right and wrong

[~kitty~]

Re: right and wrong

But if everyone thinks the same subjective thing, is it still subjective?

I suppose I did not explicitly state the source for it, but rather talked about it as if I had stated it explicitly.
1. I know what hurt and happiness is on a personal level. Hurt is bad for me personally, happiness good. For myself, happiness becomes right, hurt becomes wrong.
2. I believe there exist billions of other humans who also have the capacity for hurt and happiness; these people exist, they are real, and I think they also have the same capacities as I do in terms of experiencing pain and pleasure. Irrelevant of whether I care for an individual or not, their hurt and pleasure is real, and it is right and wrong to them individually.
3. Since whatever I say as is the definition of moral will be seen as subjective, it seems that I cannot simply end at 2. However, it is quite a bit easier to define what is not moral. Anything that anyone does that any individual experiences as hurtful is wrong to that individual, or anything that an individual thinks is immoral, and considering 1 and 2, it therefore can't be moral. That it seems impossible to please everyone is irrelevant because we can try. The only way to minimize the immoralness (amoralness?) is to minmize everyone's own hurt (and it seems that conversely, maximize happiness should work using this argument also, although I have not thought about that.) Which is then the definition of moral, it making the immoral/amoralness minimal.

That argument isn't really the source of my opinion, but I think it supports it quite well. The source of my opinion was only 1 and 2.

"To you, subjectively in your own opinion. So what you're saying is "If it's my opinion that something is wrong, if it's your opinion that it isn't wrong, I'm correct, you're incorrect, and my opinion is the factual reflection of universal law" to which I say, again, source? Where is your evidence that you are right and they aren't? The fact that the idea of owning a slave makes you feel icky inside? That's not objective morality."

Right, that's not objective morality, but that's not what I'm saying. Firstly, I went to great lengths that basically say that my own feeling of ickiness is not the crux of the ideology. It's in the rambling paragraph in the middle. I merely pointed out that the icky feeling exists. Secondly, the ideology itself does not say that I know what is best for everyone, but rather that what's best for everyone is what's best for everyone. If my morals butt against someone else's morals, my morals (if I would be thinking about/applying them correctly), would be right only if the other's are blatantly not thinking about what's best for everyone. (Now and future everyone's might I add also, so long as the future is relatively accurately predictable regarding the moral issue in question.) However, I have also said "all subjectiveness revolving around right and wrong should come from differences in opinion regarding creating more happiness and less hurt", which still leaves vast room for individual differences and for a moral person to have a different idea of what is right from me.

I think what's "right" and "wrong" to a person usually is about themselves. Hurting others isn't "wrong," hurting ME is wrong. The reason people think that hurting others is wrong is because it is somehow reflected unto themselves. Sometimes it's because of social issues.

Also, lots of cliche statements can show that I'm right. Something like "don't do to others what you wouldn't want done to yourself." It's about yourself, that statement makes it seem like what you do to others may be done to you by those others.

Some people think it's right to take revenge, so what's best for everyone can't really exist when we have ideas like that. Sometimes people do something to someone without realizing they've crossed some sort of barrier or done something wrong to the person, and the person would feel happy by taking revenge.

Revenge is cliched to not do anything, and even make someone feel worse. Honestly, I can't say that most people who take revenge feel that way.

[UserNameGoesHere]

Re: right and wrong

My understanding of this thread is that it's something like "Is there an objective basis to the concepts of right and wrong, or are they entirely subjective?" My answer is that I just don't know. I can't say that it is objectively measurable or at least I can't think of an objective measure for it but that doesn't mean such a measure doesn't or cannot exist.

Certainly it is easy to come up with examples of what you would consider right or wrong, but are these entirely subjective (certainly many of them are), or are some of them rooted in a more universal, objective law? If they are rooted in an objective law, how would you go about proving it?

[Cavernio]

Re: right and wrong

Kitty: "I think what's "right" and "wrong" to a person usually is about themselves. Hurting others isn't "wrong," hurting ME is wrong"

One's actions are usually about themselves, yes, which is a separate thing. It is an aside to what I'm trying to show, and doesn't negate anything I've said. In fact, if you remove the motivator behind the individual's actions, what you said perfectly reflects what I've suggested as proof: If I believe you exist, and I believe it is wrong to hurt myself, then it is wrong to hurt you.

