While I agree that it’s nice that if I’m moral and the people I interact with are moral we all have a nicer time of it, that’s not why I choose to act morally.
It’s all about how my behavior directly affects how* I* feel. Hurting other people makes me feel bad. I don’t like to worry, and I don’t like to feel guilt. If I’m good to other people, I feel good. I’d rather feel good than bad. My self-involvement benifits others, how nice 
It seems that the line between moral, ethical, integrous, vitruous etc… coverge to one basic concept IMO. It appears that proving one actually exists is the crux of all these ideas, and that they are all respectively evaluated on a given individuals standard or obsession, as the case may be, to this pursuit.
A sense of: “Existence must be logically consisent in order to be meaningful; it must be rationally applied and/or sought in order to have a point at all.”
I believe that low standards are gauged by betting the lives and values of others against ones own meaning and consistency. I believe that the higher standards are found in those who bet their own lives against their own meaning and consistency, and do not bet the lives of others to prove their own meaning.
As the OP stated, it is the existence of rationality vs. the denial of it - an internal consistency between observation, thought and behavior. The point? I believe the point is to actually find a point.
There is an ability to process where a peson has settled their standard of meaning upon behavior which contradicts itself entirely. To the observer, such a being has already ceased to exist, even though they are right there. I see it as existenial; one either exists or they do not. They exist with a purpose, reason or meaning — or they do not. I think the idea behind virtue, is to apprehend a sense of existence in oneself that is indestructable - to prove the existential merit of the existence concept; and all behaviors derived - that we engage in day to day, presumably believing that we do it for a purpose (like eating food).
Many individuals can be observed as engaging in and being rewarded for behavior which disproves the value of life itself; and yet they have immersed themselves in a pact of meaning with an entire community of individuals carrying the same blindness. In this degree, morality does not coincide with mutual trust for mutual benefit. It does actually help if the ‘trusts’ are themselves formulated from something tagible; rather than mass delusion - for the benfit to those individuals not only negates their own value as existents using their own axoms; but diminishes value for intelligence as a whole to engage in any act outside of its own immediate self-destruction.
I find the implications of immorality (that which is not consistent) - to literally push against the suicide decision, everytime it is enabled. People who engage in immorality are using the obvious vice of suffering to their advantage to mitigate their own suffering – all they are accomplishing IMO is wasting everyones time; to resolve the suffering/suicide issue once and for all; for alll intelligent beings. Humans have been sitting n this one for far too long IMO — and unfortunately, continue to bring children into this earth without doing even the most basic existential work; assuming that their own child will atone for their own sins in this regard. I find it a little revolting.
-Justhink
–Have not had internet access for a while here
—I associate “ethics” with unselfish behavior that grows from logic.—
It can’t possibly grow from ONLY logic, or else it wouldn’t be ethical, it would just be, at best, pragmatic. you need axiomatic values to begin with.
I think that’s a pretty good definition of the difference, El_K. “Morality” has been called “taboo morality” by Bertrand Russell, who emphasizes its origin in religious dogma. Being “moral” really has no meaning except within a particular society or group, while being “ethical” as you describe it can more easily span societies or groups. For example, everyone understands kindness, even though not everyone agrees on what is moral sexually. The one is governed by reason, the other by taboo.
By the way, Spink, welcome to the boards. This was a good OP, just tantalizing enough to be interesting, and incapable of resolution to everyone’s satisfaction. Way to go!
Geezer
“Morality is the custom of one’s country and the current feeling of one’s peers. Cannibalism is moral in cannibal country.”
– Samuel Butler
While that is true, that still doesn’t answer the question.
I’ll start with a parable.
Imagine a person who has never been outdoors, and been told all their life that the sky is red. Now imagine this person stepping outside for the first time and seeing the color of the sky. to continue to claim the sky is red would be an act of insanity.
Likewise, in a pure state of nature, man is completely egocentric and hedonistic. It is not until he experiences kindness, justice, or trust that he is capable of assinging value to abstract principles. But it is impossible not to assign value to these concepts after experiencing them. To do otherwise would be akin to calling the sky red. The alternative is to continue embracing the insanity of an existence without principles. Without a concept of right and wrong, there is no possible meaningful existance as a human being. There is no love, no art, and all joy becomes a mere accident. Ultimately, the question of “why be moral” is answered with “because it is so ecstatically possible.”
I would refer you to Umberto Eco’s “Five Moral Pieces” for further reading on the subject.
“Five Moral Pieces” by Umberto Eco
Sure it does. Morality is desirable, immorality is undesirable. This is analogous for a fair number of dichotomies: efficiency is desirable while inefficiency is undesirable, delicious food is desirable while repugnant food is undesirable, competence is desirable while incompetence is undesirable, etc. (There are many dichotomies that do not necessarily fit this mold, such as aggression vs. pacifism or anarchy vs. totalitarianism, but morality vs. immorality is one for which one option is clearly desirable while another is clearly undesirable.)
