Morality and Ethics

[pixelero]

I suggest that there is no "objective morality", by definition. The word "morality" is cognate with the Latin mores (customs: singular mos.) What is moral in one culture can be immoral in another.

Ethics, in contrast, is cognate with Greek ethos (which can also denote customary behavior, but has a further denotation of character.) In precise modern usage, "morality" denotes what a particular culture considers right behavior while "ethics" denotes a branch of philosophy in which logic is used to determine what is right behavior based on a set of accepted premises. For example: "life is preferable to death" - "happiness is preferable to suffering" - "truth is preferable to falsehood" and so on. (One premise that was only formally adopted by most thinkers fairly recently, historically speaking, is "freedom is preferable to bondage." Hence the persistence of slavery as an institution well into the Enlightenment.)

I would like to know: are there any believers who accept this distinction between morality and ethics, or any non-believers who reject it? Why?

[Overcomer]

Pixilero wrote:

I suggest that there is no "objective morality", by definition. The word "morality" is cognate with the Latin mores (customs: singular mos.) What is moral in one culture can be immoral in another

Do you believe it is perfectly acceptable to hold five-year-old children prisoner and gang rape them several times a day until they turn six, at which point, the rapists go out and get a new batch of five-year-olds? I'm not asking if you yourself would ever do that. I'm not asking for your own personal code of ethics. I'm asking if you can condone that act if it is acceptable in another culture today. I'm asking if you think it's fine and dandy if anybody living in any culture down through the centuries did that.

Here's the thing: If you truly believe that there are no standards of objective morality and that morality is all relative, then you are saying that you would allow people to do that to kindergarten children and that nobody has the right to interfere with it -- not their parents, not the government or lawmakers, nobody can condemn it as evil because it's right for somebody else.

In other words, if there are no objective moral standards, then nobody has the right to say that anything anybody does is wrong. If a person says raping women is right for him, you don't have any grounds on which to say it is wrong if you truly believe that morality is relative. We can all just throw all the laws out the window and let people do "what is right for them".

That means no traffic laws. People should be able to drive as fast as they want and on whatever side of the road they want and we don't need stop signs because nobody has to stop for them if they don't want to.

We can get rid of the police, courts of law, prisons, etc., because if somebody wants to rob a bank because it feels right to him, we have no right to stop him. If somebody wants to embezzle funds from work because it feels right to do so, then we will let him. Because, in a world of relative morality, nobody can be wrong, can they?

And you can't even rely on the majority doing the right thing, can you? After all, Hitler got a majority of people to follow him. Can you honestly say that, if the majority want something, that makes it right?

It reminds me so much of a phrase oft-repeated in the Book of Judges. People did what was right in their own eyes. And the result was pretty darn ugly!

[Goat]

Pixilero wrote:

I suggest that there is no "objective morality", by definition. The word "morality" is cognate with the Latin mores (customs: singular mos.) What is moral in one culture can be immoral in another

Do you believe it is perfectly acceptable to hold five-year-old children prisoner and gang rape them several times a day until they turn six, at which point, the rapists go out and get a new batch of five-year-olds? I'm not asking if you yourself would ever do that. I'm not asking for your own personal code of ethics. I'm asking if you can condone that act if it is acceptable in another culture today. I'm asking if you think it's fine and dandy if anybody living in any culture down through the centuries did that.

That is not acceptable in our culture. Why do you think it would be? Morality is a culturally conditioned response, and I am sure that Pixilero has been conditioned by our culture as much as you have been. To try to bring up that kind of hypothetical is, frankly, rude, crude and insulting. Now, one thing about culturally conditioned responses is that cultures that have behaviors that are counter survival won't survive.

Here's the thing: If you truly believe that there are no standards of objective morality and that morality is all relative, then you are saying that you would allow people to do that to kindergarten children and that nobody has the right to interfere with it -- not their parents, not the government or lawmakers, nobody can condemn it as evil because it's right for somebody else.

Not at all. This is as red herring and a straw man. Just because a piece of morality is not objective does not mean that the subjective moral does not exist.
This morality is based on cultural conditioning, with empathy and enlightened self interest as a basis for it.

In other words, if there are no objective moral standards, then nobody has the right to say that anything anybody does is wrong. If a person says raping women is right for him, you don't have any grounds on which to say it is wrong if you truly believe that morality is relative. We can all just throw all the laws out the window and let people do "what is right for them".

