This will be a rather short question as I hope to get into a discussion and to read various views and interpretations on what exactly is moral and whether or not moral actions can be determined.
So what's your view, is morality relative or is there some means to identify and label things morally correct and morally wrong?
I apologise in advance if the view I'm about to discuss seems rather vague or perhaps even flawed, I've rarely had the opportunity to discuss it. Essentially I've been thinking that we could label actions morally correct and morally wrong using rationality, though of course it depends on the context of the situation.
I think in terms of basic morals I could say "Killing for fun is morally wrong" as it's what I consider to be an irrational act, the problem that I'd face is then to prove that this act is irrational. In order to demonstrate it being irrational I'd most likely argue that the murderer had brief fun while the other is dead, the act of murder is somewhat detrimental to society and to families and thus in turn affects the murderer and it can be psychologically harmful etc.
But these kind of reasons take away from the actual act, is murder wrong simply because it may cause psychological harm or because it may harm society or is the actual act of violence and ending someone's life what's wrong. I think it is but then I come up against the same problem, I need establish that the act is irrational. I could appeal to emotion but I find that to be a lame excuse and in no means validates the idea I'm proposing and the only other reason I can think of is that the murderer is ending the life of an individual who does not wish for their life to end.
Is it then the case of the murderers fun vs the individuals life, is there a means to prioritize these things objectively?
This is really as far as I've got in the thought process, if anyone has anything to add to it, criticize it or just add their own views on morality then please do so.
Your view on morality.
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Post #2
I find the basis of secular (and many cultural/religious) morality to be the law of reciprocity like the Golden Rule. My favorite version is "treat others as if you were them" because a masochist would be led astray with "do onto others as you would have them do onto you."
For me, morality is all about the motive of the action and rarely about the outcome. For example, attempted murder and murder involve the person doing the same thing with the same motive. The only difference is one person is more competent than the other.
Another example is a boy helping an old lady across the street. You don't know the morality of this until you know the motive of the boy. If he just wants to help, then you could call it good. If he is going for a Boy Scout merit badge, then it is neutral. If he wants to get her to the other side because a vicious dog awaits here there, then it is bad.
I think it is useless to come up with any rule of the form "you should not" because there will usually be some example where you should do it. I could probably find reasons people could lie, cheat, steal, murder, etc with the right hypothetical question.
So one attempt that almost does a good job of helping decide moral questions is utilitarianism (needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few). But it fails in several ways that we have to be aware of. Let me give two situations as an example.
A trolly is flying down a train track and will hit 5 people. You can press a button to make it change to a new track. But 1 person is on that track. Do you press the button? Most people say they would. And when asked why, they may something about saving 5 people and letting 1 person die.
Similar situation. There are 5 people in a doctor's office who need an organ transplant or they will die that day. There is a guy in there for a check-up who is a match for everyone. Do you take his organs and let him die to save the five people? Most people say they would not even though it would be saving 5 people and letting 1 die. What if the guy was had been drinking and driving and caused their car to run off the road and that was why they needed organs? Would your answer change?
We seem to have a few other rules inherent to us. This one shows we have a pretty strong biological rule of not pulling someone into a bad situation they are not a part of. We have other like protecting children over adults. Learning these helps us understand our biological desires along with a logical framework of utilitarianism.
At least those are my few cents on the issue.
For me, morality is all about the motive of the action and rarely about the outcome. For example, attempted murder and murder involve the person doing the same thing with the same motive. The only difference is one person is more competent than the other.
Another example is a boy helping an old lady across the street. You don't know the morality of this until you know the motive of the boy. If he just wants to help, then you could call it good. If he is going for a Boy Scout merit badge, then it is neutral. If he wants to get her to the other side because a vicious dog awaits here there, then it is bad.
I think it is useless to come up with any rule of the form "you should not" because there will usually be some example where you should do it. I could probably find reasons people could lie, cheat, steal, murder, etc with the right hypothetical question.
So one attempt that almost does a good job of helping decide moral questions is utilitarianism (needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few). But it fails in several ways that we have to be aware of. Let me give two situations as an example.
A trolly is flying down a train track and will hit 5 people. You can press a button to make it change to a new track. But 1 person is on that track. Do you press the button? Most people say they would. And when asked why, they may something about saving 5 people and letting 1 person die.
