The Great Moral Exploitive Romanticism And Contradiction.

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

It is considered morally “unethical” to have corruption in the government.

It is considered morally “ethical” for governments to invade whole nations in war through death and slaughter as long as it is “justified” as a moral cause.

It is considered incomprehensibly morally “wrong” to rape people sexually.

It is considered alright and acceptable to make people work jobs they extremely hate through constant shame or humiliation around a sort of social molestation physically in “amoral” exploitation along with psychological bondage unto enslavement so long that the social economical distribution of whole market systems pretend to be operated by “moral” precepts by feigning “goodness” with which is considered to be majestic ideals to make specific kinds of oppressive behavior look utilitarian and pragmatic in examples of approved classism.

( To make people like cattle or livestock to be bought and sold one only needs legal permission for it is morally acceptable to make profit and capital by the government’s moral systemization of things.)

It is considered “morally” wrong to kill for personal gain and out of defiance for one’s own selfish individual interests for the sake of egoism.

It is considered “morally” justified to kill for public and governmental interests of expansion so long as it fits the population’s “moral” preferences of intolerant reaction against those it deems defiant as long as one has executive permission through political legislation.

It is considered “morally” wrong to steal other people’s property like a thief in the night.

It is considered “morally” acceptable to steal other people’s money, place of residence or property through “justified” governmental legislative means by that of taxes,debts,fines, courts, bills, and what is “legal” forms of intimidation.

It is considered “morally” wrong to threaten other people.

It is considered “morally” acceptable to hold people hostage financially or economically by that of exploitation, scarcity, the police, privation, and the fear of hunger if one has legislated permission of the government.

It is considered “morally” wrong to threaten the health of others.

It is considered “morally” acceptable for medical institutions to reject medication to people if they don’t have the money to afford medicine or because they don’t have decent health insurance.

It is considered “morally” inappropiate to not judge all men as being “equal”.

It is considered “morally” acceptable and societally “responsible” to judge people’s I.Q. in knowledge or their economical productive worth in skills to a collective standardization of economical social distribution by pointing out people’s lacking potential of what is considered a “worthy” investment economically along side with “moral” precepts through civic progressivism which consequently leads to “inequality”.

It is considered “morally” wrong to question the word of God and the State. :sunglasses:

It is considered however “morally” acceptable to say that it is everyone’s “moral duty” to obey God and the State. :sunglasses:

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[size=150]So says the moral romanticist on his ponderings and interpretations of life with all his ideal and novel preferences.

“Do as I say, Not As I Do.” “To hell with the amoral and unethical folks along with all the repercussions of the moral cause that I believe best represents all of reality.” “Just know that somehow I am right or, else.”[/size][/b]

2

Your statements sound pretty reasonable, except on this one I would change ‘amoral’ to ‘immoral’. Amorality to me connotes being outside morality’s system of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, therefore the amoral person would see the act of rape for what it is, emotionally jarring to the victim and facilitated by the perpetrator. Why does this act need to fall under ‘right and wrong’? It only does, because of the human compulsion for justification. Morality is a tough habit to break.

3

Good suggestion. In the past in these sort of conversations people have said that I am confused or nonsensical using the term “immoral” instead of “amoral”

They will say that if I describe somthing as being “immoral” one would have to be a moralist themselves, so I use amoral as a term to not set any confusion off.

I agree with you but, you know how people are with semantics in these sort of conversations. :slight_smile:

( I’ll change the word to “wrong” as the meaning can be transmitted the same.)

For sure. :slight_smile:

4

The semantics bog ILP down, but I enjoy the occasional semantical debate if one person isn’t there to ‘win’ anything. In those rare occurrences, semantics is very useful and fun…

Anyway, yeah I define things by what is ‘moral’ vs. ‘immoral’ to people while still being amoral in order to make sense of things to them. Most people seem to not understand amorality in the first place, which is actually very surprising to me since I arrived on ILP. I thought atheists/agnostics would be more accepting of amorality, but I guess my spiritual and metaphysical beliefs (i.e. the animalistic nature of humankind) are much different than the regular atheist/agnostic.

5

As a amoral atheist I find most modern atheists to be pious religious choir members chirping behind the alter of your local church.

Modern atheism is very “humanized” which is one reasons why I don’t take it too seriously.

I repect a atheist or any individual to express their mind straight out no matter how repulsive their beliefs seem to others.

