Re: Need some backup! Ethical Dilema
This is way^5 off-topic, by the way. :inquisitive:
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Originally Posted by Innocentius
Untrue. It is very much possible to uphold and maintain morals while keeping God (short word for everything religious, in this case) out of it. The question is if morale is real at all and if we need it.
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Originally Posted by Rodion Romanovich
Monkeys don't have explicit religious morals, yet they have rules. What we need isn't to discover secular morality rules, but to find a judge which can be justifiable - such as nature. Then we don't need to bother about which rules this judge will enforce. As it happens, our instincts are adapted to make us feel natural about following these rules in most cases (but not all), so the mindset part of the transition isn't difficult, as the moral rules actually enforced by this judge are almost the same as an average of the morality of all people on earth. Not exactly, but that doesn't matter. It's the fact that the judge is justifiable that makes the whole difference. A morality is a means, the judgement is the ends. If we can achieve the ends - a justifiable judgement, without this particular means (secular morality), we wouldn't need secular morality.
Ok, I put it wrong. What I really meant is close to this:
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How are we supposed to reach objectivity? Agreed that objectivity is something to strive for, but it is an unreachable goal as the human mind will always be limited by itself, thus excluding the option of a neutral authority. Subjectivity on the other hand can, is and must be cruel, but is the only viable option.
No secular AND objective morales exist. Voilà.
If there is anything man should be afraid of, it is this
and this
Morales gone wrong happpens all the time and can be corrected at any time; while these things, on the other hand, needs some love and caring; you'll only have one chance.
Re: Need some backup! Ethical Dilema
Yeah, now we're deep into OT land, but ah well...
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How are we supposed to reach objectivity? Agreed that objectivity is something to strive for, but it is an unreachable goal as the human mind will always be limited by itself, thus excluding the option of a neutral authority. Subjectivity on the other hand can, is and must be cruel, but is the only viable option.
For now, only thing I claim to be sure of is that the pre-civilisation society was so great in so many ways that it's absolutely amazing, and that indeed nature is a justifiable judge, and so it is much better than anything society has ever been able to offer, and it was a society where people could and should act by their most basic instincts, and where this actually worked, because the instincts had been adapted to this way of life. Unlike modern society, where primitive basic instincts lead to people exploiting all the loopholes of society, and commit atrocies.
The challenge is the question: can something similar to the pre-civilisation situation where nature was the judge be created today? You answer that it is impossible to do it. What I think is that it seems very likely that this is the case, but it's not be proven that it's impossible. Moreover, there are varying degrees of subjectivity. For instance, if you make a study and it will only pass if ratified by people from many different interest groups, subjectivity can't as easily pass. Or, for example, if a study is made as a pure mathematical or logical problem, isolated from its real-life setting, you can at least make that part of the study objective, even if there's some subjectivity in how the problem was modeled. But in short, there ARE many known ways of fighting and limiting subjectivity by means of organising society in a particular way. Balance of power, terror balance, treaties to exchange offensive strength on both sides for increased defensive strength on both sides, etc. All of these, and many others, can force people to strive for more objectivity or face tremendous suffering or destruction. So there's not a hopeless mess in which no objectivity is possible, rather it's a hopeless mess in that it seems we've still not found any substitute justifiable judge for nature, which we abandoned when creating civilisation.
Re: Need some backup! Ethical Dilema
Steal my woman? I'm a barbarian, you can try, but i'll tell you how its going to work out in the end...
Thats the foundation of a long, lasting life. Don't walk into the Lion's Den. You never know what kind of person you're really dealing with. Especially us young-uns.
