So, how would you define ...

[2ndRateMind]

So how would you define moral excellence? Or does the term have no significant meaning for you? Is it something to strive after, as a prerequisite to happiness, or is it merely internalised social conditioning, or, worse, the whole concept of morality a con trick to keep the people acquiescent to the rule of the elite?

Best wishes, 2RM.

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 1 by 2ndRateMind]

Morality is subjective, ...

Yes, I often hear this. If it is so, how do you account for the general social consensus that say, lieing, or cheating, or capricious murder, is bad and wrong, and being truthful, or honest, or a policy of mercy, is good and right?

Best wishes, 2RM.

Easy. The vast majority of humans tend to hold these subjective personal moral values.

Why? Basically it's because they don't want these bad things done to them. Therefore from a personal subjective moral view these things would be bad. And they would like the good things done to them. Therefore from a personal subjective moral view these things would be good.

From a secular point of view one could argue that these things can be shown to be practical. In other words, the reason that most humans think it would be wrong to punch someone in the face for no good reason is precisely because they don't want to be punched in the face for no good reason.

Why? Because getting punched in the face hurts! (you can apply this same reasoning to all the things you've suggested above)

So there's no mystery to any of this. It can all be explained via pure secular reasoning.

[Aetixintro]

[Replying to post 1 by 2ndRateMind]

Compliance with Kantian Ethics, being, generally speaking, The 10 Commandments and the Golden Rule and (democratic) laws and regulations with Human Rights (UDHR).

For the other religions, one expects something equivalent to The 10 Commandments and The Golden Rule.

The Human Rights (UDHR) are approved by United Nations and are listed as The International Bill of Rights, parallel to The Bill of Rights in USA.

[2ndRateMind]

[Replying to post 1 by 2ndRateMind]

Morality is subjective, ...

Yes, I often hear this. If it is so, how do you account for the general social consensus that say, lieing, or cheating, or capricious murder, is bad and wrong, and being truthful, or honest, or a policy of mercy, is good and right?

Best wishes, 2RM.

Easy. The vast majority of humans tend to hold these subjective personal moral values.

Indeed they do. Maybe, I suggest, because they reflect objective reality.

Why? Basically it's because they don't want these bad things done to them.

Would that be objectively bad or subjectively bad? Is having acid thrown in your face an objective bad or a subjective bad?

Therefore from a personal subjective moral view these things would be bad.

This is a non sequitur. You have not argued for your point of view, only asserted it. The 'therefore' is therefore disingenuous. To clarify: I would tend to say that all acid attacks are wrong, full stop. Whereas I get the impression that you would want to say that acid attacks are wrong because the victim thinks them wrong, but right because the perpetrator thinks them right. I am not sure how you would adjudicate between these opposing points of view without some objective moral grounding.

Best wishes, 2RM.

[2ndRateMind]

[Replying to post 12 by Aetixintro]

Good. I think we are beginning to tackle the issue.

Best wishes, 2RM.

[Divine Insight]

Easy. The vast majority of humans tend to hold these subjective personal moral values.

Indeed they do. Maybe, I suggest, because they reflect objective reality.

Of course they are objective. But you don't need any supernatural God for that.

I even gave an example of how objective they can be. (i.e. being punched in the face hurts)

It's objective in a purely secular natural sense. No need to bring anything supernatural into it.

Why? Basically it's because they don't want these bad things done to them.

Would that be objectively bad or subjectively bad? Is having acid thrown in your face an objective bad or a subjective bad?

This is why I suggest that "public or social morality" should be based on whether or not harm is being done. While personal subjective morality is open to mere opinion.

Therefore from a personal subjective moral view these things would be bad.

This is a non sequitur. You have not argued for your point of view, only asserted it. The 'therefore' is therefore disingenuous. To clarify: I would tend to say that all acid attacks are wrong, full stop. Whereas I get the impression that you would want to say that acid attacks are wrong because the victim thinks them wrong, but right because the perpetrator thinks them right. I am not sure how you would adjudicate between these opposing points of view without some objective moral grounding.

Best wishes, 2RM.

Well again this would depend on how you DEFINE these things right?

Isn't that what you were asking in this thread? :-ki

In your example, if the perpetrator claims that he or she thinks that throwing acid in people's faces is "moral", then they should have no objections if we choose to throw acid in their face.

We can easily demonstrate that throwing acid in a person's face causes harm.

So if "causing harm" is a secular criteria for something to be considered immoral, then throwing acid in people's faces becomes demonstrably immoral precisely because it can be demonstrated to cause harm.

There's no need to bring in any supernatural ideas to see this purely natural and secular fact.

So when you talk about "objective morality" in this case all you are really talking about is "objective harm", and that can be demonstrated from a purely secular, natural, and physical perspective.

