Morality is Coercive and Unrealistic
Morality mandates a perspective be taken as one member of a group, with an interest in the group's wellbeing, and any views that fall outside of this context are invalid. In a philosophical context, that "group" is unlikely to be of your choosing, and instead might be the citizens of a nation or just the whole of humanity. Any motivation that would clearly be contrary to the group's cannot be reasonably used as part of an argument for a moral position, without explaining why that is fair or justified within the context of the entire group, or as the best solution to the situation.
The moral perspective forces someone to take an unnatural position to how one would usually. One's thinking factors in one's priorities, values, goals, philosophy, and how one interprets and characterises things and other factors that don't fit into the moral context. Moreover, smaller perspectives might be excluded, as you're to take the position of the group in question.
Comparatively speaking, what normally causes social anxiety or fear pales to a display of moral outrage. People, probably many on this forum, may outright declare you to be worthless should you express the wrong opinion. Even someone fearless may decide it's better to not lose friends or stir trouble, and respect to be earned if you say the right things.
By declaring something immoral, you are explicitly denouncing it and it's very difficult and unadvised to continue to do something after admitting that. Because one can't both morally condemn something but also support based on other reasons, this backs them into a corner. Any of one's ideals, beliefs, or justifications that do not fit into the moral perspective must be excluded, whether any of these reasons are important to someone doesn't matter
Hypocrisy, inconsistency, intellectual dishonesty and so on, are just logical consequences of the coercive environment created. One is forced into taking an unnatural position and knows fully that the wrong answer could have serious negative repercussions.
No matter what personal beliefs or reasons one has, whatever one's perspective, regardless, one simply must come up with a moral argument to support it.
Even if one does speak honestly in a moral context, we can never be sure, because it's a coercive environment that forces people to take an unrealistic and unnatural stance. A moral defence is a necessity, not a choice.
To me, the essential problem here is that one can't admit something is immoral and do it anyway. As if that actually stops anyone, it just means one must come up with justifications. Far from this being done just by sly individuals, everyone does it, this is common practice in any context where morality is relevant. Geopolitics, law, business, technology, medicine and anything else.
I'm not proposing any solution to this, nor am I saying this means that we should all become amoral or anything like that, but here are some of my takeaways.
By default, be sceptical of what anyone says in a moral context. If a big business or government gives assurances of ethical behaviour, you can definitely just 100% ignore what they're saying. The environment is coercive, a business could genuinely care or not care whatsoever, but they're going to say the right things regardless, they have no choice. Even those who seem like they wouldn't lie, you can't ever really be sure, the reasons for dishonesty are vast and nobody is immune to all of them.
My second point is that people shouldn't aim to solve contradictions in their views when it comes to morality because you'll just end up believing the lies you create. The absurd moral epiphanies people have to think of just to morally justify a belief formed for personal or political reasons. If you're just going to use mental gymnastics to morally justify your belief, why even bother? Just acknowledge the environment is coercive and unreasonable and make up a lie instead. You'll only end up having a completely nonsensical and incoherent worldview otherwise.
The moral perspective forces someone to take an unnatural position to how one would usually. One's thinking factors in one's priorities, values, goals, philosophy, and how one interprets and characterises things and other factors that don't fit into the moral context. Moreover, smaller perspectives might be excluded, as you're to take the position of the group in question.
Comparatively speaking, what normally causes social anxiety or fear pales to a display of moral outrage. People, probably many on this forum, may outright declare you to be worthless should you express the wrong opinion. Even someone fearless may decide it's better to not lose friends or stir trouble, and respect to be earned if you say the right things.
By declaring something immoral, you are explicitly denouncing it and it's very difficult and unadvised to continue to do something after admitting that. Because one can't both morally condemn something but also support based on other reasons, this backs them into a corner. Any of one's ideals, beliefs, or justifications that do not fit into the moral perspective must be excluded, whether any of these reasons are important to someone doesn't matter
Hypocrisy, inconsistency, intellectual dishonesty and so on, are just logical consequences of the coercive environment created. One is forced into taking an unnatural position and knows fully that the wrong answer could have serious negative repercussions.
No matter what personal beliefs or reasons one has, whatever one's perspective, regardless, one simply must come up with a moral argument to support it.
Even if one does speak honestly in a moral context, we can never be sure, because it's a coercive environment that forces people to take an unrealistic and unnatural stance. A moral defence is a necessity, not a choice.
To me, the essential problem here is that one can't admit something is immoral and do it anyway. As if that actually stops anyone, it just means one must come up with justifications. Far from this being done just by sly individuals, everyone does it, this is common practice in any context where morality is relevant. Geopolitics, law, business, technology, medicine and anything else.
I'm not proposing any solution to this, nor am I saying this means that we should all become amoral or anything like that, but here are some of my takeaways.
By default, be sceptical of what anyone says in a moral context. If a big business or government gives assurances of ethical behaviour, you can definitely just 100% ignore what they're saying. The environment is coercive, a business could genuinely care or not care whatsoever, but they're going to say the right things regardless, they have no choice. Even those who seem like they wouldn't lie, you can't ever really be sure, the reasons for dishonesty are vast and nobody is immune to all of them.
My second point is that people shouldn't aim to solve contradictions in their views when it comes to morality because you'll just end up believing the lies you create. The absurd moral epiphanies people have to think of just to morally justify a belief formed for personal or political reasons. If you're just going to use mental gymnastics to morally justify your belief, why even bother? Just acknowledge the environment is coercive and unreasonable and make up a lie instead. You'll only end up having a completely nonsensical and incoherent worldview otherwise.
Comments (72)
Quoting Judaka
In my view, morality doesn't involve groups. It involves interactions between moral agents (individuals), which could perhaps even include interactions with oneself.
Personifying groups as though they think and act like individuals is virtually always an inaccurate representation of reality and tends to lead to all sorts of peculiar conclusions.
Secondly, I believe it is possible that the moral thing to do (or not do) can be contrary to the individual's (or for simplicity's sake, the group's) self-interest. That is self-sacrifice.
Onto your points,
Morality or discussions about morality aren't coercive by what you've described. It's people's relation to the ideas they hold which are. Fears of being wrong, of having to renounce their ideas,of ostracization, etc. - these are social or personal factors. Of course those are going to muddy the waters.
Anyone who is guided by fear rather than their honest reason will risk falling prey to delusion or deceit.
Quoting Judaka
The fact is that people can virtually never be sure as to the genuineness of their interactions with one another. We can't look into other people's heads to figure out whether their behavior is authentic or some carefully crafted facade to mislead us.
That's an unfortunate fact.
But largely, to the honest intellectual it's irrelevant. Either what someone says holds merit, or it doesn't. If it doesn't, one can dismiss it. If it does, one is forced to pay heed. Truth is truth, after all, whether it is delivered by someone who intends to deceive or not.
In the end, morality is about actions and behaviors, and not about opinions. So with that point I agree - any moral opinion that is not put into practice (or about which we're skeptical whether it could be put into practice) may be taken with a large grain of salt.
Talk is cheap, as they say.
:up:
This frustrates me no end. People judge things as immoral (evil) when they're merely uncomfortable with those things. People are whimsically cruel many times per day. People lie and distort their lives to portray themselves as central characters within them. The act of morally condemning or supporting an act contains an essential confabulation - the declaration that what we ought see has happened has indeed happened, and thus we ought judge it in the manner asserted.
I think it's better to own doing something you know is wrong, and own the moral certainty that's needed in justifying your actions post hoc.
"You hit me!" "You had it coming!" vs
"You hit me!" "Yes! I felt uncomfortable and at the time decided that punching you would let me control you by inflicting pain!"
But...
Quoting Judaka
I don't know if making life choices or designing institutions to follow principles follows the above logic of confabulation in the same way; maybe you can really play the game of optimising justice without confabulation on the large scale. Like asserting that it would be better for no one to die of poverty or preventable disease. The act of declaring that one might give me moral brownie points (TM), it can nevertheless be a true statement.
I see this as a difference in the interpersonal performance of morality; which is a fountain of confabulations. And the considered implementation of it; in which good in principle goals are relevant.
And yet liberalism, which seems to be your moral framework, aims to set the rules for entire communities. Or do you have another idea apart from that? I think the only people personifying groups are people who like to raise strawmen of collectivist moral frameworks. It's just a level of abstraction that even the liberal cannot escape: I'm a liberal therefore everybody should do xyz.
