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What is morality?

Blogs > hoby2000
Post a Reply
hoby2000
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States918 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-09-01 23:11:02
September 01 2013 23:09 GMT
#1
Disclaimer: I have read a lot of explanations about understanding mankind and the always progressing human civilization I participate in. It is not through one particular field I looked for this answer, but many different types of fields including psychology, popular philosophers, sociology, economics, video games, music, fantasy and science fiction novels among many other faucets of my life which have influenced my every day decisions which lead me to these ideals - though I will not say that those decisions and ideals are not mine, and I will not say I do not have full control. That is to say that even though I am influenced, I have the ability to process thought and every thought or decision made through my actions are completely my own.

With that being said, every idea I have is an evolution of other people's ideas, and I cannot therefore claim any originality of the thoughts provided seeing how I am completely aware of the influences of my readings and surroundings, but simply that they are my own thoughts and do not completely represent any influence that has helped me produce the ideas will be explaining including the ones expressed in this disclaimer.


This is a first draft at explaining this, and may have edits, or be used for future purposes. Please ask any questions you may have for the sake of improving my article or whatever this is.

Let us proceed.


In order to explain morality, it's important that you understand the concept of liberty, or at least as well as I can explain it without needing to explain a lot. Liberty is the freedom of a person to pursue their ideals to their ends within general principles.

Where do these general principles stem from? Their origination is through a term a lot of people associate with biology, but one that was present in society before Darwin coined the term, and in which he was likely influenced by society itself when writing about the idea: Evolution. The progression of human civilization started when two people decided it was better to work together rather than continuing to always compete. They compromised with each other's ideas as far as they could understand, and started social evolution as we know it. The ideas of those two people lead to the creation general principles that both agreed to, but were not necessarily always directly enforced, and were allowed to reign in their own domain as they saw fit - even violating some of the more defined aspects of the general principle, but ones they disagreed with specifically in any given situation.

Example: Not killing each other was likely one of the first general moral principles, and even had a lot of defined laws throughout time about the harming of another person to the point of ending their life. That being said, armies of kings slaughtered other men, and it was accepted as a needed exception to the general rule of killing to help protect the people within a given country though it was a general rule still followed by the population of that country in public settings, but not necessarily in their private domains. With a less extreme example, you may "steal" a dollar from a friend or family member but tell them later you did it and it would be OK based on understanding between you - That same idea could not be applied to the public setting if the person you're stealing from doesn't have a similar understanding. You could say that the difference in the understanding between two people is their understanding and knowledge of the private domain of the individual, but that comes with other factors not worth discussing at the moment.

Through the random generation of actions of each individual, not killing and stealing have become general principles applied to society or civilization because they're consistently used in order to help achieve whatever end we desire. It is not because man identifies general principles that makes them so, but instead that man identifies them because their existence is so as evident by the actions of the population at large. The beliefs and ideals of not killing or stealing were because of the spontaneous cooperation of individuals leading to both positive and negative consequences that no individual could necessarily predict with complete accuracy, but were achieved anyway without the any need for someone to know where it was going.

Absolute morality is a well built machine. It is through the short term plans of improving specific parts through out time that the machine becomes better. The random actions of individuals and their ability to see the parts from their own perspective allows them to improve their part of the machine without knowing if or how the rest of it is working as needed. If part A relies on part B, and part B relies on part C, it is not necessary for part A to know if part C is working. It only needs to know that part B isn't working to help it start working, and in turn may need to know of part C, but does not need to know the dependencies of part C until otherwise needed. It is not that we do not require every piece of knowledge we can acquire, it is that until we can acquire every piece, we only need to know the pieces that help us function in the world directly surrounding us, and not necessarily need to know every working piece to achieve the quality of life we desire.

And through the constant improvement of ourselves and our ideals, we improve the absolute morals provided by the general principles of social evolution. It cannot be directly measured, much like a machine cannot be measured by the effort and efficiency of one part, but it's measurements relies on every part working together, we must also perceive our actions as direct efforts that will help to improve other parts of the machine eventually. Those parts will improve themselves without the help of other parts until otherwise needed, and will accept that help within time, or fall to a similar natural selection of social evolution - though not as dire in consequence.

Morals then are relative to each group, to each organization of individuals or simply an individual, and even to each situation. The values of these morals while they are good in nature must also be applied to each circumstance, time, and place. The current society doesn't allow us to simply not kill each other because there are people out there who are not afraid of doing so to accomplish their goals. They are imposing on another's liberty, and while I disagree with that, forcing them to abide by certain rules through the advancement of intervention in the private domain comes with other restrictions within the ideas produced. We cannot prevent people from thinking, and we can only deal with the consequences of their actions after they've happened - not before. We do not have insight to their lives, and even through communication gain a very limited understanding of their lives. Therefore, we cannot directly change a person without them changing themselves.

