Morals

[Nakosis]

Is it your stance then that there is no circumstance we could agree is universally "bad"? Let's imagine a virus comes into being that infects every living being in the universe, and this virus puts every living being in non-stop, excruciating pain for an extended lifetime. Every being. Could we call that universe "bad", full stop?

Now a pure relativist can make the argument that there is no way to prove that such a universe is "bad". While I understand that stance from a pure logic perspective, it strikes me as a nonstarter from any useful perspective.

It seems to me that what almost all ethical and moral systems have in common is that they strive to improve the well being of conscious creatures. (So, for example, moral and ethical systems tend not to be concerned with the well being of rocks.)

Finally, to me, there is no point in interacting with pure moral / ethical relativists. Such discussions are pointless.

Ok but isn't the argument you just made relative to human well being?
Are such discussion pointless because there is no argument?

The only thing to argue is the viewpoint of the position one's morals are based on. The rest is simply how it works.

 

[Nakosis]

This is exactly why it is important to foster empathy!

Sounds like a good goal to me.

 

[Nakosis]

What if 2 top players play tennis?
Both have the goal to win the match
Both try to make it harder for the other

I don't call those actions bad

Sure though some might consider how they go about it.
A companion goal might be to win without cheating.

That's one of my usual goals anyway.
To me if I have to cheat to win, then I didn't really win.

 

[Nakosis]

I don't think everything that goes against my goals is bad. I don't think someone is morally wrong if they are picked for a job or internship opportunity over me. I don't think most people feel this way in general.

Maybe your goals are too specific.
For example, getting that particular job over simply getting a job.

Certainly there exists an opportunity to improve our goals.
I suppose people that have difficulty refining their goals might cause others problems with their ideas of right and wrong.

 

[Nakosis]

" Morals are dependent on what your goals are.
"Good" actions are whatever furthers your goals.
"Bad" is whatever obstructs you from your goals. "

Are the above expressions common with the people of " Religion: Scientism" , please? Right?

Regards

Not that I'm aware of.
There is probably some brand of idealism out there that coincides, but at this point, these ideas are my own.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

My view on morals.

Morals are dependent on what your goals are.
"Good" actions are whatever furthers your goals.
"Bad" is whatever obstructs you from your goals.

If your actions get me closer to my goals, then your actions are good.
If your actions make my goals harder to reach, then your actions are bad.
To me, this makes it simple to judge good/bad actions.

We may share the same or similar goals so what we judge as moral can be the same.

However, we may have completely different goals. So while I may judge your morals as immoral/bad/evil, depending on your goals, your actions for yourself and folks who have common goals with you, your actions may be perfectly moral/good.

So while you may judge me or another as immoral as say it all depend on what my/their goals happened to be at the time.

In many cases, events happen in the world which have no bearing or affect on my goals. They are amoral, or I have no reason to pass a moral judgement on. They are just events which happened.

An argument against this would be whether there exits universally oriented goals. I don't believe such exists.
While human kind may have some goals in common. I don't see our, human, goals as universal.

There maybe other arguments against this view to. For example if you believe in a God then maybe you believe that God dictates universal morals. That's fine but not everyone believes in the same God so one God may dictate a different set of morals from another, so still not universal and dependent on the goals of that particular God.

I have already given you an idea in another thread.

But here is how the game gets weird.
Just read the preface.
Social pedagogy - Wikipedia

My wife is such a professional and I rely on them otherwise I would die faster without them, than with them.
The long story short is that the game changes if your goal is in part to help other people as them.

 

[Nakosis]

Well sure, but 'goals" in general is too broad to set as a determination of moral or not. It could easily include Dhamer or people who believe killing others somehow reflects some overall good. In his mind he is moral so that would negate goals as a standard.

So you'd personally see the some goals others might have as immoral?
Probably is most cases, I'd agree but there may exist some individuals who see it differently.

People seem more comfortable when the goals of society at large set the morals. They fear what goals the individual might come up with.
Yet historically, I seem times when society's moral standards have been inadequate.
I'd rather it not be left to society to set the goals I based my morals on.

