The essay illustrates the ambiguousness of the relationship between "control" and consciousness (self-determination). The argument is premised on the idea of free will as the foundation of self-determination. That idea (and therefore the premise) is as inexplicable as it is impossible. And so modernists and postmodernists (not to mention also neopostmodernists, which is to say the author and reader alike) are afflicted with both the cognitive dissonance and moral uncertainty (not to say they aren't one and the same, at least in this instance) of the desire for "control" and the unachievable nature of it.

The problem (dissonance/uncertainty) is that the only way to logically prove control is power. And the only way to be morally certain is to have power and not use it unjustly. But injustice is itself a moral perspective.

Morality is not about control, nor is self-determination. It doesn't rely on, relate to, or require control OR power. It cannot. Nevertheless the logical modern position or neopostmodern position demands control, over not just external events but our own thoughts and desires. True morality, and self-determination whether cause or effect of morality, is entirely premised on honesty, both about our desires and the justification for our actions. We are told we should have, or try to have, control, and we don't, even if we have power, and this results in cognitive dissonance.

So by "desire for moral impotence" the author is essentially, though possibly unknowingly, advocating (not merely observing) immorality. (The Trolly Problem illustrates that inaction is as morally hazardous as action, so impotence doesn't really provide the freedom the author suggests.) This amplifies the dissonance and uncertainty, and further it demands that uncertainty is morality and morality must be uncertain. There is a comprehensible "logic" to this, as being uncertain about whether we are being honest or moral is a necessary prerequisite to moral analysis. But it is still ultimately worthless, because impotence is just a poor excuse for lack of control, a semantic game rather than a coherent teleology.

The cognitive dissonance and uncertainty there can be any true morality both (?) disappear, without leaving the immorality or intellectual arrogance the neopostmodernist fears/believes/insists must remain (or be caused by abandoning free will as an explanation of human behavior) simply by properly understanding self-determination. It is not about having control, it is about accurately (and honestly) explaining the reasons for our actions. Assuming brain neuro/psychology explanations are accurate is as immoral as assuming mind social/intention desires are all that ever justify or result in our behavior: a more accurate and exact appraisal/confession is necessary than either binary extreme can support. It is this choosing/deciding whether the past or the future (our neural impulses or our desire impulses) better explain or justify our behavior, in each individual instance rather than as a categorical truth/necessity/morality, which is the cause/reason, the mechanism/logic, and the purpose/result of self-determination.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

That wasn't advice, it was an admonishment, and it was out of place. My advice is you learn how to avoid such situations, and I've offered you good advice for how to do that, which you keep ignoring and yet trying to make it seem like a bad thing I offered it.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

https://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/xyumwc/quantum_philosophy_4_ways_physics_will_challenge/isan22w

>morality is objective (like gravity) or subjective (like art).

Your false dichotomy strikes at the core of the conundrum. Morality is objective like consciousness, undeniable regardless of whether it is quantifiable. It is fashionable to assume and insist that gravity is absolutely objective and art is entirely subjective, but the truth is not that simplistic.

>Morality is a process now? How does that track with the gravity analogy?

It shows your reaaoning to be a matter of assuming a conclusion, namely, that if morality cannot be simplistically quantified then we should presume it doesn't exist. As if works of art stop existing for those who proclaim "that isn't art!"

I could belabor the point further, identifying how gravity is not directly quantifiable, but can only be measured in terms of mass and acceleration. Does this mean gravity is not real? In some ways, it actually does, in some ways, it doesn't.

>I never said morality was quantitative,

Is there some other way of interpreting "gravity can be measured" that I'm not aware of? Perhaps you don't want to admit it, but the premise that morality must be quantitative like gravity in order to exist is clearly the foundation of your contention.

>but you compared it to a phenomenon that could be.

I used an analogy. It is a kind of comparison, but relies on a level of engagement you haven't provided.

>"Recognizing" morality suggests that, like physics, it exists independent from "moral agents."

It does more than suggest that, it declares it directly. It is a necessary presumption that anything we percieve exists independently of our perceptions if it exists at all. Some people believe that they can be amoral intellectual agents without being moral agents, and if they try hard enough they can refuse to recognize morality at all. It is an easy assumption to make, because of the nature of morality (including the ways it differs from time, mass, velocity, momentum, and gravity, though all of these things can be considered useful analogies for understanding what morality is) but it is a mistake nevertheless. To be conscious is to recognize moral truths, despite any difficulty we might have expressing, describing, or comparing them.

