The sandpit of cat turds that is "morality-proper"

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

Moderators: AMod, iMod

Post Reply
User avatar
FlashDangerpants
Posts: 6268
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2016 11:54 pm

The sandpit of cat turds that is "morality-proper"

Post by FlashDangerpants »

There will obviously be no end to the "morality-proper" nonsense we are going to be force fed with, so here's a generic response for all of them from now on. It happens to apply broadly to several posters who all make a similar form of mistake that can be summarised as throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Consider a small child who sits in a sandpit playing with cat turds. A kindly stranger walks up and asks him what he is doing. "This is the man" says the child pointing to the smaller of the turds, "and this is his house", he says, pointing to the larger one. The turd man then enters his turd house in a manner that we shall not describe, other than the noise of it, which goes "squish". "Perhaps you should stop playing with cat shit" suggests the kindly stranger. "You fat ugly fool" responds the disgusting child "if you were inside my sandpit you would realise this is not poop, this is a man-proper entering his house-proper, you're a big stupid head who doesn't understand my sandpit of fact because you lack understanding of the sandpit-proper". After a moment's thought the kindly stranger gets the hell outta there, because that's some fucked up nonsense. We should probably demote him, he walked away from a child covered in cat poo, that's not very kindly really. But none of my stories ever really has a hero, why start now? He is handsome though, perhaps debonair, so we will let him off.

"Why the exciting parable with the meandering ending?" you may ask. "I mean it's great, but it's not illuminative, you are a notorious bastard FlopDandiePoots". Well I am glad you asked. We have an infestation of utterly inadequate eliminatory moral thoeries that purport to supply a factual basis for morality, and I am getting bored of them all. If that was what they actually did (establish moral fact), these theories would be descriptive of morality - actual morality, the component of our lives that we think about frequently and discuss every day, usually without need for specialists in fields such as anthropology, neuroscience or anything at all involving the word "quantum". There is no adult you ever meet who is not capable of discussing morality with you in some pretty significant detail, and you have never met two people who hold exactly the same moral views as each other, not once, and you never will.

To provide a descriptive account of morality as it is actually practiced and understood, we must allow for all the uses that actual people use the thing for, and all the situations in which they do actually use it. This does include considering whether it is wrong, and morally so, to do the following things...

[1]place unwanted kittens in a sack and throw that sack in the river.
[2]steal the ring from a corpse's hand at a funeral, even if nobody notices.
[3]engage in an unfair transaction
(assuming it is possible for even a mutually beneficial transaction to be unfair, which is a subject of potential disagreement)
[4]abuse of power over people
[5]abuse of power over animals
[6]small lies
[7]massive lies
[8]having sex with your own dead grandma and then getting her dog to lick your genitals clean


... it at least makes sense to consider such things in a moral context and using moral vocabulary exactly as we already do. They fit easily and obviously within our normal everyday standard discussions of what it could mean for an action to be morally right or morally wrong. Especially the last one, which is so incredibly immoral that I can be judged unfavourably just for typing it!

Instead we are subjected to painfully artificial explanations that it is not immoral to do anything at all to an animal or a corpse, just some sort of madness. And why do we have to put up with this? Because somebody has some grand theory about moral fact, but sadly for them a large chunk of our actual moral vocabulary doesn't fit, so they want to eliminate it. This is not descriptive of morality, this is replacing morality with something smaller, meaner, and cheaper to produce. These are Genuine American Cheese theories: nasty, fake plasticky stuff that must have its relationship to the real thing constantly asserted for fear nobody would notice there was one otherwise.

In other words, they are prescriptive where the need is to be descriptive. They tell us what may be viewed through a moral lense, instead of asking what is actually seen. Failure is guaranteed for all such efforts, they have absurd conclusions such as that it is not immoral to drown kittens. not every one of these people is all that great with metaphor and stuff, so I may need to point out that the authors of those theories are not the kindly stranger, they are the child, sitting in their own special logical domain, insisting that their fake product is the real thing. Until they understand that you need a descriptive theory that relates in full to morality as a human practice that is actually in use rather than a fraudulent theoretical framework of unconvincing faux-knowledge that nobody can recognise, there they will sit, covering themselves in poo.