6

I would say modern Atheism is more Secular than anything else. Then again, Secularism was strong when it founded America and it never really changed. It’s also never really been challenged by amorality…

Very interesting observations… :-k

7

All acts don’t need to fall under the category of right and wrong. I recently drank some tea. I made no effort, and not even the craziest Christian would make an effort to categorize this act as either moral or immoral. It’s amoral, which is a third category that is equally acceptable to humans in the classification of actions as moral and immoral are. To prove this, look at how many actions fall under the category of amoral, like playing computer, or eat Doritos, or tying your shoelace. In fact, most actions are classified without event by humans and religious systems alike as amoral. They are amoral because they may benefit the doer, but do not affect the rest of the people around him, the society. The action you are talking about, rape, could conceivably be classified as amoral if the person doing the classification had observed that it benefited the doer and didn’t affect the people around him. It doesn’t need to fall under “right and wrong”, it could go under “amoral”. However, the categorizers of the dominant moral guideline-sets of today observed (or were in some other way under the impression) that rape was detrimental to the people around the rapist, or to the structure of the society itself, and that it therefore met the criteria for being “immoral”. You could reclassify it as “moral” or “amoral”, if you want, but you can’t say that it shouldn’t be classified at all. That’s stinkin’ thinkin’. If the “morality” you’re referring to when you say “morality is a tough habit to break” is the classification of actions as “moral, immoral” or “amoral”, then you’re wrong in that you and Joker haven’t broken this habit at all, you’ve just decided to automatically classify everything as amoral.

8

I am not going to reply to this whole post until later but:

I actually agree with you on this.

Why is it that a small limited number of acts from people is deemed right or wrong while a large majority of actions are deemed arbitrary and redundant?

Sadly to say Zeus yes I know what moral arguement style your using. #-o [-X :laughing:

( I have read every arguement in support for morality already so you are going to need some new material.)

( I have done my homework,son! )

9

A small number of acts are deemed right or wrong while the majority are considered amoral because only that small number of acts have a discernible negative or positive social effect.

Good for you, goodness (and most of ILP, probably) knows I haven’t. I’m flyin’ by the seat of my pants here.

10

I see. :slight_smile: So what you really mean is that the actions of that nature are a matter of preference.

You just made my point. Congratulations. =D> =D>

I had no idea. Well apart from my amoral philosophy that I have constructed for myself I am also a emotivist when it comes to morality.

You can read more about here:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotivism

11

What do you mean, a matter of preference? That which actions you put in which categories depends on who you are and is completely arbitrary?

12

What is underlined, meaning preference

13

I was referring to people’s compulsion to inject morality into social behaviors and physical actions–into everything. I don’t see the point of doing so, when I believe that ‘morality’ itself is an outdated concept.

‘Ethics’ has replaced all my thoughts of ‘morality’, so now I don’t need morality at all in my life. I’ll leave the ‘good vs. bad’ and the ‘right vs. wrong’ for the moralists. They can have it. It’s unreasonable anyway, since it’s basically arbitrary, moral relativism. Not only that, but moralists do love their hypocrisy too! :confused:

14

I don’t get what you mean, so I’ll try again to make myself clear:

You asked “Why is it that a small limited number of acts from people is deemed right or wrong while a large majority of actions are deemed arbitrary and redundant?”. My answer is, because only a few actions actually have an easily perceivable social effect. Most actions are like making coffee, they don’t seem to have any effect on your neighbors at all. These actions are classified as amoral. Then there are actions that quite obviously make your neighbor happy and benefit him, actions like returning his lost wallet, or inviting him over to dinner and giving him food for free. These are classified as moral. And finally, there are actions that obviously make your neighbor angry and hurt him, actions like stealing from him, kicking his dog, raping his wife, etc. The reason that most actions are deemed amoral is because most actions are amoral.

So, how is this preferential? If it helps, by “social effect”, in the sentence you quoted, I meant “effect on other people”.

15

Ok, please tell me what you mean by “morality”, I believe we are working from different definitions.

16

Ethics: a system of subjective-objective ‘shoulds and should nots’ that directly and indirectly coincide with human social behaviors and evolutions. When a person should or should not act within a very specific context one way or another, it determines a person’s ethics. There is not necessarily a system of ‘good or bad’ or ‘right and wrong’ inherent in ethics by itself.

Morality: the ‘good and bad’ or ‘right and wrong’ of the world. Most people inject morality into ethics, thus: “You should do X because it is good/right and you should not do Y because it is bad/wrong.” Morality is specifically learned and developed by moral lessons, which apply to every individual, atheist, agnostic, theist, or whatever. Almost everybody believes in some morals; being truly amoral (going beyond morality or existing outside of it) is a difficult task.

17

So, an ethic is a set of guidelines on what to do in generalized categories of situations. The reasons for doing things in the way that the ethic says to are separate from the ethic itself; the ethic is just the set of guidelines, not the justifications. Is that what you’re saying?

