Morality

[Threlizdun]

Scientific utiliarianism

[Jormengand]

I'm actually writing up a thing about morality, and I'll show it to you once I'm done, but it's basically a cross between intentionalism and utilitarianism, with all the silly bits taken out (I mean, rule utilitarianism? Categorical imperatives? Yeesh. It gets worse when the universality test fails itself.)

[The New Sea Territory]

I feel Aristotelian ethics acts as a nice bridge between moral objectivity and subjectivity as there are objective things you must do to be moral but that there are subjective ways in which you can accomplish this.

Gotta stop you here and say that nothing is objectively moral.

[Arkolon]

Scientific utiliarianism

Funnily enough, you don't care about people enough to not be a utilitarian. You do know what moral utilitarianism implies, right?

[Pope Joan]

I believe every society at all times has maintained a basic set of rules which ensure the survival of that society. These include honesty, performance of work, keeping of promises, not changing boundary lines, fair weights and measures. Also, no robbery or murder.

Sure these are flouted all the time, "honored in the breach", but they are still universal norms.

[Trotskylvania]

Scientific utiliarianism

Funnily enough, you don't care about people enough to not be a utilitarian. You do know what moral utilitarianism implies, right?

I know it sticks in the craw of people who think that they can simply wash their hands of any involvement in the icky complexity of real life, and stick to their pure deontologies, but there are necessary evils, and the thing about necessary evils is that they are necessary.

[Sociobiology]

I believe every society at all times has maintained a basic set of rules which ensure the survival of that society. These include honesty, performance of work, keeping of promises, not changing boundary lines, fair weights and measures. Also, no robbery or murder.

Sure these are flouted all the time, "honored in the breach", but they are still universal norms.

although many societies are fine with violating them as long as you do it to outsiders.

[The Emerald Legion]

Quite a while back I had made a thread entitled "Moral Nihilism", which states morality is subjective. The majority of everyone agreed.

But, what is your morality? How does it differ forms others'.

My morality is the basically accepted morality in the west, but with a bit of an extreme twist. I believe selflessness is morally good, and greed is morally bad. Coercion, I believe, is morally bad, and voluntary and egalitarian social relationships are good.

Subjectivity is a tool used to reconcile irreconcilable worldviews, and cannot describe the world in any meaningful way.

Morality is inherently Objective.

[Sociobiology]

I would argue that their are more forms of morality than there are minds to consider them. In us morality is mix of evolved instinct, logical reason, and cultural tradition. And a more volatile mixture you could not ask for. But in the end our morality comes down to a giant collective game of make believe. We create morality through our thoughts and actions and these actions have no morality but that which we assign to them. I don not believe this detracts from them if anything it makes it just a little bit more special that we impose our own rules, separate from the universes rules, on ourselves.
There are no objective morals, just as there is no objective music or objective art, however we can evaluate internal consistency of a given morality by objective rules. We can dissect it and learn where the influences come from and decide for ourselves, collectively or individually, if we wish to accept or combat those influences. Its not clean, or pretty, or simple but it is all we have and we decide what we want to do with it.

[Sociobiology]

Quite a while back I had made a thread entitled "Moral Nihilism", which states morality is subjective. The majority of everyone agreed.

But, what is your morality? How does it differ forms others'.

My morality is the basically accepted morality in the west, but with a bit of an extreme twist. I believe selflessness is morally good, and greed is morally bad. Coercion, I believe, is morally bad, and voluntary and egalitarian social relationships are good.

Subjectivity is a tool used to reconcile irreconcilable worldviews, and cannot describe the world in any meaningful way.

Morality is inherently Objective.

it can be objectively demonstrated that morality is subjective.

[The Emerald Legion]

I would argue that their are more forms of morality than there are minds to consider them. In us morality is mix of evolved instinct, logical reason, and cultural tradition. And a more volatile mixture you could not ask for. But in the end our morality comes down to a giant collective game of make believe. We create morality through our thoughts and actions and these actions have no morality but that which we assign to them. I don not believe this detracts from them if anything it makes it just a little bit more special that we impose our own rules, separate from the universes rules, on ourselves.
There are no objective morals, just as there is no objective music or objective art, however we can evaluate internal consistency of a given morality by objective rules. We can dissect it and learn where the influences come from and decide for ourselves, collectively or individually, if we wish to accept or combat those influences. Its not clean, or pretty, or simple but it is all we have and we decide what we want to do with it.

mo·ral·i·ty
məˈralətē,mô-/
noun
noun: morality

principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.

