How do you identify a person's morality?

[Unbeatable]

Based on my physical appearance and medical examinations to date, occam's razor would lead me to conclude that I am.

For the purpose of moral codes of behavior, a group is those people with whom you share mutual obligations and responsibilities.

A person may belong to multiple groups. Some groups overlap and some groups can be seen as concentric rings. There is a difference in degree of the obligations and responsibilities of these multiple groups.

There are some people who truly believe they are in the group of all human beings, but on a practical level, it's not very realistic.

Now, using this definition, can you narrow down the group or groups of which you are a member?

Unfortunately, that definition is still not operational enough for me to use. I don't know how to test for the presence of the things you refer to as "obligations and responsibilities" in other people or in myself. The way I use the terms, obligations and responsibilities are on a list of things whose existence is merely speculated, not reliably detected. So clearly I don't understand how you are using those terms anymore than I understood how you were using the word "group".

 

[Bronzeage]

For the purpose of moral codes of behavior, a group is those people with whom you share mutual obligations and responsibilities.

A person may belong to multiple groups. Some groups overlap and some groups can be seen as concentric rings. There is a difference in degree of the obligations and responsibilities of these multiple groups.

There are some people who truly believe they are in the group of all human beings, but on a practical level, it's not very realistic.

Now, using this definition, can you narrow down the group or groups of which you are a member?

Unfortunately, that definition is still not operational enough for me to use. I don't know how to test for the presence of the things you refer to as "obligations and responsibilities" in other people or in myself. The way I use the terms, obligations and responsibilities are on a list of things whose existence is merely speculated, not reliably detected. So clearly I don't understand how you are using those terms anymore than I understood how you were using the word "group".

When was the last time you came to a full stop at a stop sign, even though you could clearly see there was no traffic in any direction?

 

[Unbeatable]

Unfortunately, that definition is still not operational enough for me to use. I don't know how to test for the presence of the things you refer to as "obligations and responsibilities" in other people or in myself. The way I use the terms, obligations and responsibilities are on a list of things whose existence is merely speculated, not reliably detected. So clearly I don't understand how you are using those terms anymore than I understood how you were using the word "group".

When was the last time you came to a full stop at a stop sign, even though you could clearly see there was no traffic in any direction?

Probably a few years ago, when I still wasn't accustomed to driving. I used to obey the speed limit back then, too. Thank you for referencing something empirically observable, though I don't know what "group" it puts me in.

 

[Underseer]

How do you identify a person's real moral code, be it your own or someone else's? Can a person be mistaken about whether they have one, or what it contains? If so, how? What exactly are its constituents? How does one define the distinction between a moral and an amoral individual?

I've seen it argued that anyone whose behavior is not random is behaving according to something which can be called a morality. But I've also seen it argued that a person's true morality is revealed in their attitudes of approval/disapproval regarding others' actions. And I've seen it argued that one's morality is a set of beliefs that one consciously endorses.

I don't know about the majority, but if I applied each of these operational definitions to myself, I'd end up with three different sets of conclusions as to whether I have a "morality" at all, and what exactly it consists of. So, how do you decide between these(and perhaps others)?

People are not moral nor immoral. Morality is a property of decisions, not a property of people.

In fact most people who make immoral decisions believe they are making good moral choices, but are horribly wrong about the consequences of their decisions. Most of the Nazis genuinely believed that what they were doing would make the world a better place, they just happened to be horribly wrong about that.

Take a look at this lynch mob:

See how they are smiling? See how proud they look? Do they look to you like a group of people who have just chosen evil? No, of course not. They genuinely believed that they chose good, but like the Nazis, were horribly wrong about the consequences of their choices.

The Christians who tortured countless Jews and Muslims to death during the Inquisition believed they were choosing good, but were horribly wrong about the consequences of their decisions.

