Are morals universal?: Philosophy Forums

Forums Articles Gallery Links

Register Login Members Calendar New Posts Search Chat Help

Philosophy Forums » Ethics » Are morals universal? » Are morals universal?

Are morals universal?
Are my morals your morals? Should I force my morals on you?

Print

Print

Page: First 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Are morals universal?

Wolfman
Tenured Poster

Usergroup: Sponsors
Joined: Mar 05, 2007
Location: Oakland, CA

Total Topics: 15
Total Posts: 1138

Posted 11/05/09 - 02:01 PM:	#141
Odin, You saying that white lies are permissible in the legal sense is irrelevant and does not address the gist of my argument. You are claiming that ALL kinds of lying is immoral. You maintain this on the grounds that lying undermines our obligations. You, however, have yet to demonstrate that certain types of white lies do in fact undermine our obligations. Thus I have no reason to afford your argument credence. You are asserting a positive normative claim. The burden rests on you to demonstrate the truth of that claim. Odin wrote: As for my ad hominem, if a monkey hit random keys on a computer, and the computer turned what it wrote into words that were somehow understandable together, I wouldn't need to read it to say we probably don't have to take what the monkey wrote to be very serious. The same thing applies to many people - but in this case I probably agree that we should take some time to dispell Rawls' claims since they've been fairly influential in modern society as I understand it. Rawls was an intelligent philosopher, whether you agree with his views or not. Your analogy between Rawls and a monkey randomly hitting keys on a keyboard is ridiculous. It is flawed because Rawls did not concoct that argument merely by accident. If you want to be afforded even an ounce of credibility, I suggest refraining from these kinds of analogies. They are extremely disingenuous and in poor taste. The second part of your quote hardly serves as a disclaimer.
"That which is done out of love is always beyond good and evil" - Nietzsche "Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim." - Aristotle "It is better to do one's own duty, however defective it may be, than to follow the duty of another, however well one may perform it. He who does his duty as his own nature reveals it, never sins." - Lao Tzu "Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play." - Kant

