In stressful, time limited decision making, I'm pretty comfortable with absolving the actor from moral judgements, because they aren't going to be acting rationally.
That's a new one.
Does this extend to legality? Or, in your system, ought it?
Legality is separate from morality in my mind.
That's fine. And leads to another question: What use is morality if we have legality?
Suppose X is illegal. What do we gain by also calling X immoral?
In stressful, time limited decision making, I'm pretty comfortable with absolving the actor from moral judgements, because they aren't going to be acting rationally.
That's a new one.
Does this extend to legality? Or, in your system, ought it?
Legality is separate from morality in my mind.
That's fine. And leads to another question: What use is morality if we have legality?
Suppose X is illegal. What do we gain by also calling X immoral?
Laws imperfectly reflect morality.
Driving a car, even a woman driving a car, is not immoral. A woman driving a car in some stupid country is immoral.
Being gay is not immoral. Alen Turing was chemically castrated for it.
Being a quaker is not immoral, and Massachusetts hung people for it.
Smoking weed is not immoral, but it is illegal.
Following the law is arguably more moral than not, buuut even then there is civil disobedience which 2 of the above describe.
In stressful, time limited decision making, I'm pretty comfortable with absolving the actor from moral judgements, because they aren't going to be acting rationally.
That's a new one.
Does this extend to legality? Or, in your system, ought it?
Legality is separate from morality in my mind.
That's fine. And leads to another question: What use is morality if we have legality?
Suppose X is illegal. What do we gain by also calling X immoral?
Laws imperfectly reflect morality.
Yeah, I'm not sure why we think this.
Practically, the idea seems to be our way of offering critiques of legal systems, or justifying our actions. But we can do that without appeals to morality. You can say "Smoking weed does not need to be illegal" without any sort of moral argument.
Morality is a weird relic of religion that we just can't seem to shake.
In stressful, time limited decision making, I'm pretty comfortable with absolving the actor from moral judgements, because they aren't going to be acting rationally.
That's a new one.
Does this extend to legality? Or, in your system, ought it?
Legality is separate from morality in my mind.
That's fine. And leads to another question: What use is morality if we have legality?
Suppose X is illegal. What do we gain by also calling X immoral?
Laws imperfectly reflect morality.
Yeah, I'm not sure why we think this.
Practically, the idea seems to be our way of offering critiques of legal systems, or justifying our actions. But we can do that without appeals to morality. You can say "Smoking weed does not need to be illegal" without any sort of moral argument.
Morality is a weird relic of religion that we just can't seem to shake.
I think it is hard to say, "weed should be illegal, " without making some sort of moral argument.
But then, I think freedom of action is a moral good, and preventing freedom of action is intrinsically morally bad.
Generally speaking, we base legality on how things need to be in order for society to function. If people can commit murder with effective impunity, society does not work, even if we're allowed to scowl at the murderers in a particularly harsh fashion. If people don't pay their taxes, government breaks, even if tax evaders get roundly tut-tutted at.
Society does not break if I call a random dude on the street a fucking dickburger. It does not break even if lots of people call other random dudes fucking dickburgers.
Thus murder is illegal and randomly insulting strangers is just immoral.
Again, generally speaking. There are exceptions because people are imperfect and define "broken society" in different ways.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
Generally speaking, we base legality on how things need to be in order for society to function. If people can commit murder with effective impunity, society does not work, even if we're allowed to scowl at the murderers in a particularly harsh fashion. If people don't pay their taxes, government breaks, even if tax evaders get roundly tut-tutted at.
Society does not break if I call a random dude on the street a fucking dickburger. It does not break even if lots of people call other random dudes fucking dickburgers.
Thus murder is illegal and randomly insulting strangers is just immoral.
Again, generally speaking. There are exceptions because people are imperfect and define "broken society" in different ways.
You have correctly described the situation, as I understand it. The difference is that my conclusion from that is, "So morality is unnecessary and irrelevant." Legality does everything we need it to.
Legality can punish rape, murder, and tax fraud.
Morality can make people kinda sometimes feel bad about using naughty words.
One of those seems far more significant than the other.
Again, generally speaking. There are exceptions because people are imperfect and define "broken society" in different ways.
Isn't breaking society kinda immoral?
Isn't well... the glorious edict kinda a law that exists because everyone running around calling each other dickburgers kinda deleterious to society?
Are pointless laws immoral?
