moral relativism

Should you think about your duty, or about the consequences of your actions? Or should you concentrate on becoming a good person?

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henry quirk
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Re: moral relativism

Post by henry quirk »

What is a fact is that everybody....does agree that lying is is wrong unless there are extenuating circumstances.
I don't dispute that.

I dispute that they do so (agree that lying is is wrong) without acts and contexts in mind. No one sez honesty is the best policy without an act and context to reference...lincludin' you.

Generally honesty is the best policy. Honesty usually doesn't unjustly deprive someone of life, liberty, or property. But honesty is only worth a damn as it relates to a circumstance, an opportunity to be honest or dishonest. You would dis-embed it from context and act.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: moral relativism

Post by FlashDangerpants »

henry quirk wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 8:13 pm
What is a fact is that everybody....does agree that lying is is wrong unless there are extenuating circumstances.
I don't dispute that.

I dispute that they do so (agree that lying is is wrong) without acts and contexts in mind. No one sez honesty is the best policy without an act and context to reference...lincludin' you.

Generally honesty is the best policy. Honesty usually doesn't unjustly deprive someone of life, liberty, or property. But honesty is only worth a damn as it relates to a circumstance, an opportunity to be honest or dishonest. You would dis-embed it from context and act.
Or to put it another way, when everyone else thinks that honesty is a good thing in itself, Henry says it is fact that we are all mistaken, and honesty is just a thing we feel good about, not a good thing as such?

You are making it quite clear that dishonesty is only bad on some conditional basis, when it has an outcome in relation to property. But you seem to be very shy about saying it.
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henry quirk
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Re: moral relativism

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Henry says it is fact that we are all mistaken, and honesty is just a thing we feel good about, not a good thing as such?
Nope, I said: The assessment of honest or dishonest is always attached to an act and context. Most folks, it seems to me, when they bother to think it thru, understand this.
You are making it quite clear that dishonesty is only bad on some conditional basis, when it has an outcome in relation to property.
Nope, I say: The assessment of honesty or dishonesty is always attached to an act and context.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: moral relativism

Post by FlashDangerpants »

That is a statement that the act of lying is morally neutral in itself.
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henry quirk
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Re: moral relativism

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That is a statement that the act of lying is morally neutral in itself.
No: generally, dishonesty is wrong. Dishonesty usually unjustly deprives someone of life, liberty, or property. But dishonesty (the assessment of it) is only worth a damn as it relates to a circumstance (an act and context).

Without an act and context -- one playin' out In RL, one you remember, or one you imagine -- honesty and dishonesty are meaningless.

Sayin' John is honest don't mean diddly shit if you have no example of John bein' honest or can't root honesty in a circumstance (an act and context).

Sayin' Stan is dishonest don't mean diddly shit if you have no example of Stan bein' dishonest or can't root dishonesty in a circumstance (an act and context).

Honesty is the best policy. Dishonesty is wrong. Why? Neither can be explained without referrin' to act and context.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: moral relativism

Post by FlashDangerpants »

henry quirk wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 5:53 pm
That is a statement that the act of lying is morally neutral in itself.
No: generally, dishonesty is wrong. Dishonesty usually unjustly deprives someone of life, liberty, or property. But dishonesty (the assessment of it) is only worth a damn as it relates to a circumstance (an act and context).

Without an act and context -- one playin' out In RL, one you remember, or one you imagine -- honesty and dishonesty are meaningless.

Sayin' John is honest don't mean diddly shit if you have no example of John bein' honest or can't root honesty in a circumstance (an act and context).

Sayin' Stan is dishonest don't mean diddly shit if you have no example of Stan bein' dishonest or can't root dishonesty in a circumstance (an act and context).

Honesty is the best policy. Dishonesty is wrong. Why? Neither can be explained without referrin' to act and context.
So ... no lying isn't morally neutral, but it isn't a wrong of it's own, it's only wrong if it triggers some other thing that is wrong in and of itself.... this conversation is absurd.

