Morality

I'll give a quick response now and elaborate later - I feel morality is a matter of advocacy. We do what we perceive to be best for not only ourselves, but for those in our care (not always in a literal sense).

For instance, the same act can be seen as moral, or immoral - does offering your seat to a woman on the bus constitute a moral or immoral act? Many would argue for both - feminists believe that women are just as strong as men and so such an act is insulting and immoral. However, certain women are perfectly alright with "chivalry."

It boils down to this - is there a reasonable expectation/understanding of dependence? A pregnant woman for instance, who appears as though she is struggling to stand, I feel obligated to help...because I perceive her to be in need of my care, it feels right to treat her as though she is.

And so in this way, we advocate for those in our care - offering our seats to those we have a responsibility to help (if it serves the greater good) and not offering our seats to those we do not.

In this sense I don't think morality is about helping the most people, but instead it had the caveat that it produces the greatest good in those within our care.

 

Fair point, as Not Moral <=> Immoral would be a false dichotomy, as there are many neutral acts as well. (And yes, I too disagree with that world view haha...I'm something of a traditionalist myself).

I suppose what I'm saying is for that particular example, the action clashes with a feminist's worldview - it degrades their cause, goes against what they believe in, and degrades women (this is of course referring to a "True Champion for Women's Rights" hardcore feminist, namely, the type to get insulted by such a humble gesture). Since they feel they have a moral responsibility to uphold women's rights in any and all forms, they lash out as a means of assisting and preserving the rights of those in their care (ie. they perceive all women as being in their care).

This is my humble definition of immorality - something that infringes on the morality of another individual or group (ie. it prevents the optimization of well-being of everyone in someone else's care). By this definition of course, nearly any action can be interpreted as immoral in some form, by someone. Indeed, as countless debates show (Pro-Life vs Pro-Choice, etc) morality is something that not everyone can necessarily agree on.

And so sure enough, according to the way I've defined morality, me offering my seat to a woman on the bus doesn't infringe on your rights, or those in your care. Naturally, you wouldn't find this immoral (and in fact, in that same moment you might perceive yourself as being obligated to help this woman as well - that she may be someone 'in your care' momentarily - and hence may even view this as a moral act).

 

Maybe you ascribe to the notion that there is a higher power, or code, or moral authority. In that sense, there would be an absolute frame of reference by which to measure morality - that of the higher power. In a sense the belief system would be something "in your care" by my definition, and so you swear to uphold its values.

Myself, I can't personally think of anything in a concrete way - in my mind, even the most heinous of acts, if done with the right intentions, could be spun as a moral act (even if you or I, or anyone else, would disagree). Are you thinking of anything specific here?

As an example, let's take murder. I couldn't fathom ending another life, and I'm sure you'd agree that's a highly immoral act. But I could imagine someone who would make the argument that they would have killed Hitler to save countless others. To them, letting Hitler live is in fact, immoral. A serial killer on the other hand, may feel it's immoral to let someone live because they were wearing a blue shirt, and happen to be suffering from a mental illness.

To refine my view slightly, I feel that in a sense, we're bound by our own unique moral compass. It's highly dependent on our own indoctrination and bias, as well as intentions when committing said act. Some people may be operating with a broken compass, but that doesn't change the fact that "North" is a direction that's arbitrarily named/defined.

 

I'm having a bit of trouble envisioning how an absolute "moral authority" or underlying principle of morals could exist, without it being some form of higher power. That doesn't necessarily mean it's God, or karma, or anything specific, but would it not be suggested that there's something greater than ourselves? If we have this underlying code, where did it come from?

If it were something tied to us as a species (perhaps something in our genetics), or even all the species on the planet, we could still envision the possibility of the existence of a completely different, inconsistent with ours, yet intrinsically consistent, system of morals on some distant planet. It wouldn't be an absolute moral authority in that case.

Note that I'm not arguing specifically for the existence of God, I'm simply trying to ponder what a moral authority that is not a universally superior entity (for lack of a better word) would look like. What do you envision/believe?

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First I'd like to say that of course, I consider honour killings immoral - but my attempts at playing devil's advocate are trying to hone in on the finer details of our definitions or morality.

What I'm less sure of however, is that everyone would agree with us. Some people would passionately argue that it's the proper, responsible thing to do (even if we view the arguments as irrevocably stupid ones). From what I gather, they defer to their own higher powers and flawed interpretations of religious texts to justify it.

But in that case, what gives us the authority/privilege to claim that our system of morals is the correct one? We certainly call into question their belief system...indeed others who look into their religious text would say "this is suggesting something immoral" while others would say "this is how it must be, this must be the moral thing to do."

But who's right?

There's almost certainly someone out there who agrees with your system of morals in every way except for one fundamental issue - say euthanasia. You can back up your particular stance, and I'm sure they can as well. Whose system of morals can be claimed as the correct one, and why? Then play this game dozens of times, and you'll quickly find that someone's moral code looks nothing like yours, but can still be justified regardless.

