Poll: Logic or morality?

[Wuggy]

The golden rule is inherently logical, and is the basis of most moral behaviour.

If you're referring to the golden rule of Christianity, then it's a bit flawed. "Treat others the way you want to be treated" can apply well for most people but not all. A person with masochistic tendencies should not, in my opinion, go knocking about causing pain to other people. While this example is sort of 'out of this world' it points out the shortage of the golden rule.

To be honest I think Kant's categorical imperative is better rule to act according to:
"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law. Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means to an end."

To be honest I think of Kant's categorical imperative as a fully qualified golden rule. It really does boil down to the same core intent. The golden rule was around a looooooong time before Jesus of Nazareth, I don't think it can be tied to one religion.

Yes, bible isn't the original source of the Golden Rule. That is true, it's just where people know it from usually.

Also, I see Golden Rule as being derived from categorical imperative but with limitations, 'universal' being the key word there. For example, under the grounds of the golden rule a man who's doing financially good can refuse to donate to charity where as under the categorical imperative, that decision would be incompatible.

But yes, they are like fundamental cousins to the same core idea.

 

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

I read a study saying that racism is a learned behavior.

That is only partially true. We do have an instinct to organize ourselves into small groups, and to regard those that don't quite smell like us[footnote]...or look like us, or worship the same gods as we do...[/footnote] as outsiders, and possibly enemies (whose villages we raid and women we steal). Most of the time, we find socially acceptable ways to do this, churches, schools and sports teams presenting excellent examples of ways we categorize ourselves so that our personal tribe is smaller than an entire state.

But children grow up looking at the people around them. The ones with whom they interact are imprinted as part of their acceptable range of us, whereas those who don't fit into that gamut become categorized as them. So an urban family who is friendly with neighbors who are differently pigmented, or speak different languages or who is headed by a same-sex couple will, themselves, raise kids who are accustomed to a polyfaceted community. Contrast to a family who lives in an isolated town where everyone is the same color, speaks with the same dialect and goes to the same church. Kids from that family will have a harder time adjusting to someplace where people are less homogenous.

Humans also go to great lengths to justify our categorizations of others such as calling dark-skinned people primitive or women emotional[footnote]Indeed, the world's intelligentsia emerge from all genetic sources and ethnic groups, and men are just as emotional, only really tending to act sooner and confer less.[/footnote] and these justifications are passed on by parents and teachers, to kids, reinforcing racial prejudices, often contrary to peer-reviewed evidence.

238U.

 

[Twilight_guy]

A world of morality. If we lived in a world of logic humanity would have killed itself long ago. Not to mention that paradoxes would end our society immediately.

 

[NoNameMcgee]

All my morals are based on logic. so... both?\

Morals based on anything other than logic are irrelevant.

 

[Baneat]

snip

Zero disadvantage to believing in an objective morality.

Zero, you only can potentially gain.

Protip: read the other half of zarathustra.

 

[Cenequus]

To be honest I'd consider them the same thing. The reason is because people confound morality with a dogma,be it christian,muslim etc.

In my view morality is the mentality of how you view things while logic is the instrument you use to interact with such said issues.

 

[A Free Man]

I voted morality only because if I had to choose one over the other I think I'd prefer a world where people do what is right over what is logically the best option. Thought that being said the two are in no way mutually exclusive in that a world with logic but no morality would not really be life but a series of calculations to determine the best outcome and a world with morality but no logic would essentially be a dictatorship where the person who determines right from wrong controls the entire world as people would not use logic to determine for themselves what is right but would merely copy the choices of others. Either of those world would not be places I would like to live. So basically I am saying I would prefer morality over logic but more in a sense of using logic to enhance moral choices.

 

[MetaMuffin]

snip

Zero disadvantage to believing in an objective morality.

Zero, you only can potentially gain.

Protip: read the other half of zarathustra.

I totally agree. Well put. Question is, which path will take us to objective truth, could you tell me?

 

[zehydra]

All my morals are based on logic. so... both?\

Morals based on anything other than logic are irrelevant.

all of them?

 

[Twilight_guy]

That's not cranking it up. Try this:

By pulling a lever, you can save five souls from a terrible fate.

I, a mad philosopher, have tied down five innocent human beings along the path of a speeding train.

You can throw a lever, switching the track to another path, where I have only secured a single innocent victim.

