RoR: Forum

Here is the question that Joe's article brought up for me: "Is there a difference between doing a cost/benefit analysis done for an individual, by that individual versus doing an analysis of the morality of a projected alternative set of actions an individual might take, done by that individual?" I think there is. I think morality is substantially more than a cost/benefit analysis.
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Joe said,

There is a fear that if an option were viewed in that way, it would lead to behaviors that are widely viewed as immoral. Instead, they desire a kind of moral rule that prevents any weighing of options and demands obedience."

Isn't it valid to want others to subscribe to some basic, universal moral values - like the moral stricture against the initiation of force against the other?

Isn't it reasonable to say there are different levels, or kinds of moral values/rules - those that we should expect of others (e.g., non-initiation of violence) versus those where a person is only hurting themselves (e.g., drug abuse), versus those that are just preferences (always say "Please and Thank You)?
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Joe wrote:

When you murder someone, you discard your place in society and become an enemy of civilization. You will be hunted down, arrested, and punished.

That makes it all relative to the culture. In some societies - like Somalia - you aren't likely to be hunted down at all. Or if you are a member of a drug cartel in Mexico, you might know that the chances of being hunted down are minuscule.

And this brings up the issue of the act of murder not being the defining act in determining the morality - and instead the morality somehow arises out of the chance that you might get caught.

The cost of murdering someone destroys your ability to live normally.

This is really dependent upon what is "normal" in a society, or for a person, or for a sub-culture.
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If you run from the law, you will always be on the run or in hiding. If you are captured, you will be imprisoned for a significant amount of time and forever after labeled a felon, marking you as someone untrustworthy and potentially dangerous.

This argument doesn't hold up because, hopefully, we craft objective laws that are based upon universal moral values that protect individual rights - like laws against murder. So, it is circular to argue that the consequence of laws substitute for morality - because it is the morality which comes first.

Also, there are people who have worked up a neurotic, romantic view of themselves as outlaws. There are people who have intensely low self-esteem who can't value their liberty, because they don't value themselves - and that makes their cost/benefit analysis wacky. There are people whose previous time in prison left them institutionalized and being imprisoned is a benefit in their eyes. I point out these to make the point that morality must be about an objective study of universal values that are independent of the relative preferences of individuals or cultures.
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Here is a big issue: You can't make cost/benefit analysis of any complexity without FIRST having your own prioritized set of values - moral values. Otherwise how would you know what is a benefit? (But by itself, this doesn't include the issue of universal values versus personal values that might not be universal).
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All of the arguments that have to do with a system that renders strong consequences against the person who decides that he wants the money from a robbery and murder more than he fears those consequences are an argument that counts on having this system. But the system depends upon shared values of life which were converted into those laws and created the agencies. If the society didn't believe it to be seriously immoral to kill someone, they wouldn't create all that is needed to drop those heavy consequences on the head of the murderer. It is a circular argument.
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To say that human life is of value, in general, is not a case of arguing for intrinsic values. We need a valuer to be in the context in order to avoid the accusation of claiming that a value somehow lives in the subject itself - i.e., intrinsically. If I say that human life, as such, is of value, the context is about humans, as such. It is a general statement where the valuers are the humans in general. The moment you point at specific human, then there is a context and then you need a specific valuer.
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When we make a moral law into a legal law, we ARE demanding obedience. That's the nature of laws. We know that people make choices - not just about what they will obey, but also about why they obey or don't obey (maybe 'blindly' or maybe with full knowledge). All of this is a reason for understanding morality properly and not just using illogical, poorly chosen 'morals' to manipulate, and why we should only have those laws that do reflect protection of individual rights.
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If Joe's position on morals were right, and it was a matter of avoiding killing, stealing, lies or betrayal just because of a cost/benefit analysis that includes the social/legal consequences, then where did the moral values come from that gave rise to those social/legal constraints?

If the system that exists doesn't punish lying, cheating, even stealing - like our current political system is for those who are elected to national office - that doesn't mean that a slimy congressman would be moral to decide that his benefits of practicing the usual political graft given that the costs look almost non-existent. We need an independent morality, independent of the individual cost/benefit analysis so that we can make that kind of judgment.
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A code of morality should be like the set of principles that make up a science. They should be objectively derived from the facts of nature. There can and always have been disagreements - in each of the sciences, and in the field of morality. We should be looking at those moral values that are universal to all who are human. That is where the system must be. There is a big confusion in two areas: One is that some values are not universal, and other values might be universal but can occupy different priority levels. Also some values are optional, even if they are universal (abusing drugs to the degree that we harm our health, even our life, is universal but optional) - others are universal but should not be optional - those that violate the rights of others - rights being moral principles themselves).

Morality is the field where we go to understand what our costs and benefits are within the dimension of universal values. It goes beyond costs and benefits.
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The question still exists as to why should I place a great value on "being moral." I'd say that we have no alternative to doing so, given the absolute need to the individual to have a moral code, and to the absolute need we have for moral principles to allow beneficial interactions with others. Without moral values we can't make choices, create laws, or find a strong psychological place to come from. We would become lost in direction, lacking in motive power, and unable to create a livable society.

Once we acknowledge that we must be moral if we are to maximize our happiness and well-being, the question is what moral values do we choose - that is where we make our choices. The rest is a requirement that we be internally consistent - integrity is a source of self-esteem and will directly affect or ability to succeed.

Post 1

Tuesday, December 3, 2013 - 7:03pm

Joe,

Which leads me the dilemma that people who own lots of values are vulnerable to people who have nothing to lose. People who have nothing to lose do perform theft/murder etc for chance of a big gain (if they don't get caught/punished) and have chance for little loss (if they do get caught/punished).

Does anyone know of an idiom that symbolizes this concept?

Thanks,
Dean

Post 2

Wednesday, December 4, 2013 - 1:45pm

Dean:

Which leads me the dilemma that people who own lots of values are vulnerable to people who have nothing to lose

And its corollary: both are vulnerable to politicians who simultaneously promise to take value from one and give to the other, while at the same time promise the other to protect them from simply having value taken from them.

These politicians leg-lift power over their peers and do neither well at all.

regards,
Fred

Post 3

Saturday, December 7, 2013 - 8:18am

Joe,

It makes no sense to view costs and benefits in a narrow way so that these major effects are ignored. It makes no sense to say that if you murder someone for their pocket change, it was better than the alternative of going and getting a job. It makes no sense to say that betrayal or dishonesty is useful if you get something good out of it.