Hell, go down the list, and you'll find much the same thing going on with many of the most horrific evils committed in history. You don't have to choose evil or fail to choose good in order to make an evil decision, you just have to be wrong about the consequences of a decision, or worse fail to consider the consequences of a decision (as probably happens in most crimes of passion).

I don't know if you've noticed, but the human mind is pretty much an engine for making bad decisions. You never know if a decision you make is going to be correct. Even if our minds weren't prone to spitting out nonsense, there are hard limits on how much we can possibly know about anything, so we can never know all of the consequences of any one decision we make.

There is always a chance that any decision you make will be wrong. Nothing will ever change that. All you can do is remember to stop and think, be as thorough as possible, and learn from your mistakes. Stopping and thinking is the most important part of the process, because a lot of neuroscience shows you'll just let your instincts make those decisions for you if you don't (and perhaps even if you do).

Oh sure, our instincts were shaped by evolution, and we are a social species. Thus, you know that your instincts represents a kind of moral minimum that you can rely on if thinking fails. You know for a fact that your instincts will result in decisions that are good enough for humanity to survive because if they weren't, your ancestors would never have survived to produce you. However if you have read any history books, you know that "good enough for humanity to survive" can still involve an awful lot of unnecessary human suffering.

Moral code? Who cares about the specifics of your moral code? As long as you have a decent understanding of the consequences, the decision part is actually pretty easy. The hard part is understanding and anticipating consequences.

Learn as much as you can. You never know when a piece of information might prove useful to some unanticipated moral decision you have to make in the future. The more you know about the world and how the world works, the better you will be at anticipating consequences (learning from past mistakes doesn't hurt either). Neil deGrasse Tyson's mantra of "I want to believe more true things and fewer false things than I did yesterday" seems like good advice to me.

 

[Bronzeage]

When was the last time you came to a full stop at a stop sign, even though you could clearly see there was no traffic in any direction?

Probably a few years ago, when I still wasn't accustomed to driving. I used to obey the speed limit back then, too. Thank you for referencing something empirically observable, though I don't know what "group" it puts me in.

We may have found another problem which makes this difficult for you. Let's suppose you actually obeyed a traffic regulation sometime in the past 24 hours, even though it appeared no harm would be done, if you drove through the intersection. Stop signs are not placed at random locations. They are put in place to promote safe and orderly traffic. It is the responsibility and obligation of all drivers(your group) to stop and proceed safely, when encountering a stop sign.

Stopping at an intersection when it is not warranted, in order to prevent accidents at all intersections is a imposition on our personal freedom. I could look at the stop sign and say, "You're not the boss of me," keep going. If someone wants to be safe, they can just stay out of my way, or just stay home. I don't owe anything. I don't even know them.

Do you really run stop signs in the course of your normal day?

 

[Unbeatable]

Probably a few years ago, when I still wasn't accustomed to driving. I used to obey the speed limit back then, too. Thank you for referencing something empirically observable, though I don't know what "group" it puts me in.

We may have found another problem which makes this difficult for you. Let's suppose you actually obeyed a traffic regulation sometime in the past 24 hours, even though it appeared no harm would be done, if you drove through the intersection. Stop signs are not placed at random locations. They are put in place to promote safe and orderly traffic. It is the responsibility and obligation of all drivers(your group) to stop and proceed safely, when encountering a stop sign.

It seems like you're just using the words responsibility and obligation to mean "things somebody else wants/expects you to do".

I did not start this thread because I had any interest in knowing how to identify which laws a person's society happens to impose on them. I amended my wording from "moral code" to "moral values" because I'm interested in the individual.

Stopping at an intersection when it is not warranted, in order to prevent accidents at all intersections is a imposition on our personal freedom. I could look at the stop sign and say, "You're not the boss of me," keep going. If someone wants to be safe, they can just stay out of my way, or just stay home. I don't owe anything. I don't even know them.

Indeed.

Do you really run stop signs in the course of your normal day?