It doesn't help incidentally that their faux-knowledge always happens to tally exactly with their current moral opinions, as if an actual science just would just give your own intuitions back to you as fact. This obvious slice of fuckery also pisses me off.

Sure, we all know what it is that they are trying to do, and I'm sure we all agree it would be nice if morality and all that goes with it had simple answers that were $true, so that we could point at a truth in the matter and the person who was misbehaving could realise their error and all would be super-duper in the world... But insisting we all must replace the thing they cannot describe accurately, with the meagre alternative which they resist describing in any detail, is never going to work.
User avatar
henry quirk
Posts: 14706
Joined: Fri May 09, 2008 8:07 pm
Location: Right here, a little less busy.

as I reckon it...

Post by henry quirk »

place unwanted kittens in a sack and throw that sack in the river.

Inhumane, not immoral. The kittens aren't people, they're animals. If instead of tossin' 'em in the river, I quietly, humanely, put them down: am I actin' immorally? What if I take the now-deceased parrots, er kittens, skin 'em and barbecue 'em: immoral? If instead of kittens, I put down cows, cut up the carcasses and cook up the bits for dinner: am I actin' immorally?


steal the ring from a corpse's hand at a funeral, even if nobody notices.

A person wished to be interred with her possession. The person is gone but the wish, enacted by family, friends, executor, remains. It's stealin', it's immoral, don't do that.


engage in an unfair transaction (assuming it is possible for even a mutually beneficial transaction to be unfair, which is a subject of potential disagreement)

Cheat a man, you've wronged him. A person has been lied to for profit. Immoral.

The second part is no more tricky: the injured may choose to overlook the deceit (if he's actually profitin' despite the deceit), but an immoral act still happened.


abuse of power over people

Immoral.


abuse of power over animals

Depending on the abuse, there may be cruelty, but no immorality (and you know why).


small lies-massive lies

If the liar is profittin' offa another person by way of the lie: immoral. If he's lyin' to himself: kinda sad, but not immoral.


having sex with your own dead grandma and then getting her dog to lick your genitals clean

Ill (in a LARGE way), not immoral.
Veritas Aequitas
Posts: 12357
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 4:41 am

Re: The sandpit of cat turds that is "morality-proper"

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Mon Jul 06, 2020 10:55 pm Consider a small child who sits in a sandpit playing with cat turds. A kindly stranger walks up and asks him what he is doing. "This is the man" says the child pointing to the smaller of the turds, "and this is his house", he says, pointing to the larger one. The turd man then enters his turd house in a manner that we shall not describe, other than the noise of it, which goes "squish". "Perhaps you should stop playing with cat shit" suggests the kindly stranger. "You fat ugly fool" responds the disgusting child "if you were inside my sandpit you would realise this is not poop, this is a man-proper entering his house-proper, you're a big stupid head who doesn't understand my sandpit of fact because you lack understanding of the sandpit-proper". After a moment's thought the kindly stranger gets the hell outta there, because that's some fucked up nonsense. We should probably demote him, he walked away from a child covered in cat poo, that's not very kindly really. But none of my stories ever really has a hero, why start now? He is handsome though, perhaps debonair, so we will let him off.


To provide a descriptive account of morality as it is actually practiced and understood, we must allow for all the uses that actual people use the thing for, and all the situations in which they do actually use it. This does include considering whether it is wrong, and morally so, to do the following things...

