anthropology deals with this to some degree).
because morals are entirely subject to the whims of their holders.
I don't think morals are subject to whims in the way you suggest. I agree that there is no set of moral values that exists outside of conscious minds, but I also do not think that the idea that life is preferable to death is simply a whim.
If you base a science of morality on, say, the well-being of conscious creatures, what's the problem with that?
That is to say, you can say "Morality is based on the well-being of conscious creatures," but it's axiomatic. You can't prove that to be the case, you're just making an assumption.
Assume for a moment that perhaps there exist beings more advanced in intelligence, consciousness, and technology to ourselves such that we appear to be ants unto them in every sense. Their morality would be totally alien to ours, and might even be malevolent from our point of view, but to them, it's just business as usual.
That is to say, you can say "Morality is based on the well-being of conscious creatures," but it's axiomatic. You can't prove that to be the case, you're just making an assumption.
Oh? How do you "prove" the epistemological basis for science? What observation can you make that justifies the validity of observations?
The point is that you have to agree on certain things, such as inductive reasoning and Occam's razor, before you can do science. Before you can reject solipsism and consider the existence of other minds to be highly likely, you at least need to accept something like Occam's razor. It's not unreasonable to require something similar for a science of morality.
For example, it's conceivable that a thinking being could believe that if something happens it becomes less likely to happen in the future. If you asked them why why they believe something that, to you, doesn't seem to apply to reality, that being would tell you "Ah, but since I haven't been right before, that makes me more likely to be right in the future!". The fact that a mind could conceivably think differently doesn't mean we cannot have science.
Similarly, it's also conceivable for a thinking being to value death over life, but the fact that this is conceivable doesn't mean we cannot have scientific morality.
Besides, can you give an actual example of someone who values death over life?
So, what I've gotten so far is that without making some assumptions, we can't get very far from a logical standpoint. Also, morality is not objective and a lot of people keep saying it's subjective.
So allow me to add this: Some assumptions must be made to get very far from a logical standpoint. Which assumptions do we make? Mathematically, we would like the most basic assumptions we can get away with and still be able to prove everything we would like to prove. For the purposes of discussion, there is actually a much simpler razor for choosing assumptions: "Upon what do we both agree?"
My razor for determining morality is based on a similar question: "Upon what do all or nearly all men/women agree?" Of course, my answer to this question is dependent upon my interactions with other men/women, so I will never be able to truly answer this question with 100% certainty. But I need start somewhere, so I must be content to start at the best place I can. If I am the only man in existence, then applying this principle gets me a completely subjective morality since my morality is 100% biased toward my own perceptions. I simply get to decide what morality is. However, as more and more people are added to the system and particularly to my experience in that system, applying this principle carries me further and further away from being biased toward myself. So, my morality ceases to be determined subjectively, but rather is determined intersubjectively.
*edit* I should mention the obvious objection to my approach. Simply put, it is the "if everyone believes the world is flat, then it's flat" problem. Just because everyone believes the world is flat obviously does not make it so. I have a couple responses to this problem. First, given that there seems to be a consensus that morality is not objective, this is not a problem. The flat world problem arises because there is an objective truth that has not yet been discovered. Given the assumption that there is no such thing as objective morality, there is no objective morality to contradict the consensus on morality. Second, if there is an objective morality to cause a contradiction, then the existence of these contradictions must be proven by those who believe them to exist. (Note that belief in objective morality does not necessarily mean the existence or belief in the existence of such contradictions).
One last remark on a criticism of the theistic notion that "God" dictates morality (i.e. X is right because "God" says X is right). Christian philosophers usually refer to this concept as the "Divine Command Theory." Also, there are a considerable number of Christians who reject this idea and instead argue that there is a universal morality by which even "God" must abide (i.e. "God" says X is right because X is right). This, of course, runs into the interesting problem of trying to explain how this can be consistent with the concept of an omnipotent God.
My razor for determining morality is based on a similar question: "Upon what do all or nearly all men/women agree?" Of course, my answer to this question is dependent upon my interactions with other men/women, so I will never be able to truly answer this question with 100% certainty. But I need start somewhere, so I must be content to start at the best place I can. If I am the only man in existence, then applying this principle gets me a completely subjective morality since my morality is 100% biased toward my own perceptions. I simply get to decide what morality is. However, as more and more people are added to the system and particularly to my experience in that system, applying this principle carries me further and further away from being biased toward myself. So, my morality ceases to be determined subjectively, but rather is determined intersubjectively.
