Morality and Ethics

[Marvin Edwards]

Morality is the intent to achieve good, and to achieve it for others as well as for ourselves. Ethics is the pursuit of the best rules, those that will most likely achieve the best possible results for everyone.

To see the distinction, consider the Jewish family of Anne Frank hiding in the attic during Nazi occupation. The soldiers knock on the door and ask if there are any Jews. It would be unethical to lie, but it would be immoral not to.

We call something “good” if it meets a real need we have as an individual, a society, or a species. A “moral good” is actually good for us and benefits us in some way. A “moral harm” unnecessarily damages us or diminishes our rights in some way.

Morality seeks “the best good and least harm for everyone”. Moral judgment considers the evidence of probable benefits and harms to decide a course of action. This judgment is objective to the degree that the harms and benefits are easily observed and compared. But the ultimate consequences of a decision are not always known. Two good and honest individuals may differ as to what course of action will produce the best result. A democratic decision can be made to determine a working course of action, which can be further evaluated based on subsequent experience.

Ethics are about rule systems. Rules include customs, manners, principles, ethics, rights and law. When one speaks of “morals” or “moral codes” one is usually speaking of ethics. But morality is not the rule, but rather the reason for the rule, which is to achieve good.

Throughout history, rules have changed as our moral judgment evolved. Slavery was once permitted, but later outlawed. The equal rights of women to vote was established. The right to equal treatment without regard to races, gender, or religion was established.

Different cultures may have different rules. But all rules move slowly toward the same goal, to achieve the best possible good for everyone. And, to the degree that moral judgment is based in objective evidence, all variations are moving toward a common, ideal set of rules and rights.

In Matthew 22:35-40, Jesus was asked, “What is the greatest principle?”, and Jesus said the first principle is to love God and the second principle is to love your neighbor as you love yourself.

A Humanist translation would be to love good, and to love good for others as you love it for yourself.

But Jesus said one more thing, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” In other words, this is the reason behind every rule. It is the criteria by which all other principles, ethics, and rules are to be judged.

 

[steve_bank]

The way I have heard it defined in general is morality iasa code of conduct, ethics is how you well you follow the code.

Christians derive morality from a strange bizarre thing called the bible where stoning was considered acceptable punishment for offenses. Slavery by the religious was not considered immoral until modern times.

For the old Samurai commuting ritual suicide was the ethical thing to do when the code of morality denmaded it.

Morality is a collective consensus. Christens especially Catholics assume an absolute moral authority vased on sciptural morality we today consider immoral. Slavery.

What a moral good is depends on many things.

Was the use of atomic bombs in WWII moral? I think so. It saved both Allied and Japanese lives, and probably saved the Japanese culture from destruction had an invasion occurred.

Is it a moral good to provide vaccinations and prenatal care to an isolated aborigine group so it grows beyond the capacity to sustain itself in its environment?

Morality and ethics are not so simple and black and white as 'doing good'. There can be negative consequences to an individual 'doing good'.

I learned that as an engineer confronted with real issues.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

The way I have heard it defined in general is morality iasa code of conduct, ethics is how you well you follow the code.

Christians derive morality from a strange bizarre thing called the bible where stoning was considered acceptable punishment for offenses. Slavery by the religious was not considered immoral until modern times.

For the old Samurai commuting ritual suicide was the ethical thing to do when the code of morality denmaded it.

Morality is a collective consensus. Christens especially Catholics assume an absolute moral authority vased on sciptural morality we today consider immoral. Slavery.

What a moral good is depends on many things.

Was the use of atomic bombs in WWII moral? I think so. It saved both Allied and Japanese lives, and probably saved the Japanese culture from destruction had an invasion occurred.

Is it a moral good to provide vaccinations and prenatal care to an isolated aborigine group so it grows beyond the capacity to sustain itself in its environment?

Morality and ethics are not so simple and black and white as 'doing good'. There can be negative consequences to an individual 'doing good'.

I learned that as an engineer confronted with real issues.

I think there is a distinction between a moral person and an ethical person. The moral person cares about the welfare of all of us. The ethical person follows the rules. A moral code is indeed a set of rules, but a moral person is the source of those rules. A moral code also goes by the name, "ethics", "principles", "rules", "laws", etc. A moral person loves Good, and loves it for others as well as for themselves. This is the insight suggested by Matthew 22: 35-40. And it is the reason that our rules continue to evolve.

