Parkers Tan Wrote:Why are you asking me this?

Well, I am asking you questions about your position so that I can better understand it. You said that you thought that all "people of sound mind" would agree about how they wanted other people to treat them. By asking you questions about that thought, I hoped to get a better sense of what you mean. I am sorry if it annoys you, but you are under no obligation to respond to me.

Parkers Tan Wrote:I said "I treat others the way I would like to be treated", not "I poll them and treat them the way that they answer".

Well, sure. But supposing a hypothetical person who wants other people to kick him in the face, such a person, according to the imperative, would be justified in kicking people in the face (i.e. he is treating other people the way he would like to be treated). Obviously, there is more to your understanding of good action than merely that imperative... and you reveal it in your post, for which I am thankful:

Quote:even if he enjoys being kicked in the face himself, he has no right to physically assault anyone else

Which is an important piece (i.e. "rights") that is only now being put forth as a part of your understanding. UNLIKE the simplicity you attributed to your position earlier:

"My conception of goodness is pretty simple -- treat others the way I'd like to be treated, add to the general weal, and leave the world a better place than I find it." (pg. 4, #39)

In response to my question: "[Is] your conception of goodness an imperative to act in a way that you would like others to add toward you?" (pg. 19, #187), you answered, without qualification, "Yes" (pg. 22, #219)

To the "simple" imperative, which is intelligible only to people of "sound mind" and bounded by individual physical harm rights (which as of yet have no description), you have finally added a "guiding principle" (which seems like it would be a pretty important aspect of a description of goodness of which it is guiding...), viz. "inflict no unnecessary harm". So what started out as a single imperative (pg. 22, #219):

1) To act in a way that you would like others to act toward you

Has become a simple imperative AND several more complex and currently ambiguous and unexplained things:

1) To be of sound mind (pg. 22, #219) (what does that mean?)
2) To act in a way that you would like others to act toward you (pg. 22, #219) (Can this ever lead to bad action?)
3) Individuals have a right not to be harmed (pg. 24, #237) (How do you know that? What is a right? What causes individuals to have this particular right?)
4) The principle that guides all of this is "inflict no unnecessary harm" (pg. 24, #237) (what makes it necessary or unnecessary? In what way does this guide the other aspects?)

Not so simple I guess. That is ok! That is why we talk it out.

Parkers Tan Wrote:Why this should mystify you baffles me. This is pretty simple stuff.

See above. It isn't so simple and you have left quite a bit unexplained. You are assuming that there is a lot of common ground between us about the language of goodness and right action (there is common ground... but if we want to speak rationally about it, we need to articulate exactly what that ground is. Don't just assume that I know what you mean when you use terms like "sound mind" and individual rights). Not to worry, pretty much everyone in Western civilization does the same thing (and it makes rational discussion about the common good almost impossible).

Do you believe, ignorant, that a "list" of moral rules is preferable, in your opinion, to using our own morality on a subjective basis?

If so, why?

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I really cannot understand what you are saying about christians, ignorant. If they claim the bible is the word of God, which most of them seem to, then I don't see what justification they have for then overriding it as they see fit. Can you address that?

And to try and imply that our conscience is somehow some magical thing which has pulled pieces together from God or something... Again it doesn't line up with the bible, which most christians say is the word of God. And also it's a baseless assertion and an unnecessary assumption, when we already have very good explanations.

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I don't dislike christians, I dislike Christianity. If they weren't claiming the bible was the word of God, then what you say might have some merit. But they do, and it's the stupidest claim ever as they contradict it on a daily basis.

(February 28, 2015 at 10:48 am)robvalue Wrote: Do you believe, ignorant, that a "list" of moral rules is preferable, in your opinion, to using our own morality on a subjective basis?

If so, why?

No. I personally don't believe that a "list" of moral rules is preferable.

Edit: I believe what is preferable is that we, using our own subjective moral judgments, improve upon the goodness of our actions in a direction which trends toward the fullness of what human beings are in reality. In short, I think we should all be and act as human as is possible. But, in order to do that, we need to have a common understanding of what a human is and how a human becomes "fully" human. "Love, and do as you will." -St. Augustine of Hippo.

Ignoring the obvious subjective aspect of human action (i.e. individual judgments about what goods to seek and how to seek them) seems largely inadequate to me.

(February 28, 2015 at 10:48 am)robvalue Wrote:

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I really cannot understand what you are saying about christians, ignorant. If they claim the bible is the word of God, which most of them seem to, then I don't see what justification they have for then overriding it as they see fit. Can you address that?

I am not quite sure what you mean. Have I said this somewhere? If I may attempt an interpretation of what you mean here, I do not think they are "overriding it" as they see fit, even though I think some of them clearly do. The question is one of hermeneutics (i.e. the interpretive framework with which a text is interpreted). The different Christian traditions have different hermeneutics they apply to scripture. The Catholic Tradition, for example, has a single general understanding of hermeneutics which is open to differing yet compatible particular hermeneutics.

