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answers about morality?

ArtieE

Well-Known Member
You are in a room with another man secured firmly to separate chairs on opposite sides of the room. Your family and his are locked in rooms watching you. You have 2 buttons 1 kills you and lets everyone else free, 1 kills hims and lets everybody else free. If you do nothing at the end of one hour everyone dies. Choose logically.
You haven't given enough information to make a logical choice. Which death would be least detrimental to the well-being and survival of the society and our families?
 

ArtieE

Well-Known Member
Killing a person is wrong.

Its not wrong in self defense
Its not wrong in war
Its not wrong if your a criminal(We can kill you)
Its not wrong if your defending the law(Cops can kill you)

Its only wrong if you kill a person for personal gain or enjoyment.

How is that logical?
When the killing of a person is more beneficial than detrimental to the well-being and survival of your society and the other people in it the killing is justified.
 

Segev Moran

Well-Known Member
You receive the news that your neighbor's home was invaded and she was brutally murdered. You immediately feel moral outrage. That, followed by a desire to see the killers punished. That's an intuitive judgment of conscience that the act was morally wrong.
Ok.. what about something like this:

You hear your neighbor was beaten up by some random man in the street.
You immediately feel moral outrage.
That, followed by a desire to see the man punished.
That's an intuitive judgment of conscience that the act was morally wrong.

After a few days, you find out that your neighbor left out some information, that the guy who punched him was defending himself.

would you say your intuitive moral is still true?
or will your moral judgement be different?
what if you find out that it was a girl that your neighbor tried to rape?
I can assume your moral judgement will now be completely different.

And that is the dangerous of basing your moral on intuitive or lacking knowledge mechanism.
gladly, humans protect their moral laws using literal laws. i can assure you that if we hadn't had the law system we have today, things could have been much much worse.
Yet we still have a very very long way to go until we can improve it enough to call it a successful "moral system".

According to Yale psychologist Paul Bloom, humans are born with a hard-wired morality. A deep sense of good and evil is bred in the bone. His research shows that babies and toddlers can judge the goodness and badness of others' actions; they want to reward the good and punish the bad; they act to help those in distress; they feel guilt, shame, pride, and righteous anger.
Lol... answered already :)
 

Segev Moran

Well-Known Member
No. I'm not sure why you think that question makes sense. There's a misunderstanding.
"Self-defense laws are useless"
so i was asking if it was better that there was no self-defense law at all?
such, that if someone tries to kill you.
then you kill him in self defense.
yet you will be charged with man slaughter?
 

Segev Moran

Well-Known Member
It seems clear to me that the children are given information and then asked to make a decision.
obviously
What do you think the result would be if instead of showing the children the puppet shows, they simple presented the puppets and asked the children to choose? Would the children psychically intuit the moral nature of the puppets in the absence of information?
Those are the kind of question i would love to have answers to :)
Same as what about kids that are isolated from any humans and presented with the same show?
The question isn't whether or not information is required to make moral decisions.
Of course. it is obvious that information is required.
The question is how much information do we need to have a really good moral?
I can assume we will never know (in the next few thousands of years at least ;))
You can't have a moral dilemma without providing at least some information.
Agreed.
Let's say for example, that we have another puppet show that the children never see that explains all of the supposedly immoral actions of the villains and shows that the supposed good guys are actually up to no good. Since the babies never see these other puppet shows, they actually aren't making informed decisions. If they had, then they would've made different decisions.

I think this is the ultimate moral dilemma: how do you know that you know?
wow, i guess there is no real short answer to that.
but...
eventually we know because you can (literally) answer me right here on this forum.
But like babies, we are free to make decisions based on appearances only, because it "feels right".
it doesn't just "feel" right. it literally does feel right.

Babies have a much more sophisticated sensory system than you can imagine.

A baby can easily sense if you are tense or not.
A baby can easily sense s/he's mother mood.
A baby is born as a social being, as such, the same as we have, a baby has a mechanism of empathy and social behavior.

the more we age, the less we rely on those extra sensory. no, they are not supernatural!
we have a mechanism that can spot micro face gestures, for example, that can instantly make us feel bad about someone. it is something we always have. yet today we tend to disregard such gestures more frequently.

