What should Morals and Ethics be?

[Cheetah]

What should the rules be and what should they be based on? Who and what should be considered? How do you assign a 'moral value' to something or a 'moral cost' to a decision?

In another thread I wrote:

Science/psychology/sociology can only describe our chosen morality and at best explain why we chose it, based on feelings, based on instincts, shaped by evolution and the environment.
It can help you compare the outcomes of different moral choices, but it will never be able to make the choice. A human will still have to make the choice based on nothing more than feelings.

Should ethics even have rules? Should it be like mathematics and be internally consistent? Can it be? Could you start with a premise or premices and work from there? How subjective could they be?

I certainly would like it if there were a set of Fair Ethical Rules that everyone followed. But since the whole thing is based on opinions and common sense (IOW feelings, based on instincts, shaped by evolution and the environment), people will differ in their choice of rules.

How does your morality work?

 

[HansMustermann]

The only morality systems that ever worked were basically a social contract. If I can convince enough people that none of us want to be murdered, we decide and enforce that murder is wrong. It can be rationalized as based on some axioms, or given to me secretly by my imaginary sky-daddy, or whatever, but ultimately unless I can convince or force enough people to accept those rules, it's all for naught anyway.

The idea that there must be an objective set of rules was always a popular thing to rationalize, not the least because it lets whoever is giving those rules pretend they're less arbitrary. The problem is that it's never been more than a rationalization.

 

[Cheetah]

The only morality systems that ever worked were basically a social contract.

Of course, how could it be otherwise. All our morals are based on the fact that we evolved as a social, tribal species. A social system flying in the face of our evolutionary baggage wouldn't work. The very best optimized most logical system wouldn't work because we are not rational animals.

If we were solitary predators that only tolerated social contact for the act of procreation, laying eggs that hatched themselves with no parental care, our morals would be much simpler, something like 'everyone for itself'. Society wouldn't exist.
Things like constitutions and legal systems are rooted in our evolution as a tribal species.

If I can convince enough people that none of us want to be murdered, we decide and enforce that murder is wrong.

This not about convincing anyone of anything, it's about how you personally feel about this.

All you need to know is that you yourself would not want to be murdered. The reason being that self preservation is one of the most powerful instincts. Then, not being a hypocrite, you would conclude that murdering someone else is bad.
Can we agree on that?
It's a good place to start from.*

I made an assumption. That being a hypocrite is bad. I think so. Can we also agree that the same rules should apply to everyone and at all times?

The idea that there must be an objective set of rules was always a popular thing to rationalize, not the least because it lets whoever is giving those rules pretend they're less arbitrary. The problem is that it's never been more than a rationalization.

I don't know whose idea that is, it's obviously false.


* Edit: I think you should actually start at an even baser level than murder. Since it's all about feelings, start with feelings.
Everyone should agree feeling happy is just the BEST, so IMHO a good moral/social system should strive to maximize happiness in the long run.

 

[HansMustermann]

This not about convincing anyone of anything, it's about how you personally feel about this.

All you need to know is that you yourself would not want to be murdered. The reason being that self preservation is one of the most powerful instincts. Then, not being a hypocrite, you would conclude that murdering someone else is bad.
Can we agree on that?
It's a good place to start from.*

I made an assumption. That being a hypocrite is bad. I think so. Can we also agree that the same rules should apply to everyone and at all times?

Well, exactly what counts as hypocrisy and what legal loopholes are enough to make it totally not murder when we're killing those guys over there, has been quite flexible and elastic.

E.g., the Spartans correctly concluded that
A) killing someone willy nilly is murder, and that's bad, BUT
B) EXCEPT killing in a war, which obviously is justified and totally not murder.

So each year, the first legal act of the newly elected ephors was to formally declare war on the Helots, i.e., Sparta's own slaves. That way the slave owners could just straight up kill any slave they wanted to, and it's totally not murder, because we're at war with them.

No hypocrisy either. I mean, none of the proper Spartan warriors would want to be murdered, but as warriors they were willing to accept that we might get killed in a war. So they're not demanding anything of the slaves that they wouldn't accept for themselves, right?

Humans have always been quite good at creating such legal loopholes and excuses

I don't know whose idea that is, it's obviously false.

Well, it may seem obvious to you and me today, but historically there has been a strong drive to paint only whatever "objective" morals those in power wanted as the only rational choice, and to paint those even considering any merits of subjective morals as dumb, evil or both.

