Private morality and Public morality

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

Most discussions about morals and ethics, revolve
around the individual, not the collective, the society…
There is a clear ‘‘thou shall not’’ for the individual,
but not for the state/society at large…
but let us break this down…

Private morality… that is the very familiar one…
The ‘‘Ten Commandments’’ are private morals, not
public morals and that makes a difference…

The first question between private morals and public/
communal morals, is why are they so different?
The state allows itself actions that it prevents individual to
do on their own… the conservative holds that the
state takes into its own hands what properly should
be done by the individual…the state has '‘usurped’
power away from the individual…
In political philosophy this is a critical question…
who has the power and why do they have the power?

The state has claimed for itself power over the individual…
there are a couple of ways to look at this…
without the state keeping control, the society
at large reverts to Hobbes ‘‘war against all’’…
the ‘‘State of Nature’’ in which every individual
attempts to have power over their neighbors…
life in this ‘‘State of Nature’’ is as Hobbes put it,
‘‘Short, nasty, brutish’’… the very civilization that
we are so proud of, is in fact a repudiation of
Hobbes ''State of Nature"… a war of all against all…

Whereas the technical, modern world is the result of cooperation
between individuals and individuals and the individual
and the state…Every single step of our modern world comes
from the cooperation of people…but this cooperation requires,
demands that people have some sort of rules, morals
that allows this cooperation…a game can only be
played is if everyone plays the same game with the same rules/morals…
the State/society has the same thing going on… it can only
be successful if, if everyone plays the same game, the same way…
Which is just another definition of ‘‘Justice’’…

But has mentioned, the state claims for itself, powers
and exclusion of rules that keep the individual player
powerless… for example, the state claims for itself
the exclusive power to punish criminal behavior…
up to the point of capital punishment…

But on what basis can the state claims powers and
exclusions that it denies individuals? What is
the rational for allowing the state powers and exclusions
that it denies the individual?

One of the reasons is this very ‘‘State of Nature’’ of Hobbes…
to avoid this, the state proclaims itself ‘‘sole’’ possessor
of the right to punish, the right to declare war, the right to tax,
the right to enforce laws, the right to capital punishment…
These acts and more are the sole right of the state…
but does the state also have ethical, moral duties to
perform, fulfill?

The ‘‘United States Constitution’’ is the format for
the ethics and morals of the United States…The do’s
and don’ts that the official government can or cannot perform…
The Constitution is to the United States as laws are to us…

Now note a couple of things, one, the laws, the Constitution
has no relationship to our ‘‘happiness’’, individual or collective
happiness… So, remove happiness from being a part of the
government and its morals…

But the question does arise, on what basis do we think about
morals in a state or a collective?

We tend to be egotists… we believe the world revolves
around us, imagine our surprise when that doesn’t happen?
Who works for who? does the state work for the individual or
does the individual work for the state? Marx and Capitalism
believe that the individual works for the state…
Conservatives believe that the state works for individuals…
Who has priority, the state or the individual? my own death,
while not imminent, is also on the horizon…and society/the state
will go on without me… this suggests that the state, on some
level, is a ‘‘higher’’ level than individuals…
We human beings are social beings… our very survival
depends on other human beings… we must have a tribe,
a city, state, country, in order for us to survive…
but communism and capitalism which are nihilistic,
is not the answer… and exclusive devotion to one’s tribe
is also not the answer…

so, how do we work out the ethics, morals between
the individual and the state, that allow both to succeed.
For a society to work, it must have some balance between
the state and the individual… the power must be
balanced between the two… One of the problems with
the MAGA/GOP is that they are trying to swing the power
exclusively into one direction… into the hands of the wealthy…
to create an oligarchy is the goal of the MAGA/GOP right now…
but that doesn’t change the nature of our question…
where does power lie and why should it be there instead
of another place? and what is the relationship between
the one, the individual and the state, especially when
the state has become an oligarchy.

does morals and morality change when the nature of the
government changes? is morals the same in a democracy
as it is in an oligarchy?

questions such as these should, should keep you
up at night…

Kropotkin

2

There is a negative role that the state plays
in the idea of morals… that it prevents people
from engaging in a ‘‘war against all’’ that is the
''State of Nature… but is there a positive role that
the state play in the creation and understanding
of morals?

I believe so… So let us work this out…
take the current IQ45 war on immigrants…
is deporting illegals moral and on what grounds
can we consider it moral?

I would argue that deporting illegals is not only immoral,
but quite damaging to the state at large…
On what grounds does the state demand
its claim to power? that without this power, the
state can and will collapse into a ‘‘State of Nature’’’
it is on the basis of keeping the order that the state
claims its power… I hold that by deporting illegals,
that the state actually increases the disorder and
chaos that already exists within the state…
for how can tearing apart families to deport some, but
not all, can be considered to maintain order within
the state? As I have pointed out in an earlier thread,
that the deportation of illegals will bring about
tremendous disorder within the state…
the crops will not be picked, the supply chain that keeps
our shelves stocked, will be disrupted… restaurants
will close down due to the lack of food/produce/meat
and that the reduced number of workers will so impact these
restaurants that they will close…

and where will be the benefit of deporting these illegals?
there is none to see… the State of Texas in 2019 estimated
that illegals bring in roughly 20 billion dollars in taxes…
over and above any money spent on schools, or other
entitlement programs that the illegals might benefit from…
now extend that out to the entire nation and I would guess
that over and above any money illegals may cost us,
they bring in over 100 billion dollars in tax money…
remember that when the amount of money collected
by the state gets massively reduced because of the lack
of illegals paying taxes…

