On Moral Authorities

[The Grand Nudger]

Yes, they are painfully simple terms. I know you don't mean anything subtle or tricky about them. However, as communicated, you are asking your reader to fill in some blanks about what you mean by them. In everyday conversation, that is fine, especially among people you know. In the world of philosophical discussion on the internet with perfect strangers, those locunae of meaning can be filled in any number of ways by your reader.

I -invite- the reader to do so.  I mean exactly what I say...and as I've said, if my list of help and harm differs from someone else's list then I'm okay with that.  We agree on help and harm, and that's enough to find common ground and make a sort of moral compromise between us if there is ever a conflict.

For example, if I wrote to you merely saying, "Please help me", and you were willing to do so, how would you help? Wouldn't you need to know some more information about the sort of help I need?

Not to know whether or not help was a moral good.  That, and, having mentioned it before..I could be enticed to drop help entirely.  If that;s all you wrote...it's an amoral situation regardless of what I might include in my help category.  Neither good nor bad, to ignore it. There isn;t enough info included for me to make any decision..and that has nothing to do with what -I- mean by the term...it;s your own vague request that;s the issue.


If we're not having an "everyday conversation" here...if morality isn't an everyday subject...then it's pretty much useless. If you have to start from the bottom and define every use of the term "a" at every instant..if oe has to turn themselves into a walking dictionary and refer to multiple scholalry concepts of this that and the other thing..peppered with latin, while they walk counterclockwise around a demonic alter to appease the spirits of truth..... then morality is useless to our lives.

Meanwhile, I'll say help and harm, and you'll know -exactly- what I mean by them..even if we might disagree in any specific instance as to whether or not a particular example trends more or less towards one side or the other of that simple two point scale....and if you don't...all the discussion in the world won't help, because you do not possess moral agency. There will be no point at which any exploration of any subject beneath or above that simple proclamation will ever lead to anything other than wide eyed "what do you mean by that" wonder. So, surely, we don;t have to go through the bits above, and you do understand what I mean, and we can move forward...yes?

[Ignorant]

 if my list of help and harm differs from someone else's list then I'm okay with that.  We agree on help and harm, and that's enough to find common ground and make a sort of moral compromise between us if there is ever a conflict.

PRECISELY! Do you think there is a fundamental difference between "Help and avoid harm" and "Do good and avoid evil"? I don't think so.
We may disagree about what is helpful and what is harmful (or even the "what" we are helping or harming!), but we don't disagree that truly helpful things are good and truly harmful things are bad. The more helpful things in life, the better life is. The more harmful things in life, the worse life is.

Compare

We may disagree about what is leads to human happiness and what leads away from human happiness (or even in what happiness consists!), but we don't disagree that things that truly lead to human happiness are good and things that truly lead away from human happiness are bad. The closer we lead ourselves to human happiness, the better life is. The further away from human happiness we lead ourselves, the worse life is.

You are using different words to convey the same idea. But if you'd prefer to be your own category, have a ball!

[Ignorant]

If we're not having an "everyday conversation" here...if morality isn't an everyday subject...then it's pretty much useless. 

I dunno. Theoretical physics doesn't strike me as an everyday conversation at the lunch table, but that doesn't exactly make it useless.
I know you mean exactly what you say, but that does not mean "exactly" what you say is always clear and adequately or fully expresses your intended position. I'm not you, so sometimes you will have to help me out.

[The Grand Nudger]

PRECISELY! Do you think there is a fundamental difference between "Help and avoid harm" and "Do good and avoid evil"? I don't think so.
We may disagree about what is helpful and what is harmful (or even the "what" we are helping or harming!), but we don't disagree that truly helpful things are good and truly harmful things are bad. The more helpful things in life, the better life is. The more harmful things in life, the worse life is.

Golly gee...you mean all these posts in the interim were pedantic wastes of time to agree with what I told you the first go round?  I may have said that the first go round as well, lol.

Compare

There's no point, since you're asking me to compare to a subject which I do not use as a foundation of morality, and which does not provide consistent results -to- my foundation of morality.  But since you insists...I'll just reiterate what I've already said.

We may disagree about what is leads to human happiness and what leads away from human happiness (or even in what happiness consists!), but we don't disagree that things that truly lead to human happiness are good and things

We do disagree.

that truly lead away from human happiness are bad.

