The Existence Of Morality

[checkymcfold 0]

this whole discussion is quite interesting, but i'm not sure if we're talking about prescriptive (motive-based) morality or descriptive (action/results-based) morality, or both.i don't think that we can really talk about the cause or root of morality until we really get at what we're dealing with when we make a moral decision, is all.

[Balloon guy 158]

I'm arguing that they are the same in that there is a right answer that can be discovered. Yes, there is a right way. I'm proposing that we can generate an objective standard for what's right based on what best serves our collective well-being.

So we all got together and decided that X is wrong. This allows us as a society to enforce this subjective morality on each other.And if someone argues that X is not wrong, it is the majority that decides that they are wrong?

But I'm married to one! Yeah some Hindus think they are paying for their past sins, but that doesn't mean you mistreat them.

Not mistreat them, just allow them to suffer on their own..a passive mistreatment if you will.But if you married an Indian woman, then you have a better insight than me and I concede.

[Balloon guy 158]

this whole discussion is quite interesting, but i'm not sure if we're talking about prescriptive (motive-based) morality or descriptive (action/results-based) morality, or both.i don't think that we can really talk about the cause or root of morality until we really get at what we're dealing with when we make a moral decision, is all.

Yea I admit this is kind of unfocused.I was hoping to hear the Hitchens argument that morality evolved as crow pointed out many many threads ago.Instead I'm in a circular reasoning explanation that since man decides something is right, that makes it right.I hold that there is a fixed standard that is outside our views, opinions or decisions.

[Balloon guy 158]

has anybody but you said that?

I don't think this is an original idea..but if it is than I am officially copyrighting it now and no one can use this without paying me royalties

duh

Absolutely sure?

[antistuff 0]

bg - just curious....do you more or less assume evolution to be true or are you just indulging the idea for the purpose of debate? im also curious about this thing you said

I would argue that religion is a foundation of culture, not a subset.

can you elaborate on this? do you feel that without religion there can be no culture? what exactly do you mean by culture in this context? would you extend religion to just a general idea of some sort of spirituality or sense of something greater than self in this case or do you specifically mean organized religion?just interested in some of your ideas is all.

[Balloon guy 158]

it works very well if there is a pattern of consequence to compare it to.

Again you atheist only do the right thing because you fear the consequences?Knock it off, that's us christian's motives!

tell that to lassie

You win

[antistuff 0]

No, a moral truth by everyone elses definition is a truth on it's own, regardless of the circumstances.Unless you hold that there are no absolutes of course.

as far as i am concerned you need a God for this to be true. most atheists duck out and dodge this and call me dirty names and accuse me of being a moral nihilist when i bring this up. without a god we have no rubric by which to measure the "rightness" or "wrongness" or actions. there is no difference between raping and killing a child and donating everything you own to the poor. this does not mean that we can't agree to eliminate certain behaviors or actions in order to live together though. this also does not explain why i think raping and killing a child is a horrible thing to do. that i can't explain.

[Balloon guy 158]

bg - just curious....do you more or less assume evolution to be true or are you just indulging the idea for the purpose of debate?

Things adapting to changing environments...sure. Dog breading teaches us that we can evolve a breed. The root cause of all animals, life and man..no

im also curious about this thing you saidcan you elaborate on this? do you feel that without religion there can be no culture? what exactly do you mean by culture in this context? would you extend religion to just a general idea of some sort of spirituality or sense of something greater than self in this case or do you specifically mean organized religion?just interested in some of your ideas is all.

vb was trying to say culture was the main thing, and religion was just a subset..a part of.I would argue that history shows us that the religion of a people defines their culture much much more than the reverse.James Michner once wrote; "If my husband was born with a different religion, he would have been a different man" in the book about the Aztecs.Do we really have any examples of a society founded completely devoid of a religion?

[checkymcfold 0]

Yea I admit this is kind of unfocused.I was hoping to hear the Hitchens argument that morality evolved as crow pointed out many many threads ago.Instead I'm in a circular reasoning explanation that since man decides something is right, that makes it right.I hold that there is a fixed standard that is outside our views, opinions or decisions.

i guess that what i'm getting at is that sometimes we might achieve a positive result through base motives, or do something "bad" for the "right reasons." if either of these situations occur, are we acting morally or immorally?generally, i'd say that if we're following the model by which we're evaluating moral action in terms of results, we end up with some sort of utilitarian calculus, and that anything resembling absolute moral truth (as in religion) wouldn't really need to play any sort of part in the game. if we're talking about motivation, though, then i think that your initial argument holds more water, in that the results of our actions are going to be to some extent out of our control, and all we can really concern ourselves with is the idea that we ought to try our best to hold to some sort of pre-existing moral framework. if the latter is the case, then i would still argue that god wouldn't be necessary for developing such a framework, but i could see how a religious framework might function just as well as any other and stand on equal footing with a more secular one.

