Morality.....

[rageoftyrael]

Kay, so i've been arguing about incest, and it made me want to start this thread. I am of the personal belief that there is nothing immoral about drug usage, prostitution, incest, gambling, and probably a few more i can't think of at this moment. Why do i think they aren't immoral? Cause if they hurt other people, it is often indirect. If they hurt the person doing it, that's their problem. if they aren't smart enough to stop what's hurting them, so what?

These things should be legal, because it isn't the governments jobs to protect people from themselves, but to protect them from others. Yeah, some of these things can cause harm to the people around them, like someone gambling till they are broke, and now their kids have nothing to eat. It would be the governments job to step in and take those children, to protect them from the mistakes of their parents. The same applies to drugs as well.

What do you think?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

What do you think?

Why is anything immoral (genocide, murder, rape, molestation of children, etc.)?

 

[rageoftyrael]

I would say that these things(genocide, murder, rape, molestation, etc.) are immoral, because they are directly harming other people. These things are wrong, because you don't want them done to you, and you don't want them done to those you care about, and some simply wouldn't them done to anyone. I figure the golden rule is a good example for morality. Treat others as you would have them treat you.

 

[Quintessence]

Often it is the indirect consequences of our actions that are the most insidious. They work their subtle magic behind the scenes, collectively causing the most monstrous of problems. The lion's share of our environmental problems fall into this category, be it human overpopulation or resource mismanagement. How do you account for this?

 

[dyanaprajna2011]

Kay, so i've been arguing about incest, and it made me want to start this thread. I am of the personal belief that there is nothing immoral about drug usage, prostitution, incest, gambling, and probably a few more i can't think of at this moment. Why do i think they aren't immoral? Cause if they hurt other people, it is often indirect. If they hurt the person doing it, that's their problem. if they aren't smart enough to stop what's hurting them, so what?

These things should be legal, because it isn't the governments jobs to protect people from themselves, but to protect them from others. Yeah, some of these things can cause harm to the people around them, like someone gambling till they are broke, and now their kids have nothing to eat. It would be the governments job to step in and take those children, to protect them from the mistakes of their parents. The same applies to drugs as well.

What do you think?

Gambling is the only thing on your list that's not completely illegal. The reason why the rest are not only illegal, but generally considered immoral, is that they, more often than not, lead to the harm of not only oneself, but other people as well. Incest, if you know anything about biology, causes all kinds of problems in any children that are born to the relationship. Prostitution can cause all kinds of diseases, drain one's money, not to mention the psychological effect it has on the prostitutes. Most of those girls are forced into it. Drug use, can drain money, cause people to commit heinous acts to get more money for drugs, and people in a drug altered state of consciousness can cause all kinds of harm and damage to those around them, as well as themselves. It's not that these things simply can cause such devastation, but oftentimes do cause it. The safer bet is to stay away from them.

 

[rageoftyrael]

Sorry, but the indirect consequences aren't enough that we should be banning them. If an indirect consequence of drugs that every time you popped a pill, someone's head exploded, okay, i'm on board, let's make drugs illegal. But when the best people can give me is, it's bad for them, and can possibly be bad for other people, i have no respect for the argument. I don't need people telling me how to live my life. If someone wants to do stuff that hurts them, then let them. If the bad stuff happens to kids, through neglect, than i would have no problem with the government taking the children from that situation. As for incest, your argument is invalid there, for several reasons, that i'll explain in a post later. And prostitution, if they were forced into it, that is the crime, not the prostitution in and of itself, in my opinion. There are these things called condoms, to help prevent diseases. So, really, not a one of your arguments is particularly valid. Does that make me immoral, thinking that way? I don't think so, cause i feel people should be allowed to live their own lives, how they want, so long as they are not DIRECTLY harming other people.

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

These things should be legal, because it isn't the governments jobs to protect people from themselves, but to protect them from others.

What do you think?

My position has been that it shouldn't be illegal to do drugs but it should be to sell drugs. As you said, the person doing the drugs is hurting himself. But the person who sells and/or manufactures the drugs is harming someone else. The real reason for prosecuting drug users is it is easy and creates the illusion of progress in the War on Drugs. Drug providers tend to shoot back.

