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Post by Aj_June on Oct 21, 2017 8:49:38 GMT
Considering the fact that there is no active conscious entity or system which is going to enforce justice on us after death and in fact this life is most probably the only life we will ever live, do we have any moral obligation to live a good life? I am not saying that we should out rightly start committing crimes but what about doing things in our own interest even if it comes at cost of doing slight bit of cheating? Let's say we take loans and embezzle money (considering we find a way to get away with law). We can use embezzled money for our own enjoyment. Unless we have a conscience which stops us from enjoying the embezzled money, isn't it the best thing is our interest to cheat? What do you guys think?
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Post by The Herald Erjen on Oct 21, 2017 9:11:31 GMT
Well, this guy thinks you're throwing around the word "fact" rather loosely.
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Post by Cinemachinery on Oct 21, 2017 9:18:27 GMT
I think so. I mean, it's going to boil down to what you consider "moral", but from my point of view, yeah.
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Post by tickingmask on Oct 21, 2017 9:41:28 GMT
Let's say we take loans and embezzle money (considering we find a way to get away with law). I'm assuming you mean find a way to do so legally, rather than find a way to act illegally and not get caught? Embezzlement is a criminal offence whichever way you look at it, and you have a moral obligation not the break the law. Otherwise I cannot possibly imagine a scenario where you should have a moral obligation to act against your best interests just because somebody has judged that to do so would be living "a good life". That's why notions like, say, Starbucks and Amazon not paying enough taxes make them 'bad' companies is so ridiculous. Why would any company or individual voluntarily pay more taxes than they have to?
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Post by Terrapin Station on Oct 21, 2017 10:35:34 GMT
All that morality is is anyone's "conscience." And unless you're extremely unusual physically--unless there's something seriously unusual about your brain, everyone has a "conscience," everyone has moral views. Your moral views may not very much resemble the norms of your culture, but there's going to be behavior that you feel is permissible and behavior that you have a problem with.
Whether you have any particular moral obligation is simply a matter of your conscience, too.
The whole reason that most people act as if they have obligations to do things that they don't personally feel morally against is because of self-interest, by the way. They want to stay out of prison, they don't want to be socially ostracized, they want to stay in particular persons' good graces, etc.
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Post by Isapop on Oct 21, 2017 10:53:48 GMT
Creating a civilized society depends upon people being willing to live by basic moral rules. Those who live immorally within society (like those who cheat) are riding on the backs of those who live morally, and are not fulfilling their obligations.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 21, 2017 12:46:32 GMT
Considering the fact that there is no active conscious entity or system which is going to enforce justice on us after death and in fact this life is most probably the only life we will ever life, do we have any moral obligation to live a good life? I am not saying that we should out rightly start committing crimes but what about doing things in our own interest even if it comes at cost of doing slight bit of cheating? Let's say we take loans and embezzle money (considering we find a way to get away with law). We can use embezzled money for our own enjoyment. Unless we have a conscience which stops us from enjoying the embezzled money, isn't it the best thing is our interest to cheat? What do you guys think? You say that "I am not saying that we should out rightly start committing crimes", but then go on to suggest embezzling money, which is committing a crime. So something is going wrong with your logic there. As to your question about living a good life, I think it depends on what you mean by "good". In my experience that is a surprisingly difficult word to define. For me, morality is about codes of behaviour that are good for society. If you want to know whether it is good to embezzle money, just ask yourself how the world would be if most or all people embezzled money. Is that a world you'd want to live in? I suspect it wouldn't - so don't embezzle money, because it's wrong. Under that definition then yes, you have a moral obligation to live a good life. And here's the thing - it's in your own self interest to do so. When You ask "isn't it the best thing is our interest to cheat?" then the answer is no. Now don't get me wrong, cheating can benefit you in the immediate sense - if you steal money, then you have money that you otherwise wouldn't have. Which is a benefit to you. But I think it's a mistake to limit yourself to considering the immediate consequences when deciding whether something is good or bad. Rather, I would say consider the likely consequences of what you're doing applied as a general principle. So don't ask "would I be better off if I stole this money?", but rather "would I be better off if most people stole money whenever they had the opportunity?" The answer to that is a pretty obvious one, IMO.
