Let’s talk about Moral Values

Great Debates
1

What are Moral Values? Specifically, I mean. I can probably come up with a definition that involves obtuse, inorganic terms such as “family based ethics” or “ethical principals” on my own. Break it down for me. What are the individual, core constituents that go into a set of Moral Values?

I necessarily need to explain further. I’m not interested in liberal mockery of the concept, but since some idiot is bound to entertain us with his or her hilarious spin, this is going in the pit. I’m also not interested in vague, obfuscated, or circular arguments from conservatives. That is really going to piss me off.

I don’t understand about 50 or so % of the US population – actually a good deal more than that, since liberals often confuse me as well. I’m hoping before this degenerates into drooling partisan inanity (and it will) that someone will generously offer a serious response.

2

Moderator’s Note: Well, if you’re trying to avoid mockery or “drooling partisan inanity”, then I’d say the Pit is not the place to open the thread.

Moving to Great Debates.

3

As you wish.
I have no time to debate. I’ll simply look for the answer I hope for than quit the thread and let the ‘great debaters’ have at it.

4

Admitting to a drive by, are we?

That’s quite poor form.

If you really wanted just an answer to your question, there’s a place here for that, you know.

5

You really think the question “What are Moral Values?” has a simple, factual answer?

6

I’m no great debater and hope to not be getting off track here but to me moral values implies those lofty character attributes one can aspire to that, while reflecting the spirit of the golden rule, would still exist in the absence of any formal religious pretext. There’s some things we inherently know to be true, such as that lying, theft, murder and the carnal embrace of farm animals is bad. Now while that same message (read value) might be espoused by any number of religious doctrines, it not only is independant of them but would still exist in their absence.

What are the values and what guidelines define them? I’m leaving that for someone more eloquent, knowledgeable and with a hell of a lot more time.

7

Here are two that come to mind: 1) Respect for the individual (for another’s life, liberty, property, conscience, and ability to act) and 2) A desire to act in ways that benefit others and prevent or counteract harm.

Dangermom is not a philosopher and disclaims her ability to debate these things.

8

Bear with me now, because this is a fuzzy area. And a lot of people don’t agree with my thinking, and I don’t expect them to. But I think this is how it falls out, whether we mean to or not:

I don’t really believe there is a set value to moral values. I think that when humans get together, moral values are no more and no less than what can make the society endure. So…don’t kill babies because that’s our future. Siblings shouldn’t have children because mutations crop up too often (but with genetic knowledge even this could be gotten around).

This of course lets in State-sanctioned murder. Of course you need to kill someone who is harming the society in some way, for example mass murderers, etc. But you need to be sure that you are killing the right person.

This also lets in abortion. I am not going to go into the gory details PLEASE don’t hijack this into an abortion thread. On second thought, scratch the PLEASE. Don’t turn this into an abortion thread or it will run right back into the Pit!

As you can see, my morality is fairly flexible. I guess I would most likely be a neutral good, or maybe even a Lawful Neutral. :wink:

9

No. I just think it poor form to start a debate you’re not willing to engage in. Even if you do so in the Pit, you’re expected to participate in your own pitting.

10

No, I admitted to asking a volatile question with no single, factual response. What is in poor form is dropping by to level accusations unsupported by the facts.

I did not, at any point, phrase this as debate, though I respect the mod’s decision if they feel it should be one. I also did not state I would not participate, only that I was not interested in a debate. I think it should be clear to reasonable person that I’m just looking for information, and did not intend to debate. I’ll be happy to post comments, requests for more information, or rebuttals to people interested in criticizing me without cause.

11

Ok, to those not on the ‘poor form’ tangent that Mr. Moto is trotting down:

I gather I can add an anti-abortion stance to the list of Values. This one is not only clear, but people can point to difference between the liberals and conservatives. Some of the other definitions of Values mentioned would not be clearly different. Maybe this is part of what I’m looking for – not only Values, but what Values (not policies) would the Bush ticket stand for that the Kerry ticket did not?

12

Lots of human qualities can be characterized as moral values: respect for others has already been mentioned, but also compassion, tolerance, humility, honesty and forthrightness, charity, civility, thoughtfulness…the list could get rather long, actually.

