Opening up my thoughts on morality to critique

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Reply to tim wood

Thanks that gave me some food for thought actually, considering what happens when a seemingly moral action leads to immoral consequences.

For example

Being in a position where telling the truth likely leads to someone's death

Looking solely at the action, telling the truth is moral, we need not concern ourselves further
Lying, is immoral, but does not need punishment, you believe that the outcome may result in someone's death, so your intent is to avoid harm.


The way I was thinking to resolve this was to consider that when there's a clear causal chain, then you have to consider the action to be the whole thing, but otherwise, it's not exactly a flaw that you can have outcomes like this, because you can't *prove* the causal chain at the time of the decision.

Reply to ZisKnow

Welcome to the forum. An interesting and well written original post (OP). Being skeptical of moral codes, I often don't comment on moral threads, but I had some thoughts.

Quoting ZisKnow

Actions alone can be judged as moral or immoral, morality is tied to what we do, not necessarily what we think or feel.

Thoughts, on their own, are rarely if ever, actions, what we imagine or consider isn’t inherently moral or immoral without action to give it weight.

Yes. I think this is important. You are only responsible for what you do, not for what you think, imagine, or fantasize. But it's best to keep odd or offensive thoughts to yourself if you want people to accept you. Also, excessive thinking and fantasizing can take over your life. I know that from experience. But that's not morality, just practicality and sound mental health.

Quoting ZisKnow

Immoral actions are not always invalid choices, sometimes, circumstances leave us with only immoral options, and we must navigate these moments as best we can.

I don't understand, if something is the right thing to do, how it can be immoral?

Quoting ZisKnow

Intent and circumstance matter after an immoral action, they help determine whether internal punishment (e.g., guilt or shame) or societal punishment (e.g., consequences or judgments from others) is warranted.

I don't think an action can be considered immoral if it is not done with intent. In those cases it's just a bad idea or negligent. You're still responsible for your actions, but that's not the same as immoral.

Quoting ZisKnow

Being in a position where telling the truth likely leads to someone's death

Looking solely at the action, telling the truth is moral, we need not concern ourselves further
Lying, is immoral, but does not need punishment, you believe that the outcome may result in someone's death, so your intent is to avoid harm.

Yes, this is one of those Kantian categorical imperatives, and a controversial one. How could telling the truth be moral if it causes unnecessary harm.

Reply to T Clark

I don't understand, if something is the right thing to do, how it can be immoral?

It's a fascinating quandary isn't it? Why aren't moral or immoral the same as right or wrong?

Perhaps they don’t have to mean the same thing. It might feel like linguistic sophistry to separate them, but I see it this way: right and wrong are judgments about what action you should take, while moral and immoral are judgments about the nature of the action itself.

For me, labelling an act as immoral means I have a responsibility to reflect on it—to examine my intent, the consequences, and what led me to act that way. It’s a tool for accountability and growth. I resist the idea that labelling an act as moral gives me a free pass. That’s why I approach actions from a deontological perspective: they must be judged consistently, or I risk simply doing whatever I want and rationalizing it afterward.

I don't think an action can be considered immoral if it is not done with intent. In those cases it's just a bad idea or negligent. You're still responsible for your actions, but that's not the same as immoral.

Exactly! That’s the crux of why I separate the judgment of an action from the consideration of intent and circumstances. An action can still be immoral based on its nature, its consequences or violation of principles, regardless of intent. However, the question of intent comes into play when we decide what should follow: personal reflection, societal punishment, or even forgiveness.

Negligence or a lack of intent doesn’t absolve responsibility, but it shifts the focus. While the action itself might be judged as immoral, the response, whether it's guilt, accountability, or a learning moment depends on the underlying intent and context and what it always says is that the action should always be considered, that it's right to stop and check someone for this.

What this gives me is a consistency, whenever I do something wrong, and indeed whenever possible *before* I do something wrong, I stop and think "is this the best approach?, will I feel guilty?, should I expect punishment from the wider society? It's a way of allowing a degree of moral relativism within a framework of moral absolutism, without having to endlessly debate specific acts and building a myriad of scenarios.

