What is Morality?

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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CHNOPS
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Re: What is Morality?

Post by CHNOPS »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Wed May 25, 2022 7:07 am
CHNOPS wrote: Wed May 25, 2022 1:57 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 4:35 am Morality is fundamentally about Good and Evil [bad is too limited].
Morality ultimately is more about actions than about knowledge.

In the context of Morality 'what is good' is 'what is not-evil'.

Evil is related to human acts that are net-negative to the well being of the individual[s] and therefrom to humanity and thus is a threat to the preservation of the human species.
I dont speak english, maybe the right world is Evil yes.

You can expand that notion of Good and Evil. Dont think too much like a living beeing....

If you dont expand that notion, then you have the humandking like is right now......

where people have differences about what is "well being".

If i say to you that hiting my wife make our family more "well being" because she do all the homeworks inmediatly, what do you say? Why this is not Good?

I'm a programmer, so, i understand everything in terms of 1 or 0.

You need to reach to that, in order to really understand what Good and Evil is.
What you are presenting is consequentialism which is not morality-proper.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/

Morality-proper is about being free, acting voluntarily and spontaneously.

In your above case, hitting your wife itself first has an impact on the well-being of your wife. As such you have not done the right thing morally due to your moral incompetence.

In morality proper, you will personally need to develop your moral competence to the level where you will naturally and spontaneously NEVER hit your wife or anyone.
If the family well being is threatened with your wife's inefficiencies, then you have to find ways to help her to improve her efficiency.
If it is her nature that is the best she can do, then you have to accept her for what she is. At the worst it is divorce and find a wife who can meet your expectations.

The problem at present is the majority of people are not morally competent and it will take [if we start now] 50, 100, 150 or more years before the average person is morally competent.
So in the meantime we have to bear with the present state or let the laws or God to deter evil acts.

My point is we need to understand what is morality-proper so that we can drive the morality engine [program] to achieve its intended purpose efficiently.

From the programming perspective, we have not defined the proper objective of what is morality, as such the programming will be a mess and leads no where.

We do A to reach B. Always.

When you say i have to accept my wife or leave her alone, you are saying that with a goal, a consecuense. The well being of my wife.

But I say that hiting her is for her well being too.

There, you can say "no, cience know a lot of the human body and know that hiting a person is not going to get more well being".

And that is rigth.

But then, i say, ok, i will not hit her, but i will not allow her to read anything so she cant learn anything knew.

¿Is knowledge Good or Evil?

Maybe there are studies of that, but supose to not.

Why learning is Good?


You can say "because is you learn how the bears lives, you can survive in the forest, for example".


You can always have an answer based on the surviving.


But why is that? what is surviving?


We want to be eternal....


We want to be God....


God is the goal of ours actions.


And that is more abstract that seeing the moral as humans beings surviving.


Before we are humans, we are molecules, atoms, interacting, trying to unifiy again....


When you understand this, is all simple, u just need to understand that God is, and then you can understand why something is Good or Evil.


For example, Why a symetric face is prettier?

Hmmmm.....


God is unity, order, so a symetric is the most close we can have to unity or complete order.


If God is the sum of all colors, is white, then White is better than Black.


Try to understand without making a prejuice, and ask whatever you want.
popeye1945
Posts: 2130
Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2021 2:12 am

Re: What is Morality?

Post by popeye1945 »

Veritas,

In the western tradition, people like Henry David Thoreau and Schopenhauer were avid fans of the eastern wisdom religion of Hinduism. As far as Schopenhauer is concerned he expressed this identifying one self with the self in others as a metaphysical realization, that just grabs one in the moment. He used the example of when one violates the prime directive of self-survival. At the moment of such sacrifice is the realization you and the other are one. This insight is I believe was taken directly from the Upanishads which he read every morning. There is no other logical reason one would react in such a way unless it was in itself a mindless reaction, and utter absence of self at the time of said reaction.
Veritas Aequitas
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Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 4:41 am

Re: What is Morality?

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

CHNOPS wrote: Wed May 25, 2022 7:43 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Wed May 25, 2022 7:07 am
CHNOPS wrote: Wed May 25, 2022 1:57 am

I dont speak english, maybe the right world is Evil yes.

You can expand that notion of Good and Evil. Dont think too much like a living beeing....

If you dont expand that notion, then you have the humandking like is right now......

where people have differences about what is "well being".

If i say to you that hiting my wife make our family more "well being" because she do all the homeworks inmediatly, what do you say? Why this is not Good?

I'm a programmer, so, i understand everything in terms of 1 or 0.

You need to reach to that, in order to really understand what Good and Evil is.
What you are presenting is consequentialism which is not morality-proper.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/

Morality-proper is about being free, acting voluntarily and spontaneously.