* Edit: I think you should actually start at an even baser level than murder. Since it's all about feelings, start with feelings.
Everyone should agree feeling happy is just the BEST, so IMHO a good moral/social system should strive to maximize happiness in the long run.

Well, you've just described utilitarianism there. It's not a bad approach, and I quite like it, but it's also not the only school of thought on the topic.

 

[Cheetah]

Well, exactly what counts as hypocrisy and what legal loopholes are enough to make it totally not murder when we're killing those guys over there, has been quite flexible an elastic.

I just meant it as the same rules for everyone at all times.

E.g., the Spartans correctly concluded that
A) killing someone willy nilly is murder, and that's bad, BUT
B) EXCEPT killing in a war, which obviously is justified and totally not murder.

Exactly, because they were not concerned with the same rules for everyone at all times. Killing one of your own was not the same as killing an enemy. Hopefully we have moved past this.

Well, you've just described utilitarianism there. It's not a bad approach, and I quite like it, but it's also not the only school of thought on the topic.

I have. Which is your favorite?

 

[The Great Zaganza]

As I see it, Morality and Ethics are basically an endless iterated Prisoner's Dilemma: We aim for a stable situation of cooperation in which everyone benefits.
A Social Contract is situation where such cooperation has been established.

The amount of Defection we are willing to accept before retaliation directly depends on how secure we feel ourselves and how likely we think the other person is to cooperate in the future... and how much future we think there is left.

In short, the ethic standards of a society depends largely on how much mortality it can afford.

 

[Cheetah]

As I see it, Morality and Ethics are basically an endless iterated Prisoner's Dilemma: We aim for a stable situation of cooperation in which everyone benefits.
A Social Contract is situation where such cooperation has been established.

Yes, I want to discus how you and others think this Social Contract should look.

In short, the ethic standards of a society depends largely on how much mortality it can afford.

Agreed, so we won't worry about that.
For simplicity then assume a technological planet-wide society with an efficient production and distribution of resources where everyone's basic needs are met.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Agreed, so we won't worry about that.
For simplicity then assume a technological planet wide society with an efficient production and distribution of resources where everyone's basic needs are met.

I'm not really sure that addresses issue, which is inequality: one person having no bread and the other cake is injustice, but so is one person having no internet and the other a Starlink connection.

I find it much easier to define immorality as withholding surplus resources without any need to do so.

 

[Cheetah]

I'm not really sure that addresses issue, which is inequality: one person having no bread and the other cake is injustice, but so is one person having no internet and the other a Starlink connection.
I find it much easier to define immorality as withholding surplus resources without any need to do so.

So to maximize happiness you need to minimize inequality?

 

[HansMustermann]

I just meant it as the same rules for everyone at all times.



Exactly, because they were not concerned with the same rules for everyone at all times. Killing one of your own was not the same as killing an enemy. Hopefully we have moved past this.

What I was getting at was the far greater aberration of defining about 80% of your own society as the enemy.

 

[Cheetah]

What I was getting at was the far greater aberration of defining about 80% of your own society as the enemy.

Then don't do it like that. The point is to give everyone the same basic rights is it not?

 

[The Great Zaganza]

So to maximize happiness you need to minimize inequality?

unnecessary/unjustified inequality.
The point is that you have to come up with a reason why it is ok for one to have a lot and another very little - and it cannot be just "Private Property" or "I got it first". (*)
one possible justification would be that you actually use it - pure status symbols are pretty much by definition non-essential wealth.

Of course, just so that things don't end up like Dennis Moore redistributing tiaras, the need to determine the injustices of property requires a certain threshold of inequality - basically a value of the Gini coefficient depending on how comfortable a society is with inequality.



(*) more precisely, if you want to invoke Private Property as the reason for inequality, you have to make a good argument why private property is always justified.

 

[HansMustermann]

I just meant it as the same rules for everyone at all times.

That alone doesn't guarantee it being also fair. You can define the same rules for everyone in such a way that some people are still de facto excluded.

E.g., the norse holmgang rules were the same for everyone. (Well, all the free people, anyway.) ANYONE could challenge anyone else to a holmgang, i.e., trial by combat over anything. The poorest beggar could challenge the richest landowner to a duel over who really owns that piece of land. And everyone was even allowed the same armaments for it: one sword, one axe, and three shields. And anyone could have a champion duel in their stead, if they could find one.

