Ethics

Off Topic
81

Actually, I do believe that some would act with a sense of morality even in the State of War (which has existed, it just predates civilization. Hobbes’ State of War doesn’t refer to any sort of historical or actual example, only a situation in which there is no Sovereign and no set of laws or punishment). However, those people would be the ones whose lives would be especially short, nasty and brutish.

The rest of us would act without “morality” and do whatever we can to sustain ourselves, including taking from others what we can. Those who would act morally would be dead.

OP: Hobbes is pretty fascinating, but he’s a child compared to John Locke, whose Two Treatises of Government was a thinly-veiled, and very on-point, rebuttal to Hobbes’ attempts to legitimize autocracy or authoritarianism. Are you going to read any Locke in your class? And have you or are you going to read the person and book that sparked a lot of the debate about Sovereignty in Europe at the time: Machiavelli’s The Prince and also The Discourses?

I’m leaving for the 49ers game shortly, but I’ll be back tomorrow to further participate in this discussion. It’s about time we had something of substance on this forum.

82

[quote]Ambugaton wrote:

[quote]Edevus wrote:

I get no reward. I don’t even feel like “Ohhh, I did a great thing”. More like, “You could help him and you did it, so you did what you had to do”.

I also help people without them realizing and I make sure it stays that way. This requires very specific scenarios and it’s usually small things, but it’s again the same, if I can help, why not do it? But sometimes I don’t, for whatever reason. Hard to understand or analyze.[/quote]

Are you sure there’s no pattern concerning those you’re inclined to help? Theoretically we’re more likely to act altruistically towards those who look like us. I believe it’s called the Green Beard Effect[/quote]

I think I’m more inclined those who, I consider at that moment, to look less like people who will spend the money “earned” in alcohol.

83

@ Alexus: When I read Euthyprhro I was confused. The dilemma begs the question, “Is piety pious because it is loved by the Gods, or do the Gods love piety because it is pious.” I’m not sure exactly how the ancient Greeks viewed their Gods. But if the Gods loved virtues because they were virtuous, that would imply (I think) that the virtues existed before the Gods. Did the Greeks believe that their Gods created the world, or did they come upon it?

@ DB Cooper: Thanks for stopping in man. I absolutely got that big picture analysis (not trying to seem smart lol)! I love your breakdown. My prof said that one of the main reasons people suffer in a state of nature is due to the inability to form contracts. For example, if I agree to trade you 5 coconuts right now in exchange for your giving me 1 goat in a week, in a state of nature I cannot expect that you will honor that contract at a later date. You will probably do what’s advantageous to you (run away, take the cocnuts AND the goat), and I will have lost my share. W/out a sovereign to protect our interests, ppl can’t really work together, and industry can’t exist. Industry is based on unity of people, so the world would stay in a state of nature, it seems.

84

after you run away with the coconuts and the goat then i will no longer trade with you. you will also get a bad reputation as a cheater / defector so will find others will no longer trade with you. current society gives us lots of running options to avoid bad reputation. not so for small social groups who needed to band together against the elements…

i do kinda see how this might miss the point, though.

interesting analysis DBcooper… political philosophy isn’t really my area, but what you have to say about Hobbes having a slightly different notion of morality is interesting…

forget about how the greeks viewed their world / the gods.

i’m posing the dilemma to you (and to anybody who thinks god has anything at all to do with ethics)

Is something good because god proclaims it to be the case (in which case he could have proclaimed otherwise - e.g., proclaimed that torturing an innocent child solely for fun is a morally acceptable if not required thing to do)

OR

could god not do that (because morality is outside god).

(before god believers get all upset one might think that gods goodness and knowledge work as a constraint or guide or whatever. in other words GIVEN that 2+2=4 and GIVEN that god knows everything god has no ‘option’ but to believe that 2+2=4 (given that belief is required for knowledge). god simply couldn’t do otherwise (given that that is in fact the way things are). so given that god is benevolent (doesn’t lie to us) and given that (for the sake of argument) god tells us what is right and wrong in the bible or whatever you believe about that… then god couldn’t report otherwise.)

why think that god needs to be pulled into ethics anymore than god needs to be pulled into mathematics? and how does that help? why does 2+2=4? because god says???

85

^ what if you don’ believe in God?

Also, so far as the bad reputation argument, my teacher actaully brought that up. Very interesting point.