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Quoting ZisKnow

Actions alone can be judged as moral or immoral, morality is tied to what we do, not necessarily what we think or feel.

Emphasis added.

The words "alone" and "necessarily" create an ambiguity between the first clause and the last clause. Eliminating both adds clarity.

Quoting ZisKnow

Looking solely at the action, telling the truth is moral,

Why?
I see no particular virtue in telling what one believes to be true in all situations to all people, nor any great fault in withholding, bending, embellishing or fictionalizing it for various purposes. Nor do I consider flat-out lying in itself immoral. Who is lying to whom, in what circumstances, with what motive, for what purpose?
Not merely regarding truth, but in general: What is the basis of classification? Is there an external source for the moral or immoral 'nature' of an act, or are the judgments subjective? In either case, according to what criteria?

You designate the nature of an act - whether it is moral or immoral - into black and white categories. Do your criteria fit all possible acts equally, or are some acts, by nature, more moral than others? Then you separate the actions as right or wrong, according some other criteria. Why complicate decisions in this awkward way? After all, most acts cannot be classified until they are performed - as you stated, thinking them is all right. It is only the purpose, the utility - the context - which renders mundane acts good or bad, right or wrong, moral or immoral. The purpose, not the efficacy or result. (If you fail to rescue a drowning victim, jumping into the water and pulling them out is still a good action... usually. If you shoot at someone and miss, the action was still wrong... usually.)

Some acts are wrong according to popular perception, and societies generally legislate against the performance of these acts in any circumstances. Even if performed by elites who decree laws, some acts, such as torture and child-rape, are considered bad, wrong and immoral by the majority of the population in spite of them being legitimized. Some are forbidden under specified conditions, or by certain cultures.

When devising one's personal code, one is heavily influenced by the pervading societal sentiment, including its mythology and ideology - that is, including those wished-for aspects of behaviour that children are taught to extol, but which not the norm in general practice.

Reply to ZisKnow

Actions alone can be judged as moral or immoral, morality is tied to what we do, not necessarily what we think or feel.

You make it sound as if this were obvious. By 'moral & immoral' are you really talking about 'right & wrong'? Or maybe you consider these to be synonymous. Is a child 'moral' because they repeat what their parents teach them is right? If we think torturing individuals is good and necessary, isn't the moral thing partly to think otherwise despite believing in the logic that would deem it good and necessary? Can you think of a moral development that did not require modulation of what we think and feel?

Thoughts, on their own, are rarely if ever, actions, what we imagine or consider isn’t inherently moral or immoral without action to give it weight.

Again, drawing such a firm and clean distinction between thought and action is a property of right and wrong, law, custom, conscience, ethics, and the like. But morality involves thinking about thought itself; it runs into fallacy when faced with mechanisms of action and reaction that simply take thoughts and actions as they are. It requires thought in order to free itself from the bonds of its necessary good and bad logic. But it doesn't follow that right and wrong are simple subjectivisms, since it would be the very essence of taking thoughts and actions as they are.

Immoral actions are not always invalid choices, sometimes, circumstances leave us with only immoral options, and we must navigate these moments as best we can.

If I'm not mistaken, I think what you meant was, "wrong actions are not always invalid choices..." There is a tendency to generalize of the meaning of morality that allows movement from genus to species or vice versa at the will of the thinker. This categorization into a reasoning structure then gets confused with metaphorization, establishing identities where they don't belong in order to lead to a subjectivist rationale, moving so far in the direction of pure right that one ends up engulfed in immoral thinking.

Quoting Vera Mont

Why?
I see no particular virtue in telling what one believes to be true in all situations to all people, nor any great fault in withholding, bending, embellishing or fictionalizing it for various purposes. Nor do I consider flat-out lying in itself immoral. Who is lying to whom, in what circumstances, with what motive, for what purpose?

