Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: $Revision: 1.6.2.16 $; site ISM780B.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!cca!ISM780B!jim 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 Date-Received: Sun, 18-Aug-85 05:18:47 EDT References: <341@aero.UUCP> Lines: 265 Nf-ID: #R:aero:-34100:ISM780B:27500096:000:14535 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)