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Morality.
I am presenting a clear-cut theory that is not based on science. I won't cite any sources, because this is stream of consciousness thought.
Just wanted to get that out there before-hand. Here we go. Moral code has long been a very important part of society. Taboo actions were and are met with harsh punishments, up to and including, in some cultures, torture and death. But who made up that moral code, and if we don't agree with it, why do we follow it? I hypothesize that who made up whatever moral code you follow is irrelevant. If you were told their name, your life would not change, because you already know who that is (e.g. Jesus) or because the person is so radically insignificant now that you wouldn't care. The important part is why we follow it. There is a niche for every type and kind of moral code. Thus, we should be able to live the way we see fit. But most people in a society don't think about it, and thus don't realize what they're doing. For instance: Most of the laws in my country, I don't agree with. I wasn't consulted when they were made, and I signed no contract saying I'd agree to these laws (to my knowledge). Yet I still follow them. Why? Because of the consequences that follow (if I stay) and because of the options available (if I leave). If I stay and break the law, I will be imprisoned. If I leave, I may end up worse off than when I started. Caught between a rock and a hard place. I think this is why most people follow moral codes that they may not agree with. If they stay where they are, they will be punished for their difference; if they leave, they may be shunned entirely. Input and replies encouraged. |
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It's called a social contract. You respect my personal freedoms, and in return, I respect your personal freedoms. The basis of all true morality is right there.
Laws and government are just an officially mandated method of paying back those who renege on the social contract I mentioned. Without laws to punish those who would trample upon others' rights, there would be no strong system to punish and hopefully reform those who are not pure of heart. But of course, religious zealots and other miscellaneous fools need to try to control things and so you get laws not related to morality and that do not protect civil rights. But that's a consequence of democratic republic system we have; sometimes people will get power and use that power to make laws which are based on personal feelings rather than true morality. |
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Certain morals exist in one place, and others in another...
They are set to certain cultures because it's part of the tradition that they want to preserve... and they certainly don't want to change it after being so accustomed to their culture. Since you (I believe) are American, it is your CULTURE to think that way, since you DO have the right (viable) to veto. The thing is that the interest of one isn't the interest of all. Which leads us to the fact that a "Utopia" can not exist by letting certain things be legal. It may give certain people the feeling of being able to "do anything and get away with it", which can cause chaos and havoc within the society... There, also, are a lot of corrupt people... and as long as there are a big number of those people, laws will be hard to change... That's what I believe, at least... |
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It doesn't really matter that you never explicitly agreed to the laws set in place in your country - you implicitly agreed to follow them by living in your country. You are given the benefits of safety and stability, and in return you are expected to contribute to that safety and stability (by following laws, paying taxes, etc.)
That fear of consequences that you cited is more of a mental manifestation of this "implied contract," in that you realize the benefits afforded to you by society, and realize that you do not want to let go of said benefits. |
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For every law that we disagree with, there is a law that we enjoy taking advantage of (such as murder being illegal, I know I wouldn't enjoy getting murdered in my sleep), so that's why we follow laws and moral codes. You have to set standards, and whether you agree with them or not is irrelevant because the standards force everyone (in theory) to follow the same code of conduct and ergo create an ordered society.
(by ordered society I mean one where you don't have people running around killing each other for money just because they're greedy and there's no law saying they can't, not a Big Brother is watching you! ordered society) |
Re: Morality.
interesting subject.