86

Arithmetic laws are just a language. If you don’t use the language correctly the results are nonsensical, but they aren’t laws that emerge out of properties of the universe. Scientific laws are descriptions of how the universe is always ready to be changed if we arrive at a better description.

Moral laws are not generally considered either of these kinds of laws.

Any version of theism has god being outside the universe and thus not being subject to any scientific law or logical law that is part of said universe.

So theists aren’t going to be tied down by any dilemma their god is outside the universe and isn’t constrained to some dichotomy thought up in that universe.

What evidence is there of moral absolutes existing?(not some tired Plato)
What evidence is there that morals aren’t purely a social construct that arose largely out of population pressure and property?(please lets not try and claim religious texts as evidence until they come to some type of coherent agreement even to themselves)

In my opinion searches for moral responsibility not being merely a social construct, or the belief in a god are tries to give a more transcendental meaning to life. Because while its certainly more likely that we are purely biological entities that won’t carry on when we die, that is cold comfort when you are alone in the night thinking of your own mortality. The most ardent atheists that most vocally challenge and disrespect belief do it out of either conscious or unconscious fear and disgust of the nihilism that is the result of such a position. While certainly we will have an eschatological proof at some point in time or more likely we will not :), that doesn’t do much for us now. Also religion does help control people because without the just world fallacy being believed there would likely be some world shaking problems for those in power now.

87

[quote]alexus wrote:
Is something good because god says or does god say it is good because it is good?
[/quote]

It is good because God himself is “goodness.”

“Goodness” is what Socrates claims governs the gods, that goodness is actually God. :slight_smile:

88

[quote]Ambugaton wrote:
This is an important point! It seems to me that a lot of religious people and religious groups pick and choose which stories in the Bible (Qur’an etc.) by which they want to live. If they’re choosing which stories represent moral principles, then their standard of morality existed before exposure to the religious text. The moral standard predates the religious standard, and even creates the religious standard.[/quote]

God exists before the moral standard as man knows it, and even creates the moral standard. :wink:

But, what is the point exactly?

89

Sidgwick said:

“Egoism, by no means necessarily implies the ordinary empirical method of seeking one’s own pleasure or happiness…He may believe this on grounds of Positive Religion, because God has promised happiness as a reward for obedience to certain definite commands: or on grounds of Natural Religion, because God being just and benevolent must have so ordered the world that Happniess will in the long-run be distriburted in proportion to Virtue.”

^ I think that describes Brother Chris!!!

90

[quote]hlss09 wrote:
Sidgwick said:

“Egoism, by no means necessarily implies the ordinary empirical method of seeking one’s own pleasure or happiness…He may believe this on grounds of Positive Religion, because God has promised happiness as a reward for obedience to certain definite commands: or on grounds of Natural Religion, because God being just and benevolent must have so ordered the world that Happniess will in the long-run be distriburted in proportion to Virtue.”

^ I think that describes Brother Chris!!![/quote]

Lol, egoism. I heard Abraham Lincoln was a Egoist.

“for His own sake.” :slight_smile:

91

Haha. Perhaps. Egoism and even utilitarianism strike me as somewhat ‘selfish, unvirtuous’ ways of looking at virtue. Do what’s best for me can lead to some seriously bad stuff if you use faulty reasoning.

92

[quote]hlss09 wrote:
Haha. Perhaps. Egoism and even utilitarianism strike me as somewhat ‘selfish, unvirtuous’ ways of looking at virtue. Do what’s best for me can lead to some seriously bad stuff if you use faulty reasoning. [/quote]

The quote itself is from the Doctrine of Charity, which states, “Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God.”

93

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]Ambugaton wrote:
This is an important point! It seems to me that a lot of religious people and religious groups pick and choose which stories in the Bible (Qur’an etc.) by which they want to live. If they’re choosing which stories represent moral principles, then their standard of morality existed before exposure to the religious text. The moral standard predates the religious standard, and even creates the religious standard.[/quote]

God exists before the moral standard as man knows it, and even creates the moral standard. :wink:

But, what is the point exactly?[/quote]

The point is that if one picks out which stories in the Bible are moral, it is an application of a preexisting moral code to the Bible. Therefore the moral code predates the Bible. If, on the other hand, everything in the Bible is a standard of morality (and I would be terrified of a person who says it is), then and only then can we say that morality comes from God.