You've got an overly simplistic picture of subjectivity vs objectivity, which is an issue I've seen throughout this thread. Even if you were the only person alive, you still wouldn't be able to arbitrarily decide your own morality.
The important thing is to reduce morality to core values, i.e. the most basic assumptions about morality, rather than simply to go with consensus positions. Quite a lot of moral disagreements reduce to factual disagreements. For example, the disagreement on abortion is primarily the result of people having factually inaccurate beliefs. It is similarly so for people who take issue with homosexuality.
Even if there were a consensus position saying that "abortion is always wrong", we shouldn't simply take that position for granted in a scientific morality. Instead, we have to look at how and why people believe this. Having realised that that position is in fact heavily dependent on factually inaccurate beliefs, we should promptly reject that position, consensus or no.
That is why it is important to go back to the most basic ideas we can, things like valuing life over death, happiness over unhappiness, and the well-being of conscious creatures. An important question arises - how many people actually have core values that are significantly different - e.g. people who actually think death > life?
I should mention the obvious objection to my approach. Simply put, it is the "if everyone believes the world is flat, then it's flat" problem. Just because everyone believes the world is flat obviously does not make it so. I have a couple responses to this problem.
The response to this problem is an easy one. If everyone believed the earth was flat, this would still be contradicted by more basic assumptions and observations about the nature of reality. Simply noting that gravity exists and applying Occam's razor should lead you to believe the Earth has a rounded shape. As noted before, the point is to stick with only the most basic assumptions.
You've got an overly simplistic picture of subjectivity vs objectivity, which is an issue I've seen throughout this thread. Even if you were the only person alive, you still wouldn't be able to arbitrarily decide your own morality.
Explain please. Something is subjective iff it depends on a individual's beliefs, opinions, etc. Something is objective iff it does not depend upon a person's beliefs, opinions, etc. While I'm at it, something is intersubjective iff it depends on the beliefs, opinions, etc. of a group of people. This is the distinction the words make, so why exactly is this "too simplistic"?
If there is no objective morality, then we are left with intersubjective and subjective morality. If I am the only subject, I can eliminate the notion of intersubjective morality. This leaves only subjective morality.
My morality may be decided by core values, but those core values are still arbitrarily decided. Even the value that life > death is arbitrarily decided. We can know this only once we experience death, so the decision is arbitrary. By arbitrarily deciding my "core values," I have arbitrarily decided my morality. To say that I do not arbitrarily decide on a morality for myself would, by a modus tollens, imply that my "core values" are not arbitrarily decided. If my "core values" are not arbitrarily decided, they must be founded in some other source outside of my own beliefs. Since I am the only man in this hypothetical, that source cannot be another person, leaving only objectivity. Since my "core values," which determine morality, are objective my morality is determined objectively. Thus, there is a morality that is objective to humanity i.e. a morality that does not depend upon what any person believes. Whether or not that morality comes from a higher power or exists entirely without a source, that morality is still objective in its application to humanity since it does not depend upon me, the only man in this hypothetical. So, by claiming that I am not able to decide my morality arbitrarily implies that there is an objective morality (it may or may not be a complete morality, but it exists nonetheless). Given what I've read in this thread so far, I'm reasonably sure you deny the existence of an objective morality. So, you must deny one of my assumptions.
The question is which? One possibility is that you deny that "when A is determined by B and B is arbitrarily decided, then A has been arbitrarily decided." However, if I'm making arbitrary decisions about B, I can equally make an arbitrary decision about A, then eliminate all decisions about B that would cause a contradictions. The determination of B is still just a arbitrary. A similar assumption I make is that "if B determines A, and B is objectively determined, then A is also objectively determined." Like before, I can equally say that A is objectively determined first, which eliminates inconsistent determinations about B. Then, the remaining objective determinations about B are made. Either route would result in the same truth values for B determining A.
Not to rehash the Cogito discussion, but the decision to value logic is arbitrary. If I choose to deny logic, then my morality can be as contradictory as I want and it isn't a problem for me. If I choose to accept logic, then part of that choice involves cleaning up my beliefs so that they are logically consistent.
