FredAnyman

DonAthos, I will keep in mind that your meaning of “morality” is a guide to action for the purpose of living a good life. However, it appears that your definition simply shifts the discussion from “how can we say something is moral” to “what does it mean to live a good life”. The same argument comes up: If I say X is living a good life by appealing to the evidence I have and logic and so forth, then X is living a good life. And if you say that X is not living a good life by appealing to the evidence you have and logic and so forth, then X is not living a good life. Which one is correct? Again, like the earlier posts, you seem to suggest that there exists, completely independent of any human thought or idea, not morality now but a concept of “living a good life” that “is what it is” and applies to humans regardless of what I think or you think, or anyone thinks it is or should be much like laws of nature. This would, it appears to me, need to be correct otherwise, to what can we compare our lives in order to determine if we are living good lives or not? If there is no concept of “living a good live” to which we can compare our lives, then entire discussion comes down to: I form an opinion about what it means for me to live a good life and then I form an opinion about the morality of things based on what it means to me to live a good life. And you form an opinion about what it means for you to live a good life and you then form an opinion about the morality of things based on what it means to you to live a good life. If there are any disagreements between us, we discuss/debate and I try to convince you that my opinions are somehow better than your opinions and you try to convince me that your opinions are somehow better than my opinions. Is this correct?

Jaskn, From posts #33 and #43

425, When you state that contradictions do not exist in reality and that if the two of us come to opposite conclusions then it means that one of us (maybe both of us?) is missing pertinent information or has inaccurate information and/or one of us (maybe both of us?) has made an error in logic, it suggests that you believe that there is only one correct answer concerning the morality of something and that answer is not dependent on what either you or I or anyone else thinks or believes. Is this correct? This is similar to what I asked DonAthos in post #58.

Jaskn, I write and post as FredAnyman. Both post #33 and post #43 were written and posted by FredAnyman.

CriticalThinker2000, Let’s continue the real world example of theft. The determinant, as you claim, of whether theft is moral or immoral is reality, the facts, the way things are. So, as I mentioned in another post, if I steal from you, nothing happens to me. My life does not end. My heart doesn’t stop beating nor am I stricken with disease. The laws of physics do not have any effect on me as a result of the theft. These are some of the facts concerning theft. So can we determine if theft is moral or immoral at this point? If you proceed to state, as other have done, that I will suffer some consequences as a result of the theft, such as being pursued by law enforcement officials or punished in some way by other humans, then I will state (again as I did in an earlier post) that if I steal from you, nothing happens to me unless you decide to act in some fashion. If you do nothing, either because you cannot do anything or choose not to do anything, then nothing happens to me. If you choose to do something, call law enforcement for example, then something may or may not happen to me. These are some more facts concerning theft. So can we determine if theft is moral or immoral at this point?

DonAthos, Your statements, “X is moral (or immoral) regardless of what you state, or come to realize” and “We do not make X moral by thinking it so, or claiming it to be so, or constructing a good argument for it. X is either moral or not (meaning: good for our lives or not), and we do our best (via evidence, logic, argument, etc.) to recognize the truth of the situation” are very interesting as they appear to differ from other posts on this tread. It seems, and please correct me if I am wrong, that you are saying that there exists, completely independent of any human thought or idea, “Morality” and this morality applies to things and the morality of something is what it is regardless of what I think or you think, or anyone thinks it is or should be much like laws of nature. And while you or I may not know exactly what the morality of a specific something is, we can form an opinion about it, learn about it, discuss/debate it and hopefully come to discover it. Is this what you are saying?

StrictlyLogical, In post #42, you asked (and it was the only question that you asked): “Do you agree (and you would if you understand Objectivism) that there exists Z, K, and A such that the following "Statement 2" is true regardless of the knowledge of the individual, anyone, and everyone:” (emphasis added) I answered, “I cannot agree…” How have I avoided/evaded anything? Would you have rather I just wrote: “No”? Would you like me to provide a more detailed answer? If so, I will do so now: StrictlyLogical, I do not agree that there exists Z, K, and A such that the following "Statement 2" is true regardless of the knowledge of the individual, anyone, and everyone. I do not agree because by stating that action A is moral, as you do in Statement 2 (and in Statement 1), you are presupposing an answer to the question asked in the original post of, “How can we say that anything is moral or immoral?” Since I do not know the answer to that question, hence the asking, I cannot say that action A is moral therefore I cannot agree that there exists Z, K, and A such that the following "Statement 2" is true regardless of the knowledge of the individual, anyone, and everyone.