Consider the admissibility of Computer-Generated Animations In a Court of Law - Elmo projectors throwing images of crime scenes as imagined by one witness or another. It is known that demonstrations like this have a powerful influence.
Of course.
but the most important impact on a child usually comes from the parents.
So in the end, it's all about the story you choose to believe.
No it is not. you can either prove something, or not.
"You take the blue pill; the story ends; you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe.
You take the red pill; you stay in wonderland; and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes." - Morpheus
Great movie :)
Is the yellow triangle a good guy and the blue square a bad guy? Or are they just puppets in an act?
"It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth." - Morpheus
"What truth?" - Neo
"You were born... into a prison... for your mind." - Morpheus
Too much matrix for me :)
 

joe1776

Well-Known Member
And that is the dangerous of basing your moral on intuitive or lacking knowledge mechanism.
gladly, humans protect their moral laws using literal laws. i can assure you that if we hadn't had the law system we have today, things could have been much much worse.
Yet we still have a very very long way to go until we can improve it enough to call it a successful "moral system".
In a court in Kansas, USA, Sally admits to killing Harry but claims her act was justifiable self-defense.

These are the questions of fact for the reasoning minds of the jurors:

What exactly happened?
What was Sally's intent?


This is the question for the intuitive conscience of the jury:

Was Sally's act justified or not?

In the 50 states of the USA, the laws on self-defense vary. If the law in Kansas happens to agree with the collective conscience of the jury, it is coincidentally right and it does no harm. If it doesn't agree, it's wrong and an injustice will be done.
 

joe1776

Well-Known Member
"Self-defense laws are useless"
so i was asking if it was better that there was no self-defense law at all?
such, that if someone tries to kill you.
then you kill him in self defense.
yet you will be charged with man slaughter?

Imagine a panel of 33 intelligent people trained to make decisions in cases involving killings. This panel is unhindered by laws written by people who had no knowledge of the facts of the case. If you are charged with murder, but not guilty, this is the process you'd want to be judged by because you want them to get the right answer. If you were guilty, you want a process that's likely to make a mistake -- maybe your slick lawyer can find a loophole in the law.
 

Ponder This

Well-Known Member
"Self-defense laws are useless"
so i was asking if it was better that there was no self-defense law at all?
such, that if someone tries to kill you.
then you kill him in self defense.
yet you will be charged with man slaughter?

Interesting... so
If
1. We are morally obligated to reject a flawed system
2. All law systems are flawed
then
3. We are morally obligated to live in anarchy (without laws).

Perhaps this means we are not morally obligated to reject a flawed system (i.e. a system that sometimes kills innocent people and/or sometimes lets the guilty go unpunished)?

If we are not morally obligated to reject it, then is it morally acceptable?

Option 3: baby grabs both puppets!!! Moral verdict?

Option 3: I press both buttons! The stranger and I both die!
If it's morally wrong to press both buttons, then who will say so? My family? His family? They would be dead if I did nothing, but they will stand there and say I was immoral because I refused to play according to the rules of a psycho-killer? Who shall pass judgement upon me?
 

LukeS

Active Member
Murder is always wrong.
Killing someone, is not.
I believe you have to prove that "murder is wrong" is a tautology. Then, and only then can you show a priori there are no exceptions to the rule murder is wrong.

I think murder is not "wrongful killing of a person" but "unlawful killing of a person". So we need one more premise, at least, and we therefore don't have a tautology.

Since laws can change with time, isn't it possible that some legislative body outlaws killing of a person, lets say say in a scenario you would consider legitimate self defence?
 

ArtieE

Well-Known Member
I believe you have to prove that "murder is wrong" is a tautology. Then, and only then can you show a priori there are no exceptions to the rule murder is wrong.

I think murder is not "wrongful killing of a person" but "unlawful killing of a person". So we need one more premise, at least, and we therefore don't have a tautology.

Since laws can change with time, isn't it possible that some legislative body outlaws killing of a person, lets say say in a scenario you would consider legitimate self defence?
Murder is an unlawful premeditated killing. If a country didn't have any laws against premeditated killings they wouldn't be murders.
 

Segev Moran

Well-Known Member
In a court in Kansas, USA, Sally admits to killing Harry but claims her act was justifiable self-defense.

These are the questions of fact for the reasoning minds of the jurors:

What exactly happened?
What was Sally's intent?


This is the question for the intuitive conscience of the jury:

Was Sally's act justified or not?

In the 50 states of the USA, the laws on self-defense vary. If the law in Kansas happens to agree with the collective conscience of the jury, it is coincidentally right and it does no harm. If it doesn't agree, it's wrong and an injustice will be done.
Killing someone should be the last resort for a situation of survival.
if she killed her husband while having direct danger to herself or her family, it should be treated as self defense.
anything other than that, is open to debate. that is where the law is yet to be sufficient to solve such a question.

it depends on many many factors. the more factors of the equation we will know, the easier it will become to solve this issue.

now the problem begins, not with the law itself, rather with the law services.
part of a lawyer's job is to find as much information as possible to prove one's innocence.
many time they are more occupied in finding loopholes in the law. this might sound like a bad thing at first, but this is the only way we can improve our laws. finding where they can be abused, and fixing it.
this is unfortunately, a very hard work.

useless is not the term i would use to describe a such a law.
 

