Not A Poll: Does Motivation Affect Morality?

[Mr.wizard]

Laws do not enforce morality, they are simply rules in place to try and optimize social benefits. In America its the law that you drive on the right side of the road, this is not based on any sort of moral decision. There are also Laws that at times produce outcomes that people would consider immoral, such as, laws that create loopholes or technicalities that allow a murderer to go free.

Laws are essential parts of underlying moral systems, I never said those systems are perfect though, in fact I specifically pointed out that they are continually changing.

Laws do enforce morality, they do so by telling you what you can and cannot do. Think of society as a moral authority, it tells you not to cheat, steal, kill, and so on. It also tells you that you have certain rights and prerogatives. This kind of morality may not be apparent to you because it's not arrived at by a single individual, but instead by certain empowered groups over time.

Just because there is a rule that tells you that you can do something it doesn't make it moral or immoral. For instance, Abortion is legal and there are people who consider it to be moral and people who consider it to be immoral.

[Excited Penguin]

It appears to me that our motivations do influence our individual sense of morality.  I often see the debate centered around morality being relative or absolute.  Why not both?  We all have been influenced by our environment and are often reminded of the differences in the sense of relative morality when interacting within different cultures.  

It also appears we are all instilled with certain absolute morals.  Any sane person, would agree that it is immoral to torture children, issue wholesale death to West Highland Terriers, or discard perfectly good cheesecake.

Bold mine.


Not necessarily.

[Edwardo Piet]

I never made any kind of statistical claims, which is what I was referring to earlier when replying to your post.

I didn't either. I didn't make any claims at all.

-Hammy

[Edwardo Piet]

Yes, not necessarily at all. And that's understating it. Furthermore even if everyone in the world did agree on something, that's not objective. Universal morality is not objective morality. Similarly, even if no one agrees, objectivity can still 'exist', or rather, be true -- epistemically at least.

-Hammy

[Excited Penguin]

Laws are essential parts of underlying moral systems, I never said those systems are perfect though, in fact I specifically pointed out that they are continually changing.

Laws do enforce morality, they do so by telling you what you can and cannot do. Think of society as a moral authority, it tells you not to cheat, steal, kill, and so on. It also tells you that you have certain rights and prerogatives. This kind of morality may not be apparent to you because it's not arrived at by a single individual, but instead by certain empowered groups over time.

Just because there is a rule that tells you that you can do something it doesn't make it moral or immoral. For instance, Abortion is legal and there are people who consider it to be moral and people who consider it to be immoral.

Rules aren't moral or immoral, they are the mechanism through which a certain morality is conveyed to the world. The contents of that morality is what you can analyze, but the laws themselves, conceptually, are simply a symptom of it. But symptoms are also the identifying facet of things.

[Edwardo Piet]

Laws are objective in that way, is what I meant.

I said 'out there' because I was thinking of it being in action, such as controlling and influencing outward behaviour, and that's because I was mainly speaking about laws. I didn't mean anything else by it.

I agree epistemically objective morality can be true, but I'm not sure how it applies to laws. I say 'in there' because I believe the objectivity is in the unbiased minds of those being epistemically objective, and so in a sense objective morality is true, although I wouldn't say it existed or was 'out there' for that seems to be talking more about moral ontology.

-Hammy

[Mr.wizard]

Just because there is a rule that tells you that you can do something it doesn't make it moral or immoral. For instance, Abortion is legal and there are people who consider it to be moral and people who consider it to be immoral.

Rules aren't moral or immoral, they are the mechanism through which a certain morality is conveyed to the world. The contents of that morality is what you can analyze, but the laws themselves, conceptually, are simply a symptom of it. But symptoms are also the identifying facet of things.

Well if there are people split on the morality of abortion who's morality are they using to base the law on?

Also laws like driving on the right side of the road is based on morality how?

[Excited Penguin]

I never made any kind of statistical claims, which is what I was referring to earlier when replying to your post.

I didn't either. I didn't make any claims at all.

-Hammy

1) and 2) are statistical claims.

1)who has the best intentions is a better person and is almost certainly more likely to actually be the person who does the most moral good through moral acts in the long run --2) most of the time good people do good things and bad people do bad things, not always but intentions matter.

^ reference numbers mine.

And this is a contradiction:

Who produces the best long term consequences has done the most moral good through moral acts, but who has the best intentions is a better person

[Excited Penguin]

Laws are objective in that way, is what I meant.

I said 'out there' because I was thinking of it being in action, such as controlling and influencing outward behaviour, and that's because I was mainly speaking about laws. I didn't mean anything else by it.

I agree epistemically objective morality can be true, but I'm not sure how it applies to laws. I say 'in there' because I believe the objectivity is in the unbiased minds of those being epistemically objective, and so in a sense objective morality is true, although I wouldn't say it existed or was 'out there' for that seems to be talking more about moral ontology.

-Hammy

When I'm talking about objective morality being out there, I'm not talking about the electrical impulses in the brain that give rise to it, but about their effect in the external world. So I would describe an instance of objective morality at work as someone performing an objectively moral act. In that sense, objective morality is not only inside the mind, but also out there, in the world.

[Excited Penguin]

Rules aren't moral or immoral, they are the mechanism through which a certain morality is conveyed to the world. The contents of that morality is what you can analyze, but the laws themselves, conceptually, are simply a symptom of it. But symptoms are also the identifying facet of things.

Well if there are people split on the morality of abortion who's morality are they using to base the law on?

Their own(collectively), or rather, their majority's.

Also laws like driving on the right side of the road is based on morality how?

If you don't drive on the right side of the road, you run the high risk of producing casualties and damage, which isn't allowed within the moral system that dictates those laws.