Originally posted by rwingett
I would question whether no. 1 is universal, but I'm not prepared to argue it.

It may not be agreed universally that it is a desirable goal, but the goal, when stated, applies universally.

Originally posted by BigDoggProblem
I think it's important to differentiate between moral practice and theory. The practices of hunter-gatherers killing members of other tribes, or the Nazis gassing people in the concentration camps, may have been morally accepted practice within their local society. But were those actions morally correct? That's a different question.

Let's say you have two islands (everybody loves islands for their hypothetical scenarios).

One island is inhabited by people who have complete respect for individual rights and who strive to improve the condition of the island for everyone. Unfortunately, this results in rapid population growth which outstrips the ability of their environment to provide for them. Famine results, suffering is universal, people starve in droves, and the population plummets. Their chronicles record that this cycle repeats itself every few decades (or so).

The second island is inhabited by people who have a very limited respect for individual liberty, but generally strive to improve the conditions on the island for everyone. This results in rapid population growth which threatens to outstrip the ability of their environment to provide for them. In response, every few decades they target a portion of the population to be sacrificed in ritual ceremonies until their numbers are brought under control. The remainder of the population continues about their daily business in tranquility.

Given that the population of the first island knows about their history and can see the consequences of their actions, which is the better solution?

Originally posted by twhitehead

What we mean by 'morality' can be quite wide ranging. I tend to divide it into two broad categories:
1. The concept that happiness for all is a desired goal, all else being equal.
2. Cultural norms.
I think 1 is universal, and 2 is culturally determined. I think lumping them together causes confusion when discussing morality in general. I usually mean only 1 when I use the word, whereas other people tend to use 1 and 2.

I'm not sure I agree with you here - or even that I understand it.

Morality must in some way be linked to the "accepted norm". If you say "happiness for all" it cannot really mean ALL, but for a defined group. For example, punishing a criminal by incarceration may be "morally justified" for the "happiness of society at large", but will certainly not bring happiness to the convict. In fact, "happiness for all" is practically impossible, because we all want different things.

(Aside: What is the difference between a sadist and a masochist? Answer: The masochist says: "Hurt me!" and the sadist says: "I won't!"😉

So whilst we, as a society, should strive for the greatest good for the greatest amount of people, it still begs the question of what IS the greatest good, as the "Bread and Circusses" of the Roman empire have taught us.

I like rwingett's island analogy, let's see where that goes.

Originally posted by CalJust
Morality must in some way be linked to the "accepted norm".

Only in 2, and I typically do not use that meaning when I talk about morality. For example, if we were to ask whether it is acceptable to walk around in public naked, I would not call that a question of morality - despite the fact that people would use the word 'morals' in that context.

So whilst we, as a society, should strive for the greatest good for the greatest amount of people,
My 'all else being equal' was along those line. If happiness can be increased for any given person without any downside, then it should be done.

.. it still begs the question of what IS the greatest good,..
And that is a large part of what gets discussed in courses on the subject. But there is no point discussing that if 'the greatest good' is not a goal.

If there are people out there that believe it is good that everyone should suffer even if there is a possibility of happiness for all, then are those people immoral, or are they simply culturally different from you and I? Can we correctly call the desire to make others suffer 'moral good' or 'morality'?

Originally posted by rwingett
Let's say you have two islands (everybody loves islands for their hypothetical scenarios).

One island is inhabited by people who have complete respect for individual rights and who strive to improve the condition of the island for everyone. Unfortunately, this results in rapid population growth which outstrips the ability of their environment to provide ...[text shortened]... about their history and can see the consequences of their actions, which is the better solution?

Hard to say. The second society may have overall less suffering in it, but the actions they take to preserve the society makes the society itself seem less worth preserving.

Originally posted by twhitehead
No, I am not kidding you. I thought you made up the claim, and I still think you made up the claim. That you seem to have plenty of time to write posts about how you don't need to support the claim, but don't have time to ask one simple question, suggests you are embarrassed by the fact that you made up the claim.
The funny thing is, that the longer you ...[text shortened]... questions for him that you want answered. Why don't you simply apologize and withdraw the claim?

I'll tell you what, I won't insist that you apologize to me for calling me a liar and for saying I was making up a claim.

The reason I'm willing to let this go is because (whether you know it or not) you've already done a bang up job of embarrassing yourself. You started off doing in the first half of your post what you claim in the second half is wrong... so I hope for your sake that you were only trying to be clever, or funny. Somewhat bizarre, but as far as I'm concerned no harm no foul.

Originally posted by lemon lime
I'll tell you what, I won't insist that you apologize to me for calling me a liar and for saying I was making up a claim.

The reason I'm willing to let this go is because (whether you know it or not) you've already done a bang up job of embarrassing yourself. You started off doing in the first half of your post what you claim in the second half is wron ...[text shortened]... ng to be clever, or funny. Somewhat bizarre, but as far as I'm concerned no harm no foul.

Here's an idea, it's a little left-field but give it a shot. Instead of posting ream after ream of incessant blather why don't you have a stab at substantiating your own claim instead?

Originally posted by Proper Knob
Here's an idea, it's a little left-field but give it a shot. Instead of posting ream after ream of incessant blather why don't you have a stab at substantiating your own claim instead?

What did I claim?

Originally posted by lemon lime
What did I claim?

You claimed that I ask a lot of questions but won't answer questions asked of me.

Originally posted by lemon lime
What did I claim?

Good grief, you talk so much waffle you can't remember a theme of a thread. Either that or you're lying again.

