Are you morally superior to a crack whore?

[Bomb#20]

All other things being equal, and in the general sense, no, I wouldn't see myself as morally superior to a crack whore.

It would be my position that anyone preaching moral superiority is being self righteous. That makes their morality suspect or tarnished. It basically makes them a religious asshole I would think.

Brian: I'm not the Messiah! Will you please listen?! I'm not the Messiah, do you understand?! Honestly!
Woman: Only the true Messiah denies his divinity!
Brian: What?! Well, what sort of chance does that give me?! All right, I am the Messiah!
Crowd: He is! He is the Messiah!​

Look, there's only one reasonable answer to the OP question:

Are you morally superior to a crack whore?

Which crack whore?

 

[Bronzeage]

So here I am sitting on this island all alone wondering whether I should eat everything in sight or do otherwise. Moderation in all things pops into mind. I guess if person is social then I must agree with you that it must be transacional. Doesn't that get us in to a whole other set of problems when social means self survival or something like that?

Just being an ass.

You are quite fortunate to be marooned on an island where it's possible to eat enough that conservation of resources might be a consideration. This is one of the symptoms of the ease of modern life in a technological society. We need to think about over consumption. In the hundreds of thousands of years in which recognizable humans have walked on this planet, that has not been a problem.

The reason humans are social creatures is because non social humans die young. Leopards love non social humans. Social humans are another story. There's always one who is awake, so sneaking up on them is hazardous. They use sticks and rocks, which doesn't seem fair. A solitary human is easy prey, but going after a group of humans is not worth the trouble. Leopards are smart, but humans are the ones who out smarted the leopard.

They did it by forming groups with tight social bonds. These bonds are defined by what we call morality. Moral codes define proper interaction between group members and more important, what the group is expected to do when someone violates the moral code. For most of human history, exile was the most severe punishment. It meant certain death, but no one in the group had to kill a fellow group member.

Modern technology has granted us the freedom to consider selfishness. We are able to consider our own desires without suffering any immediate consequences. After all, we never actually see the many thousands of people whose cooperation makes our life so comfortable. This is the lady in China who made your shirt, or the butcher in Kansas City who just killed a cow for you. Self survival is an illusion. There's no such thing.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Brian: I'm not the Messiah! Will you please listen?! I'm not the Messiah, do you understand?! Honestly!
Woman: Only the true Messiah denies his divinity!
Brian: What?! Well, what sort of chance does that give me?! All right, I am the Messiah!
Crowd: He is! He is the Messiah!​

Look, there's only one reasonable answer to the OP question:

Are you morally superior to a crack whore?

Which crack whore?

What is the crack whore in question doing that threatens the survival of the tribe? The greatest threat to the survival of the tribe are members who do not make new members.

So is not making new members of the tribe the greatest of immoralities? Is the crack whore in question just small potatoes?

 

[steve_bank]

Illegal does not necessarily equate to immoral.

Gay sex used to be banned under so called 'public morality laws'. Hetero oral sex used to be illegal as well. Including between married couples.

You can say drugs that are harmful are immoral in that those who do not use end up paying for the consequences of those that do. Txes and higher meducal insurance premium.

I can tell you from the two facilities I lived in the long term use of tobacco and alcohol are primary cost drivers of health care from middle age up. Add drugs to that.

The new small and cheap vapor nicotine delivery system is turning kids into nicotine addicts, according to reports.

To me developing those vapor devices is immoral. It directly leads to a known addiction. Someone I know who dealt with addicts said nicotine is harder to deal with than opioids.

It used to be if somebody became unproductive do to addiction unable to work one just died.

Is that the solution to the drug problem, just them all die?

Thomas Moore wroye in the era of Henry 8yh that society creates conditions into which people at the bottom must resort to crime just for food, then society punishes them. The real question is the mortality of our liberal and capitalist system,

We allow conditions to exist that gives rise to crack whores, what then is our morality?

 

[Bomb#20]

...
Woman: Only the true Messiah denies his divinity!
...
Which crack whore?

What is the crack whore in question doing that threatens the survival of the tribe? The greatest threat to the survival of the tribe are members who do not make new members.

So is not making new members of the tribe the greatest of immoralities? Is the crack whore in question just small potatoes?

Well, in the first place, Oh For The Love Of God! There are seven billion people in my tribe! How in the name of ever-loving Cthulhu do you figure my failure to help make our ecosystem into a monoculture means I'm the greatest threat to the survival of the tribe? Seeing as how a person's carbon footprint is (in appropriately sized units) typically roughly equal to the number of children he makes, it's members who make three or more new members who are a threat to the survival of the tribe.

