Do we really need both good and evil?

[humanguy]

I noticed your affiliation and so I looked up the Dawkins scale. I would have to put myself down as a 1.5

1.5: I do question the existence of God, but deny that it is impossible to know. But I reject certainty as a delusion and assert that living your life as if something is true is the only meaning of the word "knowledge". I do indeed say that I KNOW that God exists.

This reconfiguration of the language simply so you can then use the "knowledge" word as you wish seems either intellectually dishonest or genuinely deceitful.

Either way, it's Orwellian double-speak and effectively declares that delusional thinking, so long as it is followed by purposeful action, is impossible.

Spoken like a true bigot.

Ad hominem. Pretty much renders the rest of your response invalid.

[Aaron]

Hi Emery,

Hi Aaron. Thanks for your example of the different worlds. I guess it comes to this: as difficult as it is to find universal moral rules within the human experience, at least there are real parameters that we can examine and make best-fit decisions about. For example, how would we answer the question, "is it morally acceptable to drive 50 mph in a school zone?"

Looking only to humans, we can say this: normally functioning humans value their children's welfare above almost anything else. We also know the physical tolerances of adults and children, adult reaction time, child behavior, vehicle dynamics, etc. From that we can determine that 50 mph in a school zone would pose an unacceptable danger to children, so it is wrong to go that fast (because of the fact that we value the safety of our children). If any of us were to get a speeding ticket for 50 in a school zone, our friends would rightly consider our action irresponsible and immoral.

Yes I agree there are real parameters. In fact this is getting back to my original question, that is how do we know we have chosen the right parameters for our moral rules? Our rules change over time there is no doubt about that, but how is it that we know they are changing for the better?

Now let's use God to determine whether it's ok to drive 50 in a school zone. First, does God value the lives of our children? I do not think we can even get beyond that threshold question. We see many times in the OT that God values children's lives less than something else he's got on the agenda, whether it's showing up the Egyptians, winning a bet with Satan, or because he's tired of the behavior of the adults. We simply don't know what priority God puts on the lives of children, in school zones or elsewhere. Might it not be part of his plan that children should get run over in school zones to bring about some greater glory? Sure this sounds crazy, but who would have predicted the crazy stuff that God commanded to be done to kids in the OT? Fact is, we simply have no way to predict what God will value, or how he plans to go about getting things done.

Because we have no predictive power when it comes to God, we cannot answer moral questions based on what we think he would want. There is simply nothing that binds him to our welfare. There is also nothing that says he must act tomorrow as he acts today. But we know that humans are inextricably bound to their own welfare, and always will be. That is why, imperfect as it is, human morality is at least workable, while God-based morality will always be a crap shoot.

What do you think?

I’m not sure why you bring God into this? Let’s look at this from a Christian viewpoint for a moment. God gave Adam and Eve one command: don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We all know the story, eventually they ate the fruit and here we are today. What I find interesting about the story is actually what it doesn’t say. After Adam and Eve ate the fruit God doesn’t come down and hand them a list of rules explaining to them the proper way to act in this new sin filled world. Adam and Eve don’t cry out to God asking for his advice on how to know what is right and what is wrong. In fact after they ate the fruit they suddenly realized on their own that they were naked and immediately tried to remedy their sense of shame with fig leaves (and then my favorite part comes when God sees their attempt at fixing their situation with fig leaves and goes to make a better covering for them, do you call that foreshadowing?). What I’m getting at here is the fact that the Bible seems to teach that humans know all by themselves the difference between right and wrong. Adam and Eve and the people that followed after them have not consulted God on what is right or wrong (at least not directly), they used their own ability to discern right from wrong, as we do. It appears humans do not make moral decisions by trying to figure out what God would do, and not only that it also appears that God expects people to be able to discern right from wrong simply because they are human.

So I ask again, why would you bring up God-based morality to answer my original question? If God is real and humans are like the humans described in Genesis (that is they posses an ability to discern right from wrong) then we would never try to answer questions based on what we think God would do, instead we would use our brains and our sense of what is right, just like what you described in the first paragraph, which seems to be the way God intended it (see the Bible), he didn’t want to create helpless babies, but rather people that can stand up for what is right and who can be held responsible for their actions.

Also I think we can get beyond the threshold question as you’ve put it, with only the knowledge that God has created us. If we find within our selves a love for our children and a wish for their welfare then it is not such a impossible assumption that the God who created us with this love for what is right also loves what is right.

[WinstonNoble]

It appears humans do not make moral decisions by trying to figure out what God would do, and not only that it also appears that God expects people to be able to discern right from wrong simply because they are human....

Also I think we can get beyond the threshold question as you’ve put it, with only the knowledge that God has created us. If we find within our selves a love for our children and a wish for their welfare then it is not such a impossible assumption that the God who created us with this love for what is right also loves what is right.

