Inherently wrong actions?

[JoStories]

......

Amen to that. Can you even imagine??

 

[JoStories]

Deadly seriously. I can no more prove that there is such a being than I can prove that God or spirits exist (in terms that everyone will find acceptable as proof). But both God and Satan speak to me (and I with them), which is proof enough for me.

I am at a loss for what to say. Most would recommend mental health help but if this is what you truly believe, carry on. Given your response to Frank about child rape, nothing you could say would surprise me now.

 

[JoStories]

Well, if the rapist determines that it isn't wrong for him to rape a child, then why do you say it's wrong for him to do so (if you do say that)?

I do say that but it is based on what is seen as moral for society. Morality is subjective. As I just asked another, there are several tribes around the world that still practice cannibalism. Is that moral? IMO, no and most would say no, rather loudly would I add. But for those tribes, that is considered moral and acceptable. Do you begin to see how morality can be different for some societies?

 

[JoStories]

P1: All human acts that harm a person, are perpetrated without that person's consent and are perpertrated merely for the perpetrator's pleasure are immoral.

Once again, using the fact that some tribes still do practice cannibalism, your assumption fails. I am fairly certain that the person who is about to be dinner is not too keen on the notion. Would you be? Yet, for those societies, this is moral.

 

[JoStories]

I concur. It's an appeal to authority and impossible to argue otherwise. If I believe it is inherently wrong to pick one's nose because this is what the Peanut Butter Man tells me, and I believe it is inherently wrong from the Peanut Butter Man's perspective, then what can be the argument against it being inherently wrong.... other than my belief/understanding of the Peanut Butter Man's ethics. Which would be relative to me, and I think is easily discernible.

From my (actual) theistic perspective all actions are inherently neutral. All thoughts are not (neutral). Thus, thoughts about actions are not neutral. Whether or not they deal with morality is slightly dependent on what the thought is about. My theological understandings do have awareness of right mindedness and wrong mindedness. Might take a wall of text to explain that in satisfactory detail, but essentially Loving / forgiving thoughts are right mindedness; whereas, fearful / guilt laden thoughts are wrong mindedness (yet undone via forgiveness).

I would concur. And btw, mea culpa on the scumbag post. I did miss your point. Anyway, that said, as a Buddhist, I believe in Yin and Yang of a sort which means there is no good or bad, only choices which may be right for me at the time or not. There is no evil, just very poor choices that must be learned from, and even good choices provide a means for growth toward enlightenment. Sort of like your right mindfulness, etc.

 

[serp777]

Okay, perhaps you were not following the thread closely. Or perhaps I am misreading your comment here. You say you are agreeing with ArtieE, but I am the one who is refusing to play the hypothetical game. So while you say you agree with Artie, I believe you are in agreement with me. Perhaps you do not agree with what I would do considering the stupid and ridiculous hypothetical that was posed to me, but I am in agreement with you that you cannot make moral decisions based on hypotheticals. Let me refresh your memory how this thread has gone.



You see, here I was given a ridiculous hypothetical question. I would bet you're misreading his comment because you didn't understand my post whatsoever. You see, there is no way in hell that I could know that by preventing a rape of an 8 year old girl I might be somehow causing humanity to suffer brutal and horrible extinction. I will do what I believe is right, regardless of the unknown consequences of my actions. If it should turn out that humanity suffers for it...oh well...that's not my problem. Its yours. And I can live with that.

So I responded:


Oh well, my second paragraph is a pretty good display of what happens when emotion is allowed to rule one's thoughts. However, I pretty much stand by what I said.

If I knew that by preventing a rape of an 8 year old child would definitely result in the horrible suffering and extinction of humanity, I'd probably go through with it, extinguish the rapist, and save the child. Yes, yes, at your expense...Sorry. It's kind of an unintended consequence I guess. I'm not going to stand by and let an 8 year old child get raped, not to save you, and not to save me, and not to save anyone else.

Then ArtieE jumps in and says:


It was a stupid hypothetical I was given. Even so, I stick to what I said. Yes you all die for the sake of a little girl...it's just tough luck for you all, not my problem, and nothing I'm gonna lose any sleep over.

