Are you a moral person?

[ronburgundy]

I'm not so sure there's a traffic law I haven't broke.

But is that immoral?

I'd say traffic violations are often immoral, because it puts others in harms way and at unnecessary risk (sometimes fatal) for purely selfish reasons. IOW, they are immoral for the same reason that DUI is immoral. In fact, driving while using a cell phone is just as immoral as a DUI.

 

[fromderinside]

I thought you were in mental health. If so you should know that the brain works by the processes of arousal, association, and differentiation (edge detection). You have no choice in those aspects of your thinking or processing information. Very difficult to decide to change heart rate and to make it happen consciously using your whatever you want to call that thing cooling the thalamus and autonomic nervous system.

As I said what you believe is of no consequence. "....to ber free..." not likely!

Your absurd is call empiricism.

Notice which way your ideas go down the drain, over and over and over again.

 

[bilby]

I'm not so sure there's a traffic law I haven't broke.

But is that immoral?

I'd say traffic violations are often immoral, because it puts others in harms way and at unnecessary risk (sometimes fatal) for purely selfish reasons. IOW, they are immoral for the same reason that DUI is immoral. In fact, driving while using a cell phone is just as immoral as a DUI.

I agree. But clearly some traffic violations do not add to risk for anyone, and are not immoral. The difference between driving at 100km/h rather than 120km/h down a deserted freeway on a clear night in terms of risk is zero, to within our ability to determine such things; But if the speed limit is 110km/h, one is a violation and the other is not - and a speed camera ticket a real possibility for the faster option.

 

[fromderinside]

Any increase in energy increases volatility. Increasing speed increases likelihood of accident. ...or maybe I'm just whistling Dixie here. Seems to work for balloons though on most mechanisms for increased energy of gas inside them.

I really think you wrote that bilby​ just because you're a young dude who gets a kick out of going fast in a 500 to 3000 kilograms of metal, plastic, and power plant on macadam or concrete.

My brother was that way when he was young. Got very drunk one night and just flew his modified '58 ford over 60 ft wide arroyo at about 95 while stationed at an army camp near Yuma. Didn't know anything happened until the next morning when he came out of barracks and found damage on the front end of his car. I'm guessing he was moral due to 'lack of awareness' and 'no harm no foul' exceptions. Although he claims to have had a slight back ache for a couple days. Operational moral caution maybe?

 

[bilby]

Any increase in energy increases volatility. Increasing speed increases likelihood of accident. ...or maybe I'm just whistling Dixie here. Seems to work for balloons though on most mechanisms for increased energy of gas inside them.

Sure, but the marginal increase in risk on a quiet road between just under the limit and just over is minuscule; And the limits are set to be appropriate for moderate traffic conditions. There's no sudden step-up in risk from going 10km/h over the limit on a dry road with no other traffic.

I really think you wrote that bilby​ just because you're a young dude who gets a kick out of going fast in a 500 to 3000 kilograms of metal, plastic, and power plant on macadam or concrete.

I really think you are wrong on every single one of those unwarranted assumptions. Better luck next time.

My brother was that way when he was young. Got very drunk one night and just flew his modified '58 ford over 60 ft wide arroyo at about 95 while stationed at an army camp near Yuma. Didn't know anything happened until the next morning when he came out of barracks and found damage on the front end of his car. I'm guessing he was moral due to 'lack of awareness' and 'no harm no foul' exceptions. Although he claims to have had a slight back ache for a couple days. Operational moral caution maybe?

I have never driven while drunk, and never plan to. The difference in risk between driving 9% faster than the speed limit on an empty highway in good weather, and driving while "very drunk" is fucking HUGE. I really think that you would have to be a senile old fool to even consider mentioning them in the same post, as though they were somehow comparable.

 

[fromderinside]

Sure, but the marginal increase in risk on a quiet road between just under the limit and just over is minuscule; And the limits are set to be appropriate for moderate traffic conditions. There's no sudden step-up in risk from going 10km/h over the limit on a dry road with no other traffic.

Speed limits take in to account drivers as well as roads. A significant proportion of drivers are, as you so aptly put it, "senile old fool(s)" which changes the calculus from road conditions for normal drivers under a normal range of environmental conditions to road conditions to those who drive including those with lowered cognitive, operation, and emotional skills which are fucking HUGE.

So I posted a memory of one with lowered cognitive and operational skills. This actually fits what regulators include in their calculation of speed recommendations. Safety enforcement officials choose a band of speeds starting at about 10% above posted recommended speeds to sanction. These limits represent a pretty normal model for moral behavior social enforcement by the community.