[1]place unwanted kittens in a sack and throw that sack in the river.
[2]steal the ring from a corpse's hand at a funeral, even if nobody notices.
[3]engage in an unfair transaction
(assuming it is possible for even a mutually beneficial transaction to be unfair, which is a subject of potential disagreement)
[4]abuse of power over people
[5]abuse of power over animals
[6]small lies
[7]massive lies
[8]having sex with your own dead grandma and then getting her dog to lick your genitals clean

The above is reflective of what is in your subconscious mind thus has the potential to do the above acts because you don't have grounds as standards to judge the above are immoral.
Veritas Aequitas
Posts: 12357
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 4:41 am

Re: The sandpit of cat turds that is "morality-proper"

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Mon Jul 06, 2020 10:55 pm In other words, they are prescriptive where the need is to be descriptive. They tell us what may be viewed through a moral lense, instead of asking what is actually seen. Failure is guaranteed for all such efforts, they have absurd conclusions such as that it is not immoral to drown kittens.
Strawman as usual.

I have never asserted it is immoral to drown kittens.
I stated, morality is only confined to the human species except where there they are a positive interests to humans.
As for kittens, humans use cats as pets, so humans has a positive interest in cats, thus it would be immoral to drown kittens belonging to a person.

As for other living non-humans where there is no obvious interests to humans,
and since morality is confined only to the human species,
there is no question of 'immorality' in relation to living non-humans.
However there are other ways of extending kindness and consideration to living non-humans.

However, as humans are evolving their mirror neurons which are driving empathy and compassion are getting more active.
As such more and more people are being more compassionate to living non-humans which is very evident.

You are just whining like a cry-baby on the moral issues because you don't have any substance to counter the arguments proposed by others.
Veritas Aequitas
Posts: 12357
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 4:41 am

Re: The sandpit of cat turds that is "morality-proper"

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Mon Jul 06, 2020 10:55 pm Sure, we all know what it is that they are trying to do, and I'm sure we all agree it would be nice if morality and all that goes with it had simple answers that were $true, so that we could point at a truth in the matter and the person who was misbehaving could realise their error and all would be super-duper in the world... But insisting we all must replace the thing they cannot describe accurately, with the meagre alternative which they resist describing in any detail, is never going to work.
As I had stated you are very ignorant of what is morality-proper [differentiate from pseudo morality] due to your shallow and narrow knowledge base.

Morality-proper is not about pointing to someone that his act is morally wrong and punishing the person for that act. That is fire-fighting and too late.
Enforcing, pointing and punishments are also related to the legislature, policing and the judiciary which is politics.
Politics and religions are independent from morality-proper.

Morality-proper is about establishing an efficient Framework and System of Morality and Ethics where justified true moral facts are used a standards to GUIDE and steer individuals to higher progressive moral competence.

This is not about enforcement but finding effective strategies and methods to enable the individuals to voluntarily adopt fool proof self-development programs and practices to improve their own internal moral competence progressively towards higher levels.

In this case, the moral agent will act spontaneously where his actions will automatically align with the justified moral facts and the greater good. If mistakes are made, then the self-control system will automatically made the necessary corrections within his own self.

I have also stated, what I proposed is not for the present generation but will only be effective in the future since self-development takes time to be productive.

The fact is you are VERY ignorant and like your 'small child' above you are wallowing in a big pool of poo [shallow and narrow knowledge].
User avatar
FlashDangerpants
Posts: 6268
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2016 11:54 pm

Re: The sandpit of cat turds that is "morality-proper"

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue Jul 07, 2020 4:23 am
FlashDangerpants wrote: Mon Jul 06, 2020 10:55 pm In other words, they are prescriptive where the need is to be descriptive. They tell us what may be viewed through a moral lense, instead of asking what is actually seen. Failure is guaranteed for all such efforts, they have absurd conclusions such as that it is not immoral to drown kittens.
Strawman as usual.

