Ethics

[speed]

It seems since Nietzsche, the creme de la creme of philosophers have totally abandoned the once philosophical domain of ethics. Now, I happen to agree with the criticisms of Nietszche and WIttegenstein; however, I also see this as a real problem in contemporary and future philosophy. (Now, I could be wrong, but for the life of me I cant remember Sartre, Heidegger, Bergson, and so on ever discussing Ethics. I know Russell touched on the subject in his popularized works).


However, my point in creating this thread, is to highlight the importance of religion. Today, the only ethical systems left (besides those loosely adopted by various professional guilds and organizations) are those found in Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism etc. They base their ethical systems on the Divine revelation of God; hence, when one wishes to question their logical foundation etc., one must repudiate God, or indulge in some form of heresy or apostasy. Yet, for those faithful illogical persons who do choose to follow the ethics of their God, they feel a special rightoeusness (see the fanatic Muslim world today), and they also seem quite content in the goodness of their lives. The rest of us, are left with some bizarre form of capitalist bourgoeis ethics of work, the transformative and necessary power of material things, devotion to the inherent need and right of low interest rates and inflation, and basic ethics of only killing another when in war or for self-defense, etc.

Thus I ask, is this not the problem with the world today? And, does mankind need some ethical code perhaps different from those set forth by these ancient religions?--and if so, is it even possible to formulate such a ethical code?

 

[derek]

It seems since Nietzsche, the creme de la creme of philosophers have totally abandoned the once philosophical domain of ethics. Now, I happen to agree with the criticisms of Nietszche and WIttegenstein; however, I also see this as a real problem in contemporary and future philosophy. (Now, I could be wrong, but for the life of me I cant remember Sartre, Heidegger, Bergson, and so on ever discussing Ethics. I know Russell touched on the subject in his popularized works).


However, my point in creating this thread, is to highlight the importance of religion. Today, the only ethical systems left (besides those loosely adopted by various professional guilds and organizations) are those found in Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism etc. They base their ethical systems on the Divine revelation of God; hence, when one wishes to question their logical foundation etc., one must repudiate God, or indulge in some form of heresy or apostasy. Yet, for those faithful illogical persons who do choose to follow the ethics of their God, they feel a special rightoeusness (see the fanatic Muslim world today), and they also seem quite content in the goodness of their lives. The rest of us, are left with some bizarre form of capitalist bourgoeis ethics of work, the transformative and necessary power of material things, devotion to the inherent need and right of low interest rates and inflation, and basic ethics of only killing another when in war or for self-defense, etc.

Thus I ask, is this not the problem with the world today? And, does mankind need some ethical code perhaps different from those set forth by these ancient religions?--and if so, is it even possible to formulate such a ethical code?

I remain unconvinced that morality is universal. It almost always has its roots in context. I admire the attempts of Socrates and others to try and find The Good Life but I'm not sure such an objective standard of ethical values exists.

Perhaps the philosophers you mentioned realised that.

 

[Anvil]

I think that in a few hundred years, as science breaks through the barriers of its current constraints, religion will subside, giving way to the actuality of our existance. Religion will not be able to compete with scientific facts.

For now, we must make do with what we have, and be patient. Sooner then later, our ideas will be looked apon as early rebellion against religion.

 

[Lord SteveO]

I think you should ask those thousands of people who do not believe in any god if religion is needed to have a code of morals.

I'm not religious, in fact i see religion as one of the biggest threats to human development.
But, inspite of my "lack of faith" in any god or prophet, i still have morals. I still know it is wrong to kill a person i walk past in the street, or to steal a TV from someone. You don't need religion or a god figure to work out what is right and what is wrong.
Hence i don't think religion is essential to any moral code. Perhaps at present it is, with people still basing large parts of their lives on religious teachings.
But like AS said, in a few hundred years, when science or even simple logic has shown a lot of religion to be simply stories, maybe then will a new code develop. As religion looses its grip on people, so a new form of morals will evolve

 

[Neith]

I don't see how we can depend on religion for morality, after the things that religion has done and advocated. How is it moral to kill thousands of people who do not participate in your religion (the crusades)? Mainstream (I know this isn't the right word but cannot think of the right one) religions are all about capitalism anyway. The Catholic Church do not advocate killing or the use of contraceptives, yet they have shares in ammunitions factories and condom factories. This doesn't seem moral to me. Having said that, I don't think the world would be much better without religion. Science isn't moral: cloning animals and people isn't moral, and the reasons for doing it are usually even less moral (having one baby so that you can get its marrow to save an older child).