Fundamentally, my 'why' is to avoid the uncertainty and doubt that surround moral relativism. I separate the judgment of morality (moral/immoral) from the assessment of outcomes (right/wrong) to provide myself with a clear and consistent decision-making framework.

While many disagree with this premise—often because moral absolutism feels restrictive or uncomfortable—it allows for accountability and reflection. Even in my framework, an immoral act can be justified as the right choice in specific circumstances. However, those justifications require consideration and reflection: Do you feel guilt? Do others external to you find fault? If the answer to both is no, your action can still be right, even if it remains immoral by its nature.

This separation ensures that my moral judgments are consistent, while still allowing for nuance and context in how actions are justified.

At the end, both our systems and approaches result in the same practical result that you can tell lies. I just feel you should always consider that choice in detail before you make it, and reflect afterwards. By putting a moral weight on the action, I work towards being a better person.

Quoting ZisKnow

Fundamentally, my 'why' is to avoid the uncertainty and doubt that surround moral relativism. I separate the judgment of morality (moral/immoral) from the assessment of outcomes (right/wrong) to provide myself with a clear and consistent decision-making framework.

I asked specifically why it's moral to tell the truth, in your system. On what you base that particular classification.

Only secondarily did I ask how you decide what act belongs in which category. More particularly, I'm interested in what you think constitutes 'an act'. One verb, the verb and an adverb, a phrase, a clause, a sentence? The more words you use to define an act, the farther you push that act into a context, wherein circumstance, motive, purpose, method and means move the definition from act to justification.

It's nice to have a clear and consistent decision-making framework. You can have it printed up as a poster and put it on your wall, as in my youth people put up the Serenity Prayer.
Unfortunately, the real world and life are not clear and consistent, and most of the time, you're flying by the seat of your pants, deaf in one ear and blind in one eye.
Quoting ZisKnow

At the end, both our systems and approaches result in the same practical result that you can tell lies. I just feel you should always consider that choice in detail before you make it, and reflect afterwards.

That would make for some very slow conversations. Most decisions are made in a split second, and most of what we say is unpremeditated - half the time, we don't even know what will fall out when we open our mouth. Sometimes it's embarrassingly frank and sometimes it's a face-saving fib.
Quoting ZisKnow

By putting a moral weight on the action, I work towards being a better person.

That is a laudable ambition. We all did something in the way of working out a personal philosophy, world-view and ethical framework between 16 and 21. Thereafter, we mostly followed one of our organs - brain, heart, gut or gonads.

Quoting ZisKnow

It's a fascinating quandary isn't it? Why aren't moral or immoral the same as right or wrong?

Perhaps they don’t have to mean the same thing. It might feel like linguistic sophistry to separate them, but I see it this way: right and wrong are judgments about what action you should take, while moral and immoral are judgments about the nature of the action itself.

I don't see it as a quandary. I'll make my previous statement more definitive - If something is the right thing to do, it is not immoral. Of course, as you note, that all depends on your definition of "right." For me, that comes down to a personal judgment. That's the essence of this for me - if I am applying a standard to myself, it's not a question of morality. Morality is how you judge my actions looking from the outside.

Quoting ZisKnow

For me, labelling an act as immoral means I have a responsibility to reflect on it—to examine my intent, the consequences, and what led me to act that way. It’s a tool for accountability and growth. I resist the idea that labelling an act as moral gives me a free pass. That’s why I approach actions from a deontological perspective: they must be judged consistently, or I risk simply doing whatever I want and rationalizing it afterward.

As I see it, I am responsible for all my actions and their consequences, no matter whether they are labeled moral/immoral or right/wrong.

Quoting ZisKnow

An action can still be immoral based on its nature, its consequences or violation of principles, regardless of intent.

That doesn't make sense to me.

Quoting ZisKnow

What this gives me is a consistency, whenever I do something wrong, and indeed whenever possible *before* I do something wrong, I stop and think "is this the best approach?, will I feel guilty?, should I expect punishment from the wider society? It's a way of allowing a degree of moral relativism within a framework of moral absolutism, without having to endlessly debate specific acts and building a myriad of scenarios.

