We heard the guys' story. Now we should ask some women. "Are you morally different from guys?"

Oh no, actually it was the opposite haha. I meant that ethical behaviour has a tendency to not follow rationality. — john27

Ethics, on the other hand, seems to involve taking the concerns of others into account. — Banno

When I was fifteen, I worked out that ethics -- though a noble and grand feeling, and praised by society -- is an insidiously selfish act in each case of its manifestations. I figured some sort of a sacrifice is always part of an ethical behaviour. This, put together with the inherent aim of ethics to always benefit some other, it seems like the most unselfish, noble act.

BUT!! But. But the truth is that these unselfish acts invariably protect not the self, true, but the tribe, the family, the nation, the species. In other words, the derivatives of one's own DNA. And the beneficiary is invariably is also a protector of the person who sacrifices for the community.

This is sort of a scenario that plays out this way: "I pay a sacrifice to the community to help the community survive, so then they can protect me and help me survive too."

People help blind people across the street, and expect no reward; but the tribe has not lost a blind member, who is weak and not very useful for the survival of the tribe, and therefore of the individual, yet the blind DOES represent some value. He can do things that others can't or won't.

So... now there you go, John27, and tell us that ethics often contradict reason. I am sure that is how it is on the surface.. and the reason may be hidden from the person acting ethically... yet the final result (if such a thing exists... "final") or the intended final result is the most precisely and accurately formed best way to achieve with a seemingly unreasonable act.

Much like the selfishness is hidden in appearing unselfish, the reason is hidden (even from the person who acts morally) behind the apparent lack of reason.

These two totally hidden and yet invariably underlying concepts have been formed by evolution, whereby an unreasonable act is performed to carry out the reason down the road. The behaviour is randomly formed, yet of all randomly formed behaviours this is one that supplied survival superiority. So the reason and the selfishness are hidden, but the behaviour still serves them.

Seems my joke wasn't a KO... — john27

Seeing that we are talking ethics, I had to make sure...not to mistake it for Geiges' ring. (Plato refers to it in the Republic.) It made perfect sense in the context. But I still had to make it sure.

When were clocks used for the first time in science?

Most probably at noon. It was easiest to set the clocks at noon. The sun was at the Zenith position and that was a dead giveaway. Then everyone synchronized their first clocks.

One thing where we have a foot in the door above animals is double-entry accounting and fundamentals of accounting principles. That still needs to be discovered to be freely occurring in nature.

Karl Marx said, "quantitative changes always precede qualitative changes." Perhaps man is only above the animal kingdom by quantitative differences. Bigger brains, but they got brains. Better functioning societies, but they got soicieties. Better sex... maybe. Better food, education, clothing, tools, medicine, religion, culture... they all got that. Not all, but all of our stuff had been go by some amongst the animals.

We need to discover the monolith on Jupiter's 12 moon to go through the qualitative change we so much have earned.

Good luck in the ring. — john27

What ring? It does not ring a bell.

You mean like a boxing ring? A fighting arena?

Let's ask him if he meant to say that.

Apostrophel, did you mean to say what we came up with speculatively trying to understand you?

I loved the way Plato/Socrates talked about ethics in the Republic.

They ramble on with different arguments here and there with different people, finally Socrates puts on the table his version of ethics: Ideals, Forms, and the cave.

WTF? Where is the ethics in there, old foker? WHERE'S THE BEEF??

Socrates is the most misguiding and most over-rated philosopher of all times.

Sorry, I couldn't make sense of this. — john27

I think Apostrophel talks about logic and truth; how logical speech does not ALWAYS concern itself with ethics, so restricting ethics as a subset of reason is a bit of a useless exercise, is what I think he is saying. If he says that, I agree.

I wrote the following two papers explaining why ethics can't be defined. The thrust of my thesis was that ethics in fact comprises two separate and irreconcilable systems, each of which can be defined, but the two are always lumped together into one, and that causes a lot of confusion for philosophers. There are distinct similarities and differences between the two systems which I tried to describe in the papers.