[vbnautilus 48]

So we all got together and decided that X is wrong. This allows us as a society to enforce this subjective morality on each other.And if someone argues that X is not wrong, it is the majority that decides that they are wrong?

First, it's not wrong just because we decide it is. If it's actually wrong (i.e. it does more harm overall than good), we can discover this. We might be incorrect sometimes. We might disagree sometimes. But over time with further investigation, we can get it right, because there is an answer. There are plenty of areas where things are pretty obvious for us and there is widespread agreement -- like murder. And then there are gray areas where we don't all agree -- like abortion. It's not necessary that we presume absolute certainty about these things prematurely, only that we're asking the right question, which I think is pretty close to "is this good for us?"

[antistuff 0]

Things adapting to changing environments...sure. Dog breading teaches us that we can evolve a breed. The root cause of all animals, life and man..novb was trying to say culture was the main thing, and religion was just a subset..a part of.I would argue that history shows us that the religion of a people defines their culture much much more than the reverse.James Michner once wrote; "If my husband was born with a different religion, he would have been a different man" in the book about the Aztecs.Do we really have any examples of a society founded completely devoid of a religion?

i can't think of any but im not an anthropologist.if religion is one of the pedestals upon which a culture stands, what are some other ones?wow im dragging this way off topic. ill stop after this.

[Balloon guy 158]

as far as i am concerned you need a God for this to be true. most atheists duck out and dodge this and call me dirty names and accuse me of being a moral nihilist when i bring this up. without a god we have no rubric by which to measure the "rightness" or "wrongness" or actions. there is no difference between raping and killing a child and donating everything you own to the poor. this does not mean that we can't agree to eliminate certain behaviors or actions in order to live together though. this also does not explain why i think raping and killing a child is a horrible thing to do. that i can't explain.

I think you are more intellectually honest than most, and this is also the way Michael Onfray feels.To be honest I think you can believe this and still be a 'good' person. But it's kind of like the idea that "I am all for a full dictatorship, as long as I'm the dictator."I think you would also agree that you would rather have a person who holds to a moral code over a nilihist when it comes to picking a babysitter for your kids.Sam Harris once said:

"If I could wave a magic wand and get rid of either rape or religion, I would not hesitate to get rid of religion."

And

…there are many things about us for which we are naturally selected, which we repudiate in moral terms. For instance, there’s nothing more natural than rape. Human beings rape, chimpanzees rape, orangutans rape, rape clearly is part of an evolutionary strategy to get your genes into the next generation if you’re a male. You can’t move from that Darwinian fact about us to defend rape as a good practice. I mean no-one would be tempted to do that; we have transcended that part of our evolutionary history in repudiating it.

So I guess he's with you as well.

[vbnautilus 48]

vb was trying to say culture was the main thing, and religion was just a subset..a part of.I would argue that history shows us that the religion of a people defines their culture much much more than the reverse.James Michner once wrote; "If my husband was born with a different religion, he would have been a different man" in the book about the Aztecs.Do we really have any examples of a society founded completely devoid of a religion?

I wasn't arguing that religion is a small or insignificant part of culture, just that culture includes things like religion, and also nonreligious collective customs, habits, and knowledge. But that is a bit of a tangent.

[checkymcfold 0]

"is this good for us?"

doesn't this require an insanely complex utilitarian calculus? i guess my personal stance is that it's just not feasible to answer this question very often when we're talking about the issues that lead to intense moral debate, and that we need to look elsewhere in order to negotiate the tough issues.

[Balloon guy 158]

First, it's not wrong just because we decide it is. If it's actually wrong (i.e. it does more harm overall than good), we can discover this. We might be incorrect sometimes. We might disagree sometimes. But over time with further investigation, we can get it right, because there is an answer. There are plenty of areas where things are pretty obvious for us and there is widespread agreement -- like murder. And then there are gray areas where we don't all agree -- like abortion. It's not necessary that we presume absolute certainty about these things prematurely, only that we're asking the right question, which I think is pretty close to "is this good for us?"

Aren't you basically saying though that since some things are actually wrong, that our judgements, searchings and asking of questions is just trying to matchup our decisions to something that exists outside of our lives?

[Balloon guy 158]

I wasn't arguing that religion is a small or insignificant part of culture, just that culture includes things like religion, and also nonreligious collective customs, habits, and knowledge. But that is a bit of a tangent.

Kind of hard for either of us to decide what value amount each thing holds. So let's let this one go?

[antistuff 0]

for the record i hold rape to be the worst crime a human can commit against another, worse than murder in my opinion. i just used that as an example because its almost universally accepted that rape is "wrong".