I don't believe the Bible was authored by God, but I do believe it was authored by men of good intentions. Like any other religious text, it is imperfect. But it offers examples of wise stories relating to real human issues and real human choices. For example, human lust, as in the Leonard Cohen song, "Hallelujah", where it led to bad acts by Samson and by King David. And in the New Testament (NT) we have Paul suggesting that the Jewish dietary rules and circumcision did not apply to the Gentiles, and a fairly radical statement in Romans 14:14. Basically, this was an example of how rules could evolve.

In the Old Testament (OT), the wandering Jewish tribe had no prison system, like we do now. So immediate retribution, such as "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" was the only workable punishment and deterrent for dangerous bad behavior. Stoning was a punishment from the OT. In the NT Jesus advised against it by his example when he said to the men about to stone the harlot, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone".

Modern laws are derived, as you suggest, by collective agreement. According to Jefferson, we constitute governments to establish and protect a set of rights for each other ("to protect these rights, governments are instituted"). And even these laws evolve over time, such as the abandonment of slavery.

When you ask about dropping the Atomic Bomb, the moral problem was not whether we should kill the enemy or not. The moral problem was whether there was a greater good for everyone by dropping it or a greater good by not using it. There was no law on the books to answer this problem.

Morality offers a rule for creating rules, to achieve the best good and the least harm for everyone. Your question about whether to vaccinate the native tribes or allow them to die of disease to control population offers one solution to the growing population problem. But there are other solutions to the population problem that do less harm, and moral judgment would lead us to select an alternate course of action, like planned parenthood, rather than death by suffering disease.

I agree with you that the best solutions are seldom obvious matters of black and white. There is a lot of research, discussion, and debate about the benefits and harms of new laws, such as those in Biden's agenda.

As to engineering, I'm still pissed off that my old Visual Basic programs stopped compiling years ago.

 

[BH]

Morality and ethics are constructs we try to impose upon reality and reality simply refuses to play by our rules, hence the comment by the engineer.

 

[BH]

Everytime I donate a dollar to the salvation army or clothes to a clothing drive I am helping someone else, but all those dollars add up over years. Am I slitting my own throat slowly by helping others. What if I get cancer years later and the one or two thousand dollars I've donated to charity over 10, 20, 0r 30 years all of a sudden could have gone to an extra treatment? Then again if I and others werent charitable and helped folks down on their luck they will become desperate and are not simply going to go die in a ditch conveniently. They will still or kill to try to live, and oh for I'd the idea go follow a commie or fascist and help him gain power.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Everytime I donate a dollar to the salvation army or clothes to a clothing drive I am helping someone else, but all those dollars add up over years. Am I slitting my own throat slowly by helping others. What if I get cancer years later and the one or two thousand dollars I've donated to charity over 10, 20, 0r 30 years all of a sudden could have gone to an extra treatment? Then again if I and others werent charitable and helped folks down on their luck they will become desperate and are not simply going to go die in a ditch conveniently. They will still or kill to try to live, and oh for I'd the idea go follow a commie or fascist and help him gain power.

Morality seeks the best good and least harm for everyone. Everyone includes you, that's why this goal is something that everyone can agree to.

Personal liberty is valued as a good thing by everyone. So, ideally we would want as few rules as possible, and how you choose to spend your net income will be up to you.

 

[Bronzeage]

Everytime I donate a dollar to the salvation army or clothes to a clothing drive I am helping someone else, but all those dollars add up over years. Am I slitting my own throat slowly by helping others. What if I get cancer years later and the one or two thousand dollars I've donated to charity over 10, 20, 0r 30 years all of a sudden could have gone to an extra treatment? Then again if I and others werent charitable and helped folks down on their luck they will become desperate and are not simply going to go die in a ditch conveniently. They will still or kill to try to live, and oh for I'd the idea go follow a commie or fascist and help him gain power.

Morality seeks the best good and least harm for everyone. Everyone includes you, that's why this goal is something that everyone can agree to.

Personal liberty is valued as a good thing by everyone. So, ideally we would want as few rules as possible, and how you choose to spend your net income will be up to you.

