Case study in ethics

I use the word in the sense of “regard for one’s own interests”.

I think the first step to evaluating the morality of a situation is to drop yourself out of it. IOW, what is the evaluation if I am not involved? That produces a ‘more’ objective evaluation. It’s a detached view with fewer personal biases.

The second step is to put yourself back in and decide what you are going to do.

The first step evaluated moral right and wrong. The second step evaluates a practical right and wrong personal response.

The separation seems fairly natural. I don’t think there is morality in the absence of other people. Alone on a deserted island, there is no moral right and wrong. There is, however, prudent action - actions which help your survival or hinder it, improve your quality of life or reduce it.

One can say that brushing your teeth is prudent both on a deserted island and within society - for your own personal health. If we consider it as part of morality, then people can say that you are being immoral if you don’t brush your teeth. Does it seem reasonable to make it a moral issue? I don’t think so.

I see there the rise of the “nanny state” where your personal choices become matters of political policy.

I use the term “prudence” in the sense of “being in balance.” It connotes “the middle way” or “The Golden Mean.” It means, to me, neither over-doing nor under-doing. It further means neither overvaluing nor undervaluing; neither being obsessed [or infatuated] nor missing opportunity; avoiding rigidity and dogmatism.

Also, in the Unified Theory of Ethics “morality” is a personal trait.

Phyllo: When is the last time you were on a desert island? People here on this Forum bring up such exceptional cases! True, every exception tests a rule; but let’s be practical and relevant to daily life. Where I live, I have neighbors, and a wife; so I have people around me. I find myself with others in the elevator of my condo, of which I am the President of the Condo Association. Sooner or later I bump into other people. …but this is not about me. It’s about building a superior Ethical Theory.

Just as “value” in general involves a correspondence between two sets,
“moral value” does also. Morality and moral value mean the same. The two sets for morality are the set of one’s behaviors and the set of one’s evolving ideals. To me, morality means “walking the walk, not just talking the talk.” It means avoiding hypocrisy and corruption; it means authenticity: being real (rather than a pretender or a phony.)

If you ruin your health, or by a lack of due caution injure yourself, you are less strong, and thus less in a position to be of help to another individual. I would NOT label this “immoral.” Instead I would say (in the role of a coach): Ask yourself: How is this working for you? Is it getting you to your goals? …If it isn’t, isn’t it time for a change? Get back into balance! Be true to your own true self.
Recall what Shakespeare had one of his characters speak, in 1570, “To thine own self be true, and it follows as Night the Day, thou canst then not be false to any man!”
BTW, which item did you read? Why not go on to the next?

And Karpel: Yes, I do like people to agree with me. Don’t you?
If your criticism is constructive, I very much welcome it, and want to learn from it. But if it is of a destructive sort – who needs it?!
In working to build a superior theory of Ethics I of course seek cooperation on this project. Hence I want critics to have a cooperative attitude. If they merely find fault or put me down, with derision, I would then prefer the company of others. Isn’t that normal?
When you bring up decentralization I agree with it; when you bring up waging violent war I disagree, but do it civilly. We can disagree agreeably. Ethics allows for that. It is a mistake to conclude that I always demand total agreement. No, what I seek is consensus. Let’s find common ground. Let’s “Build not burn.”

Okay. I stated briefly what I meant when using the word.

We disagree on what morality is.

That’s pretty limiting, isn’t it?

Well, that’s what it means to you. I think that a serial killer is authentic when he is killing … but a society can’t function with that much authenticity. People have to make concessions. In exchange, society offers some goodies.

Realistically, one has to be fake for everyone’s sake.

Of course. But I was not criticizing you for wanting agreement…I said…

Let’s look at this paragraph again…

I have said earlier that I do not like to read longer documents online and you will notice that longer documents, written elsewhere, is the rare exception here. People use this as a discussion forum. so ‘as you could have easily learned’ since I wrote it in one of your threads, this is not something I will be doing, and this not doing on my part fits with the culture of discussion you have joined. There is nothing wrong with asking people to read your essays, but when you act as if I have shortcomings because I have not, it is not on good grounds.

Note the assumption in this. The assumption is that if I do not agree with you then I do not care. Or, I am not trying for win/win situations. You do realize that what you did in this sentence is to frame it as ‘agree with me or you do not care’ or that I am unethical or both… Whereas it is clear, I think, that my disagreements with you are based on caring for people. Perhaps you are right about how we must act and think, perhaps you are wrong, but here you are presuming that if I disagree with you and your system it shows a lack of care. You seem to think all situations allow for win/win. That does not fit my experience. I see, however, that criticism can be win win.

That is the kind of thing I was reacting to when I said ‘Of course you think it leads to good things if I agree with you.’ I was not saying it was strange that you liked having people agree.