I don't think you understand the concept of neutral or something. Or do you not get what "itself" means?
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henry quirk
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Re: moral relativism

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it's only wrong if it triggers some other thing that is wrong in and of itself
Nope. Not what I said.
this conversation is absurd
You got that, if nuthin' else, right.

'nuff said.
Last edited by henry quirk on Sat Jun 25, 2022 6:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: moral relativism

Post by FlashDangerpants »

henry quirk wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 6:09 pm
it's only wrong if it triggers some other thing that is wrong in and of itself
Nope. Not what I said.
this conversation is absurd
You got that, if nuthin' else, right.
You have a paradox now.

Lying is wrong only in context.
But you aren't saying that lying isn't wrong in its own right.
And you aren't saying that the wrongness of lying lies in anything other than itself.


The only thing you are able to make your mindd up about is that you aren't exactly saying things.
Belinda
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Re: moral relativism

Post by Belinda »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 6:14 pm
henry quirk wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 6:09 pm
it's only wrong if it triggers some other thing that is wrong in and of itself
Nope. Not what I said.
this conversation is absurd
You got that, if nuthin' else, right.
You have a paradox now.

Lying is wrong only in context.
But you aren't saying that lying isn't wrong in its own right.
And you aren't saying that the wrongness of lying lies in anything other than itself.




The only thing you are able to make your mindd up about is that you aren't exactly saying things.
Lying is wrong solely in the context of betraying trust between persons. Consider a white lie that the liar does for the good of another. There is a pay- off for white lies which is that the lie if found out will spoil trust. Mutual trust is the benefit of not telling lies.

Morality is social hygiene.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: moral relativism

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Belinda wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 11:00 am
FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 6:14 pm
henry quirk wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 6:09 pm

Nope. Not what I said.



You got that, if nuthin' else, right.
You have a paradox now.

Lying is wrong only in context.
But you aren't saying that lying isn't wrong in its own right.
And you aren't saying that the wrongness of lying lies in anything other than itself.




The only thing you are able to make your mindd up about is that you aren't exactly saying things.
Lying is wrong solely in the context of betraying trust between persons. Consider a white lie that the liar does for the good of another. There is a pay- off for white lies which is that the lie if found out will spoil trust. Mutual trust is the benefit of not telling lies.

Morality is social hygiene.
consider the followingg two sentences and you tell me if you can honestly say they make as much sense as each other...

Mary forgave Jediah for a small lie about where he got the money
Jerry forgave Tom for a small truth about where he was that day

It's a fucking given that you need additional justification for lies, and that you don't need the same for truths. There's an obvious reason for this! And it provokes an obvoious question....


Why am I being lectured by moral "realists" who are too shit to be able to explain even THAT lies are inherently wrong, let alone why??????
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henry quirk
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Re: moral relativism

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The caterwauling of a secret king...
Why am I being lectured by moral "realists" who are too shit to be able to explain even THAT lies are inherently wrong, let alone why??????
...properly sized in relation to his actual significance.

On to business...

Belinda,

If I tell the guy who breaks into my home and who holds a gun to my head no, there's no one else in the house when I know my kid is hunkered down under his bed on the other side of our home, most certainly, I've lied, but have I been immoral?

If I tell the guy who breaks into my home and who holds a gun to my head yes, there's someone else in the house, my kid is hunkered down under his bed on the other side of our home most certainly, I've been truthful, but have I been moral?
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: moral relativism

Post by FlashDangerpants »

henry quirk wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 2:31 pm The caterwauling of a secret king...
Why am I being lectured by moral "realists" who are too shit to be able to explain even THAT lies are inherently wrong, let alone why??????
...properly sized in relation to his actual significance.

On to business...

Belinda,

If I tell the guy who breaks into my home and who holds a gun to my head no, there's no one else in the house when I know my kid is hunkered down under his bed on the other side of our home, most certainly, I've lied, but have I been immoral?

If I tell the guy who breaks into my home and who holds a gun to my head yes, there's someone else in the house, my kid is hunkered down under his bed on the other side of our home most certainly, I've been truthful, but have I been moral?
Lying is wrong only in context.
But you aren't saying that lying isn't wrong in its own right.
And you aren't saying that the wrongness of lying lies in anything other than itself.

