Morality?

Originally posted by Adam_PoE
You are conflating "the principles of reasoning," with "a mode of reasoning." The mode of reasoning you describe is not logical at all.

Can you please expand ?

Originally posted by Lord Urizen
Can you please expand ?

Logic is a formal science that investigates and classifies the structure of statements and arguments through the study of formal systems of inference.

What you are describing is not logic, it is a mode of reasoning, i.e. an explanation or justification for an action, decision, or conviction, etc.

Logic is a formal science that investigates and classifies the structure of statements and arguments through the study of formal systems of inference./B]

I understand, but you are aware that everyone's logic is different, right?

[B]What you are describing is not logic, it is a mode of reasoning, i.e. an explanation or justification for an action, decision, or conviction, etc.

I said that our Morality is based on a mixture of our logic and emotion. Where was I incorrect ?

Originally posted by Lord Urizen
I understand, but you are aware that everyone's logic is different, right?

I said that our Morality is based on a mixture of our logic and emotion. Where was I incorrect ?

Logic is not subjective. If "everyone's logic is different," then they are not using logic at all.

Originally posted by Adam_PoE
Logic is not subjective. If "everyone's logic is different," then they are not using logic at all.

Dude, everybody's logic IS different. Everybody comes to conlusions in a different manner, everyone has different life experiences and biases, everyone's point of view comes from all different directions.

A person's logic and emotions are individual to them. Your logic is how YOU figure something out, it is how you excersize your mind to understand something, to make sense of a complicated issue to make a better decision based upon it. Your emotions are your initial and involuntary response to something.

Everyone's logic is different.

Originally posted by Lord Urizen
Dude, everybody's logic IS different. Everybody comes to conlusions in a different manner, everyone has different life experiences and biases, everyone's point of view comes from all different directions.

A person's logic and emotions are individual to them. Your logic is how YOU figure something out, it is how you excersize your mind to understand something, to make sense of a complicated issue to make a better decision based upon it. Your emotions are your initial and involuntary response to something.

Everyone's logic is different.

What he is talking about, is formal logic which is unchanging. Your talking about unformal logic, which is different from person to person but is often unsound.

Originally posted by Great Vengeance
What he is talking about, is formal logic which is unchanging. Your talking about unformal logic, which is different from person to person but is often unsound.

Understood. But my point is our personal Morality is a mixture of our entire emotional stance and logical stance.

Now many agree that Morality is subjective, yes. But I also think it is intuitive. Why would SO many people from different parts of the world have the same moral standards?

Also he argued on numerous threads that morality "does not exist" since it is only something that exists in our mind. Just because it is a mental existance, and not a physical one doesn't render it less existant.

Many things that exist in the mental world are JUST AS Valid, if not MORE Valid, than what exists in the physical world.

And from another thread, incase some people didnt see:

I beleive Morality to be both subjective and intuitive.

Yes, like Debbiejo said much of our morality is LEARNED...either by religion, and even in the case of Athiesm you learn from your influences (freinds, peers, etc) until you finally come up with a morality of your own.

However, I also beleive that there are certain aspects of morality that are innate, and not learned. I think there is a common morality that more than one person can share, without understanding why they think this way.

For example: I beleive that it is UNDENIABLY IMMORAL to torture another person for your own pleasure. I am not talking S&M, because the "victim" enjoys the torture, therefore it is not torture. I am talking about a crime....where one person inflicts unbearable pain onto his or her unwilling victim.

Was I taught to think this? No...this is just how I feel about it. No one ever taught me that this was evil, this is something I always felt was wrong, regardless of anyone's input, and the decision NEVER changed nor will it EVER change. Sorry. AND not to mention that there are TONS of people who feel the same exact way about the issue. WHY?

I think as humans we are social beings, and it is a natural desire to enjoy each other's company and work together to ensure our survival and pleasure. When a person harms another person, it is usually motivated by self survival. However, when a person harms another person for no other reason than pleasure....i feel that is abnormal, dangerous, and most likely an act of insanity. And I am one of many people who think this way.

Originally posted by Lord Urizen
[B]Ah....where to begin.

1) I beleive morality to be subjective and intuitive at the same time. However, i don't want to throw this debate off. I have made my stance on that clear in the morality threads (Athiest Morality from religion forum and Morality from this forum)...so if you want to further argue about that, take it to those forums. Otherwise, let's drop the "what is morality? " argument.

