Ignoring Social Precepts

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

When I brought up the question of the origin of morality there were some great points that were brought up. What was mentioned by faust is that moral sentiments come from the establishment of what is moral. He put it a lot better than I did.

This brings some questions to my head. What about all the other axioms we feel obliged to. Why do we feel bad when we are labeled as ignorant, weak, or ugly. Why do we feel good when we are labeled intelligent, strong, or beautiful. I’m not sure of how these ideals came to be. But even after I conciously acknowledge them as subjective, I still feel controlled by them. Why do I feel guilty if I steal candy from the store, even after I know these rules are only created by man. Why am I still disgusted at the thought of someone being abused.

Has anyone ever come to the point where they completely disregard all of social standards? Is the feeling of guilt rational? Is pride rational?

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You feel these things because you were taught from a very early age the concepts of good and evil. Thats why you feel bad when someone abuses you and good when someone praises you. You have been conditioned to respond in this way.

3

Well, just because you believe them to be subjective doesn’t mean that they aren’t important. Remember, morality is a human defined system, but it is one that is very important to our lives.

You still feel guilty about stealing, and disgusted by abuse because they are still wrong, even if the system was derived by mankind.

Setting aside a belief in god as the creator of morality, I don’t see any difficulty in the fact that morality is not objective. Right and wrong are uniquely human concepts and thus are not affected by their lack of objectivity. Only humans are concerned about whether or not what humans do is right or wrong (again setting god aside) so why would we expect any objective system of morality when we’re the only ones worried about it?

cheers,
gemty

4

You are controlled by them (your subjective notions, attachments, and perspectives that is). That is the nature of having an identity; you are in a certain context, and thus are defined by that context, even if your definition doesn’t apply to the rest of the universe i.e. is not objective. Furthermore, the feeling of guilt you have is created within you; you are human, why should it be wrong for a human creation to invoke another human creation?

oldphil, do you mean to say that, because of this, the feelings have less integrity or should be fought against?

5

sjstudy wrote:

Despite what you may hear on this board, humans are competitive. It’s evolutionary. They are not really ideals. “Ideal” is a loaded word in philosophy - I don’t mean to nitpick, but you are not using it in it’s technical sense, although your usage is fine for casual conversation. We want to be more beautiful than the next person, not necessarily of 'ideal" beauty. If we get upset about that, we are either deluded or a teenaged girl.

That was just a joke. Kidding.

We compete. We want the advantage. That’s why we need moral rules, by the way, to regulate that competition. It’s not right to cheat to seem more intelligent, or stronger, etc. More or less.

Axioms, in general, outside of mathemetics, are for the unphilosophical, or at least for the lazy philosopher. That wasn’t a joke. We do have knee-jerk emotional responses, based on what we are taught, as oldphil says. The good moralist seeks to examine these responses, to see if they are justified. This isn’t easy. Morality is where the grownups are seperated from the children, figuratively and literally. You are controlled by these reactions only as long as you do not examine them. Examining may not make the moral ideas go away - it’s likely to strengthen some and weaken others. Some may be jettisoned. But you will control them, rather than the other way 'round.

Get to work.

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Hello sjstudy:
The only contribution I wanted to make is that feeling guilty for stealing candy is possible within a certain context.
Suppose for example that you were very poor and very hungry and the candy store owner was very rich , prideful and greedy. Would you still then feel the sting of conscience? As I have TOLD THE STORY, you probably will not.
Often the those who feel guilty differ from those who do not by a lack of creative narration.
So good moral feelings can come from circumstance in which you are a victim. Or when you make another a victim (guilty conscience) which is why you might feel guilty stealing candy when you could have found a way to earn that candy or did not need that candy.
The other point here is also that “guilt” comes from the narrative structure of the events. That is that we can rationalise away our moral burden, whether the circumstances merit such or not. Best example in my mind at this moment are islamic martyrs and terrorists.

