Morals

[bergenski]

What is the nature of your moral and ethical system? Do you consider yourself ethical? Are you sure that you would act in an ethical manner if it were put into a test?

I was thinking about this because someone was telling me he was administering the MCATs and a person offered him 300 dollars to give him some answers. The guy declined, not because he wouldn't do it but he was afraid someone would find out and he would lose his job...even though it was just him and the guy. Corruption is part and parcel of American history and is still profound in a lot of nations. Do you think you would be a part of this?

[Zephyrus055]

What is the nature of your moral and ethical system? Do you consider yourself ethical? Are you sure that you would act in an ethical manner if it were put into a test?

I was thinking about this because someone was telling me he was administering the MCATs and a person offered him 300 dollars to give him some answers. The guy declined, not because he wouldn't do it but he was afraid someone would find out and he would lose his job...even though it was just him and the guy. Corruption is part and parcel of American history and is still profound in a lot of nations. Do you think you would be a part of this?
Morals are pragmatic directives from authority or codified expressions of our cooperation-facilitative feelings, and they are designed for social control and regulation and adapted to general situations.

I don't consider myself ethical because I don't follow social controls and regulations except when it is necessary to pacify others. I'm an egoist, and if I have to be strategic and ruthless then so be it.

[SolitaryWalker]

Morals are pragmatic directives from authority or codified expressions of our cooperation-facilitative feelings, and they are designed for social control and regulation and adapted to general situations.

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Ok, what if the directives said 'rape, steal, destroy..etc'..do you really think that most people would follow them? Instead, wouldnt they rise up to overthrow whoever prescribes such behavior and come up with their own code of ethic which resembles something more humane?

And moreover, is morality really all about bringing about order to society?

Is a man who gives to the poor while noone is watching (and never tells anyone about his kind deed) to be preferred to the man who gives to the poor solely for the sake of being rewarded by society?

Perhaps there is an intrinsic essence that we all have which is the real measurement for how moral we are, and the external standards have nothing to do with this. Because external standards can only make assessments based on actions and not the state of your inner being?

[Anonymous]

What is the nature of your moral and ethical system? Do you consider yourself ethical? Are you sure that you would act in an ethical manner if it were put into a test?

I was thinking about this because someone was telling me he was administering the MCATs and a person offered him 300 dollars to give him some answers. The guy declined, not because he wouldn't do it but he was afraid someone would find out and he would lose his job...even though it was just him and the guy. Corruption is part and parcel of American history and is still profound in a lot of nations. Do you think you would be a part of this?

Mmm, that's a tough one. I do consider myself ethical. I haven't fallen into the trap of losing sight of all ethics simply because I realized that a lot of the popular ethics which exist are ridiculous. So by the standards of western society, I might be considered highly amoral, but not by my own standards.

It'd take to long to list all of my ethics, but here's what really gets to me:

-An innocent person being accused of something that they never did, such as someone being framed.

-Physical suffering caused by another person, such as torture.

-People thinking that they deserve certain things without earning them, such as money, medical care, food, clothes, etc.

-Arrogance.

-People who think that their accomplishments and/or social status entitles them to better treatment.

-People who blindly follow the group, such as those who live their lives by whatever the media says.

[Zephyrus055]

Ok, what if the directives said 'rape, steal, destroy..etc'..do you really think that most people would follow them? Instead, wouldnt they rise up to overthrow whoever prescribes such behavior and come up with their own code of ethic which resembles something more humane?
Several experiments have demonstrated how obedient people are to the directives of authority figures and tradition even when we would consider them immoral, practical examples include the atrocities committed by Nazi personnel and the honor killings that occur in some cultures.


And moreover, is morality really all about bringing about order to society?
Well social control and regulation can be extended beyond just order, it could include civic duties etc - your behavior is controlled, directed.


Is a man who gives to the poor while noone is watching (and never tells anyone about his kind deed) to be preferred to the man who gives to the poor solely for the sake of being rewarded by society?
I don't think so.


Perhaps there is an intrinsic essence that we all have which is the real measurement for how moral we are, and the external standards have nothing to do with this. Because external standards can only make assessments based on actions and not the state of your inner being?
I don't think so. But I think that the social controls we are exposed to from birth affect our behavior and psychology significantly. Received teachings of how we ought to act create a neural network that reinforce them, and as a consequence incline us to act, think and feel in intended ways. For example, a woman raised in a religious family may feel psychological discomfort engaging pre-marital sex, while on the other hand a woman born in to a family with sexually liberal opinions may not.

I think this intrinsic essence you speak of does not exist. What you argue as being an intrinsic essence I counter-argue as being a received structure that has embedded itself in one's neural network to affect the person in such a way as to operate in the moral tradition they were raised in. The moral intuition a person feels I think is a moral conclusion from unconscious comparisons to fragments of that person's experience in moral teaching.

However, I think human behavior is regards to morality can also be decided in another way. I think humans are pre-disposed to cooperate with people they are closely attached to, and can recognize their non-verbal messages and feel compelled to help when signalled to do so. Moreover, I think humans are also predisposed to help people distant from them in attachment if that help is uncostly to provide - a person pays 2 bucks to a beggar randomly spotted in a city. I think there are natural feelings that affect behavior under such circumstances, but they are natural inclinations that boost our species' chances of survival and do not suggest an intrinsically existing list of oughts intuitively accessed from our minds.

[SolitaryWalker]

Yes, I've heard about the Ash Mindless conformity experiment. Most people just obey what they are told, whether be it President George W. or the Nazis.

My argument is that those do not get credit for being virtuous. The virtuous are those who do good irrespectively of what the external standards hold in store for them. Those who do good when the external standards press for evil behavior are a good example of this.

