Aberrant RPG - Who ARE the good guys?

[T-dev]

So you are really arguing Hobbs to me. Might makes right & we create ethical systems to be able to interact with each other & for protect. Again though I would say that you must give justification that ability equals a right, or somehow point out the flaw in my assertion that rights are based on something beyond ability. Also, what you are reducing morality &/or ethics to is preference & convience. This becomes a problem when the universality of certain moral standards are taken into account. I would also challenge you to show an instance were morals really are relative. I know you will throw out something for me. I would like a specific example.

Again to the issue of the use of the terms ethics & morality. You are assuming that morality rests upon the belief in absolutes, but when you don't then you follow relativistic morality. If you believe in absolutes, then you have ethics based on absolutes.

Also, I think your issue is not really with existence of absolute morality, but how it is applied. Just because a person believes in absolutes does not mean they have to be rigid in their ethically thinking. You are a perfect example. You believe in several absolute moral principles. I'll list a few.

1) Good & evil do not exist.

2) The ability to do something cares with it the right to something.

3) Ethics & morality are distinct.

4) Ethnics are relative.

Your moral system seems quite flexible & yet it is built on the belief in several objective absolutes. Remeber when you say something is absolute, you are saying it is always true. From your posts it is easy to see that you believe that 1-4 are always true.

[Ayre el KaBeer]

Oh NO!!! ::crazy I can see where this is going! ::lookaround I'll be avoiding this thread from now on, i urge others to follow... ::ninja ::ninja ::ninja

t-dev ummm... DUCK!!! ::shocked

[Nullifier]

Oh NO!!!  I can see where this is going!  I'll be avoiding this thread from now on, i urge others to follow...   

t-dev ummm... DUCK!!!

You're just jealous that you don't have enough time on your hands to write long winded discourses like I do. ::tongue

That being said...

So you are really arguing Hobbs to me. Might makes right & we create ethical systems to be able to interact with each other & for protect. Again though I would say that you must give justification that ability equals a right, or somehow point out the flaw in my assertion that rights are based on something beyond ability. Also, what you are reducing morality &/or ethics to is preference & convience. This becomes a problem when the universality of certain moral standards are taken into account. I would also challenge you to show an instance were morals really are relative. I know you will throw out something for me. I would like a specific example.

First, it's not just Hobbes, although I do admit to the influence. It is not my task to convince you that ability and right are, at times in humans and other animals, one in the same. However, realize that 'right,' in terms of human interaction generally only has to do with the consequences of action, whether they be physical, mental, cultural, environment, political, etc. Our ability to cope with these consequences, to enforce our actions, is part of the ability that makes up our 'right' to do them. There are, unfortunately, no specific examples I could give you since I believe that all instances in which there is a question of the 'correctness' or 'rightness' of human action and interaction are relative, not only to each other, but to the rest of both or conscious and subconscious perceptions of the world. I do not believe that this is a liscence to flagrantly violate the particular ethics of one's society, however, but a way to more own our sensory experiences and understand them more deeply and thouroughly. 'Cause maybe if we manage to do that, we'll stop treating the world of our perceptions as destructively. There is no true universality of moral standards. There is a general consensus about certain things \"morally\" speaking, and there are certainly fairly universal legal consensuses about certain things, but neither is totally, or even close to about many things, universal. Some are even antithetical to others.

,,

Again to the issue of the use of the terms ethics & morality. You are assuming that morality rests upon the belief in absolutes, but when you don't then you follow relativistic morality. If you believe in absolutes, then you have ethics based on absolutes.

Also, I think your issue is not really with existence of absolute morality, but how it is applied. Just because a person believes in absolutes does not mean they have to be rigid in their ethically thinking. You are a perfect example. You believe in several absolute moral principles. I'll list a few.

1) Good & evil do not exist.

2) The ability to do something cares with it the right to something.

3) Ethics & morality are distinct.

4) Ethnics are relative.

Your moral system seems quite flexible & yet it is built on the belief in several objective absolutes. Remeber when you say something is absolute, you are saying it is always true. From your posts it is easy to see that you believe that 1-4 are always true.

