Morals

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

I’ve spent a few months researching morals. Moral comes from moray meaning loosely, custom.

Right (wrong) means a straight line.

I think when we talk about right and wrong and morals we are often confused. Certainly there is an absolute right in the sense of a line between two points. In terms of value, there likely exists a right way to promote achieve or insure said value. If a value is not murdering, than murdering is not a right (straight) path to that value.

In any case, I find myself shocked at how anyone can believe in absolute morals. But then I suspect it’s a matter of sloppy language. It is always absolutely the case that I will feel child murder is not right. But to parse the language, all that actually says is its not a straight line (right) to a value I hold. What can be said of the value, other than that I hold it? Can it be said its chiseled into the black stone of space? The only place it is chiseled, is in our neurons, our customs, our empathic predominant qualities.

it is absolutely true that many of us will not want to murder children, and therefore it is absolutely not right to do so, meaning doing so would not be a straight or effective path to securing the value outcome of not murdering children.

A religious moralist says: we all agree murdering innocent children in a painful way for absolutely no
reason is always, absolutely wrong, no matter what anyone happens to feel about it. The religious argued says: how did that moral get there? It HAD to be God. (Smug expression)

Well, I’m sorry. This leaves me dumbfounded because I don’t know where to begin or how they got from a to zed.

I believe it is wrong to a number of people, most people, and maybe right to a few psychos. What more can be said? Why must anything more be said?

What scares me is the argument from morality is respected more than I would have expected. And religious people are using it.

2

Love that idea; Morals = custom. Oh do you mean customs?

I would love it if morals meant customisation, that’s right up my [individualist] street.

if someone killed Hitler as a child…? then even that moral becomes vague. that he and other ‘evil’ doers are subject to the same drives influences as everyone else, then that everything is situational. hmm I think morals even so seemingly absolute, are still relative in the main.

3

You are holding on to the moral absolute that moral absolutes are always immoral. Why are you holding on to that? When you have the answer, you will know why others are holding on to other moral absolutes.

4

not at all. I make no “moral” claim about the act of holding a belief in absolute morals.
i only make the claim that there is no is/ought distinction because ought is an incomplete concept,
needs to be modified to “ought if”, e.g. you ought to do x if you want y.

If you can say that we absolutely always want y, that’s an is, not an ought.
Believing in an absolute ought presumes an absolute common desire, which is again, an is,
then the ought merely becomes a fact of how to achieve the desire.

but desires are not fixed like math. desires are contingent and subjective, evolving, malleable, bell curved.

5

There’s some pretty bloody common ones.

And I might go a step further than that.

6

I don’t think that you understand what you are talking about:

  1. You are making a moral claim. You suggest that there is no absolute. That is an absolute in itself. Albeit a nihilistic one. The seperation between moral absolutes and the absence therof takes place in a different playing field than you are aware of, I think. It has to do with the construction of the syllogism (in this context, maybe you should read that as a thought-object). Do you have any knowledge either Frege’s thought-objects, or logic in general?

  2. Desires are always the same. Desires come to be when we deny ourselves our natural drives. Our drive points us in a cetain direction, then our superego tells us: not allowed. Then what is left is desire. The stronger the desire, the stronger the explosion upon fulfilment of the desire.

7

Somewhat, but not entirely.
Not only must there be an “ought”, as you say, but also an implied consequence; “If you do NOT want X, then you must/ought do Y.”

So there is an issue of a moral remaining an absolute because disobedience to it always brings a specific consequence, whether desired or not. The moral is still the moral, regardless of the desirability of the consequence.

The only time a moral can be not-absolute is when the moral rule can be broken without the suggested consequence occurring.

8

Alligators eat their own offspring. They cannibalize them.

Are they evil or wrong for doing so?

Can they be incarcerated or socially reformed?

Can we put alligators on anti psychotic medications?

Why are human beings exceptional in contrast to all the rest of nature?

9

If you’re asking for explanations as to why people still believe in absolute morals, here some possible ones :

Tradition : We have a long history of morals being viewed as absolute… that tradition still works on today. A lot of our culture, the way we are organised, and our languages are still form an era of a belief in absolute morals.

Human nature : All humans are babies and children first who don’t know anything about the world and how to act in society. We are also not mature enough to really understand how it all works, so parents teach their children as a matter of expedience to accept simple and absolute rules based only on their authority. That makes perfect sense then… But not everybody can outgrow that. We also have a certain innate sense of reverence for authority, which isn’t really conductive to questioning.