Don't try rescuing them by cutting their bonds. You'll never make it in time.

That's all. But here's the catch:

You leave the lever be, and I will have murdered five innocents.

You pull the lever, and you will have murdered one, albeit in the saving of five others.

So how do you act?

238U.

Wrong, if I don't flip the switch despite being given the opportunity, then I have murder 5 people by way of inaction. If I do flip the switch I have murdered one person by my action. Either way someone dies, and no option is perfect. Most of the time no option is perfect though and we have to make the best choice we can. If all life is equal then saving 5 is better then saving one. Neither is right but one minimizes the loss of life. (I actually think this would be more fun it was a train full of people and X number of people on the track. Flipping the switch makes the train goes over a cliff but saves all the people. Leaving it makes the train run over the X people and kills them but everyone on the train lives. How high does X have to be (0,1,2,3, etc.) before you decide to flip the switch?).

 

[Baneat]

snip

Zero disadvantage to believing in an objective morality.

Zero, you only can potentially gain.

Protip: read the other half of zarathustra.

I totally agree. Well put. Question is, which path will take us to objective truth, could you tell me?

Either:

Ubermensch yourself Nietzche style

or

Have someone "solve" meta-ethics, and find an objective moral core.

or

Some amazing physicist will find it

or

Some amazing physicist will discover something which advances philosophy's field further

Based on the fact our intuitions deviate around the same ideas, it would be reasonable to assume via induction that it's likely that they are deformed copies of a perfect moral system. One cannot prove via reverse-engineering, only inductively point to something.

 

[Doclector]

Morality, as nice as it is, gets you nowhere these days. To change the world, people must listen to you and take your ideas seriously. Most people do not give a crap about morality, they may not even know what it is. Only logic and common sense will be listened to now.

 

[Korolev]

Ideally, you'd find a balance between the two. Doing what "you feel is right" is not always the right way to go: Again, Hitler genuinely thought that his genocidal rampages were the "right" thing to do, sanctioned by god no less (Hitler wasn't a christian, but he wasn't an atheist. He believed in all sorts of super-natural nonsense and pagan gods and Valhalla). Stalin thought what he was doing was right. The Spanish Inquisition torturers thought what THEY were doing was right. Many good ole American pioneers thought that giving small-pox infected blankets to the "heathen" natives was the "right" thing to do, not to mention that huge segments of the South USA insisted that keeping blacks in slavery was someone "moral" and "righteous".

Then again, Logic sometimes fails to, particularly in thought-experiment cases like "The Trolly Problem" (look it up on Wikipedia if you want).

You should read a book called "Moral Minds" by Marc D. Hausser. Also, "The Science of Good and Evil" by Michael Shermer. "Humanity" by Jonathan Glover is also a pretty good overview on Humanity's morals and how both "feelings" and "logic" can fail at times.

In short, both approaches have their shortcomings and we need to combine the two to develop a truly robust moral framework.

 

[Baneat]

That's not cranking it up. Try this:

By pulling a lever, you can save five souls from a terrible fate.

I, a mad philosopher, have tied down five innocent human beings along the path of a speeding train.

You can throw a lever, switching the track to another path, where I have only secured a single innocent victim.

Don't try rescuing them by cutting their bonds. You'll never make it in time.

That's all. But here's the catch:

You leave the lever be, and I will have murdered five innocents.

You pull the lever, and you will have murdered one, albeit in the saving of five others.

So how do you act?

238U.

Wrong, if I don't flip the switch despite being given the opportunity, then I have murder 5 people by way of inaction. If I do flip the switch I have murdered one person by my action. Either way someone dies, and no option is perfect. Most of the time no option is perfect though and we have to make the best choice we can. If all life is equal then saving 5 is better then saving one. Neither is right but one minimizes the loss of life. (I actually think this would be more fun it was a train full of people and X number of people on the track. Flipping the switch makes the train goes over a cliff but saves all the people. Leaving it makes the train run over the X people and kills them but everyone on the train lives. How high does X have to be (0,1,2,3, etc.) before you decide to flip the switch?).

Eheh you have to understand why he proposed this. Deontologists see acts as the moral point, so by action he allowed someone to die, inaction he did not, though more did die. Immanuel Kant, whom I referred to, proposed something called the "Axe murderer scenario" which you can look up, and that's why he proposed the question.