This is one of the greatest misperceptions of modern humanity, but understandable. Any time we want someone to do something they're not really inclined to do, we try to claim it's good for them, or at least someone.

Morality and moral codes of behavior exist to promote tranquility in a group of people. This goes back to the days of when we slept in trees or caves and our technology was a pointed stick and a sharp rock. A lone naked human cannot survive in the wild. We must live in cooperative groups in order to survive as an individual and as a species. Morality evolved with us, to allow us to understand what we were expected to do, in order to live in a cooperative group, and what to expect if we failed to follow the code.

All moral codes are based on two very simple edicts. First, do not kill members of your group. Second, do not steal stuff from members of your group.

After that, it gets very complicated, because we have to determine who is in our group, and what sort of thing can be someone else's stuff. Moral codes are always co-opted by whoever is in power, or seeks power. This can be government or church. but those in power always want to be seen as the enforcers of order.

This leads to the inevitable problem with moral codes. Morality is a reaction to the environment. A group who lives in a tropical climate with plenty of food growing wild all year round is going to have a very different moral code than a group living in a desert. The base rules are the same, but definitions of group membership and property will be very different.

History shows us that environments change slowly, but moral codes change even slower. What insured the survival of a desert tribe 4000 years ago may not work so well in an industrial society. The planet gets more crowded and group boundaries become very vague. We might like the idea of attacking the town over the hill and taking all their stuff, but they'll come back and do the same to us, or worse. It's just not a practical way to live in the long run. In many societies, rape was treated as a crime against property, like stealing a sheep, instead of a violent assault. This is because a woman was the property of some man, or actually, a group of men. She held value for the group and the rapist diminished her value to the group. Times change and our definition of group expands and our definition of property is clarified.

In the end, it is still an argument over definitions of group membership and property.

 

[BH]

Why do you think some people are able to over come tribalism and some cannot? I can't remember their names but there were two friends on opposite sides in the Trojan war and they refused to fight and try to kill each other.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Everytime I donate a dollar to the salvation army or clothes to a clothing drive I am helping someone else, but all those dollars add up over years. Am I slitting my own throat slowly by helping others. What if I get cancer years later and the one or two thousand dollars I've donated to charity over 10, 20, 0r 30 years all of a sudden could have gone to an extra treatment? Then again if I and others werent charitable and helped folks down on their luck they will become desperate and are not simply going to go die in a ditch conveniently. They will still or kill to try to live, and oh for I'd the idea go follow a commie or fascist and help him gain power.

Morality seeks the best good and least harm for everyone. Everyone includes you, that's why this goal is something that everyone can agree to.

Personal liberty is valued as a good thing by everyone. So, ideally we would want as few rules as possible, and how you choose to spend your net income will be up to you.

This is one of the greatest misperceptions of modern humanity, but understandable. Any time we want someone to do something they're not really inclined to do, we try to claim it's good for them, or at least someone.

Morality and moral codes of behavior exist to promote tranquility in a group of people. This goes back to the days of when we slept in trees or caves and our technology was a pointed stick and a sharp rock. A lone naked human cannot survive in the wild. We must live in cooperative groups in order to survive as an individual and as a species. Morality evolved with us, to allow us to understand what we were expected to do, in order to live in a cooperative group, and what to expect if we failed to follow the code.

All moral codes are based on two very simple edicts. First, do not kill members of your group. Second, do not steal stuff from members of your group.

After that, it gets very complicated, because we have to determine who is in our group, and what sort of thing can be someone else's stuff. Moral codes are always co-opted by whoever is in power, or seeks power. This can be government or church. but those in power always want to be seen as the enforcers of order.

This leads to the inevitable problem with moral codes. Morality is a reaction to the environment. A group who lives in a tropical climate with plenty of food growing wild all year round is going to have a very different moral code than a group living in a desert. The base rules are the same, but definitions of group membership and property will be very different.

History shows us that environments change slowly, but moral codes change even slower. What insured the survival of a desert tribe 4000 years ago may not work so well in an industrial society. The planet gets more crowded and group boundaries become very vague. We might like the idea of attacking the town over the hill and taking all their stuff, but they'll come back and do the same to us, or worse. It's just not a practical way to live in the long run. In many societies, rape was treated as a crime against property, like stealing a sheep, instead of a violent assault. This is because a woman was the property of some man, or actually, a group of men. She held value for the group and the rapist diminished her value to the group. Times change and our definition of group expands and our definition of property is clarified.