Yes, but I don't drive in the course of my normal day. I ride a bicycle. That makes it easy to check for traffic before I reach the intersection. When I drive, and it's one of those extremely rare occasions where there's no traffic at a stop sign, I come to what the signs put up by the police department refer to as a "rolling stop".

 

[Unbeatable]

How does one define the distinction between a moral and an amoral individual?

People are not moral nor immoral.

I've trimmed the quote of my OP down to the part that seems to be the source of the misunderstanding upon which you've based your post.

Granted, "moral" is typically used in contrast to "immoral", and in those instances is typically used as a moral judgment.

That's not how I was using the term. The most important word in the question quoted above is "amoral". I'm not interested in making first-order moral judgments, either of people or of behavior. It's unfortunate, the way that "moral" happens to be listed in thesauri as an antonym to "amoral". If amoral means "having no moral standards, restraints, or principles; unaware of or indifferent to questions of right or wrong", then when I say "moral" in contrast to it, what I mean is "having moral standards, restraints, or principles; concerned with questions of right and wrong."

Hence when I ask about identifying a person's "morality", I ask how to identify a person's moral standards, restraints, or principles, how to identify which questions of right and wrong concern them.

See, I view myself as amoral, defined simply as "indifferent to questions of right and wrong". But I've seen it suggested that despite the fact that I don't actually use words like "right", "wrong", "good", "evil", "moral", "immoral", "should", "ought", etc. the way the people I consider moralists do, that I might somehow be mistaken in my self-classification; that despite the fact that I don't consciously endorse anything I would call a moral standard, that there's some pattern to my thoughts/feelings/actions which could be called a morality; that I might be a moralist without knowing it. So I'm here to see whether anybody has any ideas as to whether or how I could be mistaken, and if I am mistaken about my lack of a "morality", what exactly is the nature of mine?

Morality is a property of decisions, not a property of people.

Maybe, but I'm not interested in talking about whether decisions are right or wrong. The thing I'm interested in is very much a property of people.

 

[Bronzeage]

We may have found another problem which makes this difficult for you. Let's suppose you actually obeyed a traffic regulation sometime in the past 24 hours, even though it appeared no harm would be done, if you drove through the intersection. Stop signs are not placed at random locations. They are put in place to promote safe and orderly traffic. It is the responsibility and obligation of all drivers(your group) to stop and proceed safely, when encountering a stop sign.

It seems like you're just using the words responsibility and obligation to mean "things somebody else wants/expects you to do".

I did not start this thread because I had any interest in knowing how to identify which laws a person's society happens to impose on them. I amended my wording from "moral code" to "moral values" because I'm interested in the individual.

Stopping at an intersection when it is not warranted, in order to prevent accidents at all intersections is a imposition on our personal freedom. I could look at the stop sign and say, "You're not the boss of me," keep going. If someone wants to be safe, they can just stay out of my way, or just stay home. I don't owe anything. I don't even know them.

Indeed.

Do you really run stop signs in the course of your normal day?

Yes, but I don't drive in the course of my normal day. I ride a bicycle. That makes it easy to check for traffic before I reach the intersection. When I drive, and it's one of those extremely rare occasions where there's no traffic at a stop sign, I come to what the signs put up by the police department refer to as a "rolling stop".

I see why this subject is a puzzle for you. You are the reason humans had to add so many addenda to what was originally a very simple code.

Last Sunday, I came very close to killing a man on a bicycle. He appeared to be one of those people who think traffic laws do not apply to bicyclists. Fortunately, I saw him as he sailed toward the intersection and braked before I knocked him and his fluorescent green bike helmet into the landscaping.

If I had hit him, no blame would have been attached to me. Other than the possible scratches to my bumper, it would have caused me no trouble at all, other than the time it took to fill out the paperwork.

Even though he had no great regard for his life and well being, why do you think I decided not to kill him?

 

[Unbeatable]

Do you really run stop signs in the course of your normal day?