2) Okay my freind, what is the definition of morality? I've heard sooo maby definitions, let's hear yours ! 🙄 (In other thread please)

There is no 'mine', and there aren't 'sooo maby definitions', there's four, in the English Language.

morality

• noun (pl. moralities) 1 principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour. 2 moral behaviour. 3 the extent to which an action is right or wrong. 4 a system of values and moral principles.

Awesome. I hope that was clear. So, the question is, where do these systems of values come from? The human mind, we made them up. As such, they are subjective.

Originally posted by Sexy Lord Urizen
The term “morality” can be used either

descriptively to refer to a code of conduct put forward by a society or,
some other group, such as a religion, or
accepted by an individual for her own behavior or
normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons.

How morality is defined plays a crucial, although often unacknowledged, role in formulating ethical theories. To take “morality” to refer to an actually existing code of conduct is quite likely to lead to some form of relativism. Among those who use “morality” normatively, different specifications of the conditions under which all rational persons would put forward a code of conduct result in different kinds of moral theories. To claim that “morality” in the normative sense does not have any referent, that is, to claim that there is no code of conduct that, under any plausible specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons, results in moral skepticism. Thus, although, not widely discussed, the definition of morality has great significance for moral theory.

1. Descriptive Definitions of “morality”
“Morality” is an unusual word. It is not used very much, at least not without some qualification. People do sometimes talk about “Christian morality,” “Nazi morality,” or about “the morality of the Greeks,” but they seldom talk simply about morality all by itself. Anthropologists used to claim that morality, like law, applied only within a society. They claimed that “morality” referred to that code of conduct that is put forward by a society. This account seems to fit best those societies that have no written language, where often no distinctions are made among morality, etiquette, law, and religion. But even for anthropologists “morality” does not often mean simply “code of conduct put forward by a society.” Often, morality is distinguished from etiquette, law, and religion, all of which provide codes of conduct put forward by a society.

When “morality” is used in this descriptive way, moralities can differ from each other in their content and in the foundation that members of the society claim their morality to have. A society might have a morality that is primarily concerned with practices not related to other persons, e.g., which days must be devoted to certain rituals, and might claim that their morality, which is concerned primarily with ritual, is based on the commands of God. Or a society might have a morality that is concerned primarily with sexual practices, and claim that their morality, which has this concern, is based on human nature. Or a society might regard morality as being concerned primarily with practices that minimize the harms that people suffer and claim that their morality, which has this concern, is based on reason. Many societies have moralities that are concerned with all of the above and that are claimed to have all three of the above foundations. But, in this sense of “morality,” regardless of its content, or the justification that those who accept the morality claim for it, the only universal features that all moralities have is that they are put forward by a society and they provide a guide for the behavior of the people in that society. In this sense of “morality,” morality might allow slavery or might allow some people with one skin color to behave in ways that those with a different skin color are not allowed to behave. In this sense of “morality,” it is not even essential that morality incorporate impartiality with regard to all moral agents, those people whose behavior is subject to moral judgments, or that it be universalizable in any significant way.

Although most philosophers do not use “morality” in this purely descriptive sense, some philosophers do. Ethical relativists are interested in these different moralities and claim that they are only kind of morality there is. [Edward Westermarck, Ethical Relativity] They deny that there is any universal normative morality. Ethical relativists are not merely, or even primarily, making a linguistic claim about the proper use of the English word, “morality.” However, they hold that only when the term “morality” is used in this descriptive sense is there something that it actually refers to, namely, a code of conduct put forward by a society. They claim that if “morality” is taken to refer to a universal code of conduct that would be endorsed by all rational persons, then there is no referent for the term “morality.” Although ethical relativists admit that many speakers of English use “morality” to refer to such a universal code of conduct, they claim such persons are mistaken in thinking that there is anything that is the referent of that sense of the word. Ethical relativists are primarily concerned with denying that there is any universal morality that should be used by people in all societies to guide their own conduct and to make judgments about the conduct of others.

When “morality” refers to the codes of conduct of different societies, the features that are essential are that morality is a code of conduct that is put forward by a society and that it is used as a guide to behavior by the members of that society. In this descriptive sense, “morality” can refer to codes of conduct of different societies with widely differing content, and still be used unambiguously. However, there are now other descriptive senses of “morality.” In the sense most closely related to the original descriptive sense, “morality” refers to a guide to behavior put forward by some group other than a society, for example, a religious group. When the guide to conduct put forward by a religious group conflicts with the guide to conduct put forward by a society, it is not clear whether to say that there are conflicting moralities, or that the code of the religious group conflicts with morality. People who are members of that society and also members of the religious group, might differ with regard to the guide that they accept. They are likely to regard the guide they accept as the true morality.

