And Just Who Are You To Accuse?

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

A very long time ago, humanity's primitive ancestors used to dump their dead on the trash pile along with gnawed bones, broken tools, and even less savory forms of refuse(i.e. their shit). Then one day one of the primitive hominids grunted, "Hey, what would Ook think if he saw how we were treating his corpse this way? lol I bet he'd be pissed off for sure!" Another replied, "Here's a spooky thought: What if some part of Ook lives on and can see us? Maybe his anger over it might explain why we've had such a poor foraging season. Maybe we'd better move his festering body somewhere else and have a respectful ceremony of some sort....just in case."

Thus the first ever ceremonial burial was performed. It was the start of religion, a faith that intangible things were somehow real. Eventually, this led to belief in another intangible concept: morality. A lot of people still believe that things like deities and spiritual entities have an independent existence apart from the minds that create them but can't seem to agree on which religion is the proper one. After all, who really decides this? In a similar vein, even more people still believe that standards of good and evil(ironically, many of them atheist secular humanists) also have a similar independent existence. But still...they can't seem to agree on which moral code is the correct one. And yet, each "side" acts as if their respective code is some sort of universal standard. Once again, who decides this? For extra laughs, ponder this: The most vicious, bloodthirsty, conniving, and untrustworthy species ever to live on this planet has ironically set itself up as an authority of what constitutes good and evil. And naturally, this spills over into politics, making an already murky subject even less clear.

As I've heard it described to me by some moralists, morality is is normative, i.e. society as a whole decides what constitues good and evil. This definition is one of the most frightening I've ever heard especially since we have a Culture War going on between the Right and the Left. Whichever side wins, freedom could lose out big time. We could either find ourselves in a Moral Majority Christian police state where religion and big business call all the shots or we could find ourselves in a Lefty police state where you can go to jail for saying the "wrong" thing. All the while, we have both sides pointing fingers and saying the other is "evil", thereby implying that their side is "good". I have to laugh about it because the only alternative is to cry. Nobody ever considers themselves the bad guy. This is because morality is the second oldest propaganda tool next to God.

Wanna know some of the things the "good guys" considered to be moral? Here is a partial list:

1) "We will smash the dog heads of whoever said bad things about our Chairman Mao!"
2) "Pederasty is a-okay. Everyone in here in ancient Greece says so."
3) "Let's give them injuns some of these chicken pox-infected blankets! They're just a bunch of evil heathens anyway."
4) "BURN THE WITCHES!!!"
5) "How much is that slave being sold for? And can I check his teeth first?"
6) "If we don't drown the infants in sacrifice to Tlaloc, he will be angry and our crops will fail!"
7) "America must embrace Islam."-Osama Bin Laden
8) "Women and blacks voting? lmao! Are you fucking stupid?"
9) "Those Aztecs worship the Devil and sacrifice infants by drowning them for him. We must convert them to Our Lord. And by convert, I mean rape their women and steal their Gold."
10) "Hey, let's go watch some ice hockey!"

Okay, maybe you can argue that ice hockey isn't something to be frightened of(you freak.:P). But all that other shit I mentioned? Frightening. And it all boils down to a bunch of "good guys" using a subjective concept(morality) as a propaganda tool to demonize another bunch of people. I've said this before but it bears repeating. Beware when the "good guys" come knocking. They'll "good deed" you to death in the ass if you let them.

For now, it's not that bad and hopefully it won't get any worse. But the propaganda element is still there and it's still based on doing what authority tells you without thinking for yourself. In this case, authority being people who've set themselves up as a moral authority. This propaganda is a form of emotional manipulation aimed at making you vote a certain way and supporting certain policies rather than thinking and living for yourself. Who are these people? How do they decide? What exactly makes them so freaking special?

I say fuck them, whoever they are. Think and live for yourself. Vote as you please. And if people tell you that you're "evil" or "a scumbag" for doing so as their main argument then feel free to ask for a better argument.

So...who are you to accuse?

Comments

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

"This idea especially hold water if you think there might be something like a transcendental truth out there."

But is there such a truth? Here's what I believe to be true:

1) People have a born impulse to live for themselves.

