Why Be Moral?

[Veritas Aequitas]

Your morality is grounded merely on your life, personal survival and enjoyment which is too flimsy.

If your life is, "too flimsy," reason to live morally, I'll take your word for it. Mine is to important to throw away on immoral behavior.

Reality operate within a system all the way, i.e. from the Universe as a system, the solar system, the Earth as a system, the individual as a mesh of sub-systems.

As such in alignment with this inherent system approach, morality has to be organized systematically and not individualized absolute and independently.

Yes, you can claim yours is superior, any one can claim their whatever is superior but what is critical is where are your sound justifications for your claims?

WHO ARE YOU [independently] to be so sure your claims are the most superior and objective? Not unless you claim to be God, i.e. omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent.

[Skepdick]

Your morality is grounded merely on your life, personal survival and enjoyment which is too flimsy.

If your life is, "too flimsy," reason to live morally, I'll take your word for it. Mine is to important to throw away on immoral behavior.

Reality operate within a system all the way, i.e. from the Universe as a system, the solar system, the Earth as a system, the individual as a mesh of sub-systems.

As such in alignment with this inherent system approach, morality has to be organized systematically and not individualized absolute and independently.

Yes, you can claim yours is superior, any one can claim their whatever is superior but what is critical is where are your sound justifications for your claims?

WHO ARE YOU [independently] to be so sure your claims are the most superior and objective? Not unless you claim to be God, i.e. omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent.

Dumb Philosopher. Systems thinking walks the middle way between reductionism and holism. Systems thinking is ALL about the subjective observer.

[Age]

I would not say so, neither do ethicists and philosophers generally. I'm no friend of Hume, obviously, but I have to give him his due in this situation. He's described the problem well.

There is no problem! You think so, because you accept the word of authorities, ethicists, and philosophers, who, just as I said, "swallowed Hume's deceptive question (and every philosopher who followed him) has propagated that lie," and you've swallowed it too.

Heh. You don't know me very well, obviously, despite all our talking.

Now, you probably should know from our previous conversations that I'm no "shrinking violet," and not likely to take anybody's word for things.

Except if it is written in a bible, then you take their or its word for things, am I correct? Or, am I incorrect?

If I am incorrect, then why?

And the fact that I've been here half a dozen years should tell you I'm not an easy man to make conform. But I suppose you may believe as you like about that, because you can't know for sure...

But consider again how unlikely it would be that I would ever agree with Hume about anything. Hume, he's actively AGAINST Theism, and on the opposite side from me, in no indefinite terms. Aggressively so, I might add. So if anybody had an incentive to argue that there was an alternate way to do moral thinking, it was Hume.

And in fact, that's what he did: he argued that Emotivism was the answer. Of course, we all now have seen the problems with Emotivism, and nobody thinks Hume's solution was any good -- but most philosophers are secular, and would be delighted if Hume had been right. In fact, secular ethicists would STILL be delighted if anyone had solved Hume's Guillotine...and they'd give that person a Nobel Prize.

Yet, they know he wasn't right about the solution he proposed. Emotivism, they can see, is full of logical holes. And still, against their wishes, they recognize he was right about the problem.

Now, you may not personally want to believe that. But either all the other moral philosophers are just fools, or else you've missed something there.

Hume's premise was wrong. What "is" [the empirical] does not determine any objectives, and without objectives there are no values. That is the point and the only point I made. Everything else you wrote is irrelevant to that point.

I addressed it, actually. "Objectives," "goals," "ends," "outcomes," -- call them what you will (and you've called them by several names), they themselves need justification.

And in fact, you're half agreeing with Hume already. Because if "the empirical does not determine any objectives," and "without objectives there are no values," then Hume was quite right: IS cannot be translated into OUGHT, under any circumstances. There, you and he agree.

Where you go wrong is that you suppose that people's mere HAVING of objectives can equal JUSTIFICATION of those objectives. But as I said, if that were true, then the Final Solution was justified by nothing more than the fact that Nazis chose it as their objective.

And neither you nor I is going to swallow any line of thought that makes that true, right?

[Age]

...does this...

being moral is about the self-maintenance of one's spirit.

...fit?

I, myself, can place it in A and B.

You know, Henry, I actually meant to comment on that, because I think it is one of the best reasons for being moral. Ultimately it is one's own sense of integrity and moral self-esteem that is at stake.

Whether it fits A and B depends, I think, on how you interpret A and B.

Personally, I think my reason stands alone (well apart from the categories you listed), and that tickles me to no end.

The Quirk stands alone.

What is "one's spirit", by the way?