>If we agree that the existence of moral agents is a necessary precondition of the existence of morality,

We don't. In fact, you have it backwards, that is the opposite of what I directly said. The existence of moral agents is a necessary precondition for observing the existence of morality, but not for that existence to occur. The existence of morality is a necessary precondition for the existence of moral agents, but recognizing morality is not a precondition for its existence, just as recognizing gravity as gravity is not a precondition for gravity. Gravity is quantifiable even when it isn't quantified.

>are you saying that there is some universal standard of morality

Apart from "morality exists", no standard, universal or otherwise, is necessary for morality to exist.

>but that did not exist until human evolution passed the "moral agent" threshold?

You keep repeating the same error. Morality exists independently of moral agents, but can only be observed by moral agents. Perhaps "time" would have been a better analogy than gravity? Any analogy would suffice if you were interested in understanding it, but no analogy could suffice if you are not.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

Your contentiousness fails to provide a rebuttal to my comment.

I have. But humility does not require undo reverence for the less humble, and the possibility remains that you are making a mistake rather than that I am.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

Unless and until you can more clearly and comprehensively explain the results of the two slit experiment, rather than merely that the results occur, there is no reason to believe your thought experiments have any validity. Knowing there is such a thing as wave/particle duality is not the same as resolving that conundrum. If you actually understood why cows can be considered spherical but are not, you would understand why it makes no difference if you use sheep instead. So a better analogy would be that you are saying "Because we assume spherical cows, there is no reason not to assume spherical cubes."

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

>Morality cannot be compared to gravity.

It's an analogy. Deal with it.

>It can predict outcomes. It exists regardless of humanity.

Hmmm...

>You've simply presumed the concept of morality

I've observed the process of morality. Your assumptions (or my presumptions) about what it is or how it works can be quite inaccurate, and are certainly imprecise, without shedding any doubt on the existence of that process.

>can exist independently of the only species which qualifies as a "moral agent."

Indeed, the presumption that morality would be observed by any other species (not in result but in process) which are moral agents (experience consciousness) is a necessary reflection of what morality is. The fact that we know of no other such species does not preclude their existence, and does not change the nature of morality. You may, if you wish, demand that this uncertainty limit your notions of what morality is, but I am not required to join you.

>Your argument begs the question in that it presumes that which it seeks to prove.

My argument seeks to explain, not to prove. Morality isn't quantitative, as you've mentioned, and cannot be 'proved' in the way you are suggesting, it can only be recognized by other moral agents. The truth is, however, that all moral agents (consciousness) does recognize it, even when they seek to avoid it by claiming blindness to it.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

>We are also acting based on our genetic programming and the input from the outside world.

That is merely the starting point of our behavior. Certainly, you can maintain your assumption as unfalsifiable, and believe that humans (including yourself) are nothing but biological robots like all other forms of life, with no conscious self-determination, by defining every act of art, poetry, philosophy, science, engineering, hope, or emotion as "genetic programming" or operant conditioning. But in doing so, you are, admittedly or not, proving the opposite, because animals have no need, desire, or capacity to do such a thing.

>So where is his free will?

This is the root of the problem, indeed. The conventional perspective you are regurgitating is the same dead end philosophy has been mired in for thousands of years. But it is a false assumption that self-determination is or requires "free will".

All it would take for Putin to realize he made a mistake and call off his unjustified and illegal invasion of Ukraine would be recognizing that the teleology he used to justify it is both backwards and upside down. According to your worldview, and therefore as long as everyone else continues to agree with and promulgate the conventional philosophy underlying your worldview, this is effectively impossible: Putin believes he based his choice on logic, and so he will continue to see that decision as logical. In my philosophy, it is merely unlikely, because he has as much faith in the conventional philosophy as you do: he believes he is acting reasonably, despite the rather obvious fact that he is not. If everyone around Putin rejected the conventional belief that self-determination is free will, it wouldn't matter if Putin did, he would still be much more likely to act reasonably rather than continue to use false logic to remain convinced he is no different than an AI ape.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

>You deny the possibility of a simple answer being a valid response at least in part because the discussion is supposedly so complex, a premise I reject,

That's your argument, and you're going to stick to it no matter what. 🤣

>in fact you deny that it’s even possible for me to have thoughts of value on the issue,

