Introspective on Morality

[bossk]

I think a more important question would be, is there a universal morality? I’ll buy that everyone has morals, but is there one morality in common with the entire human race? And if there isn’t then how can we justify organizations like the UN? The subject of universal morality is, I think, one of the most difficult questions I’ve ever come across. Can I really remove my view point far enough from my own morals to see if another, contrasting set of morals could possibly ever be considered right? It’s a difficult question, and I wonder what you have to say about it.

[dezrtfish]

That is exactly my point. I belive there is a universal morality. Of course there is no way to prove this point, but to me it makes sense.

As a community it is our duty to try to assist each other in staying as true as possible to that “moral code”. I think that is the point of society.

Can I really remove my view point far enough from my own morals to see if another, contrasting set of morals could possibly ever be considered right?

Give me an example of contrasting morals so that I can more clearly understand your question.

[cystic crypt]

@dezrtfish:

That is exactly my point. I belive there is a universal morality. Of course there is no way to prove this point, but to me it makes sense.

As a community it is our duty to try to assist each other in staying as true as possible to that “moral code”. I think that is the point of society.

Can I really remove my view point far enough from my own morals to see if another, contrasting set of morals could possibly ever be considered right?

Give me an example of contrasting morals so that I can more clearly understand your question.

simply look at things from the perspective of a sociopath. These people as well as others with a wide variety of personality, mood, and psychotic disorders as well as fugue states (the misnomered “split personality” syndrome) may have moralities vastly different from the rest of the population.
One might suggest that people with these “disorders” might well be excluded from the equation, but i submit that these designations were designed by other humans - those who might impose their own moralities on the population by “marginalizing” these people (far-fetched, i admit - can you tell i don’t like psychiatry?).
Further to - i would suggest that for the “big issues” - life and death, protection and aggression, self and others, etc. that i could find examples of the opposite for every moralistic stance. There might be “small” ones that we all have in common, however i would have a lot of difficulty imagining this to be the case.

[Guest]

@dezrtfish:

I believe that everyone has an innate sense of what is right and wrong. …
For example one might say, “Hitler was a man with no morals”. I don’t believe this is a true statement. I believe Hitler was a man who was able to suppress his morals to accomplish what he did.

Here you assume that the innate sense of what is right and wrong is universal.
I do not agree with that. I think that (to stick to your example), Hitler really believed that there were different values for different people.
History of man is full of this behavior (slavery through all times, racism, sexism etc.). Still, i do not agree with this behavior.

@bossk:

I think a more important question would be, is there a universal morality…And if there isn’t then how can we justify organizations like the UN? …Can I really remove my view point far enough from my own morals to see if another, contrasting set of morals could possibly ever be considered right.

For the first and third,as isaid, i don’t think there is a universal morality. The “different values”-behavior seems to be common that i would (provokingly) put it as part of that universal morality, and put myself out of this universal codex.
For the third: The UN is a post WW2 - western culture dominated club. Still, it is the best try mankind ever made to find some common ground and prevent crimes that are against the common western morality set up during the 18th century (mainly by english and french thinkers, taken up by US and french politicians). From my background as western european, i agree with the ideals proclaimed there, therefore i support the UN.

@dezrtfish:

I belive there is a universal morality. …
As a community it is our duty to try to assist each other in staying as true as possible to that “moral code”. I think that is the point of society.

And that would be the point of the UN as well: try to find something that every woman and man can agree to, and watch over these -probably few- values.

[dezrtfish]

simply look at things from the perspective of a sociopath. These people as well as others with a wide variety of personality, mood, and psychotic disorders as well as fugue states (the misnomered “split personality” syndrome) may have moralities vastly different from the rest of the population.
One might suggest that people with these “disorders” might well be excluded from the equation, but i submit that these designations were designed by other humans - those who might impose their own moralities on the population by “marginalizing” these people (far-fetched, i admit - can you tell i don’t like psychiatry?).
quote]

With this line of thought you are suggesting that perhaps Ted Bundy had a different set of moral values than I do. I disagree. I think Ted knew what he was doing was wrong he just didn’t have the ability to control his urges. I have the urge to injure or even kill people from time to time, however I resist that urge and stick to what I believe is morally right.

Further to - i would suggest that for the “big issues” - life and death, protection and aggression, self and others, etc. that i could find examples of the opposite for every moralistic stance. There might be “small” ones that we all have in common, however i would have a lot of difficulty imagining this to be the case.

I am willing to go beyond my moral beliefs to defend my life or the lives of others. This doesn’t mean that if I kill someone in defence of my life that I acted within my morals. I still believe it is imoral to kill someone. This is why police officers are so often emotionaly devastated after they are forced to kill someone in the defence of themselves or others. They have done something against their morals even though they were justified in doing so.

