Many different moralities are built having common atoms, apart from the different modalities by which they manifest themselves.
Considering the talibans issue I can say extreme (and bloody) banning of (relative) immorality is considered immoral by western morality.
Ok, now I'm really going very confused!
My personal morality makes me consider the extreme ( even unbloody ) banning of immorality as an immorality. This should has to be a certainty.
And it should be useless to say crimes of course are another issue; they're not just immoral, they're crimes...
Other considerations I'm gonna make at now concern the individual/social issue:
Till which point some moral principles (yes I prefer to consider moral PRINCIPLES and not RULES) affect the individual sphere only and not the social?
Last edited by Cochise on Sat Oct 25, 2008 7:29 pm, edited 3 times in total.
garyb wrote:i love the breakdown into latin, good job!
the only thing is, all this brainwork and moral relativism just makes excuse for bad behavior.
The opposite. The worst behaviors come from absolutism, like history demonstrates. If you try to hurt me I'm not reacting because your behavior is immoral, but because I must defend myself. That comes before morality. Then, the optimization of our reciprocal advantage puts us in "society" and we agree on rules whose purpose is an easier life for both.
But if one of us has got more power he can impose his own set of rules....elites try to impose their own set of rules for their advantage, usually claiming some superior truth or being of sort. The concept of absolute truth comes to play only when the rules are not really convincing and convenient for everyone and the fear of earthly or supernatural punishments keeps the sheep silent.
The fact is that even admitting an absolute truth, and i don't, the simple fact that almost no one agrees on it makes it useless.
It's much easier to agree on relative truths for a better life in a certain context, you are even happier to settle somewhere in between and concede something as this is not going to prove you wrong but just clever.
If there always is a right and a wrong then who gets to decide what it is? Why can't something be both right and wrong at the same time? It's interesting to me that people try to simplify everything. It's not always like picking which team to bet on at a football game. Life is often much more complicated than that. I guess people are just too stupid to consider the intricate details of things.
Last edited by braincell on Sat Oct 25, 2008 8:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
well, I would have to say that if the issue of morality, and all the burden it carries with it, gives rise to such controversy, then the concept itself is of no value to me. The word itself is pretty much useless. Perhaps we can call it "jello putty" or whatever. I seriously doubt that doing good, and having good will requires such scrutiny. At least I don't see it happen when someone chooses to do evil. Besides, I've already defined my share of making the world a better place, and it doesn't really involve messing with people's morals. (directly) So, the issue of morality just happened to pop up in the process.
The fact that we are sitting here getting all technical about this stuff proves that without agreeing that there is something we must all accomplish ("good", or "make the world better") at some sort of conceptual, common level, shows that comparing interpretations only can get you so far. You can call the "common" part whatever you wish, just label it, and get on to acting on it.
Frankly, all the details of the conceptual build of doing good, has no effect on my, or your capability to do good and to contribute to society. It isn't such a technical task. Or, at least I think there isn't enough of it to the point that the technical issues come into play. As I've already said before, what I want to do is to help people develop or obtain the facilities to think about such things. If one does not have the facilities to question and think about morality (or any issue), what things should be like, ability to gather information, etc, then there is no doubt a moral breakdown will occur. (which we are already in) And that probably doesn't even require a technical breakdown of what morality is.
If we can carry out a conversation about meaning within context, relative values, etc. we are all fortunate. There are so many people out there who do not own the conceptual framework to deal with such abstract matters, or matters that require manipulating huge chunks of concepts at a time. There are many people who have a hard time even thinking ahead of time, planning for the benefit of perhaps themselves or their familiy. It is because they do not know how to drive their brains very well, most likely resulting from extremely poor education. And again, I do not know what it is I can do through music, but I wish that I can do something about it. The implementation is certainly up in the air, but the act of trying to change this, to me, is not very technical at all.
Everyone likes to think that what they are doing is helping people but are they? Say you are a music teacher for instance; you may think you are making the world a better place by teaching people to make music but what if I think your music style is horrible and you are spreading and perpetuating this awful sound to future generations. I would say you are making the world a worse place.
improving one's FACILITY to think has nothing to do with whatever the person chooses to do with it. There really is no value associated with it that gets transfered in the process. Or at least that isn't the point of it.
In your example, it is free for you to say whether the process was futile, harmful, or good. That really makes no difference to the fact that a future generation of musicians was born. Those who are free to use what they've learned, and break / improve things that they felt were not to their likings. Whether it is a step back or not, is up to how the students put the knowledge into practice.
Contrary to popular belief, I think education does not mame people, regardless of what is taught (unless it is intentionally done to misinform). The only difference is, if the people have the capability to question, take apart, and re-process the information, then something new can be created from even the most broken things. Without that ability, then education is merely a form of lossy copy. And fortunately, it doesn't have to be that way.