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omar - that is a very important point, which I would just like to repeat for emphasis - there is no morality without context. But this does not necessarily describe rationalisation. It could be that, of course. But each group has its own narrative. One man’s rationalisation is another man’s dogma.

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Hello Faustian Meister:
I hope that you’re o.k. despite the torrential rains over there bro’.
Let’s propose a couple of axioms just to advance the point.
“Sin is what is needless”
“Righteousness is necessity itself”
From here we can find other ways to say these things. I mentioned that when we are the victim of our circumstances the moral burden is discharged. If I kill a person in self defense, that is not a crime because the action was needed, was determined by circumstance and became a necessity for my own preservation.
A cold-blood kill is the same in effect but diverse in cause. It was not a necessary death.
But because people are confined to a relative stance in moral actions, what is necessary for one is needless for another. But you can be sure that the person acting has a story to tell in which he will show you the basic necessity of his action.
I love hookers in some of these talk show programs that rationalize their being hookers. “It was to pay for my college”; “it was to feed my son” and other justifications, or rationalizations that hide away the arbitrariness of their actions and make their choices determined.
They cannot feel guilty because they were victims of circumstance. They cannot feel guilty because the choices were not theirs. They feel no guilt because it was in one way or another, necessary that they perform the duties of a hooker.
Society might declare them a threat to decency! The family, Church, The wife etc. But their reply, if they spoke like me, would be:
“We cannot victimize others if we ourselves are victims”.

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Hi, omar. I am safe. Thanks for asking.

I may have mistook the scope of your comments. You are restricting yourself to contexts wherein the moral values are the same for all parties. I was speaking more in terms of moral values that are not shared - those of different groups with different rules altogether. These are all rough examples, to be sure.

These prostitutes obviously share the same values as society, for they would have no reason to rationalise otherwise. Thus is deterministic thinking, absolutist thinking, as your axioms (or any axioms) show. Which in this case is of the Christian variety. You may well feel guilt about stealing candy, however, for the story you tell is of that absolutist type. Candy is not what Jean Valjean stole. It is not necessary to steal merely because the person you steal from is rich.

My point is that there are only certain parameters within which one may act under an absolutist model. You can’t use just any rationalisation. There are rules even for rationalisations. The model used will determine just what is available for the rationaliser.

Did I ever tell you I dated a hooker? A high-priced one. She was FABulous. I didn’t feel like a victim, I can assure you. Then again, I didn’t have to pay her. She did hurt me once, but it was a learning experience.

But back to your hookers. Despite the tough talk, they probably do feel guilt. That is the emotional motive for going on Montel. That and the free advertising. But guilt is also unnecessary. Just knowing that you have broken the rules is enough to motivate you to right your actions, if you wish to, which you do if you are rationalising about them. The feelings you have about these actions, these transgressions, are extraneous. Why isn’t guilt a sin, then? I admit that I am no expert on sin. Forgot everything I knew about sin.

fausty

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I must say, I see myself entering the lines of Nihilism. At least what I know of it anyway. Would that be wrong? (Probably a paradox…considering…)

So the scrutinizing of these precepts would somehow “free” me from their authority? No matter how subjective they seem to be, has anyone ever been relieved of moral sentiments? I’m really asking…i dont know. And I mean as a result of analyzing them.

Faust, your proposition of them being based on competition is pretty convincing. What happens if everyone else realizes that? What’s would be the end result? Would we all just refute these axioms?

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Criminals?

Is guilt a desired feeling? Can one CHOOSE how one feels? If so, shouldn’t one choose a more positive feeling?

Pride is a sin, therefore not rational. I suppose.

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HB - I can tell you’ve never been a criminal. That’s a bit of an extreme characterisation for mere criminals. I think you mean sociopaths. Criminals, I mean career criminals, can still remember a child’s birthday, might still help a little old lady across the street. Let’s not get all hollywood here. Not all killers are “Natural Born”. Despite what some rationalist moralisers would have you believe, not all criminals are totally outside the glow of civilisation’s campfire.

