Defining Morality

[tumbleweed41]

There are many threads on where morality comes from, or is morality possible without religion.
What I would like to discuss is, just what is mortality? It is to simple and obscure to just say morality is knowing right from wrong. It leaves to much open for interpretation on what is right or wrong.

A basic, simple definition of morality should be, doing what there are the most logical reasons for doing, while giving equal consideration to the interests of each individual who is affected by one's decisions.

Does this sound like a good basic starting point for morality?
If so, how would you expand it?
If not, why not? And can you offer up an alternative basic minimum definition.

 

[Just_me_Mike]

Unfortunately, it really depends on the person's background answering the question.

For me, many socialistic views really define morals for me, like that part is Acts where everyone sold their possessions and lived communally and distributed accordingly so they all lived as one.

The only problem I see with your definition right now is, the logical part. For example, if there was a food shortage it would be logical in order to feed my children to take from others so we could survive. How does that scenario fit with your definition? It seems morals get trumped by survival, ya know?

Good question though, and if I can think of an actual definition I'll post it.

 

[lunamoth]

There are many threads on what where morality comes from, or is morality possible without religion.
What I would like to discuss is, just what is mortality? It is to simple and obscure to just say morality is knowing right from wrong. It leaves to much open for interpretation on what is right or wrong.

A basic, simple definition of morality should be, doing what there are the most logical reasons for doing, while giving equal consideration to the interests of each individual who is affected by one's decisions.

Does this sound like a good basic starting point for morality?
If so, how would you expand it?
If not, why not? And can you offer up an alternative basic minimum definition.

Morality is staying in good relationship with others. Morality is based upon love.

 

[tumbleweed41]

doing what there are the most logical reasons for doing, while giving equal consideration to the interests of each individual who is affected by one's decisions.

The only problem I see with your definition right now is, the logical part. For example, if there was a food shortage it would be logical in order to feed my children to take from others so we could survive. How does that scenario fit with your definition? It seems morals get trumped by survival, ya know?
.

"While giving equal consideration to the interests of each individual who is affected by ones decisions."

So yes, the moral dilemma in your scenario would include both your children, and those from whom you may steal. according to the OP definition.

Survival can be a huge part of moral decisions. It does not necessarily trump it, but is a part of the decision making process.

What is your answer to your own scenario? Do you steal and feed your children? Allow them to starve to satisfy an "anti-theft" morality? Or search for alternatives that can be more easily justified?

 

[tumbleweed41]

Morality is staying in good relationship with others. Morality is based upon love.

Since the definition of "love" can be so widely interpreted, could not the last part of the OP definition "while giving equal consideration to the interests of each individual who is affected by one's decisions" mean the same as what you have said?

 

[lunamoth]

Since the definition of "love" can be so widely interpreted, could not the las part of the OP definition "while giving equal consideration to the interests of each individual who is affected by one's decisions" mean the same as what you have said?

Why not just say love then?

 

[Just_me_Mike]

"While giving equal consideration to the interests of each individual who is affected by ones decisions."

So yes, the moral dilemma in your scenario would include both your children, and those from whom you may steal. according to the OP definition.

Survival can be a huge part of moral decisions. It does not necessarily trump it, but is a part of the decision making process.

What is your answer to your own scenario? Do you steal and feed your children? Allow them to starve to satisfy an "anti-theft" morality? Or search for alternatives that can be more easily justified?

You know me, I go with the bible. It says stealing for starvation is OK, but if one is caught doing it, they must pay back with more than they stole. On th other hand, if the world followed the bible, no one would be starving, because everyone would be concerned about everyone around them, and if anyone neded something it would be provided. I suppose that sums it up.

 

[MSizer]

Morality is staying in good relationship with others. Morality is based upon love.

I disagree. Love gets in the way when it comes to making moral judgements. For example, if you had a toddler, and you as well as 15 other people were hiding in the basement from murderous guerilla soldiers, and your toddler was crying outloud uncontrollably, you'd have to either give up all of the people to the soldiers by letting your kid cry, or potentially suffocate your child to silence her. Your love would cloud your moral judgement.

 

[MSizer]

... I go with the bible. It says stealing for starvation is OK, but if one is caught doing it, they must pay back with more than they stole...

So whether an act is moral or not depends on whether I get caught? Wow, that's a pretty sweet deal. I'm gonna go find me some other selfish things god will let me get away with.

 

[tumbleweed41]

Why not just say love then?

As I said in my response, the definition of love can be widely interpreted.
In MSizers scenario, is it the love for your child that triumphs? Or love of your fellow refugees?
Would it not be better to give equal consideration to all that are affected by your decision?

 

[MSizer]

Morality is a human capacity, much like language. We are born with an innate ability to structure grammar, but the vocabulary we learn and the way we structure grammar depends on our cultural nurturing. Moralit works the same way. We're born with intuitions that are hardwired into our psyche from evolution, and then our families and peers teach us some of the specifics. These intuitions give us our basic empathetic sense (mirror neurons) and our intuition toward altruism (reciprocal, kinship, reputatinoal...). But then our ability to reason comes into play as well, which is where the similarity to language starts to fall off. Our intuitions can be (and should be) run through the tribunal of reasonning. The problem is our capacity for reason is quite meak in comparison to the complexity of moral dillemas, and we have trouble factoring in all details when trying to make moral judgements. That's why there exist challenges, like framing problems and other such things we've learned from social psychologists. We know from Spect and fMRI scans that diffrent types of moral dillemas activate diffrerent areas of the brain. Some tug on our emotions, others cause our "reason" area of the brain to work. Sometimes they conflict too, and these are situations like "I don't want to strangle my kid, but if I don't, her crying will give away the whole group and we'll all die". Our moral instinct tells us never to strangle children, but our reason says that if we don't many people will die.