I only deny that you do, and you have ratified my perspective with your arguments. I'm quite certain it is possible, that you could learn enough about the issue to have thoughts which have value to people who already understand the issue more thoroughly, in theory. Whether you will is a different question, and seems a dubious possibility. Now, what makes all this intriguing (to those of us who are actually interested in philosophy, including but not limited to the question of whether numbers are real, for whatever definition of "real" you'd care to settle on long enough to have a philosophically valid opinion of the issue) is that it is ultimately impossible to identify whether you aren't learning that much because you will not, or because you can not, and whether there is any meaningful difference between those two propositions. The reason I use the term "intriguing" in this regard is because there is a lot of affinity, if not an identity, between that question and the other one, of whether numbers are real.

Most people have no interest in or patience for plumbing the depths of epistemic and metaphysical uncertainty. It seems a human characteristic to prefer certainty as much as possible, but it is also a human characteristic to be curious.

>I’m glad that exploration of this question has enriched your life,

I'm sorry that consideration of this question has failed to enrich yours. The endemic existential angst underlying our society, accounting (in my view, quite directly) for so much anxiety, depressions, contentiousness and even violence we suffer from, is not as far removed from this philosophical issue as you may believe.

>Of course that question may have a simple answer,

It does not. The matter of the hard problem of consciousness is not simply a 'difficult scientific challenge', it is an unresolvable metaphysical issue which is coincident with consciousness itself. Accepting the reality of that is the only way to "understand numerous things about ourselves", for those specific things which are the purpose and context of philosophy. This being a subreddit dedicated to philosophy, I find it interesting, but not really unusual, that you are here while also denying you are interested in such matters.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

> don’t believe math exists in nature

I gathered that. So how do you explain why it works so well, and how is it not "in nature" by doing so? Do you think thoughts exist in nature? Do people exist in nature? Do words? This notion of "in nature", like the reality of numbers, is really not as simple as you appear to believe it does.

>I’d just like an explanation

You should just Google "why numbers are real" and dive down the rabbit hole, then. There isn't an easy explanation, on either side of the issue, which is exactly what makes it intriguing. (Note; such a quest will be made difficult because the technical term "real numbers" exists. You might find it easier to google "why numbers are not real", and paying attention to, rather than facilely dismissing, the counter-arguments.)

>I don’t find it particularly interesting at all, and I’d like to understand why you do, even if it’s a one sentence response.

Because I've thought about it (and learned about it) a lot more than people who respond the way you have and don't find it intriguing. As I said, anyone who believes it is a simple issue doesn't actually understand the issue. It explores epistemic and metaphysical uncertainty (and certainty) more completely than any other single question I have come across, and yet does not simply reduce to epistemic or metaphysical uncertainty.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

>I do not believe that morality exists independent of sentient existence, or what might be called consciousness

It is called consciousness, and you are saying you don't believe morality exists.

>For example, I do not think anything of moral significance occurs on Mars or Pluto or the Sun.

Nothing of moral significance occurs in the absence of moral agents. The events of the physical world are amoral, but the actions of moral agents are either moral or immoral.

>nothing left to assess the morality of that action,

So you're saying that murdering every human in existence wouldn't be immoral? That seems like an odd, and very immoral, position to take.

>a tiny sliver of time that wouldn't be relevant for the remainder of existence.

Much like everything we do. Oh well, everything will end someday and the world does not care, so might as well murder your family and all the witnesses, then you'll have done nothing wrong.

>threatened to launch the missiles unless you tortured them

When someone makes a threat and then kills someone by following through on it, they have killed someone, regardless of the demands they made or whether anyone tried to appease them. It can be a tough thing to accept, but that's just how it works.

>I do not think humans are the only animals capable of moral reasoning.

Humans are the only animals capable of any sort of reasoning. Humans can interpret the behavior of other animals however they like, the animals cannot know or care, they simply act in response to stimuli however their genetic programming causes them to, without thought or remorse.

>don't humans have instincts as well?

The real question is whether humans have anything other than instincts. Your ability to ask the question proves you have self-determination. You don't need to agree with this for it to be true. In fact, it is your ability to disagree which makes it true. Certainly, you can mischaracterize everything that every human has ever done as "instinct", but it seems more like a cross between semantic bullshit and hiding from reality than a reasonable intellectual position.

