Keeping it simple: Morality and values

[agnosticatheist]

It seems that often discussions and debates concerning morality get bogged down. I'm going to try to keep it simple here, and hopefully have some dialogue.

It seems that values play a large role in human living and human interaction. When it comes to morality, some people value certain moral rules, while others value other rules. Still others reject many different moral rules.

Here is the question for debate:

How does Person A convince Person B that Person B should value the same moral rules that Person A does?

For an example, consider two people:

Joe: He thinks there is nothing wrong with drinking alcoholic beverages, even to the point of intoxication.

Andrew: He thinks that drinking any type of alcoholic beverage, in any quantity, and in any context, is morally wrong.

How does Joe convince Andrew to share his position on alcoholic beverages?

How does Andrew convince Joe to share his position on alcoholic beverages?

[instantc]

It is the action that is moral or immoral, right or wrong of course. If a person intends to perform a moral act then his intentions and motives are moral, if a person intends to perform an immoral act then his intentions and motives are immoral.

I don't see any point in judging the "morality of an action" as a separate construct from morality based on intentions and motives. I don't see why you keep proclaiming these rather unusual and clumsy views of morality as if they were some kind of commonly known facts.

[Artie]

[Replying to post 29 by Artie]

Murder is by definition premeditated, so it does matter what the killer thinks.

Yes, we have different terms for murder and involuntary manslaughter.
But we don't say that they're both immoral acts with different moral intents.
Murder is immoral. Involuntary manslaughter is amoral.

The act is completely amoral. As I've said, nothing comes of assigning a morality to the act.

It starts off with biology and evolution. Organisms live and die so here we have the two major dichotomies. Survival or non-survival. Life or death. Everything we consider good or bad, right or wrong, moral or immoral have their beginnings here. Survival/life = good/right/moral non-survival/death = bad/wrong/immoral. When we say something is good/right/moral what we actually say is that it ultimately leads to survival/life/well-being. When we say something is bad/wrong/immoral what we actually say is that it ultimately leads to non-survival/death/not well-being.

In The Universal Declaration of Human Rights http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/ every single article ultimately leads to survival/life/well-being. So we call following these statements good/right/moral. In the end it doesn't matter what you choose to call moral or amoral or immoral. You'll ultimately end up in the same place anyway.

[Jashwell]

[Replying to post 32 by Artie]

You haven't addressed anything I've said at all.

(incidentally, it seems both ironic and eminently relevant that this thread has come to trying to convince each other of morals, if anything you could study this thread and then submit your report to this thread)

Intending to kill someone is immoral, and something for which we should punish.
Someone being killed itself is amoral, bad (as in undesirable), and something we should try to avoid.

When we say "killing someone is immoral", it is the case that intending to kill someone is immoral, and that usually (99% of cases) killing someone entails intending it.

This is the simplest, most sensible formulation. We could have a new set of crimes for intending to commit and failing or not getting the chance, or a series of breaks for unintentionally committing a crime. This is a less efficient and much more convoluted way of achieving the same thing as above.

If we called things that were good or desirable moral, then it wouldn't be the act, but the abstract class of objects associated with the result (i.e. happiness or material wealth) that would be somehow innately moral. E.g. chocolate would be innately moral. This seems (to me) even odder than calling acts themselves moral.

If we call acts themselves moral or immoral, we raise the concern of simply removing the human agents and still having this weird situation.
Dropping a massive rock on someone is, in almost all cases, immoral. You would likely say that the act is itself immoral.
Does this mean that landslides are immoral?

[Artie]

[Replying to post 32 by Artie]

You haven't addressed anything I've said at all.

I went beyond what you said and explained why we call things good or bad, right or wrong, moral or immoral. I start from biology and evolution and go down. The primary dichotomy is life or death. Life is good/right, death is bad/wrong. A synonym for wrong is immoral. http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/immoral Death is wrong, hence murdering somebody is immoral.

[Jashwell]

[Replying to post 34 by Artie]

No, you addressed a completely different question. Not one issue I raised has been answered.

You falsely equivocate moral with good - yes, there is a sub-definition of good that is moral, but the entire definition of good and moral are not in unison.

As I stated in my reply, this kind of logic:

Chocolate = Good
Good = Moral
Chocolate = Moral

Being Wealthy = Good
Good = Moral
Being Wealthy = Moral

Doesn't hold up.

