The Moral Imperative

[vison]

There is a terrible argument, I can't articulate it properly, but it goes that you are "wrong" to do a good deed if it makes you feel good.

Kant, more or less, argued this, iirc.
I hate Kant.

So do I. I Kant stand him.

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

There is often gain in those situations, though, just not material gain. If I do something like that--helping someone without expectation of return--it makes me feel good. That feeling, of having done good, has value. It's also socially constructed to a great extent.

Not only that, but we all benefit if we live in a society where people do such things. Sooner or later, and probably more than once, we will be on the receiving end. On a trivial scale, I think of that often in traffic, when I let someone into my line of traffic who's waiting at an on-ramp. It slows me down, but on a fairly regular basis I'm the one on the on-ramp, and I benefit because that kind of courtesy happens to be common where I live. So in doing that small act of courtesy, I'm contributing to a culture of courtesy that benefits me.

ETA: Cross-posted with AJ, whose interesting post I will have to come back and read more carefully later!

That is the essence of the Golden Rule.

The benefit to one's self is implicit and indirect, but it is there, but the benefit is mutual, and based on an understanding that other moral agents are like yourself.

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The thing wrong with the Platinum Rule is that there is no check. If someone else's expectation is that they be treated like a prima donna, the Platinum Rule says that you have to accommodate that.

The Golden Rule could limit you to a lesser, perhaps, more reasonable level, based on your own expectation.

Of course, if you also expected to be treated like a prima donna, and you believed in the Golden Rule, you should have to expect to treat others that way.

But you would have the option, under the Golden Rule, of realizing that that is unreasonable or impractical and adjusting your own expectations.

BrianIs AtYou

[yovargas]

There is a terrible argument, I can't articulate it properly, but it goes that you are "wrong" to do a good deed if it makes you feel good.

Kant, more or less, argued this, iirc.
I hate Kant.

So do I. I Kant stand him.

You on the other hand:

[Nin]

Have you read Kant? He is also the one recommending the famous "Sapere aude!" - dare to think by yourself , invitng people not to accept the judgement of others and to use their own brain. Or who has said that to support the difficulties of life; three things help: hope, laughter and sleep.... There is a lot more to his theory of happiness and the categoric imperatif.

Anyway, this is a fascinating thread with a subject which preoccupies me a lot lately, but I have so little time.

The other day in a weekly German newspaper was an interesting paper about the origin of evil and it simply defined evil as a violen act against your own species. I don't agree with that definition but I see how one can accept it. I my own theory, I have chosen to define as an act deliberatly commited in the knowledge it would harm, hurt or kill another person without thinking the harm was justified by any higher reason.

What preoccupied me always in my studies is the evil of the Nazis: how could those men and women, often nice, normal persons, good parents and neighbours kill thousands of persons? And I have come the conclusion that most of them did because they thought that it was right - that in the end the Germans and the world - would benefit from this extermination. Most peope aim to be good - IMHO all except psychopaths - and they act accroding to what they think will ensure this good. If you tell them that killing other people or beating your children will ensure this good and that they have not only the right but even the duty to to it - they will. And they won't see the "evil" of their deeds.

So, this leads me to the conclusion (but this is just my personal way of seeing life) that in fact, humanity is good or aims to be good (and this is also what I tell my students as my life experience and point of view) but does so often by choosing the wrong path.

It also makes me say that good creates evil. If you and your ideology is right, the other is wrong and you have to show him the way or the right to punish him for his faulty opinions (this is grossly simplified!).

[halplm]

So far, I've seen people say right and wrong comes from different sources, including out of deference to a higher power.

But it seems people are dancing around the concept that it's possible our very nature knows what right and wrong because it came from God.

That is one of those truths I believe in that lets me actually sleep at night...

[yovargas]

But it seems people are dancing around the concept that it's possible our very nature knows what right and wrong because it came from God.

But what of the many vast cultural moral perspectives? Sure, a few things like murder or theft are nearly universally frowned upon (for obvious, pragmatic reasons) but beyond that? There isn't much moral consensus in the world which shouldn't be the case if our morality had one source.

[Nin]

But it seems people are dancing around the concept that it's possible our very nature knows what right and wrong because it came from God.

How does it come then that so much wrong has been done in the name of God?

Anyway, the very idea excludes people like me who simply don't believe that God does exist. Are they incapable of knowing right and wrong?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I would argue -- since I do believe in God, at least on some abstract level -- that someone who did not believe in God could still know right and wrong, and that knowledge could still come from God, even though they don't believe in Her.

[Primula Baggins]

And I would argue that since the existence or nonexistence of God can't be empirically proved, the question of whether there is an absolute morality has to be independent of the question of whether God exists. Whether or not we even care about the possibility of God existing, society requires us to figure out what moral behavior is, and there needs to be a general consensus about it. People who think murder is fun and OK make poor neighbors for people who would rather not be murdered.