>I resolve these issues by placing perpetuating the species as the prime directive of morality,

That is the opposite of morality, just as choosing to do so is the opposite of instinct, despite the fact that it could (attempts to) replicate the results of acting on instinct alone would do, if every human did the same.

If only your immoral pretense of morality were actually as satisfying as you wish it would be. Then humans would just be apes, and nobody would have to spend any time considering your opinion about anything. 🙁

There are plenty of reptiles and even insects that engage in nurturing of young, though admittedly it isn't common. The problem is that no, the "logic" isn't nuanced at all, since it doesn't start out explaining why crocodiles don't appear to act morally apart from their parenting but we do, or why lions kill the young of rivals but we don't. Morality didn't "emerge" any more than it "evolved". It just is, like physics itself, and like physics it requires a conscious mind to notice it, but it is there whether it gets noticed or not. A crocodile does not act morally nor a lion act immorally because they do not (despite much confusion on this matter) experience consciousness, they do not make decisions using self-determination, and they are not moral agents. (These three are all identical things, btw.) Only moral agents can act morally or immorally; non-conscious creatures simply exist, without moral repercussions.

I was surprised the references in the original article didn't mention Richard Dawkins. The "logic" of 'endothermic morality' presented is pretty much the same in effect (and affect) as the hypothesis of adaptive altruism he developed in The Selfish Gene back in the 1970s.

>our neurobiology allows us (does not necessitate us) to feel deep care for others.

Actually, I think you have it backwards (whether in terms of fact or the theory being presented): our neurobiology necessitates that we feel deep care for others (because we must nurture our young), and this 'allows but does not require us' to apply (or 'misapply', in evolutionary terms) this compassion to a broader target than our offspring.

Any biological explanation for morality is a blind alley and a dead end, since morality is not a biological imperative, it is a conscious observation. Even someone who believes firmly that they know what their own personal morality demands they do is free to act immorally. Or vice versa; a conscious creature is capable of recognizing what is moral even when it doesn't describe their personal actions. It seem self-evident to me that this is the very nature of morality, as it is the nature of consciousness as well: not to determine what we do, but to determine why we might want to do otherwise.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

>what do you think is so special about humans?

The ability to argue such things, the interest in doing so, and the capacity to benefit from the activity. (These are all the same thing, BTW.)

>And how do you take into account the gulf between a human with severe cognitive deficit vs Albert Einstein level of cognition?

What account needs to be taken? Are you suggesting that we should consider people who aren't smart to be less human? I dispute that there is anything such thing as a "level of cognition", merely an apparent difference in the results of cognition based on the circumstances. You can either accept that all humans are conscious because they are humans and consciousness is endemic (not guaranteed but probable) in humans, or you can insist that some humans are less human because of what you describe as a "cognitive deficit" of some arbitrary "level" of severity. I take the simpler approach, and stick with considering consciousness as either a categorical property, or an instance of behavior, as appropriate for the context, without falsely assuming all contexts must be considered identical in this regard. For example, it isn't really as confusing as you might believe to say that a sleeping ("unconscious") Einstein is not smarter than a developmentally delayed child who is awake, yet both are equally conscious creatures and fully human.

>What bare minimum do humans have that other animals lack?

The scientific phrase would be "neural correlates of consciousness". The philosophical term would be "mind". AKA "reasoning".

Deal with it. 😉

Unfortunately, you've ruined any hope I have for such a conversation simply by using the word "concept". As I am already discussing in a different thread, using that term assumes a conclusion, and untangling the premise would be necessary for an adequate consideration of the original question. You seem to have covered both sides of the argument, by suggesting that math both does and does not "exist in the physical universe". How could anyone possibly argue against such a position?

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

What makes you think they are disentangled? What do you even mean by "disentangled"?

Let me try to address what might be the premise of your question, based on some presumptions about why you would ask it. I believe you may be wondering how humans can be observing rather than creating 'morality' as a real feature of the world if morality has no effect on any part of the world besides humans. I would answer, if that is indeed what you meant, that the situation is no different than any other aspect of the world.

