P
PRmerger
Guest
Why should “social structure” have any authority over me? Who is this “social structure” except people just like me? Why should any one of them have any authority to declare that I must do something?
- Status
J
jonfawkes
Guest
I’m not sure where you are from but it’s who you identify with. Who you count yourself a member of. Whomever you feel obligated to. You give them authority over you. It’s like free will, you choose to whom you will subjugate to yourself to. To be part of the whole. We are social creatures, it’s a good survival strategy, so it’s with whom you make your stand, where you hang your hat, who’s side you are on. Your “pack”.
The Catholic Church is one, your country, state if applicable, City, your community, kids school, your family, etc.
You believe as a matter of faith, that the Catholic church has the best strategy for your moral body and immortal soul. So, you subjugate yourself to the church as the will of God on earth. As the social structure that you prescribe to, you look after the church as you believe it looks after you. So you don’t have to do anything, you choose to.
P
PRmerger
Guest
Ok. But why should my society have any authority to tell me what’s right or wrong? Who is society except people like me?
And you are presuming that one is always morally obligated to obey one’s society.
I am going to guess that you do not agree with this. There is a higher authority than society, yes?
Else you would have to acknowledge that someone who lives in a society where female genital mutilation is encouraged would have to agree that this is the moral thing to do.
J
jonfawkes
Guest
You give them the authority. You choose to live as a Catholic no one is forcing you to.Ok. But why should my society have any authority to tell me what’s right or wrong? Who is society except people like me?
And you are presuming that one is always morally obligated to obey one’s society.
I am going to guess that you do not agree with this. There is a higher authority than society, yes?
Else you would have to acknowledge that someone who lives in a society where female genital mutilation is encouraged would have to agree that this is the moral thing to do.
I don’t agree with it, but I can’t say that it didn’t “work” for the society at the time it was initiated. I think it’s outdated and backwards and cruel but We mutilate boys every day in the US, it’s considered normal. Few bat an eye.
I don’t agree with stoning but it was considered moral and just one time, slavery as well. They are biblical. In the society that I was raised in they both seem horrific, but I’m not living in their times nor understand their societal needs. It was a moral choice for those people at that time.
P
PRmerger
Guest
Absolutely not! As if!
My society has gone :whacky: with its moral truths.
I absolutely do not give society the authority to be my moral norm.
Indeed.
Right. You don’t agree with it because you have an authority higher (or other) than that of what society has declared.
You are making my point quite well! :tiphat:
Absolutely not. They were NOT moral choices, any more than leaving your baby out to die in the cold was ever a moral choice.
J
jonfawkes
Guest
I think you are misunderstanding me, the societal structure that you are giving authority to is the Catholic Church. By being a member you are saying I submit to the rules and guidance of this communal body.Absolutely not! As if!
My society has gone :whacky: with its moral truths.
I absolutely do not give society the authority to be my moral norm.
Indeed.
Right. You don’t agree with it because you have an authority higher (or other) than that of what society has declared.
You are making my point quite well! :tiphat:
Absolutely not. They were NOT moral choices, any more than leaving your baby out to die in the cold was ever a moral choice.
You also give your secular society authority by choosing to obey the laws of the land.
You are subject to the society - if you step out of line, you can be “corrected.” People can also correct the structure. “you know, stoning seems wrong, lets stop doing that”
This notion is at the heart of civil disobedience and rebellion. It is a willful act of the people rescinding their submission to the authority.
It’s a two way street. The society protects the individual (strength in numbers) and the person protects the society.
BTW I don’t understand the baby reference or how it’s applicable (Moses?) Did someone claim that abandoning babies was moral?
I
inocente
Guest
To some extent this is bound-up with your faith and while Aquinas’ conclusions probably make perfect sense to you, they are questioned by others, for example in areas of sexual morality.
Natural law systems determine what is right by first stating what is good. Aquinas puts procreation into his catalog of goods by deriving it from our nature to go forth and multiply, while others exclude procreation. I’ve no objective means to decide which guy is correct, which is why I say all natural law philosophers must be making an assumption here.
