Naked Ethics

This is literally ‘Naked Ethics’,

The problem is many a times the moral impulse inherent within humans [naked babies] i.e. the natural moral propensity is corrupted by nurturing conditions.

This corruption is due to various neural connections during the nurturing process that inhibit the inborn natural moral impulse.

As such what is critical within morality is to redirect or mute those neural inhibitors that redirect the nurtured child then to adult to commit terrible evil acts.

It is only after the above basic is done can we deal with values in ethics.

Thank you, Prismatics, for your relevant and important contribution to the discussion.

Those “nurturing conditions” to which you allude, are cultural factors. They also refer to parenting techniques which themselves are a reflection of the skill-level of the ones doing the nurturing. If parents are ignorant, then the maturation process will be delayed, and socialization will be faulty.
Toddlers and kiddies learn their ethics mainly by the examples of conduct and character they see, even though they do have the innate capacities of which you have spoken
In my little book, The Structure of Ethics, a section is devoted to Prof. Bloom. On You Tube also there is a video showing him working with the babies while their mothers look on. His “experiments” [actually they are structured experiences] reveal that not only do the babies tend to favor the kind and generous actors in the little skits he shows them, but also he finds that those babies have biases: they are attracted to individuals who share the same tastes they do.

Thus if people are not keenly aware, alert to avoid being gullible, a skillful con-artist can prey upon them, manipulate and exploit them.
For example, the ‘Storm Trumpers’, the members of the I.C.E. border-patrol who blindly “follow orders” and end up being the private police force of Pres. Donald, ready to do his bidding, just as A. Hitler had his S.S. troops.
Do we want this in the United States of America? If not, take action! Let your voice be heard!

Questions?
Comments?

Dude I clicked this thread thinking I’d find something about proper behavior as an exhibitionist and/or member of a nudist colony, and instead its another regular ol’ ethics thread. What a disappointment.

I am not an American and I not a fan of Trump, but nevertheless I have to be objective on the issue. I don’t think Trump is that bad as what the media has portrayed him to be and those anti-trumpers are brain-washing the gullible to their bidding.

I can feel the twisting and deceptions by the majority of the monopolizing media, academics, film industries, mega-tech companies, etc. trying to influence me and make me think Trump [with his pros and cons] is totally evil, but being objective [highly moral and philosophical] and reading from various sources, I don’t buy their so-obvious bullshits.

But the brainwashing is very effective worldwide, most of my family members, friends and colleagues [all non-Americans] HATE Trump even when Trump’s policies has no significant impact on them at all - how is that so, except via being brainwashed by the bias reporting from the various medias.

I am very certain, the next Conservative President of the USA will face similar condemnations from those from the left and vice-versa, it is business as usual driven by Tribalism, us versus them.

In fact, the inherent tribalism, us versus them, and the likes are the foundation of many immoral acts to the extreme of genocides, etc.

Back to topic, my point is, given whatever the negatives that arise from the nurturing process that hinder inherent morality to progress in alignment with its intended ‘purpose’ [not teleological], what should humanity do to manage those neural hindrances?

I believe it is too late to attempt and expect significant improvements on the moral competence of the present majority as it take lots of time to make changes within the brain. If we start the foundation now, it will take 2-3 generations to see results.

The initial steps are to research and understand what are the neural mechanism and algorithm that drives morality naturally and progressively.
Do you have an idea how we should do this? or do you think this process is unnecessary?

I dont think there is one single definitive answer to this question from the perspective of humanity - a simple one size fits all
There are just too many competing philosophies and ideologies in existence for that so it can only work at the individual level
So it is the responsibility of every one to choose the particular one that is best for them - but it is not always obvious what that will be so it takes time
This comes through experience and knowledge so it is an eternal work in progress - but you are only responsible for yourself not the whole of humanity

Lol you think the conflict here is as simple as tribalism? My dear sir, there is a very real conflict here that doesn’t disappear the moment somebody thinks ‘gosh this is just tribalism and I should rise above it.’

The conflict here is over property, and there are two categorically different classes involved in this battle. The problem is much more fundamental that something as simple as tribalism.

Trump is a very divisive President - half of America loves him and half of them hate him
Even Richard Nixon probably did not generate that degree of animosity and so whats happening today is very new indeed
But its not only about Trump - he is just the acceptable / unacceptable face of something very deep going on over there

The battle is between traditional American values of God and Family and Patriotism against the newer ones of identity politics and social
justice and civil disobedience - but it runs so deep that its wrong to categorise it as merely tribalistic - that explanation is far too simple

That division that surrounds trumpf is the best thing to ever come out of his presidency. Divison is precisely what needs to be accelerated and recognized. That ‘no’, we are not one nation under god blah blah blah. That there is a difference in spirit between the right and left that is so pronounced, so irreconcilable, that they might as well be two different species.