What about Ghandi or Jesus who insisted on kindness and honesty, yet if they listened to their external directives they'd promote cruelty and phoniness.

My basic question again is, should those people who went out of their way to break the external directives for what they believed would benefit most people be deemed meritorious? I.E, Ghandi thought that most people would be happier being free (while most people disagreed because they followed external directives, much like many Russians today believe that Stalin was their saving grace and want someone like hime back), and then the test of time shows that people really are happier with their prescriptions being carried out.

Suppose you're right, that there is no apriori intrinsic essence and whatever essence there could be it is shaped by external directives. What if the external directives shaped you an essence where you're justified causing others pain? You may be able to be at peace with yourself because your inner being approves of this, but, what if everyone in your community thought the same way? Could anything that resembles a Utopia come out of this?

In short, I will agree that the inner essence is externally shaped, but perhaps it should be the duty of morality to shape the essence that leads to a Utopia like environment?

Obviously minor things like pre-marital sex should hold little value, yet there should be some basic axioms that make it possible for society where people can peacefully co-exist with one another. And then have the liberty to pursue whatever they deem could make them happy. There is no apriori morality, yet we should create the kind of morality that is most likely to move the human race forward.

Your last line strikes me as plausible. Whatever innate behavioral tendencies we may have are not part and parcel of a large, in-built system of morals, but rather are just manifestations of our survival oriented instincts. I.E we are unconsciously driven to assist people to whom we are emotionally attached, the closer the attachment, the more likely we are to provide help for them unconditionally. And the next step forward would be us accepting their system of values.

My claim in response to this one is that we should take it a step further. After we have learned to reason clearly, we should engineer a system of personal and societal ethics that will be the most conducive to first and foremost your individual growth and secondly the growth of the human race in general.

There is nothing lofty about such an idea, but I see no reason why this should not be desired. A well-reasoning person(like most INTPs) would wish to become as competent as possible and for this he needs to create a code of personal ethic, but in order to work on his personal ethic, he may first need to work alongside the members of his society in order to create an environment where he would have the liberty to pursue personal growth.

As for your first clause that if there were directives like kill,rape, steal..etc..most people would ineed obey, you're right about that. But I think some would notice into how much of a hell such rules turn the world to and would be then be driven to change to have those directives changed to something more congenial. Hence, those few men would have better awareness of human nature and know better what we need in order to be happy. This is the kind of a system of morality that we need to invent, one that better suits all of our needs. The closer a system gets us to having everyone happy, the more congenial it is.

To paraphrase Bentham, the one fundamental axiom to all morality should be producing the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people. Whatever other accomplishments an ethical system would have would doubtlessly be worthless without just this one.

[Zephyrus055]

I can't say that I think anyone is virtuous for being altruistic, nor do I place a high value on them. However, I do value people who are cooperative - open, receptive to revising conventional structures to best meet the needs of everyone involved, and being reliable with their promises etc.

I am open to the idea of moral-like social controls and regulations being developed for humans in groups to live by in order to maximize their betterment, especially when it maximizes both personal and group growth. In fact, I do this with my friends and people I depend on. We want to get along, accomplish our goals and yet maintain personal autonomy too, so we create rules and expectations that lead to that end.

While I can agree to moral-like social controls and regulations for the purpose of maximizing personal and group growth, I don't like extending the group to include all of humanity. I can take that to my nation, but not to the world. I think that to extend our cooperation to everyone would cause us to find ourselves in a situation where we are competing for resources in the future. Depending on the circumstances, competitive or cooperative strategies serve the most utility value. To use just close cooperation in relation to other humans, by extending our group to all of humanity, would be a strategic disaster. I think there is a good reason for being selective with those we choose to cooperate with.

[SolitaryWalker]

Ok, so basically you're advocating communitarianism. Only strive to make an ethic that will leave you the happiest and your community.

But again, would it not be rather arbitrary on your part to elect certain individuals as members of your community and others as outsiders?

Ideally, it would be preferrable that we make the whole world a better place, and not just a few selected communities. Yet, as you've insinuated, we should stick to the latter only if it is not possible to make the whole world a better place, as again, you suggest that attempting to do so may actually send it into a decline and the best we can do is just ameliorating the communities that we've selected..

It should be clarified, however, that our selection of communities shouldnt be based on our fancies, likings or dislikings, or in short on whim, but it should be based on communities that have the most potential to be improved without themselves incurring more negative consequences or more negative consequences being imposed on the rest of the world..

[Birdsnest]

Ok, no, I would not give the answers unless it was someone at the top and they have need to know. It could be the administrator hiring someone to ask, to find out if you were dishonest. So, no way. I suspect some managers set people up and test them to find out if their employees would fall for this bribe. I wouldn't find it hard to say, "I'm sorry, I can't do that".

Morals:
Basically just "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you", and "Thou shalt not judge", and "Ask and ye shall receive". Even though I'm not 'religious' per se, I think those are sound rules to live by and they give you and others personal freedom.

Also, 'Follow your dream" and try to work WITH the forces of the universe not against them. ie, it is more advanced to try to work with nature, than to conquer it.

[Ferrus]

Morality, by my reckoning should be fixed to what is best for society. Societal utilitarianism... the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Not because there is any substantial moral purpose of offering happiness to others but simply because we may as well do it as a biological imperative. Sure, you may say there are certain things that are 'self-evidently' immoral. I would contend that such transcendental thinking - for are you not affirming a moral right regardless of circumstances - exists objectively and outside reality? Such a moral system can only be vouchsafed externally, by 'God' if you wish. But given our distinct inability to prove anything beyond that which we experentially encounter, I must remain a strong agnostic on all knowledge not pertaining to the 'inside' of the universe, strong insofar as for all I know the Olympian gods may exist, my inability to know them makes them irrelevant.