Talk:Morality

Some parts copied and adapted from Sexual morality because already clear enough in that article.

that article is one of many subtopics in morality that need to be written about.

24, my changes are not opposing what you had said, but adding instead some other notes, that I imagine can combine with your definition. You added the element of personality of the conduct, that is effectively correct on a "subjective" level (by which I mean, the matter regarded from the side of the individual). But I can see that the "social" relevance of this concept can be perhaps of more commonly known evidence.

very true. The classic argument about morality is whether it comes from inside or outside the person. The Greek word "mores" or "custom" clearly defines it as a matter of what you get *caught* doing.  ;-) But they were a *shame*-based culture, as the sociologists call it. We are *guilt*-based and expect inner decisions rather than external pressures to catch us before we do things we shouldn't.

This more properly should regard those cultures that admit the "original sin", therefore those cultures influenced by the Byble (or by other eventual religions containing similar beliefs). But, even in this case, the sense of guilt only regards the relationships with religion and can influence morality only when it is a religious morality: I can see no evident effect of the sense of guilt (and I live in one of those topic areas, as you can imagine) in a common concept of morality as the abstinence from theft, which should be valuable also in Gauguin's far islands.

Not being enforced by law, morality is always volountarily accepted by the individual, but it has to be proposed before. Admitting it is a personal acceptance of what even the same individual can impose himself, the point is whether a definition of morality necessarily regards the rules to apply in the relationships with others-from-yourself, widely intended, or we can admit it in an alone individual's self-sufficient determination.

there's more on this in some of the essays at meta

I can mainly read there a distinction from ethics focused on the derivative authority or etymology. This does not help on a definition. I evidently agree with those definitions by which morality is instrumentally what a common individual has at his disposal as a help for his decisions and as a parameter for evaluating other individuals' conduct.

Of course the personal aspect is very important and as you can see, nothing was deleted, I just added some points that perhaps you might develop :-) --Gianfranco

hard to know where. Some of what is written about morals is effectively about ethics, or etiquette, and I'd like to make that distinction clear. But Morality is contentious so I'd like to see this settle down first.

Well, as above, IMHO morality is often a pragmatical effect or evolution or application of ethics, which produce theoretical schemes. But not always a morality is backed by a complex phylosophical process, and basically it does not need it to exist: just to say one, religion is not (or not always) phylosophy, but it's evident there is a religious morality. And however a morality can be expressed even in the eventual ignorance of ethics: less instructed classes do have a morality, perhaps a spontaneous one. Etiquette regards the methods of relating with other individuals, not general goals, I'd say. --Gianfranco

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I've added a paragraph about evolutionary psychology, and another slightly rambling and speculative one following on from it, about octopuses. I think the octopus idea is highly relevant, but if the general opinion is that it is too diffuse, and not suitable for an encyclopaedia, then I have no problem with that second paragraph being condensed or removed. :-) GrahamN

the octopus example includes this phrase: "our revulsion for infanticide." The problem is, the example is comparing two species of animals, humans and octupuses. But the statement, "our revulsion for infanticide," is not true of all humans, it is likely culture-specific.

this fact does not invalidate the octopus example (not that I am so enamored of it), but it does reframe the issue. For certainly, our intelligence is closely connected with our being cultural animals, and creating different cultures. Thus, were one to suppose that octupuses had human-like intelligence, one might suppose that there would be different octopus cultures as well. And that would indeed play into discussions of morality.

That said, I am uncomfortable with comparing octopus intelligence and human intelligence -- as I would be comparing ant intelligence and human intelligence. Species survive because they are adapted to their niche. It is very difficult to compare adaptations then, because the niches are different. Surely human intelligence evolved as an adaptation to our niche. Since octopuses and ants evolved in other niches, it makes more sense to say that they have different kinds of intelligences. Slrubenstein

[Sorry about the curly apostrophes. I hadn't noticed that my word processor was doing that.]

I've never heard of a human culture that tolerated infanticide. However, I'm no anthropologist, and I may well be wrong, so I will remove the word. However, there is surely a core set of moral codes that are not culture-specific. I would be very surprised if there were any human cultures in which incest or rape were considered respectable.

As to your point that human intelligence evolved as an adaptation to our niche, that is precisely the idea I was trying to explore. It seems probable to me that our morality has evolved along with our intelligence, to be very specifically suited to our biological make-up and to the kind of social animal that we have evolved to be. A hypothetical animal of equal intelligence but very different physiology and habits would surely have evolved a very different moral code. This notion might suggest that our concept of right and wrong are not universal absolutes, but are particular to the human species.

I take it that you think my idea does have some relevance in this article, so I will try to re-work the octopus paragraph to make its purpose clearer, and, if I can, to make it a little more concise, and to make its tone more neutral. GrahamN 19 July '02

I've just edited the octopus paragraph a bit, but I'm not happy with it. It is now even longer! I'd value any suggestions how it could be cut down. Maybe it would be a good idea to drop my super-octopus altogether and to stick with general terms? I'm quite fond of her, but I can see it might be for the best. :-(    GrahamN 19 July '02

I have no strong objection to octopuses. I guess my larger point was this: IF you want to make claims about the intelligence of non-humans, THEN I believe octopuses, ants, pigeons, spiders, flatworms and human beings are all equally intelligent -- just intelligent in radically different and perhaps incomensurable ways.

As for culture and morality, there are many societies in which certain forms of infanticide is mandated. Whether you would consider this moral or not is another matter -- on other pages there have been recent debates over morality and cultural relativism; some people believe in a universal morality which leads them to condemn certain societies as immoral. My point is simply that there are some societies in which infanticide, at least under specific conditions, is considered not only permissible but necessary. The same is true by the way for rape. In some societies, the gang-rape of women is a socially legitimate punishment for certain crimes. Of course, we define rape as a crime, so perhaps in those societies we shouldn't call the practice rape -- call it what you will, it is the violent violation of a woman by several men.

Look at it this way: it may be true that all societies think of murder as wrong (I hesitate to say this only because it is an empirical question). Certainly, in U.S. society, people think that murder is wrong. Nevertheless, we have the death-penalty. People who support the death-penalty either do not think it is murder, or they think that it is murder that is somehow justifiable. And when the U.S. goes to war and bombs other people, many believe that is entirely justifiable.

So, is there a universal morality? What do you mean moral principles that all people SHOULD believe in, or moral principles that all people do in fact believe in? Some philosophers think there is a basis for making claims about the first kind of morality. But my sense is, if you mean the second kind (an empirical issue), there either is none, or it is so abstract (e.g. killing is wrong except when it isn't) as to be practically meaningless. Slrubenstein

I don't agree with everything you say, because since all humans have a common evolutionary ancestry, there is likely to be some common moral core, hard as it may be to define. However, your arguments are sufficiently convincing for me to delete Olivia the octopus from this article. I will miss her. I will think about her sometimes on lonely nights at home, and I hope you will too.  :-(   GrahamN

I promise I will think of Olivia often. As for morality -- do not get me wrong; I would bet that in every society on earth people would agree that

killing = bad

I am just pointing out that in most societies not only do people violate this more, they also construe it so that various forms of killing are considered either justifiable or even good. And it is this fact that makes me dubious about universal mores. Perhaps the one thing we have in common, thanks to our evolution, is such plasticity in behavior, thought, and feeling -- far more plastic than even the sweetest of octupi -- that our overwhelms such quests as the attempt to define a single universal morality. Just a thought. Slrubenstein