I do see the point you are trying to bring up through the example though. Basically I understand it as "doing good can backfire if you don't know what you're doing". And that is very true I think. It's like DDT, which killed mosquitos that caused malaria, but was later found to have cause all sorts of other problems. So, sure, a certain amount of thought has to go in before one runs out to cause an impact on the world. But that isn't to say that all impact on the world will go wrong. With the right amount of thought, I think we are capable of making change in the right direction. Or at the very least, we can correct the many wrongs that have already been done. But the process will never start if you do not give thought to what should be done, or how something could be done with best long term results. That is apathy, and the overabundance of it is what brings us deeper into... uhm, crap.
It is true that many "good" things have dual messaging, and usually carry with it some sort of commercial benefit, or perhaps benefits some organization specifically, while silently paralizing another. It is true that at certain times, something we don't know about very well, but seems "good" can backfire in the long run. It's also true that at times, what is presented as "good" is completely evil in the first place. There is so much of this stuff, that I can understand people becoming extremely skeptical of anything "good". Never take anything for face value, always watch out for the catch, always read the fine print, etc. etc.
But if that causes us to just give up and accept all the saccharin goodness, then who will question the clever tactics? Who will help the farmed consumers in figuring out just what it is their live's purpose is? (I think a large part of a country just farms consumers like farm animal) Keeping the dumb, dumb, and keeping the smart separate works very well economically.. but that doesn't click very well with me. I doubt it requires my personal opinion to show that there is something significantly wrong with the structure. All in all though, I do want to empower the dumb, and somehow put a brake on this continuously uni-directional parasitic relationship. I know it's even stupid to be wishing for such a thing. But that is what I wish my productions to work towards.
all this intellectualizing....
Alfonso, defending one's self is moral.
the world being defended is false(it's not real, it's in the human mind). relativism is part of that false reality.
btw-the root of mos is a form which can't be written by this keyboard but is written with the letters "me". it means "expressing a certain quality of mind". words having this root are mind, disposition, mood, wont, humor, manner, more', moral. i would interpret this to indicate that moral indicates a state of mind that is represented by the "better" aspects of human nature. there are certainly degrees and colors of morality, but we don't need to go there for it to exist. one thing's sure, the existance of that state of mind, just like the emotional and the spiritual don't require subjectivity or understanding to exist. the subjectivity exists in the experience, which as any adult should know can be deceiving. the reality itself which leads to the experience, just is...human knowledge and wisdom are not required for the universe to operate, so all the intellectualization, while entertaining, won't make things any better(unless better is slavery). moral behavior would, however(false morality is intellectualized, it is false, it's what people think, so it will also bring slavery).
at this stage i would raise the harder question, which is what do you want to do, to make the world a better place?
i think we will get some more actual examples and enrich each other, rather than battling on the meaning of the world "morality".
people have done it rather successfully here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morality
it's not about talking about it or wikis as i see it. it's about what you think and do.
no examples are needed. you already know the difference between good and still behave wickedly(the generic "you" living in this "modern" world). splitting hairs is silly. just a good word is better than a bad word. this stuff isn't hard. no one is suggesting that one person alone will change the world for the better, but one could make at least a little difference. iron sharpens iron...there is no real excuse.
garyb wrote:it's not about talking about it or wikis as i see it. it's about what you think and do.
Really? Wasn't this a discussion? I hope this thread is not about stating definitive rules for us all.....
Sorry, but if you want to use words, like in a discussion, you have to know and to make clear what do they mean for all the participants, If you want to share your point of view you imply that there are other that differ, otherwise it would make no sense to discuss at all.
"It's about what you think and do". You want to talk about it or not?
The cool thing is that probably most of us act in a very similar way towards the others, with love and respect and what we believe or theorize doesn't change that too much. Maybe because the real rules that we follow come from relations and necessity and we share a common context. That way you can explain historical and cultural morality differences. Behavior is determined by the context. Metaphysics are a way to control the process. Societies change and revolutions occur when the ideological burden set by the elites to control the society doesn't reflect anymore the real dynamics of relations.
Yes, more common moral, more common way of thinking based on preconception often encroach on dumbness.
Though, many people can't own enough time or mind fastness, or mind energies, to leave this way for the analytical one.
Going to consider as minds manipulation, or (even!) enslavement, the synthesis process of complex, and likely often anyway subjective and relative, concepts into more accessible or "handy" ones, the only other way I can find to try to make world a better place by music is report and condamnation of hidden crimes. Using the more objective and plain way to do it.
Right, we have newspapers and other medias doing that, but till which point they're free?
Moreover, reports from newspaper or tv appears and desappears; a song stays around much more time and could have more expressive power due to the enhancement effect the music brings ...
Last edited by Cochise on Sun Oct 26, 2008 8:56 am, edited 3 times in total.
stardust wrote:what a dilemma. Who judges which life is to survive when there is a choice.