And yes, HB, insofar as we are reacting to moral priciples, our feelings about a given type of act will change if we change the principles that we subscribe to. People really do this. Without becoming sociopaths. Or psychotic neo-Nietzscheans (although there’s always that risk!).

Pride? I never got the “pride” one. Stupid sin, if you ask me. Doesn’t even make sense.

sjstudy - Being in control of your own moral life is not the same as being free of morality - I mean to suggest that you would be the author of a morality that would unlikely differ from that which you grew up with in EVERY detail. I realise that I was not clear - scrutiny alone may produce no fruits - I meant scrutiny with an eye to re-evaluating all values, if re-evaluation is indeed required. The basis of these values would surely change, from an external one to an internal one, or you’ve wasted a lot of time. You might come out of it still thinking that randomly killing babies, for instance, is wrong.

Being free of moral sentiments, even if it were achieved, is not the same as being relieved of moral rules. “Sentiments” is a loaded word - have you been reading A. J. Ayer or something? I like to draw a distinction between a recognition of the value of moral rules and how we feel about them. Some guys take a penalty flag stoically, some guys get in the ref’s face. Flag’s a flag, though, and both guys may agree that the rule is a good one.

Yeah, we’d all think axioms are a waste of time, too general, not practical in the end. We’d realise that all we have is some version of a social contract, and we’d start negotiating and stop being so afraid of each other and of otherness. We’d see that all axioms are, at root, religious or rationalist and that there is little practical distinction from a results point of view, and jettison them in favor of more realistsic rules.

Don’t worry about that - it’ll never happen.

Nihilism? Like Nietzsche was a nihilist. Nihilism as an analytical tool, not as a way of life. Surely.

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Faust Meister:
Glad to hear you’re o.k. I hope so is my truck :confused:

— It is not necessary to steal merely because the person you steal from is rich.
O- Such necessity is in the eye of the beholder. I did not say that this necessity is objective, but subjective. Because, as you can see, no objective standard can be given in which all parties, at all times will agree with you, (instead of siding with Robin Hood), in the societies that share a common moral system a rationalization will be required by virtue of which, Necessity is “established”, at least in the minds of those that try to justify their actions rather than ask for excuses.
Remember that I use the term “Necessaary” and “necessity” in the context of moral sentiments that spark actions. It is not meant in an objective context.

— My point is that there are only certain parameters within which one may act under an absolutist model. You can’t use just any rationalisation. There are rules even for rationalisations.
O- No, not any rationalization will do. Only the ones that can convince you or others of your innocence or virginity of the heart.

— The model used will determine just what is available for the rationaliser.
O- the model is certainly important but in the greater scheme of things, moral systems are not as diverse as some may imagine. Moral systems share a common origin: Mankind. From this common origin arrive similar patterns throughout these systems and through the ages. there are tracks of biology within these systems. They vary and can be set apart in one way or another but can also be brought together in other ways. Even our judgments on the diversity or commonality between moral systems depends to the standard, which is not objective, we use to measure arbitrary qualities.
All that I just wrote is just so that I could say to you that I once knew a muslim from Morrocco. Morally, to me, he did not seem to be an “alien”. It wasn’t like I could not understand him. In fact, I understood him and his morality, and I am sorry if any muslims out there reading this disagree, but the basic difference between our system and theirs is that ours has become “modern”, while theirs has remained tied to antiquity. If you were to measure the two systems in the year, oh, 1,000 a.d, you might find more similarities than you see today.

— She did hurt me once, but it was a learning experience.
O- I hope not like Bobbit, right?

— But back to your hookers. Despite the tough talk, they probably do feel guilt. That is the emotional motive for going on Montel.
O- That and perhaps some dough. They probably feel some guilt but that is also what fuels rationalizations. Without these strategems one would have no defense against feeling guilty and would have no choice but to change proffession or inccur in a terrible emotional burden. People hate to give excuses and that is my point.

— But guilt is also unnecessary.
O- It is just what some people may feel, that is all.

