Morality without god

Well it is not really our choice to make is it? The question is which life does she choose. If we knew that then I would say that the moral choice would necessarily be to spare the child. If the moral course is to cause the least harm and the mother was a rational and moral person then she would agree. It is immoral to kill him to get them because every person has their own right to life to begin with. It is not the obligation of the healthy individual to sacrifice himself to save the unfortunately sick people. If the sick people are rational and moral they will agree. If the sick people are sick because of the actions of the healthy person the answer could conceivably be different. Assuming the individual is responsible for the bomb then yes you do.

Well you've chosen a few answers and I agree with some of them.Others will agree and disagree with both you and me.But the point is, there are no 'right' answers to these sorts of questions, there's just answers.That's why we have such diffulty with some issues like euthenasia, abortion, execution, torture and so on - we can only go with what we feel is right within the cultural we live in.We can't calculate the right answer because a lot of morality is subjective and developmental. Absolute it ain't.(Btw - the pregnant lady is unconcious awaiting a decision.)Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

We can do that to a more or less adequate degree. In the MaryJane example how do you assess the number of dead or injured due to intoxicated drivers or machine operators, etc.? What constitutes unacceptable harm? 1000 injured? 100 injured? 1 injured?It is subjective. You say imbibing the weed is not immoral. We may not know with precision but we know some deaths and injuries occur due to the practice. How do you say it is moral if even 1 person dies because of it?I say marijuana is moral even though a few dozen deaths are caused. I rationalize this view saying there are a lot of stupid people out there doing a lot of stupid things because they cannot control themselves under the influence of anything, even fresh air. This is my subjective conclusion.[st*u*p*id is apparently still one of my banned words. And there's a reason for that. I used to use it liberally. Especially in describing stupid people who say stupid things out of stupid beliefs.]Given all the facts, given a precise formula, the ultimate conclusion we make on these kinds of moral things is, ultimately, subjective. No, not the same. The area of a circle is a precise number from a precise formula requiring no conclusions about anything. It is a number that cannot be argued and carries no emotional or empathetic component. The same is not true when assessing moralities which all carry emotional and empathetic components.Using your strict formula arrives at some assessed level of net harm. The subjective part is deciding if that level of net harm is large enough to require action. In many cases any net harm may be unacceptable and thus the action deemed immoral. Is this always the case in every analysis of action? Who decided that? How did they decide that? Would it be moral for me to disagree? Would it be moral for me to decide that some level of net harm is, in the long run, acceptable? Says who? No we can not. There in lies the rub. Only by subjective consensus can this determination be made.Your formalism in assessing net harm is most certainly useful in assessing a moral question, but it is only one input into a very subjective decision tree that is constantly in flux. Humans are like that.I agree with you that on some of the major issues facing humanity we can reach a consensus on morality by overcoming the irrational emotional dogmas (sorry) that large segments of our society continue to hold. Your rational morality, your "do no harm" approach, can go a long way toward achieving that goal. But no matter how precise the formula's output, the level of harm determined is, after all, just another input into the greater assessment of morality.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

I'm not sure if #1 is even required. Morality is a choice, not a commandment. People choose to be nice and good and such. Following orders doesn’t make someone moral, it makes them an obedient automaton. I agree that such robots exist, but I would not consider any of them to be moral.As for #2... the way you state and talk about these things... your version of morality seems very proscriptive.What I mean by that is... you seem to be saying something along the lines of "if I can have all the information regarding a situation... what physically happened and what physically resulted... then I can define, objectively, what was moral or not and for whom."I don't think morality can be proscriptive in this physical way.
I don't think it's possible to look at a situation and say "it is going to be moral to do this...."I think that all we can say when looking at a situation is "My experience leads me to hope that it will be moral to do this..."I think that it doesn’t matter what physically happens for any moral situation. What matters is the feelings of the people who are involved. And those can differ from person to person, from situation to situation; even the same person having the same thing done to them again can have different resulting feelings from the same event. Caring about and showing compassion for those resulting feelings are what makes someone a moral person.There’s no such thing as a list of actions someone can follow in order to always be moral.Going back to your statement #2 "The morality of any action is inversely proportionate to the harm that it causes"
-Who judges the harm?I think it is imperitive that the only person judging "the harm" is the person that is being affected by the action.The morality is still objective in this way if someone says they are hurt, it is objective for multiple, different people to acknowledge this. Any other method of morality is too easily corrupted.

