right and wrong

[Cavernio]

I figure this is off-topic enough to start another thread.

Quote from RubiedCross:
"Saying something is "Right" or "Wrong" is a completely SUBJECTIVE and OPINIONATED statement."

I disagree with this statement. Happiness is good. Hurt is bad. It is right to make people happy. It is wrong to hurt people. Every moral question should revolve around this, and therefore all subjectiveness revolving around right and wrong should come from differences in opinion regarding creating more happiness and less hurt.
People who measure morality in a different way than this are wrong unless someone convinces me otherwise.

[ScylaX]

Morality is totally universal, any sane person will tell you making people feel bad is bad for obvious reasons. RubiedCross just mixes up the morality and the doxa, which is very unique to each culture. If you look at the most "atomic" ideas of the morality in general, you'll see everything is universal. It's only when the problems get more molecular that people will begin to have divergent opinions, because it's all a matter of some ways to see the world (and there goes the subjectivity), the connexions between the "moral atoms" of the question is too ambivalent in these moral questions.
Death penalty is the best instance : does willingly killing someone is repressive enough to apply the same treat to the murder ?
Anybody will say "killing somebody is bad", sure. And then the arguments offer different views of the problem, and how to considerate it. And there are many elements in the death penalty question : political, moral, philosophical, legislative etc. And it's also a matter of circumstances and how to treat these : "he killed that guy and he knew what he was doing, killing somebody is bad, does that mean I have to kill the people that makes bad things ? wouldn't it make me a murder too ? If I make malevolent actions for morally good ends, does it make these actions bad or good ?" see ? When things get complex like that, the problem doesn't get as much atomic as "is killing wrong ?", it's all a matter of some conditions that have their very influence on how you can perceive these things ; Each of them getting interlaced at some points : it's the complexity of the problem that makes the whole opinions on the question not so unanimous. I'm not enough of a logician to make an accurate "atomic" analysis of that topic but I guess I'm clear enough to make my point understandable.

And same goes for doxic judgements as the ones in the Bible, the Koran, the american tradition, the european bourgeoisie, whatever that conditions some subjectivities ! Of course, it's subjective at some points, because most of the time, these opinions are communicated without being questioned or whatever, the experience can also changes your statements on the subject ; but as long as the thing you say isn't on a "moral atomic scale", I can assert that you'll always get a consensus.
"Is being gay right or wrong ?" isn't a moral question, it's a doxic one : it carries many moral questions (ones that are more obvious than others, ones that get obvious only when you begin to make your arguments, etc).

Of course, there were some groups of influence in the history of humanity that tried to inculcate to people that killing could be good for whatever reason (once again, it's just an example), but these values aren't, I think, actually natural : there is always an ideologist behind these things ; nobody would get to "naturally" think that killing can be good, except if that person has some serious mental issues. Such a judgement is in itself pretty unusual.

[Kibblre]

You're wrong.

On topic now, do you believe in any absolute ethics? I believe it would be safe to call certain actions such as rape wrong under any circumstance. Is this subjective and opinionated?

[ScylaX]

Kibblre, if you're talking about my post, I beg you to read it carefully and then counter-argument it with valuable statements.

[devonin]

Happiness is good. Hurt is bad. It is right to make people happy. It is wrong to hurt people.

Source? Beyond your -opinion- that this is so? From where are you deriving your objective morality?

People who measure morality in a different way than this are wrong unless someone convinces me otherwise.

This is basically a derivation of the statement "This is my opinion"

Morality is totally universal, any sane person will tell you making people feel bad is bad for obvious reasons.

Which obvious reasons are those? I think you'll find that the primary motivators for "not making others feel bad" are 1) Fear of consequences and 2) Desire that others follow the same thinking and not make you feel bad.

Neither of those are proof of universal objective moral law. Both are 100% proof of entirely subjective, localised societal mores encouraging the formation and following of social contracts. In places where certain segments of the population can act with impunity, those people make other people "feel bad" all the time. Through the institutions of slavery, class structure, caste systems, people who don't actually need to fear the consequences of their actions act outside these lines all the time.

When things get complex like that, the problem doesn't get as much atomic as "is killing wrong ?", it's all a matter of some conditions that have their very influence on how you can perceive these things ; Each of them getting interlaced at some points : it's the complexity of the problem that makes the whole opinions on the question not so unanimous.

So basically your answer to "Is killing wrong" is "It depends, sometimes it's wrong, sometimes its less wrong, and possibly sometimes it's right"? That sounds...well...very subjective to me.

but these values aren't, I think, actually natural : there is always an ideologist behind these things ; nobody would get to "naturally" think that killing can be good, except if that person has some serious mental issues.