Everyone on this site poo-pooed on these papers, those who criticized them, but mainly those who never even bothered to look at them.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/10744/ethics-explained-to-smooth-out-all-wrinkles-in-current-debates-neo-darwinist-approach/p1

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/10903/shortened-version-of-theory-of-morality-some-objected-to-the-conversational-style-of-my-paper

I find sugar the most addictive and alcohol the least useful. — Xtrix

You can douse somebody with alcohol and set them on fire. The fire won't last long, about the same amount of time as any dish that they sat aflame in an authentic Greek restaurant, and the person won't suffer serious burns, only will lose his eyebrows and chest hair. And he or she will have a lifetime of fun regaling this story to the uninitiated.

I may be lynched for what I say, but this is what it is in my opinion:

1. Big pharma is business; it likes to make a profit.
2. Its profit is based on the success of its business plan.
3. Its business plan is to make drugs that cure sickness or else treat them to make them symptomless.
4. Its goal is androgynist: to take money out of the pockets of people. Its business plan is benevolent and helpful for the sick, the downtrodden and the brokenhearted.
5. People tend to focus on the goal. Not on the business plan.
6. People hate paying money, so they create theories that besmirch the business plan.
-----------
Given that, you also must think about:

1. Drugs are chemicals.
2. Chemical reactions are unpredictable (largely) by molecular structure alone.
3. Big Pharma makes drugs this way: randomly or semi-randomly create all kinds of chemicals. Test them on all kinds of diseases. If they cure/ help symptoms disappear, they are commercialized.
4. The creation and testing, because it is not predictable, take a LOT of time and effort. Money.
5. The pharma has to recover the costs. Hence new drugs are copyrighted, and protected. Big pharma has no fear of copycats for 17 years.
6. This does not work this way: big pharma decides to make only drugs that alleviate symptoms, but not drugs which are curative in nature.
Proof: the big pharma deals with chemicals that are numerous and unknown for their effects for each change of molecular structure in them. So they CAN NOT make a decision "let's aim only for symptom alleviation, not for cure". Whatever works is fine, but Big Pharma can't create something on the strength of chemical theory; they can only create by random design and random execution. So the reason they create symptom alleviating drugs, not curative-strength drugs is not a control issue, but a flaw or difficulty that the research process is riddled with by necessary operational uses and will use.

Is god pink, or is god yellow? Pick one.

Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the communist party?

Do you, don't you, want me to make you?

Et tu, Brute?

"Mankind is at the point in history when we have to choose between two paths: one leading to certain doom, the other, to complete annihilation. I hope we have the wisdom to choose the right one." -- Woody Allen: the opening lines of his keynote speech at the Harvard graduating ceremony.

Absolutely. You're right, EE. I got the numbers out of the air, reasoning that nobody will check, and if somebody checks, then they perhaps will be nice enough to correct my figures. I'm glad it worked. Thank you for your diligence.

don’t flow free like the air and stone. — Raymond

They don't have to. They are MODELLING it, not replicating it precisely. Much like the HO train set in your childhood was not really pulled by steam locomotives with real people, however tiny, sitting inside the wagons.

There are some real, but really grave displays of misunderstandings of physics in your post, which may be a valid explanation why you are having a tough time with the concept of modeling.

The air molecules and stone move freely and once in a while collide with each other. — Raymond

That "once in a while" is 6.35*10^24 every tenth of a second. That is, 63500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 every second.

Gravity is no force. — Raymond

You would get expelled from school anywhere in Europe and put in the "slow" stream if you uttered that. You are not slow, actually, you are only unaware of what reality is because of your schooling. But I bet you know what the Book of Job is about, or why Geisheida did her severing of the veil in front of
Beutheunes' stone sculpture.

the process on the chip, the bunches of electrons on the tiny wires, representing abstract aspects of the real process, don’t flow free like the air and stone. — Raymond

How does 3.5 gigahertz sound to you? That's the speed of computer clocks. That means that they perform 3.5 BILLION instructions per second. So... can you make out a difference with you naked eye, whether it's a continuous motion, or a periodic motion? Heck you or any other human being can't even see the frames in the movie theatre, and they move at 40 hertz to 50 hertz.

