(no subject)
May. 11th, 2002 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johnpalmerThere are a couple of threads in alt.callahans that made me want to set some ideas down that have been percolating in my brain for a while. Some of them are written down in Word documents, but, frankly, given my success rate in getting writings published (or even "to a publisher for consideration") I think writing them out in a somewhat more public place might be a good idea.
Legend (presumably true legend) has it that Descartes came up with his famous "cogito, ergo sum" by trying to deal with what he could be certain that he knew. He couldn't be sure of anything except that *SOMETHING* was trying to figure out what was known/knowable.
I tried to do something similar with the concept of morality. What would a moral, wise person do, or be like? What could we know about morality if we had to assume we knew nothing?
Here's what I came up with.
The first axiom would be
1) Morality exists
That is, there are times when there is 'bad' actions, or 'good' actions, or both. There might not always be times when there is a good set of actions, or a bad set of actions, but there are at least sometimes when there are.
The next axiom is
2) There are methods by which one can attempt to determine right actions from wrong actions.
These are sort of boring, aren't they? "Yes, Pennsylvania, there *IS* morality" (Herm. Wrong state, I think), and "it's not unreasonable to think about morality."
Why would a moral person need these axioms? Well, if you're determined to do the right thing, you need to know that there *IS* a right thing to do, and you need to know that it's not hopeless to find it.
Keep in mind that there are no guarantees that either of these axioms are right... but if we don't accept them, where do we get? Do we gain something by not assuming that morality exists, or that we can reason about it? Not as far as I can see.
However, by those two axioms, we end up leaving a particular idea behind.
There is a belief by many that a being (usually called "God") dictates morality. For example, in the story of Abraham and Isaac, Abraham is ordered to sacrifice Isaac. It is said, by some, that if God ordered that, it was moral.
Now, let me step aside briefly. Mathematically, two ideas are 'equivalent' if they can be linked with an "if and only if" statement.
"Action A is good/bad" if and only if "God has commanded us (to/not to) do it" would be what I'm looking at.
"Action A is good if God has commanded us to do it" is a plausible statement. It might be that there is a being that knows morality perfectly, and thus, *IF* that person says that an action is (im)moral, it is.
But our first axiom was that morality exists... and we made that axiom *WITHOUT* considering God. So, using that axiom, morality must exist beyond any being who dictates it.
If that morality is "do only what a powerful being, like God" wants, it's something that we can't see as "morality". Oh, it can be *VERY* pragmatic to do what a powerful being wants... but self interest isn't generally seen as the root of morality.
If morality was dictated by a deity, it would violate our first axiom (that it exists, regardless of a deity) *OR* our second (that we can reason about it), unless that deity can be found through the use of reason. It used to be a position of the Catholic church that one could find God through the use of reason... whether that's still doctrine or not, I think it's generally accepted that one can't.
(As a side note, regarding reasoning about morality: some Christians claim that "reading the bible" *IS* the same as "reasoning about it". "It's just common sense; read God's word and know what's going on!". However, that is *NOT* reasoning about morality. If you accept my axioms (and nothing says you HAVE to), you might be able to find that the bible is right in every moral command that it gives, but you couldn't simply decide that it's correct)
Okay... I think that's all I have time for right now.
Please keep in mind that a person might quibble with my axioms, and decide that they don't like them. There's nothing wrong with that. But, I do hope no one will tell me that I'm "just plain wrong" unless they can point to a flaw with my reasoning *FROM* those axioms.
Disagreeing with my axioms is okay; but if you accept my axioms as "rightfully mine", and wish to argue, you'd need to argue from my axioms, or admit up front that you don't accept them.
This is probably a meaningless warning... I haven't seen any hot and heavy debates in Livejournal, yet. But, since this place can be newsgroupish, I figured it wouldn't hurt to put it in.
Legend (presumably true legend) has it that Descartes came up with his famous "cogito, ergo sum" by trying to deal with what he could be certain that he knew. He couldn't be sure of anything except that *SOMETHING* was trying to figure out what was known/knowable.
I tried to do something similar with the concept of morality. What would a moral, wise person do, or be like? What could we know about morality if we had to assume we knew nothing?
Here's what I came up with.
The first axiom would be
1) Morality exists
That is, there are times when there is 'bad' actions, or 'good' actions, or both. There might not always be times when there is a good set of actions, or a bad set of actions, but there are at least sometimes when there are.
The next axiom is
2) There are methods by which one can attempt to determine right actions from wrong actions.
These are sort of boring, aren't they? "Yes, Pennsylvania, there *IS* morality" (Herm. Wrong state, I think), and "it's not unreasonable to think about morality."