I have never asserted it is immoral to drown kittens.
I stated, morality is only confined to the human species except where there they are a positive interests to humans.
As for kittens, humans use cats as pets, so humans has a positive interest in cats, thus it would be immoral to drown kittens belonging to a person.
That just proves my point, your conclusion is both absurd and achingly artificial, ranking a sack of little murder events as a property crime.
Atla
Posts: 6677
Joined: Fri Dec 15, 2017 8:27 am

Re: The sandpit of cat turds that is "morality-proper"

Post by Atla »

I for one would certainly nominate Veritas for Earth Presidency.
Once everyone on the planet, out of their own free will, has mandatorily adopted his visionary system of morality proper (which has all the answers to all the problems because it's factual), and everyone also underwent extensive brain modification in order to deal with nasty issues such as existential crises, things will get better.
Peter Holmes
Posts: 3732
Joined: Tue Jul 18, 2017 3:53 pm

Re: The sandpit of cat turds that is "morality-proper"

Post by Peter Holmes »

Atla wrote: Tue Jul 07, 2020 7:13 pm I for one would certainly nominate Veritas for Earth Presidency.
Once everyone on the planet, out of their own free will, has mandatorily adopted his visionary system of morality proper (which has all the answers to all the problems because it's factual), and everyone also underwent extensive brain modification in order to deal with nasty issues such as existential crises, things will get better.
Please. Show Some Respect. It's a Framework and System of Relatively Objective Morality-Proper as Justified by Empirical Evidences and Sound Philosophical Reasoning, but Only to be Used as a Guide.
uwot
Posts: 6093
Joined: Mon Jul 23, 2012 7:21 am

Just curious,

Post by uwot »

So what I'm wondering is whether the dog licked the genitals clean because they were coated with a familiar flavour. I'm asking on behalf of a friend. Obviously.
User avatar
FlashDangerpants
Posts: 6268
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2016 11:54 pm

Re: Just curious,

Post by FlashDangerpants »

uwot wrote: Tue Jul 07, 2020 8:32 pm So what I'm wondering is whether the dog licked the genitals clean because they were coated with a familiar flavour. I'm asking on behalf of a friend. Obviously.
Dogs do enjoy the mixed flavours of cheese and lube. Or at least that's what I heard. Erm. A friend told me.
Veritas Aequitas
Posts: 12357
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 4:41 am

Re: The sandpit of cat turds that is "morality-proper"

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Atla wrote: Tue Jul 07, 2020 7:13 pm I for one would certainly nominate Veritas for Earth Presidency.
Once everyone on the planet, out of their own free will, has mandatorily adopted his visionary system of morality proper (which has all the answers to all the problems because it's factual), and everyone also underwent extensive brain modification in order to deal with nasty issues such as existential crises, things will get better.
If you review the average humans since half a million years ago, the human brain has undergone extensive brain modifications, so it is not something very new or scary.
DNA evidence drawn from comparisons of different human genomes, as well as those of close cousins like Neanderthals and Denisovans, put the split between the three groups at at least 400,000 years ago. So it’s possible that H. sapiens is over half a million years old.
https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet ... rst-appear
The moral function of the human brain is johnny-come-lately and had only been recently active and unfolding in the average human brain/mind relative to human evolution.
Note the contrast on how the average human has changed their moral attitude to chattel slavery, wars, and other evils since 50,000 years ago or know history to now.

Thus our task is to zoom into the details of this inherent moral function and understand its mechanism so that we can expedite its competence and efficiency via fool proof methods and practices.

I am optimistic of what I proposed because this project, i.e. https://www.genome.gov/human-genome-project is already progressing and advancing together with other knowledge and technologies.
User avatar
FlashDangerpants
Posts: 6268
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2016 11:54 pm

Re: The sandpit of cat turds that is "morality-proper"

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Lol, that's a religious argument. "It's good because it's the command of DNA."
User avatar
Arising_uk
Posts: 12314
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2007 2:31 am

Re: The sandpit of cat turds that is "morality-proper"

Post by Arising_uk »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: I am optimistic of what I proposed because this project, i.e. https://www.genome.gov/human-genome-project is already progressing and advancing together with other knowledge and technologies.
Interesting example there as the guy who funded the first sequence of the HG did a sneaky thing and went and popped his in as the base so that pretty much all future medical advances based upon that sequence will apply to him. Don't think he was supposed to do this so ignoring that it was smart was he moral or immoral?
Post Reply