Specifically;
A synonym is a word with a similar meaning. It need not have the same meaning, and it certainly need not map 1 to 1 in every sub-definition, let alone connotation.

It may be the case (and I'm not certain it is) that everything moral is good.
But it is certainly not the case that everything good is moral.

1) Everything moral is good
2) A is good.
-> A is moral.

This is the fallacy of undistributed middle.

[Artie]

As I stated in my reply, this kind of logic:

Chocolate = Good
Good = Moral
Chocolate = Moral

Being Wealthy = Good
Good = Moral
Being Wealthy = Moral

Doesn't hold up.

Life/survival = Good/Right (Evolution/Survival instinct)
Death/non-survival = Bad/Wrong (Evolution/Survival Instinct)
Actions leading to life/survival we call moral
Actions leading to death/non-survival we call immoral

Stop talking about chocolate and being wealthy and explain what's wrong with the four lines above.

[Jashwell]

[Replying to post 36 by Artie]

"Life/survival = Good/Right"
besides the point
(and vice versa)
(definition, not indicative of actual equivalence relation but of subset relation; see above fallacy mention)

"Actions leading to life/survival we call moral"
begging the question
(and vice versa)

Now why don't you start talking about chocolate and the things I've actually brought up, rather than continuing to bring up new and equally irrelevant things?
You're dodging relevant issues.

(Incidentally, you've just tacitly claimed that it's immoral to give up your life for a cause, but that's not among the main issues brought up that I'm keen for you to address)

[Artie]

[Replying to post 36 by Artie]Now why don't you start talking about chocolate and the things I've actually brought up, rather than continuing to bring up new and equally irrelevant things?
You're dodging relevant issues.

I have already explained my point as best I can. You are so busy finding "faults" with the individual trees that you don't see the forest I was trying to show you.

"(Incidentally, you've just tacitly claimed that it's immoral to give up your life for a cause, but that's not among the main issues brought up that I'm keen for you to address)"

Not enough details to answer.

[Jashwell]

[Replying to post 38 by Artie]
"Individual trees of a forest"

To review:
reply 37
- point out you were besides the point (even if your claim were true or semantic view were desirable)
- point out you effectively beg the question
- point out you're dodging most things I'm saying while I am addressing what you say
- point out that "death = bad, survival = good" doesn't bode well for giving lives for causes

reply 35
- point out you haven't addressed what I've said
- explain you are falsely equivocating
- give examples for an ad absurdum
- highlight a fallacy of undistributed middle

reply 33
- point out you haven't addressed what I've said
- re-explain my position
- give examples of problems with your semantic view

reply 30
- explain that what you said isn't an objection to my view
- point out your view is unnecessarily complicated

reply 28
- point out that this would end up separating the act from the agent
- point out that this creates an entirely meaningless additional category of things that can be moral, which has no bearing... on anything, seemingly

reply 26
- explain this is an unnecessarily convoluted schema
- give a (bad) example (a better is given later)

Could I have some actual replies to these issues?

[Artie]

[Replying to post 38 by Artie]
"Individual trees of a forest"

To review:
reply 37
- point out you were besides the point (even if your claim were true or semantic view were desirable)
- point out you effectively beg the question
- point out you're dodging most things I'm saying while I am addressing what you say
- point out that "death = bad, survival = good" doesn't bode well for giving lives for causes

reply 35
- point out you haven't addressed what I've said
- explain you are falsely equivocating
- give examples for an ad absurdum
- highlight a fallacy of undistributed middle

reply 33
- point out you haven't addressed what I've said
- re-explain my position
- give examples of problems with your semantic view

reply 30
- explain that what you said isn't an objection to my view
- point out your view is unnecessarily complicated

reply 28
- point out that this would end up separating the act from the agent
- point out that this creates an entirely meaningless additional category of things that can be moral, which has no bearing... on anything, seemingly

reply 26
- explain this is an unnecessarily convoluted schema
- give a (bad) example (a better is given later)

Could I have some actual replies to these issues?

Yes. that is exactly what I meant by getting so hung up in specific details that you can't see the big picture. Of course I can't answer each point specifically because first you would have to see the same big picture I see in order to understand my answers. My post 32 was my main statement. I expected you to see the forest and instead you start talking about individual trees. So there we are. I'm sure you can find somebody who's interested in discussing every single leaf and branch on every tree with you but I'm not.