Angra Mainyu
Veteran Member
I don't think the sense of hierarchy is between morality and results, but - if and when there is such sense -, between a moral goal any other goals: in the context of moral argumentation, when there is a conflict between not behaving immorally and something else (e.g., if you do X, you achieve goal Y, but X is immoral), it seems to me it's usually implicitly assumed that not behaving immorally trumps the other goal, even from the perspective of the evaluations of the agent pondering how to behave.fast said:Suppose I said, if we do X, then we can achieve y. You might say, just because we can do X, maybe we should step back and ask ourselves if we should. It's not just a moral question on lateral footing as if two topics (morality and results) are sitting side-by-side. There's a sense of hierarchy between the issues.
I'm not sure what scale of admiration that is. If it's the moral scale, then and immoral and illegal action (say, some trademark violation) may be much further up the moral scale (i.e., much less bad) than an action that is immoral and legal (e.g., in many legal systems, espousal rape).fast said:Consider legality versus morality. If an action is immoral and illegal on one hand and immoral yet legal on the other, the latter is further up the scale of admiration (a little, for at least it's legal), and if an action is moral yet illegal versus moral and legal, that latter is even higher still.
I'm not sure by "moral" you mean "morally permissible", or "morally obligatory", or "morally praiseworthy". Context suggests "permissible", so I'll go with that, but please clarify.
I don't think that your statement is true. It depends on the case.
For example, if B is convicted to death for apostasy, blasphemy or gay sex, and A takes some very serious personal risk and helps B escape the authorities in order to protect her from such horrific injustice, A's actions are (all other things equal) morally praiseworthy, even if criminal in their legal system. On the other hand, eating a banana because one is slightly hungry and one likes bananas is morally permissible and legal, but not morally praiseworthy.
I think legal tends to trump illegal because it tends to morally trump it, since breaking the law is usually immoral. But it's easy to find exceptions.fast said:Legal tends to trump illegal and moral trumps immoral, but in comparing the two, it's the morality (and not the legality) that wins favor. Throw results in the mix. Nothing ever seems to trump the morals of an issue.
It seems to me if they're weighing them, either they're weighing the morality of the matters, or they're weighing different goals, depending on what an agent values. It seems implicit in moral argumentation that the goal of not behaving immorally trumps the conflicting goals they're talking about.fast said:Always at the top seems to be the moral issue. The very notion that the achievement of results can sit above the importance of the moral aspects of an issue is probably mostly universally deniable, and what makes this discussion so problematic is how morality boosts up the moment results have a chance of gaining ground--the flip-flopping from unjustified to justified.