Which of my criticisms was destructive?

I have been pointing out what I think are problematic aspects of your system. If you can show me and yourself how these aspects are not problematic, that would be constructive, yes? If your can’t, then you have learned something important, yes?

It seems like you want people to just agree. That’s human. Me too. But when people don’t agree with me, I do not criticize them for being destructive. I see it as an opportunity to see if what I am saying makes sense to me, to them, in general. It can be very frustrating. Sometimes I think the other people are being willfully stubborn, sometimes I think they are being dumb. And they, me.

But you seem to be upset that people are being critical, which is not the same as destructive.

Fine, but part of philosophy is in fact seeking counterexamples and seeing if something actually holds up. I do not think you countered the arguments Phyllo and I made about the morality of violence. It seems to me you changed your wordings, contradicted yourself, restated your opinion without argument and sometimes simply moved past objections. We all do these sorts of things and not necessarily with intention, but it will lead to continued criticism. It seems like you think I am not being a good student when I do not read your papers, which in fact is an expectation only on your part for how people should behave in an online discussion forum. I pointed out above how some of your statements come off and morally judgmental and not on good grouns.

Here, instead of seeing the value of criticism, my posts get categorized as burning and destructive.

And once I noticed that you judged criticism, per se, yes, I had some derision, and yes, I concluded that you did not want to deal with rational, not insulting criticism of your ideas, but just wanted agreement. And honestly, I don’t know how else to interpret it.

I am not sure you are aware of the ways in which you come off as morally superior and having the answers. I do see that you take great pains to ask for more information. I do see that you thank people for feedback. But there are other comments, such as the ones I mention in this post above, where there is implicit judgements and derision of others. Further in your defense of non-violence you often based your arguments on the idea that people could have, if they were smarter or more skilled, have prevented any possible need for war. To me this seems unfair. It uses the benefit of hindsight and a kind of ‘if people had agreed with me we would never get into situations with people like Hitler’ which seems to lack humility. Phyllo and I, it seems to me, do not think we have some perfect cure. We are looking at a world where most people will not listen to us and in that world there are sometimes, horrible forces.

When you respond to our perhaps correct, perhaps not arguments, it is as if you could have eliminated all threats. If people listened to you there would be no Hitlers in charge of war machines. If people listened to you they would know how to negotiate instead of make war.

Well, if people ALL listened to me and Phyllo, I am quite sure there would not be any need for war either. But this is not going to be the situation.

So it comes off as, again, superior. People failed to deal correctly, as you would have it seems, with Hitler, so passifist responses would have worked, it’s just that people made mistakes. Mistakes are coming towards us from the future and they have been made already.

If you presented your position as ‘I believe in non’violence and I realize this may or may not lead to less pain, suffering and death, but I believe it is the most moral choice.’ Well, I might disgree, but you are not claiming to know it is going to work.

But if you go over your posts in response to us, it seems like you have the deontological AND the consequentionalist postions. No, no, it could not possibly have reduced the amount of suffering and deaths that the US entered the war.

I am afraid that that kind of hubris is going to bring out pretty strong criticism. I am not sure it reduced the suffering, but I think it did.

On some level I am reacting to what seems like a holier than thou attitude. I understand that it seems like people just jump on your ideas and that certainly does happen. But from my position I experience it as reacting to a moral position that is claiming it knows things it cannot know and judges people when they, even as victims, respond in perfectly natural ways to violence. Because it does not work out in ways it would be hard for them to predict.

And if I respond to what you write here - as opposed to your essays - you tell me that in the essays you say X. But that begs the question of why here you said what you said. If you say that ethics is suspended when you are attacked violently, then here you would not see someone as acting immorally but not judge them. You would not see them as acting immorally.

The way you have responded here to counterexamples and objections has at times come off evasive.

Instead of ‘if you read my essay’ you could respond ‘I see how that sentence gives the impression you are reacting to, here is what I believe…’

Morality is always relative and can’t be anything else. We could say that morality is the consensus of popular opinion.

Run from a bear and you’re guaranteed to die. Stand and fight and you might live.

It makes you suspect this run rin tin tun is waiting on the edge with an army of people that cant fight to invasion the world here but needs to convince a us first that we can’t fight them.

Running will never win you a fight and also not get a woman pregnant.

Heres a question for the OP thinkdr so I might understand his plans a bit better.

Can u show a set of real life success booked by running away that in your vision enhanced human society.

Here, for your consideration, is my latest essay. It does not advocate running away. Check it out though anyway. It is on Moral Philosophy:

myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/The%20 … ncepts.pdf

After you have carefully read it let us know whether you think it makes a worthwhile contribution to the literature on ethical theory and practice. Okay?

.