I think that one can successfully expand the group in such a way as to redefine what can be considered moral, even given that what you say about groups is true. For instance, most people only care about their loved ones, when really if they applied their principles universally - which I would argue is the ultimate goal of any successful morality - they would care more about children dying halfway across the world from starvation than about their dog. A moral position merely requires some sort of reasoning and an ought, not universal agreement among all moral agents in a given group.
Not to mention, is it not true that espousing a certain morality puts you in a group with others with a similar morality? Do I not have more in common with a free-thinker halfway across the world than my proselytizing, fundamentalist neighbor? Group membership can be viewed in so many different ways, and one is in so many different groups, that reducing morality to it being coercion by a group becomes a meaningless exercise except when adjudication is involved.
Would you say that those who fought for equal voting rights in the US were by default wrong merely because they were initially the minority and their views didn't benefit the wellbeing of everyone in the US? What if the reformers in this instance had viewed it that way? They wanted to guarantee everyone equal rights under a system that denied them rights, and their best arguments did not benefit the white upper or middle class. But then white people began to take up the cause because they saw the absurdity of segregation, and it was because of an expansion of group membership with little gain for those who defined how morality was judged - the group being citizens deserving rights - that people of color were given equal rights and the pre-eminent group morality was subverted. And this outcome cannot be attributed to good arguments alone; we needed people like Rosa Parks to point out the ongoing stupidities of racists with their actions.
So yes, a less common position might not agree with the morality of the group one is born into (such as white people in the 1960's) or finds themselves ensnared in, but according to your logic there can never be valid moral progress or evolution from within a group that does not favor the group being persuaded in some way; the independent reformer is potentially automatically wrong, and I think that that is a very problematic way of looking at morality, as morality must evolve as, say, technology advances. For instance, what do we do about potential AGI sling shotting us forward technologically? Or how to even engage with AGI at all? Our current modalities are not sufficient, and we need to be able to develop them to accommodate something that might be truly alien to us.
Essentially, I'm saying your view doesn't deal with instances in which a group has no motivation other than their own wellbeing to adopt a more equitable position, as it doesn't necessarily benefit the entire group in question and could even be contrary to the interests of the group at large. There needs to be some sort of external factors in there that decide it, be it actions of the minority or other, perhaps unintended things.
Quoting Judaka
Perhaps this is partially true, but those positions can be justified with reasoning given some first principles one might naturally espouse, so the moral position could be viewed as somewhat natural given the cognitive faculties humans have. Not to mention we are programmed to possess morals, even if the specific content of those morals is not synonymous with whatever behavior you think a given human would default to.
Quoting Judaka
Are you saying those things don't factor into one's moral perspective?
Quoting Judaka
I for one have seen this happen on the forums and also the opposite, as even a minority opinion expressed well seems to earn respect here. So, I would say among people who largely try to be reasonable the smaller perspective is usually weighed, even if not charitably.
Not to mention, it seems to me that among the group of people who are aware of this thread and your OP, it appears most of the people who have responded disagree with you, so you are being coerced into believing that your own beliefs about meta-ethics are wrong, right?
Quoting Tzeentch
Even if your thought was that everyone should decide for themselves what to do, and nobody should be able to tell anyone else otherwise, you'd still be dictating to the group how the group dynamics should be.
It's very difficult to talk about morality without a group as a context because the group's motivations and values are critical. For example, what's fair and reasonable within the context of a competitive soccer team will be different from a casual kids' soccer team. Whereas the competitive team might think it's fair to let the best players have the most field time and ball possession because of everyone's desire to win, it might seem fair to allow all the kids an equal chance to play in the casual kids' team.
It's not possible to simply assert one's own values and goals. To talk about what is "fair" and "just" one must consider the circumstances of the group, right? If one's reasoning applies only to them and not the group, such as that it is just a personal belief, then I suppose my OP wouldn't be very relevant.
Quoting fdrake
What are you saying makes it better? I admire one who acts like this, and I sometimes think people are overly frightened of giving even an inch. Won't tolerate the slightest admission of guilt in any regard, and thus, refuse to "own" any wrongdoing. The entire process of moral judgement seems fixed upon this initial wrongdoing, the attempt to characterise something, for instance, as malicious or deserved makes up the dispute. Ultimately, to do as you suggest can only work so long as one doesn't instantly lose control of the narrative by admitting any guilt. While I admire it, isn't it generally smarter to obfuscate or contest instead? Surely, one should at least calculate the chances of whether their reasoning will be accepted? There are no assurances against the repercussions one would want to avoid after providing a justification. Success might just depend on an ability to be convincing.
How often is morality just a sales pitch for one's ideas? Or a crucial necessity to avoid blame? If one's character, worldview, ideas, and actions, are to be judged through the lens of morality, then it's natural to pursue any reasoning that will be compelling.
I'm not sure if fairness and reasonableness are terms I would use to discuss morality. They are too pliable and morality requires clarity, or it risks turning, as you aptly put it, into a "sales pitch for one's ideas" - becoming just another word for opinions and personal fancies.
But let me try to illustrate my point.
Let's say there's a kids soccer game and little Jimmy has to sit on the bench the entire game even though the coach told him he could play.
The coach broke a promise to Jimmy.
The soccer game, the team, the group, etc. are not morally relevant. What's morally relevant is the breaking of a promise, and it is between (in this case) two moral actors.
A general principle that informed decisions are better ones. And that this requires accurate presentation of information. If I've shat on someone I don't want to describe it like giving them flowers.
Yes. She who comes out of a conflict scenario least covered in shit counts as clean.
It's more likely to get you what you want in the moment, yeah. Trying to act as if "the way of things", "justice" or "propriety" are on your side helps make your side win. So yes, more strategic for many interpersonal goals. Except...
success in intimate relationships/friendships maybe. Saying what it was, exactly, but respectfully is required for those. They're less oppositional, right? Having the dominant narrative doesn't matter when the game isn't to dominate.
The breaking of a promise seems relatively straightforward, especially without giving any reasoning that could be used to defend it.
Fairness and reasonableness are pivotal to my understanding of what morality is, so, perhaps we're just using the word differently.
There are many cases where admitting you are in the wrong is advantageous, especially to people close to you. I agree, and often the stakes of these cases are fairly low, so one can afford to be honest.
Glad we largely see eye to eye. It's kinda cathartic!
How much of performed morality do you think arises in adversarial contexts vs collaborative ones? By performed morality I mean expressing judgements of what is right/wrong, providing feedback on people's actions, opening yourself to criticism, being reciprocal with an intimate and so on...
Quoting ToothyMaw
It wasn't my intention to characterise morality as the result of coercion by groups, and I'm not claiming that the groups one belong to are doing the coercion. My statement was about the nature of moral thinking, the "group" is set up by the context, and not by one's circumstances. We could even discuss a moral dilemma where we're not part of any of the groups, such as discussing the conditions of another country. However, that's still just a setup, my main argument isn't in the first paragraph.
The "group" is just an abstraction, and you can pick whatever you like. For example, if you include animals to talk about what is "fair" and "just" then perhaps you arrive at veganism. Most non-vegans aren't really dealing with this "group", instead, the animals are excluded entirely. So, "People should be able to eat meat if they want, or not, it's a personal choice" is a tenable position. It's only possible when you exclude what is fair or just for the animals, one might argue. Although I'm not even a vegan, comparing this process to the unravelling of racist policies seems pretty apt to me. Those policies were doomed the moment non-blacks started seeing black people as normal people whose conditions mattered.
Quoting ToothyMaw
This is very relevant to my OP because one's personal love for their dog is an example of something that probably wouldn't fit into a moral perspective. Why would one care about their dog more than a starving child across the sea? Isn't it because of love? This is why I say in my first paragraph that moral thinking is where one considers the group's interests, as one of the group. One's personal love for one's dog can't fit into that perspective, because they are disregarding the group's interests, and they aren't acting as just "a member" of the group, but taking into account their personal interests and desires.
What you may say in pursuit of this "ultimate goal", I call coercion, because essentially, the loyal dog owner is being compelled to provide a moral justification for his beliefs, even if there really isn't one. He simply loves and cherishes his dog, but because one such as you might act horrified and appalled by him saying "Screw starving children, I love my dog more" and because that doesn't actually work as a justification for him caring more about his dog than starving children, he's compelled to make something up. Forgive the overly dramatic representation here, we could go over a more serious topic if you prefer.
