Not A Poll: Does Motivation Affect Morality?

[abaris]

Given the circumstances, I'd give both a pass. The cash is lying on the floor or a bench without anyone claiming it. Under different circumstances, say, grabbing something from a shop or somebodies pocket, I would only look more favorably at the one trying to feed her child. Might be that both are acting immorally, but one of them has a valid excuse, while the other has none.

[Excited Penguin]

I see no problem reconciling the two, you're the one questioning it, so maybe you should come up with a reason why I couldn't.

See the post immediately above.

Boru

The side of the road to drive on is moral because it's enforced by an authority for your own safety. Society functions because of an order imposed on it, a moral order that tells you how to behave yourself. I don't see the point in pretending like it doesn't exist or that it's evil. It's highly unlikely that a moral system arising out of a real, functioning democratic society would legally condone child rape. That would have to mean the majority of people would have to wish to become child molesters, wouldn't care for their children or simply remain passive in face of it all. Even if that did happen, it would be so detrimental as to demolish our future. You can't exactly keep the world spinning if virtually all future adults are traumatised and worse. And that is why it wouldn't be moral. It would be bad both for the individual and for the group. That's the opposite of a moral outcome.

Objective morality is what is best for people. And I know that's an open question, but it's not an impossible one. We're constantly making progress, everyone knows this, you'd have me believe we don't and never have. Somehow the world is completely amoral and we just happen to be living the comfortable lives we are because of a series of fortunate coincidences. Can you see how completely absurd such a view is?


How about you stop being silly and arguing for argument's sake, 'cause I'm pretty tired of it.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

How about you stop being silly and arguing for argument's sake, 'cause I'm pretty tired of it.

Well, I can't stop being silly (not in my nature), but I'll stop the argument. Not because I'm arguing for argument's sake or because you're weary, but because I've already won.

Boru

[Edwardo Piet]

@ EP

What I wonder is how a solipsist can believe in objective morality if they don't even believe in objective reality.

Kinda hard to take ya seriously since you said existence itself is a mental concept and solipsism is the only rational position ain't it? What do you even mean be "objective morality" as a solipsist? What do you even mean by "objective" anything at all, if you find no reason to believe in anything outside of mental concepts?

You don't see the logical fail with "moral enforcement by the law" being defined as "objective morality"? You don't see how logically inconsistent that is considering there are moral acts you can go to prison for and immoral acts could in theory become legal?

No wonder you're comfortable justifying anything and reconciling anything with anything if you think it's all in the mind.

(On his free will thread EP said he was a solipsist).

-Hammy

[bennyboy]

Since morality is a collection of ideas and social conventions and nothing more, then definitely motivations affect morality.

[bennyboy]

Given the circumstances, I'd give both a pass. The cash is lying on the floor or a bench without anyone claiming it. Under different circumstances, say, grabbing something from a shop or somebodies pocket, I would only look more favorably at the one trying to feed her child. Might be that both are acting immorally, but one of them has a valid excuse, while the other has none.

I don't think the mother stealing is acting immorally.  It is moral for each to act his role in life.  It is for a mother to protect an nurture her children, and pretty much all moral ideas fall to the wayside when a mother is acting motherly.

[robvalue]

Just gonna pop this thought in:

"Morality" is an abstract construct. Actions don't literally "have a morality"; I hope people would agree. The morality doesn't literally exist. It's a way of us assigning value to actions and consequences.

Any abstract concept we decide to take note of, out of the infinitely many available, needs to be useful. Otherwise, we are employing it just for the sake of it. Why do that?

We would generally already agree that a charity receiving money is a benefit to the charity, and therefor to the cause it supports. So we already have an abstract construct in place, to assess any action: "money in" => "benefit to cause" (a desirable outcome).

Why also pick a moral framework that does the same thing in this instance? It's just redundantly telling us, again, that "money in" => "benefit to cause" => "moral" (a desirable outcome)

It's not giving us any new information at all. So although such a framework potentially exists, employing it tells us nothing more than we already knew. This is why I consider the action, the person, and as much extra information as I can get, before estimating a "moral value" to the action. It is (potentially) useful for me to do this. It produces a result which tells me something new about the action, instead of replicating other readouts we already have. Whether or not my result is actually useful, depends on how I make use of these evaluations. I have found them very useful, personally.

[Losty]

"Try telling that to a judge after you're charged with murder."

The court does not decide whether or not murder is immoral, the court only decides whether or not your guilty of murder.

And then it throws you in jail for it if you are. Society condemns murder, herein lies the enforced morality.

Laws are made to protect rights and enforce responsibilities. It's not about morality.

[Losty]

@ OP, I read this book about morality in an ethics class, the author said that people adjust their morals to fit their actions and not the other way around. I think that's very true. Most people find ways to justify the way they choose to live. We base our morals on our own experiences. I do think human beings are biologically evolved to lean towards certain moral beliefs though.

[Edwardo Piet]

@ Rob

I agree the idea of moral ontology is an abstract concept, but what about moral epistemology?

I think "objective" as in "absolute" does absolutely NOT 'exist' for morality. But what about "objective" as in "free from bias"? I wouldn't call that "existent" but I don't see why it's something that I would call untrue: Can't we make an unbiased study about what does and does not harm people under the label of "morality" just as we can make an unbiased study about what is or isn't bad for us under the label of "health"?

-Hammy