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| Morality | |
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| Topic Started: Jan 1 2008, 02:25 PM (938 Views) | |
| +Reaver | Nov 16 2008, 10:02 AM Post #31 |
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Troll
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Unless you have some facts to counter the study I put out, my only response is (seriously) "cool story bro". Allow me to cite another source: "All things being equal, existing research suggests that a well-functioning nuclear family with two caring parents may be a better environment for children's growth and development than a divorced single-parent family. Children of divorce, as a group, are at greater risk than children from intact families, as a group, for many psychological, academic, and social problems. And adults raised in divorced single-parent families, as a group, do not achieve the same level of psychological and material well-being as those raised in continuously intact two-parent families. However, we need to keep in mind that many children are better off living in single-parent households than in two-parent families marked by conflict. Furthermore, we need to recognize that most single parents work hard to provide their children with a loving and structured family life. Many single-parent families function well, and most children raised in these settings develop into well-adjusted adults. Blaming single parents as a group for the problems experienced by children of divorce is a pointless exercise." (Source) I want to point out something: a single parent family is not the same as a divorced single parent family. Thus, more proof supporting that the environment is much more important than the parents and parenting strcuture. I thought I was dealing with the exceptions though, so I suppose a study or two won't cover my bases. Disagreed with the wedlock, STD research, dicorce rate, and drug problems. Wedlock and Divorce stem from the "traditional" idea of marriage, which I strongly disagree with for the inherent bigotry present in the current definition (man and woman lol) as well as the implication by both sides that the only way to foster a supportive environment is to get married and go through with the dresses and tuxedos and whatnot. With the increase in cohabitating couples, it's no surprise more children are being born into wedlock because the definition hasn't changed to reflect the new social phenomena. As for STD Research, any and all feasible attempts at preserving public health in my book are A-OK. As for drug research, you've made a contradiction in your case. Unless you associate the overall decline in drug use with immorality, I suppose you only added that in there to make your case seem more "obvious" or whatever. (Source). As for the rest of your argument regarding religious morals, I think some religious morals are rooted in primitive social custom and scientific discovery. The first dietary laws in the Old Testament were to protect the public health of societies, seeing as pork tends to be full of disease explaining why you can't get pork rare at any restaurant. This also goes out to explain why most ancient societies quenched society's thirst with beer and wine, as the alcohol present in the drink killed bacterium making beer safe to drink. Some foods are less disease prone than others. Otherwise, I can point to a plethora of nonsense laws derived from religion through the power of The Brick Testament: Laws regarding ejaculation, sex, and menstruation Rape (Excluding Rape in the Country) Stoning your Children When to Marry your Sister-in-Law When to stone your Entire Family Racial Tolerance Fashion (Hair) Men who lose their Genitals Wacky Miscellaneous Laws I'm not sure these laws are the cornerstone of moral society... Edited by Reaver, Nov 16 2008, 10:04 AM.
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| dashdancedan | Nov 17 2008, 01:51 PM Post #32 |
 
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II Kings 2:23-24 And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them. Lol Bible. |
 
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| Yzarc | Nov 17 2008, 07:24 PM Post #33 |
Coxian
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What? So it's better to have a system set in stone, even if it's a bullshit, archaic, arbitrary and other words with negative connotations system? The western world used to have a system like that, big guy. And it sucked ass. Morality is a made up thing by leaders of various societies and, in early days, religion (since the two went hand in hand, mostly due to lack of understanding of the world and universe) to keep the masses in place and maintain the status quo. The leaders liked the status quo, because they were in power, and the world revolves around power. From race to gender to class to every single relationship you have, there is an issue of power. Because of this, the so-called decline of morality is no big issue to me. I don't think it's that today's people don't have any morals that cause our social problems. On the contrary, social problems today are not nearly as bad as they were a hundred years ago. I think the main thing that causes social problems is the perpetuation of power stratification by those in power. |
  
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| Conan O'Brien | Nov 19 2008, 02:52 PM Post #34 |
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SKILLNADEN ÄR DRINKABILITY
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Mistranslation. The original Hebrew uses the word for youths, usually understood to mean teenagers. If the bears killed 42 of them, there had to be much more. Not to mention you left out their taunt, "Go up, thou bald head." They were telling to go to Heaven. It was little less than a death threat from a band of teenagers.
