One of the issues that divides our society at the moment is the question of morality. It seems that half our country cares very much about the classic ideals of "good" and "evil" while the other half shies away from such quaint, outdated notions. "Whose definition of good and evil do you use?" they ask. "The Christians'? The Muslims'? Whose?"
This division was brought into the forefront of our political discourse right after the most recent presidential election. Exit polls showed that, to Bush voters, "moral issues" were the most important factor in their decision. Democrats got all stirred up about the implication that a Republican vote was somehow "more moral" than a Democratic vote. "Providing for the poor is a moral issue! Fighting greedy capitalists is a moral issue!"
And I'm not really here to debate that. I mean, yes, everything is a moral issue. But I doubt you can pitch an economic or health plan in moral terms and really get anyone's attention. For some reason, Americans have a hard time considering an issue to be "moral" when it involves money. Take that as you will.
The observation I'm actually trying to get to, though, is this. Conservatives get "moral" votes, in part, because they still speak in terms of right and wrong, good and evil — esoteric ideas that depend heavily on religious philosophies that they share with their constituents.
On the other hand, I've noted that liberals, here and elsewhere, don't typically use those words at all. Instead of appealing to moral or religious authority, they adopt a few different approaches.
(1) Doing it my way will result in fewer deaths, or less discomfort.
(2) My way is healthier.
(3) Why shouldn't it be my way? I'm not hurting anyone.
Number (1) is a favorite during abortion debates. "If you outlaw abortion, then tens of thousands of teenage mothers will die each year from back-alley abortions." Or during drug law debates. "If we legalize drugs, all those innocent marijuana dealers can stay out of prison and make room for the real bad guys." Or during debates about sexual mores. "Your kids will have sex anyway, but our way, at least they'll have condoms."
Number (2) appeals to modern psychology to determine whether a certain feeling or behavior is "healthy" or "unhealthy". For example, it is unhealthy to be sexually repressed. It is healthy to experiment with sexual orientation as a teenager. Children who suffer corporal punishment are rendered unhealthy. Children raised in daycare or without a father end up perfectly healthy. Statements like this replace any declarations of "right" or "wrong" in certain discussions.
Number (3) appeals to the American ideal of freedom, and works by forcing the opposition to appeal to their own religious convictions, which, in many circles, automatically invalidates their opinion. For example, from a recent debate here on Hatrack, "If someone wants to walk down the street naked, why should that be against the law? He/she isn't hurting anyone, and it's only our silly Puritanical culture that says it's wrong."
So, finally, here's the observation I'm actually making. These three appeals (and others like them) are not actually substantially different from conservative appeals to "right" and "wrong" or "good" and "evil". All of them, at some level, assert a completely arbitrary statement of value that cannot be proven or established, but that can only be agreed to by choice.
For instance, the "my way results in fewer deaths" argument asserts the following value:
Preserving human life (or in some cases, comfort) is more important than any other relevant consideration.
This arbitrary value is attractive at first. After all, no one wants to be dead. But in truth, most people adhere to a personal moral code that, at some point or another, encourages them to value something higher than the preservation of their own lives. Many people would risk their lives to protect their homes or their children or their community. Most American religious systems encourage people to value their morals more than their lives — the idea being that a short life lived well results in greater human happiness than a long life ill-spent.
When it comes down to specific debates, people who hold such belief systems are unpersuaded by the "we'll save lives" argument because to them, survival isn't worth living with blood on your hands.
And in the lighter debates that are more about comfort than survival, many of these same people believe that discomfort is a vital part of self-improvement. People should reap negative consequences for certain actions, because if they did not, then those actions would become increasingly common at an exponential rate. And (possibly more importantly) the individual might not ever learn to make better choices, and could continue to perpetuate their, and others', misery.
Another example. The concept of "healthy" versus "unhealthy" asserts a wide range of arbitrary values. How exactly is it that we determine human mental health? How does it feel to be a healthy human, versus an unhealthy human? Does it feel different? Can it be "felt" at all? Or only observed and codified? And by whom?
I remember a debate on Hatrack a while ago about a man who voluntarily allowed himself to be chopped up and eaten alive as part of an intense sexual experience. Roughly half of the participants in the debate considered his desire to be eaten "unhealthy" and the other half considered it within the bounds of human "normalcy" and thought that there was nothing wrong with the man's decision.
That discussion highlighted the great weakness of the "health" versus "unhealth" appeal. In truth, it is even more arbitrary than "right" versus "wrong". Someone is mentally healthy if we choose to recognize their thought and decision patterns as normal and acceptable. They are unhealthy if we do not. In that particular debate, the latter group adopted the arbitrary definition that:
It is healthy to pursue whatever sexual desires you might feel, short of hurting another person. A desire to die is also healthy, and should not be treated or prevented.
According to whom? According to the people who say so. Nothing more.
Lastly, the third appeal involves a very simple, arbitrary assertion:
Individuals should be free to behave how they wish in public. This desire for free expression trumps the desire not to experience it. Arbitrary cultural taboos have no value compared to this important consideration.
This is the value asserted by some smokers, who feel that their right to smoke should always outweigh someone else's desire not to smell it. Yet the entire idea that human behavior should be largely limit-free, and that in any disagreement over such an issue, the problem lies with the observer and not with the perpetrator, is an arbitrary value that disagrees with many people's personal moral compasses, which lead them instead to feel that human interactions should be governed by an arbitrary layer of polite behavior that cushions potentially abrasive conflicts of interest.
What is the point of all this? The point is that while certain groups use words other than "right" and "wrong" or "good" and "evil", nevertheless, the debate has not changed. It is still entirely about arbitrary human values which must be determined and agreed upon by our society. Couching "good" and "evil" in different terms does not make them more scientific or less arbitrary. It only obfuscates the issue.
What many people also do not seem to understand is that many of the words they have chosen to use with positive connotations (eg, "healthy", "free") actually reflect ideas that are synonymous with other folks' definitions of "wrong" and "evil" (eg, "expressing your inner desires without restraint", "doing whatever you want, without consideration for others").
When people who still use the old-fashioned words hear that the Democratic party is planning to make themselves seem more "moral" by pitching their existing strategy with new terms, perhaps you can see why the attempt falls flat. Changing the words does not change the debate. None of us have moved beyond the arbitrary concept of "good" and "evil". Some of us have a different lexicon, but the debate is still the same — we simply disagree about which set of arbitrary values we ought to accept.
I just wanted to be sure we all realized that we're on an equal footing here.
[ February 13, 2005, 03:26 AM: Message edited by: A Rat Named Dog ]
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:Exit polls showed that, to Bush voters, "moral issues" were the most important factor in their decision.
I don't know if that's right. I'm actually pretty sure it's not and that terrorism and Iraq tied with moral values at 22%, but that there is so much cross-over that if we lumped "defense" as one catagory, defense would be the overwhelming winner.
quote:So, finally, here's the observation I'm actually making. These three appeals (and others like them) are not actually substantially different from conservative appeals to "right" and "wrong" or "good" and "evil". All of them, at some level, assert a completely arbitrary statement of value that cannot be proven or established, but that can only be agreed to by choice...Some of us have a different lexicon, but the debate is still the same — we simply disagree about which set of arbitrary values we ought to accept.
It doesn't seem that my values are arbitrary, unless you think that my aversion to rape is a matter of fancy. For the most part, my sense of propriety is a function of thought most adequately described Kant's Groundwork with other reasonable intuitions. Maybe your values are arbitrary, but that's you. Then again, I don't have a problem saying that some people are living diseased lives as a result of thoughtlessness and poor decisions.
Some views are properly controversial, but calling them seems arbitrary degrades the issue. Actually, calling them arbitrary is a judgment that opens the way for empiricism and cybernetics. It's like saying that there is only an arbitrary difference between four organisms sitting around a sphere and a family dinner, or between marriage and mating, and it seems to me that that's an impoverished view of beings.
[ February 13, 2005, 01:13 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by Alucard... (Member # 4924) on :
This example might fit your concerns, Geoff. An associate of mine is a registered Democrat, but a very devout Methodist. She voted for Bush because of Kerry's pro-choice stance on abortion. Otherwise, she agreed with nearly everything Kerry was campaigning for. However, her moral stance on pro-life issues nullified any chance of a vote for Kerry and trumped her political views...
[ February 13, 2005, 04:24 AM: Message edited by: Alucard... ]
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
Irami, I think there are a few aspects of my position that I didn't properly get across.
First, my main issue here is not that all human judgment is arbitrary, and therefore faulty, but rather that if we have determined that ONE set of human judgments (good and evil, right and wrong) can be considered arbitrary, then it is worth noting that the competing judgments (healthy and unhealthy, why not if it doesn't hurt anyone) are just as arbitrary. It would be silly and unfair to give one set of judgments the upper hand just because they use more modern terminology.
Second, it is actually pretty easy to assemble a list of things that are valuable to humans, and face no disagreement from anyone. Humans want long lives, prosperity, self-determination, pleasure, fulfilling relationships, freedom from conflict, etc. Preferably, we'd like all of them at once, and for no cost.
But disagreements arise when these values come into conflict with one another — when we must decide, as a society, whether safety is more important than freedom, or whether one life is more important to preserve than another, or whether self-determination is more important than freedom from conflict. We can't actually have all of them at once, so we must make judgment calls.
The value judgments that I labeled as "arbitrary" are the ones that attempt to adjudicate between two or more different values that people hold dear. Each of these values, alone, is pretty self-evidently important, and you can trace its importance right down to the most basic, unassailable human needs. But when you watch different people prioritizing different values over one another in different situations, and when you watch some of the resulting debates (such as the one about the German guy who wanted to be eaten alive), the word "arbitrary" seems to be the only one that applies.
Which brings me to my third point. When I use the word "arbitrary" in this context, I don't actually mean to suggest that these decisions are made completely at random, based on a whim or the roll of a die. What I mean is that they are decided on the basis of factors OTHER than logic or empirical evidence. Such a nebulous ideal as "the right thing for a human to do" is impossible to completely nail down to a hard, scientific foundation, and because of that, to some degree or another, unprovable human judgment must enter into the equation. Such judgments are, by their nature, arbitrary.
[ February 13, 2005, 05:02 AM: Message edited by: A Rat Named Dog ]
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
I would certainly agree with you on the fundamentally arbitrary nature of judgment claims, Dog. At least at a very deep level.
On the other hand, there are more and less rich theories of "good" and "evil" -- more and less developed, more and less relevant, more and less rigorous.
[Edit: I'm not saying any particular group has a lock on any particular sort of theory, BTW. I am saying that one can have a basis for ranking moral systems that -- although itself also arbitrary at some very deep level -- is more substantive than just "I like it." Just as I can distinguish between a well-written, crafted short story by OSC and one that was dashed off by a high school freshman with an assignment due in 5 minutes. Arbitrarily? Yes, at some level. But more substantive than just that.]
[ February 13, 2005, 08:20 AM: Message edited by: ClaudiaTherese ]
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
quote: I mean, yes, everything is a moral issue. But I doubt you can pitch an economic or health plan in moral terms and really get anyone's attention. For some reason, Americans have a hard time considering an issue to be "moral" when it involves money. Take that as you will.