Except that these things occur in nature all over the place, whether it be predator/prey relationships, whether it be murder and rape as a function of the courtship and reproduction cycle, or culling the weak, and old from your pack, animals kill for reasons other than food all the time.

Human culture spend more of its history thinking it was perfectly okay to kill rivals to your power than it has trying to apply laws against such things to everybody.

Something to consider about morality as universal law: Consider all of the things you'd probably classify as "Just wrong, no matter what" I'm sure the list includes murder, rape, theft, assault, mostly violent crimes, mostly crimes that infringe on people's personal rights, and take away their agency. Now consider the idea that it's always in the best interests of the weak to try and convince everybody that taking advantage of the weak is a bad thing. Our major western religious traditions have made a virtue of being oppressed. We've built a system that sets out to basically say "For those people who can act without consequence in this world, we're actually going to invent an entire system of belief built pretty much around the promise that even though you can act without consequence, we're going to believe that there will be consequences for you later, in a place none of us has ever seen, or even knows exists, where you'll be punished for offending us and we'll be rewarded for our inability to stop you."

Virtually every act that you'd find support for the "Always wrong" camp finds the reason for feeling so to be either "Because I don't want it to happen to me" or "Because it just is...I mean...come on."

In niether case has any kind of actual pre-existing moral law, one existing outside humanity's arbitrary constructs, been shown to exist at all.

[ScylaX]

So basically your answer to "Is killing wrong" is "It depends, sometimes it's wrong, sometimes its less wrong, and possibly sometimes it's right"? That sounds...well...very subjective to me.

No no no no no. I was just putting that question to show the necessity of reducting that to more abstract elements involved in it, since the answer you pretended to give is perfectly subjective. Other people will come with the answer "killing is always wrong no matter what" or "killing can be good" and all.

About the rest, the "pre-existing morality" is a pretty much nebulous concept in which I didn't put enough mind to be more accurate on the point at the moment I posted, it doesn't exist in an objective absolute but there is at least one human universal subjectivity that'd be what Morality actually is (universal, but not temporally ubiquist, it's probably just something positive), not just an individual subjectivity. I don't think I said morals always had the same standards since the beginning of the humanity, however, I just consider morals to be atomic, and whatever isn't atomic is doxic to me : killing an innocent, for instance, in the whole subjectivity system always have been disregarded. There, I think it's less susceptible to create ambiguities by saying it that way.

I'll just quit the debate for now, if I was to say the totality of my opinions now, it would be catastrophic because it's still at a hazy state, somehow, and I'd probably end up contradicting myself.

[~kitty~]

You sound a bit full of yourself if you say someone else's sense of morality is wrong. I don't know a lot of people or a lot about ethic codes in other areas, but I have heard that a kid had seen abusive behavior growing up and became abusive himself because he didn't know it was "wrong." If there was objective morality, the kid would have known it was wrong and tried to get away from it. Does that make sense?

[Kibblre]

Originally Posted by ScylaX

Kibblre, if you're talking about my post, I beg you to read it carefully and then counter-argument it with valuable statements.

I was referring to Cavernio's post.

[fido123]

Morality is simply a man made concept. We're simply brains inside of bodies that take in sensory input from out eyes, ears, and other receptors. The only laws that exist are physical laws of the universe. Society on the other hand has a set of common morals because we all have to live together. I don't steal your stuff if you don't steal mine. That's fair enough however as forign as it sounds it is possible that there are entities that experiance life in a totally different way who enjoy having their property taken if that makes any sense. Stealing is only bad for us because we find it displeasent and it's illogical in our way of life. Sorry, having a really hard time putting this one into words.

[devonin]

[fido123]

/thread

[Cavernio]

Kiddlre: My first post are my only 'absolute ethics'. Murder and rape could potentially be for the best.

Yes, it is my opinion. It is also my opinion that atoms exist...everything I say is my opinion. But despite that, and to address Fido and Kitty, I didn't mean to imply I think there is a 'universal' morality of sorts like some sort of physical law. It requires a certain degree of intelligence that the vast majority of people have. It also only applies to the human situation as it exists now; other universes and unknown beings are not included being unknown as they are.

"Morality is totally universal, any sane person will tell you making people feel bad is bad for obvious reasons." "Which obvious reasons are those? I think you'll find that the primary motivators for "not making others feel bad" are 1) Fear of consequences and 2) Desire that others follow the same thinking and not make you feel bad."