Then of course, with different goods they reach different conclusions about what is right. They’re still all helpful to some extent, as is the teaching of the Church and various other sources, but hopefully you can see why this non-Catholic is reluctant to take any as gospel.
I
inocente
Guest
I’m not sure there can be one process, but one idea from science is to always keep a mustard seed of doubt, because once we think we’re certain of everything we can’t progress. You’ll remember that I like Pope Benedict’s theology, his process of going back to first principles and working it out instead of just toeing a line. Absolute he may be and I don’t always agree with him, but he relates everything back to us in the real world and never worries about looking at things afresh.
I
inocente
Guest
I’ve been on three or four similar threads to this one in my eight months on CAF and after making 800 posts this is the first thread where anyone has said that. Maybe I just developed some dread brain disease and should see my doctor
. Otherwise I can’t really buy the idea. It seems more likely that we’re just very different and have yet to find common turf.I will admit to getting lost about the original point in sequences of I-said you-said, which is why I need to go back to where we started our spat. It will take me a while as its Christmas out there and I don’t have any long blocks of time, but hang on to your hat and I’ll try to get back to you as soon as I can. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is.
D
davidv
Guest
How does objecting to what you write mean we don’t understand you.
Authority comes from God. It is not given by us. We either accept the authority or we reject it, but we cannot give it unless it was given to us, for example, parents are given authority over there children by God not their children.
I
inocente
Guest
Can’t see the issue, JD. I definitely questioned its (the natural law’s) assumption. In any event that was my only intent - as far as I know your rendition was spot on, which is why I said I couldn’t fault you.I’ll let the readers decide.
At the risk of being accused of repeating myself, let me rewrite it: Spiders don’t have any objective purpose. One might conjecture that their purpose is to survive, because they have an instinct not to die, but then they also have an instinct to spin webs, so one could alternatively imagine that as their purpose. But whatever purpose one supposes, the choice is subjective since evolution is purposeless.Well . . . do they have a purpose, or not?
Spiders don’t have a purpose. Las arañas no tienen un propósito. Spiders are purposeless. The spider, she has no purpose. Purpose is something a spider lacks. Any clearer?
I then said we humans have no purpose either, because we came from the same evolutionary process. There’s no common agreement as to the purpose of our lives, even amongst Christians. For example, random quotes from some Christian websites:
“As children of God, we are to become more like the Son of God.”
“I believe the purpose in life is to love, contribute as much to the world as we can and die given away.”
“I think our purpose is something we are constantly learning about and realizing throughout our life.”
“While it’s true some people seem to find their life purpose easier than others, it’s also true that God really does have a plan for every single person, even if it takes a while to see what it is.”
(Personally, 2 Cor 5 may get closer.)
The reason why there’s widespread disagreement may be that we have free-will. We make up our own minds about our purpose, and that’s the way God planned it to be. If He planned otherwise then everyone would probably agree. We can derive our own purpose from our faith (noticing that God was also careful not to provide any absolute proof of His own existence) or from some other angle, but whatever we decide is subjective, just as God intended.
Some things in life really are subjective, and this is one of them. I don’t see anything absolutely wrong with admitting there’s no objective purpose and we make it up as we go along.
Saying that morality is about personal and cultural values is just a definition:
*The term “morality” can be used either
- descriptively to refer to a code of conduct put forward by a society or,
a. some other group, such as a religion, or
b. accepted by an individual for her own behavior or - normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons.
plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-definition/*
(I said that good moral standards help both us and our tribe flourish, ultimately aiding our survival, which is probably why we have a conscience in the first place.)
An evolutionary take. If our survival didn’t depend on them, there would have been no pressures for the mechanisms behind conscience and moral decision making to develop in the first place. This assertion comes via induction, and so can’t be proved absolutely, but seems reasonable. I would, of course, strongly disagree with the tomfoolery that science can then somehow be used to determine moral standards, since that would involve scientists pretending they can find absolutes.
PS: Things have been a bit hectic this week. It’s taken me a day and a half to write just this and the last three posts so sorry if anything is still unclear.
