What is morality?

[Immanuel Can]

How does a person lie to themselves? And what counts as a "lie" to oneself or is an example of it?

Let's say I know that smoking cigarettes will cause cancer. But I like to smoke. So instead of paying any attention to the averages or the scientific evidence, I point to my Aunt Mathilde, who smoked constantly and died at age 101. And I insist that whatever may be true for others, it's not going to be a threat to me, because I have good genes.

Now I'm lying to myself. Very easy to do.

How do you know you are lying to yourself? If your Aunt Methilde smoked constantly and lived to be 101, then how do you know that wouldn't also be true of you?

Oh, that's easy: because Aunt Mathilde is one case, not a set of data. There are often exceptions to any rule; but it never invalidates the rule. It's still not prudent to ignore the scientific data and the millions who have been afflicted with smoking-caused cancers, merely because you hope -- and have no way of knowing -- that Aunt Mathilde's DNA is the reason she's an exception, and that you have inherited the right Aunt Mathilde DNA alliles to make you impervious to cancer.

And you know you don't really know these things: but you want to smoke. So you weight the slim chance that Aunt Mathilde is a DNA superwoman and has passed her superness on to you, on the one hand, against all the scientific data and contrary cases, on the other hand, and still claim to be behaving rationally.

We've got questions.

[Gary Childress]

Let's say I know that smoking cigarettes will cause cancer. But I like to smoke. So instead of paying any attention to the averages or the scientific evidence, I point to my Aunt Mathilde, who smoked constantly and died at age 101. And I insist that whatever may be true for others, it's not going to be a threat to me, because I have good genes.

Now I'm lying to myself. Very easy to do.

How do you know you are lying to yourself? If your Aunt Methilde smoked constantly and lived to be 101, then how do you know that wouldn't also be true of you?

Oh, that's easy: because Aunt Mathilde is one case, not a set of data. There are often exceptions to any rule; but it never invalidates the rule. It's still not prudent to ignore the scientific data and the millions who have been afflicted with smoking-caused cancers, merely because you hope -- and have no way of knowing -- that Aunt Mathilde's DNA is the reason she's an exception, and that you have inherited the right Aunt Mathilde DNA alliles to make you impervious to cancer.

And you know you don't really know these things: but you want to smoke. So you weight the slim chance that Aunt Mathilde is a DNA superwoman and has passed her superness on to you, on the one hand, against all the scientific data and contrary cases, on the other hand, and still claim to be behaving rationally.

We've got questions.

So, not paying attention to scientific data and smoking because you immensely enjoy it and think, to the best of your reckoning based on your limited knowledge, that there is a chance that it won't kill you at an early age (as happened with Aunt Mathilde) is "lying to yourself"?

So, since all the scientific data points to global climate change being the result of human-made carbon emissions, is Trump "lying to himself" by suggesting in a UN speech that any country that pays attention to climate scientists is "foolish" for doing so? Is Trump therefore being immoral, then?

Or is Trump simply ignorant and unaware of the evidence, and perhaps therefore deluded about what is best? Would that be the same thing as "lying"? Is someone who is experiencing a psychosis and says there is an invisible elephant in the closet (and truly believes it) "lying"? Is lying by definition saying something that isn't true whether purposefully or accidentally, or does lying require knowledge by the one who is lying that they are saying something that isn't true?

Or what if someone believes that God will watch over him and prevent some particular bad thing from happening? Is that a "lie" if it is not true? Was the person "lying" because he believed it to be the truth, when in fact it later clearly turns out to be false?

[Immanuel Can]

How do you know you are lying to yourself? If your Aunt Methilde smoked constantly and lived to be 101, then how do you know that wouldn't also be true of you?

Oh, that's easy: because Aunt Mathilde is one case, not a set of data. There are often exceptions to any rule; but it never invalidates the rule. It's still not prudent to ignore the scientific data and the millions who have been afflicted with smoking-caused cancers, merely because you hope -- and have no way of knowing -- that Aunt Mathilde's DNA is the reason she's an exception, and that you have inherited the right Aunt Mathilde DNA alliles to make you impervious to cancer.

And you know you don't really know these things: but you want to smoke. So you weight the slim chance that Aunt Mathilde is a DNA superwoman and has passed her superness on to you, on the one hand, against all the scientific data and contrary cases, on the other hand, and still claim to be behaving rationally.

We've got questions.

So, not paying attention to scientific data and smoking because you immensely enjoy it and think, to the best of your reckoning based on your limited knowledge, that there is a chance that it won't kill you at an early age (as happened with Aunt Mathilde) is "lying to yourself"?

If he sincerely believes that Aunt Mathilde's one case will deliver him from cancer...you can't argue with such stupidity. For all the statistical evidence, all the science, and all the contrary cases are against him; and if he has even a smidgen of awareness of that, he knows he's taking a very, very bad gamble, and that he has no real evidence at all that he possesses Aunt Mathilde's DNA features or her good luck.

So he can be lying to himself, or else not very bright. Pick your poison, I guess.