As to the revenge thing, I have never said there is a knowable right and wrong, and specifically said it is impossible to please everybody. Reasons like that are part of the impetus for me defining morality as the opposite of immoral acts.

magic: I'm damned if I don't and thanks to you apparently I'm damned if I do too :-p

[ledwix]

Re: right and wrong

But if everyone thinks the same subjective thing, is it still subjective?

Yes. If all 7 billion people thought the earth was flat, would that make it an objective truth about the universe? It is possible for biological organisms to be deluded. Agreement does not necessarily equal fact.

1. I know what hurt and happiness is on a personal level. Hurt is bad for me personally, happiness good. For myself, happiness becomes right, hurt becomes wrong.

How do you know that your experiences and your judgments of those experiences are derived from an objective source? You are just yourself, a human being, with certain reactions to certain stimuli, and a definite evolutionary bias toward your own kind. Have you ever eaten meat? I eat it several times a week. Those meats are slaughtered. Slaughtering is not happiness; it is hurt. So where do you stand now? Life is a competition. Things have to eat other things to survive. Being eaten is torture. But starving is also torture. Either way, someone has to suffer. Your bias toward your own being is an evolutionary urge, not an objective truth. Our brains just trick ourselves into believing that our opinions are absolute dogma so that we will not sway from them.

2. I believe there exist billions of other humans who also have the capacity for hurt and happiness; these people exist, they are real, and I think they also have the same capacities as I do in terms of experiencing pain and pleasure. Irrelevant of whether I care for an individual or not, their hurt and pleasure is real, and it is right and wrong to them individually.

We evolved as a social species, so naturally the Venn Diagram of personal morality vs population morality is going to have a lot of shared space. Otherwise we would have died out from not being coherent enough in our social endeavors and killing ourselves. Civilization is a bunch of collective intrapersonal biases, not a body of people being subjected to a universal standard.

...it is quite a bit easier to define what is not moral. Anything that anyone does that any individual experiences as hurtful is wrong to that individual, or anything that an individual thinks is immoral, and considering 1 and 2, it therefore can't be moral. That it seems impossible to please everyone is irrelevant because we can try. The only way to minimize the immoralness (amoralness?) is to minmize everyone's own hurt (and it seems that conversely, maximize happiness should work using this argument also, although I have not thought about that.) Which is then the definition of moral, it making the immoral/amoralness minimal.

Immoral actions are "wrong," while amoral actions are simply actions, with no judgment value imposed upon them.

But anyway, all judgment values are inherently subjective. The judgment is always being made by an individual, not by some aether that penetrates the entire universe or anything like that. And individuals are programmed organisms, with programming biased toward the survival of their own kind. Eating other animals IS hurtful and considered "wrong" to the animal who wants to survive but is instead being slaughtered. Now I'm no vegetarian, but just saying: you either eat, or starve. Both scenarios include suffering, which renders the whole objective morality stance bogus. It would mean that BOTH actions, eating and starving, would be immoral. And so nothing is moral.

The more rational way to think of it is that slaughtering an animal to feed your family is subjectively perceived as wrong by the livestock, but subjectively perceived as right by the family. There is no absolute source of the judgment; only different vantage points guided by innate urges.

[ddrxero64]

Re: right and wrong

Quote from RubiedCross:
"Saying something is "Right" or "Wrong" is a completely SUBJECTIVE and OPINIONATED statement."

RubiedCross is completely correct. What we see as right or wrong is what we evolved to think is right or wrong.

Thousands of years ago people thought rape was perfectly ok.

Hundreds of years ago interracial marriage was seen as horribly wrong.

Dozens of years from now abortion and stem cell research could be seen as the best option to reducing human population due to high volume.

We might not like certain things, that remains fact, but something being "right" or "wrong" is an opinion, not fact. Only numbers and certain sciences are completely factual in life.

[Cavernio]

Re: right and wrong

Ledwix: Really? It's like you read the intial post, then took my most recent post and just added paragraphs at breaking points in my argument, while reading none of the discussion inbetween, even though I suspect you didn't.

