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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Belinda
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Re: moral relativism

Post by Belinda »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 11:07 am
Belinda wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 11:00 am
FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 6:14 pm
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??????
The nature of forgiveness is the key to the correct answer. In human relationships there's a difference between cognitive and affective forgiveness. In human relationships the more you understand the more you can forgive and that applies to your both intelligence and your feelings.
Therefore both Mary and Jerry can more easily forgive the more they understand the intentions of Jediah and Tom.

According to the Intentions Theory of Forgiveness, some lies are easier to forgive than some truths and vice versa. Lies always require extra justification because one lie undermines trust until an explanation is accepted by the person lied to, and some people will never understand.

In the special case of social control e.g. politicians and policemen honesty is best in all cases because all societies are founded on a default of mutual trust.

A Poison Tree
BY WILLIAM BLAKE
I was angry with my friend;
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I waterd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.
And it grew both day and night.
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.

And into my garden stole,
When the night had veild the pole;
In the morning glad I see;
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
Edited:
I have to change my mind about "politicians and policemen should never lie". Sometimes the greater good justifies lies, for instance to an enemy during a just war or to a dangerous criminal or suspect during detection or arrest.On the same note we can all easily forgive a vulnerable innocent who is escaping the control of an aggressor. So the question of lies boils down to what is the greater good. William Blake had an agenda which was to free people from control by what we now call market forces who were enslaving people by lying to them that the status quo was inevitable, good even!
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: moral relativism

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Belinda wrote: Tue Jun 28, 2022 11:21 am
FlashDangerpants wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 11:07 am 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??????
The nature of forgiveness is the key to the correct answer. In human relationships there's a difference between cognitive and affective forgiveness. In human relationships the more you understand the more you can forgive and that applies to your both intelligence and your feelings.
Therefore both Mary and Jerry can more easily forgive the more they understand the intentions of Jediah and Tom.
Oh my FUCKING God.
One of them was about forgiving people for telling lies, which is something that we have to do on occasion.
the other was about forgiving people for telling THE TRUTH --- an activity which makes very little sense.
1) Lies ..... are they naughty??????
2) Lies ..... WHY are they naughty??????




this fucking forum
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henry quirk
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Re: moral relativism

Post by henry quirk »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Tue Jun 28, 2022 1:05 pm 1) Lies ..... are they naughty??????
2) Lies ..... WHY are they naughty??????
Please, answer your own questions.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: moral relativism

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Yes, lying is naughty.
Because you shouldn't lie unless there is a good reason.
The act of telling an untruth is bad.

This shit isn't that hard if you haven't tied your hands behind your own back with a Theory of Moral Everything that doesn't explain stuff it ought to.
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henry quirk
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Re: moral relativism

Post by henry quirk »

you shouldn't lie unless there is a good reason.
Why?
The act of telling an untruth is bad.
Why?
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: moral relativism

Post by FlashDangerpants »

henry quirk wrote: Tue Jun 28, 2022 1:57 pm
you shouldn't lie unless there is a good reason.
Why?
The act of telling an untruth is bad.
Why?
Custom, agreement, it's the way our moral understanding works. That's the best you can get given the subject matter.

Are you again failing to understand that I am not a moral realist? Do you still not understand how this works?
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henry quirk
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Re: moral relativism

Post by henry quirk »

Custom, agreement
But why would folks agree lyin' is wrong?

What undergirds the consensus?

Just becuz, or becuz lyin' generally is an attempt to unjustly deprive someone of, or unjustly impose on someone's, life, liberty, or property?
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: moral relativism

Post by FlashDangerpants »

henry quirk wrote: Tue Jun 28, 2022 3:16 pm
Custom, agreement
But why would folks agree lyin' is wrong?

What undergirds the consensus?

Just becuz, or becuz lyin' generally is an attempt to unjustly deprive someone of, or unjustly impose on someone's, life, liberty, or property?
You already tried that reduction and it was a reduction to absurdity. Lies that have nothing to do with property are also wrong.

Folks DO agree that lying and stealing are both wrong, nobody would agree that lying is only wrong because of stealing.
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henry quirk
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Re: moral relativism

Post by henry quirk »

As I reviewed the back & forth, I found another error on my part.

Throughout I've been treatin' lying and conveying inaccurate information synonymously.

Lying is an unjust conveying of inaccurate information; it is not simply conveying inaccurate information.

Lying is the assessment we render after examining an act (conveying inaccurate information) in context (the reason inaccurate information was conveyed).

I wouldn't, for example, say the morality of a murder depends on the context of the murder. Murder, by definition, is an unjust killing. We apply murderer/murdering/murder to a killing we've assessed and found unjust.

The same applies to lying. I can't say the morality of lying depends on the context of the lying. Lying, by definition, is an unjust conveying of inaccurate information. We apply liar/lying/lie to a conveying of inaccurate information we've assessed and found unjust.

