Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
I would explain morals to them and why I want them to act certain ways.
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Why making your children follow your religion truly is brainwashing
- Thread starter 1137
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I would explain morals to them and why I want them to act certain ways.
Which morals?
Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
Correct, aside from the occasional exception.
Nope.
That and the fact that it's different from most of the examples brought up here except for things like political beliefs and a weird sports analogy.
Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
Practical ones that help them get through life without getting in too much trouble, or at least understanding what will get them in trouble and why.
I think I mentioned it a bit earlier, but when we studied Richard III (the only historical Shakespeare play that we studied in school), we also studied The Daughter of Time. We were shown that there were multiple points of view on the matter, asked to consider how we should discern truth from falsehood, and not ever told which version to accept.
What gets one in trouble in one culture might not in another. Since you aren't indoctrinating them, will you make sure to teach all of these?
That's a pretty brilliant idea! At least it sounds like one and I think would be if done right. What grade if you don't mind me asking?
10 or 11, IIRC.
I think I'm going to suggest that. Thanks!
Me Myself
Back to my username
I am listening.
Your son says I dont care about the others, its okay to lie and cheat others if you dont get caught, etc.
How could you unarbitrarily tell him its not okay?
Morality is a subjective choice.
Monk Of Reason
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
There are logical reasons behind some moral choices and they have real concequences to immoral actions both on the individual level and on the mass scale level of civilizations if citizens didn't follow certain basic principles.
Not all morality is subjective.
It's all subjective. Arguably, it's subjective even if god commands it. See here:
Objective Morality and Euthyphro
Me Myself
Back to my username
Just if you agree with the premises. While you can make logical arguments for many moral actions to be desirable, you will need premises in common.
For example, one posible premise is:
You want others to be happy
You see an inherent value to be honest
You desire the wellbeing of the society as a whole.
If the kid does not share is premises and only has the "I dont care what others feel or tthink as long as I get away with it" then it will only follow the logical morality rules when they serve this purpose.
Now, what is common to do as a parent is to use emotional reasons or to try to emotionally make the children feel it is good to care for others, feel it is good to be honest, etc even when before he did not care too much for this values.
We teach morality through example and through the love we put on the morality that we teach. Children will see the values of their parents and are extremely likely to emulate them if they have a good relationship with their parents.
The kids will form their values based on emotional equivalences regardless, you either make them have the values you want them to have so they are good people or you just wait and see how everyone else will deliberately or inadvertedly do that for you with hir.
Monk Of Reason
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Logical arguments for certain behaviors are non-subjective as without them society shall fail. A good example is "Killing is wrong". There are obvious exceptions but generally murder is not looked kindly upon by most societies. If there was no social, moral or other form of reprecussions for such acts the society would fall apart.
Not to mention the evolutionary argument where we are born (usually) with an innate sense of morality that we have evolved to have. Very specific instences of morality such as religious views and other such cultural phenomenons are simply over specification of the overall innate morality and social contructs that have evolved in different places.
Monk Of Reason
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Subjective in the sense that everything is subjective. Its not subjective in the sense that we don't have any innate morality.
The New Science of Morality | Edge.org.
The argument I am proposing is that Morality is not simply relative but has baselines within our sexular human societies. They may be somewhat blured with the culture but patterns emerge that indicates non-relative morality intertwined with relative morality.
Me Myself
Back to my username
You are having as a premise that society should not fall.
"Well being of society" is a value. If you dont make your kid care about the wellbeing of the society, the argument doesnt matter.
Society wont fall if he kills this person and he doesnt get caught. That is also a reasonably "objective" affirmation.
Also, society wont fall if he kills someone and he does get caught.
Also, not only the premise (I care for the wellbeing of the society) is wrong but the affirmation is wrong too. The vikings killed each other and mantained their society for a lot of time. They just payed the parents of the ersothey killed the "worth" of the person(in money or goods) and life moved on.
Curious George
Veteran Member
But that too is based on a belief that society is good.
Sharing beliefs as true is not bad. Methodology can cross over to abuse, but beliefs on their own do not make this cross-over. Certainly, we as a society agree that some beliefs are better than others. And we could very well decide teaching your child religious beliefs as truths is worse than leaving the subject alone until they are older. However, we should have very good reasoning for such, since doing this infringes upon the parents rights. So far, the reasoning has failed to meet this requirement.
Me Myself
Back to my username
By evolution too your kid will get in jail if he didnt happen to share the evolutionary instict to be moral to the degree of strength that he needed and no one emotionally influenced him to develop it.
Morality is emotionally encouraged. Its just how it is. If you want your kid to be more moral you want to put in him the correct values by sharing them emotionally.
Monk Of Reason
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
Again your talking about specifics. Relative morality exists and no one questions that. However there are intertwined non-relative morality. At least in those without psychopathic or sociopathic disorders.
But the overal moral arguments are required for the society as a whole to function. A single diviant holds no bearing on a non-relative morality.
Though I do concede to what (at least I think) legion was getting at that everything is subjective to the goal with reguards to the individual. For that I don't disagree.
To counter or at least make clearler... you don't have to have a "belief" that loving your mother is good. Or a require a belief or logical reasoning to feel that children should not be killed or that you should protect or sexual mate.
These are all innate or instinctive rather than simply relative learned moral lessons.
Again I have to repeate that you are talking about specifics. If I were in Japan in the year 1850 I would have to instill in my child to be respectful to the Lords, Samurai ect or they would be killed. That is a relative morality.
In the year 2010 I have to instill in my child that racism is wrong for them to function properly within our society.
But some of the base moral setting seem to be innate.
Me Myself
Back to my username
Well, parents will talk about ery specific moral commands to children and by the definition of indoctrination that is being used, it would be indoctrination.
Hitting your sister is wrong
You shoulde organised
You have to be someone that is good for society
You must respect your parents
If you want to be a professional you need to better our grades
And many other claims will be made that wont be objective. You cant "critically convince" that it is best to share your things with your sister out of "rational thinking" unless you create a reward punishment mentality in wich you are still going to encourage or discourage certain behaviour by which you subjectively decide what is good or not.
By encouraging and discouraging behaviour through punishment rward you would still be indoctrinating becaude you are not doing it through "rational thinking"
"I should share with my sister so my dad is proud of me" is as rational as "I must go to church so my dad is proud of me" or as rational as "I must keep my room clean so my mother buys me that transformer toy I wanted" or "If I do well at school so that I become a good member of society then my dad will buy me that bike" etc.
Its the same.