Yes, but I don't drive in the course of my normal day. I ride a bicycle. That makes it easy to check for traffic before I reach the intersection. When I drive, and it's one of those extremely rare occasions where there's no traffic at a stop sign, I come to what the signs put up by the police department refer to as a "rolling stop".

I see why this subject is a puzzle for you. You are the reason humans had to add so many addenda to what was originally a very simple code.

I suspect you've made a hasty and overly dramatic inference. I am mentally ill in at least two ways, though, so you're at least thinking in terms of the correct diagnostic manual.

Last Sunday, I came very close to killing a man on a bicycle. He appeared to be one of those people who think traffic laws do not apply to bicyclists. Fortunately, I saw him as he sailed toward the intersection and braked before I knocked him and his fluorescent green bike helmet into the landscaping.

If I had hit him, no blame would have been attached to me. Other than the possible scratches to my bumper, it would have caused me no trouble at all, other than the time it took to fill out the paperwork.

Even though he had no great regard for his life and well being, why do you think I decided not to kill him?

If I had to guess, I'd say that you probably didn't decide not to kill him; that is, I don't think you consciously deliberated over the pros and cons of it on the spot. The option of killing some random stranger just because you can wouldn't even have occurred to you in the first place. On the spot, you just reacted automatically, based on the sum of your unconscious programming. Given your posts here, I'd guess that your unconscious programming includes some sort of rule of thumb that you adopted some time ago, about obeying the law, or about not killing people, or about not hurting people. You're intellectual enough to have developed a theory about how moral codes work, so I suspect you consciously deliberated over your rule before adopting it, rather than having somebody else program it into you via emotional manipulation. Or maybe the rule is itself just a logical deduction from some other rule that you consciously deliberated over (I guess it could be an emotional association that you picked up accidentally, but if that was the case, I'd expect you to have deliberated over it by now). Whatever the case, at some point in the chain, you probably consciously adopted a rule to simplify some portion of reality into a categorical designation, where every time you encounter a situation that falls into that category, the rule makes your decision for you. And with experience, you developed unconscious competence at distinguishing which rule governs the situation you're in, so now instead of thinking and deciding, you feel and react.

 

[Unbeatable]

A person's morality is most visible in the attachments to family and close friends.

What information do these attachments give you about a person's morality? Also, is it possible to fake attachment? If so, how do you distinguish real from faked attachment?

 

[Bronzeage]

Do you really run stop signs in the course of your normal day?

Yes, but I don't drive in the course of my normal day. I ride a bicycle. That makes it easy to check for traffic before I reach the intersection. When I drive, and it's one of those extremely rare occasions where there's no traffic at a stop sign, I come to what the signs put up by the police department refer to as a "rolling stop".

I see why this subject is a puzzle for you. You are the reason humans had to add so many addenda to what was originally a very simple code.

I suspect you've made a hasty and overly dramatic inference.

Last Sunday, I came very close to killing a man on a bicycle. He appeared to be one of those people who think traffic laws do not apply to bicyclists. Fortunately, I saw him as he sailed toward the intersection and braked before I knocked him and his fluorescent green bike helmet into the landscaping.

If I had hit him, no blame would have been attached to me. Other than the possible scratches to my bumper, it would have caused me no trouble at all, other than the time it took to fill out the paperwork.

Even though he had no great regard for his life and well being, why do you think I decided not to kill him?

If I had to guess, I'd say that you probably didn't decide not to kill him; that is, I don't think you consciously deliberated over the pros and cons of it on the spot. The option of killing some random stranger just because you can wouldn't even have occurred to you in the first place. On the spot, you just reacted automatically, based on the sum of your unconscious programming. Given your posts here, I'd guess that your unconscious programming includes some sort of rule of thumb that you adopted some time ago, about obeying the law, or about not killing people, or about not hurting people. You're intellectual enough to have developed a theory about how moral codes work, so I suspect you consciously deliberated over your rule before adopting it, rather than having somebody else program it into you via emotional manipulation. Or maybe the rule is itself just a logical deduction from some other rule that you consciously deliberated over (I guess it could be an emotional association that you picked up accidentally, but if that was the case, I'd expect you to have deliberated over it by now). Whatever the case, at some point in the chain, you probably consciously adopted a rule to simplify some portion of reality into a categorical designation, where every time you encounter a situation that falls into that category, the rule makes your decision for you. And with experience, you developed unconscious competence at distinguishing which rule governs the situation you're in, so now instead of thinking and deciding, you feel and react.