I do not think it is possible to have a universal ethical code. What is right for one country or even one community is not necessarily right for another. To illustrate using the EU as an example. The EU covers a lot of different European countries, and sets laws for them based on what is right for the majority. They have done this recently with fishing in Scotland which has been problematic to Scotland because it is not like the other European countries. It's climate is different, its society is dependent on different things, and its fishing quotas do not have the same effect on fishing stock as some do in different European countries. I know this isn't to do with morality, but I think/hope it illustrates that having one set of rules so to speak, doesn't work for everyone.

What different countries consider to be moral differs anyway, dependent on their culture and not always religion. In 200 hundreds years time it may be decided that it is universally immoral to kill animals because they suffer for it. This may be fine for richer countries who can import other things to eat besides what their own country produces, but for some poorer countries it just isn't practical, whether they agree with the morality behind it or not.

Sorry if this doesn't make sense/ is a load of crap, I'm probably too tired to post on this board.

 

[derek]

Dogmatic Religion is a great problem, religion is not. Many of you know the problematic nature of even defining religion. So to condemn something based on its bastard form is making an inconsistent leap. If X is evolved from Y, you cannot argue the falsehood of Y based on the shortcomings of X.

 

[Anvil]

Since I can't find the info on google, and obviously don't know it, since I searched on google, would you mind elaborating on "Dogmatic Religion" for the intellectually deficient? (Wow, I pulled that word out of no where.)

 

[derek]

Religion is a faith is in something greater, but it can remain spiritual, wonderous and ineffable. When I refer to dogmatic religion I mean faith that has been made rigid within a structure of rules and regulations, whether that be scripture of rituals.

 

[Pitiless Wanderer]

The foundation of morals, in my opinion, can be found in the self. I dont think it has anything to do with God or the ten commandments like people sometimes say. I believe that every person relates to himself first and foremost, then to others. Example, it is immoral to steal. If I go into my friend's room and he is asleep, and I see a $20.00 bill sitting on his desk, in making the decision whether or not to take it, the thought process might go something like this: In my head and heart I think how I would feel if someone did it to me. Obviously, I would get mad and upset, therefore I believe this to be a immoral and a wrong act, so I don't take the money. i don't need to reference some religious rules for me to make that decision. I think a code of ethics can be found in everyone, by this manner. That isnt the problem. The problem, is whether it is ethical to break those ethical rules...like the fishing example used above. If a government makes a law that you know is 100% wrong, is it ethical to break the law and be true to yourself?

 

[Heavenscent]

Example: One of the biggest dogma's in the Roman Catholic church is the Communion, or rather the belief that the Host and the wine turn into the flesh and blood of the Christ.

As for a universal ethical code, I do not think it will work. In this way, you take moral values and turn them into moral norms. I think you will agree with me that there is a major distinction between the two.
Creating an universal moral norm could very easily backfire, as people will/can be inclined to accept this norm without questioning it (dogmatism galore) and without even considering one's individual values.
If there were to be some universal ethical rules, they would have to be really general to make them suit an extremely wide range of different situations, which would probably end up with rules such as 'don't kill', 'respect the elderly', 'don't steal', rules or morals which are embedded in (most) religions. You can see how that works. Basically, there are universal ethical values. People are just immoral creatures as a group, not playing by their own rules.

 

[Freanan]

I don't think a universal ethical code exists.
Were should it come from?
Logics or nature do not provide it. Thus ethics can only be formed by the lifestyle and needs of the culture that uses them as a tool to make human relations work and maybe to write down some goals and values that this culture in general has.

I think the existing cultures need each their Ethics... They also need some kind of ethics to make the interrelations between those cultures work.
But i neither think anything of this is nature/god - given nor that it is actually universal.

 

[Neith]

The foundation of morals, in my opinion, can be found in the self. I dont think it has anything to do with God or the ten commandments like people sometimes say. I believe that every person relates to himself first and foremost, then to others. Example, it is immoral to steal. If I go into my friend's room and he is asleep, and I see a $20.00 bill sitting on his desk, in making the decision whether or not to take it, the thought process might go something like this: In my head and heart I think how I would feel if someone did it to me. Obviously, I would get mad and upset, therefore I believe this to be a immoral and a wrong act, so I don't take the money. i don't need to reference some religious rules for me to make that decision. I think a code of ethics can be found in everyone, by this manner. That isnt the problem. The problem, is whether it is ethical to break those ethical rules...like the fishing example used above. If a government makes a law that you know is 100% wrong, is it ethical to break the law and be true to yourself?