So, yes, you're right: people think lyin' is wrong and with good reason.

Once again you've helped me refine my thinkin'.

👍

So, instead of saying...
henry quirk wrote: Mon Jun 20, 2022 2:18 am
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.
...I should've said...
henry quirk wrote: Mon Jun 20, 2022 2:18 am
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, and don't lie.

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.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: moral relativism

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henry quirk wrote: Tue Jun 28, 2022 7:33 pm As I reviewed the back & forth, I found another error on my part.

Throughout I've been treatin' lying and conveying inaccurate information synonymously.

Lying is an unjust conveying of inaccurate information; it is not simply conveying inaccurate information.

Lying is the assessment we render after examining an act (conveying inaccurate information) in context (the reason inaccurate information was conveyed).

I wouldn't, for example, say the morality of a murder depends on the context of the murder. Murder, by definition, is an unjust killing. We apply murder to a killing we've assessed and found unjust.

The same applies to lying. I can't say the morality of lying depends on the context of the lying. Lying, by definition, is an unjust conveying of inaccurate information. We apply liar/lying/lie to a conveying of inaccurate information we've assessed and found unjust.

So, yes, you're right: people think lyin' is wrong and with good reason.

Once again you've helped me refine my thinkin'.

👍
You got a couple of new problems there.

The first one is that you are feeding everyone a bowl of shit if you think you can just casually seperate the telling of untruths and the telling of lies like that. To make the choice to tell a non-truth is to choose to lie. Lying is therefore definitely an action a person can perform in real time, and trying to rework it as something that only becomes a thing after the fact when some evalution is performed just doesn't pass the smell test at all.

Much more important than that though .... lying being wrong by definition is fine for me. But you have claimed all moral things derive from property rights, so you still have to show how THAT works, especially in cases where the lie does not affect property.
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henry quirk
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Re: moral relativism

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you are feeding everyone a bowl of shit if you think you can just casually seperate the telling of untruths and the telling of lies like that.
Oh, for you and me, after the fact, it's no more easy to distinguish another's unjust conveying of inaccurate information from his just conveying of inaccurate information than it is to distinguish another's just takin' of life from his unjust takin' of life. Even in the moment the conveyer of inaccurate information, like the taker of a life, may not cleanly know or believe he's actin' justly or unjustly. There's nuthin' casual about any of it.
To make the choice to tell a non-truth is to choose to lie.
Now who's servin' up a bowl of warm crap? Choosin' to convey inaccurate information may be a choice to lie but it isn't a given.
Lying is therefore definitely an action a person can perform in real time
Like murder or rape or abuse or slaving or theft, yes.
and trying to rework it as something that only becomes a thing after the fact when some evalution is performed just doesn't pass the smell test at all.
I'm not reworkin' anything and I'm not sayin' that.

Joe kills Stan. In the moment, and quite apart from us, Joe killed with or without just cause. The justness or unjustness of the killing is established then and there. We, however, can't know whether Joe acted justly/unjustly without evaluatin' after the fact.
But you have claimed all moral things derive from property rights so you still have to show how THAT works, especially in cases where the lie does not affect property.
A man's life (existence and being), liberty (capacity to choose and act), and property (his rightful possessions) are his and his alone.

If you, without just cause, deprive him, in part or whole, of his life, liberty, or property you've taken that which is not yours and are immoral.

So: what is just cause? When is deprivin' him of life, liberty, or property (killing him, takin' an item or resource from him, injurin' or immobilizin' or confining him, conveyin' inaccurate information to him, etc.), just? When done in defense of one's life, liberty, property or in defense of another's life, liberty, or property.

To do these things without just cause is to do them for a reason other than the defense of one's or another's life, liberty, or property.

Rape and slavery have no just versions. It's never just to force sex on someone or to use him as property (in a very real way the two -- rape and slavery -- are nearly synonymous).
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: moral relativism

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henry quirk wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 3:13 am
you are feeding everyone a bowl of shit if you think you can just casually seperate the telling of untruths and the telling of lies like that.
Oh, for you and me, after the fact, it's no more easy to distinguish another's unjust conveying of inaccurate information from his just conveying of inaccurate information than it is to distinguish another's just takin' of life from his unjust takin' of life. Even in the moment the conveyer of inaccurate information, like the taker of a life, may not cleanly know or believe he's actin' justly or unjustly. There's nuthin' casual about any of it.
To make the choice to tell a non-truth is to choose to lie.
Now who's servin' up a bowl of warm crap? Choosin' to convey inaccurate information may be a choice to lie but it isn't a given.
Lying is therefore definitely an action a person can perform in real time
Like murder or rape or abuse or slaving or theft, yes.
and trying to rework it as something that only becomes a thing after the fact when some evalution is performed just doesn't pass the smell test at all.
I'm not reworkin' anything and I'm not sayin' that.

