Making the world a better place

[ReD_MuZe]

If only it were that simple...

First of all, any form of activism always comes on the expense of someone else. Its impossible to decide on what's good and what's bad and nail it for everybody.
By doing good for one you harm the other.

People here are born into an already impossible situation, and expecting them to have answers to things leads to answers you don't want to hear, nor imagine.
alot of bad things would be prevented if the right people would just shut up at the right time.

I personally am fed up with trying to understand millions of different souls when i can hardly understand the ones i know.
what does making the world a better place mean? forcing everybody to do good? getting rid of the bad guys? who are the bad guys? maybe I'm one of the bad guys? this is not my job it is way beyond me.

and frankly, i will not happily accept anyone enforcing his version of "good" on me.

[MD69]

Hi Ken,

Thanks for the subject but hte sentence "make the world a better place" is a little bit open...
I mean "make" suppose we can act on it,
"the world" is the physical or spiritual or both ... for humans, all species ...
"a better place" .. I let you precise your points.


For me as a musician communication, i'll say "Invite me in your world!". Help me to cross the bridge between your perception and my perception (which relate to "culture" , "spirituality", "traditions" and the likes). The more you'll open my mind, the wider my perception of the world will be.


cheers

[garyb]

true morality is not subjective.

[braincell]

In some cases it is. Plenty of people will tell you it is immoral to have sex outside of marriage while others say it is fine. By definition this is subjective morality. There other examples.

[garyb]

that's not morality.

it might be moralizing.

[braincell]

That's what you say but other people disagree. You don't define words, other people do, unless you are the only one alive. Morality is a concept... IT DOES NOT EXIST OUTSIDE OF THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE. People have ideas which they perceive as real. How foolish! thoughts, concepts and ideas are not real things.

[ReD_MuZe]

true morality is not subjective.

these are the kind of words i always find unsettling....

[garyb]

yet, there IS right and wrong.

[ReD_MuZe]

of-course there is right and wrong, but these vary according to culture, education, experiences and personality.
there are allot of things i think are wrong, and others would disagree and vise versa.


there are many people out there that are sure evolution is wrong, and even evil.
i feel its a nice solid theory...

[braincell]

There is a right and a wrong for many issues that we agree on fortunately, but there are some things that people don't agree on such as abortion, illegal drug use, prostitution and homosexuality. There are different degrees of wrongness as well. Not all crimes are equally wrong. Its not just black and white, good versus evil as you suggest Gary. That is simplistic, bombastic, conservative thinking and I for one am sick and tired of this mentality.

[garyb]

nope, it is simple.

it's the application that gets complicated. culture is artificial and phony, though it can be interesting and fun. it's the imaginary world that is subjective.

braincell, i'm not suggesting anything like you think i am. what you like, don't like or are tired of has no bearing on right and wrong, though you might think it so...

[Shroomz~>]

true morality is not subjective.

these are the kind of words i always find unsettling....

Now this is interesting.

Many people think that the world would be a better place without guns while many (particularly in the US) who want to carry them disagree, but if a woman is walking home from work one night (in say LA) and 2 or 3 guys grab her from behind & drag her into an alley where they beat her up then rape her, would it be right or wrong for her to take her gun out as they walk away laughing & shoot all of them twice in the head each? I'm really not so sure about things like this & doubt very much that there's anything worth considering as 'true morality'. Morality is definitely very subjective indeed, or at least it should be. A guy walks in his front door to find some well known local junkie lowlife bashing his wife's head in because she won't give him cash to go buy cr*ck or something. What's the right or wrong thing for the guy to do? Come on. Even people that have what they consider to be high moral values will lose those values in a split second if faced with certain circumstances. Does the fact that the moral values they thought they had vanished for a particular reason make them bad? If the woman that's just been raped doesn't shoot the rapists when she's got the chance to, does that make her good? I'm not sure...

[kensuguro]

hmm... I gave morality being subjective/objective a little thought... my take on this is that it is better of being defined as objective. The fact is, an objective morality does not exist, or it may exist in theory, but it is something we cannot attain using our relative / contextual value system. But, by understanding it as something objective... a place we can arrive to, a definite goal, we gain direction. An objective morality is whatever the person may think it is, so by definition, that makes it subjective.

But by defining it as the "ultimate" state of morality, where "ultimate" is an abstract form defined in every culture and tradition, it does become objective. Objective in that it is the "ultimate" that is common throughout all cultures. The best that every culture has to offer.

I think it is the act of persuing an ideal. Ideals may be different, but while a subjective definition of morality may be fabricated for one's good or benefit, if one is asked for an ideal, it is usually different. All in all, if one creates an image of an "objective" morality, which transends his subjective morality, learns to differentiate between the two, and learns to create an "objective" morality through hightening his ideals, refining it... then that will ultimately make the world a better place.. or atleast in theory. I'm sure there will be extremists and strange peopl who will throw the system off somewhat, but in general.

The importance it seems to me, is less about whether an "objective" morality exists or not. It's not even a question of whether any "objective" thing exists or not. It seems it's more about searching for one, and in the process, learning to distance ourselves from the subjective one, and learning to tweak the subjective one from a third person point of view. (whatever the "objective" one happens to be) A third person point of view doesn't have to be from a specifc perspective, it only has to be outside of the context.

It's all quite simple within the realms of meta cognition. A system that is able to cognitively process itself as a system within a system. Like a world with in a world. Being within a culture and outside at the same time. It is a longer linkage of concepts... and it seems a bit convoluted, but it does make sense. Did that sort of outline your thoughts gary?

