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From: jim@ISM780B.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: What is morality anyways?
Message-ID: <27500096@ISM780B.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 12-Aug-85 23:10:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: ISM780B.27500096
Posted: Mon Aug 12 23:10:00 1985
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Nf-From: ISM780B!jim    Aug 12 23:10:00 1985


[warack]
Isn't morality a framework for deciding Good=Right=The-Thing-to-Do vs.
Evil=Bad=Wrong=The-Thing-Not-to-Do?
In an absolute sense, a moral system could be viewed as a mathematical
function M from actions into the set {good, evil}.  A perfect moral system
would map every action.  [I'm not suggesting that such a system exists.]

[wingate]
I think it's reasonable to include the restriction that we consider only
those systems which actually attempt to deal with the question of "Why
shouldn't I do what I want to do?"

[balter]
Only if you want to insist on presuming your conclusions.  I hold that you
and other religious ethicists make errors because you have confused notions
about what morality is, mixing it up with absolutes.  If we follow your
restriction above, we will inevitably be led to an absolute authority as the
only way to answer your question.  QED, from your POV.  But:
morality tells us what we should do.  If we want to do something that we
shouldn't, the reason not to, by definition, is that it is immoral.
That is, the morality is a model that labels actions "should do" and
"shouldn't do".  But the deeper question, what perhaps you really mean,
is why shouldn't we from the point of view of benefit to ourselves;
morality says we shouldn't, but is it *really* true that we shouldn't?
You see, *should* is a very fuzzy term; it is dependent upon point of view;
it is relative, not absolute.  All absolute moralists totally ignore this
issue.  What I should do from my POV, what I should do from your POV, what
I should do from the POV of any given morality, are all different.
The very *meaning* of "should" is relative.  For any "should" statement,
I can respond "Says who?".
So back to the deeper question, what should I do from the point of view of
my own benefit?  Well, it depends on how you define benefit.
See, it is all relative.

Let's look at another question:  is it reasonable or possible to want to do
things which are immoral?  If the morality is what you would call "universal",
i.e., shared by community, then I claim that I will want to do something
I shouldn't (from the POV of the universal morality) whenever my personal
morality differs from the universal, but that it is impossible for me to want
to do something violating my own personal morality.  It might be the case
that I would want to do it *if only it weren't immoral*, or that what I wanted
to do yesterday I find immoral today, but my personal morality is in fact
a codification of what behavior I do in fact find desirable.
Consider the possiblity that I want to fulfill various sexual fantasies,
but I don't even when the means are available.  If I don't because I *fear*
retribution, either social or physical, then I am responding to the
community's morality, but if I don't because it would require an infringement
upon the rights of unassenting persons, then I *don't want to* because it
violates my sense of right amd wrong, i.e., my personal morality.
For it to be possible to want to do something which violates personal morality
would require a definition of `want' that makes "I want to but it is wrong"
equivalent to "I want to" rather than a confused phrasing of
"I don't want to".

[warack]
Next step -- so an action maps to good or evil.  A person acting morally
would proceed with a good action, and avoid an evil action.  If he didn't,
he would be acting immorally.  Correct?

Does morality include the punishment for immoral behavior?  I think that is
separate from the system.  Some moral systems include them; some don't.  The
Judeo-Christian morality [if you will] in the overall picture promises
eternal life to those who lead moral lives, and eternal damnation for those
who do not.

[wingate]
This is a serious oversimplification of almost any Christian system.  I'll
go into more detail further along.

[balter]
And of Judaism too, which promises no such thing; morality involves the
notion of duty (back to "should").  I would say that what *is* true of almost
all group moral systems is that they work through a system of coercion.
Threat of damnation is just one form.  As I think Warack is saying, punishment
is a property of moral systems, where the system includes the community
enforcing the moral rules; it is not associated with particular moral rules.

[warack]
  Rich has proposed a moral system based on the [forgive me]
function:              if {I desire it} and
			  {It does not infringe on the rights of others}
		       then GOOD
		       else EVIL
This system doesn't include any means of punishment.  But it seems to be as
much a moral system as the Judeo-Christian system; albeit simpler and
untested.