If you believe in absolutes, you tend to have ethics based in morality, if you have ethics at all, but not always. Sometimes moral and ethical systems are different from each other in one person. I don't believe anything about the existence or non-existence of good and evil. I'm disinterested in the metaphysics of it. I'm cognizant that they seem to be part of my sensorioum, mostly as concepts but sometimes as molds for personalities that need filling in with things like reasons. There are usually reasons with humans.

The ability to do something, is, in a certain sense at least, the right to do it. In terms of the laws in this and other countries, might does to a certain extent make right. If you can get away with it, it's not a crime, yet it's possible to get thrown in jail, fined, totured, or even killed if you don't. That's the way the law works. If they have enough might, mentally and/or physically, to control your actions then they control your ability to do things. To control your rights. Might makes right in a very real way in society and human interaction in general. If it's not obvious to you that this is the case, then there's little I can do to convince you of it.

Morality is an abstraction, a religion, based on faith alone . Ethics are actual standards of behaviour. They can be based on moral beliefs about good and evil, right and wrong, but they are not, and should not be mistaken for, those beliefs. These, however, are just my definition of the terms. I welcome you to yours, even though I disagree with them and find them to be a rather dangerous and insidious meme.

I believe everything's relative, not just ethics. Because all that exists in the world is informational relationships. Even the quality of relativity is relative. All I have are my brain's perceptions, and it builds my world based on the comparison of them to each other, thus, it's all relative. This again, is an empirical read of the situation, my perceptions approximated in language here.

There don't seem to be any absolutes... One would assume that that includes that the absolute, "there are no absolutes" is probably not an absolute... Or maybe it is. ::confused Who cares, really? An absolute is like infinity, death, or any number of other things that most of us can think around, but never really about with any useful meaning. We can't know them, or if we do then we can't know that we know them. Their existence, or lack thereof, lies outside of out ability to percieve. So who cares whether or not they exist? We'll probably never know. The concept of 'em is all I can percieve currently, and so that's all I'm really concerned with. Generally speaking, so far as I've been able to tell, memes containing absolutes tend to be destructive, dangerous, infectious and ultimately self-defeating. Whether or not absolutes actually exist or not in some metaphysical sense is unimportant to me next to the detrimental effect memes perpetuating ideas of absolutes seem, from what I've been able to tell, to have on me and my fellow humans. ::devilangel

[T-dev]

I think before I go on with the discussion about morals, ethics, & rights. I need to ask you something.

Nullifier, do you really believe that everything is relative? Does that include EVERYTHING? If so then that would include the relativity itself; therefore absolutes would have to somewhere, somewhen exist or relativity would not be relativity. Also, if you say that the relativity of all things is the only absolute, that doesn't work either. Relativity by definition can not be absolute. Plus death seems to be an abolute to me. All that lives dies. Are you actually arguing that death is relative?

I would say that the informational relationships you speak of really deals more with how humans perceive the world not what the world may or not actually contain.

I would caution your negative attitude toward absolute morality. The Christian morality if followed commands that individuals love their neighbor as themselves. Is doing this harmful? Buddhism commands compassion on all living things. Is this negative?

Granted we can never know with perfect certainity that absolutes do or do not exist, but that doesn't mean we should try to know. Considering we as inperfect beings, can never know anything for perfect certainity or perfectly, does not means we should not be trying to understand any topic.

When one consinders the incredible good & bad done in the name of absolute morality, then I think actually quite important to9 at least try & discern if it exists. Consider how much one's worldview effects one's action, then I would say that you can list morality as abstraction, the effects of morality are definitley concrete.

[Nullifier]

Relativity by definition can not be absolute.

Erm. Perhaps we're defining it differently then, since it seems to me like it probably is?

. Plus death seems to be an abolute to me. All that lives dies. Are you actually arguing that death is relative?

I believe that death is relative, yes. It's certainly an important transition, but everything goes on in one form or another. Life and death are such wiggly concepts anyhow. All bluring together. Can't really telll where one ends and the other begins, sometimes.

