the_cave

Glad to hear it. I think this is a moral principle, and here's why:

We're all after maximizing our happiness, whatever it is. However, we don't actually know for sure what it could be. Morals are hypotheses about what will maximize our happiness. If you think that doing what you're motivated to do will bring about your maximum happiness, great. If you're like most other human beings, you also care somewhat about the happiness of others--so you'll have hypotheses about what will make them happy, too. If you think that doing what you want to do anyway will make others happy, great. If you don't care about anyone else, alright, but you're going to run into some problems along the line. (I'm not saying you personally do, and I'm not saying you personally don't.)

I think you're essentially saying that people often treat moral hypotheses as facts, before they've been established. This is probably true. That doesn't mean there aren't moral facts--that is, there aren't facts about the things that will in the long run maximally satisfy everyone's desires.

You don't have to call them morals if you don't want. But I claim they're still morals, in the way we want them to be.

Totalitarianist

You know, I was thinking about this a few months ago, and I arrived at the conclusion that I do not have any "loved ones". I do not talk to anyone but my teacher. People are just "there" for me. Their death would not bother me at all. I used to be the exact opposite, crying even about the death of such morons as animals--so I know of the feeling that you are talking about.

Therefore it would not bother me. At the moment I do not think it would. I could be wrong.

Kill them you may. Strongest survive. I can only live in a dog-eat-dog world. I can only conceive of a dog-eat-dog world. Life thrives on death. Life is a cycle of murder.

Nothing is "wrong". It is just illogical. You cannot use morals to justify morals.

Horrible example. Perhaps we "must" need morality to live. You imply that life is such a good thing.


It exists, yes, but it is not real. This is philosophy, not science. I am using "reality" in the philosophic sense.

Totalitarianist

I am not. If I were, I would be doing something different than this.

That is utilitarianism. Evolutionary ethics, for example, is not about maximising happiness. When I was moral, "happiness" was not a consideration. Things were wrong for me "just because", with no justification whatever, as with all morals; for you can only use morality to justify them.

As for killing: it does not bother me. Death does not at all bother me. I do not want to kill for the same reason that I do not want to stick a pencil in my eye. I have an aversion to pain. Murdering people "at will" would most likely result in a prison sentence. I am not impulsive. I proportion ends with means. I can see no desirable end to arrive at by means of killing people at will. I will not kill that fly because I do not desire to. Not at all because it is "immoral".

wordfailure

Hello Totalitarianist,

Your apparent disdain for the non-rational seems unreasoned and unrealistic in that you have divorced yourself only from arbitrarily selected unreasoned thoughts and actions. For example you say "I do not kill at will because I do not desire to do so; not because I believe it is "wrong". I only lack a desire." You seem to be criticizing others for acting on the basis of emotion rather than reason, then saying you don't act a particular way only because you yourself lack the requisite emotion (desire). This, being so far an unjustified double-standard, is not rational. If you are to truly pattern your behavior on reason, it seems to me that you will have to justify if, and to what degree your interests take precedence over the equivalent interests of others. In other words, you must demonstrate that there is something different about you or your interests independent of your wants and desires that warrants exempting you from whatever rules or standards ought to be applicable to the group or society.

dk

TTist proposition implies, if I desired to kill someone then it would be moral, or my liberty supersedes the right to life of others. The outcome of such a moral order would strongly favor murderers. I might then desire my neighbors property and wife, and though I have no desire to kill my neighbor, I now have a reason for murder to seed my desire with envy.

So the question I want to ask, "Is TTist's proposition reasonable, rational or irrational and why?"

Totalitarianist

It does not imply that at all. It implies that it is amoral.

dk

My liberty to kill you take your wife and property makes me a deadly threat. I submit reason requires you to retaliate in kind, perhaps even to make a premeptive strike or become my slave. Doesn't sound very reasonable to me, sounds as if we have degenerated into a regressive state of perpetual war, tyranny and hostility. Reason indicates we can respect one another and one another's property, or live in fear under assualt. Even after I kill you, take your wife and property, there's another neighbor next door.

the_cave

Huh? Then why are you choosing to do what you do not desire, by visiting this board? Indeed, if you do not desire it, how could you be doing it at all? Is someone compelling you to?

I think this is a quibble. Survival surely makes an organism happier than death.



Sorry to hear that.

Look, I see where you're going with this, but you're missing my point. I'm saying that morals are in fact warnings about the consequences of actions (whatever else they might be.) If I say "You shouldn't kill people," please by all means feel free to interpret that to mean "If you kill someone, most likely you will suffer negative consequences. And at the very least, many people will become upset, and we will do our best to imprison you." A moral at least states "Even if you don't know it, there are negative consequences for this action." I don't have a problem with that claim; but I still say such statements are morals.

I can reason, case by case, that I don't want to kill someone, because I might suffer consequences. A moral is to infer from those cases "I do not want to kill in general, and for all future cases." Another moral would be "And if others kill, they also may suffer consequences. Therefore, they do not really want to kill in general (even if they think they do--if they do, they are wrong, because they do not have enough information.)"

wordfailure

Hello dk. Seems to me that Totalitarianist is claiming that there are no rational arguments against non-rational egocentrism. In my view his position is not reasonable or rational because he is not recognizing a necessity to justify his actions, but rather is demanding others to justify restrictions on them.

dk

(sorry mispost)