These focus only on mundane costs and benefits. The cost measured in the murder example is the cost of having to get a job. But it completely ignored the catastrophic consequences of murdering someone.

Good point.

From a different vantage point though, utilitarian calculation (of costs and benefits) is something I now personally view as being an adjunct to an actual morality or ethic (i.e., a hierarchy of action-guiding values). Anyone can try to avoid costs, anyone can try to obtain benefits. For a religious zealot practicing asceticism, having a steak dinner may be interpreted as a cost (the cost of relinquishing your soul to the devil) which you should try to avoid, and going without food or shelter may be interpreted as a benefit (paying ransom on your permanent residence in heaven). Under religious zealotry, the very terms of cost and benefit can be turned upside down -- which reflects the inherent irrationality of religious zeal.

The same can be said regarding socialist zeal. Because "costs" and "benefits" are merely second-order items already tethered to an implicit morality (an implicit hierarchy of action-guiding values) -- and because there is no escape from that -- talking about the 'utilitarian value' of something can be misleading. Steve did an excellent job of articulating this aspect of reality in post 0. You alluded to this inescapable aspect of reality with this:

When we recognize those costs, the tradeoffs are clear. In no normal situation is it a good idea to murder people. The costs are too outrageously high. Any values gained will almost certainly be trivial in comparison. Similarly, the cost of losing your trustworthiness is also significant. It shouldn't be thrown aside just because it seems easier to lie about something. It should be treated as a significant value, and one that if lost may never be regained. These costs are permanent limitations on your life.

A related view is that if you think you can get away with it, meaning nobody will find out that you did it, then maybe it makes sense to take one of these actions. Maybe it's alright to kill or steal or lie if you won't get caught. The "prudent predator" view of morality suggest that it is in your self interests to act these ways if you think you won't get caught.

One problem with these views is that they still underestimate how drastic these consequences are. It treats them as ordinary costs, and so suggest that it makes sense to weigh the probability of getting caught. But the costs are truly enormous, so much so that they're a different in kind. Your potential is forever limited. Your life permanently diminished. The costs aren't just setbacks, which can be overcome with more time. The costs are a permanent limitation or distortion of your life.

I really like the phrase "permanent limitations on your life." I think it is not just fully true, but also fully relevant. Most things that people say are either fully true or fully relevant, rather than being both fully true and fully relevant at the same time. The reason that you could get yourself into the position to be able to know that some actions lead to costs that are so high that they can be described as being "permanent limitations on your life" is because you know about human nature and the nature of reality. Knowing that these things have identity (that being human means something; and that reality is something -- rather than being an indeterminate flux), you can pre-determine some things about some actions and reactions.

Think about a chemist who actually understands her chemical elements and compounds. She will be able to tell you what will happen if you sprinkle pure sodium (unbound sodium) into a glass of water ...

Look out!**

And for the same reason that chemists can predict the outcomes of such action plans, certain moralists or moral philosophers can predict the outcomes of certain action plans -- action plans that were about to be adopted by human beings.

Ed

**If you try this at home, then ... please, please, please ... use a very, very small amount of unbound sodium. When the sodium ions hit the water, they are so rapidly accelerated into forming bonds with part of the water (making sodium hydroxide), and displacing hydrogen in the process -- that it appears as if the very air above the water is being set on fire! With enough sodium and water, you could accidentally burn yourself to smithereens.

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 12/07, 9:02am)

Post 4

Sunday, December 15, 2013 - 1:37am

Let me start by defending cost/benefit analysis. Objectivism claims to be a morality of self-interest. If so, then the morality of a choice must be rooted in whether it actually benefits or harms you. Which means, benefits and costs. If a moral system severs this connection to the actual impact on your life, it severs the connection with self-interest and becomes an end in itself (and a sacrificial morality). Any attempt to make morality more "universal" or "abstract" must mean that it stops being about the benefits to your own life.

What exactly is a cost or a benefit? How does one measure that except with morality? You can't. Morality is the standard by which you judge costs and benefits. So we can't define morality by reference to cost/benefit analysis. The practical depends on that which you seek to practice. I believe this is what Ed is referring to in his description of the problem with utilitarianism.

In my view, the moral standard allows us to measure costs and benefits. By understanding life as the standard, we are able to take any particular concrete choice and measure the impact on our lives. We can choose accordingly.

Not everyone is convinced, including many Objectivists. In some situations, the costs/benefits don't seem to match the initial assumptions about morality. In the face of these scenarios, they are tempted to take a view of morality that is not grounded in a cost/benefit analysis, but instead has some kind of rule. If self-interest doesn't seem to support their moral instincts, they look for a moral standard that will. This always involves a kind of moral rule that trumps self-interest. And in the process, morality becomes an end in itself.

Steve asks:

Isn't it valid to want others to subscribe to some basic, universal moral values - like the moral stricture against the initiation of force against the other?

I think it's reasonable to want others to not initiate force. But the real question is whether it in their interest to not initiate force? I think it is. But for those who don't think it's in other's interests, they may very well wish that others would accept a sacrificial morality where they respect rights despite the costs.

These two views aren't compatible. If you think it is self-interested to initiate force, you have to promote a sacrificial morality. If you think it's not self-interested, you want people to act on their interests.

Isn't it reasonable to say there are different levels, or kinds of moral values/rules - those that we should expect of others (e.g., non-initiation of violence) versus those where a person is only hurting themselves (e.g., drug abuse), versus those that are just preferences (always say "Please and Thank You)?

I think this statement comes from the wrong perspective. This statement seems perfectly reasonable from the perspective of what you would like from others. Their actions that hurt you are the most important to you. Their actions that hurt themselves are the next level of importance. And the things that have no real impact on either of you (mere preferences) are the lowest order. This makes perfect sense in how you judge others.

But if we look at morality as being first and foremost about making choices with regards to your own life, things look different. The actions that affect others are not always more important than the actions that just affect you. Some actions that affect others are so important, as my article points out, that they have a massive effect on your life. But others are relatively small. And some of your personal choices can have a tremendous impact on your life. The scale is all wrong from this perspective.

That makes it all relative to the culture. In some societies - like Somalia - you aren't likely to be hunted down at all. Or if you are a member of a drug cartel in Mexico, you might know that the chances of being hunted down are minuscule.

I agree that in some situations the risks are lower. We could argue about whether these situations are really risk-free or whether they are actually far more risky, but the underlying objection would be the same. The costs would depend on the context, including the culture. But I don't see a problem with that. If morality provides us an identification of our self-interest, of course context is going to matter. The degree of benefit or harm to our lives must change with the circumstance.

