Morality

[Samuel Dravis]

So, let us start. What is the material benefit of me acting morally? Why should I do something moral when it may be in my best interest of me not to be moral?

It's just things like this: it may be immediately in your interest to steal something, and you might be able to get away with it at the time. However, if you do steal, people might find you to be a thief later on and that would impact your ability to do other things that you might want to do (prison, barring you from voting, etc).

 

2) Also, let us suppose we have a secular moral system, and I break it. Now, in a religious moral system, I can ask for forgiveness to the Intelligent Designer/God/Gods/etc., and volia, everything is right again. But I broke the secular moral system, and therefore, I would be immoral unless I set it right. But I can't set it right, see, because to my knowledge, the secular moral system, has no redemption mechanism. I cannot pray to the Kantian god after I made an innocent mistake and lied in order to save someone's life (as lying is morally wrong).

 

So, basically, how do I redeem myself in a secular moral system? Is it possible to be redeemed? Or are you cursed forever?

Like Ray says, you can't undo what has been done. Your past actions are fixed, and nothing will erase mistakes that have been made... the interesting part is, you're your own judge here. You're only as cursed as much as you follow Kantian morality. Of course, this is no different than religious belief - atheists are completely unconcerned about someone telling them they'll burn in hell - but that applies to any moral system. Some people simply don't care.

[SilentScope001]

It's just things like this: it may be immediately in your interest to steal something, and you might be able to get away with it at the time. However, if you do steal, people might find you to be a thief later on and that would impact your ability to do other things that you might want to do (prison, barring you from voting, etc).

 

But what would happen if the 'people' approve me of being a thief? Say, I am a person who is called upon by my people to rob from outsiders? And that if I don't, or worse yet, speak out against it, I would basically lose my rights. But if I do rob from outsiders, I would be honored.

 

This is actually going to be a big problem. If people are motivated to follow the rules that society has set down in order to avoid punishment and to gain their sastification, then it could lead to the society doing something another society may see as immoral. I just want to see how you would handle it, altough, erm, I do think I can foresee your answer...

 

Anyway, the thing is, we aren't discussing adding in a punishment system for the morality yet. The punishment system get added in to ENFORCE the morality code already approved by the people. What I am wondering is why do the population even think they need a morality system? Once society get a consesus about which morality to follow can they then start enforcing it, but until then, what can cause each individual to submit to this morality and obey its enforcing mechanism?

[Samuel Dravis]

But what would happen if the 'people' approve me of being a thief? Say, I am a person who is called upon by my people to rob from outsiders? And that if I don't, or worse yet, speak out against it, I would basically lose my rights. But if I do rob from outsiders, I would be honored.

Well, then there just wouldn't be any social deterrent for stealing.

 

This is actually going to be a big problem. If people are motivated to follow the rules that society has set down in order to avoid punishment and to gain their satisfaction, then it could lead to the society doing something another society may see as immoral. I just want to see how you would handle it, although, erm, I do think I can foresee your answer...

It could be a source of conflict between the two societies, but it's not a problem with the universal application any moral rules. The western world places a great deal of emphasis on original content in written papers (avoids plagiarism like the plague). Not all societies are like that, though, and some find it acceptable to plagiarize-- but that doesn't mean that the arguments we can make about how plagiarism is bad are invalid.

 

Anyway, the thing is, we aren't discussing adding in a punishment system for the morality yet. The punishment system get added in to ENFORCE the morality code already approved by the people. What I am wondering is why do the population even think they need a morality system? Once society get a consensus about which morality to follow can they then start enforcing it, but until then, what can cause each individual to submit to this morality and obey its enforcing mechanism?

Many things, I suppose. What caused me to have my (slight! ) accent? Why do I call any type of soda "coke"? Acquiring a sense of morality, a conscience, is not like putting on a set of clothes, where you can pick and choose which ones you like best. Before Kant reasoned out his moral system, he knew the kind of thing he was looking for...

[SilentScope001]

It could be a source of conflict between the two societies, but it's not a problem with the universal application any moral rules. The western world places a great deal of emphasis on original content in written papers (avoids plagiarism like the plague). Not all societies are like that, though, and some find it acceptable to plagiarize-- but that doesn't mean that the arguments we can make about how plagiarism is bad are invalid.

 

What it does mean however is that you cannot enforce that moral standard onto that other society, meaning the other society can still plagarize and commit great wrongs. If you believe in a universal moral rule, you have to enforce that rule UNIVERSALLY. And that cannot truly be done with that second society who has a seperate rule.