Jaskn, It is disappointing that you have not answered, nor even addressed, the questions that I asked in post #33 and #43 as I am curious about your answers, but it does not seem necessary in order to answer the question asked in the original post. Your answer to the question of how can we say that anything is moral or immoral is simply, as you stated, “‘Guess-and-check,’ as usual, forever.” Is this correct?

DonAthos, Similar to my response to 425, since your answer to the question asked in the original post is that we can say that something is moral or immoral by appealing to the evidence we have and logic and so forth, if I state that X is moral by appealing to the evidence I have and logic and so forth, then X is moral. And if you state that X is immoral by appealing to the evidence you have and logic and so forth, then X is immoral. And since we disagree, at best, we end up in a situation where I try to convince you that you are somehow in error and you try to convince me that I am somehow in error. And if we can’t convince each other, then I will claim that I am correct, claim that you are incorrect, and act accordingly and you will claim that you are correct, claim that I am incorrect, and act accordingly. Do you agree with my summary?

StrictlyLogical, I cannot agree with what you have written in your post. By stating that action A is moral you are presupposing an answer to the question asked in the original post of, “How can we say that anything is moral or immoral?” Since I do not know the answer to that question, hence the asking, I cannot say that action A is moral (or immoral) under any circumstances.

425, Since your answer to the question asked in the original post is that one must gather all of the evidence available and ensure that his own logical methods are airtight, then if I gather all of the evidence available and ensure that my own logical methods are airtight and say X is moral, then X is moral. And if you gather all of the evidence available and ensure that your own logical methods are airtight and say X is immoral, then X is immoral. And since we disagree, like my response to CriticalThinker2000, at best, we end up in a situation where I try to convince you that your evidence or your logic methods are somehow in error and you try to convince me that my evidence or my logic methods are somehow in error. And if we can’t convince each other, then I will claim that I am correct, claim that you are incorrect, and act accordingly and you will claim that you are correct, claim that I am incorrect, and act accordingly. Do you agree with my summary?

CriticalThinker2000, I do not understand how your last post gets us any closer to answering the question in the original post. If I make a statement that X is moral and I determine that it is logical and integrates with the totality of my knowledge and therefore it is true and you make a statement that X is immoral and you determine that it is logical and integrates with the totality of your knowledge and therefore it is true, we have not made any progress. At best, we end up in a situation where I try to convince you that your knowledge or your logic or your integration is somehow in error and you try to convince me that my knowledge or my logic or my integration is somehow in error.

Jaskn, You wrote, “You may benefit very narrowly from the theft, but considering the circumstances you will have made for yourself -- a life running from law enforcement -- no rational person is going to agree that stealing is in your interest.” This is very interesting and I will search for the threads you mentioned by I would appreciate your answer. It appears that you are, to continue an example, claiming that stealing is immoral because it is not in my interest. You claim that it is not in my interest because of the circumstances that I will have made for myself like running from law enforcement. But as I pointed out in a previous post, the act of stealing from you (or stealing in general) does not end my life nor does the act of stealing in and of itself have any negative impact of my life. You stated, “…the circumstances you will have made for yourself…” but this is not correct. I did not make any circumstances for myself. If I steal from you, nothing happens to me unless you decide to act in some fashion. If you do nothing, either because you cannot do anything or choose not to do anything, then nothing happens to me. If you choose to do something, call law enforcement for example, then something may or may not happen to me. So, it could be in my interest to steal from you or it could not be in my interest to steal from you depending on what you choose to do and are capable of doing. If I steal from you and you cannot do anything about it, then stealing from you is moral because it is in my interest. Of course, you will most likely think that it is immoral because it is not in your interest. So we are back to a situation where I think something is moral and you think something is immoral, and therefore we are back to the question in the original post of how can we say anything is moral or immoral? Additionally, with your “all aspects considered” approach to figuring out morality, it appears we are back to the fact that humans cannot know everything so how exactly can one consider all aspects when it is not possible to know all of the aspects to consider?

