Moral Behavior

[John21652]

Corect. There are no ultimate shoulds or should nots. There are only practical concerns. In the cases of robbery, rape, torture, murder, and plunder (seriously, you wrote “plunder”? What are you, the pirate king?), there are usually the following practical considerations:

1. Most people have absolutely no inclination at all to do those things.
2. Most people have a strong distaste for all of those things
3. Most people would not like the probable results of engaging in any of those behaviors
4. Most people would “feel bad” about doing any of those things
5. There are almost always easier – or at least more pleasant – ways to accomplish one’s goals than those behaviors
6. There are laws in place to discourage all of those activities.
7. Being able to “escape undetected” is virtually impossible, making engaging in those behaviors more risky than most people would like.

But yes, if a person really wants to do one of those actions and doesn’t care about any of the rest of that stuff, there’s literally nothing stopping him. Now, maybe you don’t like the reality of the situation, but I’m telling you how reality actually is. If that makes you uncomfortable, too bad.

People who behave this way are usually labelled as ‘sociopaths’. A common trait they have is no empathy with their fellow citizens. There are arguments that support the role of society and nurture in creating sociopathy and there are arguments that people learn to behave this way to get what they want. Morality constrains most people, not positive laws.

Question: in what is ‘Justice’ rooted?

 

[AntiTheist]

I was simply pointing out that you seemed surprised by the association of plunder with other crimes

No. I was finding your use of the word “plunder” – which is a weird word that you don’t hear much these days – highly amusing.

I was doing nothing more than gently mocking your choice of terms.

Anyway, as you continue to miss my point – as evidenced by your last post – I will return to ignoring your posts. I’ve made my point.

 

[AntiTheist]

People who behave this way are usually labelled as ‘sociopaths’. A common trait they have is no empathy with their fellow citizens.

Yes. They’re rare, but they do exist.

Morality constrains most people, not positive laws.

Well, I would argue that what prevents most people from doing what we usually conventionally consider “bad things” is the fact that most people have zero desire to do bad things in most cases.

For example: have you ever walked down the street and had a sudden urge to commit mass murder? I’m guessing that almost everyone reading this post has not had such an urge. So in this case, it’s not the existence of morality or laws or anything else that prevents people from committing mass murder – it’s the fact that people don’t want to do it in the first place.

Question: in what is ‘Justice’ rooted?

Law. The universe is an unfair place, so humans make laws to try to create fairness. We don’t often succeed.

 

[Betterave]

Well, I would argue that what prevents most people from doing what we usually conventionally consider “bad things” is the fact that most people have zero desire to do bad things in most cases.

For example: have you ever walked down the street and had a sudden urge to commit mass murder? I’m guessing that almost everyone reading this post has not had such an urge. So in this case, it’s not the existence of morality or laws or anything else that prevents people from committing mass murder – it’s the fact that people don’t want to do it in the first place.

I’m not a ‘gamer’ myself, but I suspect that a good number of video games present an outlet for just this kind of urge.

 

[AntiTheist]

I’m not a ‘gamer’ myself

Then perhaps you’d better leave the suspicions to people who actually have some familiarity with the subject.

I think you’ll find that playing a game is very far removed from actually wanting to do the things depicted in the game. If we follow your line of thinking, then everyone who’s ever played Risk is really in possession of a megalomaniacal urge to conquer the world.

 

[Betterave]

Then perhaps you’d better leave the suspicions to people who actually have some familiarity with the subject.

LOL! The fact that I’m not a gamer does not mean I am not familiar with “the subject” (whatever you think that is). Nice try.

I think you’ll find that playing a game is very far removed from actually wanting to do the things depicted in the game. If we follow your line of thinking, then everyone who’s ever played Risk is really in possession of a megalomaniacal urge to conquer the world.

Ha ha. Good one. Yes, that bloodthirsty, war-hungry thrill of rolling those dice over and over again. Good comparison.

And people who play chess dream of regicide, I suppose. Chess is a primitive form of virtual reality regicide, right?

 

[John21652]

Yes. They’re rare, but they do exist.

Well, I would argue that what prevents most people from doing what we usually conventionally consider “bad things” is the fact that most people have zero desire to do bad things in most cases.

For example: have you ever walked down the street and had a sudden urge to commit mass murder? I’m guessing that almost everyone reading this post has not had such an urge. So in this case, it’s not the existence of morality or laws or anything else that prevents people from committing mass murder – it’s the fact that people don’t want to do it in the first place.

