I confess, I do not get this reference. I am not English. I am an American idiot, but not part of a redneck agenda (although I do not denigrate the right wing like the left wing does as there is equal wisdom on both sides).

I do not know how to quote on this forum. It makes little sense to me so far. The reply function should include the with quote option.

Anyway, yes, I agree, a person really is mostly just a choice from before.

But there is a statement I would make. The nexus of choice is a distinct element from the physical. That is to say the investment of consciousness into a physical body provides the concept of personhood. Only the body is a trapped state of previous choices that represent a challenge for the chooser. The nexus of consciousness, the signal as it were, whereas the body is the antennae, remains possessed of free will.

As evolution progresses moral agency increases. This is the ability of the nexus of choice to utilize free will via the increasing scope of moral agency. That is to say the body choice current state of an animal is less empowered to facilitate the infinite choice of free will. The body choice current state of a human is relatively more empowered to facilitate the infinite choice of free will. Likewise, those that take control by intent, in deontological fashion, of their nexus, that admit to the duty and effort of such a thing, are pressing evolution itself forward. They are empowering the expansion of moral agency. This means the facility to make moral and immoral choices both is increasing. That is effectively active wisdom. Whereas the choice as mentioned in the thief example above by Corvus represents a person who had chosen a lack of effort or less effort than the wise.

It should be mentioned for completeness that evolution itself stands as a stark proof writ large for my model because depending on how you view the progress over time, moral agency seems to be increasing at a reasonable pace compared to say moral agency prior to life as an extant phenomenon in the universe.

---

No happiness does legitimately come from the amplitude of virtues within choice is my assertion. This model still does account for disingenuously or moderately happy people as merely being human partakes of many virtues in the expression of relative moral agency. But the point is that people that pursue aiming at objective good do indeed generally enjoy more genuine happiness.

We, none of us, are perfect. But I am fairly sure we, each of us, knows someone we consider wise. I have mentioned as well that the wise suffer more exquisitely than the unwise do. That is because of the fact that they are indeed more of every virtue. They are more aware, more caring, more achieving, more of each virtue. But any given exemplar of a singular virtue is quite limited in happiness. If we decided there were an arbitrary number of virtues like 12 or 16 or even just 3 we could express some way of measuring the moral duty or general trend of a moral agent's choices in terms of their mean moral value. I would argue that regardless of delusional perceptions to the contrary the moral agents with the higher means are indeed more happy. They are closer to genuine happiness than others are.

The feedback loop of happiness/unhappiness based on the moral intent of choice, is a law of the universe that drives evolution. It would seem in fact that this law contains effectively all other laws of reality that have any relationship with unchanging truth (objectivity). At least that is part of my model and my assertions here.

---

This would then be a new or old as hell type of attempt at science and the scientific method. We need a way to measure genuine happiness and we can then begin to eke out what precisely is and is not a better moral choice. But it is my contention that better and better choices do exist because I contend that morality is objective and not at all open to interpretation.

We all know as well what some rather obvious patterns of immorality look like. Modern times have seen the denigration of fear and anger as emotive sources. I do not share that opinion at all. Both fear and anger have moral aims amid their scope as well as a massive scope of immoral or less than best aims. But one emotion in particular has come to the fore as it always does in times of prosperity when fear and anger would seem to be denigrated as immoral in general. That emotion is desire. We simply do not yet as a species have a good hold on how desire is every single bit as suspect as the other two already denigrated emotions. That is my opinion. Modern times are relatively prosperous and desire has taken a massive hold on humanity. The immoral aspects of desire, self-indulgence in general and greed to name a specific one, are indeed the rot of the day, and probably always were.

My efforts are to bring a better understanding of the balances inherent in true wisdom and I believe that starts with an understanding of morality as objective. Subjectivists are just pandering to self-indulgence one way or another. Moreover if you catalogue the virtues and note the likely over expressions of each as well as the under expressions, both immoral, you begin to understand that although morality can be approached from an infinite number of directions, that situation is not and never will be an argument for subjective morality. All paths lead to a convergent objective morality.

