morality and ethics and economics

[Peter Kropotkin]

and the search goes on for what ethics and morality actually are.....
How do we know if an action is or isn't, ethical?
What standard are we using to decide on what is an ethical, moral
action? How do we know in advance, what an ethical/moral action is?

now one might say, that god in his infinite wisdom has created for us,
moral, ethical standards...... and yet, having read the bible, I can see
that god himself violates, quite frequently, ethical standards set for
human being.... it is estimated that god killed over 2 million people,
Satan, 10.....so, who is actually being more in line with the
Ten Commandments? In the old Testament, there is, more than
once, incest between families.... and it has never been explained
how, once god created Adam and Eve, how that is supposed to work
without incest as no daughters were created... and even then, that
would be incest from somebody to create the next generation.....

and another place of wonder is that for every single moral position
one can take, there is, someplace in the bible, an opposing viewpoint....
one just has to look and there is a second, even a third moral viewpoint
in the bible......

So, let us drop the idea of morality, ethics coming a supernatural
being that we cannot find or point out where he exists......

let us take a moral natural viewpoint.....let us use capitalism
as a moral/ethical system......

Capitalism is an inherently evil system of economics....
in which we use people, both personally and within a corporation.
we use people as an end to profits/money...... a corporation
uses people in a couple of different ways as a means to profits....
in terms of wages... the corporation must steal wages from people
to make a profit.... you can't pay people any more than the profits
demand.... so, if you pay a sandwich maker $5 dollars a hour,
to make a profit, the sandwich maker must create more than $5 of
profit every hour... the sandwich is offered at $10 dollars a hour...
so, with every sandwich sold, the corporation makes $5 dollars
a sandwich... the difference between the pay of the one who
creates the sandwich and what the corporation can sell that
sandwich... this difference between the pay and the profits
created is one of the primary points of Marx..... the difference
in wages and what is sold is the creation of profits.....and it
doesn't matter who makes the sandwich... the person is irrelevant
in making that sandwich... the only relevant thing is that the person
who makes that sandwich is paid as little as possible to make
greater profits.... this is one of the ways that capitalism devalues,
dehumanizes human beings....if the corporation only goal is to
make profits, then the human beings who make that profits,
are irrelevant.... they are expendable... and their only value,
to a corporation is to create profits, and if they don't make
profits, they are gone....and in that situation... what has more value?
the people making the profits or the profits themselves?
That answer is pretty evident....

Now is this situation of profits before people, is this ethical/is
this moral? and you won't find any answer within the bible....
which is just another failure of the bible.... so, is this theft of
wages from people to create profits, is this moral? Is this ethical?

and just as importantly, why is it is or isn't ethical? what is
the reasoning behind why capitalism is ethical or unethical?

I hold that capitalism is the very definition of unethical, immoral...
and what say you? and why?

Kropotkin

[LuckyR]

You seem (as many do) to view "ethical" and/or "moral" as synonymous with "correct" or "good". While common, it is not my interpretation of the definitions, which by my understanding are: consistent with community ethical standards (in the case of "ethical") and conforming to an individual's moral code (in the case of "moral"). However since, for example, "good" is a subjective descriptor, using an individual's subjective selection of codes upon which to determine one's behavioral choices, is logical.

[Peter Kropotkin]

You seem (as many do) to view "ethical" and/or "moral" as synonymous with "correct" or "good". While common, it is not my interpretation of the definitions, which by my understanding are: consistent with community ethical standards (in the case of "ethical") and conforming to an individual's moral code (in the case of "moral"). However since, for example, "good" is a subjective descriptor, using an individual's subjective selection of codes upon which to determine one's behavioral choices, is logical.

K: thus, living in a community, such as the Maya who routinely practiced
human sacrifice is acceptable.... it is conforming to the ''community ethical
standard"... but you say, it doesn't conform to my ''own'' ethical standard...
Newsflash, we don't get to have our own ethical standards... in any
community, including ours today, violations of the community
ethical standard will get one, a one-way trip to the local jail....
and that is if you are lucky.... most people will get the death for
a violation of community's standards.... that is kinda the way it works...