And in the second place, how the heck is "threatens the survival of the tribe" the relevant measure of morality? The tribe is 99.9999% safe from extinction any time in the next ten thousand years and there's bloody little any random individual could possibly do to significantly alter that. We have beaten off the leopards, we have beaten off the bubonic plague, we are on the verge of beating off the killer asteroids, and now our tribe has the luxury of judging one another by such less tribe-survival-critical criteria as, say, whether someone is acting like a jerk.

Somewhere out there, there's Crack Whore Number 1 who helped herself to all the money in her passed-out post-coital john's wallet instead of just the agreed-upon price. And somewhere else out there, there's Crack Whore Number 2 who had the guts to testify against her city's top crime lord and put him away and put a target on her own back. I submit that I'm morally superior to Crack Whore Number 1, although not morally superior to Crack Whore Number 2. So how the heck do you figure the circumstance that I never robbed anybody plus the circumstance that I have no interest in going along with the currently fashionable pretense that there are no differences in human morality make me "a religious asshole"?

 

[SLD]

Assuming you don’t engage in such behavior that is.

SLD

All other things being equal, and in the general sense, no, I wouldn't see myself as morally superior to a crack whore.

It would be my position that anyone preaching moral superiority is being self righteous. That makes their morality suspect or tarnished. It basically makes them a religious asshole I would think.

So then do you view yourself as morally superior to a religious asshole? I would argue you do indeed. Every time you are comparing yourself positively to someone else when it comes to almost any moral issue, you are saying, "I am morally superior to this person." We do this almost every day. If not several times a day.

What we have an issue with is the phrase "morally superior" as it has negative connotations that we’ve been taught are bad. Yet we have no problem feeling morally superior to all sorts of people whether they are crack whores, murderers, religious assholes, or Trump supporters. And I would agree. You most likely are.

SLD

 

[SLD]

So here I am sitting on this island all alone wondering whether I should eat everything in sight or do otherwise. Moderation in all things pops into mind. I guess if person is social then I must agree with you that it must be transacional. Doesn't that get us in to a whole other set of problems when social means self survival or something like that?

Just being an ass.

You are quite fortunate to be marooned on an island where it's possible to eat enough that conservation of resources might be a consideration. This is one of the symptoms of the ease of modern life in a technological society. We need to think about over consumption. In the hundreds of thousands of years in which recognizable humans have walked on this planet, that has not been a problem.

The reason humans are social creatures is because non social humans die young. Leopards love non social humans. Social humans are another story. There's always one who is awake, so sneaking up on them is hazardous. They use sticks and rocks, which doesn't seem fair. A solitary human is easy prey, but going after a group of humans is not worth the trouble. Leopards are smart, but humans are the ones who out smarted the leopard.

They did it by forming groups with tight social bonds. These bonds are defined by what we call morality. Moral codes define proper interaction between group members and more important, what the group is expected to do when someone violates the moral code. For most of human history, exile was the most severe punishment. It meant certain death, but no one in the group had to kill a fellow group member.

Modern technology has granted us the freedom to consider selfishness. We are able to consider our own desires without suffering any immediate consequences. After all, we never actually see the many thousands of people whose cooperation makes our life so comfortable. This is the lady in China who made your shirt, or the butcher in Kansas City who just killed a cow for you. Self survival is an illusion. There's no such thing.

Sounds to me like you agree then that social convention basically defines what is moral. Those who defy social convention, (gays?) get thrown out of the tribe and eaten by leopards. I certainly agree with your post. Cooperation is our key survival instinct. And yet we are blithely unaware of the myriad of other people who make our lives worth living.

SLD

 

[steve_bank]

There is a big difference between having moral differences and elevating yourself based on your own morality. I believe pride is one of the 7 Deadly Sins.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

It would be my position that anyone preaching moral superiority is being self righteous. That makes their morality suspect or tarnished. It basically makes them a religious asshole I would think.

So then do you view yourself as morally superior to a religious asshole? I would argue you do indeed. Every time you are comparing yourself positively to someone else when it comes to almost any moral issue, you are saying, "I am morally superior to this person." We do this almost every day. If not several times a day.

What we have an issue with is the phrase "morally superior" as it has negative connotations that we’ve been taught are bad. Yet we have no problem feeling morally superior to all sorts of people whether they are crack whores, murderers, religious assholes, or Trump supporters. And I would agree. You most likely are.

SLD

I think we all think we're superior in some way, and maybe that's healthy. It's how that manifests itself that's important, or whether it even does.