If we want people to follow morals absolutely, then we have to let society evolve and change people slowly. Instant action is likely to have an equal reaction and offset the original values expressed by the spirit of the change in mind. Sharing with people is good, but we shouldn't be forced to share with people we do not want to share with. Eventually society may see differently, but only through the slow progression that is social evolution, and the advancement of human civilization. We have to allow people the liberty to express themselves within general principles that restrict them from imposing upon the liberties of others in the public setting, but allow them to do as they will in the private domain. Though a man may violate the general principle in the private domain, it is only up to those who are affected by the actions of a man in the private domain to bring about change for themselves if they care for their own liberty.

*
A lesson without pain is meaningless for nothing can be gained without giving something in return.
nunez
Profile Blog Joined February 2011
Norway4003 Posts
September 02 2013 00:43 GMT
#2
so basically what you're saying here is that the hole is greater than the sum of its farts?
conspired against by a confederacy of dunces.
HolyExlxF
Profile Joined March 2011
United States256 Posts
September 02 2013 00:57 GMT
#3
It's a good start, but it would be nice if you explained why and how you arrived at your conclusions.

Also, less extrapolation and more citation (eg. "Not killing each other was likely one of the first general moral principles" says who?).
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SiskosGoatee
Profile Blog Joined May 2012
Albania1482 Posts
September 02 2013 03:41 GMT
#4
I am pretty sure there are countless societies which allow for the killing of people in their moral code with more or less leniency. For instance many societies still practice the death penalty while many others consider any killing of human beings, even that of killers themselves deplorable. Then there's the fact that in Rome they just slaughtered people in spectacle and games by letting them fight wild animals or each other to the death.

Or how about the Aztec civilization, humans were sacrificed like no tomorrow, these people played ball games where the losing team was ritually murdered. That practice, in current day western European morality is popularly seen as deplorable.
WCS Apartheid cometh, all hail the casual audience, death to merit and hard work.
GERMasta
Profile Joined October 2010
Germany212 Posts
September 02 2013 07:51 GMT
#5
Oh dear not poor morality again...

Where do these general principles stem from? Their origination is through a term a lot of people associate with biology, but one that was present in society before Darwin coined the term, and in which he was likely influenced by society itself when writing about the idea: Evolution. The progression of human civilization started when two people decided it was better to work together rather than continuing to always compete. They compromised with each other's ideas as far as they could understand, and started social evolution as we know it. The ideas of those two people lead to the creation general principles that both agreed to, but were not necessarily always directly enforced, and were allowed to reign in their own domain as they saw fit - even violating some of the more defined aspects of the general principle, but ones they disagreed with specifically in any given situation.
So you ask where we get our general moral principles from, but you take as a given that morality = general moral principles, which is questionable. But let's just assume for the sake of argument that yes, whatever, general moral principles are all there is to morality. You say that they came about because two people at some primitive state of our past met each other and agreed to work together and this, you say, then somehow lead to the creation of general principles. But don't you think there is a significant conceptual gap between coming together to work together and making up principles? I can work together with someone just fine without agreeing to any principles, or even sharing or thinking of any principles whatsoever. In fact, animals can perfectly well work together without even having the capacity for abstract cognitive thought. Your explanation really doesn't get off the ground there, unfortunately.

You could try arguing from scarcity though: If there was no scarcity, we would have no need for morality. This is because scarcity leads to conflicts of interest and morality's purpose is to help us navigate those conflicts. You can find all that in any good intro to moral philosophy book, which I think you should give a go if questions of morality interest you; in fact, let me recommend you Francis Snare - The Nature of Moral Thinking.
HolyExlxF
Profile Joined March 2011
United States256 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-09-02 18:22:40
September 02 2013 18:22 GMT
#6
One could argue that the working together (read: cooperating) itself is an agreement, at least on some level, of principles. As you conjecture, animals have no capacity for abstract thought, but humans do, so that comparison is a weak one. A human working with another, having capacity for the abstract and question, could wonder why he/she is cooperating with another. At that point, they either agree with the reasoning, or they do not, and would likely stop cooperating in the case of disagreement. And that reasoning can be as simple as "We work to get water together" or "I can't reach that coconut without his/her help."

But then, is that a moral reason? Probably not, but it could be extrapolated to "It would be wrong for me not help him get water; he would die without water and then I would have no one to help me get water," which tiptoes into the realm of morality. Of course, this is purely hypothetical extrapolation (on TeamLiquid, no less) so I don't mean to provide a good argument, but perhaps just a thought process.
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