Interesting analysis of the story of the Fall. I found it compelling.

You are using language of universal morality. This thing which is right, which seems to be outside of us and even outside of God. You seem to be of the ilk that God loves things because they are good (as opposed to 'things are good because God loves them').

So what makes a thing good? Why is it good to have a love for our children and a wish for their welfare? What is the source of its goodness? You seem to be indicating that it does not come from us and does not come from God, just that we both love it because it is right. But what makes it right? What makes it good?

It would seem the Ancients didn't share the same wish for the welfare of their children (see here). They were human. You say it is an innate sense of right and wrong that we possess. These people didn't seem to think that caring for the welfare of their children was all that important. How does that fit into your conception of morality?

~Winston Noble

[mitchellmckain]

Basically what I'm trying to ask is this: In the absence of a society, is there morality?

Morality is the structure of society itself. Society is the whole point of morality in the first place. It supplies a guideline for behavior so people can work and play together -- can interact in a way that is worthwhile to the participants. The reason why even a secular society prohibits self-destructive behavior is because that indicates what the rest of society can rightly ignore and do nothing about.

But the way you have phrased the question just muddies the water, which I have already attempted to make clear, for although the whole point of morality may be the functionality of human community, its origins is not in arbitrary decisions of a society alone, because there are reasons why some things are better than others. There are absolutes -- some natural law or whatever that does play a role, and it is not all compeltely relative to the decisions of society.

There are still consequences for actions and I can personally feel good or bad about what I did, but there is no morality to them (how I feel personally about something is not morality, right?). It is no different than when the lion kills the zebra or when the wind blows or the waves crash on the beach. It is neither good nor bad. It is, in and of itself, an event.

How you feel is not morality but it may be correlated. Just because someone is a psychopath and feels nothing does not mean that what he does isn't wrong. On the other hand, if you do feel bad about what you did, it is very possible or even likely that the reason you feel bad and the reason why what you did is immoral, are pretty much the same.

[Aaron]

You are using language of universal morality.

Yes, although I'm trying to use it in a loose empirical sense similar to the way Emery describes how a person can know speeding in a school zone is wrong, if that makes sense. You could say we can't prove a universal morality the way we would prove a physical law, but I think that we all have some sort of sense of right and wrong and I think most people would generally agree with this.

This thing which is right, which seems to be outside of us and even outside of God.

Outside of us, yes. I think moral law is outside of us which gives it the power to actually be moral law (if it existed only at the individual’s whim it wouldn’t have much usefulness as a law).

I’m not suggesting however that this moral law is outside of God. I’m working under the assumption that God is the uncreated creator of all things, including morality. This to me gives moral law a source, a purpose, meaning and authority (of course if you’re a Mitch-man then this apparently defeats the purpose of having morality and you might as well be serving a tyrannical dictator or something along those lines…).

So what makes a thing good? Why is it good to have a love for our children and a wish for their welfare? What is the source of its goodness? You seem to be indicating that it does not come from us and does not come from God, just that we both love it because it is right. But what makes it right? What makes it good?

I think things are good because God made them good.

It would seem the Ancients didn't share the same wish for the welfare of their children (see here). They were human. You say it is an innate sense of right and wrong that we possess. These people didn't seem to think that caring for the welfare of their children was all that important. How does that fit into your conception of morality?

This makes me sound like I think I have just created a theory that explains everything. If that is how I have come across then please forgive me, I do not want this to sound like I have it all figured out and I’m now trying to pound into the brains of others, because I haven’t and probably never will.

With that said just because we have a sense of right and wrong doesn’t mean we will always do the right thing, not by a long shot (morality is funny in that way, we have to make a conscious decision to choose right or wrong, if we are so fortunate to have our paths colored in black and white). I also am of the belief that a person can fool themselves into thinking something that is wrong is right and I am also of the belief that part of a persons sense of right and wrong is shaped by their parents and environment so if you throw those things together given the right conditions over time a societies view of what is right will change. But that’s just what I think. What do you think?

[WinstonNoble]

Mitch (if I may address you as such), if I'm reading you right, here's is what you are saying:

A) Morality leads to Society.

B) Natural Laws lead to Morality.

I'm stating the converse:

C) Society leads to Morality.

I'm sure you know better than anyone that accepting an if/then statement as true does not mean its converse is true. You clearly accept A and B (correct me if I'm wrong), but I'm asking if you accept C.

If I commit an act toward another person, but we are the last two people left alive, are there any moral values associated with that act? If so, by whom?

Consider the Stanford Prison Experiment. The students began treating the prisoners inhumanely. Within that secluded environment, were their acts immoral? Not as judged by the others within that secluded environment. It's only in light of our society at large that we are shocked by their behavior, do they become ashamed, and a different moral value is associated with their actions. What if there was no larger society to return to, that would judge these actions differently?