No, the thought of killing him was carefully considered. It would remove one hazardous bicycle rider from the road, which would be a benefit. In the split second in which I weighed the moral aspects, I decided he was due the protection of my group, even though he probably would not have understood why.

 

[Unbeatable]

No, the thought of killing him was carefully considered. It would remove one hazardous bicycle rider from the road, which would be a benefit. In the split second in which I weighed the moral aspects, I decided he was due the protection of my group, even though he probably would not have understood why.

But the question was why you decided not to kill him. You deciding that he's due the protection of your group doesn't answer that. That just turns it into a question of why you decided not to kill someone who's due the protection of your group; why it matters to you whether someone is due your group's protection. You may have carefully considered killing him, but if you didn't seriously consider the option of ignoring what he's due from your group, then it would seem to me that a rule made the decision for you.

I don't know if the shallow utilitarian calculus you've shared is the extent of your thinking on the subject of the pros and cons of killing this cyclist(I mean, it's obviously too shallow to be plausible, but who knows? You might not even be a consequentialist), but you could easily have a deeper, longer-term utilitarian calculus which would conflict with this one by taking into account more than the consequences of the cyclist's death. That sort of thinking gives rise to the decision to invent and abide by rules.

 

[Bronzeage]

No, the thought of killing him was carefully considered. It would remove one hazardous bicycle rider from the road, which would be a benefit. In the split second in which I weighed the moral aspects, I decided he was due the protection of my group, even though he probably would not have understood why.

But the question was why you decided not to kill him. You deciding that he's due the protection of your group doesn't answer that. That just turns it into a question of why you decided not to kill someone who's due the protection of your group; why it matters to you whether someone is due your group's protection. You may have carefully considered killing him, but if you didn't seriously consider the option of ignoring what he's due from your group, then it would seem to me that a rule made the decision for you.

I don't know if the shallow utilitarian calculus you've shared is the extent of your thinking on the subject of the pros and cons of killing this cyclist(I mean, it's obviously too shallow to be plausible, but who knows? You might not even be a consequentialist), but you could easily have a deeper, longer-term utilitarian calculus which would conflict with this one by taking into account more than the consequences of the cyclist's death. That sort of thinking gives rise to the decision to invent and abide by rules.

It's not that complicated. My moral code of behavior dictates I should avoid killing people in my group. The only calculation I needed to make was whether or not he was in my group. It was his lucky day.

Back to basics: Do not kill your friends, do not steal from your friends. After that, it's a matter of semantics.

It's all about inventing rules and then deciding to abide by them. Remember, the purpose of a moral code of behavior is to make life easier. There are times it seems to complicate life, but that is only because we fail to see all the possibilities.

 

[Unbeatable]

But the question was why you decided not to kill him. You deciding that he's due the protection of your group doesn't answer that. That just turns it into a question of why you decided not to kill someone who's due the protection of your group; why it matters to you whether someone is due your group's protection. You may have carefully considered killing him, but if you didn't seriously consider the option of ignoring what he's due from your group, then it would seem to me that a rule made the decision for you.

I don't know if the shallow utilitarian calculus you've shared is the extent of your thinking on the subject of the pros and cons of killing this cyclist(I mean, it's obviously too shallow to be plausible, but who knows? You might not even be a consequentialist), but you could easily have a deeper, longer-term utilitarian calculus which would conflict with this one by taking into account more than the consequences of the cyclist's death. That sort of thinking gives rise to the decision to invent and abide by rules.