L
larkin31
Guest
Rave is on my ignore list. I got this kind of response from him/her much more quickly! But then, I also consider you much more patient than I.I’ve been on three or four similar threads to this one in my eight months on CAF and after making 800 posts this is the first thread where anyone has said that. Maybe I just developed some dread brain disease and should see my doctor
I will admit to getting lost about the original point in sequences of I-said you-said, which is why I need to go back to where we started our spat. It will take me a while as its Christmas out there and I don’t have any long blocks of time, but hang on to your hat and I’ll try to get back to you as soon as I can. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is.
T
tonyrey
Guest
[/QUOTE]Research the question and find out. This is an empirical question. An unscientific attitude!
Of course: “There is a tree in my yard.” Is that all you can muster in the way of important expressions?
So you don’t believe personal activity and relations are more significant?
Paucity of evidence to the contrary. So your intentions, thoughts and decisions count for nothing?
All the questions are directly relevant to whether morality is relative:
5.** Intangible** intentions, thoughts and decisions **are **evidence that physical reality is not the sole reality.
- The fact that cultures have reflected on morality for nearly all recorded history does **not **suffice to make them important.
- It is unscientific not to consider whether other rational beings have any rules of conduct similar to ours.
- Important, i.e. moral, expressions in human discourse** do** refer to objective reality.
- Morality** is** primarily concerned with** personal relations**, not physical objects.
Thanks for the discussion.
F
fhansen
Guest
If morality existed only in human discourse, why is it that obvious patterns exist in human morality? Looking at the individual, rather than societies which have their influence on us, the vast majority of humans universally refrain from murder, torture, rape, pedophilia, extortion, child sacrifice even if they could get away with it and it was to their benefit in some way to do it. While we’re generally repulsed by these activities, the possibility to rationalize any behavior-to convert a taboo into a norm- certainly always exists. We’re not completely sure, ourselves, why we refrain from one behavior or favor another. The fact that many are obviously attracted to movie heroes who’re often less than prime examples of human virtue and are willing to behave in ways we wouldn’t behave suggests that we may question our own standards in the area of morality. And this relates to the Catholic teaching on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The tree signifies two things: our freedom to determine morality for ourselves (subjective morality), simultaneous with an obligation to obey an objective morality. This story suggests that man starts out with a more immediate awareness of his own moral nature, then strays from it.
In other areas of our lives we’re pretty much the same as each other. Our bodies are markedly similar, normally having two arms, one nose, etc. We have no choice as to if, where, when, or to whom we’ll be born, we have no control over how we’ll metabolize nutrients or respire and accomplish gas exchange in our lungs. We’re also similar in natures/emotional needs, operating within ranges of behavioral possibilities. We generally require love, recreation, hobbies, the satisfaction that comes from work and accomplishments. We like to learn new things and appreciate beauty. We experience guilt and shame, joy and sadness at times. We didn’t make ourselves this way, why should things be different in the realm of morality?
In the Old Covenant, humans were to be self-motivated to obey moral standards given them.
In the New Covenant, we’re to be guided, by cooperating with grace, back to the awareness of an innate morality, and to a spontaneous obedience or abiding based on and motivated by love. Of course, this depends on there actually* being* a God who initiates the motivating-and one who loves man and desires his happiness. In any case this return trip to obedience generally begins when someone has exhausted their own attempt at being righteous and/or exhausted their search for happiness through various available means and has become aware that something ain’t right-become aware of and sickened by the reality of evil in the world and in any case of the futility of their search. By that point, the question of whether or not mortality is objective has become moot-they know it is, and they know that a self-based (relative) morality has led them astray.
If there is no God, then morality is relative, because relative morality derives from subjective morality. Because even if we determined that an objective morality existed- and came into existence for some* other* reason, such as to provide some benefit “determined” by evolution, for what reason might we feel compelled not to override this morality? Who could tell us that we should follow it rather than follow our own way?
In the New Covenant, humans recognize their need for God, first of all. Then He begins re-writing morality in them.
** “This is the covenant I will make with them
after that time, says the Lord.