So, there are many conflations in your question. It's hard to know which conflation you are pursuing or if it's just a joke to you.

I would say there are cases for theft to be entirely moral.

Further, I already answered as to why those who commit immoral acts, make immoral choices, are often considered or consider themselves happy. They are referring to that which most of us settle on, disingenuous happiness or dull happiness. It literally can be likened to the 'happiness' of a wild animal.

That is to say, the moral agency of a wild animal is less as an absolute value than a human's is. If a human settles on an animal's moral scope, then they are choosing to be a devolved moral agent. Whereas they may not partake of rank immorality, they also do not aspire to push themselves to be more moral. Of course all things exist on a continuum. Hopefully you care and get my point.

As mentioned already due to the feedback of happiness from some virtues and not all, it is easy to explain less moral versions of happiness. That is why I specifically use the term genuine happiness.

Indeed, just so! Following of hierarchy and connection. Report to the overlord! And dogs are probably much higher on friendship as a virtue concept. The independence of cats relegates them to a more staid display set for affection and relative power.

Nope. 100% human although I am a coder with over 40 years experience and I certainly play with ChatGPT a lot. I find it far more repetitious that I am and it vomits politically correct boilerplate in each reply.

I did already explain that link.

You the aim is towards the good. That is something I might also call perfection.

The link is that good aimed actions and choices have a consequence of happiness. We can be more specific by saying the more and more good an action or choice has in aim, the more and more happiness that action has as a consequence.

Again, as also already explained, this issue is clouded by understandable misunderstandings related to choosing a behavior that amplifies one or a few virtues while copping out on other virtues. The built in law of nature rewards of morality are partite. Each virtue has a return. But wisdom and the good are the best behaviors and more to the point the best behavior sets, including all virtues.

As also mentioned, disingenuous happiness is relative. That means there is still some happiness. Certainly life or existence would cease entirely if happiness was zero. That fits the model. So we can postulate that that has not happened. Likewise we can postulate that perfect good as a choice has not happened. It would cause some metaverse affecting event if it did, possibly the purpose of the existence of the multiverse being realized.

So, being happy in the sense that I refer to is close to perfect. If we stop and go anecdotal which is fine, we must then assume that each person's interpretation/belief/choice of what happiness is ... is partially immoral and wrong. To that degree they experience unhappiness and then apply that in turn incorrectly to their judgment of others' happiness. Like any worthy situation, morality, acting by aiming at the good, is not easy.

I am very glad you asked this.

It is not easy to understand the good, to understand the perfect. ... That being said, Yes, all manner of weakness is immorality to some degree.

That is consistent with me suggesting that even a single almost perfectly moral act would be the hardest act or choice ever one could do.

Further, many people confuse state as being neutral. State is not neutral. That is to say the state or consequence in being of a person is a consequence of choices and actions that came before. The more immorality amid the choices, and none of us is anywhere near perfect, the more likelihood of a current state that is effectively an immoral consequence.

Of course one virtue of the good is forgiveness. The wise forgive everything and as near to perfect in forgiveness as can be chosen. This dynamic reduces or in the case of perfection erases animosity towards other choosers, and oneself as well if properly understood.

A person cannot be evil. Only their choices are. Likewise a person cannot be good. Only their choices are.

Enduring suffering is the path to wisdom. But the ascetics went too far when they inflicted unnecessary self-flagellation. Indeed they did not show as great a wisdom as if they truly found lighthearted joy amid necessary suffering.

This is a hilarious question. I love it.

I would guess initially that dogs and cats are stronger and weaker on differing virtues. As mentioned , Further, individual dogs and cats are also different in terms of moral agency although they hover around a certain specific moral agency amplitude.