If I decide to be "moral" or "live morally" one day, and this is about the self-maintenance of one's spirit, then it would help me tremendously if I knew what one's "spirit" actually is first.

Who and/or what is this 'one' exactly, and, who and/or what is this one's 'spirit' exactly?

Is this 'spirit' anything like that 'Spirit' known as God or is 'it' something completely different?

[Age]

One's values do not need to be proved to anyone else, one only has to know what in one's objective self-interest.

Well, lets' clear up whether or not you actually believe that, once and for all.

Let's take all the traditional odious cases you wish...Hitler, Mussolini, Pol Pot, Castro, pedophiles, rapists, etc. Pick any one of them.

Is this person objectively:

A) Bad

B) Good

C) Neither, because bad and good don't exist.

None of these, because there is another option, which is far more true, right, and correct.

You really do have a very limited scope, or field of view, when looking at things.

Because you also write,

"It doesn't matter what one's objectives are, if they do not understand the rational principles necessary for achieving what is truly benevolent their actions will be evil no matter what their objectives are."

So are you claiming that there are rational principles that make Hitler et al. "bad" or "evil," as you put it? And you say they just "didn't understand" the right "rational principles," but you do?

But you seem to say they owed it to be "benevolent," and yet you also claim, earlier on, that the individual owes nothing to other people, not even an explanation or justification: now, how does that work?

Or does it really not "matter what one's objectives are," so long as one has objectives?

Honest questions. Your views as expressed are so contradictory, I can't tell which claim you're making.

[Age]

You know, Henry, I actually meant to comment on that, because I think it is one of the best reasons for being moral. Ultimately it is one's own sense of integrity and moral self-esteem that is at stake.

Whether it fits A and B depends, I think, on how you interpret A and B.

Personally, I think my reason stands alone (well apart from the categories you listed), and that tickles me to no end.

The Quirk stands alone.

I believe your earlier intuitive sense of alignment to the "North" is very rational to the point.

Obviously the individual must take care of himself first, i.e. help oneself before helping others by alignment to the same 'north' as every other individual.

Note the analogy of the alignment of the magnetic fields of the individual elements.
The magnetic is stronger when all the individual elements are aligned in the same direction but weak when they are haphazardly oriented.

It is the same with Morality, where the individual's moral compass must be developed to the individual's optimal and then aligned with the majority in the same direction.

Why only the "majority"?

Why not the ALL?

[Age]

What would you have done?

I'll happily tell you. But first, I need to reassure myself concerning your position. And the purpose is not to accuse you; it's to discern how far down with the logic of your declared position you would be prepared to go.

If I had to guess, I'd say it's "Not very far." I do not think you would be content to watch people exterminated, dispossessed, molested, raped, or whatever, and to say, "Not my problem." But then, your claim that morality is an individual matter has definite limits. On the other hand, if you make it unlimited, then it rationalizes exactly those sorts of abdication of moral responsibility for others.

It should be a simple question to answer. I wonder why it's not...

Check that. No I don't. Not really. I'm pretty sure it's because you can see the horrid logic of your declared position, and aren't willing to ride the thing to the ground.

But if you're not going down with your position, then at some stage you'll have to parachute out. And I want to know when you'll do that.

Morality is fundamentally about good over evil conditioned upon optimal for humanity.

Why is 'morality' supposedly fundamentally conditioned upon what is optimal just for human beings?

Is it just a coincidence that a human being puts human beings at the top of list, or is there some reasonable and actual justification for this placement?

RCSaunders' model of Morality grounded on the independent individual is too flimsy.
Human beings as they are, are very fallible individuals. The neurosciences had shown the human brain is too 'malleable'. Any individual person can turned from the best or average person to a mad person the next moment.

Each individual person will claim s/he is highly independent but their acts could end up as evil like Hitler, Stalin, Mao and the likes. Someone could claim s/he is independent, so can stay away from Nazism, Islamism, but WHO ARE THEY to decide their acts are deemed to be morally good.
The question is how and on what grounds can an individual rely upon to decide what is morally good for them.
RCSaunders' model of Morality [independent individual] is groundless thus immature and inefficient. Yes, a certain percentile of individual say 5% may be successful on this approach, but it cannot be consistently and sustained for the whole or majority of humanity.

The critical requirement ultimately must rest on an efficient model, framework and system not dependent on an individual's view, regardless of how great the individual imagine or rationalize himself to be.

For morality and ethics to be efficient, it must be grounded on moral oughts/standards that are objective and justified within an established model, framework and system of morality, independent of the individual's subjective view.