as has been said before, morality is a social contract which allows you to act so that you won't hurt other people's freedom. but that is also the result of the culture shared inside a certain gorup of people, so it's not absolute and can't be defined as "right" - it may, at best, feel right in relation to the societal standards which belongs to. i'd also like to add, morality is nowadays strictly linked with more or less radical puritanism. it's not a correct view, and the significance might result distorted. this should be stressed as it is somewhat easy to get confused, and i istinctly find the morality idea pretty detestable myself in the first place because of this. |
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Not to say you're an idiot or something Necros, but I don't see that at all, at least, not where I live with the people I'm around. Maybe I'm just not looking hard enough? Could you give me an example? |
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(edit): Are we talking, arguing, debating, or are we discussing? |
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I think Afrobean did it just fine: You respect my personal freedoms, and in return, I respect your personal freedoms. Also, MDMAngel, I'm just discussing... It's sort of an amalgamation of all of those. |
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Herein lies the problem - just saying "yea we'll respect personal freedoms of those around us" is completely ambiguous and, consequently, completely meaningless in the context of law. If you leave something as free to interpretation as that, you're just asking for trouble. Quote:
And as far as I can tell, I think we're discussing to what extent we're obligated to follow the "moral code" that our society seems to have set out for us. We're also touching on the incentives for following this code, as well as the source of this code (or, indeed, whether this code is even well defined in the first place). |
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The current United States lawbooks are overloaded with laws that make no sense. The real problem with that is that we have two categories of laws that don't make sense: 1) Laws that are old and no longer apply to current times (e.g., you can't chain your alligator to a fire hydrant in some cities. While apparently this was a problem some time ago, it certainly doesn't appear to be now). 2) Laws that are actually current and still don't make sense (e.g. In a certain town in Colorado (Devin, Devon, something like that) you are prohibited from lending your vacuum cleaner to your neighbor; the entire Encyclopedia Britannica is banned in Texas because it contains a recipe for making beer that could be used at home; it's illegal to buy beer after midnight Sunday in Houston but perfectly all right any time Monday, which starts - that's right - right after midnight Sunday). I suppose the point I'm attempting to make (as I've now lost my train of thought) is that while my idea was too little, that doesn't change that this is far too much. Edit: My keyboard is slowly failing. In that last sentence, I meant "this is too much", not "his". Apologies. |
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As for an answer, I submit that the libertarian system has it right. Government does JUST enough to maintain order, to deny anarchy, but does nothing else. It's essentially anarchy minus the bad stuff. No silly laws about chaining your alligator, no silly laws about no sale of alcohol at certain times. They're even in favor of legalizing things such as marijuana. Really, is there anything immoral about drinking alcohol or using marijuana privately in one's own residence? Quote:
The idea I presented is gray. The law is much more black-and-white. The law is open to interpretation itself, but in its scope, it is a lot more well defined. ps what QED said |
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Morals have been an issue of life for as long as there has been an established society, but they evolved over time... and, if I remember correctly, not all changes are good.
Complaining about morals won't change them. Morality, I suppose, defines socially acceptable behavior... but certain things aren't legal and are extremely taboo... and certain things that used to be taboo aren't any more. I have a good example, but I'm ending here. |
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I like the libertarian argument, sans legalization of marijuana, but this is a completely separate discussion from drug legalization, so that ends there. At the moment, there are no laws against drinking alcohol in your own residence, regardless of age. You can be like, 12, but as long as you're in your own home, your guardian condones it, and you have no one else present, you're home free to get wasted. Quote:
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Re: Morality.
I wouldn't say that laws are moral code. Morality is subjective to individuals. Not everyone loves chocolate, for example... so not all people may agree that stealing is wrong. But the only person who's idea of morality matters is the leader. And if you live below the leader than you don't have to have their same moral code, you just have to follow their rules based on their moral code.
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O hai, I c u thar, makin' no sense. Okay, laws aren't moral code. Makes a bit of sense. Morality is subjective t individuals. True statement. Not everyone loves chocolate, so not all people may agree that stealing is wrong? O RLY? I think the big problem in that statement is that at first (and still, even five minutes later) it appears that you are trying to say that people may not agree that stealing is wrong BECAUSE they don't all like chocolate. Which is wrong. Plus, say that I say stealing is fine (which in some cases I do). Let us also say that my leader says stealing is wrong. Thus, were I to be imprisoned for said theft, would I not have to have my leader's morals? If I were to disagree, I'd be thrown in jail. After all, stealing is wrong, right? |
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I think this wikipedia article is relevant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol..._United_States But I know this chart appearing in said article is relevant: ![]() I live in Michigan, so even if my parent gave me alcohol, it wouldn't be legal. Quote:
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Morality is not as subjective as you make it seem. It requires a subjective interpretation, but a black and white statement can be made about specific instances based only on what I said alone, assuming you are familiar with the basic individual rights a person should be afforded. Quote:
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Re: Morality.
@Seefu: No no the chocolate comment was just an example of subjective opinions. Not all people agree with the same things. Not all people like chocolate, and it's just as likely that not all people agree with stealing. Yeah?
And you're thrown in jail because of the laws, not because it's "wrong". For a long long time there have been people with power and they're opinions are honestly the only ones that matter. So if big boy presidenté thinks that stealing is wrong, he lets you know that and tells you that you shouldn't work against that. If you say "well, I think it's okay, but there is a rule against it" and do it anyway, that's why you'd go to jail. |
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But doesn't that make the laws of the land generate at least indirectly from the people?