Of course you can get deeper into the question by asking why it should be immoral to harm anyone? But again, this can be taken from SUBJECTIVE MORALITY. The vast majority of humans will subjectively agree that they do not like to be harmed.

So that part comes from pure subjective feelings. If humans actually enjoyed being harmed then harming people wouldn't be seen as a bad thing.

So in the end, it all comes down to how humans subjectively feel about these things.

And if we allow that there actually exist "True Masochists" (i.e. people who actually enjoy being harmed) then clearly we're going entirely by majority consensus. Chalking up the outliers as being the abnormal cases.

And having recognized this we can no longer speak of "objective morality" but can only speak in terms of a consensus of "subjective morality". This is because even the concept of "harm being wrong" then becomes a subjective opinion. And this is because of the existence of a few "outliers" who apparently enjoy being harmed.

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 1 by 2ndRateMind]

Compliance with Kantian Ethics, being, generally speaking, The 10 Commandments and the Golden Rule and (democratic) laws and regulations with Human Rights (UDHR).

For the other religions, one expects something equivalent to The 10 Commandments and The Golden Rule.

The Human Rights (UDHR) are approved by United Nations and are listed as The International Bill of Rights, parallel to The Bill of Rights in USA.

The problem with the 10 Commandments is that the first 4 of them are basically commandments that we are to love some specific God that can't even be shown to exist.

Not only this, but the other 6 don't even begin to cover a lot of issues that humans consider to be right or wrong.

Also, The Golden Rule doesn't work very well since not everyone agrees on how they would like to be treated.

For example how is a Christian obeying the Golden Rule if they are accusing a same sex couple of being "sinners". Would the Christians want other people to accuse them of being sinners? Not likely. So they are in violation of the Golden Rule when they treat other people in a way that they would not like to be treated.

The Golden Rule also runs into problems when we run into a true sadomasochist. What do we do then? Just chalk the sadomasochist up to being a "sick individual".

If we start labeling everyone "sick" who doesn't agree with what we like, that can quickly become quite dangerous. And has indeed historically proven to be quite dangerous.

In fact, the very moment that we imagine that some God is standing behind our own personal moral opinions we have already entered into a very dangerous area. Because at that point we totally lose sight of the fact that our moral opinions are just that, and we no longer take responsibility for them. Instead we point to some imaginary God in the sky as the entity who is supposed to be responsible for our moral opinions and we might even proclaim to others, "It's not my morality, it's God's morality".

That basically becomes nothing short of a form of arrogance being held up in the name of an invisible supernatural entity that can't even be demonstrated to exist.

[William]

How does one determine the "Public Moral Excellence" of the majority, if the individuals do not assert their "Personal Moral Excellence"? Also, what if the majority decides that "Public Moral Excellence" requires you to violate your idea of "Personal Moral Excellence"?

It's true that this would require a highly educated society which is already unrealistic. So this is fine for philosophical ramblings, but not nearly as easy to implement in the real world.

And I agree that you're right. A social majority does not guarantee anything as it is well known that "Mob Mentality" has been the source of many horrific and disgusting actions. So a majority of opinions is no guarantee of morality.

Perhaps you're right and the idea of public morality is a misguided notion?

We would probably be better basing public behavior on a demand that it harms no one, and just forget about any concept of morality.

Leave the concept of morality to personal subjective preferences. There is no need for a "public moral standard" anyway. It's simply a useless idea.

I think this it true.

However, with the premise 'it harms no one' coupled with 'leave the concept of morality to personal subjective preferences' therein, what is produced is the idea that one can be 'hurt' by the things others think 'harmless'.

'One man's rubbish is another man's treasure' and visa-versa.

One is thus led to the distinct impression that one requires reliance on ones subjective map and compass and intuitive resource to navigate the dangerous rapids of that human propensity to be disagreeable and - in doing so - (it is a skill requiring the will to learn) enjoy the relative freedom such might add to one's little treasure of a subjective reality, The less emotional investment, the better.

Such requires both the ability to understand the buttons which can be pushed are not controlled by the external unless allowed to be and not to take too seriously the accusations of 'hurt' the fingers with voices aimed at one as being 'the offender'. Not that one should hand-wave such away, but rather, be attentive to any truth which might be found in such, and if none is found therein, disregard it as the trap that clearly has been set for that purpose...entrapment.

After all, that is what maps and compasses and intuition is for... seeing the potential entrapment and finding ways to navigated around them where possible, or disarming them when there is no way around them, as necessary.

[Aetixintro]

The problem with the 10 Commandments is that the first 4 of them are basically commandments that we are to love some specific God that can't even be shown to exist.

Not only this, but the other 6 don't even begin to cover a lot of issues that humans consider to be right or wrong.

Also, The Golden Rule doesn't work very well since not everyone agrees on how they would like to be treated.

