Maybe it’s best if you stuck to posting about what you are doing in the Mundane Babble section…
Cool man I just wanted to let you know that.
But based on your morality of well-being, Socrates could not argue against it… unless he introduced a huge negative psychological factor for the poor man. What could that factor be?
I’m not introducing anything. I’m just wondering why we have not gone in that direction if stealing from the rich is logical and rational.
Thanks, you’re wrong. Anytime you use deduction you’re working from first principles often taken as a given. And yes, when you start from those, everything else can follow with logical necessity. But those first principles are often far less certain the the stuff you begin with in induction----i.e., the stuff literally in front of your face and around you. In deduction, your argument can be a castle built on sand…
I am a river to my people.
I would reverse your statement and explain that as soon as you induct anything to reason from you’ve done the same thing and that your objection falls flat in that sense but you would probably just dismiss me and go on reciting the book.
That’s exactly what he might do. He may think that stealing harms your psyche. (Socrates had a chance to escape from his jail cell, after he had been sentenced to death. He could have moved to another city, with his family, and given up philosophy. He stayed and faced death anyways. He decided not to steal his freedom). The best thing to do is to pick up Apology and other dialogues and try to make sense of Socrates’ claim for yourself. Frankly, I don’t have all the answers.
I didn’t say that stealing from the rich is logical and rational. I said that in the case you made, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with it.
Try inductive reduction. It’s a slower process by far, like when you are exposed to a crowd, and have the time to get to know people singularly, then use elimination to figure out the relevant channels. Pretty soon you don’t have to steal glances.
Socrates was before this process, din't have the time to figuate it out (who were the ones?), or, possibly wanted to make a dramatic statement. ???
I believe he probably wouldn’t have. But I don’t think ‘knowing the full consequences of an action’ is the same thing as knowing an action is wrong. You might say “Yes but me and Socrates do,” but I’m not even sure that’s true. So let’s go with what you said- let’s suppose that Christianity in Augustine’s day really did threaten hellfire for stealing peaches, and that Augustine the boy temporarily forgot this. And let’s further say that if he remembered it, he wouldn’t have stolen the peaches. But let us FURTHER say that what Augustine does know is that if he steals the peaches, his Mom will be disappointed, his father will yell at him, perhaps lash him with a belt a couple of times. Can’t we imagine Augustine still stealing the peaches in that case? He might not be aware of hell- the magnitude of the consequences- but he’s aware of some consequences, and the thrill of doing wrong overrules them. Even if you say that the fact he’s unaware of hell preserves Socrates’ position, imagine (if you can) that there IS no hell. What then?
It seems in that case, we’ve come down to a moral calculus where we have to assume that the balance of things Augustine knows weighs stealing peaches in the ‘good’ column vs. the ‘evil’ column. I have two problems with this:
1.) It makes Socrates’ position unfalsifiable, which by itself is no big deal, but it’s ALSO counter-intuitive (there are everyday experiences in our lives we have to explain away for it to work). That’s a fatal combination, IMO.
2.) Even if it is true that everything we do, we do because we perceive it to be on the balance good for us, Augustine’s observation that we can act on an apparent zeal for the badness side of the equation still seems to be problematic for Socrates’ position: it means we have to add sentimental satisfaction to the list. In other words, we have to put “Stealing these peaches will really piss off Old Man Flavius and lol, fuck that guy” in the ‘good’ column. If that’s the case, I don’t even see how what Socrates is talking about qualifies as ‘morality’ anymore.
Also take note that Augustine didn’t want the fruit.
Yes, of course. I can imagine a person doing X because his parents said not to, and even enjoying X because of that----but that doesn’t seem like the same thing as knowing that X is wrong. Frankly, it seems like Augustine is enjoying is the exercise of his own independence, or some other benefit he sees coming to himself—and that’s not a bad thing. The point: Your case has to be a case where the person does it for no other greater reason than that it be bad for himself, and he knows it will be bad for himself. I can’t imagine Augustine stealing the peach just because it will be bad for him. I can only imagine Augustine doing something bad for him because he mistakenly thinks it’ll be good for him.
I thought the explanation of everyday experiences was pretty good, and basically required. There’s a religious hangover in our concept of how you ought to act between what’s good for you in this world, and what’s good for you in the afterlife. For Socrates, morality (how you ought to act) and prudence (how you ought to act) are the same thing—there’s no conceptual distinction, and frankly, nor should there be.