In the end, it is still an argument over definitions of group membership and property.

It is a struggle to expand group membership but ideally the group would eventually include everyone, all nations, all races, all religions. Surface differences would be transcended by fundamental similarities in significant matters, but perhaps retained for the benefits of variety.

 

[Tigers!]

I remember vaguely and episode on NCIS where the character Ducky (I think that was the name) stated that "A ethical person knows what they should do. A moral person does it." Always liked that phrase.

Morality is applied ethics.

To paraphrase an old dictum 'The road to hell is paved with good ethics'

 

[WAB]

This is one of the greatest misperceptions of modern humanity, but understandable. Any time we want someone to do something they're not really inclined to do, we try to claim it's good for them, or at least someone.

Morality and moral codes of behavior exist to promote tranquility in a group of people. This goes back to the days of when we slept in trees or caves and our technology was a pointed stick and a sharp rock. A lone naked human cannot survive in the wild. We must live in cooperative groups in order to survive as an individual and as a species. Morality evolved with us, to allow us to understand what we were expected to do, in order to live in a cooperative group, and what to expect if we failed to follow the code.

All moral codes are based on two very simple edicts. First, do not kill members of your group. Second, do not steal stuff from members of your group.

After that, it gets very complicated, because we have to determine who is in our group, and what sort of thing can be someone else's stuff. Moral codes are always co-opted by whoever is in power, or seeks power. This can be government or church. but those in power always want to be seen as the enforcers of order.

This leads to the inevitable problem with moral codes. Morality is a reaction to the environment. A group who lives in a tropical climate with plenty of food growing wild all year round is going to have a very different moral code than a group living in a desert. The base rules are the same, but definitions of group membership and property will be very different.

History shows us that environments change slowly, but moral codes change even slower. What insured the survival of a desert tribe 4000 years ago may not work so well in an industrial society. The planet gets more crowded and group boundaries become very vague. We might like the idea of attacking the town over the hill and taking all their stuff, but they'll come back and do the same to us, or worse. It's just not a practical way to live in the long run. In many societies, rape was treated as a crime against property, like stealing a sheep, instead of a violent assault. This is because a woman was the property of some man, or actually, a group of men. She held value for the group and the rapist diminished her value to the group. Times change and our definition of group expands and our definition of property is clarified.

In the end, it is still an argument over definitions of group membership and property.

It is a struggle to expand group membership but ideally the group would eventually include everyone, all nations, all races, all religions. Surface differences would be transcended by fundamental similarities in significant matters, but perhaps retained for the benefits of variety.

Marvin, you seem to have things well in hand here. So nothing I am going to type should indicate that I assume you do not know something that I know. I regard that kind of pretentious thinking as very threatening to civil order, and have been outspoken about it for my entire time at Talk Freethought, and all over the Net. I was permanently banned (with zero possibility of parole, not even monitored probation ) from the ONLY two extant websites that offer discussion forums that act primarily as poet's workshops, and do so in a reasonably "objective" manner - leastways that's what they claim, and what they legitimately try to do most of the time, or so I believe. And I was banned from these sites after many years of membership, and was a veteran member in both, and in both highly regarded for my poems. However, being the numbnuts that I am, and being prone to emotionalism, as well as beset by severe depression and chronic anxiety, which can breed excessive paranoia and delusions of grandeur all at once, I began to become highly critical of the policies of both places. One of them even has this written at the top of their home page (satirically, not in earnest, or even frankly for that matter):

WARNING! We're mean. We're nasty. We're merciless. We're cruel. We're vile. We're heartless.
We'll slash your soul to ribbons. We're an evil clique conspiring to annihilate your self-esteem. Ready?

This message, added in red, appeared at the same time that I was launching severe critique of certain moderators on my blogs. I named names. I did not think anyone would notice, since my blogs are completely obscure and hardly ever seen, except by people who know me or who deliberately seek me out (they would have had to know my full name). I posted at this site as Urizen (Blake reference), and up until then did not go about uttering my name on the internet. Now I do it without invitation, effortlessly, and for no good reason save to be annoying, since I merely want my interlocutor to KNOW that I am who and what I claim to be - not a poser, not a paid shill for the Right (though I would NOT refuse a decent cash payment for anything I've written! Hello you crackers and silly Karens and Qanon morons! Quote me! But send me the fuckin' money!), or a conservolibertard-snowflake-Authoritarian-follower.