My wife tells me I sometimes play the martyr for not going after someone with my claws. I like to think I'm allowing higher brain functions to override emotional impulses. That, and what is actually gained by besting someone who clearly poses no threat to me or mine, and whom I perceive as weaker?

So I think it's okay to feel moral superiority but not okay to act it out.

 

[ronburgundy]

So I think it's okay to feel moral superiority but not okay to act it out.

"Acting it out" is what it means to enforce moral norms, without which morality is useless.

I could agree that one should not run around explicitly harping about how they personally are morally superior, but we should point out morally inferior actions, because that is what protects people from the harm that makes those actions immoral.

 

[ronburgundy]

Where is it written that I have to like everyone? Why can’t I condemn behavior that I believe is both repugnant and immoral, regardless of whether it is illegal or even if everyone else thinks such behavior is OK? I don’t think being a crackwhore is acceptable behavior. I don’t think such people are to be trusted. I’m sorry but I do think people who violate criminal statutes are indeed immoral. We have an ethical duty to comply with the law, at least to the greatest extent we can. I got a parking ticket the other day. It was a minor moral failure on my part.

And don’t tell me Jesus requires us to like everyone. He didn’t. He lost his temper at the money changers, good on him, I say.

Whose implying that you have to like crack whores? Finding a person unlikable or untrustworthy is not the same as declaring they are immoral, and finding an action repugnant is not the same as declaring that action immoral.
You are tossing around "immoral" too loosely if you're making those equivalent.

Immoral acts are not just those we don't like or find repugnant, but those acts that should not be tolerated. Immorality implies that the person should be punished in some fashion to eliminate that behavior. It implies you have not just the right but the duty to use some form of pressure to influence that person and their future behavior.

Those of us who value individual autonomy and liberty to choose for ourselves, place a high bar on what actions warrant that kind of social coercion, and thus what actions are deemed "immoral" rather than just not our personal preference or taste. We reserve "immorality" for actions that cause clear and relatively direct tangible harm to other individuals, because those actions directly violate the core principle of individual liberty and thus cannot be tolerated in a society seeking to protect that value.

Authoritarians don't value individual liberty, so they deem anything against either their own tastes or the dictates of some authority (the law) to be immoral. That makes your moral system purely authoritarian and thus anti-thetical to human liberty and pretty much the entire Enlightenment. And in terms of a Enlightenment-based secular moral system, it makes you morally inferior to a crack whore (assuming the crack whore doesn't share your authoritarianism).

 

[Bronzeage]

So here I am sitting on this island all alone wondering whether I should eat everything in sight or do otherwise. Moderation in all things pops into mind. I guess if person is social then I must agree with you that it must be transacional. Doesn't that get us in to a whole other set of problems when social means self survival or something like that?

Just being an ass.

You are quite fortunate to be marooned on an island where it's possible to eat enough that conservation of resources might be a consideration. This is one of the symptoms of the ease of modern life in a technological society. We need to think about over consumption. In the hundreds of thousands of years in which recognizable humans have walked on this planet, that has not been a problem.

The reason humans are social creatures is because non social humans die young. Leopards love non social humans. Social humans are another story. There's always one who is awake, so sneaking up on them is hazardous. They use sticks and rocks, which doesn't seem fair. A solitary human is easy prey, but going after a group of humans is not worth the trouble. Leopards are smart, but humans are the ones who out smarted the leopard.

They did it by forming groups with tight social bonds. These bonds are defined by what we call morality. Moral codes define proper interaction between group members and more important, what the group is expected to do when someone violates the moral code. For most of human history, exile was the most severe punishment. It meant certain death, but no one in the group had to kill a fellow group member.

Modern technology has granted us the freedom to consider selfishness. We are able to consider our own desires without suffering any immediate consequences. After all, we never actually see the many thousands of people whose cooperation makes our life so comfortable. This is the lady in China who made your shirt, or the butcher in Kansas City who just killed a cow for you. Self survival is an illusion. There's no such thing.

Sounds to me like you agree then that social convention basically defines what is moral. Those who defy social convention, (gays?) get thrown out of the tribe and eaten by leopards. I certainly agree with your post. Cooperation is our key survival instinct. And yet we are blithely unaware of the myriad of other people who make our lives worth living.

SLD

With whom am I agreeing?

In a society where leopards are a threat, being gay is probably low on the list of social violations. Restrictions on interpersonal relationships are an artifact of property ownership. Unlike killing and theft, there is no universal consistency about how homosexuality was regarded, so why some cultures perceived it as a threat to property, while others did not, is a difficult question.

