Timeline for Why be moral and moral anti realism
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
13 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 3 at 23:26 | comment | added | Ted Wrigley | @mudskipper: Amoral means 'lacking moral valence'. It's different from immoral, which is 'morally bad'. Skipping a stone across a lake is an amoral act; no one pretends it has moral meaning at all. And with respect to monks and hermits… Most monks and hermits leave broad society to enter monastic communities which are more conducive to spiritual growth. The few who fully separate from all society do so explicitly to seek union with God, the divine, or the eternal. That transcends normal understandings of morality (which is a way-deep discussion we likely don't want to have here…). | |
| Jun 3 at 22:03 | comment | added | mudskipper | So monks, or at least hermits, would by definition be making an amoral choice when they cut ties with society -- either from society at large, or from all human society -- according to that first definition? And "amoral" meaning "bad in a moral sense"? | |
| Jun 3 at 20:13 | comment | added | Ted Wrigley | @mudskipper: If you define morality in terms of "others of my own species", then choosing to be (or not to be) V on a desert island is by definition an amoral act. Let's not play bait and switch here… If you exclude connection with a community of living beings and connection with an imputed God then you are reduced to saying that one becomes a V on a DI merely because one wants to. That's not a principle, moral or otherwise; that's a hedonistic choice. | |
| Jun 3 at 16:35 | comment | added | Ryan_L | @mudskipper First of all, how can the way morality works be moral or immoral? Something is immoral if it is against the rules. How could the rules themselves be immoral? I'm not saying you have to exclude non-humans, just that you're picking different axioms. What Ted is saying is that either morality excludes non-humans, and so only makes sense in a group setting, or it includes non-humans, and so still only makes sense in a group setting but includes non-humans in the group. | |
| Jun 3 at 16:08 | comment | added | mudskipper | The thought experiment with the deserted island, I think, shows that it's very easy to invoke moral principles without invoking interactions with others of my own species. Shouldn't a central principle of morality be to (as far as possible) not harm any sentient creature? It seems immoral to arbitrarily restrict this to humans. | |
| Jun 3 at 15:31 | comment | added | Ted Wrigley | @Stef: That would depend. If they went V because they don't like meat or seafood, that's hedonism. If they went V because they don't want to harm living beings, that's an implicit social agreement they've made with other living beings whom they now view as imbued with some equal rights. Or if they went V because they think eating meat offends God, that's an implicit social agreement with an imputed God. I don't know if it's impossible, but t's really hard to invoke moral principles without simultaneously invoking social interactions. | |
| Jun 3 at 8:54 | comment | added | Stef | If a person was living alone on a desert island, could they choose to be vegetarian? Would that not be a constraint of morality? | |
| Jun 3 at 5:33 | comment | added | Ted Wrigley | @causative:well, if that's how you want to see it, I can't stop you, but it doesn't seem that way to me. | |
| Jun 3 at 0:28 | comment | added | causative♦ | @TedWrigley The subject of morality is how to treat other people, as you say in your comment; of course, if there are no other people, there is little need for morality. But in your answer when you say it's "intersubjective" and we don't "choose" to be moral because it tickles our fancies, that's a second claim that goes beyond the subject of morality and towards the motivation for morality; i.e. that a person would not be moral simply because it appeals to their individual emotions. And that is pessimistic of human nature. A big reason people are moral is their individual emotions. | |
| Jun 3 at 0:03 | comment | added | Scott Rowe | @causative Or, when what is good for one person is good for basically everyone else too. This is vastly more important than the 'conflict' case. Let's be smart for a change! | |
| Jun 2 at 22:42 | comment | added | Ted Wrigley | @causative: That's not what I said. I said that humans have no use or reason for morality without other people. The concept of morality is meaningless except in community. Without other people, the only value system possible is hedonism: maximize happiness and minimize discomfort. we only run into moral concerns when what's good for one person conflicts with what's good for another. | |
| Jun 2 at 19:31 | comment | added | causative♦ | Seems a bit pessimistic of human nature, that people wouldn't be moral if it wasn't for other people making them do it. | |
| Jun 2 at 18:34 | history | answered | Ted Wrigley | CC BY-SA 4.0 |