The other site, where I had a really good rep as a poet, began to heavily politicize the forum. Anyone not repeating the party line was fished out and dog-piled, for whatever dreamed-up reason. Even very well-known, widely published poets, such as John Whitworth, Tim Murphy, Allen Sullivan, Charles Southerland (actual homophobe, anti-semitic, and nasty, nasty person altogether - a fire and brimstone breathing WASP, who came to this site to learn how to write in rhyme and meter, and eventually revealed himself, and got booted), Jennifer Reeser (who authored a book that was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize), and way too many other American and English-language poets to possibly name, were either interrogated McCarthy-style, made up to be objects of suspicion (while some were openly gay [Tim Murphy and Alan Sullivan were married - to each other - and both outspokenly conservative], women, POC, members of protected groups [Reeser is significantly Cherokee and has proven it onsite and off with tons of photos and documentation - because she was doubted simply because she espouses religious values and is a Christian, though she is not preachy and probably doesn't go in for the Dantean version of Hell and damnation - which, IMO, one would have to be either sick, or in some fashion debilitated or cognitively unable to critically and deeply examine the proposition of a real, conscious, eternally existing place of inconceivable torment and real physical, mental, suffering and pain] ), ...etc, etc, etc.

To sum it up, as briefly as I can because to utter things with brevity on the Internet is a sure-fire way invite the slings and arrows of outrageously triggered net-folk:

I believe - although I am not certain - that there are some at TFT, present and active, whether under the radar (in sneaky mode), or posting, guests or what have you, who understand all about what the freewill/determinism argument is, and understand every facet of it (it ain't rocket science); but who will remain stubborn and refuse to explain themselves, for whatever reason. They will either not address direct questions, or be evasive and simply gainsay arguments rather than actually argue a point, with sentences and paragraphs of explanatory...er....hopefully explanatory, lucid, clear, and direct commentary; and they will posture and ridicule instead: They will seek out flaws in one's arguments, and ignore the parts they agree with; they will pretend to be Socrates and respond to questions with questions, or play devil's advocate just for fun (while never ever coming out and writing in any kind of level-headed, responsible, socially decent manner); they will almost never be gentle, almost never apologize, and almost never type into the thread the words, "Sorry for that. I was in error and I retract what I typed in post #xxxx"; - or - "Sorry, I was being an a55hole...I regret it."

What really bothers me is the odd poster who comes in and thinks they are a prophet of old, or Clint Eastwood, or a declamatory, elocutionary icon like Charleton Heston, or just someone (almost always anonymous, but there are exceptions) who will declare things and present opinions as facts, will not use qualifiers or caveats, will not be kind and gentle, and will NOT respond to rep comments, no matter how critical, no matter how kind. One gets the feeling that some of these folks do not mind receiving sparklies, but do not wish to hand them out, or are extremely picky about it; OR, they are so assured of themselves, so certain, that they do not feel compelled to rep me at all, for any reason (Leastways, rekkin - character of mine I invented whose name is Emmet) I presume, as I have lavishly commented to just about everyone by way of the rep text feature, and have had ZERO response or interaction with several long-time members (whose names I shall discuss if any one of them should PM me, as occasionally happens. And when it does, it usually goes well, though of late (very recently), it went south fast.

I will stop here. I could write a thousand-page book at this rate in ohhh, a few days, given enough coffee and chocolate. And dopamine. With footnotes, indexes, appendi...uh...appendixes, and a forty volume bibliography.

The extra bits below are for Shakespeare and/or Monty Python fans.

Show

Onwards, into the stinky depths of hell
My friends, for what advantage can be gain'd
Were champions and warriors such as we
To sit and gather dust upon our flanks?
Nay, lads, but we shall lift these sluggish swords
And slay to bits all enemies of Christ,
Including hippies and inebriate loons
Who trespass our benevolent domains
With silly and untutor'd speech; who lack
The trade certificate or P.H.D.;
Who shovel horse's dung and th' piddle of pigs
And stoop with brush and bucket to a loo
Besmatter'd with the teeming excrement
of their unworshipt idols! Ah, those droves
of...

