If everyone was like your neighbors you wouldn’t have groups forming in the first place. And groups are incredibly advantageous.

What is your point?

Of course groups are advantagoues. Gangs, mobs, nepotism, cronyism. How does this prove that morality is worthwhile?

Groups have a much better chance of survival than individuals. Moral conduct by the majority is necessary for those groups to form. Therefore moral conduct is evolutionarily advantageous on a whole.

Or the simpler proof is: If it wasn’t advantageous it would’ve been phased out of us by now.

Groups have a much better chance of survival than individuals. Moral conduct by the majority is necessary for those groups to form. Therefore moral conduct is evolutionarily advantageous on a whole. — khaled

In other words, the behavior of my neighbors is advantageous. They are part of a group that protects them. I am sure they consider their behavior moral.

My neighbor has unruly sons who do stupid things. One of them bashed his car into my mailbox, and its concrete anchored 4x4 tore up the front of his car. Subsequently, he started parking two streets away, I guess to avoid a confrontation. I laughed when I spotted it.

But now that son seems to be gone. It rained super heavily for a week after that and the ground became saturated. I was able to push the mailbox back up out of the mud. It will become capable of destroying another plastic bumper when the ground gardens.

The greatest thing is that the son took his dog with him. That dog was annoying and it looked like this:

the only conclusion is that morality is overrated and evolutionarily disadvantageous. — baker

To correctly judge something it's wise to first find out what that things is. It appears you have not done that. So the question: what is it exactly that you suppose ethics/morality to be?

To correctly judge something it's wise to first find out what that things is. It appears you have not done that. So the question: what is it exactly that you suppose ethics/morality to be? — tim wood

Like I said

things that by traditional morality, would be considered immoral or otherwise bad. — baker

and

Why bother about other people,their lives and their property, when you can get away with endangering and damaging it. — baker

I think (or at least, I used to think) ethics/morality is, to great extent, about not doing harm to other people and their property.

....all that, and upon finding out what morality is, one might also find another domain to which “getting away with” has power.

Ethics/morality, it seems to me, is about caring for oneself by making the world a better place. Call it a kind of group care that flowers from the root through individuals. Or the lesson from the dialogues: no one really chooses to be bad (meaning that no one who really knows or understands anything chooses to be bad) because ultimately the bad man hurts himself. The a**hole over there is not your warrant to be one, because if you go that way, then you're one and the world, your corner of it, goes to hell. There is more power in your turn the other cheek than is dreamt of....

That is, morality/ethics is a set of rules, variously based depending on the system. As such in themselves no compulsive force at all. As with a feather. But combined in proper use able to soar over tall buildings (too much coffee this morning). So it seems to me that in dismissing them, you have simply not understood them.

one might also find another domain to which “getting away with” has power. — Mww

This one?
"Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short."

Close enough. “what their own strength shall furnish...” absent all else, I can adapt to the domain which he must answer to.

Hobbes doesn’t get the credit he should, methinks.

Nice find.

....all that, and upon finding out what morality is, one might also find another domain to which “getting away with” has power. — Mww

I don't understand what you mean. Do say more.

Ethics/morality, it seems to me, is about caring for oneself by making the world a better place. — tim wood

This can mean so many things, be taken so many ways.
The Nazis, for example, too, cared about themselves by "making the world a better place".

Call it a kind of group care that flowers from the root through individuals. Or the lesson from the dialogues: no one really chooses to be bad (meaning that no one who really knows or understands anything chooses to be bad) because ultimately the bad man hurts himself.

If life is all about boosting one's ego (and there's no indication that it isn't), then one could be lying in a ditch and still think himself king.

The a**hole over there is not your warrant to be one, because if you go that way, then you're one and the world, your corner of it, goes to hell.

This isn't what the world seems to function like. I know many assholes whose corner of the world looks very nice, expensively furnished.

There is more power in your turn the other cheek than is dreamt of....

People who advocate turning the other cheek are people who never practice it themselves. Jesus didn't.

That is, morality/ethics is a set of rules, variously based depending on the system. As such in themselves no compulsive force at all.

If they're not compulsive, how can they be relevant?

So it seems to me that in dismissing them, you have simply not understood them.

What do you mean?
Whom have I dismissed?

Given this state of facts, the only conclusion is that morality is overrated and evolutionarily disadvantageous.
Why bother about other people, their lives and their property, when you can get away with endangering and damaging it.

I dare you to prove this wrong. — baker

Frankly, this is such a dumb non sequitur, I wonder why anyone would bother. You make a sweeping, simplistic statement about a complex issue that has been a subject of research for more than a century in several scientific fields - all on the basis of one anecdote of some petty neighbor squabble? Really?

some petty neighbor squabble — SophistiCat

I invite you to walk a mile in my shoes. Or, in this case, live in my situation, with such a neighbor who doesn't care if because of his actions, your house collapses and buries you and your family.

No, thanks. I have my share of unpleasantness in my own life, as do we all. Get over yourself.

Precisely: Why bother about other people, their lives and their property, when you can get away with endangering and damaging it.

Frankly, the only reason I responded is that I saw your posts before and you didn't strike me as a fool. So I wonder what's going on. Is this thread some kind of social experiment? Are you not feeling well?

