Morals: Where do you stand on them?

[Xanadu84]

Morality is objective. Impossible to measure perfectly, but still objective. Morality is taking actions that will maximize happiness and minimize suffering for all involved. The ends always justifies the means. The only time that philosophy falls short is when the person practicing it has a wrong definition of what constitutes ends. No one can name a situation where this philosophy falls short. All philosophies of morality stem from this fundamental truth. Morality is the absolute heart of practicality.

 

[walrusaurus]

I think it has to to with the common association of morality with religion. And internet nerd-dom is about the most voraciously anti-religious culture imaginable.

 

[similar.squirrel]

Morals should be relative, and should be informed by facts instead of 'gut feeling'.
This doesn't mean that they're pointless, by any means, but sticking rigidly by any point in the face of changing circumstances is a bad idea, especially if that point is rooted in anything other than objective reasoning.

That's where I stand, anyway. It's probably nor a very clearly-defined standpoint.

 

[darkonnis]

I think its all very objective. I maintain my morales when it suits, but when the time comes to throw down the gauntlet and just have done with it all, that is exactly what i do.
I wouldn't try and cite an example(not a proper one anyway), because its a complex issue and i havent got all day to write the events leading up to during and after any decision i might make.
I will however, for the sake of adding discussion mention charities:
If you have money to spare, or spare (call it currency for lack of a better word, whether it be books or whatever) currency, should you give that which you do not need to charity?
Should i donate a percentage of my earnings to starving children i have never and will never meet? What about to one of the millions of charities set up all doing the exact same thing, but trying to do it their own way and in turn costing a damn sight more than it should for a pretty meagre goal.
Should i help people hit by natural disaster, or plague, or whatever in some distant land when there are homeless people within my own society and country less than 5 miles away?
I help where i can, but there comes a point when i have to say, really?
Look at say, a charity (not fair to pick one out) that deals with dementia, should i ever find myself with dementia (serious case) i will happily take my own life. Why? No quality of life, i would hope i wouldn't become a burden on my loved ones, or to the society i am a part of, i would hope that some carer, would focus their efforts on saving those who can be saved, not a lost cause like me. Will i ever donate to a dementia charity? No, unless they are specifically looking for a cure, you can count me out.
Don't get me wrong, in an ideal world i'd love to help, but at this point, logic > morals

I read a story once of how an Inuit elder, when they realise they can no longer contribute to the family either through chewing leather or hunting or whatever, simply walk out into a snow storm. No prompt. No dragging on and hanging about, they just get on with it so as not to be a burden. Which strikes me as one of the most selfless acts anyone could do.

 

[Indeterminacy]

Morals should be relative, and should be informed by facts instead of 'gut feeling'.
...
That's where I stand, anyway. It's probably nor a very clearly-defined standpoint.

I assume by "relative", you here mean "contextually sensitive"; that is, one has to make moral judgements on a situational basis as opposed to maintaining principles of universal, unqualified moral law. That's not often what people mean by "relative", and there's a worry that if you take your first statement at face value, the position not only threatens to be unclear but actively contradictory.

Relative morality is more often thought of in terms of social expressivism, whereby right and wrong are taken to be expressions of the accepted opinion of the culture you live in. Said opinion is in no way guaranteed to reflect factivity, and to be culturally relative yet also truth-seeking threatens you with frequent ethical dilemmas when the majority are quite happily ignorant of the facts.

 

[similar.squirrel]

Morals should be relative, and should be informed by facts instead of 'gut feeling'.
...
That's where I stand, anyway. It's probably nor a very clearly-defined standpoint.

I assume by "relative", you here mean "contextually sensitive"; that is, one has to make moral judgements on a situational basis as opposed to maintaining principles of universal, unqualified moral law. That's not often what people mean by "relative", and there's a worry that if you take your first statement at face value, the position not only threatens to be unclear but actively contradictory.

Relative morality is more often thought of in terms of social expressivism, whereby right and wrong are taken to be expressions of the accepted opinion of the culture you live in. Said opinion is in no way guaranteed to reflect factivity, and to be culturally relative yet also truth-seeking threatens you with frequent ethical dilemmas when the majority are quite happily ignorant of the facts.

I need to stop using turns of phrase without fully understanding them. 'Contextually sensitive' is what I meant. Thanks.

 

[Jodah]

Morality is fine and dandy when life is good. However, when the shit hits the fan it only gets in the way. Take our current economic crisis. If society wasn't so afraid of letting people fail because helping them is the moral thing to do it wouldn't be half as bad as it is.

Furthermore, morality leads to the political correctness crap we have to deal with. Instead of acknowledging that people have differences, possibly insulting some of them in the process, we tiptoe around it and start a fucking riot whenever someone stumbles.

 

[Engarde]

As far as I am aware, morality is an objective concept made more difficult to observe because it must be viewed subjectively, as a human. A morally good action brings more benefit than it does suffering, and bad, the inverse. The only problem is that we, as subjective beings, can argue till the cows come home about whether an action wrought more good than bad.