I would say that the informational relationships you speak of really deals more with how humans perceive the world not what the world may or not actually contain.

Um. I thought I made clear that I don't care what's \"really\" there or not. Our perceptions are all we have to work with and since the relationships are part of my perception, I should probably pay attention to them, don't you think?

I would caution your negative attitude toward absolute morality. The Christian morality if followed commands that individuals love their neighbor as themselves. Is doing this harmful? Buddhism commands compassion on all living things. Is this negative?

Not always. Sometimes, though. Cooperation is good, but so is competition. Both are needed for the continuity of the system. It is true that we could certainly use some more cooperation as a species. However, setting absolutes on good and evil or right and wrong isn't the way to go about encouraging that cooperation in my opinion, as it tends to get people all angry and violent towards each other.

Granted we can never know with perfect certainity that absolutes do or do not exist, but that doesn't mean we should try to know. Considering we as inperfect beings, can never know anything for perfect certainity or perfectly, does not means we should not be trying to understand any topic.

Right, I agree. To me, though, setting up absolutes as morals or ethics is akin to crounching in percieved perfection instead of being informed by the idea of perfectability and constantly changing and adapting in search of it.

When one consinders the incredible good & bad done in the name of absolute morality, then I think actually quite important to9 at least try & discern if it exists.

I'm disinterested in its existence until it seems to be part of my reality as more than an idea that some people subscribe to. If you can make it part of my reality, I welcome you to, but until then, why bother, when there are so many other ways of looking at the world that have more basis in my experience?

At any rate, I don't doubt that some people believe in these absolutes and that they affect actions, sometimes positively, but also negatively in a large way. So to me, they represent a rather dangerous meme. They cause massive, unnecessary competition in our species and keep us from achieving a better world for our descentdants. I personally think it would be better if people investigated the spiritual themselves instead of having it spoon-fed to 'em.

[T-dev]

Sorry this response has taken so long....

Firstly, as to whether relativity can be an absolute. I don't believe it can be. If relativity was an absolute it would have to always have to be true & then relativity itself would have to be relative & therefore not an absolute.

Also I think you & I are working with two different definitions of the word reality. I understand it to mean what is, so no one has a reality. I would call what you are describing perception of reality or paradigm.

::unsure You are probably the first person I have heard say that they don't care about what really is there. Sheesh ::laugh

[Nullifier]

How can you ever know what really is? Furthermore, would it matter all that much to you? I mean, let's face it, all we have access to to understand ourselves and the world around us are our perceptions. Whether or not those perceptions are what is is irrelevant, because they're all we have to go on. So whether or not there is any Reality outside of what we percieve is also irrelevant, or at the very least unknowable. At any rate, I think it's a perfectly reasonable stance to take.

[phoenix]

Well put. Your perceptions of reality aren't a part of reality; they're a part of you. You can try to change the world, but all you can really change is the world's reflection in you. That's why those who adapt to their surroundings survive, while those who try to control their surroundings perish (re: Homo sapiens sapiens).

By the way, I really don't want to get into a religious debate, but what irritates me about the Christian faith is that they need a book to tell them that it's wrong to kill or rape or steal, and to threaten them with hell ( ::dry ) if they don't follow that credo. As far as I'm concerned, these things are wrong because I say they are wrong. I do not know these things because anybody told me.

An idea that's always fascinated me is this: what if a person was born who saw color in normal detail, but in negative? Nobody would ever know. What about right and left? There is a distinction, but it's an arbitrary one - there is no fundamental difference between the two. Has anyone read that short story by Arthur C. Clarke about the guy who has the two reversed, and suddenly realizes that he can't read?

[T-dev]

Actually Phoenix (I don't want to get into a religious debate either) the Bible says that you don't need anything to know those things are wrong & that on some level everybody knows it. The Bible just says that it is wrong because God said so & that you have His law (or rules) written on your heart, which is really just another way of saying that normal people have a consciece. I actually find this to be one of the eastiest points to disprove about that belief system.

