Freedomain Radio

True that. You didn't say the purpose of morality was to justify actions.  I'd have to say, though, that from the 3 possible perspectives, anyone that tries to justify an action, through morality, must believe the person they are justifying the action to is immoral or amoral.  Basically, if two people don't share a definition of morality, they must, necessarily, view each other as immoral or amoral.  If they saw the same actions as moral, neither would challenge the actions of the other, as such actions would be apparently-moral to both.  If someone offers a moral justification for a course of action, when challenged, is it reasonable to assume they are immoral or amoral?  I think I just ran myself in a circle.

Arius:

True that. You didn't say the purpose of morality was to justify actions.  I'd have to say, though, that from the 3 possible perspectives, anyone that tries to justify an action, through morality, must believe the person they are justifying the action to is immoral or amoral.  Basically, if two people don't share a definition of morality, they must, necessarily, view each other as immoral or amoral.  If they saw the same actions as moral, neither would challenge the actions of the other, as such actions would be apparently-moral to both.  If someone offers a moral justification for a course of action, when challenged, is it reasonable to assume they are immoral or amoral?  I think I just ran myself in a circle.

I was evaluating the statement "the ends do not justify the means" and noticing that it is only always true if morality is objective. The assumption inherent in that statement is that there is something ethically wrong with the means (method), and something desirable about the ends (result). In objective morality, an evil action is always evil, even if it brings about some result that might somehow be considered "good." But if morality doesn't exist or is subjective, then the statement is either nonsensical or false.

QuinnC:

Arius:

True that. You didn't say the purpose of morality was to justify actions.  I'd have to say, though, that from the 3 possible perspectives, anyone that tries to justify an action, through morality, must believe the person they are justifying the action to is immoral or amoral.  Basically, if two people don't share a definition of morality, they must, necessarily, view each other as immoral or amoral.  If they saw the same actions as moral, neither would challenge the actions of the other, as such actions would be apparently-moral to both.  If someone offers a moral justification for a course of action, when challenged, is it reasonable to assume they are immoral or amoral?  I think I just ran myself in a circle.

I was evaluating the statement "the ends do not justify the means" and noticing that it is only always true if morality is objective. The assumption inherent in that statement is that there is something ethically wrong with the means (method), and something desirable about the ends (result). In objective morality, an evil action is always evil, even if it brings about some result that might somehow be considered "good." But if morality doesn't exist or is subjective, then the statement is either nonsensical or false.

Ok, ok.  So we can take some action A and some result B, such that, action A causes result B to occur.  If action A is immoral, then, no matter how preferable result B is, action A cannot be justified on moral grounds.  Thus, murder is always wrong, no matter who gets killed or why.

What about the obvious variations on the rule.  If action A's moral status is unknown, and result B is preferable, what can we infer about action A's moral status?  If action A were moral, result B could be non preferable.  As an example, it may cause the rapist pain not to rape.  As a better rule, then, I think we can say "consequences be damned".  The moral condition of action A is unrelated to the preferability of result B.

A(Morality)!->B(Preferability)

I suspect that if we made the opposite statement:

B(Preferability)->A(Morality)

We'd be consequentialists.

Arius:

QuinnC:

Arius:

True that. You didn't say the purpose of morality was to justify actions.  I'd have to say, though, that from the 3 possible perspectives, anyone that tries to justify an action, through morality, must believe the person they are justifying the action to is immoral or amoral.  Basically, if two people don't share a definition of morality, they must, necessarily, view each other as immoral or amoral.  If they saw the same actions as moral, neither would challenge the actions of the other, as such actions would be apparently-moral to both.  If someone offers a moral justification for a course of action, when challenged, is it reasonable to assume they are immoral or amoral?  I think I just ran myself in a circle.

I was evaluating the statement "the ends do not justify the means" and noticing that it is only always true if morality is objective. The assumption inherent in that statement is that there is something ethically wrong with the means (method), and something desirable about the ends (result). In objective morality, an evil action is always evil, even if it brings about some result that might somehow be considered "good." But if morality doesn't exist or is subjective, then the statement is either nonsensical or false.

Ok, ok.  So we can take some action A and some result B, such that, action A causes result B to occur.  If action A is immoral, then, no matter how preferable result B is, action A cannot be justified on moral grounds.  Thus, murder is always wrong, no matter who gets killed or why.

What about the obvious variations on the rule.  If action A's moral status is unknown, and result B is preferable, what can we infer about action A's moral status?  If action A were moral, result B could be non preferable.  As an example, it may cause the rapist pain not to rape.  As a better rule, then, I think we can say "consequences be damned".  The moral condition of action A is unrelated to the preferability of result B.

A(Morality)!->B(Preferability)

I suspect that if we made the opposite statement:

A(Morality)->B(Preferability)

We'd be consequentialists.