Firstly, by your definition of subjective, everything is subjective, because your perception of reality is subjective. To assert the existence of objective reality requires that you operate on certain basic principles like Occam's razor and inductive reasoning which you would have us think are "arbitrary". You're also saying that core values are just as "arbitrary". However, I disagree with your use of the word. You're implying that I could, on a whim, choose to value death over life, when I cannot. You're also implying that the core values behind any given human's morality are essentially random, when they clearly are not.
That which is subjective is part of your brain, but that doesn't mean that you can simply choose to reshuffle it on a whim. Liking ice-cream is subjective, but you don't arbitrarily choose to like ice-cream.
For the purposes of discussion, you may want to clarify what you mean by "subjective" and by "arbitrary".
Not to rehash the Cogito discussion, but the decision to value logic is arbitrary. If I choose to deny logic, then my morality can be as contradictory as I want and it isn't a problem for me. If I choose to accept logic, then part of that choice involves cleaning up my beliefs so that they are logically consistent.
The thing is, it's not that simple. Human beings are fully capable of choosing to accept logic and yet holding contradictory beliefs.
My position: logic works like geometry. Initially, you can't do anything with it. However, you set postulates that define your geometry/morality, and build from there. You can say "life is greater than death" and from there determine "suicide is wrong." However, you could just as easily say "death is better than life" and from there determine "homicide is good." While you might not be able to believe that death is greater than life, it will still form a system of morality.
But if you set the postulate of death> life, you are soon left with a world where there is nobody left to act morally (as they have all killed each other or themselves). To me that makes the system internally flawed and not a valid moral postulate.
This argument is cribbed from Kant: that a moral system must be universal and self-consistent.
But if you set the postulate of death> life, you are soon left with a world where there is nobody left to act morally (as they have all killed each other or themselves). To me that makes the system internally flawed and not a valid moral postulate.
But within the context of that morality, no people is good. Unless intelligent life spawns again, the world will be perfectly moral forever.
My point is that there are no starting rules. You can very easily make assumptions like "life is good," and most everyone will agree with you, but it's still not an objective truth. Morality is essentially the logical extension of more basic rules. "Life > death" leads to "killing is bad." "causing others pain is bad" leads to "torture is wrong." Or, if you decide to start with "death > life," then you reach "killing is good." The postulates can be most anything, and it will still work.
You're implying that I could, on a whim, choose to value death over life
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Why can't you make that choice? I certainly don't recommend that choice, but what prevents a person from valuing death over life?
Not to rehash the Cogito discussion, but the decision to value logic is arbitrary. If I choose to deny logic, then my morality can be as contradictory as I want and it isn't a problem for me. If I choose to accept logic, then part of that choice involves cleaning up my beliefs so that they are logically consistent.
The thing is, it's not that simple. Human beings are fully capable of choosing to accept logic and yet holding contradictory beliefs.
Yeah, people do it all the time. But consistency is a big part of logic. If I value logic as part of my morality, then my morality dictates that I eliminate contradictory beliefs from my morality. To do otherwise would be immoral. Just because something is a part of a person's morality does not mean that the person must abide by it. They always have the option to take the immoral route.
By your definition of subjective, everything is subjective, because your perception of reality is subjective.
Just because my perception of reality is subjective does not mean that reality is subjective. It simply means that when I perceive something about reality, I cannot be sure my perception accurately represents reality.
For the purposes of discussion, you may want to clarify what you mean by "subjective" and by "arbitrary".
In order for morality to be subjective (i.e. dependent upon me), it must at some point allow me to make an arbitrary (in the mathematical sense of being completely undetermined) choice. If the choice is not arbitrary, then it is dependent on another source and not subjective to me.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Why can't you make that choice? I certainly don't recommend that choice, but what prevents a person from valuing death over life?
Do you really think you could choose on a whim to value death over life? I strongly doubt that you could. Granted, I'm not saying it's entirely impossible, but I'd say it's very unlikely. How many examples can you name of people who have actually done so? Even if not on a whim, how many people value death over life?
Yeah, people do it all the time. But consistency is a big part of logic. If I value logic as part of my morality, then my morality dictates that I eliminate contradictory beliefs from my morality. To do otherwise would be immoral. Just because something is a part of a person's morality does not mean that the person must abide by it. They always have the option to take the immoral route.