Clearly, the moral values of an action changed from the experiment to the outside world. The moral values of an action are assigned based on societal expectations. In the absence of those expectations, there are no moral values.

Just because someone is a psychopath and feels nothing does not mean that what he does isn't wrong.

If we were all pyschopaths, how would that change morality? What if pyschopaths were the norm, and people like us were the exception? What would morality look like in that society?

On the other hand, if you do feel bad about what you did, it is very possible or even likely that the reason you feel bad and the reason why what you did is immoral, are pretty much the same.

If I feel good about something I did, is it likely that what I did was moral and the reasons are pretty much the same for both?

[WinstonNoble]

Aaron, I agree that we all have a sense of what is right and wrong, but this does not necessarily support universal morality. We all have a sense of what food tastes good, but this does not mean that there are universally good-tasting foods. I think we'd be hard-pressed to find a food that is universally appealing (though I think pizza is pretty much a world-wide hit, I'm sure there are still people who don't like it).

I suppose that you could define universal morality as the intersection of the sense of right and wrong of every individual who ever lived. The trick would be showing that the intersection is not empty.

I agree that moral law does exist outside of the individual, but I think it comes from society (see my previous response to Mitch).

If you could find an adequate explanation of morality that explained observations to your satisfaction but could do so without the extra assumption of God, wouldn't that be a preferable explanation? One less assumption. If you could have Euclid's 5 postulates for flat-space geometry or the 5 postulates plus a 6th postulate assuming God made things that way and they both perfectly well support the entire subject of flat geometry, which set of postulates would be considered the more correct set for describing the reality of flat space? Why would you want an extra, unnecessary postulate in there?

I think things are good because God made them good.

I'm going to get 'meta' on you here, just for fun. Things are good because God made them good. God, creator of all things. Did God create the concept of Good/Evil as well? Was that something that had to be specifically created before populating the universe with things? If an object is created with the idea that it will be good, then the concept of good must have existed before that object's creation. So did God have to create that concept and introduce it into an empty universe before he could start populating that universe with items which would then carry that characteristic? Wow, sorry I repeated that question, but it just seems like such an interesting question (more so than I was expecting).

This makes me sound like I think I have just created a theory that explains everything.

I apologize for making you feel that way. I feel bad (but does that mean it was immoral, Mitch?). We are all on here to learn and figure things out for ourselves. If we thought we had all the answers, we wouldn't be here. I can't tell you how much I've learned about myself on here, even with under 100 posts. We are working things out as we ask and answer questions. I think it's great.

You did not come across this way to me. I was just trying to test out your theories. You know how we do in math. You test out a statement by looking at the extreme cases. It's a good place to start looking for holes. That's all I was doing was throwing an extreme case at you for you to consider. I was just curious if your thoughts on morality could make room for the evidently common practice of infanticide in the ancient world.

With that said just because we have a sense of right and wrong doesn’t mean we will always do the right thing, not by a long shot (morality is funny in that way, we have to make a conscious decision to choose right or wrong, if we are so fortunate to have our paths colored in black and white). I also am of the belief that a person can fool themselves into thinking something that is wrong is right and I am also of the belief that part of a persons sense of right and wrong is shaped by their parents and environment so if you throw those things together given the right conditions over time a societies view of what is right will change.

I agree that a society's view of morality does change over time, but what I will further say is that society's view of right and wrong IS morality. We get our moral compass from society. Those expectations change slowly over time and are constantly tested by fringe elements. Can you believe that not even 60 years ago in the United States, interracial marriage was illegal. Many thought it was immoral to marry outside your race. But some people still did it and they were harassed. Then a few more, then a few more, eventually you reach a critical mass, then it's tolerated by still frowned upon. Now it's completely acceptable, and those against interracial marriage are on the fringe.

The same could be said for slavery. Is owning a slave wrong? The moral compass has swung wildly on that issue. If there is a code of universal morality that comes from God, what does it have to say about slavery?

[mitchellmckain]

Mitch (if I may address you as such), if I'm reading you right, here's is what you are saying:

A) Morality leads to Society.
B) Natural Laws lead to Morality.

I'm stating the converse:
C) Society leads to Morality.

I'm sure you know better than anyone that accepting an if/then statement as true does not mean its converse is true. You clearly accept A and B (correct me if I'm wrong), but I'm asking if you accept C.

No I most certainly am not claiming or accepting any such thing. I would accept such an absurdly simple minded account of things no more than I would accept the one you pose in opposition to it. You are trying to argue that the chicken comes before the egg rather than the egg before the chicken, which is just silly. Or to make an even better analogy it is like arguing that a body leads to organs (like heart, lungs, liver, etc...) rather than organs leading to a body, because what I said was that morality is the structure of society itself -- just as the the organs of heart, lungs, liver, etc... are the structure of the body. Morality and society evolve together because they are really one and the same thing. And B is just as absurd as A. Natural law does not lead to morality any more than the conservation of energy leads to human bodies. The point is that the laws of nature are involved in the content of both, for morality can no more ignore and contradict the laws of nature than the human body can ignore and contradict the conservation of energy.