But of course what I think of as “moral values” may not be the same as what a fifth of voters (that was roughly the percentage as I recall) were thinking of when they said “moral values”. For example, I don’t think banning gay marriage falls in the “moral values” category, but I suspect this view is not exactly universally held, to say the least.

13

Yeah, a definition of the term, e.g., “Moral values are ethical standards which one is expected to incorporate within one’s own personality and act in accordance with.”

Let me make the clear jump-up-and-down distinction that the Religious Right has no exclusive claim to define what the term means. Acceptance and affirmation of every human being without regard to race, color, creed, sexual orientation, eye color, or any other arbitrary and inapplicable divisive criterion is a positive moral value – one not taught by them. Non-judgmental love is another, one they skulk their way around by misquoting Scripture. There are humanistic moral values, liberal Christian moral values (which include the humanistic as a subset but also address duty to God), Islamic moral values, Jewish moral values, Hindu moral values, Buddhist moral values, and, oh yes, conservative Christian moral values. They didn’t get an exclusive trademark on the term.

14

To add a few more to the list:
Honesty and integrity.
Willingness to do the right thing, even when it brings no personal benefit or when it brings personal cost instead.
A desire to avoid actions which cause harm to others, either through action or inaction.
A central belief that there is some good in everyone (something I have to wirk on sometimes).

15

That is a definition, but what does it really tell you? I have an OED, or I can find a myriad of other open ended definitions. Let me rephrase my question: When someone states, “Moral Values were most important to me during this election.” Which specific values are they referring to? I don’t get the impression that they are indicting Kerry for lacking basic ethics or principals. Like him or not, no one in the mainstream refers to him as amoral.

16

Orbifold:

But moral values need to be universally held; rules should apply to everyone. Some hold that morality is a personal issue, but I disagree since rules are imposed by society upon the individual in order to protect others from you. If groups disagree on moral values there there’s a problem that needs to be resolved, and not simply by the majority imposing its views upon everyone else.

The way I approach the issue is to distinguish morality from superstition. If it relies on supposed supernatural forces it’s superstition. Morality must be based on secular principles because only secular principles can be made to apply to everyone. Religious beliefs vary from group to group, person to person and no one can prove anything.

Simply put, morality is about preventing human behavior from causing harm. What constitutes harm and where the priorities should lie is open to dispute to a certain extent, but only reason can resolve it.

17

Moral values will never be universally held. For example, there is and probably always will be a small but vocal segment of our society which believe that I (as a liberal academic in favour of gay marriage) am evil, immoral, and engaged in a plot to corrupt their youth. That hatred is part of the moral values they hold; obviously I don’t share it and never will. So if moral values need to be universally held, which of us gets to abandon ours, since they pretty clearly can’t be reconciled?

Rules, on the other hand, can and do apply to everyone. But the rules by which we are compelled to act are not the same thing as the moral values held by each of us as to how we should act. Gay marriage is either legal or illegal: those are rules. Gay marriage is proper or improper: those are moral judgements. As a practical matter there will never be universal agreement on such judgements.

I see a couple of subtle little problems in that one paragraph, to be honest. First, “causing harm” is at the same time too restrictive and too permissive a yardstick. Not all behaviour that can cause harm is necessarily morally wrong: driving a car leaps to mind (the pesky matter of exhaust). And at the same time, lots of morally questionable acts are performed precisely because the people doing them don’t think any harm will result. Little white lies, anyone?

Which leads me to the second problem with that paragraph. Reason is fine and good in theory, but in practice has limits. Take littering, for example. Most people don’t litter, but I suspect that if you ask ten people on the street why they don’t litter nine of them won’t be able to give you a purely rational reason. I’m not saying there isn’t a purely rational reason. But trying to justify a moral position in purely rational terms is like Bertrand Russell using pure logic to prove that 1+1=2: illuminating in a technical sense, but 400+ pages later you begin to wonder why you’re bothering. Sometimes emotional responses and ingrained behaviour get you to an answer with a lot less grief. It’s the same reason why martial artists perform katas and soldiers perform drills: to get to the point where they don’t have to use reason to make the correct decision.