Similar situation. There are 5 people in a doctor's office who need an organ transplant or they will die that day. There is a guy in there for a check-up who is a match for everyone. Do you take his organs and let him die to save the five people? Most people say they would not even though it would be saving 5 people and letting 1 die. What if the guy was had been drinking and driving and caused their car to run off the road and that was why they needed organs? Would your answer change?
We seem to have a few other rules inherent to us. This one shows we have a pretty strong biological rule of not pulling someone into a bad situation they are not a part of. We have other like protecting children over adults. Learning these helps us understand our biological desires along with a logical framework of utilitarianism.
At least those are my few cents on the issue.
Post #3
Morality in my view can only be real, that is, have any validity, if and only if it stems from the authoritative will of a law-giver. There are a number of reasons for why I think this is so but first let me give a run down of why I think other answers fail in several relevant respects.
First, rationality alone cannot show what is morally correct. I took a logic class several months ago. Nowhere in my logic text book was there anything about moral prescriptions in the way of demonstrations thereof. What logic is, and by extension rationality, is merely a descriptive account of how the world and reasoning about the world function, respectively. This simply doesn't apply to morality for the simple fact that what "is" and what "ought" are two different things, logic dealing with only the former: concrete objects in space and time which naturally follow certain rigid laws of thought.
An example would be if-then relations. Jill will come to the party only if Bill brings roses. This is because Jill *is* attracted to roses. In other words, what we deal with in logic are concrete scenarios that are self-contained and postulate nothing outside of themselves; like a moral dimension. Morality on the other hand deals with why *should* Bill bring roses. To please Jill? Whose to say Jill needs pleasing? A silly example, granted, but hopefully you get the point.
You can say that there has to be a reason behind an act for it to be rational and that gives it it's ethical characteristic. But unethical acts themselves have motives. Nor do ethical acts, like demonstrating unconditional love or a random act of kindness, need to have any specific reason for why they occur. In many cases they simply are, happening out of the blue as it were. Furthermore, if you were to trace the ultimate bases for most actions, it would seem that a utilitarian model of thought is what you find, or erect in your mind on an analytic reflection; that is, all good actions are directed at some good, directly or indirectly. But since none of us are pure blood utilitarians, since we do not, say, think that the medical discoveries in light of the German Holocaust were worth the sacrifice of millions of Jews, we very innately sense that utilitarianism is an accidental feature of morality, and that ethics has its ultimate source in something different.
Lastly, one might say that there is a purpose-driven notion to good acts over bad acts, such as eating broccoli over junk food. The appeal this time is not quite the same as utilitarianism, since it supposes a deeper meaning to why something should be done; namely, because it yields a particular effect, and this cause-effect relationship necessitates the good outcome. I do not buy this line of thought because, while valid in its own right (that is, A entails B), it assumes humans possess a privileged relationships to such cause-effect relations, which is an unjustified leap. I do think purpose is a necessary conditions for good acts, but not for the stated reason given here, which is that the cause-effect relation intrinsically provides the ethical justification. Given this rendering of ethics alone we may ask why 'purpose' (if it even exists and is not adventitious) should be the arbiter of morality and not human's mere preference for such an arbiter.
I will take a break now.
First, rationality alone cannot show what is morally correct. I took a logic class several months ago. Nowhere in my logic text book was there anything about moral prescriptions in the way of demonstrations thereof. What logic is, and by extension rationality, is merely a descriptive account of how the world and reasoning about the world function, respectively. This simply doesn't apply to morality for the simple fact that what "is" and what "ought" are two different things, logic dealing with only the former: concrete objects in space and time which naturally follow certain rigid laws of thought.
An example would be if-then relations. Jill will come to the party only if Bill brings roses. This is because Jill *is* attracted to roses. In other words, what we deal with in logic are concrete scenarios that are self-contained and postulate nothing outside of themselves; like a moral dimension. Morality on the other hand deals with why *should* Bill bring roses. To please Jill? Whose to say Jill needs pleasing? A silly example, granted, but hopefully you get the point.