[balter]
I think all personal moral systems are of the form
		    if {I desire it}
		    then OK
		    else not OK

The interesting questions that are being avoided are:
What are the nature of people's desires?  Where do they come from?
How do the issues that we think of as "moral", that is, those affecting
those other than ourselves, become incorporated into our personal morality?
Warack's formulation above is ultra-simplistic:  how do we determine what
a right is?  What is an infringement?  What happens when people's rights
conflict?  Who do we include among "others"?:  women, black, gays, mammals,
ants, rocks, ecology, mother earth?  If I were to follow the formulation
strictly, I wouldn't be able to act at all.  2500 years ago Greeks
were wondering whether or not they should eat beans because Pythagoras
proscribed it; I would hope that our questions have evolved in depth and
complexity since then.

[warack]
Does a morality have to have a wide {universal?} acceptance or application to
validate it as a morality?  It seems that Charlie has said that a moral
system that doesn't account for those who do not suscribe to it directly is
not a moral system.  Why is that necessary?  The basic goal of a moral
system is to determine what to do and not to do ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS.*  If
a large group suscribes to a morality, then life is simpler for that group
since they can predict certain things about their neighbor's actions.  But,
it does not make the morality any more or less valid.  Maybe the person with
the perfect morality is the only one who suscribes to it.

[wingate]
This is a serious misunderstanding of my position.  There are two basic
classes of moral systems: personal and universal.  Personal systems are
what you come up with for yourself.  They bind only upon you.  Universal
systems, on the other hand, include the expectation that others will follow
the moral code.  I can see how Rich's system is a personal code for himself,
but it seems to me that the way he attempts to get to universality is flawed.
The principles he appeals to simply are not universal; if they were, then
there would be no criminal behavior.

[balter]
That appears to me to be a total non-sequitur.  In any community, some will
follow the group's moral code more than others.  Given the same level of
coercive force applied, I would expect more people to follow Rich's code than
one that proscribes eating beans or screwing when you aren't married
because his is more rational and less contrary to people's personal desires
and therefore *more universal* for any reasonable meaning of universal
I can imagine.
You say "include the expectation"; expectation *by whom*?  How is a universal
system different from a system shared by a number of individuals?  How can
a moral system have *inherent* authority?  Group moral systems obtain their
authority from *humans* enforcing them.  The "laws of God" are written by men
and enforced by men, full of hubris, claiming to speak for God.

[warack]
How is one morality better than another?  This is probably the real issue.
What makes one morality better?  How is that judged?  Is there a perfect
morality?  Now here is where the problems start.  I don't have any clear
ideas on these questions, [although I do have some murky ones].  Any ideas?
I do think that Rich's morality is actually pretty decent.

[wingate]
I think you can make an evaluation based upon strength (realizing that this
does not constitute a measure of merit).  The explicit morality of the New
Testament, for instance, is stronger than Rich's because it includes his
principles with additional constraints.

[balter]
How can you use a loaded term like strength and then say it doesn't constitute
a measure of merit?  NT morality is more constraining than Rich's, period.
I would suggest that a group morality is better in some sense if it closely
aligns with the personal moralities of the members of the group, and given
two moralities with the same level of alignment the one which is *less*
constraining would be preferable.  As for personal moralities, they are not
simply chosen, they are *acquired*.  Now, one could choose to alter one's
personal morality (we're back to wanting to want).  But what it should be
changed to, what is "better", depends uopn the goal.  The goal might be:
to better better liked, to be more like others, be wealthier, to live longer,
etc.  These goals can certainly be furthered by changing one's moral posture.
But which is better?  There is only an absolute good if you select one.
If you can prove that P is good, I assure you that you have assumed that
P is good somewhere along the line, or you didn't prove it.

[warack]
Morality is also dynamic.  It can change rather quickly, in fact.  But, of
course, the more people who suscribe to the same morality, the slower it
changes [at least as a whole].

[wingate]
I don't think this is correct.  Some systems have absolute morality which is
unchanging.  Others have absolutes whose implications for action change.
Still others have absolutes the perceptions of which change.

