Doubting Didymus

Flexible logic? I dont understand.

How can logic be flexible? logic is quite definitely objective, meaning that it is the same for any person, regardless of culture. This is because it consists of equasions in a very similar way to maths. 1+1 equals 2 is an objective fact, true even if no-one believes it. Logic is the same thing.

1) If A then B
2) A
C) therefore B

This conclusion is always true if the premises are true. This is the case no matter the observer, and no matter if no - one believes it or not.

I'm not sure what you mean by flexible logic, but I think that you are actually still talking about intelligence and cunning. Logic may be unable to get us out of tricky situations but certainly nothing else would, either. Take the time to spell out the precise reasons why a certain action is moral and you will find that you have constructed a logical argument.

echidna

It's also pretty damn close to the dictionary definition.

Yes, morality is generally split into one’s personal morality and a kind of “collective” group morality.

Christopher Lord

It is flexible when it can be applied to new situations (such as, for example, bridge building).
I use it to head off an argument against my post which would illustrate that animals use logic, too. They may use logic, but its 'On-rail' logic.

RogerLeeCooke

I can't argue with your inference, but I do argue with the hypotheses. First, "good" is neither well-defined nor quantifiable. Without some way to measure it, the canon "greatest good for the greatest number" has no practical meaning at all. I regard it in just that way, as a meaningless slogan. Second, it that slogan is the definition, WHOSE definition would it be? Certainly not mine. There are a number of aspects in which I'd like to change society. The changes I want are a matter of my own desires, but these desires are not generated by applying logic to luminous first principles.

Doubting Didymus

I should never have started with the greatest good thing, it is not my intention to show that that particular definition is true. My intention is to show that, using any worthwhile moral theory, logic and only logic is capable of generating moral actions from that principle, while illogical reasoning can easily generate immoral actions from an equally 'good' moral principle.

Most dictionary definitions define morality as 'accepted moral standards'. However I do not believe that this implys that ANY accepted standard is moral. I believe that each person must (and does, conciously or not) decide on their own moral guidelines. I further believe that no sane person actually believes in an immoral set of guidelines, but derive their immoral actions from moral codes by bad logic. Hitler did not believe that killing people was moral, he believed that whatever god wanted was moral. From this he decided on the erronious premise 'god wants me to fight off the jews' (Not idle speculation, but taken from mein kampf). He had a neutral moral theory, but derived immoral guidelines from relying on an unproven and highly dubious premise. If he can only be judged by his own beliefs about morality, was he wrong?

This is what I mean when I say that echidnas moral code (and therefore most dictionary definitions) are 'useless'. If we judge by 'most peoples' ideas of what is right or wrong, then what happens when most people believe something very very wrong, such as the Nazi belief set? Believing this, Hitler was right, slavery was right, most genocide is right. Also, persecution of atheists is right.

Morals may or may not be subjective, but a useful moral code is neccesary before anyone can be judged moral, and only logic can give a meaningful guide to action from a pre-defined moral code.

John Page

Seconded. The US Constitution is arguably strong because it affords protection to the rights of minorities. Morality is just the way we refine our pragmatic behavior.

Cheers, John

Doubting Didymus

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

I am not suggesting that the 'greatest good' is somehow the 'right' moral code, I am only suggesting that moral codes can be judged by how well one can use logic to generate moral actions from moral codes, for ANY moral code.

The greatest good for the greatest number is a code that I personally find quite strong, but my personal opinion on that matter is not relevant here. What I am suggesting is something quite different.

The kind of moral code that echidna suggests is generally called cultural relativism. I believe that cultural relativism is a bad code, because any action is then deemed moral if it complys with society. This means that it is moral for afghan women to be descriminated against, it is right for muslim leaders to try to execute salmon rushdie for heresy, and it was right for hitler to persecute jews. All these actions are moral if you take morality to mean what most people believe.

We need a better moral definition than this. I believe a goood moral code can be judged by how sucessfully logic can generate moral actions from that code. That is what I am suggesting, not specifically the greater good theory over all others.

[ July 15, 2002: Message edited by: Doubting Didymus ]</p>

echidna

Actually I am not a cultural relativist. Quite the contrary. I don’t accept that all people’s actions are equally good.

