Is morality just something trivial...?

Hello again Pax,

I share your wish that men would treat each other better. I work for a television station, and I invariably shudder at the content of the evening news. My network (CBS) does not make this stuff up; the bombs that shred innocent people’s lives are real; the bodies of the abducted children that turn up in a ditch are real as well. But it’s important to keep this in mind.

A medical specialist that treats rare diseases has his waiting room filled with people suffering from these rare diseases. Day in and day out, nearly everyone this physician meets suffers from this rare disease. Would it be correct to infer from his experience that this rare disease must be epidemic in the population? Of course not, it would be silly to form such a conclusion. It’s just that his sampling of the population is biased.

It’s the same with the evening news. We have a network of organizations whose specific job is to sort through all the daily activity of six billion humans in order to ferret out the worst behavior, the most tragic accidents, and the most sensational scandals. At the end of this daily freak and horror show, the news anchor calmly closes with, “And this was a look at our world today.” Meanwhile, we’re sitting in our chair with our fingernails dug into the armrests; shaken out of our wits at what we’ve just seen. Is there any wonder that people think that the world has gone to hell? We often hear old people say, “It wasn’t like that in my day.” And they are right. It wasn’t like that in their day, it was worse. They just didn’t hear about it.

In the year 1800 the earth’s population was one-sixth what it is today. There were one-sixth as many people to make the news; to rape and murder. Yet, at the turn of the 19th century the Napoleonic wars were raging across Europe. The Canadian writer, John Ralston Saul, remarked in his book, Voltaire’s Bastards, that Napoleon indirectly killed nearly as many men as did Hitler. I remember reading that in the days of Napoleon’s terror, a dust cloud was sighted on the horizon of a city in Eastern Europe (I forget which city). The city fathers, fearing it was Napoleon’s armies set their own city aflame to deny it to the enemy. It turned out that the dust was from a large herd of cattle being moved to market. Tough times, those.

As I understand it, Christians (for example) teach that we should obey God’s edicts not for the sake of goodness itself, but for reason of personal gain. Having myself endured 12 years of Catholic schools, the phrase, “The wages of sin is death,” springs readily to mind. Christian dogma would have us act so as to please God. If God is pleased with us we gain Paradise. If he is displeased with us we suffer eternal damnation. Pax, I simply don’t recollect hearing much about being good for the sake of goodness. I remember it being about saving one’s own soul.

Well yes, and theists are quite pleased with this linkage. I think Arthur C. Clark only slightly overstated the point when he wrote:

“The greatest tragedy in mankind’s entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.”

Men have acted horribly in the past despite believing that they would indeed suffer eternal damnation for their acts. Wicked men will act badly no matter what the prevailing beliefs. I recently came upon this quote by the physicist, Steven Weinberg:

“With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.”

I’m still trying to make up my mind whether to agree with him or not.

Franz Kafka wrote, “Now the sirens have a still more fatal weapon then their song, namely their silence…” Hmm…that’s easy for Kafka to say, he never had to endure Britney Spears.

This is an especially fine thing to write, Pax. For some time I’ve had this very same idea on my mental “backburner.” Is it possible that what we do to another we do to ourselves? In a recent exchange Brad and I skirted this idea. I quoted Thomas W. Clark:

Is there only one “I” in the universe? This question has often reoccurred in my mind since I was quite young. It began as a theological speculation, but it’s since taken on various guises. This question might be worth its own thread. What do you think?

It’s wonderful to hear that you choose to accept this idea while you search for a convincing grounding for your ethics. Since we need a working theory at this very moment, until we discover the “perfect” moral theory why not let’s adopt this unproven possibility; that what we do to others we do to ourselves? For lack of nothing better, let’s adopt Sponville’s little maxim, “Act as though you loved.” Someday, if and when philosophers find the “perfect” moral theory they might say, “Oh look, our foolish ancestors went around acting as though they loved each other,” but now we see that they didn’t have to be that good." These future philosophers might lament the fact that we needlessly wasted so much goodness on each other. But would it really be a shame that you and I squandered more goodness on each other than the “perfect” moral theory required of us? If there is anything else so worthy of squandering, I for one can’t think of it.

Michael

-----I think you can derive morality from nature, Without the possibility of death, things start to lose their value. Only a living organism can have values. Only a living organism is faced with the constant CHOICE life or death. The philosopher Ayn Rand talked about this.
-----My lights say that my morality should not derive exclusively from a social context, maybe due in part from my individualistic culture, but certainly from the thinkers whom i have studied. Having other people on the road to contend with can certainly lend credulity to moral DON’Ts,
(which unfortunately is almost all that morality focused on for many years in it’s infancy) but to summon the veritable wellspring of moral DOs requires ego, desire, passion, and love. If i don’t have these already, i seriously doubt that my noble brethren will have much to work with. To lament about people who just won’t obey the rules is to see the whole of philosophy as a top down affair. Either people for the most part accept the rules, or they don’t. The people that don’t under a top down system, end up seeing morality as an arbitrary social contrivance of little value and import.
-----As far as the social don’ts alluded to earlier, i think that Peter Singer’s rule of equal consideration of the interests of all sentient creatures affected by one’s actions is useful. (This is only stretching the golden rule a bit.)
-----Unless philosophy (or religion) becomes a personal, ennobling force within one’s own bosom, all of the religious tracts and philosophical treatise in the world won’t suffice. A selfless sacrifice done out of duty? or The impassioned embrace of one who has found the hero in his own, or another’s soul, the choice is ours my friends.

Johan wrote:

Ethics is unique in philosophy inasmuch as it requires that we should first decide how we ought to act, and second we should follow this theory by our actions. The most perfect moral theory is perfectly useless if we choose to ignore it.

How many convicted murderers do not understand that murder is wrong? Well, the criminally insane might think that murder is a good thing, but I suspect that many, if not most murderers understand that murder is wrong. These men committed murder while believing that it is wrong to murder. This gulf between moral theory and practice leads me to think that even if philosophers could devise a perfect ethical theory, men would still choose to ignore it.

The American philosopher (from Vermont no less!) John Dewey wrote:

“A moral judgement, however intellectual it may be, must be at least colored with feeling if it is to influence behavior.”

Dewey is saying that the perfect moral theory must be more than technically flawless. It must be emotionally as well as intellectually persuasive. Most of the people can be forced to obey the laws by threatening them with prison. But people cannot be forced to treat each other well. They must also feel that what they are doing is good.

Now, I’ve already said that I believe morality is a social phenomenon. I’ve said that the need for morality only arises when two or more humans interact. I deny that rules of human conduct could exist without humans to write these rules.

But consider that Lions and Thompson’s Gazelles are strictly amoral creatures. The Lion that kills a Gazelle is prevented from starving. The Gazelle that successfully eludes an attacking Lion helps to starve the Lion. If laws are written in nature for humans where are the laws for Lions and Gazelles? I think you might answer that Lions and Gazelles actually do follow the moral laws of nature; the law of kill or be killed. You might say that the Lions mostly kill the old and sick Gazelles and this helps to keep the population strong. But notice that Lions are just as happy to kill a strong newborn Gazelle. If they didn’t eat this baby it could grow to become a strong member of the herd. So, it would be better for all the animals if the Lions would refrain from eating the young and weak Gazelles. If the moral laws for animals are written by nature, then nature has gotten the laws wrong.