My way of thinking about this is different from yours, but that doesn't mean I object to your way of seeing things. On the other hand, I might reject your judgment that something I've done is immoral if it doesn't match my own understanding.

Quoting Vera Mont

I asked specifically why it's moral to tell the truth, in your system. On what you base that particular classification.

Thank you for clarifying, I do tend to take questions at surface value, particularly when they’re brief, so I appreciate the opportunity to delve deeper.

I can imagine many guesses as to why it’s moral to tell the truth: the cultural weight of learned experiences, the conviction that lying is always immoral (and thus its opposite must be moral), or even the idea that truth-telling is a universal principle so self-evident that I’m surprised others can’t see it that way. But none of these are logically robust reasons they’re more arguments against lying or circumstantial appeals, which risk descending into moral relativism.

Ultimately, I fall back on the conviction that some acts are simply moral or immoral by their nature. It’s a deeply held belief that truth-telling is moral, while lying is immoral. I admit it’s not a logically airtight answer, but for me, it’s foundational to my moral framework, it just is.


That said, I can rationalize an argument based on pragmatism: deception is inherently dangerous to society, and in a binary value system, the opposite must logically be held to be moral. You can easily conjure scenarios where a moral choice leads to harm, but so what? If the events are so tightly linked as to be causally connected, then my framework addresses them as a single question. If they’re not, then expecting moral choices to foresee distant outcomes is asking for clairvoyance, a skill none of us have. In the absence of certainty, you can only trust that making a moral choice is the right one for you, or, if you choose the immoral path, reflect upon it afterward

Reply to ZisKnow

I long accepted the idea that morality should be about actions. I now think it's a poor assumption. Actions are not discrete wholes and their boundaries often will seem quite arbitrary. When we discuss free or good actions, we will always face challenges in the appeal to broader or narrower contexts. This is not to say an analysis of actions is never useful. They can be useful, particularly from an abstract, ceteris paribus perspective.

However, it seems to me that good and free will be said primarily of people (or of other things). The being of a person's act, and its relative goodness (or freeness), is parasitic on the being of the person, who is a self-determining, self-governing organic whole. Just as we do not have a "fast movement" with "nothing moving," we do not ever have a "good action" without an "actor." A dog can be blind; a person can be good. "Nothing in particular" can be neither."

This resolves some issues. For instance, from a consequentialist perspective, we have acts that appear to be good when the context is limited, but perhaps result in some plausible counterfactual where they can be shown result in catastrophic results in a broader perspective. For deontological morality, the same problems will exist in the form of perverse counterexamples that can be dreamed up for any rules that involve shifting the context (unless the rules are made so broad as to reduce to "always do what is better," which is unhelpful).

This also allows us to focus on the traits that make people good regardless of which context they are forced into (something we often have limited control over). By contrast, things like negligence are particularly difficult to account for if we focus on isolated acts and are looking solely at intent.

Thoughts, on their own, are rarely if ever, actions, what we imagine or consider isn’t inherently moral or immoral without action to give it weight.

Lastly, I am not sure of this. Can't desires be good or bad? Isn't the desire to rape or steal evil? Isn't an important part of freedom and "becoming a better person" about identifying which desires are truly choiceworthy and fostering those, while working to uproot the others?

From the perspective of the "good life" and "flourishing," it seems far better to want to do what is good and just, and to do it, and so to enjoy oneself, rather than to be merely continent, doing what is good and just, but hating it. The more perfected state, the better one, would seem to be the state of virtue in which one loves the good.

Elsewise, I fear we may have to affirm that it is not, strictly speaking "good for us" to "be good." We'll end up with multiple, unrelated "goods." Plus, it seems that having certain desires and lacking others would preclude us our being wholly involved in many important sorts of "common goods," such as patriotic citizenship, marriage, fatherhood, etc. Can someone with a serial killer's desires and an entirely transactional view of human relations who just happens to have decided that acting decently works best to get what they want, and has the will power to follow this course, able to fully participate in the good of a good, truly loving marriage?

