Immorality is more the art of propaganda.
That’s not such a bad idea. But ought we to at least try to reason things out logically first?
My moral position is it’s good to equalize consideration of others, relative to self. Morality involves overcoming the natural inclination to overvalue self relative to others. “We make choices”, in the context of morality, has nothing to do with ice cream flavors.
Sure, and I see you’re interested in reasons to value things that we don’t usually consider. Good topic. The reason I asked this though, is because if morality has to do with relationships and context, it’s actually somewhat hard to think of why the isolated tribe in New Guinea matters much. I mean, who suffers if they all die at once? But once you start thinking in that direction, you quickly frighten yourself. And with good reason…
Ucci -
I think you’re being generous. I think we’re hearing from the philosophically confused on this thread. I think this happens when you read a bit of philosophy here or there without understanding the context of what you are reading. Often it happens when a poster is more interested in letting others known how “smart” they are at the expense of embracing the parameters if the question at hand.
Often we think of the public expression of our moral thinking in terms of laws and perhaps some religious customs. But our moral thinking is embodied, sometimes on a more fundamental level, in social institutions, such as “the scientific community”, academia, marriage, the criminal justice system as a whole and even communications media. This is so because social institutions in general are more dynamic than mere laws. The practical ethics of academia (or the medical profession, perhaps), the ethics of war, the ethics of voting or not - stuff like that. Rawls gives them more weight than many social thinkers have.
Well, they do. I don’t see what you’re driving at. I guess based on the moral principle you put forward about equalizing consideration, there isn’t much to equalize if they are all dead…but if your equalization principle is based on some idea of an instrinsic value to human life, and not equality for equality’s sake, that’s not too troublesome, right?
I am inclined to say that there is a way of ‘doing philosophy’ that just sort of happens on it’s own as people successfully live their lives, and that reading a little academic philosophy (but not much) or being preoccupied with sounding smart can do damage to this process/faculty.
Really? Rawls was presented to me as being somebody who wanted to peel away everything that was given to us by tradition or institution, and to guide society according to purely rational principles, with his original position being a sort of cogito for social justice.
Faust -
Absolutely. I’d say that it’s very hard to find anything that is common that isn’t a moral agent or platform or however you want to call it. Institution.
Cartoned milk is a moral institution.
Uccisore -
That wouldn’t contradict him giving these institutions weight… he may realize how important they are in forcing us to be certain ways but also that we can not live without them.
Not sure what you mean by equalizing principle. And “intrinsic value” kind of seems like an oxymoron to me. And the idea behind them all dying at once was lack of suffering, though I should have made that explicit. They don’t suffer in their sudden deaths and nobody misses them.
Anyway, it’s ok if you don’t get what I’m driving at. It doesn’t matter.
Oh, well I wasn't really thinking of suffering. You said something about your moral principle being about giving other people equal consideration compared to yourself, that's what I was calling an equalizing principle. It seems like a principle like that would make the 'what about killing off a tribe' question pretty easy to answer- killing them off isn't giving them the consideration you would give yourself, assuming you don't want somebody to kill you painlessly right now for one reason or another. Neither of us seemed to be concerned with a 'least suffering' principle before now, so I don't know what you're bringing it up now.
I see what you mean about equalization. Ok.
Anyway you seem kind of uninterested. Again, that’s fine.
Haha, ok. I’m not sure what it is I’m expressing disinterest in, but maybe you’re right!
That sounds more like Strauss to me, but yeah you’re right ,that’s not in conflict with what I know about Rawls.
Ucci wrote
Yes. Either you place the greatest value on life/consciousness or you don’t and from valuing ourselves immensely, we are able to value another person whether we know them or not. This person on the chopping block was given life to live it, who has the authority to take it away? No one other than the person on the chopping block.
It is immoral to me because I respect Mars.
Also, the solar system is subtle to the infiniteth degree, as the result of the uncertainty principle, where everything is filled in unto infinite ‘non-clunkiness’, so you need an example that is farther away.
