This is because when the lay person talks about desire, they are thinking of trivial desires. It happens that Philosopher would count needs under the philosophical term 'desire'. You're talking about a lunatic minority here. Most people, even those with religious beliefs, recognise that morality makes the world a better place to live in, and that is why they value it. If you ask any of the Christians on MAP, Aikimac, Capn Ann, Wry Dolphin, they'll defend morality the same way that Blind, Ckava and myself have. ARGH! How many times do I have to repeat this? I AM NOT SAYING THAT IT IS MORALLY CORRECT TO FOLLOW OUR NEEDS. I AM SAYING THAT FOLLOWING OUR NEEDS IS WHAT WE DO AS OUR NATURE. I AM SAYING THAT IF WE FOLLOW OUR NEEDS RATIONALLY THEN WE FIND THAT PART OF THAT INVOLVES LOOKING AFTER OUR ENVIRONMENT AND SOCIETY, i.e. BEING MORAL!! Incase you didn't catch that: Morality is looking after society/environment and the reason why we should do so is because it is what our nature requires of us. As human beings, we all share fundamental goals as part of our nature. "Why should I stick to this goal?" It's not a case of you 'ought' to stick to this goal, it's that you do. It's a fact about you. It is our nature to maintain our lives. Sure, people lose the will to live in extraordinary circumstances when they are completely broken. However, there is a reason why we call such circumstances extraordinary. When philosophers talk about objectivity in ethics, they don't necessarily mean humanly detached. When Mackie proposed his error theory, he allowed for all sorts of uses of objectivity. One example was true for all people, regardless of their personal opinions. If you like I'll type up all the possibilities he suggested. The point is, the objectivity that Ckava, Blind and myself are talking about is an objectivity. In this paragraph, you've summed up what we've been saying throughout the entire thread. Why should we be moral or look after society/environment? Because it makes the world a nice place to live? Because it is good for ourselves? YES!! So what's the differences between nihilists and Christian moralists? Nihilists think the "do what's good for number one" but are too short sighted to carry this out. Christian moralists aren't thinking of their own good but end up doing their own good without planning to. You see the irony? You see why I prefer Christian morality to nihilism? In organic farms, animals have the ideal lives. They are safe from predators and left in ideal conditions. Although you wouldn't like to live knowing that you'd be slaughtered for food, animals don't have the intelligence for such dread. And yes, there are some farms that treat animals badly. Guess what? We consider such places to be immoral.
Um... Those big letters in the last post, they weren't shouting or anything. Just emphasising a point I've been having to repeat a lot! :Angel:
Morality is about doing what is right and wrong. Some people believe that it is determined by some outside principle (perhaps God) that protecting the environment is morally right, so they do so. Not the other way round. Morality isn't defined as looking after the envorinment, it just happens to be included in most people beliefs of what is and isn't moral. You seem to be using the word moral to mean, what people usually consider to be moral, rather than what actually is right and wrong in itself. In this sense I agree that it is helpfull to act "morally", but my point is that, whatever we decide actually is moral is a subjective matter.
Remember that my use of 'environment' isn't the same as the usual use of 'environment'. When people normally talk about looking after the environment they are talking about global issues, like global warming, endangered species and melting ice-caps. When I talk about environment I mean the world around you. Even so, perhaps I should've stuck to social environment rather than environment in general... after all, tidying your room or doing the dishes is a part of looking after your environment... You say 'some people' think that morals are regardless to the effect they have on society. Those people would be a small minority and I think we can say that they are wrong, that they have their own weird personal idea of morality that excludes social good rather than the correct idea of morality. Okay... I see two ways of reading this: 1) How people decide the meaning of moral is subjective... but this leads to absurd conclusions about language in general. I don't think you meant this. 2) What is the 'right' thing to do is subjective. If by 'right' you mean morally right then it is not subjective as there is an objectivity to what causes a society to thrive or to fail. If by 'right' you mean what a person ought to do in their personal actions, this is only as subjective as far as their nature is. A person's nature isn't fully subjective as we all have needs that our nature demands of us. So there is a right and wrong way to live our lives in that respect. Whether 'right for society' is necessarily 'right for the individual' is an open and complex question, but I think that we all agree that we largely depend on a healthy society for much of our needs so atleast for most of the time, what is right for society is also right for the individual.