People are by necessary design, selfish, yes. However both 1 and 2 presume that it is not possible for anyone to even partially view the world from an unselfish viewpoint, or perhaps more notably, that they can logically believe in the existence of something besides themselves. While if we don't have emotions there's no reason to have morality at all, fairly 'emotionless' people still make moral and immoral decisions and can understand them logically. Psychopaths for instance, or any moral decision anyone makes when they're not emotionally invested whatsoever in the decision themselves.
My statement about morality is that events can be viewed logically.
I mean, humans clearly have the capacity to think purely logically, (eg math), or at the very least apply pure logic. I don't know why when interactions with people get involved we suddenly become oddities that are purely subjective, even and especially when we are trying to be objective.

All that said though, most people as infants and children get upset when someone else is upset. It certainly seems ingrained in us to feel bad for someone else who feels bad.

As to things like slavery and someone not feeling bad about it, or having it even be accepted, the morality that I see and that scylax sees (or saw), that doesn't make the actual act less or more wrong.

The complete flip side to my idea of a static morality, which was the impetus for my post, implies that I shouldn't get upset if someone does something that I find immoral because hey, if it's moral to them, it must be right.

"Happiness is good. Hurt is bad. It is right to make people happy. It is wrong to hurt people." "Source? Beyond your -opinion- that this is so? From where are you deriving your objective morality?"

But do you disagree with this opinion?

[Magicturbo]

tl;dr the rest of the thread x.x;;;

I'll just point out something simple-minded to me, that may have already been noticed or something.

You disagree with the original quote about "right" and "wrong" being subjective and opinionated.

Originally Posted by Cavernio

People who measure morality in a different way than this are wrong unless someone convinces me otherwise.

If this is the case then why are you open to being convinced? If you disagree with it being opinionated then you'd be supporting that it's factual. Since the possibility of being convinced exists, according to your statement, your statement flaws the definition of a fact, and contradicts itself. I'm not reading all the tl;dr in this thread if the original statement is flawed.

[devonin]

All that said though, most people as infants and children get upset when someone else is upset. It certainly seems ingrained in us to feel bad for someone else who feels bad.

And identifying with other people to create a sense of togetherness and community by empathizing when they are upset is a terrible survival trait for the young...oh wait. The young also come with a built-in conception that adults are superheroes who can do anything and are solely responsible for their survival. You don't think seeing such a person upset or afraid is innately worrying for that reason alone?

As to things like slavery and someone not feeling bad about it, or having it even be accepted, the morality that I see and that scylax sees (or saw), that doesn't make the actual act less or more wrong.

To you, subjectively in your own opinion. So what you're saying is "If it's my opinion that something is wrong, if it's your opinion that it isn't wrong, I'm correct, you're incorrect, and my opinion is the factual reflection of universal law" to which I say, again, source? Where is your evidence that you are right and they aren't? The fact that the idea of owning a slave makes you feel icky inside? That's not objective morality.

But do you disagree with this opinion?

What does my agreement or disagreement with your opinion have to do with my asking you for the source of your opinion, and your evidence that your opinion is grounded in something besides subjectivity?

[Cavernio]

But if everyone thinks the same subjective thing, is it still subjective?

I suppose I did not explicitly state the source for it, but rather talked about it as if I had stated it explicitly.
1. I know what hurt and happiness is on a personal level. Hurt is bad for me personally, happiness good. For myself, happiness becomes right, hurt becomes wrong.
2. I believe there exist billions of other humans who also have the capacity for hurt and happiness; these people exist, they are real, and I think they also have the same capacities as I do in terms of experiencing pain and pleasure. Irrelevant of whether I care for an individual or not, their hurt and pleasure is real, and it is right and wrong to them individually.
3. Since whatever I say as is the definition of moral will be seen as subjective, it seems that I cannot simply end at 2. However, it is quite a bit easier to define what is not moral. Anything that anyone does that any individual experiences as hurtful is wrong to that individual, or anything that an individual thinks is immoral, and considering 1 and 2, it therefore can't be moral. That it seems impossible to please everyone is irrelevant because we can try. The only way to minimize the immoralness (amoralness?) is to minmize everyone's own hurt (and it seems that conversely, maximize happiness should work using this argument also, although I have not thought about that.) Which is then the definition of moral, it making the immoral/amoralness minimal.

That argument isn't really the source of my opinion, but I think it supports it quite well. The source of my opinion was only 1 and 2.