And this brings up the issue of the act of murder not being the defining act in determining the morality - and instead the morality somehow arises out of the chance that you might get caught.

This is an important issue. Is murder wrong in and of itself? Or is it wrong because of the consequences? Is it wrong because we define it as wrong? Or is it wrong because it's actually harmful to our lives in some ways?

This argument doesn't hold up because, hopefully, we craft objective laws that are based upon universal moral values that protect individual rights - like laws against murder. So, it is circular to argue that the consequence of laws substitute for morality - because it is the morality which comes first.

I was not arguing that law comes before morality. I think there are legitimate moral reasons why a society treat murders as a threat to everyone and seek to punish/stop them. So I find nothing circular about this. The consequences are not arbitrary consequences of the law, but are consequences of reality.

There are people who have intensely low self-esteem who can't value their liberty, because they don't value themselves - and that makes their cost/benefit analysis wacky.

This is a common argument against any morality that requires analysis of some sort. People could choose irrationally, or they may be evil, or make mistakes. But the alternative of an unthinking, rule-based morality is no better. People can choose to be irrational, be evil, or misunderstand the rules. The only affect of removing thought from morality is to make it impossible to be rational.

Here is a big issue: You can't make cost/benefit analysis of any complexity without FIRST having your own prioritized set of values - moral values. Otherwise how would you know what is a benefit?

I agree that morality comes first, as I mentioned above. But once morality defines what it is you want to practice, you should be able to utilize costs and benefits to make the decision. If at that point some choices are deemed incompatible with cost/benefit analysis, then the argument is that morality is incompatible with self-interest in those cases.

If the society didn't believe it to be seriously immoral to kill someone, they wouldn't create all that is needed to drop those heavy consequences on the head of the murderer. It is a circular argument.

If society's view on murder were completely arbitrary, this would be true. Only the consequences of the irrational view would support the irrational view. But murder isn't like that. Initiations of force are an attack on a person's life. That attack is real. And a person who attacks one person's life is a real threat to others. A society may dampen the risks or reprisal, but the damage is real and the interests of the victims and others to respond with force is real.

If Joe's position on morals were right, and it was a matter of avoiding killing, stealing, lies or betrayal just because of a cost/benefit analysis that includes the social/legal consequences, then where did the moral values come from that gave rise to those social/legal constraints?

I think my last paragraph at least hinted at the answer. But what is your alternative? If the cost or benefit to your own life isn't the measure, what is?

We should be looking at those moral values that are universal to all who are human.

I grabbed this sentence, but you have a few paragraphs related to the idea of creating a universal morality that trumps personal costs and benefits. I don't agree with the conclusion, but there are important points here.

First, there's the fact that we have to judge the actions of others from our own perspective and not theirs. If someone steals from us, we shouldn't forgive them because we agree with them that it was in their self-interest. How we treat them is a choice we make based on our own standard of value. If they have harmed us and we expect more of the same, we should try to undo the harm, prevent future harm, warn others, etc. And if how we treat them is based on our lives, that means we have to judge their actions from the perspective of our lives.

But there are two kinds of judgment, often called moral judgment, taking place here. One is the judgment of a person in choosing his values. The other is a judgment by others about whether his actions are harmful or not to them. To equate the two would be to make a person's decision-making process focus on the impact on others primarily. This is compatible with the three levels you mentioned earlier where the first level is impact on others. But a morality of self-interest is focused on a person's own life. The impact on others is important because of the affect on his life. Not the other way around.

The goal of talking about a universal morality that ignores costs and benefits makes some sense when considering behaviors you want others to follow. It can be used as a method of judging other people. But it's not capable of acting as a moral standard for your own choices. It focuses on the effects on others, and ignores the effects on your own life. It leaves you with a tiered morality where you only get to consider the impact on your life when your in private.

Once we acknowledge that we must be moral if we are to maximize our happiness and well-being, the question is what moral values do we choose - that is where we make our choices.

This makes morality seem arbitrary. It doesn't matter what you believe, as long as you believe something. You have direction as long as you have some set of rules, no matter how arbitrary or sacrificial. You seek to be moral because you have to seek something.

Rand's approach was different. She starts with life as the existential alternative, and sees the need to act in order to preserve life. Values/morality provide us with a method of choosing which actions to take. They allow us to weigh the alternatives. Morality is a requirement of life, not just an arbitrary goal to fill that life.

Post 5

Sunday, December 15, 2013 - 1:33pm

Joe,

Thanks for taking the time to make that extended reply.
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You wrote:

Let me start by defending cost/benefit analysis. Objectivism claims to be a morality of self-interest. If so, then the morality of a choice must be rooted in whether it actually benefits or harms you. Which means, benefits and costs. If a moral system severs this connection to the actual impact on your life, it severs the connection with self-interest and becomes an end in itself (and a sacrificial morality). Any attempt to make morality more "universal" or "abstract" must mean that it stops being about the benefits to your own life.

First, I agree that Objectivism is, and must be a morality of self-interest, and that if the connection between self-interest and morality were severed such that it became a sacrificial morality, it would no longer be Objectivism, or rational or desirable. (If morality severs the connection with self-interest it could also become a declaration for amorality - or an illogical collection of conflicting values).

I'd agree that cost/benefit analysis is often part of what is needed. Sometimes we start with two values that appear to be in conflict and we need to decide between them. And the real trick is in understanding WHAT is in one's self-interest. It might seem be in your immediate self-interest to enjoy a second helping of cake because the first piece tasted very good, and you are still hungry. But you might also be on a diet because your weight is up and you value your health which would benefit from losing a few pounds. You have to weigh those. You can't weigh them till they already reside in your collection of values. And if you start from the premise that your values shouldn't conflict and should be in your self-interest, then it is just prioritizing. You won't have a hard and fast rule on these two because the variables change from time to time (what you weigh, how hungry you are, etc.)

But I'd disagree that there aren't universal moral values. They might not be absolute in the sense that they are intrinsic, but they would be universal with only simple prerequisite, such as "It is of value to live in a society where individual rights are respected." If a person acts as if they do NOT hold that premise, then they can be morally treated as a criminal under a rational social system. For example, someone might see it in their immediate self-interest to steal someone else's property because they are certain that in this particular instance they will never get caught. And if they don't value a society where individual rights are valued, they can be seen as immoral or amoral. They are now, by their choice, bereft of any internal moral structure that isn't flawed. That is, they cannot live in a social setting, and claim to have a consistent set of moral rights. They have severed themselves from the reality of the relationship between rights and social systems. They have to live with a conflicted, irrational moral system, or without a moral system at all.
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What exactly is a cost or a benefit? How does one measure that except with morality? You can't. Morality is the standard by which you judge costs and benefits.

