Darth Dane

Is self-inducing a state of utopia that lessens the ability to function, moral? No.

What if you could go into this selfinduced state, through drugs or meditation, and STILL function?

Yogi's amongst others say that this is possible, that you can be all one, and still function as if you weren't.

Quite the paradox eh?


I sincerely believe that you can chuck out the entire ruleset and be a moral being, simply by:

1) Developing empathy for all living things (once again the dalai lama concurs with my thoughts. He believes we can develop empathy with insects). This equips you to enact (3) below, more easily.
2) Loving yourself (not being vain, which is loving your status, but loving yourself as you would love another)
3) Loving others.
4) Living in the present. This makes all of the above vastly easier. And it makes regret, recrimination and anger dissolve quicker.


Yes, Love is teh key for everything you ever wanted





DD - Love Spliff

ExTheist

I think it is not moral to have laws that tell people what they can do in their own homes. I will leave the substance issue aside and look at this as a sexually active gay man. I do not know if having sex with men in my state is legal or not. I really don't give a damn if is legal or not. My right to make love to my boyfriend trumps any law. We harm nobody by what we do, just as I believe that folks who smoke pot in their own homes is not the states buisness, it is not the states buisness what consenting adults do in bed.

fatherphil

why do you guys qualify acceptable drug use as that which "doesn't hurt anybody"?
is "not hurting anybody" some sort of moral absolute?

& farren, whether i find it expedient to do, i still consider certain actions, such as murder or lieing, as wrong. the trick is to so influence the world in such a way that the need to do what is wrong for the right reasons is reduced and eventually eliminated. like overthowing the nazi's so good folk would no longer need to lie about the jew living in the basement or winning the world over to veganism so the good dali lamma could be truthful to the next outdoorsman he runs across in the wilderness.

Majestyk

No more Black & White than your assertion, that rendering oneself incapable of providing assistance to their community on a moments notice where, no such agreement to provide assistance is in place, is immoral. Then, that's the thing about morality, isn't it? It's a matter of principle. And principles are "Black & White".

My intent was to show that there are any number of situations that can be viewed as immoral and yet, not be within the purview of governmental legislation. At least not from the impetus, shown above, which you have proposed in this thread.

Then, that would alter the premise of the question, wouldn't it? No paradox. It would not necessarily be, immoral.

Philosoft

No. Does it need to be? Moral absolutism or objectivism is probably a pipe dream. A human's moral code is more like, "Behavior B offends my sensibilities, and it should offend your sensibilities too."

Abel Stable

Hey I like how you turned that around on me- very sly- we're really moving this forward now. Well I'll agree with Majestyk that principles are black & white. But (at the same time) they are always subject to change, and are totally abstract & malleable . The only concrete "black & white" that I can think of now is "life/death" and even that is up for debate.
Now that's a pipe dream.

fatherphil

well a man can dream.
give me an example of a black & white principle somewhat close to the context of this discussion. i want to understand how you guys are differentiating the two terms.

Abel Stable

There's two quick ones for you. Of course they are just your opinions, which is a nice streak of gray on the canvas. In no way are your statements absolutes that can somehow stand on their own. You seem to be trying to rope your personal philosophies in with an implied social contract, in order to give them some weight. That way you can say "they aren't my opinions, they are part of the foundation of our society."
They're still no more than your two cents.

Bingo. Are you dismissing the variables? Or just relagating them to either "black or white"? And if so, based on what?

fatherphil

i probably both dismiss and relegate variables to come up with a diffinative statement.

can any principle exist without being potentially relegated to the pigeonhole of being "someone's opinion"?

Abel Stable

Then your definitive statement will hardly be definitive.
Try solving a math or physics equation by discarding variables.
I don't think so. So there go absolutes, right out the window.
Opinions will always differ - its a matter of coming towards a common understanding. When one or both sides argue their own absolute, then nothing is achieved. I'd go as far as to say that both sides are wrong in that case. The very real matter at hand is completely obscured in abstract rhetoric.