I will put my laws in their hearts,
and I will write them on their minds.”** JER 31:33
In other areas of our lives we’re pretty much the same as each other. Our bodies are markedly similar, normally having two arms, one nose, etc. We have no choice as to if, where, when, or to whom we’ll be born, we have no control over how we’ll metabolize nutrients or respire and accomplish gas exchange in our lungs. We’re also similar in natures/emotional needs, operating within ranges of behavioral possibilities. We generally require love, recreation, hobbies, the satisfaction that comes from work and accomplishments. We like to learn new things and appreciate beauty. We experience guilt and shame, joy and sadness at times. We didn’t make ourselves this way, why should things be different in the realm of morality?
In the Old Covenant, humans were to be self-motivated to obey moral standards given them.
In the New Covenant, we’re to be guided, by cooperating with grace, back to the awareness of an innate morality, and to a spontaneous obedience or abiding based on and motivated by love. Of course, this depends on there actually* being* a God who initiates the motivating-and one who loves man and desires his happiness. In any case this return trip to obedience generally begins when someone has exhausted their own attempt at being righteous and/or exhausted their search for happiness through various available means and has become aware that something ain’t right-become aware of and sickened by the reality of evil in the world and in any case of the futility of their search. By that point, the question of whether or not mortality is objective has become moot-they know it is, and they know that a self-based (relative) morality has led them astray.
If there is no God, then morality is relative, because relative morality derives from subjective morality. Because even if we determined that an objective morality existed- and came into existence for some* other* reason, such as to provide some benefit “determined” by evolution, for what reason might we feel compelled not to override this morality? Who could tell us that we should follow it rather than follow our own way?
In the New Covenant, humans recognize their need for God, first of all. Then He begins re-writing morality in them.
** “This is the covenant I will make with them
after that time, says the Lord.
I will put my laws in their hearts,
and I will write them on their minds.”** JER 31:33
J
jonfawkes
Guest
Because we share the same biology.
L
larkin31
Guest
It certainly does to me. Go ahead and dismiss them if you wish. I don’t.
I do consider this. I never said I did not.
Code:
Depends on what you mean by "refer to." Of course, many morals "refer to" objective reality. The brain thinking of morals is objectively real (most likely).Perhaps. I have never seen a study on this. But I have no strong reason to doubt this.
No. They are evidence of brain/neural activity. To expand neural activity to be evidence for the supernatural you must argue better than this.
L
larkin31
Guest
This is the crux of the matter.
This is exactly the challenge that Existentialists of the 20th century tell us we must face without lies (belief in supernatural aid) and still behave with ethics and conscience and justice. It is the modern challenge. Individuals and societies either face it and pass or face it and fail.
Or choose not to face it at all. But the Existentialists call this intellectual cowardice.
L
LifeIsAbsurd
Guest
A common human desire for self-preservation that overrides lesser desires?
Almost all humans are members of societies. Murder is usually defined as, to kill unlawfully, that is to kill without our society’s approval. My society, like most societies, has steep penalties for killing without its blessing. In my decades in this world I haven’t yet encountered a scenario where the potential benefits (say, monetary gain) outweighed the risks (possible death, years in prison, loss of family, loss of career, etc.). That’s a concrete, practical reason for not commiting murder. Also, again as a matter of self-preservation, I prefer to be a member of a society where killing people like me and my family is investigated and punished, and that’s reflected in my voting record.
J
JDaniel
Guest
Jon-babe! You do see the problem with this don’t you?
I’m just asking, but, what if . . . what if no one accepted, or wanted, the job of being “in charge?” Then, is everyone in charge? If your answer is, “Yes,” then you are left back where you started. There is no morality. There is no moral compass. There is no good and sufficient reason why one should behave one way and not the other.
Unless, we just do it through some sort of osmosis - yet, answer to no one. Given time, I think more than a few would tend to stray off the reservation, so to speak.
Do you have an answer to this dilemma?
God bless,
jd
J
JDaniel
Guest
Do you see the problem here? What if . . . I’m just asking . . . what if I don’t want to do that?
How are boys mutilated?
God bless,
jd
- Status