I have never driven while drunk, and never plan to.

Someone like me who failed to train my children in the necessary social behavior and physical fitness required when drinking - something I learned when I was young - which may have resulted in one of them dying of that scotoma at a young age needs to reflect on possibilities learned through experience.

I was thinking more like you when I raised my children. I'm more realistic now, shame on me.

 

[fromderinside]

Its hard to reconcile social values with personal values, especially in the sense of morality. The above post suggests how social morality is treated for individuals by the state. Here in this forum we've been concentrating on whether individual feelings, some say intuitions, are the basis for individual morality. Others, me, suggest morality should be reality based. That is evidence of what is proper according to findings in scientific realism should be the anchors for individual moral standards. If an individual like say, bilby, doesn't drink then he claims society may be imposing on him standards of social morality, driving behavior, that are not relevant to him.

bilby has issue with speed limits that appear to permit sanction against him since those standards not only take into account, but, also take into account different behavioral norms in individuals. Its a real problem since one behaves only as one believes he should or can behave while the state assumes that if one exceeds suggested standards which include both physical risk in executed design and expected range of 'normal' individual behaviors by 30% one should be formally sanctioned, fined. My view is bilby professes to practice an unusual social behavior, - he doesn't drink and drive* - he has difficulty accepting rigid physical standards even though it is obvious they are not rigid as I outlined above.

It is for this very reason that I believe on should look to reality for basis for individual morality. bilby does this when he points to physical basis for suggested speed. He fails to take into account behavioral and individual difference findings that are also included in state sanctions for immoral social behavior, speeding and driving too slow (actual signage on California freeways for minimum speed). I sympathize with him here. Behavioral, Social, and Neuroscience is not settled, not yet among what most consider scientific realism.

All of this suggests tension between social and individual morality.

* ^{_{statistics indicate drivers do drink and drive that drivers, do text and drive and that old and inexperienced male and female, drivers use the roads.}}

 

[bilby]

Its hard to reconcile social values with personal values, especially in the sense of morality. The above post suggests how social morality is treated for individuals by the state. Here in this forum we've been concentrating on whether individual feelings, some say intuitions, are the basis for individual morality. Others, me, suggest morality should be reality based. That is evidence of what is proper according to findings in scientific realism should be the anchors for individual moral standards. If an individual like say, bilby, doesn't drink then he claims society may be imposing on him standards of social morality, driving behavior, that are not relevant to him.

Although this isn't about me, and I do drink (but not if I plan to drive).

bilby has issue with speed limits that appear to permit sanction against him since those standards not only take into account, but, also take into account different behavioral norms in individuals. Its a real problem since one behaves only as one believes he should or can behave while the state assumes that if one exceeds suggested standards which include both physical risk in executed design and expected range of 'normal' individual behaviors by 30% one should be formally sanctioned, fined. My view is bilby professes to practice an unusual social behavior, - he doesn't drink and drive* - he has difficulty accepting rigid physical standards even though it is obvious they are not rigid as I outlined above.

You are very badly mistaken. This isn't about me, and it's rather foolish of you to continue to make false claims about my behaviour.* If you want to know how I behave, you should ask, rather than guessing - so far all of your guesses have been very poor indeed.

My position, (which has everything to do with the thread topic, and nothing to do with my personal decisions - FYI I do not routinely exceed the posted speed limit, as I have no desire to be fined) is that there is nothing inherently moral about obedience to an arbitrary rule that is established based on typical (or even worst case) conditions, when those conditions no longer apply.

Speed limits in most places apply equally at all times and in all conditions; However the level of risk associated with a given speed varies enormously - at 3am on a clear, dry, weekend night, the safe maximum speed on a road is clearly far higher than it would be on the same road at 5pm on a wet misty weekday in peak hour traffic. The moral thing to do is to drive at the highest safe speed, so as to avoid risk to life, while also preventing needless delay for other motorists. The lawful thing to do is to drive at the speed limit, or at the maximum safe speed for the conditions, whichever is the lower.

To take an even more extreme example, there is nothing in the slightest bit immoral about driving at twice the speed limit on an empty freeway, or driving through a red traffic signal, or rolling through a stop sign, in a post apocalyptic world in which you are the only inhabitant. Note that my moral claim here does not imply in any way that I personal engage in such behaviour (for reasons that I hope are obvious).

