Two moralities

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

danchoo, if you’re out there. I think we (I) sort of got away from the intent of the animal rights post. In doing so, danchoo touched upon a complex point. Not that it was his point. But it is one I have been avoiding trying to make. Since I am currently avoiding some other bit of writing I must do, this seems an opportune time to make it here.

What do we do, as philosophers, when the prevalent moral system does not allow us to live well? Is that enough, by itself, to reject the system? I mean, the moral system we find ourselves living with, or one that we examine. Can Kant be rightly rejected merely because living that way would be unacceptable to us? Can we reject a Job-like scenario merely because it is so, well, Job-like?

Sure, Hume can “reject” his own epistemology in order to live on a day-to-day basis. But could he reject the moral implications as easily? Does the philosopher, if he has some notion of eudaemonia, need to think in two directions at once, when moralising?

I think he does. Traditional, systematic moral thinking must begin at the level of society. Even Kant does this - despite that he often speaks otherwise. But “living well”, which, for me is the sole purpose of philosophising, may require that we begin our reasoning with, well, whatever it takes to acomodate living well - living our own lives well. Kant has no problem sacrificing any human individual’s happiness - or the happiness of all of them, in order to serve some moral principle. The principle comes first, for him. Duty must be served, despite consequences, or any feelings we have about it.

I think that many have rejected the very study of moral theory because of this conflict between the “right” and happiness, however defined. Most moralists seem to be absolutists - which precludes any conflict - what is right is right, and happiness be damned. Rationalism does not take as its basis human happiness, but pure reason - which there is no a priori reason to think will serve happiness. Despite the claims of rationalists to the contrary.

But even if it did, there is the notion of what is a social good, and a separate notion of what may be good for me. Often, at least. How do we solve this conflict, if we hold, as I do, that my own life is the proper focus of philosophy to begin with? I believe that Nietzsche has resolved this conflict, in a way that causes him to abandon the notion of morality. But I don’t think he has truly done this - he just says he has. He has adopted the stance that morality begins within each of us - and stays there.

I think that this approach can rightly be called a moral one - that is to say, it is of the topic of morality. Many seem to disagree - that morality must serve the whole. Some would call Nietzsche, or my version of him, relativism. But it has usually been called perspectivism. I call it contextualism. And my claim is that, for anything but the absolutist view, moral principles actually transmogrify when the context is changed. That a moral principle looks, smells and acts different within different contexts, even though the principle itself does not change.

Gotta get smokes.

Be back. Hopefully, someone will slam me in the meantime, so I don’t have to keep on babbling like this. Trying to get a long point down to post size. Anyway, danchoo, this is where your comments have led me. Make any sense?

f

2

Hi Faust,

Succinctly put - I am familiar with this conflict, and I can safely say it is why I consider myself a moral particularlist. That would be my personal solution to it, I haven’t found any better.

3

obw - can you elaborate your view, and/or provide an example that seems pertinent to the present context?

f

4

Morality. Ah, a fun subject.

Morals are about rules. What rules do we need, to allow
society to function. In a dictionary, Rules are defined as

  1. An authoritative, prescribed direction for conduct, especially
    on of the regulations governing procedure in a legislative
    body or a regulation observed by the players in a game,
    sport, or contest.

  2. A usual, customary, or generalised course of action or
    behavior.

Now some moralist say the rules have already been
decided by god, and they are absolute.
But if you look at the morals (again rules) of
various societies over history, the rules have been
quite different in different societies.
In society, the morals change very slowly,
tradition seems to hold in morals. Which means
the rules change very slowly in society. But that seems
to be comfortable for people. The need to know what
the rules are, is almost, almost, inherent in people.

Yet watch kids at play, and they could be called
rule making creatures. Kids at play make up rules
at will depending on the situation. A new situation
will have kids creating a new rule. One thing I have
notice kids will not create more rules then they need.
They won’t plan out the whole game with
unnecessary rules. They will create just enough rules to
play the game, no more.