In your above case, hitting your wife itself first has an impact on the well-being of your wife. As such you have not done the right thing morally due to your moral incompetence.

In morality proper, you will personally need to develop your moral competence to the level where you will naturally and spontaneously NEVER hit your wife or anyone.
If the family well being is threatened with your wife's inefficiencies, then you have to find ways to help her to improve her efficiency.
If it is her nature that is the best she can do, then you have to accept her for what she is. At the worst it is divorce and find a wife who can meet your expectations.

The problem at present is the majority of people are not morally competent and it will take [if we start now] 50, 100, 150 or more years before the average person is morally competent.
So in the meantime we have to bear with the present state or let the laws or God to deter evil acts.

My point is we need to understand what is morality-proper so that we can drive the morality engine [program] to achieve its intended purpose efficiently.

From the programming perspective, we have not defined the proper objective of what is morality, as such the programming will be a mess and leads no where.
We do A to reach B. Always.

When you say i have to accept my wife or leave her alone, you are saying that with a goal, a consecuense. The well being of my wife.
But I say that hiting her is for her well being too.
If that is the case, she could hire someone stronger to hit or kill you, and that would be for her 'well being' of not being hit. Note this is common in real life where wives or the weaker were bullied and beaten and the subsequently escaped or kill their abusive partner. One example among the 000s.
  • Woman who stabbed husband said she had ‘taken so much abuse’, court hears
    link
This is why Morality-proper is so critical to prevent the above from happening at the root level.

The term well-being is very wide. In this case, we are referring to the fundamental well-being of an individual, i.e. human rights, freedom, etc.
There, you can say "no, cience know a lot of the human body and know that hiting a person is not going to get more well being".
And that is rigth.
But then, i say, ok, i will not hit her, but i will not allow her to read anything so she cant learn anything knew.
¿Is knowledge Good or Evil?
Maybe there are studies of that, but supose to not.
Why learning is Good?
You can say "because is you learn how the bears lives, you can survive in the forest, for example".
You can always have an answer based on the surviving.
But why is that? what is surviving?
We want to be eternal....
We want to be God....
God is the goal of ours actions.
And that is more abstract that seeing the moral as humans beings surviving.
Before we are humans, we are molecules, atoms, interacting, trying to unifiy again....
When you understand this, is all simple, u just need to understand that God is, and then you can understand why something is Good or Evil.
For example, Why a symetric face is prettier?
Hmmmm.....
God is unity, order, so a symetric is the most close we can have to unity or complete order.
If God is the sum of all colors, is white, then White is better than Black.
Try to understand without making a prejuice, and ask whatever you want.
The above is off tangent.

Re the OP, what is critical is for one and all to understand what is Morality-proper and from there, establish strategies that will improve on the moral competence of the majority in the future [not at present*].
* it is too late for the present, so we rely on laws and divine threats to deter evil acts but strive to improve moral competence for the future generations.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: What is Morality?

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

popeye1945 wrote: Thu May 26, 2022 4:54 am Veritas,

In the western tradition, people like Henry David Thoreau and Schopenhauer were avid fans of the eastern wisdom religion of Hinduism. As far as Schopenhauer is concerned he expressed this identifying one self with the self in others as a metaphysical realization, that just grabs one in the moment. He used the example of when one violates the prime directive of self-survival. At the moment of such sacrifice is the realization you and the other are one. This insight is I believe was taken directly from the Upanishads which he read every morning. There is no other logical reason one would react in such a way unless it was in itself a mindless reaction, and utter absence of self at the time of said reaction.
I understand when those of Hinduism and other spiritual practices achieve the higher spiritual states they will be in a way endowed naturally with the highest level of moral competence. Note Ahimsa,
  • Ahimsa (Sanskrit: अहिंसा, IAST: ahiṃsā, lit. 'nonviolence'[1]), less commonly spelled ahinsa, is an ancient Indian principle of nonviolence which applies to all living beings. It is a key virtue in the Dhārmic religions: Jainism, Buddhism, and Hinduism.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahimsa
At the higher spiritual states, this Ahimsa is no longer a teaching to be followed or complied with but rather the individuals will spontaneously express such a state naturally, i.e. it is "programmed" and embedded in their brain.

But the critical point with Hinduism is, its ultimate purpose is defined as 'the atman merging with Braham'. [are you familiar with this?]
And from this defined purpose it can veered toward asceticism and celibacy which contra the central purpose of morality proper, i.e. preservation of the species.
If asceticism and celibacy are made universal, in principle the human species will go extinct in time.

Thus what we need is to focus on Morality-proper universally, then consider spiritual practices such as Hinduism as having morality as its relevant side-product.