[garyb]

that'll do, thanks!

i was going to post earlier:
"one has to know what the symbol "morality" actually stood in place of(as the vicar of a thing if you will), to know if such a thing were even possible.


morality is a specific, real thing. the actual thing is not an abstraction, but a reality."

the way you expressed it though, is a better communication for the time being...words are troublesome, abstractions of real things...

[kensuguro]

well, I think "morality" that I was talking about, and I think gary is referring it to is a little different from what you guys are bringing up, wich seems more concerned with the law, or proper code of conduct as defined by society. Maybe that's where the confusion is.

It's kind of like programming.. so let's say there is a "morality" as a concept. The root, the base, the back end. Then there is the implementation of it. The end result, the front end. The back end, may be common while having different front ends that match specific cultures, contexts, etc. If "morality" as a concept is based on "good will", or maybe "love", as concepts, then those concepts could be a common back end for many different contexts. (just as an example) But the result will be different because the front end will be different. So, that's probably the difference between the objective (or more like "platform independent") backend concept (what gary and I are talking about), vs the different implementations of it (stardust and brain).

Going back to "morality" as concept, I think that although we can theoretically deem it as "can be possibly objective", I don't think it's attainable. I also agree with the implementation of the concept being very context sensitive, and extremely subjective. And if used correctly, that's better because the base concept can be adapted to suite many situations. But obviously, the process of coming up with an implementation (as a society) brings up all sorts of problems, and it's really no miracle that most implementations are chronically broken. Of course, that's not to say that your own personal implementation also has to be broken. That's where I think the improvement can take place.

[garyb]

it can be attained, because it's always with you if you've learned to seek it. it is in the nature of things, but not necessarily the thing we call "nature"(the Sphynx ).

i have met moral people. being moral doesn't mean being non-human and a moral person will usually make stardust happy in that he will usually be "responsible", making stardust happy....

Ken is right. laws and customs are not morals, neither are they necessarily moral nor are they necessarily based on any kind of morality, or if they are, the morality they are based on may or may not be very moral. to say the morality is subjective is not true. if there is a human being, there is morality, period, just like if there is a human being, there is poop. poop is not subjective, it is always poop no matter which ass it comes out of, just like there is music. we may not all agree upon what music is or whether it is good or bad, but there is still, bewilderingly at times, but still something that is music everywhere, regardless of artifices such as "culture" and that is the truth about music and the true measuring stick for whether or not it even is music. the thing is, for the most part, sounds can be easily sorted by what is music and what is something else, as easily as apples can be sorted from pineapples.

music is real, even though you don't understand why.
morality is real, ditto.
you are real, but now what? and so what?
art is phony and false, a magic trick.
art has the root of "artifice" and "artificial". see? it is something made by man.
this romance we live is tricky. the language shows it to be false by definition, and yet somehow we continue to mistake the fake world in our minds for the real one.

well, that's enough of making clean minds dirtier(or more truthfully vice versa)....

[Cochise]

What is moral? Upon which is it based? What is its ultimate aim?
And then, what's its role in the world improvement course?

I need myself trying to find these answers before going on. I need to redefine.

Moral is a non exactly defined behavioural code, a whole of non coercive social norms.

The second answer ain't an easy one to find for me: moral is a wide concept...
It should be based on principles addressed to the construction of a good future at individual and social level.
Agreeing this, it has an important role making the world a better place.

Yes, basical principles of morality are common to many cultures.
These basical principles are elaborated to many directions; often distorted, arranged in ways that end betraying the ultimate aim.

Nevertheless moral is widely despised at all by many people.

And how can a message of morality be spread?
The first means is the example, but I think it also need interpretative keys nowadays..

[ReD_MuZe]

i like this yin yang of destruction and creation.
this is the motivator of change.

[alfonso]

Talking of subjective vs. objective only misses the point. It reduces the issue to an individual one, while it is social, instead. I'd say "conventional", in the sense that some rules are considered the right ones for a community and someone has to observe them to be accepted.

The word "morality" comes from the latin "mos" (genitive=moris), which means exactly "custom", "usage" or "way of life". Let's stick to the correct meaning, otherwise use a different word if you mean anything different.

One real difference is in the source. For someone is God, for others is Nature, both of those ideas have produced very different moralities because many are the religions and the experiences of Nature. Given that history and anthropology show very noticeable differences in morality conceptions, their "relativity" is a fact.
Relativity doesn't mean subjectivity, that is a very common error between the absolutists. Relativity means "connection", "interdependence" with the changing reality.

Another real difference is in the procedures followed to determine morality. Being morality a social phenomenon, the procedures reflect the social dynamics. No need to explain the difference between Taliban morality and Zen morality as it is enormous and evident. Nevertheless they both express a form of morality. The fact that one comes from an absolutist theistic philosophy and the other one is the idea that only a mind free from any conditioning is morally elevated, doesn't change their respective nature of "moralities", as both of them imply some quite tough discipline to be accomplished. But you're not equally free in one context or another. Christian morality is not different at all from the Taliban morality, it is just tamed (fortunately) by the different social and political conditions of the western countries where it is more spread, but if you have a look at its history you'll see a history of horrors and violence and, still now, it has the same absolutist attitude to try forcing everyone to its rules (which, like the Taliban ones, are based on the mortification of Nature), even if non believers or believers in something else.

[garyb]

i love the breakdown into latin, good job!

the only thing is, all this brainwork and moral relativism just makes excuse for bad behavior. i'll happily use another word, but cultural bias and point of veiw don't even enter into it. i don't care what people think. there's a true reality that is unaffected by opinions and this is the only one worth respecting, and my opinion on the matter is irrelevant. if i come over and kick you in the balls, we'll find out more about it...