Yet not only that favoured those who could afford to train in weapon use full time, or pay a champion for that, but even the price of a sword in the dark ages was prohibitive. Hell, most people probably couldn't even afford a military-grade axe, and going with a woodsman's axe into combat, yeah, was just a way to die bravely.


What I'm getting at is that the subject is complex. If you think that a few unqualified people in a random internet forum are going to solve it, well, good luck with that

 

[Cheetah]

unnecessary/unjustified inequality.
The point is that you have to come up with a reason why it is ok for one to have a lot and another very little - and it cannot be just "Private Property" or "I got it first".

So justified inequality is fine, if you have a good reason?

We live on a planet, a finite resource.
Giving everyone alive today an acceptable standard of living, by western standards, will use up just about all available resources and is probably not even sustainable in the long run.
To maximize happiness, a society has to be stable and sustainable. If everyone just gets their share there might not be anything left for inequality.

 

[Cheetah]

That alone doesn't guarantee it being also fair. You can define the same rules for everyone in such a way that some people are still de facto excluded.

Well that's the point of the thread, defining the rules so that no one is de facto excluded and it is fair (or as fair as possible).
There are plenty of examples of unfairness, I'm asking what rules you think would work. What do you think would be fair?

 

[The Great Zaganza]

So justified inequality is fine, if you have a good reason?

We live on a planet, a finite resource.
Giving everyone alive today an acceptable standard of living, by western standards, will use up just about all available resources and is probably not even sustainable in the long run.
To maximize happiness, a society has to be stable and sustainable. If everyone just gets their share there might not be anything left for inequality.

Well, when the ship is sinking, you better have a really good reason why you need an entire lifeboat to yourself.

 

[caveman1917]

I'm with Sidney Parker on this one:

To say that something is morally good or morally bad boils down in the end to nothing more than that something is said to be morally good or morally bad. What will be said to be good or bad will depend upon the belief of the moralist making the statement. When moral judgements clash, behind all the verbal pyrotechnics there is simply one idea lodged in one head and another and different idea lodged in another head. The passion with which they are expressed is merely a symptom of the unfulfillable desire to prove the unprovable.

For myself, I have no use for the myth of morality, except as a source of amusement or data for a study of slavery to fixed ideas.

 

[Robin]

What should the rules be and what should they be based on? Who and what should be considered? How do you assign a 'moral value' to something or a 'moral cost' to a decision?

In another thread I wrote:





Should ethics even have rules? Should it be like mathematics and be internally consistent? Can it be? Could you start with a premise or premices and work from there? How subjective could they be?

I certainly would like it if there were a set of Fair Ethical Rules that everyone followed. But since the whole thing is based on opinions and common sense (IOW feelings, based on instincts, shaped by evolution and the environment), people will differ in their choice of rules.

How does your morality work?

I can't see that morality is anything else than doing what you want to do.

That doesn't necessarily mean being selfish or bad. For a lot of people what they want to do is to help alleviate the suffering of others.

But I can't see that there is anything more to it.

 

[David Mo]

What should the rules be and what should they be based on? Who and what should be considered? How do you assign a 'moral value' to something or a 'moral cost' to a decision?

In another thread I wrote:





Should ethics even have rules? Should it be like mathematics and be internally consistent? Can it be? Could you start with a premise or premices and work from there? How subjective could they be?

I certainly would like it if there were a set of Fair Ethical Rules that everyone followed. But since the whole thing is based on opinions and common sense (IOW feelings, based on instincts, shaped by evolution and the environment), people will differ in their choice of rules.

How does your morality work?

Here are two questions in one. How social norms are formed and why they should be respected by everyone (including me).

On the first, the social contract theory is not the only one. Other theories say that moral systems are formed by force.
According to what is known historically, both things work more or less intensely, depending on the case.

With respect to the second, this is the specifically moral one. The question is, why does the moral law oblige me? Note that this law does not have to be the law of the majority. I may think the majority law is horrible. And in fact, many times it is. But this moral law entails obligation. It is imperative.

This question is truly complex. Science has nothing to say, so the solution will hardly be mathematical. In other words, it convinces me more or less. And there's not going to be a single unappealable solution. Is that what you want to ask?

 

[TragicMonkey]

I can't see that morality is anything else than doing what you want to do.

That doesn't necessarily mean being selfish or bad. For a lot of people what they want to do is to help alleviate the suffering of others.

But I can't see that there is anything more to it.

I agree. Morality isn't a physical phenomenon that can be discovered and proven. We simply decide what kind of lives we want to live and what kind of society we want to have, and act accordingly to make it happen.