Kropotkin

[LuckyR]

You seem (as many do) to view "ethical" and/or "moral" as synonymous with "correct" or "good". While common, it is not my interpretation of the definitions, which by my understanding are: consistent with community ethical standards (in the case of "ethical") and conforming to an individual's moral code (in the case of "moral"). However since, for example, "good" is a subjective descriptor, using an individual's subjective selection of codes upon which to determine one's behavioral choices, is logical.

K: thus, living in a community, such as the Maya who routinely practiced
human sacrifice is acceptable.... it is conforming to the ''community ethical
standard"... but you say, it doesn't conform to my ''own'' ethical standard...
Newsflash, we don't get to have our own ethical standards... in any
community, including ours today, violations of the community
ethical standard will get one, a one-way trip to the local jail....
and that is if you are lucky.... most people will get the death for
a violation of community's standards.... that is kinda the way it works...

Kropotkin

Uummm... no. Human sacrifice was ethical within the Mayan community. It is immoral to you as it violates your personal moral code. Despite your protests, there are plenty of examples of folks following their personal moral codes that violate community standards, often to their detriment (as you correctly predicted). Fairly routine situation.

Avoiding community censure and doing what you feel is right thing are, in fact not the same thing.

[Immanuel Can]

"I'll take 'Things Kropotkin Knows Nothing About,' for 200, Alex."

[Alexis Jacobi]

Human sacrifice was ethical within the Mayan community. It is immoral to you as it violates your personal moral code. Despite your protests, there are plenty of examples of folks following their personal moral codes that violate community standards, often to their detriment (as you correctly predicted). Fairly routine situation.

Really, it was neither ethical nor unethical since those are standards which for those people did not exist. Sacrifices were “done” without even the possibility of conceiving of them in terms of right or wrong, ethical or unethical.

“Personal moral code”? We must think about this. I suppose that the relative of a victim of a Maya (more likely Aztec) raid on a village to secure a man to be sacrificed, would feel pain and sorrow for the loss, but would he adjudicate it in terms of right and wrong?

[Immanuel Can]

Human sacrifice was ethical within the Mayan community. It is immoral to you as it violates your personal moral code. Despite your protests, there are plenty of examples of folks following their personal moral codes that violate community standards, often to their detriment (as you correctly predicted). Fairly routine situation.

Really, it was neither ethical nor unethical since those are standards which for those people did not exist. Sacrifices were “done” without even the possibility of conceiving of them in terms of right or wrong, ethical or unethical.

Not likely, I would say.

More likely, they were religiously approved, and so deemed "right" by those who did it. One wonders, though, if some vestige of universal conscience didn't still bother them. You can't kill people without knowing you've done it, and having a deep sense of having crossed a line, even when you use rationales to justify it.

Maybe that's the truth of what we are interpreting as a "personal moral code": it's actually a creeping, instinctual awareness of the objective moral truth. In which case, it's not actually "personal," but rather a person intuiting the universal moral truth.

[Gary Childress]

Human sacrifice was ethical within the Mayan community. It is immoral to you as it violates your personal moral code. Despite your protests, there are plenty of examples of folks following their personal moral codes that violate community standards, often to their detriment (as you correctly predicted). Fairly routine situation.

Really, it was neither ethical nor unethical since those are standards which for those people did not exist. Sacrifices were “done” without even the possibility of conceiving of them in terms of right or wrong, ethical or unethical.

Not likely, I would say.

More likely, they were religiously approved, and so deemed "right" by those who did it. One wonders, though, if some vestige of universal conscience didn't still bother them. You can't kill people without knowing you've done it, and having a deep sense of having crossed a line, even when you use rationales to justify it.

Maybe that's the truth of what we are interpreting as a "personal moral code": it's actually a creeping, instinctual awareness of the objective moral truth. In which case, it's not actually "personal," but rather a person intuiting the universal moral truth.

Well said.

I wonder if spectators had a sense of "this could never happen to me" that made the scene more acceptable to them, when they witnessed such acts. Was the person who was sacrificed thought of as "deserving" it? Or was the person who was sacrificed viewed as heroic for "taking it for the common good" or something?

[LuckyR]

Human sacrifice was ethical within the Mayan community. It is immoral to you as it violates your personal moral code. Despite your protests, there are plenty of examples of folks following their personal moral codes that violate community standards, often to their detriment (as you correctly predicted). Fairly routine situation.

Really, it was neither ethical nor unethical since those are standards which for those people did not exist. Sacrifices were “done” without even the possibility of conceiving of them in terms of right or wrong, ethical or unethical.