Now the same laws - that only the fittest shall survive - apply to men as well as amoral animals. Some men argue that “might makes right.” This is a basic natural law. I can’t argue that it isn’t effective, but is it humane? Can men do better than this? Where in nature might we look for guidance to decide if we should kill a mentally retarded human child rather than waste the food on it that could be used to nourish a healthy child? How would nature answer such a question?

Of course it’s incorrect to think of men as living outside of nature. Men are a part of nature, so if men create moral rules these rules, technically speaking, are from nature. But I understand that Johan and Marshall mean to imply that higher moral rules (higher rules than “the survival of the fittest”) of human conduct somehow exist in the world apart from men. I just can’t understand how this could be true.

Michael

----- Well said Polemarchus. I am not sure that morality can be considered in a context separate from women (or men), but i do feel that it can be considered from more than a purely social context.

----- An excellent point that has been brought up here before. Socrates thought that if men knew to do better, they would, that only knowledge of the correct way was needed. Aristotle distinguished between those who do wrong knowing they do wrong, and those who do wrong not knowing. Obviously the person who does wrong, knowing so is the more guilty.

----- Lions must kill gazelles to survive, man is under no such duress. Even so, when i say that man can get a sense of ethics from nature i definitely am not referring to social darwinism. There have been numerous advances in socio-biology that give me hope. Reciprocal altruism, kinship altruism in the higher social animals and primates. E.G. Wolves will frequently bring meat back to the cave to wolves too sick to be in on the hunt. Chimpanzees “groom” each other to remove parasites; and even between species: there is the example of the alligators that willingly (without biting down) let the birds ( a specific species) clean their teeth. The birds get fat, and the gators don’t have to go to the dentist as often. We owe more to nature for our morality than may at first be expected. I believe Kropotkin may have been one of the first ones here (but i am hardly familiar with his work). I have also read The Expanding Circle: Ethics & Sociobiology by Peter Singer. (albeit an old book, surely there is something more recent someone can show me).

Yes your right, I have a habit of taking what I like from something and leaving out the bad stuff. I believe if we took all the best bits from the world religions, we would have something that is closer to what “God” would want, then what we have in any single religion. It would also make more sense as a truly loving God would want us to work together and not against one another, (i.e. killing in his name to convert the unbelievers). Also in my study of religions over the years, normally fear and reward are at the centre. Except for the eastern thought, which I find more closely relates to nature, then any of the western religions. The idea of Ying and Yang were opposites work against each other to “create” life. Meaning from paradox comes life.

From reading the posts I’m starting to get the impression that Morality needs a God figure, and Fear of that figure to work effectively. As Love is not a motivation that seems to work as well as fear on both kind and “evil” people (“evil” from a moral perspective).

I agree with ‘Marshall McDaniel’ that if people knew why hurting one another was wrong they would stop. But it would have to be because it was a wrong to themselves and not just a wrong to that other person. We are still not in a general population, civil enough to be able to relate to one another out of altruistic kindness. It might also be fair to assume that if we could do this we would all have reached a state of moral enlightenment. Which of course means that no State Laws would be required, and would almost be a lawless society, were everybody knows what they should and shouldn’t do. Yet on examining nature this would seem to go against the natural order, which is the strong survive and the weak perish. This to me means that morality is not something that we can hope to find in nature. Morality has to be of transcendental origin. Good people don’t need good reasons to do good things, but others do.

While I feel this statement is true, I don’t think you can actually have a moral code without some from of reward / fear to drive people into accepting and living such a code. This doesn’t mean in the future it wouldn’t be possible. But humanity at the moment is still, as Rousseau would but it, a “noble savage”. I believe we are currently going through the pains of waking up from our dogmatic slumber. While Kant did this years ago, I think the rest of us, are only beginning to wake up. I believe the gods of religion are going to pass away like Zeus and his brethren, and a new concept of God will come into being. What exactly it will be I don’t know, but it will not be like “religion,” as we currently understand them. (Mmm, this sounds like a madman ranting). But I do think the future of morality if it’s to survive, (hehe) that is if it’s the fittest of ways for people to be governed will need to evolve beyond the old dogmatic gods.

I’d say “yes” to both questions. But like everything spiritual, how do you go about showing a proof or that this new way is better then the current. This is also were I’m going with the above paragraph. I’m reading and still reading Kant, since your first post. I like Kant’s idea that there are experiences beyond our experience, which we can’t relate to, because they don’t stimulate one of the 5 senses we possess. So they can never be known to us. But to me it begs the question: Could we build a machine to interpret these experiences, (assuming something outside are 5 senses existed). Almost like trying to build a new Tower of Babel, if I wanted to express it biblically. But back to your question about “I in the Universe,” I would be very interested in sharing ideas about such a concept.

Pax Vitae.

Hi Marshall,

It’s good to hear that you also enjoy reading Peter Singer. The very mention of his name drives some people into a rage but I often agree with his arguments; sometimes grudgingly, sometimes unreservedly. Singer doesn’t appear to mind his status as a “lightning rod” as long as he can goad folks into re-evaluating (or all too often, into evaluating) their moral beliefs. The people that most scare me are those that either don’t care about their moral beliefs or those that are certain of their moral beliefs. By the way, to those unfamiliar with Singer I’d recommend they begin with his recent anthology, Writings on an Ethical Life.

Socrates supposedly said, “The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.” But a contemporary of Socrates, the Greek dramatist Euripides, complained in his Hippolytus:

”We know the good but we do not practice it.”

Knowing “the good” is not the same as doing good. For example, the knowledge that my car needs some minor repair is more often an irritant than it is a prompt for certain action. David Hume said as much:

“Tis one thing to know virtue, and another to conform the will to it.”

I disagree. Just think of the famous “overloaded lifeboat” thought-experiment. If you prefer an actual example, consider this quote by E.O. Wilson (the guy that coined the term “sociobiology”) from his book, Consilience:

“Between 1950 and 1994 the population of Rwanda, favored by better health care and temporarily improved food supply more than tripled, from 2.5 million to 8.5 million. In 1992 Rwanda had the highest growth rate in the world, an average of 8 children per every woman becoming the most overpopulated country in the world. The teenage soldiers of the Hutu and Tutsi then set out to solve the overpopulation in the most direct possible way.”

The Press reports I’ve seen suggested that ethnic hatred led to this genocide. But Wilson implies that this horror had more to do with Lion versus Gazelle than Hutu versus Tutsi.