 

If you cannot enforce that rule in a universal manner, then it's almost a 'suggestion'. You are going to have to rely on your arguments, but words are cheap. It is actions that decide. And if you do nothing to enforce a universal law, well, aren't you basically breaking the universal law yourself? By letting someone plagarize (through action or inaction), aren't you responsible for their plagarism as well?

 

Would you be seen as breaking your universal moral law if you merely making arguments to stop plagarism that fall on deaf ears instead of taking more 'forceful' actions that would in fact stop plagarism?

[Samuel Dravis]

What it does mean however is that you cannot enforce that moral standard onto that other society, meaning the other society can still plagiarize and commit great wrongs. If you believe in a universal moral rule, you have to enforce that rule UNIVERSALLY. And that cannot truly be done with that second society who has a separate rule.

Cannot? I don't think I would go that far. If history has shown anything, it is that people most certainly can enforce their moral codes on other societies. And they have.

 

Also, the enforcement of a universal moral rule has absolutely no bearing on whether that rule has been broken or not; you can apply a rule without having to enforce it.

 

If you cannot enforce that rule in a universal manner, then it's almost a 'suggestion'. You are going to have to rely on your arguments, but words are cheap.

An absolute moral judgement is not a suggestion, it is a description. If the person you're talking to accepts the meaning of your words, then they must also accept the judgment they imply.

 

It is actions that decide. And if you do nothing to enforce a universal law, well, aren't you basically breaking the universal law yourself? By letting someone plagiarize (through action or inaction), aren't you responsible for their plagiarism as well?

But don't we act? I don't plagiarize nor have I helped people do so. I think it's perfectly reasonable to give people who plagiarize a big fat F, or even harsher punishments if the situation warrants. There was a big furor in academic circles a while back over some people from the middle east plagiarizing large portions of their papers and passing it off as their own. Isn't acting outraged doing something? Isn't not trusting those universities as much anymore doing something? For I do think that their actions have resulted in real consequences for both the school and the people who did the deed.

 

Why don't we force them to be honest? Go over there, force them to comply with strict regulations, check every paper, etc. Maybe the same reason you ask someone nicely to do something. Maybe the same reason we would deny them the ability to do the same to us. And maybe, just maybe, we have actually already done all the 'forcing' we need to. If the university recognizes plagiarism as a problem and starts to work on fixing it, haven't we accomplished what we wanted to?

 

Would you be seen as breaking your universal moral law if you merely making arguments to stop plagiarism that fall on deaf ears instead of taking more 'forceful' actions that would in fact stop plagiarism?

I don't think that is necessarily so. There are other rules at work here as well; for example, we value our internal affairs as being ours, and no one elses, and we are willing to accept that others have the same rights. Perhaps a good solution is: tell them to either do it our way, with no plagiarism, or we just don't let them publish their papers in the leading journals.

[SilentScope001]

Cannot? I don't think I would go that far. If history has shown anything, it is that people most certainly can enforce their moral codes on other societies. And they have.

 

Also, the enforcement of a universal moral rule has absolutely no bearing on whether that rule has been broken or not; you can apply a rule without having to enforce it.

 

It is true, but I was assuming however a society that tolerates another society's existence that has a different view. The invasion of one society by another society would mean that the second society would be destroyed, and just one society rules over all.

 

An absolute moral judgement is not a suggestion, it is a description. If the person you're talking to accepts the meaning of your words, then they must also accept the judgment they imply.

 

Okay.

 

But don't we act? I don't plagiarize nor have I helped people do so. I think it's perfectly reasonable to give people who plagiarize a big fat F, or even harsher punishments if the situation warrants. There was a big furor in academic circles a while back over some people from the middle east plagiarizing large portions of their papers and passing it off as their own. Isn't acting outraged doing something? Isn't not trusting those universities as much anymore doing something? For I do think that their actions have resulted in real consequences for both the school and the people who did the deed.

 

I heard of that situation. I actually think that those people in Turkey, I believe, claimed that they were being framed, and their works were in fact original, that the only things that may be seen as 'borrowing' would be the Intro and the Conclusion, the actual experiment was not copied. Even then, according to that same article, one professor stated that those people might have plagrized not becuase they didn't know the material, but because they couldn't write English correctly, and so had to borrow English words.

 

Still, regardless of the truth of the matter, the people in Turkey were in fact punished for that crime, and got expelled from the universty.