Man, if someone wants to piss off Old Man Flavius, then it’s because he thinks doing so is good for him—even if he only thinks it is good for him because it’s bad for Old Man Flavius. In other words, if someone thinks “pissing off Old Man Flavius” is good, then they are just mistaken about what is good. That’s totally compatible with the idea that nobody willingly does wrong. And doesn’t seem that hard to accept to me.
Perhaps the trouble is, that as socrates’ construction of defining good present’s a similarly daunting problem of trying to deconstruct it?
Yeah, I was getting there. Didn’t want it, had more and better fruit waiting for him at home, etc.
It is at the very least knowing that there will be serious consequences to X if one is caught, which is very close to knowing X is wrong as you’ve presented Socrates so far…
This particular instance isn’t an example of self-destructiveness, no. But we could examine plenty of those if we wanted to, right? This would be an example of theft, destruction and mayhem for it’s own sake. Does Socrates’ morality really say that theft, destruction and mayhem for it’s own sake is only bad if a person faces consequences? Augustine certainly didn’t think so- not even as a teenager, I suspect. So now we’re moving from “Nobody knowingly does wrong” to “Nobody does wrong according to Socrates’ understanding of ‘wrong’” which seems to equate to “Nobody acts against their own self-interest”.
And there’s plenty apparent examples of that too.
So it seems like right now we’re here:
According to most common understandings of right and wrong, people knowingly choose to do wrong all the time. The ‘standard model’ seems to be “People know lying is wrong, but sometimes they do it anyway when they stand to gain” or something like that.
Socrates has an understanding of right and wrong according to which people are unable (unwiling?) to ever knowingly do anything wrong.
So then, what do we have to reccomend Socrates’ understanding of morality? On the face of it, it seems to do a bad job of describing our moral experiences.
It doesn’t have to involve the afterlife at all. There’s a difference in concept between what’s good for you, and what’s good for your neighbor. Or what’s good for you, and what’s good for the greatest number. Or what’s good for you, and what’s good for your State’s grand project. Shit, the Hebrews didn’t even believe in a reward in the afterlife, and they have one of the most complex systems of right and wrong going.
That’s either something you have to demonstrate, or you’re taking it as a given, in which your presentation of Socrates is just a tautology, right?
I am too.
Morality doesn’t require that it’s coherent to someone. It’s the mechanism for discerning right and wrong in regards to an objective. If it’s not coherent to you, then you’ve no reason to embrace it.
A state of well being is also subjective, especially psychological health. Which values ought one be adjusted to? How about a morality that aims to increase the well being of pedophiles, rapists, murderers and dangerous criminals in general without interfering with their values. Is that coherent? By your standard, this morality is objective. Or is it only objective if everyone conforms to your value set on what one ought care about?
Let’s say this person is insane, and doesn’t care about others. The only happiness they feel in life, is killing others, apart from that, their existence is endless torment, ostracization and depravity. Their morality says, killing is good. Why ought they follow another’s morality if it will only bring them pain?
There’s many circumstances where goal orientated moralities do not contradict themselves. Your own morality of well being, is a goal, and is subjective, because one must first value physical health. Let’s say a person is dying of a terminal illness, and for every day they continue to live, they suffer. What value has continued physical health to them? Do you say it’s good for them to stay alive, when they’ve lived a satisfying life by their own standards, are ready to die, and want to do it with dignity without slowly enduring the breakdown of their body? What of a soldier who’s to become a prisoner of war, and be tortured to death. Is physical health good for them? Is it right that they should continue to live, with what they’re about to endure?
Your morality says, yes. Is that coherent?
When Socrates says that no one willingly does wrong, I think part of the “unwillingness” factor includes people knowing exactly the consequences of actions but still not thinking they’re going to happen. For example, I smoke knowing that smoking causes cancer, (and thus I ought not to), but if I knew that my smoking will cause cancer, I wouldn’t smoke. —That’s an instance of me doing wishful thinking with statistics----(e.g., yess, it happens, but not to me)----and yes, I believe that is an instance of ignorance (or “unwillingless”, whichjust sounds awkward).
