The Math of Morality: Putting It All Together

This is a continuation and expansion of my post "The Math of Morality". If you haven't read it, I would suggest doing so before reading on. This post covers the morality of a morally measurable action, which I gave the variable 'M'.

We've already covered 'E', 'N', and 'P', but this one is where they all come together. 'M' is the result of compiling the previous variables in an equation so you get a result.

We've already covered

E = L * I * A ^a + k * i

N = N - s

and

P = 1, or N sub-[X] +1

Now, let's look at those variables in more detail.

If you look at the ranges of variables for 'E', you will find a possible range of

-26 <= E <= 26

-26 could be the cold blooded murder of someone by pulling the trigger yourself without checking to find out they were actually innocent of the wrong doing you thought they'd done. 26 could be pulling someone from a burning car and having the knowledge of first aid to keep them alive.

For 'N' the value is only limited by population. That makes the current range

0 < N <= 6.7e+9

This could also be made to include animals, but that's a topic too deep for this post.

Lastly we come to 'P'. This one I've been thinking more about and will probably revisit to revise and refine. However, as it stands the range can be

1 <= P <= N sub-[X]+1

Theoretically that's the range, but the details are much more complex. That's why I'll need to revisit this one in another post.

So 'E', 'N', and 'P' combine together to give the result 'M'. The conclusion I've reached is that

M = E * N * P

Of course, this will need some refinement, and, as time allows, I intend on doing so.

The main reason I started this is my observation that people used a "quick and dirty" mental calculation to assess the morality of an action. Whether it's their own or the action of another. The best analogy I've been able to come up with is throwing a ball. If someone observes a ball being thrown, even for a relatively short amount of time, they can make a pretty good guess as to where the ball will be at a later time. It's how we can catch a ball thrown to us. The same seems true of morality. People will observe an action and do a mental calculation to cast a moral judgement on that action.

However, the analogy doesn't stop there. When calculating where a ball will land with math, it takes a larger number of variables than just speed and vector. Air resistance, wind direction, gravity, spin on the ball... Several things can affect the location of the ball at a given point in time, but, except in extreme circumstances, those additional calculations are unnecessary (and damn near impossible to do before the ball reaches it's stopping point). With morality many people will observe an action for a finite amount of time, and then declare the morality of it using only a small number of factors for their determination. Many times, they would include factors that had nothing to do with the action in order to reach their result.

This interested me. If basic morality is so similar, regardless of individual circumstances, how does it become so different when the scenarios become more detailed? Those doing the study I referred to in the inagural post referred to it as moral grammar, and I think I understand why. Much like language, influences in your life drive your view of morality. Where you were born, who you associated most with, your profession, etc. Many details of your life influence how you speak. With moral grammar you have society, government, religion, family, friends, and even your own experience driving your view of morality. Both end up with different languages, dialects, and even differences in word usage muddying the end result.

That's my reason for starting this endeavor. Math is considered a universal language, so it seemed reasonable to think that perhaps an equation would be better suited to find morality than using grammar.