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Post by tickingmask on Oct 21, 2017 12:50:48 GMT
The whole reason that most people act as if they have obligations to do things that they don't personally feel morally against is because of self-interest, by the way. They want to stay out of prison, they don't want to be socially ostracized, they want to stay in particular persons' good graces, etc. But you just said that most people have a conscience, which would appear to contradict this statement. Is conscience simply a fear of going to prison or being socially ostracized, or is "not having a guilty conscience" just an additional self-interested reason to add to the list? (If the latter, your statement would appear to be rather self evident).
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Post by phludowin on Oct 21, 2017 13:33:56 GMT
Considering the fact that there is no active conscious entity or system which is going to enforce justice on us after death and in fact this life is most probably the only life we will ever life, do we have any moral obligation to live a good life? I am not saying that we should out rightly start committing crimes but what about doing things in our own interest even if it comes at cost of doing slight bit of cheating? Let's say we take loans and embezzle money (considering we find a way to get away with law). We can use embezzled money for our own enjoyment. Unless we have a conscience which stops us from enjoying the embezzled money, isn't it the best thing is our interest to cheat? What do you guys think? I believe that people are social animals, and that those who act selfishly at the expense of others (like money embezzlers) will eventually be ostracized and punished in appropriate ways. So it's in a person's interest to act in a way as to not live at the expense of others. It's the tit-for-tat strategy, which game theory has been proven to be successful. It means that in a game with two parties, where every party can choose being cooperative or confrontational, it's most promising to be cooperative on your first move, and in your next move, copy the behaviour of the other player. Embezzling or doing other non-cooperative stuff would mean being confrontational, with the probable consequence that others will react accordingly. Not good for you.
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Post by captainbryce on Oct 21, 2017 15:28:18 GMT
Considering the fact that there is no active conscious entity or system which is going to enforce justice on us after death and in fact this life is most probably the only life we will ever life, do we have any moral obligation to live a good life? I am not saying that we should out rightly start committing crimes but what about doing things in our own interest even if it comes at cost of doing slight bit of cheating? Let's say we take loans and embezzle money (considering we find a way to get away with law). We can use embezzled money for our own enjoyment. Unless we have a conscience which stops us from enjoying the embezzled money, isn't it the best thing is our interest to cheat? What do you guys think?
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Post by Terrapin Station on Oct 21, 2017 22:50:06 GMT
The whole reason that most people act as if they have obligations to do things that they don't personally feel morally against is because of self-interest, by the way. They want to stay out of prison, they don't want to be socially ostracized, they want to stay in particular persons' good graces, etc. But you just said that most people have a conscience, which would appear to contradict this statement. Is conscience simply a fear of going to prison or being socially ostracized, or is "not having a guilty conscience" just an additional self-interested reason to add to the list? (If the latter, your statement would appear to be rather self evident). You're confusing two different ideas. I'm addressing different things that were brought up in the initial post of the thread. People believe that some behavior is kosher and other behavior is not. That's the "conscience" part. Not everyone feels the same way about the same behavior in that, but pretty much everyone feels that way about some behavior. A different idea is that when people disagree with the consensus moral views, they're acting in their self-interest when they act to avoid prison, ostracism, and so on.
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Post by tickingmask on Oct 22, 2017 8:26:10 GMT
You're confusing two different ideas. Well, er, yes, that's why I asked in the first place. You say 'everybody' has a conscience, then you say 'most people' act in a moral way only because they are scared of going to prison. Both these statements cannot be correct, so are you going to come off the fence long enough to tell us which one of these ideas you subscribe to?