I'd say quite a large amount of people think that what is right and wrong is indepedent of, if not necessarily different to, what is good for society. When most people consider what is moral, they mean what some higher power, of guiding principle has defined to be right and wrong. To say that something is good for society already assumes some objective, overuling principle of good and evil to decide which things actually are good or bad. I think that however you look at it, what we choose to be moral, good, bad or evil will be based on a subjective emotion and only hold from a human perspective.
Not quite... They usually can't explain what it is so many find it mystical and can't explain it rationally, but when you look at how they imply it, the intuitively use it to judge things from a social point of view. They might not see a clear link between good morality and a happy life and their personal ideas of morality might go further than what's good for society. However, we seem to be able to distinguish between moral opinions that have substance and moral opinions that are a person's individual quirks. "What is good for society" is what separates the former from the latter. The more people study what morality is, the more inclined they are to see it as "what is good for society". I don't think so. We can have an objective notion of a successful plant and an unsuccesful plant by whether it survives by darwinian natural selection, with pure objectivity and no interference from personal values. In the same way we can have the notion of a healthy society and a failing society. So 'morally good' and 'morally bad' can be worked out objectively in this way. Whether we choose to personally value morality: This again assumes that our nature is wholly subjective, which is surely absurd. Although some parts of our nature are subjective (e.g. which foods we like) there are some parts that aren't. (that we eat some kind of food) If there are objective elements to our nature then there's an objectively right way to live. If this right way to live demands us to be morally right then there are objective reasons why we should be moral.
Although people might be inclined to correllate what is good for society with their idea of morality, I don't think they would consider them to be one and the same or at least they are not defined to be one and the same. A successful plant is defined as successful with regard to certain attributes. You cannot have a plant that is good in itself, but only one that is good at certain things. I do not mean that it is subjective whether it is beneficial to us to live in a certain way, but that what you are calling moral is a subjective matter. I think we are approaching this from opposite different directions. You seem to be implying that it is beneficial to us to live in a certain way that we conventionally consider to be moral. I think this is right. What I am arguing is that what we do conventionally consider to be moral, is a subjective thing that is only right from our perspective. p.s. Do you know why in some replies there is a spellcheck thing, but in others there isn't?
(I know we kind of settled this on MSN but as I was halfway through typing this post I figured I'd finish it! ) I still disagree but I think you have a fair reason for skepticism on this. There is a famous Open Question Argument that poses a problem for anyone who tries to give a definite definition of 'good'. It goes something like this: (1) It might be suggested that being 'good' means being property X. (2) However, it is always a sensible question whether X is really 'good'. (3) If this question is sensible then it is clear that being good doesn't really mean being property X. (Conclusion) Because it is always an open question whether X is really 'good', no definition of 'goodness' can be correct. I think that the argument is flawed though. Premise 2 kind of begs the question against the definition and premise 3 seems to be based on a misunderstanding on how we realistically grasp linguistic terms. I can't imagine a theory of morality that excludes the good of society, except a weird religious dogmatic one. When we consider the nature of morality, the fact that it is what we should do and that there's an objectivity to it, and when we consider which moral principles tend to hold and which are dismissed as a person's opinion, 'what is good for society' seems to be the standard that separates the genuine morality from the weird anomalous opinions. Right. I was claiming that 'morally good' is a good in this way. I'm not sure I'd have a 'good in itself' property. Good is always relative to the person that is judging so in that sense it is always subjective (determined by the subject). However, as there is objectivity about our human nature there will always be an objectivity about what our 'subjective' needs are. So there can be an objectivity in the 'right' and 'wrong' way to be a human being, because there is a 'right' way of achieving certain needs, and these needs apply to every human being. I've not noticed a spell check thing at all...
I would say you're thinking about this in the wrong way. We may be able to deduce certain characteristics that what we consider to be good music have. I think it would be incorrect to then say that the definition of good music is the music that has these characteristics. We clearly have an idea of good music that is separate from the said characteristics, it just happens to be that we are structured in such a way that we appreciate particular things. It is still conceivable that we could have a person that would enjoy a piece of music, with entirely different characteristics that we usually associate with "good" music. We can tell from this that the certain features that we associate with good music are not the definition of good music, but perhaps a symptom of our personal experience of music. In that same way I would argue that although people seem to have a common idea of morality that involves serving society, this is just a symptom of our personal experience of morality, rather than the definition of it. Hmmm.. occasionally when I am writing a reply to someone misspelled words appear underlined in red. Perhaps your spelling is too good for you to have noticed it, although I'd expect my name in quotes to be highlighted.