2) Actions can have consequences.

3) In the process of living for yourself, you must be prepared to face the consequences of said actions. To think you're special and can skate like a shitbird forever is pure folly.

I hold those three statements to be self-evident.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Today's good can be tomorrow's evil, but yesterday's evil stays evil.

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

History is written by the victors, you mean?

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

Well, isn't it?

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

Yes, it is.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

No. I meant what I said, not what you said. A simple misunderstanding.

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

Then your statement is untrue. Sometimes cultures become enamored of old "evils" and long for a return to the "glory days".

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

That doesn't make them not evil.

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

Then what does objectively make them evil?

[unnamed525.livejournal.com]

Willfully ignoring the dignity of other agents.

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

Aaaannnddd...that contradicts the definition of morality as being based on societal norms. It can also cover politeness issues, so it's incredibly vague.

[unnamed525.livejournal.com]

That's not a definition of morality. That's an ethical theory as to what grounds moral facts ... and it's wrong.

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

"That's not a definition of morality. That's an ethical theory as to what grounds moral facts ... and it's wrong."

Of course, morality has become a complicated issue in modern times, primarily because of the greater mixing of cultures and religions, each with its own ideas about good and evil. In fact, another definition of morality is "a system of principles and judgments based on cultural, religious, and philosophical concepts and beliefs, by which humans determine whether given actions are right or wrong." As such, it becomes relativistic, with little meaning outside of the "group" which shares a common set of moral principles. Thus, we end up with a "Christian morality," a "Buddhist morality," and so on.

Therefore, there are at least four common approaches to morality:

1. Absolute and given to us to obey. (An authority decides what is right.)
2. Relativistic and by common cultural agreement. (The group decides what is right.)
3. Relativistic and a personal choice. (I invent right and wrong.)
4. Absolute and for each individual to discover. (I try my best to discover what is right.)

Sorry but it is a definition of morality. One of at least four that people use. It seems moralists can agree that morality exists. However, not only can they not agree on which moral code is correct, they can't even agree on a definition of exactly what it is, or what makes it "real".

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

So, in the long term, everything is really evil, isn't it? ;)

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Generations from now people will look back and see us as barbarians, rinse repeat.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I would put it more that the expansion of civilization is a litany of horrors and evils the likes of which would drive people crazy if ever thought about too deeply. Horror as fiction is unnecessary, if thought out too deeply real life has always been a horrific nightmare and a bad joke whose punchline is extinction. Which is why nobody thinks this deeply about it and most who try to think thus prefer to minimize the connection between technological advances and evils and horrors.

[whak-hat.livejournal.com]

I understand that you're trying to look at Religion objectively but it all comes off as …aggressively offensive and mocking. It makes it hard to discuss when you've already set the mood as a 'let's mock religion'.

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

Then you didn't read it. The main thrust was about morality rather than religion. As I said in the post, a fuckton of moralists are secular humanists.

[whak-hat.livejournal.com]

I did read it, perhaps your wording just doesn't convey your meeting.

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

I doubt that on both counts. But whatever.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

This is a very good post that raises a crucial point: outside Saturday Morning cartoons and comic books nobody calls themselves evil with a straight face. Everyone in the history of ever prefers to view himself (because women that do things like serve as SS guards or in the Red Guards tend to be overlooked, as does the Ancien Regime's reliance on female autocrats) as a defender of good against evil, no matter how horribly misused those terms are. And even if they see themselves thus, that's the bald guy scraping three hairs over his head: he's fooled but nobody else is.

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

Indeed. People tend to think those awful secret police spies all wear black coats and comically twirl their mustaches and cackle about "evil plans muahahahaha..."

It doesn't work like that.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Some of them, however, really are that nasty. I'm thinking here of Nikolai Yezhov and Lavrenti Beria. Ironically Heinrich Himmler was personally flawed in being cowardly as opposed to anything else, now Yezhov and Beria, a rapist and a pedophile, empowered with the simple coercive power of the most powerful dictatorship in human history.....

[unnamed525.livejournal.com]

Just because different groups of people fail to agree on what the correct morality is doesn't mean there isn't one.