In contrast, whilst asceticism and celibacy are likely tendencies in spiritual practices, the Buddha did not condone asceticism and celibacy after practicing such himself and found them to be not effective in general.
popeye1945
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Re: What is Morality?

Post by popeye1945 »

I repeat as we seem to be getting a little off subject that the essence of morality is the identification of self with others and morality being basic to the feasiablity of the formation of societies. This can even be seen within the groups of other organisms as affected in their practices, thus creating realms of self-interest thus also exclusions creating us and others.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: What is Morality?

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

popeye1945 wrote: Thu May 26, 2022 6:07 am I repeat as we seem to be getting a little off subject that the essence of morality is the identification of self with others and morality being basic to the feasiablity of the formation of societies. This can even be seen within the groups of other organisms as affected in their practices, thus creating realms of self-interest thus also exclusions creating us and others.
The point is you bring in religion to confuse the issue with morality.

You could bring in the example of ants living in large colony where each individual is in alignment with the whole colony towards group preservation and therefrom the ant species.

As for the human species, each individual can align with humanity's basic goals re morality without the need for religion or spiritual practices.

At present [not future], I believe Christianity has the most OPTIMAL moral model [albeit pseudo] which is intuitive and based on threats of Hell. It is not efficient in the long run and future.

What is needed for all individuals to understand the moral potential within them and strive to develop and enable the moral potential [physical neural correlates of neuronal connections] to unfold expeditiously within them in a natural manner. Btw, this is only achievable in the future [next 50, 100, 150 or > years] if we are to start working on it now.
popeye1945
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Re: What is Morality?

Post by popeye1945 »

It is not a religious insight but a metaphysical insight. I do apologize if mentioning the Upanishads caused a tangent to occur but the essence of the insight does not exclude either, any source it might come from.
CHNOPS
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Re: What is Morality?

Post by CHNOPS »

The above is off tangent.
No.

Humankind have the problem we have because we cannot details the Good and the Evils.

I see only 1 and 0's

You still see humans, beings, etc.

The Good and Evil must be defined from the origin of the universe.
popeye1945
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Re: What is Morality?

Post by popeye1945 »

Morals are sensibilities.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: What is Morality?

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

popeye1945 wrote: Wed Jun 01, 2022 5:33 am Morals are sensibilities.
Sensibilities is related the senses and feelings, i.e. emotions etc.
Whilst morality do include sensibilities, feeling, emotions, etc. these latter elements are not exclusively related to morality.
Thus
Morals, sex, feelings [all sorts], emotions [all sorts], hunger, are sensibilities, i.e. reducible to the senses, sensation and sensibility.

The typical critical factors of morality and ethics are doing good, pleasure, consequences, [consequentialism] utilities [utilitarianism], rules [deontological], theistic morality, normative ethics, etc. One may include sensibilities and consciousness into the above, but these are not the critical variables.

Re OP what is relevant to Ethics and Morality is the following;
Ethics [morality as the pure aspect] as "a set of concepts, principles, methodology, strategies that guide humans in determining what behavior helps or harms humans to ensure the preservation of the species"

Do you have any counter to the above?
Re "humans' is implied they are conscious humans, thus no need to qualify 'conscious' in this case.
popeye1945
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Re: What is Morality?

Post by popeye1945 »

Veritas,

Your talking non-sense, morality is the sensitivities that arise when one identifies oneself with the self in others, thus the arising of compassion for a common self a common biology a common suffering, the foundation of community.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: What is Morality?

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

popeye1945 wrote: Wed Jun 01, 2022 6:19 am Veritas,
Your talking non-sense, morality is the sensitivities that arise when one identifies oneself with the self in others, thus the arising of compassion for a common self a common biology a common suffering, the foundation of community.
As I had stated, sensitivities are related to morality but not all sensitivities are related to morality.
As such one need to define 'what is morality' as in the OP precisely before bringing in sensitivities and consciousness.

Extreme [blind] compassion, altruism, empathy can be a hindrance to morality i.e. the net-good for humanity is some ways.
popeye1945
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Re: What is Morality?

Post by popeye1945 »

The sensitivities that matter to the arising of compassion and thus morality are recognizing the self in other creatures as having the capacity for suffering.
bobmax
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Re: What is Morality?

Post by bobmax »

To achieve awareness of what morality is, it is usually necessary to go to hell.

Hell is real, available here and now, it is a place of the soul.

There is no one who condemns me to hell, it is only me in perfect solitude who condemns me.
For the simple reason that it is right.

It is enough for me to reflect on my faults, on the evil I have committed. That evil is embedded in that instant that was, and I can no longer erase it: it is forever.
And no matter how bad it is, I deserve hell.

However, there are only two places where man is safe.
One is Heaven, the other is Hell.
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