We agree on that.
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By understanding life as the standard, we are able to take any particular concrete choice and measure the impact on our lives. We can choose accordingly.

Here is where we just begin to disagree. If you had left the word "concrete" out of that sentence we would be in agreement. My position is that some choices we make have an abstract quality to them that is necessary if one is to have a rational morality. There are a set of values that prevent me from stealing, even if there was absolutely no chance of ever being caught. There is the value of law as compared to anarchy, the value of a society that values law, the value of individual rights, the value of acquiring products through voluntary transactions and productivity, and personal accomplishment... and so forth. These values are not concrete, but the valuing of a principle. Just as I value logic and reason over faith - not just in any given concrete instance, but in principle and as the rule I have chosen to use in all instances.

Those values (law, rational society, individual rights, etc.) outweigh the value of the goods I might be able to steal. And because of that it remains in my self-interest to not steal even if I wouldn't be caught. When I grasp that as a moral truth, I no longer have to examine each instance of a relationship between me and some good that I might be able to get away with stealing. In science we don't have to reprove the chain of reasoning each time we end up applying an already proven principle. That is one of the values of using reason and logic to build a hierarchical body of knowledge. The same is true of morality. Some moral laws are universal in this sense, and there are also some values that could be called preferences but that will hold true for an individual over time. Neither of these require me to do cost/benefit analysis each time I go to act. Just as I don't have to reweigh or reestablish the value AND self-interest of logic and reason over faith each time.
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I think it's reasonable to want others to not initiate force. But the real question is whether it in their interest to not initiate force? I think it is. But for those who don't think it's in other's interests, they may very well wish that others would accept a sacrificial morality where they respect rights despite the costs.

Let me high-light the phrase "respect rights despite the costs" because I don't believe such a state is possible in reality. We run into the issue of whether or not a person's self-interest can be different from what they think it is. We would both agree that people can make honest mistakes or choose to be illogical. As Rand has said, rights only come up in a social context. If I were alone on a desert island, my individual rights would not arise as an issue. But individuals in a society would, all else remaining equal, be better off if that society embraces individual rights? Right? The answer is, "yes, in principle." I add "in principle" only because we are discussing principles and not attempting to examine each and every single interaction that ever has, or could come up. And it is "in principle" because that is the context of the question. I don't have to look at every possible concrete interaction. It is in the self-interest of an individual to choose a society that is built on individual rights over a society that isn't. Look at the question "is it ever in the self-interest to live inside that society and to, on some occasion, act against individual rights (e.g., to steal or murder)?". To answer, "Yes" to that question is to invalidate the concept of principles as such and an attack on an area of knowledge and I don't believe such an argument can be made without committing the fallacy of the stolen concept. We are rational beings and that entails deriving the principles that best serve us.

If we find a conflict between self-interest and morality, we mostly likely have a misunderstanding of the context in the way we framed the conflict, or we misunderstand what our real self-interest is, or in what the moral principle should be.
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If there is such a thing as morality, particularly a rational morality, then it's major function (apart from a set of identified values that are prioritized), is in separating all actions into those that can be taken by right from those that require permission. To say that self-interest is all there is to morality ignores this vital distinction and the valuable part it plays in a society - for each individual.
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Is murder wrong in and of itself? Or is it wrong because of the consequences? Is it wrong because we define it as wrong? Or is it wrong because it's actually harmful to our lives in some ways?

To ask if x is wrong, is to assume there is a moral/ethical frame of reference in existence. Then to continue on and ask if the particular theory of morality is deriving its rightness/wrongness from discovering an intrinsic value in x that is apart from anything else. That would be rejected as a kind of floating abstraction and/or a misunderstanding of how right and wrong are derived.

Is a thing right or wrong because of its consequences? Yes and no. We need to specify more context here. Are the consequences to the individual in general? Or, only in this instance? To all individuals in general? Are we defining a morality for the purpose of structuring a government which we are doing for the purpose of creating a better environment so that individuals can better flourish? Context. If we decide that a society is best for us, as individuals, all individuals (because of our nature), then we want to institute individual rights. We create structures, like government, to implement those individual rights in law. At that point murder is wrong because it is not compatible with individual rights, against the laws supporting that individual right, and not in the interest of individuals who value their life because you can't have it be moral to not be murdered, while having be moral to murder others. And those who don't value their life can't make many intelligible statements about self-interest.
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(More later, time permitting)

Post 6

Sunday, December 15, 2013 - 3:24pm

Steve,

Your suggestion that there might be a case where theft could be performed with absolute certainty of not being caught is invalid... such certainty cannot be absolute, the context is not possible in our reality. It can only be the case that a person is extremely confident that he wont be caught, and he judges the success probability* success benefits outweighs the fail probability * fail costs. To think that most people would abide by any other ethical decision making logic than this would be an unrealistic utopian world.

So for a property owner... a property owner couldn't expect to leave a sloppy pile of $10000 laying in the middle of his floor during a Halloween costume party that is open to the public with hundreds of guests and simply expect that no one will take the cash because that would infringe on his individual rights. Nor can a beautiful woman walk around alone naked in a poorly lit dance floor full of drunk men and not expect to be groped.

What is defensable? What crimes are economically viable for a government to enforce? Answering these questions help one develop a more viable government system. Indeed, a government instituted as an agreement between friends would most necessarily be based on individual rights. But that doesn't mean that its in the self interest of individuals within that society to always obey, nor does it necessitate that people who once agreed to be friends and trade won't in the future decide to break prior agreements and become enemies.

Post 7

Sunday, December 15, 2013 - 4:23pm

Dean,

To think that most people would abide by any other ethical decision making logic than this [what they can get away with] would be an unrealistic utopian world.

You are saying that there is no morality or ethical system - only an aversion to being caught. That isn't "ethical decision making" - it is making decisions as if there were no morality or ethics.

But, that is what the discussion is about. What is ethical and how it is determined? Your statement just throws ethics and morality out.

But we know that some cultures are more ethical than others. We know that some people are more ethical than others inside the same culture. And most of this isn't just of fear of being caught. These differences are about the measure of integrity reflected in ethical positions over time and place and person.