This seems more ancillary to the question of it not being "good to be good" however.

Reply to ZisKnow

Actions alone can be judged as moral or immoral, morality is tied to what we do, not necessarily what we think or feel.

This is a very important point. The idea of immoral thoughts and feelings is quite pernicious, I think, and I believe a large subset of people take the opposite to be the case. Many governments go so far as to criminalize speech, for instance.

Yet, the voice, the mind, the feelings, release the least amount of kinetic energy, so little that neither could flit a feather, let alone cause pain or harm in other people. So there is still a moral superstition wherever thinking and speaking is concerned.

Reply to Count Timothy von Icarus
I appreciate your thoughtful critique it raises an important distinction between focusing on the actor and focusing on their actions. While I agree that the moral character of a person plays a role in shaping their decisions and intent, I would argue that actions provide a clearer and more universal standard for moral judgment.

For me, morality isn’t about labelling people as good or bad it’s about evaluating specific actions based on their inherent nature, intent, and consequences. This avoids the subjectivity that can arise from judging an actor’s character alone. Even a good person can commit immoral acts, just as someone with questionable character might still perform moral ones. Furthermore, if you focus on the actor instead of the act, it requires information that you simply cannot access, a level of omniscience about someone’s internal mental landscape. By focusing on actions, I aim to avoid having a solely internal moral system and instead develop one that is observable, open to scrutiny, and capable of being presented, critiqued, and debated..

That said, your point about context is well taken. My framework addresses this by separating the morality of an action from its justification, allowing for reflection on both intent and outcomes without reducing morality to rigid rules or hypothetical scenarios. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on how we might reconcile the importance of the actor with the need for clear moral standards in evaluating actions.

Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus

Lastly, I am not sure of this. Can't desires be good or bad? Isn't the desire to rape or steal evil? Isn't an important part of freedom and "becoming a better person" about identifying which desires are truly choice worthy and fostering those, while working to uproot the others?

For me, a thought or desire becomes harmful only when it is acted upon, or when resisting it causes harm to the individual. For example, in the case of a desire to rape, it sounds callous, but what goes on inside someone's head is simply a reflection of their internal processes—it’s not inherently moral or immoral.

The danger lies in the action that follows the desire, or in how the individual responds to the desire internally. If suppressing such thoughts leads to self-harm—for instance, punishing themselves with thoughts like 'I don’t deserve to eat because I keep having these thoughts'—then the harm is real, but it’s tied to their response rather than the desire itself. The key, in my view, is how we manage our desires, not their mere existence

Reply to ZisKnow

I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on how we might reconcile the importance of the actor with the need for clear moral standards in evaluating actions.

I suppose the question here is "what is the primary purpose of ethics?" In Plato, Aristotle's Ethics, St. Augustine, Boethius, St. Thomas, Dante, etc. the key focus tends to be something like:

• How do we attain the summum bonum, what is truly best?
• How do we achieve the bonum vitae, living "the good life?"
• How exactly, practically, do we become good people and live good lives?
• And then: what do we need to achieve these (i.e. theoretical knowledge of goodness, practical knowledge/skills, self-development, training, education, and habituation in the virtues, the development of freedom, particularly reflexive "inner" freedom, etc.)

A lot of modern ethics tends to start instead from "what is right or wrong?" and I cannot help but see the influence of Reformation era theology here (even in atheist thought). "Law" comes to dominated as opposed to "desire." This is a broader trend, as one can see in the old science which spoke of non-living things "inclinations" or "drives," whereas the modern frame speaks in terms of "laws" and "obedience" (both are anthropomorphisms, just of different sorts—a cosmos driven and ordered by desire, chiefly love, versus one ordered by-often inscrutable-law.).