Uh, plenty? —Why would someone tear something down unless they thought it was worth tearing down? Why would someone self-inflict pain for no other reason than that it was painful. That seems analytically incoherent. I can imagine someone who hates themself inflicting pain on themself, but not the other example…
The Socratic claim is that nobody willingly does wrong. If theft, destruction, and mayhem, are wrong, then Socrates thinks that nobody willingly does them. The issue isn’t about what makes something right or wrong----at least I don’t think it is. In other words, it seems to me that Socrates is just saying that someone committing theft, destruction, mayhem, either: (1) thinks it is good to do for some reason, or (2) is doing it unwillingly.
I equated “acting against your own self-interest” with “doing wrong”----that’s the Socratic line. And then I plugged in the former into Socrates’ claim that “nobody willingly does wrong”, to make “nobody willingly acts against their self-interest”.
The problem is that the “common understandings of right and wrong” are often incoherent, because they have one or another version of the moral split that I mentioned earlier----i.e., the distinction between prudence and morality that the ancients didn’t have, that you shouldn’t have, and which is basically bunk—a religious hangover in our conceptual framework. Only with that hangover can you fool yourself into thinking you have all these examples of people willingly doing wrong.
The explanation I gave was of how someone could willingly do wrong in one sense, but only because they thought it not wrong in a difference sense. If you prefer using this new distinction to explain that, that’s fine… I can get onboard with that.
When Socrates says that no one willingly does wrong, I think part of the “unwillingness” factor includes people knowing exactly the consequences of actions but still not thinking they’re going to happen. For example, I smoke knowing that smoking causes cancer, (and thus I ought not to), but if I knew that my smoking will cause cancer, I wouldn’t smoke. —That’s an instance of me doing wishful thinking with statistics----(e.g., yess, it happens, but not to me)----and yes, I believe that is an instance of ignorance (or “unwillingless”, whichjust sounds awkward).
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Can’t a person just be evaluating things differently? They want to smoke because they enjoy it, they think it will make them popular with some group- and knowing it causes
cancer, they simply don’t think getting cancer (maybe) several decades from now outweighs the immediate gains. Is this person necessarily wrong? I agree, what you described happens too.
Well, because it would hurt somebody else that they want to hurt. Destroying something because you know it will hurt somebody is a pretty common act, and a pretty paradigmatic example of evil in most moral systems.
I can work with that. I mean, I think Socrates is completely incorrect that wrong = against one's self-interest, but the claim "nobody willingly acts against their own self-interest" is one that I could be persuaded is true. It still seems like a pretty big leap though- there's a very wide variety of altruistic behaviors out there, anonymous and well known, large and small, up to and including giving one's life for another or for a cause, and the people doing so certainly don't always do it because they expect rewards in the afterlife. If we persue that, we're going to end up with two definitions of 'self interest'; one in which throwing yourself in front of a speeding bus to save a stranger's child is a self-interested thing to do (or else, everybody who has done so has THOUGHT they were acting self-interestedly when they did so), and a definition of self-interest in which such a thing is not a self-interested thing to do. My problem with self-interest advocates that I've talked to in the past is that they tend to end up with such a strange, unconventional definition of 'self-interest' that it seems to serve no useful purpose but to defend their position. One thing I like about Socrates though is that, as I recall, his definition is pretty fixed- we don't all get to just pick what is in our own self-interest- we can be wrong about it. So his self-interest system is much closer to a true moral system than most others I've seen.
Ya, I think you’ve successfully shown how Socrates would account for the situation Augsustine describes, sure.
So you say most people here are bad, because they may not know how to build a cathedral? Or because they don’t know anything about surgery, medicine or metallugy? Ignorence in itself isn’t bad, only when one is ignorent about moral and ethics.
Both postulations are blatantly wrong, and very ignorent.
- All evil is due to ignorance
He clearly havn’t seen soldiers in action, killing civilians due to inner sadistics needs, it’s not ignorence.
So politicians backstabbing eachother are due to ignorence?
- Nobody willingly does wrong
So child molestors, rapists, tax evators, serial killers, etc, etc just accidently did a mistake? Maybe the police would have another view.
These postulations are utterly stupid, you should be able to see it if you pulled out your head out of u’r asses.
You completely misunderstand the concept. Which is:
If they knew what was good for them, then they would not do these things. They are ignorant of what is beneficial to their own welfare.
A sadistic killer would be better off by not being a sadistic killer. If he is taught the advantages of not killing, then he won’t kill again.
No?
It’s compulsions, read about it, mr Cozy Chatter.