So I asked Artie a hypothetical which by the way he has not answered. And I can only wonder why.
I asked:


And here was Artie dodging the question.


It doesn't matter to me if you agree with me. I've got one guy telling me that raping an 8 year old girl might be okay, which is BS. There is no case where raping an 8 year old girl is okay...not even if that rape could have saved the world from extinction. Of course this is my own personal opinion. But that is important, because it is my opinion. You see, it is my opinions, my beliefs, that govern my actions. What I believe is inherently right or inherently wrong is what is going to govern my actions, and as the stupid hypothetical I was given shows, it could be at the expense of the entire human race, and again...I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

It doesn't matter to me if you agree with me. I've got one guy telling me that raping an 8 year old girl might be okay, which is BS. There is no case where raping an 8 year old girl is okay...not even if that rape could have saved the world from extinction. Of course this is my own personal opinion. But that is important, because it is my opinion. You see, it is my opinions, my beliefs, that govern my actions. What I believe is inherently right or inherently wrong is what is going to govern my actions, and as the stupid hypothetical I was given shows, it could be at the expense of the entire human race, and again...I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

Your strawman is quite stupid and reflects a serious lack of intelligence or questionable dishonesty and lies. I never said that raping an 8 year old girl would ever be ok. I essentially said that in the case of consequentialism, it might be the lesser of two evils to let one girl be raped than to let the entire human race die horribly.

Now you're just admitting though that this simply your personal belief. THe point of this was to demonstrate there is no inherently wrong actions because its just your belief. Its my belief as well that raping an 8 year old girl is wrong, but I don't claim to be a moral authority for everybody. In fact in my opinion, your morality is awful. You would let everyone die in some situation to protect your morals. I'm glad we don't have world leaders like you.[/QUOTE]

 

[serp777]

I disagree. Anything that causes harm to another should be seen as a wrong action and that would clearly include the rape of a child. A child has no ability to consent, and this only applies to children below the age of consent or those who are not mentally able to consent. While at times I found that my being raped by my grandfather as a child prepared me to better handle the rape of my daughter, IMO, both were wrong and morally reprehensible on the part of the persons' committing the act of rape.

Its just our opinion that harm is wrong and that causing harm is wrong. I agree with you in my opinion that causing hard is wrong, but were just stating our opinions. In some other cultures or societies or perhaps even different species, rape might have normalized like It was a standard in human civilization for ages. Furthermore, Its also just our opinion that we should respect the fact that a child has no ability to consent. All of these things you're postulating are just moral opinions. Only someone who had infinite knowledge and was perfectly good could dictate what is right and wrong. This is the only way something could be inherently wrong. You simply don't have the moral authority to dictate what is right and wrong as a fundamental constant of the universe.

 

[serp777]

Why do you hold that opinion if a child rapist is not doing anything objectively wrong or immoral by raping a child?

Because I have a standardized set of morals based on what society has imposed on me, my empathy, and the fact scientifically speaking, rape victims are greatly mentally injured by such a traumatic experience. I have empathy so I can understand how horrible rape would be and I would feel extreme guilt and shame if I said it wasn't wrong and didn't denounce it. Again this is just my opinion. Nobody has moral authority. Only an entity with infinite intelligence and being perfectly good could ever claim to have the authority to say what's objectively/inherently right or wrong.

Furthermore, society would not work without a general set of loosely agreed upon morals that define what people should do.

However, nobody has enough authority to dictate morals so I must do my best to make my own based on my current knowledge and feelings.

 

[serp777]

Why do you think we could call it moral/right/good if it wasn't beneficial?

Consider deontology. In deontology, you have moral duties to follow. You might follow the moral duty to never steal. However, your family might be starving and you could steal a little from the rich so that your family would survive. THe rich wouldn't even notice it, but according to deontology you would be immoral, even though its more beneficial to steal. Also beneficial to what? Its probably beneficial for most other species on the planet if you murder people--fewer people means a smaller ecological foot print. So you're thinking about this too narrowly and beneficial has a massive scope. Basically the idea is that following utilitarianism isn't necesserily doing what's moral. If its always wrong to murder, but murdering a person would benefit society or most people in some way, then moral wouldn't be correlated with what's beneficial.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

Well, if God created the best of all possible worlds, as it is to be expected from a perfect God, then I would go so far as to conclude that whatever we do is not only not inherently wrong, but it is inherently right, or morally neutral.

