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Author | Topic: Absolute Morality...again. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
jar Member (Idle past 393 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
I am making the appeal that at on some level, there must exist a specific standard because without it, there is no basis for arriving at any decision on any level of morality. Yes, you have made that appeal, but so far I can find nowhere that you supported it. Why is it impossible to establish morals without some absolute standard? Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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sidelined Member (Idle past 5907 days) Posts: 3435 From: Edmonton Alberta Canada Joined: |
nemesis_juggernaut
If we see a child drowning in the rapids, we feel an impulse to want to help. Why? I ask why in light of another impulse, arguably a much stronger desire, which is self-preservation. Because as the nature of the impulses evolve through the natural selection process all impulses that go towards the best chances for species survival {here on an individual basis} it follows that those animals that cannot overcome the self preservation instinct would lose the child and therefore one less chance for the passing on of this trait {inability to overcome self preservation}. Such animals would tend to extinction. Those that can overcome such tendency to self preservation would have their children continue the lineage.
They've assassinated their own conscience. They have not assasinated their conscience so much as never had a choice in the nature of their conscience.
. I thought what I was arriving at was obvious, which is, I come back to my assigned seat and the man is sitting in it. I inform him that he's in my seat. Instead of apologizing for the inconvenience, he is simply indifferent to it. When I engage him in an argument, I am appealing to him to understand a sense of justice that I expect him to understand. But you do not argue that it is an inate right, You argue that it is an agreed upon right since in your original point here.
You and everyone near you are in agreement that the man "stealing" your seat was "wrong." Thus you reference not an inate standard but a social agreenment that aligns with what we have in the system of laws that humans implement by consensus.
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RickJB Member (Idle past 4990 days) Posts: 917 From: London, UK Joined: |
If morals were truly as arbitrary as people claim, then why aren't they arbitrary? Because they are broadly directed by our biology and psychology. We are social animals thay rely on a group structures to survive. Killing one of your own group is "wrong" because it does not benefit the group. We also build personal bonds that also help make such behavior emotionally difficult. Killing a member of a rival group on the other hand is often seen as "right" because it defends your own group. Also, because the member of the rival group is a stranger, his killing carries little emotional weight. Just turn on the news and you can see this dynamic playing out in the Middle East as we speak.
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Annafan Member (Idle past 4578 days) Posts: 418 From: Belgium Joined: |
NJ writes: why such conflicting premises that war within us? If we see a child drowning in the rapids, we feel an impulse to want to help. Why? I ask why in light of another impulse, arguably a much stronger desire, which is self-preservation. In fact, for a person to jump in to save the life of someone else, they must deny their own sense of self-preservation, which has always been the instinct most critical to pro-evolutioon arguments. I would say the example you use is a bit too absolute (where have we seen that before ;-) ) Whereas a mother will very often just jump after her child regardless any other consideration, 'strangers' will certainly weigh a couple of things. Do they consider themselves able to swim? What are the circumstances the child is in? Is the water calm or extremely wild? Are there rocks around the child so that there's a considerable chance of dying when hitting them if you jump, or is it clear water? Is the child surrounded by sharks? (the popular man-eating variety or the real ones) Etc. I would say a typical person will, even just unconsciously, decide whether a possible rescue-attempt has a good chance of succeeding before attempting it.
NJ writes: If morals were truly as arbitrary as people claim, then why aren't they arbitrary? You should stop phrasing it like that, because 'arbitrary' does not do justice to the mechanisms behind it (cfr the truly excellent post #283 by Omnivorous). It reminds me of the 'random chance' arguments against evolution, completely disregarding natural selection.
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Hyroglyphx Inactive Member |
Thus saying that "everone condisders murder to be wrong" in no way implies moral absolutism or denies moral relativism. If you agree that there is an innate sense of murder being adherently "wrong," then that is an absolute phenomenon. That isn't relative at all. Therefore, if you use that argument your point will render itself moot. “Always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you.” -1st Peter 3:15
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RickJB Member (Idle past 4990 days) Posts: 917 From: London, UK Joined: |
If you agree that there is an innate sense of murder being adherently "wrong," then that is an absolute phenomenon. That isn't relative at all. Therefore, if you use that argument your point will render itself moot. The term "murder" implies a wrongful killing. But killing itself is not always seen as innately "wrong". Please read my post up the page at 288.