— Just knowing that you have broken the rules is enough to motivate you to right your actions, if you wish to, which you do if you are rationalising about them.
O- Nope. Every rule system has “catches”. Remember that movie “Road Trip”? The guys were in the little bus they stole and were giving his friend reasons why he should not feel guilty:
“It ain’t cheating if your girlfriend is in another Zipcode!”
One I see all the time is:
“What goes on deployment stays on deployment.”
Breaking the rules is not an absolute. You might have to break a rule in order to maintain another, a fact that Jesus tried to show the Israelies of his time. While there is a rule against killing human beings, we have a higher rule of self-preservation. This is why every law that has come as of late to try to ban abortion, affirming the rule that killing is bad, also allows the exceptional case where the child should be killed if the mother’s life is in danger.
The prostitute (Yeah, we must go back to them) might accept the rule that giving sex for money, or selling your body to satisfy the sexual pleasures of old men, is bad. But they do it because they hold as a higher law to, for example, provide for their family, their child, or their own well-being, which falls under self preservation.

14

I break the law on occasion. I would think you could easily find someone who completely disregards all of social standards in prison and that’s where the idea of a criminal came to mind.

You got me thinking, though. How would it be for one to almost completely disregard all of social standards but not commit any crimes and while being a totally honest person? Someone going around eating with their hands, feet, or just putting their mouths to the plate. Skipping instead of walking. Telling people exactly what they are thinking of them. “Wow, you’re **** (insert non flattering term here)”.

Pride is the sin that got the most beautiful angel cast out of Heaven. It’s that serious. But it’s not a clear cut sin such as stealing $50 dollars from your mother’s sock drawer.

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I’m an agnostic so I don’t really think about what’s a sin. :evilfun:

But when it comes to values like etiquette, I’m completely loss at why we’re so concious about it. Take the dinner table for instance; we make up rules so that we aren’t disgusted by the way others eat. Why are we disgusted of how others eat? I don’t see animals acting that way. (There probably are…im not sure). Competitive nature cannot advocate our reaction to anothers eating habits.

I have an aut who thinks being disorganized is literally a sin. She also thinks that the fashion trends of hip-hop are literally sins. I can’t imagine an omnipotent creator of this universe, fussing over little things like this. I don’t even see how social contract came with these absurd rules that provide absolutely no advancement to society. How did we get to judge everything like that?

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omar - I cannot follow you here. You say that everyone hates to make excuses, but that everyone rationalises. What is the difference? Is a rationalisation anything more than an excuse? Sure, we can rationalise away our moral burden. My point is that this describes rationalisation alone and not morality.

sjstudy - I guess we’re lucky that your aunt isn’t god. I think when philosophers speak of the social contract, they are using this ordinary-sounding term in a technical sense. It does not include table manners per se.

I think some social animals besides humans do show something like etiquette, though. Lions, hyeneas, wolves. I may be taking some interpretive libertties. I don’t think about this much - this is usually a device by which people seek to show that morality is evolutionary, whatever that might mean. I don’t subscribe to this notion, and do indeed see eating behavior among these animals as more analogous to etiquette than to morals, anyway. What do you think?

HB - I think that Nietzsche can provide a model for a person who disregards social norms without commiting crimes. You are describing an activity - the disregarding - and not a preconceived result, however. Disregard for given values does not necessarily produce values that are different in every detail. If you puposely and arbitrarily avoid any value, you are, indeed paying attention to it.

Think of the difference between an atheist and a satanist - I wish some christians knew the difference. Since you brought the subject up. Atheists are playing a different game, but one which may, even coincidentally, have some of the same goals, ethically speaking, for instance. Satanists are playing the same game as the christians - just with different rules, designed specifically to respond to christian values.

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I see the difference between etiquette and morality. I wouldn’t have chosen the words “social contract”, but it involves the formation of rules.

I think it’s probable that rules of etiquette are more profound. It sounds crazy, but it’s easier to form rules that prevent murder because we see the obvious harm it brings to society should it continue. But why table manners? Are we just itching to make rules? What the hell is our problem?