This division is the greatest thing to happen to the American farce. We need more of it, if anything.

Trump is just a conflict between post modern moral nihilists and post structuralists and stupid Christians who don’t even know what that means (but think trump gives a shit about them) and moral structuralists.

since the above post appeared, it became apparent, even to a cont-artist who is the head of a Crme Family, that this policy was not politically effective, the Trumper troops have been withdrawn on July 31, 2020 from Oregon.

As an Ethicist [who has seen-a-thing-or-two due to longevity] and as one who has taught College-level Psychology, my considered judgment is that the man holding such power, a man who is corrupt through-and-through, corrupt to the core, is worse than the media portray him to be. He is the most dangerous man on the planet.
He (very much like the head man in North Korea) is the head of a Death Cult …taking his supporters down with him. We have seen this before with the Jim Jones experience. Unfortunately, due to his governing incompetence, 180,000 unnecessary deaths have already occurred.

Sixty-or-more psychoanalysts and analytic psychologists have signed on to a diagnosis revealing him to have a Malignant Personality Disorder, characterized by Extreme Narcissism, Authoritarian tendencies, Compulsive lying, inability to admit weakness nor to take responsibility for any mistakes, readiness to blame others, and a readiness to dissimulate, disparage, manipulate others. :-& :frowning:

Is this type of character ethical?

Hardly.

Is this what citizens of the USA want in a president? Should an individual with an unethical character get another four years in office?

What do you think? :question:

since the above post appeared, it became apparent, even to a cont-artist who is the head of a Crme Family, that this policy was not politically effective, the Trumper troops have been withdrawn on July 31, 2020 from Oregon.

As an Ethicist [who has seen-a-thing-or-two due to longevity] and as one who has taught College-level Psychology, my considered judgment is that the man holding such power, a man who is corrupt through-and-through, corrupt to the core, is worse than the media portray him to be. He is the most dangerous man on the planet.
He (very much like the head man in North Korea) is the head of a Death Cult …taking his supporters down with him. We have seen this before with the Jim Jones experience. Unfortunately, due to his governing incompetence, 180,000 unnecessary deaths have already occurred.

Sixty-or-more psychoanalysts and analytic psychologists have signed on to a diagnosis revealing him to have a Malignant Personality Disorder, characterized by Extreme Narcissism, Authoritarian tendencies, Compulsive lying, inability to admit weakness nor to take responsibility for any mistakes, readiness to blame others, and a readiness to dissimulate, disparage, manipulate others. :-& :frowning:

Is this type of character ethical?

Hardly.

Is this what citizens of the USA want in a president? Should an individual with an unethical character get another four years in office?

What do you think? :question:

The parts and the whole are always in complementarity.
“No man is an island” as the saying goes.

Therefore a person cannot be absolutely selfish but a responsible citizen is one who attempt to understand how to fit to optimize oneself without sub-optimizing the whole.
The moral principle is one has obligations to oneself and at the same time an obligation to the whole that sustain it, else it would be self-defeating.
Note the example, what if individual is on his own and very selfish, thus polluting the environment without giving a damn [or other selfish acts] and in the long term the human species is exterminated because of such acts.

So it is the responsibility of everyone to understand how their individuality [role] plays a part in maintaining the optimization of the whole of humanity.
At present it is everyone for oneself, but this is not likely to last long, since the average person at present is not slowly behaving more co-operatively with greater understanding of the whole, e.g. climate change, space exploration, the threats of WMDs and pandemics, etc.
The fact is DNA wise, all humans are “programmed” with certain generic features to optimize for the whole of humanity while leaving room for individual freedom within the requirements of the whole.

The fundamental is reducible to tribalism, i.e. the instinctive ‘us versus them’ and the rest are its various forms.
There are other inherent and instinctive issues, e.g. the existential crisis that compound the issues into various forms.

Trump is very boorish, narcissistic, ego-maniac and the likes [I personally don’t like it] but I don’t believe these are the critical factors but they did contribute more to the already inflamed existing situations from tribalism and the us versus them instincts in combinations with a cognitive dissonance* issue and Trump Derangement syndrome.
During Nixon’s time his victory was not as marginal as Trump’s win, thus there are no significant cognitive dissonance to deal with.

  • this terrible cognitive dissonance arose from the expectation that Hillary was ‘confirmed’ to win but she did not, thus unleashed a cognitive dissonance of tsunami proportion that manifested the Trump Derangement Syndrome. The culiminating responses are due to those who are attempting to do whatever it takes to generate consonance to soothe the dissonance, and the consequences of such always end up with evil thoughts and acts.

Trump is an employee of the US Government, objectively Trump should be judged with an Employee Assessment and Review of his official responsibility as in his Terms of Employment. On this, taking the positive and negative, I believe Trump performance so far is net-positive taking into account all necessary criteria specific to this term of employment.