If independence is a virtue and I think that is arguable, then cats are better at this than dogs are. But the orderly following of hierarchy and joy, both arguable virtues, are certainly higher in dogs as is measurable intelligence which is something beyond just sensory observation.

It's interesting that this set of examples serves to help argue for my points.

Also, this brings up a digression as well. That is ... I do believe the universe has morality as a law. That means indeed the table has a moral agency. The storm is certainly a moral agent. And this rises into living creatures before reaching its zenith as far as we know in humanity.

The animists were always more correct than religion. :) {First guess is best}

It would be my contention that regardless of an immoral actor's perception, they DO become inflicted with unhappiness based on immoral actions. Based on contentions 3,4, and 6 the trouble is that the best happiness they have ever felt is a consequence of their low moral choices in general. They have no benchmark to understand a more genuine happiness relative to where they are.

But this lack of virtue/awareness/perception works both ways. That is to say, the wise suffer more exquisitely than the unwise. Suffering is the only path to wisdom. So their dullness is a consequence of their dullness, if you follow. It's actually the same with animals.

But animals are already lesser moral agents than humans are. Increasing agency opens a wider scope of happiness and of good/evil choice. In such a way the amplitude moral agency can be expressed as an absolute value. It's every bit as possibly good as it is possibly evil. This is the fulcrum upon which free will balances.

The moral agency amplitude can be envisioned as a cup or container. When it is accidentally filled further than it has been before, with any virtue, then that part of happiness can be experienced. Although a given moral agent may not be routinely functional at that level, they are now increased in the virtue at least of awareness regarding this happiness. It is another related sub contention that once a moral agent experiences this, and certainly regularly, they begin to crave that happiness and indeed find it harder to 'sin' against it, to act in immoral ways. This is the street kid that finally finds a more moral family type of situation. This is the abused creature that finally finds some measure of regular non-abuse. It is also the self indulgent eater that finally gets thin to win. It's harder once awareness is there to intend the immoral. And even if the moral agent overcomes that 'difficulty' they still suffer more unhappiness in their full awareness. I still argue that as a law of the universe they experience the full measure of unhappiness even if they do not perceive it.

Keep in mind that as mentioned, genuine happiness is better than just a spike of a virtue. For example the virtue of achievement and the subsequent earning of profits can certainly be described as immoral, especially after excess (but really just in general). So the stronger and stronger expression of choice through the achievement virtue does offer greater and greater happiness. But that happiness is not genuine or full. It's the same with any addiction. The happiness becomes empty. And I digress to mention this, but, giddiness is always a moral error consequence. It is a red flag to me.

In the case of the money, yes, if the finder kept it, they are going to experience unhappiness. They will know that they did not earn it. As another digression I will mention that it is not possible to morally earn anything except wisdom and happiness. All other earnings are not actually earned. They can be separated from you. Only you can separate your wisdom and happiness from yourself. That is part of the truth of free will.

This has actually happened to me. I tend to notice things others miss. I have, over the years, found many jewelry items. I have always tried to return them except in two cases. The one was when I was a child. My parents kept a diamond engagement ring I found in a lake and ... gave it to my sister. They/we made no effort to return it and I did feel guilty both immediately and even still about it. I do forgive myself my part. I was only a child. But I felt it was wrong and odd even then. The second case was where I did advertise the find of an extremely valuable diamond bracelet in a parking garage of all places. No one answered the ad that ran for two weeks at my expense. I pawned it but still felt guilty. Of course I did what most people would say is enough. But only the perfect is enough in reality. Morality is tricky business.

As a choice gets more and more good, it is harder and harder to make. This is why the wise are comfortable with suffering. That suffering is necessary. In this case effort is part of what is called suffering. And the wiser one gets the more this effort is a happy thing therefore. But the wise also thus inflict necessary suffering on the unwise to allow them a safer opportunity to earn wisdom.

Hopefully all of that is a sufficient answer. Continue if you'd like.