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Post by clusium on Mar 30, 2023 23:08:30 GMT
Guess posters on here have an unconscious wish to have their own servants....? So does our cat. My dog used to like to have her own servants too.
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Shiloh
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Post by Shiloh on Mar 31, 2023 0:11:35 GMT
Do you think murder was morally right before it was illegal? The law doesn't dictate morality, but it should reflect it. society divides actions into two groups, legal and illegal, those that are illegal are subjectively immoral in the society in question. I challenge you to find a society in which murder is legal. In any case murder is a legal definition, which makes it immoral according to societies standards, the point is not whether murder is moral or not, it is that the definition of murder changes, showing that it's application is subjective and therefore the morality around it is subjective. Can you define objective morality for me please? Morality is motivation based on what we perceive to be right or wrong, aka good or bad. Laws should be written in accordance with morality. Things aren't good or bad because the law says they are. To prove that, just accept your own answer to the question. According to what you're saying, it would be morally wrong to drive faster than the posted speed limit on an empty highway, even if it was necessary to save a life. Morality concerns the distinction between right and wrong. As you said, it's the application we use to make that distinction. Objectivity is judgment that's uninfluenced by emotions or personal bias and prejudices. In other words, if something is objectively true, it's true no matter how anybody feels about it or even if nobody believes it. For morality to be either objective or subjective, things must be either right or wrong before the distinction is made.
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Post by gadreel on Mar 31, 2023 0:51:50 GMT
society divides actions into two groups, legal and illegal, those that are illegal are subjectively immoral in the society in question. I challenge you to find a society in which murder is legal. In any case murder is a legal definition, which makes it immoral according to societies standards, the point is not whether murder is moral or not, it is that the definition of murder changes, showing that it's application is subjective and therefore the morality around it is subjective. Can you define objective morality for me please? Morality is motivation based on what we perceive to be right or wrong, aka good or bad. Laws should be written in accordance with morality. Things aren't good or bad because the law says they are. To prove that, just accept your own answer to the question. According to what you're saying, it would be morally wrong to drive faster than the posted speed limit on an empty highway, even if it was necessary to save a life. Morality concerns the distinction between right and wrong. As you said, it's the application we use to make that distinction. Objectivity is judgment that's uninfluenced by emotions or personal bias and prejudices. In other words, if something is objectively true, it's true no matter how anybody feels about it or even if nobody believes it. For morality to be either objective or subjective, things must be either right or wrong before the distinction is made. That is actually the exact reverse of what I am saying, that suggests an objective morality, whereas I feel that it is pretty clear that the law can be broken in this regard, as clearly the correct moral choice would be to save a life in my opinion. No because if morality is dependant on personal or current societal opinion, which it clearly is then it is SUBJECT to personal bias (or societal bias) and prejudice, making it subjective.
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Post by permutojoe on Mar 31, 2023 0:58:10 GMT
What is “objective morality” anyway? Any why would it require God? Objective morality is defined as: 'the idea that right and wrong exist factually, without any importance of opinion.'
'Objectivity refers to the notion that something is factual, aka objective, and without bias and morality means a sense of something being right or wrong.'
Do you think there IS a right and wrong regardless of what someone's opinion about any specific actions/deeds might be or do you think it's always in context of something and based on reasons. It would seem that objective morality would not be based on reasons because reasons imply putting something in context, ie justifying why there should be right and wrong.
Even if God says murder is wrong, the question is why? How did he decide that?
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Post by captainbryce on Mar 31, 2023 3:38:56 GMT
Morality from god would be objective, the definition of objective morality is that is it universal and not up for interpretation, No it wouldn’t; it would SUBJECTIVE. The fact that it’s coming from God is as irrelevant as if it were coming from my dog. If it’s coming from an individual, it is subjective! I could just as easily say that the definition of a “married bachelor” is a single guy who happens to be married. But that doesn’t mean the definition will suddenly make sense or speak to something logically coherent. Putting two words together to form a logically incoherent concept does not apply any “meaning”. so a full set of immutable rules from a God would count as objective morality No, it actually wouldn’t. It would count as RULES! That’s it. What you’re talking is called “legality”, not “morality” - those are two entirely different things! What is allowed or forbidden does not speak what it good or bad. It turns out your definition can apply too, seems there are multiple definitions, which of course makes morality subjective because God IS mind. How about NO Scott, okay. You’re just wrong here! I know this is hard for religious to understand because they grew up with these ideas being conflated together through indoctrination, but it is simply incorrect. Morality cannot “objective” anymore than feelings can be objective.
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Post by Sarge on Mar 31, 2023 3:45:36 GMT
So does our cat. My dog used to like to have her own servants too. Who picks up who's poo?