I won’t. Considering how much more the Bible, both Old and New Testaments has to say about money than about sex, I find this statement to be religiously untenable. Poverty, housing, employment, war, crime, caring for the environment, human rights, etc are not only moral issues they are religious issues and this claim can not be dismissed as democrats getting “stirred up” by a political challenge.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
(Just as an aside -- Dana, did you know my spouse holds you in the highest regard? We were discussing this the other day as per a thread on GreNME. He always looks forward to your posts, and he has most high standards for such things. )
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
The complicating factor is that when analyzing a policy, there are moral and amoral considerations: 1) the amoral analysis of the expected results, both intended and unintended - this is often highly disputed; 2) the moral worth of the intended results; 3) the moral acceptability of the unintended results; and 4) the moral acceptability of the means used to achieve the results. This is further complicated by the fact that 2 can influence the analysis of 3 and 4.
Most public policy dispute is about 1 - whether because there is genuine disagreement about the policy's results, or because someone is modifying the expected results in order to marshall arguments for 2 and 3.
Problems arise when people aren't clear on which aspect of the analysis they are discussing. But there can be no meaningful discussion of public policy without an amoral and moral component to the discussion. Often 2 will sort itself out quickly - most people believe it is a moral good to have a society in which people do not randomly shoot each other. But even in those cases, morality is still in play via 3 and 4.
I can't think of a single issue where the moral and amoral questions aren't in dispute by a large percentage of the population.
Edit: In other words, to actually address the topic, there is no replacement for "good" and "evil." People who are trying to suggest replacements are merely hiding their use of the concepts behind other words.
Dagonee
[ February 13, 2005, 09:20 AM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Geoff, I think you've mischaracterized several of those moral arguments. I think the simple way to boil down your post is this: religious conservatives continue to appeal to a single higher moral authority, whereas true liberals do not presume this shared value and therefore seek consensus on multiple value statements.
This is, I submit, a powerful advantage of the liberal mindset.
Consider that the statement "why not if it doesn't hurt anyone" is actually the basis of most modern law. As dismissive as you are of the concept, the simple fact is that perceived harm is indeed the key to legislation and taboo. The difference, of course, is that some forms of harm are not provable. For example, it is not possible to prove that premarital sex, sodomy, or taking the Lord's name in vain are inherently harmful to the individual or to society; however, societies have throughout history believed this to be the case, and illegitimized those behaviors based on this arbitrary belief. Contrast this with, say, the growing taboo against public smoking, largely driven by conclusive proof that second-hand smoke is physically harmful.
"We can't actually have all of them at once, so we must make judgment calls."
This is absolutely true. Sartre complained about it at length. But suggesting the conservative approach -- to insist that one set of arbitrary standards is superior to another, and to brook no conversation or compromise on that issue -- is hardly an improvement. And, yes, Biblical standards of morality are completely arbitrary.
------
Dag, I disagree also with your assessment, unless you mean to say that "evil" in its purest form means "harmful." I know many people who would not concede to the concept of "evil," but would oppose a policy based on perceived harm. And yet many conservatives seem unwilling to equate the two concepts, leaving me inclined to believe that there IS both a perceived and functional distinction.
[ February 13, 2005, 10:06 AM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
There is much I would like to discuss here, especially about what I see as the misrepresentation of Liberal ideals by conservative pundits. Right now I don't have time, so I'll be back.
One thing I can comment on is your argument against #3.
quote: Preserving human life (or in some cases, comfort) is more important than any other relevant consideration.
is an assumption, that you follow with the argument that a short virtuous life is prefered to a long life of worthlessness.
I agree that I would rather give my life for a worthy cause than to live long in an immoral life.
However, I do not think it is within my power to condemn others to a short virtuous life for a cause I believe is worth while.
It is the argument of the terrorist and the meglomaniac to say, "My cause is right and worth the lives of those I kill."
While it is noble and right to give your life for your ideals on abortion, it is a bit egotistical to say that the lives of those young girls killed by back alley abortionists is worth your ideals.
(Side note, I am not arguing that more or fewer lives would be lost by illegalizing abortion. That is an entirely different debate. I am just using Dog's example to demonstrate what I see as a flaw in his arugment.)
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Dag, I disagree also with your assessment, unless you mean to say that "evil" in its purest form means "harmful." I know many people who would not concede to the concept of "evil," but would oppose a policy based on perceived harm. And yet many conservatives seem unwilling to equate the two concepts, leaving me inclined to believe that there IS both a perceived and functional distinction.
The opposition to a policy based on "perceived harm" requires two levels of moral judgment: 1) the definition of harm must take a concept of morality into account. 2) the moral precept that policies that cause "harm" should be opposed.
Dagonee
Edit: The statement "'evil' in its purest form means 'harmful' is merely pushing the level of analysis one step removed; it's merely the substitution of one ill-defined term for another.
[ February 13, 2005, 10:41 AM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:While it is noble and right to give your life for your ideals on abortion, it is a bit egotistical to say that the lives of those young girls killed by back alley abortionists is worth your ideals
Such an assessment requires ignoring the element of choice involved, as well. So before using the word "egotistical," we'd have to start throwing around the word "responsible" as well.
Dagonee
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
Geoff, I think your choice of examples, and the suggested reasoning behind them are really you just projecting a jaundiced viewpoint.
I think it might stem from you seeming to assume that the conservatives really ARE the ones who care about real "morality" whereas progressives or liberals care about "something else" that can't be called morals or ethics.
From my viewpoint, I think there's a more subtle divide. I think Conservatives care more about being consistent and look for a set of rules that are going to hold true for everyone. From that perspective, certainly, every departure from "the rules" can seem like a violation of socially agreed upon morals or ethics.
For most of the liberals I know, it isn't that morals and ethics are secondary considerations, but that point of view and personal experience are important in figuring out what the moral, just and ethical thing is in every situation.
It's probably the root of the reason why to most liberals, Conservative arguments always seem simplistic and even jingoistic. We believe the complexities are more important and that individual circumstances should be considered. It harms consistency in application of rules, but may, it is hoped, mean that justice is achieved more frequently.
Of course, I understand that from a more Conservative viewpoint, my application of the rules may certainly seem like encouraging immorality and rule breaking. Hence it begins to look immoral ipso facto.
My assertions that I care a great deal about running a moral society fall on deaf ears beyond the point where I assert that consistency is not necessary or the most important factor.
At least...that's my experience and the current conclusion I've reached.
Subject to revision...
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:I am saying that one can have a basis for ranking moral systems that -- although itself also arbitrary at some very deep level -- is more substantive than just "I like it." Just as I can distinguish between a well-written, crafted short story by OSC and one that was dashed off by a high school freshman with an assignment due in 5 minutes. Arbitrarily? Yes, at some level. But more substantive than just that.
That's as appropriate an analogy as I've heard, I only disagree in that CT thinks that at the bottom is a matter of taste, and I think that there is a reason, at the very bottom, for the difference between the story dashed off and the other story. The other story is truer to the duties of a story, that is, it situates man within the totality of beings, thereby revealing the moral law and disclosing his destiny, complete with all of the contradictions and excesses. The story can do this without regard to the author's intentions. The story dashed off, on the other hand, does not fulfill these duties.
There is a difference between choosing from taste and deciding from thinking about being. The first is every bit as subjective as you describe, the second is rooted in understanding what the thing is and that is not influenced in the least by taste.
[ February 13, 2005, 01:52 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
quote: CT thinks that at the bottom is a matter of taste
Nope. Try again.
( )
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
You know, the cookie on the doorstep story on the other thread is perfect. It's a lightweight subject but structurally perfect.
[ February 13, 2005, 02:03 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
quote: A desire to die is also healthy, and should not be treated or prevented.
Dog,
you're on my territory here. Go away!
Seriously, though, this is an oversimplification of the case being made by "progressives" on assisted suicide and euthanasia. See, they're still horrified by the idea of suicides in relatively young and healthy people - so people like that who want to commit suicide have a "mental illness." Plenty of treatment and prevention advocated, even when its objected to by the young suicidal person.
The statement about wanting to die "being healthy" only applies to the special case of old, ill and disabled people. For now, anyway. The Netherlands does seem to be slowly drifting into a nondiscriminatory mode, but it's still mostly old, ill and disabled people who get the "help" there - and it's the physician's call as to whether they get that "help" or not.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Hmm. Strictly speaking, if someone really wants to die, who are we to tell them they're wrong? I think it's a cursed stupid desire, but there's no law against being stupid. But surely the right to decide over your own life, and whether it is worth living or not, is truly fundamental?
Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
KoM,
that's a nice soundbite, but the only "assistance" on the table is for the target populations I've identified. The group I'm with even filed a brief that stated assisted suicide is something that should be available to everyone who wants it or no one - what's on the table is discrimination, pure and simple.
If it's such a fundamental right, why not offer assistance to everyone? Most suicide attempts fail. Why guarantee success to just that lucky group of old, ill and disabled people?
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Indeed you are correct, that is what I was proposing. Why shouldn't we help teenagers who want to die?
Actually, for teenagers it seems to me a valid argument may be made about ages of consent. So, let's say at 21 you are given the right to die, including assistance, if you so choose.
Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
quote:Actually, for teenagers it seems to me a valid argument may be made about ages of consent. So, let's say at 21 you are given the right to die, including assistance, if you so choose.
You can say it, but it has no connection to real legislative advocacy anywhere in the U.S. - or anywhere in the world that I'm aware of. (with the caveat that the Netherlands might be creeping in that direction, but until they divest physicians of their "gatekeeper" function, it's still really about physician autonomy.)
Like I said, though, that has no real connection to "right to die" advocacy in the real world.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
I didn't claim it did. I was proposing a philosophical idea, not propounding a political point. (Yay for alliteration!)
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
It would be interesting, in a very morbid way, to see a lawsuit by someone in Oregon wishing to avail themselves of medical assistance for suicide when they meet none of the qualifying standards.
As it stands now, wanting to die without a disability or terminal disease is taken almost as prima facia proof that one is incompetent to decide. The flip side is that wanting to die with a disability or terminal disease is seen as a "rational" choice. It's a small step from being "a" rational choice to "the" rational choice.
Dagonee
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
That's the thing. That is it, exactly.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
If the disability presupposes that a person cannot achieve their reasonable goals, the pursuit of which confers a sense of dignity, I think that's an issue.
Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
Irami, how does one determine that the disability itself prevents one from determining one's goals?
In that one simple statement, you've made a sweeping value judgment about disability and the lives of people who have them.
How do you justify singling out disability among other factors? Poverty? Race? Gender?
Or a criminal record, for that matter?
A good case could be made that Andrea Yates has ruined her life beyond repair - but few people would advocate assistance in her suicide. True, some would want to prevent her because they want her to live with the knowledge of what she did for as long as possible. But others just feel it would add to the tragedy.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
I think it's an issue. One of those properly controversial issues that doesn't give itself to easy answers.
With Yates, the people who want to make her live out of punishment are petty. There is something sick about that, and it has to do with the fact that those people are using her life as a means to their vindication. It's not respecting her as an individual. The question as to whether her life is ruined by her own action is more complex.
[ February 13, 2005, 03:26 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
I repeat - lots of people can't meet their goals, reasonable or not. If you single out a single group - one that faces oppression, is often considered a burden or a drain on society - it's just discrimination.
Sorry - maybe I'm being unfair. Your first post indicated you thought this was, if not an easy issue, at least an obvious one. Maybe that's an unfair interpretation based on your second post.