Why do we all agree that 2+2=4, or that Pythagoras theorem holds true or that hydrogen emits EM waves of a particular frequency? Why does agreement regarding these matters hold to the extent that we would expect even an alien civilisation with an entirely different culture to agree?I'll tell you - It's because our knowledge of these things is genuinely objective.Unlike the answers to moral conundrums which are incredibly subjective regarding the nature of "harm" and the relative status of who or what is most/least deserving of moral consideration.It isn't agreement in and of itself that is important. It's the fact that you are proclaiming there to be moral truths in the same way that there are mathematical truths. As such we would expect objective analysis to lead everyone to the same conclusion.However this doesn't seem to be the case does it.......? Consider Bob. Bob thinks that trees are more deserving of moral consideration than any other living thing. Bob thinks that a 1,000 year old bristlecone pine has more moral worth than all the pigs or chimpanzees on the planet. In any moral dilemma in which he had to choose between the life of such a tree and the lives of all the human participants at EvC he would choose the tree. (E.g. a fire is raging and he only has enough water to save either the tree or the humans. He saves the tree)Can you show using your absolute-universal-morality formula whether Bob is right or wrong?

It is simple to the point of obviously simplistic.Objective truths in mathematics have been passed down through the millennia. The crowning achievements in objective empirical knowledge (i.e. scientific knowledge) have arisen through increments and the occasional leap of insight as each generation stands on the shoulders of the giants that preceded.And yet here you are with a simple formula that can be applied to objectively and absolutely answer all moral questions. A method of achieving absolute, universal moral truths with regard to any moral question through the simple application of a formula.A formula that philosophers, mathematicians, scientists - Thinkers throughout the ages - have neither applied nor come to the same conclusions you have regarding various moral questions.Why is that? The views you have expressed display your highly subjective notions of what constitutes harm and who/what it is that is deserving of more/less/any moral consideration. In short they are highly subjective.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

You remind me of Jethro on the Beverly Hillbillies who invented an anti-smog device for cars. The device was simple, he explained, but the filter filled up the back of truck.Interstellar travel is simple. Only the vehicle is difficult and complex.Hypothetical morality is simple. Only real morality is difficult and complex.

If you bang your thumb with a hammer and I ask you 'Did it hurt?'. When you are through cursing you reply with a smile 'Yes, in fact it did hurt a little.'Isn't that just your subjective opinion? Isn't objectivity just an accumulation of subjective opinions? If I were to ask you the area covered by my circular swimming pool could you give an absolutely correct answer? What is the length of the shoreline belonging to NY state? How much beach front is required to accumulate 1 metre of shoreline? All you need is a tape measure.If there is such a thing as harm then we should be able to quantify it. The finer your tape measure the more accurate your answer.If morality is measured on a scale of more or less harm and you can quantify harm then you can calculate the morality of an action and place it on the scale. Don't confuse our ability to do it accurately with the possibility of doing it accurately. I can only agree again that the calculation quickly becomes complex and increases exponentially with the number of parties affected and the severity of potential harm involved.E=mc2 is simple enough right? Somewhat less simple to actually use. The fact that two people who actually know how to use it can arrive at the same conclusion is reliant on the fact that all of their subjective opinions match all the way down the chain of their beliefs.

No. If it were then any claim of objective fact boils down to mere popularity of opinion. Surely you aren't advocating that? If the overwhelming majority of people are of the subjective opinion that slavery is perfectly moral would that qualify slavery as objectively moral? If a number of people independently claim to have had wholly subjective experiences of Allah does this mean that Allah has been objectively evidenced as far as you are concerned? That which is objectively true is true is true regardless of culture or psychology. It is true regardless of the nomenclature or symbology used. It is as true for an intelligent alien race as it is for us. Indeed it remains true even if all intelligence in the universe is wiped out. Because objective truths are not subject to subjective opinions. That is what makes them objective.Maths and knowledge of empirical reality very arguably qualify as objective. Prevailing moral opinions don't.

When you respond to the question 'Did it hurt when you hit your thumb with the hammer?' Is your answer subjective or objective? If there are 100 witnesses to the event and they all agree that it was painful is that a more objective answer than your own?