Absolutely not. There is the little thing known as 'instinct to survive', and 'reciprocal altruism'. It can be boiled down to a social contract. You don't go kill other people, and other people won't go kill you. The social contract says 'If you go ahead and do things we as a collective deem incorrect, we, as a collective, will take action to protect ourselves against you.'. That is what happens today.. some people just use the threat of an imaginary judge to keep them in line, and rationalize it all. But, it actually is just a culturally conditioned response.
\


That means no traffic laws. People should be able to drive as fast as they want and on whatever side of the road they want and we don't need stop signs because nobody has to stop for them if they don't want to.

We can get rid of the police, courts of law, prisons, etc., because if somebody wants to rob a bank because it feels right to him, we have no right to stop him. If somebody wants to embezzle funds from work because it feels right to do so, then we will let him. Because, in a world of relative morality, nobody can be wrong, can they?

And you can't even rely on the majority doing the right thing, can you? After all, Hitler got a majority of people to follow him. Can you honestly say that, if the majority want something, that makes it right?

It reminds me so much of a phrase oft-repeated in the Book of Judges. People did what was right in their own eyes. And the result was pretty darn ugly!

We don't need the book of Judges. We have appointed police and real human judges to insure that the rules deemed needed for the smooth functioning of society are enforced.

As for Hitler, we, as a global society, decided he was a threat to us, and we removed him. End of story.

[pixelero]

[Replying to post 2 by Overcomer]

Pixilero wrote:

I suggest that there is no "objective morality", by definition. The word "morality" is cognate with the Latin mores (customs: singular mos.) What is moral in one culture can be immoral in another

Do you believe it is perfectly acceptable to hold five-year-old children prisoner and gang rape them several times a day until they turn six, at which point, the rapists go out and get a new batch of five-year-olds? I'm not asking if you yourself would ever do that. I'm not asking for your own personal code of ethics. I'm asking if you can condone that act if it is acceptable in another culture today. I'm asking if you think it's fine and dandy if anybody living in any culture down through the centuries did that.

No. I do not think that sexually abusing children is "fine and dandy." Why would you suggest that I would? The point that I was hoping to make is that some cultures accept behavior that others don't. I did not say that because morality is relative, I therefore approve of all morality. On the contrary; I suggested that "morality" is an insufficient standard by which to judge behavior.

To clarify, (given that the sexual abuse of children is what you wish to consider in terms of morality,) there is no "age of consent" in scripture. There is no commandment that says, "Thou shall not take a prepubescent child as thy wife." The prophet of Islam married a child. The O.T. has specific instructions about how to sexually exploit the "girls who have not lain with a man" and about how "your daughters whom you have sold" are not eligible for the jubilee release of slaves. Today, in nations under which theocratic law holds sway, eight-year-old "brides" are raped to death by their legal husbands.This is the result of religious "morality".
http://www.theguardian.com/global-devel ... es-wedding
I say reject "morality." Rely, instead, on "ethics."

Here's the thing: If you truly believe that there are no standards of objective morality and that morality is all relative, then you are saying that you would allow people to do that to kindergarten children and that nobody has the right to interfere with it -- not their parents, not the government or lawmakers, nobody can condemn it as evil because it's right for somebody else.

You are laboring under a sever delusion if you assume that recognition of the relativity of morality means the approval of any particular culture's standards of morality. On the contrary - I say that "morality" should be rejected entirely and replaced with ethics.

if there are no objective moral standards, then nobody has the right to say that anything anybody does is wrong. If a person says raping women is right for him, you don't have any grounds on which to say it is wrong if you truly believe that morality is relative. We can all just throw all the laws out the window and let people do "what is right for them".

The fact that there are no objective moral standards means that we need to get rid of moral standards as measures of right and wrong. We have ethics. The rejection of "moral standards" does not mean that we can not distinguish right from wrong; it means we have better, more objective, standards for making distinctions between right and wrong.

[dominicastar]

[Replying to post 1 by pixelero]

I do not understand what you mean by objective morality, however I do know I disagree with this statement

The word "morality" is cognate with the Latin mores (customs: singular mos.) What is moral in one culture can be immoral in another.

We could debate all night and day, but there is no denying that morality is based on the general wellbeing of a society and based on this, actions has consequences and based on the consequence of an act, we can determine its morality. Morality is complex I'll agree, but it's not based on an opinion of someone.

I'll steal Matt Dillahaunty explanation as it best explains what I mean.