Dunno - the idea that it's more reasonable to kill yourself if you're disabled is a deeply embedded one. It's not thought out rationally, just one of those things picked up via osmosis in the general cultural "white noise." Not really a product of rational analysis but often resistant to rational challenge.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:I repeat - lots of people can't meet their goals, reasonable or not. If you single out a single group - one that faces oppression, is often considered a burden or a drain on society - it's just discrimination.
I don't know if it's an issue of meeting their goals as much as reasonably pursuing their goals.
Posted by Mabus (Member # 6320) on :
I suspect this is going unsaid, rather than being forgotten, but one of the reasons the desire to commit suicide is not more generally aided is that it tends to pass. Many people who are suffering experience the urge to die and "get it over with"--but for most of those who recover and many of those who don't, they change their minds. They then look back and think, "How foolish I would have been to kill myself. That was an irrational desire."
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
I still don't know if irrational is the right word, maybe infelicitous or inappropriate or just plain sad, but I think that fully rational people can want to kill themselves as a result of unfortunate situations. It's kind of like the cookie example, where the right action was at the same time the wrong action, and unlucky circumstances result in an unfortunate event.
[ February 13, 2005, 07:03 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
Someone pointed out that the examples I chose skew so heavily against the liberal view that I seem to be saying that "liberals are amoral and conservatives are just fine". This isn't actually what I believe, and I've actually been thinking a bit about the fact that, although in my personal life I consider myself to be a moderate, and react both well and badly to both sides, the issues that actually inspire me to post on Hatrack usually skew anti-liberal.
Not pro-conservative, really. Just anti-liberal
I'm starting to wonder why that is. Perhaps because I belong to an overwhelmingly conservative culture, I would feel somehow ... disloyal? ... to air my complaints about such things in public. It might feel as though I were betraying something, though I'm not sure what, since there isn't actually any official political stance involved in my religion or culture. There's an informal assumption that most Mormons are conservative Republicans, but since I openly disagree with "most Mormons" about R-rated movies, caffeine, lay expansion of the canon, and other arcane doctrinal issues, it's strange that I don't often air my disagreements on political issues.
Perhaps the fact that a ... er ... close member of my family has come down hard on the conservative side with a very public opinion on just about every topic makes me hesitant about starting something, too
I don't know. Either way, yes, this largely semantic issue is a gripe I've had with liberals, in particular, lately. But don't take this to mean that I think they're the only one with problems
dkw, very early in the thread, you attempted to disagree with me on whether or not economic issues could be pitched as moral issues. But I think we're talking past each other. I DO think they ARE moral issues. My comment stated that, for some reason, Americans seem to compartmentalize "money issues" away from "moral issues" and it is very difficult to get them to see the latter as the former.
In fact the quickest way to derail and demolish a moral issue is to turn it into a money issue, as many pundits have learned. Once you point out that someone is profiting, in some way, from an issue, they instantly become the badguy, regardless of the moral question involved ... and if both sides are profiting, Americans get positively nihilistic
So I guess in a sense that money is the ultimate moral issue, but it is so overwhelming in its scope that it gets a category of its own
PS: Does it drive anyone else crazy when TV and radio personalities refer to "political pundANTs"?
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
Another guess. Maybe I get annoyed at liberals more often because there are so many here, so I read more of their opinions, and with a larger pool of people to draw from, the crazy ones shwo up more frequently ... while the conservative side on Hatrack is most prominently represented by one guy who is unusually fairminded and well-spoken about his positions.
[ February 13, 2005, 07:04 PM: Message edited by: A Rat Named Dog ]
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
He is a boon, that's for sure. Lucky Hatrack. Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
ARAD,
You call yourself moderate so much. I just don't know what's going on when you do that. Are you trying to convince yourself? I don't know if calling yourself an anything does anything except tell people where you see yourself, but it does not have any bearing on what you say or how you are perceived. Unless, of course, if you were horribly self-deluded, in which case it would highlight that you were deluded and again, that would still not inform anyone's opinion on your stand.
Fundamentally, we are going to part right here:
quote: It is still entirely about arbitrary human values which must be determined and agreed upon by our society.
In my blood, I don't have democratic tendencies. I vote. I like elections. I think democracy, as we conceive it, is a degradation of humanity. Whether people agree is usually completely independent of whether they are right or wrong or inappropriate or appropriate about anything important. While agreement does make things easier, I'm not one of those people who believe that ease alone is something that adults should seek. Majority rule and even consensus properly break down about issues that matte. The idea that accounting for everyone's mere preference is ever the right way to decide a non-trivial action is absurd.
There is no virtue in simply getting everyone to agree, there is a dignity in getting people to think, and if the result is deep, considered disagreement, it's worth fifty of the cheap agreements and horse trades that we approve of today.
Edit:
As far as money and morality goes, I think your dad put it pretty well when he said:
"And I find it extremely discomfiting that, really to a shocking degree, love of money has pervaded Mormon society. It's something that as a people we have great cause to repent of. I think it will lead to our condemnation in the eyes of God. When I talk that way, there are some people who are extremely troubled because they think I'm saying that they're wicked. And they're correct -- I am."
They belong together, where some people believe that politics exists for the sake of money, I'm pretty sure that money exists for the sake of politics.
[ February 14, 2005, 01:17 AM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: while the conservative side on Hatrack is most prominently represented by one guy who is unusually fairminded and well-spoken about his positions.
While we're certainly blessed in that regard nowadays, it's worth noting that this has absolutely not been the case historically. Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote: PS: Does it drive anyone else crazy when TV and radio personalities refer to "political pundANTs"?
I think that's a pundit dipped in fondant. Talk about sweet and sour.
Posted by Mabus (Member # 6320) on :
Indeed, Tom. Times were dark when the conservative side was represented mainly by me. Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
Irami, you're correct that a moral value is not made RIGHT just because people agree to it. However, it also will not WORK unless people accept it, somehow or another. That's why we have these debates — to try and persuade other people to accept our vision of right and wrong, because it is the only way, ultimately, that our vision of society will ever come to pass.
I'm pretty sure I'm a moderate because whenever I listen to conservative talk radio, I have a hard time going ten minutes without screaming, "Shut up, you RETARD!!" (And then immediately apologizing to the mentally-disabled community.) The only guy I actually appreciate who plays on my local station here is Alan Colmes, a moderate Democrat, if you can figure that out.
I also get really annoyed at Fox News for their blatant bias. While the conservatives that I know (like my father, for instance) usually feel like they're watching Fox News for a refreshing dose of truth.
So, I don't know. I'm definitely to the right of most of the more vocal Hatrack members, but when I go somewhere filled with right-wingers, I feel positively left. Maybe I've just got a good BS detector.
[ February 14, 2005, 12:58 AM: Message edited by: A Rat Named Dog ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"Maybe I've just got a good BS detector."
I want to point out, Geoff, that the necessary implication of this statement is that the more vocal liberals -- and conservatives -- on this site are full of B.S.
I'd disagree. Certainly, there's at least one B.S. liberal for every B.S. conservative; we could match Thor up against Bean Counter, for example. But none of the really vocal liberals, even the ones that're way left of my own position -- like, say, Paul, Sara, or Aja -- are really all that full of crap. They're able to articulate the reasons behind their positions without savaging the other side of the aisle, and that's really about the most we can ask of political discussion nowadays. *wry laugh*
There's a tendency to assume that because you fall between one of two extremes that you must be right. (I do it myself sometimes, to my chagrin.) But on some issues that's like saying that because a fire is either burning or not that it's more likely to be in a weird semi-burning state. Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
quote:But on some issues that's like saying that because a fire is either burning or not that it's more likely to be in a weird semi-burning state.
And on other issues, it's right on target.
Think "smoldering" or "building to flash point." (alternative to "weird semi-burning state.")
In which case, the issue framed that way it's not the crisis one side claims. Nor is it something that should be ignored.
I'm not arguing against your point - I agree it's applicable in some situations - and you said "some," after all.
[ February 14, 2005, 07:58 AM: Message edited by: sndrake ]
Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :
Some nitpicks:
quote:When it comes down to specific debates, people who hold such belief systems are unpersuaded by the "we'll save lives" argument because to them, survival isn't worth living with blood on your hands.
At least in regards to the abortion debate, there's blood on their hands either way. It's just a question of whose blood: an innocent child or an irresponsible almost-parent. Or, looked at another way, a nearly inanimate collection of cells or an obviously living, breathing, feeling human being. You can look at it however you like, but saying that it "isn't worth living with blood on your hands" is a pretty gross oversimplification.
quote:This is the value asserted by some smokers, who feel that their right to smoke should always outweigh someone else's desire not to smell it.
While this is true, the reason for smoking bans in public places is not non-smokers' comfort. That secondhand smoke is hazardous to health is about as well-established as things get. So the whole "it doesn't hurt anybody else" argument is not valid.
Posted by mothertree (Member # 4999) on :
(I have a deadline today so I regret I can't read all the thread right now but the title evokes something I have been thinking about the past few days- I did read Dog's initial post.)
I subscribe to M. Scott Peck's attempt at a clinical definition of evil, which is when a person believes the cannot do wrong. At that point they freeze their moral compass. In a sense, Adam and Eve before they ate the fruit were evil because they had no concept of what it would mean to examine the morality of their actions.
I have been arguing a bit with the Jehovah's Witnesses over Adam's mental capacity prior to the fall and what is meant in the bible by his "eyes being opened". They don't believe any organic change came over Adam, but that he simply realized it was possible to sin. We also disagree on what is meant by "knowing right and wrong" (I take it to mean moral judgement, they take it to mean the ability to declare one's own moral law.) Anyway, mainly we agree to disagree on it because in the end, it isn't that important to me that they don't believe Adam will be resurrected.
Something else I've been thinking about is something Tom said about righties and lefties having different personalities (wingedness, not handedness). What I came up with is that righties believe in an external standard that people can be taught to adhere to. Lefties believe behavior emanates from the nature of a being, either their soul or if they aren't a believing sort, the complexity of their genes and experience.
What illustrates this for me is our attitudes toward incarceration. Righties believe that the existence of strict prison sentences and possibly capital punishment should serve as a deterrent to potential offenders. Whereas lefties... well, it would be hard to say what they think since I'm not one anymore. But the idea of prison as a treatment for a problem rather than punishment seems to be a lot of it.
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
Tom, there are different degrees of "full of crap" I do have a general sense that the more extreme a person's political stance, the more likely they are to be wrong. It's not a guarantee by any means, but in order to fuel the passion of extremity, a person must at some point start ignoring or dismissing some valid concerns on the other side of their issue, which in my mind renders them less capable of viewing the issue fairly and intelligently.
Again, I don't rely on this like it's some kind of scientific axiom or anything. But it does seem to generally hold up against experience.
As far as the whole "being in the middle = being right" issue goes, there are lots and lots of different ways to be moderate on a given issue. Being in the middle could mean you're fairminded and unwilling to get railroaded by people with an agenda. It could also mean that you're uninformed and unwilling to make a decision (though again, moderation in such an instance is better than blind extremity). But it doesn't always mean the same thing.
For one example, being "moderate" on abortion could mean that you favor a ban on the basis that potential human life has intrinsic value, but believe that certain cases supersede that value, and should be permitted on a limited basis.