I believe the death penalty is immoral, however since exile is no longer a viable option, logicly steps must be taken to protect society. For this reason I am not opposed to the death penalty as a punnishment even though I belive taking another persons life is immoral.

Am I confusing enough yet?

[Jacob_Duhm]

I think there is an universal system of morals. If you look at the many different cultures you will find many different things in comon. For example, Murder a person is always wrong. But this isn’t really the issue. The issue is “what is a person?” I wouldn’t be surprised if Hitler thought it was wrong to murder someone. However, his definition of a person, a human, was different. He ordered the Holocost because he didn’t think that Jews were people. According to Hitler’s worldview, Jews were sub-human, animals, and therefore, could be killed with a clean conscience. Cultures may vary on how many wives a man can have, but you couldn’t just go out and have any woman you wanted. In other instances, the rules would only apply to that paticular group or tribe, but other tribes or people groups were outside of whatever system of ethics they held, and so a man could go raiding and come back with two or three women. But that didn’t change the fact that in his society, and probably in the women’s society, you couldn’t just go out at take any woman you wanted.

Anyway, I would be interested in hearing those of you who do not think there is a universal code of ethics to answer two questions:
(1) What is Truth?
(2) Does Truth ever change?
I’ve read through all of the past postings and this is a really great discussion.

Jacob

[bossk]

Ah, you pulled out Truth (with a capital “T”). I believe there is no Truth, only a few truths. These truths must be determined in each society and by each individual, and therefore truth is constantly changing. To say truth is static would be denying history. You may call me relativist scum, but I’ll never give in to absolutism.

[El Jefe]

A different view of…

Universal Morality -

1)All morals may change due to internal conflict brought on by external stimuli.
2)I want to breathe.
3)I want to be nutritionally satisfied. NOTE: This may range from vitamin suppliments to food to sustain my needed(subjective) level of activity to gorged.
4)I want to get enough sleep to satisfy my body’s needs(subjective.)

I do not accept “Murder is wrong” as a valid moral stance. If you were going to murder my family, I WOULD MURDER YOU and IT IS STILL MURDER. It depends on what your definition of the word “is” is.

/30

[cystic crypt]

@El:

A different view of…

Universal Morality -

1)All morals may change due to internal conflict brought on by external stimuli.
2)I want to breathe.
3)I want to be nutritionally satisfied. NOTE: This may range from vitamin suppliments to food to sustain my needed(subjective) level of activity to gorged.
4)I want to get enough sleep to satisfy my body’s needs(subjective.)

I do not accept “Murder is wrong” as a valid moral stance. If you were going to murder my family, I WOULD MURDER YOU and IT IS STILL MURDER. It depends on what your definition of the word “is” is.

/30

don’t forget “5”

• i want to have sex and i have a biological need to reproduce -
  the inner voice of date-rapers everywhere.

[Jacob_Duhm]

Bossk: Ah, you pulled out Truth (with a capital “T”). I believe there is no Truth, only a few truths. These truths must be determined in each society and by each individual, and therefore truth is constantly changing. To say truth is static would be denying history.You may call me relativist scum, but I’ll never give in to absolutism.

I don’t think you scum. You might be a relativist, but that doesn’t mean you’re scum. Anyway, If Truth changes, it isn’t Truth. Truth is an absolute. You cannot escape absolutes. If I said that all truth was subjective and that there is no absolutes, I would be creating an absolute. Call it: “The Absolute of No Absolutes,” if you will. However, an absolute that is not an absolute is illogical.

Also, if there is no objective standard for right and wrong, should you stop me from stealing your car? Stealing, may, after all, be ethical for me, but by stoping me, you would be holding me to your standard, which would imply that you think your system of ethics is supirior to mine, and that my code of morality is somehow flawed. Now, I wouldn’t consider going out and stealing anyone’s car because I think that is stealing, but how would a relativist deal with that situation and still retain his “relativism?”

Think Hard Think Well

Jacob

ps: El Jefe, what do you mean when you say murder?

[DeviantScripter]

This directly ties into the abortion thread that we had going, and whether one group of people should be held to another person’s “beliefs.”

[Guest]

@Jacob_Duhm:

Anyway, If Truth changes, it isn’t Truth. Truth is an absolute. You cannot escape absolutes. If I said that all truth was subjective and that there is no absolutes, I would be creating an absolute. Call it: “The Absolute of No Absolutes,” if you will. However, an absolute that is not an absolute is illogical.