I agree that it WOULD be Utopian, and silly, to expect the level of ethical integrity in this culture to suddenly be far, far above where it currently is.

It would also be very wrong to not advocate for, and expect ('expect' in the psychological sense, not the predictive sense) that people live up to their moral values. This is all because we choice. We can choose to be more, or less, moral than we are (to abide by what we know to be right or to rationalize and violate the principles we hold). We can choose to hold our code of ethics, and our beliefs in what is good and what is bad at a higher level of importance in our hierarchy of values when making decisions. We can recognize the value, to us individually, of being more consistent regarding the correspondence between values and actions.
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Human nature is such that we will tend to get more of what we expect of one another - especially when those expectations are rational, consistent and not hypocritical. These aren't Utopian thoughts that I'm putting forth. They don't mean everyone will suddenly rise to somehow find perfection. They mean that we want to point in the right direction and we want to see movement in the right direction. And that we will find that more effective than its opposite.
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As to what moral code we should expect more of... it is the one that is based upon life as the primary value and human nature as the context and derived by reason. That means that we don't have conflicts between taking piles of money at Halloween parties versus not being a thief, or naked women getting groped versus men respecting another person's rights... because self-interest and morality coincide. (And, no I don't expect perfection tomorrow, and I'm not calling for utopia, and I'm just saying that that is the method for determining the right way to go in developing this field of knowledge and what it's implementation would look like in a positive extreme view.)

Post 8

Sunday, December 15, 2013 - 4:36pm

Dean, you wrote:

... a property owner couldn't expect to leave a sloppy pile of $10000 laying in the middle of his floor during a Halloween costume party that is open to the public with hundreds of guests and simply expect that no one will take the cash because that would infringe on his individual rights. Nor can a beautiful woman walk around alone naked in a poorly lit dance floor full of drunk men and not expect to be groped.

Let me turn this around on you. If you are at this party and you decide that the chance of you getting caught stealing the money is very near zero, and the chance of any punishment being at all severe if you were caught, would you steal the money? You, Dean Michael Gores - not some other person. If not, why not? (Assume that the money's owner is unaware the money was removed from his safe by his wife, and then accidentally left out in the open - so the property owner isn't carrying the majority of the responsibility here.)

And in this example, if you thought you were as certain as you could be that you wouldn't be caught, would you grope the woman? If not, why not? (Assume she is naked because someone else gave her some drug without her knowledge and took her clothes from her - so she isn't carrying the responsibility here.)
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Someone could just answer that they would never do these things, but just be lying so that people won't think bad of them and so they would still be invited to parties. After all, lying is also another thing that a person might do if the only reason not to was that they might be caught. Should a person lie whenever it appears to them to be even the tiniest bit of an advantage and they are pretty sure they won't get caught?

Post 9

Sunday, December 15, 2013 - 6:47pm

Steve,

You are saying that there is no morality or ethical system - only an aversion to being caught. That isn't "ethical decision making" - it is making decisions as if there were no morality or ethics.

But, that is what the discussion is about. What is ethical and how it is determined? Your statement just throws ethics and morality out.

I do think what is moral for a person to do is only based on the consequences of the actions. Let me make this simple: I trade because trading increases my productivity through my specialization productivity efficiency gains. This is the basis for the context of when individual rights should be respected. Otherwise if individual rights was being enforced I'd only be doing it in order to avoid punishment. If that were not the case, then I'd imagine the general human condition would be very different, such as maybe a collapse of society due to a food shortage, where until many people die I'd be fighting to death with others competing to survive. I strive to prevent such a societal collapse, but I make preparations for it too.

I am productive and have savings already so I wouldn't gain much (marginal utility) from stealing a handful of bills from the $10k pile verses the chance I might get caught I could ruin a really good business relationship. So in my case, its not worth stealing. Yea I might pick the pile up or guard it until get the chance to give it back into the hands of the host... particularly if the host was already an established friend of mine. If the host was a stranger I probably wouldn't interfere, and I'd either think the host was a fool or the dollar had collapsed since the last time I read the news.

With the girl at the dance floor: I wouldn't even be found at a place like that in the first place. But if for some unexpected reason I was there: I personally emotionally feel touching others is deplorable unless I've first established friendship. I secretly cringe under a poker face whenever I'm in a social context where its necessary to shake hands or hug a non-best friend. I'm not saying that I'm not attracted to beautiful women, I am, just, I don't want to give my enemy the impression that she is desirable to me, and I don't have very many friends.

Cheers,
Dean

Post 10

Sunday, December 15, 2013 - 7:37pm

Dean,

I do think what is moral for a person to do is only based on the consequences of the actions.

But you can't even say which consequences are bad and which are good without a moral code to judge them by. Different moral codes will judge the same consequence differently. You can't always say what is in a person's self-interest without knowing what the chosen standard of value is and the methodology for working out the values that follow. You can't compare one value as being worth more than another without a code of values. And two identical consequences could be achieved by entirely different actions - how then can you judge the action? And consequences are complex. They can have ripple effects, they can be viewed from the perspective of others that are effected, by the effect on society, and the long term versus the short term.
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Trading can only increase your productivity as long as a individual rights are recognized to some degree in the culture you hope to do trading in. If they aren't, your productivity is lost in the fight to survive a near constant onslaught of thieves and thugs. They have to have been valued and recognized as moral precepts BEFORE you can start having trading consequences that are positive.
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You avoided answering the question I asked about whether you would steal money at that party. I stipulated that you could be very certain you wouldn't be caught. And if the reward isn't high enough (let's make $100,000) and given that the risk is almost none, and we can stipulate that to, and that you do not and will not have any business relationship with the property owner and you aren't friends (or enemies), then would you, Dean Michael Gores, steal that $100,000? And if not, why not - what is the ethical/moral reason for not stealing it? For you, or for anyone?

If there is no reason, then yes, you have thrown out ethics and morality.

Post 11

Sunday, December 15, 2013 - 11:33pm

Steve,

I didn't mean to avoid your question. You've asked a very specific question which I can answer now...

You constrained out the enemy case, but let me briefly note on it: If a person was my enemy and I could steal from them without getting caught, then I would. I'd kill them if I wouldn't get caught too, because by my definition of enemy "one whom causes net negative goal attainment" generally concludes that that person having less resources or being dead would be increase my goal attainment.

Just talking about the feasibility of stealing it in reality.... $100k would have to be in an orderly bound pile, and would be about 4.3 inches thick. That's pocket able (maybe 2 to 4 pockets). Or in gold it would be 81 troy ounces of gold (5.55 lbs)... you'd need to wear a strong belt or something.