That's all nice, but my beef wasn't children being born out of wedlock, I specifically mentioned blacks for a reason. Out-of-wedlock children in other countries and among rich whites often still have the father present, they just aren't married. But there is a specific problem within inner city black communities with father abandonment. Obama himself addressed it in his Father's Day address.
ANY feasible attempts? That's a bold statement. In any case, if it hadn't been for the Sexual Revolution, we wouldn't need STD research, because it's only now that it's become a serious problem. Has there been a decline in drug recently? That's good. But I was talking about big picture. How many people were doing heroin and marijuana in the 40's? Not many. Drug use in America was fueled almost entirely by the rebellious 6o's, even with full knowledge of the risks. The pork argument is a tad anachronistic. It wasn't until Pasteur that we knew about microbes causing illness. Illness was thought to be caused by demons and curses, and after Galen, an imbalance in the body's humors. In fact, I don't think raw food was seen as dangerous. I'm pretty sure they only cooked food because it tasted better and, in the cases of Jews, dietary laws demanded such. In any cases, I'd say it's all rather moot anyways. As for the seemingly horrific Biblical law, I wouldn't worry about it. First of all, the laws served a definite purpose. At the time they were written, the Israelites were surrounded by pagan tribes that combined worship of their deities with ritualistic orgies and feasts. In other words, it was very alluring. If extremely strict laws weren't put in place, they'd influence Judaism, if not defeat it entirely. From a secular perspective, it was necessary for the survival of their heritage and customs. It'd be no different from declaring English the national language. From religious perspective, God says so. 
Honestly? Yeah. I'd rather have fascism than anarchy, if it came down to it. I think the Muslim world is stage to some of the worst atrocities in the world. It was an extreme example, I know that, and it would never work here. But if the war in Iraq proved anything, it was that Sadaam Hussein's totalitarian regime kept order more than an Iraqi democracy.
Proof maybe? Other than random postulating? I can do it too. Moral relativism was something made up by selfish philosophers who wanted nothing more than to excuse their seemingly immoral acts. Want to murder 11 million Jews or 30 million kulaks? Nothing wrong with that under moral relativism! Want anonymous sex and cocaine every week to fill the emptiness in your life? That's A-okay. After all, morals were just made up by "the Man".
... please don't tell me you're a Marxist. Most of society's problems I would actually pin on the lower segments of society. Generally speaking, it's not the CEO's who are raping and murdering. Frankly, I think it's the victim mentality that's driving society's problems, more so than any actual victimization by the powerful. I think they just make convenient targets. |
~~Wind Sword
Touching. Scientology
Smartest post ever made. | |
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| Yzarc | Nov 19 2008, 03:23 PM Post #35 |
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Coxian
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But we're not comparing fascism to anarchy. You're saying you'd rather have fascism than an inconsistent government, which is far from anarchy. Our nation has a constantly changing and progressive view on morality, so it only makes sense that our laws change with it. If you want to argue that morality doesn't change, go ahead. I'll bring up slavery, witch burnings, the crusades.
You want me to prove how people thought thousands of years ago? Sorry, you got me there. But I can tell you that it really doesn't make sense for morality to exist before or beyond humanity. That's why you have different morals depending on geography and culture - Because morality is not consistent. If morality was not a social construct, and it was just universal, then the world would be perfect, because every culture and society would have the exact same view of morality.
I'm not. But I'm certainly not in favor of unregulated capitalism.