So they keep it away from the common man at all costs. — god must be atheist

I ain't kiddin'. The state budget of New York state on education that comes out of taxes is 2.4 trillion dollars. Add to this the costs absorbed by the students and the families, and that comes to a whopping 32.3 trillion dollars. This includes not only books and tools, like pens and iPhones, but gas (taking kids to school), depreciation on vehicle, shoes, running shoes, tampons (tamper-proof), chewing gum, ammunition, handguns and semi-automatic firearms, security guards, more security guards, etc. etc. This is a lot of money, so the parents can rest assured that their little tykes get a really good grounding in Bible studies. From kindergarten to grade twelve.

I noticed that a lot, if not all, skepticism stems from benign ignorance. It's not that people wish to be unaware of physics and technological knowledge; it's that the schools in Canada and the USA are pitiful in instilling knowledge of physics, math, chemistry, biology, geography, philosophy, history, home economics, art, physical education and English. They are superb, however, and are lightyears better than European or Asian schools at teaching the Bible. They know what's important in America. So they keep it away from the common man at all costs.

How can a free process, say a stone moving freely in the air, be modeled by a process that progresses by applying a programmed force field on electrons in wires? — Raymond

The stone does NOT move freely in air. It obeys at least three influential forces: force of gravity, force of inertia (momentum) and force of air resistance.

You make several observations of the effects of the three influences, and by "several" I mean at minimum several thousand distinct observations. Knowing then the effect of gravity, momentum and air resistance, you can build a virtual model of a stone travelling though air. You can calculate at which point it will have what speed, direction, and even temperature (if you are nifty enough).

I call this modelling of a stone travelling through air.

It will have inaccuracies. A physicist never says "1.94", or "5.53*10E204" but will say something like "1.94 +/- 0.02" or "5.53E204+/-393E203". Physicists do math, but with an allowable error of margin.

Much like your Ferrari downscaled model won't have precise ratios, the virtual stone travel model will have imprecisions, but not perceptible by naked human senses.

The Philosophy Forum Sunday Funnies — ArguingWAristotleTiff

thanks!

Nature doesn't operate according to a program and only a scaled (up or down) version of an object can be a model. — Raymond

Now that we are diverting back to the topic: nature operates in a deterministic way, which is not programmed, to my belief, but it could be viewed that events in nature obey laws that are the backbones of a program. Others may believe the world was set into motion according to a plan, or a program.

Only a scaled version of an object can be a model? In visual terms, yes, but you already have discrepancies in operational capacities. You can have scaled down version of a Ferrari, and many people do, but it does not have a working internal combustion engine. Yet it is a model. Why can't be something else (A) be a model of a portion of reality (B) where A is not strictly speaking a precise replica of B? Such as a computer program can be modelling (create model) of cars arriving at a service station at random, and seeing how much waiting time the owners of the cars must suffer to get their cars' problems fixed.

"Alright alright alright!" — Raymond

"Ladies and gentlemen... we're gonna give you Pictures at an Exhibition." My spine shivers, and my eyes water.

Different group, same effect.

I stop here before I get dinged for diverting the conversation from the topic.

Back to Tumblr and Facebook et al: To suppose that abrupt policy changes (some in place for a decade or two) are a matter of political indifference is shortsighted. We don't have the Great Fire Wall of China, but we have a (so far) softer system of thought suppression. — Bitter Crank

Just like the principal (no, not the principle) of the thought you think the corporations are suppressing, the more it gets suppress'd, the more it will stand up.

Just a thought. And it's the thought that counts.

This is really a nonsense conversation. — emancipate

The Doors, a musical group of the 1960s, wrote and played a song, "Build Me A Woman, Ten Feet Tall". Also, Pygmalion sculpted Galatea. Da Vinci painted Mona Lisa. Those are models of models.

and those that have gave definitions, — Cobra

No. No definitions have been given. You are not right here.

I am not meaninglessly bugging you. I am showing you that the entire discussion is meaningless. That action by me is not meaningless.

'Philosophy of Programming' - Why Does This Field Not Exist?There is philosophy of programming. The field does exist. We took it back in freshman year, and then there was a graduate degree program in it. Our professor (I never got beyond the bachelor degree) explained that his best friend had to prove the computer clock (of a specific computer, or the concept of computer clocks in general, I don't know which) to a bunch of examiners in defense of his masters degree thesis. He could not. He was a brilliant person, and still he could not. Of course not. In philosophy no empirical stuff can be proven. The guy who demonstrated his ability to not prove a computer clock got his Ph.D. based on this performance of his.