If I commit an act toward another person, but we are the last two people left alive, are there any moral values associated with that act? If so, by whom?

Absolutely! Morality is all about how one person acts towards another. Human community begins with the relationship between two individuals. By whom? -- by the two people in the relationship. Actions of each are limited by what the other can accept in the relationship between them. And although there are some things that the two must simply agree upon to define their relationship, there are also absolutes involved regarding what kind of agreements can define a relationship that is even workable (in a range of what is workable for any two people down to what is workable for most people).

Consider the Stanford Prison Experiment. The students began treating the prisoners inhumanely. Within that secluded environment, were their acts immoral? Not as judged by the others within that secluded environment. It's only in light of our society at large that we are shocked by their behavior, do they become ashamed, and a different moral value is associated with their actions. What if there was no larger society to return to, that would judge these actions differently?

"our prisoners became depressed and showed signs of extreme stress." That looks like an objectively measurable indicator right there that no matter how habituated the actions became to its participants, those actions were indeed immoral. This experiment is an excellent example of how morality is NOT completely relative.

Clearly, the moral values of an action changed from the experiment to the outside world. The moral values of an action are assigned based on societal expectations. In the absence of those expectations, there are no moral values.

Incorrect. The societal expectations are one thing and morality is another. The human community is a living organism and that organism can be sick just as any living organism can be sick. The symptoms of illness in both cases are easily observed.

No what this really demonstrates is the absurdity of expecting simple solutions to moral problems when they have become the standards of the community. The changes have to be largely incremental just as evolution is incremental for the most part, because morality is the product of an evolutionary process.

If we were all pyschopaths, how would that change morality? What if pyschopaths were the norm, and people like us were the exception? What would morality look like in that society?

If we were all psychopaths there there would be nothing that we could recognize as a human society. Quite a large number of human behaviors depend on a great number of evolved capabilities. Human language clearly depends on brain functions that enable it, and likewise human society depends on a capacity for empathy.

If I feel good about something I did, is it likely that what I did was moral and the reasons are pretty much the same for both?

A statistical study would probably support such a claim, but of course such statistics only dictate what is true in the majority of cases and not what is always the case. That is what the word "likely" means after all.

[WinstonNoble]

Morality and society evolve together because they are really one and the same thing.

Does this statement not entail the following?

A. If there is morality, then society will follow.
B. If there is society, then morality will follow.

I'm not quite sure of your position on this because you rejected my simplification of it, then go on to say that morality is just a subset of society (the organs to the body that is society), and then make the statement above that they are in fact the same, which seems to support my original simplification of it that you started your post by rejecting.

I will again assert my position that I accept B, but not A. Morality did not exist until people started living together in communities. People did not sit down and say "Hey, we need morals." Morals emerged naturally from people living in communities. The more people you have, the more stable the moral system becomes. I see no reason to believe that morality existed before societies/communities existed. 2+2 still equaled 4 before society (before humans), but not morality.

A better analogy might be to consider how money came about. Clearly, people had things that they wanted to trade for other things. That happened first. Then money came about as a way to ease the transactions, a universally desirable object, that you knew you could always trade with another.

The human community is a living organism and that organism can be sick just as any living organism can be sick. The symptoms of illness in both cases are easily observed.

Is that so? Please give a few examples of current illnesses that are easily observed in today's society. What about gay marriage? Is it immoral to allow gay marriage or is it immoral to NOT allow it? Are abortions immoral or is it immoral to not let a woman have the right to choose? Is it immoral for a company to have some people earning minimum wage while others are earning millions annually (WalMart)? Universal healthcare? Also, as obama5493 pointed out:

Is it OK for a society to relegate children of poor families to a substandard education and thus condemn them to repeat their parent's poverty? Is it OK for one country to devour world resources at the expense of people from countries that have no power to stop you?

I think there are a lot of morally ambiguous questions that we could ask. Only in hindsight, judging the past based on current moral standards, do things become so clear (such as interracial marriage or slavery). The morally ambiguous questions of the day are only ambiguous because society has not yet decided how to feel about them yet. Would that be the case if morality existed independently and outside of society? Give it another 20 or 50 or 100 years and society will have settled on a moral response to those questions and they'll look back at us and say "Wasn't it obvious? Why were they so dense or confused about it? Clearly, this was wrong."

"our prisoners became depressed and showed signs of extreme stress." That looks like an objectively measurable indicator right there that no matter how habituated the actions became to its participants, those actions were indeed immoral.