Marshall, I’m pleased that you mentioned symbiotic relationships. A surprising number of political situations can be modeled, at least to a first order approximation, by the use of game theory. The prisoner’s dilemma, for example, appears to be a particularly useful model of relationships when costs are involved. It’s true that Chimpanzees groom each other. And it appears that Chimps that return the favor are more likely to be groomed in the future. Primate specialists schooled in game theory recognize this behavior as an example of the classic “tit-for-tat” response pattern. This is not to say that Chimpanzees are not complex creatures. In their book, Demonic Males, Wrangham and Peterson observed:

”Chimpanzee gang assault and murder is marked by a gratuitous cruelty - tearing of pieces of skin, for example, twisting limbs until they break, or drinking a victim’s blood - reminiscent of acts that among humans are regarded as unspeakable crimes during peacetime and atrocities during war.”

Chimps are behaviorally complex enough to exhibit “gratuitous cruelty,” but not quite complex enough to feel remorse for having done so. Chimpanzees are guiltless; moments after participating in a gang murder they return to their “innocent” play. To them it’s all equally innocent behavior. Life would be much simpler if we too could innocently bash a man’s brains from his skull; if we could blithely continue to eat our meal while another of our kind is ripped apart by a predator, or if we could force sex upon a woman without regrets. But we are such complex creatures that we’re able to overcome our natural dispositions. In other words, humans make moral choices. Richard Dawkins wrote:

“Homo sapiens is the only species that can rebel against the otherwise universally selfish Darwinian impulse.”

A moral conscience complicates our lives. We’re weakened by our remorse, saddened when we see harm come to others, and generally confused by questions of how we ought to act. But the “luxury” of having no conscience is only afforded to the simple minded. Should we envy the earthworms their uncomplicated and amoral lives?

Only a sufficiently complex creature could hope to understand its own behavior. But this sufficiently complex creature will have an equally complex behavior. As we become more sophisticated so does our behavior. I wonder if we shall ever be able to catch our tails.

To convince me you only need to produce a single instance of a non-social moral dilemma.
It’s my present belief that a man consigned to exist alone on a planet inhabited by no other life is released (or deprived) entirely from moral issues. Imagine that he’s been stranded on this planet since birth with a machine to synthesize his food from starlight, water, and carbon dioxide (all of which are plentiful). The closest I’ve come in allowing this isolated man a moral character is by thinking of his “self” in the context of the Hume / Parfit / Buddhist “bundle theory.” If a man were actually a bundle of competing interests then the prospect for abuse might arise. A second idea is that the man might change so much in time as to be thought of as successively different persons. If this were true, then to deliberately damage his bodily health (perhaps by smoking or taking drugs) in his youth would be to harm the man he would become in his later life. But both of these ideas require that the man is sophisticated enough to think of himself as a bundle of competing interests, or as a chronological succession of different persons. If he were oblivious to these possibilities then no matter how he/they acted, he/they would remain as morally innocent as Chimpanzees.

You might be wondering why it matters that morality is purely a social phenomenon. Well, if goodness only comes about through our contact with others then we must acknowledge that it’s impossible for a man to be good, honorable, or to have dignity outside of his relationships. A man alone might have a number of other qualities such as intelligence, curiosity, and humor, but the traditional view that goodness is entirely an internal quality appears to be mistaken. We need others and we need to act with benevolence towards others in order to complete our sense of ourselves.

Michael

Hello Pax,

Nice habit!

Pax, is your impression perhaps based on an assumption that men treated each other with more respect in the days when they truly feared the wrath of God? My reading of history leads me inescapably to the opposite conclusion. In the days when men predominately feared God they had an even better reasons to fear other men. The generic prayer in those days must have been:

“Oh Lord, save me from your followers.”

A Chinese proverb says, “No man can have more peace than his neighbor allows.” Leon Trotsky similarly noted, “While you may not be interested in war, war is interested in you.” Both of these quotes hint at the reason we so desperately want men to be moral. Ethical society relieves men from having to live in fear and delivers good men from the threat of punishment. But Pax, you’re proposing that moral men should live in fear of God and his threats. This is entirely contrary to the reason for wanting moral behavior in the first place! Only slaves submit to threats of punishment; noble and free men defy such threats.

History is filled with the sorry details of man’s unquestioned subservience to “higher” authority. The Enlightenment was about our throwing off these chains. What a shame it would be for us to refasten the leg-irons so soon after freeing themselves of them. The British philosopher, A.C. Grayling wrote:

”Humanity’s sense of beauty, and decency, our power to love, our creativity - all the best things about us - belong to us, to human experience in the real world. They neither need, not benefit from, some alleged connection with supernatural agencies of one kind or another. They are ours, just as much as the evil, stupidity, greed and cruelty which they oppose.”

Friendship doesn’t require the threat of divine wrath in order to flourish; love is quite sufficient. But the love I’m speaking of is the ancient Greek notion of agape, a fraternal and altruistic love. I’m saying that we should all become an amicus humani generis; we should all be a friend to the human race.

Pax, it’s good to hear that you’re reading Kant. For a number of years I’ve kept a running journal of my thoughts and my reading. I recovered this lovely, almost poetic quote from Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason, from one of my early journals:

”Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we make ourselves happy, but how we make ourselves worthy of happiness.”

This reminds me of a passage from Anton Checkhov’s play, Three Sisters, where Baron Tuzenbach replies to Vershinin’s utopian dreams:

“Well, maybe we’ll fly in balloons, the cut of jackets will be different, we’ll have discovered a sixth sense, maybe even developed it - I don’t know. But life will be the same - difficult, full of unknowns, and happy.”

Of course we already build all manner of machines to translate information normally unavailable to our senses; radio and x-ray telescopes, gravity wave detectors, etc. But you said interpret an experience. A machine would have to be conscious in order to experience. I think that if our current rate of technological acceleration continues we’ll be capable of creating conscious machines within fifty years.

Hmm…do you remember NASA’s Cosmic Background Explorer Satellite (COBE)? It created a sensation back in the 1990’s when its data helped confirm that all the stuff in the universe was once hotter than our Sun’s central core. The ubiquitous cosmic background microwave radiation it detected is the “smoking gun” that confirms the Big Bang theory. Anyway Pax, your idea of building machines to interpret experiences gave me a pleasant thought. Suppose we could build a conscious space probe and educate it in both physics and the humanities. We’d couple it to various microwave and x-ray detectors. Now, remember, Hal, the rouge computer from the film version of Arthur C. Clark’s 2001, A Space Odyssey? Well, we’d give our probe Hal’s soothing voice, but instead of Hal’s psycho-personality we’d create it to be curious about the world. We’d talk to it as it sailed out into deep space. It wouldn’t just sent telemetry data back to earth, but as you suggested, it would interpret the data though its experience. It would give us answers instead of data. It would not merely sense, but perceive. It would propose new questions on the basis of its experience. It would compose poetry and occasionally we’d hear it singing from the joy of it all. Well, it’s getting late here Pax, but this pipe-dream reminds me of something James Trefil said:

“The goal of humanity is to build machines that will be proud of us.”