[Gary Childress]

Oh, that's easy: because Aunt Mathilde is one case, not a set of data. There are often exceptions to any rule; but it never invalidates the rule. It's still not prudent to ignore the scientific data and the millions who have been afflicted with smoking-caused cancers, merely because you hope -- and have no way of knowing -- that Aunt Mathilde's DNA is the reason she's an exception, and that you have inherited the right Aunt Mathilde DNA alliles to make you impervious to cancer.

And you know you don't really know these things: but you want to smoke. So you weight the slim chance that Aunt Mathilde is a DNA superwoman and has passed her superness on to you, on the one hand, against all the scientific data and contrary cases, on the other hand, and still claim to be behaving rationally.

We've got questions.

So, not paying attention to scientific data and smoking because you immensely enjoy it and think, to the best of your reckoning based on your limited knowledge, that there is a chance that it won't kill you at an early age (as happened with Aunt Mathilde) is "lying to yourself"?

If he sincerely believes that Aunt Mathilde's one case will deliver him from cancer...you can't argue with such stupidity. For all the statistical evidence, all the science, and all the contrary cases are against him; and if he has even a smidgen of awareness of that, he knows he's taking a very, very bad gamble, and that he has no real evidence at all that he possesses Aunt Mathilde's DNA features or her good luck.

So he can be lying to himself, or else not very bright. Pick your poison, I guess.

If he is not very bright, then it doesn't follow that your example is an example of "lying" to oneself. It would negate the example you used and you would need to come up with another example since I asked you for one. So it's not really "take your pick" with the argument I was challenging.

[Immanuel Can]

So, not paying attention to scientific data and smoking because you immensely enjoy it and think, to the best of your reckoning based on your limited knowledge, that there is a chance that it won't kill you at an early age (as happened with Aunt Mathilde) is "lying to yourself"?

If he sincerely believes that Aunt Mathilde's one case will deliver him from cancer...you can't argue with such stupidity. For all the statistical evidence, all the science, and all the contrary cases are against him; and if he has even a smidgen of awareness of that, he knows he's taking a very, very bad gamble, and that he has no real evidence at all that he possesses Aunt Mathilde's DNA features or her good luck.

So he can be lying to himself, or else not very bright. Pick your poison, I guess.

If he is not very bright, then it doesn't follow that your example is an example of "lying" to oneself.

Correct. But I don't think most people are actually that stupid. Do you?

[Janoah]

How does a person lie to themselves? And what counts as a "lie" to oneself or is an example of it?

to act against one's conscience is self-deception.
Try to give an example of this self-deception from your own experience. Everyone deceives themselves, so you should be able to come up with an example.

If one is on an island without other living beings on it, then there is no such thing as "conscience". There's nothing to harm. There would be no such thing as deceiving yourself, only doing whatever you wanted to do because you'll die anyway without other living beings in your world. So "all bets are off" under those circumstances. Morality is pointless in a world without living beings. It doesn't exist.

***There's nothing to harm. ***
Lying to oneself harms one's own soul, and this is the greatest harm.
And vice versa, being honest with yourself brings the greatest gladness, true gladness.
as we say,
"and gladness for the upright in the heart" (Psalm 97)


***, then there is no such thing as "conscience"***
Naturally, conscience exists in everyone and everywhere when a person is conscious.
Conscience is the moral compass.
Immorality in relation to oneself, of course, exists, for example, debauchery.

By the way, here is the AI's answer to the question, Does conscience exist on a desert island?
"Yes, conscience exists on a desert island because it is an internal, psychological mechanism rather than a strictly social one. While society shapes how we apply our morals, conscience—the innate sense of right and wrong, and the capacity to evaluate your own actions—travels with you wherever you go."

[Immanuel Can]

to act against one's conscience is self-deception.
Try to give an example of this self-deception from your own experience. Everyone deceives themselves, so you should be able to come up with an example.

If one is on an island without other living beings on it, then there is no such thing as "conscience". There's nothing to harm. There would be no such thing as deceiving yourself, only doing whatever you wanted to do because you'll die anyway without other living beings in your world. So "all bets are off" under those circumstances. Morality is pointless in a world without living beings. It doesn't exist.

***There's nothing to harm. ***
Lying to oneself harms one's own soul, and this is the greatest harm.
And vice versa, being honest with yourself brings the greatest gladness, true gladness.
as we say,
"and gladness for the upright in the heart" (Psalm 97)


***, then there is no such thing as "conscience"***
Naturally, conscience exists in everyone and everywhere when a person is conscious.
Conscience is the moral compass.
Immorality in relation to oneself, of course, exists, for example, debauchery.

By the way, here is the AI's answer to the question, Does conscience exist on a desert island?
"Yes, conscience exists on a desert island because it is an internal, psychological mechanism rather than a strictly social one. While society shapes how we apply our morals, conscience—the innate sense of right and wrong, and the capacity to evaluate your own actions—travels with you wherever you go."

Well said.

[SpheresOfBalance]

Morality is actually being able to see past your own nose, and understanding what it is that you're seeing. And if you actually have a mind that can truly see objectively, you'll understand human differentiation. Which should give you a clue, that we're all equally 'differentiated'. All the same things are in play. That there is no human, with which all others must be compared. That everyone's yardstick has a different measure. Of course you'll have to have at least an inkling of understanding of psychology, but the more the better. When it comes to human nature, most only believe they understand, they don't really know.

