Immoral Laws

Originally posted by moonbus
DTh: "... my problem with the death penalty is practical rather than moral. First there's the difficulty of miscarriages of justice ... I suppose you could argue that this is a moral position, but assuming there is a merit in convicting the guilty, even if they are only to face prison, one does not want the jury to find people not guilty when they are out of ...[text shortened]... on nor by any punishment. These are the ones who as often as not turn themselves in and confess.

An interesting question is when it becomes moral, or at least not immoral, to have the death penalty. There are, in my mind at least, two circumstances that could qualify. One is when it is impossible to imprison the guilty. The thing is that in that case, at least in the West, the scenario implies that society has broken down to the extent that imprisonment is impossible so one has to ask who is doing the convicting? I can't think of a country incapable of imprisoning at least the more serious criminals so I doubt that that could viably be regarded as an excuse. The other scenario, and this I think would be a justifiable reason to introduce the death penalty, is if people took up feuding again on a wide scale. Feuds can last for centuries and leave hundreds dead. Once they've started the initial insult is sometimes forgotten over the years but the revenge cycle continues anyway. If the death penalty is going to prevent feuds, which appears justified historically, then in a situation where feuding is likely I'd regard the death penalty as justified. Although clearly that isn't the case in most of the world at the moment.

Originally posted by bbarr
Well, what do you want a theory of meta-morality to do? Greene thinks Utilitarianism will allow us to impartially mediate moral disputes; disputes informed by a hodge-podge of intuitions and rendered intractable by in-group bias. But other moral theories (and here I'm thinking particularly of the neo-Kantian views of Rawls and Scanlon) have just as much a cl ...[text shortened]... lf be informed by the very moral intuitions Utilitarianism is supposed to allow us to transcend.

So you have the problem that the utility lost by someone who has the fraction of a penny after the decimal point stolen from their bank account is to all intents and purposes zero. But the utility gained by the thief in carrying out that classic rounding fraud on a few million bank accounts is huge. So utilitarianism as a basis for morality must be flawed because it's sanctioned a fraud.

Originally posted by DeepThought
So utilitarianism as a basis for morality must be flawed because it's sanctioned a fraud.

That is presupposing that fraud is immoral.

Is all crime immoral? I doubt it.

Originally posted by wolfgang59
That is presupposing that fraud is immoral.

Is all crime immoral? I doubt it.

Well fraud is a form of theft, and theft is taking something which is someone elses without their consent with the intention to permanently deprive them of it. I don't think there is any way that that can be anything other than immoral unless you can show that there is a greater need, such as disarming a criminal.

If a crime is defined as a violation as some law code and the law code is broken for good reason, for example breaking the speed limit to get someone to hospital, then no not all crime is immoral. However I don't think you could construct an argument where a fraud would fulfil that criterion.

Originally posted by DeepThought
So you have the problem that the utility lost by someone who has the fraction of a penny after the decimal point stolen from their bank account is to all intents and purposes zero. But the utility gained by the thief in carrying out that classic rounding fraud on a few million bank accounts is huge. So utilitarianism as a basis for morality must be flawed because it's sanctioned a fraud.

Yep, that example illustrates the structure of the problem. But you can imagine circumstances under which any atrocity, perpetrated against a few, conduces to maximal utility. Torture, slavery, whatever..,

So, Utilitarians have responded in a couple ways. Some advocate for side-constraints specifically prohibiting perpetrating atrocities against others. More commonly, these types of objections motivate a rejection of Act-Utilitarianism in favor of Rule-Utilitarianism or Motive-Utilitarianism. These more indirect versions claim that what we should do is act in accord with the set of rules or from the set of motives that, if generally adopted or inculcated, would maximize utility.

Originally posted by DeepThought
Well fraud is a form of theft, ...

I'm not disagreeing with you but your argument seems to be based on some circular reasoning.

You said "So utilitarianism as a basis for morality must be flawed because it's sanctioned a fraud."

Then say fraud is immoral.

Originally posted by wolfgang59
I'm not disagreeing with you but your argument seems to be based on some circular reasoning.

You said "So utilitarianism as a basis for morality must be flawed because it's sanctioned a fraud."

Then say fraud is immoral.

I see what you're getting at. I don't think my reasoning is circular, I think the claim is that fraud is intuitively immoral. So the utilitarian argument about maximizing utility has produced a counter-intuitive result, which in physics wouldn't automatically be a problem, but in ethics is as we do have an intuition about what is right and wrong.

If intuitive isn't enough suppose a different person committed the fraud every second. A fraction of a penny, let's say on average ½p, being stolen from your bank account every second would add up to £432 per day. A figure that most people would be upset to lose. So if the fraud happens many times there is a detectable harm, and the utilitarian argument makes it at most morally neutral (as the perpetrators have a stack of cash). If it's immoral for many to do it, it's not moral for one person to.

Two possible weaknesses with my argument is that moral intuition is socially determined so one could claim on that basis that my intuition is wrong. But at least part of the objective of a meta-morality is to explain the basis for extant moralities and should therefore be able reproduce what I intuit. The other problem is that I can think of examples, for example hunting deer, where if only a few people are doing it it is arguably helpful - there are no non-human super-predators (i.e. wolves) in the U.K. and some hunting is needed to keep their population controlled; but if 40 million of us went hunting it would be utter chaos and the deer would be driven into extinction. So I think I prefer my intuition argument to the "what if everyone did it?" one.

It is a very interesting discussion and one which wants me to find out
more. I must admit I naively thought my own morality was partly based
on Utilitarianism but that breaks down very easily as you have shown -
though from a logic point of view it maybe still stands.