In small homogeneous societies people do not belong to groups which put forward guides to behavior that conflict with the guide put forward by their society. There is only one guide to behavior that is accepted by all members of the society and that is the code of conduct that is put forward by the society. For such societies there is no ambiguity about which guide “morality” refers to. However, in those large societies where people often belong to groups that put forward guides to behavior that conflict with the guide put forward by their society, they do not always accept the guide put forward by their society. If they accept the conflicting guide of some other group to which they belong, often a religious group, rather than the guide put forward by their society, they will not regard the guide put forward by their society as a true or genuine morality.

This reveals an ambiguity in the original descriptive sense of morality that has two essential features: that morality is a code of conduct that is put forward by a society and that it is used as a guide to behavior by the members of that society. This ambiguity was not recognized because of the concentration on small homogeneous societies. Does “morality” refer only to those guides to conduct put forward by a society, or does it refer to guides to conduct put forward by other groups as well? There is another related ambiguity if the “code of conduct put forward by a society” is not “used as a guide to behavior by the members of that society.” Which of these essential features is most essential? The recognition that people in a society do not always accept the code of conduct that is put forward by their society presents problems for the descriptive sense of “morality” as the code of conduct put forward by a society and which used as a guide to behavior by the members of that society.

However, it is not useful to adopt a definition of “morality” as meaning the code of conduct accepted by the members of a society because in many large societies, not all members of the society accept the same code of conduct. Nor is it useful to adopt a somewhat more general definition of “morality” as the code of conduct accepted by the members of a group because it is not only always possible, it is often the case, that not all members of any group accept the same code. A natural outcome of these problems is to switch attention from groups to individuals. If what is important is what code of conduct people accept, and members of a group do not always accept the same code of conduct, then why be concerned with groups at all?

This consideration leads to a new descriptive sense of “morality.” “morality” is taken to mean that guide to behavior that is regarded by an individual as overriding and that he wants to be universally adopted. [See R. M. Hare, Moral Thinking] In this sense of “morality,” it refers to a guide to behavior accepted by an individual rather than that put forward by a society or any other group. But “morality” does not refer to just any guide to behavior accepted by an individual, it is that guide to behavior that the individual adopts as his overriding guide, and wants everyone else to adopt as their overriding guide as well. This sense of “morality” is a descriptive sense, because a person can refer to an individual's morality without endorsing it. In this sense, like the original descriptive sense, morality has no limitations on content. Whatever guide to behavior an individual regards as overriding and wants to be universally adopted is that individual's morality..

Originally posted by Lord Urizen
When people explicitly talk about the morality of a group other than their own or of a person other than themselves, it is usually clear that they are using “morality” in a descriptive sense. However, when a person simply claims that morality prohibits or requires a given action, then the term “morality” is genuinely ambiguous. It is not clear whether it refers to (1) a guide to behavior that is put forward by a society, either his own or some other society; (1a) a guide that is put forward by a group, either one to which he belongs or another; or (1b) a guide that a person, perhaps himself, regards as overriding and wants adopted by everyone else, or (2) is a universal guide that all rational persons would put forward for governing the behavior of all moral agents. When a person uses “morality” to refer to a guide to conduct put forward by a group, unless it is his own group, it is usually only being used in its descriptive sense. No one referring to morality in that sense of “morality” need be endorsing it. When “morality” refers to a guide to conduct accepted by an individual, unless that individual is himself, it is usually being used in its descriptive sense. However, if the individual is referring to his own morality, he is endorsing it. Only (2) is always the normative sense of “morality,” but a person might hold that the morality referred to in (1), (1a), or (1b) is also the morality referred to in (2).