For example how is a Christian obeying the Golden Rule if they are accusing a same sex couple of being "sinners". Would the Christians want other people to accuse them of being sinners? Not likely. So they are in violation of the Golden Rule when they treat other people in a way that they would not like to be treated.

The Golden Rule also runs into problems when we run into a true sadomasochist. What do we do then? Just chalk the sadomasochist up to being a "sick individual".

If we start labeling everyone "sick" who doesn't agree with what we like, that can quickly become quite dangerous. And has indeed historically proven to be quite dangerous.

In fact, the very moment that we imagine that some God is standing behind our own personal moral opinions we have already entered into a very dangerous area. Because at that point we totally lose sight of the fact that our moral opinions are just that, and we no longer take responsibility for them. Instead we point to some imaginary God in the sky as the entity who is supposed to be responsible for our moral opinions and we might even proclaim to others, "It's not my morality, it's God's morality".

That basically becomes nothing short of a form of arrogance being held up in the name of an invisible supernatural entity that can't even be demonstrated to exist.

Not everything has been said and done about a Worldwide Kantian ethics and morality. Further investigation in terms of psychology and relations between people, I believe, will shed better light on the insane and the proper. That being said, as you know, the World has a lot of troubles in it to the extent that truth has a difficult way out to people, people risking to get killed or worse.

One thing is for sure, following the interest of healthy children, without any lying involved, should determine the future to be. One that is Kantian ethical and moral, I think.

Note: The sadomasochist may not go so well with children which is why the sadomasochist gets the label, sick!

[bluethread]

Well, now we're getting into the entire semantics concerning the very term "morality".

If we take morality to be nothing other than a word that means "Right or Wrong". And then we accept that if some society decides that it's "wrong" to not pay taxes, then morality becomes nothing more than the demands of a society.

This is why in our modern day society we make a distinction between secular laws and "morality".

Well, that is what the OP is asking, "how would you define . . ." I do agree that if one is just referring to a list that one is required to mindlessly follow, that is correct. However, that is lazy thinking and leads to tyranny. Some in our current society do make a distinction between secular law and "morality", but I find that for the most part that is not consistent. If one is in favor of a law, it is a moral imperative. If one opposes a law it is just a law. I find this intellectually dishonest.

For example, it may be against secular law to park in front of a parking meter and not put any coins in the meter. But ultimately there is nothing "immoral" in that. In fact, one could actually argue that it's immoral for the government to charge for parking spaces that were paid for by the tax payer in the first place.

So there's a whole argument to be had about what the concept of "morality" even means.

No, there is an argument over what is and is not moral. Putting the coin in the meter is a toll. It is designed defray, in part, the costs related to parking. The argument that those things are already covered in one's city taxes, is to make the forgotten man argument. That is that the user of the services and the provider of the services agree that a third party, the forgotten man, should pay for them. A toll is moral, IMO, because it is directly related to the services received. The city tax is not necessarily moral, because the one who pays it may never use the services.

You were asking what a person does when social morality conflicts with personal morality. Actually this happens quite often. Typically we choose to abide by the social morality simply to avoid the social consequences of having to deal with the legal authorities. Not because we necessarily agree with the "social morality".

There you have it. You say that laws and morality are different. Yet, you say that people comply with "social morality simply to avoid the social consequences of having to deal with the legal authorities". If "social morality" and laws are different why fear the legal authorities.?

I was originally responding to this thread concerning how I might define these moral concepts. But in truth, the way I have laid them out pretty much represents the way they actually currently exist.

The only caveat is that most people don't realize that this is the case.

But if you disagree with any social laws, then there you go. That pretty much verifies the situation, right?

That is my point. If one agrees they are "morals", if one disagrees, they are "laws". The way things actually are, is that every law is enacted to enforce some kind of moral standard. When one disagrees with the law, one is disagreeing with the social moral standard.

[Bust Nak]

Yes, I often hear this. If it is so, how do you account for the general social consensus that say, lieing, or cheating, or capricious murder, is bad and wrong, and being truthful, or honest, or a policy of mercy, is good and right?

I account for it as commonly shared opinion ordinated from our shared biology.

I just hope, for your sake, what gets your extreme approval coincides with what society gives its extreme approval to. Not that society is always right, but many minds in conversation generally converge on better solutions than a solitary one in isolation.

I am happy to confirm that what gets my extreme approval generally coincides with what society gives its extreme approval to.

[taken from elsewhere]Maybe, I suggest, because they reflect objective reality.

Indeed, moral subjectivism is a part of objective reality.

Is having acid thrown in your face an objective bad or a subjective bad?

Subjectively bad.

I get the impression that you would want to say that acid attacks are wrong because the victim thinks them wrong, but right because the perpetrator thinks them right.

It's wrong because I, the evaluator, thinks them wrong.