I find the former framing more useful, both practically and theoretically, although I do find great value in some later thinkers (e.g. Hegel, even though his approach is descriptive). I can think of many justifications here, but the biggest are:

A. "How do I live the best I can and be the best I can?" seems more straightforward and practical than "why should I be morally good or do what is right?" particuarly when moral good and rightness don't seem to necessarily be "what I will truly enjoy and benefit from most."

B. To get back to your main point, it seems to me that to be morally responsible for something one needs some degree of freedom. Someone who has been thoroughly manipulated, acts from extreme ignorance that they did not have any real chance to overcome, or who has received a terrible upbringing/education and acts from dire circumstances, seems less culpable for their acts. But defining freedom in terms of acts instead of persons seems particularly problematic. Not least because:

• We have control over our habits in the long term, but not the short term.
• We have control over our reflexive and unconscious responses in the long term, but not the short term.
• We exercise far greater control over our environment in the long term, and we shape our environment to help us enforce our moral preferences.
• We (hopefully) gain knowledge of what is choiceworthy over time and a capacity for self-control and self-determination. Children are less culpable for their acts for instance.
• We can change our own desires in the long term, and others can also shape our desires (e.g. through education). Virtue and vice are habits, and they can be trained or educated to some degree, but looking at isolated acts will tend to exclude this in an analysis of freedom.

Which is not to say we don't look at which acts are choiceworthy in the aggregate. But questions of law and custom seem to be of a different order. "What should out laws be?" is a policy discussion, but "how do we get people to obey them (and to want to obey them)?" seems to require a look at persons.

Clear moral standards are important, but it's as important to see how and why persons should agree to them. And you can also have moral standards that apply to whole persons, that's the entire idea of the virtues (e.g., prudence, fortitude, justice, and temperance). There is no less clarity in the cardinal virtues, indeed sometimes there is more.

For me, a thought or desire becomes harmful only when it is acted upon, or when resisting it causes harm to the individual. For example, in the case of a desire to rape, it sounds callous, but what goes on inside someone's head is simply a reflection of their internal processes—it’s not inherently moral or immoral

Yet they cannot be unrelated, right? What people actually do is a function of what they desire. And I'd argue that an important element of freedom is our ability to shape our desires (Harry Frankfurt's "second order volitions"). Likewise, what people want to do is shaped by their education, knowledge, habits, and personal development. Desire is not a black box, but something we can have more or less control over, at both the individual level and the social level.

The key, in my view, is how we manage our desires, not their mere existence

Right, but if one does not accept that any desire can be good or bad, then how does one decide which desires should be fostered and which we should attempt to drain of their power (if possible)? It seems to me that when people talk about being freed from various addictive behaviors, what improves people's lives is not solely that they come to drink less, or to eat a healthier diet, etc., but that they overcome and no longer have the intemperate desires that made excessive drinking, eating, etc. so hard to resist in the first place.

Anyhow, such a distinction has major implications for education. An older view of education saw education's highest aim as teaching people: "what is best and choiceworthy," "what we ought to desire," and "helping to orient people towards those things." Now it seems more common to drill younger children in mere obedience and then, if ethics is addressed at all, it is only in a highly politicized form. The entire idea that education can be primarily vetted in terms of how it improves future earnings (and thus future freedom to consume) is grounded in this sort of notion.

To be sure, you mention an important problem, people responding inappropriately to their natural desires. Yet it has always been strange to me how we moved from "people should not put effort into suppressing," say, "homosexual romantic desire," i.e., "this is not unchoiceworthy" to "no desire at all can be unchoiceworthy," and thus "we need an ethics centered around the maximum fulfillment of desire" (making allowance for equity and the maximization of efficiency, etc.).