“Personal moral code”? We must think about this. I suppose that the relative of a victim of a Maya (more likely Aztec) raid on a village to secure a man to be sacrificed, would feel pain and sorrow for the loss, but would he adjudicate it in terms of right and wrong?

In my opinion, you're over reaching with your guess of the details of inner workings of Mayan thought processes.

As to how an individual human might view this or that event, the most accurate answer is likely somewhere between "I don't know for certain" and "it depends".

[LuckyR]

Human sacrifice was ethical within the Mayan community. It is immoral to you as it violates your personal moral code. Despite your protests, there are plenty of examples of folks following their personal moral codes that violate community standards, often to their detriment (as you correctly predicted). Fairly routine situation.

Really, it was neither ethical nor unethical since those are standards which for those people did not exist. Sacrifices were “done” without even the possibility of conceiving of them in terms of right or wrong, ethical or unethical.

Not likely, I would say.

More likely, they were religiously approved, and so deemed "right" by those who did it. One wonders, though, if some vestige of universal conscience didn't still bother them. You can't kill people without knowing you've done it, and having a deep sense of having crossed a line, even when you use rationales to justify it.

Maybe that's the truth of what we are interpreting as a "personal moral code": it's actually a creeping, instinctual awareness of the objective moral truth. In which case, it's not actually "personal," but rather a person intuiting the universal moral truth.

So your guess is a whole community viewed human sacrifice similar to how we do (as a complete violation of our community ethical standard), but successfully suppressed their "creeping instinctual awareness"? As opposed to possessing a different set of ethical standards?

Do you similarly believe that slave owners in the Antebellum South, had to suppress their "creeping instinctual awareness" that In Reality, their community ethical standard was incorrect (as we do today)?

In my experience, people from very different upbringings can have very different world views that has a significant impact on their interpretation of "right" and "wrong".

[Gary Childress]

Really, it was neither ethical nor unethical since those are standards which for those people did not exist. Sacrifices were “done” without even the possibility of conceiving of them in terms of right or wrong, ethical or unethical.

Not likely, I would say.

More likely, they were religiously approved, and so deemed "right" by those who did it. One wonders, though, if some vestige of universal conscience didn't still bother them. You can't kill people without knowing you've done it, and having a deep sense of having crossed a line, even when you use rationales to justify it.

Maybe that's the truth of what we are interpreting as a "personal moral code": it's actually a creeping, instinctual awareness of the objective moral truth. In which case, it's not actually "personal," but rather a person intuiting the universal moral truth.

So your guess is a whole community viewed human sacrifice similar to how we do (as a complete violation of our community ethical standard), but successfully suppressed their "creeping instinctual awareness"? As opposed to possessing a different set of ethical standards?

Do you similarly believe that slave owners in the Antebellum South, had to suppress their "creeping instinctual awareness" that In Reality, their community ethical standard was incorrect (as we do today)?

In my experience, people from very different upbringings can have very different world views that has a significant impact on their interpretation of "right" and "wrong".

I wonder if it isn't the case that we all have a sense of right and wrong that remains more or less consistent across time and culture but that it gets shaped by certain modifiers that seem to allow for the unthinkable at times.

For example, some slave owners may have rationalized their behavior believing they were improving the lives of people who would otherwise be living in tribal societies in remote regions where survival was more brutal or precarious. And even during the height of slavery there were those who looked at what was being done and realized that it was wronging a lot of people. However, economic realities and the pressures they produced probably caused a lot of people to look the other way.

So I don't know that people who lived in slave societies didn't realize they were doing something unjust to another person when ethical distortions were revealed.

But I can only go off of my own prejudices and beliefs and am unsure what those of others might be. So I couldn't say with certainty.

[Immanuel Can]

Really, it was neither ethical nor unethical since those are standards which for those people did not exist. Sacrifices were “done” without even the possibility of conceiving of them in terms of right or wrong, ethical or unethical.

Not likely, I would say.

More likely, they were religiously approved, and so deemed "right" by those who did it. One wonders, though, if some vestige of universal conscience didn't still bother them. You can't kill people without knowing you've done it, and having a deep sense of having crossed a line, even when you use rationales to justify it.