[balter]
Semantic confusion.  An individual's morality can change, as can a group's.
This means which moral rules are ascribed to is changing.  Of course a given
set of rules is itself, and therefore does not change (if you want to argue
that, you didn't understand it).  Are you claiming that there are groups
whose rules have not changed at all over a long period of time?  I disagree
with Warack that it is a matter of numbers.  It is more a matter of history,
power of the enforcers, internal consistency, and the degree to which the
rules as presented include their own interpretaton.

[wingate]
Almost any system which is based on the maximization of some good provides a
basis for an absolute morality (even Rich's).  If one looked at all of
history, and were sufficiently wise, one could perceive what the optimal thing
to do in any situation would be.  This, I submit, forms an absolute for that
moral system.  This absolute is of course obscure to us, and you can go on
at great length about whether it implies anything at all.

[balter]
By absolute, you seem to mean able to provide a judgement in all situations.
Aside from questioning that (there is no order relation for goodness), I must
point out that "absolute morality" normally means one which is held as being
the ONE TRUE MORALITY, having a preferred place in the order of things over
other claimed moralities, and therefore setting down in absolute fashion what
is right or wrong.  Relativists hold that notions of absolute right or wrong
are semantically empty; even if some big bad bugger in the sky will zap me if
I disobey his law, it is still only right or wrong from *his* point of view.
But mostly it is humans with circular arguments demanding that I obey *their*
morality.

[wingate]
There seems to be a near total lack of understanding of New Testament morality
by some readers of this group.  From a pre-existent Good, an absolute of the
kind described above is seen to exist.  God can in fact know this absolute.
Therefore the reason we listen to God's laws is NOT simply because he is God,
but because he is in a position to know and instruct.  Futhermore, it can be
argued that Christian morality is universal only for Christians.  Therefore
those who seek (for instance) to bring prayer into public schools are flatly
wrong.

[balter]
Lack of understanding of an arbitrary dogma as interpreted by you?
So what?  Pre-existing good?  That *your* god has access to?  Give me a break.
I claim to have access to the *true* good; yours is a false version.
Prove me wrong.

Aside from all the other inconsistencies and foolishes expressed by the
above, let me concentrate on one that is highly illustrative of the subject
at hand:  what about those that argue that Christian morality is *not*
universal *only* for Christians (just how can it be "universal" if it isn't
Universal, hmmm?)?  Those who consider keeping organized (a key word;
individual prayer is allowed) prayer out of the schools to be an immoral,
Godless, devil-inspired goal?  They are clearly acting morally, from their
point of view.  Thus they cannot be *flatly* wrong, only wrong from your (and
my, BTW) POV.  If they claimed that the earth was flat, then we can argue
that they are flatly (heh heh) wrong on the basis of empirical evidence.
No such basis is available when arguing moral issues.

[wingate]
(Note that this doesn't absolve Rich of having to follow his own
morality!)

[balter]
Here we have that fundamental misunderstanding of what morality is.
Absolve?  Have to?  What do these words mean in this context?
What happens if Rich proclaims a morality and then fails to follow it?
Will a big thunderbolt labeled "morality enforcement" strike him dead?
Morality is a codification of the behaviors that an individual or group
finds good or bad, where good and bad are primitive (mathematical
sense) concepts related to desired and undesired behaviors.
Rich may establish a general rule of good and bad, perform an action,
and then decide the action was bad within his rules.  Depending upon whether
his emotional response to the action is that it really is good or really
is bad, he is likely to either modify his rules to allow that behavior as
acceptable, or feel guilt and attempt to reorient himself in a way such
that he won't perform the action again (from mental scolding to hara kiri);
or it is possible that he will actually enjoy having performed the action
and intend to repeat it, in which case his "morality" is a charade,
perhaps borrowed from his community (cf. previous discussion about Hell's
Angels) and his true inner morality is somewhat different.
In the same way, a group's true morality may be different than what is
professed in official dogma; examples are boundless.

-- Jim Balter (ima!jim)