Segev Moran

Well-Known Member
Imagine a panel of 33 intelligent people trained to make decisions in cases involving killings. This panel is unhindered by laws written by people who had no knowledge of the facts of the case. If you are charged with murder, but not guilty, this is the process you'd want to be judged by because you want them to get the right answer. If you were guilty, you want a process that's likely to make a mistake -- maybe your slick lawyer can find a loophole in the law.
The fact lawyers are slick, doesn't render the law useless, rather immature.
 

Segev Moran

Well-Known Member
Interesting... so
If
1. We are morally obligated
Nope :) we are not obligated to nothing. it is all our decision. free will ;)
to reject a flawed system
well, it depends.
if you have an alternative system that provides more solutions, than yes. reject the flawed and use the better one.
if you don't have another, work hard to fix the other one.
so far, democracy seems to be the more practical to humans.
we now just need to make it work better. not reject it. (unless, again, some better system will rise)
2. All law systems are flawed
No exceptions, huh?
3. We are morally obligated to live in anarchy (without laws).
Why do you keep using obligated?
the only reason we are obligated to improve ourselves, is if we wish to survive as a specie.
unfortunately it seems many in our specie, don't really understand it yet :)
Perhaps this means we are not morally obligated to reject a flawed system (i.e. a system that sometimes kills innocent people and/or sometimes lets the guilty go unpunished)?
See above.
If we are not morally obligated to reject it, then is it morally acceptable?
Now you are just playing with words :)

If you are morally obligated to do something, and this something is not moral, does it mean you are morally immoral?
Option 3: baby grabs both puppets!!! Moral verdict?
Smart baby :)
Option 3: I press both buttons! The stranger and I both die!
Don't know if moral or not, but it is kind of stupid :) why would you rather kill your neighbor if you already decided to kill yourself??? (unless you plan meeting him in heaven? ;))
If it's morally wrong to press both buttons, then who will say so? My family? His family? They would be dead if I did nothing, but they will stand there and say I was immoral because I refused to play according to the rules of a psycho-killer? Who shall pass judgement upon me?
Exactly!!!!!!!! because moral is something so subjective, we don't use them as a law generator. rather we try to come up with a moral system that actually works :) in the past it was nature, then it was animals spirits, then it was the sun and the moon. far along the way, it was gods and finally it was the god.
give or take a few thousands years, i would assume something else will pop :)
I can, however, say for a fact, that our law systems today are much better than those 2000 years ago :) thanks to religions in the past, and thanks to science in the more recent past and it will probably be thanks to science the more we learn about our universe.
 

Segev Moran

Well-Known Member
I believe you have to prove that "murder is wrong" is a tautology. Then, and only then can you show a priori there are no exceptions to the rule murder is wrong.
if murder wasn't wrong, it would't have been considered murder.
I can't really understand what it is you want me to prove?
Are you asking me to prove that it is "objectively" wrong? i can't! because it is not :)
I can't really think of anything that is "objectively" wrong. unfortunately it is all based on what HUMANS decide to be wrong.
I think murder is not "wrongful killing of a person" but "unlawful killing of a person".
try and answer me those questions without factoring in laws:

is it wrong to kill someone that tries to kill you and you cant stop him otherwise?
is it wrong to kill someone that tries to kill a child near you and you cant stop him otherwise?
is it wrong to kill someone that tries to kill a stranger and you cant stop him otherwise?
is it wrong to kill someone that tries to kill a dog near you and you cant stop him otherwise?
is it wrong to kill someone that tries to steal your wallet?
is it wrong to kill someone that cursed you?

can you imagine, once upon a time, it wasn't considered wrong in ANY of the statements???
as the years passed by, the latter became obvious to people that are wrong.

we make laws when we understand that something is wrong. not the other way around.
we do however, use laws to try and prevent people from using their own "moral code" (gladly).
So we need one more premise, at least, and we therefore don't have a tautology.
Premise? what premise?
Since laws can change with time, isn't it possible that some legislative body outlaws killing of a person, lets say say in a scenario you would consider legitimate self defence?
It might happen in countries that are driven by flawed logic like north Korea.
I don't think it is something that will happen in most democracies.
It is probable, though, that the "bar" of self defense will become higher and higher until it will be very uncommon.
 
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