But above and beyond this, is deporting illegals a ‘‘moral’’
action? I can’t say so… as I mentioned, it disrupts the city
and state, it reduces the amount of taxes the state has,
it will severely damage the supply chain that America
depends on and it will raise the cost of all produce and
meat in this country… think restaurants are expensive now,
just wait a year… a hamburger, assuming you can find one,
will be triple the cost it is today… and that by its very nature
is damaging to America… that very damage
that deporting illegal’s is why it is immoral… morals as
defined as a benefit to the state, and deporting
illegals is about the most damaging action as the state can commit…
which is the very definition of immoral… immoral is the
damage that is inflicted on the state by the actions of
people/the state/companies…

So, how does one define immoral? that which damages
the state or individuals…if it prevents people from meeting
their biological or psychological needs, it is immoral…
because it damages people… immoral is the act of
damaging people or the state… and the state, by its
actions, for example, deporting illegals, is damaging
the state and the individuals within that state…

the State that engages in acts of damaging people or tribes
within that state is immoral… for example, the Holocaust
damaged both Germany and specific groups within Germany,
that is immoral…

and so we can call actions of the state which damages people
or tribes within that state, as immoral…the current attacks on
minorities or immigrants or gays, is immoral because it is
damaging both the state and individuals within the state…
to negate people due to their religion, sexual orientation,
the style of dressing, that is nihilism and that damages
the state and the individuals within a state…to
pass laws limiting people due to their religion, sexual
orientation, their dressing is immoral because it damages
the state and the individual within that state…
One might make the argument that gays and transvestites
‘‘damage the state’’ but I yet have heard an argument that
makes this point… most arguments against ‘‘culture war’’
issues including LGBTQ, are religious based, not damaging
the state arguments…

I would go so far as to suggests that allowing full rights
and responsibilities to LGBTQ is actually improving the
state… increasing order and not disorder as the attacks
on LGBTQ rights are increasing disorder and chaos in
America… it is damaging to the state and individual
within that state to attack or diminish those rights…
for it negates individuals, and negation is nihilism…

You want a ‘‘better’’ state or society, the first step is
to have a moral state… that is to say, a state that
doesn’t diminish individuals within the state…

In other words, the state is a moral entity, no different than
I am a moral entity… and to keep the state moral, it must
not damage or diminish individuals within that state…
the state is a moral actor, exactly as we are…
and the state to remain a moral actor, it must follow
the rules established for it… that is the Constitution
and the laws that followed it…

But the state must also allow individuals within it to
engage in their own being or possibilities…
which is to say, the state should ensure that individuals
are allowed to become who they are… which is to be
cross-dressers if that is the case, or to be homosexual,
or to allow immigrants to find their own becoming…

I think this idea that the state too, is a moral actor has
been forgotten… and so, as a ‘‘moral actor’’ is
invading Greenland or Panama, is that acting moral?
it is in violation of both federal law and international laws…
and how is that acting moral?

It seems quite clear that IQ45 is acting immoral when
he threatens other sovereign states with invasion, and he is
acting immoral in the deportation of illegals and he is immoral
when he passes laws that negatively impacts gays or transexuals…
that is acting immoral because it damages both the individuals
and the state…

so, let us think about morals and ethics, both in terms
of the individual and in terms of the actions of the state…

Kropotkin

3

Ethics and politics are the same thing. Every individual is accountable to follow the rules which are summed up in the golden rule or the royal law of love. It applies equally to people in representative positions of power. For those who were given the 10 Commandments, these representatives were heads of tribes and similar family-based groupings. The judges were necessary to deal with defense. There were rules for ceremonial worship, cities of refuge to ensure fair judgment in case of accidental death. God warned them through prophets against having a king (like surrounding nations), because it moves away from the sort of family-based representation, and counsel of prophets that sought God‘s insight. When people in positions of power started to abuse it, God would smack the hammer down through the prophets, “natural” disasters, and God-directed foreign invasion. Some might say those things were considered judgments, even though they would’ve happened in a no-God world, except for the fact that they were foreseen in detail… and stuff like that. It is always because of a failure of the leadership that allows the people to revert to corruption that these judgments happen. They start doing stuff like sacrificing their kids to gods on a “state”-sanctioned level.

It’s not just a bunch of don’t do this, don’t do that. There are positive commandments, like honor your father and mother. Every positive can be translated into a negative, and vice versa.

Just because some people in power (which is every individual) think they don’t have to follow the golden rule, doesn’t mean that is actually the case. It has been foreseen. God will smack the hammer down again.

4

What a Christian thing to say.
JW believe in this kind of thing, too.

5

I don’t know, man. I don’t see what the JW source of it has to do with anything. That would be the genetic fallacy.

6

There is no such thing as private vs public ‘morality’. Good is good, bad is bad, evil is evil.

Sure there are contextually different meanings, norms and expectations. A behavior that is acceptable in private might not be socially accepted in public. But that isn’t morality, that is just regular old social norms.

7

He means private, as in a private citizen versus a public servant, not doing something in public versus doing something in private. …unless you mean public sector versus private sector.

I think that respecting social norms is a morality thing, as is changing the norms that don’t respect consent that respects consent.