Ahahaha
Running away are you?
A braver dude would just say “no sorry I have zip”

Don’t believe that I “have zip.”

Please tell us what grave danger you faced this past year, barbarianhorde, how you stood up to it and faced it down? Was it a wild bear?

myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/HOW%20 … SFULLY.pdf

Behavioral ethics is based upon Neurology, Cognitive Theory, and Evolutionary Biology. It has applications in Economics, the Legal System, Education, and the business world.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behaviora … _Economics
Also see: ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/subj … ral-ethics
The Unified Theory of Ethics, presented in part in that document linked to above, will absorb into itself, into its grand synthesis, the findings of Behavioral Ethics. This project has already begun.

Comments? Questions? Upgrades?

And standing tall and looking ready to fight is the best strategy at certain distances. You might not even have to fight. And you’re right of course that the last thing you want to do is trigger predator chase instincts. A lot of big predators are not used to us as food but when we run, it screams ’ catch me, kill me, eat me.’ The last two not necessarily in that order.

heh heh
Some more truth over here.

Good day on the site.

I see that behavior all the time with cats: if one cat is irrationally scared of another and runs, it will cause the other cat to chase it because they are hardwired to pursue anything that runs, so the act of running reinforces the fear that wasn’t even justified in the first place since it elicits a reaction that wouldn’t have occurred if not for the running.

About 5 years ago I was supposed to be camping with my buddy, but he didn’t show, so I was on a mountain all by myself for the weekend. I did a lot of riding around on the atv and consequently saw a lot of bears. I’d blast around a curve just in time to catch a bear nose-diving off a cliff like superman and that routine was quite entertaining for while, but eventually I become bored and decided I’d see how far up the mountain I could get. Finally I was pinned between some rocks where my efforts to escape using the winch killed the battery which stranded me on top of a mountain in bear territory with no gun or any sort of weapon and facing a 2-hour walk back to camp to retrieve a new battery.

So I’m walking along reviewing the data I gathered during my day of riding about how the bears would jump off a cliff when presented with something that they didn’t understand at speed sufficient to surprise the bear, so I picked up a rock and a stick and my plan was that if I saw a bear, I’d immediately charge at it as fast as I could, like a wild idiot, while throwing the rock and waving the stick. Hopefully the bear would run before it thought, because if I gave it time to think, it would inevitably realize it is bigger than I am. Luckily I didn’t have to implement the plan and probably the bears saw me before I saw them and they decided to stay away from the strange looking creature stomping along the trail. They watched me all night at camp though, but I had a 12ga and wasn’t worried.

Anyway, running away is the worst thing you can do. The best thing you can do is scare the animal before it has time to consider the situation. It often works with people too because I’ve found that pushing my nose against someone else’s nose followed by asking what they intend to do about it usually results in them turning around and walking off never to be a problem again, even if they are bigger. Paralleling the principle of not-running, if you ever find your arm in an animal’s mouth, don’t pull, but push further in and it will weaken their bite; they will let go like a gag reflex of something. Teeth and claws are angled back such that it’s impossible to get away by pulling unless flesh is torn off.

If you find yourself in a situation where you’re the prey, like a city street or prison, don’t make eye contact with anyone! Mind your own business lest you reveal your weakness and become a certain target. If you do make eye contact, you must then attack or run to a safety. Running is almost never the answer and only is a viable solution if sound shelter can be reached in sufficient time.

I think there is a kind of opposite of follow through. If you are going to run away from a fight, as a rule, or curl up, or let yourself get hit, othis is felt by human predators and bullies. The decision or inevitable tendency to act like prey in these situations attracts bullies, who are often scared, below the surface, and can smell a safe target.

Greetings Serendipper

Thank you for telling us about your experiences five years ago with undomesticated bears on that mountain. It was interesting to hear about it.

This is ethics? :question: :question: :exclamation:

Recall that the theme of this thread is “a case study in ethics.”
What you are saying here sounds like a good way to lose friends or at least to lose potential acquaintances.

There is something to this counsel. When I was about 12, a member of a clique who hung out on the steps of a building across the street from my residence, came up to me and suddenly started shadow boxing in my face. I had recently studied Judo from a booklet on that subject. I made a lunge toward his throat, tripped him, he fell backwards onto the street. I hovered over him (looking macho) for another 30 seconds waiving my flat hands as I had seen martial arts fighters do.

Then, when a pack of his buddies got up to investigate why he was lying there flat on the street, I turned and ran toward my doorway, up the long flight of stairs to my apartment.

None of that gang of boys ever bothered me again. …They never spoke to me again either; however my conscience has been bothering me for the rest of my natural life, as I wonder if I was responsible for giving that rather nice boy a brain concussion. The odds are I did not, but I can’t help wondering.

So was it worth it??

