|
|
#31
08-22-2005, 03:42 AM
|
|||
|
|||
Re: The Real Life Important Point about Being Moral or Ethical.
[ QUOTE ]
There are often moral principles that compete with each other. An example of two, "It is good to help others" and "It is good to help yourself". [/ QUOTE ] Why is it good to help others? Why is it good to help anyone? If there is no absolute morality, then there is no good and there is no bad. There is no right and there is no wrong. Without absolute morality there is nothing--chaos. We have order. We might not understand that order, but it is there none the less. Hence, God exists. 
|
|
#32
08-22-2005, 03:47 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: Wow, 140,000 views
[ QUOTE ]
True story: I once asked my son if he knew who had said, "Elementary, my dear Watson." He guessed Jack Nicklaus. [/ QUOTE ] Does he know anything about golf? Seems like a bright kid, prety reasonable to guess that Jack Nicklaus might say something like that to Tom Watson.
|
|
#33
08-22-2005, 05:22 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: The Real Life Important Point about Being Moral or Ethical.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] There are often moral principles that compete with each other. An example of two, "It is good to help others" and "It is good to help yourself". [/ QUOTE ] Why is it good to help others? Why is it good to help anyone? If there is no absolute morality, then there is no good and there is no bad. There is no right and there is no wrong. Without absolute morality there is nothing--chaos. We have order. We might not understand that order, but it is there none the less. Hence, God exists. [/ QUOTE ] Why a person might or might not subscribe to those principles is not relevant to the point David was making. My point is that in practice people do have competing moral principles like those two, and they do Not apply them by use of mathematical or logical techniques but by way of their best judgement often based on a whole complex of principles and their own unique life experiences. I posted the long "Global Ethic" material to show just how complex our system of moral principles can be. Maybe David can produce a ton of tricky hypothetical situations and claim logical expertise in pointing out inconsistancies. So what? Just because we have a complex of moral principles which compete with each other and have no mathematical formulae by which to deduce logically consistent outputs for every input, does not mean our system of moral principles have no value or should not be espoused. This is the world we live in, not some theoretical Ivory Tower, and it gets messy more often than not. PairTheBoard
|
|
#34
08-22-2005, 05:37 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: The Real Life Important Point about Being Moral or Ethical.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] There are often moral principles that compete with each other. An example of two, "It is good to help others" and "It is good to help yourself". [/ QUOTE ] Why is it good to help others? Why is it good to help anyone? If there is no absolute morality, then there is no good and there is no bad. There is no right and there is no wrong. Without absolute morality there is nothing--chaos. We have order. We might not understand that order, but it is there none the less. Hence, God exists. [/ QUOTE ] I question your axioms [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
|
|
#35
08-22-2005, 06:25 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: The Real Life Important Point about Being Moral or Ethical.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] There are often moral principles that compete with each other. An example of two, "It is good to help others" and "It is good to help yourself". [/ QUOTE ] Why is it good to help others? Why is it good to help anyone? If there is no absolute morality, then there is no good and there is no bad. There is no right and there is no wrong. Without absolute morality there is nothing--chaos. We have order. We might not understand that order, but it is there none the less. Hence, God exists. [/ QUOTE ] Why a person might or might not subscribe to those principles is not relevant to the point David was making. My point is that in practice people do have competing moral principles like those two, and they do Not apply them by use of mathematical or logical techniques but by way of their best judgement often based on a whole complex of principles and their own unique life experiences. I posted the long "Global Ethic" material to show just how complex our system of moral principles can be. Maybe David can produce a ton of tricky hypothetical situations and claim logical expertise in pointing out inconsistancies. So what? Just because we have a complex of moral principles which compete with each other and have no mathematical formulae by which to deduce logically consistent outputs for every input, does not mean our system of moral principles have no value or should not be espoused. This is the world we live in, not some theoretical Ivory Tower, and it gets messy more often than not. PairTheBoard [/ QUOTE ] I think you are getting complex and contradictory confused here. "It is good to help others" and "it is good to help ones self" are not contracdictory, they merely require balance. The real world is a messy place and while everyone basicly agrees on these principles we do not all agree with one another on the proper balance as this certainly is very complex. The reason we dont agree is usualy because one party is being inconsistent in applying these principles(In the messy real world its usualy the case that all parties are being inconsistent) I think the point is that we would all be better served if we remembered that the reason we dont always agree isnt because of differing beliefs on moral absolutes, but rather because we are inconsistently applying our shared beliefs.
|
|
#36
08-22-2005, 07:26 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: The Real Life Important Point about Being Moral or Ethical.
[ QUOTE ]
chrisnice -- I think the point is that we would all be better served if we remembered that the reason we dont always agree isnt because of differing beliefs on moral absolutes, but rather because we are inconsistently applying our shared beliefs. [/ QUOTE ] My point is that there often is no one well defined "consistent" way to apply a whole complex of competing moral principles. There is no well defined mathematics for the "proper" way to bring them all into balance. It may sound nice theoretically but that's just not the way it works. Yes we should discuss our differences and reasons why we differ. But I don't think in practice it is productive in searching for consensus to take the stand that your attempt to balance moral principles is not logically correct while mine is. Especially when there are probably a host of additional principles at work where we may Not have common ground. Furthermore, our attempts to find balance are also influenced by our experiences which are automatically different in their specifics. Read the material I posted on a Global Ethic above. Do you really think people will differ in their application simply because they miss the proper logic for consistent conclusions? PairTheBoard
|
|
#37
08-22-2005, 07:58 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: The Real Life Important Point about Being Moral or Ethical.
[ QUOTE ]
Can you use a nicer term? something that sounds less perjorative perhaps. [/ QUOTE ] Probably, but it would not then create the effect I was trying to achive.
|
|
#38
08-22-2005, 08:55 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: The Real Life Important Point about Being Moral or Ethical.
"The fact is that whether you get your set of moral principles from God, once and future king, empathatic feelings, or just common sense, you will find yourself in agreement about those principles with almost all others almost all of the time"
Not to hijack this thread, but why? If morality is a matter of opinion (as you've said before), and we all get our moral principles from different sources, then our idea of what is right should be widely scattered. It's not. Why?
|
|
#40
08-22-2005, 08:07 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: The Real Life Important Point about Being Moral or Ethical.
I agree with at least most of what you say in the "bottom line" part of this post. But among expertly trained (in logic) ethical theorists, we do find disagreement still. Usually, though not always, this is in cases where the particular moral issue is independent (in the formal sense) from the shared axioms involved in the discussion. Compare, eg, the independence of the axiom of choice from standard set theoretic axioms. This independence leaves us with reasonable disagreement about the axiom of choice and particular consequences of assuming it along with standard axioms among math pros. Similarly, reasonable disagreement about particular moral issues independent of shared moral axioms is going to survive even perfectly conducted logical inquiry. What the consequences of this fact are for ethics and ethical theory are matters of ongoing debate (as they are in the math case just mentioned).
But, as I said, I do agree that in the typical case (the case you were commenting about obviously) most disagreement is probably traceable to either faulty logic or inadequate articulation of basic principles.
|
 |
|
|
Linear Mode