But I do kinda feel like if you are foolish enough to not sufficiently defend the products of your labor, and you make it easy for others to steal from you, then you kind of get what you deserve when you do get stolen from. So if the person was not known to me to be my friend (unknown reputation)... I'd say that stealing from the person would be in my self interest in that situation. And then particularly when you give me the in-real impossible to predict constraint that the person never would be my friend. Advertise on craigslist that you left town for the month and that you left the front door unlocked. See how well that goes for you.

But I would reject that I have "thrown out ethics and morality". Instead I would say that I have "Thrown out rule based ethics and morality".

"But you can't even say which consequences are bad and which are good without a moral code to judge them by."
Invalid. Moral code based ethics is just a subset of ethical systems. Moral code based ethical systems simply claim that certain actions should or should not be performed. The goal in rule based ethical systems is to perform the shoulds while not performing the shouldn'ts. Hence good would then be actions that are shoulds, and bad would be actions that are shouldn'ts. Moral code/rule based ethics don't even say anything about whether consequences are good or bad, they only judge actions.

The general basis of ethical systems is goals. Say for example one has the primary goal to live (instead of the primary goal to obey the NIOF principal). Then for that person, whether a particular action is found to have increased goal attainment (its consequences on goal attainment) determines whether it is good.

Generally humans have certain abilities and needs. Abilities like problem solving intellectual ability and fine hand eye motor control. Needs like omnivore diet, water, a certain body temperature, and fresh air. Generally humans have the goal to continue their health through time and reproduce. But there is a huge variation of actual abilities, needs, and goals between individuals within the population of the world.

Generally humans are more productive in creating market value when they focus their effort on providing for a more specific particular human need (specialization). Then with trade, the individual can accomplish greater goal attainment than by attempting do everything oneself without trade. Also, when you try to use something that another human has claimed as their property, they *@#$% you up or eject you from their social trade network, so you don't mess with their stuff without their permission.

So this is in my mind is the basis for why Objectivism is better than subjectivism... because subjectivism has an unrealistic chaotic non-useful view of ethics & the world, while Rand identified that "rational men's self interest is mutually consistent/beneficial". Only I don't completely agree with her, but I'd agree that most people do have the goal to live and lots of people do have synergistic/mutually beneficial relationships. My disagreement comes in at the point where she claims all rational men. Her idea of life is too single human life centered and not enough genetic/multi-generation life centered. Actual real life rational men don't generally all have the goal to live as long as possible or to build the most number of romantic-realist buildings possible or whatever Rand's poorly defined "man's life" primary goal is. Instead real individual men's primary goals, abilities, means, etc are highly diverse and varied around the naturally selected goal of living...

=======

Lets say someone claims ownership over all of the Earth's Atmosphere. Breath in the air without his permission, and you infringe on his claim to property. For anyone not within the reach of his sword, stealing the air is a no-brainer. Within the reach of his sword, you'd use your own sword to end him... because he is your enemy. His goals and his actions have significant negative effects on your own goal attainment.

Property ownership claims are respected only because people have found it worthwhile to do so, and property ownership claims are trampled over when its not worthwhile. One reason why friends are friends is because they come to agreement on ownership allocations.

Post 12

Monday, December 16, 2013 - 8:05am

Dean,

Advertise on craigslist that you left town for the month and that you left the front door unlocked. See how well that goes for you.

My mother used to say, "Two wrongs don't make a right." Turns out that little homily is logically sound. The fact that there are immoral people out there in the world is not a reason why I should act immorally.
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But I would reject that I have "thrown out ethics and morality". Instead I would say that I have "Thrown out rule based ethics and morality".

We disagree. What you are arguing for is subjective ethics or no ethics at all. Anyone can argue about what their particular goals are and who is or isn't a friend and there is no NIOF left to derive solid law from.
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Say for example one has the primary goal to live (instead of the primary goal to obey the NIOF principal).

Both Rand and I start with life as the primary goal. She was strongly opposed to libertarians because she saw that many of them started with a political system based upon NIOF but without any understanding of how NIOF was derived. No moral code.
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My disagreement [with Ayn Rand] comes in at the point where she claims all rational men [have mutually consistent/beneficial self-interest].

She uses the word "rational" to indicate that there are universal values that can be logically derived from the primary value of life and that it is in the self-interest of men to recognize that. She doesn't include irrational men. If she were to say rational and irrational men share consistent, beneficial self-interest, then she wouldn't need locks on the doors, courts, police, or military.
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Actual real life rational men don't generally all have the goal to live as long as possible or to build the most number of romantic-realist buildings possible or whatever Rand's poorly defined "man's life" primary goal is. Instead real individual men's primary goals, abilities, means, etc are highly diverse and varied around the naturally selected goal of living.

I don't find that Rand's primary goal is poorly defined. I find that it is a complex concept because it involves the relationship of man's nature (metaphysics and all men), the concept of "flourishing" in a generic form (putting "should" into living, while leaving the specifics to the individual, yet staying tied to human nature), and the concept of the need for a hierarchy of values and a code of ethics given man's volitional nature. That's very complex, but it is the only rational approach I've ever seen. You aren't getting the concept of "should" when you say Rand not accounting for the moral diversity among men.
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Property ownership claims are respected only because people have found it worthwhile to do so, and property ownership claims are trampled over when its not worthwhile. One reason why friends are friends is because they come to agreement on ownership allocations.

Groups of "friends" are just gangs, in your world. You have taken morality out of morality and dressed up the rule of force with fancy phrases, like "primary goal attainment" but they don't change the fact that your system is just about the law of the jungle. "Property" means rightful possession or use. A thief can steal my car, but not valid title to it - not the right to possess it. But in your world, a big sword brings title. There is no morality in that.

Post 13

Monday, December 16, 2013 - 9:37am

"The fact that there are immoral people out there in the world is not a reason why I should act immorally."

Stealing from a faction whom will certainly never be your friend is not immoral. For example, you eat other animals and vegetables, and you weed your garden etc.

"Groups of "friends" are just gangs, in your world. You have taken morality out of morality and dressed up the rule of force with fancy phrases, like "primary goal attainment" but they don't change the fact that your system is just about the law of the jungle. "Property" means rightful possession or use. A thief can steal my car, but not valid title to it - not the right to possess it. But in your world, a big sword brings title. There is no morality in that."