[axordil]

Sure, but it's a closed hermeneutic at that point, since it presupposes an unfalsifiable. No useful discussion is thus possible. This touches on what yovargas said earlier--yes, the source of morality does affect the nature of the imperative.

Returning to the open discussion: morality is a self-perpetuating but flexible social construct. It codifies values a society designates as desirable, de jure or de facto. Some of these are, as yovargas notes, on the practical side: violence is always limited one way or another in moral codes. Others are designed to reinforce the cultural status quo: these often take the form of prescriptions of personal behavior (the concept of honor, clean/unclean, et al, but also consider things like the Food Pyramid). Many are somewhere in between. All share a social impetus that, when it works, makes those raised under it feel good when they do something "moral" and bad when they do something "immoral."

As a society becomes more complex, it becomes more self-conscious of morality and the need to codify it. Edicts emerge from taboos, laws from edicts. This is where I think the ladder system AJ describes becomes useful--it tracks how morality is approached, and the additional angles of attack, if you will, from which the feeling of good and the feeling of bad can be inculcated.

In regards to children's actions: young children experiment with behavior, being the social primates they are. They pick up very, very quickly which behaviors are the most desirable, not just from overt parental action but from subtextual factors (tone of voice, posture, facial expression). So when they do something that gets positive reinforcement from a parent, it becomes part of their moral matrix just as quickly as if they do something that gets negative reinforcement. They tend to repeat the experiments until a strong enough trend is established, of course, much to our amusement and consternation. I know my kid often did something sweet and something annoying in the same breath when he went through the early part of that phase.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

As a society becomes more complex, it becomes more self-conscious of morality and the need to codify it. Edicts emerge from taboos, laws from edicts. This is where I think the ladder system AJ describes becomes useful--it tracks how morality is approached, and the additional angles of attack, if you will, from which the feeling of good and the feeling of bad can be inculcated.

Quite so. I think that both absolute morality and moral relativism can be equally dangerous. This is one area were there are infinite shades of grey/gray.

[yovargas]

I contend that there may well be an absolute morality but only someone omniscient could know it. We are not omniscient. Till we are, yeah, best to work within those grays.

[Inanna]

Responding to Nin's post on Nazis, and several such atrocities committed against humanity - I would fall back on a philosophical tenet by.... hold your breath.... PTerry's Granny Weatherwax (yes, go ahead, laugh or smirk) - Wrong actions/evil arise(s) from considering people as things.

It is only when you consider people as things, can you argue that extermination of a particular ethnicity is for the future good of .... anything or anyone. It is only when you consider people as things that you can send sons and daughters, and husbands and wives off to fight a non-required war. The fact is that once we step out of our monkeysphere, we are able to consider people as things. Its easy to kill a man you don't know, its much difficult to kill him when you know him, his family, and how their lives will fall apart when he/she dies.

So would the absolute immorality be to consider people as things?

Edit: TED, I would like to kiss you for starting this thread.

[vison]

Mahima, you are on to something.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Regarding wanting to kiss TED?

[Inanna]

heh-heh

But it is easier to answer the question of absolute immorality rather than absolute morality.

[vison]

heh-heh

But it is easier to answer the question of absolute immorality rather than absolute morality.

Is it?

[Inanna]

heh-heh

But it is easier to answer the question of absolute immorality rather than absolute morality.

Is it?

Isn't it? We can say that, maybe, treating peoples (and animals?) as things is absolute immorality. But what is absolute morality - just the reverse? Is good just the absence of evil? surely not. Mahatma Gandhi said that a person who is doing harm is definitely doing evil, but the person who watches on and does nothing to prevent the harm is doing evil too.

[axordil]

I agree that there's a shift in how we view moral action as we leave our monkeysphere--our extended family/tribe--and apply morality to larger social units. It doesn't necessarily have to make it easier to think of people as things, though. Military research from WWII showed that most people have an inborn reluctance to kill even a stranger, at least when they could see the person they were supposed to be killing. That reluctance has to be overcome through training...or brainwashing.

[TheEllipticalDisillusion]

I would argue -- since I do believe in God, at least on some abstract level -- that someone who did not believe in God could still know right and wrong, and that knowledge could still come from God, even though they don't believe in Her.

I would have to disagree, considering the history of morality precedes the christian and even monotheistic concept of god. I'd rather not get too deep into the discussion of the origins of morality. It leads so easily to discussions of god. I'd rather leave that for a different discussion.

But it seems people are dancing around the concept that it's possible our very nature knows what right and wrong because it came from God.

I'm not dancing around it. I'm not touching it. I don't believe in god, so it doesn't enter my mind.

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Do infinite shades of gray lead one towards moral relativism? Considering Mahima's question: is there a spectrum of moral to immoral? How do we consider what is moral or immoral? That is part of the practical aspect of morality influenced by culture (something that changes often). The notion of right and wrong persist despite the change in cultures.

Just to note: this ^ is not my sig... it's part of my post ^