These questions aren't really intended to lead anywhere in particular.
Which is why you don't talk about law and morality like they're even in the same school of thought.
Laws can be immoral but that doesn't mean morality should trump laws. Immorality can be illegal but that doesn't mean laws should be based on morals.
Glorious edict isn't a law in the legal sense, it's a restriction. It's there because of moderator preference, not because of morals or laws. Society doesn't break down without it, and you don't face legal action for breaking it.
Generally speaking, we base legality on how things need to be in order for society to function. If people can commit murder with effective impunity, society does not work, even if we're allowed to scowl at the murderers in a particularly harsh fashion. If people don't pay their taxes, government breaks, even if tax evaders get roundly tut-tutted at.
Society does not break if I call a random dude on the street a fucking dickburger. It does not break even if lots of people call other random dudes fucking dickburgers.
Thus murder is illegal and randomly insulting strangers is just immoral.
Again, generally speaking. There are exceptions because people are imperfect and define "broken society" in different ways.
You have correctly described the situation, as I understand it. The difference is that my conclusion from that is, "So morality is unnecessary and irrelevant." Legality does everything we need it to.
Legality can punish rape, murder, and tax fraud.
Morality can make people kinda sometimes feel bad about using naughty words.
One of those seems far more significant than the other.
Morality can make people feel bad about thinking things. Morality can make people choose death for themselves or others.
Morality has shaped laws.
Morality will follow you across the county line, behind a bedroom door, into your dreams and knows no.... Guuuhhh... that thing were a law can't be prosecuted after a give duration of time.
Personally, it is a more significant thing in my life. I break laws with a great degree of impunity. I am punished when I am immoral.
I've always thought in terms of two 'sorts' of morality, a relative personal morality and a universal utilitarian societal morality.
Laws, in my ideal just society, would be based on the latter but take the former into account as best they could.
I'm realizing that don't know much about the philosophy of morality, so I don't know how to talk about this stuff at a high level. Maybe I should read up on it.
Again, generally speaking. There are exceptions because people are imperfect and define "broken society" in different ways.
Isn't breaking society kinda immoral?
Isn't well... the glorious edict kinda a law that exists because everyone running around calling each other dickburgers kinda deleterious to society?
Are pointless laws immoral?
These questions aren't really intended to lead anywhere in particular.
Which is why you don't talk about law and morality like they're even in the same school of thought.
Laws can be immoral but that doesn't mean morality should trump laws. Immorality can be illegal but that doesn't mean laws should be based on morals.
Glorious edict isn't a law in the legal sense, it's a restriction. It's there because of moderator preference, not because of morals or laws. Society doesn't break down without it, and you don't face legal action for breaking it.
Well, the Glorious Edict is actually a perfect example of a law. It exists because the degree to which people were being dicks to each other was, to a point, breaking our forum society.
As distinct from other behaviors which are frowned upon here, but which are not strictly against the rules.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
also note that laws do not, and should not, stop you from farting in a crowded elevator
whereas a sense of morality can, and should
you slack-sphinctered degenerates
Why not make a law against farting in elevators, if it's something we do not want people to do?
because it 1) cannot be realistically enforced
2) would be a violation of bodily freedoms to enforce, if it were somehow possible, which would have a net negative effect
not all undesirable behaviour can be controlled by laws, and not every aspect of life should be regulated by laws, for pragmatic and other reasons
it is problematic for the state to have such a great extent of control over individuals, for reasons that i feel are self-evident if you examine any historical context of profound and pervasive state control
moral codes and social norms are ultimately a very efficient way of producing desirable behaviour. they have a much more granular control over behaviour and are self-propagating. they cover an almost infinite array of situations that laws simply could not cover, and which could only be covered if we were willing to give up many of our freedoms and securities, which are a social good, for trivial or negligible elimination of social ills.
It always weirds me out in these kind of discussions how many people say they'd let someone die to save a pet.
That's my only takeaway from discussions of ethics.
It always weirds me out to see how many people think of their pets as coffee tables that poop.
Who's ever said anything like that?