But it could also mean that you oppose abortion on personal moral grounds, but don't feel it should be legislated against, and fight to prevent a ban, while agreeing with people who seek to restrict the more extreme cases, such as partial-birth abortion.
Those two "moderates" would still vehemently disagree with one another (and naturally, some extremists would find either of them "too left" or "too right"). So being moderate means they're thinking for themselves and not adopting a party line ... but it doesn't instantly mean that they're correct.
quote:You can look at it however you like, but saying that it "isn't worth living with blood on your hands" is a pretty gross oversimplification.
saxon, I wasn't trying to actually debate that issue, and you're right, it is an oversimplification. My point I wanted to make, though, was: The fact that a particular value sounds universal doesn't mean it can't be superceded by another value that is more important to many people. So while we might be able to agree that human life (for instance) has value, it is still arbitrary (read: up to us as individuals) how we determine which values to put ahead of others in any given instance. So saying "More people will die" doesn't instantly trump "This act is morally evil" or "People are responsible for the consequences of their choices". Saying that it does simply proposes a new arbitrary system of moral values that is no more valid than any other. It doesn't supercede the old ones, as some people seem to believe.
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
quote:While this is true, the reason for smoking bans in public places is not non-smokers' comfort. That secondhand smoke is hazardous to health is about as well-established as things get.
That is how it was justified, but in the opinion of many smoking proponents, the science behind the secondhand smoke issue is faulty and fueled primarily by fear and PR work, and it really does come down to comfort.
Personally, I think it's a non-issue. I think the bans are valid for the same reason that littering, public nudity, disturbing the peace, and pissing on a street corner are all against the law. I think any human society has a right to enforce some minimum environmental standards in public areas by preventing some individuals from performing acts that actively degrade the environment for everyone else. Secondhand smoke doesn't have to kill people for it to be wrong, in my opinion. All it has to do is cause headaches, excite asthma attacks, or make people cough, and it should at least be considered a candidate for banning.
Obviously, this attitude could be taken to a ridiculous extreme, which is why individual issues like this need to be handled on a case-by-case basis. But I think public smoking, in particular, has proven to be sufficiently obnoxious, and enough of its perpetrators have been shown to be unwilling to bend to the needs of those around them, that laws like this serve a valuable purpose, regardless of the issue of whether it kills people.
But note what secondhand smoke opponents had to do in order to make their arguments convincing. The issue of public politeness and decency has been largely dismissed by our public discourse. The only way you can get anything done these days is to claim that you are saving lives. It's like all the other values have disappeared.
Which is strange to me. After all, we all die eventually anyway, and exactly when and how is largely unpredictable for each individual. A general attempt to lengthen human lives at the expense of other considerations seems like it needs more justification than it receives. I would think that improving the quality of life might sometimes be prioritized above increasing the length of it.
But I suppose that nothing else works quite as well as the fear of death to get people behind your cause. "I don't want to die! Sign me up! I don't care what else I'm losing!" Liberals, feel free to apply this to the Patriot Act so that we can all agree and be happy Conservatives, apply it to Global Warming.
Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :
quote:The only way you can get anything done these days is to claim that you are saving lives. It's like all the other values have disappeared.
You're sort of arguing against yourself here. If it really is the case that the only way to pass a ban is to claim that you are saving lives then other values, like individualism and self-determination, must be working to oppose the ban.
quote:the opinion of many smoking proponents, the science behind the secondhand smoke issue is faulty and fueled primarily by fear and PR work
I'd never heard this before. Does anyone know of any pro-smoking resources that try to refute the dangers of secondhand smoke? Sounds like it would make interesting reading.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"The issue of public politeness and decency has been largely dismissed by our public discourse."
And yet the core of the PC movement, for example, is an appeal to public politeness: to doing unto others as they'd like you to do.
It is precisely because we have attempted to legislate politeness that many people are deliberately and consciously rude, resenting what they feel are infringements on their freedoms: "I have a right to smoke where I like, little lady, and they can't ever take that away from me." It's a position that a smoker would have been unlikely to take thirty years ago, precisely because they didn't think their status as a smoker was threatened. By legislating in response, we force the issue to a head -- for good and ill.
Posted by David Bowles (Member # 1021) on :
There are a couple of things I find... amusing? about this whole debate. First, any definition of good and evil is by definition human-centered and arbitrary (unless, of course, you believe in a god who's defined good and evil, and even then I'd point you in the direction of the Euthyphro). As a result, all moral systems are constructed frameworks that cannot be judged in moral terms (whose would you use?), but in logical terms. And of course, the issue with insisting on using logic to evaluate moral systems is that doing so begs the question of why. Why logic? Who says logic is a good tool for evaluating the usefulness of a moral system (because we've already said we can't evaluate the "goodness" of one)? We might just as easily use the universality of the components of such a system, or their historical prevalence, or any other arbitrary means.
What I'm trying to get at is the impossibility of denying ANY moral system without recourse to another one, which of course requires you judge before judging (not terribly helpful).
Another thing I find interesting is the insistence of people who on the surface agree with me on demanding that as a result, all moral systems be given equal respect. Why? How does that follow from the absence of a cosmic moral order? Because it sounds suspiciously like a moral judgment to say that all belief systems are worthy of respect, that each person has a right to define good and evil as she sees fit. Insisting upon individual morality is a contradiction, as it is itself a moral pronouncement made from within a moral framework, and is, as a result, completely incoherent.
Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
DB, I agree to an extent, but I also believe that people of all beliefs should be respected (until they prove otherwise), and sometimes one looks like the other.
-Bok
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
"Another thing I find interesting is the insistence of people who on the surface agree with me on demanding that as a result, all moral systems be given equal respect"
Well, at least from my perspective (and on the surface I agree with you, but as we've discovered, down at the bottom there are disagrements), I can't KNOW that teh moral system I've constructed does what its supposed to, and I can't know that someone else's doesn't do what I think a personal moral code should do. So, I'll respect other people by allowing them to live out their lives by their own moral code, as long as they don't mess up someone else's life in the process. But that doesn't mean I'll respect the moral code they live by, or believe that it is a good one.
Example of how this works. I believe that drinking enough alchohol to feel any effect of it is morally wrong. But i know other people don't believe this, and if I insisted they live by my moral code, it would be infringing upon their ability to choose their own life, as most of the time, they do not screw up someone else's life by drinking. So I respect their right to drink, in moderation (I don't respect anyone's right to get drunk anywhere other then their own home), but personally believe that their moral code is flawed.
Its a question of toleration vs endorsement vs persectution. I tolerate people with other moral codes, but I don't endorse them, nor do I attempt to stamp them out (unless proven necessary. For example, a moral code that allows rape cannot be even tolerated from the perspective of a society).
Posted by David Bowles (Member # 1021) on :
Right, I largely believe that too, Bok, but it is a belief rooted in my own personal morality. As a result, said respect is a moral choice, and my asking others to live by it is a proposed imposition of part of my moral code on them, which potentially flies in the face of that respect, creating a paradox or at the very least a tricky dilemma.
Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
Damn these paradoxes!
-Bok
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
quote: As it stands now, wanting to die without a disability or terminal disease is taken almost as prima facia proof that one is incompetent to decide. The flip side is that wanting to die with a disability or terminal disease is seen as a "rational" choice. It's a small step from being "a" rational choice to "the" rational choice.
I know I'm kind of late to comment on this, but right after sndrake posted his review I was thinking about this issue and why it is right or wrong, and this suddenly occured to me- I'd never thought of this way before, I am ashamed to admit.
If someone who is perfectly healthy wants to commit suicide we will do everything to comfort them, to stop them, to make them seek help. A disabled person feels the same way and we say "it's your choice" instead of treating a disabled person as merely someone who's mentally and in most cases temporarily unable to deal with the situation.
I think that most people do not actually think of it this way and that that is the problem. I know it was the problem with me- until I thought, and realised.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I didn't think of it this way until I started reading Stephen's posts. I was against it for other reasons (and still am) prior to that, but Stephen changed the way I look at the world in this regard.
Now if I could get the Catholic writers on the subject to start discussing it from this perspective as well as the perspective they usually write from.
Dagonee
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
Thank you, David Bowles, for saying exactly what I've been trying to say, only much much better and less partisan-sounding
And now, saxon:
quote:You're sort of arguing against yourself here. If it really is the case that the only way to pass a ban is to claim that you are saving lives then other values, like individualism and self-determination, must be working to oppose the ban.
My point is that different people prioritize their values in different ways. However, recently, certain sets of priorities that emphasize the extension of life have become more persuasive than others in our public discourse.
So I'm not sure where I'm arguing against myself. I think that the people who were originally in favor of smoking bans took that position for reasons other than a threat to their lives from secondhand smoke, but then developed and adopted that strategy because they found that the "saving lives" value was prioritized more highly within the systems espoused by some people who might have otherwise opposed them.
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
" think that the people who were originally in favor of smoking bans took that position for reasons other than a threat to their lives from secondhand smoke, but then developed and adopted that strategy because they found that the "saving lives" value was prioritized more highly within the systems espoused by some people who might have otherwise opposed them."
Yup. A good persuasive argument finds what the person you are trying to persuade values, and then targets the argument to those values.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
And there's nothing dishonest about that, even if those reasons aren't the main reason the advocate has for supporting the proposal, as long as the advocate believes the information underlying the "new" reasons.
Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :
quote:My point is that different people prioritize their values in different ways.
I see. I would agree with that. It's a very different statement, though, from "It's like all the other values have disappeared," hence my misunderstanding.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:And there's nothing dishonest about that, even if those reasons aren't the main reason the advocate has for supporting the proposal, as long as the advocate believes the information underlying the "new" reasons.
There is something a little bit dishonest about it.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
No there's not. If you pretend this is the only reason for it, then maybe. But if you say "Policy X will provide Benefit Y" to a group that desires Benefit Y, and you actually believe it will provide Benefit Y, then you haven't been dishonest. Even if the reason you want Policy X is to obtain Benefit Z.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
Maybe if the consequences are the only relevant issues.
If it's important for a group to choose Policy X, then there is a reason why it's important for a group to choose Policy X, and that reason is at least as important as the consequence, and should be treated as such.
I saw a sign that said, "DUIs, you can't afford them." Signs like that make me wonder if there is something wrong with the state catering to people who find the most compelling reason not to drink and drive the possibility of a DUI. If we indulge in people doing the right thing for the wrong reason, even if the reason is both correct and amoral, then it seems that we have lost our way.
[ February 14, 2005, 07:54 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
This assumes that the issue is being presented to multiple subgroups of a pluralistic decision-making body - either the citizenry or a legislature.
No such group should adopt a policy without investigating all the implications. But a single advocate is not responsible for presenting all those issues in a single persuasive event.
[ February 14, 2005, 07:55 PM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:I saw a sign that said, "DUIs, you can't afford them." Signs like that make me wonder if there is something wrong with the state catering to people who find the most compelling reason not to drink and drive the possibility of a DUI. If we indulge in people doing the right thing for the wrong reason, even if the reason is both correct and amoral, then it seems that we have lost our way.
I don't have a problem with that campaign. It depresses the hell out of me that there are people who will cease drunk driving for this reason rather than the safety and responsibility reasons. But, one of the classic purposes of the criminal law is to raise the cost of undesirable behavior (deterrence). Advertising that increased costs seems in line with that to me.
