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From: dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: What is morality anyways?
Message-ID: <1604@watdcsu.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 14-Aug-85 01:07:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: watdcsu.1604
Posted: Wed Aug 14 01:07:11 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 20-Aug-85 07:27:37 EDT
References: <341@aero.ARPA>
Reply-To: dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi)
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 87
Summary: 

In article <341@aero.ARPA> warack@aero.UUCP (Chris Warack (5734)) writes:
>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.]

Would you consider allowing three categories?  Instead of {good, evil},
I would suggest {required, optional, forbidden}.  The vast majority of
behaviour seems to belong to the "optional" category.

>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?
>
>Is this all? ...

I've been toying with the idea that morality is *less* than this.

In our day-to-day lives we're constantly confronted with this
decision:  What will I do next?  I prefer to define the idea of
morality in terms of the grounds on which these decisions are made.  A
moral ground for decision-making is some criterion which is independent
of your desires, and that you place ahead of your desires in making the
decision.  (Sacrificing your life for an ideal is often held up as a
fine example of moral behaviour.) This definition doesn't imply, and is
not meant to imply, that a choice made on other than moral grounds is
immoral, or that a moral decision can only be one that goes against
your interests.

(I think the Objectivists will flame me for the above definition, but
this is an honest attempt on my part to determine the *common* meaning
of the word "morality".  I have no use for Ayn Rand's
Humpty-Dumpty-like practice of defining the word "morality" to mean
what she wants it to mean.  To me, Ayn Rand's moral system appears
really to be a denial of morality, disguised, with the help of some
specially chosen definitions, in moralistic language.)

An important corollary of this is that, since behaviour is classified
as moral on the basis of the grounds on which that behaviour was
chosen, it is impossible to force people to behave morally.  Moral
behaviour can only happen by *choice*.  The best you can do is arrange
rewards and punishments, so that it will be in people's best interests
to act the way you want them to.

Another interesting corollary is that religious moral systems based on
eternal rewards and punishments (eg. Heaven and Hell), are not moral
systems at all, because the motivation for good behaviour is based
ultimately on self-interest.

A third corollary is that, since the person must make the moral
decision himself, what is moral behaviour for him is what he feels is
moral, not what anybody else thinks is moral.  That's right folks, I'm
a moral relativist.

The fact that I've drawn three highly unpopular conclusions from what
I take to be the common conception of morality indicates either that
I'm way out in left field, or that the majority of people have failed
to think through the consequences of their concept of morality.

So far, I have said nothing about what those moral grounds for decision
making are.  Now I get controversial.  As far as I can tell, most
people's moral codes are derived entirely from the words of other
people.  In the case of those people who believe their morals come from
God, they are forgetting that it was *other* *people* who told them
what God says is moral or immoral, or *other* *people* who told them
which book God chose to write down the One True Moral System in.
Unfortunately, a lot of these other people disagree with each other.
In determining what moral code to believe in, which other people do we
end up believing?  Usually our parents, our teachers, or whatever
*authority* figure is handy.  Our morals appear to be ultimately based
on appeals to authority.

The only ways to arrive at "moral truth", if such a thing exists, are
accepting somebody else's word for it (ie. authority), or guessing
(intuition).  Neither one of these is considered as a reliable way
of arriving at any kind of truth.  As far as I can tell, there is
no way to determine "moral truth".

My belief is that there is no such thing as "moral truth".  There is no
logical or rational reason to put any criterion ahead of self-interest
in deciding on your next action.

Gosh, I didn't mean to write a dissertation...

-- 
David Canzi

Ultimate tabloid headline: "Crazed by UFO radiation, pregnant man bites dog."