God and Good

[rousseau]

And how can abstinence from killing be compatible with the very construction of nature? The hawk preys on the fox which preys on the mouse which preys on the insect which preys on the smaller insect which preys on vegetation. Some vegetation even preys on insects.

This is essentially why I don't push my beliefs on others. As a species I don't think we really ought to do any particular thing, but as individuals there is a wider range of possibility than in other animals.

 

[Wiploc]

That the triumph of Good is impossible in a world without Evil.

I don't think a case for that can be made.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Most people follow moral norms in the same way any decent person would do. But to have real moral sense you're looking at virtue, which is defined by high moral standards

Reading Kant for me is like walking into a brick wall. There's only a couple of things he said that I can recall as significant. First is the universal law principle, which says we should create no rules that we are unwilling to follow ourselves (a version of "do unto others..."). The second is his special insight upon the nature of virtues. He said that the only virtue that cannot be used just as easily for evil as for good, is a "good will". It is that single virtue by which we judge a person to be moral.

IMO, a lot of what we call moral behavior is basically done so we can continue to thrive within our social group. Not a bad thing in itself, but having goodwill might only extend to those who matter to us. If you have goodwill towards your closest friends and family, but cheat or ignore people who don't matter to you, do you really have any moral sense? Or just enough to serve your own purposes?

There was a member here some time ago who described 'the objective good life' as one where we keep all transactions to those we encounter positive. I think the kicker is that this has to apply to everyone, within reasonable limits.

I agree. The goal of morality is to achieve the best good and least harm for everyone (not just family and friends).

 

[steve_bank]

The goal of morality and social norms is maintaining social order, group survival.

Whether our modem liberal social experiment of anything goes with few exceptions can survive remains to be seen.

 

[bilby]

The goal of morality and social norms is maintaining social order, group survival.

Whether our modem liberal social experiment of anything goes with few exceptions can survive remains to be seen.

Unless society regresses to a medieval style stagnant structure, of fixed social roles and fixed employment stations, wherein sons almost invariably do the exact same jobs as their fathers did, and grandsons as their grandfathers did, for century after century, with only cataclysmic upheavals such as war, famine and plague allowing people to break out of that mould, a return to the old style conservative social totalitarianism of nothing changes with few exceptions cannot occur.

What you bemoan as "our modem liberal social experiment", is the social response to our modern scientific and technological improvement in quality of life experiment.

It would be a truly disastrous failure if we were to throw that particular baby out with the socially liberal bathwater.