A Thought Experiment (1 Viewer)

[Seven]

It's still immoral. There is no reason why my life is more valuable than his. If he, however, threatened to kill 5 children if I didn't kill him, then I would. The context is very important, not so much the intent.

For example, I killed a man that was about to blow up a shopping mall. I did something moral, and notice my intention doesn't really matter here. It doesn't matter if I killed him because I hate Jews(He was Jewish), what matters is that I saved hundreds of lives. Why I did it is irrelevant.

There is almost no society on Earth that deems selfdefence immoral. I think you're about the only person on the entire planet who feels like this.

 

Buy on AliExpress.com

[Dinsdale]

Since sound can exist without the perception of humans, so can morality. We don't have identify something as being moral immoral for it to be so. I think there is an evident framework that defines humanity, I don't know if it was God or some green alien, but it seems very clear to me that our actions are constantly being measured up to a certain unknown standard.

Sound waves can be measured, independently from individual perception. So the analogy with morality doesn't apply.

Let me clarify. A political dispute broke out in the US. Some people believed that it was moral to go into Iraq because it would mean spreading democracy and freedom to the oppressed. Others believed it was immoral because it would mean killing innocent lives. My point is this, it seems to me that both parties reach for an unstated fixed moral standard. If this moral standard did not exist, neither party would have any merit for even arguing in the first place.

Don't you understand that the very fact that people can argue about morality already shows that there is no absolute morality?

What I am basically trying to say is, like sound, an objective moral standard exists regardless of how differently we perceive morality or whether we even perceive it at all.

You're mixing up the definitions again. There's a difference between scientifically describing sound waves, and the way our hearing systems interprets this sound waves. We can't argue about the frequency and shape of sound waves, but we can argue about what we hear.

 

[Martin]

That's all I needed to know.

Huge insight for you. You've just discovered that someone with sexual urges for family members could actually act on them, whether they thought it was immoral or not. What a revelation. I guess up to this point you thought incest is just a theoretical concept.

 

[Dinsdale]

Ze thinks you want to fuck your mom for some reason.

 

[Martin]

Ze thinks you want to fuck your mom for some reason.

When people say such things they're usually projecting.

 

[Seven]

Homosexuality is a sexual orientation while mothers and sisters are of the opposite sex. Which means while you don't want to have sex with them for whatever reason you could potentially do it if you were attracted to them/felt like it and you wouldn't be affected if you friends were doing it.

Wait. Gay people can't have sex? This is news to me.

 

[Stephan]

Funny thread this, in fact i suspect it would have been closed by now if it would have been opened by a newcomer not regular member.

Anyway the whole idea of having sex with your relative is immoral. If you think its not, then it kind of shows where the world has come to, and how low/or far can one go for his own sexual pleasure. Having sex with your relative (even if protected) is not something what you can toy around, Revo is saying that the brother and sister who had sex will become more closer. In fact id say it will cause the opposite.
Ever heard about stories of broken friendships when a boy and girl end up in bed? And no, they dont get married and live happily after. Having sex with your relative is even worse, cause you can always dump your friend, but you cant dump your relative. He will always be there and there will be consequences.

Here`s a thought of experiment for you Revo, would YOU have sex with one of your relative for the sake of having sex? I bet the answer is no, because you know the consequences (intellectual and other various) it will cause.

Going further, one might ask, why a marriage is broken when a man cheats his wife with a lover. Hey they just had sex, why break up a 10 year marriage for this one hiccup?

 

[Martin]

I think I see why you prefer to stick to jokey one liners.

 

[Stephan]

 

[Bjerknes]

Sound waves can be measured, independently from individual perception. So the analogy with morality doesn't apply.



Don't you understand that the very fact that people can argue about morality already shows that there is no absolute morality?



You're mixing up the definitions again. There's a difference between scientifically describing sound waves, and the way our hearing systems interprets this sound waves. We can't argue about the frequency and shape of sound waves, but we can argue about what we hear.

Good stuff there Tommy boy.

 

[Fred]

Who condemns women wearing a Hijab?



I wasn't adressing you personally, because I assume you're smart enough not to let a personal belief lead to violence and negative discrimination. But there are a lot of people who aren't.

.

Go to the Religion subsection, "Did loverboy get it correct" thread. Your reasoning for not discriminating against gay people or incests was that if it became common, we should be tolerant with them so long as they aren't causing us any harm. By that reasoning, i think it would be safe to say that muslim women wearing Hijab are both common and harmless, therefore the moral thing to do is to be tolerant and not discriminate against them. According to your logic of course.

 

[Bjerknes]

What's the point of women wearing hijab?

 

[Fred]

What's the point of women wearing hijab?

That's not the point Andy. The point is non discrimination and tolerance against a common practice.

 

[Dinsdale]

Go to the Religion subsection, "Did loverboy get it correct" thread. Your reasoning for not discriminating against gay people or incests was that if it became common, we should be tolerant with them so long as they aren't causing us any harm. By that reasoning, i think it would be safe to say that muslim women wearing Hijab are both common and harmless, therefore the moral thing to do is to be tolerant and not discriminate against them. According to your logic of course.

Yep. Provided that they freely choose to wear it of course (I don't know what the case is in reality). And probably not in situations where a person is representing a neutral institution, like a civil servant, who's representing his or her state.

 

[JCK]

That's not the point Andy. The point is non discrimination and tolerance against a common practice.

What's the meaning behind it then?