Agreed. How does one explain morality as a consequentialist, I wonder? If one must judge the morality of an action by its outcomes, then you'd have to be able to both predict the future and track every consequence of an action. In practice, I'd expect consequentialists to live their lives judging not outcomes, but peoples' intentions.

Morality is a tool; nothing more. Like any tool, it is used in specific ways to solve specific problems. For instance, we use math to quantify things. In many cases, it's easier to write a computer program to quantify things, where equations can become long and difficult. If one wants to know all the combinations in which a deck of cards can be arranged, there is a mathematical equation for that, but a computer program can also be written to find the solution.

Likewise with morality, if we want to know how to live and work with other people, where everyone is considered a political equal, then there is no alternative but to use a universal moral code. We can build a society based on slaves and masters... or we can build one as equals.

QuinnC:

sweatingbanshee:

QuinnC:

sweatingbanshee:

It cannot be immoral to make a decision necessary to keep humanity from extinction.

Ends cannot justify means.

Sure they can. I surely don't separate ends and means, and say "This end justifies any means." Rather, means are incorporated into the ends. You made a tough decision that was necessary to keep humanity from extinction. Now you have to live as the person who made that decision. Now you have to live with the consequences of that choice. But no one can objectively say it was the wrong choice. I wouldn't, but it wouldn't be an easy choice to live with.

I guess, to be more accurate: If morality doesn't exist, then there's no reason to justify anything. If morality is subjective, then one only need justify an act to onesself. But if morality is objective, then ends can't justify means, because killing would be immoral whether to save humanity or to steal someone's wallet.

It's probably apparent from my posts that I believe morality is subjective. Even so, I'd need to convince everyone else who believes that morality is subjective to look at it the same way I do. And if morality is objective, my goal would still be to convince people of what I think the objective morality IS.

But I think that anyone who would have to make the choice to kill a significant portion of the human race in order to save humanity would have a hard time living with himself even if he could justify it, unless he never considered the morality of the decision in the first place. There are probably a lot of soldiers that believe what they are doing is moral, and even if they do, they probably don't sleep well at night.

This has to be viewed from the perspective of a Dialectic not some arbitrary Aristotelian categories.

Killing a human is worse than killing a dolphin which is worse than killing a dog which is worse than killing a mouse which is worse than killing a fly etc.

It has to do with the level of conciousness of the animal being killed. The higher the level of conciousness the more evil killing the animal is. It is about time humanity discarded these arbitrary categories of right vs wrong, immoral vs moral. Morality exists as  Dialectic, and any sensible person understands that killing someone is worse than punching someone.

This buisness of moral vs immoral is way to digital. The world does not work that way.

Dissilusionist:

This has to be viewed from the perspective of a Dialectic not some arbitrary Aristotelian categories.

 

Killing a human is worse than killing a dolphin which is worse than killing a dog which is worse than killing a mouse which is worse than killing a fly etc.

 

It has to do with the level of conciousness of the animal being killed. The higher the level of conciousness the more evil killing the animal is. It is about time humanity discarded these arbitrary categories of right vs wrong, immoral vs moral. Morality exists as  Dialectic, and any sensible person understands that killing someone is worse than punching someone.

 

This buisness of moral vs immoral is way to digital. The world does not work that way.

So if its a matter of level of conciousness you would extend then machines. That is to say if artifical intelligence advance to the point that machine are self aware they would have a right to live? This brings me to my next questions how to test for more or least conciousness in a creature? Are some human have a greater level of conciousness than other humans? 

Dissilusionist:

 

Killing a human is worse than killing a dolphin which is worse than killing a dog which is worse than killing a mouse which is worse than killing a fly etc.

 

That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her.

Does she know why?

Perhaps she'll die.

Seriously for me, Morality is a measuring tool against whicch to measure actions to see if they're things I'd like to do,

You say above That killing a human worse than killing a dolphin,  which is worse than killing a dog.

Do if were were to arbitrarily assign points

Killing a human = 100 bad points

Killing a Dolphin = 85 bad points

Killing a dog = 50 bad points.

Like that?  That completely works for me, except for one thing

Is there any  non-arbitrary way to assign those points? When I ask "Why is killing a person worse than killing a dolphin?"   How do you KNOW?  WHat yard stick do you use to assign bad points to one versus how many bad poinnt accrue for killing the other?

Show your work.  I wwant to know howw you know, and Ideally I am hoping someone will describe an objective, sound method for this.

I want to KNOW that killing a human being is 100 bad points versus killing a Dolphin at 85 bad points. 

I want to know this the way I know that at the surface of the Earth, Objects fall at 9.98 m/s^2

Otherwise any argument based on "You shouldn't hurt people" is based on an opinion,  not a fact.

Jay ~Meow!~