I really need to be doing things...

[avevale_intelligencer]

...but I can't let this go. Someone (whom I won't name because I don't know if they want their LJ and FB identities linked) just quoted on Facebook:

"Morality is doing what is right no matter what you are told. Religon is doing whatever you are told no matter what is right."

As an example of the statement that sounds good without at any point touching on truth, I don't think that can be bettered, and it shows up how insidiously persuasive a nice jingly Wildean paradox can be--I almost found myself nodding sagely at it for a second. But good grief, morality is *all about* what we're told--morality is tribal. And as for the stupid, facile old canard about religion being mindless obedience, I don't even need to bother refuting that, do I? I'm sure I've done it before, anyway, and I haven't got the spare computer time right now.

So, let's compose some nice jingly Wildean paradoxes.

"Bacon and eggs are tasty without being healthy. Muesli is healthy without being tasty."

See how it works? You have a try. See how convincing you can make any old rubbish just by balancing two phrases one against the other.

I'll check back tonight. I may award points.

Comments

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

You seriously appear (to me at least) to be saying that morality is what the majority of the people around you--or at least the people who had the teaching of you as a child--tells you is moral.

Etymologically, that is precisely what morality is. I agree that the meaning of the word is evolving to also cover something like an absolute standard of right and wrong, but I believe the older meaning is still the primary one. 'Ethics' would be a less ambiguous term for the kind of absolute morality you describe.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I'm okay with the word being used that way, but in my experience there is a fairly large group of people who use "morality" to refer to what for lack of a better term I will call "real" right and wrong--stuff that stays right, or stays wrong, no matter what the rest of the world things.

Do you use a different term for that, and if so, what is it?

[keristor.livejournal.com]

As I said in another thread, there is no agreement on what the terms mean. I use 'morality' to mean the (possibly local or individual) concensus opinion of correct and incorrect actions, and 'ethics' for absolutes which any rational observer will agree (if you waste resources, you won't have them later when needed; unnecessary killing (and hurting) of others is bad, etc.). But some people reverse the definitions, or don't see any difference, or something different from any of those.

The only way to communicate on that subject is to do a Humpty Dumpty and define the terms as you use them, and then hope that either everyone will agree for the length of the discussion or that they will at least remember how you use them.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Somewhere back in the distant past I tried to claim there were "absolutes on which any rational observer will agree" and got stomped on for moral absolutism. I think I may also have said "well, yes, all right, maybe there aren't" and got stomped on for moral relativism. I may not know much about morality, but I know when I'm getting stomped on. Which is why this post was about composing Wildean paradoxes. Somewhere back in the distant past. *sigh*

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

'Ethical' is quite a good term for what you mean, and in my experience there is another medium sized group of people who specifically contrast morals and ethics.

Personally I'm a fairly strict Utilitarian, so I don't have a concept of 'real right and wrong' other than 'what does the greatest good to the greatest number', and would usually talk about it in those terms: 'giving to cost effective charities is a good way of increasing the amount of happiness in the world' rather than 'giving to cost effective charities is moral/ethical'.

I'm also a Christian, so I could (much less usefully) define 'real right and wrong' as 'obeying or disobeying God's will'. Like most other Anglicans I believe we discern God's will by looking at scripture, reason and tradition. For me (and for many others who describe themselves as liberal Christians), 'reason' has primacy, and is the light by which the others are interpreted. So if something in scripture or tradition is unreasonable (and my Utilitarian principles tell me that an ethical system which causes more misery than happiness is unreasonable) then it is necessary to interpret it differently or to abandon it.

I have lots of secular atheist friends, by contrast, whose morality does seem to be based on what other people tell them and not on rational grounds. One example of this is what Peter Singer would call 'speciesism', the idea that its vastly more important to alleviate human suffering than it is to alleviate the suffering of other animals, because humans are more intelligent,* and yet it's monstrous to care more about the suffering of more intelligent humans than of less intelligent humans.


* Not because some humans are more capable of suffering than some animals. That, of course, is perfectly rational.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I'm cool with using "morality" and "ethics" in this way, and in fact, did so for years, until (I think) I started running into the "2 point vs 5 point system of morality" thing.