Perhaps you taught “that rather nice boy” a valuable life lesson which discouraged him from doing ‘unpleasant’ things to other people.

He didn’t bother you again, which is one positive result. There may well have been other positive results.

You don’t know how it affected him … how it changed his life.

Did you try to speak to them? Usually after a confrontation, there is a respect which makes dialog easier than before. Ironically, it’s an opportunity for friendships to develop.

That isn’t how to deal with friends; that is how to deal with threatening situations per your “the best strategy is to run” theory. If it’s a change of topic, then you did it :wink:

If the boys left you alone, I suppose it was worth it.

Most people don’t want to hit first, but you must…unless you’re a pro fighter and just want to play, but if you want to survive, then you only fight fair as a last resort:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyOqBhc4r8c[/youtube]

The philosophy I’m trying to convey is to attack rather than run:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OKiaM7J7N8[/youtube]

The technique is isn’t the art itself,
01:02
you know, like the technique is maybe 75%,
01:05
you know, maybe even less, maybe the
01:08
technique is 10% and the spirit
01:10
is 90%! That’s what they mean by certain
01:13
martial artists have the type of
01:14
mentality that if they’re in front
01:17
of 1,000 people, they will fight
01:19
those 1000 people and if they knew that
01:21
they could never win, then they would
01:22
attack.

I knew I could never win against a bear, so my only hope would have been to attack and maybe I could bluff the bear before it had time to consider the situation. Not attacking and just standing there would give the bear time to think. Running would cause the bear to chase me whether it intended to or not. So, the only way out is forward.

This reminds me of the old sermons I’d hear about the Armor of God that only protected your front, so the message was to face your enemy.

11 Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;
15 And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;
16 Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:

Your back side has no armor.

I was doing a roofing job for a customer when his neighbor came over complaining about all the plastic wrappers blowing around. He kept on and on until he called me down off the roof like a big tough guy, so I marched right up in his face and pushed my nose against his, then said “Now what are you going to do?” He didn’t say anything, but turned and went home.

Another time I made a left turn out of a parking lot and accidentally cut someone off because I didn’t see him. The guy was all kinds of pissed off, so he tailed me. I tried to outrun him, but couldn’t lose him. My friend was riding with me and he said “turn here!” So I did and it was a dead end! Oops lol! Well, I drove to the end, circled around, jumped out and was ready before the guy could stop his car. I ran up to his window ready to fight and asked “Now what are you going to do?” He said “I’m going to drive to the police station and report you!” I started laughing and told him to knock himself out.

Most people just want to intimidate and I call their bluff that they’re willing to cross a line. If they really wanted to fight, then they would be fighting rather than running their mouth. Of course, I try to be cool so as to not give people a reason to want to fight and I suppose that’s where the ethics comes in, but I prefer to call it integrity.

Good point!

This reaction is interesting and it is more common than I used to realize.
Instead of saying I think your ethics or your choices are actually not ethics, you class the other person’s idea of what is good as not being ethics at all.

A more charitable read is that you and the other person disagree about the good. That you have an ethical disagreement.

Often conservatives saying the liberals have no morals or ethics, rather than saying that they think the liberals ethics are wrong for consequentialist or deontological grounds.

A few of us have been arguing that when confronted by violence or threats of violence it is good, at least in many cases, to respond with counterthreats - via posture, for example - refusals to bow down to the violence or threats and even to respond with violence.

This is part of an ethics that differs from yours. I have seen good arguments made on consequenatialist grounds. The effects of defending oneself, standing up for oneself are very complicated. Just as the consequences of running away. There are immediate consequences and there are long term consequences both for society and for the individual. If it becomes a rule that all good people are to run away, this will have long term consequences that are very hard to track. Likewise any other rule. Most of us, even those who argue that standing up and even responding to violence with violence, are good choices in some situations will also run. I mean, someone starts shooting at me and I am unarmed, which I always am, I will run or dive to the ground, etc. Having violence and threat as part of my repetoire also leads to consquences that are hard to track. We should all be humble in relaion to KNOWING FOR SURE what the consequences are of these choices. However I think quite strong arguments can be made for disagreeing with you on consequentialist grounds. Empathetic people are much more likely to listen to your rule and bullies will not. They will get to take up even more space in society if no one fights back.

There are also character and deontological based arguments in favor of not running away as a rule. That this leads to all sorts of side effects on one’s character. That one has become less than one can be. No lion or even its prey will do this. Zebras break the jaws of lions on occasion and fight damn hard to live.

Why should empathetic humans make themselves into small entities for those who lack empathy or who can only feel good by making someone else feel bad?

Why is it necessarily ethical to give them even more room for their sadism and bullying?

You may disagree, you may still think that your ethics is better. But you have no ground to judge our positions as NOT ethics. You just don’t like it.