Odin
Graduate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Sep 09, 2009

Total Topics: 4
Total Posts: 214

Posted 11/05/09 - 03:51 PM:	#142
Wolfman wrote: Odin, You saying that white lies are permissible in the legal sense is irrelevant and does not address the gist of my argument. You are claiming that ALL kinds of lying is immoral. You maintain this on the grounds that lying undermines our obligations. You, however, have yet to demonstrate that certain types of white lies do in fact undermine our obligations. Thus I have no reason to afford your argument credence. You are asserting a positive normative claim. The burden rests on you to demonstrate the truth of that claim. It isn't irrelevant because the point of saying so was to show how you used two separate definitions of 'permissible' in making your point. I have demonstrated in post #136 why white lies are immoral. If you disagree with what I said in that post tell me why. As it turns out this argument is irrelevant as to whether my claims are actually true or false. We are no longer on the "burden" of proving what I say. Right now you seem to be using the typical philosophy litmus tests in arguing against what I'm saying - creating an example where you see an inconsistency in my claims and trying to say that a contradictory result discredits my claim as a whole. Fortunately it doesn't, because when we get down to white lies it is a matter of fact but also of interpretation. It is perhaps true that applying my founding premises correctly could actually result in a conclusion that white lies are not immoral (I don't believe it does and I don't see a flaw in my reasoning yet), but if I have I'm entirely willing to change my opinion. The important point is, it cannot be neither or both, applying my premises. There is a right answer, and if you are asserting that I am not reasoning appropriately to the correct conclusion based on my premises you haven't proven anything against me. Rawls was an intelligent philosopher, whether you agree with his views or not. Your analogy between Rawls and a monkey randomly hitting keys on a keyboard is ridiculous. It is flawed because Rawls did not concoct that argument merely by accident. If you want to be afforded even an ounce of credibility, I suggest refraining from these kinds of analogies. They are extremely disingenuous and in poor taste. The second part of your quote hardly serves as a disclaimer. Rawls was more of a jurist than a philosopher as I see it. Honestly I don't see why you have sanctimonious reverence towards people like Rawls, when they are so clearly wrong right from the start. Again, it is useful only to look back and see where their thinking led us. Rawls, right from the start, decided to build his "theories" off Locke's and Kant's foundations. Why pick Locke and Kant, instead of say, Marx and Engels? Its an arbitrary choice that leads to all the wrong conclusions on his part. The problem that every philosopher has had is that they make certain assumptions before they try to prove their assumptions. And in trying to "prove" themselves, they literally invent the fundamentals of their own philosophies out of the blue. Locke - consent to be governed by the majority and Kant - the categorical imperative. Never did they rely only on facts and reasoning in coming to their conclusions. They always had to fill in the holes with their own postulates that aren't self-evident. Its strewn throughout philosophy: "existence precedes essense" - says who? "the right action maximizes total aggregate happiness" - says who? "The right action is one in which there is no contradiction in conception" - says who? "There is no right answer" - says who? Every one makes a blanket statement about what is "right" without actually proving the legitimacy of their blanket statement. Then they appeal to what "seems right" (to them intuitively) and use what "seems right" to debate their ideas of morality and show how, when applied, a certain moral principle only "seems wrong." The fallacy is that what "seems wrong" isn't necessarily wrong, and what seems completely right (to come to the 'intuitively correct' conclusions every time) isn't necessarily right. What is right is derived through reason from one fact - the fact of human existence, our purpose, why we are here, etc. Only that is able to show a morality that is absolute, and doesn't beg the question in trying to prove itself. An appropriate analogy would be if Newton saw the apple fall from a tree, so concluded that there was a reason it did, but arbitrarily made up his "theory of gravity" and then tried to show how the facts suited his 'theory' rather than show how the theory suited the facts. Philosophy is the only "science" in which there has been literally no widespread progression in answering the important questions. Some on this forum even subscribe to the idea that philosophy is only for the purpose of disproving instead of actually trying to find the answers. It would be like a doctor saying his only job is to use his knowledge to show why everything the patient thinks he might have, he doesn't have, instead of trying to diagnose the real medical problem. It is because there is no 'scientific method' of ethics. There aren't even any fundamental principles that are widely considered correct - everyone just gets to make up what they think an appropriate principle of morality is, and of course they obscure it by convoluting everything (the way Kant did) to make it seem like there is actually some thought behind their premises and not just empty assertions. There never has been. So in a sense, these arguments were 'concocted by accident.' Rawls ones at least were. Because he admitted from the start that he was building on the foundations of discredited past philosophers who arbitrarily created their theories, and thus Rawls conclusions were accidental because he didn't question the legitimacy of the foundations of his beliefs. But its also funny that in condemning my ad hominem (which I admit is an ad hominem and it doesn't bother me that it is), you both strawmanned what I said AND argued ad hominen. The strawman is when you draw the connection between my monkey typing example and Rawls (I never said that directly), and ad hominem when you said "If you want to be afforded even an ounce of credibility, I suggest refraining from these kinds of analogies." As you know, the validity of my claims is not based on any "rediculous" analogies I might make, to say it does is also an ad hominem except you made the ad hominem directly while mine was only implicit.

mutemaler
Professor

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Jun 17, 2006

Total Topics: 8
Total Posts: 664

Posted 11/05/09 - 05:31 PM:	#143
Odin wrote: ... I have demonstrated in post #136 why white lies are immoral. If you disagree with what I said in that post tell me why.... I went back and checked on this because to say you demonstrated something to be immoral is quite a big claim, certainly different than a claim itself. And have to disagree. Here is the sentence: "First, telling a white lie is immoral on the grounds that the general concept of deception is excluded by a morality based on our obligations (which includes honesty)." All you are doing is assuming a morality which holds lying to be immoral and then using this as your reference to assert that it is immoral.

Odin
Graduate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Sep 09, 2009

Total Topics: 4
Total Posts: 214

Posted 11/05/09 - 05:53 PM:	#144
mutemaler wrote: I went back and checked on this because to say you demonstrated something to be immoral is quite a big claim, certainly different than a claim itself. And have to disagree. Here is the sentence: "First, telling a white lie is immoral on the grounds that the general concept of deception is excluded by a morality based on our obligations (which includes honesty)." All you are doing is assuming a morality which holds lying to be immoral and then using this as your reference to assert that it is immoral. From your point of view that is true, because you haven't been part of the rest of this long conversation and if you want to have a proper frame of reference here you would have to read the argument that I made up to that post. Since Wolfman understands those arguments (and agreed with them as far as I'm aware), I referred him to that post on which I expanded to explain why, based on the proof of morality I've been giving, white lies can be considered immoral. I'd be happy to debate my fundamental premises and my use of reason in developing "morals," but I won't accept criticism based on looking at one of the points I've arrived at and claiming I had no means of getting to it except question-begging. So I think you've taken things out of context a bit here.