In the case of Hitler, I have to humbly disagree - murder doesn't know race, gender or creed, and I strongly feel that ending a life is ending a life. That does not mean tough decisions don't need to be made (would you have personally ended Hitler's life to spare the suffering of countless others?), it simply means we can't change the definition of murder to figuratively fit our whim. Call it what it is - murder. But perhaps what this suggests is that murder isn't always wrong.

In particular, what if someone viewed Obama as the next Hitler? I'm sure there are some, there must be some for every political leader, no one is viewed as a unilaterally positive influence. Would that justify killing said politician - would it suddenly not be murder, or suddenly become morally justified?

What if not everyone views Hitler as a negative influence? How would they react to someone killing Hitler?

 

No worries, we'll just dance the dance of a healthy discussion haha. And with that, here comes a healthy dose of Devil's Advocate.

If there were a law of ethics, or morals, on the same plane as the laws of physics, would it not be an unbreakable law? That's a rather serious claim - the laws of physics are something that are unavoidable, and unalterable. But clearly there are disagreements about very important moral issues, both sides of which can be backed up adamantly by the smartest from both camps. Would individual atoms not be bound by a code of morals?

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I'll use abortion as the example again as it's accessible - if a pro-choicer was in a room full of pro-lifers, they would be the odd-man out and have to justify an awful lot, and probably still not convince anyone. Identically, if a pro-lifer was in a room full of pro-choicers. Note that this is regardless of what the over-arching moral code dictates regarding abortion.

Furthermore, speaking to your example about killing someone for wearing a shirt - imagine you lived in some sort of primitive tribe where the perceived notion was that shirts were satanic, and everyone ran around bare-chested. In that case, you absolutely could appease the entire tribe, satisfy everyone, and justify murder, by simply saying "I thought it was the right thing to do." Let's be clear here - they couldn't convince you this easily or nonchalantly, but that's because you live in a world where it's ridiculous to kill someone over a shirt.

But now what if the tribe was our entire world? What if one of our most cherished moral high roads was actually completely absurd to someone external to our system?

For this reason, I think morals are (sadly) dictated by the masses, and popular public opinion at any given time. We believe murder is wrong because it's been wrong for thousands of years. That however, doesn't mean that some day we won't "become enlightened" and be like, hey, murder is actually ok, and the notion that it's wrong is archaic religious mumbo jumbo.

We've also thought homosexuality was wrong for an inordinate amount of time, but we've now become enlightened about that.

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On the basis of arguing like Socrates, just note that among the plethora of religions out there, no two agree on everything. Every religious person would draw on their morality from something they claim to be a divine source... once again, who's right? Take any controversial issue... why would someone arguing against my personal belief, on the basis of their own personal belief, hold any sway over who I am, and what I do? Does that automatically make me or them, an immoral person (one of us should be, since we disagree so spectacularly)?

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You can't fathom that anyone would lump Obama and Hitler into the same category, because the stuff Obama has done has been relatively benign with respect to your own life. But unfortunately some people have been affected to a much greater degree, and have a lot of ammunition against Obama.

On the most basic level, there are people who can acknowledge a lot of good Hitler did for the German people (such as stimulating their economy, and bringing the world out of the great depression). Or in other words, we don't know what the financial implications of not having a second world war would have been, but they're also quite scary (see for instance, Greece). Some people firmly believe that through Hitler's "atrocities" he jump-started the economy and bought us another 80 years or so before countries started defaulting on their debts.

Conversely, an argument could be made that the US is leading the entire world into a financial sinkhole. This is certainly not exclusively Obama's fault, but he's playing a big role regardless. People who personally value finances more than human life (and they definitely exist) would have no qualms in saying Hitler was a good man and Obama is evil for this reason. Note that I'm not arguing this as my personal belief, but sadly the people who fall into this category tend to have the most power in this world (ie. rich CEOs and so forth).

Sure, Average Joe would argue that such a person is immoral, but what happens when these powerful people kill off Average Joe to save a few bucks, and everyone left who populates has that fundamental belief? All they need to do to justify murdering Joe is that it saved all of them money?

As a brief side note, have you ever watched The Corporation (A documentary)? It's a bit off topic, but it's a fantastic use of an hour or two.

EDIT - forgot to address one point - my personal opinion regarding soldiers killing one another. I absolutely do view that as murder, but responsibility would not necessarily lie with the individual soldiers. The soldiers were unlawfully killed by those who weren't even at risk of dying, by those who paid money to desperate people and their families, to essentially own their lives.

Of course this is a complex issue - for instance, how would you differentiate between someone who was conscripted to war, killed entirely out of self-defense, versus someone who joined entirely of their own volition, as they felt it would be their only chance to "legally" end someone's life (such people also exist I'm afraid)? Some people trip over that kind of power.