The result of the coercion means that his justification for why it's okay for him to prioritise his dog over starving children might be his real feelings, but considering the coercive environment, you can't really be sure. If it was never an option to just say "Screw you, I understand it might be immoral to value my dog more, but I'll do it anyway" (honestly, in this case, that answer would probably fly for most but w/e) then we can't trust his answer.
My OP is saying that first, we can't expect people to tell the truth due to the coercive environment, and therefore you can't ever be sure whether someone is telling their true feelings or not. Secondly, when their position was non-moral at first, and moral later, meaning, they've been forced to retrospectively deal with the moral question, one should consider lying. By acknowledging the environment is coercive and unrealistic, one should consider just internally acknowledging their lie, instead of actually trying to create a legitimate moral justification, provided one is going down the route of defending their actions.
Quoting ToothyMaw
They might or might not, it depends, but certainly, some won't fit as I've explained already.
Quoting ToothyMaw
Morality must come from a group perspective, and as you've already made clear, we can't select our group. You said we can't select our "family and friends", and that morality should be universal. Is the natural way of thinking so uninterested in one's self and one's loved ones? Do all of your ideas, thoughts, and values prioritise their application universally? How's that natural?
Quoting fdrake
I think there is a lot of performed morality in both adversarial and collaborative contexts, but if I had to choose, then I would say it's more common in collaborative contexts. Since people feel more comfortable sharing their opinions with like-minded people, it is done recreationally as opposed to in an adversarial context where it might be done out of necessity. One risks straining a relationship with frequent critiques, and thus one might feel it'd be better to keep that kind of thing to a minimum. My answer might change if I had specific circumstances in mind, but generally, I'd go with collaborative contexts.
Probably so, but herein lies the problem.
People used to find it perfectly reasonable and fair to stone people to death for things we would now consider minor crimes or not even a crime at all.
Did the nature of morality change?
No, I don't think it changed.
The word "morality", as with many other complex English words, is bloated, filled with concepts that are distinct from each other, but also applicable in the same contexts. I distinguish between three separate concepts labelled as "morality".
The first is the evolutionary basis, that we are concerned about fairness, justice, and rules and think in terms of loyalty, betrayal and revenge. Could throw in the aversion to incest, perhaps some gender norms, it's debatable. The key features here are the emotional and psychological responses.
Secondly, there is a discussion about morality, which deals with the interpretation of what should or can be considered fair, reasonable or just. The evolutionary basis of morality just seems to entail a hatred of unfairness, but how something is interpreted to be fair or not is quite flexible. It could range from stoning someone to death over a minor offence to viewing violent responses as universally unjustified.
Thirdly, there's the morality that I'd call "philosophies of morality", which are not purely based on emotion or psychology and don't have to be at all. They can be completely divorced, and even a critique of the evolutionary basis of morality, such as emphasising logical and unbiased thinking. This might overlap with the second in providing an outline for understanding moral concepts such as fairness and justice.
There are many, including on this forum, who just define morality as something ridiculous like "reducing harm". This is a convenient definition that aims to invalidate opposing views, it is politically motivated. A good example would be incels, there is no group better defined by their strong moral feelings. They bemoan how unfair and unreasonable their circumstances are. Feeling betrayed by society, and desiring revenge, they feel hatred towards those they view themselves as being wronged by.
Our society has largely decided that "morality" only includes ideas that we agree with. So, the incels aren't motivated by moral outrage at all, they're just nasty, bitter fools, as if those things are even mutually exclusive? If we exclude these politically motivated, convenient definitions of morality, then no, it's always been the same.
No, I think morality has to be coercive and unrealistic, and even if we could change it, there are many advantages to it being this way, it's not clear at all that a change would be desirable.
I'm inclined to agree with this view. What I don't understand is, if the nature of morality is unchanging, aren't we looking for principles, hard 'truths', rather than pliable notions of fairness and reasonableness?
Like in my earlier example, the princple would be that breaking promises is bad, and one shouldn't make promises one cannot keep.
One might say, but in certain situations it's reasonable to break a promise, no?
To which my response would be, whether it's reasonable is irrelevant. Breaking promises is immoral. Notions of reasonableness are just there to soothe our conscience or perhaps keep fear of eternal punishment at bay. But the damage has already been done, and all there is left to do is to try and live one's life better in the future.
I'd say concepts such as reasonableness and fairness are everything in morality, and even moral systems that supposedly are strict and rigid only appear so. Lying would be 100% wrong, but then there would be a plethora of exceptions, and then due to the many ways one could interpret and characterise the concepts involved, the result is normally that it's not rigid at all.
We even have different words for things, such as tax not being theft, even though we're literally being forced to give up part of our incomes under threat of imprisonment (thought you'd like that one).
I understand how you'd like things to be, but if we're talking about how things actually are, then you should know you're wrong.
I'd say that's a typical example of deceptive language; the way we seperate immoral things that also happen to be very convenient (tax) from immoral things which are not convenient (theft).
That seperation, in my view, is completely unjustified. The 'reasonable'/'fairness' part of the argument, window dressing - the sales pitch you spoke about.
Quoting Judaka
:wink:
Quoting Judaka
What do you mean by this?
Quoting Tzeentch
A moral system may state unequivocally that "Theft is immoral! No excuses!". However, not only are there many exceptions but since one has complete control over whether they describe something as theft or something else, the judgement is really subjective and applied very flexibly.
We can condemn oppression, cruelty, racism, bullying and whatever else but it's often a pointless gesture. For example, who would call something they liked and agreed with oppression? We're literally just saying "We oppose what we oppose". Objective moral principles are fraudulent, they are to be applied as one wishes, when one wishes, towards whatever or whomever one wishes. There is no moral system that has ever worked differently.
Quoting Tzeentch
In so far as describing the morality being applied by 99% of people, in 99% of cases, that it is deeply concerned with the interpretation of fairness, reasonableness and logic, and does not condemn based on hard principles. It has always been that way.
I think there are two moralitiesthere are the standards I apply to myself, and those that groups apply to themselves and others. I think only the first of these deals with what is good and bad, right and wrong. The other deals with social controlstandardizing behavior to make society run smoothly. Perhaps we should add a third typelaws and other formal standards of behavior. No, let's not.
I know right from wrong in a very personal way. It's easy to boil downDo unto others as you would have others do unto you. Actually, it's more than that. We are human. We are social. We (generally) like each other. When I am in a social situation, I usually know what is the right thing to do, not because of some rule, but because it is built into me by human nature backed up by learning. Behavior that shows respect and concern for other people is good. Behavior that doesn't is bad. I don't need anyone to tell me that. As I noted, these standards apply to myself, not to others.
I think the other kind of morality is the primary subject of this thread. The rules, formal or informal, of social control can be fair or unfair, kind or unkind, reasonable or unreasonable, useful or not useful, effective or ineffective. They are not really moral, although they are often dressed up in moral costumes, which can give them social and personal impact. There are always going to be standards of behavior, I guess the only issue is whether or not you agree with them. For me, the most important quality a good rule should have is fairnessit should apply to everyone equally.
I think moral conflict comes into play when one of the second, social kind of "moral" standards clashes with one of the first kind. My general attitude is to follow social rules unless there is a good reason not too. Often, I don't follow them because they are inconvenient, but that's because I am imperfect.
Do you condemn societies ability to apply social standards to you? I don't think there's anything you can do about it. It's human nature. It's sociology, anthropology.
@JamalI usually use hyphens for dashes but in this postin your honorI've used em dashes. What a pain in the ass they are.
Quoting Judaka
I think this is more a problem with people being fraudulent.
If people have no desire for developing and upholding a genuine moral code, then morality has no purpose for them anyway. They're fooling themselves and others.
And yes, that might very well describe the majority of people.
Much appreciated.
Quoting T Clark
Don't blame the dashes. Blame the world.
I agree morality is often overapplied. A completely amoral society would still have the social contract, it would still have laws, there would still be manners, things that were culturally unacceptable, expectations on your behaviour and so on.
I don't condemn society's ability to apply social standards to me, they are usually practical and beneficial for everyone. and I generally support these rules.
Quoting Tzeentch
Well, it's just how language works, you call it being fraudulent because you believe it, and someone who didn't believe that wouldn't agree with you. The same applies to moral terms, language always expresses the opinions and feelings of the speaker. When one puts their objective moral ideas into words and condemns "negative word", that negative word will only be used by a speaker who feels negatively about something.
When someone does this within their own thinking, to say, for example, "I hate idiots", what they really mean is "When people frustrate me, I call them idiots". It's backwards, they don't dislike idiots, they call people idiots when they're displeased with them, and one earns the word by displeasing them.