As I had stated, we have to judge objectively whether Trump has done his job in accordance to the terms of his employment with the US Government.
If Trump is officially mentally ill and unfit for office, he would have been rejected by the GOP, if not by the voters.

If you do research on successful leaders, one will note most [not all] successful leaders are psychopaths [benign] and has many of the characters you listed for Trump but within acceptable limits and their positions are sustained by the results they produced.
There are bad apples but they are often exposed in time (e.g. Madoff, Enron, etc.).

That “He is the most dangerous man on the planet” is a very subjective opinion.

If Trump is really as bad as you and the media portray him to be, naturally the voters will not vote for him this November.
Btw, to run for President again, surely he has to pass the mental fitness and health tests by the assigned authorities.

Note the question is ‘why now?’
Trump is 70+ and was well known in the business world and has the typical flaws, but he was not condemned as bad as a businessman as he is as President. Why??

The significant factor is politics, and politics by nature is dirty and one side will always try to present the other as dirty and possible. Why the situation at present is so diversive and that bad is due to the very lasting and lingering cognitive dissonance that arose from the 2016 election.
Do you have any idea of the how evil the consequences of cognitive dissonance that arise from politics [or other especially religion] can be?

Btw, how come you are not condemning those who are committing the real evil acts, i.e. the protestors who burn building, destroy businesses, kill people and other evil acts???

If one wants to be objective one would listen to both sides.

Dr. Justin Frank, in his book TRUMP ON THE COUCH, comes to the conclusion that anyone who makes statements like “The more tests, the more there will be the disease” is on the border of being psychotic. This fellow who is Borderline Psychotic when he first got the job showed us a statement from his own physician, on retainer, saying he was healthy.

The job he has been doing: systematically disabling each important agency of government.

Are you sure you want to re-elect him?

Also see the findings of this deep-thinking radio host who is the author of dozens of books: thomhartmann.com/podcast
His name is Thom Hartmann.

ethics is behavioural fluency. it is talking nonesense beautifully. ethics is an art and following it is much more artful. observation and discipline is necessarily intended to be done eloquently. it is something much more deeper, much more profound than contemporary society. it is the presence of chaos amidst order and harmony.

Is this merely words chasing words? No. Sacrosanct is right: following Ethics is artful. And some people are more artists at complying with moral principles than are others. Although it is true that some are better than others at creating value in human interactions, we ought all attempt to create some value.

Perhaps the references below will give you some ideas as to how this is done. Check them out. Click on the links. and then …
Happy reading :exclamation:

It is true Trump has said silly things. So far, Trump had not done anything that a typical psychotic person would do. Has he?

In my opinion, Trump is not doing a good job with this Covid19 epidemic, but this is only one aspect of this total responsibility and thus we cannot judge merely on one specific performance.
It is not easy for any President of the USA, since the president do have have total control over the Senate and Congress.

However to be fair to any employee, in this case, Trump is an employee of the US Government, one has to prepare a report card and list down all the jobs [weighted] within his responsibility and he had done then produce a net result of his overall performance.

From what I’ve read, heard and noted, overall Trump has done a reasonable job [including the bad ones] until the emergence of the Covid19 pandemic.

Do you think Biden could do a better job than Trump. I noted Biden had cognitive deficit and at times incoherent.

If given the two ‘devils’, in the present circumstances, I believe Trump would still be the devil who can do a better job as President of the USA.

One who is ethically sensitive would have noticed, during the Republican debate for the party’s nomination for President, that Trump’s procedure was to disparage and demean his fellow candidates (and bestow on them a childish, derogatory nickname) – unethical conduct.
Then we learned by hearing his voice on a video, just before he stepped out of the bus he was on, that he bragged about grabbing women by the cr-tch. – vulgar, crude and unethical without prior consent.
Then, once he got the nomination his authoritarian lack of humility was exhibited when he blared out: “I’m the only one that can save you!!” - unethical.

The judgment that the guy would turn out to be corrupt has been confirmed time and again …violations of thee Emoluments clause in The Constitution, etc - unethical conduct.
Then came the impeachable offenses which continue to this day. Then when he learned that Russian bounties were paid for the killing of our soldiers in Afghanistan and he made no notice of that, no protest about it, that showed what a great Commander-in-Chief we have. - Utterly incompetent.

Now we are getting hints from Trump that he wants to be President-for-life: he said he might delay the Election, that the results would not be in by Election Day, that he intends to holler, “Fraud!!!”; etc. He has openly admired “Strong Men,” such as the ruler in Hungary, and the head man in in Brazil and in The Philippines.

Yes, Biden slips up at times. He may even sound incoherent for a moment. He is, like me, a fallible human being. [My quota is 40 bloops a day.} …but this is not about me. Rather it is about who is fit to be President. I would argue that Biden is infinitely-better than Trump for that job.

[size=85]pBTW, of what country are you a citizen, Prismatics?[/size]