Allowing people to set their own goals seems a common fear among folks.
"What if Mr X set a goal for themselves I don't like?"
That is certainly a possibility.
People would rather trust society to set their goals for them instead of themselves.
I suppose I have come to trust myself enough to allow for it.
I have less trust in society's ability to do it for me.

Do you trust yourself enough to set your own goals?
If not, and many people seem not to, they'd rather society do it for them.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

So you'd personally see the some goals others might have as immoral?
Probably is most cases, I'd agree but there may exist some individuals who see it differently.

People seem more comfortable when the goals of society at large set the morals. They fear what goals the individual might come up with.
Yet historically, I seem times when society's moral standards have been inadequate.
I'd rather it not be left to society to set the goals I based my morals on.

Allowing people to set their own goals seems a common fear among folks.
"What if Mr X set a goal for themselves I don't like?"
That is certainly a possibility.
People would rather trust society to set their goals for them instead of themselves.
I suppose I have come to trust myself enough to allow for it.
I have less trust in society's ability to do it for me.

Do you trust yourself enough to set your own goals?
If not, and many people seem not to, they'd rather society do it for them.

So some science for you. Remember this is descriptive and not about right or wrong goals:
https://www.simplypsychology.org/kohlberg.html

If you want to nitpick the limitations of this model, we can do that. But in a general sense it holds a general guide to understand an aspect of morality. And yes, there is a stage missing.

 

[Nakosis]

I have already given you an idea in another thread.

But here is how the game gets weird.
Just read the preface.
Social pedagogy - Wikipedia

My wife is such a professional and I rely on them otherwise I would die faster without them, than with them.
The long story short is that the game changes if your goal is in part to help other people as them.

I have nothing against this but I think my knowledge/understanding is insufficient to correctly dictate the proper goals. So when it comes to society at large I leave this moral choices to the experts.
When it come to my family, friends, interaction with others, through my personal experience, I still think I know best. I might still be wrong but hey, I'm not perfect.

Of course I'd be willing to argue my pov with any expert and maybe one of us will change our mind.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I have nothing against this but I think my knowledge/understanding is insufficient to correctly dictate the proper goals. So when it comes to society at large I leave this moral choices to the experts.
When it come to my family, friends, interaction with others, through my personal experience, I still think I know best. I might still be wrong but hey, I'm not perfect.

Of course I'd be willing to argue my pov with any expert and maybe one of us will change our mind.

As long as you don't get into a situation, where your ability to function in a "normal" sense doesn't break down, because your model doesn't work, because the situation is atypical, you will do fine.

 

[Nakosis]

So some science for you. Remember this is descriptive and not about right or wrong goals:
https://www.simplypsychology.org/kohlberg.html

If you want to nitpick the limitations of this model, we can do that. But in a general sense it holds a general guide to understand an aspect of morality. And yes, there is a stage missing.

Very informative. Not the first time I've heard the initial dilemma given.
In this case and the related questions I would say it is all dependent on the goals the individual had at the time.
For myself, it becomes hard to hard an answer for if the goals of the individual in question are not defined.
I suspect most people assume a set of common/shared goals to derive an answer.

It does seem perhaps a stage is missing though I'm not sure I could define it.

 

[Nakosis]

As long as you don't get into a situation, where your ability to function in a "normal" sense doesn't break down, because your model doesn't work, because the situation is atypical, you will do fine.

While I understand what you mean, I do question anybody's ability to define what is "normal".

 

[Nakosis]

Yep. And society's benefit can be in conflict with personal goals. Morality is what keeps your personal goals in harmony with society's goals.
My favourite tool to decide what's moral is the Veil of Ignorance. It doesn't ask for your personal goals but gives you a framework to find them.

Although I'd agree in principle
Unfortunately, there seldom exists an actual Veil of Ignorance.
At least not for those who make society's rules for us.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Very informative. Not the first time I've heard the initial dilemma given.
In this case and the related questions I would say it is all dependent on the goals the individual had at the time.
For myself, it becomes hard to hard an answer for if the goals of the individual in question are not defined.
I suspect most people assume a set of common/shared goals to derive an answer.

