Alonzo Fyfe

If you want to call "guilt" and "shame" moral emotions and say that this is a partial explanation for your behavior in returning the money, I have no disagreement.

However, it does not follow from this that something is right simply because it is motivated by guilt. To use a literary example, Huck Finn's guilt over helping the slave Jim escape is not an argument that his actions were wrong IN FACT, only that he VIEWED them as wrong -- a view that is potentially mistaken. To determine if they were wrong IN FACT, we have to ask a further question -- from the point of view of society as a whole, is guilt over helping slaves escape IN FACT good for society or not?

Simply put, "What do we feel guilty about?" and, "What should we feel guilty about?" are two different questions that each require a different type of answer.

The first is descriptive, and can be answered by a simple poll. The second is prescriptive, and asks us a more complex question. You form a committee of all of society and throw the question out, "should we be associating guilt with keeping the money?" Naturally, you are going to get a lot of different opinions, but they are not going to answer this question by merely taking a poll.

If you ask a group people, "Is X wrong?" you can tell whether they understand you as asking "Do you think you WOULD feel guilty about X?" as opposed to "Do you think you SHOULD feel guilty about X?" by how they answer the question. If the people interpret the question the first way, they will simply respond as if to a poll. If they take you as asking the second sort of question, they will enter into a debate where the elements of the debate are best understood as a debate over whether feeling guilty about X is good for society."

In this debate, as in all debate, some people will certainly use poor arguments.

"You should feel guilty because if you don't, then God won't like us any more and not protect us from Muslims who want to crash buildings into our skyscrapers."

Or, "You should feel guilty because this is the type of thing you should feel guilty about."

But the existence of bad arguments is not proof that the hypothesis is incorrect. Moral questions are questions about what should or should not elicit feelings such as guilt, not questions about what does or does not elicit feelings such as guilt.

And, in any group, the question, "What should we have people feel guilty about?" is a perfectly legitimate, sensible, and important question to debate.

dangin

I disagree. If you asked that question, and then specifically led the group to a discussion of masturbation, I would wager that a majority would express that guilt is an appropriate feeling to have about masturbation.

But how much of this would be well "reasoned" and how much of it would be social construct, and people's insecurities talking about sex. "If I say there is nothing wrong with masturbation everyone here will picture me masturbating, or think I am immoral".

In this case you would have people saying masturbation should create feelings of guilt because they can't deal with their own sexuality, or they were raised to regard sex as a guilt laden enterprise, or they are uncomfortable talking about sex (particularly in a group), or they have a religious reason to think masturbation is a sin, or they've simply never thought to change the sexual baggage they've carried since grade school. None of these reasons are valid, legitimate, sensible, or important to a debate about one of the most natural, common, and wide spread acts engaged in by men, women, and animals.

Alonzo Fyfe

Coincidentally (or perhaps not), the two examples of poor arguments I originally included in my post -- before I generalized them, specifically mentioned masturbation.

This is not inconsistent with what I wrote. The fact that some people will deal with an issue poorly, and some issues will be dealth with more poorly than others, and that the issue of masturbation will be handled particularly poorly, still fits in with the overall theory.

A theory of driving, for example, certainly cannot be objected to on the grounds that some people drive poorly, a few do very poorly, and under certain circumstances poor driving seems to be the norm.

Indeed, one of the marks of a good theory of X-ing is that it handles well the distinction between X-ing well and X-ing poorly.


In addition, it does not follow from a claim that a particular question is important and sensible that every proposed answer to that question has equal merit -- or that a possible answer not having merit in any way subtracts from the importance of a question.


Finally, saying a type of question is generally important does not imply that every token of that type of question is important. Or that people can always clearly and accurately distinguish whether any particular token is or is not important. None of this provides an objection to the thesis that moral questions are questions about what we (generally) should and should not feel guilty about and that (in general) these questions on the whole are important and sensible.

DRFseven

Alonzo, is your post meant to address my post or some other?

tribalbeeyatch

I disagree. It seems like you're expressing a "finder's keepers" ethical principle here, but I don't want to put words in your mouth. Why do you think that it is acceptable to keep the money? (I've read your posts on this thread, but I'm hoping for a little more thorough explanation)

dangin

Nah, relying on vox populi about guilt is no way to generate a moral code, or even guage the morality of a population. What people say and what they do are two different things. Guilt is a learned response, so feelings of guilt vary from person to person based upon the training they received during their lives. So to get to the source it would be better to talk about how children are raised (although behavior can be changed throughout life) than it is to talk about one of the end results. (guilt)

People even feel guilty when they survive a tragedy that kills those around them. Some people feel guilty for making more money than others, or having a better life than others. Guilt is a very bad measuring stick in my book.

Treacle Worshipper

Originally posted by meritocrat
Taking the money in this instance is NOT immoral.

I never said it was. I said that I would return the money because if I lost my purse I would want someone to return it to me. My purse has my details in it.

If we take dangin's example:

Would you keep money that you found in the countryside when no one else was within miles of the money. Hell yes.

Then yes, I would take the money. It's just money, no way of finding the "owner". But in this case the OP specifically states that I have the name and address of the owner. Therefore, as I had the ability to return the money, I would. Because I would want someone to do the same for me.

TW

Alonzo Fyfe

Ultimately, I can't see anything in what you wrote that contradicts or expresses a disagreement with anything that I wrote.

dangin

Well then, I guess it's all wrapped up in one neat little package.

Alonzo Fyfe

Sorry. Yours. (With some obligue reference to our discussions elsewhere).