What is morality?

Haha, you're going have to define your question more.

What is moral? What is immoral?

Most of the time one can decide what is moral and what is not moral. How do we decide this? How do we know such and such is good and such and such is bad. What is Morality?

What makes an action moral or immoral?

Is that better???

[This message has been edited by mndbender (edited 09-23-2004).]

quote:Originally posted by mndbender:

What is moral? What is immoral?

Most of the time one can decide what is moral and what is not moral. How do we decide this? How do we know such and such is good and such and such is bad. What is Morality?

What makes an action moral or immoral?

Is that better???

[This message has been edited by mndbender (edited 09-23-2004).]

Depends on the religion you look at.

In my view:

That which reduces suffering is moral, that which causes suffering is immoral.

"there are no moral phenomena at all, only moral interpretation of phenomena."



If you cared to look a little deeper in this forum, you might know whom I am quoting.

quote:Originally posted by Social Junker:

Depends on the religion you look at.

In my view:

That which reduces suffering is moral, that which causes suffering is immoral.

Let me get this straight. If I tell someone the truth about some instance or action and my telling the truth causes suffering over what has happened or what was done.- That is immoral.

Yet then again I could lie to save someone from suffering.- That is moral

Another example. Hypothetically speaking of course. If I were able to kill Adolf Hitler as a child to save millions from suffering, would that be moral or immoral. If I kill Hitler, he suffers. If I don't millions of people suffer the anguish of war in the decades to come.

quote:Originally posted by WolfinSheepsClothing:

"there are no moral phenomena at all, only moral interpretation of phenomena."



If you cared to look a little deeper in this forum, you might know whom I am quoting.

How do we interpret what is moral and what is not. What is our standard of interpretation. For now lets put the Bible, Koran, etc. aside.

This isn't a question of Religion, this is a question of psychology. A moral is empty without something to support it, which would take this question to the family unit and the emotions of the brain. Emotions of attachment to your fellow man or even as simple as to your parents and their will that you follow guidelines and rules on living a moral life. Religion happens to be the foundation of civilisation, like it or not.

I dont beleive anyone is born with morals without experiencing human emotion. Most, however, do have someone in our life that we love... possibly our mother, our father... someone. And knowing their ideas of right and wrong are the framework of morality. Evident in the fact that so many orphans or people with "nothing to lose" have little regrets in turning to crime and immorallity. Contrastly, a child of satanism (not 'the church of satan' two differant religions) is taught anarchy and sees nothing wrong with it.

Even if your parents are Agnostic, they are still part of the whole which is humanity and it's a general humans feeling of saying "I dont want anything bad to happen to me" and the only way to ensure that nothing bad does happen is for the whole of humanity to say "I wont bring harm upon you if you dont bring harm upon me" - there we have the skeletal frame of religion. Wether or not you beleive in a deity, pay tilthe, or call yourself religious... most people are part of "the human religion". You cant find morality, it merely drapes mankind etherealy.

If you love your fellow man, if you have ever known love and attachment, you have some form of morals. It's not very deep at all, it's just a matter of sympathy. Knowing the human religion, knowing that you wont want harm to come to you and therefore realise that others feel the same way... this is morality.

quote:Originally posted by mndbender:

How do we interpret what is moral and what is not. What is our standard of interpretation. For now lets put the Bible, Koran, etc. aside.

__________________________________________________ _

My original quote means;

Morality is arbitrary and subjective. As to how we interpret what is moral and what the standard is for that interpretaion is, depends on numerous factors.

The culture and time period you live in are where the standards come from,IMHO.



Others here will say morality comes from Bog himself.

We take actions, do this or that, do nothing, do something...we act...works. When we acted did we do whatever we did because of something we believed to be true, absolutely true, that could be no other way? Then to that extent, whatever we did was immoral.

If, when whatever we did, we believed that there was more than one way to see or believe about whatever the question was, then to that extent our action was moral.

This is a defintion of morality, not to be mixed with other definitions.

Ok, Lets take this from a religious standpoint.

How did God (or gods) come to posess(sp?) a moral code, or a standard of morality which this higher being then communicated it to us?

The criterion of morality is in the interest of the state. Morality is nothing but political hygiene.

If morality is to be of remote beneficiary with a wide ranging sentiment and nor merely a personal, self-concerning (and thus insignificant) angst, it has to be whatever is in the interest of the state. A place of countless, subjective ethics are about as useful and problematic as a kick in the eyebrow.

What about the overarching morals from one period of time to another. No matter what the politics of the day and age many morals have not changed. Don't murder. Don't lie. Honor parents. Etc. No matter what religion or political viewpoint these morals have not changed. My question therefore is:

Where do they come from?

No matter what religion, no matter what political viewpoint (war, nazis, slaves: people knew they were wrong- not relevant to discussion, don't even try) morals have not changed. Some may choose to disregard them in the sake of self interest but in essence they are always there. People always gravitate to them.