Best wishes,
Michael

Polemarchus,

If I understand you right you are saying that moral laws only can be formed by humans. This also means that right and wrong only can be formed by humans. Because morality is about acting right and wrong. If you are acting wrong because of false moral then the moral law is false. But from what I understand from you: A human collective can not act wrong, because there is nothing that judges the human collective (then perhaps a larger human collective?)

How about my example where humans would cut down all trees, or any other attack on the global environment; poisoning land and sea. That’s immoral but it does not require a social complex or more then one person. You might answer that it’s up to him to destroy the earth if he is the only person on it, because it’s only humans that have value.

When it comes to reasons why humans should not kill, harm or in any other way take from others to gain benefits it’s easier to ask the question “why they should”, and from that answer see if it’s rational. What are the benefits, and does the nature justify them? Maybe I should kill all my concurrence, steal all their money and property and take their woman, mate by force to reproduce my genes. After that I use the money I got to start building an army to secure my race. (I create a religion so that they will follow me without any questions). If that’s the true moral of nature I will follow it. I’m thankful that I’ve found an alternative to this. But if human collectives start to build moral upon their own precognition then we are in danger, and we are.

Human collective moral fails. And I will show you why it’s dangerous. I will take a hypothetical example even if there are concrete examples to use:

On a planet there are three countries. Two of those countries have grown their own separate cultures and have made up their own rules from collective agreements. They have two moral system that works well to control the people in each country. At a point the two countries become aware of each other and they came in conflict because their moral system were different. To defend their rights they started war against each other. The two countries both hold strong on their moral, and the most sad thing was that the two countries were both right because they have based their morality on collective agreement. The people in the third country thought that they were the only humans on the planet and that the planet was in the center of the universe. One day they had a visitor from another country and they believed that this person was a god. The visitor took advantage of this and brought over all his people that all were treated like gods. The native humans became their slaves and they worked very hard to please their gods. They also enjoyed this because they believed that they would be rewarded in heaven (so they have been told). Their number one moral law was to always please their gods, everyone agreed about this, and a person that did not agree was a sinner and was punished hard.

1. Can anything show either of the two first countries that the other is wrong?

2. Can you say that the moral laws in the third country were right?

It’s not true that moral laws rightfully can be made up by collective agreement. Moral laws are made up by collective agreements but if they are not based on truth they can not be called rightful.

Yes or no?

If yes: Where should we look for moral laws?

If no: Do you want to live in a world without right and wrong, where you can do anything you want as long as enough people agree with you?

If this is a total missunderstanding please explain:

1. On what ground do we build moral laws?

2. On what ground should we build moral laws?

Johan

Hello Johan,

Let me consider your first example. Suppose I poisoned all the water on a planet. If I was the only life on this planet then it would either be a very stupid act, or else it would be a deliberate act of suicide. But is it immoral to kill myself either by stupidity or by suicide? Is it immoral to accidentally hit your own thumb with a hammer? Is it immoral to commit suicide? I believe a man has the right to his own life. Do you agree?

Now suppose I poison the drinking water in my city. This is a very different situation because I have presumed to make the choice for other people. Even if everyone in my city desperately wanted to die, unless each person in the city can convince me that it is better for him or her to die, then it was immoral for me to kill them. Morality is a social concern. It only arises when living things interact.

Now let me consider your second example. It is not immoral for a woman to hurt her own body by smoking. But if she expects society to treat her smoking related illness then there is a moral dimension to this issue. If this woman is pregnant and she knows that her smoking might hurt her baby then she obviously must make a moral decision. It is clearly a moral decision because more than one person is involved.

Johan, neither of your two examples makes me think that moral decisions exist for less than two living things.

Humans have always been in danger from other humans. There was more inhumanity in the days when humans believed that God wrote the moral codes.

Suppose I’m an Irish monk living in the Middle Ages. Suppose you are a Viking warrior that has just sailed over to Ireland. When you appear in my Abbey with an Irish girl tossed over your shoulder and demanding gold, I bring out the Bible instead. I explain that this book contains God’s commandments that apply to everyone in the world, and these commandments forbid you to act in this way. Now, how do you think this story ends?

Practically speaking, it doesn’t matter if our moral standards were written by God or by humans. The problem is not how to make good men act good, the problem is how to make bad men act good. Laws are not written to protect us from good men. No matter how our moral standards arise some men will always choose to ignore them. A hundred reasons might not suffice a bad man to be good, but no reason at all is sufficient for a good man to be good. Good men need no external reasons to be good. There is no law that makes me treat you with kindness. Kindness comes from inside the heart, not from external threats. Kind and compassionate men free themselves from all moral restraints.

Johan, I should make it clear that I am not a moral relativist. There are standards of behavior, but humans write these standards. If we are to have any standards at all they must be written by humans. Who else could write them?

Regards,
Michael

----- Hello Pax_vitae, Polemarchus, Johan. Polemarchus thank you for your useful riPOSTe. It has stimulated my individual brain.

–
----- Yes. “no is implies an ought.”. I never said i espoused Socrates opinion, i was only reporting it. I agree, it is not good to be absolutely certain of one’s morality.

1. Man does not have to kill the higher animals for his nutritional intake.
2. Man has more options, including (but not limited to) birth control and migration, options that lions can not exercise.
3. Your counter-example contrasts a man-made overpopulation (and thus one that did not have to occur) with my example of natural starvation.
   –
   ----- I submit that situations in which woman must kill to survive are rare. War would be a good example.
   –

–
----- Point taken. Although the bestiality of chimpanzees is extremely cruel at times, man is much crueler, but in a higher, more subtle clever kind of way. Thus we see the average CEO in the USA making $13,000,000 annually while poor africans starve to death on less than $200 during the same time period. In man the capacity for cruelty is simply magnified.

----- Morality is an intensely individual phenomena, although one can view it from a social context. If morality is of no concern for an individual, how can it ever be of concern to society which is comprised of individuals? If i don’t first care about myself, how will i ever begin to care about other people? And conscience, which you rightly seem to value, would be of NO value from a purely collective viewpoint. Show me where morals reside, if not in individuals. When we all share the same stomache and the same brain i might be inclined otherwise.

–
----- I do not hold the traditional view that goodness is an entirely internal quality. As i stated "I am not sure that morality can be considered in a context separate from women (or men), but I do feel that it can be considered from more than a purely social context. Balance is critical. Often, competing theories both have truths. And yes, we need others, and we need to act with benevolence towards others, but this in no way implies that morality is a purely social phenomena. Just because one of the effects is social does’nt mean that the cause is also.

----- Your thesis: A man can’t be good, honorable, or have dignity outside of his relationships. So you are telling me that a man’s relation to himself is of no consequence in his affairs with others. Most psychologists would disagree.

-----If Robinson Crusoe (before he meets Friday) has a value conflict as whether to remain in his hut or gather coconuts, that is morality. If a woman awakens in the morning, and consciously decides that today is worth living, that is morality.

----- I do not think that we would still be human if we were anything less than a “bundle of competing interests”. This gives us life, depth, clarity. Without inner conflict we could not learn, grow, etc. It does’nt matter whether we consciously think of ourselves as having differing interests or no, the fact is that we do. If we did’nt, as Polemarchus put it “[we] would remain as morally innocent as chimpanzees.” In this, i submit that you, yourself, Polemarchus have given us an example of a moral di-lemma that is not purely social.

