It could be, sure. It’s not necessarily immoral.
Dear friends and neighbors,
Be very careful when reading an OP whose first steps are to quote from Wikipedia, and then to follow it with the words, “This is all very straightforward”. There’s only two possibilities at such a point: (1) either that statement is true, and thus everything that follows is dull and not needed to be written; or else the person making the statement is full of shit, possibly because of Wikipedia.
Wikipedia has made everyone here dumber—in direct proportion to the amount you read and use it. In English when we’re talking about prudence, we’re really talking about the Greek ‘phronesis’—the virtue of practical thought. (‘Prudence’ is just how we translate ‘phronesis’). Prudence doesn’t make virtue possible—it just is a virtue, an intellectual one, among others (art and science).
For those who think there is an essential distinction between morality and prudence… I’ve challenged them to explain that distinction, just as I’ve explained how it arose, and why it is a false and bad distinction. No one has even tried. They cling to a distinction that confuses them about what exactly morality is, and why you should even be moral. They’re lobotomizing themselves.
The best you get is a supposed example, like: “Yo, giving away all of your money is moral, but not prudent”. (As if giving away all of your money to some worthy cause only to make yourself a worthy cause was moral. Or that if the cause really was deserving, then fighting for it would not be prudent—as if it’s not prudent to fight for worthy causes).
They have stupefied themselves with a false distinction. —A distinction without a difference. Well, we have a new OP with a similar example…
Yes, limiting your generosity is probably worthwhile sometimes. Why are we supposed to think that limiting your generosity is not also required by virtue or morality?? It’s an excess, which tilts the Golden Mean and becomes a vice. (And why does that question not strike anon as obvious enough that he would need to answer it in the OP?)
It’s about time that someone admitted that I’m right. It’s just a matter now of getting the person who wrote this to agree with what he said.
In any case, I saw no distinction in the entire OP. A simple definition of each term, and an example of how they are separate would have sufficed…
FOR THOSE interested in the longer case, read this: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=180441#p2349405
This is agreed to and codified by society? Is it also clearly specified what constitutes ‘rich’ and what constitutes a legitimate ‘benefit’?
As far as I know, most human societies don’t consider stealing to be moral. (When it’s ‘moral stealing’ it’s called taxation.)
This is a bad example, but even if it was a better example, it would at best show that prudence and morality are different ways of talking about the same thing. In other words, it’s not an example of an act that is moral but not prudent (or vice versa).
Frankly, I would say this is imprudent for the same reason it is immoral. It’s not imprudent because others might find out about it—it’s imprudent because of what they’ll think if they do. And what they’ll think if they do find out about it is the same reason it is immoral. That’s my suspicion.
This is an example that does not work. Why are you assuming it is immoral to marry the girl to secure your family? Why are you assuming marrying someone is immoral if the reasons why you’re marrying are different from your partner’s? This doesn’t even work at an intuitive level, particularly if he treats her like a princess and she is delighted by it.
There’s a general trend in what’s wrong with these examples… they never really attempt or want to say precisely why something is or isn’t “moral”. —I know why that is…
Mo, thanks for admitting I was right.
Right about what?
von Rivers, I misread your post. I went to your link and just quickly looked through it, you seem to be the first person I’ve ever met who believes in moral objectivity and is willing to go to great lengths to defend that view. I think sometime I’ll read through that thread and then see what I have to say.
Whether or not it is agreed to by everyone else is irrelevant. By “rich”, I took you to mean having excess. What constitutes a legitimate benefit is—you guessed it—prudence.
Again, irrelevant.
The difference between morality and prudence?
First, let’s consider the evaluation of an action in a legal context:
There is a a set of laws covering correct legal action. If you act within the law, then you cannot be legally punished. However, there may be circumstances in which breaking a law is considered justified by reasonable people. For example, driving the wrong way on a one-way street in order to take someone to the hospital in an emergency. The prudent action is illegal but judged to be correct by reasonable people.
Similarly, morality is a code of conduct which spells out correct behavior. It cannot cover every possible situation, so again prudent action is judged to be right even when it goes against the established code.
It should be noted that prudence and legal laws and moral codes will usually be in agreement since the laws and codes are derived from what was in the past considered prudent.
One can conclude that prudence is synonymous with ‘natural’ law or ‘natural’ morality. And what is considered ‘natural’ is decided by wise and virtuous men and women.
The problem with prudence is that imprudent people don’t have it. Aristotle mentions this:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phronesis
So a young person is at least amoral and possibly immoral until he gains sufficient prudence. Clearly it is useful to codify morality and use it.
Prudence = the application of practical wisdom to particular situations
Morality = the general principles for action in all situations
That will be a subjective judgement made by people.
Again, prudence is a judgement.
I don’t understand why you try to remove people out of everything.
Either ‘what is moral’ is established by God - which you don’t believe. Even in this case, people decide who is a true prophet of God and who is not.
Or it is discovered by people (like universal gravitation) - in which case people write it down in a book and pass it on.
Or it is fabricated by people for what they believe is a practical purpose - in which case they write it down in a book and pass it on.
On none of these cases is ‘moral’ floating around without context or reference to people. People are the judges of what is moral.
Cool. I am a river to my people.
…what? How am I trying to remove people out of everything? Morality is about how people should act. Yes, people make judgments. And?
What I’m trying to tell you is that the number of people who disagree with my position is not an argument against it. That’s an argumentum ad populum.
I didn’t say anything about the ‘number of people’. I said wise and virtuous people decide. Presumably they guide the direction that societies take and therefore most societies consider stealing to be immoral.
Are you suggesting that there is some other process for adopting moral codes?
No, I’m suggesting that wise and virtuous people can be mistaken and what most societies consider isn’t an argument against my position.
If wise and virtuous people are wrong and dumb people are wrong then how can you know what is moral? There is no longer any reference point to use for calibrating moral action.
Prudence, silly.
Then you are deciding what is right.
But how do you know that you are not wrong? After all, you just said that the wise and virtuous may also be wrong and they also used prudence.
I don’t but my position is that I’m not wrong. Can you prove I am?
Only one way that I can see. Compare your evaluation of the situation to the evaluation done by wise and virtuous people. If they disagree with you then you are probably wrong.
That method assumes totally subjective criteria, whereas mine doesn’t. We’ve been over this.