Some women become depressed and show signs of extreme stress during or after pregnancy. So is it immoral to impregnate women who are predisposed to this? Poor financial situations cause depression and extreme stress. Is it immoral that we allow people to live in poverty? If so, where's the moral outrage over it?

In that stratified world of the prison experiment, where you either had to be a prisoner or a guard and the guards basically got to set the moral climate of that society (without input from the prisoners) and they could do so unchecked, that is why it was morally acceptable (to them) to abuse the prisoners. That behavior would have been immoral if it were directed toward the other guards. The treatment of the prisoners is only immoral relative to the current moral standards of our society.

This is timely: Pfc. Manning's Treatment in Prison. Immoral? I bet Manning is depressed and under extreme stress. Yet we allow our prisoners to be treated this way. Solitary confinement is a very common practice.

human society depends on a capacity for empathy.

I disagree. A human society is what you get when humans live and work together. Why is empathy a requirement? I don't think this is something you can just assume. What justifications do you have for it? I hate to play this card, but Nazis lacked empathy and yet formed a society. A society can be built on fear rather than empathy and still function. What is the moral code in a society that is based on fear? Maybe it could be based on economics. "We don't like anyone and have no empathy for them, but we need each other to survive."

WinstonNoble wrote:
If I feel good about something I did, is it likely that what I did was moral and the reasons are pretty much the same for both?

A statistical study would probably support such a claim, but of course such statistics only dictate what is true in the majority of cases and not what is always the case. That is what the word "likely" means after all.

I feel good about winning (soccer, board games, video games, debates). Is winning always morally good? I feel good when I have a few pints of Guinness. Is drinking morally good? (I'd love for the answer to that to be yes, so I could tell my wife).

Incorrect. The societal expectations are one thing and morality is another.

The point I'm trying to make is that societal expectation is the same as morality. I understand you disagree. I hope I've made a stronger case for it in this post. I welcome your response (all responses really).

[mitchellmckain]

Morality and society evolve together because they are really one and the same thing.

Does this statement not entail the following?

A. If there is morality, then society will follow.
B. If there is society, then morality will follow.

I'm not quite sure of your position on this because you rejected my simplification of it, then go on to say that morality is just a subset of society (the organs to the body that is society), and then make the statement above that they are in fact the same, which seems to support my original simplification of it that you started your post by rejecting.

I will again assert my position that I accept B, but not A. Morality did not exist until people started living together in communities. People did not sit down and say "Hey, we need morals." Morals emerged naturally from people living in communities. The more people you have, the more stable the moral system becomes. I see no reason to believe that morality existed before societies/communities existed. 2+2 still equaled 4 before society (before humans), but not morality.

I continue to reject your chicken and egg logic. Yes people existed before morality but it is not true that people have always coexisted to their mutual benefit. There have been people who have live together successfully and people who have not lived together successfully and that is how we learned what it takes -- the guidelines of morality that enables people to live together successfully to their mutual benefit. There is more to human community and society than just numbers.

The human community is a living organism and that organism can be sick just as any living organism can be sick. The symptoms of illness in both cases are easily observed.

Is that so? Please give a few examples of current illnesses that are easily observed in today's society.
...
Also, as obama5493 pointed out:

Is it OK for a society to relegate children of poor families to a substandard education and thus condemn them to repeat their parent's poverty? Is it OK for one country to devour world resources at the expense of people from countries that have no power to stop you?

[/quote]
obama5493 is probably a bot that copied the words of gary_s on the first page of this thread merely in order to post the link in the signature without detection. But in response to gary's questions the answer is no, and it is rather obvious that we are becoming aware of this as we see how these things are compromising the development of mankind. And these are good examples of how we can see the symptoms that make us aware of the moral problems in these things. In the first case the unending hopeless of group of people that cannot improve their condition when they easily observe that a better life is possible, clearly leads to an unending problem of criminal violence. Thus we have come to recognize that to solve the problem of criminal violence we have to deal with the root of the problem, just as we are now beginning to realize that social and economic inequities between nations are actually issues that are critical to national security, because destruction is just too easy and the only really effective way to protect against it is to remove the things that motivate it.

What about gay marriage? Is it immoral to allow gay marriage or is it immoral to NOT allow it? Are abortions immoral or is it immoral to not let a woman have the right to choose?

Ah now these are complex issues that involve personal moral commitments and the definitions of words like "marriage" and "persons". Morality in a free society must put the principles of tolerance and religious freedom before those of personal moral commitments. So, we must be wary of uncompromising ideological stands that seek to force their own moral commitments on other people by pushing their own definitions of these words without regards to what they have always meant before. Thus I reject the fabricated moral high grounds of both the so called "gay rights movement" and the "pro-life movement". Flexibility, compromise and decisions made by the people involved rather than by politics is what is needed here. Thus I must support rights of people to make their own decisions, whether it is regarding the termination of a pregnancy or the adoption of a child by a homosexual couple. But I also have to oppose high handed attempts at social engineering by redefining words to suit ideological agendas. There seems to be a need for a more flexible institution than traditional marriage and that may be exactly what is needed to bring about changes in social expectations in a way that is more natural and grass-roots.

