Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
Current time: May 24, 2024, 5:22 pm

Poll: What determines if an action is moral or immoral?
This poll is closed.
The intention
17.65%
3 17.65%
The consequences
5.88%
1 5.88%
Other
76.47%
13 76.47%
Total 17 vote(s) 100%
* You voted for this item. [Show Results]

Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
What does morality mean to you?
#9
RE: What does morality mean to you?
(September 16, 2015 at 8:33 am)robvalue Wrote: I entirely agree it is subjective and relative.

My idea of morality is you judge a certain person by their own standards, and their own beliefs. So if someone is doing the best they can with what they know and are capable of, then they are being moral, even if the result is bad. If I did the same action as them, with far greater knowledge and skills, knowing what would happen (something bad), then I'd be immoral.

But to say "That would be immoral if I did it, so it's immoral for you to do it" seems pointless to me. The action is going to appear to different people all sorts of degrees of moral. But morality is meant to be a measure of how much a person is trying to do good, not how well they succeed by other people's standards. For one thing, this "standard" it's being held to is going to be the arbitrary one that happens to be held by whoever is making the judgement.

A super powered alien could turn up and declare the whole of humanity to be immoral because all our methods seem primitive to them and have caused unnecessary damage. Is that a fair assessment? I'd say no. We did the best with what we knew.

This is my take anyway Smile To define morality any other way seems to defeat the whole point of it. We have plenty of other ways of measuring objective success.
*bold mine

Good in itself is a subjective term, and is defined by the standards of the observer. The whole idea of judging someone based on morality is pointless and will never be fair.
Quote:To know yet to think that one does not know is best; Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.
- Lau Tzu

Join me on atheistforums Slack Cool Shades (pester tibs via pm if you need invite) Tongue

Reply



Messages In This Thread
What does morality mean to you? - by robvalue - September 16, 2015 at 3:56 am
RE: What does morality mean to you? - by Ashground - September 16, 2015 at 4:31 am
RE: What does morality mean to you? - by ignoramus - September 16, 2015 at 4:36 am
RE: What does morality mean to you? - by MTL - September 16, 2015 at 10:39 am
RE: What does morality mean to you? - by Catholic_Lady - September 16, 2015 at 11:00 am
RE: What does morality mean to you? - by robvalue - September 16, 2015 at 5:03 am
RE: What does morality mean to you? - by Aoi Magi - September 16, 2015 at 6:11 am
RE: What does morality mean to you? - by robvalue - September 16, 2015 at 6:17 am
RE: What does morality mean to you? - by Aoi Magi - September 16, 2015 at 7:30 am
RE: What does morality mean to you? - by robvalue - September 16, 2015 at 8:33 am
RE: What does morality mean to you? - by Aoi Magi - September 16, 2015 at 9:26 am
RE: What does morality mean to you? - by MTL - September 16, 2015 at 10:47 am
RE: What does morality mean to you? - by Kingpin - September 16, 2015 at 10:54 am
RE: What does morality mean to you? - by Catholic_Lady - September 16, 2015 at 9:52 am
RE: What does morality mean to you? - by paulpablo - September 16, 2015 at 9:59 am
RE: What does morality mean to you? - by houseofcantor - September 16, 2015 at 11:37 am
RE: What does morality mean to you? - by Captain Scarlet - September 16, 2015 at 2:22 pm
RE: What does morality mean to you? - by robvalue - September 18, 2015 at 3:28 am
RE: What does morality mean to you? - by Pyrrho - September 18, 2015 at 9:26 am
RE: What does morality mean to you? - by robvalue - September 18, 2015 at 9:46 am
RE: What does morality mean to you? - by Pyrrho - September 18, 2015 at 10:41 am
RE: What does morality mean to you? - by robvalue - September 20, 2015 at 4:50 am
RE: What does morality mean to you? - by bennyboy - September 20, 2015 at 6:51 am
RE: What does morality mean to you? - by Grandizer - September 23, 2015 at 6:56 am

Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Beauty, Morality, God, and a Table FrustratedFool 23 2137 October 8, 2023 at 1:35 pm
Last Post: LinuxGal
  Is Moral Nihilism a Morality? vulcanlogician 140 10832 July 17, 2019 at 11:50 am
Last Post: DLJ
  Subjective Morality? mfigurski80 450 39755 January 13, 2019 at 8:40 am
Last Post: Acrobat
  Law versus morality robvalue 16 1380 September 2, 2018 at 7:39 am
Last Post: The Grand Nudger
  Objective morality: how would it affect your judgement/actions? robvalue 42 8421 May 5, 2018 at 5:07 pm
Last Post: SaStrike
  dynamic morality vs static morality or universal morality Mystic 18 3623 May 3, 2018 at 10:28 am
Last Post: LastPoet
  Can somebody give me a good argument in favor of objective morality? Aegon 19 4536 March 14, 2018 at 6:42 pm
Last Post: The Grand Nudger
  Morality WinterHold 24 3024 November 1, 2017 at 1:36 pm
Last Post: The Grand Nudger
  What is morality? Mystic 48 7153 September 3, 2017 at 2:20 pm
Last Post: Edwardo Piet
  Morality from the ground up bennyboy 66 11132 August 4, 2017 at 5:42 pm
Last Post: The Grand Nudger



Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)