Law. The universe is an unfair place, so humans make laws to try to create fairness. We don’t often succeed.

How can you say the universe is unfair? The universe is an objective reality that is neither fair, nor unfair. It just is. Laws are not promulgated by men to make the universe a fair place. They are instituted by people to regulate human behaviour. The promulgation of Law does not make the universe any fairer. Justice and fairness are not necessarily the same thing. Many different cultures and societies have differing notions of what justice is. For example, in Islamic societies, the stoining of adulterers is considered just. The chopping off of the hand of a thief is considered just by some. Is the permanent incapacitation of someone just in comparison to a crime? Not always. There are many different forms of justice. Distributive, retributive, restorative, utilitarian and Natural Law justice. Distributive, retributive and utilitarian concepts of justice are notoriously subjective and the results of those forms of justice are manifest throughout history. true justice must be by an objective measure, or else we are subject to the whims of a particular society, or of a social leader.

Western notions of justice have always been rooted in a notion of a higher authority, of something which resides outside the subjective reasoning of mankind. A higher ‘good’. Unless an objective notion of justice is adhered to, justice becomes capricious and tyrannical. Law as positive law is merely the whim of a ruler, or ruling class. Objectively defined laws and a coinciding notion of justice is exactly what protects a people from tyrannical rule. I put it to you that the objective notion of justice comes, ultimately, from the notion of a Creator who has created a universe which is ordered, predictable and just.

 

[AntiTheist]

How can you say the universe is unfair? The universe is an objective reality that is neither fair, nor unfair. It just is.

You are, of course, correct from an objective point of view. I was writing that sentence from the perspective of someone who has values and, as a result, values things like fairness (as my particular culture defines the term). But you’re right – outside of the context of human values, there is no basis for saying that the universe is fair or unfair. It just is. Nicely put.

Laws are not promulgated by men to make the universe a fair place. They are instituted by people to regulate human behaviour. The promulgation of Law does not make the universe any fairer. Justice and fairness are not necessarily the same thing.

These are good points, and I will happily concede them.

Unless an objective notion of justice is adhered to, justice becomes capricious and tyrannical.

Well, many systems of law do claim a kind of objectivity – Muslim law, which you mention, claims to be derived from god. The laws of other societies were claimed to come from different gods or from rulers who were said to be gods or the descendents of gods.

The laws of ancient Hebrew society – which included rules for owning other human beings as property – were similarly said to come from a god of some kind.

We might say that the United States of America, which explicitly grounds its laws in the will of its citizens, is a cut above these primitive god-systems of law by grounding the law in something that is at least real.

Anyway, you appear to be arguing that justice can’t be “objective” without a god, and there are systems of law that claim to be objective (i.e. from a lawgiver or a god), so therefore there really is a lawgiver or god – but you miss the crucial point that these systems of law might just as well be inventions of human beings and attributed to gods.

You asked me what justice is rooted in, and I replied “law.” It is. “Justice” is a concept, created by societies, that is defined in terms of the law in that society. Different societies have different concepts of justice – as you nicely point out – and most of these different societies claim that their very different concepts of justice are “objective” or “divinely given.”

What we observe is perfectly consistent with a universe with no objective morality, no objective justice, and with nothing more than regular old human values – individual and societal – driving and regulating actions, producing different societies with different values and different ideas of justice. That’s it.

 

[Betterave]

What we observe is perfectly consistent with a universe with no objective morality, no objective justice, and with nothing more than regular old human values – individual and societal – driving and regulating actions, producing different societies with different values and different ideas of justice. That’s it.

“regular old human values” - LOL! Right, those regular old things.

“perfectly consistent”? of course you actually mean “the way I choooose to construe observable reality seeeeems to meeee to be perfectly consistent with a universe with no objective morality, etc.” - but when it comes to defending these bold assertions, you’re obviously not so ‘perfectly’ consistent. (You are consistent though: you consistently use vague terms, the meaning of which is impossible to pin down, and which, as such, are clearly inherently inadequate for actually grounding the kinds of bold claims you want to make.)

 

[Moontown_Rabbit]

What we observe is perfectly consistent with a universe with no objective morality, no objective justice, and with nothing more than regular old human values – individual and societal – driving and regulating actions, producing different societies with different values and different ideas of justice. That’s it.