I strongly believe that moral theory should be tought as a staple educational subject like reading and writing. I wish it were. The problem is that we are just in our infancy in starting to understand how human brains make decisions, so it would be virtually impossible to arrange a morality corriculum since the widespread moral illiteracy would certainly lead to an impossible public debate about what it should include.

 

[tumbleweed41]

You know me, I go with the bible. It says stealing for starvation is OK, but if one is caught doing it, they must pay back with more than they stole. On th other hand, if the world followed the bible, no one would be starving, because everyone would be concerned about everyone around them, and if anyone neded something it would be provided. I suppose that sums it up.

Like MSizer said, you are basically saying that in this situation, it is OK to steal, as long as you don't get caught. What of those you stole from? Have you doomed them to starve? You implied a famine, so by taking from others, you doom them to the fate you have avoided through theft.
And if you get caught? You must pay them back more than you stole? But if you had that, you would not have needed to resort to theft in the first place.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I think that morality is somewhat like physics, in that in extreme situations (e.g., the singularity of a black hole), laws that pertain to normal situations no longer apply.

It is immoral for me to steal food to feed my family now, because I have the resources to buy them.

If I had no resources to buy food, and someone who had plenty would not give my family any, I think it would be immoral to let my family starve instead of stealing food from the hoarder.

If I had no food, and the only other available food was held by another family, but there wasn't enough food to feed both of our families, the question of morality becomes meaningless, as survival of you and your family becomes the new "morality."

 

[Just_me_Mike]

To Mizer and TW
You have taken me a bit out of context. I did not say it was OK to steal. I said if you were starving it would be OK.

That is also why I said survival seems to trump morals, however survival with zero morals would be much worse, ey?

 

[tumbleweed41]

OK, before we get too sidetracked, back to the OP...

A basic, simple definition of morality should be, doing what there are the most logical reasons for doing, while giving equal consideration to the interests of each individual who is affected by one's decisions.

1) Does this sound like a good basic starting point for morality?
2) If so, how would you expand it?
3) If not, why not? And can you offer up an alternative basic minimum definition.

 

[Quiddity]

Morality is wholly dependant on what one values and attaches meaning to. I have no idea how this is accomplished in moral relative secular world; even if it was full of atheist.

I have very little hope that science can accomplish to answer this as well. Outside of telling us that these clump atoms do this or that and is triggered by this or that, it won't make much more ground.

 

[Just_me_Mike]

Sure...

I think I would differ in...

Morality is a benchmark that is used among a group of people that offers equal consideration to everyone, so long as ample resources are available. Upon the depletion of ample resources, a new benchmark is enacted where survival with some sense of the original benchmark is left in tact.

So TW, this seems to be the reality of a true sense of morality. No one seems content defining morality by itself, which I too think it is impossible, since morality is so dependent or circumstances.

Sorry if I am derailing the thread, I am not trying too.

However, in a different reality, your definition works fine for me!

 

[tumbleweed41]

Morality is wholly dependant on what one values and attaches meaning to. I have no idea how this is accomplished in moral relative secular world; even if it was full of atheist.

Yet morality is evident in secular societies, that is why we are discussing what defines basic morality.

I have very little hope that science can accomplish to answer this as well. Outside of telling us that these clump atoms do this or that and is triggered by this or that, it won't make much more ground.

This is not a scientific discussion, it is a philosophical one.

 

[tumbleweed41]

Sure...

I think I would differ in...

Morality is a benchmark that is used among a group of people that offers equal consideration to everyone, so long as ample resources are available. Upon the depletion of ample resources, a new benchmark is enacted where survival with some sense of the original benchmark is left in tact.

So TW, this seems to be the reality of a true sense of morality. No one seems content defining morality by itself, which I too think it is impossible, since morality is so dependent or circumstances.

Sorry if I am derailing the thread, I am not trying too.

However, in a different reality, your definition works fine for me!

"doing what there are the most logical reasons for doing"
Careful reasoning must be considered, especially when it concerns the lives of others.
"while giving equal consideration to the interests of each individual who is affected by one's decisions."
If, after consideration, there was no other means of survival, one would be expected to preserve as many lives as possible, while holding casualties to a minimum.

To do otherwise would be immoral. Even securing your own survival above all others would not be moral.
One may try to excuse killing and eating the stranger for survival as a "moral necessity", but it is still immoral.
It may have been necessary for survival, but that does not redefine morality.
That is more of a personal "I had to do it" excuse.
Individual Survivability =/= Morality, lest we excuse the sociopath.

 

[Quiddity]

Yet morality is evident in secular societies, that is why we are discussing what defines basic morality.

It's not much of an accomplishment if defining our morality means we keep making things more vague. That's precisely what is happening in secular countries. It's only successful because we aren't killing each other.

This is not a scientific discussion, it is a philosophical one.

I agree......However, some materialist might not.