It is for this very reason that I believe on should look to reality for basis for individual morality. bilby does this when he points to physical basis for suggested speed. He fails to take into account behavioral and individual difference findings that are also included in state sanctions for immoral social behavior, speeding and driving too slow (actual signage on California freeways for minimum speed). I sympathize with him here. Behavioral, Social, and Neuroscience is not settled, not yet among what most consider scientific realism.

All of this suggests tension between social and individual morality.

* ^{_{statistics indicate drivers do drink and drive that drivers, do text and drive and that old and inexperienced male and female, drivers use the roads.}}

Obedience to arbitrary rules may have some overlap with morality, but the two are NOT synonymous, and your attempt to paint mere disobedience as necessarily immoral is irrational and authoritarian.

There is no such thing as 'social' vs 'individual' morality; The individual has moral obligations to society, and breaches of social morality are inescapably individually immoral. Only in the absence of society (the post apocalyptic wasteland scenario) does society not have to be a large part of ones considerations regarding the morality of any given act. Ignorance of the effects of ones actions on others does not render those effects unimportant, and does not render behaviours that have (unknown and/or unexpected) negative impacts on others 'individually moral'.





* Interestingly, your making this about me personally is both an infraction of the rules of this board, and an immoral action.

 

[fromderinside]

This isn't about me,

Of course it's not about you. It's on me for not writing you don't drive when you drink.

My position, (had) nothing to do with my personal decisions .

I agree and I believe I didn't say you did any of those things. I really just noted your objection to the apparent arbitrariness what I labeled as speed 'suggestions'.

If you took away that I believed you did any of those things I apologise. You object to small differences in what appear to be guidelines for certain road conditions you consider arbitrary. I disagree with that statement. By your strong presentation about this 'arbitrary' observation you make you left me with the impression these rules were objectionable to you personally for their apparent arbitr=iness if nothing else. No one claimed you got tickets for driving in any fashion.

...and certainly you are not addressing my post as being my personal position. Whatever.

Speed limits in most places apply equally at all times and in all conditions; However the level of risk associated with a given speed varies enormously - at 3am on a clear, dry, weekend night, the safe maximum speed on a road is clearly far higher than it would be on the same road at 5pm on a wet misty weekday in peak hour traffic. The moral thing to do is to drive at the highest safe speed, so as to avoid risk to life, while also preventing needless delay for other motorists. The lawful thing to do is to drive at the speed limit, or at the maximum safe speed for the conditions, whichever is the lower.

Abso-damn-lutely

To take an even more extreme example, there is nothing in the slightest bit immoral about driving at twice the speed limit on an empty freeway, or driving through a red traffic signal, or rolling through a stop sign, in a post apocalyptic world in which you are the only inhabitant. Note that my moral claim here does not imply in any way that I personal engage in such behaviour (for reasons that I hope are obvious).

Nice example of written hyperbole. That twenty day dead herring needs to be put aside. Your cautions are noted.

Obedience to arbitrary rules may have some overlap with morality, but the two are NOT synonymous, and your attempt to paint mere disobedience as necessarily immoral is irrational and authoritarian.

The speed signages posted are based on principles and findings as solid as those used to construct the roadways. If you take away nothing else from my screeds here these postings are developed after research and design evaluation and supported by subsequent laws written based on those findings. Nothing arbitrary here.

There is no such thing as 'social' vs 'individual' morality; The individual has moral obligations to society, and breaches of social morality are inescapably individually immoral. Only in the absence of society (the post apocalyptic wasteland scenario) does society not have to be a large part of ones considerations regarding the morality of any given act. Ignorance of the effects of ones actions on others does not render those effects unimportant, and does not render behaviours that have (unknown and/or unexpected) negative impacts on others 'individually moral'.

If it would make you more comfortable roadway speed laws and enforcement guidelines are part of what government (society) does to affect safety and ensure more or less equal protection under the laws which exist on enforcement of signage. There may some local arbitrary exercise of both these guidelines and the way they are enforced. However It is my contention that these rules of the road are attempts by society to remind citizens there are certain behaviors expected from each of them with respect to road use. That, to me is example of social moral exercise to citizens reminding them there is basis other than gawd and selfie behind what is considered moral behavior re driving. I even include harsh fees for excessive water usage as a social moral tool used by government. If you like we can call the social thing the "Let's get along book of suggestions".

Since it is apparent that most pluck morality right out of their arses I decided to demark the topic with social and individual morality designations. My preferred puffery.

Thanks for your patience and courtesy in helping me get this topic right.