We are physical beings in a physical universe and there are truths about what sort of effects ACTIONS have on us.
We are forced to share space; co-operation has been shown to be much more beneficial to all of us, than a lack of co-operation.

I’d rather not die and I’d rather not have my stuff taken and so it’s at least in my best interest to set up a system with other people who’d rather not die and who’d rather not have their stuff taken; to ensure we set up a system of laws that discourages and punishes those instances where people are killing and stealing.
You begin with very simple ideas like; life is generally preferable to death; pleasure is generally preferable to pain; health is generally preferable to sickness.
Sometimes those are going to come into conflict, there are lots of complex situations but there’s a lot of simple situations and general rules that we can sort out.

And because for any given situation, there’s a finite / limited set of possible actions, it’s pretty easy to look at the consequences of those actions and say some of these are better than others which mean that morality is a very complex thing, it is much more complex than someone saying ‘Thou Shalt’

[Darias]

I suggest that there is no "objective morality", by definition. The word "morality" is cognate with the Latin mores (customs: singular mos.) What is moral in one culture can be immoral in another.

If one defines morality in this way, then it is true that the idea of objective customs is invalid, as customs and traditions differ and conflict around the world, not only among cultures but also among groups and individuals as well.

However, most people use the terms "morality" and "ethics" interchangeably, and most people believe right and wrong should be universal. This is one of the reasons why I call use the labels "moral" or "immoral," but my usage of this language does not pay homage to whatever the culture I grew up in values. This is not because what I value largely contradicts social mores and customs, but because I accept consistent ethical principles as an objective foundation for right and wrong.

Ethics, in contrast, is cognate with Greek ethos (which can also denote customary behavior, but has a further denotation of character.) In precise modern usage, "morality" denotes what a particular culture considers right behavior while "ethics" denotes a branch of philosophy in which logic is used to determine what is right behavior based on a set of accepted premises. For example: "life is preferable to death" - "happiness is preferable to suffering" - "truth is preferable to falsehood" and so on. (One premise that was only formally adopted by most thinkers fairly recently, historically speaking, is "freedom is preferable to bondage." Hence the persistence of slavery as an institution well into the Enlightenment.)

I would like to know: are there any believers who accept this distinction between morality and ethics, or any non-believers who reject it? Why?

I accept this definition of ethics, in the same manner I would accept science as rational and logical.

The scientific method is the objective way to analyze data in the real world, which helps us gain a rational and consistent understanding of how the universe works.

I accept the idea of an objective framework for ethics, by which we can examine whether or not behaviors are right and wrong based on logical principles of consistency and non-contradiction.

That said, I do not accept the validity of Sam Harris' proposed objective morality, which is only grounded in appeals to moderation, nature, and emotion.

However, I accept Universally Preferable Behavior, as put forth by Stefan Molyneux, as the objective framework for ethics. It leaves open a lot of room for amoral and personal aesthetics (or subjective preferences). However, it explains why murder, theft, and rape are objectively wrong via deontological reasoning, which is the only way to determine what is right and wrong. We all like positive consequences, but appealing to the ends as a justification for the means, more often than not, produces a great deal of "justified" bloodshed and crime -- which ironically a lot of consequentialists do not appreciate. I think consequences are nice compliments to doing the right thing, but they don't make an action right. There is no way to apply utilitarian reasoning to behaviors in a consistent way, as what is best for most depends on what "that" is and who "the most" are. I accept that that which is "preferable to all" is superior to anything that sacrifices the few for the benefit of others.

Do you believe it is perfectly acceptable to hold five-year-old children prisoner and gang rape them several times a day until they turn six, at which point, the rapists go out and get a new batch of five-year-olds? I'm not asking if you yourself would ever do that. I'm not asking for your own personal code of ethics. I'm asking if you can condone that act if it is acceptable in another culture today. I'm asking if you think it's fine and dandy if anybody living in any culture down through the centuries did that.

Most people who have a a capacity for empathy, via mirror neurons and healthy childhoods, would recoil from such a hypothetical social custom with disgust, but that of course does not establish objectivity.

Rape is objectively wrong because it is a specific incarnation of the initiation of force or aggression against a victim. The same is true for theft and murder. If morality or ethics are to mean anything, they must consistently apply to everyone possessing the capacity to reason, young and old.

Appeals to tradition cannot validate any social custom, be it as horrific as the one you described or be it one much less brutal.