It's not that complicated.

It is. You just seem to think of all the complicated parts as something external to morality, apparently.

My moral code of behavior dictates I should avoid killing people in my group. The only calculation I needed to make was whether or not he was in my group.

If you had decided in that instance not to abide by any rule, but instead, to do what you felt like doing, would the code that gave rise to the rule still be your moral code? Or would you say that your moral code had changed from "don't kill people in my group" to something else? Or had that ever really been your code?

It was his lucky day.

Or another unlucky one, if part of the reason he neglects safety is that he wants to die but lacks the courage to kill himself directly, so he's hoping a motorist will do it for him.

It's all about inventing rules and then deciding to abide by them.

What if you don't invent rules, and you decide on a case by case basis whether to abide by rules invented by others? Is that a type of moral code in itself? Or is it amoral?

Remember, the purpose of a moral code of behavior is to make life easier.

I think that's what I mean by "longer-term utilitarian calculus". What is this "life" that's being made easier? It's not the present, because moral codes lead people to cause themselves all sorts of predictable immediate inconvenience, up to and including death. Sure, having a predecided rule make your decision for you reduces ego depletion, which would be one source of immediate convenience, but that's not necessarily a net gain. It seems like instead, you're gambling on all those immediate inconveniences adding up to a higher lifetime average of convenience.

Which raises the issue of mortality. I've often wondered, are moral codes only for people who plan on living long enough to benefit from that investment?

 

[Bronzeage]

...

It's not that complicated.

It is. You just seem to think of all the complicated parts as something external to morality, apparently.

My moral code of behavior dictates I should avoid killing people in my group. The only calculation I needed to make was whether or not he was in my group.

If you had decided in that instance not to abide by any rule, but instead, to do what you felt like doing, would the code that gave rise to the rule still be your moral code? Or would you say that your moral code had changed from "don't kill people in my group" to something else? Or had that ever really been your code?

It was his lucky day.

Or another unlucky one, if part of the reason he neglects safety is that he wants to die but lacks the courage to kill himself directly, so he's hoping a motorist will do it for him.

It's all about inventing rules and then deciding to abide by them.

What if you don't invent rules, and you decide on a case by case basis whether to abide by rules invented by others? Is that a type of moral code in itself? Or is it amoral?

Remember, the purpose of a moral code of behavior is to make life easier.

I think that's what I mean by "longer-term utilitarian calculus". What is this "life" that's being made easier? It's not the present, because moral codes lead people to cause themselves all sorts of predictable immediate inconvenience, up to and including death. Sure, having a predecided rule make your decision for you reduces ego depletion, which would be one source of immediate convenience, but that's not necessarily a net gain. It seems like instead, you're gambling on all those immediate inconveniences adding up to a higher lifetime average of convenience.

Which raises the issue of mortality. I've often wondered, are moral codes only for people who plan on living long enough to benefit from that investment?

Moral codes are for everybody. It makes people's actions predictable and what is more important, it predicts what happens to people who don't follow the code. Since the cyclist and I are in the same group, I can't kill him without justifying my actions. If the group examines the circumstances and finds I have violated the code, I face sanctions. Because of the code, I understand this. The group may find it was an unavoidable accident, thus I am not responsible. If I had a chance to avoid killing him and still ran him down, I will be held accountable. Nothing that happens after I kill the man will be a surprise.

You seem to be looking for some immutable set of rules, but no such thing exists. Just as you are free to be a hazard on the road when you run a stop sign, you will also be held responsible for any damage you do. The fact you had no regard for the safety of others will be a factor in the final decision. Being seen as an amoral person will weigh heavily against you.

Rejecting the moral code of behavior is not a defense. Saying you did not understand the moral code is not a defense either. The moral code stands to protect us from people like you. There is no living outside the code, unless you live completely outside the group and far away from the group. You have a choice of whether you abide by the code, but you have no choice about whether the code can abide with you, or your actions. If your actions become too egregious, the group can decide to kill you and eliminate the threat you pose to the rest of us. This makes life easier for the rest of us.