There is a difference between music and morality though. A taste of music is rooted in culture so it is more akin to a person's preferences like food. Morality has more objective groundings - i.e. our very nature as human beings.
I would disagree. Morality is also rooted in culture and in the same way as morality, there are certain things we universally appreciate in music.
I was going to bail altogether, but here I am again..... Yes, absolutely, certain parts and ideology of morality, do infact have deep roots in culture. Like religious moral code. What constitutes murder things like that, they depend on us to be defined.... The idea is, regardless of this, morality will still arise in one form or another, do to our nature, needs.. (you know the spill.) I think "human nature" is the objectivity behind morality taking form regardless of religion or culture. I don't believe the basics of an objective morality are relative to culture. For example, all cultures may be against murder, (this is where that objective basis comes in...) the subjective part starts in defining what constitutes murder. This will be different dependent on the society in question. So, in short, I think the subjective part starts in defining the specifics of the moral, this is souly up to human thought, ethics..Etc.. It is limited to our understanding, language, etc.. (Although I think there are some obviously logical outcomes..) I do however think it has a very objective basis. The reasons behind an objective morality are infact perceptible to persons other than the affected individual. A secular objective morality may not be absolute, but, none the less, it is based on an objectivity. It has a relative feature, this may be the problem we ran into.
Hello again. I still think the comparison with music stands. There may be objective reasons, perhaps defined by our DNA, for us preferring certain things. These do not mean that the things in themselves our better, just that we are predisposed to have a certain subjective reaction them. For instance, we all appear to have a similar idea of what good music is on some level. That does not mean that what we consider to be good music is objectively good, or is defined as good. It is perfectly conceivable that we could find someone with a completely different ideal of good music. As, I think, you said earlier, truth isn't democracy. The fact that we all believe something, doesn't make it true.
I don't know, I don't really see any reason to believe this, but maybe you could help with that? I geuss if you reduce it to our social needs, I could go for it. (As in, it's a form of communication and a way to connect to others..) I don't know, I think you may just be misunderstanding what I'm saying. For example, I don't believe we are born with feelings against violence, murder or any other moral standard. If you look at the behavior of little kids, most will fight over just about anything. They have no care that it may hurt someone else, nor do they consider that they may get hurt themselves. (Although it's not the same in all children, as in, how they react, the exact act or how quickly they will react..Etc..) They are just trying to get what they want and or need. And there in lies the problem, they need to learn the best way to meet these needs and or wants..... In marches morality...... In short, secular morality is a logical attempt at solving a problem, we base the solutions on objective qualities in humans. This is why I take the phrase "objective morality" to mean that it's an "objectively based morality." I actually find this to be the best concept of morality, because it is subject to change if and when needed. (You keep saying things like " There may be objective reasons, perhaps defined by our DNA" do you believe that we would be here if there were no instinctual drive to survive or instinct to eat? I may just be taking this the wrong way????) If the human species is "predisposed" wouldn't that make it an objective truth? I don't think we are predisposed to have a certain action/opinion to certain matters, if we were, that would make it wholly objective. The underlying objective quality for having moral actions, are needs, and we as a whole do have objective needs. Defining an objective morality would be an attempt to look at things objectively and build a logical ideology to solve the problem. Ethics is such an attempt. In other words, we aren't born with the idea that murder is bad. That moral was built to accomodate other needs. Things like our social needs, our drive to survive..etc... When you look at these things objectively, there are certain conclusions that need to be reached in order to take care of and or meet those needs. This accompanied with our understanding of the word "better," puts us in a position of being capable of determining what will work, and what will not, thus making one way better than the other. But like I said, morality has a relative feature. Moral like conduct can and will develop in social creatures without any concern in defining said behavior. I mean even if left undefined, nature will still produce such acts, it's a needed tool, a natural by product if you will. Our intelligence (which by the way, is also part of our nature. A needed part at that..) has left us with the ability to class actions as good or bad dependent on their effect and worth in corralation to what we are. I think this can quite easily fall within the realm of an objectivity. The problem lies in the specifics of a moral, not the basis of an objective morality. (Sense you have a problem with the term "objectively good" I think we should avoid the term altogether. We can just work around the idea of "good" being "objective" through the understanding that it has a relative quality.) This is hard to place, we don't all share the "exact same" outlook on what those qualities are. A secular morality places itself on the fact that our basic needs are the exact same, in all humans. (Maybe you could illustrate the music example in this way?) Defined as good? I don't know, that is a bit confusing. If on some level it has some sort of underlying objective reason for arising, then I don't see why music in general wouldn't be defined as good. (Again. Sense you have a problem with the term "objectively good" I think we should avoid the term altogether. We can just work around the idea of "good" being "objective" through the understanding that it has a relative quality.) Yes, of course we could find that. But the general idea is that they like music, what kind doesn't really matter. I personally feel that music is something we develop a taste for, we are subjected to it from the time we are infants continuing throughout the rest of our lives. I see no objective basis behind your music example, like I said, maybe you could show me the basis. For this reason, I don't see it as being the same as an objectively based morality.