Kropotkin

5

Peter, about kids, I have made the same point myself - the origin of morals is childrearing, and, as you say, children seem to get the method down quite easily - they are the best moralists. Most of what I know about the subject I have learned from them. It’s only when morality is gotten ahold of by evil, overanalytical and often religious grownups that we begin to go astray.

Excellent point.

fausty

6

faust: It’s only when morality is gotten ahold of by evil, overanalytical and often religious grownups that we begin to go astray."

K: ok, so what is the solution? Is there even a problem?

F: Excellent point.

K: Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
As I said yesterday, I was at the social event,
a dinner for a confirmation, and in the hallway
were 6 or 7 kids playing. They were far more interesting
then the dinner. As the hallways keep changing
(the dinner was in a crowded restaurant/banquet hall)
the kids were force to adapt the rules as the hallway changed.
The adults would bring things out, like huge flowers and
gifts for some Latino marriage party (man they know how
to party) and the kids would have to change the rules.
None of the kids were older then 7.
It was interesting to watch them adapt the rules to the
situation.

Kropotkin

7

Well, Peter, there is. Both a problem and a solution. The greatest flaw in moral thinking (the major exception being Nietzsche, who is flawless in this) is that competition has been dealt with very ineptly (keep in mind, if you will, watching children play a competitive game).

Moral theory has dealt with competition in various ways. Kant (Kant’s not only influential, but an easy target - why I keep returning to him) would simply eliminate it. We are subservient to duty - that’s all that counts. Rawls tried to minimize its effects through some specific mitigating mechanisms. The Utilitarians tried to quantify it, and them perform mathematical operations with it. Natural Rights guys try to ignore it. Other rationalists try to overpower it.

All of that is wrongheaded and ineffectual. Competition is a context within which moral rules can, and sometimes (but not alwys) must operate. Moral rules must be designed to acommodate different contexts, which then modify the significance of those rules. Just like those kids adapting to hallway conditions.

Competition and noncompetition are not the only two contexts that morality must deal with, but I’m trying to keep the model as simple as possible.

faust

8

faust: Well, Peter, there is. Both a problem and a solution. The greatest flaw in moral thinking (the major exception being Nietzsche, who is flawless in this) is that competition has been dealt with very ineptly (keep in mind, if you will, watching children play a competitive game).

K: as we deal with these issues, we tread on ground that is
thousands of years old and still no solution. Is it possible we
have misunderstood what life really is? Is it a game, a
competition we play or have we failed to even name it or
correctly identify it. The point may be that we are creating
rules for a game we haven’t even correctly identified yet!!!

F: Moral theory has dealt with competition in various ways. Kant (Kant’s not only influential, but an easy target - why I keep returning to him) would simply eliminate it. We are subservient to duty - that’s all that counts. Rawls tried to minimize its effects through some specific mitigating mechanisms. The Utilitarians tried to quantify it, and them perform mathematical operations with it. Natural Rights guys try to ignore it. Other rationalists try to overpower it.

K: Duty? And what is duty and to whom do you have a duty with
or for? You have identified moral theory with duty.
What is the relationship of moral theory with duty?
Is duty something you have an obligation to?

F: All of that is wrongheaded and ineffectual. Competition is a context within which moral rules can, and sometimes (but not always) must operate. Moral rules must be designed to accommodate different contexts, which then modify the significance of those rules. Just like those kids adapting to hallway conditions.

K: “Morals rules must be designed to accommodate different
context!!!” and where does duty fit into this?
I don’t see life as a competition. But that is the problem.
One see life as this… and another See’s life as that…
We can’t even agree to a simple definition of life.
How can we create rules to a game, we don’t even agree is
a game?

F: Competition and noncompetition are not the only two contexts that morality must deal with, but I’m trying to keep the model as simple as possible.