Back in the 1940’s Catherine Doherty was running a soup kitchen. In her book Not Without Parables she relates the following incident (I will have to paraphrase as I can’t find the book at the moment). One day a fellow burst into the soup kitchen and declared to the homeless men that there was no God. He put teeth into his claim by challenging God to strike him dead that very day. Catherine and the homeless guys were quite unnerved by this but carried on in a rather pensive mood. Sometime before midnight (can’t remember the exact time) this fellow had a massive coronary and fell down dead. This took everybody by surprise and caused a great deal of alarm. Catherine relates that the men who observed this, who were often not that religious, began attending mass and receiving the sacraments with much greater frequency. Perhaps you should change your comment above from “What we observe” to “What I observe”.

 

[AntiTheist]

Perhaps you should change your comment above from “What we observe” to “What I observe”.

No.

And if you’re so readily convinced of the truth of supernatural claims by anecdotes out of a book, I’m sure that nothing I could possibly say will have any hope of getting you to see why this is a bad way to go about acquiring knowledge.

 

[davidv]

No.

And if you’re so readily convinced of the truth of supernatural claims by anecdotes out of a book, I’m sure that nothing I could possibly say will have any hope of getting you to see why this is a bad way to go about acquiring knowledge.

Why do you think the conviction is due to one anecdote from one book?

 

[Moontown_Rabbit]

And if you’re so readily convinced of the truth of supernatural claims by anecdotes out of a book, I’m sure that nothing I could possibly say will have any hope of getting you to see why this is a bad way to go about acquiring knowledge.

Most of the knowledge we aquire is based on observation, as you implied earlier. This is from either our own or someone else’s observation. If it is someone else’s, it probably comes from a book. Quarks, relativity theory, calculus - all based on observation and all related by books. Please explain the “bad way of aquiring knowlege” in more detail. Should I avoid Orwell, Tolstoy, and Doherty and restrict my reading to books about material science?

 

[tonyrey]

Anyway, as you continue to miss my point – as evidenced by your last post – I will return to ignoring your posts. I’ve made my point.

It is evident to all that is a convenient - and facile - excuse to conceal your inability to refute the points I have made…

 

[AntiTheist]

Please explain the “bad way of aquiring knowlege” in more detail.

Certainly.

There’s a difference – a huge, vast difference – between, on the one hand, reading books about science – books that are reporting the findings of bodies of experts who spend their lives collecting and analyzing data – to draw conclusions about the universe and, on the other hand, reading someone’s anecdote of a ghost story or a “god struck someone dead” story and uncritically accepting it – and the undemonstrable supernatural interpretation the author attaches to it – as accurately describing reality.

Should I avoid Orwell, Tolstoy, and Doherty and restrict my reading to books about material science?

Um, no. In the context we’re discussing, we’re talking about using books to acquire knowledge of facts about the world around us. In this context, ficiton isn’t relevant, except insofar as facts can be reported in fiction texts to help create the illusion of verisimilitude and that value judgments about the world – which are indeed real – can be conveyed through fiction.

I objected to your post because you were trying to put a ghost story anecdote on equal footing with texts that convey information about the world. You will find that your ability to learn true things will increase if you cease to do this.

 

[dskysmine]

I don’t know why you ignored my last message but I just “had” to comment on this post…

You are, of course, correct from an objective point of view. I was writing that sentence from the perspective of someone who has values and, as a result, values things like fairness (as my particular culture defines the term). But you’re right – outside of the context of human values, there is no basis for saying that the universe is fair or unfair. It just is. Nicely put.

These are good points, and I will happily concede them.

You don’t concede them. If you did, you would be amoral.

Well, many systems of law do claim a kind of objectivity – Muslim law, which you mention, claims to be derived from god. The laws of other societies were claimed to come from different gods or from rulers who were said to be gods or the descendents of gods.

The laws of ancient Hebrew society – which included rules for owning other human beings as property – were similarly said to come from a god of some kind.

We might say that the United States of America, which explicitly grounds its laws in the will of its citizens, is a cut above these primitive god-systems of law by grounding the law in something that is at least real.

According to your statement one would have to conclude that the will of the “mob” is more real than the will of one mind?
Please explain…

Anyway, you appear to be arguing that justice can’t be “objective” without a god, and there are systems of law that claim to be objective (i.e. from a lawgiver or a god), so therefore there really is a lawgiver or god – but you miss the crucial point that these systems of law might just as well be inventions of human beings and attributed to gods.

Once again… how does that make them any less “good” or “bad”? (Even if that were true)

You asked me what justice is rooted in, and I replied “law.” It is. “Justice” is a concept, created by societies, that is defined in terms of the law in that society. Different societies have different concepts of justice – as you nicely point out – and most of these different societies claim that their very different concepts of justice are “objective” or “divinely given.”