Gravity and aerodynamics did not evolve, they are intrinsic physical principles. Birds did not need to consciously observe gravity or aerodynamics to evolve the ability to fly, nor did they decide whether or not to do so. Unlike birds (please ignore the controversial nature of this premise, just take it for granted for the purposes of this explanation, or substitute insects instead if it bothers you too much) humans possess consciousness. This allows us to observe birds, gravity, and aerodynamics and build airplanes which enable us to fly. Standard philosophy (ie normative ethics) expects morality to be like airplanes, consciously constructed based on logical principles. When that approach fails, because morality is an aspect of existence rather than a technological development, many people (both philosophers and laymen) assume morality must be like birds or else it can't exist, and ethics becomes either nothing more than cultural norms or personal preference (or a contrived combination of both: imaginary airplanes.) But morality is not airplanes (real or imagined) neither is it birds; it is aerodynamics. We can (both as individuals and as societies) accept it is real or deny it is physical, and we can use it to rise above the ground and conquer gravity by flying, acting morally, or instead ignore it and act dishonestly and selfishly. But it is real, it is something we observe rather than create, even though, like the principles of aerodynamics, we can reconstruct the principles by carefully considering the causes and results in the world.

I hope that makes sense. Thanks for your time.

>I was hoping to show you how implausible it would be for a curious amateur to understand physics better than the experts.

This discussion has never been about understanding physics, it is about understanding philosophy. I understand physics just fine, despite your uncertainty on that point.

>So you should probably stop saying that physicists are wrong about the weirdness

So long as they "shut up and calculate", I have nothing to say. When they begin philosophizing about the implications of their calculations, I will address any mistakes I believe they have made. Likewise, I am not a certified expert on philosophy, but when philosophers make errors on scientific matters, it is still possible for me to notice that.

>really QM works just like regular mechanics if only people would listen to you.

Your interpretation of my position is inaccurate. Metaphysical uncertainty in QM works just like metaphysical uncertainty in regular mechanics, despite your contention to the contrary. It is just that QM forces some people, who believe (incorrectly) that metaphysical uncertainty can be ignored, to confront the fact that they are mistaken.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

That really doesn't help, no. The question is what part of this discussion about the article (which all pertains to that part of the article) your quandary relates to. You are not required to answer, but this response isn't useful.

Perhaps I could help by noting a few problems with your quandary itself, because it seems malformed. As far as I can tell, "Particle B" is irrelevant, because whether A and B are entangled or not, the location of one isn't dependent on the location of the other. Indeed, this is related to the nature of entanglement itself, that the location of either is unimportant; questions about entanglement iconically query spin although that is not the only property which shows entanglement. The location of a particle is a circumstance rather than a property, in this context.

So perhaps you meant your quandary to actually involve both particles. In that case, entanglement must be assumed or they have no necessary correlation at all. So the question becomes whether Particle B has any spin between the time the spin of A is measured and the time the spin of B is measured in order to evaluate the system according to Bell's theorem. Whether this is logically (though not physically) the same as saying a particle has spin before it is measured, or location for that matter, seems to be the root of your quandary, but there is a subtle difference in the reasoning of the argument, I suppose. Regardless, in terms of science the spin of B becomes "well-defined", though probabilistic rather than deterministic, as soon as the spin of A is measured.

Returning to the question of location, though, this has been my point all along. In the decades since Bohr and Einstein debated the matter, it has become clear that a particle actually doesn't have a location until it is 'observed', whether by a scientific measurement or a 'natural' interaction with any other particle. What I have been saying all along is that this metaphysical uncertainty is indeed no different than whether, according to Einstein's analogy (not to be taken literally but logically valid nevertheless) the moon exists before we observe it. This has proven a more contentious claim than I expected (perhaps because it means both Einstein and Bohr were "right") resulting in one redditor accusing me of insulting Bohr, another declaring I am ignorant about science, and now you insisting some other thing I cannot be certain about.

The metaphysical uncertainty involved in the question of whether there is "objective truth" independent of 'subjective knowledge' of that truth isn't special to quantum physics, it just becomes undeniable in that context. But it really is the same "normal" metaphysical uncertainty in particle location, the presence of the moon (or a clock on a classroom wall, another example presented in this discussion) or, and this is the really important part, the existence of the entire physical universe outside of one's mind. Because scientificists (neopostmodernists) and scientists are used to dismissing metaphysical uncertainty entirely as a philosophical illusion rather than an undeniable truth, they generally believe that the quantum effect referred to as "spooky action at a distance" is somehow a special case, but it really isn't.

