[quote]hlss09 wrote:
BodyGuard, I agree. But still, why not?
@ Brother Chris:
I’ve always been interested in Natural Law theories. I do agree that some things SEEM more instinctual. But do you really, truly think that without ANY societal influence that people would understand these rules?[/quote]
What do you mean by this? Like if man was all by himself?
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Most people act the way do because of fear…including the ones in this thread claiming they don’t. Whether that be fear of social consequences, fear of afterlife consequences, or fear of litigation, most people do not act the way they do just because they are nice.
Most guys here would tell their girl if she was getting fat unless they thought she would take it wrong…therefore, we curb our words.
I doubt any person here is just “nice just to be nice no matter what”. That’s bullshit.[/quote]
I’m hardly nice to anyone. Though I do have manners.
Great discussion, first of all. I recently finished The God Delusion by Dawkins. He cited an account of a city in Canada during a police strike where anarchy ensued as a result. People were killed, banks were robbed, looting took place, etc. It seemed to contradict his point that morality does not necessarily come from fear of a higher authority.
For my part, I subscribe to the idea that morality comes, IN PART, from our ability to recognize other human beings as rational entities. When you consider any interaction with someone else, you usually rationalize said interaction with consideration of how you would feel about it, were it being done to you. This can be considered a selfish moral philosophy, but its far from solipsistic and “Don’t do unto others what you don’t want done unto you” seems inherently fair to me.
On the other hand I would definitely take that frickin ring, and it would mean a bad day for a lot of my neighbors.
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Most people act the way do because of fear…including the ones in this thread claiming they don’t. Whether that be fear of social consequences, fear of afterlife consequences, or fear of litigation, most people do not act the way they do just because they are nice.
Most guys here would tell their girl if she was getting fat unless they thought she would take it wrong…therefore, we curb our words.
I doubt any person here is just “nice just to be nice no matter what”. That’s bullshit.[/quote]
I’m hardly nice to anyone. Though I do have manners.[/quote]
Manners are nothing but a social construct that would not exist without a sense of community.
You abide by most manners due to fear of repercussions should you not. You cover your mouth when you sneeze just for you?
@ Ambugaton:
I understand what you’re saying. Essentially people rationally treat others with respect because they’d want the same kind of treatment. But, I think that people REALLY treat others with respect out of fear of what would happen if they didn’t. It may seem ridiculous, but think about every time you want to smack the shit out of someone, and you don’t. Why don’t you? Is it b/c you wouldn’t want someone to hit you, or b/c you don’t want litigation, retaliation, etc.? I think people are essentially selfish. Once all this is ingrained in people, then they can argue semantics and say things like ‘Do unto others as you would want done to you…’
@ Brother Chris:
Yes. If a man never had any human contact, was raised by wolves or something (haha, wolves), would he still know about the higher laws of nature? Again, these Natural Laws seem to be man-made. I’m not sure if natural law theorists say that the higher laws are man-made, or if they’re just present for us to discover in the world, but to me they seem man-made, obviously.
@ Prof X:
I completely agree with you. I believe fear is the #1 motivator. People do what’s best for them. My teacher calls morality ‘enlightened self-interest.’ In our society, it’s in your self-interest to act harmoniously.
But have you ever been doing oral surgery on somebody and smelled their bad breath and wanted to just drill 2 inches into their gums? (I pray not!). It would obvi be AGIANST your interest to do that, so hopefully you won’t!
But, as soon as there’s a shortage of food, or no gov’t to enforce rules, etc, you can bet that the game changes. LIke the Somalia example above…People do what’s in their best interest - hence the rules of morality.
In fact, Thomas Hobbes says that in the State of Nature, there are no morals. Then he goes on to say that there actually are morals - self interest. A lot of times that self interest means taking advantage of your neighbor for your own gain.
[quote]hlss09 wrote:
@ Prof X:
I completely agree with you. I believe fear is the #1 motivator. People do what’s best for them. My teacher calls morality ‘enlightened self-interest.’ In our society, it’s in your self-interest to act harmoniously.