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Hyroglyphx Inactive Member |
Personally, I feel that humans have an intrinsic capability to develop a "moral sense"--the terms of that sense, however, are undetermined. Yes, exactly... That was well said.
Both the innate capability and its plasticity, I believe, are rooted in evolution, since the cohesive group improves the survival chances of all its members, and complex behaviors have evolved to maintain that cohesion. The human development of culture--including widely disparate cultures, where the basic terms of allowable sexuality, applications of lethal force, etc. vary widely--provides another layer of complex flexility between us and the environment. I would be inclined to agree with you if it weren't that morals and a cohesivenss are not synonymous. Working together to establish greater chances has nothing to do with an innate sense of morality. We've been over this before in another thread where I argued that point. I believe it was in "Biological Evolution." Perhaps we can ressurect that thread.
All the examples I have seen offered to demonstrate an innately determined moral sensibility involve the same behaviors seen in other social mammals: that food is mine, that mate is mine, that position in the social hierarchy (and around the kill) is mine...both the individual and the group will enforce these distinctions, but no one claims that the wolf possesses an innate morality. Exactly! And that was the point that argued in that thread too. Animals exhibit, what we might call, selfishness, only it isn't immoral for them because animals aren't under a moral law.... Humans are. And this is yet another example of how humans are separate from the animal kingdom.
I think it's important not to start this chain of reasoning with the word "murder" which already incorporates the notion of a moral judgment. Rather, all cultures mediate our sense of which killings are appropriate because killing is both a fundamental response to threat and a threat to social cohesion. That's why I distinguish murder from killing. If bank robber comes out of the bank where the police await and the robbers raise their arms in a threatening gesture, then the cops are allowed to shoot to stop the threat. That's killing. But if the police walked into a bank and randomly shot a bunch of people, that's murder. Everyone understands that their is a sense of justice and injustice. Where does this quality come from? Again, they society. And I do not take lightly that society plays big roles on our mores. However, if you take a child who doesn't even know what murder is and they were to witness one, are they not innately accustomed to the notion that justice must be served, even if they don't understand the academic quality of what justice even is? They don't even know what justice is apart from some intrinsic understanding that the man/woman who did this has done something 'bad.'
History has amply demonstrated that humans can be socialized to accept the killing of any class of persons for reasons that vary from religious difference to ideological choice, even when that culture has long established mores to the contrary. Yes, indeed. And this is why I don't agree with relative morality. Because if you can beguile someone into believing that something is justifiable, then you can demonize the Law in your own heart and silence it. This is what relative morality has done for us.
When an individual transgresses the socially determined boundaries of acceptable killing, that society calls it murder--but the norms vary enormously. Killing is the real universality here, not the existence of proscriptive boundaries. Killing is always 'bad.' That is another sense that we feel. We are capable of feeling empathy for those who have been killed. But murder is a moral that is quickly distinguished, irrespective of culture. And again, if you take any child and place them at the scene of the crime, whether they are from Iran or Canada, they have some basic understanding of the injustice that took place.
I think you are blurring two things together--the instinctive distress prompted by a bloody killing of one's group and the socialized response: both are amenable to mediation by the cultural environment. No, I'm not merely speaking about if someone witnessed a murder and they feel that instinct of self-preservation. Consider if the crime scene has already been secured and the danger to self is no longer present. Seeing the body brutally ravaged still gives us the understanding that a terrible injustice still took place. “Always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you.” -1st Peter 3:15
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Hyroglyphx Inactive Member |
Yes, you have made that appeal, but so far I can find nowhere that you supported it. Why is it impossible to establish morals without some absolute standard? You can have relative morals. But there is also absolute morals. I agree that both exist. But relative morals mean absolutely nothing. So much so, that believing in relative morality, and then calling someone else, immoral, is pointless. Because if only relative morals exist then morality doesn;t actually exist apart from subjective opinion. And who's opinion is "right," and whose opinion is "wrong?" By the very definition of right and wrong, there must be a set standard. Right and wrong convey an absolute. (I'm speaking about the words). Its like mathematics. Math only works if its absolutely correct. Any answer you give in the theorem other than the one true answer is false. “Always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you.” -1st Peter 3:15
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jar Member (Idle past 393 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
But there is also absolute morals. That is what I cannot see you supporting yet.