 

[Korolev]

All moral codes are created by human beings. All of them - Bibles were written by people. Philosophical treaties are written by people. Formal codes of moral logic are nonetheless constructed by people. No two people's morality is exactly the same.

Although there might not be a universal moral code, there are individual moral codes. My moral code is mine. It doesn't matter if the universe doesn't share it, I do, and I seek live my life by that code.

If your moral code and my moral code are too different, to the point that values are totally inverted, then I cannot live in the same universe as you and one of us has to go. That's how I see it - not as "good" or "evil" from a universal standpoint, but as a inevitible conflict between two different systems.

I think killing innocent people is always wrong. If someone has a moral code that says "killing innocents is fine and I'm going to do it", then that person's moral code is incompatible with mine and I have to eliminate them or exile them or imprison them. I will fight for my code, regardless if anyone else shares it. My morality is mine own, and that's the only morality I care about. I will ally myself with those whose moral codes are similar, and by doing so, we create society and formulate a "social" contract. Anyone who tries to intefere with our social contract are our enemies and must be dealt with.

Briefly, my Moral Code is:

1) No killing of innocent people
2) No Slavery
3) No discrimination based purely on race, gender, religion or class or orientation
4) Freedom of speech

Blah, blah blah, you know the rest. I cannot claim that my Moral code is any more universal than Hitler's moral code - but I know that Hitler's Moral Code FUNDAMENTALLY conflicts with mine, and so one of us had to go. That's all there is to it.

 

[A Free Man]

snip

That's not cranking it up. Lever Story

snip

This is a good question, it often arises when people speak of the ethics of being a doctor or in a warzone or something similar in which people literally have to make decisions like this daily. I honestly would have absolutely no problem comitting one person to their death in order to save five others. It would be the same if I were a doctor or in a war, I would always do whatever I can to ensure the least amount of people lose their lives. However for me the one thing that would change it all is if the one person was someone I knew well, in which case I don't believe my logic or morals would stop me from saving them. Unfortunately this would probably send me into a spiral of depression but nonetheless I think its the action I would take.

 

[scar_47]

There interconnected logic can affect your morals, but your morals, can affect what you view as logic. Sacrificing the life of one to save many but say that one is a brilliant scientist who's eventually discoveries may save more lives than his death would prevent logic could go either way in that situation based upon what your morals are. Your perspective is your truth and what you view as logical is based upon your limited perspective of any situation.

 

[int boom]

Can there be a third answer which says simply "No." ?

 

[Lazier Than Thou]

Logic, easily and quickly leads to eugenics which leads to genocide. Logic is cold, logic is hard, logic is unbending. It would destroy humanity.

Morality, easily and quickly leads to religion. Religious institutions lead to power, power corrupts, corruption leads to war, war leads to genocide. It would destroy humanity.

Man is both and must strive for both if he is to survive. Without the morality of doing for others selflessly and believing in the inherent value of ALL human life, while at the same time leaving open the logical conclusion that your way may not be right for everyone to follow and the courage the question all assumptions and propositions, we will do nothing but destroy ourselves.

Science is not the cure for religion, and religion is not the antagonist to science. Both are necessary.

However, I voted for morality specifically and solely because I knew the majority would vote for logic.

 

[Shadowfacet]

Its a damn shame that Kant never managed to fully synthesise Empiricism and Rationalism. How fantastic a world of moral certainty would be where logic and morality are synonymous.

Until someone can synthesise them we will be open to influence by religion and political ideas, which while not inherently "evil" allow for exploitation of specific factions or minorities.

I think it must also be realised that even if a perfect synthesis were created there is an inherent aspect of the human condition which prevents anyone from being a purely logical creature. One scenario which displays this over and over again is the rise of area bombing of civilian areas in conflicts, There is a chain of command which allow those who order it to justify it morally, vice versa the bombers justify it themselves by the reasoning that "If I don't someone else would instead." Throughout these situations though the key influence is the distance that the commanders have from the targets, It would be a very rare person that could kill the millions that died under Stalin or any similar regime if they were face to face with each individual.
Also ironic how this phenomenon rose from the blockade of germany by the british before WWI which killed hundreds of thousands due to starvation, This in turn led to the society that created Hitler.