After all, you elect your president democratically, you elect your house and senate representatives democratically, and your local politicians are answerable to the desires of their consituancy. If the vast majority of Americans thought stealing was A-Ok it woudln't take long for laws against it to be repealed, since that same majority could and supposedly would fail to re-elect people who didn't accede to their wishes. |
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If the majority of the people who democratically voted for senators who had ideas about stealing being okay, because they are the ones who are able to propose laws, then yes stealing could be omitted as being against the law.
But then again, IMO, the democratic system is crumbling. Politics is a foggy field of marketing and liars. |
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You aren't supposed to vote for people who have ideas about things that you don't agree with. if you elect such a person, you are indicating that you support their ideas, so it's you saying it too.
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But political leaders today typically lie to get elected.
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Well someone's disillusioned about the political process before even being able to vote.
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Well, maybe when you realize the inherent meaninglessness to every single thing in "existence" you'll stop having to ask questions that we've all thought about eons ago in existences before your time.
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If every thing in existence is meaningless, then the fact that these questions have been thought about before is meaningless, so your objection is also meaningless.
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Obviously
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That kinda killed that question.
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Going back to the original question, I don't think anyone really 'made up' a moral code. Organized it, yes, but the only people who could really be attributed to making our moral code are, at the moment, Mr.Evolution or God, depending on your view (or in mine, possibly both). As far as people who organized it, one well known person was Hammurabi, who made the Code of Hammurabi (http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/31800.html). If I'm not mistaken, it was the first recorded set of laws (that we know of) stating that a person must be punished equally according to the crime he committed (I might be wrong about the 'first' thing). In other words, if you cut off someone's hand, so must yours be cut off.
But even the people who made lists of laws weren't just making things up. They were going by what they saw as 'wrong' or 'right'. So where do our views of wrong and right come from? One explanation is evolution. Our species has learned over time that there are benefits for saving each other. If two team up, they are stronger than one, and both members of this team gain something from the 'friendship' if you can call it that. Over time, the animals that made relationships were the ones that came out on top. So over time, it was ingrained into the brains of our species not to do certain things, like kill each other. Another view is the "God" view. That there is some being who created us with these moral codes that we are supposed to follow. There are also some who believe both, that God controlled evolution to work out so that we could become like we are today. Being a Christian, I kind of lean towards the third one, however I view evolution as less of a 'definite' and more of a "the best explanation that we currently have". My views on morals and why we have them are quite a bit different from many others, and I'll probably end up going into that later, but at the moment, I want to post what I've got written here :P. |
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In the evolutionary animal world, spending resources that could be used for the betterment of the strong and the young/developing to keep the sick and elderly alive is a counterproductive action, and yet as a culture we pride ourselves as morally superior for our efforts to care for the elderly, and that's just one example. |
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Also, evolution is science, God is a construct. One cannot work within the other, so your third argument (God controlling evolution) is scientifically (and constructurally) impossible. |
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The part where my argument fails a bit is in all the extensive laws made by governments. These, I think, are less evolutionary and more governments thinking through things. But at the base of it all seems to be our sense of Morality, and Guilt. If we didn't feel like it was wrong to kill or that anything could be gained from not killing, chances are we wouldn't care so much for obeying other laws. Again, with the sick and elderly thing, our brains might say something like "This person is going to die. Dying is not good. This person may still be of some help to society." In my view, it's God that gave us, possibly through evolution, our sense of morality. Quote:
But think about if you did. Would you feel too good after killing someone? Personally, even if the person was attacking me, I would probably feel sick for months. So I guess I meant more that "don't kill" is written into our brains somewhere, not that it is wrong in everyone's point of view. Quote:
That being said, here's the Wikipedia article for Intelligent Design: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design And it's not just an uncommon, third party thing. I mean, it certainly is less common than the other two views, but it has a featured article on Wikipedia. |
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For you folks who want to touch on religion/science, we already have a thread for science and religion's potential incompatibilities and the implications of such a compatibility or lack thereof. |
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As for what I'd feel if I did, I don't know. I've never killed anyone. I could feel trumphant, because I removed the threat, I could feel happy (same reason), or I may even feel a since of guilt, because I took a life. But I don't know. I think it would be a good idea to survey people who have killed in self-defense. Also, I don't think "don't kill" was written into our brains without parents and lawbooks. You see, in the military (everyone's, not just ours), people's capacity for killing be increased to the point where they don't even have to think about it. If "don't kill" were written into our brains by evolution, as "sex", "food", or "air", we'd never be able to get rid of the hesitation. Soldiers would still hesitate and think about it before they killed someone. Disclaimer: Not ragging on the military in any way, I love em, don't take my examples the wrong way. Sure, intelligent design isn't just like The Church of The Flying Spaghetti Monster (that is to say, a fringe theory which makes no sense at all), but at the same time, on its face, it does not make sense. And here you may insert all or more of the common arguments against higher powers... why doesn't everyone believe, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. but I won't, because I think you already know what the arguments are. At this point, I really don't want to debate Intelligent Design's viability as a theory, but rather its relevance twoards morality, which is thus: For this argument (or piece of it), we will assume that Intelligent Design is valid. So, why didn't God have "don't kill" written in all of us? What about murderers? Why would he put something so major in an ink that is relatively easy to remove? |
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Is being morally only to get into Heaven truly moral though?
