# Pitting Max\_S

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074>\
**Category:** The BBQ Pit\
**Created:** [February 8, 2022, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074 "2022-02-08T00:26:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 869

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**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\
**Post date:** [November 5, 2022, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/869 "2022-11-05T08:06:24Z")

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> [@Max\_S](#):
>
> “Morality should _actually_ mean something”, he writes, to reinforce his point that I am diluting the concept of morality. **Atamasama** seems to say decisions must pass some sort of grave threshold before we can ascertain whether it is right, wrong, or neutral, and to what extent.

Max, some things just **don’t fucking matter**. You are arguing that everything matters. Functioning human beings don’t think that way.

Morality is, by definition, judging whether a choice is right or wrong, and making a decision based on that. Some things are neither morally right nor wrong. You can call such things “neutral” if you need to in your mind, but again, normal people don’t think that way. It’s not a spectrum that every decision falls under. Many decisions, most decisions aren’t on that spectrum at all.

Let me break this down, this is the decision tree that most people have.

Step 1: Is this something that I need to give a shit about, morally?

- Yes: Go to Step 3
- No: Go to Step 2

Step 2: Do whatever you want to. End.

Step 3: Is it the right thing to do?

- Yes: Go to Step 4
- No: Go to Step 5
- Maybe: Go to Step 6

Step 4: Do it because it’s the right thing to do. End.

Step 5: Don’t do it, because it’s the wrong thing to do. End.

Step 6: Do the negative consequences outweigh the gain from doing this?

- Yes: Go to Step 5
- No: Go to Step 4

Most of a person’s decisions will be unimportant from a moral perspective, and you are done at Step 2. You only need to analyze the morality when necessary.

You seem to be arguing that a person should operate differently (and presumably, you operate in that way). Where everything is analyzed for morality. You start at Step 3. Normal people don’t do that. Because it’s not healthy. If you must analyze the morality of every decision, you risk analysis paralysis.

The opposite, of course, is when a person is a sociopath or has some other disorder that won’t allow them to do anything other than going to Step 2.

> [@Max\_S](#):
>
> If you believe in a universal or objective ethics, then yes, as far as you are concerned when I speak about subjective morality you will find my words meaningless and my arguments redundant.

Neither. The world is not so easily defined. It’s a mixture of both; there are universal ethics, but they are refined by subjectivity. Real life is complicated.

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