Why would a moral person need these axioms? Well, if you're determined to do the right thing, you need to know that there *IS* a right thing to do, and you need to know that it's not hopeless to find it.
Keep in mind that there are no guarantees that either of these axioms are right... but if we don't accept them, where do we get? Do we gain something by not assuming that morality exists, or that we can reason about it? Not as far as I can see.
However, by those two axioms, we end up leaving a particular idea behind.
There is a belief by many that a being (usually called "God") dictates morality. For example, in the story of Abraham and Isaac, Abraham is ordered to sacrifice Isaac. It is said, by some, that if God ordered that, it was moral.
Now, let me step aside briefly. Mathematically, two ideas are 'equivalent' if they can be linked with an "if and only if" statement.
"Action A is good/bad" if and only if "God has commanded us (to/not to) do it" would be what I'm looking at.
"Action A is good if God has commanded us to do it" is a plausible statement. It might be that there is a being that knows morality perfectly, and thus, *IF* that person says that an action is (im)moral, it is.
But our first axiom was that morality exists... and we made that axiom *WITHOUT* considering God. So, using that axiom, morality must exist beyond any being who dictates it.
If that morality is "do only what a powerful being, like God" wants, it's something that we can't see as "morality". Oh, it can be *VERY* pragmatic to do what a powerful being wants... but self interest isn't generally seen as the root of morality.
If morality was dictated by a deity, it would violate our first axiom (that it exists, regardless of a deity) *OR* our second (that we can reason about it), unless that deity can be found through the use of reason. It used to be a position of the Catholic church that one could find God through the use of reason... whether that's still doctrine or not, I think it's generally accepted that one can't.
(As a side note, regarding reasoning about morality: some Christians claim that "reading the bible" *IS* the same as "reasoning about it". "It's just common sense; read God's word and know what's going on!". However, that is *NOT* reasoning about morality. If you accept my axioms (and nothing says you HAVE to), you might be able to find that the bible is right in every moral command that it gives, but you couldn't simply decide that it's correct)
Okay... I think that's all I have time for right now.
Please keep in mind that a person might quibble with my axioms, and decide that they don't like them. There's nothing wrong with that. But, I do hope no one will tell me that I'm "just plain wrong" unless they can point to a flaw with my reasoning *FROM* those axioms.
Disagreeing with my axioms is okay; but if you accept my axioms as "rightfully mine", and wish to argue, you'd need to argue from my axioms, or admit up front that you don't accept them.
This is probably a meaningless warning... I haven't seen any hot and heavy debates in Livejournal, yet. But, since this place can be newsgroupish, I figured it wouldn't hurt to put it in.
no subject
Date: 2002-05-12 06:51 am (UTC)God always seems to make an appearance in discussions about morality. " says this therefore this is the way one must behave.
The interesting question to me, who doesn't believe in a supreme being, is how should I behave without that guidance from above.
My own personal moral code has been developed over the years into something I can live with, and because I was raised in a primarily Christian culture, there are many areas of overlap with the Bible, but there are also differences.
For instance, while I consider adultery to be immoral I don't consider polyamory to be so. In my lexicon adultery involves lying and polyamory doesn't, and I consider lying to be a greater sin than consensual sex. (And can one have sin without a Higher Being???) Actually, I don't consider consensual sex to be a sin at all.
For me, and this is probably my teaching background coming to the fore, morality is about taking responsibility for your own actions, and in that process doing what you can to avoid harming others.Sometimes there is no way to avoid that as self-concern must always come first (I need to do A. If I do A, person B will be hurt. If I don't do A, I will be hurt. Therefore, I do A, and try to minimize the fallout as much as I can.)
The people in this world who I find immoral are those who try to fob off responsibility on others. It starts in the playground (Well, sure I hit him, but he was bothering me. Everyone does it so why shouldn't I? It's not my fault, she told me to do it.) and in some cases continues well into adulthood. (They fired me just because I was late a bunch of times. Why did they put the exam after a long weekend - I didn't have any time to study. I had to take the call on my cell phone while I was driving - it's not my fault the traffic got bad. These laws are stupid - they don't apply to me)
Where does this morality come from if not from God? Well, mine comes from me, from my desire to be what I consider a good person to be. Which leaves us with a problem, because clearly not everyone has the same definition of a good person.
Morality is easy when you can point to a book and say "We behave this way because this book tells us to." It gets very hard when you move away from the book.
I think there are no hard and fast rules about morality. I think every person must come up with their own code of conduct. That, of course, is the problem because there is _always_ an opposing viewpoint.
I'm not entirely sure this makes sense, but there it is for what it's worth.
Rhona