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Post by captainbryce on Mar 31, 2023 3:48:36 GMT
I challenge you to find a society in which murder is legal. That is such a stupid statement since “murder” is literally defined as “illegal killing”. If it was legal, then it wouldn’t be called murder. However, what is considered murder in one society is not necessarily considered murder in another society. Abortion is considered “murder” in Florida and Texas, but it’s not murder in California and New York.
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Shiloh
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Post by Shiloh on Mar 31, 2023 5:34:26 GMT
Morality is motivation based on what we perceive to be right or wrong, aka good or bad. Laws should be written in accordance with morality. Things aren't good or bad because the law says they are. To prove that, just accept your own answer to the question. According to what you're saying, it would be morally wrong to drive faster than the posted speed limit on an empty highway, even if it was necessary to save a life. Morality concerns the distinction between right and wrong. As you said, it's the application we use to make that distinction. Objectivity is judgment that's uninfluenced by emotions or personal bias and prejudices. In other words, if something is objectively true, it's true no matter how anybody feels about it or even if nobody believes it. For morality to be either objective or subjective, things must be either right or wrong before the distinction is made. That is actually the exact reverse of what I am saying, that suggests an objective morality, whereas I feel that it is pretty clear that the law can be broken in this regard, as clearly the correct moral choice would be to save a life in my opinion. No because if morality is dependant on personal or current societal opinion, which it clearly is then it is SUBJECT to personal bias (or societal bias) and prejudice, making it subjective. If there's a correct moral choice then there's an objective answer which makes your opinion objectively right or objectively wrong.
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Post by paulslaugh on Mar 31, 2023 12:01:13 GMT
Objective morality is defined as: 'the idea that right and wrong exist factually, without any importance of opinion.'
'Objectivity refers to the notion that something is factual, aka objective, and without bias and morality means a sense of something being right or wrong.'
Do you think there IS a right and wrong regardless of what someone's opinion about any specific actions/deeds might be or do you think it's always in context of something and based on reasons. It would seem that objective morality would not be based on reasons because reasons imply putting something in context, ie justifying why there should be right and wrong.
Even if God says murder is wrong, the question is why? How did he decide that? The Israelites didn’t set their moral code on an established set of civic rights and wrongs like the Romans or we do today, but upon righteousness/purity and sinfulness/unclean. Their hundreds of commandments were to facilitate keeping themselves in a mental and physical state of righteousness/purity so they could collectively enjoy the full presence of God and he would then happily entertain their thoughts and prayers. But he will not enter into a space defiled by sinfulness, nor hear the prayers of the unrighteous. It is wrong to kill humans, or specifically to draw our their lifeblood from them because that, unlike everything else in world, belongs to the Lord thy God alone. This admonition against killing humans in ritual sacrifice is illustrated in the Abraham and Isaac narrative. The blood of sacrificial, as well as eatable animals, had to be drained from the beasts before consuming by either God in Temple and humans at the dinner table. Likewise, any executions deemed necessary to keep the tribe safe and righteous in the eyes of the Lord was done by stoning or a means that did not require drawing blood like a beheading. War was okay only when God approved of it. Self-defense/protection of others were the exceptions, since that’s protecting one’s lifeblood, but if for any reason a righteous person came contact with human blood like tending to a wound or slaughtering animals for regular consumption, they had to go through a ritual cleansing in a mikveh bath afterwards. This blood admonition carried over to females when they were on their periods, so the husband cannot touch his wife while she’s menstruating and she must re-purify herself once she’s done.
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Post by rizdek on Mar 31, 2023 20:43:15 GMT
Objective morality is defined as: 'the idea that right and wrong exist factually, without any importance of opinion.'
'Objectivity refers to the notion that something is factual, aka objective, and without bias and morality means a sense of something being right or wrong.'
Do you think there IS a right and wrong regardless of what someone's opinion about any specific actions/deeds might be or do you think it's always in context of something and based on reasons. It would seem that objective morality would not be based on reasons because reasons imply putting something in context, ie justifying why there should be right and wrong.
Even if God says murder is wrong, the question is why? How did he decide that? I like Euthyphro's dilemma and firmly believe it shows that regardless of someone's basis for morality, there have to be reasons for what is right and wrong...even if a god were to decree those rights and wrongs. Otherwise, it's all arbitrary.
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Post by rizdek on Mar 31, 2023 23:58:39 GMT
Can we define murder as morally wrong in some cases?
At some sites, murder is defined EG: "murder specifically implies stealth and motive and premeditation and therefore full moral responsibility." linkWhen wouldn't murder as defined above be morally wrong? Maybe I misunderstood this comment:
"When you said murder is morally wrong you were giving an example of objective morality."
What did you mean by that?