[Enough. CUT!!! What is it with you actizz? Can you read a script and say the woids as written, or must you go on and on and on? Now go home, and clean your armor. And please, somebody, catch that poor bunny...poor litt-el thing...I knew this film would be a disastih but what can I do...]

 

[Marvin Edwards]

People are as they are WAB. I was once told by an English teacher to avoid saying "In my opinion" because it was already obvious that whatever I wrote was my opinion. I do tend to sound assertive, which does tick off some people. And I try to curb discussions where people try to make me the topic rather than addressing the issue on the table. So, if any of this ticks you off, Sorry, but I am who I am. Always open to well-intentioned advice, though, even if I don't follow it. Habits of style are difficult to change.

 

[WAB]

People are as they are WAB. I was once told by an English teacher to avoid saying "In my opinion" because it was already obvious that whatever I wrote was my opinion. I do tend to sound assertive, which does tick off some people. And I try to curb discussions where people try to make me the topic rather than addressing the issue on the table. So, if any of this ticks you off, Sorry, but I am who I am. Always open to well-intentioned advice, though, even if I don't follow it. Habits of style are difficult to change.

No, no. You haven't troubled me at all, Marvin.

And I do, I really do, understand that one cannot constantly write those phrases like "in my opinion". I do understand. Note I have been writing extra-blathery posts because I am trying to touch every base and not leave anything to chance - but - and as I of course fully expected, it's just impossible.

Hence all the etc, etc, etc&.

It is why we have law books that are thousands and thousands of pages long, why we have reference books and various texts that contain miles and miles of footnotes, indexes, appendixes, caveats, corrections, etc.

BUT -

The point that some posters have made over the years about free will is that the people defending free will do not "account" for the brain, for the "information processing" that is going on, for the billions of years of evolution that brought us to this time and place. Well, no, people don't have to account for that, because it is assumed they already know it. And if someone does not know it, then it is useless to try and reason with them anyway.

If a person says, "I lift my arm", everyone knows what is meant, and no one has a problem with it. But if a person says, "I made my way in the world. I made things happen.", then everyone should know what is meant by that. I don't think very many normal adults literally think the person has this notion called "libertarian free will", or is even thinking anything of the kind. What they are trying to express is something like, "Well, I made a strong effort. I did good in school, went to college, got a degree, and set up my practice and have been doing it ever since."

The latter sentence there doesn't necessarily take into account all of the environmental, genetic, economic, social, etc., causes and influences going on in the speaker's brain, nor does it take into account billions of years of evolution; because, like you say so eloquently and so directly (which is why I immediately invited you here after reading an article of yours a member here alerted me to), it doesn't have to: it should be assumed, all things being equal, and assuming normal intelligence in adult discussion, that all parties know what the brain does, that there is no such thing as some kind of fundamental principle called a "free will", that there is no such thing as some kind of material called a "soul", or a "spirit", etc, etc, etc. They are free to assume that something is amiss if the opponent has actually claimed the contrary of what I've been talking about.

So, it bugs me that those kind of insinuations are constantly made, and so much useless straw is burned while posters talk past each other, rip quotes out of context, and fail to make the tiniest effort not to use harmful generalizations, such as "I know that X are idiots who think that Y and Z.." etc., on and on. That kind of thing, or so I thought, was unacceptable in a moderated discussion forum, and I have done my best to deter a FEW posters who in my opinion, do such things intentionally, misrepresent people intentionally, and mine for out of context quotes intentionally, just to cause confusion, or to distract a reader from the continuity and integrity of the thread and its participants. I consider such people on the same moral level as a spammer, or a con-artist. And these posters are on both sides of the political fence, which should go without saying.

Whataboutism be damned. It's fine to call that out when it's justifiable, but silly and stupid to use the word against someone who is obviously trying to make a rational point.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

All well and good, WAB. I'm a grownup, and I can, and have, dealt with all kinds of people and points of view in discussion groups. Not always successfully, of course. And sometimes, especially when tired, and when being personally attacked, I will become a bit intemperant.

But, dear friend, all this talk does not relate to the issue of how we define morality and ethics.