Binary logic is out-of-date :)
Truth can be both relative and absolute: Some parts can change (e.g. at the moment, the sun shines through the window next to me. It probably won’t do so at night, thus what is true at the moment need not be true later.) or be dependant on where you are: If i say “it now is day-time”, you sitting on a different continent have a high chance of taking that as a lie. At the moment, humankind (or part of it) is even discussing if our most fundamental constants of nature are slowly changing over long long time-scales. So even their value doesn’t need to be “fixed and true”.
Of course, some other things are absolute, most often these are purely logical issues or principles, often found in math: For example “The set of rational numbers forms a body in regard to addition and multiplication”.
This is true, no matter wether there is anything left in the universe that can actually think this thought, it then still would be true.

Also, if there is no objective standard for right and wrong, should you stop me from stealing your car? Stealing, may, after all, be ethical for me, but by stoping me, you would be holding me to your standard, which would imply that you think your system of ethics is supirior to mine, and that my code of morality is somehow flawed. Now, I wouldn’t consider going out and stealing anyone’s car because I think that is stealing, but how would a relativist deal with that situation and still retain his “relativism?”

You don’t like secular humanism, do you? Logic says: Don’t do to others what you don’t want have done to yourself, unless they have done it to you already. Look up the prisoners’ dilemma of game theory.
Even so: Reltaivism in the definition of truth has nothing to do with relativism in ones moral/ethical positions. You can define your own set of rules (and hope/ignore that they do/don’t collide too much with all the others’ sets) regardless of what you think is true. My truth of “there is no creator of the universe” does not at all have an influence of my decision “not to cross streets while the lights are red unless i am in a hurry and there are no children around”.

[cystic crypt]

@F_alk:

@Jacob_Duhm:

Anyway, If Truth changes, it isn’t Truth. Truth is an absolute. You cannot escape absolutes. If I said that all truth was subjective and that there is no absolutes, I would be creating an absolute. Call it: “The Absolute of No Absolutes,” if you will. However, an absolute that is not an absolute is illogical.

Binary logic is out-of-date :)
Truth can be both relative and absolute: Some parts can change (e.g. at the moment, the sun shines through the window next to me. It probably won’t do so at night, thus what is true at the moment need not be true later.) or be dependant on where you are: If i say “it now is day-time”, you sitting on a different continent have a high chance of taking that as a lie.

or, realizing your position in the world, and having half a brain i have an even higher chance of realizing that your part of the world was facing the sun at that moment. How does this relate? Just as a sideline - some people’s truths are relative to their position in time and space (and their own ideology determined from their life’s circumstance). I think that many Christians have come a long way in interpreting the Truth (I am the way, the truth and the life . . . ) as it may apply to other people differently to others than to themselves. This is not to say that there are no absolutes in Christian truth, however (the resurrection of Christ, for example, the existance of sin . . . ) much as some of us Christian somewhat-relativists might wish to suggest otherwise in broadening its appeal to relativist scum.

Also, if there is no objective standard for right and wrong, should you stop me from stealing your car? Stealing, may, after all, be ethical for me, but by stoping me, you would be holding me to your standard, which would imply that you think your system of ethics is supirior to mine, and that my code of morality is somehow flawed. Now, I wouldn’t consider going out and stealing anyone’s car because I think that is stealing, but how would a relativist deal with that situation and still retain his “relativism?”

You don’t like secular humanism, do you? Logic says: Don’t do to others what you don’t want have done to yourself, unless they have done it to you already. Look up the prisoners’ dilemma of game theory.
Even so: Reltaivism in the definition of truth has nothing to do with relativism in ones moral/ethical positions. You can define your own set of rules (and hope/ignore that they do/don’t collide too much with all the others’ sets) regardless of what you think is true. My truth of “there is no creator of the universe” does not at all have an influence of my decision “not to cross streets while the lights are red unless i am in a hurry and there are no children around”.

“God is good, but don’t dance in a rowboat” might be the Christian version of this.
and the “no children around” is a nice touch. This mitigates my decision only if i am truly in a non-hurry.

[Jacob_Duhm]

But why doesn’t Relativism in the definition of Truth have nothing to do with Relativism in ethics? Please expand.

I don’t see “The sun shines on my side of the planet but not your’s” as a relativistic. The movement of the sun is an absolute of itself. It is impossible for the sun to shine directly on 100% of the earth, an absolute.

Do I like Secular Humanism? To be honest, not really. I have studied it, as well as Cosmic Humanism and I don’t think it is possible to live consistantly with either of those two worldviews. I’d go into this more, I think we’re getting off the topic of morality, so without further ado, I return to Ethics:

No one answered my question about me stealing a relativist’s car. Could someone give me an answer?
Jacob

ps: The ultimate question of Morality is this: What if you are wrong and you die?

[Guest]

@Jacob_Duhm:

But why doesn’t Relativism in the definition of Truth have nothing to do with Relativism in ethics? Please expand.