DonAthos, You state that we can say that something is moral or immoral by appealing to the evidence we have and logic and so forth. So if I state that X is moral by appealing to the evidence I have and logic and so forth, X is moral. But if you state that X is immoral by appealing to the evidence you have and logic and so forth, then X is immoral. You claim we are not both correct and therefore we need to discover who is in error. However, you also claim that there is no authority who can rule on whether or not one or both of us has come to the correct conclusion and there is nothing we can do but to do the best we can do. So where are we? Do I just say that I am correct and act accordingly and you say that you are correct and act accordingly? How do this work when the differences moves beyond coffee table discussions and start to affect our lives?

425, I still do not understand your answer or how it answers the question from the original post. To continue your example, Muslim terrorists are certain they are right. You state that they are not right and you seem very certain about your claim that they are not right. At this point, according to your post, both sides will have to either agree to disagree or make a moral judgment depending on the situation. I would assume in this situation the Muslim terrorists’ judgment would be that they are moral and you are immoral and your judgment would be that you are moral and that they are immoral. So we are right back where we started. Muslim terrorists say that they are right, you state that they are not right, so both sides make a moral judgment based on their beliefs (of which both sides are certain). How can we say that anything is moral or immoral?

CriticalThinker2000, I do not fully understand your answer. Since you say that morality is a code of values to guide my choices and it “is something that needs to be chosen”, I can choose what I consider to be moral and immoral. And, by the same principal, you choose what you consider to be moral and immoral. Maybe you and I will agree and maybe you and I will not agree about what is moral and immoral. So you state that, “…the standard by which you judge whether someone is right or wrong is by asking, does this correspond with reality?” and “…Objectivism holds that reality is the final arbiter of who is correct” and “The standard is objective reality.” But how does this work? If I say that action X is moral and you say that action X is immoral how do we determine who’s position corresponds with reality and who’s position does not? Now, given some of the answers provided in previous posts, if I were to state that creationism explains where we came from and you state that evolution is where we came from, you could provide physical evidence for us to examine and I could not so you have reality on your side. But how does this work for moral issues? Again from previous posts, if I say that stealing is moral and you say that stealing is immoral, how does this correspond with reality?

Jaskn, Not exactly. My question, from the original post, is: how can we say that anything is moral or immoral, not whether objective morality can exist. But that aside, I did not acknowledge that I think that drowning yourself is immoral, I only stated that I understand your example but perhaps I should have been more clear. However, even if I was inclined to acknowledge that drowning yourself is immoral it does not completely answer the question from the original post. At best, given your example, the response to the question from the original post would be: we can say that something is moral or immoral if it kills you. Seems simple enough, but as I asked earlier, how does this apply to something that does not kill you? Additionally, even your example of drowning oneself could be open to question of morality. If I am suffering from some incurable disease that puts me in constant pain and agony and unable to do all of the activities that bring pleasure to my life and make me happy, would the act of drowning myself in order to end the agony be immoral? If so, why is it immoral? If not, then we are back to the original question of: how can we say that anything is moral or immoral?

Harrison Danneskjold, I will ask you a similar question to the one that I asked Jaskn. If the action of stealing from you does not end my life and allows me to prosper, then is stealing from you moral? If it can be proved that if 51% of the human population will have more prosperity by enslaving the other 49% of the human population, then, since a majority of human life and prosperity is better, would it be moral?

Jaskn, I understand your example of tying myself to cement block and jumping into a river. The water will prevent me from getting oxygen and, since my body needs oxygen to live, I will die. And, since that action will lead to my death and I will not stay alive happily, it is immoral. But that example seems easy. Let’s take the example of stealing. If I steal some of your money, unlike the cement block example, the act of stealing does not prevent me from getting oxygen and I do not die. My heart doesn’t stop beating nor does anything happen to me at all. After stealing your money, I continue to live and I can now use the money I have to live happily or more happily. So, is this moral?

Aleph_1, It seems to me that there needs to be more to morality than the “continuance and enjoyment of your life.” I have witnessed, and history has witnessed, people following immoral principals (at least some people would claim that they are immoral principals) and their lives continue and they appear (as I cannot know for sure) to enjoy their lives. So what does it mean? Additionally, if stealing a flat screen television from the electronics store supports the continuance and enjoyment of my life, then is stealing a flat screen television moral?