Joe kills Stan. In the moment, and quite apart from us, Joe killed with or without just cause. The justness or unjustness of the killing is established then and there. We, however, can't know whether Joe acted justly/unjustly without evaluatin' after the fact.
Oooooooookay then. Politicians who say "that wasn't a lie I was being economical with the truth" aren't liars now. Or maybe they are, what makes it a lie is now really impossible to tell.

Lying is the bad sort of deliberate telling of untruths, and some indeterminate set of other types of telling of deliberate untruth may or may not exist. What makes it bad is unknowable.

And we no longer need the concept of the greater good that excuses some bad act, because if there is a greater good then there was no bad act in the first place. This is just silly.
henry quirk wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 3:13 am
But you have claimed all moral things derive from property rights so you still have to show how THAT works, especially in cases where the lie does not affect property.
A man's life (existence and being), liberty (capacity to choose and act), and property (his rightful possessions) are his and his alone.

If you, without just cause, deprive him, in part or whole, of his life, liberty, or property you've taken that which is not yours and are immoral.

So: what is just cause? When is deprivin' him of life, liberty, or property (killing him, takin' an item or resource from him, injurin' or immobilizin' or confining him, conveyin' inaccurate information to him, etc.), just? When done in defense of one's life, liberty, property or in defense of another's life, liberty, or property.

To do these things without just cause is to do them for a reason other than the defense of one's or another's life, liberty, or property.

Rape and slavery have no just versions. It's never just to force sex on someone or to use him as property (in a very real way the two -- rape and slavery -- are nearly synonymous).
That's not the answer to the question in the quote. I doesn't even look like it began as an attempt?
You were asked how the wrongness of a lie can be derived from property rights if no property is affected?

In the past it I did raise the question of what is the actual real principle that lies beneath the property-of-self one... the one that determines whether a taking of things is just or unjust. That's a subject for soe other thread I would have thought.
Belinda
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Re: moral relativism

Post by Belinda »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Tue Jun 28, 2022 1:47 pm Yes, lying is naughty.
Because you shouldn't lie unless there is a good reason.
The act of telling an untruth is bad.

This shit isn't that hard if you haven't tied your hands behind your own back with a Theory of Moral Everything that doesn't explain stuff it ought to.
There a lot more you should not do without good reason.

Telling a lie is bad for you , but so are life and living bad for you, will eventually be the death of you, and involve considered risks and your energy.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: moral relativism

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Belinda wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 11:04 am
FlashDangerpants wrote: Tue Jun 28, 2022 1:47 pm Yes, lying is naughty.
Because you shouldn't lie unless there is a good reason.
The act of telling an untruth is bad.

This shit isn't that hard if you haven't tied your hands behind your own back with a Theory of Moral Everything that doesn't explain stuff it ought to.
There a lot more you should not do without good reason.

Telling a lie is bad for you , but so are life and living bad for you, will eventually be the death of you, and involve considered risks and your energy.
You've slipped over into hypothetical imperatives. We're talking about moral right and wrong, not that which is a sensible choice in pursuit of some desire.
Belinda
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Re: moral relativism

Post by Belinda »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 11:10 am
Belinda wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 11:04 am
FlashDangerpants wrote: Tue Jun 28, 2022 1:47 pm Yes, lying is naughty.
Because you shouldn't lie unless there is a good reason.
The act of telling an untruth is bad.

This shit isn't that hard if you haven't tied your hands behind your own back with a Theory of Moral Everything that doesn't explain stuff it ought to.
There a lot more you should not do without good reason.

Telling a lie is bad for you , but so are life and living bad for you, will eventually be the death of you, and involve considered risks and your energy.
You've slipped over into hypothetical imperatives. We're talking about moral right and wrong, not that which is a sensible choice in pursuit of some desire.
Desires depend on being alive therefore staying alive is more important than desires.Moral right and wrong depend on which choice more probably allows you to stay alive.

It's at this juncture we have the big change in ethics. Universalizability was not always applied to ethics. The advent of universalizability is traceable to ideas such as Christianity. Universalizability applies to "lying is always wrong" , but there is another comparatively new idea, that what you do is right or wrong according to your intention. So telling a lie is right or wrong according to the intention of the liar. If your intention is to benefit others then telling the lie was becoming more good and less bad; this ethic may be null and void by virtue of universalizability, as in the case of Hitler's Nazism, for one example, so Hitler's lie was morally a bad lie.

There is a further general ethic which is usually said to date from the Renaissance or the scientific enlightenment. That is the ethic of reason. Hitler's Nazism, for one example, did not meet that condition so Hitler's Nazism fails to meet the condition of reason.

You can apply the same conditions to other moral claims involving such as abortion or the right to own a gun .

'Lying is wrong' is conditional.
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