RE: Being vs. Believing
April 26, 2015 at 3:32 pm
(This post was last modified: April 26, 2015 at 3:42 pm by henryp.)
(April 26, 2015 at 1:51 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: Why can't both be goals, and the order of priority dependent on the person.
I see a problem with this if morality is subjective. We evaluate whether we are good on rules we make ourselves, so both the bar and whether we've met it are set internally. It's circular.
What you see as the problem, is why I'm thinking what I'm thinking.
The goal is to believe you are a good person, so you define your morality (subjectively) with that goal in mind. So it's not actually circular. The desire to believe we are good is dictating in large part where we set the bar. And we do so with all our other desires in mind.
An always hilarious one is people who only go to church 2 or 3 times a year. They want to believe they are good, but they don't want to spend every sunday at church, so they move the bar Christmas and Easter, and pretend that qualifies them for 'being good'
In fact, I imagine if you ask most religious people if they are going to hell, VERY few would say yes. Just like if you ask most atheists if they consider themselves a good person, they'd also say yes. And if you asked one of these 'good people' to make a big sacrifice for a stranger, they'd probably say no, and would probably add a rationalization why they are still a good person despite not doing it.
The idea, of believing yourself to be good, and to some degree, to be thought of as good by others > actions. Which I think fits in very well with how humans tend to behave.
(April 26, 2015 at 11:05 am)professor Wrote: Hi Wally,
I think both examples of thought you express are correct.
You will not find a place on earth where disloyalty to family and friends is thought good, or lying to the same, or being mean to the same,
or any of a long list of bad behavior to ONE'S associates is acceptable.
People want to be good and we want to believe we are good.
We need approval from ourselves and others.
In fact, all of the world's religions are based on good behavior in some way.
The rub comes in when dealing with so called enemies.
In order to treat enemies badly, one has to paint them as being different/ sub-human or/ and refusing to submit to some authority.
This is the method that has always been used.
The Muslims today us it, or the Nazis of yesterday used it. The list goes on and on.
I disagree with the idea that individuals require behaving with loyalty, honesty, and kindness to believe they are a good person. You made a simple example of dehumanizing enemies. But really, people can rationalize just about anything to themselves.
I was asking in another thread about why humans are so sure of their critical thinking even in the face of evidence that they have terrible critical thinking skills. Maybe it is related a bit to this.
If anyone was following the Illegal downloading thread, I think that makes the case for this. People want free stuff. They also want to believe they are good. So they need to come to a conclusion that downloading things illegally doesn't make them a bad person.
For others, I think society has outlined theft enough that they can't rationalize their way out of that one, so they don't download, because doing so would invariably lead to them believing they are bad.
The third strategy, is to believe it is bad, but do it anyways, and then feel bad about it. Or that it's not that bad. So the guilt means you can still believe you are a good person or that it's not so bad, so you can still sum total up your behaviors and come out believing you are a good person.