So you're having some kind of personal issue with answering the question, what do you want me to do about it? — Cobra

This is what I wish you will do about it: define morality. By providing positive, inclusive, and sufficiently delineating parameters.

Why do I ask it? because you asked us to do a moral judgment applied to a scenario. If the criteria (morality) is not definite, then the entire discussion that follows is meaningless. It may be diversified, open-ended, hypothetical and imaginative, but completely meaningless. Talking about a topic from a point of view that nobody knows what it is, by way of a lack of an agreed or even approximate definition, is meaningless.

What's the big deal? — Cobra

The other big deal is that people often refer to "morality" as a principle to follow, yet they can't define the principle itself. I find it an empty rhetoric, and a false defensive offensive. They push the word "moral" down your throat, and then they ask you to explain yourself or to defend yourself. I can't abide with that. Leave morality out of the sphere when you want emotional justification. NOT YOU personally, but people. That is the big deal.

What's the big deal? — Cobra

The big deal is that you asked a question that is impossible to answer. Why ask questions that are impossible to answer? talking about them won't answer them. No way you can answer them. So what's the point of asking questions that are impossible to answer? This is a rhetorical question, this last one, not something I expect an answer to.

Just use your own definition or something. — Cobra

I don't have that definition. I doubt that you do, or that anyone else does.

That was my point. I won't make a decision based on something undefinable.

hey aren't supposed to be equivalent people. — Cobra

It's not the people whom I called non-equivalent. It's the questions.

1. You asked to make a moral judgment.
2. Then you said that that is not the question.

All I ask, read it carefully, please: Define morality for me, and then we can make a moral judgment. Tell me what is moral in its essence.

Are you changing the question, Cobra? I thought this had been your question:

I am curious to know everyone's thoughts on a few things, particularly around the ethics and moral discussion. — Cobra

Now you are saying that this is the question:

I am essentially asking if the elements of ones past and history where they have demonstrated to be indifferent, or at least, disinterested in preserving the well-being of others, should be taken into account when giving someone an organ transplant, that may prolong their life further, when there are demonstrably better candidates to pick, but may not be "next in line". — Cobra

The two are not only non-equivalent, but they can't even be reconciled.

I would rather answer the first question you asked. Please give a definition of moral action. I eagerly await.

The moral question has a pragmatic answer. To seek morals there, you need some moral guidance. One may be the "benefit of society". Bang, that puts you back in the pragmatic solution.

If you look at the Maryland event: here vengeance and legality has come into play. Vengeance is an emotion; legality is rule-living. Neither is moral in its essence.

If you want me to give you an intelligible answer, please state the philosophical definition of morality. Not by negative terms, but by inclusive and completing terms. Thanks.

Were gladiators virtuous? — Ciceronianus

Gladiators were slaves. Period. It did not matter whether they were virtuous or not. Their own wills were not involved in the decision whether to partake in the fight or not. They were thrown in to fight, WETHER THEY WANTED TO BE THERE OR NOT, and they had to fight to survive.

If you see any valor in that, I admire you.

Does matter have contingency/potentiality? is the question.
Does it matter if matter does?
Matter is what matter does.

Mayael, that bloke with the high IQ and secret engineering job; maybe you changed his tire because he wanted you to, not because he was incapable. I mean, who wants to kneel in the slush and snow, handling sub-zero freezing iron tools and nuts that your bear skin gets stuck to if you don't wear gloves? Isn't it better to get someone else to do the job for you?

I wouldn't be surprised to hear that he saw you coming. "Now, here's a bloke who will change my tires for free," he said to himself.

And by George he was right.

Could we reword the claim "consciousness is an illusion" as "consciousness is created by neural activity in the brain"? — pfirefry

It's okay by me. I am not sure if it's true, but hey, why not. However, and unfortunately, chances are that this change will cause me to not post more, since I only had something to say while the previous definition was in effect.

Ahhh you got me good there. — john27

Sorry... I meant the Original Post not the Original Poster. I clarified it in the beginning of my post there.