But what of people who do not think it is morally wrong to do something which the majority of the public do consider morally wrong? Some people do not have a problem with killing animals or people, and there is no question of morality concerned in their mind, yet others do not think that it is moral.

The last question you pose is basically asking if two wrongs can make a right, if, indeed, it is wrong to break the law if the law is wrong. Here I think it depends on the context.

 

[Anvil]

I find that my main reason for my strong morals is based off the faith I was once part of, Roman Catholicism.

The word 'morals' is flawed, in the aspect that the law is based on a mixture of the bible and human error. Before the 10 comandments meant anything though, it would be interesting to know how they lived. As the saying goes, "We learn from our mistakes". If thats true, then we would have to have put reason to our law and morals. Look at the law of killing another human being. If you disregard the bible, it would be easy to put a reason behind it. You wouldn't want to die, because survival is our main function. So in killing another person, you would be killing a being just like you. That person feels the same about being killed, because he didn't want to die either. The law of stealing another's possession, is just as easy. If you own something, and its stolen, chances are you worked hard to obtain the item, and would have to replace it.

I think that, although flawed, without the bible our lives would be much different, moral wise. Not us personally, but society as a whole. I don't believe in the bible, I find it to be a work of fiction, however people need something to believe in. Enter religion.

 

[Silver Incubus]

I also agree with the "Golden Rule"(do unto others as you would have others do unto youz) being the basis of real ethical contemplation. But in some situations it may not apply.

That is why I feel capitalism is void of any real ethics because it focus' on the selfish aspect of humanity, which pretty much states that as long as it is good for me it doesn't matter what happens to people that have nothing to do with me.

Just look at the materialistic values the west has adopted and the degredation of both respect and communtiy. I find the focus on the consumerism to be disgusting if not frightening. The more we move away from the symbiotic relationship with the earth, the further we feel from being connected to the planet and each other in a community.

I agree that our Laws fail miserably to reflect the more important need for ethics. Although the push for more mediation and less litigation is a step forward in creating a legal system that is more fair and flexible. Like I have said before, Absolute law just doesn't work because situational evidence can be so extreme that the laws cannot reflect the best solution to the problem.

This is also my biggest problem with dogma as well. Simply because it says X is wrong, and because it is suppose to be Devine rule, people feel there is no room for any sort of negotiation. Until both capitalism and religion as an organized belief structure are abolished, we will never really progress as a species and probbably end up kill everything on the planet over supposed ideals and self centered greed.

 

[Norsemaiden]

My view of ethics I would describe as anarchistic. Ideally there would be no imposed ethical code and people would simply judge for themselves what is right or wrong, relying on their own inner good judgement.
Can you see how, having thought this through in regard to what people are actually like, I realised that people with that level of responsibility and sense are in a minority, and then had to incorporate ideas of eugenics into my anarchistic ideology...!

When I studied psychology we learned about someone who had studied ethics in relation to human psychology. I can't remember who it was now, but he decided that most people do need to have a code of ethics imposed on them which they have to follow. He said this was a kind of infantile level of morality which most people have to some degree, but only a tiny percentage of people have no need of it.

You know how you have to tell small children what they can and cannot do, and in their early stages if you ask them "why is X a naughty thing to do" they answer "because I will get smacked/told off/ punished generally". This is the infantile level at which religion works. You must not do this or you will be damned to hell, or if you are good you go to Heaven. So it is based on fear of consequences rather than doing the right thing for its own sake.
Many adults cannot get beyond this idea that something is wrong because if you do it you get punished.
The next stage is that something is wrong "because it is against the rules" which is a slight improvement.
The highest stage, that few people get to, is knowing in your own "heart" so to speak, what is right or wrong. For this, no ethical code can apply, by definition, because obeying an ethical code brings you down to one of the lower levels of moral development. (I think the idea of treating people the way you would think it fair to be treated yourself in their position would be a level 6 moral way of behaving).

I will have to try to find a reference for this.
Edit: Found it! http://www.xenodochy.org/ex/lists/moraldev.html

The other point, which fits in with this observation that religious people have an undeveloped psycholgical moral development, is that the people who most practice the "sins" of the Bible, are the one's who are religious. This is shown by the discovery that in the US bible belt there is more teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, venerial disease, etc than in non-Bible belt areas. The ethical code doesn't work too well, but then there is always the consideration that God loves a sinner repented (even more than someone who never sins.)
Someone can be brought up by religious parents and have a high moral development - but they are likely to rebel against the idea that threats and bribery are a reasonable way to make someone virtuous.

