crocodile deathroll

I think the source of morality was a byproduct of consequences like take the recent incident on the Prestige tanker that sunk off Spain spilling all if is toxic contents.
There was nothing in any holy book that asserted all oil tankers should have double skinned hulls. It only took a catastrophic disaster to galvanize people into insisting that all oil tankers should have double skinned hulls.

Keith Russell

Crocodile:

Although I agree with you that morality cannot come from the Bible (non-reality-based dictates--even when correct--are arbitrary), are you saying that morality is arbitrary; that there is no reason why preventing oil-spills is an objective and/or moral decision?

Keith.

Putney Swope

I agree. As far as the oil tanker is concerned, one need look no furher than economics. Spilled oil is terribly expensive, and even though the tanker may be insured, there are further losses from not having an instant replacement of that destroyed tanker. Oil executives don't understand morality, but they DO understand money.

Morality comes into play in the quote (I forget who said it, and the quote may be a paraphrase), "Sometimes money is just too expensive".

crocodile deathroll

I am saying the morality emerges from the consequences of our actions like an oil spill or even the carnage and grief left behind at the end of a murder scene.
So unpleasent consequences like the oil spill tend to be placed in the "Bad/Evil" basket, and pleasent consequences like the benifits of the oil industry eg: automobiles, are placed in the "Good" basket.

JerryM

I agree that if certain actions are found to have painful or harmful consequences, they will be considered "bad." And this means, as I also believe, that there is no absolute morality. Because determining what exactly is the consequence of a moral choice is often very difficult and uncertain. Human affairs are so convoluted that exceptions can exist to any moral rule one may propose.

[ December 10, 2002: Message edited by: JerryM ]</p>

crocodile deathroll

Yes I agree a convoluted view of good and bad are the price of a more complex society. For paleolithic hunter gatherers, a maximimum abundance of food was always a "good" thing, and it was good to eat as much as you can when ever you can, and they usually exercised all the caleries off during hunting. But today's society has to consider the consequences of heart disease and obesity, because they often sit all day in the office and do not exercise any caleries off, so the maximum consumption of food has become more convoluted and the concept a "good and bad" are so.

Gamaliel

food for thought: What are the consequences of this idea? If they are "bad", should this philosophy be abandoned?

one possible scenario: I am the ruling authority. My decree is some atrocity and to disobey me is more hazardous to your health than to obey. Should obedience be considered the "good" and disobedience the "bad"?

Because something is painful, should it be automatically considered bad?

In response, be sure to use small words so that I'll understand...G

babelfish

Humanists are always being accused of saying that morality is arbitrarily decided by each person individually.

Just holding the position that there is no big guy in the sky who holds the "absolute morality" against which we measure all our actions, does NOT mean I believe that every person should figure out what's right and wrong for himself. There absolutely exists a human moral code. Just like there exists a wolf moral code, and a killer whale moral code, and a moral code for any animal that tends to live in groups.

Saying that humanists claim there is no moral code is like saying evolutionists claim that all of life we see today evolved "by chance." Both positions are distortions of what is actually held to be true by humanists and evolutionists.

Putney Swope

One possible barometer for morality is to consider your actions from the other's position.

For example, to consider the morality of cheating someone out of their money, I might consider that action as if I was the one being cheated. That would give me a clear picture as to whether or not my actions are right or wrong. After all, isn't morality just a person's interpretation of "Right or Wrong"?

abe smith

I'd hazard an unsubstantiate/ unsubstantiable guess that human "morality" arises pretty-close to the individual bone; and that its accidental appearance as a genetic? variation had survival value = to help keep alive (to reproduce their kind) those individuals who possessed it.
My Opinion Izz that "morality", e.g. the Golden Rule, and Rabbi Hillel's form of it [Hey, where are the JEWS at this site? = who love discussion?]... that public & institutionalized morality is physiologically
built-in as/by the neurophysiology of "empathy", a
trait displayed in mother-child interactions;and
probably also in mate-love behaviours. It might be attributable to "female" physiology; altho I KNOW ITS APPEARANCE IS NOT CONFINED TO FEMALES!
I sher do hate to admit,thus, that there's some *reality* in all that "mother" stuff...