Reasoning to a practical, moral conclusion

[Dalek Prime]

Moral laws are not imposed.

This they have in common with natural law.

People can attempt to violate them, but there is a price to be paid. In the case of disregarding the logical existential hierarchy of value, the price is a more-chaotic society, needing more-expensive repairs, than is necessary. If one personally (because his or her conscience is asleep) does not experience the stress and aggravation, one's children, that one may care about, will.


Comments? Questions?

Only if one has children, and imposes existence on them, which to an antinatalist is ethically wrong.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Moral laws are not imposed.

This they have in common with natural law.

People can attempt to violate them, but there is a price to be paid. In the case of disregarding the logical existential hierarchy of value, the price is a more-chaotic society, needing more-expensive repairs, than is necessary. If one personally (because his or her conscience is asleep) does not experience the stress and aggravation, one's children, that one may care about, will.


Comments? Questions?

Statute is the imposition of moral law. Imposed morals, in other words the law of the land, share nothing in common with natural law. Natural law is inviolable.

The price of violating statute is the sanctions decided by society: prison, fines, and other loss of rights and privileges.





.

[prof]

Moral laws are not imposed.

This they have in common with natural law.

People can attempt to violate them, but there is a price to be paid. In the case of disregarding the logical existential hierarchy of value, the price is a more-chaotic society, needing more-expensive repairs, than is necessary. If one personally (because his or her conscience is asleep) does not experience the stress and aggravation, one's children, that one may care about, will.


Comments? Questions?

Statute is the imposition of moral law. Imposed morals, i
.

I respectfully disagree! "Moral laws" and "morals" are two distinctly different concepts. And it would be great if statutes were reflections of "moral law." Unfortunately they often are not. There are bad laws: laws which violate principles of ethics. The Nazi regime had a few. Scott walker's Wisconsin now has a few. Mississippi has some bad laws. Ohio now has some awful ones under its latest Governor.

We obviously have a perception gap: we are defining terms differently - and thus are not communicating well. To me, ethics is a perspective one could have. It is a well-defined term in a system of relationships



So what is the moral of this story?

I doubt hardly anyone speaking ordinary language uses the word "morals" any more; not even the vice-squads in the U.S.A. set up to enforce them.


P.S. Gary and Scott Mayers: See the new thread on Business and Ethics. It may address some of your concerns.

[Scott Mayers]

Moral laws are not imposed.

This they have in common with natural law.

People can attempt to violate them, but there is a price to be paid. In the case of disregarding the logical existential hierarchy of value, the price is a more-chaotic society, needing more-expensive repairs, than is necessary. If one personally (because his or her conscience is asleep) does not experience the stress and aggravation, one's children, that one may care about, will.


Comments? Questions?

Statute is the imposition of moral law. Imposed morals, i
.

I respectfully disagree! "Moral laws" and "morals" are two distinctly different concepts. And it would be great if statutes were reflections of "moral law." Unfortunately they often are not. There are bad laws: laws which violate principles of ethics. The Nazi regime had a few. Scott walker's Wisconsin now has a few. Mississippi has some bad laws. Ohio now has some awful ones under its latest Governor.

We obviously have a perception gap: we are defining terms differently - and thus are not communicating well. To me, ethics is a perspective one could have. It is a well-defined term in a system of relationships



So what is the moral of this story?

I doubt hardly anyone speaking ordinary language uses the word "morals" any more; not even the vice-squads in the U.S.A. set up to enforce them.


P.S. Gary and Scott Mayers: See the new thread on Business and Ethics. It may address some of your concerns.

I don't see this thread. We only have a section on Ethics. What is the name of this thread?

ALL laws in politics relating any behavior, such as criminal law, as an example, are 'moral' imperatives of our society. If you are differentiating anything here on "morals" you are simply referencing the fact that we use political laws to define certain morals for practical purposes and reference another form of "morals" from elsewhere(?). I've heard of what some people call, "natural (moral) law" but don't distinguish this from any other religious forms of commanded ones. These latter are the ones I don't believe actually exist. That is, there is no absolute meaning to morality by nature. Are you proposing there are such?