I can think of plenty of things that lead away from human happiness that -aren't- bad things.  The trumpsters would have been heartbroken had their boy lost (and they're just so very happy that he won).  

The closer we lead ourselves to human happiness, the better life is. The further away from human happiness we lead ourselves, the worse life is.
You are using different words to convey the same idea. But if you'd prefer to be your own category, have a ball!

I'm not, but you can't accept that I'm not..because you'd rather be right than accept our simple, fundamental difference in this regard. I do not consider help to be good because it leads to human happiness, and I do not consider harm to be bad because it -doesn't- lead to human happiness.

I don;t think that this is so, because I allow for what I consider to be a trivially easy to demonstrate state of being where doing bad things can easily lead to human happiness, and where doing good things can lead to human suffering. Similarly, where help can lead to misery, and where harm can lead to happiness.

[Ignorant]

There will be no point at which any exploration of any subject beneath or above that simple proclamation will ever lead to anything other than wide eyed "what do you mean by that" wonder. So, surely, we don;t have to go through the bits above, and you do understand what I mean, and we can move forward...yes?

Strange that, it being so simple, you resist putting a single sentence together to express the simple meaning. I know you are more than able, so it is just surprising that you won't.

Why would I move forward? I know what you mean, but you clearly don't grasp my meaning. The fact that you see a fundamental difference between your own formulation and the broadest of strokes I painted demonstrates that. If you are not willing to open your mind to that possibility, then I think our dialogue is over.

[Ignorant]

I can think of plenty of things that lead away from human happiness that -aren't- bad things.  The trumpsters would have been heartbroken had their boy lost (and they're just so very happy that he won). 

Remember when I wrote this?:

"just for the sake of clarity: Happiness often and mostly includes pleasure, but happiness cannot be reduced to MERE pleasure. That is the exact error upon which hedonism rests and fails. E.g. Heroin causes temporary pleasure, but a life spent in pursuit and use of heroin seldom causes "happiness"."

I am telling you that we mean different things by the word "happiness". The sort of life to which, as you call them, truly "helpful" things lead is what I call a "happy life". The "trumpsters" are wrong about helpful things, which is, in my way of putting it, wrong about happy things.

since you're asking me to compare to a subject which I do not use as a foundation of morality

Look, you're already speaking to me as if I were a child, so why not keep up that theme and explain to me what it means to help someone or to harm someone, and why helping is good and hurting is bad. I know you can do it. And what's more, I will even ADMIT IT if it is fundamentally different than a morality based on doing good and avoiding evil for the sake of human happiness.

[The Grand Nudger]

Strange that, it being so simple, you resist putting a single sentence together to express the simple meaning. I know you are more than able, so it is just surprising that you won't.

Why would I move forward? I know what you mean, but you clearly don't grasp my meaning. The fact that you see a fundamental difference between your own formulation and the broadest of strokes I painted demonstrates that. If you are not willing to open your mind to that possibility, then I think our dialogue is over.

You know what I mean, I grasp your meaning, we simply don't agree.  

I am telling you that we mean different things by the word "happiness". The sort of life to which, as you call them, truly "helpful" things lead is what I call a "happy life". The "trumpsters" are wrong about helpful things, which is, in my way of putting it, wrong about happy things.

That my helpful things might lead to your happy life would be a happy coincidence, nevertheless, the two terms are not synonyms.  You feel empowered to tell the trumpsters what they are wrong about in that context, what a happy life is and is not.  I wouldn't make that determination and do not -need- to..because my morality is not based upon -any- reference to "the happiest life" by any definition you or anyone else care to give it.  

Look, you're already speaking to me as if I were a child, so why not keep up that theme and explain to me what it means to help someone or to harm someone, and why helping is good and hurting is bad. I know you can do it. And what's more, I will even ADMIT IT if it is fundamentally different than a morality based on doing good and avoiding evil for the sake of human happiness.