Of course you can blame the lower class for all the problems. They're the ones doing it of course! And the CEOs don't rape and murder, so they're beacons of morality. And black people mostly only kill black people, so they need to shape up, but it's not our problem. Yes, the lower class do commit the more "heinous" crimes, but do you wonder why? Is it because they're bad people or is it because they're lower class? Well, I think everyone agrees that it is because they're lower class, but I think you're trying to argue is that they're in the lower class because they're bad people, and that CEOs are very good people, and that we're in a perfect meritocracy. That's generally untrue. Most people in the lower class are in the lower class because their parents were. And most people in the upper class are there because their parents were. Social and economic mobility, as I've discussed in a different topic, is very very low. |
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| +Reaver | Nov 19 2008, 07:24 PM Post #36 |
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Troll
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There's also a specific problem with murder in the African American community between African American males. Implicit connection? I think so. Fathers aren't making the conscious choice to abandon their children and homicide rates have been dropping. The problem faced by the African American community is not one of irresponsibility but a continuation of the problems rooted in violence between African American males. Human interaction also encourages the spread of disease, does that suddenly make human interaction immoral? The big picture? "In 2002 and 2003, an estimated 1.7 million Americans (less than 1 percent of persons aged 12 or older) had used heroin at least once in their lifetime and had also used oxycodone nonmedically at least once in their lifetime. Among persons aged 12 or older, an estimated 1.9 million (0.8 percent) had used heroin at least once in their lifetime, but had never used oxycodone nonmedically. An estimated 11.0 million (4.6 percent) had used oxycodone nonmedically at least once in their lifetime, but had never used heroin." (Source) You mean how less than 2% of our society has used heroin? That's one of the growing factors of the immorality in American society? People cooked raw food because it didn't make them sick after it was cooked. Surprisingly enough that's most likely why people didn't ingest Hemlock (unless you're Socrates): obviously it's the same process going through. And it doesn't change the process even if they believe demons are the root of disease and sickness: you cook the meat to get rid of the demons inside, even if you're not thinking about killing microbes which cause disease. So then people can define the word of God? The situation merits two logical responses: the word of God is temporal (as I doubt you'd deny the inanity of some of the given laws) or the word of God is not the word of God (as people can adjust God's words to fit their times). The concept of God implies that he is omniscient and never wrong, so why would he make laws that people - Christians even - don't obey or agree with anymore? |
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| Conan O'Brien | Nov 20 2008, 12:16 AM Post #37 |
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SKILLNADEN ÄR DRINKABILITY
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Morality doesn't change. No one argues that slavery and witch burnings were once moral, only they just thought they were moral actions. That isn't changing morality. In fact, the reasons that those things stopped taking place is because we slowly realized they were immoral. We didn't decide one day, "From now on witch burnings are immoral." We gradually said, "Witch burnings, including those of the past, are wrong." To put it this way, if objective morality is true, than morals are facts. If someone had said in 1600 "Flies are born from meat", he wouldn't be right, even though that's a societal norm. Likewise, if someone had said "Slavery is good", and we believe in moral objectivity, he's just wrong. I wouldn't discount modern-day morality because of past miscalculations. To due so, you'd have to discount math, science, geography, well just about everything.
I half-agree that morality didn't exist before mankind. I think it did exist, but it just needed mankind to conceive of it. It can be compared to math. It's a universal truth that underpins the universe, but only thinking, rational beings can actually put it to words. Do different societies disagree on morality? Sure. But to put it bluntly, some are right, some are wrong. Even then, there are always points of convergence. Every society says that murder and thievery are bad. But more importantly, people realize that stuff like hate and heartlessness are bad, but love and care is good. I believe we have an innate understanding. Even when we debate morality, it's it these terms. For abortion, for example, everyone agrees "Murder is wrong" and "Denying a universal right is wrong". No one is for abortion because they like murder or anti-abortion because they enjoying denying women rights(despite what you might hear). It's in the details we disagree; is a fetus a person, is abortion a right, etc.