Dagonee
[ February 14, 2005, 08:42 PM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"Thank you, David Bowles, for saying exactly what I've been trying to say, only much much better and less partisan-sounding."
One quibble I have with David's reasoning here -- and the conclusions you seem to be applying to it -- is that I don't think that all things which are arbitrary are necessarily equally arbitrary.
It's true that people necessarily have to agree on basic precepts in order to have conversations, especially about ethics. But that doesn't mean that agreeing with the concept "that which exists can be observed" or "that which is harmful should be avoided" is necessarily of the same order, or that "what this alien being wants us to do, as according to this book, is in fact what we should do" is equivalent to "we should seek to maximize the most utilitarian good."
Now, I'm not advocating any one of these precepts as being particularly workable. But they're precepts that people DO take as starting points for conversations, in many places, and it doesn't seem unreasonable to me to observe that some of them are many orders of complexity less "simple" than others, and therefore less reasonable.
Posted by David Bowles (Member # 1021) on :
"I don't think that all things which are arbitrary are necessarily equally arbitrary."
Neither do I... you may recall my favorite concept as concerns morality: "virtual goodness/truth/value etc." I think there is a whole set of morality-related memes that have proven themselves over millenia to be more or less universal and happiness-maximizing, and these, I feel, are the sensible starting points from which to construct any modern ethical code.
However, I don't buy the "maximize the most utilitarian good" or "sustain complexity" foundation for ethical codes, because these are attempts to reset morality rather than permitting its natural (if nudged from time to time) evolution along with the culture.
quote:Now, I'm not advocating any one of these precepts as being particularly workable. But they're precepts that people DO take as starting points for conversations, in many places, and it doesn't seem unreasonable to me to observe that some of them are many orders of complexity less "simple" than others, and therefore less reasonable.
I reject this notion (derived from your own esthetic and moral idiosphere, Tom) entirely as irrelevant. The simplicity of a moral starting point cannot be, I think (from my own personal moral stance), the deciding factor in its rejection or inclusion in the formulation of a moral framework or discussion. My own preference, as I think I've made clear, is for a hisorical and comparative study of moral systems and a distillation of these to their essential elements, etc.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
But it's precisely the identification of those essential elements which makes a moral concept "simple." If we have to agree to disagree on precepts, surely a moral framework built on the most basic precepts we agree to share -- the lowest common denominator, as it were -- is by definition the most universal.
This does not necessarily mean that it's the most "effective," or even necessarily the "best," since of course those terms are ones which must first be defined with a moral framework before they have any meaning. But "universal" is a term which has a meaning independent of moral value, and can therefore stand alone as a yardstick.
Posted by David Bowles (Member # 1021) on :
I certainly would agree with that... cultural universality, in my book, is the hallmark of the virtually true.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
David, I've always had a problem with your explanation because it makes morals accidents of culture or even biology. Biology I can stomach, as long as we presuppose that everyone's moral chemistry is the same, but there is something unnecessarily weak about placing morals as dependent upon culture as opposed understanding morals as determined by the faculties by which we take in the world.
Take truth for example. We can't even talk without presupposing the existence of truth. The existence of truth is a function of how we take in the world as human beings. It doesn't mean that truth is subjective, it means that the world has truth in it as a function of the constitution of our intellect. It's not a matter of culture, rather it's a function of human comportment in the world. *whew*
Posted by David Bowles (Member # 1021) on :
"Biology I can stomach, as long as we presuppose that everyone's moral chemistry is the same, but there is something unnecessarily weak about placing morals as dependent upon culture as opposed [to]understanding morals as determined by the faculties by which we take in the world."
Well, the latter case ("determined by the faculties by which we take in the world") is basically biology, unless you believe in spirit stuff which apprehends the universe. But your postulates aren't as far from mine as you might imagine. In my estimation, culturally universal ethical memes are so because of some basic function they serve for humans' happiness and survival, either as individuals or in groups. As a result, they have their origin in many things, including biology, the exigencies of hierarchical social frameworks, the environmental contours we've historically thrived in, etc.
"We can't even talk without presupposing the existence of truth." Ah, now here we will probably have to agree to disagree. If you mean capital-T Truth, i.e., statements about behavior that are cosmically or transcendentally true, then I *don't* believe such a thing exists. I believe in truthful, objective statements about the physical realities of objects, but not about the "rightness" or "wrongness" of their behavior.
"The existence of truth is a function of how we take in the world as human beings. It doesn't mean that truth is subjective, it means that the world has truth in it as a function of the constitution of our intellect. It's not a matter of culture, rather it's a function of human comportment in the world." Okay, this I would term "virtual truth" (or "little-t truth") in that it applies only to human beings. Again, this truth is derived, as are any moral codes that exist, from evolved patterns of "comportment," and cannot be easily extricated from the cultural sphere (the memosphere) in which they developed. Hence the need for comparative studies of little-t truth and moral codes to get at what most humans would agree is "virtually true" and "virtually good."
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:Well, the latter case ("determined by the faculties by which we take in the world") is basically biology, unless you believe in spirit stuff which apprehends the universe.
If by spirit stuff you mean beings, then yeah. I'm sitting on a "chair," typing at at "computer" while reading a "book." My world is populated with beings, and the being of beings doesn't reduce to biology. Beings reduce to responsibility, and the "chair," I'm sitting on is fulfilling its responsibility of holding my butt very nicely. One can even say that this is a "good" chair.
quote:Hence the need for comparative studies of little-t truth and moral codes to get at what most humans would agree is "virtually true" and "virtually good."
That's spotty and sloppy. That's like going through a library and picking books at random to find out which one is good, rather than sitting down with a good book and thinking out why that particular book is good.
[ February 15, 2005, 11:29 AM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: the being of beings doesn't reduce to biology. Beings reduce to responsibility
That's a Platonic argument which will ultimately make you cynical before your time, Irami.
The problem with this approach is the same problem you're going to have with the "sitting down with a good book" one, Irami. Until I trust your opinion of a book, or until I have faith that you are able to properly articulate my responsibilities, why the heck should I not play the field, so to speak?
In other words, how do you know the book is good before you read it? (Note that this analogy is actually pretty good; I've given the answer to this question some thought, and it actually seems to map pretty closely to the way most people settle on an ethical system.)
[ February 14, 2005, 09:42 PM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
Tom, could you articule the analogy you are making a little more directly? I THINK I know what you are talking about, but not fully clear.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:In my estimation, culturally universal ethical memes are so because of some basic function they serve for humans' happiness and survival, either as individuals or in groups. As a result, they have their origin in many things, including biology, the exigencies of hierarchical social frameworks, the environmental contours we've historically thrived in, etc.
This is kind of a strange version of evolutionary thinking. Traits don't evolve because they make organisms happy, nor do they necessarily foster the survival of organisms. Traits evolve to ensure the passing on of genes.
One reason I've always had a problem with evolution as a foundation for ethics.
Posted by David Bowles (Member # 1021) on :
Destineer:
I don't agree. Propagation of genes depends upon fitness of organism. Organisms with conscious minds live not only in a biological world, but in a mental one and a social one. In order to be fit in such worlds, conscious beings need a feeling of contentment with their mental and social states. Seems sensible to me. Also explains religions and other moral systems: they exist to maximize the contentment conscious organisms feel in their quotidian existence.
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
Getting back to Rat's first argument, why doesn't the left use "Good & Evil"
The answer is that those terms are unprovable and highly pliable. There hasn't been a dictator or genocidal effort in the past 200 years that wasn't rationalized as being "Good".
If you ask anyone what should prevail, Good or Evil, they will say Good.
But when you get to the details of what is Good and what is Evil you have uncertainty.
Of all things, Murder is considered the most evil by the most people. The more death, the more evil. So when the left says something saves lives, they are using the ideas of Good, but not the word.
Good and Evil also have a moral component that applies blame to the evil doer. The left is not strong on laying blame. It is more about solving the problems of those who have them.
A man is poor and hungry. The left sees this and wants to feed the man.
The right sees this and blames the man for his poverty and tells him to get a job or starve.
There may be many reasons why this man is poor. He may not be physically able to work, or his job may have gone over seas, or he may just be having a run of bad luck. In these cases the Right's demand that he "Get a job" seems heartless. On the other hand, he may just be lazy and not want to work but would rather be a leach on the efforts of others. In these cases the Left's demand that he is fed and supported until he gets a job is seen as encouraging bad morality with the work of good people.
The compromise of the two extremes is to help the man get a job, but feed him until he can work.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:The left sees this and wants to feed the man.
The right sees this and blames the man for his poverty and tells him to get a job or starve.
This is a ridiculous comparison, and not true.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"Tom, could you articule the analogy you are making a little more directly?"
Sure. How do I decide that a book is worth reading before I read it?
1) People I trust tell me it's good. 2) I see people I respect reading it. 3) I have liked other books by the same author, or on the same topic. 4) I flip through the book, sampling it before fully committing, and see several elements -- a powerful writing style, etc. -- that I find intriguing. 5) The book is so overwhelmingly popular that society practically demands that it be read in order to fit in. 6) The book is well-marketed and has a compelling cover, and is sold to me in a way that suggests I might enjoy it.
I would submit that most people pick a pre-existing belief system in exactly the same way. Those who come up with their own belief systems, under the same analogy, write fanfic. (And this, too, is not a flippant analogy. Like fanfic authors, most people who come up with their "own" system start by addressing the flaws they perceive in an existing one, rewriting "bad" plots and "fixing" the romantic relationships of the main cast.)
[ February 15, 2005, 09:40 AM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by David Bowles (Member # 1021) on :
I like the analogy, with the caveat that, on the whole, people read the books they inherit from their parents.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
The problem with the analogy is that the limiting clause ("before I read it") denotes a situation that is very likely to be overcome by your reading the book. And after the book is read, the answer relies on none of the secondary methods.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"The problem with the analogy is that the limiting clause ("before I read it") denotes a situation that is very likely to be overcome by your reading the book."
Yep. Except that, in the case of living by an ethical system, it's pretty much not possible to "read the book" all the way through. We're all in the position of having to pick one without "reading" it completely.
--------
"I like the analogy, with the caveat that, on the whole, people read the books they inherit from their parents."
Yep. I figured #1 and #2 covered that. But you might also argue that parents read to their children, instilling a love of, say, Goodnight Moon in their offspring that will cause those same offspring to read the same book to their children.
[ February 15, 2005, 11:39 AM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Yep. Except that, in the case of living by an ethical system, it's pretty much not possible to "read the book" all the way through. [Smile] We're all in the position of having to pick one without "reading" it completely.
Exactly. So there's a serious lack of urgency in refining your book-liking-prediction skill as compared to selecting an ethical system.
Plus, whether you'll like a book truly is subjective - even the definition of "liking" the book can be radically different for each person.
The analogy seems to beg the question of whether one ethical system can be more or less objectively right thatn another.
Dagonee
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
As soon as you all start talking about mixing and matching systems, I think you've lost your way and given yourself over to cybernetics instead of thinking.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Irami believes that one book can be objectively better than the other. Do you disagree with him?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I do disagree with him. I think that may be true for a given definition of "better." But I don't think there's an objectively better definition of the word "better" as applied to books.
How's that for confusing?