Because ethics is not about thruth. Telling the truth can be ethical, as it is actions (on the very basis, you can add thoughts/opinions to this) that are either ethical or not. The truth or any other logical/philosophical concept on the other hand, well…. is freedom ethical? Or is beauty ethical?
IMHO you mix things were you are not allowed to. I assume that you use an untold, thus to me unknown defintion of either truth or ethics to connect them.

I don’t see “The sun shines on my side of the planet but not your’s” as a relativistic. The movement of the sun is an absolute of itself. It is impossible for the sun to shine directly on 100% of the earth, an absolute.

Please quote me correctly. I said “it now is day-time”. That is a statement that either is true or false. You might have noticed, that the validity of that statement is dependant on both location and time. Hence, it is an example of not absolute truth, hence truth is not always absloute.

What you did in your first post was wrong reasoning. To correct you:
You can make a claim.
Any proof that this claim is wrong makes it wrong.
Now important:
A proof that a claim is wrong does NOT make the opposite right.

Example:
All human beings are females.
Wrong, i am male.
Therefore, all human beings are male……

See what i mean, you went:
truth is relative
If truth is relative the above is an absolute truth, hence the above is worng.
So you conclude that truth must be absolute.

Wrong logic.

Do I like Secular Humanism? To be honest, not really. I have studied it, as well as Cosmic Humanism and I don’t think it is possible to live consistantly with either of those two worldviews. I’d go into this more, I think we’re getting off the topic of morality, so without further ado, I return to Ethics:

Why is humanism not about moral and ethics?

No one answered my question about me stealing a relativist’s car. Could someone give me an answer?

By my subjective standard i would try to beat you up.
Why does a relativist standard not allow me to think my set of rules is superior to yours at that given instant?

ps: The ultimate question of Morality is this: What if you are wrong and you die?

That is a question of christian morality. I will be reborn, or more probably rot as no human being has a soul……

Why does this happen so often…
Jacob, you are from the US, am i correct?
Did it ever cross your mind, that you are in a minority with your christian belief, and no matter how much you believe it to be right, that the majority will utterly misunderstand you all the time when you keep using words in “christian-only” context?

[bossk]

@Jacob_Duhm:

If Truth changes, it isn’t Truth. Truth is an absolute. You cannot escape absolutes. If I said that all truth was subjective and that there is no absolutes, I would be creating an absolute. Call it: “The Absolute of No Absolutes,” if you will. However, an absolute that is not an absolute is illogical.

Ah, you’re using Truth, I’m talking about truths (notice capitalization difference). You’re right about Truth not changing, but I’m saying there is no absolute Truth. One of my truths is that truths can change, it’s not an absolute.
@Jacob_Duhm:

Also, if there is no objective standard for right and wrong, should you stop me from stealing your car? Stealing, may, after all, be ethical for me, but by stoping me, you would be holding me to your standard, which would imply that you think your system of ethics is supirior to mine, and that my code of morality is somehow flawed. Now, I wouldn’t consider going out and stealing anyone’s car because I think that is stealing, but how would a relativist deal with that situation and still retain his “relativism?”

You’re forgetting that we live in a society. A society doesn’t fuction too well without rules, so the truths that a majority of the population seems to share becomes law. Law is, I suppose, the closest you can get to a societal “Truth.” As a relativist I would naturally think that the person who stole my car was wrong, becuase according to my values he would be. Being a relativist just means that I cannot believe that there is an absolute Truth of any sort, the universe just doesn’t work that way.

[GeZe]

On the topic of morality…

I recently read a articale in an old Scientific American (Magazine). It was about a group of researchers that followed a group of boys growing up. They gave them various tests and things like that about how they would deal with situations and why they did what they did. what they found-

the reserchers think there are six levels of morality:

-I didn’t do it beacause-

1. I don’t want to get the punishment
2. I want to get the reward

3. I want people to like me

4. It is agansit the law

5. I have a social contract (or somthing like that)
6. Its just wrong!

the first group is mainly ages 0-10

the second is teenagers (kinda figers)

the third is 20+

only a little percentage reached the 5th level and no one reached the 6th

thats all, just somthing interesting I read

[El Jefe]

@cystic:

don’t forget “5”

• i want to have sex and i have a biological need to reproduce -
  the inner voice of date-rapers everywhere.

Well, I didn’t want to distract anyone from my main point…

…What was I saying?

Anyway, you see how quickly absolutes and universals aren’t so absoversal anymore.

GZ,
Scientific American-Morals, any idea how long ago? I have to look that up.

[GeZe]

well…

I’m in Bulgaria right now (till september)

and the magizine is in canada, so I can’t tell you, But I think it was from the middle+ of the 90’s