"If all 7 billion people thought the earth was flat, would that make it an objective truth about the universe? It is possible for biological organisms to be deluded. Agreement does not necessarily equal fact."
is not really relevant to my intended statement. If I say 'the sky is blue', it is completely mired in individual experience, such that if every human being thought the sky is blue, then so be it. And the number of people who think the sky is blue changes whether or not the sky is actually blue. To have the capacity to see blue is subjective, and yet there is an objective truth that extends from that subjectivity, namely that the sky is blue.

"you either eat, or starve. Both scenarios include suffering, which renders the whole objective morality stance bogus. It would mean that BOTH actions, eating and starving, would be immoral. And so nothing is moral."
...
Hence a reason why I defined moral as the opposite of immoral, and moral is minimizing immoralness. Furthermore, the fact that I do eat meat despite not having to do so means that I am being immoral when I eat it. I also specifically said that what people do is not necessarily moral and that what drives people doesn't have to be moral.

Using your meat example even more, to show how my ideas of morality can still be objective, regardless of whether or not I carefully weigh and consider what is moral or not when I eat, the fact remains that an animal dies when I eat it, and the animal probably does not want that. That is why in the vegan thread I was so against people who are like 'Being vegan's a choice, don't get pissy at me when I support torturing animals, its my choice, and it's a perfectly moral one.' But that animal is still tortured, whether or not I or you really care if it is, whether or not you think you are justified in eating it. Now...if you're too dumb to know that you are eating what once was an animal, that is different.

ddrxero: We evolved a brain and the ability to be logical. Seeing as our brains create factual, objective things like science and numbers, I don't know why something like morality should be any different. It's just a hell of a lot harder to be moral, and way more things to know and think of. Also, Examples of how people fail at being moral don't show anything. Examples of how people think they are moral even though, given more information, we find they are not, still does not counter anything I've said.


Aside: Also in regards to eating meat, if an animal is given a happy existence so that people can eat it, I don't see it as immoral. Rather, we have the control over whether it exists at all, and existence is better than no existence. Of course, if there were to be woods in that farmland instead, it might be more moral to not raise animals.

[ddrxero64]

Re: right and wrong

Numbers and sciences have always existed, we created the symbols, words, and language to label them but they've always been there. We didn't create factual, objective things, we discovered them. When you touch something hot, you discover it's hot. You didn't make it hot, it already was.

Morals are what we created to be wrong or right, and everyone will see that differently. Society is just run by the majority who take one side.

Mind you, I have things I find immoral, but I acknowledge they're just opinion and something I cannot control. Similar to phobias, you accept it's a phobia but you can't alter the feeling it gives you, at least not easily (hence why people find it difficult to go against their own morals).

[stargroup100]

Re: right and wrong

There's a very simple reason why I don't like participating in these kinds of discussions anymore.

There are some concepts that are very simple and can be agreed upon to be true for virtually all cases, such as the fact that morals vary between cultures, or that "right" and "wrong" are concepts created by mankind. These should not be points of discussion. In order to really think critically, you have to understand and discuss the nature of these concepts and how they shape our perception of morality, such as that SMBC comic devonin posted.

For the large majority of people, however, this is a topic that, regardless of how you discuss it, you should treat it as simply as possible in real life (and most people will do this anyways, thank god). The more you try to rationalize it, the more it doesn't make sense. Some things in the universe can be rationalized and should be rationalized, but other things are either not worth rationalizing or too complex to rationalize, or both. Thinking too much on this subject will either get you nowhere, or in more extreme cases, deteriorate your mental health.

For most people, the practical real life summary of this discussion is as follows:
- The golden rule: treat others how you want to be treated.
- Happiness is good, pain and suffering is usually bad. Should the latter happen, at least try to avoid it in the future.

[ddrxero64]

Re: right and wrong

- Happiness is good, pain and suffering is usually bad. Should the latter happen, at least try to avoid it in the future.

I agreed until I read this. Now I agree every human lives in the pursuit of happiness, every decision you make is to pursue something that you want or like. I'm glad you used the word usually though, but pain and suffering is needed in order to know and enjoy happiness.

I think this would be derailing if I discussed it though. I can agree with most of your post and agree to disagree.