I'm talking bout your claim that FMF never answers any questions, twhitehead challenged you on it. You've been trying to avoid substantiating this claim for 3 days now.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Only in 2, and I typically do not use that meaning when I talk about morality. For example, if we were to ask whether it is acceptable to walk around in public naked, I would not call that a question of morality - despite the fact that people would use the word 'morals' in that context.

[b]So whilst we, as a society, should strive for the greatest good ...[text shortened]... om you and I? Can we correctly call the desire to make others suffer 'moral good' or 'morality'?

And that is a large part of what gets discussed in courses on the subject. But there is no point discussing that if 'the greatest good' is not a goal.

Right, but isn't it more or less just conceptually and vacuously true that the good, whatever it is, is to be valued and sought after? And if we read your earlier claim about 'happiness' in a robust Eudaimonic sense of flourishing, then it is also more or less vacuously true that such happiness, however it is comprised in the details, is to be valued.

So I think CalJust's concern is that when you state that what we mean by 'morality' is encompassed in the claim "The concept that happiness for all is a desired goal, all else being equal"; the problem is that this claim seems just trivial. What we mean by 'morality', whatever it is, has to have some non-vacuous points. Additionally, it cannot be that 'happiness' or 'goodness' etc are reasonable goals per se, or in and of themselves. These things will only grow endogenously as they attend reasonable activity aimed at more specific pursuits (examples could be projects aimed at the cultivation of specific virtues; or pursuit of specific things we reasonably value; or pursuits aimed at acquiring specific articles of knowledge and understanding; etc). Of course, this leads into a second objection that CalJust touched on, which is that the specific projects and pursuits of individuals can often conflict and show contrareity. And often times, an individual's pursuits are not reasonable and do not conduce to flourishing or goodness.

So, I agree with you that there are two major delineations. One is 'morality' in just a descriptive, anthropologic sense of the term. This just encompasses the descriptively specifiable practices regarding social and cultural norms (similar I would guess to your second category). But the other is 'morality' in a normative sense and I agree with CalJust that this category does not seem well captured by a claim that happiness or goodness are goals. What we mean by 'morality' in this sense has to somehow encompass the actual activity that we individually and collectively aim toward and which is supposed to cultivate the good; and it needs to provide actual content in terms of norms that constrain and explain what sorts of activities are reasonable or conducive or permissible or not, etc, etc. Seems like it will be difficult to capture this category succinctly because it is surely highly contextual.

Maybe an analogy would be growing a crop. "The most plentiful crop possible" is useless, in itself, as a goal and is not what we mean by the cropping process. What we need is some actual content that explains what sorts of growing practices, objectively, conduce (or not) toward getting a healthy crop. But this surely depends on all sorts of factors. Maybe some things (like give it water) are no-brainers, but others will be more complicated and contextual. We could come up with some lists of rules or practices that generally conduce to healthy crops, but a full account of ideal growing practices is probably outside codifiability.

If there are people out there that believe it is good that everyone should suffer even if there is a possibility of happiness for all, then are those people immoral, or are they simply culturally different from you and I? Can we correctly call the desire to make others suffer 'moral good' or 'morality'?

This is why we need some non-vacuous content to explain moral norms. By any reasonable account, such a belief is morally impaired. One reason that goes a long way to explaining why is that such a belief constitutes a failure of rationality. Suffering, conceptually, is such that persons have abiding interest to avoid it. To operate on this knowledge about yourself but to fail to recognize that it extends to others like you is a rationality FAIL. Or, if you're actually talking about one who thinks everyone including himself should suffer (not just a case where he thinks everyone besides himself should suffer), then again, this is why we need some content to help explain why suffering does not actually conduce to flourishing or goodness, even if this person for some reason thinks it does. Should not be too hard. This is like a person saying we'll get a healthy crop if we feed it plant poison, or something.

Originally posted by LemonJello
Right, but isn't it more or less just conceptually and vacuously true that the good, whatever it is, is to be valued and sought after?

No, it isn't. So that needs to be settled first. Once settled, I stick it into the definition, and essentially say 'this is assumed, now lets flesh out the details'.
I think fleshing out the details may result in different answers by different people, and culturally biased answers that get passed around, but I dispute the claim that morality itself is cultural - rather it is the fleshing out of morality that is cultural and morality itself is the piece you say is vacuously true - which is universal and absolute for all. Also, I say that even if two people have very culturally divergent opinions of the fleshing out, should they honestly sit down and discuss it, they will tend to come to the same conclusions.

Originally posted by lemon lime
Are you referring to your questions about evidence? I recall either rejecting your definition of evidence, or you rejecting my definition of evidence. Either way (or both) refresh my memory... what questions of yours did I ignore?

Considering I copy pasted it numerous times and you blatantly ignored it on every occasion I shall have to assume you are just lying now.

Originally posted by divegeester
Considering I copy pasted it numerous times and you blatantly ignored it on every occasion I shall have to assume you are just lying now.

For a rather revealing glimpse of how lemon lime reacts when he is caught lying ~ and bang to rights too ~ see pages 10-14 on Thread 160396. He was trying to hoist his pants back up from his ankles with sheer wafflepower. Quite hilarious.

Originally posted by FMF
For a rather revealing glimpse of how lemon lime reacts when he is caught lying ~ and bang to rights too ~ see pages 10-14 on Thread 160396. He was trying to hoist his pants back up from his ankles with sheer wafflepower. Quite hilarious.

One of the inserting dynamics of this forum is the propensity of certain theists to be blattently dishonest; galveston75 and robbie carrobie are two obvious examples but it seems LemonLime is happy in this space also.