[Balloon guy 158]

i can't think of any but im not an anthropologist.if religion is one of the pedestals upon which a culture stands, what are some other ones?wow im dragging this way off topic. ill stop after this.

Yea, probably a bigger area than I really want to explore, as I stated above to vb.Maybe a new thread?

[Balloon guy 158]

i guess that what i'm getting at is that sometimes we might achieve a positive result through base motives, or do something "bad" for the "right reasons." if either of these situations occur, are we acting morally or immorally?generally, i'd say that if we're following the model by which we're evaluating moral action in terms of results, we end up with some sort of utilitarian calculus, and that anything resembling absolute moral truth (as in religion) wouldn't really need to play any sort of part in the game. if we're talking about motivation, though, then i think that your initial argument holds more water, in that the results of our actions are going to be to some extent out of our control, and all we can really concern ourselves with is the idea that we ought to try our best to hold to some sort of pre-existing moral framework. if the latter is the case, then i would still argue that god wouldn't be necessary for developing such a framework, but i could see how a religious framework might function just as well as any other and stand on equal footing with a more secular one.

I think we agree more than disagree about this.Thanks for bringing some focus to this.

[Balloon guy 158]

for the record i hold rape to be the worst crime a human can commit against another, worse than murder in my opinion. i just used that as an example because its almost universally accepted that rape is "wrong".

I never thought you would feel different, but would you agree that by holding to a nihilist worldview, you are unable to judge someone that does this?

[checkymcfold 0]

I never thought you would feel different, but would you agree that by holding to a nihilist worldview, you are unable to judge someone that does this?

is there really a difference between "rape is wrong because god said so," "rape is wrong because it inhibits the free will of another," and "rape is wrong, period."?when it comes to the "easy" moral questions, i think that it's clear that any sort of semi-reasonable prescriptive moral framework is going to say that rape, murder, etc. are wrong, and i might be even tempted to argue that it's the easy moral questions that lead to the development of such frameworks in the first place.

[vbnautilus 48]

doesn't this require an insanely complex utilitarian calculus? i guess my personal stance is that it's just not feasible to answer this question very often when we're talking about the issues that lead to intense moral debate, and that we need to look elsewhere in order to negotiate the tough issues.

Sometimes it's practically complicated to determine, I agree. But in the vast majority of cases it isn't, which is why we mostly agree on most moral cases. I don't think we can rightly change our standard when it gets difficult though, we just need to look more closely for the answers.

Aren't you basically saying though that since some things are actually wrong, that our judgements, searchings and asking of questions is just trying to matchup our decisions to something that exists outside of our lives?

Well that's a funny way of putting it, and I think I have to clarify because that borders on misunderstanding. Searching for the truth is in a way the process of "matching up" your thought with the way things actually are -- but that's not something that "exists outside of our lives", since the truth of the matter in this case is quite within our lives.

[Balloon guy 158]

doesn't this require an insanely complex utilitarian calculus? i guess my personal stance is that it's just not feasible to answer this question very often when we're talking about the issues that lead to intense moral debate, and that we need to look elsewhere in order to negotiate the tough issues.

Can you hold that the 'answer' to a tough issue is already a reality?Or only that the answer is one that must be decided on?Is there already a morality in existance that is our higher noble goal to seek?Or just a decision that has an expiration date?

[Balloon guy 158]

is there really a difference between "rape is wrong because god said so," "rape is wrong because it inhibits the free will of another," and "rape is wrong, period."?when it comes to the "easy" moral questions, i think that it's clear that any sort of semi-reasonable prescriptive moral framework is going to say that rape, murder, etc. are wrong, and i might be even tempted to argue that it's the easy moral questions that lead to the development of such frameworks in the first place.

Sam Harris doesn't thinks so:

there are many things about us for which we are naturally selected, which we repudiate in moral terms. For instance, there’s nothing more natural than rape. Human beings rape, chimpanzees rape, orangutans rape, rape clearly is part of an evolutionary strategy to get your genes into the next generation if you’re a male. You can’t move from that Darwinian fact about us to defend rape as a good practice. I mean no-one would be tempted to do that; we have transcended that part of our evolutionary history in repudiating it.

He is argueing the reverse of your opinion.

[checkymcfold 0]

Can you hold that the 'answer' to a tough issue is already a reality?Or only that the answer is one that must be decided on?Is there already a morality in existance that is our higher noble goal to seek?Or just a decision that has an expiration date?

i think that i might still be a little unclear on what you exactly mean by morality.like, do you mean a system so detailed that it would be able to say "it is morally better to eat blue jellybeans than red jellybeans on a wednesday?" or are you talking about one that is only able to say "rape, murder, and theft are wrong," or something similar to that?