Saying, "I'm white so it's okay for me to own a slave," is the same thing as saying "I am a man so it is okay to beat my wife," or, "I am an adult so it is okay to hit my child." Might does not make right. All of these examples make the aggressor an unjustified exception; and this is special pleading. Appealing to power and force are invalid. Special pleading is invalid.

Your hypothetical culture is grossly immoral, not because it's disgusting on an emotional, subjective level, but because their behaviors cannot logically be validated objectively in any way. That which is logically invalid cannot be moral or ethical.

Most people, including people who believe morality is subjective, would also be appalled by your hypothetical culture, but they would have no basis for condemning other deviant cultures apart from relying on that which is objective. You cannot logically condemn one culture as wrong and yours as superior if you don't accept the validity of an objective, universal basis for ethics. All subjectivists rely on is their own personal tastes for what they grew up in, and they cannot condemn evil without being hypocritical. If you do not believe there is such a thing as a "right," then there can be no "wrong." All subjectivists have is their gut. I'm sorry, but that just doesn't cut it.

Here's the thing: If you truly believe that there are no standards of objective morality and that morality is all relative, then you are saying that you would allow people to do that to kindergarten children and that nobody has the right to interfere with it -- not their parents, not the government or lawmakers, nobody can condemn it as evil because it's right for somebody else.

I think he's saying that ethics should be the standard for right and wrong, not social mores, divine dictates, the popular vote, or national decrees. Appeals to power, to the majority, and to force are all fallacies. You can't have any universal moral standards built upon sophistry -- that's like building castles in the sand.

I accept the validity of an objective framework for ethics, so I can rationally call out evil for what it is.

In other words, if there are no objective moral standards, then nobody has the right to say that anything anybody does is wrong. If a person says raping women is right for him, you don't have any grounds on which to say it is wrong if you truly believe that morality is relative. We can all just throw all the laws out the window and let people do "what is right for them".

Laws? What do laws have to do with morality and ethics?

That means no traffic laws. People should be able to drive as fast as they want and on whatever side of the road they want and we don't need stop signs because nobody has to stop for them if they don't want to.

Actually traffic laws in many places incentivize the creation of more accidents. Most people think the absence of traffic signals and lights would create chaos in the streets because it's counter-intuative to them. But that which we intuit is not always sound, i.e., it feels like the sun spins around the earth.

Some governments have recognized the benefits of spontaneous order (broken clocks are right twice a day, after all). People actually drive more carefully, when green lights aren't there to encourage acceleration, and when people have to think about their surroundings, rather than obey signals that don't properly reflect the situation on the ground (like speed limit signs that never change regardless of traffic during certain times of the day).

Less people have died without the lights than with them because of these experiments.

[center][yt][/yt][/center]

We can get rid of the police, courts of law, prisons, etc.

No, just the state's monopoly on security and arbitration. Individuals in society need protection and a means to gain restitution.

The problem is when the state monopolizes those industries as the sole authority, the police cannot be held accountable ("internal investigations,"etc.), and the justice system is beholden to unjust laws that profit the government at the people's expense (majority or minority).

because if somebody wants to rob a bank because it feels right to him, we have no right to stop him. If somebody wants to embezzle funds from work because it feels right to do so, then we will let him. Because, in a world of relative morality, nobody can be wrong, can they?

Theft (an example of the initiation of force) is objectively unethical. Self defense (force) is justified and optional. Restitution is justified and optional.

We live in a world full of religious and cultural falsehoods, but that does not mean we live in a world of relative ethics. Ethics are not relative. Objective standards are valid; it doesn't mean they exist in nature, but that's irrelevant; the scientific method doesn't exist in nature either, but without it, we'd still be in the Dark Ages.

And you can't even rely on the majority doing the right thing, can you? After all, Hitler got a majority of people to follow him. Can you honestly say that, if the majority want something, that makes it right?

No, you cannot rely on the majority. Appealing to democracy, or the majority, is invalid. Yes, the Nazis were voted into power. Ethics are not derived from consensus. The many can inflict a great deal of evil upon the few, if given the means to do so (the means usually manifest as a state, more specifically, a ballot box).

It reminds me so much of a phrase oft-repeated in the Book of Judges. People did what was right in their own eyes. And the result was pretty darn ugly!