-----“One must have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star.”
Friedrich Nietzsche.

There are ecological systems in the nature that you are a part of the same as the cells in your body are a part of you. I use to call them “larger cycles”, and the processes in my body I call “smaller cycles”.
The ecological system are in it’s turn under influence of larger cycles in form of universal laws. There is not a god that write them down.

From your point of view there were nothing wrong with Nazigermany’s ideology and behavior because it was a collective where the majority agreed about their new morality. Noting in the nature told them that it was wrong. Only a larger collective could tell them that they were wrong. If they had won the war it would have been a perfect civilization that had started to take place?

You answered a early version of my post before I was ready and I removed #2 (before your answer) because of the same reason as you write in your answer, I’m sorry for this. I will not put up a post again before it is 100% ready. The focus should be on the hypothetical example.

In my opinion there is no other way out of my last post then to agree with one of those two statements:

1. Laws can be found outside human collectives.

2. There is no right and wrong, and I can do whatever I want as long as everyone else agree with me.

Do you have a third alternative?

Mistakes from accidents are not on the same level as mistakes from misunderstandings. But it is wrong to hit yourself on your own thumb, and there are ways to avoid this by practicing and being able to use the hammer better. But I would not use the world immoral, no. The next step is to ask yourself if it’s immoral to be hit by lightning?

Yes I agree but if the person commit suicide for the wrong reason; from a misunderstanding then it also makes the act wrong. And something that is wrong is in my opinion the same as immoral, or else we are just playing with words.

Are you now including something else then humans?

Yes I agree, and I’m not including a God in my model.

Well the Vikings became Christians after a while, but I guess this first encounter ended up a little messy. The alternative was to ask them how many they were and accept their morality if there were enough people in their collective. Polemarchus, is one more person enough to make their morality the right one, or do you have any other rules what makes one collective’s moral wrong and the other right?

I don’t like being practical in a philosophical discussion. Something may feel practical but it does not make it right. To be “good” we must first sort out what good is. “Kindness comes from inside the heart”. The so called heart is not a premiere function; the heart (feelings) indicates that you are doing something meaningful in relation to your surrounding, it does not tell you anything about right and wrong I’m afraid. Many lies have been told with a bleeding heart.

I think you provide a good example of total moral relativism, that’s why I find this discussion interesting. You say that humans write the standards of behavior, and that they become rightful if enough humans stand behind them. If enough people told you that the earth was flat again and that they should avoid to go out on the sea because they can fall over the borders, then you would believe them and act as if it was true? And if everyone claims that the earth is in the center of the universe and the sun rotates around the earth and it was a sin to think differently, and that doing so was punished by death, then you would agree with this morality?

Best regards,

Johan

There have always been “evil” people who didn’t care about religion. I know it would be naive to believe that religion somehow automatically makes for kind and gentle people. Some will never be swayed by the “fear of God.” But there was a surface veneer to the relationships between people back then, at all levels in society, because that is what God demanded. Well I should really say the Catholic Church. But partly because of people’s lack of fear in God, and the fact the Church had so much power, the State developed their own Laws to protect their interests.

We as a civilisation live on two levels (although some only on one): The law of the Land, and the Law of God. How you choose to live is made up by the combination of the two. Nearly all will acknowledge the first, knowing if they break them, they will have to spend time in Jail. While in the case of the second its more about fear of the “Afterlife”. Which from reading another one of your posts is no more then a superstition held in the fear of facing non-existence.

I think your use of the word ‘Truly’ is meant in sarcasm. While back then people might have had the fear of God in them, they still acted the way they wished to a large extent. When talking about a God figure I mean it as a hypothetical statement. The God figure would be undeniable, not of imaginary origin. But even if this deity were true, you would still have to be moral, either because of love or fear of God. Love makes us do selfless acts willingly, fear makes us do almost anything but through coercion.

To me, Morality and its’ original need has been superseded by the State Laws. So the only way we could get the idea of humanity’s fellowship is by displaying to them the bigger picture. Like the way you said the Astronaut looked out the window back at earth and covering it with his thumb. Realising that humanity’s destiny has to be intertwined. While the world seems so big when you’re sitting on it, from space it’s just another speck in the horizon. Maybe if we can see the world like it really is from space, we can hope to educate kindness for the sake of kindness. But when we can’t even get local communities to live to getter in relative peace, I don’t know how long we might have to wait.

Yes, fear if people didn’t want to love him. You can choose to love him or fear him; it doesn’t matter as long as you do what he says. I think this is the Catholic line. I know this is not right, and was making a point about the weakness of humanity. People will always choose to do what they wish. So they need to be convinced that Morality is what they need most in life, not anything else.

Most people can’t be good for the sake of goodness. It’s a human failing, part of our survival instinct. I think the future of morality is limited, and has become a case of what we like and dislike. God no longer has a role to play in how people live their daily lives, as it could be said he has turned his back to us. While groups of people still believe, this number will get smaller and smaller over time. Education will remove superstition and then the need for God altogether. Fundamentalism will be seen for the power struggle it really is. Like a young child crying on the ground we sit, waiting for a loving parent to pick us up and give comfort. But we sit and wait, and wait. Soon we stop crying and dry are eyes, we stand up and walk off to follow wherever our nose leads us.

As for slaves, we’re all slaves to our body; we must eat, drink, and sleep, as it needs. But the body is also a slave to the mind. I (my mind) must be slave to the body for all my life if I wish to experience anything. While the mind might have most of the perceived control, when it really comes down to it, it’s the body that makes it all happen. Without this slavery could I exist? For me to exist it’s the price I must pay.

Like following the Laws of the State and paying my Taxes. All life is a prostitution of ourselves, which enables us to gain benefits in this world. I work because I want to live a comfortable life. I choose work that I find interesting but as undemanding as possible. While I work for about 8 hours a day, so in the other 8 I’ll have the money to pay for my house, car, girlfriend. These are all things I am a slave too, because I want them to enrich my life. Old-fashioned slavery might not exist to most of us in this current time. We are still slaves, we just get a better deal. I can choose who my master is, but I will always need a master. Capitalism works off the basis you can create something for less then you can sell it. This means you only pay workers the least they will accept to gain more profit. But even the master is a slave to his slaves, he needs them to survive. It’s back to the relationship of opposites that create and sustain life. We have freedom like the deterministic’s would say we have freewill. We just think we do.

How I would love to live in a world like this. But I must say, I don’t see it happening anytime soon (maybe I should also drop my use of the word ‘soon’). My childish optimism has long since passed me by. I agree with Jesus, that if we want to live in a Kingdom of God we need to be innocent like children, but not childish in an immature way. Idealistic because we know no other way of living. This is why the religious love polluting the minds of the young with their beliefs, to gain control over there minds. They become the new pawns in the game of life, to die as martyrs for the cause. Knowing no better they sacrifice their lives because of sins of the sinners. Just look at Palestine, this is the lowest form of struggle. The armchair generals send their suicide children to kill other children. All because they worshiped the God of national hate. Being Irish, I’ve had to watch my own countrymen do the same thing to the English for years. But at least for Ireland this might be drawing to a close soon.

