morality

No your guess is that I am good. You are wrong. Who is a truly good man? I think you need to answer that one.

Your argument is not good. QED you are not completely good.
There are murderers, rapists and embezzlers.
Are these all men “good”.

I 'cheat" because I show you that you are wrong. And you are wrong because I am bad; “not good”. Thus all men are not good.
QED you are wrong by your own words.

The world will only be free once all of morality, law, authority, and government is eradicated.

When all gods and idols are dethroned. When all of religion is destroyed.

Things are considered good or bad to subjective individuals. Even then judgements can change over time, so there is no stable good or bad. To project those categories onto others is useless, except maybe as part of our own understanding of the world (“I think that action, thing, or person is bad, so I want to avoid them” (or some other action/relation, eg. eradicate)). But not as part of a scheme of objective understanding (but subjective understanding).

I understand what you’re saying here, but I don’t agree — not because I think those things are necessary, but because it is human nature that even if you got rid of all those things there would be people striving with all their might to force themselves upon you, try to control or enslave you. Consider that at one point in early human history there was no government or law, these things developed naturally due to human nature (ie. conquerors).

Besides that, natural circumstances (environment, the physical makeup of the human body, capactiy, etc.) will also limit our freedom in a certain way.

This is why I recommend practical virtues, not as any kind of moral obligation, but like useful tools that if understood can be practiced to effect. I am thinking of things like courage, foresight, endurance, prudence, cautiousness. Combine this with knowledge of nature (physis) and current convention — and it will help you navigate the world.

There you go again. Why are you equating what people consider to be good or bad with what is actually good or bad for them?

A child might consider poisons or plastic explosives as “good clean fun”. Does that mean that his subjective opinion concerning good or bad is truth?

Well the child might consider the explosives good until they get hurt, in which case they will think it is bad. Also if the child is told what could happen (ie. learn about physis — the natural consequences of explosives) they may change their opinion about their relationship to explosives.

A child might also think explosives are good clean fun, never get injured from using them, or get in trouble, live out their lives in that way.

People might be wrong about what they believe is good for them, but still there is no moral obligation for the child not to play with explosives if they so desire it. The thread is about morality, so it is that issue I’m addressing.

To say people don’t necessarily know what is good for bad for them is true, but it is a different fact, and it is part of nature, part of physis.

What you are implying is prudence, foresight, and a knowledge of physis.

Humans before they understood explosives also were unaware of their consequences, but it was not “morally wrong” for them to experiment with them and find their use, even if it did them harm… they may have lacked the knowledge and foresight to use them well, but that is another matter.

Aren’t we trying to talk about what might actually BE moral rather than what someone might think is moral at any one time?

It doesn’t matter if the child survives the risks he is taking when it comes to whether the decision was good for him. In fact, when a creature has a positive experience due to the 1:20 off chance of favoring him actually occurring, the fact that he didn’t suffer plays against his ability to learn to not take such risks (gamblers syndrome). Thus the apparent good of not being hurt often is worse for him than if he had been hurt. It can and often does yield a false sense of security and freedom that lures him to his death.

We are talking about what might be moral, but morality is an obligation, we are not talking about what might or might not be good for you as an individual, or as a people. There is still no moral obligation for a person not to gamble and lose everything, or a person to engage in risky behavior… There are people who go sky diving and risk their lives, or who engage in dangerous sports, or who wrestle dangerous animals. Are those people morally wrong? I would say no, they might be foolish, but they are not morally wrong, or immoral, to do what they are doing.

After writing that post, I actually did think of something that might fit the criteria of being morally wrong.

If an individual knows the consequences of an action to cause suffering or death but does not inform those who they know are likely or about to engage in those actions, there is complicity in the consequences. It is true that the consequences, suffering and death (which you, James, mentioned before) are considered wrong based on prejudice, but if we can consider that the suffering would be of a certain kind (intense physical suffering from loss of limb, for example) that either everyone would be against, or else at least the subject who would engage in the behaviour which would result in such a consequence, is averse to, there is a sense of responsibility on the person who knows the consequence that the other might not be aware of…

That knowing subject might say they thought the other should know the consequence, which may release them from their obligation, but particularly if that knowing subject also knows that the acting subject would result in a harm that that subject would be averse to and knows not of, there is what can be called a moral lack.