Absolutism is a more impressive justification : When you want to see morals followed by the whole group the justification that they came from God usually gives more weight than the fact that it is merely something other people agreed to. Why should i listen to someone just like me?

It’s just to complex : It is not simply something that can be observed and measured. Large contexts and longer periods of time need to taken into account and compared in abstract thought. There also something genuinely confusing about being a present moral actor in a society and observer/evaluator of said morals at the same time. So let’s just believe morals to be something absolute so we don’t have to think about them to much.

The whole confusion about the subjective-objective distinction : Morals are customs, or you could say something people agree to. To say customs are merely subjective is clearly false, it’s not just a matter of my subjective opinion… there’s usually a convoluted communal system of tradition and authority that goes into deciding and evolving these customs (intersubjective/convention…). Since people tend to think in opposites, it needs to be objective as it clearly isn’t subjective. And while we are at it, let’s lump in absolute and universal with objective to make the confusion complete.

The beast of relativism looming : If morals are not absolute, then they must be relative. And relative apparently means that everybody can do whatever he wants. Since we can’t have everybody thinking that, the idea that morals are relative (even if that would just mean that they are only relative to certain goals) needs to be nipped in the bud. It’s a dangourous idea that could inspire people think about morals for themselves, and we certainly can’t have that! (adam and eve eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil => forever doomed!)

10

It’s odd to me even when religious people argue for absolute morality. Wouldn’t that imply that God can’t change his mind?

That’s a bit too subjective methinks. We can at least say that some values are commonly held, binding agreements that foster mutually beneficial communities. We can also point to objective reasons why particular values are beneficial, and why some customs are so persistent and pervasive.

11

Beneficial values however never include all of the people equally across the population where it’s best to assume that laws and morality benefits a small portion of the population the most instead.

There is nothing equal in regards to laws and morality which is why the tiny few in power are the enforcing creators of both.

I dare anybody to provide an argument that laws and morality benefits all equally.

Laws and morality benefits people in position of the power the most. The trick of it all is to convince all the little people that it benefits them as well to keep them obediently in line.

12

Of course they benefit people in power the most, even if just because of the fact that laws and morality promote order and stability, and those in power are on top of that order.

And so what? This doesn’t mean laws and morality can’t also benefit those on the bottom.

But i take it, out of spite, you’d rather have nobody benefitting at all, than those in power benefitting more.

Reality and humans society will never let itself be molded into perfect equality, and so you will allways have something to rile against.

I must have said you something like this like five time over the years. And you’d think someone would get over this little fact after all those years, but i guess the force of resentment is strong in some.

13

Explain to me how morality benefits the lower segments of society. The joke of morality and laws beyond their error of inconsistency is how they’re applied unequally in the name of equality.

Something that I’ve argued for some time now.

Of course you have to mention some idiocy like resentment because it never occurs to those in power the dissatisfaction and revolt of the slaves. How dare they be so damn resentful!

14

Culture and morals rise only if there is enough of people around who desire strength. So, it depends on this wanting and is not absolutely relative. If people don’t desire anymore strength, then culture is replaced by a skill in producing pleasure, and morals are replaced by egalitarianism and compassion. The same thing we have today.

For more one checks BGE 262.

15

Morality doesn’t revolve around strength. More like mental slavery of a social variety.

16

It becomes slavery if society stops wanting strength.

Then one simply founds a new society and starts wanting strength with new people.

17

i guess thats true. you cant convince weaklings to love strength. but stronglings can be convinced to love their weaker fellows except Spartans and Comanches and the like.

thing of the past. the world is Full. people have to be weak so they dont require large spaces to act out their love.

18

Morality is a mental abstraction. It has nothing to do with strength and everything to do with mental persuasion solely derived by perpetual ignorance.

It’s useful propaganda, mind conditioning, and social engineering. Nothing more.

Strength requires no persuasion. You take what you merely want whenever you want to, no questions, statements, or mental pursuasion necessary. That’s strength or power without all the ridiculous moral qualms.

19

Object petit – your comment is irritating because I never said I don’t believe in absolutes. There is nothing circular. I’m contending no absolute morals. Why do you shorten that to “absolutes?” I also don’t believe in absolute color or absolute sarcasm. I do believe in physical laws, but even those are sometimes suspect. It is apriori true that painful things cause pain. That badness is bad. But that’s how people are talking when they choose their words to describe morals, they’re circular. I’m not.

20

Because moralists are dead shot in the water without their pretend authority on objectivism.

It’s their standard modus operandi concerning justification.

There can be no level of justification or control without it.