Wolfman
Tenured Poster

Usergroup: Sponsors
Joined: Mar 05, 2007
Location: Oakland, CA

Total Topics: 15
Total Posts: 1138

Posted 11/05/09 - 06:35 PM:	#145
Odin wrote: Rawls was more of a jurist than a philosopher as I see it. Honestly I don't see why you have sanctimonious reverence towards people like Rawls, when they are so clearly wrong right from the start. Again, it is useful only to look back and see where their thinking led us. Rawls, right from the start, decided to build his "theories" off Locke's and Kant's foundations. Why pick Locke and Kant, instead of say, Marx and Engels? Its an arbitrary choice that leads to all the wrong conclusions on his part. I don’t have a sanctimonious reverence for Rawls. I don’t even agree with his particular conception of justice as fairness. I consider myself a critic of Rawls. However, that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have anything else useful to say, as you seem to suggest. Rawls has written thousands of pages of philosophy, and suddenly, because I cherry-pick one argument from his wide breadth of works, I have a sanctimonious reverence for him? It would do you good to approach philosophy with the principle of charity in mind. Odin wrote: Because he admitted from the start that he was building on the foundations of discredited past philosophers who arbitrarily created their theories, and thus Rawls conclusions were accidental because he didn't question the legitimacy of the foundations of his beliefs. Red herring. Rawls’s deontologically grounded theory of value is irrelevant to the argument of his that I brought forward. Whether he subscribes to a more Kantian theory of value or not, that does not have any implications on his baseball argument (which would make just as much sense even if a utilitarian or nihilist made it). Odin wrote: I have demonstrated in post #136 why white lies are immoral. If you disagree with what I said in that post tell me why. It is quite ironic how you show some degree of contempt for Rawls and the "arbitrarily created" Kantian foundations on which his philosophy is grounded. Yet you have not even shown how your ethical theory is anything but arbitrary. I looked at post #136 again. You said one of our obligations is honesty. Then you wrote a couple of sentences about how you thought that if you told your wife she didn’t look fat in her dress (when she did), presumably she couldn’t trust you about more serious matters. If you’re trying to establish a moral imperative that states we ought never to lie, you’re going to have to do a wee bit better than that.
"That which is done out of love is always beyond good and evil" - Nietzsche "Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim." - Aristotle "It is better to do one's own duty, however defective it may be, than to follow the duty of another, however well one may perform it. He who does his duty as his own nature reveals it, never sins." - Lao Tzu "Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play." - Kant

Odin
Graduate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Sep 09, 2009

Total Topics: 4
Total Posts: 214

Posted 11/05/09 - 07:51 PM:	#146
Wolfman wrote: I don’t have a sanctimonious reverence for Rawls. I don’t even agree with his particular conception of justice as fairness. I consider myself a critic of Rawls. However, that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have anything else useful to say, as you seem to suggest. Rawls has written thousands of pages of philosophy, and suddenly, because I cherry-pick one argument from his wide breadth of works, I have a sanctimonious reverence for him? It would do you good to approach philosophy with the principle of charity in mind. I'll agree with that but the point is we can rely on our own minds without turning to Rawls postulating and attempt to apply it to cases where it is not applicable. Red herring. Rawls’s deontologically grounded theory of value is irrelevant to the argument of his that I brought forward. Whether he subscribes to a more Kantian theory of value or not, that does not have any implications on his baseball argument (which would make just as much sense even if a utilitarian or nihilist made it). Perhaps but my point wasn't about his baseball argument (I think I've shown how that doesn't apply even if it was a valid point in certain circumstances), but more a point about philosophy in general and the mistakes alot of people seem to make nowadays in giving "sanctimonious reverence" to prior philosophers, whose postulating can be discredited very quickly. I just want to be sure we avoid making that mistake in this thread. It is quite ironic how you show some degree of contempt for Rawls and the "arbitrarily created" Kantian foundations on which his philosophy is grounded. Yet you have not even shown how your ethical theory is anything but arbitrary. I looked at post #136 again. You said one of our obligations is honesty. Then you wrote a couple of sentences about how you thought that if you told your wife she didn’t look fat in her dress (when she did), presumably she couldn’t trust you about more serious matters. If you’re trying to establish a moral imperative that states we ought never to lie, you’re going to have to do a wee bit better than that. I have shown how my idea of morality is founded upon the discernable purpose of human life and how that leads to the principles we call 'morality' and I could also show how they lead to the principles that appropriately limit our absolute freedom (based on the universal rational consent that each principle demands) to create a just political society. That is not arbitrary. And as further evidence, consider that the purpose I have described creates the most powerful feeling of love that we know exists between two humans (from parent to child), which in turn leads the rest of our powerful intuitive feelings. Now do you disagree? If you say that I haven't shown that the fundamental principles I use in my arguments are not just my own arbitrary creations (like Locke and Kant's) but instead factual and powerful, I'd like you to explain why you disagree with me, and if you agree, then do you agree with the rationality I've used to contruct moral principles?