It's one person (or couple, family, what have you) out of billions. Just remember that. Though, as I'm sure you'll come to contemplate, it's quite a bit more than that. We generally create the life and fate we wish. Now, I'm not going to automatically take your story at face value, perhaps there's more to it you're either neglecting to share or feel is not relevant. Still, at face value, if they feel no desire, need, or responsibility to correct damage done either willful or unintentional, they likely don't expect any recompense or recourse when it's done to them, ie. those who are hard on others are often hardest on themselves. Misery likes its company, they say. Not sure where you live but they are generally small claims courts or similar avenues to pursue.

Interesting dynamic you say they "have connections with the local authorities". What support or evidence do you have of this? If those connections are worth jeopardizing the social fabric over (ie. documentable proof of conspiracy) it is unlikely you live in a poor or average neighborhood. A fact you should not take for granted.

Given this state of facts, the only conclusion is that morality is overrated and evolutionarily disadvantageous.
Why bother about other people, their lives and their property, when you can get away with endangering and damaging it.


I dare you to prove this wrong. — baker

Say I did. Then you'd never know who the people you don't want to have around/in your life are. Until too late.

"The utopia you imagine is actually a dystopia of the worst kind."
- Anonymous

I am literally living in fear for my life every day, and this guy is getting away with it.

You see, philosophy is fine, and abstractly discussing existential problems is fine -- unless one actually lives in the middle of one and actually needs a solution, on the spot.

Many philosophers decry moral realism. Yet when one looks at the world, when one doesn't ignore the obvious, moral realism is the name of the game.

I dare you to prove this wrong.
— baker

Say I did. Then you'd never know who the people you don't want to have around/in your life are. — Outlander

I don't understand what you mean by that.
How would showing that it's worth bothering about other people have as a consequence not knowing who the people you don't want to have around/in your life are?

Everyone justifies their behavior in their own way , and the best fuel for this is when some one appears hostile to or critical of them. You best bet would have been to establish friendly relations with them
even though your were inclined to despise them. Still not too late . Make it about your vulnerabilities not about how irresponsible they are. If you’re too proud to do this, you’re screwed.

Still, at face value, if they feel no desire, need, or responsibility to correct damage done either willful or unintentional, they likely don't expect any recompense or recourse when it's done to them, ie. those who are hard on others are often hardest on themselves. — Outlander

No, this are one-way relationship kind of people. They should be able to do harm unto (certain) others, but those others should be kind to them no matter what.

Interesting dynamic you say they "have connections with the local authorities". What support or evidence do you have of this?

Can't share the details here, but there is such evidence.

If those connections are worth jeopardizing the social fabric over (ie. documentable proof of conspiracy) it is unlikely you live in a poor or average neighborhood. A fact you should not take for granted.

It's a neighborhood that is rapidly becoming gentrified. And it looks like we "old settlers" are going to be pushed out.

Make it about your vulnerabilities not about how irresponsible they are. — Joshs

Sure, I've been thinking about that. But what if they say, "Your life, your problem"?
Appealing to people's compassion generally doesn't go well.

I am literally living in fear for my life every day, and this guy is getting away with it. — baker

You've yet to explain what they are actually doing. What are they doing?

Are you an introvert who's disinclined to be "neighborly" with your other neighbors? Like was said before there's strength in numbers. If they decrease your property value, they decrease not only their own but others around them. Which removes the "morality for the sake of morality" dynamic.

quote="baker;501308"]Appealing to people's compassion generally doesn't go well.[/quote]

Better to appeal to people’s ego. People like to feel important and respected. Its surprising how much they’re willing to do for you if you tap into that.

I am literally living in fear for my life every day, and this guy is getting away with it. — baker

I think you've turned your brain into a pressure cooker.

Ethics/morality, it seems to me, is about caring for oneself by making the world a better place.
— tim wood
This can mean so many things, be taken so many ways.
The Nazis, for example, too, cared about themselves by "making the world a better place". — baker

I think this will suffice for the differences in our understandings. I cannot think of anything, any thinking, that can be done absent all presuppositions. And ethics/morals (EM) not an exception. For there to be EM there must be some presuppositions. That leaves the question as to what they might be. Now let's pretend we've identified at least some of them. I hope you will agree that they likely share characteristics of being based in reason and being generalizable - generalized. That rules out Nazis, their rules being neither based in reason nor generalized.

And you may argue that as with non-Euclidean triangles the sum of whose interior angles is not 180 degrees, there may be non-usual reasoning or generalizations that might lead to systems of EM that differ and even contradict each other. And that has actually happened. Ritual murder, genocide, slavery, cannibalism, and more have not only occurred but thought at the time right and correct. Now of course they're not. Something, then, underlies and is the ground of EM. Perhaps the best I can do here with this is simply to say that there are rules and beliefs, shoulds and oughts, that at any given time most folks adhere to. Are these then relative? Absolutely. But are they also absolute? Also absolutely, and also relatively. Both at the same time.

So neither you nor anyone can dismiss them out-of-hand without at the same time dismissing your own humanity. Maybe to a higher humanity, but that possibility does not seem to be in question here.

But for you they seem to be a burden. I submit that what burdens you is not any issue of EM, but in part perhaps lawless neighbors and what to do about them - no trivial problem at all. Probably best in most cases is to move, and to remember that revenge is a dish best served cold.

I don't understand what you mean by that.
How would showing that it's worth bothering about other people have as a consequence not knowing who the people you don't want to have around/in your life are? — baker

I can see that. You're conflating two separate ideals here. Those two being the ability to do so and the requirement to do so, respectively. Each offering their own benefits and drawbacks, with only one providing the function I mentioned.