"To you, subjectively in your own opinion. So what you're saying is "If it's my opinion that something is wrong, if it's your opinion that it isn't wrong, I'm correct, you're incorrect, and my opinion is the factual reflection of universal law" to which I say, again, source? Where is your evidence that you are right and they aren't? The fact that the idea of owning a slave makes you feel icky inside? That's not objective morality."

Right, that's not objective morality, but that's not what I'm saying. Firstly, I went to great lengths that basically say that my own feeling of ickiness is not the crux of the ideology. It's in the rambling paragraph in the middle. I merely pointed out that the icky feeling exists. Secondly, the ideology itself does not say that I know what is best for everyone, but rather that what's best for everyone is what's best for everyone. If my morals butt against someone else's morals, my morals (if I would be thinking about/applying them correctly), would be right only if the other's are blatantly not thinking about what's best for everyone. (Now and future everyone's might I add also, so long as the future is relatively accurately predictable regarding the moral issue in question.) However, I have also said "all subjectiveness revolving around right and wrong should come from differences in opinion regarding creating more happiness and less hurt", which still leaves vast room for individual differences and for a moral person to have a different idea of what is right from me.

[~kitty~]

Originally Posted by Cavernio

But if everyone thinks the same subjective thing, is it still subjective?

I suppose I did not explicitly state the source for it, but rather talked about it as if I had stated it explicitly.
1. I know what hurt and happiness is on a personal level. Hurt is bad for me personally, happiness good. For myself, happiness becomes right, hurt becomes wrong.
2. I believe there exist billions of other humans who also have the capacity for hurt and happiness; these people exist, they are real, and I think they also have the same capacities as I do in terms of experiencing pain and pleasure. Irrelevant of whether I care for an individual or not, their hurt and pleasure is real, and it is right and wrong to them individually.
3. Since whatever I say as is the definition of moral will be seen as subjective, it seems that I cannot simply end at 2. However, it is quite a bit easier to define what is not moral. Anything that anyone does that any individual experiences as hurtful is wrong to that individual, or anything that an individual thinks is immoral, and considering 1 and 2, it therefore can't be moral. That it seems impossible to please everyone is irrelevant because we can try. The only way to minimize the immoralness (amoralness?) is to minmize everyone's own hurt (and it seems that conversely, maximize happiness should work using this argument also, although I have not thought about that.) Which is then the definition of moral, it making the immoral/amoralness minimal.

That argument isn't really the source of my opinion, but I think it supports it quite well. The source of my opinion was only 1 and 2.

"To you, subjectively in your own opinion. So what you're saying is "If it's my opinion that something is wrong, if it's your opinion that it isn't wrong, I'm correct, you're incorrect, and my opinion is the factual reflection of universal law" to which I say, again, source? Where is your evidence that you are right and they aren't? The fact that the idea of owning a slave makes you feel icky inside? That's not objective morality."

Right, that's not objective morality, but that's not what I'm saying. Firstly, I went to great lengths that basically say that my own feeling of ickiness is not the crux of the ideology. It's in the rambling paragraph in the middle. I merely pointed out that the icky feeling exists. Secondly, the ideology itself does not say that I know what is best for everyone, but rather that what's best for everyone is what's best for everyone. If my morals butt against someone else's morals, my morals (if I would be thinking about/applying them correctly), would be right only if the other's are blatantly not thinking about what's best for everyone. (Now and future everyone's might I add also, so long as the future is relatively accurately predictable regarding the moral issue in question.) However, I have also said "all subjectiveness revolving around right and wrong should come from differences in opinion regarding creating more happiness and less hurt", which still leaves vast room for individual differences and for a moral person to have a different idea of what is right from me.

I think what's "right" and "wrong" to a person usually is about themselves. Hurting others isn't "wrong," hurting ME is wrong. The reason people think that hurting others is wrong is because it is somehow reflected unto themselves. Sometimes it's because of social issues.

Also, lots of cliche statements can show that I'm right. Something like "don't do to others what you wouldn't want done to yourself." It's about yourself, that statement makes it seem like what you do to others may be done to you by those others.

Some people think it's right to take revenge, so what's best for everyone can't really exist when we have ideas like that. Sometimes people do something to someone without realizing they've crossed some sort of barrier or done something wrong to the person, and the person would feel happy by taking revenge.

Revenge is cliched to not do anything, and even make someone feel worse. Honestly, I can't say that most people who take revenge feel that way.

[UserNameGoesHere]

My understanding of this thread is that it's something like "Is there an objective basis to the concepts of right and wrong, or are they entirely subjective?" My answer is that I just don't know. I can't say that it is objectively measurable or at least I can't think of an objective measure for it but that doesn't mean such a measure doesn't or cannot exist.