You can say that there has to be a reason behind an act for it to be rational and that gives it it's ethical characteristic. But unethical acts themselves have motives. Nor do ethical acts, like demonstrating unconditional love or a random act of kindness, need to have any specific reason for why they occur. In many cases they simply are, happening out of the blue as it were. Furthermore, if you were to trace the ultimate bases for most actions, it would seem that a utilitarian model of thought is what you find, or erect in your mind on an analytic reflection; that is, all good actions are directed at some good, directly or indirectly. But since none of us are pure blood utilitarians, since we do not, say, think that the medical discoveries in light of the German Holocaust were worth the sacrifice of millions of Jews, we very innately sense that utilitarianism is an accidental feature of morality, and that ethics has its ultimate source in something different.
Lastly, one might say that there is a purpose-driven notion to good acts over bad acts, such as eating broccoli over junk food. The appeal this time is not quite the same as utilitarianism, since it supposes a deeper meaning to why something should be done; namely, because it yields a particular effect, and this cause-effect relationship necessitates the good outcome. I do not buy this line of thought because, while valid in its own right (that is, A entails B), it assumes humans possess a privileged relationships to such cause-effect relations, which is an unjustified leap. I do think purpose is a necessary conditions for good acts, but not for the stated reason given here, which is that the cause-effect relation intrinsically provides the ethical justification. Given this rendering of ethics alone we may ask why 'purpose' (if it even exists and is not adventitious) should be the arbiter of morality and not human's mere preference for such an arbiter.
I will take a break now.
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Re: Your view on morality.
Post #4I am a moral sujectivist. Morality is a particular kind of value judgement, as such is relative to the judge.Zarf wrote:So what's your view, is morality relative or is there some means to identify and label things morally correct and morally wrong?
Assuming one value society and family over "brief fun." Otherwise it would be rational, right?In order to demonstrate it being irrational I'd most likely argue that the murderer had brief fun while the other is dead, the act of murder is somewhat detrimental to society and to families and thus in turn affects the murderer
I think we can safely say someone who murder for fun is already psychologically damaged.and it can be psychologically harmful etc.
Or you can accept what is wrong for you may not be wrong for another.I think it is but then I come up against the same problem, I need establish that the act is irrational. I could appeal to emotion but I find that to be a lame excuse and in no means validates the idea I'm proposing and the only other reason I can think of is that the murderer is ending the life of an individual who does not wish for their life to end.
I think you can measure these thing in terms of harm or benefit to society, but who is to say benefit to society should be everyone's goal? AKA is-ought gap.Is it then the case of the murderers fun vs the individuals life, is there a means to prioritize these things objectively?
Re: Your view on morality.
Post #5For me, morality is up to the person ultimately. Society, laws, gender roles, etc may in fact sway one's decision, but ultimately, it's their own private, personal decision.Zarf wrote:This will be a rather short question as I hope to get into a discussion and to read various views and interpretations on what exactly is moral and whether or not moral actions can be determined.
So what's your view, is morality relative or is there some means to identify and label things morally correct and morally wrong?
I apologise in advance if the view I'm about to discuss seems rather vague or perhaps even flawed, I've rarely had the opportunity to discuss it. Essentially I've been thinking that we could label actions morally correct and morally wrong using rationality, though of course it depends on the context of the situation.
I think in terms of basic morals I could say "Killing for fun is morally wrong" as it's what I consider to be an irrational act, the problem that I'd face is then to prove that this act is irrational. In order to demonstrate it being irrational I'd most likely argue that the murderer had brief fun while the other is dead, the act of murder is somewhat detrimental to society and to families and thus in turn affects the murderer and it can be psychologically harmful etc.
But these kind of reasons take away from the actual act, is murder wrong simply because it may cause psychological harm or because it may harm society or is the actual act of violence and ending someone's life what's wrong. I think it is but then I come up against the same problem, I need establish that the act is irrational. I could appeal to emotion but I find that to be a lame excuse and in no means validates the idea I'm proposing and the only other reason I can think of is that the murderer is ending the life of an individual who does not wish for their life to end.
Is it then the case of the murderers fun vs the individuals life, is there a means to prioritize these things objectively?
This is really as far as I've got in the thought process, if anyone has anything to add to it, criticize it or just add their own views on morality then please do so.
I don't believe in ultimate morality. I don't believe that any being, person, institution or law has the ability to say what's moral and what's not evenly across the board.
For me, morality depends on the person(s) involved, the situation, the culture, and a myriad of other parameters that can't be universally set for everyone in every situation.