 

[Alex_G]

Kay, so i've been arguing about incest, and it made me want to start this thread. I am of the personal belief that there is nothing immoral about drug usage, prostitution, incest, gambling, and probably a few more i can't think of at this moment. Why do i think they aren't immoral? Cause if they hurt other people, it is often indirect. If they hurt the person doing it, that's their problem. if they aren't smart enough to stop what's hurting them, so what?

These things should be legal, because it isn't the governments jobs to protect people from themselves, but to protect them from others. Yeah, some of these things can cause harm to the people around them, like someone gambling till they are broke, and now their kids have nothing to eat. It would be the governments job to step in and take those children, to protect them from the mistakes of their parents. The same applies to drugs as well.

What do you think?

In my understanding morality has different grades. Morality as an umbrella term takes you only so far, such as the word 'sport' if you are to understand everything from snooker to football.
The magnitude of right and wrong, i believe lies in the degree to which we empathise with the subject. The stronger that bond to the subject, and thus the relevance of the given action under consideration to that subject through comparison to your own life, provides us with the basis to emotionally and intellectually act in a way that is right. Its the emotion that powers our morality, but reason will be there to follow through.

To illustrate, killing a fly is not very significant due to one’s empathetic distance from the fly. Killing a human is sensed as wrong because our empathetic connection to them is far more, and we have much more of an understanding through self-comparison why its wrong. But also poking ur tongue out at someone isnt that significant, because even though we empathise very strongly with other humans we can confidently see how its not a big deal. I need not mention poking ur tongue out at a fly!

However reason does step in, through our intellect and self-awareness, to realise that even though this empathy is the driving force of moral understanding, when its not there, it doesnt necessarily mean that whatever it is doesnt matter. An example is the shameful fact of 'out of site out of mind' when it comes to suffering in front of you as compared with suffering in 3rd world countries across the globe. This reasoning is however nevertheless only functional in a mind who can feel in the first place. One must first understand suffering.

Reason may be a valid mode of justification for many moral things in our life, but its the emotional disposition towards the world around us, and the others in our lives is what gives our moral sentiment legitimacy and origin. The robot that mimics without the feeling is not truly acting in a moral sense in my opinion. It lacks that emotional 'realisation' that is the key to become a creature that is morally in tune.

I would also like to point out that direct and indirect is different from apparent and hidden. I think responsibility for the indirect is still there if it is apparent. But i do get your point, and agree that moral weight of actions lessen when they get further from those core and authentic aspects of human existence, something religion and culture often obscures, creating false importance’s through conditioning. Homosexuality is a sin and so on. That illegitimate morality.

Additionally whether something is legal or illegal is separate from whether it is right or wrong. Something might be illegal for the simple fact of keeping order and maintaining a civilised society on a 'whole picture' view, even if one can powerfully argue that the action(s) in question are morally permissible or praiseworthy from the individuals point. Heck one could see taxation as a form of slavery with relative ease.

 

[connermt]

Kay, so i've been arguing about incest, and it made me want to start this thread. I am of the personal belief that there is nothing immoral about drug usage, prostitution, incest, gambling, and probably a few more i can't think of at this moment. Why do i think they aren't immoral? Cause if they hurt other people, it is often indirect. If they hurt the person doing it, that's their problem. if they aren't smart enough to stop what's hurting them, so what?

These things should be legal, because it isn't the governments jobs to protect people from themselves, but to protect them from others. Yeah, some of these things can cause harm to the people around them, like someone gambling till they are broke, and now their kids have nothing to eat. It would be the governments job to step in and take those children, to protect them from the mistakes of their parents. The same applies to drugs as well.

What do you think?

It's hard to legalize things based off of morality, yet it happens. People don't understand morality as they are (ironically enough) so self absorbed they think their morality is right and if you don’t agree with it then you’re wrong.
To me, morality is typically up to the individual. The real world shows that some morality is brought into the legal system to protect certain people/groups.
So long as it doesn’t hurt another person directly, I don’t much care what you do. My morality is mine and no one else’s.
To me anything I do isn’t immoral. If it were, I wouldn’t be doing it.