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

"Just because different groups of people fail to agree on what the correct morality is doesn't mean there isn't one."

and just because they agree there is one, that doesn't prove that there is. Tbh, the burden of proof isn't on me. After all, nobody can prove a negative.

[unnamed525.livejournal.com]

Sure you can prove a negative. You begin with the assumption (for the purpose of reductio), say A, and prove a contradiction from it. Then you're justified in concluding ~A.

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

"Sure you can prove a negative. You begin with the assumption (for the purpose of reductio), say A, and prove a contradiction from it. Then you're justified in concluding ~A."

In other words, you have no evidence to prove that morality exists and you're trying to shift the burden of proof.

Okay, I'll take a whack. Assertion A) Morality exists.

Contradiction: Morality is subjective, not unlike a belief in angel visitations.

Conclusion: Morality doesn't exist.

Seriously, nobody is logically required to believe an intangible.

[unnamed525.livejournal.com]

If L is the best logic for empirical inquiry, than any logical truths of L ought, upon pain of contradiction and intellectual dishonesty, to be believed by those who accept L. In fact, scientific inquiry presupposes the existence of all kinds of intangibles, such as mathematical objects and relations, possible states and events, types (as opposed to tokens), possible and future objects, complex properties, etc. (http://mally.stanford.edu/)

You haven't proven your, currently, mere assertion that morality is subjective; the only argument you've forwarded for that is that people don't agree upon which ethical system is the correct one, which is an argument we both agree is fallacious.

The correct ethical system is one grounded upon respect for rational agency, since rational agency is the only logical end-in-itself. Purely consequentialist systems fail because happiness is, ultimately, for the benefit of the agent; it's not coherent to suppose it's an end-in-itself. Egoist systems, while they respect ones own agency (whether rational or not), fail because they do not respect agency-as-such; it's contradictory and intellectually dishonest to respect only your own agency and to treat others merely as means to your own ends. Culturally relativistic systems fail because, ultimately, they collapse to egoist systems.

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

"If L is the best logic for empirical inquiry, than any logical truths of L ought, upon pain of contradiction and intellectual dishonesty, to be believed by those who accept L. In fact, scientific inquiry presupposes the existence of all kinds of intangibles, such as mathematical objects and relations, possible states and events, types (as opposed to tokens), possible and future objects, complex properties, etc."

Funny you should bring up a link to Stanford. While it does address some intangibles, I see theorem there. Not actual proof.

"You haven't proven your, currently, mere assertion that morality is subjective; the only argument you've forwarded for that is that people don't agree upon which ethical system is the correct one, which is an argument we both agree is fallacious."

I don't agree that it's fallacious though. Morality is subjective. The fact that each individual who believes in a code of morality disbelieves other codes of morality demonstrates this. I simply go a step further and believe one less moral code of behavior than you do. Furthermore, much like claims of angel visitations or the existence of God, claims of an independent moral truth are non-falsifiable.

"it's contradictory and intellectually dishonest to respect only your own agency and to treat others merely as means to your own ends."

Humans do this all the time. Even while violating their own moral codes in the process. As the Milgram Experiment shows, they'll even do it simply because someone in authority tells them to. This doesn't bode well for the existence of some independent moral truth.

"Culturally relativistic systems fail because, ultimately, they collapse to egoist systems."

All moral codes are culturally relativistic and arbitrary rather than having some independent reality of their own.

[unnamed525.livejournal.com]

Well, it is fallacious, and if you can't grasp that, we're done.

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

I suppose we are. Especially since you seem to think that moralists themselves have only one definition of morality, i.e. the one you prefer.

you might as well be asserting that God or Santa Claus exists.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Jonathan's post about Ron Paul has certainly hit a nerve. I'll say that.

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

Not hardly. I've noticed this from both sides on a fairly regular basis for some time now. paft was the one who actually got me thinking about this more than a moth ago.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

It may not have been the focus of YOUR post here, but the comments in his original post, the follow-up by another community participant, and then comments here talking about evil in pretty much the same vein certainly suggest to me, his post struck a nerve. YMMV.

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

lol kk.