94

It has always fascinated me that while no moral taboos are universal, the taboo against living without taboos remains constant.

The omni-purpose taboo that stipulates that morality shall not be unregulated by the society or tribe.
Every society or tribe has it’s thou shall nots, but none of them allow the individual to choose their own set.

It is especially so with sexuality.

An American president may not marry his own sister (if he wants to be re-elected) but an Egyptian Pharoh had to marry his own sister.
This moral relativism can make you miss the invariable.

That both president and pharoh are expected to obey local rules.

Every form of sexual morality is kind of annoying to evrybody on some level however, because no one ever has EXACTLY the sexual imprint desired by society or the tribe.

Of course religion can give you release from this feeling by atonement, whereby you can be ritually forgiven periodically for wanting to fulfil your biological purpose.

The monkeys asking their preists to forgive them for normal mammalian behaviour.

95

[quote]Ambugaton wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]Ambugaton wrote:
This is an important point! It seems to me that a lot of religious people and religious groups pick and choose which stories in the Bible (Qur’an etc.) by which they want to live. If they’re choosing which stories represent moral principles, then their standard of morality existed before exposure to the religious text. The moral standard predates the religious standard, and even creates the religious standard.[/quote]

God exists before the moral standard as man knows it, and even creates the moral standard. :wink:

But, what is the point exactly?[/quote]

The point is that if one picks out which stories in the Bible are moral, it is an application of a preexisting moral code to the Bible. Therefore the moral code predates the Bible. If, on the other hand, everything in the Bible is a standard of morality (and I would be terrified of a person who says it is), then and only then can we say that morality comes from God. [/quote]

Of course the Bible is predated by a morals, the Bible wasn’t created until 400 A.D.

And, morality comes from God otherwise there are no morals.

96

[quote]Cheeky_Kea wrote:
It has always fascinated me that while no moral taboos are universal, the taboo against living without taboos remains constant.
[/quote]

Actually there is quite a lot of taboos.

97

The best book I ever read on ethics is “Universally Preferrable Behaviour: a ration proof of secular ethics”
It’s free to download at : http://www.freedomainradio.com/free/books/FDR_2_PDF_UPB.pdf

I’ve not been able to find any flaw in this thinking
Here is a quick summation of the book

  1. Reality is objective and consistent.
  2. Logic is the set of objective and consistent rules derived from the consistency of reality.
  3. Those theories that conform to logic are called valid.
  4. Those theories that are confirmed by empirical testing are called accurate.
  5. Those theories that are both valid and accurate are called true.
  6. Preferences are required for life, thought, language and debating.
  7. Debating requires that both parties hold truth to be both objective and universally preferable.
  8. Thus the very act of debating contains an acceptance of universally preferable behaviour (UPB).
  9. Theories regarding UPB must pass the tests of logical consistency and empirical verification.
  10. The subset of UPB that examines enforceable behaviour is called morality.
  11. As a subset of UPB, no moral theory can be considered true if it is illogical or unsupported by empirical evidence.
  12. Moral theories that are supported by logic and evidence are true. All other moral theories are false.
98

[quote]hlss09 wrote:
@ Alexus: When I read Euthyprhro I was confused. The dilemma begs the question, “Is piety pious because it is loved by the Gods, or do the Gods love piety because it is pious.” I’m not sure exactly how the ancient Greeks viewed their Gods. But if the Gods loved virtues because they were virtuous, that would imply (I think) that the virtues existed before the Gods. Did the Greeks believe that their Gods created the world, or did they come upon it?

@ DB Cooper: Thanks for stopping in man. I absolutely got that big picture analysis (not trying to seem smart lol)! I love your breakdown. My prof said that one of the main reasons people suffer in a state of nature is due to the inability to form contracts. For example, if I agree to trade you 5 coconuts right now in exchange for your giving me 1 goat in a week, in a state of nature I cannot expect that you will honor that contract at a later date. You will probably do what’s advantageous to you (run away, take the cocnuts AND the goat), and I will have lost my share. W/out a sovereign to protect our interests, ppl can’t really work together, and industry can’t exist. Industry is based on unity of people, so the world would stay in a state of nature, it seems. [/quote]

True, but your scenario could also happen, sort of, within our own society. If you do not actually write anything down or have a witness to your agreement about the goat/coconuts, then you would have virtually no legal recourse.