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Post by CoolJGS☺ on Oct 22, 2017 11:11:17 GMT
There may not be a moral one depending on what moral code one lives by.
However, there would be a legal one.
Law is really just a moral code one must adhere to according to societal expectations.
So if someone feels it's OK to steal money but not hurt others in more physical ways, they are going to keep thinking that and simply hope that they aren't caught on the basis of a more powerful moral code.
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Post by Terrapin Station on Oct 22, 2017 11:37:01 GMT
You're confusing two different ideas. Well, er, yes, that's why I asked in the first place. You say 'everybody' has a conscience, then you say 'most people' act in a moral way only because they are scared of going to prison. Both these statements cannot be correct, so are you going to come off the fence long enough to tell us which one of these ideas you subscribe to? You're not reading well. First, re the exception to everyone having a conscience, I explained that already in my first post. I wrote this: "And unless you're extremely unusual physically--unless there's something seriously unusual about your brain, everyone has a 'conscience.'" I'm not going to write all of that every time. If I wrote it once, I expect you to understand it and remember it. It's just like I'm not going to put quotation marks around the word "conscience" every time. I expect that one understands why I did that, and thus one doesn't need me to do it every time. If I do it once or twice, one understands why I did it, what my view on it is, and thus I don't need to do it every time. (And the reason I'd not do either of those every time is that they make for cumbersome writing.) Finally, I did not write "most people act in a moral way only because they are scared of going to prison." What I wrote was this: "The whole reason that most people act as if they have obligations to do things that they don't personally feel morally against is because of self-interest, by the way." You left out/ignored that entire phrase in italics. That phrase is the crucial qualifier for that part.
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Post by Aj_June on Oct 22, 2017 11:48:29 GMT
Let's say we take loans and embezzle money (considering we find a way to get away with law). I'm assuming you mean find a way to do so legally, rather than find a way to act illegally and not get caught? Embezzlement is a criminal offence whichever way you look at it, and you have a moral obligation not the break the law. Otherwise I cannot possibly imagine a scenario where you should have a moral obligation to act against your best interests just because somebody has judged that to do so would be living "a good life". That's why notions like, say, Starbucks and Amazon not paying enough taxes make them 'bad' companies is so ridiculous. Why would any company or individual voluntarily pay more taxes than they have to? I meant finding a way to do so illegally and not get caught. Let me make my situation clearer. I personally believe that I should live a morally good life because I have a conscience. I believe in being honest (though I can slip sometimes) and that we should generally be good to others even at cost of not getting back similar treatment from society on average. But that is just my personal view which has probably been shaped by teachings given by my parents, my intrinsic nature and multitude of other factors. My main argument is that if this is the only life then is it fine for an individual to live it in a way that maximises the pleasure of that individual given that that individual has no moral issues in committing frauds for which he or she cannot be caught. I understand that there are legal obligations that all of us have to face but lets assume that the kind of fraud this person is committing will not be found out. Also, this person has very little conscience so the act of doing something wrong will not trouble her or him. Considering that there is no one to judge this person after his or her death what sort of obligation does this person face in cheating and swindling money?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 22, 2017 11:52:10 GMT
I am going to say no
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Post by Aj_June on Oct 22, 2017 11:59:28 GMT
Considering the fact that there is no active conscious entity or system which is going to enforce justice on us after death and in fact this life is most probably the only life we will ever life, do we have any moral obligation to live a good life? I am not saying that we should out rightly start committing crimes but what about doing things in our own interest even if it comes at cost of doing slight bit of cheating? Let's say we take loans and embezzle money (considering we find a way to get away with law). We can use embezzled money for our own enjoyment. Unless we have a conscience which stops us from enjoying the embezzled money, isn't it the best thing is our interest to cheat? What do you guys think? You say that "I am not saying that we should out rightly start committing crimes", but then go on to suggest embezzling money, which is committing a crime. So something is going wrong with your logic there. You are exactly right. I did made a logically inconsistent statement. Murder or fraud, both are crimes. However, the intention behind writing that was that by committing outright crimes the person will be endangering himself. I mean to talk about paper crimes that a person can get away with and the person knows that he can get away with doing such crimes. What about people who believe self interest is the most important thing and don't confirm to social moral codes. If a person's intrinsic nature is to seek pleasure then isn't it better for her to live this one life with as much happiness as she can derive. Let's say this person's happiness is directly related to wealth she possesses. She hasn't got any moral issues with committing fraud that don't endanger her. Now is there any moral obligation to this sort of person from doing things that maximise her happiness in this one precious life that she has got. Well, this guy thinks you're throwing around the word "fact" rather loosely. Technically you are right. But you can answer my question based on assumption that it is known that there is no afterlife.