 

[Fred]

Yep. Provided that they freely choose to wear it of course (I don't know what the case is in reality). And probably not in situations where a person is representing a neutral institution, like a civil servant, who's representing his or her state.

In most cases they are.

 

[rounder]

Don't you understand that the very fact that people can argue about morality already shows that there is no absolute morality?

That's a logically fallacious statement.

If you and I argued about the solution to a physics problem, does this automatically mean there is no absolute answer to this problem? The fact that some question may arise a dispute or an argument does not at all suggest that this question does not have an answer.

You're mixing up the definitions again. There's a difference between scientifically describing sound waves, and the way our hearing systems interprets this sound waves. We can't argue about the frequency and shape of sound waves, but we can argue about what we hear

The fact that the sound waves exist independantly of our perceptions is what I'm aiming at here. An objective moral standard exists independantly of how we choose to interpret morality. We may argue about what we hear and what we believe to be moral but this does not exclude the reality of a sound or an objective morality existing nonetheless.

There is almost no society on Earth that deems selfdefence immoral. I think you're about the only person on the entire planet who feels like this.

I don't believe self defense is immoral. I never said that.

Funny thread this, in fact i suspect it would have been closed by now if it would have been opened by a newcomer not regular member.

Anyway the whole idea of having sex with your relative is immoral. If you think its not, then it kind of shows where the world has come to, and how low/or far can one go for his own sexual pleasure. Having sex with your relative (even if protected) is not something what you can toy around, Revo is saying that the brother and sister who had sex will become more closer. In fact id say it will cause the opposite.
Ever heard about stories of broken friendships when a boy and girl end up in bed? And no, they dont get married and live happily after. Having sex with your relative is even worse, cause you can always dump your friend, but you cant dump your relative. He will always be there and there will be consequences.

Here`s a thought of experiment for you Revo, would YOU have sex with one of your relative for the sake of having sex? I bet the answer is no, because you know the consequences (intellectual and other various) it will cause.

Going further, one might ask, why a marriage is broken when a man cheats his wife with a lover. Hey they just had sex, why break up a 10 year marriage for this one hiccup?

Huh?

 

[Martin]

That's a logically fallacious statement.

If you and I argued about the solution to a physics problem, does this automatically mean there is no absolute answer to this problem? The fact that some question may arise a dispute or an argument does not at all suggest that this question does not have an answer.

Let me use your argument.

The fact that we argue about physics doesn't mean that any of us is right, both could easily be wrong. Obviously, both think they are right. But even if they had the same opinion, they could still be wrong despite agreement.

So. Whenever we agree on a moral principle it doesn't mean we are right. It also means we can never know if we are right. Therefore, the fact that the right answer exists is completely useless because we can never know if we have it. And yet whenever someone has made up his mind, he will claim to have it.

So, to use your example. Torturing babies. Perhaps we all agree (the whole world) that it's wrong. But perhaps the whole world agreed once that the earth is flat. So our agreement proves nothing. There is no way of knowing if this answer is the "objective moral answer".

Much like god, your definition of objective morality is in no way demonstrably different from no objective morality at all.

 

[rounder]

The fact that we argue about physics doesn't mean that any of us is right, both could easily be wrong. Obviously, both think they are right. But even if they had the same opinion, they could still be wrong despite agreement

So. Whenever we agree on a moral principle it doesn't mean we are right. It also means we can never know if we are right. Therefore, the fact that the right answer exists is completely useless because we can never know if we have it. And yet whenever someone has made up his mind, he will claim to have it.

The both are exactly the same. If you and I has a dispute over a physics problem, we may never know who's really right in the end although we may both be wrong. It is the exact same thing when it comes to morality, we may both claim to know the right moral principles while at the same time, we may both be wrong. This does not at all suggest that objective morality is useless or pointless. If that were true, then physics would also be pointless and useless.

So, to use your example. Torturing babies. Perhaps we all agree (the whole world) that it's right. But perhaps the whole world agreed once that the earth is flat. So our agreement proves nothing. There is no way of knowing if this answer is the "objective moral answer".

Much like god, your definition of objective morality is in no way demonstrably different from no objective morality at all.

Again, it does not matter that the whole world agrees with me. If I found a few people who believed that torturing babies was indeed a moral thing, it wouldn't be at all relevant. Torturing babies is wrong even if everyone disagreed with me. Just as how 2+2=4 is an absolute truth that stands regardless of what people think. Hence, it is objectively true. If everyone in the world honestly believed 2+2=8, would that mean that there isn't an absolute answer to the question?

Edit:
The fact that we may never know if a moral principle is objectively right is irrelevant. Just as how not knowing that our answer to a physics equation is objectively right is irrelevant. But trying to seek an answer in the first place would only make sense if such an answer indeed existed. We try to find the solution to a physics problem because we know there is one. If we thought that the solution was just relative to the individual, we would have gotten nowhere. It is the same with morality. We are attempting to achieve something according to an unstated moral standard which exists. If that fixed objective moral standard did not exist, debating a question of ethics would be absolutely pointless.


My apologies mods.

 

[Martin]

Okay, so we agree fully on this principle (I can't remember the last time that happened). But here is the thing. In physics it is obvious to me that there is some final truth. Things must be this way or that way, the particles must be here or there, we are dealing with the physical world. In the end, for the competent observer with the correct equipment, the observation can only have one outcome.

But in morality, how can you claim that objective morality exists? Based on what? It's not a physical reality as in physics. There is nothing to observe. It's a philosophical proposition.