At present there are many so-claimed 'moral' systems but the question is are their ideological oughts justified soundly and adopted voluntarily i.e. not enforced upon individuals members without threats.
Note the so-called 'moral' systems like Nazism, Communism, Fascism, Islam, and the like which has contributed to terrible evils throughout human history.

You forgot to mention 'capitalism' here, which can obviously be seen to be one the most terrible 'evil' of all of these 'evils'.

I believe Christianity with its pacifist maxims within its theological moral model is optimally effective at present but not for the future due to its inherent weaknesses, i.e. its morality is grounded on an illusory God who threaten believers with hell if they do not comply.

The way to moral efficiency in the future must rest on a foolproof framework and system of morality and ethics grounded on the secular approach of soundly justified moral absolutes, laws and standards as a GUIDE to guide individuals progressively toward the impossible-to-achieve-ideals.
At the same time each individual must be guided to increase their moral competency by improving the neural connections within their inherent moral faculty in the brain/mind.

[Immanuel Can]

Morality is fundamentally about good over evil conditioned upon optimal for humanity.

I'm afraid that explanation won't actually help .

The truth is that we don't know "what is optimal for humanity." We know what we want, we know what we like, and we know what we're inclined to, and even what will increase our chances of getting certain advantages...but we don't know what is truly "optimal" for humanity unless we also know what humanity is FOR. After all, there are not just good things that feel good to us, but there are things humans sometimes value that take sacrifice, pain, work, suffering and commitment on our part -- that's quite ordinary, really -- so to say, "optimal" doesn't answer the question "Optimal for what purpose or goal?"

RC's got that somewhat right. He's right to say that we need an objective (or end, or outcome, or telos) in order to justify our values. But he's stopping a little short of giving us what we need, at the moment, because that objective also needs grounding in something. And so far, we don't have that from him. But I hold out hope that maybe he's got something.

[RCSaunders]

... abdication of moral responsibility for others.

No human being is born a slave of other human beings. No one is born with a duty to or responsibility for anyone else's life. Everyone is born with their own mind and must choose to use them or not, to learn all they can or not, to make the best choices they can or not, to waste their life allowing their desires, feelings, whims and gullibility to determine their choices or not. It is not anyone's responsibility to make choices for others (it is wrong to do so, it's called oppression), and every individual's life and experience is determined by that individual's choices.

Every individual is responsible for their own choices and actions and the consequences of those actions, not the consequences of other's choices and actions. I think even you can see that it would be wrong to punish you for the actions of someone else, it would be wrong to put you in jail if your neighbor robbed the bank. But it apparently becomes difficult for you to see, if your neighbor makes choices that result in his sickness, poverty, or self-destruction, it is just as wrong to hold you responsible for that. But that is exactly what the evil idea of a, "moral responsibility for others," would mean.

Here is a family [#1] with a husband and wife and four children. They are not wealthy but are well fed and clothed and live in a well tended modest home, all supported by the husband who chose to study to make the most he could of himself and to acquire a good job earning enough to provide for himself and his family. Their neighbor family [#2] consists of a woman and four children and a man, not her husband, who spends his days drinking and watching sports on his welfare provided TV or playing games on his welfare provided cell phone. The children are fed junk food, (no one chooses to cook), are not well clothed, except for the woman, the home is slowly deteriorating (nobody chooses to clean or fix anything). One day the buildings in that neighborhood are inspected (supposedly for tax evaluation) and the neighbor family's [#2] home is condemned as unlivable and unsafe, and the family looses the home.

Your view of a, "moral responsibility for others," would require the individual who worked to fulfill the responsibility for his choices to his wife and his children to also take responsibility for the choices of his neighbor whose wrong choices left a woman and children in, "need." But that would require the sacrifice of [#1] neighbor's fulfilling his true responsibility to his own family for the sake of another's wrong choices. It is punishing the good for being the good for the sake of the bad. If that is not immoral, nothing is immoral, and the whole thing becomes a mad scramble to see who can make the biggest claims on other's obligations to their neighbor.

All that happened in Nazi Germany was only possible because most Germans were not independent individuals. An independent individual never identifies oneself or anyone else as anything but individual human beings, never as members of any class, race, ethnicity, or ideology. What happened in Germany would have been impossible to a society of independent individuals because there could not have been anyone who regarded any unchosen aspect of a human being, what one is born with, as a matter of significance, only what an individual actually did and made of himself matters to independent individuals.

If no one had have regarded some non-essential, like one's heredity or nationality or race as important, there could not have been a Nazi Germany.