[prof]

Gary and Scott Mayers: See the new thread on Business and Ethics. It may address some of your concerns.

I don't see this thread. We only have a section on Ethics. What is the name of this thread?
..., there is no absolute meaning to morality by nature. Are you proposing there are such?

Greetings, Scott

The thread you are looking for is here: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=16617 - Its title is Ethical concepts for business.

If you want to know what I'm proposing, read this relatively-brief pamphlet:
http://www.myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/ET ... ENTURY.pdf
{There are only15-pp if printed out on both sides.}

Or this earlier effort: LIVING THE GOOD LIFE - http://wadeharvey.myqol.com/wadeharvey/ ... _Lifef.pdf

After examining both carefully, I'd like to get your impressions, Scott. Were they worth it? Can you suggest any improvements? Did you get what they are driving at?

As to the ontological status of the value dimensions that are elucidated therein, see the 5th paragraph the o.p. in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=13987 Or check out any of the blog titles by prof HERE: viewforum.php?f=8&start=50
and by prof on the following pages at that Forum.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Moral laws are not imposed.

This they have in common with natural law.

People can attempt to violate them, but there is a price to be paid. In the case of disregarding the logical existential hierarchy of value, the price is a more-chaotic society, needing more-expensive repairs, than is necessary. If one personally (because his or her conscience is asleep) does not experience the stress and aggravation, one's children, that one may care about, will.


Comments? Questions?

Statute is the imposition of moral law. Imposed morals, i
.

I respectfully disagree! "Moral laws" and "morals" are two distinctly different concepts. And it would be great if statutes were reflections of "moral law." Unfortunately they often are not. There are bad laws: laws which violate principles of ethics. The Nazi regime had a few. Scott walker's Wisconsin now has a few. Mississippi has some bad laws. Ohio now has some awful ones under its latest Governor.

We obviously have a perception gap: we are defining terms differently - and thus are not communicating well. To me, ethics is a perspective one could have. It is a well-defined term in a system of relationships



So what is the moral of this story?

I doubt hardly anyone speaking ordinary language uses the word "morals" any more; not even the vice-squads in the U.S.A. set up to enforce them.


P.S. Gary and Scott Mayers: See the new thread on Business and Ethics. It may address some of your concerns.

The fact that morals and moral law is different is simply the difference between an aspiration and the realisation of that aspiration with a code of conduct. Which is exactly the point I am making.

The fact is that laws are in fact enacted on moral grounds. You might not like the moral landscape that they offer you, but that just reveals the lie that you are peddling: namely that morals can be decided on absolute grounds. The fact is that for the majority of Germans, what the Nazi regime enforced was ipso facto moral. You and I might not like what they brought to the world, but it was not especially unusual. History is littered with providing moral privilege to sections of the community, and German anti-semitism has a long tradition, dating well before Martin Luther, who was an anti-semite of the first order.
The moral ground that supports anti-semitism is bolstered with moral logic. Rather than pretend that morals can be derived scientifically, you have to argue for and against each moral thought giving reason and consequences. That is what ethics is for. But at the heart of every moral law, there is an ungrounded emotional appeal not a scientific absolute.

Statute remains the ONLY effective sanction against moral transgression. Social and personal sanctions usually mean that the 'bad person' just goes on and abuses someone else. If you are pretending there is a god that punishes and rewards, then the discussion is worthless. If such a god exists then its anyones guess what he wants.

You do not have a working difference between morals and ethics. It might be a good place to start your project.

[Scott Mayers]

Gary and Scott Mayers: See the new thread on Business and Ethics. It may address some of your concerns.

I don't see this thread. We only have a section on Ethics. What is the name of this thread?
..., there is no absolute meaning to morality by nature. Are you proposing there are such?

Greetings, Scott

The thread you are looking for is here: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=16617 - Its title is Ethical concepts for business.