Is it immoral for a company to have some people earning minimum wage while others are earning millions annually (WalMart)? Universal healthcare?

These are issues of what works and what doesn't and personally I do not think we have found what works in either of these cases. But I certainly think simple minded ideological solutions are clearly NOT the answer in either case. Communism, short circuiting what motivates innovation and enterprise obviously does not work and allowing people to do whatever they want without controls and regulations is also a recipe for disaster. Medical care is if anything an even more difficult issue. Living in the US, I find its way of doing things completely inadequate, but I don't see any simple and easy solutions to the problems. I think this is probably something that is going to take a great deal of time and learning to resolve.

I think there are a lot of morally ambiguous questions that we could ask. Only in hindsight, judging the past based on current moral standards, do things become so clear (such as interracial marriage or slavery). The morally ambiguous questions of the day are only ambiguous because society has not yet decided how to feel about them yet. Would that be the case if morality existed independently and outside of society? Give it another 20 or 50 or 100 years and society will have settled on a moral response to those questions and they'll look back at us and say "Wasn't it obvious? Why were they so dense or confused about it? Clearly, this was wrong."

That is correct. Morality is a product of a learning process much like evolution. At no time in history is has this been so easy to see because technology confronts us with new ethical issues everyday, and it takes time to see the long term consequences of our choices.

"our prisoners became depressed and showed signs of extreme stress." That looks like an objectively measurable indicator right there that no matter how habituated the actions became to its participants, those actions were indeed immoral.

Some women become depressed and show signs of extreme stress during or after pregnancy. So is it immoral to impregnate women who are predisposed to this? Poor financial situations cause depression and extreme stress. Is it immoral that we allow people to live in poverty? If so, where's the moral outrage over it?
...

A statistical study would probably support such a claim, but of course such statistics only dictate what is true in the majority of cases and not what is always the case. That is what the word "likely" means after all.

I feel good about winning (soccer, board games, video games, debates). Is winning always morally good? I feel good when I have a few pints of Guinness. Is drinking morally good? (I'd love for the answer to that to be yes, so I could tell my wife).

This is more of your excessively simple minded A=B mentality which cannot comprehend more complex relationships between factors like "symptoms" and "necessary but not sufficient". I find it tiresome and unworthy of comment.

human society depends on a capacity for empathy.

I disagree. A human society is what you get when humans live and work together. Why is empathy a requirement? I don't think this is something you can just assume. What justifications do you have for it? I hate to play this card, but Nazis lacked empathy and yet formed a society. A society can be built on fear rather than empathy and still function. What is the moral code in a society that is based on fear? Maybe it could be based on economics. "We don't like anyone and have no empathy for them, but we need each other to survive."

Which just goes to show how morally vacuous your social relativism really is.

The point I'm trying to make is that societal expectation is the same as morality. I understand you disagree. I hope I've made a stronger case for it in this post. I welcome your response (all responses really).

No you have not made a stronger case. Your social relativism remains as unsupportable and morally vacuous as divine relativsm. Social expectations CANNOT justify a persons actions. An effectual morality must be a guide for social change, and your morality like many in the past is an empty justification of the status quo, used to prop up the insanities of such things as the Third Reich and a southeastern United States ruled by the Klu Klux Klan.

[WinstonNoble]

Yes people existed before morality

Agreed. This is one of the points I was trying to make. Can we convince everyone else of this?

it is not true that people have always coexisted to their mutual benefit. There have been people who have live together successfully and people who have not lived together successfully and that is how we learned what it takes -- the guidelines of morality that enables people to live together successfully to their mutual benefit. There is more to human community and society than just numbers.

When people decide to live in a community or society, a moral system develops. Agreed that some of them are terrible and self-destructive. There are bad moral systems. But just because a society self-destructs doesn't mean they were without a value system. It just means that society's value system was perhaps not a good one. Communal living guarantees a moral code of some type.

I only try to echo back what I think I'm hearing from you to make sure I'm understanding you, not to upset you. So I'm going to do it again:

Are you defining morality as that which allows for humans to successfully live and work together to the benefit of all?

If so, then we might be on the wrong page. I'm working from the idea that morality is a collection of values held. See the definitions here. I'm going with definition 2. It seems like you are talking about definition 3.

I definitely agree that some moral systems are better than others and I would favor moral systems that do the greatest good for the most people without infringing on individual freedoms. But I don't consider morality as the ideal way for a society to conduct itself, but just a snapshot of its currently held values. It's something that needs continual refinement.

obama5493 is probably a bot that copied the words of gary_s on the first page of this thread merely in order to post the link in the signature without detection.