Murder doesn't always imply stealth and it isn't always morally wrong to kill. "Kill or be killed" bolsters this point, so does the declaration that killing in war is not morally wrong. To say that anything is necessarily and without exception morally right or wrong is to argue for objective morality. You're right, it doesn't always imply stealth, but most people when they refer to murder mean wrongful or unjustified killing. So killing self defense would not be murder and neither would killing in time of war or even executions if someone believed execution was justified. Those would all be considered justified killing, not murder. So If I say murder is always immoral, I am using the term murder meaning unjustified or wrongful killing. So it's not implying objective morality, just using the term as it's understood.
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Shiloh
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Post by Shiloh on Apr 1, 2023 3:17:47 GMT
Murder doesn't always imply stealth and it isn't always morally wrong to kill. "Kill or be killed" bolsters this point, so does the declaration that killing in war is not morally wrong. To say that anything is necessarily and without exception morally right or wrong is to argue for objective morality. You're right, it doesn't always imply stealth, but most people when they refer to murder mean wrongful or unjustified killing. So killing self defense would not be murder and neither would killing in time of war or even executions if someone believed execution was justified. Those would all be considered justified killing, not murder. So If I say murder is always immoral, I am using the term murder meaning unjustified or wrongful killing. So it's not implying objective morality, just using the term as it's understood. Here you're saying unjustified killing is necessarily and without exception morally wrong.
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Post by paulslaugh on Apr 1, 2023 7:05:21 GMT
society divides actions into two groups, legal and illegal, those that are illegal are subjectively immoral in the society in question. I challenge you to find a society in which murder is legal. In any case murder is a legal definition, which makes it immoral according to societies standards, the point is not whether murder is moral or not, it is that the definition of murder changes, showing that it's application is subjective and therefore the morality around it is subjective. Can you define objective morality for me please? Morality is motivation based on what we perceive to be right or wrong, aka good or bad. Laws should be written in accordance with morality. Things aren't good or bad because the law says they are. To prove that, just accept your own answer to the question. According to what you're saying, it would be morally wrong to drive faster than the posted speed limit on an empty highway, even if it was necessary to save a life. Morality concerns the distinction between right and wrong. As you said, it's the application we use to make that distinction. Objectivity is judgment that's uninfluenced by emotions or personal bias and prejudices. In other words, if something is objectively true, it's true no matter how anybody feels about it or even if nobody believes it. For morality to be either objective or subjective, things must be either right or wrong before the distinction is made. You don’t legislate morality. Stealing other people things is wrong because those things do not belong to the thief. It’s got nothing to do with stealing being a sin.
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Shiloh
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Post by Shiloh on Apr 1, 2023 8:16:18 GMT
Morality is motivation based on what we perceive to be right or wrong, aka good or bad. Laws should be written in accordance with morality. Things aren't good or bad because the law says they are. To prove that, just accept your own answer to the question. According to what you're saying, it would be morally wrong to drive faster than the posted speed limit on an empty highway, even if it was necessary to save a life. Morality concerns the distinction between right and wrong. As you said, it's the application we use to make that distinction. Objectivity is judgment that's uninfluenced by emotions or personal bias and prejudices. In other words, if something is objectively true, it's true no matter how anybody feels about it or even if nobody believes it. For morality to be either objective or subjective, things must be either right or wrong before the distinction is made. You don’t legislate morality. Stealing other people things is wrong because those things do not belong to the thief. It’s got nothing to do with stealing being a sin. You say stealing is wrong. Is that an objective or subjective distinction?
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Post by rizdek on Apr 1, 2023 8:45:34 GMT
You're right, it doesn't always imply stealth, but most people when they refer to murder mean wrongful or unjustified killing. So killing self defense would not be murder and neither would killing in time of war or even executions if someone believed execution was justified. Those would all be considered justified killing, not murder. So If I say murder is always immoral, I am using the term murder meaning unjustified or wrongful killing. So it's not implying objective morality, just using the term as it's understood. Here you're saying unjustified killing is necessarily and without exception morally wrong. Yes. That is how I define murder. If it was justified, I wouldn't call it murder. When someone produces the evidence that some killing was actually a justified killing...then I would no longer consider it murder. Wouldn't you consider unjustified killing wrong?
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Post by paulslaugh on Apr 1, 2023 9:12:33 GMT
You don’t legislate morality. Stealing other people things is wrong because those things do not belong to the thief. It’s got nothing to do with stealing being a sin. You say stealing is wrong. Is that an objective or subjective distinction? Morality is subjective. Laws are objective.
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Shiloh
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Post by Shiloh on Apr 1, 2023 9:54:47 GMT
Here you're saying unjustified killing is necessarily and without exception morally wrong. Yes. That is how I define murder. If it was justified, I wouldn't call it murder. When someone produces the evidence that some killing was actually a justified killing...then I would no longer consider it murder. Wouldn't you consider unjustified killing wrong? So it's objectively immoral and doesn't matter what any of us consider.