This comparison doesn't even make sense and could only have been created by someone who's never interacted with pets in their life. Pets would make terrible coffee tables. They don't stand still, they aren't flat, they make noise and they poop. All behaviour one does not expect from a coffee table. No one who's ever had one would think of them that way.
shryke on
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Linespider5ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGERRegistered Userregular
I saw the topic said 'Armchair Morality' and was hoping for a scathing discussion on respectability politics, identity culture, ratfucking the human narrative, and hetero-normativity.
also note that laws do not, and should not, stop you from farting in a crowded elevator
whereas a sense of morality can, and should
you slack-sphinctered degenerates
Why not make a law against farting in elevators, if it's something we do not want people to do?
because it 1) cannot be realistically enforced
2) would be a violation of bodily freedoms to enforce, if it were somehow possible, which would have a net negative effect
not all undesirable behaviour can be controlled by laws, and not every aspect of life should be regulated by laws, for pragmatic and other reasons
it is problematic for the state to have such a great extent of control over individuals, for reasons that i feel are self-evident if you examine any historical context of profound and pervasive state control
moral codes and social norms are ultimately a very efficient way of producing desirable behaviour. they have a much more granular control over behaviour and are self-propagating. they cover an almost infinite array of situations that laws simply could not cover, and which could only be covered if we were willing to give up many of our freedoms and securities, which are a social good, for trivial or negligible elimination of social ills.
State has control over individuals: Problematic.
Moral Codes have control over individuals: Efficient.
If an individual is to be controlled, why is moral control preferable to state control?
I would guess the answer is, likely, that moral codes have control over an individual by the individual consenting to enforce the moral code within its own behavior. It is an internal control, as opposed to external.
But that is hella problematic and raises many questions regarding the nature of both states, individuals, morality, and law. If "moral code" is simply "an individual doing what the individual elects to do", then we're back at emotivism, for one.
I'm all about team determinism, even if it is banal, but I'm unclear on how that interferes with emotivism. They seem largely unrelated and compatible.
Anyway, laws are burdensome. "Enforcing" is a small part of it. The paperwork for even deciding what counts, what is exempt, and checking which is which case by case is a bother before any enforcing even happens.
Some laws are not useful enough to carry their own weight.
It always weirds me out in these kind of discussions how many people say they'd let someone die to save a pet.
That's my only takeaway from discussions of ethics.
For me at least, it's incredibly simple. In the far-fetched scenario where I'd have to make a binary choice, and stuff like telling people to GTFO on their own and such don't work, I'll lean 100% towards the party I care for the most. If it's a stranger against someone I care for, I pick the person I care for. If it's some random douche against a dog I've had for years, I'll pick the dog anytime.
It's not a case of valuing the life of an animal against the life of a human in isolation, but life of an animal (+emotional attachments) against the life of a human (without emotional attachments). Said emotional attachments can very well tip the scale on the side of saving the animal, even if I subscribe to the abstract idea of a life of a human being more valuable than the life of an animal. If it's a case of some random animal I don't know, against some random person, I'll pick the person.
This has been touched on in a number of forms already, but morality means people self-govern, which means you can scale back state enforcement, which means resources can be spent on other things, which makes for a more efficient society.
For example, not littering. It's often far more convenient for an individual to just throw trash wherever, and there's many contexts where there's very little stopping one from just dropping trash wherever. Morality helps in this situation.
Also, this seems related to societies with high levels of trust; That allows for the unattended basket of apples by the side of the road with a coffee can where people can drop in a quarter (or whatever). I just came back from America (I'm in China now). While I was there I went to a coffee shop and saw an unattended airpot at the front with a glass milk container next to it filled with dollar bills. I'm not sure about the rest of America, but this is something that works in my hometown. In China, there would be both no coffee and no money after a very short time.
I tend to think that morality plays into this kind of thing.
It always weirds me out in these kind of discussions how many people say they'd let someone die to save a pet.
That's my only takeaway from discussions of ethics.
It always weirds me out to see how many people think of their pets as coffee tables that poop.
Who's ever said anything like that?
This comparison doesn't even make sense and could only have been created by someone who's never interacted with pets in their life. Pets would make terrible coffee tables. They don't stand still, they aren't flat, they make noise and they poop. All behaviour one does not expect from a coffee table. No one who's ever had one would think of them that way.
I think you're being intentionally obtuse here. He clearly meant he didn't understand how some people regard their pets as property.
And they do.
And other people regard their pets as little people in fuzzy coats.
And trying to get those two groups to agree is not going to happen. Personally I am in the "fuzzy coats" category and suspect the property people have no souls.
But I can't empirically prove the soul thing so I guess we will just have to let those people continue on.
Linespider5ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGERRegistered Userregular
I would've saved my pet fish from a burning building.