 

[steve_bank]

I agree that morality is a social consensus. Unless you believe in a deity handing down an absolute morality.

The majority moral consensus has chugged to accept gay rights. Today a single woman can intentionally get pregnant without the moral stigma of the past.

 

[Bronzeage]

I agree that morality is a social consensus. Unless you believe in a deity handing down an absolute morality.

The majority moral consensus has chugged to accept gay rights. Today a single woman can intentionally get pregnant without the moral stigma of the past.

One of the aspects of a moral code is it relieves most people of the burden of thought.

 

[steve_bank]

I agree that morality is a social consensus. Unless you believe in a deity handing down an absolute morality.

The majority moral consensus has chugged to accept gay rights. Today a single woman can intentionally get pregnant without the moral stigma of the past.

One of the aspects of a moral code is it relieves most people of the burden of thought.

Maybe that is the point, it promote social order. The prohibition against adultery in the 10 Commandments served to reduce violence and disorder.

 

[SLD]

Sounds to me like you agree then that social convention basically defines what is moral. Those who defy social convention, (gays?) get thrown out of the tribe and eaten by leopards. I certainly agree with your post. Cooperation is our key survival instinct. And yet we are blithely unaware of the myriad of other people who make our lives worth living.

SLD

With whom am I agreeing?

In a society where leopards are a threat, being gay is probably low on the list of social violations. Restrictions on interpersonal relationships are an artifact of property ownership. Unlike killing and theft, there is no universal consistency about how homosexuality was regarded, so why some cultures perceived it as a threat to property, while others did not, is a difficult question.

A gay person is indeed not a threat or a serious moral issue. But you cannot deny that for centuries society has considered such behavior to be immoral, and thus those who engaged in such actions risked banishment or worse. It may not be logical, but that’s never stopped social norms of behavior from developing. The point I was making, and I made above is that society as a whole decides what is moral or not, and you seem to agree. How they come up with that may depend on a number of factors, way beyond our topic. And of course society evolves. 120 years ago, homosexuality, interracial marriage, premarital sex, and a host of other things were considered immoral that we would scoff at today. We think we’re more enlightened, even, dare I say it, morally superior to them.

SLD

 

[SLD]

Where is it written that I have to like everyone? Why can’t I condemn behavior that I believe is both repugnant and immoral, regardless of whether it is illegal or even if everyone else thinks such behavior is OK? I don’t think being a crackwhore is acceptable behavior. I don’t think such people are to be trusted. I’m sorry but I do think people who violate criminal statutes are indeed immoral. We have an ethical duty to comply with the law, at least to the greatest extent we can. I got a parking ticket the other day. It was a minor moral failure on my part.

And don’t tell me Jesus requires us to like everyone. He didn’t. He lost his temper at the money changers, good on him, I say.

Whose implying that you have to like crack whores? Finding a person unlikable or untrustworthy is not the same as declaring they are immoral, and finding an action repugnant is not the same as declaring that action immoral.
You are tossing around "immoral" too loosely if you're making those equivalent.

Immoral acts are not just those we don't like or find repugnant, but those acts that should not be tolerated. Immorality implies that the person should be punished in some fashion to eliminate that behavior. It implies you have not just the right but the duty to use some form of pressure to influence that person and their future behavior.

Those of us who value individual autonomy and liberty to choose for ourselves, place a high bar on what actions warrant that kind of social coercion, and thus what actions are deemed "immoral" rather than just not our personal preference or taste. We reserve "immorality" for actions that cause clear and relatively direct tangible harm to other individuals, because those actions directly violate the core principle of individual liberty and thus cannot be tolerated in a society seeking to protect that value.

Authoritarians don't value individual liberty, so they deem anything against either their own tastes or the dictates of some authority (the law) to be immoral. That makes your moral system purely authoritarian and thus anti-thetical to human liberty and pretty much the entire Enlightenment. And in terms of a Enlightenment-based secular moral system, it makes you morally inferior to a crack whore (assuming the crack whore doesn't share your authoritarianism).

Noooo! First finding someone untrustworthy is very much a moral statement. It is indeed directly relevant to their moral worth. Second, many people do find actions morally reprehensible, but accept that it’s for someone else to decide how to live their lives. Society has done so frequently throughout history. Homosexuality is the most obvious example today. Many people, religious assholes amongst them, do find such behavior morally repugnant but feel it’s none of their business. We hear such talk all the time from conservative Christians who claim to love the sinner but hate the sin. Whether they should believe that way is an entirely different issue.