[ February 15, 2005, 12:18 PM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]
Posted by David Bowles (Member # 1021) on :
"Objectively better" is a meaningless phrase. Objectivity rules out value judgments altogether, because value judgments are based in values, which come from moral systems, which, as we have shown again and again, have no transcendental or cosmic basis. They derive from humans' interaction with their own minds, their environments, and their fellow humans.
Posted by David Bowles (Member # 1021) on :
Having said that, I should point out that I believe a moral system can be "virtually better" than others in that it maximizes human contentment (this is different from the utilitarian basis that Tom espouses) for a maximum number of humans.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
David, you are disallowing for the possibility that there is an objective, absolute morality, and that human-articulated ethical and moral systems could be objectively better or worse insofar as how closely they reflect this absolute Morality.
You certainly have not shown again and again that Morality has no transcendental or cosmic basis, merely that the human-articulated moral systems are influenced by non-transcendental and non-cosmic issues.
Dagonee
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"this is different from the utilitarian basis that Tom espouses"
Hey, I specifically mentioned that I wasn't espousing any of the premises I listed as examples above precisely because I don't espouse utilitarianism. In fact, the Pixiest and I have gotten into some impressive arguments over what I consider the depravity of utilitarian arguments.
------
That said, Dag, in a system like the one you describe, the moral argument you make IS utilitarian. If there's a "cosmic" basis for morality that transcends human understanding, adhering to this cosmic morality is merely sensible and practical.
[ February 15, 2005, 12:39 PM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:You certainly have not shown again and again that Morality has no transcendental or cosmic basis, merely that the human-articulated moral systems are influenced by non-transcendental and non-cosmic issues.
I agree.
quote:If there's a "cosmic" basis for morality that transcends human understanding, adhering to this cosmic morality is merely sensible and practical.
Not as much practical as appropriate.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:That said, Dag, in a system like the one you describe, the moral argument you make IS utilitarian. If there's a "cosmic" basis for morality that transcends human understanding, adhering to this cosmic morality is merely sensible and practical.
Not necessarily. You presume an enforcement mechanism of some kind.
Dagonee
Posted by David Bowles (Member # 1021) on :
Dagonee, this is a very ancient subject with Tom, Irami and others, so I kind of used a short-hand expression to mean "in every other discussion we've ever had, you've failed to provide any convincing proof that there is a transcendent moral code apart from one handed down from on High, which you know I'd reject because I'm an atheist."
Sorry for the confusion.
And you, Irami, show me where this moral code exists. What is the transcendental measuring stick that isn't rooted in arbitrary human definitions and systems? I don't think you know of one. I think you *believe* in one, and that's nice and all, but if you're going to convince anyone else that your moral code is "objectively better" you'll have to start by proving that such a thing is possible.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
If you put the Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals and fill in the gaps with the Critique of Pure Reason, you get a trancendental deduction of morals that is dependent upon the constitution of human reason.
It's not a matter of belief or faith in anything. You do have to accept beings, though, as in, "I'm sitting at a chair" as distinction from, "I'm sitting at an organization of atoms." Not that there is anything wrong with the latter sentence, it just doesn't tell you anything about what it is to be a chair.
[ February 15, 2005, 01:31 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
David, you're confusing truth with proof.
Whether or not anyone can prove the existence of an absolute moral code doesn't alter whether or not their is one.
Dagonee
Posted by David Bowles (Member # 1021) on :
Dagonee, I'm afraid that just won't fly with me. Why should I live by a code that you assert exists, but which you can't be bothered to show to me?
Irami, the fact that this "trancendental deduction of morals" is "dependent upon the constitution of human reason" is the very problem. Human reason is not transcendental. I will cede that it is a sensible tool for establishing human morality, but that doesn't make morality any more reified and transcendent than basing it on divine revelation or historical trends.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Dagonee, I'm afraid that just won't fly with me. Why should I live by a code that you assert exists, but which you can't be bothered to show to me?
I'm not asking you to do that. We're talking about the nature of reality, not trying to decide which particular moral theory is correct. If there is an overarching objective Morality, you and I chopping logic doesn't change the nature of that truth.
Dagonee
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Irami, I'd hesitate to accept Kant's reasoning, especially as a starting place; his assumption that good intentions are in fact the definition of good has always seemed too much like a tautology to me.
"Not necessarily. You presume an enforcement mechanism of some kind."
Nope. I assume that this cosmic morality provides a genuine benefit. If it does not, then it's largely irrelevant.
[ February 15, 2005, 01:53 PM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Nope. I assume that this cosmic morality provides a genuine benefit. If it does not, then it's largely irrelevant.
A.) A genuine benefit would be an enforcement mechanism.
B.) Relevance would need to be answered using premises from within the moral system. So how could it be irrelevant?
Dagonee
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"Relevance would need to be answered using premises from within the moral system. So how could it be irrelevant?"
If you can answer the question of relevance using premises from within the system, the system is not one of "cosmic morality" at all.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Only if you think a cosmic system of morality is subject to Godel's theorem.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Can you explain how it wouldn't be? I mean, we're basically talking about axiomatic systems here, right? Even if you're positing the existence of a non-axiomatic system, that assumption is an axiom itself.
Seriously, in this case, it ceases to be "cosmic" once it becomes of practical application.
[ February 15, 2005, 02:01 PM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
A cosmic or overarching absolute Morality would contain within it the ability to answer every question of what a person should do given a particular set of facts.
The relvance doesn't depend on whether the courses of action it advocates provides you with a benefit.
Dagonee
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"The relvance doesn't depend on whether the courses of action it advocates provides you with a benefit."
Hm. I think here we start getting into the definition of "benefit." Since we have to use the system itself to produce this concept, surely the fact that you should do it means that it is, by the definition of the system, beneficial? It may not be immediately beneficial to you, but there is a benefit nonetheless within the definition used by the system.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
OK, then I think you're original contention that this is "utilitarian" is largely pointless, because by that definition all morality would be "utilitarian."
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
I think most people who subscribe to Utilitarianism would argue that all morality is in this sense utilitarian. That they are right does not, however, mean that Utilitarianism is necessarily a superior form of morality.
The distinction you're making -- that in a system of "cosmic" morality the mere mortals subscribing to that system cannot perceive the benefit -- is a valid one. That doesn't mean that they don't still have faith in a benefit, however.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Oh, I agree with that.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:That doesn't mean that they don't still have faith in a benefit, however.
<--- understands universal morality without faith in a payoff.
[ February 15, 2005, 02:22 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"understands universal morality without faith in a payoff."
What use is morality without a payoff, Irami? Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
Acting in accordance with the moral law is its own end, not for the sake of some other payoff. If you are itching for something, I can give you the dignity of man, but then, that's another tautology as the dignity of man is concomitant with acting in accordance with the moral law.
[ February 15, 2005, 02:31 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Then that end is the payoff.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
You're quoting Kant, but it's worth noting that Kant provided a reason for why he felt that acting in accordance with moral law was itself the highest moral law. And that reason is, in fact, a payoff.
Let's see if I remember my old philosophy classes:
Postulate One: All things go bad except good intentions. Conclusion One: Good intentions are the purest form of good, since unlike any form of action they cannot go bad or produce anything bad in and of themselves.
But, then, what constitutes a good intention? Kant replies that a "good" intention is one that is mindful of the duty a person owes to humanity and the universe in general, this duty being an inherent moral reality. Which is, of course, where Kant breaks down into "because I said so," making the whole rest of the discussion pointless.
[ February 15, 2005, 02:35 PM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
You guys are so hungry for a payoff, man, everything has to have an angle.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
That's very rude, Irami, and unjustified by what either of us is saying.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Satisfying one's sense of duty to the universe IS a payoff, Irami. Moreover, if like Kant you believe that the universe benefits from this sacrifice, there's a further payoff down the line.
[ February 15, 2005, 02:36 PM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by David Bowles (Member # 1021) on :
Irami, I dig your responsibility/duty-based notion of morality. I understand its source, have been trained in its evolution within philosophy, blah blah blah. I even, on a personal level, try to incorporate elements of it in my personal morality (hence my profession). HOWEVER, duty is not cosmic or transcendental, because human society and culture defines what duty is. In fact, the concept makes little sense beyond the confines of society and its codes. So, once again, though I am behind you one-hundred per cent in your centering your morals on duty, you are in an untenable position if you wish to convince anyone that they ought to do the same because cosmically that's what people "ought" to do, because every one of these arguments has boiled down to the cold hard fact that there is no "ought" without a transcendental being doling it out.
Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
I'd just like to mention that this is some old-school rip-roaring Hatrack discussion here. We're talking ca. 2001.
*tears up, enjoying the nostalgia*
-Bok
EDIT: This post is also to mention that there are people followign this thread
[ February 15, 2005, 03:43 PM: Message edited by: Bokonon ]
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
quote:But, then, what constitutes a good intention? Kant replies that a "good" intention is one that is mindful of the duty a person owes to humanity and the universe in general, this duty being an inherent moral reality. Which is, of course, where Kant breaks down into "because I said so," making the whole rest of the discussion pointless.
The is more to Kant's defintiion of the good than this. He argues that the good can be derived from the nature of rationality -- that is, that within defining what it means to be rational is contained all the axioms to establish all moral duties. "The pre-eminent good which we call moral can therefore consist in nothing else than the conception of law in itself, which certainly is only possible in a rational being, in so far as this conception, and not the expected effect, determines the will."
You can argue with Kant over whether goodness should be tied to rationality, but that's a step removed from "it's good because I say it is." Rather, "it's good because to do otherwise would be irrational, and that which is rational is moral."
[Rereading this, the question comes to mind: WHat's the difference, and why should anyone draw the distinction? I think it's a matter of (for me) wanting to appreciate the richness of a moral theory (religious or secular) and feeling physical pain at seeing Kant's theory reduced to a soundbie format. That is a personal pain, though, likely driven by my own desire not to have wasted 3 year of my life. *grin]
[ February 15, 2005, 03:56 PM: Message edited by: ClaudiaTherese ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"that which is rational is moral"
*nod* Which is, again, "because I say so." Especially when he defines "rational" as "in accordance with moral law, which is defined as all those things which are rational." This is why I used the term "tautology" a bit earlier.
I've always been unimpressed with Kant's argument, to be honest. It's not that I disagree with his sense of the importance of the intention, but rather that "the will" even as a motivating factor is not itself a moral force.
[ February 15, 2005, 03:59 PM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
I have edited with my confession of my own vested interest, Tom. Still, I'd argue that the extra steps shouldn't be left out. There is arbitrariness, but at another level.
I was not impressed by Kant until having to write my third or fourth contra-paper. By arguing against him repeatedly, I came to appreciate the theory more. This may, however, be a form of self-delusion akin to belief-based self-hypnosis. That is, maybe I read the "holy text" so many times and with a mind and heart so open to it that conversion was inevitable.
[ February 15, 2005, 04:00 PM: Message edited by: ClaudiaTherese ]
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
(I am also at another conference and although it is useful and interesting stuff, my brain is turning to pudding.)
Posted by David Bowles (Member # 1021) on :
It certainly is a useful starting point, but things will quickly get mucked up if you then try to go from there to claim rationality per force, because of its transcendental importance "ought" to be the basis of morality. Rationality is, at bottom, an epistemological approach (granted, it's the one that most accurately can predict and report actions in the physical world). To take this "way of knowing" and reify it (or even use it as ontological framework, like a moral code, for example) is just fine, but there isn't any REQUIREMENT that we do so. What I am challenging people to demonstrate is why a particular moral code MUST be based on (take your pick) rationality, utility, divine revelation, responsibility, etc. No one has ever answered this to my satisfaction, unfortunately, not Kant, not Aristotle, not Irami.