What we observe is perfectly consistent with a universe with no objective morality, no objective justice, and with nothing more than regular old human values – individual and societal – driving and regulating actions, producing different societies with different values and different ideas of justice. That’s it.

The conclusion being that they are worth nothing and shouldn’t actually be pursued?
I don’t follow what the result of such conclusion should be.
If a value is, as you put it, simply individual and societal, what makes one value more worthy than another? Why do all the people be subject to a single law like the United Nations and other organizations like it want to make? Why do so many atheists assert that some things are valuable and others are not if they are just a “fad”?
You seem to be making the same kind of mistake you accuse theists of making, so I really see no point in following what you say.

Best regards,
Daniel

 

[Moontown_Rabbit]

I objected to your post because you were trying to put a ghost story anecdote on equal footing with texts that convey information about the world. You will find that your ability to learn true things will increase if you cease to do this.

The only reason you might be seeing ghosts is if you are looking at things through the frosted blinders of secularism. The world and the information it conveys is much vaster and more amazing than you have so far described. While it is tempting to fasten our gaze upon the immovable earth, the really interesting stuff is happening in the skies. There is truth to be found in almost every direction. Do you want to know more about the properties of granite, or would you rather ride in a chariot propelled by lightening? Theism is a heartpounding adventure; if you ever decide to try it the first thing you’ll have to do is loosen your grip on that bust of Descartes.

 

[rick43235]

The only reason you might be seeing ghosts is if you are looking at things through the frosted blinders of secularism. The world and the information it conveys is much vaster and more amazing than you have so far described. While it is tempting to fasten our gaze upon the immovable earth, the really interesting stuff is happening in the skies. There is truth to be found in almost every direction. Do you want to know more about the properties of granite, or would you rather ride in a chariot propelled by lightening? Theism is a heartpounding adventure; if you ever decide to try it the first thing you’ll have to do is loosen your grip on that bust of Descartes.

Whatever you’re smoking, I want some!!!

 

[Moontown_Rabbit]

Whatever you’re smoking, I want some!!!

Peter Jackson, King Size, Full Flavour

 

[John21652]

Unless an objective notion of justice is adhered to, justice becomes capricious and tyrannical.

Well, many systems of law do claim a kind of objectivity – Muslim law, which you mention, claims to be derived from god. The laws of other societies were claimed to come from different gods or from rulers who were said to be gods or the descendents of gods.

Indeed. Although the laws of some rulers who claimed to be gods were usually external the the claimant, that is, objectively differentiated and derived.

The laws of ancient Hebrew society – which included rules for owning other human beings as property – were similarly said to come from a god of some kind.

Yes, but that God dropped a clanger in amongst them in the form of Ten Commandments which was supposed to smarten then up. Not sure it did on all counts, but tht doesn’t mean the law wasn’t objective. You need to differentiate between the law being objective and the law necessarily being adhered to.

We might say that the United States of America, which explicitly grounds its laws in the will of its citizens, is a cut above these primitive god-systems of law by grounding the law in something that is at least real.

Mob rule can be “real” too. Is mob rule objective, or subjectivity run rampant?

Anyway, you appear to be arguing that justice can’t be “objective” without a god, and there are systems of law that claim to be objective (i.e. from a lawgiver or a god), so therefore there really is a lawgiver or god – but you miss the crucial point that these systems of law might just as well be inventions of human beings and attributed to gods.

If what you are saying is true, then there is no such thing as objectivity. Now we know that isn’t true!

You asked me what justice is rooted in, and I replied “law.” It is. “Justice” is a concept, created by societies, that is defined in terms of the law in that society. Different societies have different concepts of justice – as you nicely point out – and most of these different societies claim that their very different concepts of justice are “objective” or “divinely given.”

Is the justice of the dictator, which is rooted in his law, truly ‘just’? A evil dictator can create his own brand of justice and call it ‘law’. Nothing objective about that. Particularly if you are the subject of which he is about to make an objective example of, using his subjectively developed law!

What we observe is perfectly consistent with a universe with no objective morality, no objective justice, and with nothing more than regular old human values – individual and societal – driving and regulating actions, producing different societies with different values and different ideas of justice. That’s it.

Here you are confusing the universe which just is what it is, with human societies which can be anything, as you point out. However, is it not the case that humans can discern from the universe and their place in it, including generally observable things about the way they behave and their interaction with the universe, that can give us objective laws?