The point I'm making is that when someone tells you "I believe abortion is always immoral, and that's that" you shouldn't just take their word for it. It's not a topic where you should stop arguing upon hearing that. Instead, you need to work out why they believe what they believe - you'll probably find that it is the result of factually inaccurate beliefs about reality, and that if their beliefs more accurately represented reality, there would no longer be a disagreement.
Just because my perception of reality is subjective does not mean that reality is subjective. It simply means that when I perceive something about reality, I cannot be sure my perception accurately represents reality.
Yes, and so in fact you cannot be certain of the existence of an objective reality. Indeed, without accepting certain principles like Occam's razor, you can't even claim that the existence of an objective reality is likely - though I believe it is, since I do accept certain basic principles.
In order for morality to be subjective (i.e. dependent upon me), it must at some point allow me to make an arbitrary (in the mathematical sense of being completely undetermined) choice. If the choice is not arbitrary, then it is dependent on another source and not subjective to me.
If that's the case, your definitions of "subjective" and "arbitrary" are at least workable. However, you are not just your conscious mind. There's plenty going on behind the scenes that you may not know about that still makes up what is "you" - hence why I said you're oversimplifying the idea of "subjectivity". People's morals are quite clearly not arbitrary, because they are, on the whole, very similar. If they were mathematically completely undetermined, people would value things that were entirely random - someone might think that the one true expression of morality was to maximise the number of paperclips within the universe. Quite a lot of your morality comes from your genes, and that is the main reason why morality is, on the whole, fairly similar between people. It is clearly not arbitrary.
Do you really think you could choose on a whim to value death over life? I strongly doubt that you could. Granted, I'm not saying it's entirely impossible, but I'd say it's very unlikely. How many examples can you name of people who have actually done so? Even if not on a whim, how many people value death over life?
Do you really think you could choose on a whim to value death over life? I strongly doubt that you could. Granted, I'm not saying it's entirely impossible, but I'd say it's very unlikely. How many examples can you name of people who have actually done so? Even if not on a whim, how many people value death over life?
What is life?
Well, for our current purposes, the important distinction is conscious human being vs corpse.
Yes, it is true that some people seem to believe that death is a good thing. However, this almost always the result of a factually inaccurate belief that their consciousness will continue on after they die.
In the absence of factually inaccurate beliefs, how much would people actually disagree on morality?
In the absence of factually inaccurate beliefs, how much would people actually disagree on morality?
A great deal. At what point does killing become justified, even if we both know all of the facts of a situation?
Killing is justified if it is the action which brings about the most overall "good", where good is simply some function of basic values such as life, happiness, etc. For example, if in killing someone you save a greater number of people that could not have been saved otherwise, then, all else being equal, it is most definitely justified. Granted, these "basic values" aren't necessarily consistent between people, but how much disagreement is there with regards to those? Are there any people who think happiness is wrong?
If someone has intent to kill, and killing them is the only reasonable way to prevent it, is that action moral?
Probably - it depends on the specific circumstances in question. Basically, it's a question of "which person are we better off without?"; generally, it's a safe bet that the person who is trying to kill someone else is going to contribute less to society than one who is not, unless they were, say, trying to assassinate Hitler.
I obviously can't say the answer is always "yes", because then it also becomes moral to kill me in order to stop me from killing the other guy, and so on ad infinitum, which is plainly absurd.
My point is that it hardly matters, especially since you can't even attain objectivity in factual issues, let alone moral ones. To be able to do science you still need to start with some basic assumptions, like Occam's razor and induction. Morality should be approached in a similar way - start with a set of base values, and then build empirically upon them to see how you can get the best results.
The question of how much people's base values really differ by is an interesting one, though.
Killing is justified if it is the action which brings about the most overall "good", where good is simply some function of basic values such as life, happiness, etc. For example, if in killing someone you save a greater number of people that could not have been saved otherwise, then, all else being equal, it is most definitely justified.
Some how I can see this being part of the argument for assassination of select government officials and for the general culling of certain human populations.
Killing is justified if it is the action which brings about the most overall "good", where good is simply some function of basic values such as life, happiness, etc. For example, if in killing someone you save a greater number of people that could not have been saved otherwise, then, all else being equal, it is most definitely justified.