K: I think we need to explore all options, simple or not.
I see back into history and note that the Romans
were the last people of over 5000 years of agreement
as to what was life, from the beginning of civilization to the
Romans, there is a corherent, comprehensive viewpoint
going from ancient sumerians to the Romans (which includes
the Egyptians and Greeks) this was lost in the waning days
of the Roman empire and christians/jesus came up with a
viewpoint that replaced the greco/roman/ Egyptians/…
viewpoint. We are now (I believe) at the viewpoint of
replacing the christian viewpoint. A new ideology
or explanation of the game is needed.
Nietzsche I think understood this and tried to
become the new jesus. the creator of new values.
He failed. When Francis Fukuyama wrote his book,
“The end of History and the last man” I think it was really about
ideology and the end of ideology. Ideology is really about
the rules of the game we play. It is the rules we play by.
Ideology can be used interchangeable with rules.
this is the battle I really fight, not with bush and his gang
of idiots, but with the fact they are using outdated and really
outmoded rules of the game. I fight this battle.
We need a new set of rules. And until we get them,
the grinding of gears you hear is the clash of civilizations
(Islam as well as christian) using outdated ideologies.
Each believing each is right and yet both are outdated
ideologies. No longer useful for the present world and
certainly not for the future. The new ideology must
account for the modern age, the technological age,
the age of traveling the stars, and the age of overpopulation,
and decreasing resources. We have no rules/ ideology
for the new world, the new era, the new century.
We need new rules for a new world. That is the battle I fight.
A very important battle, I think. By understanding what rules
are, we can create the new rules of society.

Kropotkin

9

Hi, Peter. My claim is that competition is a necessary and even desirable characteristic of civilisation. Not that it’s the whole ball of wax.

I mean only to reduce Kant’s theory to a matter of to duty. Or Duty. That’s a litte oversimplified, but not much. I didn’t mean every theory.

I don’t see life as competition, or co-operation or survival of the fittest, a gift from god, or any one thing. It’s a lot of stuff. But I am not trying to solve the world’s problems here only to examine one philosophical issue. So I’m keeping it simple.

f

10

as long as one remembers that nietzsche’s morality was ultimately not for the herd…

-Imp

11

It seems I take a broader view then you do.
But I shall go on because I find this interesting.

Nietzsche, when he said “god is dead” it actually meant
the ideology of christianity is dead. If you actually think
of Nietzsche this way, it makes a great deal of sense
about what he wrote. A creator of new values would only
work, if the old values are dead. He saw the death of the
old ideology and without a new ideology to replace it,
you get the nihilism he wrote about. Yet, no one has taken
him seriously in this regard. No one has taken his words at
face value. Can we consciously create a new ideology?
Is it a group effort or a small job for one or two people?
Communism was an effort to replace the ideologies that
no longer work, as is capitalism, but both are failed
ideologies. the battle of our time is not against terrorism or
Islam of anything like that, but for the creation of a new
worldview, a new ideology. The battle lines are drawn.
the old viewpoints, the establishment right now or for the
creation of a new vision of the world.

Kropotkin

12

Hi, Imp - that’s my point. I think he was not an immoralist, but the first major thinker to admit that it is entirely possible, as well as desirable, to begin moral deliberations from the opposite direction than that which had been taken before him. Schopenhauer does not qualify, in my mind, but as any student of philosophy knows, made his contribution. If that is so, then Nietzsche’s morality could not be for anyone else at all. Except through some really kinky type of subjectivism. Something Sartre-esque, I suppose.

faust

13

Impenitent: “as long as one remembers that nietzsche’s morality was ultimately “not” for the herd…”

K: a viewpoint/ ideology must in fact take into account or
address the “herd”. For the idea that an ideology can only
have a value for a small number of people, misses the point
of an ideology. It is the rules for a society. Society
by its very nature must include the mass of people.
A viewpoint that does not address this fact is doomed to
failure and indeed may be why Nietzsche was not the prophet
of the future, the creator of new values. For those values
must include the great mass of people, the “herd” or
it means nothing. And thus we see the twentieth century
as the failure it is. We fight wars and kill thousands over
ideologies that can no longer succeed. History will not
look kindly on us.

an edit/ps.
Perhaps that is why christens are
so fanatic these days. They want to believe in god, but
on some level, they understand that “god is dead”.
But at this time, there is not replacement and so
they become frightened about the future.