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Post by Terrapin Station on Oct 22, 2017 12:07:31 GMT
tickingmask Likely what's throwing you off in reading my comments is that my views about this aren't something you're used to. Let me explain again what my views are in a nutshell, and maybe it will help you understand my comments: What makes something moral or not is that an individual feels that some "interpersonal" (in quotation marks because it can be "one towards oneself" too) behavior is permissible, impermissible, obligatory, etc.--there's a whole host of relevant terms like that, where we're talking about behavior that the individual considers more significant than mere etiquette. This point is extremely important: an individual can feel any possible way in that regard towards any possible behavior, and that's ALL that makes anything moral or immoral. So, for example, it's not the case that, say, the act of murder is immoral, context-independent. And it's not the case that, say, helping a little old lady across the street is moral, context-independent. What makes it the case that murder is immoral is that some individual feels that murder is impermissible. Murder is immoral to that person. Morality is always context-dependent, at least in this way: the context of what a particular individual feels toward some particular behavior. If a person felt that murder was permissible instead, then murder would be moral to that person. So objectively, murder isn't moral or immoral. Nothing is moral or immoral objectively. Morality is always to individuals, and anything imaginable can be moral or immoral to arbitrary individuals. So when I say that everyone, barring the exception of people with extremely unusual brains, has moral views, that everyone (barring that exception that I'm not going to keep typing out every time) has some behavior that they feel is permissible and some that they feel is impermissible, I'm not implying that everyone feels the same way about any particular behavior. Just that for every person (barring the exception), there's going to be some behavior that they're okay with, and some that they're not, and the specific behavior in question can be very different for different people. This is what morality is. Beyond that, some moral views wind up codified into laws or at least cultural mores. The way that happens is simply via either (a) some views contingently being very common, or (b) some people having enough power that they can codify their moral views into laws regardless of whether most people agree with them or not. So, (1) everyone (barring the rare exception) has moral views, and (2) there are also moral views that are reflected in laws or cultural mores. Because of the above, (1) and (2) might have very different content with respect to what's considered moral. For example, Joe might feel that it's moral to commit murder, but because most people do not, there are laws against murder. So Joe choosing to not murder is a case of Joe acting in Joe's self-interest, because Joe doesn't want to wind up in prison. Everyone (again barring rare exceptions) is going to have some moral stances that are different than the moral stances reflected in laws and cultural mores. People often act differently than their moral stances in those regards because of the social repercussions. That's an example of acting in self-interest. So "the good life," by the way, is always "the good life to S" (to some particular individual). An "obligation to live the good life" doesn't make a lot of sense in this context, because each individual is going to want to live according to their moral views as much as they can. There doesn't have to be any obligation about it (even though part of a particular individual's moral views might include "I have an obligation to live the good life"), because wanting (yourself and) others to live per the behavior that you feel is permissible, obligatory, etc., while avoiding the behavior you feel is impermissible, etc. is a fundamental way that our brains work (unless there's something severely unusual about the physical structure and function of our brains). Of course, what I consider the good (moral) life may be very different than what you consider the good (moral) life. It's not that one of us is right and the other is wrong, because there is no objective right/wrong, true/false, etc., in this realm. I didn't want to type all of this out initially, because (i) it's kind of laborious to do so, even in what is a very abbreviated version of it, (ii) not many people are likely to be interested, and (iii) often the only people who are interested are the people who want to argue about it, and 9 times out of 10 they can't seem to understand sentences more complex than "The dog went outside," so it's kind of pointless to bother.
