RE: The End of Theistic Morality
November 4, 2013 at 1:19 pm
(This post was last modified: November 4, 2013 at 1:26 pm by MindForgedManacle.)
(November 3, 2013 at 5:01 am)bennyboy Wrote: 9:30
Objective vs. Subjective morality
-assumes that the TERM is variable, rather than the moral idea. He defines moral behavior in terms of well-being, saying that we can scientifically study the things that harm us or bring us health. By this definition, he waves away the Christian question "Okay, why is it wrong to bring harm?" with "because morality means intending and causing well-being." This begs the question, as it's not necessary to define morality as the intention to bring well-being. What, for example, about the morality of justice? If someone has ALREADY intentionally caused harm to others, is it immoral to bring harm to him? I think many would accept capital punishment or corporal punishment merited. Don't believe me? Imagine a family member raped and murdered, and tell me the survivors are immoral if they intend (and cause) harm to the perpetrator.
Huh? You always have to start by defining what you mean by terms. For example, it makes no sense to go to someone who defines knowledge as a "justified true belief" and ask "How do you know that's what knowledge is?" As he's a consequentialist, of course he's going to define morality in terms of the consequences to sentient life.
Secondly, I think it's a bad case to say that those affected by a tragic incident want to harm the murderer and say that because they want to do so something about morality in that instance. Would I? I can't see myself not doing it. But my point is that taking cases where people's emotions are going wild as your standard is inconsistent.
Quote:17:40
Moral Triangle
He includes intent, consequence and values as a collective measure of whether something is moral or immoral. However, I disagree with his model. What if someone INTENDS to cause serious harm to others (say through a biochemical attack) but accidentally brings him superpowers? I would say that the action is immoral no matter what, simply because of the intent, and that the good result doesn't lessen that immorality.
He uses that model because he's a consequentialist and those are the facets involved in that type of moral theory. He uses a similar thought experiment, but I think it's less immoral because it didn't cause harm. In other words, I find intentions a bit less morally significant than what actually happens, and you probably do to in many cases.
Quote:If this is not the case, then what is the arbitrary scale of time in which we should delay in determining how moral/immoral an act is? A day? A year? Wait until the Big Crunch? How about: "Yes, I killed that girl, but it wasn't too immoral because eventually one of her offspring would have brought harm to others."
That seems like a straw man. If your intent nor your own motivated actions didn't directly cause something, I doubt you'd consider some ill result that happened as being as immoral. For example, if you sneezed on someone accidentally, and they ended up dying from a disease you unknowingly passed to them, would you consider that as immoral as if you had internationally infected them? Again, I highly doubt it.
Quote:How about this example? I believe that most suffering in the US is due to a lack of inspiration, and of poor physical health. So I enter random houses with a gun, tell the occupants "Lose 20 pounds and go on a spiritual vacation within the next year, or I'll come back and kill you and my family." So they do, and their lives are enriched. Do I get to see myself as a dentist, harming in the short term to bring well-being in the long term? Is my behavior, in which I have good intent, and which brings good consequences, moral? I don't think so.
That fails because in that example your causing them mental non-well being purposefully on the chance that they'll believe you won't harm them or their family. And in the case of a dentist, there are no other ways to relieve that instance of pain without inflicting some necessary pain in the short term. The analogy of yours breaks down when you realize there are in fact better waysto do so than negatively impacting the individuals mental well-being.
Quote:Harm vs. well-being isn't comprehensive enough. Morality involves many rights, the right not to be harmed by others being only one of them.
Rights can just as easily fit into consequentialism. As long as the right has utility with regards to improving well-being and/or preventing negative impacts to it.
Quote:21:12
He's defined moral behavior as that which intends and brings well-being, and immoral behavior as that which intends and brings harm
-he waves away "subjective" differences as being actually objective: whether someone can feel pain, or is handicapped, or austistic or whatever changes what constitutes harm for them, or healthy. But I'm now agnostic, given a person I don't know, about what will bring well-being to that person, and therefore about what moral behavior should be. I have no choice only to do what I myself would want done to me (the Biblical do unto others). But what if I like getting spanked by strangers in public?
Then is that not bringing you mental well-being (pleasure) for relatively little pain? And are you not capable of informing people on what your pleasures are?
Quote:22:40 "Why is causing harm evil?"
He dismisses this argument by reflecting back to his own definition of immorality as causing harm.
That's what ALL discussions on morality have to do. Asking why your definition of morality is moral is a contradiction in terms, it's a failure to realize what is being done (as per my earlier example about defining knowledge).
Quote:25:00 What about absence of actions? Moral or immoral? What if, knowing that harm is occurring in the world, I fail to act to stop it? He talks about the secular definition of morality of selfishness, but hasn't mentioned passive or implicit non-acts as selfish (except in the example of criminal negligence). Every person in existence allows very many evils to persist; is this not immoral?
If they are capable of preventing it without inducing greater harm, then yes. For all your talk of things being waved away, did you not just wave away his exqmple of willful negligence still being immoral on consequentialism?