Odin
Graduate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Sep 09, 2009

Total Topics: 4
Total Posts: 214

Posted 11/05/09 - 07:57 PM:	#147
As for white lying, I'll explain my position on it once we agree on the principles we are applying. It'll be better to address the fundamentals before we get into the specifics. For what its worth, I may have come to the wrong conclusion, but I don't think that's the case.

Wolfman
Tenured Poster

Usergroup: Sponsors
Joined: Mar 05, 2007
Location: Oakland, CA

Total Topics: 15
Total Posts: 1138

Posted 11/05/09 - 09:55 PM:	#148
Odin wrote: I have shown how my idea of morality is founded upon the discernable purpose of human life and how that leads to the principles we call 'morality' and I could also show how they lead to the principles that appropriately limit our absolute freedom (based on the universal rational consent that each principle demands) to create a just political society. I agree. Furthermore, I would say that there is a contrast between man-as-he-happens-to-be and man-as-he-could-be-if-he-realized-his-essential-nature. Ethics is the science which is to enable men to make the transition from the former to the latter. Odin wrote: I have shown how my idea of morality is founded upon the discernable purpose of human life and how that leads to the principles we call 'morality' and I could also show how they lead to the principles that appropriately limit our absolute freedom (based on the universal rational consent that each principle demands) to create a just political society. That is not arbitrary. And as further evidence, consider that the purpose I have described creates the most powerful feeling of love that we know exists between two humans (from parent to child), which in turn leads the rest of our powerful intuitive feelings. Now do you disagree? If you say that I haven't shown that the fundamental principles I use in my arguments are not just my own arbitrary creations (like Locke and Kant's) but instead factual and powerful, I'd like you to explain why you disagree with me, and if you agree, then do you agree with the rationality I've used to contruct moral principles? I agree that any normative basis for morality must be grounded in human nature, i.e., in our basic drives, motivations, tendencies and the like. However, I think we first need to respond to some of the major criticisms made by the skeptic. For instance, when we direct this sort of attention to what appears subjectively as a case of acting for reasons and responding to good and evil, we get a naturalistic account that seems to give the complete objective description of what is going on. But instead of normative reasons, we see only psychological explanation. It looks like we are caused to act by desires and beliefs, but the terminology of reasons can be used only in a diminished, nonnormative sense to express this kind of explanation. Your endeavor to construct prescriptions from descriptions involves the very real possibility of false objectification, which elevates personal tastes and prejudices into cosmic values (similar to the examples we talked about in Rawls and Kant). An even stronger critic would argue that any kind of objectification would ultimately fail if we can not bring the is-ought chasm. There is an epistemological disconnect when we make the jump from descriptive to prescriptive. I think this is a very reasonable criticism from the skeptic – one certainly deserving of a response.
"That which is done out of love is always beyond good and evil" - Nietzsche "Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim." - Aristotle "It is better to do one's own duty, however defective it may be, than to follow the duty of another, however well one may perform it. He who does his duty as his own nature reveals it, never sins." - Lao Tzu "Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play." - Kant