[ February 15, 2005, 04:03 PM: Message edited by: David Bowles ]
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
Here is Kant's leap of faith, I think. I'd argue that he sees our rationality as that part of us which was made in God's image.
I don't take that leap, myself, but I do think rationality has to base intercontextual human moral systems, as it is the only method which bridges human contexts. (Of course, there are human cultures which do not value rationality, but rather privilege other ways of knowing (intuition, direct enlightenment, etc.), but I don't see how there can be a bridge between differing non-rational approaches.) Thus I'd argue that it [best] meets Tom's minimal unit test for maximizing usefulness, [a least provisionally].
So to speak.
[ February 15, 2005, 04:11 PM: Message edited by: ClaudiaTherese ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
I think Descartes tried, David, by arguing that rationality is the one thing we can be sure exists, since merely being able to ask the question demonstrates its existence.
The downside, of course, is that what Kant means by "rationality" is actually "practicality," and I think the Utilitarians handle practicality arguments a bit better.
(Edit: hey, CT and I said the same thing in a completely different way. *laugh*)
[ February 15, 2005, 04:10 PM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
" Rationality is, at bottom, an epistemological approach (granted, it's the one that most accurately can predict and report actions in the physical world)."
"What I am challenging people to demonstrate is why a particular moral code MUST be based on (take your pick) rationality, utility, divine revelation, responsibility, etc."
Any moral code that values acting in accordance with actual events (a set of particular moral codes) must be based on rationality, because rationality is, as you stated, the best method for predicting and reporting actual events.
[ February 15, 2005, 04:21 PM: Message edited by: Paul Goldner ]
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
quote:The downside, of course, is that what Kant means by "rationality" is actually "practicality,"
How so? *interested
[Edit: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're always going off and saying the same thing differently, Tom. You know that. The only difference is, you also have the mad music and IT skillz. *shakes fist in jealous rage]
[ February 15, 2005, 04:12 PM: Message edited by: ClaudiaTherese ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Because the implication of "rationality" being the equivalent of "moral law" is that the rational choice -- in other words, the choice that someone with perfect knowledge and perfect intention would make -- is also the practical choice. A "rational" approach to morality would seem to me to argue that certain behaviors should be self-evident by a form of "natural law," which if perfectly understood produces perfect intention -- even if perfect behavior is somehow impossible. And awareness of the impossibility of perfect behavior, once it informs the perfect intention, produces practicality.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
I'm not sure I could reduce the various formulations of the categorical imperative to [mere] practicality, though. Sure, that which can serve as a moral action must be informed by practicality, but I don't think it reduces to it.
I'll try to work it out in my head, though, and see if I can swing the reduction for the various formulations.
(I so miss philosophy! What a lovely thread. Thank you all for a delightful and stimulating conversation. Back to conferencing for me.)
[ February 15, 2005, 04:20 PM: Message edited by: ClaudiaTherese ]
Posted by David Bowles (Member # 1021) on :
quote:Any moral code that values acting in accordance with actual events (a set of particular moral codes) must be based on rationality, because rationality is, as you stated, the best method for predicting and reporting actual events.
Okay, now we're getting somewhere. Kind of. Of course what we need to address at this point is why morality needs to be based on an epistemology that's good at reporting with verisimilitude. What is it about morality that requires the most accurate picture of the world? Is it that morality governs our interactions with that world?
Do we want to say that, given that morality governs human interactions with a world peopled with real objects, that moral code is "objectively better" which can accurately observe, record and respond to those objects with verisimilitude? Does anyone have a major objection to that wording?
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
Nope. I think 3 or 4 years ago in a conversation with my mother, I said that any action that is not taken in accordance with what is true can not be a morally correct action. While I don't actually believe that completely anymore, I think its true ENOUGH that I agree with your statement.
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
(Though I suppose I should point out for newer members, that the last time David and I argued about meta-ethics, we realized we actually have approximately teh same position).
Posted by David Bowles (Member # 1021) on :
Which at first baffled many people, and continues to be a source of worry for others, especially those whose faith in my intelligence was shaken by my voting for Bush, heh.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
This stuff about ethics is interesting to me (obviously, or else I'd be in a different line of work). But I wonder how crucial it is to answering the entire question posed by Geoff Card.
Geoff's question seemed to be in two parts:
(i) Is there objective right/wrong? (ii) To what extent should right/wrong influence laws?
My own answer to (i) is definitely "yes," but I'm unsure about the details. Ethics is tricky business, especially if one doesn't believe in God. Kantian or utilitarian systems have their appeal, but each is frought with problems. Evolutionary systems, or the idea that morality is "biologically/socially natural," seem to miss the point. If we encountered a race of beings that had evolved a different (evil) moral code, we could surely be justified in criticizing them.
But a crucial part of Geoff's position seems to be question (ii). He feels that liberals will answer "no" to (i), and thereby have to leave morality out of the law entirely. But surely no one believes this. The question is about the function of government. Is government supposed to enforce moral right and wrong in general, or merely certain specific moral laws?
Conservatives might want to say that the law is meant to enforce all of morality. But I don't think anyone really believes that. Some important, and universal, moral principles are left out of the law. A great example is lying. Unlike with abortion, or assisted suicide, people as a whole agree that lying is wrong, especially in important situations. Cheating on one's spouse is wrong. One can even harm people by lying -- lying about an affair can ruin a marriage and destroy your spouse's life. But I've never seen anyone argue that lying should be illegal, or that cheating on a lover or spouse should be illegal. Such things are just outside of the government's function.
So what is the government's function? I tend to think it has more to do with protecting our liberties than with enforcing moral right and wrong. This, and not moral relativism (which I profoundly reject), is why I count myself a liberal.
Posted by David Bowles (Member # 1021) on :
Yes, good idea. Let's go back to the initial questions.
(i) Is there objective right/wrong? No. There is a very nearly (read: virtually) objective right and wrong that is extremely nuanced in having derived from biological, social and mental exigencies (in the latter case, rationality being the prime element) and the weight of historical practice. It might as well be objective, as it's as close as we're likely to get (we'll keep tweaking and refining it, of course). The ancient Greeks might have called this "commonplace ethics."
(ii) To what extent should right/wrong influence laws? Well, that's a toughie, isn't it? Laws, I think, are about maintaining the social ontology a group of people has chosen to live by (a contract with a series of rights and protections, etc.). It will overlap with the moral systems of the people in some spots; in others it will ignore those ethical strictures and focus on other elements.
To me the "bad" kind of conservative wants to make the laws line up *exclusively* with a particular moral code, while the "bad" kind of liberal wants to make them independent of any moral code (which is about the same thing). Luckily, they are the minority. Good liberals, conservatives and moderates all want to strike a balance: they differ as to what that balance should be, however.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Destineer, adultery laws are still enforced even today, although rarely. And there are certainly people who argue they should be.
Certainly, in many states, adultery is civilly punished by the law in divorce proceedings.
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
Sure, but should adultery be punished as a sexual crime, or as a contractual crime?
Posted by David Bowles (Member # 1021) on :
Exactly. It is a contractual crime. We can't prosecute people for the violation of a moral code: we'd be the Taliban if we did.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
<unfair nitpick alert>
There are no contractual crimes*.
To answer seriously, fornication and sodomy were crimes that have been enforced fairly recently, although since Lawrence, no more. Adultery as a crime may survive, and if it does the contract-like aspect of marriage will likely by a critical reason.
Dagonee *In the sense of violating a contract being a crime, which is how I interpreted your usage. There are contracts that the mere entering into may constitute a crime.
Posted by David Bowles (Member # 1021) on :
Dagonee, as I've said, law and morality do occasionally intersect, and there will be laws that attempt to legislate morality rather than sustain the fabric of a society. We aren't debating their existence, but whether they ought to continue to exist and whether we ought to continue making such laws.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I was responding specifically to Destineer's claim that few people are interested in enforcing (edit: some very specific) laws, not the desirability of doing so.
And my second post was just law-geek humor.
Dagonee
[ February 15, 2005, 07:26 PM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
"Destineer, adultery laws are still enforced even today, although rarely."
I think this indicates that many people aren't really interested in enforcing those laws, as he stated.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
My point was just this: you might think that our laws are meant to enforce all the moral codes we believe in, or you might think the law is meant to enforce only those moral codes we can all mostly agree upon. I think everyone should agree that neither of these goals is the aim of our laws. Almost everyone agrees that certain forms of interpersonal behavior, such as cutting off contact with your parents for no good reason, or humiliating someone who doesn't deserve it, are morally wrong. But no one wants to pass laws against these sorts of behavior.
Nor should anyone want to make these things illegal. The point of the law isn't to enforce the true morality, nor is it to enforce the morality everyone can agree on. It has some other purpose -- perhaps some communitarian purpose along the lines David Bowles suggested, or perhaps some more libertarian purpose like what I was saying before.
Posted by mothertree (Member # 4999) on :
I think adultery is a crime no one wants to punish until it happens to them, maybe.
In terms of payoff, I know that in "Mormonism" at least, morality for the sake of a payoff doesn't do the person any good. I'm pretty sure this view is supported in the New Testament as well. By acting morally without the proper intent (love of God) we may have some okay effects of not hurting people so much but it is preferable to have true heartfelt intent. To me, morality means being motivated by some sense of good higher than the self- even if not God, it could be society or reason. But the idea is to have a standard of conduct that is not ruled by immediate circumstances, because it makes free will irrelevant.
When it comes to economic assistance policy, I recognize that the scriptures are very concerned that we assist those less fortunate than us, since everything we have comes from God. But the scriptures don't really deal with the idea of a government that collects from all to dispense (after its own operating expenses are met) to the less fortunate. For such a system to meet my standard of morality, government employees would also have to exist on a level of compensation equal or lower than ANY who are being required to pay into the system. For welfare needs. Common defence is another matter, but would ideally be modest enough that no one profits from perpetuating war.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: In terms of payoff, I know that in "Mormonism" at least, morality for the sake of a payoff doesn't do the person any good.
This left me rolling on the floor in near-hysterics. Did you intend for it to be funny?
--------
"For such a system to meet my standard of morality, government employees would also have to exist on a level of compensation equal or lower than ANY who are being required to pay into the system."
Why? Do you honestly believe that policemen, firemen, postmen, psychiatric councilors and the like should be maintained at subsistence levels because our taxes -- and their taxes, mind you; they pay taxes, too -- go to their salaries?
[ February 16, 2005, 10:58 AM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by AntiCool (Member # 7386) on :
I don't see any humor in it.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
If you were cool, you would.
Posted by AntiCool (Member # 7386) on :
It's the story of my life, man.
Posted by mothertree (Member # 4999) on :
No, I wasn't being funny. It seems you are confusing first cause and last cause. Given that the Mormon view of eternity is continuing to work and produce rather than rest and reward, I'm not even sure I am up for it a lot of days. I mean, I don't even want to do the work I have here on earth.