Some how I can see this being part of the argument for assassination of select government officials and for the general culling of certain human populations.
Slavery is justified because if is the action that brings about the most overall "good," where good is simply some function of basic values such as life, happiness, etc. For example, having a slave force of one to serve a household of five that would otherwise have been "unhappy," all else being equal, if most definitely justified.
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However, you can study how to optimize the actions of people with respect to certain core values, and that is hardly a trivial field, nor is it a non-scientific one.
If you base a science of morality on, say, the well-being of conscious creatures, what's the problem with that?
Assume for a moment that perhaps there exist beings more advanced in intelligence, consciousness, and technology to ourselves such that we appear to be ants unto them in every sense. Their morality would be totally alien to ours, and might even be malevolent from our point of view, but to them, it's just business as usual.
What observation can you make that justifies the validity of observations?
For example, it's conceivable that a thinking being could believe that if something happens it becomes less likely to happen in the future. If you asked them why why they believe something that, to you, doesn't seem to apply to reality, that being would tell you "Ah, but since I haven't been right before, that makes me more likely to be right in the future!". The fact that a mind could conceivably think differently doesn't mean we cannot have science.
Similarly, it's also conceivable for a thinking being to value death over life, but the fact that this is conceivable doesn't mean we cannot have scientific morality.
Besides, can you give an actual example of someone who values death over life?
So allow me to add this:
Some assumptions must be made to get very far from a logical standpoint. Which assumptions do we make? Mathematically, we would like the most basic assumptions we can get away with and still be able to prove everything we would like to prove. For the purposes of discussion, there is actually a much simpler razor for choosing assumptions: "Upon what do we both agree?"
My razor for determining morality is based on a similar question: "Upon what do all or nearly all men/women agree?" Of course, my answer to this question is dependent upon my interactions with other men/women, so I will never be able to truly answer this question with 100% certainty. But I need start somewhere, so I must be content to start at the best place I can. If I am the only man in existence, then applying this principle gets me a completely subjective morality since my morality is 100% biased toward my own perceptions. I simply get to decide what morality is. However, as more and more people are added to the system and particularly to my experience in that system, applying this principle carries me further and further away from being biased toward myself. So, my morality ceases to be determined subjectively, but rather is determined intersubjectively.
*edit*
I should mention the obvious objection to my approach. Simply put, it is the "if everyone believes the world is flat, then it's flat" problem. Just because everyone believes the world is flat obviously does not make it so. I have a couple responses to this problem. First, given that there seems to be a consensus that morality is not objective, this is not a problem. The flat world problem arises because there is an objective truth that has not yet been discovered. Given the assumption that there is no such thing as objective morality, there is no objective morality to contradict the consensus on morality. Second, if there is an objective morality to cause a contradiction, then the existence of these contradictions must be proven by those who believe them to exist. (Note that belief in objective morality does not necessarily mean the existence or belief in the existence of such contradictions).
One last remark on a criticism of the theistic notion that "God" dictates morality (i.e. X is right because "God" says X is right). Christian philosophers usually refer to this concept as the "Divine Command Theory." Also, there are a considerable number of Christians who reject this idea and instead argue that there is a universal morality by which even "God" must abide (i.e. "God" says X is right because X is right). This, of course, runs into the interesting problem of trying to explain how this can be consistent with the concept of an omnipotent God.
The important thing is to reduce morality to core values, i.e. the most basic assumptions about morality, rather than simply to go with consensus positions. Quite a lot of moral disagreements reduce to factual disagreements. For example, the disagreement on abortion is primarily the result of people having factually inaccurate beliefs. It is similarly so for people who take issue with homosexuality.
Even if there were a consensus position saying that "abortion is always wrong", we shouldn't simply take that position for granted in a scientific morality. Instead, we have to look at how and why people believe this. Having realised that that position is in fact heavily dependent on factually inaccurate beliefs, we should promptly reject that position, consensus or no.
That is why it is important to go back to the most basic ideas we can, things like valuing life over death, happiness over unhappiness, and the well-being of conscious creatures. An important question arises - how many people actually have core values that are significantly different - e.g. people who actually think death > life? The response to this problem is an easy one. If everyone believed the earth was flat, this would still be contradicted by more basic assumptions and observations about the nature of reality. Simply noting that gravity exists and applying Occam's razor should lead you to believe the Earth has a rounded shape. As noted before, the point is to stick with only the most basic assumptions.