I suppose here is a fine example of the difference. In The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis writes:

Let us suppose for a moment that the harder virtues could really be theoretically justified with no
appeal to objective value. It still remains true that no justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous. Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the animal organism. I had sooner play cards against a man who was quite sceptical about ethics, but bred to believe that 'a gentleman does not cheat', than against an irreproachable moral philosopher who had been brought up
among sharpers. In battle it is not syllogisms that will keep the reluctant nerves and muscles to their post in the third hour of the bombardment. The crudest sentimentalism (such as Gaius and Titius would wince at) about a flag or a country or a regiment will be of more use.

We were told it all long ago by Plato. As the king governs by his executive, so Reason in man must rule the mere appetites by means of the 'spirited element'.20 The head rules the belly through the chest—the seat, as Alanus tells us, of Magnanimity,21 of emotions organized by trained habit into stable sentiments. The Chest-Magnanimity-Sentiment—these are the indispensable liaison officers between cerebral man and visceral man. It may even be said that it is by this middle element that man is man: for by his intellect he is mere spirit and by his appetite mere animal.

The operation of The Green Book and its kind is to produce what may be called Men without Chests. It is an outrage that they should be commonly spoken of as Intellectuals. This gives them the chance to say that he who attacks them attacks Intelligence. It is not so. They are not distinguished from other men by any unusual skill in finding truth nor any virginal ardour to pursue her. Indeed it would be strange if they were: a persevering devotion to truth, a nice sense of intellectual honour, cannot be long maintained without the aid of a sentiment which Gaius and Titius could debunk as easily as any other. It is not excess of thought but defect of fertile and generous emotion that marks them out. Their heads are no bigger than the ordinary: it is the atrophy of the chest beneath that makes them seem so.

Charlotte Mason would be another big voice in this direction. Children are "whole persons," and must be oriented towards the good as such. Simply affirming proper propositional moral attitudes is not enough.

Quoting ZisKnow

Ultimately, I fall back on the conviction that some acts are simply moral or immoral by their nature. It’s a deeply held belief that truth-telling is moral, while lying is immoral. I admit it’s not a logically airtight answer, but for me, it’s foundational to my moral framework, it just is.

Okay. Visceral belief.
I do not believe truth-telling and lying have definable natures - there are too many varieties of truth and variations on how one presents information. I prefer what you seem to consider the logical reason that isn't about the nature of lying, but about the character of social organizations: If the members of a community do not trust one another, the community cannot function. The building of trust among people depends on being able to believe and feeling safe in believing one's compatriots.

Quoting ZisKnow

For me, morality isn’t about labelling people as good or bad it’s about evaluating specific actions based on their inherent nature, intent, and consequences. This avoids the subjectivity that can arise from judging an actor’s character alone.

Just for the sake of argument and to understanding context - why are you concerned about morality at all? When people start theorising about morality, I often wonder about purpose. Do you believe that if you don't think about the matter in some theoretical way you will cause harm?

I suspect that no one here has any capacity to influence the world's moral behaviour, just our own. Do you not find that acting from intuition is not enough? Can you provide examples of where your moral theorising has made a significant difference in your actions or assessments?

Welcome to TPF.

Quoting ZisKnow

I also believe that to fairly judge an action, one must set aside the circumstances and intent and evaluate the act itself.

We can judge the performance of a motor itself while setting aside circumstances and intent (which motors are not supposed to have). I don't see how we can evaluate a person's significant act in isolation from the circumstances and intent. What is left to evaluate?

I picked up a rock and smashed your window. In the absence of circumstance and intent, you might consider how well I threw the rock or how much repairing the window would cost. It would be much more useful if you considered WHY I threw the rock through YOUR window, and not someone else's. Did I wish to harm you and your family? Did I want to scare you? Did I want to drain your bank account? What happened in the several days before your window was broken?

Granted, there are events that do not involve intent. My rear wheel kicked up a rock that hit your windshield and broke it. The event was without intent. The only relevant circumstance is that we were both on the same road.

Quoting ZisKnow

morality is tied to what we do, not necessarily what we think or feel

Sure. I agree. But one could quarrel with this position.

For one thing, what we DO is quite often related directly to what we were or are THINKING. First degree murder involves planning. Supporting one's alumni scholarship fund also requires planning.