(February 28, 2015 at 10:48 am)robvalue Wrote: And to try and imply that our conscience is somehow some magical thing which has pulled pieces together from God or something... Again it doesn't line up with the bible, which most christians say is the word of God. And also it's a baseless assertion and an unnecessary assumption, when we already have very good explanations.

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Well, that is a complicated philosophical/theological history as I have alluded to in another post. "Conscience" is, itself, a term understood in many different ways while we all assume that everyone just "knows" that it means what "I" mean by it. I can't speak for all Christians, but I would never call conscience something in any way magical/supernatural.

I have yet to meet a person who would disagree with the imperative: "Do and seek the good and avoid what is evil." Not even the Bible diagrees with this. The disagreement ONLY comes when you ask: "What is good? What good should I seek?"

(February 28, 2015 at 10:48 am)robvalue Wrote: I don't dislike christians, I dislike Christianity. If they weren't claiming the bible was the word of God, then what you say might have some merit. But they do, and it's the stupidest claim ever as they contradict it on a daily basis.

Is it also possible that you only dislike Christianity "in as much as you have understood it"? Do you think every Christian agrees about what it means to say that the Bible is "the Word of God"? As a Christian, I can tell you that the sad answer is a resounding no. Some treat it as if the book fell from heaven. Others think it was mostly invented by men, and still others have a more complex understanding of what the texts actually are. Unfortunately, not every Christian can give an articulate account of what exactly the biblical texts are. Fewer still can propose a rational description of the ethics which the texts, taken as a whole, eventually teach (I am personally working on a START to such a task).

But that is a different discussion entirely.

What does goodness mean to you? When you say that something is good, what do you mean?

(February 26, 2015 at 12:58 pm)Ignorant Wrote: . All it means is that goodness is understood as that aspect of things which humans judge to be satisfying of particular human hungers/appetites/desires (e.g. the hungers for food, survival, reproduction, community, justice, love, etc.). It is strictly about goodness.

Couldn't it be said that these things that we judge to be good, are entirely dependent upon our recognition that there are less desirable options? I'm not supporting moral relativism on a macro level, but with regard to conscious brain states, there are certainly some that are better than others, and each experience triggers one or another. If they were all the same, we wouldn't need descriptive concepts such as "good" or "bad"...right?

(February 26, 2015 at 12:58 pm)Ignorant Wrote: Human experience shows us that nothing in this universe seems to sate all of our desires.

Yes, but I think I would say that all things in the universe that are perceived to be good or bad, require a conscious mind to make them so. And the meaning of anything good can only have meaning by the recognition of something less desirable which we tend to recognize and describe as bad. But the two words seem entirely conceptual and do not seem to have any practical use beyond their descriptive application. A rotten egg and a rose both trigger different neurological responses. And it may be that there are some who prefer the response caused by a rotten egg, but this anomaly would not prevent us from making an accurate predictive model that shows us which one is commonly desired. And through research, we may even discover the cause of the anomaly. The subjective description of what each person experiences while smelling [edited to correct my typo] is useful when paired with the third person understanding of the underlying brain states which give rise to them. There seems to be no reason to believe that a similar model of morality cannot be understood in the same way. And while there may not be any single right answer to a moral question, there may be several. And by establishing answers that are good in principle, in comparison, there are several others that we can say are objectively wrong. All of this is entirely dependent whether or not we admit that the objective of our inquiry is to maximize the quality of conscious experience of creatures who are capable of possessing it. Give me an example of a question regarding good or bad that exists apart fro such beings, and I'll begin considering whether or not this "absolute good" is a coherent question. At the moment, I'm inclined to say that it is not.

(February 28, 2015 at 10:34 am)Ignorant Wrote: I have actually been giving morality a great deal of thought. ... What I have also found is that, having accepted these moral concepts and principles as "simply" true or "commonly" held, most people don't know how to articulate exactly what they mean by those terms.

Well that is pretty ignorant. [Sorry but I always go for the obvious pun, is that not good?]

Seriously though I wonder what difference it truly makes to articulate a crisp definition of what are morally good and bad acts. Should we then make it our reason for living to do 'the good' and 'avoid the bad'? Who would call that a 'good' life? To me it all seems too self-conscious and myopically focused. Life is more complex than that.

I will often enough choose the expedient at the expense of the virtuous. Who doesn't? Does that mean I will throw people under a bus to save five minutes ore five dollars? No. But neither do I need to anticipate every possible set of choices and how I could/should respond in advance. Whatever decision I would reach now, I could reach then and there is something to be said for spontaneity.