Of all the helping professions you mention, who deserves to be less well compensated? If you aren't a free market capitalist, that is. (clarify who in general, not who among those professions. If you are a ditch digger, are you less valuable to society than the psychiatrist? Generally, I'd say not.)
[ February 16, 2005, 11:03 AM: Message edited by: mothertree ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: No, I wasn't being funny. It seems you are confusing first cause and last cause. Given that the Mormon view of eternity is continuing to work and produce rather than rest and reward, I'm not even sure I am up for it a lot of days.
*whispers* You may want to check out the idea of "payoff" again. Trust me: Mormonism has one, too.
Posted by AntiCool (Member # 7386) on :
I think she's saying that if your purpose in doing it is to receive the payoff, you end up not getting the payoff.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Which is, of course, just another rule that must be met to get the payoff.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
I'd say that as a human being, you have an intrinsic value to humanity; as a ditch digger or psychiatrist, less so.
Posted by mothertree (Member # 4999) on :
I guess I don't know what you mean by payoff.
Posted by Jenny Gardener (Member # 903) on :
In college, I took a science and ethics class. We had long sheets to fill out to determine values, find options, and weigh them. Solutions that would work well for one person or group would not work well for another. But it brought into stark reality just how fuzzy the ideas of good and evil are. Does the good of the many outweigh the needs of the few? Or is it the other way around? The honest answer is usually, "It depends...".
Ethics are not simple. I have learned in my life that it is important to gather as much information as possible, realize that you will never have enough to fully know whether you chose rightly, keep your ultimate goals and beliefs about yourself in mind, and then come up with several acceptable options. Choose one. And live with it and its consequences.
Perspective is crucial. There are stories like that.. "That's good. No, that's bad..." so you must do the best you can from where you are.
I try to make my decisions based on the kind of world I want to live in.
Posted by mothertree (Member # 4999) on :
I assert that there is nothing "good" about doing something I prefer, that only benefits me. That is receiving a payoff for my behavior. I have my reward. I can call it good, but need not insist anyone else do so. If I make a choice that benefits another, that begins to be good. If I make a choice that benefits many, I guess that would be gooder.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"I guess I don't know what you mean by payoff."
Sure you do. It's a reward -- either garnered by you personally or society at large -- that's a consequence of sticking to a certain ethical system.
In the Mormon ethical system, one of the rules is that you can't consciously behave a certain way only because you want the reward. That doesn't mean that it's not still a reward. In fact, the mere fact that you mentioned that rewards only go to people who aren't consciously working towards them indicates that it's exactly the same sort of payoff system, albeit with a nasty Catch-22 built right in. (That's why I found it funny.)
Consider what you've just said: if you make a choice that benefits yourself, it's not good. If you make a choice that only benefits someone else, that's better. But if you make a choice that only benefits someone else in the short term with the full awareness and expectation that it adds to your "good points" and makes it likely that you'll get a reward down the line, that ceases to be good again. To you, then, it's the motivation behind the act that determines how good it is -- which is very Kantian, by the way -- and you equate "goodness" with "altruism." Neither of these two things are inherently givens; they're products of a belief system to which you already adhere.
[ February 16, 2005, 11:59 AM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
I think Tom may have meant payoff, as in 'eternal payoff after death.'
EDITED: Then again, maybe not.
[ February 16, 2005, 11:58 AM: Message edited by: Scott R ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
A payoff after death or a payoff before death is still a payoff, especially given the way Mormons look at the afterlife.
Posted by mothertree (Member # 4999) on :
But I don't know what the payoff will be. Trusting that it won't be something horrible is part of my relationship with God. I mean, a forever family? Think about that. Half the people don't even want to spend this life with their family. To mangle Sartre, "heaven is other people".
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
I thought that was Nietsche?
And I KNOW I spelled that wrong.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Nope. It was Sartre.
But if you really believe, for example, that you don't want to get stuck with your relatives in the afterlive, and yet believe that continuing on your present course will produce that result, why do you do it? What benefit do you actually expect?
Posted by AntiCool (Member # 7386) on :
She probably trusts that being with her family will be heaven, even though it might not seem like it when she's with her mortal and fallible family.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Oh, I'LL be there. But THEY won't. Heh, heh.
Posted by Xaposert (Member # 1612) on :
quote:When I use the word "arbitrary" in this context, I don't actually mean to suggest that these decisions are made completely at random, based on a whim or the roll of a die. What I mean is that they are decided on the basis of factors OTHER than logic or empirical evidence. Such a nebulous ideal as "the right thing for a human to do" is impossible to completely nail down to a hard, scientific foundation, and because of that, to some degree or another, unprovable human judgment must enter into the equation. Such judgments are, by their nature, arbitrary.
That last sentence is the crux of this problem, and (I believe) one of the most dangerous popular postmodern beliefs out there. I have warned in the past about relativism and any other belief system that contains the notion of human judgement as arbitrary should fall under that warning too. Here's why:
The only things that matter [i]directly[i/] to us in the world are the nonmaterial, nonscientific, matter of human judgement - happiness, suffering, love, rightness, wrongness, etc. Other things matter, but only indirectly. For example, the laws of physics might matter, but only because understanding the laws of physics will result in more happiness, a better society, more goodness in the world. Furthermore, because these are the only things that matter to us, we base all our decisions upon these matters of human judgement. Everything we do is, in fact, dictated by what we judge to be valuable.
But, if what is valuable is arbitrary, not based upon logic or empiricism, then there is no right answer in regards to what we should value. Even more than that, there is not even any way to TALK about what we should value, because there is no objective foundation from which two different people can share to jointly come to a conclusion. All arguments about what is good or bad end up being no more productive than arguments about which flavor of ice cream tastes the best. Thus, discussions about values are not useful, and are even offensive. (After all, if your views are as arbitrary as mine, where do you get off telling me my views are wrong?)
This is fine when it comes to individual decisions like the best flavor of ice cream to buy at the store. But when it comes to national decisions, we must agree on what to do, and thus must also agree on what to value. In a democracy, we base this decision on numbers, but we do so with the assumption that people will discuss ideas with one another and that the best values will naturally rise to the top. If values are arbitrary, however, then that makes no sense. If values are arbitrary then there is no best value system, and there is no way to dicuss which values are best. The best will not rise to the top, and instead, some arbitrary value system will rise to the top, based on which population groups have the most babies, or what ideas get the most media attention, or what is taught in schools.
This is bad! And the reason it is bad is that there IS a best values system, and it is observable. It may not be provable to those intent on rejecting it, in the way that "pain hurts" could never be proven to someone intent on arguing their pain doesn't hurt, but it is nevertheless observable in a similar way that we observe that our pain hurts. I can see, quite clearly, that killing an innocent to steal from them is morally wrong, and so can you.
But our society has bought into the alternative theory - that there is no best, that there is only most popular. And this means the best will not rise to the top.
Getting back to this thread, I think the things Geoff was talking about are methods to artificially circumvent that problem. Liberals and conservatives instintively feel like there is a 'best' moral system, and they want THEIR morals to rise to the top, even if they consciously believe at the same time that there really is no best morality. And so, they try to justify their views without appealing to being the best morality, by skipping over that part of the argument. They say "X is more healthy", which actually means "X is more healthy and health is good", but by simply equating health and goodness, they avoid having to make the more difficult moral judgement. By not raising the question, most of the audience will assume the conclusion they want, and not bother questioning it.
It is a rhetorical device, and a slightly dishonest one I think. It is also one that is by no means exclusively liberal. Conservatives might say things like this:
"Flag burning is un-American, so let's ban it!"
In this case, "un-American" is a replacement for good and evil, just like "unhealthy" was. So, it is not something that splits liberals and conservatives. Liberals may be a little more concerned with avoiding good and evil than conservatives, because they tend to be more in touch with postmodern relativist styles of thought, but it is something that is rampant in both Red and Blue America.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:I can see, quite clearly, that killing an innocent to steal from them is morally wrong, and so can you.
Xap, any moral theory can handle the easy cases. Can you see quite clearly that economic policy X is morally wrong?
Most of the difficulty isn't in judging what an individual person should do in a particular situation, although there is widespread disagreement about certain types of behavior in such situations. The true difficulty arises when we try to decide how much compulsion should be used to try to get others to the right thing, or how society should be structured so that moral wrong X happens less frequently.
The tricky part is that people of good will and intent can radically disagree about millions of such individual decisions. Throw in different beliefs about non-moral issues, such as the effect of tax cuts, or the root causes of poverty, and you have an almost infinite number of possibilities, all stemming from very similar understandings of the same basic morality.
Dagonee
Posted by David Bowles (Member # 1021) on :
Tres! I was wondering when you and your qualia would come around...
quote:This is bad! And the reason it is bad is that there IS a best values system, and it is observable.
Okay, show it to me.
quote:It may not be provable to those intent on rejecting it
"The invisible, immaterial dragon in my garage may not be provable to those intent on rejecting it."
quote:in the way that "pain hurts" could never be proven to someone intent on arguing their pain doesn't hurt
Of course pain hurts. Your nerves shoot a message to your brain informing it of damage. This intense message causes your brain to send a message to the muscles what ever extremity is being damaged, jerking them away from the probable source of the damage. Our conscious mind reflects on this, often over and over. The nerves may continue signalling that the damage has been done and the extremity is no longer whole. A host of really negative ideas occur to our conscious mind as a result. This is pain. Of course, you aren't talking about such a physiological description of pain. You want pain to be some ineffable something produced in the brain. It's silly, as I've repeatedly told you.
quote:I can see, quite clearly, that killing an innocent to steal from them is morally wrong, and so can you.
Yes. But whether that "seeing" is contingent upon Platonic morals out there somewhere or upon the structure of our minds, cultures and physical environment, there is much room for debate. What is self-evident to you, that there MUST be a cosmic morality, is to me far from having been proven.
Posted by David Bowles (Member # 1021) on :
It occurs to me, Paul, that our formulation above isn't sufficient to actually evaluate moral codes, because while we might agree on rationality as a required element, different perfectly rational individuals may not agree on what actions are good or bad. So we still have to figure out what it is we are going to use as a criteria for determining what is good or bad.
Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
The flaw in the "rationality" argument is that humans, by and large, aren't rationality-driven.
They are rationale-ity-driven. Which helps explain differing results from supposed rationality.
-Bok
Posted by David Bowles (Member # 1021) on :
Well, yes, but that's not what I'm getting at. We weren't arguing that moral systems are based upon rationality, but that the *best* of them would have rationality at their core. We're talking about how to construct a moral system more than we are how to describe existing ones (though that is a necessary and worthy task as well).
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I submit that a moral system based on rationality would be more discovered than constructed.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
I agree. It also won't be uncovered by empirical studies. I don't even like the word "system."
[ February 17, 2005, 02:22 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
"t occurs to me, Paul, that our formulation above isn't sufficient to actually evaluate moral codes, because while we might agree on rationality as a required element, different perfectly rational individuals may not agree on what actions are good or bad. So we still have to figure out what it is we are going to use as a criteria for determining what is good or bad."
To me, the question to answer has always been "what is the purpose of a moral system. Why do we seem to require morality in our lives?"
Again, to me, the answer has been "to maintain a sense of stability in our lives, and prevent as many harmful interactions as possible." Where harm is defined as actions that cause physical or emotional pain or suffering.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
That's awful defensive.
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
Yes, but its pretty much the only things ethical systems have in common.
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