So, in your example, “you should do X because it is good and not do y because it is bad”, the ethics are “do x”, and “do not do y”, and the morals is “because it’s good”, and “because it is bad”? Do these morals have to be as unfounded as the ones in your example? For example, if I say “you should do X because it usually yields the most beneficial results”, is “because it usually yields the most beneficial results” a moral (a moral, not amoral)?

18

Well, I would say the ethic is under a very specific context, instead of a generalized category. For example, let’s use the person drowning in a river scenario and you are there and can save this person… The ethic entirely depends on the context, because what if you can’t swim? What if the river will likely kill you both or what if it’s calm and safe for you to try? Factors like these change what a person will do and why, so ethics depend on specifics, not generalizations.

Ethics are the set of guidelines and the reasoning you use to explain them. The problem with morality, is that moral explanations are not necessary. You could say, “I decided to save that person drowning. Other people in my shoes should do the same, because it’s normal for people to empathize with other people in peril.” Or, you could even say, “You should save the drowning person if you’re perfectly able to, because there’s no reason why you should not.” In either of these responses, the reasoning does not need a moral response: “You should save the drowning person, because it’s the good/right thing to do.”

I would even respect a statement like this that adheres to the truth behind moral relativism: “I saved the drowning person, because it felt right to me.” This response allows for moral relativism, because it subjective content is confined to the person. Though, the problem with moral relativism is that it’s arbitrary–in my opinion, a better explanation is needed.

The ethics are “should do X because…” and “should not do Y because…”. The morals are “it is good” and “it is bad”. I dislike the moral judgments, because they go beyond normal explanation. They are an unnecessary part of the equation, but it is compulsory for people to insert morality into practically everything. The morals do not have to be founded, but even if you attempt to make a moral claim, within my theoretical beliefs, that moral claim will have originated from moral lessons that you were taught as a child… “Don’t hit, Billy! It’s wrong!”

The teacher is lying. Hitting isn’t ‘wrong’. The teacher just doesn’t want you to do it… :wink:

:laughing: :sunglasses: :evilfun: :-$

19

Alright, well, at least you’re sitting somewhere in the vicinity of the right track, in the same neighborhood as the train station maybe.

I think you are wrong about the ethic being in a specific context. The ethic, in this new example, is “You should save people from drowning if there isn’t any reason for you not to do so”. It’s a generalization that doesn’t require you to stop and assess the situation every time you find a person drowning, it tells you that the default action should be saving the person.

Take the ethic, “Do not kill”. It’s saying that you should not kill in most if not all situations you encounter, not that “If you’re in the house at 3999 Arbutus Street, Toronto, and you see Jimmy Bob, the son of Sally and Fred, and he’s wearing a cowboy hat, and the sink is running, don’t kill him.” The reason that ethics are generalizations is that, if you were given a list of situations in which killing was an option, and you went down the list and evaluated based on self-benefit whether you should kill or not, you’d find that in most of the situations you shouldn’t kill. So instead of trying to predict and teach a specific action for every specific situation imaginable, which is impossible, we create a generalization, an ethic, “Do not kill”, that would be correct in most situations.

Let’s take your example: I find a guy drowning in a river. Now, if I don’t have any ethics that apply to the situation, or none that I could reasonably connect to it anyway, I would have to sit by the side of the river and work out what I should do. This doesn’t usually happen, because by the time you can stand up and walk without falling down you’ve already acquired like a billion ethics, and usually at least one of them can be construed to apply to any situation you encounter. So, instead of being paralyzed by indecision, we realize that this situation has the characteristics of the archetype “somebody is in trouble”. Then, we search for ethics to do with that archetype, and find the ethic “Help others (unless you would harm yourself in the act)”. You look and see if you’d harm yourself, and remember that you can’t really swim too well, and thus decide that yes, you probably would harm yourself. So you decide not to help, through a process that took both the specifics of the situation and the ethic as arguments.

See what I’m saying? An ethic doesn’t change from situation to situation, isn’t influenced by the specifics of a situation, but affects the results of decisions are affected by the specifics of a situation.

An ethic is a generalization that states which general direction of action (run for help, kill the guy, save the guy) will be usually be correct (yielding most benefit) in a category of situation (finding a drowning guy, finding a lost purse, getting mugged). A decision is the actual choice of specific action made in a specific situation.

What you don’t realize is that they have only very recently become unnecessary. People didn’t know the real reasons why you shouldn’t steal or rape or pillage.

Tell me, why shouldn’t you hit Billy?

20

Good response,

Perhaps ethics can be very specific and very general for different purposes…

It seems like when they become over-generalized, they easily morph into supposed-morals. At the very least, ethics and morality go hand-in-hand on such a level. However, I would argue that they are no longer practical on such a level…

I’ll respond more to your post after I read the whole thing, since I’m at work.