By the very definition of right and wrong, there must be a set standard. Right and wrong convey an absolute. Why? Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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Discreet Label Member (Idle past 5063 days) Posts: 272 Joined: |
You can have relative morals. But there is also absolute morals. How do absolute morals exist. Just because you say so does not make it so, you need to demonstrate what an absolute moral is and what it looks like. Other then asserting that there is an absolute morality you have done very little if anything to support the assertion.
So much so, that believing in relative morality, and then calling someone else, immoral, is pointless. How is calling someone else immoral pointless? Perhaps you are thinking on the smallest scale of 1 on 1? Yes there it is pointless because one person can go and ignore it. But if you are talking a macro scale, like this forum, calling another person immoral is not so pointless. For example, I could level the accusation that your are demonstrating inherrently immoral and unethical discussion tactics because you have ignored nearly a half dozen posts I made to you that phrased very important points or questions that need to be addressed (Post 198). And sure its pointless of me to express my opinion 1 to 1. However, the thing is you ignore the fact that people are watching the way you conduct this discussion. And you are currently demonstrating very bad discussion techniques. It is destroying your credibility to form any kind of coherent arguement that you would put forth. Right now your arguement is very very fragile and you are demonstrating bad ways to go about this whole manner.
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Parasomnium Member Posts: 2224 Joined: |
One of the characteristics of morality is that moral values are shared within a community, be it religious, secular, or otherwise. But a community, by definition, is limited and does not encompass the whole universe, so the sharing of moral values cannot be universal. Therefore there's no such thing as absolute morality.
Absolute morality is like a deafening silence: an impossible concept. Sorry, this should have been in reply to nemesis_juggernaut Edited by Parasomnium, : Wrong recipient "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin. Did you know that most of the time your computer is doing nothing? What if you could make it do something really useful? Like helping scientists understand diseases? Your computer could even be instrumental in finding a cure for HIV/AIDS. Wouldn't that be something? If you agree, then join World Community Grid now and download a simple, free tool that lets you and your computer do your share in helping humanity. After all, you are part of it, so why not take part in it?
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happy_atheist Member (Idle past 4913 days) Posts: 326 Joined: |
nemesis_juggernaut writes: If you agree that there is an innate sense of murder being adherently "wrong," then that is an absolute phenomenon. That isn't relative at all. Therefore, if you use that argument your point will render itself moot. There is certainly not an innate sense that murder is wrong. There is a definition that murder is wrong. Someone who thinks that all killing is virtuous and good would still say that murder is wrong, because that is the definition of the word! Think of it like this. There is a man that hates the taste of bananas, can't stand them and is physically ill when he eats them. But someone says to him "Delicious bananas taste good". Can the man argue with that? Of course not, because the sentence is correct by definition. But it does not establish which (if any) bananas are delicious. You need to forget about the word murder, and focus on the ethical issue behind it. Murder does not mean killing, and the issue at hand here is killing. What killing is right, and what killing is wrong? That is where you will find moral absolutism or moral relativism, not in deceptively loaded definitions of words.
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ReverendDG Member (Idle past 4110 days) Posts: 1119 From: Topeka,kansas Joined: |
{decided not to get into this}
Edited by ReverendDG, : No reason given.
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purpledawn Member (Idle past 3456 days) Posts: 4453 From: Indiana Joined: |
quote:If you are going to try and argue a point, try to be specific in your examples. Your statement is another example of you changing the terms of the example. You make a vague reference and then add specific details when people disagree. Having a seat assigned by a ticket is different than general seating. The specifics make a difference in the situation. Saves time explaining yourself if you give the details up front. We don't read minds. "Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz
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AdminPD Inactive Administrator |
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