It’s a good quote. But even those who live a moral life don’t get their reward, unless all are moral. While Morality makes us worthy of Happiness, reality will always make us miserable.

We still are an unenlightened people, yet we call our individualistic selfishness enlightenment. Some day I hope enough people will become philosophers and realise that to have a good country and then a good world, we need to have morally good leaders. It’s the people at the top that set the example for the rest. When we elect scoundrels we should not be surprised to live in a country full of corruption, even the ordinary people will start to say, “Well if he’s doing it, and he’s the one making the laws, then I might as well get in on the action.”

The world needs lots of good-hearted cynical people.

Was he talking about the children of the future???

Pax Vitae

Hi Marshall,

Wow, the objections made by you, Johan, Pax, and Skeptic are all excellent. I really couldn’t ask for better replies.

I agree that we’re capable of far more sophisticated cruelty than the other animals. But I wonder if it isn’t because men have one foot in each of two worlds? We’ve one foot planted firmly in the world of the apes while our other foot is gingerly testing more civilized grounds. The discoveries of our higher intellect are freely available to the ape. No thinking person would hand a loaded automatic pistol to a Chimpanzee, but how could a similar catastrophe be avoided in a species that is simultaneously technologist and ape? How do we keep rocket launchers out of the hands of apes when the technologists are themselves apes?

Technology is a tool that allows us to amplify and concentrate our means. Suppose there is a supremely evil Slug living in my garden. But even if this Slug embarks hell-bent on a destructive rampage, what is the worst it can do? Now think of an Islamic terrorist on a rampage in New York City riding a camel and brandishing a scimitar. He might be able to kill a few people before he is pulled from his camel. But put him at the controls of a Boeing 737 aircraft and he now has an amplified means to deliver his terror. Technology allows us to amplify our means for whatever ends we choose. We can make cancer treatments or we can make nuclear weapons. The great shame is that man stumbled upon advanced technology before he’d been able to throw-off his primitive moral roots.

Every analogy has limits to its applicability. Your three points correctly indicate the useful limits of my Lion-Gazelle analogy. The intent of my analogy was to stress that men compete for resources.

This reminds me of a comment Francis Crick made about the human brain. If a single neuron is incapable of thought how could a collection of similarly unthinking neurons be capable of thought? The answer has to do with the way unthinking neurons are organized in a complex relationship with other unthinking neurons.

Morality, like consciousness itself, is an intangible phenomenon. As such, it does not reside anywhere other than as a relationship. Consciousness arises within a complex relationship among neurons. Morality arises with the complex relationship between discrete “selves.” Morality is a concept; it’s an invention of our mind. Despite his best intentions, a man can’t be good to a stone. For the relationship of goodness to exist at least two “selves” are required.

Living things don’t automatically ask themselves how they ought to interact with other living things, this concept is in no way innate to life. Man appears to be unique on this planet in agonizing over how he ought to behave towards other living things. My quote about gratuitous Chimpanzee violence was intended to suggest that these socially complex creatures exist without a well-developed sense of morality.

Well, many folks would argue that caring too much about myself actually inhibits my caring about other people. This reminds me of the story of the Zulu King Shaka (1785-1828). He’d have his own people strangled if they laughed or coughed in his presence. When his mother died, his personal grief was such that he had up to 7,000 of his subjects slaughtered. Shaka had a very high opinion of himself and his feelings, but he had quite a low opinion of the feelings of others.

But to return to the Primates for a moment, remember that both Chimpanzees and Bonobos have passed the mirror-identification test that’s supposed to indicate (at least to us) some measure of self-awareness. Chimpanzees seem to care very much about themselves. The males routinely fight to the death in their effort to attain an Alpha social status. So, here’s an example of a creature with both self-awareness and self-importance, yet ruefully lacking in moral character.

Now having said as much, you might now be surprised to read that I actually agree with your above assertion. I believe that the extension of the value one gives to ones own life is a necessary, though not a sufficient, requirement for the recognition that the lives of others are similarly valuable. I (obviously) don’t think this belief is incongruous with my assertion that morality is fundamentally a social relationship. Chimps and immoral humans alike can highly value their own lives without placing an equal valuation on the life of others. Morality exists as a relationship. Between humans, at least, it requires a trust that the goodwill I extend might be reciprocated.

Suppose we lived in a social system not unlike that of black-widow spiders. Imagine that (other than for the purpose for mating, and even here the consequences for males are rather bleak) whenever two people encountered each other the certain result would be a fight to the death. If everyone is assured that everyone else only means them harm, how could we speak of morality? How could I begin to cultivate the concept of altruism towards other men if I knew that the slightest display of weakness on my part would result in my instant death? My heart might be bursting with the wish that I somehow be able to express my love for others, but still I’d know that if I ever did; Whack! All men’s actions would be the same. No matter what thoughts were taking place in our own minds, we’d still try to kill each other the moment we set eyes on each other. If everyone fought to the death the moment they met how could an inherently good man ever be differentiated from an inherently evil man? Mahatma Gandhi said:

“It’s impossible to shake hands with a clenched fist.”

Indeed, it’s impossible to shake hands if the fist of either man is clenched.

Here we clearly disagree. I believe both examples exhibit the choices people make about their own lives. We decide moment by moment if our life is worth living. I can imagine pilots trapped in the wreckage of their burning aircraft begging to be killed. People suffering with incurable disease similarly ask for help to die. Peter Singer makes some persuasive arguments in this direction. All a man owns in this world is his character plus a bag of bones. Marcus Aurelius noted that Epicurus was fond of saying:

“Thou art a little soul bearing about a corpse”

This is the extent of our dominion. Marcus Aurelius thought as much, even as the Emperor of Rome.

Again Marshall, I’ve particularly enjoyed this exchange of ideas. I wish learning were always this much fun.

Michael

Hej Johan,

You spoke earlier about collective moral agreements. I should have objected then to this suggestion, but I’m afraid that it slipped my mind. I do not believe that morality should be decided democratically. A million people can behave just as badly as can one person. In fact, one of my complaints about people is that they too often just imitate the society around them, instead of thinking through the moral issue for themselves. The cognitive neuroscientist, Steven Pinker, says that people tend to calibrate their moral compass to reflect the values they find around them. So, if all your neighbors are Fascists you probably will be a Fascist as well. If most of your neighbors have slaves then you are more apt to own slaves yourself. Again, I think we should all try to decide for ourselves how best to behave. I know that I’m not immune to social pressures, but still, I try to think for myself.

For example, no law prevents me from killing animals. People don’t care if I kill animals. But I decided that since I can live without killing animals then I will live without killing animals. But if I were on an airplane that crashed into a mountain in Argentina I would not hesitate to eat the bodies of my dead friends in order to stay alive. I’d probably be the first one in line with my plate and fork. Still, there is no reward for making my life more difficult by not eating meat. In fact, most people probably think I’m crazy for being a vegetarian.