Yes, I;m speaking to you like a child, because you're asking me what help and harm means, and petulantly arguing  that we agree about whatever it is you want to be right about.  Those are the actions of a child.  I could list off helpful or harmful things...and we could agree or disagree whether or not any of those given things belongs in either set...but simply doing so would blow your bullshit wide open....since you would have to have an understanding of help and harm to even mount an agreement or disagreement or any notion of whether or not it leads to "the happiest life" as you define whatever that is.  There;s no point in "admitting" anything...i go by help and harm, you go by "happy life"...I;m sure that we will sometimes arrive at the same moral conclusions about many of the same things...and I said as m,uch, but it won;t be for the same reasons...because help and harm may be -related- to "the happiest life", but they aren't interchangeable with it.  

Now, if, at any point, you can accept a simple disagreement, maybe we can have a conversation...but if you can;t...ofc we can;t.  I;m not interested in arguing with you over what belongs in either set, I'm not arguing with you that things I place in the helpful can't  lead to "he happiest life" -however you define it-, and I'm not interested in arguing with you over which morality is the "right morality". I'm simply making you aware of a different framework. You have found a way to make this simple task as odious as possible, lol. Congratulations.

Does -this- lead to "the happiest life"? If I told you that decapitating someone and parading their skull up and down the street could -easily- fit into my "helpful" category, would you twist your scrote into knots to tell me how this leads to or has something to do with "the happiest life"? What if I told you that my harm category could include chemical therapy and brain surgery to remove any negativity in a person..would you twist your scrote in the other direction to tell me how that -doesn't- lead to "the happiest life"? At this point, I'd love to watch you turn "happy life" into a dumpster term in order to make it the same as things it isn't.

[theologian]

If I follow your logic, then if I have a personal goal which includes hurting and killing other people, it follows that it is allowable to hurt or kill other people.

Before Christ, it was the silver rule only: Do not do unto you...

In Christ, it was the golden rule: Do unto others...

Allowable by whom or what rules? Think about what you're arguing here.

As for your second point:

"If people regarded other people's families in the same way that they regard their own, who then would incite their own family to attack that of another? For one would do for others as one would do for oneself." — Mozi (c. 400 BC)

I stand corrected in my second point.

Please help me understand your question on whose or what rules it is allowable. You are asking of whose or what rules. Doesn't it imply subjectivity, especially if your talking about human rules?

[The Grand Nudger]

There's no consistent usage of the term subject or subjective that would not also apply to a gods rules, or christs rules.  So, that last part of the question "especially human rules"...there is no "especially".  Joes rules, Christs rules...both -equally- subjective rules on grounds of ownership, neither especially more-so or less-so than the other. Obviously, you can think that christs rules are better rules, or the ones we should follow...which is the sentiment you expressed before regardless of whether or not they were quite as original as you thought them to be. Better subjective rules. The right set of subjective rules to follow.

[robvalue]

Ignorant: [1] You've just stated the goals of morality as you see them. [2] If I disagree about what the goals should be, then what?

1) I don't remember doing so. Can you point me to where you're reading that? I seem to remember intentionally leaving the "goals" part blank (________________)!

2) Then we can have a conversation about it! Hopefully, due to our both being human, we could have some common ground regarding the "object" in question, as well as common experiences of that object (the object being life lived as a human).

[added later in an edit] In order to disagree about what the goals "should be", you must first have an idea of where you are trying to "end up" through your actions. If you have that idea, then you have an idea of what human nature/human happiness is. Clearly, seeing as few people on earth (if any) seem to know exactly what that is, know how to bring it about well, and possess the power to bring it about, then you or I can be flat wrong about the goals, how to achieve them, or what we are in the first place. Talking with people who disagree can aid in painting a clearer picture.

For one thing, it doesn't even mention other animals at all. According to that, [3] I can do anything I like to them as long as it doesn't upset humans without being "immoral".

3) How does that follow from my words: The happiest of human lives consists in ___________ ? I mean... it's not even a complete thought! =)

[edit] Just so you know, my "blank" would include information on the relationship between a human life and the rest of nature. In other words, there are many things you could do to animals that, even if not "upsetting" to humans, will ultimately fail to bring about human happiness, and will often bring about sadder versions of it instead. I'm more interested in whether or not there are things we can put in the blank that would apply to every human being, because that would be a good start for an objective and reasonable moral "authority".

Sorry if I misunderstood. Are you saying human happiness is just one proposed goal then?

I agree it is a good goal, but it is incredibly vague and qualifying it is very hard. I don't think it can be objectified in any way.