Christopher Lord

But what if only a small relative population is to be enslaved? then the numbers may add up to a net Good situation, since the enslavers will be far more productive and will increase the wealth of all with the help of slaves moreso than if they abstained from the practice of holding slaves.

Then, Logically, it is moral to have slaves (for the common good... )

Doubting Didymus

To believe that you would need to have an A Priori assumption about exactly how much 'productivity' outwieghs a single persons lifelong suffering.

It is also a bifurcation fallacy.

Your hypothetical: (retaining our current definition of morality)
1) morality is the greatest good
2) slavery of population A produces more net good than net suffering
Conclusion: enslaving population A is moral

Even assuming that some arbitrary amount of productivity can be said to be more good than a populations suffering, the argument suggests that the choice is only: enslave or do not enslave. In fact there may be many more alternatives; the first that comes to mind is to pay population A for their services, which is in fact the modern way of overcoming this exact problem.

However, I do see what you are trying to say, and if you try for long enough you are bound to find some hypothetical situation where logic cannot find a perfect solution. However, when you find it, the challenge will be to find a better solution in the same situation WITHOUT using logic.

an example might be:

Person A must kill person B to survive
Person B must kill person A to survive
Neither person can possibly take any other action and still survive.
Neither person more deserves to live.
No outside influences are possible.

I cannot find any logical solution that is moral.
However, I challenge anyone else to find any ILLOGICAL solution to this isolated hypothetical.
My point is that the most moral action will always be logical.

Doubting Didymus

Alternatively, christopher proposed a situation above where country A is allied to countries X and Z, who declare war on each other.

joining either side breaks a promise (alliance) but doing nothing is morally negligent, as it plays to the blackmail of country Z.

Christopher suggested that the solution was not to be logical, but I fail to see how that would solve the problem. Please be more specific as to what illogical action can help this situation. If you are suggesting that having no alliances would stop wars, then that is a logical argument, not an irrational behaviour.

echidna

You quote one of the greatest justifiers of immorality, the catchphrase of Utilitarianism.

I do NOT believe morality to be the greatest good for the greatest number.

I mean really, if this is moral logic, bring on the Holocaust.

Doubting Didymus

I did qualify that statement with a pretty big IF
when I said "I am not trying to state an absolute, please feel free to debate this definition"

If you don't think that that is what morality is, please give your definition. I think that as long as the definition is sensible, logic will still apply to it. So what are you proposing should be our definition?

echidna

DD, the statement was quite supported. A very basic knowledge of anthropology (which your background indicates you have an understanding of) would indicate that the survival of homo sapiens sapiens was largely due to its successful dominance and eradication of other competing hominids.

More recently I provided historical examples of ethnic cleansing where oppressors quite clearly benefited in the dominance of their tribe.

How did colonising Tasmanians suffer by committing genocide ? They won land, lifestyle and freedom for their families. Quite logical.

You are the one who introduced “greater good for the greater number”. Well the Australian farmers wanted a better future for their children, and today there are more whites than blacks here. What is your logical objective definition of “greater good” ? Do you think that everyone agrees with your definition ?

DD, you are struggling with the problem of presupposition. Morality is subjective, not logically objective as you seem to be trying to demonstrate.

Logic is amoral. Don’t worship it as anything more.

Is compassion logical ?
Is altruism logical ?
Is bravery logical ?

They are if one logically argues from a Social Contractarian sense, and that is one of the most immoral moralities of all.

echidna

DD, I am not really one for over-use of semantics. Words like “morality” have such a wide usage that strict definitions seem futile.

Broadly it is our sense of right and wrong, better and worse. It is little else.

We are rational beings so saying that logic should apply is largely redundant. Whatever I like, moral, immoral, of course I will be rationally influenced by my base beliefs. So what.

Doubting Didymus

<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

As I seem doomed to continually point out, I am saying that morals should be a part of any persons logical equasions.

The 'Logical' examples of atrocity you point out are only logical IF YOU COMPLETELY IGNORE MORALS. I am saying that LOGIC SHOULD INCLUDE MORALS.

As for the greater good thing, that was a HYPOTHETICAL DEFINITION, not what I personally believe. I think ANY definition of morality worth its salt could be used in a logical argument to generate moral conclusions. This means I am allowing for moral subjectivity, but logic is NOT subjective.

That is not quite as certain as you say. It is quite a controversy, actually. But it makes no difference as I am not claiming moral objectivity, but logical objectivity.

For logic to be able to generate moral conclusions you need:

A) a definition of morality
B) a desire to be moral (I would argue that this is the only logical desire)

If you have a definition of morality, I could tell you whether these would be logical acts under that definition, but you seem to be quite recalcitrant in that area.

Certainly under the 'greatest good' definition of morality; altruism, compassion and bravery (which are all the same thing, really), are logically moral.

Example
1) morality is the greatest good...
2) altruism, bravery and compassion cause more good than harm.
Conclusion: altruism etc, is moral.

the same argument should work with any definition of morality that is any good at all.

Doubting Didymus

This is a definition of morality that is completely useless. How can you say that the holocaust was wrong if a moral action is whatever we feel it is? Hitler felt he was doing right, so was he? or do you mean YOUR sense of right and wrong, or MOST PEOPLES sense of right and wrong.

Christopher Lord

Alright.

My basic point is that, most animals dont have wars and atrocity because they dont have a flexable system of logic that can be retooled to a specific situation. They do employ logic, but only on-rail logic that can not be retooled.

Thus, in keeping with the OP, I would say intelligence and flexable logic are our greatest weaknessess. (of course, because of the strength they give us, they are also the reason we are the dominant animal on the planet)

I'm not saying that acting irrational is better for Country A, I'm saying the whole concept of distribution of labor and alliances which led to the situation is the end result of all our brain power and logic gone terribly wrong (and right, since we could never achieve greatness in our works without trusting others to some degree).

Without it, we'd still be curious cave men. with it, we are dangerous nuke-weilding positionists who corrupt the planet and use others for our own ends.