 

...As for the actions, feeling outraged does sound too cheap, and it doesn't seem like a good detterent. What happens if we are 'maxed out' by our outrage? What if there are thousands upon thousands of moral violations out there? If we present every single moral violation to me, I may either drive myself insane due to the anger, or just express resigination, or even only focus on one or two violations, and not care about 'lesser' crimes.

 

((I guess I focus more on enforcement of a moral code rather than the actual moral code itself. I'm betting it's part of my moral system that if you got some sort of law, you have to enforce it, otherwise it's not worth the paper it's printed on.))

 

Why don't we force them to be honest? Go over there, force them to comply with strict regulations, check every paper, etc. Maybe the same reason you ask someone nicely to do something. Maybe the same reason we would deny them the ability to do the same to us. And maybe, just maybe, we have actually already done all the 'forcing' we need to. If the university recognizes plagiarism as a problem and starts to work on fixing it, haven't we accomplished what we wanted to?

 

Well, the reason I brought up the 'force' thing is the possiblity of guilt and responsiblity. By doing nothing to stop plagrisim, by allowing the plagarism to happen, are you responsible for the plagrisim? I'd assume "No", if you believe in Free Will, but since I do have doubts about its existance, I do wonder if you believe the same thing.

 

But we haven't done all the force we needed to in order to stop Plagarism once and for all back in our own society, so I am not so certain that the 'force' we currently apply to other societies who may actively tolerate it would be effective.

 

I don't think that is necessarily so. There are other rules at work here as well; for example, we value our internal affairs as being ours, and no one elses, and we are willing to accept that others have the same rights. Perhaps a good solution is: tell them to either do it our way, with no plagiarism, or we just don't let them publish their papers in the leading journals.

 

Yeah, that was what I thinking. Some moral rules will end up trumpting others.

 

All I desired to do with that example, however, is try to lay a groundwork for why wars between different moral systems sometimes have to happen. For much more serious affairs than just mere 'plagarism'. Since if a person does nothing to help stop the violation fo the moral code, it could be exactly the same as that person actively assisting in violating the moral code, and therefore, a person who is moral has to act against an immoral person. Though, maybe I failed in that respect? Do you have any way of explaining why wars between moral systems exist?

[Jvstice]

Yeah, that was what I thinking. Some moral rules will end up trumpting others.

 

All I desired to do with that example, however, is try to lay a groundwork for why wars between different moral systems sometimes have to happen. For much more serious affairs than just mere 'plagarism'. Since if a person does nothing to help stop the violation fo the moral code, it could be exactly the same as that person actively assisting in violating the moral code, and therefore, a person who is moral has to act against an immoral person. Though, maybe I failed in that respect? Do you have any way of explaining why wars between moral systems exist?

 

Actually, I don't believe there's ever been a war that's truly been fought because of conflicting moralities. I'd argue that probably most of them are justified publically by moral or religious conflict to get the every day people on the side of the leaders, but actually occur because of different economic interests and mutually exclusive claims of soveriegnty.

 

Example: Slavery is usually wrongly given as the reason for the U.S. civil war. I have no doubt that it was A reason. And it's existence was a monsterous thing that shouldn't ever be justified, because there is no justification. But that was not why primarily why the civil war was fought.

 

Grant and other northern generals are on record as saying that they went to war on the side of the North because the United States could not survive having a foriegn power in control of the Mississippi river. Also, Lincoln who is so widely praised for his Emancipation Proclamation, did not actually free slaves from states that didn't actually seceed from the union (like Maryland and Kentucky), only from the 12- 13 states that actually left the union who already considered him to have no authority over them.

 

As far as the political stability in the southern states, they weren't. Less than 1 in 10 southerners owned slaves, and slaves outnumbered free people even more than that. When they got over their fear, they would have revolted and rebelled against their oppressors. And there would have been no way the southern state governments or plantation owners could have stood up against that many angry people sucessfully.

 

The whole serbia /Kosovo situation is a whole fight over who owns land. Irish independence from Britain? Again the question of whether england or ireland owns ireland, even though its' all dressed up as a protestant / catholic war. US occupation of Iraq? Again its' about oil on the U.S. side (it's sold about being about safe trade and commerce for us, and freedom from tyrany and fear to Iraquis), and about being occupied by a foriegn power to the Iraquis, and having local soveriegnty over their own country.

[Darth InSidious]

I'd like to point out that while his ethical system functions (just) without, Kant's Groundwork does presuppose a deity.

[Jvstice]

Actually, if you want to get technical Kant's system assumed a deity was controlled by morality just like everyone else, not the arbiter or morality.