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

Personally I ultimately lean left when it comes to actual voting but that is not because of the rhetoric of the left.

It is because of the rhetoric of the right. I want to hear who promises to do most least amount of damage (based on my own personal filters). That is who I vote against. The only true conservative movement is the LP, and...well...meh

This is why I typically vote against the incumbent.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Thus the first ever ceremonial burial was performed.

That was about 100,000 years ago i.e., prior to homo sapien sapiens. Indeed I have doubts that humans ever dumped dead bodies with the rest of the refuse except as a deliberate act of disrespect.

As I've heard it described to me by some moralists, morality is is normative, i.e. society as a whole decides what constitues good and evil.

Morality is normative, but also universally normative.

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

"That was about 100,000 years ago i.e., prior to homo sapien sapiens. Indeed I have doubts that humans ever dumped dead bodies with the rest of the refuse except as a deliberate act of disrespect."

Exactly. Humanity's primitive ancestors, i.e protohumans of various types. By the time homo sapiens came around, such traditions were well under way.

"Morality is normative, but also universally normative."

I disagree. The norms seem to vary across time, culture, and geography. It seems like there is literally no behavior that some society or other hasn't condoned at some point. I expect this to continue will into the future if we humans don't go extinct.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

The norms seem to vary across time, culture, and geography.

The word 'norm' has two meanings. One is the average, which is what you are referring to. The other is a standard or pattern. That is why I referred to universal norms, which are indeed independent of particular cultural contexts. Chomsky describes it thusly:

In fact, one of the, maybe the most, elementary of moral principles is that of universality, that is, If something's right for me, it's right for you; if it's wrong for you, it's wrong for me. Any moral code that is even worth looking at has that at its core somehow.

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

"In fact, one of the, maybe the most, elementary of moral principles is that of universality, that is, If something's right for me, it's right for you; if it's wrong for you, it's wrong for me. Any moral code that is even worth looking at has that at its core somehow."

I believe Chomsky to be mistaken. It ignores other more concrete facts of human existence that are independent of culture:

1) Humans have an instinct to act in their own desires and best interest, even when that interest or desire conflicts with others.

2) Humans will regularly violate any moral code they are told to accept in the interest of 1), even while professing to believe in equality.

3) To prevent humans from violating said tenet, the powerful will enact laws to prevent it and use the threat of force to do so. But at the same time, the powerful will still disregard these laws and tenets in secret.

I submit that morality is still a pipe dream and doesn't really govern human behavior. We are instead guided by desire, manipulation, and the threat of force.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Chomsky, of all people, cannot be accused of ignoring immoral acts founded in self-interest. His entire history of foreign policy stands in rather stark testament in opposition to your claim.

Nobody is suggesting that people can and do act in self-interested immorally. However to claim that is their only instinct is obviously fallacious.

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

"Nobody is suggesting that people can and do act in self-interested immorally."

What you suggested is this: "In fact, one of the, maybe the most, elementary of moral principles is that of universality, that is, If something's right for me, it's right for you; if it's wrong for you, it's wrong for me."

However, this isn't elementary based on 1) in my comment above. It's certainly not universal.

Also, morality doesn't exist in nature. The very fact that people have to be taught to believe any given moral code demonstrates that it's all in one's head.

What moralists seem to be describing when they say "morality" seems more like a set of personal preferences or mental aesthetics rather than a constant. Also, moralists can't even reach an agreement of what morality is or what the scource of it is.

How exactly is anyone supposed to believe such a murky non-cognitivist concept is real? Santa Claus is more well defined than this concept and no adult believes in him.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

However, this isn't elementary based on 1) in my comment above. It's certainly not universal.

Of course it's elementary and universal. It exists throughout moral teaching independent of space and time.

The very fact that people have to be taught to believe any given moral code demonstrates that it's all in one's head.

All human thought, from language itself, has to be taught.

What moralists seem to be describing when they say "morality" seems more like a set of personal preferences or mental aesthetics rather than a constant.

Some do, but moral relativism is a pretty minor school of thought these days.

Also, moralists can't even reach an agreement of what morality is or what the scource of it is.

So what? Physicists argue about the source of space and time and what it is as well.