There is something to be said about the general likelihood that a pet is going to be a hell of a lot easier to save than a human being, unless you own, like, a quadriplegic mastiff or something.
I guess for me it comes down a lot of other factors. I'd generally know exactly where to find my pet, I think, versus trying to figure out where people might think it would be a good idea to outlive a fire if they can't escape it. Plus, most humans=vertical beings, and in a smoke-filled room, so unless they know better, there's someone who's got smoke inhalation and may not respond with where they are or be able to help you move them once you find where they've passed out.
Also how much fire there is. We're basically talking like swimming out into a lake to save a person, when we don't know the size of the lake, the depth of it, or what the weather's like. And if we're doing that, suddenly the discussion tends to shift into 'a collection of factors that make doing this dangerous thing a really fucking bad idea,' at which point, I'm gonna go, no, I'm not trying to save anybody, I don't understand how even I got out, going back in is a really fucking bad idea.
If I went in for someone I was not prepared to live my life without, like, my best friend or my wife, and found another person first, I would save that person if I could and re-evaluate the situation after I managed to successfully rescue that person.
An apartment complex we were in caught fire while I was at language school for the Navy. After the cat and important papers I grabbed the only thing that came to mind: My homework.
This apparently has made me infamous to this day. Students who don't bring in their homework immediately get confronted with "Oh? And what's your excuse? We had a Petty Officer Quid a few years ago whose apartment burned down and he still brought his homework in."
And now every few months we'll get a new person and they'll ask if I'm the guy whose place burned down.
I suspect they hate me.
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TraceGNU Terry Pratchett; GNU Gus; GNU Carrie Fisher; GNU Adam WeRegistered Userregular
This has been touched on in a number of forms already, but morality means people self-govern, which means you can scale back state enforcement, which means resources can be spent on other things, which makes for a more efficient society.
For example, not littering. It's often far more convenient for an individual to just throw trash wherever, and there's many contexts where there's very little stopping one from just dropping trash wherever. Morality helps in this situation.
Also, this seems related to societies with high levels of trust; That allows for the unattended basket of apples by the side of the road with a coffee can where people can drop in a quarter (or whatever). I just came back from America (I'm in China now). While I was there I went to a coffee shop and saw an unattended airpot at the front with a glass milk container next to it filled with dollar bills. I'm not sure about the rest of America, but this is something that works in my hometown. In China, there would be both no coffee and no money after a very short time.
I tend to think that morality plays into this kind of thing.
It is comforting to think it is morality and not, say:
The realitve value of the coffeepot and money being s mm all I'm terms of life improvement, when contrasted with the impact on social status if a significant portion of the population discovered that you personally were the one who stole old man McKenzie's coffeepot and money.
Where as in China, as 1 of a million people anonymously living hand to mouth might make a different decision for completely practical reasons.
Or.... You know maybe people really are just more moral about that stuff. Or maybe, cause these are people, a sort of complicated blend.
It always weirds me out in these kind of discussions how many people say they'd let someone die to save a pet.
That's my only takeaway from discussions of ethics.
It always weirds me out to see how many people think of their pets as coffee tables that poop.
I've loved the dogs I've had, including the one I have now. But when you get a pet (barring being old and buying a particularly long-lived bird or reptile), you bring it into your home with the basic understanding that regardless of what actions you take, this animal will die long before you do, and it will be sad, and then you will move on (and likely, get another one). I don't think it's that anyone is suggesting pets are some inconsequential thing, worthy of note only for convenience. Instead, it's simply that they don't rank as high in basic importance to most socially-normal people as actual human beings do. And personally, I prefer it that way.
This has been touched on in a number of forms already, but morality means people self-govern, which means you can scale back state enforcement, which means resources can be spent on other things, which makes for a more efficient society.
For example, not littering. It's often far more convenient for an individual to just throw trash wherever, and there's many contexts where there's very little stopping one from just dropping trash wherever. Morality helps in this situation.
Also, this seems related to societies with high levels of trust; That allows for the unattended basket of apples by the side of the road with a coffee can where people can drop in a quarter (or whatever). I just came back from America (I'm in China now). While I was there I went to a coffee shop and saw an unattended airpot at the front with a glass milk container next to it filled with dollar bills. I'm not sure about the rest of America, but this is something that works in my hometown. In China, there would be both no coffee and no money after a very short time.