To answer an obvious question, yes I’m aware that there are dangers in this position. Emotional responses and ingrained behaviours have a nasty habit of becoming tradition for tradition’s sake and at that point, reason has to step in. But reason on its own has its own problems.

18

like others said, moral values are a set of values imposed by society, usually for the greater good of the community versus the individual. trouble is people naturally disagree on what exactly constitutes these values. sort of like trying to share an odd shaped bread free-hand.

19

I don’t think that morality can be defined by the status quo. If that were true it would be impossible to say that the morality of the nation is declining. If everybody is doing it, then it’s moral. That doesn’t sound right.

Rather than concentrating on such controversial subjects as abortion and gay marriage, let’s look at something fairly minor in the morality debate… premarital sex. It’s immoral by some people’s standards, widely accepted today. Practiced in the past sure, yet not accepted. Today, not only is it accepted, it is also practically EXPECTED. If someone isn’t willing to put out, they are likely not going to be with the person that wants them to put out for very long. Doesn’t sound very good to me. Sounds selfish actually. And even if someone doesn’t want to necessarily put out, they may be willing to do it because they thinktheir boy/girl friend wants it, even if the other person doesn’t. What if both members of the couple don’t want sex yet, but they think the other does. They are trying to be unselfish and give in to something they think the other wants. That’s what happens in this day and age. Two people that don’t really need premarital sex end up doing it even if they don’t want to, simply because it’s expected and they assume that the other person (who they probably don’t know very well yet) wants it. This sounds like a decline of morality to me (not because of them having sex, but because they are being made to compromise themselves because of society). People are more willing to engage in premarital sex simply because their dating pool will be faar too small for them to ever get married (then have sex).

Now, if you’ll forgive me, I’ll go to a topic that is a tad more controversial: slavery. While highly considered among most of us as immoral now, it wasn’t always so, especially in the South of the U.S. This is one case in which the moral code is definately for the greater good of the community versus the individual (The U.S. economy was dependent on slavery), yet was highly immoral. It was considered immoral to many even back then, or Lincoln wouldn’t have freed the slaves. But some really thought it was perfectly moral, because they believed the black man wasn’t human. They were being selfish.

So, to me I believe that morality is the individual thinking of society and other people before himself. Premarital sex is immoral because it doesn’t consider the consequenses to the possible child that could be created, (I will ellaborate further on this in an upcoming great debate.) as well as the condition of the world if everybody practiced premarital sex. Slavery is a bit more obvious. Abortion is questionable. It depends on what your personal belief about when life begins. Same sex marriage is controversial because many believe that it would result in a better world, and others believe that it continues the trend of declining family values and devalues marriage. There are a lot of things in today’s society that I see as immoral, including receiving a high salary for doing a job that other people do for 1/10th the pay, when the rest of the world needs food, clothing, and shelter so badly. Some people deserve their high salary: Leaders, people that risk their lives, and those that help to save lives, like doctors. But your Human Resources manager of some big corporation? Why do they make hundreds of thousands of dollars per year? Sounds selfish to me, and immoral. Now I’m totally not touting communism as the answer. I think capitalistic competition is really a great way to keep productivity and quality high. But the moral upper class individual would give most of his money to charity, rather than live in a big house and go on expensive vacations.

Overeating is immoral, because it results in higher medical costs and higher insurance premiums. Not to mention the fact that it increases the chances of your spouse watching you die before your time. Sounds selfish to me. Don’t you care about your family? Why make them suffer?

Frivolous lawsuits are immoral. They are a big reason why the condition of the world is in such a horrible state. Agencies are gunshy now. Been to a neighborhood pool lately? Does it have a diving board? I’d be suprised if it does. But in my time, we ALL jumped off the diving board. It was why I went swimming. If your pool does have a board, then count yourself lucky. Use it now 'cause it’s not going to be there for long. Frivilous lawsuits = selfish, therefore immoral.

You see my point, I hope. I can’t think of anything that anyone would consider immoral that couldn’t also be considered selfish. We all understand the definition of selfish. I think it’s a pretty good synonym of immoral.

20

No Icky Gay People. Yes, I’m serious; that is pretty much exactly the moral values that were at issue at this election, with maybe a soupçon of No Baby-Killing Harlots.