Certainly it is easy to come up with examples of what you would consider right or wrong, but are these entirely subjective (certainly many of them are), or are some of them rooted in a more universal, objective law? If they are rooted in an objective law, how would you go about proving it?

[Cavernio]

Kitty: "I think what's "right" and "wrong" to a person usually is about themselves. Hurting others isn't "wrong," hurting ME is wrong"

One's actions are usually about themselves, yes, which is a separate thing. It is an aside to what I'm trying to show, and doesn't negate anything I've said. In fact, if you remove the motivator behind the individual's actions, what you said perfectly reflects what I've suggested as proof: If I believe you exist, and I believe it is wrong to hurt myself, then it is wrong to hurt you.

As to the revenge thing, I have never said there is a knowable right and wrong, and specifically said it is impossible to please everybody. Reasons like that are part of the impetus for me defining morality as the opposite of immoral acts.

magic: I'm damned if I don't and thanks to you apparently I'm damned if I do too :-p

[ledwix]

Originally Posted by Cavernio

But if everyone thinks the same subjective thing, is it still subjective?

Yes. If all 7 billion people thought the earth was flat, would that make it an objective truth about the universe? It is possible for biological organisms to be deluded. Agreement does not necessarily equal fact.

1. I know what hurt and happiness is on a personal level. Hurt is bad for me personally, happiness good. For myself, happiness becomes right, hurt becomes wrong.

How do you know that your experiences and your judgments of those experiences are derived from an objective source? You are just yourself, a human being, with certain reactions to certain stimuli, and a definite evolutionary bias toward your own kind. Have you ever eaten meat? I eat it several times a week. Those meats are slaughtered. Slaughtering is not happiness; it is hurt. So where do you stand now? Life is a competition. Things have to eat other things to survive. Being eaten is torture. But starving is also torture. Either way, someone has to suffer. Your bias toward your own being is an evolutionary urge, not an objective truth. Our brains just trick ourselves into believing that our opinions are absolute dogma so that we will not sway from them.

2. I believe there exist billions of other humans who also have the capacity for hurt and happiness; these people exist, they are real, and I think they also have the same capacities as I do in terms of experiencing pain and pleasure. Irrelevant of whether I care for an individual or not, their hurt and pleasure is real, and it is right and wrong to them individually.

We evolved as a social species, so naturally the Venn Diagram of personal morality vs population morality is going to have a lot of shared space. Otherwise we would have died out from not being coherent enough in our social endeavors and killing ourselves. Civilization is a bunch of collective intrapersonal biases, not a body of people being subjected to a universal standard.

...it is quite a bit easier to define what is not moral. Anything that anyone does that any individual experiences as hurtful is wrong to that individual, or anything that an individual thinks is immoral, and considering 1 and 2, it therefore can't be moral. That it seems impossible to please everyone is irrelevant because we can try. The only way to minimize the immoralness (amoralness?) is to minmize everyone's own hurt (and it seems that conversely, maximize happiness should work using this argument also, although I have not thought about that.) Which is then the definition of moral, it making the immoral/amoralness minimal.

Immoral actions are "wrong," while amoral actions are simply actions, with no judgment value imposed upon them.

But anyway, all judgment values are inherently subjective. The judgment is always being made by an individual, not by some aether that penetrates the entire universe or anything like that. And individuals are programmed organisms, with programming biased toward the survival of their own kind. Eating other animals IS hurtful and considered "wrong" to the animal who wants to survive but is instead being slaughtered. Now I'm no vegetarian, but just saying: you either eat, or starve. Both scenarios include suffering, which renders the whole objective morality stance bogus. It would mean that BOTH actions, eating and starving, would be immoral. And so nothing is moral.

The more rational way to think of it is that slaughtering an animal to feed your family is subjectively perceived as wrong by the livestock, but subjectively perceived as right by the family. There is no absolute source of the judgment; only different vantage points guided by innate urges.

[ddrxero64]

Originally Posted by Cavernio

Quote from RubiedCross:
"Saying something is "Right" or "Wrong" is a completely SUBJECTIVE and OPINIONATED statement."

RubiedCross is completely correct. What we see as right or wrong is what we evolved to think is right or wrong.

Thousands of years ago people thought rape was perfectly ok.

Hundreds of years ago interracial marriage was seen as horribly wrong.

Dozens of years from now abortion and stem cell research could be seen as the best option to reducing human population due to high volume.

We might not like certain things, that remains fact, but something being "right" or "wrong" is an opinion, not fact. Only numbers and certain sciences are completely factual in life.