A purely ethical consideration is one in which the ethical standard is the only thing consulted, because the ethical standard corresponds precisely to one’s own self-interest (and the interest of others). Whenever the ethical standard does not not line up with self-interest, the ethical consideration is not pure.
The reasoning involved here baffles me. I’ll have to assume that you possess an idiosyncratic understanding of “God.” I honestly don’t know what God has to do with our self-interest, nor do I know how you would get your hands on such knowledge. And no, “revelation” doesn’t count. Not to me, anyway.
And this standard of “purity” seems arbitrary. How do you derive the ethic “ethics ought to be pure?” Isn’t making ethical statements about your ethical system a tad circular, if not downright redundant?
Construe “self-interested” broadly, by the way.
I suspect that my idea of self-interest is more broad than your own, as I believe all conscious actions are ultimately done in self-interest.
Well, it seems noncontroversial that the person who breaks the law undiscovered has not been penalized in any way.
It may be noncontroversial, but I want to know how you objectively determine whether an event is a punishment. As I said, the world of objects is blind to labels such as “punishments” or “rewards”; there are only events that are liked or disliked by sentient beings.
And I have: the dominion of God, and the reality of an afterlife.
How deliciously vague.
No one can ever substantiate his thoughts.
When you’re done with the cop-outs, let me know, okay? You CANNOT exempt yourself from providing evidence and still make a strong case. Could you imagine a scientist asserting that unicorns exist, being asked for his substantiating evidence, and saying, “No one can ever substantiate his thoughts.” Would it be an adequate defense of his position?
Morality is simply a set of labels on good or bad. Morality-as-such is the only such set of labels that is not arbitrary.
Give me any one ethic and allow me to question its origin long enough and I bet I’ll eventually prove it to be arbitrary. It’s just like with mathematics: you can simplify a problem to the point where only “x=x” is left, but the reflexive property is arbitrary. It may be nearly beyond question, but still arbitrary.
But isn’t it obvious that ethics is worthless if it isn’t rational?!? If it were rational to do something wrong, then the wise man ought to do wrong!
When you’ve heard as many definitions of “rational” as I have, you will understand my reservations on using the term. Please define “rational.”
The main issue is that “rationality” pervades many subjects, and most iterations have nothing to do with ethics. For example, the question “Is it rational to fear spiders?” arguably has little to nothing to do with ethics.
I didn’t say that the money won’t be missed, only that no one will ever know you did it.
Oh, I didn’t know whether you were emphasizing the action or the person.
Why should you care about someone else’s welfare, unless it satisfies some hedonistic desire you have – in which case it is hardly commendable!
What’s the difference between a hedonistic desire and a regular desire? You admit that we both do what we think should be done because we want to. What, then, makes your desire better than mine? (…other than your desire to have a better desire than mine, of course.
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What makes giving to charity admirable?
Obviously, I would say it is admirable because the act tends to cause happiness, but others may feel differently. While I may not approve of how others feel, I’m not going to put blinders on and fail to acknowledge the fact that my opinion is arbitrary, as is theirs. It isn’t based on anything but my preference for others’ happiness.
Fascinating. Many people, in fact, do cook because they enjoy it…
I don’t deny that. Rather, I was implying that people wouldn’t cook if they didn’t expect some benefit from the act. If you were told to cook something you knew would be immediately dumped into the trash, and you didn’t enjoy the cooking process anyway, would you cook it? Personally, I am doubtful.
…but not everyone who does good does it because of consequences. In fact, many of the best people in this world never think about doing good; they have simply trained themselves to be good.
…because they desire to be good. Acting to fulfill one’s desires is selfish (in the broadest sense) and consequence-oriented (if satisfaction is never gained from an action, the action won’t be repeated). Additionally, one can act to fulfill one’s desires without thinking of those desires, so claiming that they don’t think of doing good is useless. When you eat, do you always think about sating your hunger? Probably not. Is that hunger the reason for your eating in most cases? Yes. In other cases, you were eating to fulfill some other preference of yours.
They do not think about consequences (except in extreme cases), because thinking about consequences makes us calculating, not good.
There’s another interesting ethic you’ve failed to derive. How does one derive the ethic “we shouldn’t be calculating?”
Some of this comes from revelation.
When you agree with the premises, you claim they were discovered with “revelation,” but when you disagree, another person is merely guilty of choosing the wrong premises.
The majority of religious rhetoric revolves around distinguishing “faith” from “believing what you want to believe.” In reality, there is no difference.