But have you ever been doing oral surgery on somebody and smelled their bad breath and wanted to just drill 2 inches into their gums? (I pray not!). It would obvi be AGIANST your interest to do that, so hopefully you won’t!
[/quote]
Uh, no, I’ve never done that…because I don’t have a desire to hurt someone.
What I am speaking of is how people act towards others daily. Most people are assholes on the freeways in this city. They act like straight up douches with the way they cut you off blatantly or do things like drive below the speed limit when you are behind them…but the moment you try to pass, they speed up.
They do shit like that because, much like what we see on the internet, they feel “safer” from repercussions behind the windshield. You would NOT see the same thing if that person were face to face with other people.
What changed?
The physical and social consequences.
In the car, they think they can simply drive away from the person they are pissing off. face to face, they can’t do that…so they act differently.
This world would be screwed with absolute anarchy because people are selfish bastards only out for their own gain. The ONLY thing that changes that is fear of consequences.
If someone needs help, in example of transport, and I don’t help (for a logical reason, like, I missed it, too far away, etc.) I feel terrible. It’s not what other people think (they don’t care), it’s not for religious reasons (atheist), it’s certainly not for fear of the law or authority (no crime), but it’s because I could have helped and I haven’t.
Maybe the reason of why I help is selfish, I do it to not feel terrible.
My point is, being ethic is not always about fear of “something”. I like to help and if I can help, I do it.
[quote]hlss09 wrote:
Alexus, I agree with that in order to deny Hobbes’ conclusion that we need an all powerful sovereing, all you need to do is to deny his premise that the State of Nature is really true. It’s definitely a hypothetical, b/c there’s no historical examples he’s basing his theory on [/quote]
On the other hand, there are plenty of historical examples of an all-powerful sovereign exploiting their people and eventually being overthrown by them…
His ideas regarding the all-powerful sovereign only serve to support his argument that without a hierarchy of some sort the human race would be no better than animals. It’s true that if society suddenly collapsed there’d inevitably be a huge death toll and behaviour that most would consider inhuman and immoral, like looting and killing on a large scale, but Hobbes seems to be saying that humankind is predisposed to that behaviour.
I disagree because if that was how we acted without society to contain us, we would never have been capable of developing civilization in the first place. What he describes as the State of Nature is not a true representation of what we are when stripped of a moral code, because most of the barbarism and chaos would stem directly from things like overpopulation and pursuit of material items. These are things that society has bestowed on us, and they would be the main reasons why we’d behave “immorally” if the rug was ever pulled out from under us…
We need society to stop us from acting this way, even though society primed us for that behaviour…we are like addicts needing a fix to prevent withdrawal symptoms, so we have to keep taking the drug…
To see just how incomplete Hobbes’ view of the State of Nature is, just look at a troop of primates. They have their own inherent order which doesn’t include morals. We are supposed to be superior to them, so why would we regress to a point below them if we suddenly lost our social stucture? He is just focusing on the immediate repercussions of losing our social safety net.
[quote]Edevus wrote:
If someone needs help, in example of transport, and I don’t help (for a logical reason, like, I missed it, too far away, etc.) I feel terrible. It’s not what other people think (they don’t care), it’s not for religious reasons (atheist), it’s certainly not for fear of the law or authority (no crime), but it’s because I could have helped and I haven’t.
Maybe the reason of why I help is selfish, I do it to not feel terrible.
My point is, being ethic is not always about fear of “something”. I like to help and if I can help, I do it. [/quote]
? I don’t understand your scenario. You feel bad for not helping because of the selfish need for feeling good about yourself. Not because you really care about everyone equally. If you did, every charity would get the same attention…until you went broke.
Do you also give donations to every homeless person with a sign on the corner?
If not, why not?
Prof X, I was mainly joking lol. But yes, I like your freeway analogy.