 

[WAB]

All well and good, WAB. I'm a grownup, and I can, and have, dealt with all kinds of people and points of view in discussion groups. Not always successfully, of course. And sometimes, especially when tired, and when being personally attacked, I will become a bit intemperant.

But, dear friend, all this talk does not relate to the issue of how we define morality and ethics.

But it does, and that's the only reason I go on about it! I suppose I must content myself with not being understood.

I shall not bother an attempt to explain myself any further on this issue, since no-one has been able to grasp my position. I wouldn't mind at all if people DID grasp it but disagreed with it, and gave reasons; but if I cannot even make my position clear after all I've typed out in the last week or so, then there is no use.

Thanks for coming to visit TFT!

Onwards! And to hell with the freewill/determinism conversation! And to hell with compatibilism! Hooooo-ray!

 

[Bronzeage]

People are as they are WAB. I was once told by an English teacher to avoid saying "In my opinion" because it was already obvious that whatever I wrote was my opinion. I do tend to sound assertive, which does tick off some people. And I try to curb discussions where people try to make me the topic rather than addressing the issue on the table. So, if any of this ticks you off, Sorry, but I am who I am. Always open to well-intentioned advice, though, even if I don't follow it. Habits of style are difficult to change.

"In my opinion" is a rhetorical device which asserts the speaker is stating their conclusion based on the facts and concedes there maybe other conclusions, by other people. The key is distinguishing between the two.

It works better in a spoken argument than in text, and text is the English Teacher's main concern.

 

[Jarhyn]

The way I have heard it defined in general is morality iasa code of conduct, ethics is how you well you follow the code.

Christians derive morality from a strange bizarre thing called the bible where stoning was considered acceptable punishment for offenses. Slavery by the religious was not considered immoral until modern times.

For the old Samurai commuting ritual suicide was the ethical thing to do when the code of morality denmaded it.

Morality is a collective consensus. Christens especially Catholics assume an absolute moral authority vased on sciptural morality we today consider immoral. Slavery.

What a moral good is depends on many things.

Was the use of atomic bombs in WWII moral? I think so. It saved both Allied and Japanese lives, and probably saved the Japanese culture from destruction had an invasion occurred.

Is it a moral good to provide vaccinations and prenatal care to an isolated aborigine group so it grows beyond the capacity to sustain itself in its environment?

Morality and ethics are not so simple and black and white as 'doing good'. There can be negative consequences to an individual 'doing good'.

I learned that as an engineer confronted with real issues.

I'm with Marvin here: I do and will continue to delineate these two utterances, ethics first to the discussion of principle and reason as to what universal strategy leads to best outcomes over time, and then morality which is in all discussions where I treat it the personal systems which an individual implements or has implemented upon them which approximate activity towards "ethics".

You could then be "an ethical but immoral person", ie, a hypocrite who has strong ethical philosophical arguments but who entirely abandons those arguments in favor of, perhaps, wanton selfishness.

Or you could be a moral but entirely unethical person, whose morality demands that for the world and emotional balance of their guiding morality to be satisfied they must exterminate all "sluts", and so they go forth and do so religiously. Certainly this person is extremely moral to their own morality. It just happens to be broken morality that they follow.

Someone could be both immoral and unethical, that they give no consideration to either, or more likely that any such person lacks both entirely.

This framework of the discussion yields a useful dichotomy where we can discuss the emotional aspects of our philosophical pursuits separately from the logical aspects which underpin and drive selection of such. We can also then recognize player entity conflicts in the implementation of morality re: the conflicts between the selfish gene which causes cancer and fighting between the cells of "the body society."

 

[SigmatheZeta]

Change is the only constant in society's putative morality. When I was growing up, gay and transgender people were considered to be sick, disturbed, and unnatural, but in my country, at least, the population has all but done a 180 on that particular issue. Now, they are haring off after other scapegoats, yet they believe that they have fundamentally changed. They always do.

Morality will always exist. After all, we need some kind of a system for confirming that certain people are evil, so we can inform the population that those people are terrible and dangerous and not deserving of their sympathy. From there, we must go out of our way to harass them, threaten them, batter them, derail their careers, traumatize them, constantly suicide-bait them, and put them through destructive attempts to needlessly change them.