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Post by Aj_June on Oct 22, 2017 12:25:30 GMT
Creating a civilized society depends upon people being willing to live by basic moral rules. Those who live immorally within society (like those who cheat) are riding on the backs of those who live morally, and are not fulfilling their obligations. Even though this reply is to a quote by Isapop my answer below is for Cinemachinery, CoolJGS☺, phludowin too. A person comes into this world not by his or her own will. I am not sure why everyone has to bear the obligation to be good to a system/society that the person didn't initially choose to be part of but that was forced by nature on him or her. At the end of the day a civilised society has not always been kind to everyone. There are unlucky people in this world who have to bear the cost of living in a society. There are people who get cheated or harmed by others. As such there may be people who are not bothered about this whole society and obligation debates. Such people believe that this little life is important and they should seek maximum happiness possible. All that morality is is anyone's "conscience." And unless you're extremely unusual physically--unless there's something seriously unusual about your brain, everyone has a "conscience," everyone has moral views. Your moral views may not very much resemble the norms of your culture, but there's going to be behavior that you feel is permissible and behavior that you have a problem with. Whether you have any particular moral obligation is simply a matter of your conscience, too. The whole reason that most people act as if they have obligations to do things that they don't personally feel morally against is because of self-interest, by the way. They want to stay out of prison, they don't want to be socially ostracized, they want to stay in particular persons' good graces, etc. So your answer is that an individual has no moral obligation to live a good life (as in being honest, being kind to others etc etc) if the person's moral code does not consider those things as important.
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Post by Terrapin Station on Oct 22, 2017 12:35:23 GMT
Creating a civilized society depends upon people being willing to live by basic moral rules. Those who live immorally within society (like those who cheat) are riding on the backs of those who live morally, and are not fulfilling their obligations. Even though this reply is to a quote by Isapop my answer below is for Cinemachinery , CoolJGS☺ , phludowin too. A person comes into this world not by his or her own will. I am not sure why everyone has to bear the obligation to be good to a system/society that the person didn't initially choose to be part of but that was forced by nature on him or her. At the end of the day a civilised society has not always been kind to everyone. There are unlucky people in this world who have to bear the cost of living in a society. There are people who get cheated or harmed by others. As such there may be people who are not bothered about this whole society and obligation debates. Such people believe that this little life is important and they should seek maximum happiness possible. All that morality is is anyone's "conscience." And unless you're extremely unusual physically--unless there's something seriously unusual about your brain, everyone has a "conscience," everyone has moral views. Your moral views may not very much resemble the norms of your culture, but there's going to be behavior that you feel is permissible and behavior that you have a problem with. Whether you have any particular moral obligation is simply a matter of your conscience, too. The whole reason that most people act as if they have obligations to do things that they don't personally feel morally against is because of self-interest, by the way. They want to stay out of prison, they don't want to be socially ostracized, they want to stay in particular persons' good graces, etc. So your answer is that an individual has no moral obligation to live a good life (as in being honest, being kind to others etc etc) if the person's moral code does not consider those things as important. I just added a paragraph about this at the end of that post. My answer is that it depends on the individual (some persons' moral stances are going to include "One has an obligation to live the good life" and some are not, and moral stances are not (objectively) correct/incorrect, true/false, etc.) , but it's a pretty moot point at any rate, since everyone wants to live per their moral views. That's part of what it is to have moral views in the first place. It wouldn't make any conceptual sense to have behavior that you approve and disapprove of yet not care about yourself and others insofar as that behavior goes.
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