(April 24, 2018 at 8:37 pm)chimp3 Wrote:

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I understand what Hitchens meant and I disagree. If we include motivation in judging immoral actions then we must include motivation in moral actions and we nullify the wager.

Nullify the wager?  Don't you think that reducing acceptable answers to superhuman abilities and denying any validity to motivation in a moral consideration does that? Hitchens formulation had no problem including motivations as a necessary consideration...and was at least answerable in principle.

It wasn't arranged as a point from which to breathlessly deny the validity of everything put forward, but to compare differing motivations for moral acts and statements and a relative disparity between them that immediately jumps to mind in both the faithless and the faithful.

(April 24, 2018 at 9:28 pm)Hammy Wrote: Because intentions and motivations aren't immoral in themselves... they're only immoral insofar as they lead to immoral actions.

The end result need not always be an action. The result of mental discipline may just affect the mind, which may or may not result in action but nevertheless contributes to the virtue of a person.

So if you politely open a door for a nice old lady, but unbenownst to you, it frees a pack of wolves who devour her. Was it immoral?

If intention isn't an issue, would that make Tornado's immoral?

Nah, just unfortunate.

(April 25, 2018 at 10:22 am)Neo-Scholastic Wrote:

(April 24, 2018 at 9:28 pm)Hammy Wrote: Because intentions and motivations aren't immoral in themselves... they're only immoral insofar as they lead to immoral actions.

The end result need not always be an action. The result of mental discipline may just affect the mind, which may or may not result in action but nevertheless contributes to the virtue of a person.

The concept of virtue without good acts make no sense to me.

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(April 25, 2018 at 10:24 am)henryp Wrote: So if you politely open a door for a nice old lady, but unbenownst to you, it frees a pack of wolves who devour her.  Was it immoral?

Yes.

Quote:If intention isn't an issue, would that make Tornado's immoral?

No because it only governs the consequences of human actions.

(April 26, 2018 at 6:14 am)Hammy Wrote:

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(April 25, 2018 at 10:24 am)henryp Wrote: So if you politely open a door for a nice old lady, but unbenownst to you, it frees a pack of wolves who devour her.  Was it immoral?

Yes.

Quote:If intention isn't an issue, would that make Tornado's immoral?

No because it only governs the consequences of human actions.

2nd one 1st.  Could we talk about Tornado morality in the same way we talk about Human morality?  And the only difference is the somewhat arbitrary 'must be human' aspect?

Also, how long do you have for the consequences to play out?  If I kick a pregnant lady down a flight of stairs, but it turns out her baby was Hitler, does that make it moral?

Follow up on that, given that comparing possible results requires knowledge of alternative timelines, can you ever know if something was the moral decision, since it's impossible to be sure of what any other action would have led to?

How is it immoral to open the door for someone if you have no idea something bad would happen to the person if you did?

(April 26, 2018 at 8:52 am)Catholic_Lady Wrote: How is it immoral to open the door for someone if you have no idea something bad would happen to the person if you did?

Because he thinks the consequences of the actions are what matters, not the intentions.

So if I step on someone's toe by accident, I'm just as immoral as I would be if I did it on purpose to hurt them? That doesn't make much sense, Ham.

(April 26, 2018 at 8:40 am)henryp Wrote: 2nd one 1st.  Could we talk about Tornado morality in the same way we talk about Human morality?  And the only difference is the somewhat arbitrary 'must be human' aspect?

It's not arbitrary, obviously. Humans are able to think about moral actions and think about morality... tornadoes aren't.

You really need to understand how conseuqentalism is defined if you're going to critique it.

It's always underwhelming on AF the amount of times someone criticizes a position before they even know the definition of the very think they're criticizing. It's like you're fumbling about in the dark.

Quote:Also, how long do you have for the consequences to play out?  If I kick a pregnant lady down a flight of stairs, but it turns out her baby was Hitler, does that make it moral?

That's a problem of epistemology. Whether we can know the results is a different matter. You're confusing what is right and wrong in principle and what is right and wrong in practice.

In principle, kicking ladies in the stomach is wrong. Some would think that if they knew the baby was going to be Hitler then that would be okay because it's a lesser evil. I certainly don't because 1) I don't condone such violence in general and 2) If we knew it was going to be Hitler why not just have an abortion instead?

Quote:Follow up on that, given that comparing possible results requires knowledge of alternative timelines, can you ever know if something was the moral decision, since it's impossible to be sure of what any other action would have led to?

These are matters of epistemology. Whether we can know the correct answer to what is wrong. That's separate to what is actually right and wrong.

Like, for instance, consequentalism may not be helpful at all as a moral guide (and I don't think it is)... but I do think that it must be the correct answer to what right and wrong actually is. No other moral theory on what right and wrong is actually makes any sense... because no matter what rules or guidelines you follow or what virtues you consider... it all comes down to the fact that whatever moral guide or rules you follow... it's only actually a useful guide or useful rules if it leads to good rather than bad consequences. Good rules are rules that generally tend to lead to good consequences, and good virtues are virtues that in general tend to lead to good consequences. Bad rules are rules that tend to lead to bad consequences... and vices are only really vices if they tend to lead to bad consequences.

In a matter of what is ultimately right and wrong, on a matter of principle only--in principle as opposed to in practice--all other moral theories collapse into consequentalism.