No, its not. In my worldview, there are multiple factions. You don't have a worldview, you have a wish view and you ignore reality. Edit: ouch that was a little harsh... many agree with you, and my worldview isn't perfect either... we all have varying degrees of consistency with real. I'm just saying... the idea that all humans will ever be one faction again is extremely doubtful, unless some major catastrophe happens. We are more friends with each other in general than say between human and shark.

Within a faction and between factions who have friendly relationships, capitalism and respect for individual rights holds. Between enemy factions, it is the "law of the jungle", they are at war.

This is not primitive subjectivism. Factions are groups of people who live in synergy. One faction for example is the "Objectivist" faction. Larger factions that maintain existence through time and are successful do not chose goals arbitrarily. Instead they chose goals that result in success for their members.
(Edited by Dean Michael Gores on 12/16, 9:41am)

Post 14

Monday, December 16, 2013 - 9:57am

Dean,

Stealing from a faction whom will certainly never be your friend is not immoral. For example, you eat other animals and vegetables, and you weed your garden etc.

I can't say that I disagree strongly enough! Calling stealing moral (as long as it isn't from friends) violates the very nature of property rights and is advocacy for anarchy, thuggery, jungle law, immorality. It is the intellectual destruction of morality, and would bring the physical destruction of civilization if it was implemented.

I don't eat humans. Grass and weeds aren't humans and they don't have individual rights which arise out of man's nature and only apply to man. The word "individual" in "individual rights" does not include individual blades of grass, or individual weed, or individual fish.
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Dean, we are so very, very far apart that there is absolutely no reason to keep discussing this. You've already heard my side (from me, from Rand, from other Objectivists) and if you have chosen to disagree in such a fundamental way, then I can not think of anything else to say. And I have tried to understand your statements and point out the logical flaws that I see, but it isn't changing your view point so, again, I see no point in continuing.
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I'm surprised that there has been so little activity on this discussion. I would have thought there would be more people chiming in. Oh, well.
(Edited by Steve Wolfer on 12/16, 10:00am)

Post 15

Monday, December 16, 2013 - 10:19am

I'd disagree that what I'm suggesting would result in the end of civilization. A "civilization" is the identification of the existence of a faction.

I'm also surprised that more people aren't participating in our recent discussions. I think I've been very successful in making strong arguments that either alter interpretations or explode a lot of traditional viewpoints.

I don't have any readership statistics for this website, but surely participation rate on this forum has gone down this year. I really hope I'm not the cause... I know that I have a pretty harsh character. I'd hope that never the less I do bring interest to this forum. I haven't heard anything from Joe in asking me to tone down my participation rate.

I know the economy is getting worse... potentially people have less time to pursue intellectual debate?

Post 16

Monday, December 16, 2013 - 10:42am

Dean,

I've noticed the declining activity rate on RoR. I'm certain that it isn't anything you've said. You and I have both been critical in some posts but at a level that would attract as many to one side as it repelled. I've seen a lot harsher posts over the years.

I don't know what the cause of the decline is. I don't even have a clue as to whether it is about forums in general, or about Objectivist forums in general, or this forum in particular. If it is just RoR, is it more about the content shifting? Or is it about a generational thing - people who were with it early on have aged in ways that leads them to post less?

Post 17

Sunday, December 29, 2013 - 9:53pm

Thanks for the reply, Steve. Sorry my responses are so delayed.

I'll try to describe my position better and why I think the alternatives are wrong.

First of all, I think we start with different views of morality. For me, the fundamental issue of morality is how does one choose what to do. This isn't an political or social question. How do I choose anything? Should I go to work, or should I saw off my leg? Should I eat a sandwich or some rat poison? Should I watch television or read a book? We don't act on instinct. We have to choose. And to choose, we need a way to decide one path is better or worse than another. We need a method of evaluating our choices. That is the role of morality.

Moreover, we aren't stuck with just two choices. We have many possible options. We have to choose among all of them. And so we can't be asking simple Boolean questions like is this okay or not okay. We need to weigh the choices. We need to measure all of our options on a single scale and determine which is the best. What is that scale? For Objectivists, that scale uses you life as the standard. You weigh the options based on their expected impact on your life. In other words, you weight he costs and benefits.

Now the problem I run into is that others treat morality as something entirely different. They treat it as an extra set of requirements on top of the normal choice-weighing decision-making. Don't steal, don't kill, get married, have kids, eat your vegetables, etc. These, and many others, reject the method of weighing options. In this view, morality is constrained to certain kinds of choices or certain kinds of values. You gave an example in one of your posts about not stealing because you think you'll be caught, and suggested that wasn't a moral reason for not stealing. That's exactly what happens when morality is viewed in this way.

I reject that approach for a lot of reasons, as I've stated in many articles and posts over the years. I believe it is ultimately a rejection of life as the standard as it inevitably asks you to sacrifice for the sake of "being moral".

Now to focus more on the current disagreement. I believe the cost/benefit approach is rejected for a few reasons.

The first and most important reason is that people feel that the moral rules/values they've dedicated themselves to must inevitably lead to situation where they conflict with a person's self-interest. I think there are three responses to this view.

The first response is to accept that these conflicts exist, and so reject the idea that these moral rules should be practiced in every situation. If you have a rule that says never lie, but then the murderer shows up at your door asking where your children are hiding, the answer is the rule is not valid.

The second response is to look deeper. When people talk about cost/benefit analysis, or consequentialism in general, they are usually viewing it in a very naive and simplistic manner (much like thinking egoism is about doing whatever you want). If not killing or not stealing are so important, surely we're overlooking the consequences of doing those. So the response here is to broaden the scope and look for costs and benefits that aren't obvious.

The third response to an apparent contradiction is to reject the clear and straightforward meaning of self-interest and redefine the moral standard so that no conflict exist. But this is not just picking different definitions. It is picking a different moral standard entirely.

Some do this by defining self-interest to be inclusive of certain virtues so that by definition, acting in accordance with those virtues is in your self-interest. But this is a change in the standard of value. Similarly one can claim that certain moral values/rules/principles trump self-interest, and that's just how morality works. Contradiction avoided, but again by changing the moral standard.

That third approach is problematic for many reasons, but one of which is that it is arbitrary. How do you decide which virtues or values get to be thrown in as trumps? Maybe you decide that a lifelong love of learning is a good thing, and should be part of the moral standard. Maybe you think being kind to your parents should go in? You can fill it up with thousands of ad hoc values. But the claim of an objective morality is thrown out the door. An altruist could throw into his own moral pool the idea that helping other people is one of lifes most important duties. Why are yours better than his? They are all arbitrary.