Morality thus is truly understanding human differentiation, and living accordingly.

[osgart]

Morality to me is your inner experience of conscience. Ethics would be how you apply your morality in the world. We all measure deservedness because it's the virtue that aligns and balances all other virtues. Honesty is as deserves and so forth. How one feels about virtues, or meanings of good character and how one feels about vices is gauged by the meanings themselves in relationship. Relations evokes feelings. Everything of morality is understood in relationship; self to self, others to self, self to others, and the environment. Humans are creatures of meaning. The meaning evokes the feelings one way or another. The lived experience of morality is through feelings applied to meanings. People of true values will always settle deserve rightly, and not carelessly leave deserve unsettled. Lesser characters could care less. Either you live virtues, neutral non moral actions, or vices there's nothing else to choose from. Ethical morality traps exist whereas the world could render no truly good options in given situations.

Morality is objectively true and we needs define virtues accurately without distortion to come to that realization. Meanings in relation to feelings convey who you are morally at least self to self. Virtues don't contradict. Cases such as justice and mercy align, and the same with courage and prudence. Morality is best served as heartfelt, and not merely performative. Heartfelt morality definetly evokes feelings. Feelings can change as the sincerity of what you mean morally stays constant. There's an enduring self through the course of a lifetime anchored By meaning, expressed through a wide range of feelings per meaning. The same love can undergo many positive and negative emotions in the course of a lifetime. Changes do not negate the enduring self. Fading loves, and forever loves happen. Being anchored to meaningfulness is far better than being a rollercoaster of emotions.

There is natural deserve, and earned deserve respectively

[Immanuel Can]

Morality to me is your inner experience of conscience.

Then psychopaths are "moral"? Their "inner experience of conscience" remains unbothered by anything they do. So they must be as moral as anybody else, right?

[popeye1945]

Morality is self-interest, but an expanded concept of the self that includes identification with others of a like kind, or even further expands to include all living things. Schopenhauer once said that when one is so moved by impulse that one risks one's life to save another, this is a metaphysical realization that you and the other self are one. Identification with the other is the key, for if this does not arise, compassion does not arrive, and compassion for others is the foundation of societies. When your self-interest is shared with others, you have a biological foundation for a morality right there. And it is the only rational foundation for human morality, where religious superstitions are at least once removed from reality.

[Immanuel Can]

Morality is self-interest, but an expanded concept of the self that includes identification with others of a like kind, or even further expands to include all living things.

Why must it? Why can't it be entirely self-concerned? If private conscience is its entire substance, then there's no way for anybody to insist one has to care about another living thing, so long as the psychopath remains untroubled.

[popeye1945]

Morality is self-interest, but an expanded concept of the self that includes identification with others of a like kind, or even further expands to include all living things.

Why must it? Why can't it be entirely self-concerned? If private conscience is its entire substance, then there's no way for anybody to insist one has to care about another living thing, so long as the psychopath remains untroubled.

Excellent point; the psychopath is, I believe, one percent of the population, and is the exception to the rule. The psychopath nevertheless enjoys the sanctuary of society just as the rest of us do. This process for the rest of us is not willed, as Schopenhauer once said; it is something that grabs one, in the case of self-sacrifice in saving another. In other words, it's innate to a normal individual. When one sees another being cruel to an animal, there is a good chance the person has well-developed psychopathic tendencies. Apparently, we all have psychopathic tendencies; it's a matter of degree. Something goes wrong with the maturation of some individual; in other words, the psychopath is a lack of full development. The reason for some tendencies in us all might have something to do with the collective delusion that sees the world as a world of duality; to us, our apparent reality. Here it is common sense to us that the world is made up of a world of separate objects; there is I, and there is other. For the psychopath, the other pretty much remains an object which evokes no identification and thus no compassion within the psychopath.

[osgart]

Morality to me is your inner experience of conscience.

Then psychopaths are "moral"? Their "inner experience of conscience" remains unbothered by anything they do. So they must be as moral as anybody else, right?

That doesn't follow that psychopaths are moral from what I said. Psychopaths don't experience conscience or completely reject it.

Conscience is where morality begins. Immorality is ignoring, or rejecting conscience.

[popeye1945]

Morality to me is your inner experience of conscience.

Then psychopaths are "moral"? Their "inner experience of conscience" remains unbothered by anything they do. So they must be as moral as anybody else, right?

That doesn't follow that psychopaths are moral from what I said. Psychopaths don't experience conscience or completely reject it.

Conscience is where morality begins. Immorality is ignoring or rejecting conscience.

Conscience, you say, and where does that come from? You should keep in mind that all things are process. Where there is no identification with the self of others, compassion does not arise, and compassion is conscience. That process is the foundation of any society or civilization. Our common biology is the rational foundation of morality and society. Where morality is projected outward to a religious superstition, morality is then once removed from reality. Morality is about the survival and well-being of the individual self and a community through an expanded concept of the self; that is where identifying with the self in others comes in.