Just to add my lil bits of reasoning in…
I think the reason that following your better intuition, whether it’s moral or ethical, is usually the path of least resistance, the same as when you don’t want to do a chore but also know that it’ll pile up and make more trouble if you put it off.
But then, my understanding of “good” and “bad” is a bit weird these days; I judge everything by “harm” and “no harm,” turning the words “good” and “bad” into our reactions toward things that effect us.
If a cat sits in the laundry basket and gets loose fur all over your clothes, it’s not inherently bad, but it could make the clothes itchy or set off allergies, so we identify it as “Thing that harms us; BAD.”
In general, the best possible outcome for anything is to have the most help and least hinder, in as many ways as possible. Our rules were originally made to fulfill this purpose.
Hi, loinburger.
Desirable? —To whom?
For the morality/ethics semantics I prefer to think of ethics as valued social practices and morals as personal values that do not necessarily correspond to accepted ethics. The case is complicated as undoubtedly most of our morals are derived from ethics (as defined above) (or they are at least heavily influenced by them).
But in the end I still think that all people always make moral choices, i.e.—they always act “good”, however they define it, though they may later reconsider that particular instance of “goodness” and say it was actually “bad” at some later time (“I can’t be [wrong]. —But some day, rightly or wrongly, I may think I realize I was not competent to judge.” ~Paraphrased brackets, otherwise taken from Wittgenstein, On Certainty)
I think we can view ethics much more factually with respect to, for example, law governing interaction than we can view my personal ideas about how people should interact.
Under this definitional construct, every question of “Why be moral?” reduces analytically to “Why do anything?” It is the cornerstone of intention, it is the motive force behind an individual’s actions.
My thoughts…
Morality is simply what we consider to be right or wrong. My beliefs may differ from yours and most likely do.
Lola and I have been living happily in sin for seven years; some may find this relationship to be immoral and even an abomination. Others may find the bi-racial aspect immoral. We’re fine with the way things are and would never let someone elses moral beliefs govern our behaviour in this area.
We all have moral beliefs and ethics, with ethics being the system by which we maintain, study, and practice those moral beliefs. Our personal morals and ethics may differ from the society in which we live or where we work but as long as they don’t differ too greatly or cause conflict we can manage just fine. When our own personal morals/ethics come into extreme conflict with a group we can choose to remove ourselves from the group or the group will choose to expel or remove us.
Successful societies are based on common moral beliefs and ethical rules such as; don’t steal, don’t murder, and don’t be a jerk. Failure to comply with the rules has many consequences from being simply ostracized to being incarcerated.
The SDMB has it’s own shared moral beliefs and set of ethics. Those who fail to practice this code disrupt the society and threaten it’s existence. The common beliefs (morals) of the masses have become a set of rules of ethical conduct which determine what behaviour is acceptable and what is not. Those who demonstrate unacceptable behaviour or who cannot reconcile their own ethics with those of the group (us) will either leave or be removed.
Your garden variety troll is a good example of someone who will contravene the rules to cause a negative reaction within the group. The group usually reacts strongly to what they consider an attack and the offending troll is banned.
The SDMB is thankfully, very tolerant of people’s differences in most cases. Lola and I might not be welcomed at many other discussion boards because of our perceived immorality. There’s no way the Skinheads and Neo-nutzi would find us to be acceptable members. My thoughts on racists seem to be shared by most people here and as a consequence the board policy toward them is very “unfriendly”. We don’t want them.
So we all have morals and these common morals are the base upon which we will either build a successful and cohesive society, whether it is a group of people on a message board or something as large as a country.
We need them.
Feynn
From a Christian point of view, this is heresy. Hitler may or may not have thought he was God, but Jesus knew that he was, is, and always will be God. It isn’t egotistical to believe you are something that you really are. To equate the two in any way is blasphemy, Hitler murdered millions of innocents, Jesus died voluntarily to save billions.
Why be moral? So that you and your neighbors can lead happier lives. You’re happier if he doesn’t vandalize your property, he’s happier if you don’t steal his tractor.
Thanks DesertGeezer and everyone else for your replies.
A lot of people have replied that we should be moral because it is basically in our own (often longterm) interest to be moral (or ethical, that’s another thread, but I treat the words as interchangeable at the moment). Basically, to keep our society intact so that we can gain the benefits of living in it and so on.
This is definitely a good reply, but one that I don’t find completely fulfilling, because surely not all of our ethical actions are simply motivated by self interest. There are certainly a lot of cases around where people act in accordance with their in moral principles, even if it means they will conflict with societal norms and perhaps even put themselves in danger.
I think that answer begs the question of: if you could do something in your self-interest that was immoral, and you could get away with it, would you?
It seems to be the same problem that often stumps Utilitarians, when the problem of justice comes up. If a Utilitarian is put in a situation where they have to accept a very unjust act occurring, it may seem quite wrong. Even though ‘utility’ is the basis of their ethical standpoint, there seems to be some problems with treating an unjust situation (in the non-utilitarian sense of the word), the same as a just situation.