I think Hobbes’ point is that in a State of Nature the problem isn’t the inability to enforce contracts but rather the tendency for many people to completely bypass any sort of contractual negotiation process and simply take what they want from those who cannot prevent them from doing so.

99

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]Cheeky_Kea wrote:
It has always fascinated me that while no moral taboos are universal, the taboo against living without taboos remains constant.
[/quote]

Actually there is quite a lot of taboos.[/quote]

Yes I know, I never said otherwise.

Maybe you should re-read? :slight_smile:

100

[quote]alexus wrote:
after you run away with the coconuts and the goat then i will no longer trade with you. you will also get a bad reputation as a cheater / defector so will find others will no longer trade with you. current society gives us lots of running options to avoid bad reputation. not so for small social groups who needed to band together against the elements…

i do kinda see how this might miss the point, though.

interesting analysis DBcooper… political philosophy isn’t really my area, but what you have to say about Hobbes having a slightly different notion of morality is interesting…

forget about how the greeks viewed their world / the gods.

i’m posing the dilemma to you (and to anybody who thinks god has anything at all to do with ethics)

Is something good because god proclaims it to be the case (in which case he could have proclaimed otherwise - e.g., proclaimed that torturing an innocent child solely for fun is a morally acceptable if not required thing to do)

OR

could god not do that (because morality is outside god).

(before god believers get all upset one might think that gods goodness and knowledge work as a constraint or guide or whatever. in other words GIVEN that 2+2=4 and GIVEN that god knows everything god has no ‘option’ but to believe that 2+2=4 (given that belief is required for knowledge). god simply couldn’t do otherwise (given that that is in fact the way things are). so given that god is benevolent (doesn’t lie to us) and given that (for the sake of argument) god tells us what is right and wrong in the bible or whatever you believe about that… then god couldn’t report otherwise.)

why think that god needs to be pulled into ethics anymore than god needs to be pulled into mathematics? and how does that help? why does 2+2=4? because god says???[/quote]

The idea behind having any sort of Higher Power that acts as a final arbiter on all things moral is designed to establish just that: a Sovereign Power whose authority is absolute in all circumstances. “God” is simply the antithesis of moral relativism.

So in a way, it is impossible to separate God from morality and say that one could change the other because they are the same thing. I’m talking about morality that is NOT defined by any sort of codified system within a functioning society, a morality that we aren’t fully able to grasp. In this case, the chicken did not come before the egg because they are one in the same.

Anyone who says they know everything that God wants us to do, who claims to know exactly what God would say is Right and Wrong in every sense of the word is a fool. God is above and beyond all of that sort of thing. The entire concept of a Higher Power of any kind is totally incomprehensible to us. The fact is that we DON’T know what is moral or immoral based on anything other than what we ourselves identify as one or the other.

Hobbes famously said that memory is nothing more than decaying senses and that things like the Bible are nothing more than the written product of someone’s memory. I tend to agree here, especially given that even the earliest versions of the Bible are a couple hundred years after Jesus. In other words, even if we look to the Bible as evidence of what God’s will is, we don’t really KNOW for sure that’s what it is because we don’t even know for sure if the God that the Bible describes is anything remotely close to whatever Higher Power there is that DOES exist.

So to get back to your dilemma concerning God’s changing concept of morality, I don’t think that it could ever possibly be changed in the first place because THAT morality is completely absolute. OUR idea of morality could probably never change either. Think about it: what if all the laws were suddenly reversed or abolished? Everything that’s right and wrong is now legally reversed in the legislature. But you wouldn’t feel as if your own sense of morality was correspondingly reversed. As society slowly changed one way or the other, your idea of whether certain, individual actions are right or wrong or justifiable given certain circumstances may change, but you would never experience a complete reversal without some sort of psychotic episode or psyche-shattering traumatic experience.

And this is where I tend to differ with Hobbes’ idea of morality. First of all, he identifies morality only as that which does or does not harm the Sovereign and/or the State because he assumes that God has somehow anointed the Sovereign by virtue of him being in that position in the first place. In other words, he feels that it is impossible for a Sovereign to hold any sort of significant reign without the approval of God. It’s basically an extension of Machiavellian thought, with God added in. But we know that regardless of what the State says is Right and Wrong, we know within ourselves what is and isn’t Right, barring some sort of mental defect. We don’t need the State to define it necessarily, only to enforce it, and Hobbes’ State defines it inaccurately anyways.