Subjective. How can they all agree that it was painful except by gauging my reaction?What if I whack my thumb with the hammer and then nonchalantly shrug in an unimpressed way before doing it again repeatedly to prove a point? Does this mean I felt no pain? Does it mean I am incredibly able to hide my pain?I can know whether i felt pain or not. But how can any number of witnesses truly know?

Yes you can know and you know it objectively because the pain receptors are firing in your head.The witnesses can know because they have the same receptors in their heads and if they have ever smashed their thumb with a hammer they know, objectively, that it hurts. You can not introduce dishonesty into the equation and then claim that the equation doesn't work.

If morality is measured on a scale of more or less harm and you can quantify harm then you can calculate the morality of an action and place it on the scale. Don't confuse our ability to do it accurately with the possibility of doing it accurately. I agree that the person who is experiencing the harm will likely be a better judge of how much harm there is.For example, consider a Pakistani citizen assessing the harm of a US missile strike on a funeral procession where his wife and daughters were killed. His assessment of the morality of the action would likely be different than President Obama's assessment. So the test for Mr Obama would be to ask if he would still lob that missile in there if it were his wife and daughters that were going to be killed as a result. I imagine that their assessments would quickly converge.

I thought we'd got beyond this.Morality is not only about not doing harm, it's also about doing some good.We not only have a moral duty not to drown the man, we also have the duty to save him from drowning. This is where you tie yourself in knots.It shouldn't matter whose wife and daughter are involved - that's the subjective viewpoint again - according to you it should only matter if the final outcome is a net less harm gain.It doesn't work does it?Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

The problem is that you measure "harm" differently than I do and everyone else.
This is because "harm" is subjective.
Therefore you cannot do any "for everybody" calcuations in this way.You may be able to do calculations "for this person" and seperate calculations "for that person" in this way. But, obviously, they could be different results. Because "harm" is subjective. I do actually support your stance as long as it is done correctly (obtaining the "harm" judgement from the one being affected) and individually.In reference to your "hammer-thumb" example to Straggler (Message 642). Have you ever heard of masochists or sadists? Some people even want their thumbs to be hammered. There's nothing objective about the amount of harm caused by hammering thumbs. If I tell you that it hurts me 6/10 "harm-ies", then it is an objective, measurable fact about me. But this says nothing about anyone else.
The fact that two different people measure harm differently does not mean one is more accurate than the other. It means they are both right, and different people react differently to different situations. Your moral system needs to account for this, not ignore it and try to sweep it under the rug. Not only are they the better judge, they are the only judge. In fact, if someone else steps in and speaks for them, there's a good chance they have an ulterior motive for doing so. Hence the ease for corruption in the system you propose where "anyone" should be able to judge the harm.Morality is focused on caring about how your actions affect other people.It is impossible to calculate "harm" without direct communication with the person being hurt. Any other way is a guess. It may be an educated guess... if you have past experience with this person or that situation... but it is only a guess and is immediately superceded by the person-being-harmed's judgement whenever it is acquired. Perhaps your assessment of this situation is correct. Perhaps it is not. Without communicating with the Pakistani citizen, or President Obama, we'll never know.My point, however, is that the morality of this situation cannot be judged by outside individuals. The only people with the right to judge the morality of lobbing a missile onto a funeral procession are those people who happen to be in the funeral procession that will get hit (is the Pakistani citizen one of these people?). The only "harm" that can be measured is how much they feel they will be harmed by such an action. It's a pretty fair chance that they will not want to be hit by the missile. If so, then regardless of what anyone, including Mr. Obama, may think... the action is, definitely, a morally bad action.Any moral system that tries to judge this situation by going on what Mr. Obama thinks, or any other outsider in order to come to a conclusion... is morally bankrupt.Morality is about how you treat other people.
In order to figure it out, you need to communicate with the other people you are "treating."Anything else is a self-serving rationalization for some ulterior motive and provides a moral system that is worthless. If it doesn't match reality, it's no good.Many times that "self-serving rationalization" is some need to be able to "figure everything out" before it happens. This is possible for any well-designed video game or some novel's story. But life is not a video game. Sometimes we just need to make some guesses. That doesn't mean we then get to say "oh, well I was still acting morally... I was just forced to guess." What that means is that morality isn't easy, and it may not be predictable.Is it really all that big of a surprise if morality isn't the same as math?Edited by Stile, : This edit has been brought to you by the letter "a". Stupid "a", always looking for attention.