WHY? HOW? WHERE?

Why are they permanent?

How did we learn of them?

Where did they come from?

quote:Originally posted by mndbender:

Let me get this straight. If I tell someone the truth about some instance or action and my telling the truth causes suffering over what has happened or what was done.- That is immoral.

Yet then again I could lie to save someone from suffering.- That is moral

Another example. Hypothetically speaking of course. If I were able to kill Adolf Hitler as a child to save millions from suffering, would that be moral or immoral. If I kill Hitler, he suffers. If I don't millions of people suffer the anguish of war in the decades to come.

I forgot to add to my originial post, "in a perfect world." Someone always brings up the questions you asked when I present this idea of morality. I believe there are no clear cut acts, no act can be purely moral or immoral, or pure reduction of suffering, etc. It really is a case of choosing, of maximizing the reduction of suffering, and minimizing the suffering as much as possible.

quote:Originally posted by mndbender:

Ok, Lets take this from a religious standpoint.

How did God (or gods) come to posess(sp?) a moral code, or a standard of morality which this higher being then communicated it to us?

If you're asking where God came from, (obviously people) I don't know.

I did not ask were God came from (I'll save that for another day), I asked:

If there is a standard of morality, first, what is morality and second, where did it come from? Did God create it OR did God learn of it and then communicate it to us?

(God or gods it doesn't matter)

monotheism or polytheism, its the same question.

Adressing basic morals being ever-present:

Well this could be because there is an inherent value or worth we instill in other human beings, the same way we know to breathe and crawl, we know the value of human life.

It could also be our animalistic nature. Many creatures have realized that living in family groups and protecting each other works much better for the individual and the species as a whole. We probably just figured this out, and with the rapidity of the transportation of ideas and beliefs we have done this on a worldwide basis.

Regarding the Hitler debacle:

Well, I'll tell you from the social buddhist mindset. One must always take the third/higher path. Will the suffering of millions outwiegh the suffering of one? Yes.

When social buddhism is usually discussed regarding the third path. People always bring up wars. Civil wars especially. Where both sides are getting killed, one must attempt the third path, but it can become rather sticky. One must side with the group that is being oppressed.

To clear that up, lets say Viet Nam is being dominated by China. China is killing Vietnamese, and the vietnamese are fighting back and killing chinese. Killing in itself is horribly wrong, but one must side with the vietnamese because they are the oppressed not the oppressors.

Gotta go get my cellular communication device repaired, hope that helps.

I rescently read about a mathematical theorum for good versus evil (or moral vs. immoral)

pleasure vs. pain

example-stealing a bicycle from a small child and selling it.

pleasure-you have $40 maybe for a new video game

pain-perhaps the parents dont make much money, the child no longer has a bycicle. Maybe the child rides his bike to the bus stop in 5 minutes, now he has to leave 15 minutes earlier, so he has to get up 15 minutes earlier, and the child has lost a great deal of trust in the world around him. His bad mood from losing his bycicle may cause his grades to slip temporarily, causing strain on himself and his parents.

therefore the 1 pleasure vs the 4 greater pains makes stealing a bycicle from a small child very immoral.

example-stealing milk from the grocery store to feed your baby sister

pleasure-the child gets the vital nutrients she needs, and doesnt get sick or suffer from malnutrition

pain-the store owner is short $2

the pleasures here greatly outweigh the pains resulting from it, therefore the acts are moral.

The first one I agree with, but then u say morals can be changed in the second one. First stealing is immoral. And all of a sudden stealing is moral. Morality is not objective. It can't change from day to day.

quote:Originally posted by mndbender:

The first one I agree with, but then u say morals can be changed in the second one. First stealing is immoral. And all of a sudden stealing is moral. Morality is not objective. It can't change from day to day.

Perhaps you should define what you see as moral.Are we talking textbook or our own speculation/interpretation of morality? Why can't morality change?

"What about the overarching morals from one period of time to another. No matter what the politics of the day and age many morals have not changed. Don't murder. Don't lie. Honor parents. Etc. No matter what religion or political viewpoint these morals have not changed. My question therefore is:

Where do they come from?"

Evolution. These morals help to propagate the species.People needed to work together, and morals ensured that a person could have "faith" that they could count on their tribe, when things got tough. Immoral people couldn't be counted on, therefore they didn't make the team, and are not our ancestors. Therefore people that had "morals" would transfer their dna, more often than not.

quote:Originally posted by WolfinSheepsClothing:

Evolution.

Think about why dogs make good pets. Wolf pack mentality.

Or why deer and rabbits have white tails, so when they run the others won't get eaten.

Humans have similar programs. Empathy, self-sacrifice, generosity.

People are more complicated, so we tend to get everything mixed up.