I'll agree that we devellop our morality in a similar way that we do our music taste. What we believe to be moral will be largely shaped by our background and upbringing. The difference is, music appreciation is rooted in taste while morality is rooted in the beliefs about how it is best to live one's life. If someone disagrees with your taste in music you might say that they have no sense of rhythm, or tone, or sophistication but there isn't a 'right' or 'wrong' taste in music - just a taste. Morality is based on objective facts about the nature of people. Although an individual person's taste in music will be linked to objective facts about their biological makeup and their personal nature, moral facts are determined by the nature of human beings in general. So music taste is based on subjective nature, the nature of a particular person while morality is based on objective nature, the nature of human beings in general.
The point I was making was that, although there may be certain characteristics that we all consider to be moral, they are not the definition of moral. In the same way that we may all share certain ideas about what comprises good music, they aren't the definition of good music.
I guess that by characteristics you mean general examples of morality/good music. E.g. a characteristic we associate with morality is altruism and a characteristic we associate with good music is a rhythm. However, good music and morality do have definitions. Good music is defined as a matter of taste and morality is defined by ideas of 'what should be done' and 'what is for the greater good'. Our similarities of what makes music good are limited to what we share in common in our aesthetic appreciation of music, likely to be shaped by our culture and background. Our sense of morality is also shaped by our culture and background but it is also a belief about what is right and what kind of actions are for the greater good. These are beliefs about the world we live in and therefore can be true or false, right or wrong, rationally justified or irrational.
I don't think morality is defined as "what is for the greater good", although that is usually something most people consider to be moral. The term "greater good" implies that things are good and evil in the first place, so surely you need to decide what is good and evil before you make up your mind what is moral. Saying "for the greater good" by itself seems to be saying, "it is moral to act morally", unless by good you mean a different kind of good, as in "it is good to drink water if you are thirsty". If you mean "good" as in the second case, I would disagree that is what morality is defined as.
A good example of what people mean by 'greater good' is when we imagine a word where people break the moral rules on stealing and murder. Such a situation would be bad for all of us. People use the word 'moral' in a definate way and the definition implies the characteristics of 'greater good' and 'what one ought to do' and these characteristics imply that morality is doing what is right for society. From there, we have a good reason to revise the commoner's naive understanding of morality to the better defined and clearer understanding of morality which is 'doing what is right from a social perspective'. Your fallacy is to take a common person's everyday terms and equivocate them with philosophical terms. When a person talks of desires they don't mean the same thing when philosophers talk about desires. Likewise their ideas of 'good' and 'evil' and 'right' and 'wrong'. The common language is for practical use while the philosophical terms have been revised to suit investigations into our meanings of these terms. The revision of desire comes to include all things we are motivated to do of our own free will rather than just our passing feelings that commoners tend to associate with it. The revision of 'good' and 'evil' that you were using has abstracted them from worldly values wheras common usage just sees them as another synonym for good and bad. Likewise for morality. The common usage is on the loose principles of 'greater good' and 'what a person must do, even if they don't currently desire it' leads us, when we investigate concept to it's logical conclusions, to revise it to 'doing what is good from a social perspective'. Ofcourse, there were other potential revisions as well. Some tried to revise morality into expressivism, others into a religious divine command theory but it seems to me that these theories have flaws and that 'good for society' is the revision that works.
I think it is a mistake to include the properties commonly associated with morality in the definition of morality based on the fact that when most people talk about morality they talk about these properties. You similarly say that when people mean that a song is good, they actually mean that it has a certain rhythm or structure. Although they may be related to each other and even necessary for each other, they are not necessarily the same thing. I maintain that by morality people mean what is "right" regardless of its affect on us, which I think is an absurd idea. I believe nothing is right and wrong (as in preferable, not true) from a universal perspective. We think things are better than others, because they benefit us.