Taking property "without just cause" is wrong in and of itself according to you. Lying "without just cause" ought to be wrong too. That is why you have to put excuses for lying into the little parables you write.
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henry quirk
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Re: moral relativism

Post by henry quirk »

flash,
Taking property "without just cause" is wrong in and of itself according to you.
No. Without just cause/with just cause are references to act in context.

I shot Dan.

There's the act without context. You can't say the shooting was moral or immoral. You have no context.

The context (he was tryin' to stab me, or, I just wanted to watch him die) determines whether I've acted morally or immorally.

We're in retread mode here.

Unless you got sumthin' new (I sure don't) I'm done with you and I'll just wait, quietly, for B to respond.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: moral relativism

Post by FlashDangerpants »

henry quirk wrote: Mon Jun 20, 2022 2:18 am Cleaning out my drafts folder I found this...

-----
It's always your taproot -- philosophy of life -- isn't it?
Yep. It works for anyone and everyone who tries it. It's the ethic you claimed you were lookin' for.

Of course, it's clear you weren't lookin' for an ethic, but just an excuse.

Bubba, you're the sittin' at a crossroads a'fear'd to choose, resentful cuz other folks can and do.

I gave you an ethic and the factual undergirdin' for that ethic. It hobbles you in only one way: it asks that you recognize your life, liberty, and property are yours and the life, liberty, and property of the other guy are his and that neither of you have any claim on the other's life, liberty, and property.

Practically: it means don't murder, don't slave, don't rape, don't steal.

You reject it cuz such an ethic allows me to own a bazooka and doesn't allow Marty to kill her baby solely cuz he's inconvenient.

You refuse to examine the ethic or its undergirdin' (sumthin' I'm up for) preferrin' instead to analyze me (sumthin' I won't participate in).

The ethic and its undergirdin' are not me: there's no need to probe me to understand them.
-----

...apparently I had a notion for a post, but -- for whatever reason -- I didn't finish.
Perhaps you didn't post it because you do a bunch of name calling and then tell your victim to argue the case not the man. You might have had a moment of reflection and not hit submit.

The most obvious reason to not go with your theory is that it can only support judgement against that which can be reduced to a property crime, and thus it is neutral on anything that cannot. Lies, greed, and abuses of power are things that we normally consider bad without having to distort them into some property-damage effect first.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: moral relativism

Post by FlashDangerpants »

henry quirk wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 3:08 pm Unless you got sumthin' new (I sure don't) I'm done with you and I'll just wait, quietly, for B to respond.
I don't think you are going to get anything from Belinda. But I think it is only fair if I give you some time to reconsider and think on any next move.

So the problem you gave yourself for the future there was that you undermined the concept of inherent wrongness. In your own rationales you have relied on everyone knowing things, and nobody being able to doubt one certain thing. But everybody also knows that lies are bad and that should have the same argumentative weight (either lots or none) as your own appeals to everyone knowing stuff.

By insisting that context alone makes lies bad (when everybody does know lying is by default wrong) you put into question all the stuff you do want to say is inherently bad such as theft, misuse of others' property and so on. Those all have a context too.

So the next time I see you boasting about how afraid of your argument somebody else is, and how it has withstood all questions,and how robustly you have been defending it... How fearless you are in examining the undergirdings.... That's probably the next line of attack.

You can try to wriggle but that means you have to get angry and abandon thread again. Or you can deal with your real problem which is the cognitive dissonance of a moral realism where lying isn't one of the basic bads that everybody knows it is in real life.

You already had the intuition for one approach that might well work when you wrote "I've taken demonstrable wrong (as in what we have with murder, slavery, rape, and theft) and attempted to apply it to feelings which are subjective". And I wasn't setting a trap when I mentioned that moral realism only needs to hold that some moral assertions count as knowledge.

You've got yourself a grangrenous limb attached to your argument, keeping it attached is going to poison the whole rationale of your project. So you ought to think about cutting it off by assigning some moral discussions to the realm of opinion not fact.
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