no country for old wainds
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the only thing that's objectively immoral here is declining to apologise when you bump into someone.
If Mort Divine ruled the world
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Baroque
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HamburgerBoy
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You could be a writer for Family Guy.
Baroque
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Baroque
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I recall you had a sense of humor too, at a certain mad dipper forum.
CiG
Sand-Boondy Assassin
Stealing, rape and murder are objectively immoral. Any society where they are not considered immoral are either gone, changed or looked down upon by societies that do consider them to be immoral.
HamburgerBoy
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That's MADDIPPER you blasphemous cunt.
(I was just on a Forumplanet nostalgia binge last night, actually.)
Baroque
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HamburgerBoy
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Yeah and trying to e-stalk old users to see if anyone had surfaced elsewhere recently and just general reminiscence.
Einherjar86
Active Member
Consider this--just because everyone believes something is wrong doesn't mean it's objectively immoral. And as soon as a particular situation subverts our moral expectations, then have to acknowledge this fact more explicitly.
When it comes to objectivity, you tend to lapse into common sense. I have nothing wrong with common sense per se, but when confronted with possible exceptions to what you said, your only retort was to simply repeat your claim, and then offer (gasp) historical evidence! None of that goes to support any notion of objective morality; all it does is begin to suggest a historical tendency.
You're framing history as progress: that we're discovering "true" or objective morality, implementing it, and moving in a positive direction. While I agree that civilization has made significant leaps, I hesitate to sanction anything with the absolutist idea of "objective morality."
CiG
Sand-Boondy Assassin
Fair enough. You are after all very far left on concepts such as morality, perhaps you're wrong though? Sometimes, and I don't mean this as an insult, but sometimes it does seem like you think these concepts are so beneath you and you've reached conclusions that you're so invested in that you are beyond ever agreeing with me on these concepts.
Often times talking with you about these things feels like being wrong and speaking to someone who is right and has all the evidence to support that. It feels like being a high school kid again and talking to a teacher.
There is no and has never been any society I know of where the victim of theft or rape doesn't feel or know they've been immorally treated. Murder is different of course as the victim is dead.
But in the end I'm the one that probably won't budge. You'll never convince me that raping an infant isn't objectively immoral.
Often times talking with you about these things feels like being wrong and speaking to someone who is right and has all the evidence to support that. It feels like being a high school kid again and talking to a teacher.
There is no and has never been any society I know of where the victim of theft or rape doesn't feel or know they've been immorally treated. Murder is different of course as the victim is dead.
But in the end I'm the one that probably won't budge. You'll never convince me that raping an infant isn't objectively immoral.
rms
Active Member
i mean its pretty simple on stealing or killing (you keep using murder which already implies illegal connotations). if you're starving to death and you can steal a loaf of bread, would you do it? of course you would and no one would be like "omg I cant believe he stole that bread as he died"
just like when battered housewives kill their abusive husbands, courts/juries are lenient and decide that it is 'fine' to do so
just like when battered housewives kill their abusive husbands, courts/juries are lenient and decide that it is 'fine' to do so
CiG
Sand-Boondy Assassin
Doing or not doing something is the deciding factor for whether that something is moral or immoral? Stealing to feed yourself or a starving family member is called a moral dilemma because you know it's immoral but you need to do it.
I'm specifically using murder because its never been claimed by any theory I know of that killing in and of itself is immoral, the caveat is killing the innocent or killing the helpless.
I'm specifically using murder because its never been claimed by any theory I know of that killing in and of itself is immoral, the caveat is killing the innocent or killing the helpless.
rms
Active Member
principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.
I mean, yeah. If it's right to you to steal when youre starving or kill when you're 'oppressed' then that is obviously moral.
so who is saying murder can be moral? are you referring to euthanasia? you're doing one of those lame internet things where you create an argument and interject your position
Einherjar86
Active Member
I am a teacher.
I mean, I'm not sure what evidence you have, as you aren't providing any. You're making appeals to pathos and occupying a rhetorical stance; i.e. "It's obvious that raping infants is immoral." I'm not going to argue for moral relativism when it comes to raping infants; I'm simply saying that we cannot prove moral objectivity--but the good thing is, we don't need moral objectivity in order to live in a civilized and humane way. We have ethics, which are very different.