I tend to think that morality plays into this kind of thing.
It is comforting to think it is morality and not, say:
The realitve value of the coffeepot and money being s mm all I'm terms of life improvement, when contrasted with the impact on social status if a significant portion of the population discovered that you personally were the one who stole old man McKenzie's coffeepot and money.
Where as in China, as 1 of a million people anonymously living hand to mouth might make a different decision for completely practical reasons.
Or.... You know maybe people really are just more moral about that stuff. Or maybe, cause these are people, a sort of complicated blend.
You might note that I said morality "plays into" that difference rather than it being an either/or thing as you imply. I was making a direct analogue to the proverbial basket of apples. If you like though, Chinese people of all social strata also talk on the phone in movie theaters and litter wantonly. The social norms of the Chinese people who are wealthy enough to travel are often enormously annoying to people in nearby countries that they visit.
In Taiwan, the norms are such that one gets admonished for throwing a wooden food skewer into a bush. Maybe it's because Taiwan is richer than China? No, Taiwan had a massive littering problem when I went there 7 years ago. Norms with respect to one's waste have changed enormously since then.
It always weirds me out in these kind of discussions how many people say they'd let someone die to save a pet.
That's my only takeaway from discussions of ethics.
It always weirds me out to see how many people think of their pets as coffee tables that poop.
I've loved the dogs I've had, including the one I have now. But when you get a pet (barring being old and buying a particularly long-lived bird or reptile), you bring it into your home with the basic understanding that regardless of what actions you take, this animal will die long before you do, and it will be sad, and then you will move on (and likely, get another one). I don't think it's that anyone is suggesting pets are some inconsequential thing, worthy of note only for convenience. Instead, it's simply that they don't rank as high in basic importance to most socially-normal people as actual human beings do. And personally, I prefer it that way.
There are lots of reasons to hold human lives as being more significant than animal lives but I don't think lifespan is a particularly worthwhile one. As you pointed out, there are animal species who outlive humans.
There are also a lot of people who downplay the complexity of the emotional lives that animals lead, and their capacity for suffering, and I absolutely believe that this is for their convenience that they do this. Acknowledging that animals have more going on upstairs than fight or flight, hunger, etc is most inconvenient because it calls into question our treating them like disposable objects. Who was that, comedian I think, who said he'd kill any number of chimpanzees to save one AIDS baby? Considering what we know about chimpanzee intelligence, that's not just a murky moral stance, it's a monstrous one.
Ehh.... I thought my last paragraph explicitly stated that I was not implying a binary.
With littering, I was actually sorely tempted to mention burning man, where like your referred Taiwan it is basically not a thing.
I'm going to guess for two similar reason and one other.
1) mindfulness, people are aware of the repercussions of littering and their own potential effect on it.
Likely manifest from a combination of personal experience and organizationed 'education' by those in control(ads and such).
On that later note, in Taiwan, are these common?
2) social pressure that one would be rebuked for violating the proscription.
3) the fact people not only choose to be there, but significant barriers to entry, maybe refining things a bit and adding to the mindfulness.
I believe, upthread, the experiment with atheists swearing on a bible before a test of cheating was mentioned. Which is an example of immediately reinforcing mindfulness.
A practical example of the second would be the widespread attempt to reshape collage cultures to prevent sexual violence.
Ehh.... I thought my last paragraph explicitly stated that I was not implying a binary.
you were clearly implying that I was operating under a binary assumption
With littering, I was actually sorely tempted to mention burning man, where like your referred Taiwan it is basically not a thing.
I'm going to guess for two similar reason and one other.
1) mindfulness, people are aware of the repercussions of littering and their own potential effect on it.
Likely manifest from a combination of personal experience and organizationed 'education' by those in control(ads and such).
On that later note, in Taiwan, are these common?
2) social pressure that one would be rebuked for violating the proscription.
3) the fact people not only choose to be there, but significant barriers to entry, maybe refining things a bit and adding to the mindfulness.
I assume Taiwan got to the norms it has today with a combination of PSAs about what good Taiwanese people should be doing and PSAs about the personal punitive consequences of littering and the heightened enforcement that would make punishment more certain, but I don't know.
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KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
I won't lie my answers would probably a selfish analysis of which of the two would hurt me more if they died.