Actually Nullifier I care a great deal about what is really out there & I know my knowledge most likely will always be imperfect (although I wonder if this will always be true, but my thoughts on that subject are complex). Just because I can never know reality with perfect certainity or understanding doesn't mean that I still don't seek to understand it at all. Even if I find that all my understanding was totally false, I will still feel that my time was well spent in trying to know. If I took that attitude then why bother trying to learn anything, because I will always be relying on my perceptions for everything.

Phoenix, you are quite right human perceptions could be very flawed & to some degree are flawed. However I don't agree that any human has the right to determine what is moral. It is either based on a tracendent standard or it is really a sham. The human conscience isn't enough either. For morality to truely work it must be based on something bigger than humans. I mean if it is not, then why follow it? What you are left with is a tyranny of sorts. People don't do what their society tells them not to because they are afraid that society will hurt them if they do, or because they have been conditioned not to.

[Nullifier]

Actually Nullifier I care a great deal about what is really out there & I know my knowledge most likely will always be imperfect (although I wonder if this will always be true, but my thoughts on that subject are complex). Just because I can never know reality with perfect certainity or understanding doesn't mean that I still don't seek to understand it at all. Even if I find that all my understanding was totally false, I will still feel that my time was well spent in trying to know. If I took that attitude then why bother trying to learn anything, because I will always be relying on my perceptions for everything.

I think you may have missed the point. Since our perceptions are all we ever have access to, you'll never find out whether or not there is anything outside of them, nor can you. Therefore it's prudent and logical to pay attention those perceptions, to learn what one can of the world they create, as it's the only world you'll ever have access to. If you paid attention to my earlier posts I believe I was quite clear on this point, that paying close attention to one's perceptions is, in my estimation, an important and useful thing to do. ::smile

[phoenix]

Phoenix, you are quite right human perceptions could be very flawed & to some degree are flawed.

That's not what I said, but I agree with that too.

For morality to truly work it must be based on something bigger than humans.

::dontgetit Why?

[T-dev]

Sorry Phoenix, I thought that is what you meant by your reference to Arthur C Clarke. The idea that any individuals or all individuals perceptions might actually be really flawed & we just don't realise it. I was taking it a step further & saying that all individuals' perceptions are to dsome degree flawed & we work with what we have.

Now as to why morality must be based on something bigger then humans. If it is not then it si really just one human dominating another, or a group of humans dominating another. Let's not put nice window dressing on it. If I tell you something is wrong & I have no outside basis for the claim, it is a subjective claim. I say it because I want to. I may even believe it is wrong, but my beliefs, without an outside source of authurity, are no more valid then anyone else's, even those who radically disagree with me. If I conveonce or compell you to odey my desire then I am being tyrant of sorts. I am just making you do something because I can, through force or persuasion.

If morality has no basis outside of man then it is really just someone making you do what they want. This is a kind of tyranny, whether it is tyranny of the few or the many.

Nullifier, I meant that I am trying to broaden my perceptions as much as I can. I am trying to transcend my culure, race, & gender when it comes to understand what is & to seek truth. I understand that I am still using my flawed perception to do it, but what else can I do? As to whether there is anything outside ourslves, I must work under the assumption that there is, because again what else am I to do? I hope to one day find a way of knowing whether or not there is. I will Descarte has given me hope that there is & that a lot of things that have been questioned recently are really true.

Nullifier, I think you're arguement highlights the flaw in rationalism, the view that reason is enough to understand reality. Reason isn't & neither is sense data. Hume proved that one a while ago. However, I also think that man has another faculity with which to understand reality. ::smile

[phoenix]

I disagree. Morality is a universal code. The only test that needs be performed to determine whether or not something is right is asking oneself, "Which choice, if made by everybody in the world when confronted by this dillemma, would most benefit most people?" This question can only have one answer for each time it is asked. The only true moral discrepancy between people is whether or not this question is worth asking - some people may believe that everyone should just shift for himself. This is ridiculous in the big picture, but tempting when the "good" choice leaves the do-gooder with the short end of the stick.