Odin
Graduate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Sep 09, 2009

Total Topics: 4
Total Posts: 214

Posted 11/05/09 - 11:21 PM:	#149
Wolfman wrote: I agree. Furthermore, I would say that there is a contrast between man-as-he-happens-to-be and man-as-he-could-be-if-he-realized-his-essential-nature. Ethics is the science which is to enable men to make the transition from the former to the latter. I agree that any normative basis for morality must be grounded in human nature, i.e., in our basic drives, motivations, tendencies and the like. However, I think we first need to respond to some of the major criticisms made by the skeptic. For instance, when we direct this sort of attention to what appears subjectively as a case of acting for reasons and responding to good and evil, we get a naturalistic account that seems to give the complete objective description of what is going on. But instead of normative reasons, we see only psychological explanation. It looks like we are caused to act by desires and beliefs, but the terminology of reasons can be used only in a diminished, nonnormative sense to express this kind of explanation. Your endeavor to construct prescriptions from descriptions involves the very real possibility of false objectification, which elevates personal tastes and prejudices into cosmic values (similar to the examples we talked about in Rawls and Kant). An even stronger critic would argue that any kind of objectification would ultimately fail if we can not bring the is-ought chasm. There is an epistemological disconnect when we make the jump from descriptive to prescriptive. I think this is a very reasonable criticism from the skeptic ?" one certainly deserving of a response. Good points: and their conclusion then is that morality is subjective. There are a few things I could think to say. First, even if I grant them that morality is only founded upon human desires (which they say are subjective), they ignore the fact that there can be universal human desires and therefore the conclusions about how we should act according to those desires can also be universal. One example would be the will to live (not sure if I've brought this up yet). It could be easily argued that every human has a will to live based on the fact that they are alive. Maintaining your life requires a specific course of action which indicates a will to live. If that desire is universal then we can derive objective "shoulds" from it. But that's only a demonstration and not the real philosophy. In terms of what we've been talking about, they'd likely say the 'purpose of life' I have described is part of the naturallistic fallacy, or commits the is/ought problem. The trouble with the is/ought problem is that while an is cannot be directly translated to an ought, an ought can be derived, through reason, from an is. There's no reason we can't deduce an ought from an is. A desire is an "is." A want to act on my desire is an "is." The action in the future is an ought. Examples are very easy to think of. Just think of a desire to drink water and you'll see the outcome is an "ought" action. For the open question argument, of course we can't draw synonymity between a natural fact and morality until we define exactly what morality is. So the argument supporting the existence of this fallacy is a fallacy - it begs the question, putting the cart before the horse. Since we don't have a widely accepted understanding of morality, we can't automatically recognize something synonomous with morality since we have no frame of reference in which to do so. But even if these objections were valid, which they aren't, my argument still commits none of them. "Purpose of life" isn't appealing to a characteristic of nature, like pleasure, or evolution, but is instead just the starting premise in a line of reasoning, which I've outlined. I never automatically (and arbitrarily) equated the purpose of life with morality, although the connection is intuitively obvious since anything with an inherent purpose should logically act in accordance with its purpose, but I used reason to make the connection (the fact that the purpose of life brings us into connection with other human beings, thus creating mutual obligations between us and our spouse and the being we create, and an obligation is something that ought to be followed). Of course I've explained it much more thoroughly earlier in the thread, but the point is that the argument doesn't rely on any assumptions arbitrarily connecting nature with morality, but instead deduces morality from indisputable facts.

Wise Sage
Initiate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Nov 06, 2009

Total Topics: 1
Total Posts: 18

Posted 11/06/09 - 10:32 AM:	#150
Lord Henry wrote: Are my morals your morals? Should I force my morals on you? I personally am a vegetarian, and i get lots of shit about it. I defend my position and ideals when people ask, but I don't yell at people for eating meat. My personal opinion is that morals are relative, that I can feel that something is morally wrong, but that it only applies to me. The exception to this is when it infringes on someone else's rights. If your ideas of "right" include killing another person or taking away their ability to choose what is right, then I believe that I have the right to assert my rights, in that situation. When it is ambiguous as to what is "right" and what is "wrong", then the majority is allowed to assert their view on what is right. No, morals are not universal. A wife of a spider eats the husband: Do you find that right? Even if you do I don't agree.

Page: First 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Sorry, you don't have permission to post. Log in, or register if you haven't yet.