 

[Demiurge]

I think that in a few hundred years, as science breaks through the barriers of its current constraints, religion will subside, giving way to the actuality of our existance.

Not going to happen. Science describes and explains phenomena, but it cannot prescribe how one ought to live. It will never replace religion because it cannot answer certain problems by its very nature.

It's not as if no modern philosophers have tackled ethics. Principia Ethica is one of the most well-known analytic works. Alasdair Macintyre, who currently teaches at Notre Dame, produced a few very interesting works on virtue ethics.

 

[Anvil]

Not going to happen. Science describes and explains phenomena, but it cannot prescribe how one ought to live. It will never replace religion because it cannot answer certain problems by its very nature.

It's not as if no modern philosophers have tackled ethics. Principia Ethica is one of the most well-known analytic works. Alasdair Macintyre, who currently teaches at Notre Dame, produced a few very interesting works on virtue ethics.

Science has proven many different theories and beliefs to be wrong in the past, and since none of us know the future, how do you know that it won't prevail again?

You're right, Religion will never be replaced, however people will become aware of scientific breakthroughs in our existance and start to question their faiths and beliefs a bit more. Skeptism and open-mindedness will become strong virtues.

 

[Demiurge]

Science has proven many different theories and beliefs to be wrong in the past, and since none of us know the future, how do you know that it won't prevail again?

I told you why - because religion performs a function which science cannot.

You're right, Religion will never be replaced,

True.

however people will become aware of scientific breakthroughs in our existance and start to question their faiths and beliefs a bit more. Skeptism and open-mindedness will become strong virtues.

The interesting thing about religion is that it is adaptable. Granted, certain fundamentalist beliefs are hard-pressed to persist against the tide of counter evidence, but the faith is easily adjusted to fit nearly any new discovery.

 

[Norsemaiden]

I don't think religious belief will be replaced by scientific rationale. The apex of logical scientific thinking was in the Victorian age, just after Darwin's discoveries. Since then we have been declining into increasing superstition, religious faith and public disinterest in science. Science has built up a momentum, but that momentum is slowing now, and the rate of innovation is slowing - syptoms of our decaying civilisation.

Article in the New Scientist 02 july 2005 http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7616
"Entering a dark age of innovation".

According to Jonathan Huebner, "a physicist working at the Pentagon's Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, California" "the rate of technological innovation reached a peak a century ago and has been declining ever since. And like the lookout on the Titanic who spotted the fateful iceberg, Huebner sees the end of innovation looming dead ahead. His study will be published in 'Technological Forecasting and Social Change".

 

[Nile577]

As Foucault realised, ethics seem to alter in accordance to epistemic shift. Since this shift has been terminally altered away from moral absolutes in the wake of Nietzsche's 'God is dead,' individuals exist in a state in which the need for instant self-gratification (the bible of which is probably de Sade's 120 days...) is as morally viable an option as any.

In my view, people do not live in this fashion to such an extreme extent primarily because of fear of repercussion (this repercussion may take the form of state intervention or social ostracising). As Djuna Barnes speculates: what 'atrocities' most people would commit if they did not have a name, a physical body and an address by which they might be identified. (The internet gives a good hint at this).

Instead, this desire for short term gratification is evident in lifestyle choices such as: pizza chips and television more often than study, gardening or learning an instrument.

I believe a very few people are able to realise that short-term gratification does not achieve long-term goals. Life is more than fucking, eating and partying and youth will pass by no matter how many times you try and nail it to a sticking point inside different vaginas. There are higher things to strive for which cannot be achieved in a day and last far longer. I see this recognition as defining 'honour.' Honour is a code of life that recognises man's perspective in the world in a meaningful context and attunes personal behaviour to that worldly context.

To use the example of one of the philosophers quoted in the initial post. Heidegger was entirely unethical in the traditional sense, but in the natural he valued the Earth itself above all things. 'Unethical' gratification was, for him, any example of the will-to-will (That is, the desire for power, simply for its own sake). Such will-to-will placed a love of power over love of what is natural and would culminate in Oppenheimer creating the A-bomb and stating, 'I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.' Such behaviour is broken. Amorality is not an excuse to fist-fuck the planet.

In short I only value ethics as far as they conform to, what is for humans, the only absolute that matters: that of natural law.