Some philosophers have put forward a sense of morality that seems to be a simple variation of (1b). In this sense, morality is a guide that a person, perhaps himself, regards as overriding, but need not want adopted by everyone else. In this technical philosophical sense of “morality,” “ethical egoism,” the view that one ought to take as one's own self-interest as the overriding guide to behavior, is a morality. Sidgwick regarded egoism as one of the methods of ethics and, following Plato and Aristotle, “ethics” is sometimes taken as referring to a guide to behavior that an individual adopts as his own guide to life. However, in any normal sense of “morality,” morality cannot be a guide to behavior that a person wants others not to adopt. There is a sense of “morality” such that it does refer to a code of conduct adopted by an individual for his own use, but which he does not claim should be adopted by anyone else. However, this is correctly referred to as “morality” only when the individual would be willing for everyone else to adopt that code of conduct, but does not require that they do so, nor does he judge them to be immoral if they do not adopt it.

2. Normative Definitions of “morality”
When “morality” is used in its universal normative sense, it need not have either of the two features that are essential to moralities referred to by the original descriptive sense: that it be a code of conduct that is put forward by a society and that it be used as a guide to behavior by the members of that society. Indeed, it is possible that “morality” in the normative sense has never been put forward by any particular society, by any group at all, or even by any individual who regards it as overriding. “morality” is thus an ambiguous term, the features that account for what it refers to in any of the descriptive senses are not the features that account for what it refers to in its normative sense. The only feature that the descriptive and normative senses of “morality” have in common is that they refer to guides to behavior.

Those people who claim that there is a universal morality claim that it is a code of conduct that all rational persons would put forward for governing the behavior of all moral agents.

Morality is a lot more complicated and variable than your four definitions suggest. If you have the patience, read all this rant^ and see if your presented definitions coincide with the above info.

THEN tell me that morality does not have "so many definitions" 🙄

Originally posted by Lord Urizen
Morality is a lot more complicated and variable than your four definitions suggest. If you have the patience, read all this rant^ and see if your presented definitions coincide with the above info.

THEN tell me that morality does not have "so many definitions" 🙄

None of the information you posted contradicts the conclusion that absolute morality does not exist, i.e. that there is no code of conduct that all rational persons would put forward for governing the behavior of all moral agents.

Originally posted by Adam_PoE
None of the information you posted contradicts the conclusion that absolute morality does not exist, i.e. that there is no code of conduct that all rational persons would put forward for governing the behavior of all moral agents.

Good Point 👆

I must say, I'm very proud of you. You managed to state a very valid point without resorting to cursing me out or insulting me. I'm impressed ! 😉

F8ck Y0U URIZEN! 😆

And thak you Adam for cutting through that jargon for me. Urizen that was a long post. 😄

Originally posted by Alliance
F8ck Y0U URIZEN! 😆

And thak you Adam for cutting through that jargon for me. Urizen that was a long post. 😄

1) I know you want 2 😉

2) It wasn't meant to be read in entirety to all debators. If morality is subjective, then there is no universally accepted definition that applies to all moralities. That was my point.

And even still....my other point was that just because morality exists in our minds, as far as we know, does not make it any less real.

There are new ideas that suggest that even several intelligent animals have behaviors and habits that parallel human morality.

1. 💃

2. We'll, to that I have to say this. Holograms are real, but jsut because we percieve them, doesnt make them truthful or credible.

Several highly intelligent animals such as ants, dolphins, whales and pigs do display some aspects of societal behavior.

Originally posted by Alliance
1. 💃

2. We'll, to that I have to say this. Holograms are real, but jsut because we percieve them, doesnt make them truthful or credible.

Several highly intelligent animals such as ants, dolphins, whales and pigs do display some aspects of societal behavior.

Oh my gosh..........the spiritual thingie??? 😱

DONT START EXTRAPOLATING 😠

Originally posted by Alliance
DONT START EXTRAPOLATING 😠

DONT START MAKING UP WORDS 😠

Originally posted by Alliance
1. 💃

2. We'll, to that I have to say this. Holograms are real, but jsut because we percieve them, doesnt make them truthful or credible.

Several highly intelligent animals such as ants, dolphins, whales and pigs do display some aspects of societal behavior.

1) yep you know it ! 😆

2) Some aspects of social behavior???? OMG....wolves bro......did you know that the alpha male and alpha female mate for life? That the rest of the pack is not allowed to have sex, as only the alphas can produce the next family, how much cooperation and companionship exists between wolves.

Dolphins basically speak to eachother. Not the way we can, but in thier own ways...they communicate...if that is not social, i dont know what is......

Are you aware how a female lion will look after the kin of another female lion of her pride? How lionesses plan thier hunting strategies......

There is DEFINATE socialization among many intelligent animals.