1. Beloved adult
2. Probably child because adult would tell me to anyway
3. Pet. I grew up with pets my whole life they are my family man.
4. Shit. I should say kid. I SHOULD. But the thought of hearing my dog burn to death? Hell I'd save the kid then kill myself trying to get to my dog because no way am I abandoning them.
An apartment complex we were in caught fire while I was at language school for the Navy. After the cat and important papers I grabbed the only thing that came to mind: My homework.
This apparently has made me infamous to this day. Students who don't bring in their homework immediately get confronted with "Oh? And what's your excuse? We had a Petty Officer Quid a few years ago whose apartment burned down and he still brought his homework in."
And now every few months we'll get a new person and they'll ask if I'm the guy whose place burned down.
I suspect they hate me.
My cousin ran back into a burning house after escaping to grab his school-laptop.
It always weirds me out in these kind of discussions how many people say they'd let someone die to save a pet.
That's my only takeaway from discussions of ethics.
It always weirds me out to see how many people think of their pets as coffee tables that poop.
Who's ever said anything like that?
This comparison doesn't even make sense and could only have been created by someone who's never interacted with pets in their life. Pets would make terrible coffee tables. They don't stand still, they aren't flat, they make noise and they poop. All behaviour one does not expect from a coffee table. No one who's ever had one would think of them that way.
I think you're being intentionally obtuse here. He clearly meant he didn't understand how some people regard their pets as property.
Then he is clearly full of shit since my statement implies nothing of the sort.
My statement implies that no more then saying you rescue a friend over a stranger says that strangers are property.
Posts
That's fine. And leads to another question: What use is morality if we have legality?
Suppose X is illegal. What do we gain by also calling X immoral?
Laws imperfectly reflect morality.
Driving a car, even a woman driving a car, is not immoral. A woman driving a car in some stupid country is immoral.
Being gay is not immoral. Alen Turing was chemically castrated for it.
Being a quaker is not immoral, and Massachusetts hung people for it.
Smoking weed is not immoral, but it is illegal.
Following the law is arguably more moral than not, buuut even then there is civil disobedience which 2 of the above describe.
Yeah, I'm not sure why we think this.
Practically, the idea seems to be our way of offering critiques of legal systems, or justifying our actions. But we can do that without appeals to morality. You can say "Smoking weed does not need to be illegal" without any sort of moral argument.
Morality is a weird relic of religion that we just can't seem to shake.
I think it is hard to say, "weed should be illegal, " without making some sort of moral argument.
But then, I think freedom of action is a moral good, and preventing freedom of action is intrinsically morally bad.
Society does not break if I call a random dude on the street a fucking dickburger. It does not break even if lots of people call other random dudes fucking dickburgers.
Thus murder is illegal and randomly insulting strangers is just immoral.
Again, generally speaking. There are exceptions because people are imperfect and define "broken society" in different ways.
Isn't breaking society kinda immoral?
Isn't well... the glorious edict kinda a law that exists because everyone running around calling each other dickburgers kinda deleterious to society?
Are pointless laws immoral?
These questions aren't really intended to lead anywhere in particular.
You have correctly described the situation, as I understand it. The difference is that my conclusion from that is, "So morality is unnecessary and irrelevant." Legality does everything we need it to.
Legality can punish rape, murder, and tax fraud.
Morality can make people kinda sometimes feel bad about using naughty words.
One of those seems far more significant than the other.
Which is why you don't talk about law and morality like they're even in the same school of thought.
Laws can be immoral but that doesn't mean morality should trump laws. Immorality can be illegal but that doesn't mean laws should be based on morals.
Glorious edict isn't a law in the legal sense, it's a restriction. It's there because of moderator preference, not because of morals or laws. Society doesn't break down without it, and you don't face legal action for breaking it.
Morality can make people feel bad about thinking things. Morality can make people choose death for themselves or others.
Morality has shaped laws.
Morality will follow you across the county line, behind a bedroom door, into your dreams and knows no.... Guuuhhh... that thing were a law can't be prosecuted after a give duration of time.
Personally, it is a more significant thing in my life. I break laws with a great degree of impunity. I am punished when I am immoral.
Laws, in my ideal just society, would be based on the latter but take the former into account as best they could.
I'm realizing that don't know much about the philosophy of morality, so I don't know how to talk about this stuff at a high level. Maybe I should read up on it.
error 404 empathy module not found
Well, the Glorious Edict is actually a perfect example of a law. It exists because the degree to which people were being dicks to each other was, to a point, breaking our forum society.