My philosophy approaches the matter (pun intended) a bit differently than most. In standard (postmodern physicalist) philosophies, resolving (not really avoiding but hoping to explain) 'spooky action' by assuming that the world is not made of "made of well-defined, independent pieces of ‘stuff’" focuses on whether the stuff is "well-defined", but this, as suggested by the article, would not be consolation to Einstein. Instead, I focus on whether the stuff is "independent" in the way both science and naive observations by consciousness dictate. This is problematic only it that it does not directly distinguish my philosophy, which is fundamentally and entirely physicalist but not naively so, from idealist philosophies that propose 'mind is fundamental' or some such. My philosophy (POR) does address the issue and distinguish itself from idealism, just not directly with this particular principle. Consciousness ("mind") is an emergent property of human brains, it is no less physical than space or time or heat or entropy or information, but like these things is not composed of particles or matter or substance. I can't truly explain "spooky action at a distance" any better than QM does, but I don't need to because QM does it quite well already, if it does so at all. What my philosophy does, and yours (apparently) doesn't do is explain why people are confused by 'spooky action', or local realism, or consciousness, why they are justified in being confused, but also why they don't really need to be.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

I don't hold any non-human creature to any moral standards at all. We're apes that wear suits because we aren't just apes. Deal with it.

I can't help you with that, sorry. But I will point out that physicists are already able to make such measurements with a great deal of precision. "Accuracy" isn't really the issue; why do you think physicists cannot measure the momentum of any particle accurately to begin with?

The entire "disagreement" is simple: you think your question relates to the topic of conversation, and I know it does not. More importantly, I know why it does not. Feel free to review the thread to try to determine why the details of QM which you are asking about are irrelevant to the issue we were previously discussing. If you cannot, or choose not to, then there is nothing I could say, in response to your quandary or otherwise, that would force you to recognize your error in this regard.

I just read a news story about a couple of very young children that were mauled to death by the family dogs. Somehow I think the idea that morality is related to being mammalian is inaccurate.

Morality did not evolve. Consciousness did, and consciousness necessarily results in morality. Discovering, as every human generally does, for themselves, that we experience things and prefer pleasure rather than pain, we are rather automatically going to wonder if other people are conscious as well, and just as automatically going to expect that they would share this preference for good rather than bad experiences. Real morality, ethics, and the formal morality philosophers try to deduce is just a reasonable effort to accommodate the equally undeniable fact that not everyone can feel pleasure or avoid pain all the time, simultaneously.

>Ethics shouldn't be as hard as rocket science.

That is true. Ethics should be much, much, much harder than rocket science. Ethics should be harder than quantum mechanics. Morality should be the hardest thing the human brain ever has the opportunity to consider, and if you aren't working that hard, you aren't being moral.

The esteemed professor of philosophy from Duke demonstrates the paucity of his approach in his final sentence, which hinges on the word "might". "Might" is not sufficient for any moral claims, one way or the other. As in so much philosophy, resigning yourself to conclusions which rely on 'maybe' or 'could' or "might" is pointless flum flummery. What we need is "is", and "does", or at least a conscientiously moralizing "should".

His central example exacerbates the problem: honor killings. His analysis leaves no possibility of any ethics other than 'cultural norms'. There is a seed of a worthwhile approach in his premise, that focusing on "the act" is problematic, but immediately grabs the stick by the wrong end by suggesting we should focus on how 'we' respond to the act, hopelessly leaving morality to founder as, again, 'cultural norms'. The problem with the traditional approach to ethics is that it seaks to be physics, and when simplistic logic is insufficient for considering moral claims, there is no recourse but to reject the notion that morality exists in any way.

It is not the act which determines if something is moral, but the reason for the act. Most notably, but not necessarily entirely, whether that cause is honestly and accurately elucidated responsibly. Honor killing is always wrong, and would be even more wrong, not less, if the purported functional reason cited, to restore honor to someone other than the victim, is true. Is all killing wrong? No. Is all murder wrong? That depends on how it is justified, and, yes, includes "cultural norms" to some degree. In our culture we couch this in gedanken of low hanging fruit to determine whether a particular intentional killing is legally murder or "justifiable homicide" or "self-defense", and suffer from this approximation of morality. Is honor wrong? No, but this demands an honest and limited (but not necessarily "well defined"/mechanistic) understanding of what "honor" is. Is honor killing wrong? Yes, always, in each and every case.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

Indeed. But whatever the answer might be, one could ask what that is "made of". It's turtles all the way down.

Not a feedback loop, like a dynamic equilibrium; an identity (not a personality trait, but being the same thing) without teleology (cause or purpose): being. As in the word is.