Well, the argument goes that they aren't arbitrary. You may be throwing in these rules, but each is grounded ultimately in self-interest. Problem solved? Not at all. If they are already implied by self-interest, there was no need to add these additional constraints. They are only added because, as mentioned before, there is the expectation that they conflict with self-interest.

To bypass this objection, Objectivists will often assert that the "principle" is formulated based on self-interest, but once abstracted, should apply in all cases. There are two reasons given.

The first reason is convenience. We shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel every time. If you already discovered that life in a peaceful society is beneficial, you shouldn't have to work it out every time. This is a perfectly valid point, but has a problem. If it is just a matter of efficiency, then it suggests that if you did work it out each time, you would come to the same conclusion in your decision-making process. If that were so, then cost/benefit analysis would apply in all cases, and there would be no need for one of the moral trumps. The argument for efficiency only works if no such contradiction exists, and so no moral trumps exist.

The second reason for accepting that a rule should apply in all cases, even though it contradicts self-interest, is something along the lines of using that moral rule to judge yourself morally good. The value/principle is no longer a means of determining how to act. It now has a new quality to it. If you follow it, you'll feel good about yourself. And so by adding this new quality to it, the idea is that it is now in your self-interest for a different reason.

I think this last approach opens a can of worms. Which values/virtues/principles should you decide reflect your moral goodness? Why do you even care? What's the purpose of such a judgment? Are there alternatives? Would different values serve the function better? Does the value of these go down when they conflict with your other interests? The whole approach is riddled with arbitrary assertions and conclusions.

All of this seems necessary because self-interest (i.e., survival or life as the standard) seems incompatible with certain cherished beliefs about what is morally good. Without that conflict, this would all be arbitrary. So the real question is whether such a conflict exists, and if so, which wins? Self-interest or the cherished moral beliefs?

My article pointed out that a naive approach to cost/benefit analysis ignores these major values which makes no sense. We know that living in a peaceful society has enormous value in our lives. If cost-benefit analysis ignores that value, and ignores myriad of costs that result from working against that value, of course it should be reject. But we don't have to take such a naive approach. And when we take the time to point out the various benefits and costs, we see more clearly why we these "universal values" are so widely applicable. And we see why we don't need to a bunch of additional arbitrary rules to trump our cost-benefit analysis.

Post 18

Saturday, January 4, 2014 - 11:52am

Joe, you wrote:

You gave an example in one of your posts about not stealing because you think you'll be caught, and suggested that wasn't a moral reason for not stealing. That's exactly what happens when morality is viewed in this way.

I reject that approach for a lot of reasons, as I've stated in many articles and posts over the years. I believe it is ultimately a rejection of life as the standard as it inevitably asks you to sacrifice for the sake of "being moral".

I don't know for sure which post of mine you were referring to, I did reply to one of Dean's posts where he said:

Stealing from a faction whom will certainly never be your friend is not immoral. For example, you eat other animals and vegetables, and you weed your garden etc.

My reply was to say, "I can't say that I disagree strongly enough! Calling stealing moral (as long as it isn't from friends) violates the very nature of property rights and is advocacy for anarchy, thuggery, jungle law, immorality. It is the intellectual destruction of morality, and would bring the physical destruction of civilization if it was implemented. I don't eat humans. Grass and weeds aren't humans and they don't have individual rights which arise out of man's nature and only apply to man. The word "individual" in "individual rights" does not include individual blades of grass, or individual weed, or individual fish."

I took my understanding of the moral principles involved to put together that answer and if I had used the technique you are advocating, it would have been much different. I would have been required to start from the understanding that my life is my standard of moral value and then attempt a cost/benefit analysis based upon my current context and even that wouldn't be possible without knowing what is of value to me - without a hierarchy of values - and I'm not sure how I'd have such a hierarchy when each of the values to be weighed would itself be a product of some cost/benefit analysis that was also locked into some point in time/place/circumstances context.

Morality is a very complex methodology. To practice it as a mature, rational individualist isn't for lightweights. I'm very comfortable with having a great many people trusting to others for their "rules". We trust specialists and that doesn't constitute altruism, or a rejection of life. My core values remain what they are, and I remain in charge of my life, even if I accept some "rules" from, say, a cardiologist, or an attorney, or an engineer. And, we should have rules that are enforced by government in the area of law - rules that arise from objective descriptions of acts that violate individual rights, and objective laws that proscribe the limits and requirements of government's structure and processes. This isn't doable using the standard of Joe's life, or the standard of Steve's life - it has to be the standard of man's life qua man which allows us to reach to the concept of individual rights as some moral principles that can be forced upon everyone. It is like the proof that the reasoning was correct when we can see that there is no conflict between what is LOGICALLY in your self-interest and this form of government.

I say LOGICALLY because the alternative would be that an individual would need to reexamine the issue of each action where he might increase his wealth by violating some other individual's rights. When that is the description of moral consideration, then there aren't really any moral rights - there are just some social guidelines and because what is alleged to be a proper process for making moral decisions can overthrow what Objectivist call rights... overthrown by any individual or group at any time as long as they believe that it is in their self-interest in that situation. I think that we need morality to create rules that are logically consistent with a standard of mans life qua man. And to demonstrate that it is the best standard for the individual and then, understanding that to stray from that, would not be in ones best interest.

We both agree on so many points, and on the end goals, and that it is illogical and harmful to treat rules as an end in themselves, but I don't believe that the process implied in your approach is workable. The natural complexity that arises out of the combined context of human nature, man's social context, and the individual's life as an end in itself gives rise to the need to invent a morality that serves our purpose of having a good life while recognizing the importance of the full context. And that morality must account for the spectrum of values each individual holds which range from those that are universal and compelling if we are to have a civilization (e.g., NIOF stuff) to those that are personal preferences (e.g., chocolate or vanilla). We make to many choices every single day, and often need to make rapidly, and we would never have the time to rethink every aspect of that complex context each time. We need to go to our moral code for the 'rule' and then choose to be moral or not. If I sense a conflict between my self-interest and the moral 'rule' then I'll stop and re-examine the issue to find out where the misunderstanding lies. But if I don't sense a conflict, then I act on my moral code because that is what it is for.

I think that your argument is right about the problems of misunderstanding and misusing moral rules, but you then go on to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Because many people treat moral rules as an end in themselves, doesn't mean that there should not be moral 'rules' that are followed the way principles drawn from other bodies of knowledge are.

Post 19

Sunday, January 5, 2014 - 8:55pm