No, CEO's don't rape and murder. Yes, they're still immoral. I pray your being sarcastic when you say blacks killing blacks isn't our problem. There's always a correlation between crime and poverty, but I'd never go as far as calling it a cause. There are several examples of the opposite. Off the top of my head, I know crime actually went down during the Depression. During the Depression, the San Francisco Chinese lived in some of the worst living conditions in the history of our country and in extreme poverty, but had the lowest crime rate of all the ethnic groups in the city. The difference? People in the 30's and Asians even today had much higher beliefs in hard work, common decency, that kind of thing. The Chinese and Japanese especially have extremely high notions of community, honor, and discipline. A lot of people starved rather than take handouts. STARVED for God's sake. Nowadays we have people complaining because minimum wage isn't high enough. Poverty is an easy answer. I don't think it's the best one. Posts are getting huge, so I'll skip some claims.
I'd say the connection is the other way. No father. Psych damage, Kid grows up to be a murderer. Sad, but it happens. According to Wikipedia, 27 per 1,000 blacks were victims of violent crime. Not nearly enough to account for the staggering numbers. I'd say a lot of black men are definitely making the choice to abandon their children, as awful as it sounds. Low drug rates. Good. But my understanding was that heroin wasn't exactly recreational drug of choice. Marijuana and meth are bound to be higher. In any case, one of fifty people has done heroin? That's still decently high in my book. Cooked food I'm just going to drop. Let it suffice to say that even when it comes to your diet, kosher is good.
I didn't say people decided that Word of God. I meant that God, or the Israelites for secularists, put down seemingly arbitrary rules simply to set themselves apart from pagans around them. Did the rules change? Yes. But if God set down the rules with the full intention that he'd relax them later with my man JC. It reminds me of the time he told Abraham to kill Isaac. Obviously he never intended to go through with it, so he couldn't be called a waffler. Probably last post. I just got Pokemon Emerald, and I already need a twelve step program. |
~~Wind Sword
Touching. Scientology
Smartest post ever made. | |
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| Soja | Nov 20 2008, 03:29 AM Post #38 |
Gentle Water, Crashing Waves
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Uh. I'm just going to go ahead here and disagree -- hugely -- with the notion that people commit crimes just because or mostly because they're in the lower class. You can say that, but you'd be discounting individuality. You'd also be wrong. While poverty does affect people's tendency to commit crimes such as theft in the name of survival, I doubt it has as strong an influence on rape and murder. Same for paternal abandonment. It's not a conscious choice? Bullshit. It's always a conscious choice. When someone does something, they very well know what they are doing. Whether or not they actually care is the question. You can say blah, blah, the social environment, blah, blah, societal influences, but nothing forces someone to commit a crime. That's why you have white-collar crime, violent crime, fraud, etc. All types of people commit all types of crime. Rich people rape and murder, too. Impoverished people abide by the law, too. It's because they want to, more often than not. Circumstances are very rarely an influence on people with any moral fiber. If people are in the lower class, it's usually because they did something to end up there. Then you have cases where people are just screwed; that does honestly happen. For my case, I don't plan on being lower tax bracket forever. I'm gonna haul myself out. As far as I know, anyone can do this if they try their damndest and are smart about making critical decisions. |
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| +Reaver | Nov 20 2008, 06:45 AM Post #39 |
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Troll
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I think the hypermasculinity of the African American male brings about the high murder rate. The societal strain for African Americans to fit their stereotype, one of unrestrained masculinity, brings about many of the violent crimes in the African American community. "Decently High", but it doesn't mean morality is going straight downhill. Keep in mind drugs like this - namely cocaine - used to be legal. Wasn't our boy JC also a practicing Jew who followed most of the rules in the Torah? And I know this wasn't from our debate, but: How isn't this changing morality? The Rules of Morality One Day include: "Slavery is moral." The next day, the rules are "Slavery is not moral." Even if we recognize something is immoral, it doesn't change the fact that once it was moral by societal standards. If you can make the same argument about God setting down rules to protect Judaism from pagan tribes with the intention of lifting such laws later with his boy JC, then you can't really deny that morality does indeed change. |
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| Yzarc | Nov 20 2008, 08:21 PM Post #40 |
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Coxian
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That's probably one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. Morals changed, our view of morality changed...It's all the same thing. Morality is a social institution, created and perpetuated by (wait for it) humanity! As society changes and evolves, so too do our views on morality. So does morality in itself. Morality is only what we view it as. So you're right, we do say all witch burnings, even those in the past, are immoral. But at the time, they were moral. In hindsight, they were extraordinarily immoral, but that is according to our view of morality.