Isn't a world where we have moral free will the best of all possible worlds? In such a world, inherent right, wrong or neutrality would exist depending on how our actions affected others (how we affect ourselves is our own business and neutral). In any other kind of world without free will, the outcomes would be predetermined, moot, irrelevant and a waste of time for all involved including God (if It exists). God could produce those results instantly without all the intervening fuss. (You, Paradise! You **poof**. You, eeuuuw!!)

My father is dead. My late partner is dead. My children were taken from me and I have not seen them or my grandchildren EVER. Does that answer your question? No, I suppose it doesn't. No, in general, I would not harm another. But I was an advanced practice nurse with a serious passion for elder abuse. There have been a few times when I wanted to find the F***er who harmed an elder and make them feel what they inflicted on the elder, so yes, I suppose I would harm in some certain situations.

Why would you not harm any other person who was about to harm an innocent? Would you call a cop? If so, you'd only be increasing the danger to the innocent with your delay, and appointing a proxy to harm the perp in one way or another.

 

[serp777]

So you're asserting, that because we're imperfect, there's no way to deduce a simple but objective moral code? But since you're human and imperfect, on what basis can you claim such an assertion is infallible?

Your agenda is to assert the primacy of society over the individual. How do you justify that? The basic unit, the raw material of society is the individual, so when you violate individuals, you violate society as well. The whole system is made corrupt. If you don't grow your trees properly, the resulting knotty wood used to build houses is faulty, making the frame weak.

If on the other hand you assume, for the sake of a thought experiment to see if it works, that the individual is prime, then study will show that 97% (+/-) of individuals desire an environment with predictable, rational good order in which to run their lives. The other 3% are knotty wood anarchists, nihilists and despots (known collectively as moral relativists [socialists] living irrationally under a self-defined subjective moral/legal double standard), who can either be exiled, imprisoned or made to correct their knotty flaws.

The other problem is the straw man that relativists use to denigrate objective morality by overloading the system with irrelevant behavior (e.g. masturbation, not going to church on Sunday) and calling that immorality--when those actions are nothing more than individually determined virtues. Politicians and priests have been using that straw man to confuse and manipulate their constituencies for as long as we've had self-awareness.

Thus morality is: Honoring the EQUAL rights of ALL individuals to life, liberty, property and self-defense, to be free from violation through force or fraud. That's it. All else is individually determined virtue.
And the root of ALL evil is a moral/legal double standard.

The above is a perfect code. Imperfection comes in when we have people, as we must, implement it, and be subject to it. We must learn that there are always those who rationalize themselves to be worthy of a double standard, and deal with them.

So you're asserting, that because we're imperfect, there's no way to deduce a simple but objective moral code? But since you're human and imperfect, on what basis can you claim such an assertion is infallible?

Because were imperfect, have limited knowledge, and often disagree on morality based on the same set of assumptions. Its not objective then, its just opinions. There is no logical proof of any objective morality. It isn't inherent or objective. You can deduce all you want, but the problems are your assumptions that you base moral reasoning on. For example, why, in utilitarianism, is it moral to maximize pleasure and minimize pain? All morality rests on certain assumptions that are just moral opinions. THere may be another culture, civilization, or species that comes up with an entirely contradictory morality assumptions, but who are you to claim to have authority that they're wrong and you're right? You can state opinions but thats all you can do.

The best moral authority would be a perfectly good, infinitely knowledgable entity. Only if you knew everything could you say that something was certainly/objectively wrong, if its even possible. Anything less than that doesn't have enough information to claim certainty because you haven't considered ever moral circumstance, ever possible perspective, every possible quantitative and qualitative aspect, etc. You could say that its 99.9999% moral, but that isn't objective, that's just what's likely moral. It would be like if you told me that I was asserting that scientific theory couldn't ever be objectively true. I would say that you would need infinite evidence to demonstrate that its certainly/objectively true. In this case the best scientific authority would have all knowledge of all possible empirical data to make an objective claim. Morality, in my submission, works the same way.