 

[Quintessence]

Does that make me immoral, thinking that way? I don't think so, cause i feel people should be allowed to live their own lives, how they want, so long as they are not DIRECTLY harming other people.

So I take it you have no problem with humanity continuing to spew out greenhouse gases? After all, more carbon dioxide in the air doesn't cause any direct harm to humans. It's the indirect effects that bite us in our collective rear ends. Same is true of many environmental and land management issues. Additionally, sometimes direct harm offsets greater indirect harms further on down the road.

Thus yes, I'd find thinking this way makes you immoral, particularly because this position doesn't allow for adequate environmental ethics under our prevailing anthropocentric mindset. Most environmental damages don't cause direct harm to people; the effects are indirect. They cause direct harm to the nonhuman world, but our society doesn't operate by ecocentric paradigms. Now, if we took into consideration the direct harm of human activities on the nonhuman world, then I might be able to support something like this. This opens up an entirely different packet of seeds, though...

 

[rageoftyrael]

So, i would be immoral because i supposedly don't care about the environment? The problem with your statement here is that these gases actually cause direct damage, it's just not immediate. Either way, i'm just gonna have to laugh at the idea that because i supposedly don't care about the environment, i'm immoral. that's a ridiculous statement, in and of itself. It would be like telling someone they are immoral, even though they are basically the best person ever, give money to many charities, but because they don't talk about one thing, or don't give to one particular charity, they are a bad person. How does that not strike you as a ridiculous concept of morality?

You MAY not much care about one particular thing, so you are immoral. Yeah, that's logical. I can't think of everything, and i sure as heck can't care about everything. No one can. There are something you just aren't gonna be emotionally invested in. I'm sure you fall into this category as well, but i'm pretty sure 99.999999 percent of people fall into that category. IT would take a truly extraordinary person to care about and think of everything. So, maybe only that very truly rare person is actually moral.

 

[averageJOE]

If my wife gambled and lost all of our life savings is my wife the only one who is harmed?

 

[Warren Clark]

Kay, so i've been arguing about incest, and it made me want to start this thread. I am of the personal belief that there is nothing immoral about drug usage, prostitution, incest, gambling, and probably a few more i can't think of at this moment. Why do i think they aren't immoral? Cause if they hurt other people, it is often indirect. If they hurt the person doing it, that's their problem. if they aren't smart enough to stop what's hurting them, so what?

These things should be legal, because it isn't the governments jobs to protect people from themselves, but to protect them from others. Yeah, some of these things can cause harm to the people around them, like someone gambling till they are broke, and now their kids have nothing to eat. It would be the governments job to step in and take those children, to protect them from the mistakes of their parents. The same applies to drugs as well.

What do you think?

Personally I find incest to be morally irresponsible because it can cause some serious complications if one were to become pregnant or even contract a disease.
As for prostitution, I find escort services to be more moral than the shady street light hooker business. But I get where you are coming from.
For the most part, other than what I clarified, I would have to agree.
Morality is however subjective. Such as what do you NEED to do to survive in life.
If you cant survive unless you steal an apple then morally there is no obligation when it comes to survival. Not that I condone stealing, as I would just give a starving person food. That's just me though.

 

[Father Heathen]

Kay, so i've been arguing about incest, and it made me want to start this thread. I am of the personal belief that there is nothing immoral about drug usage, prostitution, incest, gambling, and probably a few more i can't think of at this moment. Why do i think they aren't immoral? Cause if they hurt other people, it is often indirect. If they hurt the person doing it, that's their problem. if they aren't smart enough to stop what's hurting them, so what?

These things should be legal, because it isn't the governments jobs to protect people from themselves, but to protect them from others. Yeah, some of these things can cause harm to the people around them, like someone gambling till they are broke, and now their kids have nothing to eat. It would be the governments job to step in and take those children, to protect them from the mistakes of their parents. The same applies to drugs as well.

What do you think?

The only thing "immoral" is victimizing and violating the rights of innocent people.