This claim is inherently a fallacy in that you're presupposing your argument to be true.
How does that make sense? Morality is specific to humanity. You can't call anything other than human moral or immoral, so morality cannot have existed prior to us. Math applies to more than humanity, but what justifies you in saying some animals are moral and some are immoral? Humans evolved from animals (and are animals) and so came after them. Where did morals come from if they were not created by humans or some more primitive animals?
What a horribly ignorant thing to say.
Of course. Because there are always things that are good for ever society. It is advantageous for a society to have people who care for each other as a community. It is advantageous for any society to not have its people killing each other or otherwise hurting each other. Morals are what are advantageous for society, and nothing more. Your morals are no more correct than the morals of the Native Americans. They're different, but to say one is right and one is wrong is to have a complete lack of understanding of how society works and why morals are created. It was advantageous for southern whites to believe that slavery was moral, so slavery was moral to them. If morals weren't created, and don't change, then they would always have existed as they are now: "Perfect"
Of course I was being sarcastic. I was being sarcastic about the whole thing.
Okay? Then what do you propose is the cause of crime? There are only two things that make a person: Nature and Nurture. I would argue that nurture plays a much more significant role in personality, beliefs, values and norms than biology ever could. If society didn't matter when it comes to how a person turns out to be, we would all still be like the ancestral human.
And that has nothing to do with socialization?
What is then? How the person's parents raised them? Well, what do you think caused that person's parents to raise them the way they did? What I'm saying is that it's ridiculous to say people who are poor are somehow less morally righteous than the middle and upper class.
Individuality...I believe that a person's "individual" personality is formed by how he is raised combined with his experiences. Well, how a person is raised and the experiences he or she goes through is largely determined based on the kind of society he or she grows up in.
Of course it's a conscious choice. I'm not arguing that everybody is a robot, and that consciousness doesn't exist. I'm just saying that it is in fact formed by your socioeconomic standing, race, gender and other variables that affect your every day life. If a higher number of those impoverished commit murder than those more well off, well that says that it has more to do with class than...Some other variable? I don't know what other variable you could possibly point to. It's obviously not biology, or there wouldn't be more people in poverty committing these kinds of crimes.
Okay? From what I can tell, you have no point here other than to say "Sociologists have no idea what they're talking about" and if that's your point then I don't really think there's anything left to argue, because you're obviously ignorant of how society works and how it affects people, and that's kind of my entire base of argument. It'd be like trying to explain calculus to a dog. I'm not saying you're as smart as a dog.