The exceptions are often sensible, I'm sure we could come up with many examples where lying is acceptable. Such as if it's to preserve something important, or because one is being threatened, or any number of other things. And then if one is allowed to interpret these concepts as they wish, to define "being threatened" as they want, then you've already allowed the subjectivity to explode. It's pretty much unavoidable. I imagine you perhaps feel differently because you alone follow your moral code. If you actually had others following it, you'd see it be perverted by their application, it's inevitable.
Note that you used the term 'acceptable', and not 'moral'.
Lets assume lying is immoral. In that case, lying is always immoral. Sometimes people still lie, when the circumstances are pressing enough. That doesn't make the act of lying any less immoral.
If one is forced to kill someone out of self-defense, that act of killing wouldn't suddenly become a moral act. It would still be deeply wrong.
Whether one deems the act 'acceptable' after the fact is irrelevant. Acceptable to whom? Society? The perpetrator's conscience? God? These are all concerned with avoiding punishment, whether at the hands of society, god or guilt. That has nothing to do with morality.
The damage has already been done. The only thing there's left to do is to accept one has committed an immoral deed, hopefully learn something and live better in the future.
I don't see a functional difference between a social standard that says I shouldn't throw garbage in my neighbor's yard and one that says I shouldn't engage in consensual homosexual acts in private. That doesn't mean I don't realize one is reasonable and one is not.
Do I really believe that? Let me think about it.
So what does it mean for something to be immoral, if it's permitted or encouraged? Lying is wrong, I'm allowed to do it under various circumstances, but it's "immoral"? Is that an attitudinal thing then, or something else? To me, if something is immoral, then you denounce and condemn it, to say it's immoral and acceptable is a contradiction.
Err, I don't understand what you're responding to, but there is no functional difference between those things. It's probably that you would accept the argument that society would be worse off if people pointlessly and maliciously dirtied each other's property, and you don't accept it'd be worse off if people were allowed to have consensual homosexual sex.
There are those who believe society is worse off for allowing the latter, but you don't share that view. I don't think there's much more to it than that, right? It's just basic social contract stuff.
Allowed by whom? Acceptable to whom? God?
Inevitably as one lives on may commit immoral deeds, and when that happens there is nothing left to do but take responsibility, learn something and live better afterwards. Not make petty excuses for why it was no big deal that one time.
If one is convinced of their moral principles, breaking them is a punishment all its own, and one would never do that voluntarily.
There's not some final punishment awaiting, other than the responsibility for and the consequences of one's misdeed, whether large or small.
I don't view morality as a set of principles but as a set of emotional and psychological characteristics that allow humans to perceive fairness, justice, loyalty, revenge, and so on. Within the second type of morality is the logic of fairness and justice. If something is immoral, then it inspires anger and disgust when you see it, you experience an instinctive rejection of it.
If I say "Oppression is wrong", when I see oppression, I am horrified and enraged, I want to destroy it, correct it, and I'm filled with sympathy and deep sadness towards the victims. Morality requires this strong emotional reaction.
Lying isn't inherently moral or immoral, because it's not inherently unfair or unjust, or at least, no one ever really sees it that way.
In the case of killing in self-defence, if it was necessary then most would say it's justified, I assume you feel the same. That would mean no triggering of any of the emotions associated with morality. You wouldn't hesitate to do it, you wouldn't stop someone else from doing it, and you wouldn't dislike that it was done, or any person who did it, so it was allowable and acceptable to you, right? Saying afterwards that it was still "immoral" because killing is wrong, well, that's just a bit hollow to me. It's your feelings that show what you find moral and immoral, not your words, right?
Interesting OP. Thank you for writing it.
My own take is that morality mandates behavior rather than a perspective. In that sense it must become objective for one to be called moral, a kind of show dont tell, where it can be brought to judge. It needs to be seen, extended into the physical sphere as behavior.
Subjective morality alone, on the other hand, whether adopting perspectives, taking positions, or holding on to and espousing what one believes are good ideas, belong in the category of mere brain chatter, which to me is amoral behavior. Wherever morality reveals itself in words and thoughts only it is largely an exercise in subjective and personal excuse-making, probably to counteract the inner pangs of dissonance, which is self-seeking behavior. As a corollary, one cannot judge another for the views they hold.
So while having principles and being principled are necessary, at least as potential guides for how one ought to live situation to situation, they are nothing without the corresponding behavior and the objective aspect of morality. With this one can only lead by example, where coercion doesnt quite fit.
I dont know if this fits in in any way. If not I apologize.
Does morality mandate anythign or does a dominant culture with an official morality do this? Which is a separate issue to morality.
Morality will generally be connected to a worldview and values (religious or secular) and it is from this source, not the morality itself, that you will encounter context, justifications and coercion.
No culture has one morality as such, there are multiple perspectives, multiple moralities, views, opinions and then there are laws. Morality is incoherent and people don't pay much attention to it. Even within one religion - Christianity say - there are multiple interpretations of morality which explains why there are Christians who 'damn fags' and others who fly the rainbow flag of diversity. There are Christians who refuse to fight in wars and others who are enthusiastic members of the armed focus. Some who support euthanasia and others who are against it.
I tend to think of morality as a series of codes of conduct. Bernado Kastrup has an interesting definition - 'Humans create morality to facilitate social cooperation in order to achieve our preferred forms of order.'
I will make the concept/subject of morality more "coercive" than just a "perspective". Morality, in general, means conformity to the rules and principles of right conduct. I will talk about this in a second.
First, I need to point out that you have added an arbitrary element to the description of morality: "any views that fall outside of this context are invalid". As I understand it, it is more than a logical implication that follows the description of morality: it's an implied criticism. And as such, is an opinion that diminishes --if not distorts-- your description and the meaning of morality. Besides. morality is more about human conduct than views, although the latter can be considered moral or immoral. Anyway, it would not be so important if it did not reflect a negative view on the subject of morality.
Now, about the rules and principles of right conduct and why do you consider them coercive and unrealistic.
Who creates them and for what purpose? Can a group of people live together harmoniously in the absence of such rules and principles? Can a family live harmoniously without some rules and principles? Can you live harmoniously with yourself without some rules and principles?
It doesn't matter who creates them and what they consist of. What matters is their purpose, which invariably is to live in absence of conflict, that is, not acting against the wellbeing and interests of the members of your group or your family or even yourself.
When you join a group you agree with that group's rules and principles of right conduct. Sometimes these are written or spoken or they are silent and are made known to you only when you or someone else violates any of them. And, if you don't agree with those rules then there's no meaning for you and in fact you shouldn't join or stay with that group. But from the moment you choose to join or stay with that group, it is only logical that you agree with and stick to those rules asd principles, isn't that right?
So, I can't see anything "coercive" or "unrealistic" in all this. Can you?
I cannot agree with this.
Emotions may just as well mislead us in regards to morality. How many terrible things aren't done out of fear or anger? And why couldn't the ethical thing to do be something that we don't feel particularly strongly about?
'Oppression' in my view is way too vague a word to be useful in a moral context. It can describe a whole range of behaviors that may or may not be present when someone is accused of oppressing another.
Accurate language is important.
Quoting Judaka
Being forced to kill someone in self-defense is, I would assume, a deeply traumatizing experience. Tragically, it may leave people guilt-ridden for the rest of their lives, despite merely defending their lives.
In my view, Justice implies some kind of positive result. Therefore an act of killing cannot be Just. (despite possibly being legal/lawful).
Likewise, an act of killing, self-defense or no, cannot be moral.
In the particular case of self-defense, while the act of killing is still immoral, it would be hard to argue the person has committed an immoral act if they are involuntarily forced into a position where they must protect their lives. In that case, an intention to kill is not present, and without an intention there cannot be a moral act or immoral act.
The same could technically apply to any act which would otherwise be deemed immoral. If the act is 'accidental' the person has erred in some way, but it cannot be said they acted immorally, because an intention is not present. This is the realm of tragedy, ignorance, inevitability, etc.
An act of unintentional killing out of self-defense would fall in the tragic category.
That isn't so much a justification, but rather a means of rationally understanding the nature of the act.
Quoting Tzeentch
You're right, but I don't have a purely positive view of morality, as many aspects of it are destructive and terrible. I refuse to only call morality that which I agree with, or that which has a positive outcome. You're also right that oppression is vague, and that's an implicit part of morality as well, I don't believe it ever operates using the clear rules people imagine. As I described earlier, we naturally bend the rules to suit our emotions, and it is far from impartial and fair. One could easily despise oppression in one case but then ignore it in another as is convenient.