My personal morality is very strong to me (as with anyone). But what I am saying is that I am unable to logically *prove* why my morality is any better than anyone else’s.

History is littered with people who have tried to logically prove their particular twist of morality is best, and each have failed spectacularly.

echidna

To step back to something which you said earlier, you seem to deny that most oppression actually does benefit the oppressor. The dilemma is NOT false !! Surely it’s quite obvious that people can benefit from oppression. This is hardly likely to convince an oppressor that it’s wrong.

Do you have an alternative where the Roman elite could live so well without slaves ? With slaves the Roman elite lived longer, happier and healthier than the general populace. Southern US farmers also benefited greatly from their slaves. Again, much of our prosperity and even existence today, owes to immoral acts of genocide and bigotry in the past.

Homo sapiens sapiens survives today. Australia is dominated by white Europeans, as is North America. Etc etc etc. Racism, genocide, and bigotry work extremely well. Discounting them as illogical is quite wrong.

No, homo sapiens sapiens is a subjectively moral creature, all people have their own morality, maybe a different morality to our own, but they are quite moral. In history people at different times and in different places have different moralities all suited to their own environment and value systems.

Hence an immoral act today, can be quite acceptable a thousand years ago. What we mean by “immoral” is that the act is of different moral standards than today. But this should not be confused with amoral, without morals. But a sense of right and wrong is a common characteristic of all people.

To clarify my morality, like others personally I do highly regard altruism, integrity, compassion, courage, etc. How I prioritise them and my own desires is an impossibly complex equation & is entirely dependent on the individual circumstances. No, not clear, but surely you wouldn’t expect a simple definition of one’s own morality. This is exactly what makes mathematical logic so difficult to apply.

echidna

DD, if I understand you correctly, I sympathise with you in that I would also like there to be a demonstrable, logical, objective morality which clearly says what is right and what is wrong (and better yet, agrees with my own).

I think you will have a lot of difficulty in finding support for the existence of objective morality at this site.

The closest you might find is Social Contract Theory, which simplistically says that if I’m nice to you then you’ll be nice to me. This is essentially the secular equivalent of a morality based on Heaven and Hell, and I find each as repugnant as the other. The logical conclusions from a morality based purely on reciprocation are horrific, and proponents must go to great contortions to extricate themselves from the mire which they create.

Personally I don’t want reasons to act morally. I don’t want a reward for helping someone. I act morally because I want to, because I feel I should. And yes that also entitles Hitler to act as he wanted. In the end people’s morality will always differ for countless reasons. Logical errors feature, but they do not account for all differences by far. What cannot be logically reasoned are the base premises and different value systems which we all possess. Ultimately most disagreement comes from these. This is why reasoning with the Nazis was pointless. The high concentration of unusually logical people in such regimes is no coincidence, this is why it is referred to as the German War Machine, from the cold, calculated, logical way it achieved its goals.

Personally I have gone so far as to open a thread speculating the existence of objective common human morality, that possible genetic biases tend us towards moral behaviour as characterised by the common human virtues, compassion, altruism, integrity and so forth. But this is the closest I can find, and I have no objective evidence.

Logic is only a tool and unfortunately when it comes to the “soft sciences” of psychology and behavioural studies, it is flagrantly open to abuse and error, and far more importantly misunderstanding. The examples which I have been listing here are all evidence of such failures to logically reconcile different premises, by people every bit as logical and intelligent as you or I, often more so. Another example, the behavioural pseudosciences are NOT cold mathematics or clinically repeatable laboratory molecular biology. They contain massive amounts of subjective analysis and unquantifiable data. The simple P1, P2, C1, C2 logic cannot be applied to justify basic moral premises. Put simply the "equations" are far too complex, unquantifiable, and contain countless variables, many unknown. Phrenologists and eugenicists feature highly in the Rogues Gallery of “scientists” who have "logically" stepped outside of their authority, and have tried to oversimplify the causes of our behaviour.

In exactly the same way, morality is not something to which logic can be rigorously applied. In justifying the premises which generate your own spin on morality, unavoidably you will end up coming back to the words “good” and “right” which are entirely subjective.

[ July 15, 2002: Message edited by: echidna ]</p>