I have no sympathy for anything anyone suffers because they claim some value for themselves because they are a member of some class. If one identifies (or identifies others) as anything other than individual human beings, if they, "proudly," proclaim, "I'm a such'n'such," or, "I'm a proud to be whatever," and suffer because of that identification, they deserve it. Racism has two sides, those who evaluate others according to non-essentials, and those who evaluate themselves according to non-essentials. Human nature is the essential, race and ethnicity are non-essential.

You are not your brother's keeper. What being your brother's keeper really means is being your brother's boss. He makes his choices, you make yours. If you make bad choices it is not up to your brother to clean up after you.

What happened in Germany was the consequence of the choices of those it happened to. It was a horrible disaster, but the inevitable consequence of the moral views that dominated the beliefs of the individuals.

[RCSaunders]

Okay.

Thank you for your long and detailed response. Before I can properly respond, there is one question I have to ask, so I know what you basic premise is.

In your opinion, is the world you are directly conscious of, that is, what you see, hear, feel, smell, and taste, the real existence as it actually exists? Or is it something else?

Once I know your view on the nature of reality itself, I'll know how to understand your comments and questions.

Thanks again,

RC

[Immanuel Can]

... abdication of moral responsibility for others.

No human being is born a slave of other human beings.

Not "slave." Good heavens, man...nobody said "slave."

We're merely talking about having what's called "common human decency," the sort of "decency" that cannot look with indifference on another person being hurt, exploited, violated or destroyed.

And I'm thinking you're one of those people. If I'm wrong, tell me.

All that happened in Nazi Germany was only possible because most Germans were not independent individuals.

So you're saying, "People ought to be independent individuals?" "Ought," then?

So it's not true you won't prescribe duty to others. You will. You will say that they should be "independent individuals." They have a duty (somehow, you'll have to explain) to be that, and not collectivists, or followers, or whatever. That's bad, you say...? But that is also prescribing a moral duty.

What happened in Germany would have been impossible to a society of independent individuals because there could not have been anyone who regarded any unchosen aspect of a human being, what one is born with, as a matter of significance, only what an individual actually did and made of himself matters to independent individuals.

So now, not only SOME people have a duty to be "independent individuals," but ALL people have that duty, so that things like what happened in Germany cannot happen? Again, you've gone beyond the strictly individual here, and are now prescribing for others.

Or do you instead say, "It would have been okay for some to be Nazis and Jew-killers," if that's that they individually wanted, and the rest to be "independent" bystanders, who owed to do nothing about it? If you say that, though, then it's apparent that what happened in Germany WOULD have happened, because that's exactly what DID happen.

Which position are you wanting to take?

1. No one has a moral duty to be an "independent individual," or any other moral duty, so Nazi death camps are fine if others want them. I'm prepared to accept genocide as an option for "independent individuals" to practice, if they choose, and for others to suffer, whether they choose or not.

2. Everyone has a moral duty to be an "independent individual," so death camps don't happen...but now, morality is no longer "independent," and I'm my brother's keeper, since I'm telling some "brothers" what their moral duty is, and protecting other "brothers" from getting killed in horrendous fashion.

But whichever you take, the theory that we can all just act as "independent individuals" is in moral trouble.

You are not your brother's keeper.

Of course, I'm going to side with Abel on that question, not with Cain.

What being your brother's keeper really means is being your brother's boss.

No, it doesn't. Of course it doesn't. It just means looking out for his interests...perhaps the same interests that he, as an individual, would himself have.

If someone's breaking into your neighbour's house, and you call the cops, you are being "your brother's keeper." But it's not at all clear how that would make you his "boss."

He makes his choices, you make yours. If you make bad choices it is not up to your brother to clean up after you.

What if his choice is to kill Jews?

[henry quirk]

The theist calls it soul.

A deist, like me, might call it spirit.

A non-believer calls it mind or self.

Call it what you like.

It's you, as person/free will.

Lot of folks in-forum, however, see personhood as legal fiction, see soul or spirit as superstition, see mind or self or free will as illusory.

For these folks, morality is just, I guess, consensus.

[Immanuel Can]

Lot of folks in-forum, however, see personhood as legal fiction, see soul or spirit as superstition, see mind or self or free will as illusory.

Ironically, if they were not "persons," they couldn't even see it that way. It take a "soul" or "spirit" to be able to believe and to say, "I have no free will."

For these folks, morality is just, I guess, consensus.

Then it's just power. Nothing more. The many can beat up the few. That's all.

[RCSaunders]

1. No one has a moral duty to be an "independent individual," or any other moral duty, so Nazi death camps are fine if others want them. I'm prepared to accept genocide as an option for "independent individuals" to practice, if they choose, and for others to suffer, whether they choose or not.