(I'm thinking Mr Spock at the end of Wrath of Khan -
The Needs of the Many Outweigh the Needs of the Few )

Originally posted by DeepThought
So the utilitarian argument about maximizing utility has produced a counter-intuitive result, which in physics wouldn't automatically be a problem, but in ethics is as we do have an intuition about what is right and wrong.

I don't think an ethics system necessarily has to match our intuitions. In fact, I would say that if our intuitions were expected to be always accurate, we could almost do away with an ethics system.
An example very similar to the fraud case you gave is piracy. Many of the justifications we give ourselves are similar to what you describe.
1. We are individually only hurting the 'owner' a little bit.
2. We are not personally profiting enormously from each act of piracy (this helps our intuition handle it).
3. It doesn't cost the owner directly. Rather it is a loss of a potential sale - which may not have taken place.
4. Most of the money would have gone to some evil middle man corporation.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I don't think an ethics system necessarily has to match our intuitions. In fact, I would say that if our intuitions were expected to be always accurate, we could almost do away with an ethics system.
An example very similar to the fraud case you gave is piracy. Many of the justifications we give ourselves are similar to what you describe.
1. We are ind ...[text shortened]... not have taken place.
4. Most of the money would have gone to some evil middle man corporation.

Or for that matter moonbuses example of female circumcision - a member of one of the societies where it is practised would, presumably, intuit that it is the moral thing to do. I think my post acknowledged the potential weakness of my argument. Even so as bbarr has indicated we can end up justifying any atrocity on the basis of utilitarianism, so I think that while my intuition on one or another issue might be wrong, I'm not such a monster that it's wrong every time.

Originally posted by bbarr
Yep, that example illustrates the structure of the problem. But you can imagine circumstances under which any atrocity, perpetrated against a few, conduces to maximal utility. Torture, slavery, whatever..,

So, Utilitarians have responded in a couple ways. Some advocate for side-constraints specifically prohibiting perpetrating atrocities against others. ...[text shortened]... les or from the set of motives that, if generally adopted or inculcated, would maximize utility.

I was wondering if utilitarianism could form a part of some sort of eclectic approach. Is there a good "lay-man's" book on ethics which you could recommend? I read WKC Guthrie's excellent book on the Greek Philosophers[1], so I'm thinking about something at that kind of level and something that doesn't try to sell any one particular system. Perhaps moonbus would like to suggest one he likes too.

[1] The Greek Philosophers (from Thales to Aristotle, 1950)

Originally posted by DeepThought
I was wondering if utilitarianism could form a part of some sort of eclectic approach. Is there a good "lay-man's" book on ethics which you could recommend? I read WKC Guthrie's excellent book on the Greek Philosophers[1], so I'm thinking about something at that kind of level and something that doesn't try to sell any one particular system. Perhaps mo ...[text shortened]... like to suggest one he likes too.

[1] The Greek Philosophers (from Thales to Aristotle, 1950)

Not Utilitarianism per se, since its commitment to maximizing utility tends to drown out other components. But an eclectic approach could include much of what makes Utilitarianism valuable, like it's recognition that the consequences of our actions matter.

'Twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of Morality', by David Wiggins, is an excellent historical introduction that includes some very good discussion on contemporary theory.

'The Methods of Ethics', by Baron, Petit and Slote, is a wonderful debate between a leading Kantian, Utilitarian and Virtue-Ethicist that gets down deep into the attractions and problems of each theory.

Originally posted by wolfgang59
It wasn't.

My OP was asking if a law requiring such was immoral
(and since this debate is in Sprituality) whether all God-given
laws were moral (regardless of its content).

The morality of following that law is a different - but equally entertaining - debate.

Of course that was the question. And our moonbus kept up going back and forth; for one he defended some kind of second-order metaethical skepticism and relativism, and for two he articulated an ill-considered first-order Utilitarianism ad infinitum, turning the question of the OP into a tangled forest which he refuses to enter. Unfortunately, we have to make decisions that cost. And unfortunately the patterns of his philosophy, as regards this matter, do not justify the slightest bit of any kind of importance as regards the value of his moral stance.

Back to the OP question: In my opinion an individual really can (and should) judge the norms of both her society and other societies. In fact, if all laws are derived from the social, religious and ethical norms noted earlier by our moonbus and hence there is no way for him in person to decide which one is "better" and which is "worse" outside of the society that invented and implied them, these laws are still up to Us all, and surely up to him, as a part of our human history and reality, and therefore responsible we all remain for the laws we either adopt or tolerate worldwide. Just refusing to bear the required responsibility, as moonbus does here, is to me an attitude that leads us all straight into a swamp.
So yes, I bear the responsibility to say that I evaluate as immoral a law requiring a person to be stoned to death, regardless of the specific society that adopted it at a specific time and because of specific secular, ethic and religious reasons or because of any other kind of personal moral reasons.
😵

Originally posted by wolfgang59
Is a law requiring a woman to be stoned to death immoral?

Here is josepw's opinion.

It wasn't the law that was immoral.

No-brainer.

Subjective Question
Can your god (as far as you are concerned) make any law and that makes it moral?

Such a law - shall only be found in false religion.

Originally posted by Dasa
Such a law - shall only be found in false religion.

And yet you are the one ~ on this forum ~ who advocated the extermination of all male Muslims around the world, along with all the women who did not prove themselves worthy of being spared. Perhaps you should give threads on murdering people & morality a miss? 😉