The second part of your above quote is true. Nature did not tell the Nazi’s they were wrong. If everyone on earth died tomorrow morning from the collision of a huge asteroid, the universe would not take the slightest notice. The universe does not care if the atoms in my body form a human or a little cloud of smoke. You asked (humorously) in your last post if it would be immoral if I were hit by lightning. The thing that makes it funny is that we all know that lightning does not care if it hits me or if it hits a pile of rocks. It just doesn’t matter to the world if I live or die. There is no morality at all for rocks because no one cares about rocks. Rocks don’t even care about rocks. But people care about me, and I care about me. So this is where morality comes from; it comes from humans.

Yes, I think so. I wrote it in an earlier post. I said,

“A moral solution requires both of us relinquish some of our personal freedom so that we may both share an equal measure of personal freedom. We make a personal compromise for the good of all persons involved.”

Man is a social being. We seek the company of others and we suffer when we are isolated. We define ourselves, in part, through our relationships. Since we all evolved together out of the very same pond scum, it follows that our brains all function very much the same. So, if moral codes are written anywhere, they are written in the way that our brain functions. When men from across the world think about the same problems they most often find the same solutions.

My hobby is to solve mathematical problems that appeared in Japanese temples some hundreds of years ago.

www2.gol.com/users/coynerhm/0598rothman.html

I sometimes think about a certain geometry problem for weeks until the answer comes to me. When I look at the answer given in the back of my book, I usually discover that the method I used to solve the problem was nearly the same as was used by an ancient Japanese farmer or merchant. So, I have a good reason to think that if men all over the world think of the same moral problem they also might arrive at nearly the same solutions. The most important thing is that men try to find these answers.

Sorry Johan, I’ve got to run now.

See ya,
Michael

Polemarchus stated:

You obviously live in the suburbs Michael. This is just not the universal perspective. I’m not knocking the suburbs or any other of the peaceful places to live but you just have to remember that it is not universal. (I am a suburbanite myself)

1. Derivation of Morality?

I must agree with Polemarchus on the derivation of morality but I think that laws of nature played a part in the derivation of humans and the molding by which we are shaped. Human interaction is necessary for the term morality to be used as inanimate objects are not concerned with consequence. So I would suggest that you guys drop the derivation discussion as both of your thoughts concur and ultimately bring about the same concept, moral objectivism.

2. Moral Objectivism

The problem of moral objectivism is that it cannot be revealed except through percieved consequence. Kant would argue against this, but no matter it is true. So if we are to evaluate actions and consequences, we must evaluate by some universal principle. What do all forms of life strive for? Individual freedom and happiness. Right? So we must evaluate an action to either be righteous or unrighteous by this value. Don’t worry, I am not a Utilitarian, but I do take a Teleological perspective.

So now that we can add value to an action, what of actions that bring about individual freedom and happiness for myself but bring about enslavement and sorrow for a fellow being? Well, obviously it is deemed unrighteous. Well, is there any way to bring about these positives without subjecting another to the negatives? I don’t see why not. Theoretically, we could all live in peace, harmony, and love without adherence to selfish activity.

3. Law and Enforcement

Before I continue with this, I would just like to make the distinction between morality and law. Humans have developed laws throughout the ages based on subjective moral beliefs. Much of it has developed with and stemmed from religion. All of it, however, is based upon fear of consequence, as Pax suggested. The problem with this is that people associate their actions with the lawfully intended consequences rather than the actual consequences. This also leads to the reasoning of many that if I can get away with it, then there are no consequences.

This is why I say that law is a “fix”, not a solution. Not only is it a poor fix but law as it is subjective per the law makers, often excludes the much of the population.

4. Ignorance and Enlightment

This is why I liked Pax’s reference to Socrates, “To hurt another is to hurt ourselves.” People will do something b/c you tell them to but they won’t take it seriously unless they know “why”. This is where law fails and education succeeds! The “why” is the most important concept of morality. Like Polemarchus said, we may find out one day that benevolence was not necessary, but until then we should “act as if we loved.” That’s great and all but it does not work. People want to know why they should love each other. The people that act on this concept of love these days end up getting screwed over by the guy who realizes that it is easier to just steal. Integrity does not pay when you are in a “dog eat dog” world.

So it will continue to be the ignorant “do-gooders”(givers) vs. the ignorant “evil-doers”(takers) and the takers will win almost every time. This leaves even those of us whom are enlightened to choose sides. Although we know that what goes around comes around, we must play the same game that everyone else plays in order to get by. We end up paying the price, though. We have to live in a society where we are in constant fear of terrorists, criminal mischief, financial instability, governmental collapse, and just having to see the sorrow in a young person’s eyes when they come to the realization that world is not what they thought it was.

The answer is in education. Sure, the population knows the rules but they won’t play the game until they know the why’s.

Polemarchus stated:

You must be crazy! How could you go through Thanksgiving without the Turkey?!? I have to admit that pumpkin pie and sweet potatoe soufle deserve a mention as well but from a utilitarian perspective kill the animals and bring on the feast!

–
----- Excellent post skeptic. The “why” and Education are always important. However i agree with Polemarchus on the vegetarian thing, i am moving in that direction myself.

Great Post Polemarchus!

----- Surprisingly i agree with much that you said. I am extremely intrigued by your notion of Morality as a formal aspect of relationships, rather than an efficient aspect of individuals. These two are not necessarily incompatible. Please help me to better understand this.

----- Values about a person’s own life are not part of morality? How serendipitous! I just read something similiar to this last night in a Nietzschean critique. READING NIETZSCHE Edited by Robert C. Solomon & Kathleen M. Higgins. THE ESSAY ON page 29 BY FRITHJOF BERGMANN. He cites the Balinese Culture, where most transgressions are simply considered “stupidities”. The idea of Freedom, and guilt as we know it is simply absent in these cultures.

----- This then, begs the question, where is the division line between values and morality? Morality implies free-will, perhaps this it. Perhaps morality only begins with choice. Maybe values are simply subordinate goals to those of Morality. Perhaps there are many more things under the heading amoral, non-moral than i have previously construed. Where is this no-man’s land of morality? Where the intrepid explorer who will map it’s boundaries? Am i (as Pax_Vitae states) rendering too much unto Caesar? These are questions of much personal import.

---- Thank you for quoting Ghandi, he is one of my personal heros.

----- Thanks for the excellent post Pax_Vitae!

–
----- When you say that morality has become a case of our likes and dislikes it reminds me of emotivism or the boo-hooray theory. I disagree with emotivism. As a secular person, i continually look for ways to love without invoking God. Your allusion to “[us] waiting for a loving parent to pick us up” is reminiscent of Freud’s notion of God, that later in life we substantiate a God for our lost parents.

---- I think if more of us were “Citizens of the World” as one greek put it, the world would be a better place. There can be no place for hate and intolerance in the future World that i envision.