I don't really understand your metaphor about morality being "bigger" or "smaller" than the human race. It is a convention, created by the human race for the benefit thereof.

[T-dev]

Phoenix there are several problems with your view of morality. Firstly, unless your are superhuman, there is no way to know what will benefit all humans. Also, if you are really following that your lifestyle is a far cry from that of most other people living in the West. Secondly, your system works fine for your own person system of ethics, but what happens when I disagree? You & I are not infallible & what you believe to be the best thing may be the worst thing to do. Again it still is just a man made system & therefore carries no more weight then any other man made sytsem.

You are right the question may only have one answer, but it is unlikely we will ever no what it is. Also, a lot depepnds on what you mean by benefit.

I would say that morality is just a convention for benefit. If it is then it is explotation. Even if a choice hurts me, but benefits everybody else, then the few are being used by the many.

It comes down to this if morality is only man made then I have no good reason to follow it. The only reason to follow it is to benefit from it & to avoid the wrath of some kind of tyranny.

[phoenix]

Firstly, unless your are superhuman, there is no way to know what will benefit all humans.

Sure there is. In most cases, people even do it without thinking about it. \"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you\", right? You don't steal, because everyone, including you, is better off if every (or even most) people don't. There are a few times when the question is tricky to answer (re: abortion), and then there are problems (although only because people refuse to face the concept that we're overpopulated, but I digress).

Also, if you are really following that your lifestyle is a far cry from that of most other people living in the West.

Preaching to the choir, believe you me..

Secondly, your system works fine for your own person system of ethics, but what happens when I disagree?

Again, then we have problems. But with open minded discussion, we should be able to work out our differences. Unfortunately, a lot of the time people worry about how to prove an opponent wrong during a debate, rather than even considering the possibility that they're having trouble because their opponent is right. (This has nothing to do with our discussion, by the way - just a complaint about debates in general). Anyway, disagreement shouldn't be an insurmountable problem among intelligent people.

Also, a lot depepnds on what you mean by benefit.

I mean nobody gets killed before their time, nobody gets things stolen from them, nobody is raped and nobody is conned. People should try to make the world as close to that as possible whenever they have the chance.

I would say that morality is just a convention for benefit. If it is then it is explotation. Even if a choice hurts me, but benefits everybody else, then the few are being used by the many.

I'm not advocating personal sacrifice. Morality is a convention for everyone's benefit. Just because something is moral doesn't mean that it hurts you to do it.

It comes down to this if morality is only man made then I have no good reason to follow it. The only reason to follow it is to benefit from it & to avoid the wrath of some kind of tyranny.

I assume you're talking about the government with the tyranny thing. I agree with you that the law is so divorced from morality by now that it hardly even deserves mentioning. However, benefiting from morality (and letting others benefit) is an excellent reason to follow it!

[Dr. Arbitrary]

\"Which choice, if made by everybody in the world when confronted by this dillemma, would most benefit most people?\"

I wonder why you would say that? That seems like a pretty bleak way of life, always living as a slave to humanity. Is it really evil to cause someone else to be inconvenienced for your own good. here's a hypothetical situation. Mephisto appears before you and offers you a deal: you are tortured for a billion years, you are put into history books as the worst person ever to have lived, far worse than Hitler, everyone who knows you will hate you. In return, everyone in the world will get an extra 10 productive years (ie not being old and crippled for 10 extra years).

could you really say that the torture option is the ethical one?

[phoenix]

I wonder why you would say that? That seems like a pretty bleak way of life, always living as a slave to humanity. Is it really evil to cause someone else to be inconvenienced for your own good.

You're right, what I said did kind of imply living as a slave to humanity. That's not really what I meant. Instead, then, how about this: you should ask yourself whether serious harm would be done to humanity if everyone made either choice to determine whether a choice is wrong.

I agree with you; in that particular hypothetical situation I would tell Mephisto to go and boil his bottom as well. Although if it were just being put into the history books as the next Hitler, I would do it (though I wouldn't become the next Hitler just for the extra man-decades).