And Edevus, altruism is a weird thing. I don’t view many altruistic actions as truly altruistic because the person doing the ‘good’ is usually only doing it for the reward/image/whatever. But that’s just my skepticism.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Most people act the way do because of fear…including the ones in this thread claiming they don’t. Whether that be fear of social consequences, fear of afterlife consequences, or fear of litigation, most people do not act the way they do just because they are nice.
Most guys here would tell their girl if she was getting fat unless they thought she would take it wrong…therefore, we curb our words.
I doubt any person here is just “nice just to be nice no matter what”. That’s bullshit.[/quote]
I’m hardly nice to anyone. Though I do have manners.[/quote]
Manners are nothing but a social construct that would not exist without a sense of community.
You abide by most manners due to fear of repercussions should you not. You cover your mouth when you sneeze just for you?[/quote]
I do it because of honor and my vow of Chivalry. If today I started sneezing without covering my mouth, not holding open doors, not standing up when a woman walks in the room, not pulling out a woman’s chair, taking off her coat, not letting women and children go first, &c. there is not really much repercussion except people think I’m an ass.
Which, I don’t care about what other people think really enough to care if people think I’m an ass.
Though I cover my mouth almost instinctively because if I don’t…some how I spray myself and because it is the proper thing to do.
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
I do it because of honor and my vow of Chivalry.[/quote]
I would venture that most people who see themselves as religious act the way they do for fear of afterlife repercussions…along with a selfish need for self righteousness.
Mind you, I believe in a higher power and I believe in God. I just don’t follow the same pattern of thinking as most when it comes to how these concepts fit into our reality.
[quote]hlss09 wrote:
@ Brother Chris:
Yes. If a man never had any human contact, was raised by wolves or something (haha, wolves), would he still know about the higher laws of nature? Again, these Natural Laws seem to be man-made. I’m not sure if natural law theorists say that the higher laws are man-made, or if they’re just present for us to discover in the world, but to me they seem man-made, obviously.
[/quote]
Well, they would still be there. But part of understanding of Natural Law is looking at what is the nature of all of man. So as not to be biased, like all men have said, “respect your father and mother” or whatever. All men have said, “treat others as you would treat yourself.”
I don’t know of any Natural Law theorists that say they are man-made. The theory of NL is that it is present in man’s nature (not laws of nature, such as everything in nature is a law of nature like a kangaroo bum raping a turtle, so therefore gay sex is good, or whatever their reasoning). So it is discernible to find natural law since it is in man’s nature.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
I do it because of honor and my vow of Chivalry.[/quote]
I would venture that most people who see themselves as religious act the way they do for fear of afterlife repercussions…along with a selfish need for self righteousness.
Mind you, I believe in a higher power and I believe in God. I just don’t follow the same pattern of thinking as most when it comes to how these concepts fit into our reality.[/quote]
I am glad you believe in God.
Well, I have to agree with you there is two kinds of fear that people do things because of the afterlife. Fear of hell and fear of God. The latter is the most noble. It is not the fear of punishment, but the fear of losing divine sonship. If that is what you mean by fear, then yes. I try and do all things out of fear of losing heaven.
But, most of things that people do out of fear, as in fear of punishment I do not deal with. That isn’t to brag. I just don’t.
I was taught to be forgiving, but I was never taught to be nice. And, really I’m not nice at all.
Here is an article on what I mean: http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/civilization/cc0373.htm
Brother Chris, I’ll check out that article later when I have time. But just wanted to point out that you’re still governed by fear. Not an insult, b/c we all are. Fear of losing the divine sonship is still fear.
As far as the God thing, that’s something I’m working on a lot lately. Trying to acquire some faith. Not in religion, but of a Higher Power of my own making. Still hard to do though.
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]Professor X wrote:
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Most people act the way do because of fear…including the ones in this thread claiming they don’t. Whether that be fear of social consequences, fear of afterlife consequences, or fear of litigation, most people do not act the way they do just because they are nice.
Most guys here would tell their girl if she was getting fat unless they thought she would take it wrong…therefore, we curb our words.