[Cavernio]

Re: right and wrong

"Mind you, I have things I find immoral, but I acknowledge they're just opinion and something I cannot control. Similar to phobias, you accept it's a phobia but you can't alter the feeling it gives you, at least not easily (hence why people find it difficult to go against their own morals)."
Accepting loss of self-control is called self-fulfilling prophecy. If you can't control your opinion, then you definitely can't control your actions, and humans definitely wouldn't have any ideas of morality because it would all be beyond our control anyways...

Keep in mind that the impetus for the post was someone saying in the 'is it wrong to be gay?' from someone who likely feels that it is wrong to be gay. They're defense? 'Morals are individual things, you don't have the right to get upset at someone who feels that being gay is wrong because that person's morals are their own.' Oh really? So, it's acceptable for them to dislike gays because their morals tell them it is so, and yet it is unacceptable for my morals to say that a gay-hater is wrong? Whose morals are higher? A gay hater, or a person who hates the gay hater? Is that a dumb question? Is such a thing as a 'higher' moral possible? Why or why not? Why is it that when we start to question individual morals that clash, or discuss any moral question, in order to resolve anything we must take a step back to examine them from a more logical perspective?
And if you don't, then how can you call them morals if they are so clearly only self-serving?

Sure, we can say that people developed moral standards because ultimately they want to be treated well, but what about when someone's actions don't follow that? What if I don't eat meat not because I feel bad for imaginary pigs in my head, but because I logically think it's wrong to eat pigs? Surely it's not me being subconsciously worried that someone might kill and eat ME so therefore I shouldn't eat a pig.

Also, hot doesn't exist without a person. Heat does. Although I'm having a hard time seeing how this discussion has anything to do with applying logic to morality, which is what this whole damned thing was supposed to be about.

off-track: So...stargroup's clumping all 'macro' discussions for any number of topics into a subtype that he feels shouldn't be talked about in no way, shape or form uses the same sort of meta-thinking that the comic itself was against, while it is somehow valid to be so meta when invalidating metaness. Macroness/metaness is how the human mind synthesizes all the fiddly bits of information. Without it we wouldn't have intelligence, we wouldn't have any understanding of a whole of any type. We wouldn't even see ourselves as individuals.
(I'm also pretty sure I'm not a very mentally healthy person.)

[ddrxero64]

Re: right and wrong

"Mind you, I have things I find immoral, but I acknowledge they're just opinion and something I cannot control. Similar to phobias, you accept it's a phobia but you can't alter the feeling it gives you, at least not easily (hence why people find it difficult to go against their own morals)." Accepting loss of self-control is called self-fulfilling prophecy. If you can't control your opinion, then you definitely can't control your actions, and humans definitely wouldn't have any ideas of morality because it would all be beyond our control anyways...

Keep in mind that the impetus for the post was someone saying in the 'is it wrong to be gay?' from someone who likely feels that it is wrong to be gay. They're defense? 'Morals are individual things, you don't have the right to get upset at someone who feels that being gay is wrong because that person's morals are their own.' Oh really? So, it's acceptable for them to dislike gays because their morals tell them it is so, and yet it is unacceptable for my morals to say that a gay-hater is wrong?

I will rephrase for you. It is something I can control, but I accept it is difficult for me to change something I've been raised to believe my whole life. If you grow up and your entire life you're led to believe murder is wrong, it's very hard for you to ever consider it being ok. Yet in other countries young teenage soldiers could never accept someone escaping the death penality for a crime, they feel it is their duty to enforce the law they've lived with their whole life.

No one is saying it is unacceptable for you to say a gay hater is wrong. This is where your argument just starts to spiral out of control. Nowhere in this thread has anyone said your morals were wrong. I've been saying there's no such thing as right or wrong not attacking your morals, whatever they may be.

HERE'S THE PART THAT MATTERS.

Cavernio, you make a lot of fallacies in your argument. So I'm going to provide you with the two you've brought up most.

Argumentum ad consequentiam or Appeal to consequences - This fallacy is where you conclude that a premise must be right/wrong because the consequences of it being right/wrong are desireable/undesireable. Example: If God didn't exist, life would be meaningless. I desire life to have meaning, therefore God exists.