That's highly untrue. Most people in the lower class were born in the lower class. Most people born in the lower class are more likely than not to stay in the lower class. |
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| Nick | Nov 20 2008, 09:31 PM Post #41 |
Brit
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2:22AM; just late enough for me to want anything to do with this horrible business. Morality is not comparable to maths. You can look at two cows and say 'there are two cows', and that is inherently correct, because it is absolutely verifiable. You can look at a human taking an orange from another human's market stall, and say 'that is wrong', but that is an enormously subjective question because of individual circumstances. If you were to go deeper in and assume that everything about the man's situation was known; that he was starving and unable to afford the orange, and that the market stall owner was rich and greedy, the question still requires a line to be drawn: is the fact that no *real* ill effects will be suffered from the theft enough to justify it? Or is stealing never justified because if it is allowed once, why not another time? Where exactly is the line drawn as to an 'acceptable' theft? That question has no absolute answer, ergo, it is not objectively verifiable as a mathematical truth is. My own view is that morality is dictated by the most persuasive speaker, and after that is largely democratic; it is determined by the powerful majority of any given period. Anyone who disagrees with the view they have been persuaded - through whatever means - to hold is wrong and alienated. I guess that the most moral society is the happiest society. Certainly not necessarily the most logical or flourishing society Various people have tried to apply logic to morals; I think Immanuel Kant probably went the furthest with his Categorical Imperative, but even that wasn't enough to establish set moral truths. Merely stating and restating that morals are an absolute value which we have to discover certainly isn't convincing anybody. Do feel free to make attacks, after all, getting in a tizz over nothing is one of the most important features of philosophy. |
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| Conan O'Brien | Nov 21 2008, 02:57 PM Post #42 |
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SKILLNADEN ÄR DRINKABILITY
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The purpose of that argument wasn't saying that moral objectivism is true. I was saying that by definition, moral mistakes of the past are invalid arguments against it. My ultimate conclusion was "Objective morality and changing moral standards are not contradictory." In order to prove that, you have to suppose they are both true, if only for the sake of thought experiment.
Now you're doing what you accused me of! Your argument is that changing morality and changing perceptions of morality aren't the same thing. To back it up, you say that morality is a social institution created by man. But to believe that, you have to take it for granted that my argument is false. It's begging the question.
Well I obviously believe God's the source of morals, but I'll humor you by sticking with the secular. First, I don't remember saying animals can be moral. Morality has need of intelligence to express itself. If squirrels had our level of understanding, they'd probably have morals too. I'd say probably the same basic morals. Perhaps math isn't the best example. What I meant is that math was also around before humans, it just needed humans to put it to words. When you get down to it, if we were wiped out tomorrow, 2 and 2 would still equal 4, and killing an intelligent being would still be wrong.
Politically incorrect, yes. Ignorant, far from. If moral objectivism is true, then yes, some cultures would have to be less moral. I'm not being ethnocentric, if anything our culture would probably be in the lower half. It's an uncomfortable idea. The alternative, however, is that all cultural morality is relative. Under this understanding, Nazi Germany, the Vatican, and modern-day United States are equally moral and immoral. It also robs us of the ability of criticize other cultures for even the worst atrocities. What's worse, saying that our culture today is no more or less moral than our culture before, you deny that moral progress is even possible. Ultimately, I'd say the uncomfortable position that cultures can be morally superior to others is far more comfortable than the concept that Nazis and priests are morally equal.
Who says morals today are perfect? And it's plain wrong to say that if morals were set in stone, they'd be the same. People are flawed. We tell ourselves something is right when it isn't. It's clear much of your arguments revolve around the fact that morality is contrived. I just can't bring myself to believe that. I guess it's just a fundamental difference in thought.
? I don't recall saying society doesn't matter. I was just saying poverty wasn't. You can have a very pious, functioning society that's also dirt poor. Crime I would say is almost entirely dependent on nurture, namely early psychological development.
What causes parents to raise a criminal? Probably NOT raising your child. Neglect, failing to discipline a kid. What causes that? Laziness, selfishness, apathy. Same things that make you walk out on your kid. I'm pretty sure no one ever said the poor were less moral, only that they committed more crime. Poverty creates the situation necessary for stealing, killing, and selling drugs. But it's the people themselves who do it. A wealthier person could be highly immoral, but in absence of need, he's not going to hit up a liquor store.
That's a good theory. But ultimately, it's people pulling the trigger even though they know it's wrong.
I don't think using drugs is inherently immoral. Breaking the law is. Cocaine rate during legalization could be 100%, I wouldn't care all that much. I looked it up BTW, and meth is actually the LEAST used drug. My bad. We have such a problem with it in Buffalo, I thought it was the same everywhere else.