I'm not even going to go into individual perceptions and codes about right and wrong because then things just become a mess.

 

[Biodeamon]

I laugh at morals. morals are only set down people not actual laws of good and evil. I do what i wish. However i am usally nice to everyone i meet, unless they don't return the favour.

 

[Schrodinger's Hat]

As with most things discussed by internet nerds, the problem is that 99% of the people in the conversation have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. Most of the posts on this thread so far are the equivalent of, if this were a sports forum, saying "I don't like football because I don't like games that are played underwater."

Morality is something that has been discussed for a long time, and by some of the greatest thinkers in history. Whatever else they may be, internet nerds are not great philosophers. If you aren't familiar with at the very least Plato's Meno, Seneca, Kant, JS Mill, and Hume you are not even in the conversation.

Seriously, who here knows the difference between Act, Rule, and Desire Utilitarianism? Or the difference between Utilitarianism and Hedonism? How about Ethical Egoism, Categorical Imperativism and Virtue Theory? Note that none of these reference God.

My initial thought was to correct people's misconceptions on the subject, but I don't think I can explain the history of Moral Philosophy within the word limit.

S.H.

 

[Jordon Churchill]

spare me your morals anecdotes

 

[Hammartroll]

Morality holds back progress. Simple as that. It is immoral to test stuff on humans even though it would speed up medication development by a lot. Some morals just don't work. It is Immoral to steal right? How about someone stealing a singe slice of bread from the richest man in the world to feed his family? Fable 3's moral thing is a good example. Make everyone suffer but live or kill everyone but let them have a nice live.

I took an alignment test and came up with Chaotic neutral. Take that morality!

I would argue that lack of morality holds back progress, mostly because of money and power. We always hear about oil companies holding back energy progress for obvious reasons and I bet we would have found a cure for cancer by now if it wasn't for the mulit billion dollar medical industry surrounding "traditional" cancer treatments.

Morality would tell people to do all they can to make the world a better place, so I don't see how morality holds back all progress. Yes there are some arguements about stem cell research and such, but it's greed and coruption that holds us back the most.

 

[Hammartroll]

As with most things discussed by internet nerds, the problem is that 99% of the people in the conversation have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. Most of the posts on this thread so far are the equivalent of, if this were a sports forum, saying "I don't like football because I don't like games that are played underwater."

Morality is something that has been discussed for a long time, and by some of the greatest thinkers in history. Whatever else they may be, internet nerds are not great philosophers. If you aren't familiar with at the very least Plato's Meno, Seneca, Kant, JS Mill, and Hume you are not even in the conversation.

Seriously, who here knows the difference between Act, Rule, and Desire Utilitarianism? Or the difference between Utilitarianism and Hedonism? How about Ethical Egoism, Categorical Imperativism and Virtue Theory? Note that none of these reference God.

My initial thought was to correct people's misconceptions on the subject, but I don't think I can explain the history of Moral Philosophy within the word limit.

S.H.

I'm not educated on the subject, but would it be safe to say that morality is still important to society at least to some extent?

 

[dickywebster]

Morals are tricky as there is not set of morals everyone follows, heck they even differ over time so to some extent they are irrational.

And yes i do agree with the irrational bit, but id say its not a natural thing more than irrational, without morals we would have probably wiped ourselves out long ago, but its something we have invented.

So while morals do have uses, ive found too many times where immoral people hide behind a false wall of morality they have constructed.
Also if any religious people claim you can not have morality without their religion, as ive seen claimed in the past, i will laugh so hard.

 

[Schrodinger's Hat]

I'm not educated on the subject, but would it be safe to say that morality is still important to society at least to some extent?

Absolutely it is important; what I was trying to point out is that it makes no sense to make sweeping statements about something if you don't understand it. I'm all for people discussing something in order to try to understand it; it's when people say "morality is dumb derpa derpa derp" that I get annoyed.

If we start with Kant (Kant is philosophy and philosophy is Kant) he thought that we have a responsibility to be moral because we are rational. The moral choice is the rational choice in any situation when we are totally disinterested {NB not uninterested- disinterested is closer to unbiased}.

Of course he also had some crazy ideas about absolute moral rules and about God, but no-one is perfect.

 

[Schrodinger's Hat]

Also if any religious people claim you can not have morality without their religion, as ive seen claimed in the past, i will laugh so hard.

Divine Fiat is a popular viewpoint, but absurdly weak to the Barren Tautology problem.

 

[Kakashi on crack]

Morality is relevant. There are three basic rules that apply to everything because they are present in all societies (don't steal, don't kill, don't physically harm another unless in punishment), but everything else is just relevant when it comes to morals. It's like good and evil, it's relevant to whom you might ask.

Now obviously if someone is being a dick, I'll call them a dick, but relatively speaking, they are a dick based on my beleifs, not theirs.