Quoting Tzeentch
I understand your point, you have a broader perspective that includes one's attitudes and characterisations such as the guilt and emotional turmoil, and the sombre reflection you describe. To call that part of morality is definitely fair, and I agree with you. It could be seen manifested in one's desperation to kill in self-defence as only a last resort, and in one's actions afterwards towards the victim & their family and so on.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
I don't necessarily disagree that you can describe it that way, but only as a characterisation, it's not like morality is literally just conformity to the rules and principles of right conduct. If it was conformity, then my OP would be pointless because conformity does not require thought, one simply only has to obey. If morality is obedience mandated upon joining a group, where there is an implicit agreement to obey that group's rules would indeed, I agree, have the impact you describe on my OP. However, there are many rules that describe right conduct that fall outside the purview of morality for me. Such as following manners & customs, law, the social contract, cultural norms and so on, and for some of these, I would agree with you, but not with morality.
My OP is not about the actual following of rules but the discussion that takes place surrounding morality. If it's just a set of rules to be followed, and it's "my way or the highway" then fine, but is that what morality is? Do groups represent a homogenous view on moral issues where no debates or discussions can be had?
Quoting Alkis Piskas
No, it's not right. As one is not forced to leave the group when refusing to stick with these moral principles as you call them. The option to not follow them or argue against them mightn't be agreeable to you, but is it there? Yes, and it's a core part of democratic, liberal Western ideals to allow freedom of speech, religion and values.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
I just don't agree with your view on morality at all, but if I did, then I can see your point.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
I don't think it is a logical implication, it's a core feature of morality, the universal applicability of moral concepts. There must be some logic that dictates what is fairness, justice, and reasonable, that can be used to govern the group. Without this universal applicability and shared view, there is no unifying aspect that characterises morality. Your view of morality as a set of rules that the group must adhere to is an even more extreme version than what I've laid out. You've literally said that if someone's personal circumstances or beliefs or values contradict the rules of the group, then they should just leave. From that, it's hard to see why you would dispute my claim about the exclusion of views that don't matter to the group.
I said "in general". Which means that there are other meanings of "morality".
(Details count! :smile:)
Quoting Judaka
Well, it's not at all my intention to jump on you, but I need to comment on what I disagree with. Here, I disagree that conformity does not require thought. It is like saying that discipline, lawfulness (being in harmony with the law),and the like do not require thought. They do. I talked about agreement, remember? And agreement certainly requires thought. Conformity without thought would be robotic behaviour, blind faith and things like that. That would fit zealously religious people, people with lack of self-confidene or will, etc. And AI robots, of course! :grin:
Quoting Judaka
Sorry again, but there's a difference between conformity and obedience.
"Conformity is the change in a persons behavior to go along with the group, even if he does not agree with the group."
"Obedience is the change of an individuals behavior to comply with a demand by an authority figure."
(See Conformity and Obedience)
Quoting Judaka
Right. Because you have your own rules adn principles of morality, isn't that so? We all have. But being social beings, we need to make compromises in order to live harmoniously with other people. Isn't that right?
Quoting Judaka
Certainly.
Quoting Judaka
No, I don't think it is. Sometimes, as I already mentioned, these "sets of rules" are not even expressed, thay are implicit, kind of "invisible". Human logic, intuition, knowledge, experience, culture, and of course conscience, "talk" by themselves about what these rules are. And in most cases they are consistent with those expressed or dictated --explicitly or implicity-- by the groups, the society and humanity at large.
So, the sense of morality is created in a peson since an early age, by upbringing and education but also by one's own factors like the ones I mentioned above. Therefore, we cannot say that morarily is "coercive" or "unrealistic". Can we?
Quoting Judaka
Correct. I should make it more clear that there are cases where one has to agree with the rules and principles if one wants to be part of the group. But see, even if one has to do a compromise, there must be always an agreement. Otherwise, for how long can one stay in group if one is in constant conflict with it? One can always try to change those rules and succeed, but this is something totally different. This is how a society evolves. There are always individuals and groups with bgf ideas and influence that change things in a society. Also, the society itself matures and changes with time. Things that were considered and faced as immoral in the past cease to be anymore. And vice versa, things that are considered moral or not immoral today were condemned in the past.
Quoting Judaka
I can certainly see that! :smile: But I appreciate a lot your directness and how you proceed to establish your views. And I believe this is why we are --or should be-- here: to express our views. (Although this is not the case for some! :smile:)
Quoting Alkis Piskas
Is your argument that conformity requires thought because you need to decide to conform? I'm not sure whether you've just decided to react to this comment in isolation or if it's supposed to have a bearing on the overall discussion, but this argument isn't compelling to me. The act of thinking about what to do or whether to do something can be said of virtually anything. Conformity is monkey see, monkey do, it is as thoughtful as obedience, where one can also "choose to or not to obey".
You've said the agreement is implicit, which ironically, also means it requires no thought whatsoever. Also, the groups we're talking about here are likely going to be ones that one was born into, such as one's culture, religion, region and etc. An implicit agreement, established upon birth or just by existing, to follow the rules or else, right?
Whatever difference there can be said to be here between conformity and obedience, or how much thought goes into this process, it's small. That being said, I am going by what you are describing and my imagination, since I don't perceive these issues like you do. If you're imagining in your head, a scenario that maximises the choice factor, while I'm imagining a scenario that doesn't, that could be responsible for this discrepancy. Even if I gave you everything here and admitted I was wrong, I don't see why it would undermine my position, or strengthen yours.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
It's not a matter of compromise. It's just that a moral argument is only compelling when it describes circumstances that impact the group. It doesn't work if I tell you how important it is that I'm paid fairly because I like how that would increase my pay. I must instead tell you it's important we're paid fairly because of the principles of fairness and justice, that there's a wrong that must be corrected. Morality must appeal to reasons that others can get behind and be invested in or it's pointless. Even one's personal moral ideas will have this feature to them, it's an essential part of moral thinking.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
Having an acceptable moral defence for one's actions or stances is necessary and therefore coerced, and it's an unrealistic setting because one's reasoning is not purely based on the universally applicable concepts available in morality. One must retrospectively defend their position morally, even one that was formed outside of the moral context. Such a convenient defence may not exist, and one might need to get creative to try to make it work, and people do that all the time.
If one is forming a moral position, within the moral framework, then it doesn't matter, the limitations are there for a reason and it's not a problem.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
Permanently, no? But it does depend on the context and the group in question.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
Glad to hear it.
The whole premise is flawed and biased. Morality can equally be seen as an individual rising above a deficient cultural moral code. Kierkegaard's knight of faith. Jung's Answer to Job. Carlyle's study on Heros, Hero-worship, and the Heroic in History.
Some people voluntarily embrace morality out of a sense of empathy or, more to the point, out a sense of duty (Kant). This is a very debased and cynical perspective on the nature and motivation of morality, and certainly not one that is widely embraced (thank goodness).
I guess I've misunderstood. You seem to be against formal morality - you say it's coercive and unrealistic. As I noted, that kind of morality is just one manifestation of social control, what you call the social contract, about which you said:
Quoting Judaka
Where have I talked about an "implicit agreement"?? I talked about "impicit rules and principles"! Which is wuite obvious anyway.
You have also chosen to totally ignore the element of agreement, which I repeatedly brought up and which is vital to the subject.
In short, you either cannot see my point at all or you have chosen not to, and just stick to yours. No problem with me.
And from what I have read in the comments by other members, no one agrees that morality is coercive. I'm not surprised, since it doesn't make sense. It's a very strange bias, which comes maybe from some traumatic experience(s) in your life or some serious misconception(s) on the subject, matched with an inablility to see the obvious and logical, all of which prevent you to see what morality actually is.
So, thanks for this exchange. There's nothing more for me to say.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
This is an implicit agreement, is it not? What groups are in question here? If one is born into a culture, a religion, or a society, don't they have rules and principles of right conduct? If one has to move interstate for work, and they enter into a new community, by your definition, they've agreed to the rules and principles of right conduct of this new place, that's an implicit agreement. Do you disagree with that?
You've told me that if one doesn't agree, then they should just leave the group. You're talking about people choosing between having to leave their hometowns and their families, changing religion, abandoning their culture, or agreeing to a particular set of principles and rules. If that's not a coerced agreement, then what is? They could teach kids the same ideas as yours in North Korea and it would fit just fine.