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Shiloh
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Post by Shiloh on Apr 1, 2023 10:07:18 GMT
You say stealing is wrong. Is that an objective or subjective distinction? Morality is subjective. Laws are objective. Of course stealing is objectively illegal but if the law dictates morality, then it wasn't immoral before it was illegal.
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Post by rizdek on Apr 1, 2023 10:08:36 GMT
You don’t legislate morality. Stealing other people things is wrong because those things do not belong to the thief. It’s got nothing to do with stealing being a sin. You say stealing is wrong. Is that an objective or subjective distinction? I'd say it was a subjective because it is based on...ie subject to...reasons and context that a person considers when making the determination that stealing is wrong. I can't easily explain the difference but I use the term murder differently than I use the term stealing. To me, knowingly taking something that someone knows is someone else's is stealing...there is no other term. But when that becomes immoral is more difficult to say, OTOH, there are two different terms for taking someone's life...murder and killing. I reserve the term murder (in my mind) for killings for which there was no justification and which was intentional. If those conditions don't apply, then I don't think of it as murder. And that is a personal evaluation.
Let's drop back a bit and see if we can define objective vs subjective and include a discussion of the terms absolute vs qualified or relative.
What do you say objective means? Do you think of it as tantamount to absolute?
I think of morality in two ways. The ontology and the epistemology of morality. The ontology is the underlying basis for why we even think in terms of right and wrong at all. IE, is there even a reason at all to say something is wrong and also how important is it THAT we say something...anything is wrong? The epistemology is more on the order where we discuss a given situation...ie someone supposedly killing in self defense...when would it have become murder...ie could they have backed away instead of forcing an issue, etc etc. Or if some starving person 'steals' a bit of food to keep from dying, yes they technically 'stole,' but did they really act immorally? Those situations are where the conditions come into play and that's why when we think to punish someone for wrong-doing...whether that punishment is dealt by a criminal justice system or just in the 'court' of public opinion, we get different people coming to different conclusions...even people who might believe strongly that morality is objective and absolute.
For me, the ontology of morality is the fact that in order for humans to have survived, evolution-wise, there had to have been some instinctive behaviors that resulted in a group able to live more or less peacefully together. There had to be 'ways' in which people interacted that kept the group together or otherwise the species would not have survived. The gene pool had to produce individuals with given behavioral traits or the gene pool would have died out because humans need a group, a tribe. We were (and are) generally too weak/incapable of surviving just on our own...ie living rough with no cohesive group and no infrastructure. And even if some individual or a subset of individuals were capable of living on their own, their genes would have been less likely to be passed on because they wouldn't be able to find mates as easily as individuals who had instinctively co-existed with the rest of the tribe. Now that explanation doesn't provide any deeper reason or basis for morality...ie someone could still ask, 'so what if humans didn't survive?' And I'd have to agree...so what, the only reason humans getting along is important is because humans in general think getting along and humans surviving is important.
Now...what does that say about whether morality is objective or subjective? The underlying reason for morality at all is subjective. If someone doesn't think the human species surviving is important, then they might act in a way that isn't conducive to getting along. As an aside, that is where laws and a criminal justice system come into play...they're intended to make people (want to) get along. But there is also an objective aspect of morality in that, as I pointed out above, humans had to have had some basic instincts about getting along or the species wouldn't have survived. So from that standpoint the ontology of morality, it is based on logic...ie NOT dependent on what anyone or anything thinks. In order for a species like humans to survive there had to be certain basic instincts for getting along. So I'd say logic is the underlying and objective basis for morality. That basis says nothing about whether people will want to or should want to get along and, except on a general scale, it won't even inform society on what, specifically, is entailed in the set of morals that would be required for humans to survive. And as I said above, it doesn't provide a reason for WHY humans should survive. Folks can disregard the logic of finding ways to get along just like they can disregard the logic of other things. EG, there is a logical way to build a house. It helps to build the foundation first, then the framework then finish and furnish it. But someone might not follow that logical sequence and they might even be able to cobble together a house of a sort. Same goes for morality in society. Whole groups can disregard what it is that makes society flourish as good as it can. And that society might hobble along. But that doesn't change the fact that there were or would have been better ways to do what they were doing. And the idea that we can always look for a 'better way' to make society function and flourish is objectively true even if just hypothetically.
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Post by paulslaugh on Apr 1, 2023 10:51:25 GMT
Morality is subjective. Laws are objective. Of course stealing is objectively illegal but if the law dictates morality, then it wasn't immoral before it was illegal. The law is not concerned with the morality of stealing, it is the property loss of another person that is. Some laws are meant to control morality and they are generally unconstitutional. It is not the state's function to keep adults from having sex before marriage, yet living is sin is very immoral according to some religions.
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