As distinct from other behaviors which are frowned upon here, but which are not strictly against the rules.
That's my only takeaway from discussions of ethics.
It always weirds me out to see how many people think of their pets as coffee tables that poop.
In what way are you punished?
Did...did you not read the entire rest of his post?
I believe so.
whereas a sense of morality can, and should
you slack-sphinctered degenerates
Why not make a law against farting in elevators, if it's something we do not want people to do?
because it 1) cannot be realistically enforced
2) would be a violation of bodily freedoms to enforce, if it were somehow possible, which would have a net negative effect
not all undesirable behaviour can be controlled by laws, and not every aspect of life should be regulated by laws, for pragmatic and other reasons
it is problematic for the state to have such a great extent of control over individuals, for reasons that i feel are self-evident if you examine any historical context of profound and pervasive state control
moral codes and social norms are ultimately a very efficient way of producing desirable behaviour. they have a much more granular control over behaviour and are self-propagating. they cover an almost infinite array of situations that laws simply could not cover, and which could only be covered if we were willing to give up many of our freedoms and securities, which are a social good, for trivial or negligible elimination of social ills.
Who's ever said anything like that?
This comparison doesn't even make sense and could only have been created by someone who's never interacted with pets in their life. Pets would make terrible coffee tables. They don't stand still, they aren't flat, they make noise and they poop. All behaviour one does not expect from a coffee table. No one who's ever had one would think of them that way.
Anyone?
State has control over individuals: Problematic.
Moral Codes have control over individuals: Efficient.
If an individual is to be controlled, why is moral control preferable to state control?
But that is hella problematic and raises many questions regarding the nature of both states, individuals, morality, and law. If "moral code" is simply "an individual doing what the individual elects to do", then we're back at emotivism, for one.
So, I'm curious what others would say.
Which is why I spoilered this.
Anyway, laws are burdensome. "Enforcing" is a small part of it. The paperwork for even deciding what counts, what is exempt, and checking which is which case by case is a bother before any enforcing even happens.
Some laws are not useful enough to carry their own weight.
For me at least, it's incredibly simple. In the far-fetched scenario where I'd have to make a binary choice, and stuff like telling people to GTFO on their own and such don't work, I'll lean 100% towards the party I care for the most. If it's a stranger against someone I care for, I pick the person I care for. If it's some random douche against a dog I've had for years, I'll pick the dog anytime.
It's not a case of valuing the life of an animal against the life of a human in isolation, but life of an animal (+emotional attachments) against the life of a human (without emotional attachments). Said emotional attachments can very well tip the scale on the side of saving the animal, even if I subscribe to the abstract idea of a life of a human being more valuable than the life of an animal. If it's a case of some random animal I don't know, against some random person, I'll pick the person.
For example, not littering. It's often far more convenient for an individual to just throw trash wherever, and there's many contexts where there's very little stopping one from just dropping trash wherever. Morality helps in this situation.
Also, this seems related to societies with high levels of trust; That allows for the unattended basket of apples by the side of the road with a coffee can where people can drop in a quarter (or whatever). I just came back from America (I'm in China now). While I was there I went to a coffee shop and saw an unattended airpot at the front with a glass milk container next to it filled with dollar bills. I'm not sure about the rest of America, but this is something that works in my hometown. In China, there would be both no coffee and no money after a very short time.
I tend to think that morality plays into this kind of thing.
I think you're being intentionally obtuse here. He clearly meant he didn't understand how some people regard their pets as property.
And they do.
And other people regard their pets as little people in fuzzy coats.
And trying to get those two groups to agree is not going to happen. Personally I am in the "fuzzy coats" category and suspect the property people have no souls.
But I can't empirically prove the soul thing so I guess we will just have to let those people continue on.
There is something to be said about the general likelihood that a pet is going to be a hell of a lot easier to save than a human being, unless you own, like, a quadriplegic mastiff or something.
I guess for me it comes down a lot of other factors. I'd generally know exactly where to find my pet, I think, versus trying to figure out where people might think it would be a good idea to outlive a fire if they can't escape it. Plus, most humans=vertical beings, and in a smoke-filled room, so unless they know better, there's someone who's got smoke inhalation and may not respond with where they are or be able to help you move them once you find where they've passed out.