FWIW, Jesus thought that our thoughts counted; "Whoever hates his brother is a murderer": the thought and the act are weighed the same. We don't want that standard to apply in civil court, for sure; we'd all be behind bars! For our own good (setting salvation aside) cultivating moral thought is probably a better strategy than cultivating wicked thought.

Quoting Tom Storm

I suspect that no one here has any capacity to influence the world's moral behaviour, just our own. Do you not find that acting from intuition is not enough? Can you provide examples of where your moral theorising has made a significant difference in your actions or assessments?

I don't think I have ever asked myself what is the moral thing to do. I generally know whether something I've done harms someone unnecessarily or shirks one of my responsibilities. My intuition, conscience, heart, or Te provide all the guidance I need. They tell me when I've done something wrong. Moral codes only seem to be useful for looking for loopholes or stopping someone else from doing something I don't like.

Reply to T Clark I think I have largely come around to your way of looking at this.

Quoting ZisKnow

I also believe that to fairly judge an action, one must set aside the circumstances and intent and evaluate the act itself.

I think this misses a gap between 'acting on knowledge' and 'result'. Lets say that I know that if I donate to a charity that the money will be spent to save kids lives. I donate a large sum to the charity. The director who had been honest with the money up until now, sees the large sum and instead of donating most of us, gives into greed and finds a way to funnel it to their bank account. If I had not donated such a large sum, the director never would have given into greed and the charity would have continued uncorrupted. Did I do wrong?

We generally evaluate an action as moral based on what a person knew at the time. If the charity had a reputation of honest and efficient use of the money, the action has moral intent. A moral action is always a prediction of the future however. The future that we predict does not always come to pass. Thus we don't morally judge a person based on an outcome that they could not know for certain, but an action based on what seemed to be the most reasonable and predictable outcome at the time.

We can also mirror this. A person could intend to shoot up a school that day. As they're about to open fire on the school playground outside, they trip, their gun fires accidently, and it kills a serial killer who would have never been caught, stopping their murderous rampage forever. The would be kid killer is arrested before they can kill anyone else. This was a 'good outcome' but the action of the person was not moral. They'll be tried for attempted murder and possibly convicted.

Quoting Philosophim

I think this misses a gap between 'acting on knowledge' and 'result'. Lets say that I know that if I donate to a charity that the money will be spent to save kids lives. I donate a large sum to the charity. The director who had been honest with the money up until now, sees the large sum and instead of donating most of us, gives into greed and finds a way to funnel it to their bank account. If I had not donated such a large sum, the director never would have given into greed and the charity would have continued uncorrupted. Did I do wrong?

So I have touched on this with other replies, but using your example

If "the act of giving money away to help others" is the action here. That's judged morally pure, and doesn't need reflection after the fact

If instead the action is "the act of giving money away to help others knowing it's mostly being siphoned off by corruption" then it's immoral, and you have to question your intent

It all depends on how causally linked things are in what you can see in the moment, not with hindsight

Quoting ZisKnow

It all depends on how causally linked things are in what you can see in the moment, not with hindsight

I agree. Most things require both context, and the result. I believe that a person can only make a decision based on what they know, and with a high certainty that the outcome will result in a positive. We also need a way to evaluate the outcome itself. Thus a person could make what they believed to be a good action, but through no fault of their judgement resulted in a bad outcome.

Quoting ZisKnow

For me, this system of morality is less about metaphysical constructs or universal truths and more about guiding decisions to become the best version of yourself. While I hold personal beliefs that the judgment of actions is universal—shared across humanity—I also believe that to fairly judge an action, one must set aside the circumstances and intent and evaluate the act itself.

It's good when one has an idea of what morality is. But I notice that, there is much less in the way of explaining the reason for contrasting the practical morality/consequentialism against the universal moral principles. Because to me, they are not in the same realm of deliberation. For example, the 'will' does not point to a concrete object that we can use when making an argument in favor of the harm principle.