If you want to know what I'm proposing, read this relatively-brief pamphlet:
http://www.myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/ET ... ENTURY.pdf
{There are only15-pp if printed out on both sides.}

Or this earlier effort: LIVING THE GOOD LIFE - http://wadeharvey.myqol.com/wadeharvey/ ... _Lifef.pdf

After examining both carefully, I'd like to get your impressions, Scott. Were they worth it? Can you suggest any improvements? Did you get what they are driving at?

As to the ontological status of the value dimensions that are elucidated therein, see the 5th paragraph the o.p. in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=13987 Or check out any of the blog titles by prof HERE: viewforum.php?f=8&start=50
and by prof on the following pages at that Forum.

I've read your intro and into the first chapter and already realize that you have missed necessary definitions prior to your 'axiom' using such words that lack meaning. While you defined "ethics", you missed defining "moral", "value", and what is your interpretation of "good". These have to be predetermined and defined.

To me, "value" is the generic concept connecting "morals" and "good". Thus, you'd have to introduce "value" first that has no bias. "Value", to me are the particular variable options in some domain that apply to any logical form or statement, which act as the initial propositions or input into any premise. For mores specificity, then you define, "moral" as a kind of "value" that one uses to interpret and behave in a world based on how they perceive what is initially beneficial or non-beneficial to themselves. Then, we define, "good", as those subset of "morals" which benefit yourself, and by extension, to others in your environment who appeal to what you believe is equally as favorable; and "bad", any moral that threatens your interpretation of something harmful to you; and lastly, as subset of morals that are relative, indeterminate, or conditional, as "neutral". This last one is more of a type of moral subclass to which includes values which mutually exhaust all possibilities. It is important to include this as you can later discriminate further to other types.

I described my own definitions here based on the individual's perception regarding how they personally value things initially because this is just how we as children originate what things we classify as "good", "bad", or otherwise. "Neutral" may not be the best word for the rest of the possibilities but you could relabel this class however you want.

It is important to also understand how these values get initiated in us as we develop. Some things which are apparently 'good' for us can relatively be 'bad' for others no matter how apparently popular some values are shared in kind by others. You gave the island example of having two people to which initiates some need to even require considering an ethic [set of morals]. What you may not recognize is that even in that, one's personal need to have others treat them "good" in their mind may require being "bad" to the other. For instance, if there is a tree on such an island that is only able to feed one person there, how could any of each person decide what is "moral" when survival is at stake? Do you opt to favor the other person as a value even though it means disfavoring your own survival? Do you opt to favor yourself in order to preserve your own life which may act to disfavor the other? Do you opt to both agree to starve, where both of you lose your life? And in the last case, what purpose would this serve unless you believe in some other environmental factor you both agree to that has more supreme virtue or 'reward' for behaving this way?

[Hobbes' Choice]

The thread you are looking for is here: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=16617 - Its title is Ethical concepts for business.

If you want to know what I'm proposing, read this relatively-brief pamphlet:
http://www.myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/ET ... ENTURY.pdf
{There are only15-pp if printed out on both sides.}

This Katz person calls himself PhD. where was this qualification achieved and in what subject?

[prof]

Marvin Charles Katz earned his Masters degree from the Philosophy Department of The University of Chicago in 1958

and his Doctorate of Philosophy in Philosophy from Southern Illinois University in 1966.

He has been doing research in the disciplines of value theory and ethics for 51 years.

His scholarly published book is Science of Man and Social Ethics, (Branden Press, 1969), 250 pp.


And what are your credentials, Hobbes Choice?

How many books have you published? And why do credentials matter to you? Why not look at substance - the clarity and the depth of the thinking instead.

You told Dalek Prime that philosophers who do ethics can suggest changes in society's views after analysis, but you neglected to say how they change them and what criteria and/or methods they use. You did not display the logic involved.
Euclidean geometry is taught all over the globe, and is in that sense 'universal.' It transcends local culture. Why have a double-standard for the formulas of Ethics; they can be taught in classes everywhere once their value is recognized.

Ethics has been the province of religions, but they have not done a good-enough job. We need a secular Ethics.

