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.
I don’t think harm need be committed. I think if you have sex with a six-year-old and it’s loving and mutually satisfactory, it’s still immoral, and I think you do too, no? Because we probably agree that sexual activity is something that requires informed consent, and should ideally involve an attitude of mutual respect, and that’s not there with children and animals - regardless of the consequences.
Prudence, on the other hand, insofar as it is about foresight, is consequential. The negative consequences of having mutually pleasurable sex with a sheep is that people will find out about it. I don’t know many moralists, even hard-line consequentialists, that hold that things are only immoral if there’s a risk you’ll get caught.
What about just you? If you judge the benefit to you outweighs the cost to the bride? You could fake it well, and have considerably more pleasure in your life.
That’s a long argument, with quite the pedigree. 
I’m talking about selfishness here, not prudence. It’s not selfish for me to brush my teeth and floss every night because it doesn’t inconvenience anyone. It’s selfish to use up their toothpaste and floss.
Let’s assume for a moment that “prudence” and “morality” are interchangeable terms, as you propose. The reason you give that it’s immoral to screw a sheep because if other people were to find out they’d think it immoral… for the reason that it’s immoral… which is because if other people were to find out they’d think it immoral. So people think acts are immoral because other people would think they’re immoral because other people would think they’re immoral… That’s pretty circular. So why is it immoral?
I’m not assuming anything, I’m offering the suggestion that it might be considered one way or another. The point implied being that many people find the respect towards others of not using them as means to an end generally outweighs the hedonic calculus.
There’s a reason why fucking a sheep is immoral, if it is immoral. That’s for you to come up with, not me: it’s your example, afterall. That reason why it is immoral is going to be the same reason why it is imprudent. That’s my suspicion. And the reason for why something is immoral isn’t just that other people think it is immoral—as if they had no other reason for thinking so, other than what other people think. I’m not sure why you think there’s any regress at all.
If you want to separate prudence and morality, then come up with an example that does so. But after you make an example that I show to be a bad one, don’t immediately say, “well, I don’t really know if X was immoral, afterall”----because your example was supposed to be of something THAT IS MORAL but not prudent (or vice versa). —That’s how you’d separate them.
And btw, it should strike you as odd if what you are doing is trying to define one of the most famous moral theories (Consequentialism) as prudence. And as for Kantianism, which holds that you are fundamentally a rational being, there’s no doubt that acting according to the Categorical Imperative is what is prudentially good for a being whose fundamental nature is rational—since acting according to the CI just is how you exhibit your rationality.
In a nutshell: I’ve got no doubt that people tend to think there’s a difference between prudence and morality. What I doubt is that they have coherent conceptions of both that actually do differ, in any essential way.
I am a river to my people.