 

[Unbeatable]

You seem to be looking for some immutable set of rules, but no such thing exists.

If not immutable, then at least stable enough to persist in the absence of the fear of getting caught, and stable enough to persist when one travels from one culture to another. And of course, the rules I'm looking for are internal to the individual. They are not laws enforced by other people. Your explanations are sociological. What I seek is more psychological or philosophical. And when I speak of psychology, I don't mean behaviorism.

 

[fromderinside]

What I seek is more psychological or philosophical. And when I speak of psychology, I don't mean behaviorism.

I'm assuming moral means to satisfy some emotional need. Look to your top predators for signs of what is internal. It ain't pretty. Certainly "love thy neighbor", "Do unto as you would have done unto", and "inner peace or quietude" are not on the table. Morality it seems to me is an intellectual exercise suited to whatever cultural system in which you partake. Not going to be universal nor stable. Its mental ferchrissake.

What have you got against behaviorism beyond 'blank slate' and 'noble savage' which aren't theoretically meaningful any more even to behaviorists. Learning is learning. Emotion isn't a descent way to look at drive. Operationalism is not what Skinner thought it is. Those corrections haver been made. Now what's your problem?

 

[Kharakov]

What I seek is more psychological or philosophical. And when I speak of psychology, I don't mean behaviorism.

I'm assuming moral means to satisfy some emotional need. Look to your top predators for signs of what is internal. It ain't pretty.

Is it squishy?

 

[Underseer]

People are not moral nor immoral.

I've trimmed the quote of my OP down to the part that seems to be the source of the misunderstanding upon which you've based your post.

Granted, "moral" is typically used in contrast to "immoral", and in those instances is typically used as a moral judgment.

That's not how I was using the term. The most important word in the question quoted above is "amoral". I'm not interested in making first-order moral judgments, either of people or of behavior. It's unfortunate, the way that "moral" happens to be listed in thesauri as an antonym to "amoral". If amoral means "having no moral standards, restraints, or principles; unaware of or indifferent to questions of right or wrong", then when I say "moral" in contrast to it, what I mean is "having moral standards, restraints, or principles; concerned with questions of right and wrong."

Hence when I ask about identifying a person's "morality", I ask how to identify a person's moral standards, restraints, or principles, how to identify which questions of right and wrong concern them.

See, I view myself as amoral, defined simply as "indifferent to questions of right and wrong". But I've seen it suggested that despite the fact that I don't actually use words like "right", "wrong", "good", "evil", "moral", "immoral", "should", "ought", etc. the way the people I consider moralists do, that I might somehow be mistaken in my self-classification; that despite the fact that I don't consciously endorse anything I would call a moral standard, that there's some pattern to my thoughts/feelings/actions which could be called a morality; that I might be a moralist without knowing it. So I'm here to see whether anybody has any ideas as to whether or how I could be mistaken, and if I am mistaken about my lack of a "morality", what exactly is the nature of mine?

Morality is a property of decisions, not a property of people.

Maybe, but I'm not interested in talking about whether decisions are right or wrong. The thing I'm interested in is very much a property of people.

My point still holds.

If a person is amoral, it's because they are not considering the consequences of their decisions, or else they don't care about the consequences of their decisions. It's still about the decisions, not the person.

 

[fast]

There are some people who truly believe they are in the group of all human beings, but on a practical level, it's not very realistic.

Do you truly believe that you are in the group of all human beings? If you answer with a "no", or if you answer with a "yes," then I will understand (understand, as in comprehend) your answer, but if you go farther and attempt to explain your answer, then I will be thoroughly confused and will probably have to resort to thread-rage and start typing as if my hair is on fire. Please don't confuse me, as I really don't need my hair singed. I don't think I spelled that word right.