I'm going to group these into one response. There's a difference between laws and morals. God laid down the laws of Israel. Because it was the law, it became moral to follow them. The Commandments, for example, are clearly moral. No one was stoned for coveting thy neighbor's possessions. The law however, was arbitrary. If God decided that instead of 20 shekels, someone had to pay 25, that doesn't change the underlying moral of the law. Some of the Old Testament laws were designed with a definite purpose. Once that purpose was fulfilled, there's no point in not having people cook a kid in its mother's milk anymore. So while the laws may change, the morals behind them don't. In that regard, our boy JC(is that just what we're calling him from now on?) completely turned the law on its head, but he deeply reaffirmed what it means to live a moral life. Also, I don't know where you got the idea that he followed most of the laws of Judaism, the boy infuriated pretty much all the rabbis in Israel with his lawbreaking. But Jesus never said, "It was once immoral for someone to lie. Me and Dad did some brainstorming, and now it's okay by us!" More importantly, even if God had changed morality, how's that to say that we could?
The rules of morality didn't say "Slavery is moral". Mankind said "Slavery is moral". Then mankind conformed with what was actually moral. The very fact that we now realize slavery was wrong shows there is a consensus about morality among people. You'll never hear someone saying, "You know, maybe slavery WAS good." That alone shows that we conceive of morality as separate from man's understanding at the time. This isn't a response to anyone, but let's bring the discussion back to the original topic. Can't it be agreed upon that thing like love and altruism are universally good, and that the United States has turned away largely from that towards greed and individuality? |
~~Wind Sword
Touching. Scientology
Smartest post ever made. | |
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| Yzarc | Nov 21 2008, 07:53 PM Post #43 |
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Coxian
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Fair enough.
Actually, my argument is that perceptions of morality and morality itself are the same thing, which is sort of the exact opposite of what you're saying it is. And yes, I am saying morality is a social institution created by man, but you'll notice I'm not using that as evidence. Rather, that is my claim.
As you should. A debate is worthless if someone argues that "God did it" because it makes it not a debate about finding or proving the truth, but about faith. Don't think you're being all awesome and humoring me. You're humoring the objective world.
But monkeys are intelligent. And we evolved from a common ancestor of them. So at what point did "morality" evolve? Is it specific to humans, or can chimps and gorillas be said to have knowledge of morality. Going further back, certainly my dogs have a sense of what we would call morality. They care for each other, they care for me, they're intelligent. So at one point on the mammalian cladogram was morality a synapomorphy? Or did it even evolve for mammals? Did it come earlier? Could it have evolved in different animals?
Killing an intelligent being would be wrong? To who? Certainly whoever killed that intelligent being would not feel remorse, and would not know to feel remorse. If a lion were to kill a human being, I would not say that lion is immoral. I would say it's a lion! That's what lions do. Moreover, if human beings and (since your point assumes humans are the only species with enough intelligence to conceptualize morality) intelligent beings were wiped out then how would anything go about killing an intelligent being? Unless killing a monkey is wrong? So you can't kill a monkey because it's smart, but a monkey can't be moral or immoral because it isn't smart. There are too many invisible lines that you seem to draw at completely arbitrary places.
I'd definitely say it's ignorant. At least you didn't go so far as to say which morals are right and wrong.
I'm not trying to prove that my idea is the most comfortable. Who cares what makes us feel good? Shouldn't we strive to know the truth rather than what makes us feel happy? Of course you want to be able to justifiably throw out blame to Hitler. You want to criticize cultures for the worst atrocities according to our view of morality. But just because you want to do it doesn't justify it.
No, I'm not saying that everyone is equally moral. Rather, I'm saying something quite different and perhaps even more uncomfortable for the fundamentalist world view - Morality is a concept, not an actual thing. So, really, I am not saying that Nazi Germany and the United States are morally equal. I'm just saying they have different views of morality. And that's all. I'm not comparing one set of morality to another and trying to say they're all just as good and awesome. Because certainly under my view of morality, Nazi Germany was very immoral. But that's my view. Their view was different. My view says they were wrong. But it's only wrong to the people that believe it is wrong.