Would it be immoral to blow up an entire country? It normally becomes immoral as soon as you get involved into a few stories inside that country. Unless you are trying to socialize in Mordor, it may be hard to find a country to blow up morally. You’d think it is diferent from an uninhabitable planet, but not so, as to chart its course is to build affinity. I once spent some weeks reading through the telescope notes of Galileo. You witness him formulating the Newtonean universe as he observes what after some puzzlement over what these shifting patterns may be, he reckons must be moons of Jupiter. Imagine being the first one to witness and realize how a cosmic mass holds another in its orbit. The thrill and intimacy of that moment is surely equal to a revelation of the Christ, or true love, or some serious valuing down on Earth. To an astronomer, even to talk down on any form or shape except in personal terms is blasphemous.
No one cares.
Except the Martians.
And Trump needs to get them to pay for the transport of their resources to Earth - therefore they must exist. So hands off Mars.
MM wrote
To reformulate the question in more palpable terms…
Is it moral to destroy a lifeless museum, library, or art gallery, to save one life?
The answer would be, it depends on how you feel about them. If you hate them and they are nothing but bad to you, the sacrifice suddenly becomes immoral. If you love them and they are nothing but good to you, the sacrifice suddenly becomes moral.
Sounds like, oh, I don’t know, moral nihilism to me.
It’s not what we value that is nearly as intriguing as why we come to value what we do. As individuals out in a particular world.
Once philosophers go there they can begin to explore the argument that revolves around moral obligation.
Is there a way for philosophers to determine what our obligation must be if we wish to be thought of as rational human beings?
The destruction of Mars being the least of it, right?
In fact I once posted the following here at ILP:
[i][b]Whenever I come upon this sort of quandary, I am reminded of a particular scene from the Star Trek IV movie.
One of the sub-plots in the film revolved around the perennial squabble between Kirk and Spock over the role of emotion in human interaction. I say human interaction because, as those who enjoy immersing themselves in the Star Trek universe know, Spock was half human and half Vulcan. The Vulcan half was basically bereft of emotional reactions. A Vulcan’s reaction to the world was always logical, supremely rational. Thus the human half of Spock was, apparently, something he kept buried deep down in his psyche.
In the course of the movie, the Kirk [emotional], Spock [rational] conflict ebbed and flowed. But in a climactic scene near the end, the crew of the Enterprise are in a jam. One of their comrades, Chekov, is isolated from the rest of them. He is in a primitive 20th century hospital sure to die if not rescued. But if the crew goes after him they risk the possibility of not completing their mission. And if they don’t complete their mission every man, woman and child on earth will die.
Spock’s initial reaction is purely calculated: It is clearly more important [more rational, more ethical] to save the lives of all planet earth’s inhabitants than to risk these lives in the effort to save just one man.
But Kirk intervenes emotionally and reminds everyone that Chekov is one of them. So, naturally, this being a Hollywood movie, Spock ends up agreeing that saving Chekov is now the #1 priority. And, naturally, this being a Hollywood film, they still have time to rescue planet earth from the whale-probe. Barely.
But think about the ethical dilemma posed in the film. Is it more rational [ethical] to save Chekov, if it means possibly the destruction of all human life on earth?
What are the limits of ethical inquiry here in deciding this? Can it even be decided ethically?
Consider it in two ways:
In the first, we can rescue our beloved friend knowing there might still be time to rescue everyone else.
In the second, we can rescue our beloved friend knowing that, if we do, there is no time left to rescue everyone else.
Maybe someday we will actually come upon an intelligent species more along the lines of Vulcans. Until then though we’re stuck being us: a subjunctive species ever forced to reconcile what we think and what we feel. And [as I see it] philosophy can never be “serious” until it acknowledges the implications and the consequences of that “out in the world” of actual human interactions in conflict.[/i][/b]
Making any kind of assumption doesn’t necessarily mean that what we believe we know is the reality.
We can’t really know anything until we have investigated and continued to investigate. What scientist would agree to blow up Mars lol based on assumptions or on a whim or to save one human life?
How many human lives might be destroyed by falling pieces of Mars?
How can we know what kind of life is on Mars? Can we prove or disprove either way some kind of life form albeit different from us?
Is it possible that the immoral thing would be to assume that we know and that Mars IS as we believe it to be? What would be, could be or become immoral about it - perhaps - is that a pattern of assumptions would be or might be created in which at some point in time might lead to other more important decisions being made based simply on “assumptions” and not on scientific criteria.
We value the questions, the investigations, the slow process of gathering information and evaluating it.
I might not call that immoral actually but highly stupid and lazy thinking.