I mean, if a person is a terrible person, but behaves morally because they believe it to be their only way into Heaven... would that person be morally right? It seems to me that a person like that is lying to themselves... and this god who is all powerful, what's the point of the supposed test? He is not bound by time or space, he knows what sort of person we are, what kind of moral ideals we'll hold. Why does the test need to play out? |
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I can explain the logical process to anyone who doesn't see it but basically, either we have no free will, or God is not in fact omniscient. And since whether we have free will or not, we have an incredibly persistant impression of free will, I'm more inclined to conclude that God is not omniscient, and that the test is actually a test and needs to play out because God does not know what the outcome will be. |
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And since he is not bound by time or space, he can just observe us in the future. Think 4th dimensionally. While we're just being born, he could skip ahead to the future and look at what we've done with our lives, then go back in time and pass judgment on us for things we hadn't yet done. He's ****ing God. He can time travel, bro. |
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Yes...this is why I'm saying that free will and omniscience don't go together...
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then one of his powers is inaction He can choose to do nothing. In choosing to do nothing, he allows free will to emerge. |
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All powers is omnipotence, not omniscience.
Omnipotence is all on its own a contradiction in terms, and it absolutely can't go together with omniscience, let alone omniscience and human free will. |
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If we truly have free will, then we could do something completely random and unpredictable. If God did not know this beforehand (without looking ahead in time) then he is not truly omniscient. He could look ahead to the future and make inferences of the effect based on the cause but that's not omniscience, that's critical analysis.
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Free will and predictability aren't incompatible, knowing someone well enough I can make pretty ready predictions with a high degree of success, as to what action they will take given a certain set of circumstances. But yes, they -could- make a conscious choice to defy expectations and do something unpredictable. |
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Yeah I just meant something completely out of character, for example, me grabbing a knife right now and stabbing my mom. I would obviously never do that if you knew me, yet I still have the ability to decide to do that at any moment.
I wasn't exactly clear with my syntax but I meant something achievable but out-of-character and unexpected. |
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He already apparently knows whether or not you'll do that, and then whether or not, if you end up doing it, you pray for forgiveness, and mean it, and get forgiven. Etc. This would be a prime example of why Intelligent Design is not a logical theory. EDIT: Not the point of the topic, though, sorry. I keep wanting to engage in religious discussion. Back on point... Assuming Intelligent Design is valid (just for this post), God is a pretty immoral dude, then. He know who's gonna kill who, knew Hitler was gonna go after some Jews, etc., and he jsut let it play out. It's like putting all of the kids in the sandbox and just walking away for eternity until you feel like coming back and doing something. |
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If the purpose of existance is a TEST, then how is it immoral to allow the test to follow through? What would be immoral would be if God promised us to let us use our free will and then constantly meddled and modified and interfered. |
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Seefu, way to completely ignore the point of every post on this page.
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Hmm... morality... i don't think there's such thing. i believe the world is just a whole lot of emptiness, there are only our instinctive, constant, unceasing struggle for existance. Only power, strength and survival matter. Might is right;eat or be eaten.
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So you are 100% okay, if I can manage to pull it off, with my beating you half to death, imprisoning you and making you toil to my benefit?
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