At what point will a person have a perfect conception of morality? Is it possible? I know I think my conception of morality is perfect. You think your conception of morality is perfect. Every single person in the world thinks that they know what is right or wrong. There are very few things that I am ambiguous about morally. The one concern that comes to mind for me is abortion. But if morals do change all the time, and they're not even agreed upon by different people of the same time, how can we possibly say which morals are right and which are wrong? And if we cannot say which are right and wrong, it's a ridiculous claim to say that some are right and some wrong. Of course, according to certain views of morality, some views would be wrong. According to our view of morality (since I assume you and I share somewhat the same morals) Hitler's view of morality was wrong. But we are inherently biased because we have a particular and differing view of morality, so we are utterly unfit to judge the morality of others.
Yes. You can. But it's very difficult to do so in the United States because of the way things are. I'm not sure exactly what to pin it on, because it's not one particular thing. Probably the most significant thing, though, is that as Americans, we put value on materialism, and so it is impossible for the poor to become as good as the middle and upper class, because it's so natural to place your self worth on how much you own. It's mostly speculation, but it doesn't matter because that's not my point. My point is that these are American people that are, for some reason or another, committing acts that we would call immoral. But instead of looking at why, and trying to change that, all you want to do is say "Oh well, they're evil, let's put them in prison." If poverty didn't matter in relation to crime, then most criminals would not come from poverty. There would be an equal distribution, but there definitely is not.
How a person raises his or her child is directly related to the class he or she is in. How you cannot see that is utterly beyond me. |
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| +Reaver | Nov 21 2008, 07:56 PM Post #44 |
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Troll
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Because the woman who steals bread to feed her family is ultimately taking the food even though she know it's wrong. The law. According to a study run by Dr. Lawrenece Kohlberg, most people think of ethics in terms of law and order. They say this, yet see things like discrimination (Plessy v. Ferguson) made into law, things like violation of privacy as the law (Alien and Sedition Acts), things that are clearly wrong. Granted this is much less present today - although I would argue statues like Proposition 8 and those banning abortions accomplish the same thing - but the law isn't always the indicator of morality. As a matter of fact, Henry David Thoreau's theory of Civil Disobedience stresses the inherent morality of the law, stressing that "an unjust law is no law at all". Furthermore, consider practicioners of such logic: Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Eugene V. Debs, a soldier fighting for Contientious Objector status, and Henry David Thoreau himself. So if God says you can't eat pork the fundamental message that you have to obey God, even if you eat pork and violate God's rules, is what matters? The fact that we, in the last few hundred years, have made the word "nigger" taboo and have demonized the ideas of racism as immoral suggests that we've changed morals. Racism was one accepted, even supported by people such as Nathaniel Bedford Forrest, but now we've thought about it and now find it horridly immoral. The rules of morality are subject to our own changes and whims. After all, if the word of God isn't absolute moral law and often skewed or ignored as people please (See: double standards in Old Testament Law with Eating Pork and Sodom and Gormorrah), then the moral rules don't quite explain to us what is clearly "moral" or "immoral". The discussion regards morality in general. Edited by Reaver, Nov 21 2008, 07:59 PM.
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| Crysta | Nov 21 2008, 09:23 PM Post #45 |
i ate your children
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Good people can wind up in poverty, live in poverty, and still be intelligent and not actually do anything bad to get there. Bad people can end up with wealth, live in splendor, and still be moronic and not actually do anything good to get there. Then there's the people who do make the bad decisions and ruin themselves and expect people to help them and you say "nigga plz". Though... if you're saying "people grow up better in two parent homes" and the lower-class bracket isn't comprised of mostly two parent homes, you are acknowledging that their environment has some influence on their behavior. It's just a matter of whether or not their parents split up because of their poor financial situations--which we're saying is usually centered around irresponsibility--and therefore makes me more confident that the success of a two-person household in raising their kid is more dependent on whether or not their parents are good people as well... and perhaps, just maybe, it's more common for someone with a single good parent to turn out better than someone with two bad parents. RAMBLE RAMBLE |
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2:14 PM Nov 8
