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daimyo
Monticello
Registered: 05/13/04
Posts: 7,751
Last seen: 12 years, 1 month
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Morality
#4681195 - 09/19/05 08:58 AM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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What is it? Where did it come from? Was it instilled into us from the time of creation(god)? Did somebody come up with it to further their agenda(church)? Is it a tool people use to explain away their weaknesses(I can't kill because it is immoral)?
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"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
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MJF
Human Being
Registered: 06/27/05
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Loc: Between 15 and 45 degrees long...
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Re: Morality [Re: daimyo]
#4681211 - 09/19/05 09:11 AM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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I think it developed as survival mechanism...it promotes conformity and it helps single out the enemy.
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 38,062
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Re: Morality [Re: daimyo]
#4681217 - 09/19/05 09:13 AM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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of natural morality, even dogs have it, a sense of the right way to move in any situation. a sense of shame when responsible for something bad happenning.
of formal morality, many varieties, some dictated, and some cultured by effort and yearning for a better world.
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daimyo
Monticello
Registered: 05/13/04
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Natural morality - where did it originate?
By what parameters do you distinguish natural from formal morality?
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"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 38,062
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Re: Morality [Re: daimyo]
#4681269 - 09/19/05 09:34 AM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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natural shame (spontaneous) natural avoudance of shame (no thinking required) - learned by natural empathy and observation.
formal morality is something transferred by a power structure using language and training - learned by imposition of external values which may conflict and override natural empathy and observation
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Silversoul
Rhizome
Registered: 01/01/05
Posts: 23,576
Loc: The Barricades
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Re: Morality [Re: daimyo]
#4681276 - 09/19/05 09:36 AM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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Morality essentially stems from the fact that we are social creatures. Since we live in groups, we need certain ground rules to solidify social bonds and prevent harm to the group. For this reason, things like murdering and stealing can obviously not be tolerated, since they breed fear, mistrust, and instability among the group. Then there are certain morals that are specific to certain groups, such as not working on the Sabbath. These kinds of morals tie a group together with a common bond which sets them apart from other groups.
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daimyo
Monticello
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Can you give any examples of natural morality?
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"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 38,062
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that is the official story, and it does keep people in line
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daimyo
Monticello
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Last seen: 12 years, 1 month
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If murdering and stealing further the groups objective, why should they be immoral?
Would you say that morals are all learned? Or do you believe there are certain morals that are "natural"?
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"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
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Silversoul
Rhizome
Registered: 01/01/05
Posts: 23,576
Loc: The Barricades
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Re: Morality [Re: daimyo]
#4681329 - 09/19/05 09:57 AM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
daimyo said: If murdering and stealing further the groups objective, why should they be immoral?
They may not be in such a situation. There are cases where certain societies allow murder or theft, but it is always allowed only outside the group, not within it.
Quote:
Would you say that morals are all learned? Or do you believe there are certain morals that are "natural"?
I would say that the only natural morality is that which furthers one's survival. However, since in the case of humans, survival is furthered by association with social groups, this "natural" morality necessarily involves social morality.
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 38,062
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murder and stealing - indeed all stealthy activities are in the natural red zone for shame.
the group mind is a new artifact or something that ants and bees are stuck with. usually if something which is actually shameful is declared to further the group, it really only furthers a smaller group within the group, or maybe just one megalomaniac.
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Cherk
Fashionable
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What about the death penalty? Isn't that murder within a group?
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I have considered such matters. SIKE
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Silversoul
Rhizome
Registered: 01/01/05
Posts: 23,576
Loc: The Barricades
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Re: Morality [Re: Cherk]
#4681366 - 09/19/05 10:12 AM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
Smoker For Peace said: What about the death penalty? Isn't that murder within a group?
No. Execution is a penalty reserved for someone who has cut off their ties to the group by violating the group morality.
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 38,062
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the death penalty is barbaric
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Silversoul
Rhizome
Registered: 01/01/05
Posts: 23,576
Loc: The Barricades
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Quote:
redgreenvines said: the death penalty is barbaric
According to your morality, it may very well be. I too have problems with the death penalty. However, it is a tradition which goes back to the dawn of civilization, whose origins lie in the enforcement of social morality.
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 38,062
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you might be compromizing your own natural morality too easily; IMO externalization of morality (i.e. to the group or to tradition, or to history) weakens the internal faculty, and may be a large factor in men going wrong.
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BlueCoyote
Beyond
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Loc: Between
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Re: Morality [Re: daimyo]
#4681441 - 09/19/05 10:41 AM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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(after fixing my keyboard, that doesn't like beer so much as I do) I think, morality is a consequence of meaning, which is a consequence of existence (especially life) itself. Morality is not only, but mainly bond to social groups. Even an individual single animal has some 'morals', for example cleaning itself, not jumping over a high edge, not going out at nights, if it's prey... In our abstract interpretation, morality is that, what keeps us alive a bit longer, especially in social systems.
Once I discussed the fact of murderer with someone. He said, it is not normal to kill someone, then I said, in the US, the government kills people, so ? You see where that is leading ?
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 38,062
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the government is often referred to as "the corporation". we all know corporations have no shame. without that key emotional experience, morality is always fake.
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Silversoul
Rhizome
Registered: 01/01/05
Posts: 23,576
Loc: The Barricades
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Quote:
redgreenvines said: you might be compromizing your own natural morality too easily; IMO externalization of morality (i.e. to the group or to tradition, or to history) weakens the internal faculty, and may be a large factor in men going wrong.
I don't deny the existence of individual morality. Individual morality is both informed by and compared against social morality. That is, individuals have an understanding of the morality of society, and they form their own morality through critical analysis of that social morality. But that individual morality is essentially that individual's ideas for how to improve social morality, and make it more functional and rational.
For example, I believe that moderate drug use should be tolerated, whereas society finds it to be taboo. My belief is that the social taboo against drug use is harmful to society, and that it would be a better, more functional society if it tolerated drug use in moderation.
I refer you to Emile Durkheim's models of mechanical vs. organic solidarity. In primitive societies with no division of labor, there was little inherent in those societies to bind them together. So they had to create a mechanical solidarity based on common beliefs and practices. As society became more complex with the division of labor, solidarity became inherent in the system by means of interdependence. One does not need to know the religion of their mailman or whether the guy at the laundromat goes to church on Sunday. They have their own function upon which we are dependent, and thus the need for a common set of beliefs becomes diminished.
That is not to say that society does not need any common beliefs. Indeed, for this interdependent organic solidarity to function, it is necessary to have morals and laws which preserve this interdependence. Things like murder and theft violate this organic solidarity, as do things like fraud, vandalism, or traffic violations.
However, there is less need for common beliefs which create a social identity, so things like a common religion, ethnicity, or culture are no longer needed. Thus, things like multiculturalism make more sense in modern society than they would in more primitive societies, and tolerance for diversity is now more necessary than before.
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Quote:
redgreenvines said: the death penalty is barbaric
?? More barbaric than rotting in a prison cell for life?
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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