You are not a liar, a cheater, a thief. At least I have no evidence of that. I trust you and welcome your opinions.

the reason the OP (original post) comes to the conclusion that average is best, is that literary characters and therefore the moral lessons in literary creations, exalt the mediocre. And not always, but sometimes.

The literary characters have two characteristics that they must possess:
1. be endearing to the reader
2. be able to overcome an adversity and demonstrate the same in the book or movie or play.

The endearing part comes from mediocrity. Everyone loves the underdog. If the underdog wins, the crowd loves it.

Mediocre guys are invariably pitted against a challenge that they are unlikely to overcome.

Yet through cunning, or via strength, or via moral vicissitude, or through blood viscosity, they overcome the challenge. Otherwise the book is a fail.

-------------------

Reading the above, I can't but come to the conclusion that books are not writing reality. They have a main character that is irreconcilable with itself. It is both a mediocre person AND an outstanding genius of sorts at the same time and in the same respect.

This is a trick writers must use to draw the reader in, and let him leave with a feeling of satisfaction, over the good earning its just rewards, and the bad, its just punishment.

This is a complete hoax, a total separation from reality. In real life the average guy is a loser, and the genius / strong man / moral giant is never a loser. Unless, of course, they oppose a another character who is "gianter" then they are.

-----------------

The OP uses examples that are replete in kind in world literature : the books are written to promote the sale of more books. This is done by writing books that readers want to read, and that is the kind that involves lies and discrepancies. The OP can't and ought not to be believed when it promotes ideals, values and general expectations gleaned from books of literary fiction.

It may be difficult to follow my non-linear thinking here, but this is why the things that have really advanced atheism are not logical arguments. It's penicillin, knowledge about cholera, vaccines, and the like. Medicine makes people a little less dependent on the opium of religion than they were, say 100 years ago when death was a pretty common feature of the average person's life year after year. — Mongrel

Boy, I even wrote a paper on that! Not published, of course.

My point was the same: People needed, it seemed to them, an external force to protect them. Danger came in many ways: disease, but not just disease: crop failure, enemy attacks, fire, flood, even meteorite hits (ask the mainstream dinosaurs) and attack by wild animals. People froze to death in the winter, and starved to death during the whole year. Lords, landlords, had absolute power over the serfs.

Obviously their only recourse was superstition, to stave off the "evil". It has been seen (not by me) since prehistoric times, the invocation of protection via prayer, sacrifice, covenants.

The spread of atheism occurred at times when less and less superstitious dogma was deemed as needd for survival. There were sporadic atheists at all times in history, but the real blow to the Church came in the time of the establishment of the first secular universities. Whenever that was. Professors were smart to recognize that the world operated on cause-effect relationships, and they eliminated the need for a deity from their weltanschauung. But people who needed to survive by avoiding natural or human-made disasters still believed in superstitions. Secular professors worked in cities, with stable income, the cities were walled so protected from enemy attacks, and there was some medical help available when needed. They felt secure, they did not need prayer. So they cast god aside.

The growing number of proletars and bourgizisaiaidfise (I can't spell French words, with a glee) came a new era of "pretend" religioosity, where people believed in some sort of creator, but they did not depend on it for too much.

This lasted into the middle of the last century, in most of Europe, or to the nineteen-twenties in Russia, where Communism obliterated religions in the main.


The true, unforced era of atheism came with the prosperity of post-war Western Europe. Bellies were full, no war, disease or pestilence. Penicillin was a saviour. Education became free, so did medicine, and so did welfare, unemployment insurance and retirement income. Life became good.

In America, according to this explanation of atheism, the lack of medicare and the proliferation of guns stop Atheism. That's why the strong resistence against gun control and against medicare. People love to stick with their ideologies, it is the strongest force of cohesion between members of the tribe, so it's the strongest social value and the strongest survival value for a community. Their common beliefs.

America is not atheist for this reason. Superstition is a major part of life, to stave off the evil that causes financial ruin via sickness that's too expensive to handle, yet one must pay for it. It can come any time, any direction; it is random. The randomness is what keeps the superstition alive. Because to fight it, you need to appeal to a god, and gods are, let's face it, fickle. They sometimes grant wishes sent to them in prayer, and sometimes they don't. It's completely random. Actually, so random that you almost could say the gods don't even listen... because they don't exist.