As far as evidence goes, I'm not a moral philosopher by any means; but I've read Kant's Groundwork on the Metaphysics of Morals and Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality, as well as a lot of postmodern theory on morality (much of which is critical of Kantian morality). I realize that this might seem like me claiming authority, but all I mean to say is that I've spent time reading about morality; and I would encourage my students too also (if I haven't assigned the reading already). Extreme singular examples don't convince me of any sweeping, objective morality because singular examples always reduce down to how someone feels. Morality reduces to a subjective experience of something, which moral philosophers then try and extend to an objective account of right and wrong. I've never seen a compelling argument for objective morality. Dak might not approve of this appropriation of his lingo, but your argument basically boils down to "because muh feelings."
Now, ethics are an entirely different matter. I believe that ethics exist, because ethics are socially/institutionally constructed and can be elaborated and improved upon by complex societies. I absolutely believe it is ethically unacceptable to rape a baby (to use your example). I also believe it's ethically wrong to murder, steal, etc.; but ethics is an ever-shifting set of parameters, which is why we have legal processes. The ethics of a situation never reduce to a single act, but to a network of conditions. To put this another way, morality always begins from personal experience or feeling, and extends outward from there in an attempt to impose personal beliefs as universal laws. Ethics, on the other hand, derives from social discourse. It may correspond to what people feel, perhaps even to what every single living person feels--but that isn't its source.
This is an enormous generalization, and can be disproven purely by one single person who says: "I was robbed, but I don't feel morally mistreated. I feel ethically mistreated."
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CiG
Sand-Boondy Assassin
I don't think it's right personally. Necessity and what's right often are separate.
ISIS certainly believe their actions are moral.
I am a teacher.
Yes it's painfully obvious.
I've never quite understood how ethics are different to morals, maybe you could explain that to me if you can be bothred? I hear people make that distinction often. Is it just the secular equivalent to morals? Even its official definition mentions it as a set of moral principles.
I'm not dismissive of feelings, just to clear the air. I'm not Dak.
Morals are entirely entwined with emotions, in fact one might define morality as a set of emotions shared by vast swathes of people, often rising above cultural differences. Which I now realise why you are so opposed to it as a concept because in many ways it's similar to common sense.
As I understand it, ethics do not exist without morality but I'll await your explanation on this, because admittedly I don't quite understand the difference.
Again, I'll await an explanation. I think that if there is no government (and therefore no system of enforced ethics etc) it would still be wrong to steal and I can't just ignore that innate feeling I have.
Einherjar86
Active Member
Morality is an individual sense of right and wrong. You can share a set of morals with another person, but morality doesn't derive from shared sets of values. It's subjective, which is why you cannot determine any objective morality.
Ethics are rules or laws established by an external source. It's discursive and social, not personal.
In order for stealing to be objectively immoral, you'd have to believe that stealing would be wrong even in a context removed entirely from any given set of social norms. In other words, you'd have to claim that it's morally wrong for a hyena to steal a lion's kill.
Ethics are rules or laws established by an external source. It's discursive and social, not personal.
In order for stealing to be objectively immoral, you'd have to believe that stealing would be wrong even in a context removed entirely from any given set of social norms. In other words, you'd have to claim that it's morally wrong for a hyena to steal a lion's kill.
Dak
mentat
Why would it have to apply interspecies? Stretching it that far would imply all eating is murder.
Einherjar86
Active Member
Which is why objective morality is bogus.
Saying that morality exists outside of social organization would mean that it would apply to non-social animals. Which is why I made that point.
Saying that morality exists outside of social organization would mean that it would apply to non-social animals. Which is why I made that point.
CiG
Sand-Boondy Assassin
That explanation is very unconvincing to me. Morality has never been a concept (as I understand it) that puts animals and humans on an equal platform. I don't know of any moralist that extends morality to animals (except perhaps vegans who are in their own way moralists).
Similarly, if a toddler steals from an adult, it's not a moral or immoral action. It's fundamentally amoral.
Similarly, if a toddler steals from an adult, it's not a moral or immoral action. It's fundamentally amoral.
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