Carleas,
I suppose it depends on your reference frame. I view the ‘self’ as something akin to centrifugal force, where it only exists if you aren’t looking at the system from without, but rather from within.
So you don’t really know what the origin of morality is or where moral behaviour came from?
Yeah, way not to do what I asked for.
Number 4 and 6 are man-made, too, as it is man who decides what is “natural” and what is not. It is man who is the investigator. Man, the The Observer.
There are two sides of a coin, but one has to be clear about what the coin is. It’s not that one side is ‘knife’ and the other is ‘knife’s existence’.
Actually, I’d say the opposite, but first would add that the coin is not about the knife, but about how the knife exists. ‘In such-and-such a moment’ is only when the knife exists as knife-in-itself. Only in each moment. This is one side of the coin that is the true nature of its existence (not the true nature of the knife itself–because there is only a ‘knife-in-itself’ in the present moment), the other half being that it’s impermanent and dependently orginated.
I’m not into semantics, try someone else.
The origin of morality?
I would have thought it was obvious… don’t you remember how you learned to behave moraly?
Morality is a social contruct… it is the word we use to describe actions which fall under the catagory of “socialy acceptable behavior”… that’s all it is… in the schoolyard i’m sure you and your friends came to learn that if you mutualy agreed to behave nicely to one another you would all be better off for it. it’s not that difficult a conclusion to reach given intelligence.
We always beat the hell out of eash other. I don’t know if we ever learned anything but I get your point. One night I had mercy on this guy my friend beat up real bad. I broke up the fight and took the guy to the hospital. He was in real bad shape so you might say I saved his life. Where is that learned; to have mercy on someone?
I can’t quite place it… but i recall a story about a dragon or some such and a knight… something about the dragon having a splinter in it’s foot or something equally childish… at any rate… the knight pulls it out and the dragon is thankful… so later when the knight is in truble… the dragon repays the favor… and the moral of this story is?
if you help others… they will return the favor… it’s just been evolved from “owing” someone a favor… to an unspoken demonstration of quality… you elevate your own standing in society via acts of mercy. shows good will… and makes others more inclined to trust you (since apparently you are the type to help people without asking for anything in return)… in turn what you get is respect… and status as a moral and/or merciful individual.
in modern society such notions are often learned from daytime TV shows or at bible camp or whatnot… it’s a fairly popular concept “helping your fellow man” and “compassion” and “empathy”… things like “imagine you were in his shoes” (i’m sure your mother/father said that once or twice) are tools to help us function as a group… rather than individuals (because we are stronger in groups) which are now pawned off as religious virtues rather than natural human ones
It’s the good samaritan story in the bible which is about human virtue in my opinion. If one does it for show it’s meaningless but if one really does it from the heart it’s a good thing. I believe in the latter not the formal. If it’s not from the heart, it’s meaningless, imo.
I’m sure the children in afrika would disagree… Politicians/stars help them on a regular basis for the good publicity… I’m sure however that the food is just as welcome then as when it is given by honest caring people…
Imagine a society where you were shuned for showing mercy… you would be hated for lending a helping hand… even by the poor fellow you helped… in such a society… do you honestly believe that anyone would feel the desire to be merciful?
As it turns out however humans are social creatures by nature… and such a society would simply serve to unite the “unfortunate” who in turn would have no problem getting rid of the rest because they won’t help eachother…
point being… working in groups is an advantage… mercy and morality are nessisary…
Now as for “mercy for show”… it’s natural that such base notions as morality are installed in us from very early childhood… it’s not a concept we came up with ourselves and can throw away carelessly… it’s part of our peronality and we judge ourselves by the social standards we have adopted as our own… being crual would naturaly make us dislike ourselves… showing mercy… would do in turn make us feel proud…
it’s all psychological… and it makes perfect sense…
Mad Man P
That’s not what I mean when I say it, so you’re mistaken. You can’t define an aspect of reality by telling everybody what they ‘really’ mean when they use certain words. Morality has to be understood as the phenomenon that it is, which is precisely the mistake materialism often makes.
Well, that being said, what is the phenomenon? Is it just the negative feeling we get when we consider stabbing a friend in the back? It does seem to be a feeling, which makes it hard to define objectively.
And what someone means when they say whatever doesn’t really matter. Many people don’t intend anything about a cathode ray tube (or I suppose liquid crystal nowadays) when they talk about a television, but that doesn’t mean that’s not what a television is.
Ah, so you’d rather not define the terms you’re using, so you can muddle your way through ambiguities and buzzwords, and change their meanings on me?
I’m not really into bullshit, try someone else.
Carleas
Well, the first step is to see if proposed definitions justify the experience. Suppose you witness a violent and senseless act, and have the characteristic experience that leads you to believe "That was evil".
So, compare "That was something deemed unacceptable by my society". Do you think that statement or definition would adequately cover your experience of evil? If so, then that's a good definition of what your experiences of evil are. But if you feel that definition is omitting something important, then that definition is implying that your experience is somehow false or illusionary. At that point, evidence and argument must be applied- you have no de facto obligation to consider yourself duped. That's why I say 'that's not what I mean when I say it'. The 'societal acceptance' definition of morality is so different from good and evil as I experience them, that it really seems like societal acceptance is another thing altogether different from goodness.
But maybe we give to much credit to the subjectivist already. We would never define a goat as a series of things that happen to our eyes, nose, and ears. So, by saying that morality is a feeling, maybe we're already setting up the expectation of 'discovering' that it's not something very important or very real.
That settles that! LOL!!! 
The thing about materialism is this; if we can only come to conclusions based on empirical evidence then Atheistic materialism must provide evidence that the world has an objective existence and does not need to be observed. But the only way to get that evidence is to test for it and the only way to know the results of those tests is to observe them. In other words to prove materialism you would have to observe it not being observed!
But that is not why I am an idealistic Deist. This is: ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/vi … 52#1877052
This cannot be ‘proven’ by anyone, deists, materialists, atheists, etc.
We must all assume that our perception, that there is objective reality beyond us, is correct and then go from there. However, it is always an assumption.
Not bad, but not quite right either. It seems to miss the fact that we are all subjective. Any observation is subjective.
In effect, on these terms, one cannot prove ANYTHING! If empirical, subjective, observation does not ‘prove’ anything… nothing can be ‘proven’.
I agree. It is what the conversation is about. It is entirely unnecessary and unparsimonious to assume anything beyond that which we observe.
I see, smell, taste, touch, and hear things. We all assume and act upon the assumption that these things are independent of and external to each of us. It is entirely beside the point whether the material world in some way really exists or whether it is being fed chemically to my brain which may be in a vat or whether I am dreaming it. Unless a meaningful distinction can be drawn among the worlds created in those different scenarios then those worlds are essentially equivalents.
Agree. It doesn’t matter in the least that this rock in my hand which I believe to be hard, solid, roundish, brown, extended in space, etc., has these characteristics because I am dreaming it or because the rock really does have those characteristics in just the way that I believe it does UNLESS I can know that I am dreaming it. Otherwise, it’s the same thing. Such a dream WOULD BE the material world that we refer to.