 

[Father Heathen]

If my wife gambled and lost all of our life savings is my wife the only one who is harmed?

No, but it would've been your wife's irresponsibility that caused harm, not gambling in and of itself.

 

[Quintessence]

So, i would be immoral because i supposedly don't care about the environment? The problem with your statement here is that these gases actually cause direct damage, it's just not immediate.

Based on your previous examples, I inferred that you would consider the impacts of environmental degradation to be "indirect" because the offenses are not done directly towards another human being, but to the nonhuman world (which then indirectly swings back to humans). Since you say that your'e only concerned with direct harm, it's not a big step to infer one isn't concerned with harm to the environment because it is not direct harm to humans. It seems logical given the framework you've set up for yourself, which is why I asked the question. Now I'm just confused about what you consider "direct" and "indirect" harm. What is "direct" harm to you? What is "indirect" harm? Does this or does this not apply to things that are not humans?

Either way, i'm just gonna have to laugh at the idea that because i supposedly don't care about the environment, i'm immoral. that's a ridiculous statement, in and of itself. It would be like telling someone they are immoral, even though they are basically the best person ever, give money to many charities, but because they don't talk about one thing, or don't give to one particular charity, they are a bad person. How does that not strike you as a ridiculous concept of morality?

Being moral or immoral isn't all-or-nothing game; pardon if that wasn't clear. Calling someone immoral in one case doesn't mean they're calling you immoral in all cases or suggesting you're entirely 100% a morally depraved individual. The first was suggested, not the second. Though on that note, doubtless some folks treat ethics like it's an all-or-nothing game. Or, they consider one particular ethical aspect to be of greatest importance and if an individual fails to be adequate on that aspect, they would be adjudged morally depraved as a whole. That is not, though, what I was intending to convey, so take a deep breath and calm down.

 

[FlyingTeaPot]

Why is anything immoral (genocide, murder, rape, molestation of children, etc.)?

ummm... as was clear in the OP, because they affect other people.

 

[FlyingTeaPot]

Kay, so i've been arguing about incest, and it made me want to start this thread. I am of the personal belief that there is nothing immoral about drug usage, prostitution, incest, gambling, and probably a few more i can't think of at this moment. Why do i think they aren't immoral? Cause if they hurt other people, it is often indirect. If they hurt the person doing it, that's their problem. if they aren't smart enough to stop what's hurting them, so what?

Agreed. No one can ever be an authority on morality.

These things should be legal, because it isn't the governments jobs to protect people from themselves, but to protect them from others. Yeah, some of these things can cause harm to the people around them, like someone gambling till they are broke, and now their kids have nothing to eat. It would be the governments job to step in and take those children, to protect them from the mistakes of their parents. The same applies to drugs as well.

What do you think?

Agree with you. You cannot gamble with my money, but you can gamble with your money as much as you want. It is not my place to tell you what to do with your life. It is as simple as that.

 

[rageoftyrael]

I would say our break down in communication would be when you stared talking about the environment. I don't think i would be wrong in saying that the issues of littering and prostitution, for example, are vastly different things. For example, i would say that littering was immoral, because you are directly harming the planet, which you, and the people who will come after you, need simply to survive. Heck, harming the planet could well be the most immoral thing someone can do, at least until we are able to colonize other planets, lol.

When i say direct, and indirect, what i mean is fairly simple. If it is direct, it means that what you did, you did knowing it would harm someone, as the automatic next action. Like, murder is immoral, because you killed someone. There was absolutely no innocent intent there. There could be moral implications, i suppose, but that would be a whole next conversation, where we made allowances for morally impermissible things.

When i say indirect, i mean that when you do something like gambling, you are gambling, to make money, have fun. You did not intend to lose your money, you did not intend to be unable to feed your children. Though of course, anyone with some common sense would know to hold back some money to be able to pay for the basic necessities of life, which is where personal responsibility comes in. If the government is gonna butt in, they should be telling people why gambling can be bad, or convince people to gamble in moderation, not simply refuse it, like a parent does for a child. Once you grow up, you should be able to make your own mistakes, even if, indirectly, they can cause some harm to other people.