It does seem perhaps a stage is missing though I'm not sure I could define it.

Between 4 and 5, you can sometimes find some individuals become caught there and make the following claim. Since all morality is relative, all morality is equally good. The joke is that it is absolute, because equally good is absolute.

 

[blü 2]

While I agree, I'm not sure I'm happy with evolutionary control over my choice of right and wrong. This I think comes down to relying on biological feelings about what is right and wrong. Feelings are not usually a rational method to go about deciding what is right and wrong.

That brings your "Does this serve my goals?" test into play. As I said, I don't think it's irrelevant, but it is indeed backgrounded by one's built-in moral tendencies, more strongly or less as the case may be depending on the individual and depending on the situation. If you're interested, I described >here< one of the experiments from which that list I mentioned is derived.

If we don't take such a background into account then it follows from your test, does it not, that it's good to shoot people who get in your way, or want to charge you money when you don't feel like paying ─ and so on.

But yes, in the end what is "good" and what is "bad" is always a judgment by the individual, subject to possible influences from our moral tendencies, conscience and empathy. There's no objective good or objective bad. It could be argued the most moral thing a dolphin could do for dolphinry is to wipe out all the humans, for instance.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

While I understand what you mean, I do question anybody's ability to define what is "normal".

Objectively in the strong sense, that is not possible. But there is a subjective shortcut and hack as a trick. All humans have positive value, even if different. That is as close I can get and yes, it is without evidence. Further it is in a sense incoherent, but I don't care.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

So morals to you is living up to societies standards?

What about the standard when homosexuality was bad?
Do you think relying on society to set your moral standards is always adequate or for the best?

I don't know about you, but none of my sexual activity was done in society in public. Even if I were not gay, I would not be getting it on for other people to offended by it.

I "live up to society's standards" when I am in society, because that works best for me and everyone else. I don't spit on the bus, nor eat spaghetti with my fingers in the restaurant. What I do in private is my business, not society's.

 

[Heyo]

While I agree, I'm not sure I'm happy with evolutionary control over my choice of right and wrong. This I think comes down to relying on biological feelings about what is right and wrong. Feelings are not usually a rational method to go about deciding what is right and wrong.

Most people I suspect do rely on their feelings to guide them. It's adequate in that we humans have survived this long but I think we could probably do better.

I don't think that evolution controls our morality, I think it is the basis of morality. Our inherent empathy makes us think about morals. But only after thinking about our feelings and evaluating their value for us and our society do they become morals.
And ideally the morals become so ingrained that we follow them reflexively, like feelings.

 

[Heyo]

Although I'd agree in principle
Unfortunately, there seldom exists an actual Veil of Ignorance.
At least not for those who make society's rules for us.

Of course there is no real Veil of Ignorance, it is a Gedankenexperiment. And yes, those who have the power to set rules, typically don't use the VoI. That can and frequently does result in immoral rules. But rules are not necessarily the same as "society's goals".

 

[Augustus]

Sure, some goals you may not be consciously privy to. No necessity of goals being rationally/consciously derived. Perhaps it was a simply unconscious fear of somehow being caught, the goal being to avoid that.

Myself, I tend to analyze the feelings behind my actions and attempt to alter them if them don't meet my conscious goals.
I suspect most morals, i.e. feelings of right and wrong, exist as subconscious goals.
Since most have little control over their feelings they see morals as something separate from conscious rationale.
We humans couldn't possible have the ability to alter the moral ideals of right and wrong.
I think we all do it, just mostly at a subconscious level.

Seems to me like you are overstating the case for everything being goal focused and are trying to a 'law' out of a vague orientation. It overstates our rationality and consistency.

Our beliefs and actions are not really consistent as our mind is "compartmentalised" and it ends up rather convoluted to force all things into a "it's a subconscious goal" narrative.

Morals are often capricious, and we might well make one decision today, and then the opposite one tomorrow.