Also how much fire there is. We're basically talking like swimming out into a lake to save a person, when we don't know the size of the lake, the depth of it, or what the weather's like. And if we're doing that, suddenly the discussion tends to shift into 'a collection of factors that make doing this dangerous thing a really fucking bad idea,' at which point, I'm gonna go, no, I'm not trying to save anybody, I don't understand how even I got out, going back in is a really fucking bad idea.
This apparently has made me infamous to this day. Students who don't bring in their homework immediately get confronted with "Oh? And what's your excuse? We had a Petty Officer Quid a few years ago whose apartment burned down and he still brought his homework in."
And now every few months we'll get a new person and they'll ask if I'm the guy whose place burned down.
I suspect they hate me.
Quid's so Pretty.
Pretty Soldier Quid
brb calling anime network
It is comforting to think it is morality and not, say:
The realitve value of the coffeepot and money being s mm all I'm terms of life improvement, when contrasted with the impact on social status if a significant portion of the population discovered that you personally were the one who stole old man McKenzie's coffeepot and money.
Where as in China, as 1 of a million people anonymously living hand to mouth might make a different decision for completely practical reasons.
Or.... You know maybe people really are just more moral about that stuff. Or maybe, cause these are people, a sort of complicated blend.
I've loved the dogs I've had, including the one I have now. But when you get a pet (barring being old and buying a particularly long-lived bird or reptile), you bring it into your home with the basic understanding that regardless of what actions you take, this animal will die long before you do, and it will be sad, and then you will move on (and likely, get another one). I don't think it's that anyone is suggesting pets are some inconsequential thing, worthy of note only for convenience. Instead, it's simply that they don't rank as high in basic importance to most socially-normal people as actual human beings do. And personally, I prefer it that way.
You might note that I said morality "plays into" that difference rather than it being an either/or thing as you imply. I was making a direct analogue to the proverbial basket of apples. If you like though, Chinese people of all social strata also talk on the phone in movie theaters and litter wantonly. The social norms of the Chinese people who are wealthy enough to travel are often enormously annoying to people in nearby countries that they visit.
In Taiwan, the norms are such that one gets admonished for throwing a wooden food skewer into a bush. Maybe it's because Taiwan is richer than China? No, Taiwan had a massive littering problem when I went there 7 years ago. Norms with respect to one's waste have changed enormously since then.
There are lots of reasons to hold human lives as being more significant than animal lives but I don't think lifespan is a particularly worthwhile one. As you pointed out, there are animal species who outlive humans.
There are also a lot of people who downplay the complexity of the emotional lives that animals lead, and their capacity for suffering, and I absolutely believe that this is for their convenience that they do this. Acknowledging that animals have more going on upstairs than fight or flight, hunger, etc is most inconvenient because it calls into question our treating them like disposable objects. Who was that, comedian I think, who said he'd kill any number of chimpanzees to save one AIDS baby? Considering what we know about chimpanzee intelligence, that's not just a murky moral stance, it's a monstrous one.
With littering, I was actually sorely tempted to mention burning man, where like your referred Taiwan it is basically not a thing.
I'm going to guess for two similar reason and one other.
1) mindfulness, people are aware of the repercussions of littering and their own potential effect on it.
Likely manifest from a combination of personal experience and organizationed 'education' by those in control(ads and such).
On that later note, in Taiwan, are these common?
2) social pressure that one would be rebuked for violating the proscription.
3) the fact people not only choose to be there, but significant barriers to entry, maybe refining things a bit and adding to the mindfulness.
I believe, upthread, the experiment with atheists swearing on a bible before a test of cheating was mentioned. Which is an example of immediately reinforcing mindfulness.
A practical example of the second would be the widespread attempt to reshape collage cultures to prevent sexual violence.
you were clearly implying that I was operating under a binary assumption
I assume Taiwan got to the norms it has today with a combination of PSAs about what good Taiwanese people should be doing and PSAs about the personal punitive consequences of littering and the heightened enforcement that would make punishment more certain, but I don't know.
1. Beloved adult
2. Probably child because adult would tell me to anyway
3. Pet. I grew up with pets my whole life they are my family man.
4. Shit. I should say kid. I SHOULD. But the thought of hearing my dog burn to death? Hell I'd save the kid then kill myself trying to get to my dog because no way am I abandoning them.
My cousin ran back into a burning house after escaping to grab his school-laptop.
Then he is clearly full of shit since my statement implies nothing of the sort.
My statement implies that no more then saying you rescue a friend over a stranger says that strangers are property.