As for people disagreeing morality is coercive, well, I don't think everyone disagreed, and many who did, well they seem to have just read the title and the first two paragraphs or so. Morality is obviously coercive, but often in a good way, for example, if someone is a racist in public in my country, they'll quickly get shouted down by random people telling them to shut up. Perhaps many racists feel coerced into expressing non-racist ideas rather than their true feelings, but great, that's what we want anyway. There's literally no case to be made against morality being coercive, it makes zero sense. We want there to be repercussions for bad behaviour, that creates a coercive environment, that's it.
I'm not against formal morality, I'm just pointing out the obvious, that morality is coercive and unrealistic. I wanted to talk about some of the repercussions of that, and how to best handle it. I don't think morality is bad because it's coercive and unrealistic. It shouldn't be that controversial to say that morality is coercive and that it's a very specific way of thinking that excludes various categories of ideas.
Well, I'd be lying if I didn't say that I do despise the way people view morality, and how romanticised the concept is. If my way of phrasing things pissed some people off who wanted to argue against some of the basic features of morality with me, then I was here for it.
The basic issue described in my OP can be explained in many contexts, but let's take AI as a recent example. Why are people developing AI? Because they can, and for money, fame, because it's useful and perhaps for the betterment of mankind. What about the ethical and moral implications? Do the people developing the AI even give two shits about that? It's hard to say - because morality is coercive and we can assume that they wouldn't want to deal with the consequences of admitting that they don't care.
That's my first point, my second is that their decision to go ahead and develop the AI factored in their personal and financial goals, and the moral implications were probably there too. But within the moral context, personal and financial goals can't be included, and the moral implications were negative. You can't just tell people the truth, so, you need to come up with an argument to defend your actions, and this was my second point. This I think can be destructive for people's thinking as they will take this opportunity to work backwards.
Instead of asking "What is right?", they try to come up with a moral argument to justify their original decision or stance. Moral exploration occurs retrospectively, and so, people do come up with arguments to justify themselves, but why did they do that? It was not an honest investigation, they're biased towards finding themselves justified, and the conclusion is majorly biased. I think by acknowledging the environment is coercive, and that you are just satisfying a need to be convincing, you can avoid creating a nonsensical worldview as you would if you believed your lies.
Anyway, I dunno why I wrote so much when my OP says the same thing as my comment here, but now that I've written it I may as well post, hope it helps.
If by morality being coercive you mean that it indicates a course of action, this would be accurate. You might just as well say that "desire is coercive." Once could just as easily say "Morality is corrective." Yes, the entire purpose of morality is to shape actions, in some cases to choose a moral reason for acting instead of one's own desire. Some people don't view this as coercion, but as guidance. Freud identically characterizes the superego as functioning in this coercive, externalized fashion. Up to the point where it is reintegrated into the mature personality. Essentially, you are characterizing the moral perspective of an infantile ego.
The point is, there is a certain governing standard of social behaviour and action, which is essential for the creation of shared meaning. Minds are collective creatures.
In so far as morality can be conceptualised as part of one's "moral compass", or as you're talking about "self-coercion", I wouldn't have called it coercive and I didn't, just as I don't think desire is coercive.
Morality is socially coercive, it involves often heightened emotions and is utilised as the logic of the mob. Compliance can be selected because of duty, honour and empathy, as you say, but it can also be selected out of fear of ostracisation or disapproval.
By unrealistic, I mean that decisions made in the real world include a variety of considerations that aren't applicable in the moral context.
Now, I've made my reason clear for why I brought up these points in the OP and my previous comment, and it wasn't to say we should all be amoral or that I'm sad that people are forcing me to act morally, so please, spare me.
Yes, morality is socially coercive, which is to say, socially motivated and socially motivating. As I have been pointing out, this is an empirical fact. You are interpreting it as a (negative) value judgement.
How can anything not be applicable in a moral context? The essence of morality is to be contextually definitive.
These two things aren't the same, morality overriding other considerations and morality excluding them. I agree with these two points, and they together create the problem of my OP.
Is your only complaint that you'd prefer it if I used glowing and positive language to describe morality? I have a neutral view of morality, neither particularly liking nor disliking it. Whenever I don't use glowing language, I'm reprimanded just as now, and it reinforces my idea that I am completely correct to call it coercion. I suppose it only makes sense that moral zealots see this coercion as a purely positive thing.
I don't know, you say you are neutral, but coercion isn't a neutral description. Morality gives direction, it doesn't coerce. It is a person's choice to interpret a direction as coercion.
If we take an example of a moral system you don't like, an Islamist or ultra-nationalistic perspective, then you'll happily call those same elements coercive, but if it's one you do like, then it's direction, right? I take a birds-eye view, it's not popular, but I think it's correct.
Yes, this is an example of exactly what I am saying. Except I never called anything coercive.
It occurs to me that the best way to construe morality is to look at it as exemplified by a stranger making a request of you. Shelves in stores are designed for average height people. A very short person asks you to reach up and get something off the top shelf for him. Most moral situations are a lot like that. Except that the question is often implicit within the context. And I for one believe that for a lot of problems, there are usually certain people for whom solutions are a relatively easy matter. Instrumental capacity is often about the right person being in the right place at the right time.
Isn't all social control coercive and unrealistic in that same sense? Society wants people to behave in a way that promotes the effective operation of society.
Quoting Judaka
Yes. I agree.
Quoting Judaka
I think I just misunderstood what you were trying to say.
Quoting Judaka
I don't it's that they don't care about creating something that may have very negative consequences. It's that there is enough uncertainty to allow them to justify acts they want to do for all the other reasons you listed. And then, if they need to to continue as they want to, they can deny the potential consequences.
Quoting Judaka
I guess I didn't get it the first time around.
Do you consider basic acts of kindness to be part of morality? I don't...
Morality certainly has a wide variety of meanings, which makes it a very difficult word to use. I expect everyone to have a different idea of what it is, but the word holds power, and it's not always convenient to explain one's interpretation of such a complicated concept.
I don't lump in basic decency, kindness, the social contract, manners and any number of such things into the umbrella of morality. If you do, then we're just been talking past each other. I have outlined my views in the thread, but perhaps if I had agreed to talk about morality based on what you think it is, I wouldn't have said much of what I have, or I would've said it differently.
Quoting T Clark
Hmm, not in the same sense, morality polices thoughts and intentions as well, and it is used as the logic of groups. Any form of social control will be coercive in some sense, but it's mostly just policing actions, it's not quite the same. I also think that they're much less controversial because, unlike many moral views, social ideas such as the social contract, manners and rules of conduct aren't beneficial to any particular group, they're benign. Most people should be able to agree on them, and some moral ideas are like that too, but not always.
Quoting T Clark
Well, I used it as an example, AI is a complicated issue that I won't get into here. I'm just saying we can't know whether they care or not because the environment is coercive, and that the incentives to find AI moral or immoral are playing a significant role in the debate.
Quoting T Clark
No worries, pretty much all responses have interpreted the OP differently.
What else is morality but a basic act of goodwill? Yes, like Rawls' basic duty of civility. Certainly manners are expressive of a moral perspective and would have to be included in any descriptive morality. It's hard to see how you could construe a normative morality that by definition excluded such things. Manners are just a "manner of treating somebody" which essentially what morality is.
Quoting Judaka
Sure, morality can cover any topic, including manners, nothing special about that. We would ask if it is fair, reasonable, or justified to be ill-mannered, and potentially one could find rudeness immoral.
How can we discuss the morality of various economic systems, or of governments, or of laws, and so many other things under your understanding of morality? I don't get it.
I'm not sure I agree with this, e.g. sex roles and racial prejudice. I don't think these are not generally, or at least not always, expressed in a moral framework. I think they have to do more with psychological comfort, the need for standardization, and some sort of feeling for the smooth operation of society.
Quoting Judaka
AI is just one example - climate change, nuclear weapons, opposition to non-fossil fuels...
Quoting T Clark
Not exactly sure what you're not agreeing with. Gender roles have always been heavily tied to morality, and have always been expressed in a moral context. For instance, the idea that a woman should serve her husband is a moral argument using the moral framework. It's espousing ideas of right and wrong, and what one must do, and it has universal applicability.
Racism has similarly always been heavily tied to morality. Europeans had already decided slavery was wrong centuries before abolishing it, racism was the workaround.