But, I still think to enforce any moral obligations would necessitate conventional agreement and enforcement. It does not need to arise as a natural moral category within the individual (in this case the “knowing subject”)— something implanted by nature.

The problem that I find with this line of reasoning though, is once you begin to say things like, any action on the part of an individual to cause known suffering on another is morally wrong, the lines begin to become really fuzzy as the reasoning is taken to an extreme. Which is still why I say it is safer to say there is no morality in nature, morality is part of convention. That doesn’t mean we wouldn’t like, or think good, these conventions, but it is still a created category and not something that exists objectively in nature.

Because the purpose of an ethical system is to define what is needed for “the good life”. And though a community of moral conventions may be considered good to many, certain conventions may impinge on what is considered the good life to certain individuals. It is for that reason why I think there is no true overbranching objectively based morality — ie. no one size fits all morality that could define what is a good life for every individual on earth. The creation of the good life must come from the actions of each individual on their own behalf, and even then it is uncertain — this is again why I ultimately reject an objective moral category.

Then we need to get back to what defines a “moral”. If it is not good for you or other people, then by what means is it a moral?

Good point, really it is the intention of the platonic dialogues, which is no mean thing.

Before we go there, let me return back a couple of posts and see if I haven’t missed something myself first.

If we were to agree that a moral is what is right an wrong, are we calling something right depending on the benefit it gives us, and wrong depending on the harm it does us? Or is what is right and wrong defined by some other quality?

And if that is so, does an action merit the label “right” dependent on actual harm done or potential harm?

Also, if we come to the conclusion of what right and wrong are, and then label a given act, instance, attribute, or what have you, as wrong, does the fact that such an act (let us say) is wrong merit further consequences besides the natural effect of the action, be that effect a response from a person, a community, an animal, or some natural or manufactured form?

Then you will not be free to leave your house for fear of violence.

No Lev you cheat in the sense of making all sorts of hollow claims about having read stuff you haven’t read.
Remember Tolstoy? And then Camus? And now Nietzsche.

You have proven perfectly incapable of producing or recognizing any thought related to any of these writers.

He does not know what explosives are. As soon as he finds out he will not explode them in his face. The child- argument has always been used by political and religious tyrants.

“A man can not know what is good for him. Look at a child”.

next:

“So I will tell him what is good for him… because I do know.”

???

Who falls for this crap?

Okay…

This line of questioning is going to take six hundred years before it arrives at the point where morality is understood as a judgment.

OF COURSE morality applies TO someone.

Argh.

Man is not inherently good or bad. If there is a dark side within us, there is also a light side within us.
But in a sense I would say that evolution created us with much potential, for both good and bad. Perhaps the good pawns the bad but as you say, the dark side must be seen - and also the light side must be known.

What they have trouble with most and yet what they need most is the ability to see and know that distinction. :wink:

I’ll be the guy initiating a lot of the violence.

Death to all governments and religions! :stuck_out_tongue:

OOOOh I’m so scared!

I’ll give you five minutes survival time.

Stop avoiding the issue.

It’s a cheap trick that no one is falling for.
You said all men are good.
That is not only absurd but palpably stupid, as you prove yourself wrong at every stage.
As for reading books. I can’t know if you have read any books and it would be a damn fool for you or anyone else to think they know who has and how has not read particular books.
All I can say is that you simply enough do not understand The Birth of Tragedy. So much is obvious. Whether you have read it or not I cannot say. The same goes for your misreading (or not reading) of Tolstoy and Camus.

As for Nietzsche I’ll repeat myself, until you address the issue…

[i]
It’s amazing how a frusty old German obscurantist, can be so liberally employed as a place-marker to pretend knowledge whilst denigrating those that are genuinely and honestly puzzled by how open to a range of diverse views is any tract by Nietzsche.

The birth of Tragedy is possibly N’s most clear and thoughtful piece of writing, and as a one time student of Classical civilisation I know it pretty well. Image my incredulity when I see it bandied about as some form of explanation for a dialogue for which it has no place!
But even Nietzsche heavily attacked its naiveté, in the 1886 edition, and then later thought otherwise. Even N was confused about it!

Whilst I understand you can pretend the follow a Dionysian pathway in the place of poor reasoning, it does not, at the same time provide and adequate excuse for it. Sadly you must choose. If you want to present a coherent argument; then REASON! If you would rather sing poetry whilst drinking vast quantities of wine, then do that. But pretending one as an excuse for the other is not viable.[/i]