There are right ways to do things and wrong ways to do things. While all this fancy cultural nonsense is interesting, it doesn't change that. There is ALWAYS a most effective path.

[Sociobiology]

I would argue that their are more forms of morality than there are minds to consider them. In us morality is mix of evolved instinct, logical reason, and cultural tradition. And a more volatile mixture you could not ask for. But in the end our morality comes down to a giant collective game of make believe. We create morality through our thoughts and actions and these actions have no morality but that which we assign to them. I don not believe this detracts from them if anything it makes it just a little bit more special that we impose our own rules, separate from the universes rules, on ourselves.
There are no objective morals, just as there is no objective music or objective art, however we can evaluate internal consistency of a given morality by objective rules. We can dissect it and learn where the influences come from and decide for ourselves, collectively or individually, if we wish to accept or combat those influences. Its not clean, or pretty, or simple but it is all we have and we decide what we want to do with it.

mo·ral·i·ty
məˈralətē,mô-/
noun
noun: morality

principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.

There are right ways to do things and wrong ways to do things. While all this fancy cultural nonsense is interesting, it doesn't change that. There is ALWAYS a most effective path.

what is the moral way for planets to accrete?

effective based on what metric; how much you spread your genes (evolved moral instincts), how much you help yourself, how much it helps your god, or how much it benefits your society.
we decide what is right and what is wrong, the universe has no such rules.

[The Emerald Legion]

mo·ral·i·ty
məˈralətē,mô-/
noun
noun: morality

principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.

There are right ways to do things and wrong ways to do things. While all this fancy cultural nonsense is interesting, it doesn't change that. There is ALWAYS a most effective path.

what is the moral way for planets to accrete?

effective based on what metric; how much you spread your genes (evolved moral instincts), how much you help yourself, how much it helps your god, or how much it benefits your society.
we decide what is right and what is wrong, the universe has no such rules.

Effective at whatever purpose it intends to serve. End-Goals in and of themselves are outside the realm of Morality. Only those goals that are means to an end come into it.

[Sociobiology]

what is the moral way for planets to accrete?

effective based on what metric; how much you spread your genes (evolved moral instincts), how much you help yourself, how much it helps your god, or how much it benefits your society.
we decide what is right and what is wrong, the universe has no such rules.

Effective at whatever purpose it intends to serve. End-Goals in and of themselves are outside the realm of Morality. Only those goals that are means to an end come into it.

then anything that achieves its intended goal is moral?
Of course that is your own personal morality, not morality in general.

[The Emerald Legion]

Effective at whatever purpose it intends to serve. End-Goals in and of themselves are outside the realm of Morality. Only those goals that are means to an end come into it.

then anything that achieves its intended goal is moral?
Of course that is your own personal morality, not morality in general.

I see no reason to acknowledge any other morality as equally valid. Apart from the obvious of "If I say these people's morals aren't complete nonsense, they'll be less likely to cause trouble."

[Sociobiology]

then anything that achieves its intended goal is moral?
Of course that is your own personal morality, not morality in general.

I see no reason to acknowledge any other morality as equally valid. Apart from the obvious of "If I say these people's morals aren't complete nonsense, they'll be less likely to cause trouble."

just as people see no reason to acknowledge yours as valid. the validity of morality is entirely opinion.

[Neutraligon]

I see no reason to acknowledge any other morality as equally valid. Apart from the obvious of "If I say these people's morals aren't complete nonsense, they'll be less likely to cause trouble."

just as people see no reason to acknowledge yours as valid. the validity of morality is entirely opinion.

And hence subjective. For something to be objective it must exist outside the mind. morals do not exist outside the mind, and therefore cannot be objective.

[Great Kleomentia]

I see no reason to acknowledge any other morality as equally valid. Apart from the obvious of "If I say these people's morals aren't complete nonsense, they'll be less likely to cause trouble."

just as people see no reason to acknowledge yours as valid. the validity of morality is entirely opinion.

Indeed.

[The Emerald Legion]

I see no reason to acknowledge any other morality as equally valid. Apart from the obvious of "If I say these people's morals aren't complete nonsense, they'll be less likely to cause trouble."

just as people see no reason to acknowledge yours as valid. the validity of morality is entirely opinion.

No, it makes them wrong. I don't NEED others to acknowledge my morals as right or wrong. People are entirely irrelevant.

Whether or not you believe the best path is the best path does not make it NOT the best path.

[Allector]

just as people see no reason to acknowledge yours as valid. the validity of morality is entirely opinion.

And hence subjective. For something to be objective it must exist outside the mind. morals do not exist outside the mind, and therefore cannot be objective.