Many ideas can be tied to morality, for example, if you think aliens will invade Earth in ten years, then morality can become about the necessity for everyone to work together to build up our defences. Sure, there is/can be a "need for standardization" and so on. Morality can focus on how important it is for us to have standardisation, and to see attempts to disrupt the standard way as immoral and reckless. That has happened and does happen, and conservatism is a highly prevalent mindset in morality.
I read through it. I wonder how you expect me to react to it, or why you wanted my reaction to it.
You're definitely right that morality and philosophy itself are public affairs, and so of course there are social considerations that influence how people answer moral questions. It's not easy to share things about yourself when you fear judgement, and I think that people are right to fear judgement. Is this part of the coercive element of morality? Definitely.
However, I do think that hypotheticals are not a practical situation to bring out the "darkness" of man. It doesn't allow for any kind of breathing room, because I think humans intuitively perceive, for example, murder, to be immoral. The "darkness" of man is the making of murder moral, not to intentionally act immorally. The complexity of the real world allows for the creativity necessary for justification, the hypothetical doesn't. I don't think people are reminded by others of their own potential for evil. We do genuinely hate murder, but in the cases where we don't, we call it justice, we say the victim deserved it or that it had to be done.
Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan are both good examples of the darkness of people, racism in colonialism might be even better. Western Europeans believed slavery was wrong, but justified it by asserting that it was fine to enslave lesser races, that's what human darkness looks like. The meat industry is a great example of today's evil, most people already realise that farm animals have the intelligence to experience joy, boredom, fear, pain, anxiety, stress and loneliness, I've got little doubt that future generations will think of our justifications of animal sentience as just as foolish as we now view racism.
You paint morality like shackles, holding back the dark and violent nature of man, but I disagree with that. The evil we perceive in the acts of others are in their own eyes, necessary and justified acts, and the "evil" we perpetrate we, in turn, see as just and necessary. We do genuinely distinguish between good and evil, and we do try to do good, it's just what we define as good is often actually pretty shitty.
As for whether the hypotheticals themselves are any good or not, maybe they are, what I said doesn't apply as well to many philosophies of morality, especially ones like utilitarianism or deontology. I don't really know, but I do think the questions are very removed from the moral thinking of the average person. Sorry if I didn't answer in the way that you were looking for, but you didn't make any particular request so I just gave my initial impressions, if you want a different answer, you can just ask.
Shackles maybe but certainly not as necessarily holding back any darkness.
The only thing that I could say which is thoughtworthy, is that chances are that you, yourself, and every one of us, would not be here and striving if it were not for societies, and societies would not exist without discomfort to the individual, of which morality is only one source of discomfort.
It's an exchange... life, good life, for discomfort.
For context, you should know I have only read four of your OP's:
When it comes to morality I tend to follow Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. This position is sometimes referred to as Aristotelian-Thomism (A-T). On this view morality is intrinsically bound up with rationality and immorality is intrinsically bound up with irrationality. Ideally what I should do is write a new thread setting out the basics of the A-T view, because lots of modern philosophers would find it curious and also objectionable. Yet because I don't currently have time to field a full thread, I will just pull at a strand of the topic in this post.
Quoting Judaka
Let me try to reproduce a piece of your argument:
Is that a fair assessment of your view?
Here is is a central piece of evidence for this argument within your OP:
Quoting Judaka
Now I am tempted to think that if we grant your position for the sake of argument, then it follows that no one can speak honestly in the defense of their moral claim. This is because a defense is a rational undertaking; morality is not rational; and it is not possible to honestly defend a non-rational thing by means of rationality. Or perhaps you are only saying that one could honestly believe--mistakenly--that morality is defensible apart from mental gymnastics and post-hoc rationalization?
Thanks,
Leontiskos
* It could be objected that reason should be distinguished from will or choice, but I here collapse them because the common view is that a defense of one's moral view is a rational defense and not a non-rational defense rooted solely in will or choice.
Thanks for making the effort to understand my argument.
Quoting Leontiskos
Unfortunately, it isn't. I can understand your conclusion, but those four OPs don't give a good sense of my moral views. They're mostly the results of more specific thoughts that I had which prompted me to make a thread. Morality is an incredibly complicated topic, but I will try to summarise my position, and maybe I might make a thread about my overall views later. I have given a brief summary already in this thread, so let me quote it.
Quoting Judaka
What's inherited is an ability to perceive things in a moral sense, not our moral views. Your understanding of Aristotelian-Thomism falls into this third category, and I am sure that you found it appealing or true, and weren't forced to choose it. A-T would influence how you interpreted moral themes, and using this understanding, you could make rational arguments for your moral positions. By the way, before now I'd never heard of A-T, I've just read a summary to get the gist of it.
Quoting Leontiskos
In my OP, it isn't necessarily one's moral views that need to be defended, it's one's moral views that are doing the defending, and thinking of one's moral views as acting to defend is central to the OP.
Quoting Leontiskos
In order to prevent the negative consequences that would result from admitting the immorality of something, one is incentivised to make a moral argument for it. An example to keep things simple; it is immoral to lie, one is caught lying and is thus incentivised to justify their act of lying.
Quoting Leontiskos
To continue on, if a justification is given for the act of lying, although it could be convincing, whether their justification is a convenience or a legitimate interpretation of theirs will be difficult to ascertain.
The mental gymnastics comes from the strong incentive to conclude that one is in the right and this bias may very well be the basis for one's moral introspection.
This is more complicated than someone just lying to get out of trouble, it's a problem that pervades the entirety of moral thought. As the person applying moral principles, there is a conflict of interest. It'd be absurd to let a judge rule on a case where they were the defendant, right? But that's the very position that we're all in.
It's not just personal benefit. To defend our political, economic, religious, social, and cultural views with moral arguments, we're incentivised in all these cases as well. Concluding our views or beliefs are immoral means having to abandon and condemn them. My goal isn't to paint morality as soullessly self-serving, I aim to be nuanced, and my views on morality are complex.
I hope this clarified my OP.
(Permit me to ask for a quick clarification before responding to some of your points)
Thanks for correcting my misunderstanding and clarifying your view. I suppose I was trying to bite off a small piece of the OP, and I chose the notion of coercion. I tried to model the coercion in step 4 of that argument. Are you saying that the coercion comes from self-interest, and not from premise 1 of the argument I gave? I'm trying to understand your claim that morality is bound up with coercion - "A moral defence is a necessity, not a choice."
Self-interest or self-preservation are themes inherent to coercion in general. There are many coercive aspects of morality, and moral themes, such as retribution, duty, revenge and justice, can manifest as strongly coercive environments. This thread is far from an exhaustive analysis on the subject, though perhaps it should've been.
As for what you've outlined, I'd need you to explain the premises further.
My intent was that my previous post would've dispelled the notion that your summary had any validity to me, if it hasn't, then I'll need you to expand on it. Can you expand on "our moral views are inherited"? Explain how they're inherited, or where you got this idea from. When you say "they are forced upon us", what is forced upon us and how? Could you give an example? Or use a quote of mine that you were trying to paraphrase in this premise?
In short, I don't think a commitment to one's moral principles, and a desire to defend one's moral principles, is in any sense related to how I'd argue morality is coercive. Even if we were forced to defend our moral views, unless there is some consequence for giving a bad answer, then it wouldn't be coercive.
Okay, I just did a close read of the thread and I think I have a better grasp of what you are saying. Sorry, I should have done that earlier, but I figured that reading a handful of your OP's and skimming this thread would give me enough to go on.
Quoting Judaka
It has dispelled them. :smile: At least mostly. Here is one question I have that is related to my construal:
Quoting Judaka
Why is having an acceptable moral defense necessary and coerced? Is it the same idea you gave in your first reply to me, "...one is incentivised to make a moral argument for it..."? Is it more proper to call it incentivization rather than strict necessity? Or am I conflating two different things?
Although there are a lot of different related ideas, from reading the thread I would want to try to simplify it in this manner. "Morality is coercive" means that morality leads one person or group to force another person or group to do things. For example, a society which has a law against murder is thereby forcing its citizens to not murder. Is that the idea? Or at least a big part of it?
---
Let me respond a bit to the post I've neglected:
Quoting Judaka
Fair enough. And some of those OP's are dated, so I wasn't sure if your views have remained the same on all points.
Quoting Judaka
Good, thank you. This was probably the bigger piece of the puzzle for me than anything else in trying to understand your view on coercion. Presumably you are using 'morality' in the first sense in your OP?