And yes, your point about reason having primacy is why I think that "religion means doing what you're told regardless of what is right" is not a fair generalization. (This actually gets back to the five point system of morality (meaning ethics in this case) under "enforce submission to authority"--conservatives generally consider this part of ethical behavior, liberals don't; I don't, hence the alignment here.)

Trying to alleviate the suffering of animals is going to get you into a real can of worms, of course. Alleviating the suffering of domestic animals is comparatively easy (and one can make a real case we have more responsibility to relive suffering resulting from our actions than to relieve suffering we didn't cause) so I think it's reasonable that people tend to concentrate on that. But really, once one starts considering the suffering of, say, cottontails, as being as important as the suffering of, say, kindergarteners, what do we do? Do we keep wolves from chasing them, mauling and killing them? We would certainly defend, uh, "feral kindergarteners"(oxymoron alert) from wolves. But then what about the poor starving wolves? Going hungry is suffering too.

And at what point does an animal become simple enough that we don't need to care anymore? (2nd can of worms) Do we worry about the suffering of mice? Slugs? Amoebae? Do slime molds count as animals? What about yeast? Bacteria?

Anyway, I guess I'm seriously digressing. Sorry. While I'm bringing up issues I see with the ideas you mentioned, I don't want to suggest that I think you shouldn't mention them or anything.

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

And at what point does an animal become simple enough that we don't need to care anymore?

I think we care should about animals/people in proportion to how much they're able to suffer, and to appreciate being alive. When the decision is a life or death one, that includes how much they will be able to appreciate being alive in the future (this is why I place a high value on the lives of human embryoes/foetuses).

With bacteria and yeast, all evidence we have suggests these abilities are at zero, or something very close to zero.

Animal suffering that isn't caused by human beings is, as you say, a massive can of worms. But part of Utilitarianism involves spending your time and money on the most cost effective interventions, and at the moment I can't think of any way of preventing non-human-caused animal suffering which is definitely more effective than all the ways we have of preventing human suffering and human-caused animal suffering.

If we were living in a Utopia where all humans lived blissfully happy lives where they didn't hurt animals at all, I could see there would be some thorny issues (perhaps we should prevent all carnivores from breeding until they die out, while managing the ecosystem to make sure that doesn't cause disaster? perhaps we should genetically modify them so they can live on plants?) but since that isn't ever likely to happen, I'm not too concerned about it (though it's vaguely interesting to think about).

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I think we care should about animals/people in proportion to how much they're able to suffer, and to appreciate being alive.

So moral status based on central nervous system development as a rule of thumb. Okay. This seems reasonable. Indeed more reasonable than treating chimpanzees as though they had the mental capacity of slugs.

And I agree that it makes more sense to spend our time and energy where the improvement in happiness will be greater, and thus wild animals interactions with each other should be beyond the scope of this inquiry at this time.

I think where I depart from utilitarianism is that there are some things I think are not okay even if they would lead to a net improvement in happiness. Murdering one person with a particularly fortunate (or unfortunate) tissue type in order to provide replacement organs for two people (or ten people) who will die without them, for example. I just can't make my gut happy with that. Greatest-good-of-the-greatest-number-wise it seems to make sense, but...no.

So the fetuses thing for me--well, of course in one's own personal decisions one can put oneself at any disadvantage one likes--but in practice in society this works out to either we force pregnant women to carry unwanted fetuses to term to produce unwanted babies or we don't. And I can't get past the unfairness of enslaving women, (and only women) to save fetuses, and only fetuses (we don't enslave people to be hooked up to Uncle Walter to act as Uncle Walter's kidneys, even if Uncle Walter will die without it), to say but so many more people will be alive, and some of them will be happy--let's do it.

(For that matter there is the issue of who gets tapped to support the unwanted babies; they will be something like 25% of the birth cohort, at least in the US.)

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

I just can't make my gut happy with that. Greatest-good-of-the-greatest-number-wise it seems to make sense, but...no.

It doesn't make sense to me in Utilitarian terms either, primarily because of the fear it will cause among the general population that they or someone they love will be singled out to provide tissue for others. Also because the survival rates for people with organ transplants aren't great and because it would be unecessary if we simply moved to an opt-out system for organ donation rather than the current opt-in one.

I don't think there's any clear cut Utilitarian answer to what the legal status of abortion should be (other than really obvious things like 'it should be legal if the mother's life is at risk').