Thus morality is: Honoring the EQUAL rights of ALL individuals to life, liberty, property and self-defense, to be free from violation through force or fraud. That's it. All else is individually determined virtue.
And the root of ALL evil is a moral/legal double standard.

The above is a perfect code. Imperfection comes in when we have people, as we must, implement it, and be subject to it. We must learn that there are always those who rationalize themselves to be worthy of a double standard, and deal with them

A perfect code? Yeah right. Furthermore are you infallible such that you can assert that this is PERFECT? Unlikely. You haven't even defined what a perfect entails with respect to morality. Does perfect mean maximally beneficial to soceity for example? Its also an assertion that the root of all evil is a moral or legal double standard, especially a legal double standard. Do you have evidence for this?

Here are some problems right off the bat:
1. What does a violation entail? Its too vague unless you define violation.
2. What is the reasonable range of self defense? Its too vague unless you specify what self defense includes.
3. SHould everyone have equal rights? Many people argue that women should have control over their fetuses. That's a right which both men and unborn children don't have.
4. Who does all individuals include? Does it include intelligent dolphins or smart dogs, or another alien species? What about a species of sentient insects who have partial individuallity?
5. Why would a legal double standard always be wrong? It could be moral to add or commit a legal double standard--for example to prevent crime stridently but to forgive a starving child from stealing. That forgiveness doesn't seem like the root of all evil.

And there are many more but these are some of the initial problems with your "perfect" code. Its very imperfect because everything hasn't been defined and its generally very vague. It would take you at least a large book to justify and specify such a code.

 

[ArtieE]

But what is beneficial can change

Of course what is beneficial for a society differs with the society and circumstances.

people can disagree about what is beneficial. Did you know that there are still tribes scattered around the globe that practice cannibalism? I find that and so do most other people to be as far from beneficial to society as it can get yet those tribes exist.

Then cannibalism is simply not so detrimental to that society that the society has disappeared because of it.

So I ask you, what does society constitute as beneficial and how is that defined?

I don't understand the question. Society "constitutes" anything beneficial to the society as beneficial to the society.

 

[JoStories]

Why would you not harm any other person who was about to harm an innocent? Would you call a cop? If so, you'd only be increasing the danger to the innocent with your delay, and appointing a proxy to harm the perp in one way or another.

Yes I would call a cop, obviously. I have in the past over elder abuse but let me tell you something.... it did not do jack merde to help. The cops simply didn't give two merdes. OTOH, I will tell you that many years ago, my sister's boyfriend was beating the snot out of her. I had to be restrained or I would have beaten the snot out of him. So I would say that pressed, yes, I would protect those who need it but that is, IMO, second nature when it comes to protecting the innocent. But, like I said, the man who dumped his wife at the ER door with bed sores with mold on them and that were also beyond the bone and the woman had screamed her voice GONE... that man was not even f***ing arrested for this. So you tell me, is protecting the innocent really worth the effort sometimes? Btw, thank the energy called God, that woman died and every single nurse in the ICU was crying. Even the doctors were. Yet, still, that man got NOTHING.

 

[JoStories]

Of course what is beneficial for a society differs with the society and circumstances.Then cannibalism is simply not so detrimental to that society that the society has disappeared because of it.I don't understand the question. Society "constitutes" anything beneficial to the society as beneficial to the society.

But who gets to define what is beneficial? You? Me? The collective whole or Big Brother? Would those tribes that still practice cannibalism be allowed to do so within our society? Why or why not?

 

[ArtieE]

I do say that but it is based on what is seen as moral for society. Morality is subjective.

No it isn't. The moral thing to do is always what is beneficial for society regardless of your subjective opinion. What is subjective is what people think is beneficial.

As I just asked another, there are several tribes around the world that still practice cannibalism. Is that moral?