Quoting Judaka
Interesting. Usually when I use the word 'morality' I am pointing to the set of prescriptive principles and actions that a person (or group) binds themselves to. So with regard to that concept, "Morality is coercive," I would say that morality contains within it a coercive possibility. This possibility need not manifest, but it often does.
Quoting Judaka
Yes, and I agree with you that post-hoc rationalization often creeps into moral reasoning.
Thanks - Your clarifications have helped me understand what you are saying, and have quelled any objections I might have had.
Quoting Leontiskos
It probably should've but alas.
Quoting Leontiskos
What is "necessary" and "coerced" relies on interpretation, but generally, morality functions much like truth, if you're proven incorrect, then it's unjustifiable to continue on with the falsehood. The difference between what's necessary and incentivised might be nothing, it depends. If one feels it's necessary to get a promotion to work or if the promotion acts as an incentive, it's the same thing.
The distinction reflects the level of need, and at some point, when the stakes are high enough that "incentivise" becomes obscene, we wouldn't use it.
Quoting Leontiskos
Coercion can be implicit and doesn't necessarily involve force, and that's part of my understanding when I use the word. Where a reasonable person would conclude that their failure to act in a particular way would result in negative consequences, then there is a coercive element at play. Especially if there's a power discrepancy as well, such as can occur within a group context.
I'd use the word coercion without necessarily talking about imprisonment or violence. There are a vast array of consequences that one may desire to avoid, and can thus be a coercive influence.
A law against murder for me, would not be a good example, because I think even an amoral society would have such a law, merely for the sake of preserving order.
Quoting Leontiskos
I doubt I remained consistent, my meaning depends on the context.
As a word, "morality", is simply horrific. It has an essential role in referring to many distinct concepts, all of which are usually applicable in the same contexts.
Even just for me, morality as a word goes beyond referring to just the three concepts I laid out, those are just the cases of describing the source. If you want clarification on something specific, you can quote it, and I'll take a look.
Quoting Leontiskos
I see. The word is dangerous, it can be challenging to tell what people are referring to. Each of us engages with the concept in our own way, and it interferes with the role the word has in referencing.
Quoting Leontiskos
Great.
Okay. I think this gets into definitions of coercion, and whether our relation to reason is heteronomous or autonomous. It is the question of whether reason is an external imposition.
Quoting Judaka
I would want to say that everything that one feels to be necessary is incentivized, but not everything that is incentivized is necessary.
Quoting Judaka
Let's look at the definition of coercion. The traditional definition hinges on the internal/external division (or more properly, the distinction between my own actions and the things which act upon me). For example, if I push myself across the floor I am not being coerced, but if someone else pushes me across the floor I am being coerced. Only in the second case is there an external cause forcing me to do something. Does this seem right to you?
On that traditional definition there may be some desires which are quasi-coerced, such as the avoidance you spoke of, but usually we speak of desires as acts of our own, which we are not forced to undergo. If I say, "I'd like to have some chocolate ice cream!", then I am not at the same time being coerced to desire chocolate ice cream. If I promise myself to sweep the floor today, I am not being coerced to sweep the floor (because the act comes from me and not from an external force). It is difficult to see how one could abandon this traditional definition while at the same time holding that there are any acts which are not coerced.
Quoting Judaka
Okay, fair enough!
Quoting Leontiskos
As I said earlier, where a reasonable person would conclude that their failure to act in a particular way would result in negative consequences, then there is a coercive element at play. It involves influencing or compelling someone to act in a particular way using the threat of negative consequences.
A simple example might be that a lost tourist in a dark alleyway is approached by two men who tell him "Give me your wallet". They didn't physically rip the wallet from his person, but he would be reasonable in believing that this was not a polite request, and failure to comply will result in escalation. To avoid that, he hands over his wallet, but this action was coerced, and not done freely.
Coercion typically involves influencing how someone else acts, and this internal/external distinction is too narrow. One may have chosen to act as they've acted, but we need to look at the circumstances in which they've made the decision. When one's action was taken to avoid some negative consequence that has been established, then we can call that environment coercive.
Coercion can be seen as an embodiment of heteronomy, as it imposes external influences on individuals, making their actions and decisions subject to the will of others.
It's a complicated and nuanced topic because whether something is coercive relies on interpretation. We need to "realise" that the man didn't give over his wallet by his own free will. In that case, it's fairly straightforward, but it may not be so simple in other circumstances.
You can find things coercive without the negative consequence beyond physical threat. It could be financial damages, loss of respect, loss of friendship, social ostracisation, humiliation, shaming and any number of other things. For example, an abusive relationship might involve one partner coercing the other through threats of leaving them.
It's important to note that "coercion" within the context of law will not allow for the same kind of leniency in interpretation as elsewhere. One cannot conflate the legal term and usage outside of the legal context.
Also, there is a tendency to only use words with negative connotations in contexts that one disagrees with, and this is something I advocate against. If something is coercive only when the intention is malicious, or effect undesirable and not, for example, motivated by morality, and the desire to do good, then the term merely becomes its connotation and loses most of its meaning. If something is disqualified as coercion when you like the effect it produces, well, that's quite insidious indeed.
Quoting Leontiskos
I think the context of the usage would be responsible for making it clear what someone meant, but sure.
I agree wholeheartedly with this. I call it 'pejorification' (of a word). In fact, it seems to happen most frequently with the concept of morality, where one's own moral claims are considered 'moral', and the moral claims of others are considered 'moral meddling.' We saw it most recently, I aver, in your thread about "personal morality."
Quoting Judaka
Yes, I understand the gist of what you are saying. The classic example of this comes from Aristotle, with the captain of a ship who must throw his cargo overboard if his ship is to survive the storm, or a tyrant giving an order under threat:
Quoting Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book III.i (1110a)
I am happy to agree with Aristotle in his treatment of the voluntary and involuntary. What concerns me is the possibility that your definition of coercion is too lenient:
Quoting Leontiskos
Here is the definition of coercion (or compulsion) that I would adopt, which comes from Aristotle:
[/list]
I wonder what your definition would be? I assume it would reflect these things you have said:
Quoting Judaka
Quoting Judaka
Quoting Judaka
Does this allow us to say that "there are any acts which are not coerced"? My act of eating chocolate ice cream is at least in part taken to avoid the negative consequence of not-having a delicious treat. My act of eating lunch is taken to avoid the negative consequence of hunger, etc. Or is the key to distinguish between those consequences that have been established by natural causes and those consequences that have been established by human causes?
The case which pertains to this thread is as follows. Presumably we agree with Aristotle that in the case of the tyrant there is a mixture of voluntariness and coercion, but I do not yet agree with you that there is a non-social element of morality which is coercive. That is, your claims in this thread for the idea that morality is coercive seem to be twofold: morality is coercive in both a social and non-social way. I agree that it is coercive in a social way, but I do not agree that it is coercive in a non-social way. I suppose I agree with @Pantagruel in this matter. For example:
Quoting Judaka
Quoting Judaka
To say that one is coerced to have a moral defense is different from saying that one is coerced to observe a social moral code. Under what definition of coercion is one universally coerced to make a moral defense? Are you claiming that the need to make a moral defense is precisely a matter of social conditioning, or something...?
Thanks,
Leontiskos
In those quoted statements, I am referring to contexts of a social nature and not a universal one. A moral defence was supposed to have implied a reason for defence, which I don't think would be present in terms of introspection.
Quoting Judaka
Quoting Judaka
The context for my OP was always social, and so I expected my words to be interpreted in this way.
Is morality coercive in a non-social way? I don't think so, not under normal circumstances. Perhaps one could criticise themselves or say things to themselves that were coercive, but that's about it, and that would be a non-standard use of the term.
My title "Morality is coercive and unrealistic" is certainly taking into account social factors, and this is why I didn't agree with my OP using "morality" as any of my definitions. We can talk about the "morality of X thing", or "X source morality", and we can talk about the effects of morality in a social context. When I say "morality is coercive", I am talking about morality in a social sense, it is the aggregate actions of the group that creates the coercive environment. Morality is just a garbage word, and I'm unsurprised that you've misunderstood me.
I certainly do think that people bend and twist concepts and ideas in moral contexts as it suits them, but if that's the motivation, then it's not coerced. It's a statement of power, for one to be able to perceive things as it suits them, quite antithetical to coercion.
Quoting Leontiskos
True, and I'm glad you agree.
Okay, thanks for explaining that to me. I understand now. I agree about these "effects of morality in a social context."
Quoting Judaka
I found this comment interesting, but I think I will write a new thread rather than create a tangent here.