Nor do I agree that being a crack whore is a matter of individual liberty. Such behavior is indeed a tangible harm to society at large. That’s why such behavior is illegal. Liberty especially as understood by our enlightenment forebears was never understood as you get to do whatever you want as long as you aren’t causing direct harm to someone else. There are reciprocating duties that we have to our society. We do have an affirmative duty to be productive citizens and not a drag on society. Not to undermine other family relationships, not to spread diseases, or even risk such. We have a duty to pay taxes, to serve our society in times of danger. I even believe we have a moral duty to be informed citizens and active in our political sphere. As Bronzeage pointed out we are interdependent on others for our basic necessities of living. And we have a duty to serve our society in positive and productive ways. Liberty has always been a two way street.

But I do agree with your post above that acting it out is how we enforce our moral codes without which they would be useless. How we should do so is a very different issue.

SLD

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Are adults morally superior to children? On balance the answer is yes. Are children morally superior to crack whores? Not sure about that one.

Relative behavior is what makes for moral superiority. That and societal norms.

 

[Bronzeage]

Sounds to me like you agree then that social convention basically defines what is moral. Those who defy social convention, (gays?) get thrown out of the tribe and eaten by leopards. I certainly agree with your post. Cooperation is our key survival instinct. And yet we are blithely unaware of the myriad of other people who make our lives worth living.

SLD

With whom am I agreeing?

In a society where leopards are a threat, being gay is probably low on the list of social violations. Restrictions on interpersonal relationships are an artifact of property ownership. Unlike killing and theft, there is no universal consistency about how homosexuality was regarded, so why some cultures perceived it as a threat to property, while others did not, is a difficult question.

A gay person is indeed not a threat or a serious moral issue. But you cannot deny that for centuries society has considered such behavior to be immoral, and thus those who engaged in such actions risked banishment or worse. It may not be logical, but that’s never stopped social norms of behavior from developing. The point I was making, and I made above is that society as a whole decides what is moral or not, and you seem to agree. How they come up with that may depend on a number of factors, way beyond our topic. And of course society evolves. 120 years ago, homosexuality, interracial marriage, premarital sex, and a host of other things were considered immoral that we would scoff at today. We think we’re more enlightened, even, dare I say it, morally superior to them.

SLD

Where you go wrong is in believing that morality is a spectrum which ranges from less than superior to superior. This is a very common misconception and every modern culture(since 5000 BCE, give or take) has someone who claims their morality is superior.

 

[fromderinside]

So here I am sitting on this island all alone wondering whether I should eat everything in sight or do otherwise. Moderation in all things pops into mind. I guess if person is social then I must agree with you that it must be transacional. Doesn't that get us in to a whole other set of problems when social means self survival or something like that?

Just being an ass.

You are quite fortunate to be marooned on an island where it's possible to eat enough that conservation of resources might be a consideration. This is one of the symptoms of the ease of modern life in a technological society. We need to think about over consumption. In the hundreds of thousands of years in which recognizable humans have walked on this planet, that has not been a problem.

The reason humans are social creatures is because non social humans die young. Leopards love non social humans. Social humans are another story. There's always one who is awake, so sneaking up on them is hazardous. They use sticks and rocks, which doesn't seem fair. A solitary human is easy prey, but going after a group of humans is not worth the trouble. Leopards are smart, but humans are the ones who out smarted the leopard.

They did it by forming groups with tight social bonds. These bonds are defined by what we call morality. Moral codes define proper interaction between group members and more important, what the group is expected to do when someone violates the moral code. For most of human history, exile was the most severe punishment. It meant certain death, but no one in the group had to kill a fellow group member.

Modern technology has granted us the freedom to consider selfishness. We are able to consider our own desires without suffering any immediate consequences. After all, we never actually see the many thousands of people whose cooperation makes our life so comfortable. This is the lady in China who made your shirt, or the butcher in Kansas City who just killed a cow for you. Self survival is an illusion. There's no such thing.

None of what you just wrote addresses my contention that morality includes self regulation. We are extremely group social. So What. it's not that if rules applying to the one can apply to the many.


Think of human social behavior as another bit of what goes in to the environment in which a person lives. Thou shalt not kill applies to between human and between the rest of in what a human finds herself. In a way that aspect of environment can be considered either social or just environmental conditions, Vegans operate thus. Morality, IMHO, are self reference constraints on what one is willing or permitted to do. Social status need not be considered. Nor does the species to which morality applies, fish or reptiles can operate with self imposed constraints on who one behaves. It's fundamental. It has often been, obviously, genetically programmed.

We are humans ane we maintain conceits that we think makes us unique, such as morality. What is probably human unique is religion where morality acts as an essential justifying condition. I'm not going there.