Kropotkin

14

But Peter, what you see as a fault I see as an advantage. It was his intention to create a morality that was not an ideology - that cannot be an ideology. It is a greek perspective - that a person’s practise of philosophy must benefit the practitioner - everyone else is secondary. Yours is the more conventional view - that moral thinking begins at the societal level. This seems natural to most, and it even seems natural to me. But good philosophers, to a degree, are trying to overcome thier “nature” - by which I mean the values that they find themselves with when they begin to think philosophically. That’s Nietzsche’s entire point - we are not born philosophers. We must make ourselves into philosophers. And it can get tricky. The tuning fork emits a faint but pure sound. And you have to hit it just a certain way, with some subtlety. There is a technique. Philosophising with a hammer.

I used to play the oboe in an amatuer orchestra. The oboe traditionally gives the tuning note for the orchestra. I would first strike the fork and hold it to my ear. I would then play the note (A 440). It was up to them to match it. I could only give them the note. If they didn’t take it, that was their problem.

f

15

Nietzsche has quite an aristocratic/agonistic take on society and ultimately would probably look to some version of Greek city states with a small group of rulers and most “fit” only to obey. (in so far as he was worried about “society” in any way)

But the basic message is that “its there” (life) for anyone “good enough” to “take it” - which is:

  1. potentially very optimistic
  2. Doesn’t necessarily lead to an autocratic society

What has to happen is we have to become “fit to rule” ourselves first
then…?

Krossie

16

krossie - I agree with you in the main, but have always had reservations that Nietzsche’s “aristocracy” translates into political arrangements. I don’t think he intended that. I think the aristocratic element that he projects can operate in any social environment - that it does not suggest a literal, political aristocracy, and that the greek city-state is a metaphorical model only.

f

17

Well as a lefty who loves Nietzsche I would love to think so - but I think he despised the “levelling” and deterministic tendencies in socialism and saw it as just Christianity by other means (and in many ways he is very right!). But why not grab or “turn to use” his ideas though - I’m sure he would agree.

Personally I think the left has completely and disastrously given the terrain of individual liberty to the right - which is weird as it should be their natural operating ground…
(but again I’m opening up a new debate!)

Krossie

18

fit to rule?

why bother?

zarathustra’s final sin? pity.

-Imp

19

Really interesting thread! Im not as well read as you guys but Ive acquainted myself with a few ideas! I personally dont believe there is two moralities but I believe there is one ‘moral law within us’ which enables us to form society with a view to personal ‘happiness’. Morality is not an end in itself. We are moral because we exist in society and in the IDEAL(educated) society this would further our own self interest and personal happiness. I accept Nietzsche didnt believe morality was for the herd and possibly it isnt yet BUT in the ideal society, I contend we would be moral to create our own self fulfillment. I would contend that Eudaimonia is seen as the goal of human flourishing and is the ultimate goal of morality.

Simply morality is teleogical maybe is what Im saying

BUT

  1. Society hasnt evolved to that stage yet
  2. We have to overcome slave morality in order to reach that stage

Any thoughts?

20

danchoo - You seem to be siding with Nietzsche here. What I will call “internal” morality - that’s the only one that counts. Am I correct? What’s got me stumped is that you claim that this moral sense that we have enables us to form a society. I would say that we form a society despite this sense, if I understand you. Or even if I don’t.

My position is that the first (moral) task of the philosopher is this internal “eudaemistic” morality. I have not yet given up on the idea that “external” morality (rules for social behavior) can co-exist, through a social contract (and only that way). But this external morality is negotiated amidst a cacauphony of individual positions. The “moral law” we possess is not universal - it is not the same across groups, and certainly across individuals. Can you tell me more about this law?

f