----- “May our differences unite to become greater than the sum of our parts.” Sarak on Star Trek.

Hi Marshall,

I enjoy reading Robert Solomon as well. I thought his, The Passions was especially good.

Indeed, in his book Elbow Room, the American philosopher Daniel Dennett wrote:

“As the philosophers’ saying goes, ‘ought’ implies ‘can’.”

At this moment in some remote galaxy, an advanced form of life is likely suffering wrongfully at the hands of others. But even if I knew the details of this interstellar injustice it still wouldn’t make me morally culpable. I am not responsible for events beyond my control. But back here on earth the argument that we’re unable to help is usually a cover for the fact that we’re actually unwilling to help. “I’d love to help you, but my hands are tied,” should normally be translated as, “I’d love to help you, but only if it would cost me nearly nothing to do so.”

It’s here Marshall: Which is more valuable; that I use this computer to debate theoretical Ethics or that I sell this computer and use the money to save the life of a single child in a third world country? Is there anything I could say in this forum that would have more value than a human life? In this respect, how am I different than Socrates, who sat on his arse discussing the essence of Justice while his wine cup was kept full by a slave? “Hypocrisy,” noted La Rochefoucauld, “is the homage vice pays to virtue.” We moralists are hypocrites by avocation, the only difference is that the best of us know of it before others have to remind us of it.

The Bible passage in Mark 10:21 tells Christians outright how they might follow Jesus’ teaching:

"Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, one thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.

This clearly implies that we should be able to recognize Christians on the street by their ragged clothes. So, where are they? Why do well-dressed Christians drive to their worship services in expensive cars? Why do they worship Christ and their God, his father, in vastly opulent churches and cathedrals?

Marshall, it’s good to hear that you’re leaning towards vegetarianism. However, I should warn you to be sure you’re not wearing leather shoes when you announce that you don’t eat animals for ethical reasons; else the carnivores will trip over themselves to point out your hypocrisy. There is no man so good that his actions could be entirely above reproach. But if trying to do even a little good in this world only makes us hypocrites, shouldn’t we all just admit that men are pigs and be done with it? But another path would be to understand that we don’t live in a binary world of black and white choices and perfect moral theories. In this tangled mess of confusion and uncertainty men are bad or good only in relation to other men.

The slave owner that tries to understand justice is, after all, trying to be a better man than the slave owner that doesn’t care about justice. Similarly, I’d allow that a Christian giving 5% of his income to the poor, as opposed to 100%, could still think of himself as a Christian. The vegetarian wearing leather shoes lives closer to his beliefs than a beefsteak-eating, leather shoe-wearing vegetarian. I’ve seen bumper stickers on SUV’s bearing Ghandi’s message that we should, “Live simply, so that other’s may simply live.” As much as a bumper sticker seems to make a mockery of his words, who am I to complain of their hypocrisy? I’m a hypocrite as well. The Roman poet, Ovid, might have been referring to me when he wrote:

“Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor.”
“I see what is best and approve of it, but I continue doing what is worst.”

I’ve wondered at times how I ever could laugh when there’s so much suffering in the world? How could I ever enjoy a meal when I know that before I’ve finished with my desert a dozen children will die from hunger? At the end of the film, Schindler’s List, Schindler berated himself for not having saved even more Jews. He was gently reminded to look instead at the faces of those he had saved. I must remind myself likewise that if we should wait to laugh until the day there is no more suffering, then there will be no laughter at all. To think myself a good man I don’t have to live in barrel, as Diogenes is said to have done. I have no more ability to save every starving child on this planet than I have the ability to save that hypothetical man living in another galaxy. But it’s wrong to confuse the fact that I can’t save every child with the fact that I might save some child. “Ought” does imply “can,” but the fact that we can’t do everything does not imply that we ought to do nothing. The smallest of good acts that we do are worth more than the greatest of good acts that we leave undone.

Yes, as discrete ideas they’re good, but my attempts to construct a complete theory around them have thus far led to inconsistencies. When you push them a bit harder they invariably converge into a form of Contractualism similar to that proposed by David Gauthier or John Rawls (for which excellent counter-arguments already exist). But I’m not surprised when the extension of promising ideas lead to so little. The invention of a complete and consistent moral theory would be a huge accomplishment! But I wonder if the fact that man’s attempts to invent such a theory have so far clearly failed isn’t telling us something important? Perhaps the hope for a complete and consistent moral theory should go the way of our hopes for a perpetual motion machine?

What interests me more these days is to explain how men should act given that a complete and consistent theory remains as far out of reach today as it was two thousand years ago. This reminds me of the joke about two men stranded on an island. One of them suddenly and excitedly explains that he has thought of a way to refuel their Jet-Skis on what would be a very long ride back to civilization. The other man looks at him blankly and says that the idea is indeed wonderful, or at least it would be if only they had Jet-Skis. Men simply don’t possess the “Holy Grail” of moral theories; what we do have is a pressing need to decide how to act at this very moment. Instead of an exclusive search for certainty, I wonder if we should instead be thinking about how we might continue to live with uncertainty.

Michael

–
----- Excellent! I believe that anyone who improves his life based on ideals and principles must at one time or another be a hypocrite. If i am twixt the self of yesterday and my ideal self, i am already guilty. I am a hypocrite too, like that dude from the Bible (Paul?), “That which i would do, i do not; And that which i would do not. i do” or something like that. I just don’t understand those who have no interest in changing for the better. I think it important to be trying. (My wife tells me that i am a very trying person.)

----- I will be a vegetarian by the end of the year for at least three reasons.
1.) Eating vegetables is healthier.
2.) I don’t create pain and suffering for animals. Chickens will no longer have their beaks snipped off for me. (something akin to ripping out all my fingernails at once).
3.) I will no longer consume inordinate amounts of grain and water that starving people in other countries need.

---- My primary reasons are to allevate hunger in humans, and pain in animals. If i bought my leather shoes before i became a vegetarian, i will gain nothing by throwing them away. I do not force these beliefs on others, nor do i go to extreme lengths like killing animal trainers.

I have’nt actually read Solomon, the book i was reading was merely edited by him.

---- Yes it is important not to exclude the middle. Morality is not just black and white.

----- I appreciate your post of the japanese puzzles from Scientific American. Mathematics can be very entertaining. I have several Martin gardner books as well as others, and i used to solve puzzles like Rubik’s cube.

What’s your take on like a virtue ethic theory like that advocated by Aristotle. Where the individual tries to develop virtuous qualities like justice, fairness, love, compassion.

----- After reading Nietzsche, Krishnamurti, and others i distrust most systems of morality. Systems are for people too lazy to think for themselves.

----- I trust and hope that i have not meandered too far from the original intent of this thread, whatever it was about.

Sorry Polemarchus for being such a pain about the ground in this discussion. It’s been a while.

How can it be possible that a million people can act wrong?

Is it not true that humans through science gather new information about nature’s laws and adjust their behavior thereafter? You must see what I mean by objective laws?

Johan