Most and least moral posters

[Gabu]

But it is that rejection that is tantamount to the concept of amorality.

I would tend to disagree. One can have morals, without believing them to be objective or universal.

Emsworth, I often agree with you, but here I think you are taking your position to too much of an extreme.

It is true that morals evolve over time, and that there is a certain elasticity to morals.  But there also need to be certain bedrock morals for the good of society.

My example of a 45-year-old man sexually abusing a child is a good illustration of bedrock moral standards.  Opebo claims that my disapproval of this is strictly subjective.  But he fails to look at the reasons I may disapprove of it.  I disapprove of it because a child is most likely unable to defend himself/herself against unwanted advances, and such sexual contact at a very young age is emotionally devastating for the child, and can harm him/her for life.

What is really comes down to is that morality is about the protection of the least powerful, and the most defenseless.  That is really my conception of morality.  I oppose irresponsible child-bearing, and certain types of behavior while a person is raising children, and consider these things immoral because they harm the lives of young children who don't have a choice in the matter, and are unable to speak for or defend themselves.  A society that approves of behavior that is harmful to the defenseless, simply because some people may enjoy it, is not going to be a very pleasant place to live after too long.

I have room in my thinking for a somewhat unconventional code of morality, so long as the important items are met.  angus has made a lot of good comments here, so I'll use him as an example.  Certainly, his life has not lived up to the strictures of the Christian Coalition.  But he appears to be a good father to his son, and for that reason, I would consider him to be a moral guy, based on what I know about him.  He does not appear to be the type of guy who would be engaging in behavior that will put in danger a person for whom he is responsible, and who is unable to defend himself.  So I think that there has to be some elasticity in moral standards, but they cannot be totally subjective.  There has to be a bedrock bottom line.

I think this is a good post.  While there certainly are fuzzy areas, there are certain things that really should not be left up to debate, like "is murder okay".  If you don't like a religious slant on morals, the concept of good morals can essentially be thought of as guidelines for the continuation of the human race.  I personally feel that all logical human beings have some semblance of morals, because they all intuitively know that there are certain things that, if they were not done, would essentially cause a serious degredation or even the complete the downfall of the human race, things like "don't steal", "don't murder", et cetera.

Of course, there are always those who are very short-sighted who fail to co-operate in this grand example of the Prisoners' Dilemma, and who feel that they can get ahead in life if they do do those things.  I call these people short-sighted because the only reason that they think that this is a good idea is because that they aren't looking at the grander scale of things - namely, that if everyone acted like that, the world would not be a good place, and that it's up to everyone to ensure that we all co-operate with these very simple moral ideas in order to make the world a liveable place.

I think that the main issue is that people have very widely diverging ideas of the definition of "morals".  I think too many people get caught up into the religious aspect of morals and are unable to see the big picture.  Morals don't necessarily have to be religious in nature, given that a whole lot of things regarded as moral behavior are, in general, a good idea, whether or not you're religious.

[Gabu]

"The truth is not kind.  And you say neither am I."
    --Toad the wet sprocket, AD 1991

Hey, another Toad the Wet Sprocket fan, awesome.

At any rate, I think that all this topic is really proving is that we have many different senses of what it means to be "moral", and that no two people in this topic are likely talking about exactly the same thing, even though they're all using the same word.

[Gabu]

Certainly: that is your conception of morality. Someone else's conception may be different, and we cannot objectively say that one is inherently superior.

Sort of.  If we could define what it meant for one to be superior, we certainly could.  For example, someone who feels that sexually abusing a child is perfectly okay is very likely to cause a lot more pain in people's lives than someone who is strongly against such an activity, so if we say that a set of morals is superior to another if it causes the person to act in a way that causes less pain to innocent people, then we could say that the first set of morals is superior.

There are negative consequences incurred towards both yourself and those with whom you come into contact that come with not adhering to what most agree are acceptable standards for activity.  It's not as if everyone's idea of moral behavior resides in a vacuum and does not impact anything else in any way.

[Gabu]

You know, I'm all for discussions on threads involving the forum community, but just randomly throwing out the assertion of who we believe to be the most moral and least moral posters --- without even knowing them personally?

Seems a bit foolish. "nicest poster" or one about who'd roommate you'd like to be is one thing, but this just isn't necessary.

That's a very immoral thing for you to say, Nation.

[Gabu]

For example, someone who feels that sexually abusing a child is perfectly okay is very likely to cause a lot more pain in people's lives than someone who is strongly against such an activity, so if we say that a set of morals is superior to another if it causes the person to act in a way that causes less pain to innocent people, then we could say that the first set of morals is superior.

But the decision that a set of morals is superior to another because it causes less pain to another person is itself subjective.

Well, the only reason it's subjective is because there's no universal definition for "superior".  There are objective qualities, in general, that come with having different sets of moral standards, and when a person calls one set of moral standards "superior" to another, what that person is really doing is asserting that the set of differences provided in his or her definition of the term "superior" are present between the first set of moral standards and the second.  Once this factual assertion has been identified, then it is certainly possible (although it may be difficult) to investigate the claim and verify whether or not it's true.  The only issue is that some people may not consider the above set of differences to be an indication of superiority.

I suppose you are correct that there is no universal definition for what is and isn't good, so there technically is no universal way to determine whether or not a set of moral standards is superior to another.  Even so, however, I feel that it would be a mistake to act as if this means that there is no objective difference between one set of moral standards and another.  While an objective definition of "superior" may well be impossible, it is nonetheless true that certain moral standards lead to much more beneficial actions towards the human race than others (taking "beneficial" to be as the vast majority defines it), and I feel that this should be recognized as well.