I would beg to differ with a few rhetorical questions that might make you want to reconsider. Would you agree that murder is wrong? If morality is subjective as you describe it and cannot be objective because it exists within the mind, then when did you decide that it was wrong? Why did you decide it was wrong? Or, was this idea of murdering being wrong given to you by your parents or others? Or, have you always known that murder is wrong? If you have always known that murder is wrong, this therefore implies that the notion of murder being wrong had existed before and is inherent within humanity. Of course, you can counter that this idea was implanted by your parents and others long before you were cognizant of the idea and were able to recognize it as an artificial concept. I would then ask the same questions of your ancestors, what made them decide that murder was wrong?

Once all is said and done, there must have been something that gave rise to the notion that killing without justification, murder, was wrong. This would then imply and set a precedent on which the notion of murder being wrong is based, thereby implying objectivity within the idea and concept of morality. If our greatest ancestors simply just knew that murder was wrong without any catalyst, again it is implied that the idea of unjustified killing being wrong is intrinsic. Further, if morality truly is subjective then why would you or anyone bother doing anything good? If morality were subjective then it would stem to reason that society and humanity would collapse within short order. You could argue that we came up with these precedents known as morals as a form of self-preservation, artificial selection if you will. If this is the case, then the objective standard on which our morals are based is clearly outlined, the survival and preservation of the species. But, what makes survival of the species good? Why bother preserving the species? It would be argued that it is simply within our nature to preserve ourselves, but again, this implies that there was something automatic and de facto that drove humanity to believe that survival was good, therefore anything that worked towards the survival of humanity was/is intrinsically good and worth doing.

I could go on, but I'm going to rest my case there.

[Arkolon]

Funnily enough, you don't care about people enough to not be a utilitarian. You do know what moral utilitarianism implies, right?

I know it sticks in the craw of people who think that they can simply wash their hands of any involvement in the icky complexity of real life, and stick to their pure deontologies, but there are necessary evils, and the thing about necessary evils is that they are necessary.

Being evil is not a necessity. There never needs to be a permanent quest for moral compromise.

[Trotskylvania]

I know it sticks in the craw of people who think that they can simply wash their hands of any involvement in the icky complexity of real life, and stick to their pure deontologies, but there are necessary evils, and the thing about necessary evils is that they are necessary.

Being evil is not a necessity. There never needs to be a permanent quest for moral compromise.

We didn't stop Nazism with voluntarism or other forms of libertarian pixie dust. We stopped it with violence and coercion, both at home and abroad. We forced people to fight, controlled wages and prices, and abolished non-military economic activity, and pushed all available economic resources that could be mustered to the war effort.

We did it because someone had to stop them. Force and violence are not pretty, and should not be used lightly, but never mistake that they are always necessary, whether against great evils or minor evils.

[The New Sea Territory]

Being evil is not a necessity. There never needs to be a permanent quest for moral compromise.

We didn't stop Nazism with voluntarism or other forms of libertarian pixie dust. We stopped it with violence and coercion, both at home and abroad. We forced people to fight, controlled wages and prices, and abolished non-military economic activity, and pushed all available economic resources that could be mustered to the war effort.

We did it because someone had to stop them. Force and violence are not pretty, and should not be used lightly, but never mistake that they are always necessary, whether against great evils or minor evils.

Voluntarism is against the initiation of force, not force itself.

[Trotskylvania]

We didn't stop Nazism with voluntarism or other forms of libertarian pixie dust. We stopped it with violence and coercion, both at home and abroad. We forced people to fight, controlled wages and prices, and abolished non-military economic activity, and pushed all available economic resources that could be mustered to the war effort.

We did it because someone had to stop them. Force and violence are not pretty, and should not be used lightly, but never mistake that they are always necessary, whether against great evils or minor evils.

Voluntarism is against the initiation of force, not force itself.

And it was initiated en masse, as I just demonstrated. The state took over the direction of economic activity for the duration of the war, and directed all available resources, including the conscription of people into the armed forces, to prosecute the war effort.

[Arkolon]

Being evil is not a necessity. There never needs to be a permanent quest for moral compromise.

We didn't stop Nazism with voluntarism or other forms of libertarian pixie dust. We stopped it with violence and coercion, both at home and abroad. We forced people to fight, controlled wages and prices, and abolished non-military economic activity, and pushed all available economic resources that could be mustered to the war effort.

We did it because someone had to stop them. Force and violence are not pretty, and should not be used lightly, but never mistake that they are always necessary, whether against great evils or minor evils.

War is a definite evil. That does not prove your point.

Points for the Godwin, though.