I didn't catch that...

There seems to be a need for a more flexible institution than traditional marriage and that may be exactly what is needed to bring about changes in social expectations in a way that is more natural and grass-roots.

Civil Unions?

Communism, short circuiting what motivates innovation and enterprise obviously does not work and allowing people to do whatever they want without controls and regulations is also a recipe for disaster.

Agreed. Compassionate Capitalism is what we need. I guess we are slowly heading in the right direction. I don't understand those who suggestion there should be no government regulation (like gun laws). Everyone benefits from some regulation in some way. For example, traffic laws are government regulation. Should we do away with traffic lights and stop signs and speed limits because that is government regulation and we should be able to drive however we want?

This is more of your excessively simple minded A=B mentality which cannot comprehend more complex relationships between factors like "symptoms" and "necessary but not sufficient". I find it tiresome and unworthy of comment.

I was being intentionally simple-minded to illustrate that it is not a simple matter of saying if you have A and B and C present, then the act is immoral. I doubt if it is possible to make an exhaustive list of symptoms of what is required for something to be immoral. I agree that human acts tend to be complex, so it would seem that such a list would be impossible.

But this seems to point towards personal morality (where everyone gets to decide what is good and what is bad for him/herself). How do we decide what factors, symptoms to consider when judging an act as immoral? Depression and extreme stress are indicators of immorality under certain circumstances. You didn't comment on the imprisonment of Pfc. Manning. Is his treatment in prison immoral or justified.

Social expectations CANNOT justify a persons actions. An effectual morality must be a guide for social change, and your morality like many in the past is an empty justification of the status quo, used to prop up the insanities of such things as the Third Reich and a southeastern United States ruled by the Klu Klux Klan.

Social expectations do justify a person's actions. Thomas Jefferson at once proclaimed that all men were created equal and owned slaves. I don't think we begrudge him of the fact that he owned slaves, but the social climate of the time made such a circumstance acceptable (maybe even mandatory: he was rich and owned alot of property that it might have been unacceptable to not have slaves) and so we forgive him for owning slaves even though we consider that wrong now. I think most of us would like to think that if he were alive today or during the civil rights movement, that he would have come down on the side of anti-slavery. Perhaps that's how we decide on people like that: What would their moral views be today? I think based on the evidence that Jefferson would have been anti-slavery.

Also, we like to think we'd take our modern moral sensibilities with us if we were somehow magically transported to the past. Would you have been a slave owner or otherwise supported the institution of slavery if you were alive back then? I'd like to say no (for myself), but there is no way to really know. I traced my ancestry back to the 1860's and in one census report my forefather's family was listed along with what I suppose was a slave. It is shameful for me to even admit this.

I believe any moral system will always have room for improvement. What props up those awful societies is the idea that morals are absolute and unchanging and then they go about justifying their actions by these morals, at least in the case of KKK. As for Nazis, that was very similar to the Prison Experiment. What happens there is a stratification, where one group's situation is not considered in the development of the morals of the society. I think this could be a natural law. In the event that a people is split in two, and one group's welfare is no longer regarded as important, great atrocities will occur, because the moral system that results will tend to favor one group and abuse the other. Thus, such stratification and belittlement must be avoided. Much like the plight of the gypsies in Europe today. Sad and unjust in supposedly progressive Europe.

I'm starting to suspect that you might be operating under the principle that if you do not like the conclusion, you will reject it regardless of the reasoning behind it. Your primary concern seems to be that you do not like the idea that society determines its own morality, for good or bad. So while I feel we agree on many points, as soon as we take it to conclusion, you accuse me of oversimplifying and reject my conclusion without much counterpoint.

Which just goes to show how morally vacuous your social relativism really is.

and

Your social relativism remains as unsupportable and morally vacuous as divine relativsm. Social expectations CANNOT justify a persons actions.

You provided no reasons for this, except you don't like it. You engaged in nice dialogue throughout your post, but near the end, you are short on words in justifying your rejection of my final conclusion.

[mitchellmckain]

I'm starting to suspect that you might be operating under the principle that if you do not like the conclusion, you will reject it regardless of the reasoning behind it. Your primary concern seems to be that you do not like the idea that society determines its own morality, for good or bad. So while I feel we agree on many points, as soon as we take it to conclusion, you accuse me of oversimplifying and reject my conclusion without much counterpoint.

Not everything is about objective observation for without subjective participation there is no life. Morality is all about the kind of society we want to live in -- one that of value and benefit to its participants. So you are damn right that I am going to reject an idea of morality that is incapable of making a society that I want to live in. What is wrong with divine relativism, which says that what is moral is whatever some god says is moral? It is vacuous because it really provides no rational means for saying what is moral at all, all it really amounts to is someone saying you have to do so and so because I say so. But what is wrong with divine relativism is also wrong with your social relativism for it als provides no rational means for saying what is moral and all it really amounts to is someone saying to have to do this or that because they says so. And yeah, I say SCREW that!