If I could wave a magic wand and prevent such things as Nazi death camps, I would. Such things will never be eliminated from the world, however, so long as there are racists that fight against individual independence. You would rather fight and argue against individual independence than see the elimination of such horrors as Nazi death camps. It is your own racist religion and anti-individualism that makes those horrors possible.

2. Everyone has a moral duty to be an "independent individual," so death camps don't happen...but now, morality is no longer "independent," and I'm my brother's keeper, since I'm telling some "brothers" what their moral duty is, and protecting other "brothers" from getting killed in horrendous fashion.

No one has a, "duty," to do anything, but nobody can do (or fail to do) anything and evade the consequences. I'm not telling anyone what to do, because it's none of my business. I'm describing for, those who would like to know the truth so the can make right choices, what the consequences of their choices will be. It's your life, ruin it if you like, and take all those who are silly enough to follow with you.

If someone's breaking into your neighbour's house, and you call the cops, you are being "your brother's keeper." But it's not at all clear how that would make you his "boss."

Guess you haven't much experience with police. Why would I call the government sanctioned gangsters because some private gangsters are doing something wrong. If I were on good terms with my neighbor I might drive whoever was breaking in away, but I would never call the police and put my neighbor into that kind of legal hell. More than likely, the police would break his door down, shoot his dog, and him if he was armed, and destroy his house. If my neighbor is someone of questionable integrity or if I did not know her, I would probably mind my own business. After all, the neighbor might be a crook, and the one, "breaking in," might only be recovering what my neighbor stole from him. Or take a real case, the one breaking in was actually the home owner who had forgotten his keys, but some meddler (brother's keeper) called the police causing the poor man endless trouble.

He makes his choices, you make yours. If you make bad choices it is not up to your brother to clean up after you.

What if his choice is to kill Jews?

What's a Jew? What an odd question. Is there something special about killing some people that is different from killing others? Why wasn't the question, "What if his choice is to kill people?" Do you always think in these racist terms?

And out of curiosity, unless one is aware of what another's choice is beforehand, what could they possibly do. If they do know before hand, wouldn't the best thing to do be to warn the ones threatened. And if the ones threatened refused to do anything, then what?

That happens to be an almost perfect analogy of what happened in Germany and Central Europe.

[Immanuel Can]

You would rather fight and argue against individual independence than see the elimination of such horrors as Nazi death camps.

Not a bit of it. I believe in individual moral responsibility. But not that the individual makes up morality for himself, or that the free individual is not also responsible morally to take care of the moral "neighbour."

And here I answer your earlier question, "What would I do?" I would be morally obligated to intervene and rescue as many people as I possibly could. And if I failed in that obligation, I would be a very bad person. But that's my view, not yours, perhaps.

Meanwhile, as I pointed out, it's the attitude of the individual who says that it's "not my problem," (i.e. the excessive sense that individuals are not responsible for their neighbours) that actually made the Nazi atrocities possible. "Individual independence" thus won't "eliminate" those horrors -- it won't actively empower them, but by negligence, will allow them to be perpetrated unopposed.

2. Everyone has a moral duty to be an "independent individual," so death camps don't happen...but now, morality is no longer "independent," and I'm my brother's keeper, since I'm telling some "brothers" what their moral duty is, and protecting other "brothers" from getting killed in horrendous fashion.

No one has a, "duty," to do anything,

So it's not #2? You're not going to tell anyone they have to be an "independent individual," or that it is "better" that they do so?

But you already have, RC... Otherwise, you could not advocate for "independent individualism" at all.

If someone's breaking into your neighbour's house, and you call the cops, you are being "your brother's keeper." But it's not at all clear how that would make you his "boss."

Guess you haven't much experience with police.

This seems a little paranoid, RC. Are you actually going to suggest that the police would turn around and interfere with you, if you called them to help your neighbour? I'm pretty sure the bobbies in the UK haven't suddenly become authoritarian along the lines of the STASI, or something like that.

But inform me, if it has become otherwise lately.

He makes his choices, you make yours. If you make bad choices it is not up to your brother to clean up after you.

What if his choice is to kill Jews?

What's a Jew?

In this case, an example. No more. And to that end, you'll note that I also gave alternate examples, like the Kulaks, the intellectuals under Mao, or victims of pedophiles and rapists, and your neighbour next door. So pick your label, and slide it in, if you're uncertain you know what the term "Jew" refers to.

Anyway, not only did the Nazis think they knew what a "Jew" was, so do Jews...the Nation of Israel in particular. You may doubt their ability to know if you wish...it changes nothing in the discussion, since you can pick an alternate designation yourself.