Harrison Danneskjold, You wrote, “No; not all guesses are equally educated! Once you have a clearly explicit grasp of this principle, with regard to scientific facts, ask yourself how it applies to moral facts (specifically regarding Objectivist morality).” I grasp the concept that not all guesses are equally educated with regard to scientific facts. For example, I guess that when two objects of different weight are dropped from the same height at the same time, that, once eliminating wind resistance, the heavier object will hit the ground first. I perform many experiments of dropping objects of different weight from the same height at the same time while eliminating wind resistance to test my guess. I discover that my guess incorrect and I change my guess. But how does this apply to “moral facts”? If you say something is immoral and I say that the same thing is moral how do we test it? In your example, we can both look at the new fossil evidence that exists. In my example we can both drop objects at observe the results. For moral issues, what do we look it as a “moral fact” that will allow our guesses to be equally educated?

Jaskn, You state, “Even if you honestly couldn't think up a single life principle that you could rely on with conviction and certainty in your own mind, you could still accept that human life has real requirements which are based on whatever is subsumed under the identity "human." You could then say, "Something is keeping humans alive, and so, whatever it is, at least that is part of objective human morality."” This is where you lose me. How do you make the jump from: human life has real requirements, to: it is part of objective human morality? For example, a requirement of human life is oxygen. Are you saying that this requirement is somehow moral or immoral? If so, how?

Jaskn, When you state, “you know that something is moral when you are certain that it is good for your life” how does that answer my question? We are back where we started: If I am certain that something is good for my life and therefore moral and you are certain that the same something is not good for my life and therefore immoral, which one is it and why? I do think that “what is, is.” But I do not understand how it relates to morality.

425, You wrote, “The same idea applies to moral claims. If I claim that it is immoral to drink bacon grease everyday because it will give you a heart attack, and then someone shows me evidence that drinking bacon grease everyday improves coronary health, then I'll amend my claim. If someone tells me that it is possible that there is a God of Bacon Grease who is appeased by daily drinkers of such grease and will grant them eternal life, then I'm not amending my claim just because someone suggested some slightly possible but completely nonsense alternative.” It appears that you are saying that when you make a claim that you are certain that something is moral or immoral that “you are completely of the conviction that that thing is true. There is no doubt in your head; you've gathered all the relevant evidence that is available to you and all of it points to that conclusion.” You may choose to amend your claim if someone presents you with “evidence” that your claim is wrong and you choose to accept that “evidence” but if you choose to determine that the “evidence” is “nonsense” then you will choose not to accept it and you will choose not to amend your claim. This goes back to an earlier question. If you claim that something is immoral and I claim that the same thing is moral, and you are certain of your claim and I am certain of my claim, and you consider all of my (or anyone’s) “evidence” to be “nonsense” and will not amend your claim and I consider all of your (or anyone’s) “evidence” to be “nonsense” and will not amend my claim, is the something in question moral or immoral and how do we make a determination? As for your response about emergencies, I am still not clear (even though I have read Ayn Rand’s essay). You defined an emergency as “a temporary and abnormally dangerous situation.” Where does this definition come from and why is it correct? What does “temporary” mean? What does “abnormally dangerous” mean? Similar to question above, what if you think a situation is an emergency and I do not think that the same situation is an emergency, which is it and how do we know? Additionally, I am still unclear as to why, as you stated earlier, morality does not apply in emergencies or, as you have amended it, “normal ethical rules don't apply in their usual form.” How does this work? If I am trapped in a flaming building and if this counts as an emergency situation, other rules, like gravity, still apply in their usual form so why do moral or ethical rules change?

Jaskn, You say that we can form concepts such as rationality, individualism, and rights now that we know more. You also stated that “A reality-based morality starts with simple things that are very obvious…” If one begins to form concepts, as you say, by doing the “necessary mental work of checking the information against what he already knows,” and what he already knows starts with simple things guessed-and-checked to be moral or immoral (a premise), then every concept formed will be based on that premise. To continue the hypothetical, if I conclude through the process of checking that it is moral to attack my tribesmen and a long enough period of time of checking has occurred so that the principal doesn’t need to be checked any longer, then all future concepts that I form, such as rationality, individualism and rights, will be based on this premise. All information that I use to form concepts will be checked against the information that I already know (the starting premise) in order to verify as true or false. I will reject the information determine to be false compared to what I already know and accept the information determined to be true compared to what I already know. My concepts of rationality, individualism and rights would then be different from those of someone who begins with a different starting premise. My concept of morality will be different from the concept of morality of someone who begins with a different starting premise. So it is back to the original question, how can one state that something is moral?