Usually who has the power decides. Regulation of this power is what politics is about. What has to be left to the individual alone? What has to be decided through a collective mechanism? Who is entitled? Anthropology and history show infinite variations...usually a certain system endures until the structural necessities are favored by it. Those structural necessities are what people think as necessary for their own survival and happiness. Religion is the way to condition people's desires and aspirations in order to stabilize a certain distribution of power. Fear is the other one and like in all integralist religious systems strictly connected to the first one.
Imagine you are moderately hungry, you enter in a restaurant and order some meat. They bring you an awesome dish with a human arm cooked perfectly. What do you do? Nobody has been killed by purpose, and the preparation is very good. The result, I'm sure is disgust, sorrow, anger, you'll watch the waiter as a criminal and probably run away screaming. All this reactions are not triggered by the fact that the cooking was bad or you waited too much for the second course. The reaction is moral.
Now, imagine yourself lost up on snow covered mountains, far thousand miles from any form of life because your plane crashed, together with few survivors and some dozens of poor victims died and progressively covered by snow. This is a true story happened some years ago, somewhere in Latin America if i recall well. Well, after a week of famine and the temperatures going below zero it's not surprising if the survivors start to eat the corpses. This is what actually happened, before they where found after more than a month...nobody screamed away and nobody in the public opinion was particularly shocked by what happened up there in the mountains.
I'm sure that all those survivors would have had the same reaction described above in that nightmare restaurant.
So you might deduct that morality is quite flexible because reality is flexible. And again, advanced juridical systems take in account this and are able to distinguish contexts, as the conscience does.
You obviously have heard the tale of the Donner Party that passed through the Sierra Neveda Mountains that survived by eating human flesh to survive.
Interesting enough the statue is of the normal pioneers looking west towards a new life w/ the family.
It would not be politically incorrect I suppose to have a statue of these poor chaps knawing on a cooked Femur, but we as " Moral " people want to leave this statue for future generations to understand what happened here back in the early half of the 19th century.
Personally I would have preferred a more realistic statue.
My son has been there on field trips as his school sits in the mountains close by, and if wasn't for the teacher explaining what happened here, these kids would have never known, as the statue and plaque are your typical symbolism over substance approach of history and education in the great socialist state of California.
Last edited by dawman on Sun Oct 26, 2008 9:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
Here's the politically correct statue.
We wind surf up there every summer as Jet Ski's, Boats etc, are not allowed anymore.
Just the solitude and sound of those beautiful wind sails.
Tahoe is to the right about 12 miles.
The famous railroad and tunnels cannot be seen but are also on the right side of the lake. It's a beautiful ride from the Wharf & Marina in San Francisco to Reno.
The pic is from the road to the top which is 12,000 feet in altitude.
When it snows, the deer and elk go to Reno, which is why the brave pioneers starved.
They knew very little of the 60 feet snows that come there yearly, and therefore knew little of the game trails.
I still think the guy laying down in the background should at least have bone in his hand, it doesn't have to show the fleshiness.
In theory I am not against eating humans once they are already dead. I am an atheist. Once you are dead, you are a piece of meat. Having said that, I have ordinary prejudices such as the revolution of eating human flesh. I have heard it tastes sweet though.
XITE-1/4LIVE wrote:You obviously have heard the tale of the Donner Party that passed through the Sierra Neveda Mountains that survived by eating human flesh to survive.
Interesting enough the statue is of the normal pioneers looking west towards a new life w/ the family.
It would not be politically incorrect I suppose to have a statue of these poor chaps knawing on a cooked Femur, but we as " Moral " people want to leave this statue for future generations to understand what happened here back in the early half of the 19th century.
Personally I would have preferred a more realistic statue.
My son has been there on field trips as his school sits in the mountains close by, and if wasn't for the teacher explaining what happened here, these kids would have never known, as the statue and plaque are your typical symbolism over substance approach of history and education in the great socialist state of California.
I was referring to something happened between the 70's and the 80's in consequence of an airplane crash, never heard about the Donner Party. Anyway, another proof of how much stretch a mind is capable of under certain circumstances.
who decides who survives? if it's my life, I do. no moral relativism required. if i have to make the choice, we'll see what happens, then. morals aren't hard, they only require doing what's right, to the best of your ability and knowledge. easy peasy...
who says i won't talk about it Alfonso? i just think all this intellectualization is just masturbation. in the same way that masturbation won't create offspring, it's not really for the purpose of greater understanding, it's for being awesome and supporting an opinion(that's my opinion, anyway). if you noticed, i commended you for going to the Latin root of moral, and then i even went to the root of that word. isn't that a conversation? what's the use of an arguement if all sides don't learn and grow?
stardust wrote:civilisation is a fine layer on top. Underneath the instincts are strong.
civilization is b.s.
there is nothing civil in civilization. civilization is strictly predation upon the masses with a happy face plastered on it. men can be very wild and be quite civil(although there are no truly wild men today)....what we call civilization is probably more properly called domestication...
what's the use of an arguement if all sides don't learn and grow?