[WinstonNoble]

Morality is all about the kind of society we want to live in -- one that of value and benefit to its participants. So you are damn right that I am going to reject an idea of morality that is incapable of making a society that I want to live in.

all it really amounts to is someone saying to have to do this or that because they says so.

So morality is all about making a society that YOU want to live in, but it is my view of morality that only 'amounts to someone saying to have to do this or that because they say so'? It seems like you are the one who is advocating a point of view in which one person gets to decide what we all must do. You are just pushing it back a step. Rather than coming out and saying that you should decide what is moral, you are saying that morality should be what is best for society, but that you (or we, whomever that might include) should get to decide what type of society we should all live in.

I like what you have to say about tolerance and perhaps your concept of what society should be like is a good one, but if this point of view of morality were adopted by other people, then I might be more worried if this was how morality really worked. For example, this could very well have been Hitler's point of view. He certainly had an idea about what he thought society should be like (and others shared his vision). So, under your conception of morality, Hitler was only making the society that people wanted to live in and was therefore morally justified in his actions.

You, sir, are the one who has not managed to escape the vacuousness of moral relativism. You are only disguising it as the relativism of societal preference. You can talk about morality like you've got it all figured out, but all the underlying difficulties of it are now found in how we structure society. You've only managed to translate the issues to another area.

I'm willing to reframe the debate. How do we decide what type of society we should all live in? There are plenty to choose from. Capitalism, communism, free market or regulated, democracy, republic, monarchy (What else is in Sid Meier's Civ game?)

[mitchellmckain]

Morality is all about the kind of society we want to live in -- one that of value and benefit to its participants. So you are damn right that I am going to reject an idea of morality that is incapable of making a society that I want to live in.

all it really amounts to is someone saying to have to do this or that because they says so.

So morality is all about making a society that YOU want to live in, but it is my view of morality that only 'amounts to someone saying to have to do this or that because they say so'?

That is correct. I want to live in a society where what is moral is not determined simply by what people say BUT according to reasons why some things are better than others. This is recognizing that a great number of things are in fact arbitrary (more important that there is a rule than what the rule is). What side of the road we drive on is an arbitrary decision, but many other issues are not, like how we treat children for example. For the divine relativist there is no consideration of reasons and all that matters is whether what someone or something says that this is the way that God wants it to be. Your social relativism is pretty much the same -- no consideration of reasons why some things are better than others but only what the societial expectations are. The behavior of people in the Holocaust is just as moral for you as anything else. I do indeed want to live in a free society which puts the values tolerance and religious liberty ahead of personal moral commitment because I see abundant evidence everywhere that this is one of those things where there is a reason why this is better than a theocracy.

It seems like you are the one who is advocating a point of view in which one person gets to decide what we all must do.

Bullshit. I am simply saying that morality can be based on reasons why some thing are better than others and thus people can look for those reasons in objective observations. I am simply rejecting your bullshit relativism that says such reasons do not matter. And now I am rejecting your bullshit rhetoric that attempts to turn my rejection of your vacuous idea of morality into some kind of imposition of personal moral commitments on you.

Now, morality is always going to an imposition on everyone in a society. That is unavoidable. That is precisely why in a free society we need to impose the values of tolerance and religious freedom on everyone. A free society is not one in which everyone can do whatever they please. They cannot pursue their desires in violation of the rights of others. Tolerance cannot tolerate intolerance and religious freedom cannot allow religions that violate the liberties and rights of other people. If you feel put upon by this then frankly you can get out or drop dead and if you insist on not only justifying Nazi intolerance but on abusing your rights and priveliges to pursue intolerance then those rights need to be taken away from you by putting you in a place where you can do no more harm to other people, whether in prison or in the electric chair, and good riddance.

Again I am reminded of what G. K. Chesterton said in "Orthodoxy" about how insanity has far more to do with excessive rationality than with irrationality. Reason is a tool that you use to accomplish the things we want in life, but if reason replaces common sense to over-rule all sense of decency then it is a run away train that describes insanity very well.

I'm willing to reframe the debate. How do we decide what type of society we should all live in? There are plenty to choose from. Capitalism, communism, free market or regulated, democracy, republic, monarchy (What else is in Sid Meier's Civ game?)

Frankly I am not all that interested in debate. That just turns this into a game and a competition that defeats the purpose of communication. I love board games and computer games, but don't like that kind of game. Play that with with someone else.

[humanguy]

Am I the only one here who is convinced that imagining life as a pitched battle between good and evil is a very simple minded way of looking at things?

You see, I'm still not really convinced that there are such things as good and evil. It all sounds like something from Mother Goose if you see what I mean.