I doubt any person here is just “nice just to be nice no matter what”. That’s bullshit.[/quote]
I’m hardly nice to anyone. Though I do have manners.[/quote]
Manners are nothing but a social construct that would not exist without a sense of community.
You abide by most manners due to fear of repercussions should you not. You cover your mouth when you sneeze just for you?[/quote]
I do it because of honor and my vow of Chivalry. If today I started sneezing without covering my mouth, not holding open doors, not standing up when a woman walks in the room, not pulling out a woman’s chair, taking off her coat, not letting women and children go first, &c. there is not really much repercussion except people think I’m an ass.
Which, I don’t care about what other people think really enough to care if people think I’m an ass.
Though I cover my mouth almost instinctively because if I don’t…some how I spray myself and because it is the proper thing to do.[/quote]
I cover my mouth when sneezing and coughing because I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve fallen ill after some dirty bastard has ejected their pestilence into the air or onto my head. I’ve also lost count of the amount of times I’ve held a door open for someone after leaving a movie and they don’t say thanks…I don’t expect gratitude, but the lack of it suggests to me that they were too lazy to open one of the other five doors and make a beeline for the door I’ve opened because it saves them the extra effort of opening a door for themselves.
[quote]hlss09 wrote:
@ Ambugaton:
I understand what you’re saying. Essentially people rationally treat others with respect because they’d want the same kind of treatment. But, I think that people REALLY treat others with respect out of fear of what would happen if they didn’t. It may seem ridiculous, but think about every time you want to smack the shit out of someone, and you don’t. Why don’t you? Is it b/c you wouldn’t want someone to hit you, or b/c you don’t want litigation, retaliation, etc.? I think people are essentially selfish. Once all this is ingrained in people, then they can argue semantics and say things like ‘Do unto others as you would want done to you…’
This is, of course, a point which can’t be ignored. More often than not I find myself thinking of the legal repercussions of a given action. I wish I could think of some sort of control group, a population without a discernable legal system or religion. Any thoughts on this?
Concerning altruism, I subscribe fully to the idea that altruism exists naturally, but only among certain populations. I highly recommend “The Selfish Gene” for more on this. Basically, gene propagation leads to an increase in altruistic behavior between individuals more likely to share similar genetics. This explains the altruistic behavior of parents towards their children, etc.
Additionally, most common altruistic behavior occurs without significant cost to the altruisic individual. Take, for instance, the previously stated example of holding the door for females (or just other people in general) This costs almost nothing to the individual, and in fact it serves to demonstrate a willingness to sacrifice, and possibly even a subscription to a chivalrous philosophy which could, in turn, make one more attractive to the opposite sex and increase your chances of reproduction (the propogation of one’s genes). Genes play to win.
Yes. If a man never had any human contact, was raised by wolves or something (haha, wolves), would he still know about the higher laws of nature? Again, these Natural Laws seem to be man-made. I’m not sure if natural law theorists say that the higher laws are man-made, or if they’re just present for us to discover in the world, but to me they seem man-made, obviously.
@ Prof X:
I completely agree with you. I believe fear is the #1 motivator. People do what’s best for them. My teacher calls morality ‘enlightened self-interest.’ In our society, it’s in your self-interest to act harmoniously.
But have you ever been doing oral surgery on somebody and smelled their bad breath and wanted to just drill 2 inches into their gums? (I pray not!). It would obvi be AGIANST your interest to do that, so hopefully you won’t!
But, as soon as there’s a shortage of food, or no gov’t to enforce rules, etc, you can bet that the game changes. LIke the Somalia example above…People do what’s in their best interest - hence the rules of morality.
In fact, Thomas Hobbes says that in the State of Nature, there are no morals. Then he goes on to say that there actually are morals - self interest. A lot of times that self interest means taking advantage of your neighbor for your own gain.
[/quote]
wow I really posted that incorrectly
[quote]Edevus wrote:
Maybe the reason of why I help is selfish, I do it to not feel terrible.
[/quote]
The fear takes many forms and can be subtle.
You fear the prick of conscience and feeling terrible.
^ yup.