What's truly right cannot be accomplished through subjective whims. If a person does whatever he feels like doing, with no regard to consistent ethical standards, then his behavior is not validated morally speaking. If this supposed character, otherwise known as Yahweh, does what is right in his own eyes, his dictates too are by definition subjective since he is not beholden to a higher standard. Yahweh's opinion cannot be justified on the basis of his supposed omnipotence since might does not make right. Therefore, you cannot derive objectivity from authority.

That is not acceptable in our culture. Why do you think it would be?

Overcomer is not talking about this culture; he's talking about a hypothetical culture.

Morality is a culturally conditioned response, and I am sure that Pixilero has been conditioned by our culture as much as you have been.

Social mores are surely culturally conditioned. Note the root word "cult," which is all culture really is. All of us have been influenced by various cults no doubt, but that doesn't mean ethics are derived from custom, or that there are no objective ethics -- no more than the presence of North Korea and Wahhabi Islam invalidate the idea that freedom and rational thought are preferable.

To try to bring up that kind of hypothetical is, frankly, rude, crude and insulting.

No it isn't. There are plenty of cultures throughout history that have produced a great deal of evil. Children who lived in ancient Sparta were not treated right to say the least. But that society certainly deemed it okay.

Now, one thing about culturally conditioned responses is that cultures that have behaviors that are counter survival won't survive.

Your hypothesis fails to account for Christianity and Islam. I honestly don't understand why you're bringing Social Darwinism into this. Surely behaviors that aren't conducive to reproduction will insure that those behaviors and traits are not passed on to the next generation, but the same cannot be said regarding culture.

Culture is different from DNA. Cultures are extremely efficient at ensuring that the young inherit whole hosts of irrational traditions and beliefs. Even in the digital age with the internet, there are cultures that continue to confuse the young and retard the development of rational thought. While it may be true that the technological innovations of the information age can mitigate the propagation of evil and irrational beliefs, it doesn't mean those cultures won't survive, nor does it follow that the most influential cultures will be conducive to the survival and prosperity of the human race.

Just because a piece of morality is not objective does not mean that the subjective moral does not exist.
This morality is based on cultural conditioning, with empathy and enlightened self interest as a basis for it.

Ethics do not exist in nature, but that does not mean they can't be objective. If one believes that all moral values are subjective, then one cannot claim that their values are superior or correct without the use of moral absolutes, which makes them hypocrites.

Conditioning is not morality. Learned behavior is just dog tricks. Feeling empathy is just mirror neurons -- monkeys can experience that but we don't call that natural phenomenon "ethics." Conditioning is indoctrination. Thinking rationally is the first step towards moral and ethical behavior. Self interest is not the basis for objective morality; it is no different than a consensus because what is right for an individual or a majority is not right for everyone. Needs and wants are no basis for ethics.

There is the little thing known as 'instinct to survive', and 'reciprocal altruism'.

The reason why there are predators among human beings is because the instinct to survive can be satisfied - not just via cooperation, but predation. One can acquire what they need to live by killing and stealing, sometimes more easily and quickly than via cooperation. Violence tends to be less efficient at fulfilling one's needs but that's not why violence is wrong.

It can be boiled down to a social contract. You don't go kill other people, and other people won't go kill you.

That is called rational behavior. That is not the definition of a social contract.

The social contract says 'If you go ahead and do things we as a collective deem incorrect, we, as a collective, will take action to protect ourselves against you.'.

No, that is called collectivism. Examples include, the Borg, Nazi Germany, etc. Alexis de Tocqueville called this phenomenon the tyranny of the majority, because that is what it is.

The social contract is "a model, originating during the Age of Enlightenment, that typically addresses the questions of the origin of society and the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual."

And to that I say, what legitimacy?

That is what happens today

Yes. Examples include: Ugandans voting to kill homosexuals, the Russian government criminalizing homosexuality -- all for "the greater good."

.. some people just use the threat of an imaginary judge to keep them in line, and rationalize it all. But, it actually is just a culturally conditioned response.

Atheists love to harp on Christians and tell them how silly they are for believing that there has to be this all powerful authority called god and the punishment of some mythical hellfire to ensure people will be nice to each other, lest there be hell on earth.

But an appeal to power is fallacious whether that power is otherwordly or not. If you believe that human nature is fundamentally good and that you don't need an authority to make you do good, then why do you support the existence of earthly judges who use the threat of the law to coerce people into obedience, no matter how unjust that law is, "lest their be chaos."

Statists are fundamentally indistinguishable from the religious in their rationalizations for authority.

We don't need the book of Judges.