If it has a detrimental impact on the society it's immoral.

IMO, no and most would say no, rather loudly would I add. But for those tribes, that is considered moral and acceptable.

Because they think it has a beneficial impact on society.

 

[ArtieE]

Only someone who had infinite knowledge and was perfectly good could dictate what is right and wrong. This is the only way something could be inherently wrong. You simply don't have the moral authority to dictate what is right and wrong as a fundamental constant of the universe.

Organisms evolved instincts like the survival instinct and the instinct to procreate long before humans appeared on the scene. Organisms started to live in communities and evolve concepts of which behaviors were beneficial and which were detrimental long before we appeared and started talking about morals and ethics. We are just building on this foundation. Vampire bats share food with starving roost mates. We share food with starving humans. Just evolved instinctive behavior we evolved since the behavior is beneficial for social species.

 

[ArtieE]

Consider deontology. In deontology, you have moral duties to follow. You might follow the moral duty to never steal. However, your family might be starving and you could steal a little from the rich so that your family would survive. THe rich wouldn't even notice it, but according to deontology you would be immoral, even though its more beneficial to steal.

If everybody in a society stole from each other it would be detrimental to the society as a whole. Therefore stealing is wrong/immoral. The solution to starvation isn't stealing but working towards a society without starving people.

Also beneficial to what? Its probably beneficial for most other species on the planet if you murder people--fewer people means a smaller ecological foot print. So you're thinking about this too narrowly and beneficial has a massive scope. Basically the idea is that following utilitarianism isn't necesserily doing what's moral. If its always wrong to murder, but murdering a person would benefit society or most people in some way, then moral wouldn't be correlated with what's beneficial.

And now you are confusing murder with killing. Murder is per definition always wrong, killing somebody isn't wrong if it's more beneficial than detrimental to the society and people in it.

 

[ArtieE]

But who gets to define what is beneficial? You? Me?

That was decided long ago by evolution and natural selection when we evolved instincts like the survival instinct and the instinct to procreate. So what is beneficial is what enhances our chances of survival and successful reproduction because those are inherent in our nature.

Would those tribes that still practice cannibalism be allowed to do so within our society? Why or why not?

No because we don't want to be eaten.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

Yes I would call a cop, obviously.

But it's not obvious. You're just having the cops do what you needed to do, if they get there in time to do any good in the first place.

OTOH, I will tell you that many years ago, my sister's boyfriend was beating the snot out of her. I had to be restrained or I would have beaten the snot out of him. So I would say that pressed, yes, I would protect those who need it but that is, IMO, second nature when it comes to protecting the innocent.

Well, now we're getting somewhere. Someone being violent to an innocent is what presses the moral among us to take action. And if the perp is bigger than you, it pays to have a great equalizer handy no matter how energized you are by your anger.

But, like I said, the man who dumped his wife at the ER door with bed sores with mold on them and that were also beyond the bone and the woman had screamed her voice GONE... that man was not even f***ing arrested for this. So you tell me, is protecting the innocent really worth the effort sometimes? Btw, thank the energy called God, that woman died and every single nurse in the ICU was crying. Even the doctors were. Yet, still, that man got NOTHING.

If someone had complained when she was still at home, he would have been punished.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

Because were imperfect, have limited knowledge, and often disagree on morality based on the same set of assumptions. Its not objective then, its just opinions.

You're saying that since we're fallible, that we can't come up with a good approximation of a nearly (if not absolutely) perfect code. So because of that, we fallible beings have to admit that genocide, slavery, misogyny, pedophilia etc. can be moral under majority rule. It's between equal rights for all individuals, or adhere to the "moral" double standard imposed by the biggest group or alliance.

There is no logical proof of any objective morality.

You're right, there is no proof, because we haven't polled the Earth's population to see who desires good order, and more importantly, to see who doesn't--and why. After 1,000,000 years, I think we can come up with a moral code which satisfies the 97% who want good order (mine is damn near perfect). The only alternative is to give free reign to subjective morality and thus to despotism and/or anarchy--which is where the Establishment looks like it's taking us as fast as they can now.