If animals also have their own form of table manners than there is probably a logical reason for it. Call me crazy but I think they are more rational than we are.

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Sj - there are a lot of different table manners in the world. Some have a utilitarian basis. Some are just tradition. Some is generational. Some is the desire of ordinary folk to try to act in the way that they think the upper class acts. Some is the result of best-selling authors. A lot of it is crap.

That upper class - think of “Remains of the Day”. British Gentry. They were waited upon by servants. There had to be rules so that there was consistency for the staff. They had to know what to do without asking. Impressions had to be made. Life was formal. There is no good reason to bring this to the american middlclass family table. But there is no good reason why the american tabloids feature Fergie’s butt at the beach. There are reasons for etiquette - just not ones you or I might subscribe to. Read a book. Everything has a history.

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Faust Meister:
This exerpt is from John Austin’s A Plea for Excuses, which I happen to agree with and has informed my opinion.

“In general, the situation is one where someone is accused of having done something, or (if that will keep it any cleaner) where someone is said to have done something which is bad, wrong, inept, unwelcome, or in some other of the numerous possible ways untoward. Thereupon he, or someone on his behalf, will try to defend his conduct or to get him out of it.”

“One way of going about this is to admit flatly that he, X, did do that very thing, A, but to argue that it was a good thing, or the right or sensible thing, or a permissible thing to do, either in general or at least in the special circumstances of the occasion. To take this line is to justify the action, to give reason for doing it: not to say, to brazen it out, to glory in it, or the like.”

In such a case an excuse or forgiveness is not even contemplated. Even if against the current of a social rule, the person feels that they have a justification. It is not that they approve of prostitution in all cases at all times but approve of it for those who share their circumstance.

“A different way of going about it is to admit that it wasn’t a good thing to have done, but to argue that it is not quite fair or correct to say baldly ‘X did A’. We may say it isn’t fair just to say X did it; perhaps he was under somebody’s influence, or was nudged. Or, it isn’t fair to say baldly he did A; it may have been partly accidental, or an unintentional slip. Or, it isn’t fair to say he did simply A – he was really doing something quite different and A was only incidental, or he was looking at the whole thing quite differently. Naturally these arguments can be combined or overlap or run into each other.”

This is Austin’s plea, and it is a plea because it goes against the grain of our nature. In this a person recognizes the rule and the validity of the rule in his/her case. Prostitution is bad, and even bad for me, but I was seduced into the life by a person whom I thought loved me, or prostitution is bad, but it was just for that one day, that one time, for a million dollars. (the Demi Moore defense)
I guess for me the terms are different because for an excuse, one has guilt. For a justification one does not need it. For an excuse, one is trying to gain sympathy, pity, understanding that not all are perfect. For a justification, one is argumentating the rationality of their act and does so often by appealing to other rules within the system. One may present an apparent “wrong” by demonstrating the actual “right”. An excuse accepts the reality of their “wrong”, but ask for excuses because it was unintentional, by weakness or an “honest error” among other things.
To give one last allegory, a defense for a person who has killed another person might seek to justify the action: It was self-defense.
The defense could also see to present the action as unintentional: Manslaughter. This is the excuse.
That is just my opinion, of course.

20

Actually it is not just humans that have right and wrong, the animals of this world especially those that live in communities have moral standards, standards of right and wrong behavour. For them as for us these are there for survival of the community. The question then comes; Is it instinctual to develop social standards that we call morality or right and wrong. The higher order of hominids/apes have more complicated social structures and so they seem to require more complicated rules to stabilize their social enviroment. Our aquatic brethren too have complicated social orders. The higher the intelligence and if the animal is social, they will have these moral standards.

It is instinctual to survive, It is apparently instinctual for certain creatures to congregate in communities. Survival of these communities is important so, it must be instinct to create survival standards. Of course there are always loners that develop in each species of the higher intelligences. the loners are fairly interesting to study how the develop their moral standards.