You share some dna with your family/pack, so by helping the pack survive, you ensure those common genes will continue. Even if you personally suffer from it, your genes win.

Morality has always existed before religion. Religion is simply the cultural attribution of significance to the corresponding path to that morality.

Morality on an individualistic scale is dependent upon the appropriate attention to the elements which make a person complete. A warrior is good when the characteristics of warriorhood is obvious within him. A good warrior is disciplined, devoted, strong; he does not falter in adversity, he does not tremble in battle, and he does not question in servitude. A warrior is not good when he adopts the concerns of a plebian or a woman; he cannot focus on cosmetic concerns or earthly mentalities.

The dynamics of these individuals as a group form a kind of aristocracy, not unlike the hierarchy of biological processes, starting from the organelles, to the cell, to the tissue, to the organs, to the organ system, to the organism, and ultimately, to the will and spiritual direction of that organism.

This system operates with the direction of an Empire, which created the guidelines for the manifestation of the above-mentioned system, and which directs it towards the ultimate realization of its highest spiritual values, such as honor, loyalty, dignity, discipline, courage, self-reliance, and the like.

Treason against this hierarchical order is the essence of immorality. It violates the natural order of social dynamics and imposes upon it a sterile replacement, devoid of any kind of ethical, cultural, or spiritual presence, replacing the above-mentioned virtues and ethics with false and immediate pleasures, such as gender equality, economic prosperity, racial ignorance, individualism, and sexual promiscuity.

Attempting to dismember this naturally occurring aristocracy is a crime that, unfortunately, is inevitable, based on the knowledge of the cyclical occurrences and repetitions of the world. This does not detract from its obviously subversive character, which seeks to destroy propriety and decency and replace it with progress, technology, equality, and spiritual and intellectual infertility.

This is the essence of moral and immoral.

quote:Originally posted by mndbender:

What is morality?

"To Each his Own!!!" What is Plato, The Republic? Why ask the same Questions that were asked severl years ago.. Why not read the questions that were asked and See the answers that were given?

I agree with a lot of the ideas here.

Actually, I am currently in the final stages of writing a paper on morality ("Bauman and Baudrillard as Postmodern Vagabonds: Religion, Morality, and the Seduction of 'Unstructured Spaces'"). It took me forever to write this fucking thing.

Anyway, if I start to write my ideas on this I will *never* get off Totse and finish my work. I'll just say that Zygmunt Bauman's book POSTMODERN ETHICS is genius and I recommend it wholeheartedly. I really gained a lot from it, and I think it would answer a lot your questions. (Forewarning: a background in postmodern theory is recommended to fully appreciate and understand it.)

quote:Originally posted by Thadeuss:

This isn't a question of Religion, this is a question of psychology. A moral is empty without something to support it, which would take this question to the family unit and the emotions of the brain. Emotions of attachment to your fellow man or even as simple as to your parents and their will that you follow guidelines and rules on living a moral life. Religion happens to be the foundation of civilisation, like it or not.

I dont beleive anyone is born with morals without experiencing human emotion. Most, however, do have someone in our life that we love... possibly our mother, our father... someone. And knowing their ideas of right and wrong are the framework of morality. Evident in the fact that so many orphans or people with "nothing to lose" have little regrets in turning to crime and immorallity. Contrastly, a child of satanism (not 'the church of satan' two differant religions) is taught anarchy and sees nothing wrong with it.

Even if your parents are Agnostic, they are still part of the whole which is humanity and it's a general humans feeling of saying "I dont want anything bad to happen to me" and the only way to ensure that nothing bad does happen is for the whole of humanity to say "I wont bring harm upon you if you dont bring harm upon me" - there we have the skeletal frame of religion. Wether or not you beleive in a deity, pay tilthe, or call yourself religious... most people are part of "the human religion". You cant find morality, it merely drapes mankind etherealy.

If you love your fellow man, if you have ever known love and attachment, you have some form of morals. It's not very deep at all, it's just a matter of sympathy. Knowing the human religion, knowing that you wont want harm to come to you and therefore realise that others feel the same way... this is morality.

Yep, what he said. So do unto others as you would have done unto you.

It has been my experience that that which is called moral is called moral and the opposite of whatever is being called moral is immoral and what is called moral is called moral because one or more people think everyone should do that and not its' opposite.

Now, on the other hand - I think more people should be productive, happy and free. Whatever kinds of behavior produce a world where people are productive, happy and free is moral by me. Furthermore, those behaviors that are anti-productive, that cause misery and that restrict or harm freedom - those are bad and I would like to throw rocks at the people who do those. http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

[This message has been edited by Sempre Solipsist (edited 10-22-2004).]

Then follow the Bible, and live harmoniously, in once accord.

http://www.totse.com/bbs/biggrin.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/biggrin.gif)

why must one follow the bible to be moral?