Maybe that's the truth of what we are interpreting as a "personal moral code": it's actually a creeping, instinctual awareness of the objective moral truth. In which case, it's not actually "personal," but rather a person intuiting the universal moral truth.

Well said.

I wonder if spectators had a sense of "this could never happen to me" that made the scene more acceptable to them, when they witnessed such acts. Was the person who was sacrificed thought of as "deserving" it? Or was the person who was sacrificed viewed as heroic for "taking it for the common good" or something?

Having never been part of some murderous death cult, I can't answer that. I don't have the experience. But I do know that there are lines a person crosses that they know they've crossed. Taking a life...any life, above that of a mosquito or black fly...is one of those. Taking a human life? Well, I can't even imagine.

[Immanuel Can]

Really, it was neither ethical nor unethical since those are standards which for those people did not exist. Sacrifices were “done” without even the possibility of conceiving of them in terms of right or wrong, ethical or unethical.

Not likely, I would say.

More likely, they were religiously approved, and so deemed "right" by those who did it. One wonders, though, if some vestige of universal conscience didn't still bother them. You can't kill people without knowing you've done it, and having a deep sense of having crossed a line, even when you use rationales to justify it.

Maybe that's the truth of what we are interpreting as a "personal moral code": it's actually a creeping, instinctual awareness of the objective moral truth. In which case, it's not actually "personal," but rather a person intuiting the universal moral truth.

So your guess is a whole community viewed human sacrifice similar to how we do (as a complete violation of our community ethical standard), but successfully suppressed their "creeping instinctual awareness"? As opposed to possessing a different set of ethical standards?

I think that's right. Just like people who murder their own babies know what it is they're doing. It takes a lot of rationalization to avoid that creeping, awful feeling that what you've done is end the life of somebody who was literally "just like you," or equally, "just like the person you love." But nobody who aborts a baby can avoid realizing that that is exactly what they've done.

Do you similarly believe that slave owners in the Antebellum South, had to suppress their "creeping instinctual awareness" that In Reality, their community ethical standard was incorrect (as we do today)?

How else do you account for the existence of people in the South...and in the North, who were morally opposed to slavery -- some, quite committedly? If the institution was so common, why was anybody induced to oppose it? That is, unless, deep down, they all knew it was wrong: and some people suppressed that knowledge, and some let it change their behaviour...

Otherwise, agreement with slavery would have been 100%. But it was never anything close to that.

[Gary Childress]

Not likely, I would say.

More likely, they were religiously approved, and so deemed "right" by those who did it. One wonders, though, if some vestige of universal conscience didn't still bother them. You can't kill people without knowing you've done it, and having a deep sense of having crossed a line, even when you use rationales to justify it.

Maybe that's the truth of what we are interpreting as a "personal moral code": it's actually a creeping, instinctual awareness of the objective moral truth. In which case, it's not actually "personal," but rather a person intuiting the universal moral truth.

Well said.

I wonder if spectators had a sense of "this could never happen to me" that made the scene more acceptable to them, when they witnessed such acts. Was the person who was sacrificed thought of as "deserving" it? Or was the person who was sacrificed viewed as heroic for "taking it for the common good" or something?

Having never been part of some murderous death cult, I can't answer that. I don't have the experience. But I do know that there are lines a person crosses that they know they've crossed. Taking a life...any life, above that of a mosquito or black fly...is one of those. Taking a human life? Well, I can't even imagine.

I don't have that experience either but it seems to happen in some cases and we're all human so I wonder if any of us are immune from moral error. I suppose it takes a degree of vigilance on our part to avoid such things.

[Immanuel Can]

Well said.

I wonder if spectators had a sense of "this could never happen to me" that made the scene more acceptable to them, when they witnessed such acts. Was the person who was sacrificed thought of as "deserving" it? Or was the person who was sacrificed viewed as heroic for "taking it for the common good" or something?

Having never been part of some murderous death cult, I can't answer that. I don't have the experience. But I do know that there are lines a person crosses that they know they've crossed. Taking a life...any life, above that of a mosquito or black fly...is one of those. Taking a human life? Well, I can't even imagine.

I don't have that experience either but it seems to happen in some cases and we're all human so I wonder if any of us are immune from moral error. I suppose it takes a degree of vigilance on our part to avoid such things.

I think that boat has sailed, for all of us. Our first moral error is probably something that happens when we're barely cogent, and we make a bunch of them after that.