prometheusxls

How's this...

A is involved in a nonviolent confrontation with B.

A beleives that B will cave in when met with force.

A uses some violent tactics on B.

B capitulates to A

C sees that B is a wimp and doesn't stand up for himself

C gets in to a nonviolent confrontation with B

C uses some violent tactics on B and achieves his objectives

The cycle continues unabated.

James T

What I don't like about some of these examples; A->B, B capitulates so C->B and so on is that in some sense it begs the question.

You can look at it two ways, violence works, use more violence, more violence works yippee. Or non-violence works, use more non-violence ... . Neither is a complete answer.

My feeling is that capitulation is wrong. Changing your actions away from what you consider to be right because of force. Of course an expansionist dictator would have the same view, that capitulation of desires of global domination should not be tolerated.

fast

So, the tree hasn't fallen until you are aware of the fact? Killing the loner with no ties isn't immoral until one gains the knowledge of the act. I'm comparing the act with the likely post facto judgement.

The consequence of your proposition <I think>:
Time: 1:00 I kill my neighbor -- not immoral
Time: 2:00 still no one knows -- not immoral
Time: 3:00 I am accused of a what-- an immoral act?

What?, at 1:00 the act was amoral but at 3:00 the 1:00 act transforms? <not that I'm right...guessing here>

I agree although I not quite sure what 'bin' means.

I think I know what you're doing. :thumbs: You don't want it to be immoral without mental judgement being in the equation, and that makes sense, but what we must do and what I am doing is considering (predicting) future judgments.

It's very reasonable for a thief to expect (predict) that my judgement of his activity (when it comes to light of his activity) to be immoral.

It's very reasonable for me, now, to expect (predict) that my judgement of his activity (when it comes to light of his activity) to be immoral--AND IT hasn't even happened yet. I can judge an act under specific circumstances to be immoral just by juxtaposing.

The Bearded One

You’re probably right. I overstated my case. The actual QM idea of the cat being both alive and dead at the same time (in different universes) probably doesn’t have a strict analogy to the kind of moral acts we’re talking about.

I just checked on your cat, and in at least one set of possible universes, he is alive and well.

You didn’t phrase it as sharply as I would, but this may be the crux of the matter. In the absence of a moral agent, acts in and of themselves do not have any moral quality at all. In the same way that atheists don’t describe tornadoes as immoral or rainbows as moral, it requires a conscious mind to make moral judgements.

To illustrate: A robot can take actions. The actions it takes may cause either benefit or harm, but the robot itself is not a moral agent and its actions cannot be described in moral terms. However, we can speak of the morality of the robot’s programmer ([OT]which is why theists are so adamant in their defense of human free will[/OT]).

Additionally, your judgements of the morality of an individual act may radically change depending on what information you have. Eg:
A) Person X died in a car crash.
B) Person Y caused the car crash.
C) Person X crashed into a ditch while trying to avoid hitting Y’s car.
D) Person Y deliberately tried to ram X’s car.
E) Person Y was a police officer trying to prevent X from causing greater loss of life.

In A, there may be little or no moral value attached.
In B, Y’s act might be judged to be immoral.
In C, not only is Y’s act immoral, but now X’s act is moral.
In D, Y’s act could be judged even more harshly.
But in E, our judgement is completely reversed by the newest revelation.


What I mean is that different people with different amounts of information can view the same acts and have wildly different moral judgements about them. I am still more interested in prescriptive morality than descriptive, since descriptive depends on having all of the information for all moral judges. Since that never happens, what we need are prescriptive moral guidelines.

In my car crash example, if X was an imminent danger to other sentients, then Y was completely correct to use force to avert a larger tragedy.

-- The Bearded One

fast

First off, excellent post! :thumbs:

Thank you.

I have so much to work from in this post, it's really going to take some time to respond, but I look forward to it. Tomorrow's a really busy day, and I have no clue what's going on this weekend, but I will get to this.

Nice car crash example btw.

I want to leave you with at least a little something:
In the nonexistence of a moral agent--not the absence!

Something to think about:

1 Judgement cannot exist without judgers.

2 Starting with a descriptive perspective, if a judger has all the facts and knowledge pertaining to a past situation, then that judger ought to be able to reflect back and describe the past situation with sufficient accuracy.

3 From a prescriptive perspective, but without all the current facts and knowledge pertaining to an ongoing situation, a judgement of what to do could very well be in error.

Given this, let's reexamine your statement that I quoted above. What you mean by absence is critical.

If you mean that a moral agent must both exist as a real individual capable of judging AND that this moral agent be present to judge the current facts to offer judgement, then I must disagree with your statement.

I would posit it a true statement that a moral agent must exist as a real individual capable of judging in order to offer judgment.

I would disagree, however, if you say that the judger be present to witness the act. [edited in--or even be aware of it -- or even have partial information]

To see why this is true, you need to look back at the descriptive statement and realize that correct judgement is determined by facts and knowledge of the real situation as it really happened. So, knowledge of the current situation is the critical component from a prescriptive perspective.

Moral agents must exist...we can lay this one to rest.

Think of it this way, and I am talking in the prescriptive sense:

We exist as moral agents; therefore, from our own unique perspectives, each on-going situation or act has it's own moral quality whether we discover all the facts about that situation or not.

Our judgments are degrees of accuracy. The more we know about a situation, the more correct our judgment of that situation will be. Our absence of knowledge does not mean there's no moral quality to be found. Our absence of knowledge just means that any judgment we have will likely be in contrast to how we would view if post hoc.

I could have spent more time with this...my words may be a little off here and there, but I hope my overall point is made.