No one needs Congress either.

We have appointed police and real human judges to insure that the rules deemed needed for the smooth functioning of society are enforced.

Like the drug war?

As for Hitler, we, as a global society, decided he was a threat to us, and we removed him. End of story.

This sounds like a socially conditioned response you were trained to repeat 40 years ago in some classroom.

"We"? I know you're older than me, but you weren't even thinking about being a fetus when conscripts following orders charged to their deaths on the beaches of Normandy.

If by "we" you don't actually mean us, but congressmen who lived 70 some years ago (who voted to go to war against the wishes of most Americans at the time), or allied states which opposed Nazi Germany at the time -- fine; but don't call it a global society, and don't pretend consensus and the majority somehow creates morality and ethics: see ad populum

[pixelero]

[Replying to post 1 by pixelero]

I do not understand what you mean by objective morality, however I do know I disagree with this statement

The word "morality" is cognate with the Latin mores (customs: singular mos.) What is moral in one culture can be immoral in another.

We could debate all night and day, but there is no denying that morality is based on the general wellbeing of a society and based on this, actions has consequences and based on the consequence of an act, we can determine its morality. Morality is complex I'll agree, but it's not based on an opinion of someone.

I'll steal Matt Dillahaunty explanation as it best explains what I mean.

We are physical beings in a physical universe and there are truths about what sort of effects ACTIONS have on us.
We are forced to share space; co-operation has been shown to be much more beneficial to all of us, than a lack of co-operation.

I’d rather not die and I’d rather not have my stuff taken and so it’s at least in my best interest to set up a system with other people who’d rather not die and who’d rather not have their stuff taken; to ensure we set up a system of laws that discourages and punishes those instances where people are killing and stealing.
You begin with very simple ideas like; life is generally preferable to death; pleasure is generally preferable to pain; health is generally preferable to sickness.
Sometimes those are going to come into conflict, there are lots of complex situations but there’s a lot of simple situations and general rules that we can sort out.

And because for any given situation, there’s a finite / limited set of possible actions, it’s pretty easy to look at the consequences of those actions and say some of these are better than others which mean that morality is a very complex thing, it is much more complex than someone saying ‘Thou Shalt’

I assume the last three paragraphs are the quote from the Youtube atheist? (You should use quotation marks to make it clear just what part of your text is directly quoted.) Well Matt Dillahaunty is actually explaining ethics. (He may use the term "morality" but that's probably either because, like most people, he's under the impression that the words "morality" and "ethics" are synonymous, or else he's speaking informally, without the linguistic precision he might employ if he were writing an academic paper on the subject.) If you look at my original post, you'll see that ethics is exactly what I'm advocating. Morality is not based on logical rules that are based on premises like life is preferable to death. Morality is based on cultural standards, usually religious in origin. For example, if an Irish Catholic school-girl were to walk down the street in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, wearing her school uniform, she'd be liable to be arrested for immorality. A lot of religious communities claim that homosexuality is immoral because it violates biblical injunctions, but it would be very difficult to find an ethical basis on which to condemn homosexuality.

The difference between the terms "morality" and "ethics" is what I was hoping to highlight in my original post.

[pixelero]

That is what happens today

Yes. Examples include: Ugandans voting to kill homosexuals, the Russian government criminalizing homosexuality -- all for "the greater good."

Are you quite sure about "the Russian government criminalizing homosexuality?" Can you provide any references to support this?

[dominicastar]

[Replying to pixelero]

Well, to me morality and ethics is synonymous.

Whatever label one chooses to use, I interpret it as knowing right and wrong.

By the way, this is a serious question, what does objective morality mean?

[Darias]

[Replying to post 8 by pixelero]

Well they might as well do. You can be fined and arrested for talking about homosexuality and same sex marriage. Putin has defended this by claiming it is what the people want. And that basically illustrates my point. If you're gay in Russia, you dare not mention it. Police will ignore hate crimes and if whatever comes out of your mouth can be construed as to support gay rights, then you will be arrested or fined for spreading "propaganda" to the youth. It's all "for the sake of the children" as Putin puts it.

In Uganda, it's much worse. The soon-to-be law means that people who fail to report gay people will be jailed, and gay people themselves could be imprisoned for life. This is an extremely popular law, and again it illustrates my point.

"We as a collective" is a dangerous idea that produces more evil in the world than good. There is no such thing as bandwagon ethics. Ethics cannot rest upon fallacies.