Aristotle, borrowing from what Plato wrote in his Philebus, applied the categories of the unlimited and the limited, the "continuous and the divisible", combined in the "mean," to human virtue. See Nicomachean Ethics, Book II. Chapter VI.

Coming forward in time - Individual persons, according to the Stoics, are real, while universals have no independent status apart from the minds of persons -- universals are not as substantial as individuals. They found themselves in accord with the nominalistic principles of Antisthenes.

William James (in 1890) was really inspired by one sentence that Green wrote in his Prolegomena to Ethics: "Rules are made for man, not man for rules." I could trace my ideas through all intellectual history but I have chores to do that demand my time. This will be enough for now......

[Hobbes' Choice]

Marvin Charles Katz earned his Masters degree from the Philosophy Department of The University of Chicago in 1958

and his Doctorate of Philosophy in Philosophy from Southern Illinois University in 1966.

He has been doing research in the disciplines of value theory and ethics for 51 years.

His scholarly published book is Science of Man and Social Ethics, (Branden Press, 1969), 250 pp.


And what are your credentials, Hobbes Choice?

How many books have you published? And why do credentials matter to you? Why not look at substance - the clarity and the depth of the thinking instead.
..

46 years and no more publications? What happened?
I've looked into the substance of the work, that why I was puzzled that he had claimed to have a doctorate.

[prof]

Greetings, Hobbes

You wrote, referring to me: " ...reveals the lie that you are peddling: namely that morals can be decided on absolute grounds."

It is a matter of fact that I have never said anything of the kind, have never in any of my e-publications even spoken of "morals." I did say, though, that some Aesop's Fables have a moral, and that "morality" is equivalent to "moral value. The adjective 'moral' (alluding to concerns of people) of course is not the same as 'morals.' The job of the philosopher is to make such distinctions. In several places I have denied that my ethical theory has absolutes, and I explained why. I supported my argument with justification.

I don't expect to receive an apology. [I read all of the thread you initiated on that topic.] I do feel you ought to stop attributing to folks things that they have not written and that they do not believe.

In an earlier post, I did elucidate that moral principles (such as The Consistency Principle) are merely guidelines to an easier, a more-trouble-free life. Those who lie, and deceive, have to keep their stories straight, have to carefully remember the lie, or people may see through the lie. Honesty is the best policy. If one wants to contest that, if one insists on being dishonest and deceiving, then I predict s/he will make for a more-chaotic society than what we already have ...and I explain to such individuals that if it doesn't bring you down personally it will bring down your species eventually, and those youu love with it. So why don't you give up the practice of distorting what others say, and the ad hominem of claiming that I peddle a lie -even though it does have the benefit of making you an honorary member of the Hex Hammer Club.=======================@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@============================

I listed some moral principles as the end of ETHICS FOR THE 21st CENTURY, most of which were available from The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy / Ethics. I then philosophically criticized one of them, the principle pertaining to obeying the statue laws; but the fact that you claim to have read the paper and then went on to misunderstand my position shows carelessness in studying a document. I respect you anyway.

I wish for you a Quality Life !

[prof]

Are you aware that after W.W. II someone, a German citizen, sued the German government for damages over a Nazi law, which he claimed defamed his character,and he won the case? Robert S.l Hartman, then a Professor and a full-time Philosopher, but who, in one of his earlier careers was a judge's assistant, mentioned the case when he taught at M.I.T. I was auditing the course in Theories of Value.

Later, when someone who was damaged far worse attempted to sue Germany for reparations, the case was dismissed in the U.S. on grounds that the appellant didn't have standing. He, an American, did not fare so well when he went to court. Here are the details: http://openjurist.org/26/f3d/1166/princ ... of-germany


BTW, the audience forLiving the Good Life is business executives and corporate officer types (personal bankers, etc.) who have had some college background. It was not written as a philosophical tract, but as a trade booklet.

Several readers with philosophical backgrounds who carefully read ETHICS FOR THE 21st CENTURY: keys to the god life were very-laudatory in their reviews of it, and complimentary, about the essay. Those are the ones for whom I wrote it.