I suppose this asks whether or not our ideas about morality or justice are actually higher principles which should be obeyed, even if doing so is not in our self-interest, or if they are simply social constructs which help us all meet our preferences.
After a bit of thinking and as you can see, a lot of rambling, I think that once attained, our morals inherently contain an obligation to abide by them, one which overrides all others (even our own desires). Deviation from them is simply because of a weakness of will.
Ok, so that answer wasn’t completely satisfying, but I think it’s as far as I’ll get.
Depends on the circumstances. There isn’t a set object, just as there isn’t a set object to the desirability of “efficiency” or “competence” or whatever.
It wasn’t intended to be a particularly in-depth answer, because IMO the question was too vague for an in-depth answer to possible. A question like “Why is it better to be moral rather than self-serving when the two qualities conflict” is analogous to a question like “Why is it better to eat delicious food rather than healthy food when the two qualities conflict” – the dichotomies no longer apply. The question (or my reading of it) was “Why be moral rather than immoral,” which is equivalent to asking “Why eat delicious food rather than repugnant food” or “Why be efficient rather than inefficient” – it makes absolutely no sense to do something solely because it is immoral, any more than it makes sense to eat something solely because it is repugnant or to do something solely because it is inefficient.
For the question “Why be moral rather than self-serving when the two qualities conflict,” I don’t know how to give a satisfactory answer, and I don’t believe that a satisfactory answer is possible. A strictly utilitarian answer like “I must be moral in order for society to function” is unsatisfactory, because strictly speaking I don’t need to be moral for society to function, I just need to convince (or rely on) everybody else (more or less) to be moral – the corollary answer “I must be moral or society will punish me” is just as worthless, because strictly speaking I don’t need to be moral in order to avoid punishment, I just need to avoid getting caught in my misdeeds. The alternative answer “I ought to be moral because it is moral to be moral” is just a worthless tautology, a “No shit, Sherlock” explanation. A non-moral answer to the question is bound to be unsatisfactory because it is too separated from the system to comprehend the system, and a moral answer to the question is bound to be tautological and worthless.
“”"""""“It seems to be the same problem that often stumps Utilitarians, when the problem of justice comes up. If a Utilitarian is put in a situation where they have to accept a very unjust act occurring,”""""
We live in a time where the consequences arising from moral violation can be calculated as not being able to impact a human being during their own life; even though the impact will occur.
With our expansiveness of cause and effect - and an ability to draw out the perimeter of predictive power out further and further, this question becomes more acute. One can literally take a look at the law, the public awareness, the national corruption - and decide to dump a bunch of toxins in their lifetime for fame and fortune; knowing damn well that the bomb will go off long after they have expired.
People have always possessed this ability to some extent, however - I’d argue that those of the past generations didn’t go out of their way to formulate retirement plans out of finding these, to the degree that it is calculated today.
I’d literally peg over 99% of all millionaires as participating in abuses directly to aquire their wealth, which are basically designed to drop the ball soon after their own deaths – someone traces a toxic dump to so-and-so company which has not even been incorperated for 40 years; with all associated employed individuals dead from natural causes. It’s really not that difficult to calculate abuses that will require generations beyond your own death to articulate, locate, judge, condemn – but hey! You’re already dead, so what’s the difference right? Sucks for them that they have one lung and another foot on their belly button… I lived it up though. Who are you going to yell at? A rotted corpse? A generation past into the ground? Who are you going to take it out upon? Are you going to sentence them to prison? Are you going to hurt their family? Are you going to seize their assets? They’re dead!
-Justhink
I tend to define “morals” as “that system which one uses to distinguish between good and evil” and “ethics” as “that system which one uses to distinguish between right and wrong”.
At other points I might say that morals are the principles I follow because otherwise I get gut-sick, and ethics are the principles I follow because I happen to figure they make sense. (So “Why be moral?” has the answer, “Because it’s better than being nauseated.”)
I don’t know that I actually possess a less flippant answer that I can put in words.
I tend to define “morals” as “that system which one uses to distinguish between good and evil” and “ethics” as “that system which one uses to distinguish between right and wrong”.
At other points I might say that morals are the principles I follow because otherwise I get gut-sick, and ethics are the principles I follow because I happen to figure they make sense. (So “Why be moral?” has the answer, “Because it’s better than being nauseated.”)
I don’t know that I actually possess a less flippant answer that I can put in words.
I’ve been thinking more about this, and it seems to me that most of our moral/ethical principles arise from the basic feeling of empathy that most human beings possess. That would explain why people behave ethically/morally even when doing so may be costly, damaging or dangerous to themselves. It also explains why persons of no religious faith can be, and often are, intensly ethical/moral (assuming for the moment that those two words connote the same thing).
“Why be moral?” Because it is in the nature of most people to be so. We all fall short of perfection in this regard, of course, but only sociopaths and psychopaths do so without suffering guilt.
Geezer