Without morality, we would not recognize that all of this is necessary. Without morality, we would go around treating each other respectfully, trying to make each other's lives better, and actually liking each other's company. It would be anarchy.

Meanwhile, I prefer to simply live ethically. I find it to be substantially more relaxing.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Change is the only constant in society's putative morality. When I was growing up, gay and transgender people were considered to be sick, disturbed, and unnatural, but in my country, at least, the population has all but done a 180 on that particular issue. Now, they are haring off after other scapegoats, yet they believe that they have fundamentally changed. They always do.

Morality will always exist. After all, we need some kind of a system for confirming that certain people are evil, so we can inform the population that those people are terrible and dangerous and not deserving of their sympathy. From there, we must go out of their way to harass them, derail their careers, traumatize them, constantly suicide-bait them, and put them through destructive attempts to needlessly change them.

Without morality, we would not recognize that all of this is necessary. Without morality, we would go around treating each other respectfully, trying to make each other's lives better, and actually liking each other's company. It would be anarchy.

Meanwhile, I prefer to simply live ethically. I find it to be substantially more relaxing.

You're not talking about morality, you're talking about sanctimonious moralizing. Sanctimonious moralizing is immoral. How do we know?

Because morality seeks "the best good and the least harm for everyone".

So, rather than demonizing people, morality identifies behavior that causes unnecessary harm, and seeks to correct the behavior in the least harmful way.

What does the offender justly deserve? Well, since justice is about protecting everyone from unnecessary harm, a "just penalty" would include the following: (a) repair the harm to the victim if possible, (b) correct the offender's future behavior if corrigible, (c) secure the offender to protect society until his behavior is corrected, and (d) do no more harm to the offender and his rights than is reasonably required to accomplish (a), (b), and (c).

 

[SigmatheZeta]

Change is the only constant in society's putative morality. When I was growing up, gay and transgender people were considered to be sick, disturbed, and unnatural, but in my country, at least, the population has all but done a 180 on that particular issue. Now, they are haring off after other scapegoats, yet they believe that they have fundamentally changed. They always do.

Morality will always exist. After all, we need some kind of a system for confirming that certain people are evil, so we can inform the population that those people are terrible and dangerous and not deserving of their sympathy. From there, we must go out of their way to harass them, derail their careers, traumatize them, constantly suicide-bait them, and put them through destructive attempts to needlessly change them.

Without morality, we would not recognize that all of this is necessary. Without morality, we would go around treating each other respectfully, trying to make each other's lives better, and actually liking each other's company. It would be anarchy.

Meanwhile, I prefer to simply live ethically. I find it to be substantially more relaxing.

You're not talking about morality, you're talking about sanctimonious moralizing. Sanctimonious moralizing is immoral. How do we know?

Because morality seeks "the best good and the least harm for everyone".

So, rather than demonizing people, morality identifies behavior that causes unnecessary harm, and seeks to correct the behavior in the least harmful way.

What does the offender justly deserve? Well, since justice is about protecting everyone from unnecessary harm, a "just penalty" would include the following: (a) repair the harm to the victim if possible, (b) correct the offender's future behavior if corrigible, (c) secure the offender to protect society until his behavior is corrected, and (d) do no more harm to the offender and his rights than is reasonably required to accomplish (a), (b), and (c).

I distinguish between morality and ethics.

Morality is assumed to be absolute, and the way that people tend to pursue it tends to be destructive and authoritarian. It is less about making society better and more about punishing people for being "wrong." The morals that are widely observed in society tend to change every two decades, but they will never acknowledge it. They tend to assume that their generation's morality is universal and eternal and true in all situations, and when society inevitably does change, they say that society has become terrible and despicable; they will look back on the previous generations and talk about how people were much better, then, and they will say that people have become weak and depraved.

Ethics, on the other hand, constitutes a tentative set of statements, which we attempt to find agreement on, as a social contract that we try to use to help us live together with a relative lack of conflict. We acknowledge that these ideas are imperfect, and we remain open to modifying those ideas in order to evolve as a society and improve our interpersonal relations. If we observe ethics, then we embrace social change, and we do our best to decipher the new conflicts and dilemmas that come up as a consequence. Ethics are adaptable.

I am not sure that there is such a thing as a good system of morality (I have often argued that morality is inherently evil), but I believe that ethics can work out great!