[Scott Mayers]

Are you aware that after W.W. II someone, a German citizen, sued the German government for damages over a Nazi law, which he claimed defamed his character,and he won the case? Robert S.l Hartman, then a Professor and a full-time Philosopher, but who, in one of his earlier careers was a judge's assistant, mentioned the case when he taught at M.I.T. I was auditing the course in Theories of Value.

Later, when someone who was damaged far worse attempted to sue Germany for reparations, the case was dismissed in the U.S. on grounds that the appellant didn't have standing. He, an American, did not fare so well when he went to court. Here are the details: http://openjurist.org/26/f3d/1166/princ ... of-germany


BTW, the audience forLiving the Good Life is business executives and corporate officer types (personal bankers, etc.) who have had some college background. It was not written as a philosophical tract, but as a trade booklet.

Several readers with philosophical backgrounds who carefully read ETHICS FOR THE 21st CENTURY: keys to the god life were very-laudible in their reviews, and complimentary, about the essay. Those are the ones for whom I wrote it.

You didn't respond to my own comments to which addressed the problems of your own definitions prior to axiomizing. Please respond to at least differentiate between some religiously predetermined values you may be staging as absolute even though you feign these as relatively determined. I don't get ANY ethic without how it benefits each individual as matching to the whole unanimously.

[prof]

Greetings, Scott. Cheers.
If you want to, read this
http://www.myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/ET ... ENTURY.pdf
Or this earlier effort: LIVING THE GOOD LIFE - http://wadeharvey.myqol.com/wadeharvey/ ... _Lifef.pdf
After examining both carefully, I'd like to get your impressions, Scott. Can you suggest any improvements?

[quote="Scott Mayers]I've read your intro and into the first chapter and already realize that you have missed necessary definitions prior to your 'axiom' using such words that lack meaning. While you defined "ethics", you missed defining "moral", "value", and what is your interpretation of "good". These have to be predetermined and defined.

[/quote]

Thank you, Scott, for the thoughtful suggestion !! You are correct: I did omit defining these two crucial - and logically-prior terms. I thought the layman to philosophy, for whom this essay was designed as audience, would find those definitions - I use Hartman's, for he was an utter genius in this respect - to be too technical.

I behaved better in earlier writings. Please see last year's
effort, pp. 3 and 4 : BASIC ETHICS: a systematic approach (2014)
http://tinyurl.com/mfcgzfz

Please, Scott, see this thread I posted a while back note well the content: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=10509 and note its date..

Also take note of the very-first line in the o.p. of this current thread.

If you want more detail, see the older tract, especially Ch 2, p. 8, and Ch. 4, p.27 here: ETHICS: A College Course.
http://wadeharvey.myqol.com/wadeharvey/ ... Course.pdf

You see, in the past, I define value and good in so many of my writings, at the outset, that I thought people were sick of it. I didn't want to be tiresome. I originally was considering naming the 21st Century essay "Naked Ethics" for it is (obviously) aimed at the proverbial "person in the street." Hence I kept deep philosophizing to a minimum. But - NO EXCUSES. You noticed my negligence. I stand corrected.

[Scott Mayers]

My own definitions above on "value", "moral", "good", and "bad", indicate how I also interpret these things as being defined based upon each individual's initial needs from the environment with respect to survival. I find any ethic thus only a function of some predefined goal in some group that have no relationship external to the group. Then the rules one devices for morals relates only to that particular group alone.

What I'm wondering is whether you are trying to find some universal ethic and to what 'group' or organ do you have in mind? If it is politics, for instance, I DO believe that some 'morals' supersede others because the goal of that body is usually to serve the interests of the whole. So there I favor a democratic imperative in contrast to some, usually conservatives, who prefer to create a form of government that intends to diminish the very existence (or minimize it) with respect to democratic principles. So I ask because I'm concerned that you are assuming some group AND some goal unless you believe in some absolute kind of ethic for everyone.