Murder is wrong because it would cause a lot of trauma to the family being affected, and because it is unpleasant to see death. It is possible murdering this one person may save dozens maybe thousands of lives because the man was a terrorist. It is possible if he was jailed he may have escaped due to connections. We don't know if it's right or wrong for this man to be murdered (because it's neither), we're looking at the possibilities of consequences of him being murdered or kept alive and jailed.

Argumentum ad Baculum or Appeal to force - This fallacy is where you conclude that a premise is right/wrong because there is a threat of punishment to do otherwise. Example: Believe in God or you will go to hell.

An 18 year old having sex with a 15 year old girlfriend is wrong because he will go to jail if he does. The law is created by man, not fact, and he may move to Canada and have intercourse with this girlfriend without going to jail. It is unlawful in some countries, but it is only right or wrong because you think it is and because it would cause negative consequences due to the laws set forth by the country.

Cavernio, you're full of fallacies. You should look over devonin's fallacy thread before putting out arguments that are full of them.

Edit:

Also, hot doesn't exist without a person. Heat does.

I hope you're not serious.

...just in case you are here's a quick lesson.

"It is hot."

"It is heat."

"Heat is hot."

"Heat" is the noun. "It" is the pronoun being described by the adjective "hot," and "it" is referring to "heat." Hot exists if heat exists. It can exist without being discovered by a person. Hot is what we call the feeling heat gives us, but if another lifeform had evolved to create their own language they may describe it as something else. Even then what we are referring to when we say "hot" will still exist even if we don't.

[devonin]

Re: right and wrong

I hope you're not serious.

...just in case you are here's a quick lesson.

"It is hot."

"It is heat."

"Heat is hot."

"Heat" is the noun. "It" is the pronoun being described by the adjective "hot," and "it" is referring to "heat." Hot exists if heat exists. It can exist without being discovered by a person. Hot is what we call the feeling heat gives us, but if another lifeform had evolved to create their own language they may describe it as something else. Even then what we are referring to when we say "hot" will still exist even if we don't.

Well actually, the point he raises is correct. Heat exists independent of humans. We can measure it in places we aren't, we know things that generate it that would generate it whether we were here or not. But 'Hot' is a term we've coined to describe the sensation we feel when exposed to heat.

While it's true that another species developing independently from ours would almost certainly -also- have a term for the sensation they feel when exposed to heat, the statement "Hot doesn't exist without a person" is exactly as true and relevant to his point as "Slurm doesn't exist without a bocatlzian"

The point is "Things exist on their own, and then we interact with them, and apply terms and names to the consequences of those interactions."

There is a scientific definition of "heat" we know what heat is in a vacuum. There are things which are objectively "generating heat" or not, but it is a subjective decision on the part of an individual to choose what to define as "hot" or not. My girlfriend runs the shower -dramatically- hotter than I do. What I consider to be "hot" water, she considers to be "lukewarm" water. And what she calls "hot" I call "Scalding" but in both cases, the water is objectively an instance of -heat-

Edit: Also, when you get right down to it, given the actual scientific definition of "heat" even things we consider to be freezing cold are actually generating heat. Compare the contents of your freezer to Absolute Zero and see how cold they are. We call all kinds of things "not hot" that are properly quite hot indeed.

[ddrxero64]

Re: right and wrong

When you put it that way you're completely right, I didn't consider that temperatures to us could feel or just be drastically different to another species or in general. Well, in general hot is an opinion. Aat the same time I doubt that's what he was trying to argue, at least you provided more comprehensible and less faulty logic. I fudged up on that one. Off the side that's probably the point in his post I started to throw all logic out the window.

What I should say is the cause of the sensation can exist even if we're not here. But in those terms the sensation cannot exist if there is nothing to sense it. damn..

To be honest I'm pretty happy you pointed that out, it's not often I see completely sensible and logical arguments without bias in this forum. Thx devonin~

Edit: devonin what is this..

[devonin]

Re: right and wrong

Edit: devonin what is this..

You said that hot would exist with another lifeform besides humans having evolved. I pointed out that the point was identical whether it was humans or some random other life form. I made the word up.

[ddrxero64]

Re: right and wrong

ok, thanks for clearing that up. I wasn't sure if you were referring to a legitimate term, but I see the reason you used a made up word. Probably a reference to slurm being used before as a pretend word too. I wasn't too sure.