If there is no objective morality, then we are left with intersubjective and subjective morality. If I am the only subject, I can eliminate the notion of intersubjective morality. This leaves only subjective morality.
My morality may be decided by core values, but those core values are still arbitrarily decided. Even the value that life > death is arbitrarily decided. We can know this only once we experience death, so the decision is arbitrary. By arbitrarily deciding my "core values," I have arbitrarily decided my morality. To say that I do not arbitrarily decide on a morality for myself would, by a modus tollens, imply that my "core values" are not arbitrarily decided. If my "core values" are not arbitrarily decided, they must be founded in some other source outside of my own beliefs. Since I am the only man in this hypothetical, that source cannot be another person, leaving only objectivity. Since my "core values," which determine morality, are objective my morality is determined objectively. Thus, there is a morality that is objective to humanity i.e. a morality that does not depend upon what any person believes. Whether or not that morality comes from a higher power or exists entirely without a source, that morality is still objective in its application to humanity since it does not depend upon me, the only man in this hypothetical. So, by claiming that I am not able to decide my morality arbitrarily implies that there is an objective morality (it may or may not be a complete morality, but it exists nonetheless). Given what I've read in this thread so far, I'm reasonably sure you deny the existence of an objective morality. So, you must deny one of my assumptions.
The question is which? One possibility is that you deny that "when A is determined by B and B is arbitrarily decided, then A has been arbitrarily decided." However, if I'm making arbitrary decisions about B, I can equally make an arbitrary decision about A, then eliminate all decisions about B that would cause a contradictions. The determination of B is still just a arbitrary. A similar assumption I make is that "if B determines A, and B is objectively determined, then A is also objectively determined." Like before, I can equally say that A is objectively determined first, which eliminates inconsistent determinations about B. Then, the remaining objective determinations about B are made. Either route would result in the same truth values for B determining A.
Not to rehash the Cogito discussion, but the decision to value logic is arbitrary. If I choose to deny logic, then my morality can be as contradictory as I want and it isn't a problem for me. If I choose to accept logic, then part of that choice involves cleaning up my beliefs so that they are logically consistent.
That which is subjective is part of your brain, but that doesn't mean that you can simply choose to reshuffle it on a whim. Liking ice-cream is subjective, but you don't arbitrarily choose to like ice-cream.
For the purposes of discussion, you may want to clarify what you mean by "subjective" and by "arbitrary". The thing is, it's not that simple. Human beings are fully capable of choosing to accept logic and yet holding contradictory beliefs.
This argument is cribbed from Kant: that a moral system must be universal and self-consistent.
My point is that there are no starting rules. You can very easily make assumptions like "life is good," and most everyone will agree with you, but it's still not an objective truth. Morality is essentially the logical extension of more basic rules. "Life > death" leads to "killing is bad." "causing others pain is bad" leads to "torture is wrong." Or, if you decide to start with "death > life," then you reach "killing is good." The postulates can be most anything, and it will still work.
Yes, it is true that some people seem to believe that death is a good thing. However, this almost always the result of a factually inaccurate belief that their consciousness will continue on after they die.
In the absence of factually inaccurate beliefs, how much would people actually disagree on morality?
If someone has intent to kill, and killing them is the only reasonable way to prevent it, is that action moral?
Granted, these "basic values" aren't necessarily consistent between people, but how much disagreement is there with regards to those? Are there any people who think happiness is wrong? Probably - it depends on the specific circumstances in question. Basically, it's a question of "which person are we better off without?"; generally, it's a safe bet that the person who is trying to kill someone else is going to contribute less to society than one who is not, unless they were, say, trying to assassinate Hitler.
I obviously can't say the answer is always "yes", because then it also becomes moral to kill me in order to stop me from killing the other guy, and so on ad infinitum, which is plainly absurd.
To be able to do science you still need to start with some basic assumptions, like Occam's razor and induction.
Morality should be approached in a similar way - start with a set of base values, and then build empirically upon them to see how you can get the best results.
The question of how much people's base values really differ by is an interesting one, though.