daemon

I know it's late to be responding, but I had to reply to this:

First off, this is self contradictory. To say humans don't unnecessarily kill means 100%, all of them, do not unnecessarily kill. Finding 1 single person negates that as a true statement.

However, beyond that, the statement that animals do not unnecessarily kill is false. For example, it is not unusual for male lions to kill the cubs of another male. All of them. Another case in point: the cuckoo. Cuckoo eggs are laid in the nests of other birds among their eggs, and once they hatch, the baby cuckoo proceeds to push the other baby birds out of the nest before they can fly. Heck, my dog used to kill squirrels for no reason.

The AntiChris

Valmorian

I'd be interested to know what you understand by the word "wrong" when used in the current context. It's been in common usage for some while now so you must have formed some ideas.

Chris

[ April 11, 2002: Message edited by: The AntiChris ]</p>

Viti

I am going to address some points randomly without quotes because I hate having to flip vack and forth between 3 pages. Also have a few questions. Very interesting discussion so far BTW.

"Empathy is innate"- I disagree, I think empathy is learned. Small children (in my experience) do not demonstrate understanding of "That hurts her when you hit her". They do not have the capabilities of projecting their feelings to another being this way. If it is a learned emotion how can it be objective?

"Babies NEED to be talked to or they die"- Not true. Babies do not thrive without some sort of emotional interaction, but spoken words are not necessary and they will not necessarily die. If this were true deaf babies would die and babies of deaf or mute parents would die. Children whose physical needs are met, but were deprived of emotional interaction sometimes develop antisocial disorders, attachment disorders, dissociative disorders etc...but they do not drop dead in infancy

"Murder is objectivly wrong"- Is all killing murder? What of killing during war, in protest, as justice, in self defense or in mercy? Where is the line between justified killing and murder supposing you feel killing is justified in any circumstances?

DRFseven

shamon: You, and some others, appear not to be able to get over the fact that humans are born WITHOUT innate morals. The reason you think whatever you think about murder or needless killing or anything is because of how you were socialized, i.e., because of what you experienced in your lifetime; especially regarding the attitudes of your parent when you were very young. This is what makes you think the feelings are innate. People who learn differently have different moral opinions, as should be obvious by the 9/11 events. Or did you assume a nation full of people with a peculiar aberration happened to be born coincidentally in one place ?

99Percent

Valmorian: Objective morality would mean that a given act is OBJECTIVELY Right or Wrong. That is, no matter what a person or person's opinions about that act are, it is always right (or wrong).

Objective morality is not a matter of opinion, that would be subjective morality. Objective morality is about rationally deriving that an act is morally right or wrong. Once you can rationally derive it, the morality becomes objective because anyone with reason can derive it. That some people don't want to use reason or are deceiving themselves or act on impulse that is another matter entirely.

If you need to have a group of people reach a consensus based upon their wants, then it is no longer objective, since wants and needs are subjective things, not objective.

I agree, wants and needs are subjective. But life and death and free will are not.

In short, you need a goal to have ethics. That goal is not fixed, so how can ethics be fixed?

The standard of objective morality is truth, life and death and free will.

Exactly. Lying is an objective act. "Lying is wrong" is a subjective morality call.

It is not subjective, because any lie goes against the truth and going against the truth is irrational and therefore objectively wrong.

What do you mean by "Murder is Wrong"? What is wrong about it? Be specific.

Murder is wrong when it is initiated by the free will of a human being. It is the start of violence and any non-natural violence is irrational and therefore objectively wrong.

Oh, by the way, free will cannot be objectively determined either. How would you propose to test it?

If you are going to deny there is free will then any discussion about morality becomes moot.

dk

A few comments, sorry I’m late
dk: I suppose the best example of need without want is reason, for example, many people strive urgently to justify their beliefs by denying reason or their emotions overwhelm their ability to reason. I even know one person who said, “I hate to think because it makes me feel bad”. In act many people forsake reason precisely because reason leads to doubt, and doubt is a very uncomfortable state of mind.
dk: to say “objective knowledge” is independent of mind states a necessary but insufficient condition. Better to say objective knowledge is independent of personal accent, or exists independent of human free will. Therefore - if morality is objective it exists whether people accent or not, but is revealed as a consequent of degenerative human actions and behavior. People who are immoral lead degenerative destructive lives, whether they intend harm or not, they become unreliable and subject to all kinds of ailments. An analogy is, a person plants a seed at the right time of year, in fertile ground under favorable environmental conditions and the plant will grow reliably to bare fruit. One can plant out of season or plant the seed under infertile ground, but then the plant will not grow or produce reliably. Morality is to people what the growing season and fertile ground are to a plant.

[ April 11, 2002: Message edited by: dk ]

[ April 11, 2002: Message edited by: dk ]</p>

vixstile

quote by dk:
I suppose the best example of need without want is reason, for example, many people strive urgently to justify their beliefs by denying reason or their emotions overwhelm their ability to reason. I even know one person who said, “I hate to think because it makes me feel bad”. In act many people forsake reason precisely because reason leads to doubt, and doubt is a very uncomfortable state of mind.

-------------------------------------------------

I don't understand how this is an example of "need without want".

If i "want" to achieve some goal, but "need" to to do something that is unpleasant to achieve this goal,my "want" to achieve the goal out ways the unpleasantness of the "needed" component.

daemon

So, by what method does one rationally derive morals? It seems to me that this strongly depends on one's assumptions--if someone has different assumptions from myself, they may well rationally derive different morals.

I'm sorry, but I don't even understand how to parse the phrase "going against the truth is irrational." How do you determine this?

Furthermore, if that which is irrational is wrong, does this mean that people's emotions are wrong? Is a belief that the sky is simultaneously blue and not-blue morally wrong?
This seems like a very peculiar definition. What are "natural" and "non-natural" violence? How do you determine the rationality of them?

dk

dk: I didn’t mean to suggest that reason was intrinsically unpleasant. To employ reason as a slave to personal goals, desires and wants is intrinsically immoral. The best historical example I can think of is Tomas Jefferson. T. J. was certainly a reasonable man who served and loved his country, but he went to great lengths to reconcile the plantation system with the Declaration of Independence. He was never able to understand that slavery was perverse because he didn’t want to. Jefferson employed reason as a weapon to justify slavery, even though reason dictated slavery would chain the US to a future of civil war, hatred and injustice. Given the cost of slavery we bare today a bright 10 year old could make T. J. look like a blubbering buffoon. The quintessential quality of immoral behavior is the enslavement of reason to personal desires, wants, and vested interests. Reason like morality serves everyone or no-one. People willing to enslave reason to achieve their personal goals, desires and wants without consideration for the future and their progeny are quintessentially immoral; not to mention unreasonable.

[ April 11, 2002: Message edited by: dk ]</p>

Valmorian

</strong>

All this exercise does is provide you a rationale for your own subjective beliefs. It says nothing about an objective "right" or "wrong". Ethics are goal based. That goal is not fixed, and so ethics cannot be fixed either.

</strong>

The desire for life and death is certainly subjective. Not everyonce values the same things to the same degree. Some people value pleasure over long life.

As for free will, I'm not even convinced we HAVE free will.


</strong>

The lie itself can be innacurate without being morally wrong. It depends upon who you ask. You can CALL it morally wrong if you want, but that doesn't make it so.

</strong>

Why are irrational things "wrong"? For that matter, the murder may be perfectly rational to the person initiating it. Perhaps the value they place on the perpetration of the act is greater than the penalty they will obtain if caught.

It's a value judgement, and that person's values, ethics, morals, are subjective.

I put forth that it is not possible to know if one HAS free will or not.