morality and ethics and economics

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LuckyR
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Re: morality and ethics and economics

Post by LuckyR »

Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Jul 06, 2024 2:27 am
LuckyR wrote: Sat Jul 06, 2024 1:56 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Jul 06, 2024 12:54 am
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.
Well, we'll never know. I respect your opinion, though I disagree with it. Part of the reason for my disagreement is that in my experience with large communities who disagree with my understanding of right and wrong, don't appear conflicted to me. They appear as committed to their version of right as I am to mine, even though the two versions are essentially opposite of one another.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: morality and ethics and economics

Post by Immanuel Can »

Peter Kropotkin wrote: Sat Jul 06, 2024 6:57 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Jul 06, 2024 4:51 am
Gary Childress wrote: Sat Jul 06, 2024 4:10 am

It's a nice sentiment to be forgiven by God, however, I just don't know if it's truly the way things work or ought to work.
Well, if they don't work that way, there's no forgiveness for the past, and none for things we did callously or half aware, and none for the future errors of moral judgment we'll have...so we're all in a bit of a problem, then.

Don't agonize. Just make it right. Do what you can for restitution to the victim, and commit the rest to God and to His mercy.
K: and given there is no god, and thus no divine mercy, now what?
Without God, doom approaches. There's no escaping death. The mortality rate in this world is 100%: everybody dies. And the one thing worse than that is there being an afterlife without God. That's what's called "Hell."
.... evil refutes god....
Evil refutes man. Because in a godless universe, there is no such thing as "evil." Whatever is, simply is.

But if "evil" is a thing that can be attributed, then we must also believe God exists. Absent God's existence, the word "evil" would only mean, "Things Kropotkin happens not to like." And whether or not a person -- or even all the people in the world -- like or dislike something is certainly not adequate to make it "evil." It's merely "unpopular." And in a godless universe, there's nobody to care what people do or don't like, or to uphold their feeling about it as being more than yet another accidental fact of an accidental universe.

So you say you perceive "evil" to exist in the world? Then you also must believe in God. Otherwise, there's nothing real in your assessment of what you see: it's a mere statement of preference for some things over others. But nothing makes your preference substantial or correct, then. There's nothing behind it. You're not intuiting anything that's really true.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: morality and ethics and economics

Post by Immanuel Can »

Gary Childress wrote: Sat Jul 06, 2024 11:24 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Jul 06, 2024 4:51 am
Gary Childress wrote: Sat Jul 06, 2024 4:10 am

It's a nice sentiment to be forgiven by God, however, I just don't know if it's truly the way things work or ought to work.
Well, if they don't work that way, there's no forgiveness for the past, and none for things we did callously or half aware, and none for the future errors of moral judgment we'll have...so we're all in a bit of a problem, then.

Don't agonize. Just make it right. Do what you can for restitution to the victim, and commit the rest to God and to His mercy.
I don't know if that's true. A person can be forgiven by a victim in good faith that he (the perpetrator) has reformed or learned from an honest mistake.
What if, as in the case you are talking about, the victim has moved on, and you can't find him? Whatif you do, and if the victim refuses you the forgiveness?

You'll find that many of our cases are just of this sort, aren't they?
...we should use the wrong as a learning experience to never do it again.
Of course. But that's a different matter from forgiveness. Forgiveness is what's involved when you've already done the bad thing. Your moral improvement after the fact will not erase the past.
I just think that looking up to God and asking for forgiveness for something we did to another living being doesn't make much sense.
Maybe that's because you're not used to seeing God as relevant at all. The conception of God found in the Bible holds that he's not only the Creator of the victim and the victim's rightful Lord, but also the Person responsible for ultimate justice in the universe...the Final Judge who makes real justice a reality. Do not men (like Kropotkin, for example) chastise God for not stopping evil? What if He forebears that as many as possible may be forgiven; but in the end, He does balance the scales...but also holds the human evildoers fully accountable? What then?

Is the Judge irrelevant to the case of a man who has committed a crime against another? I suppose the perpetrator might wish that. It still won't be true.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: morality and ethics and economics

Post by Immanuel Can »

LuckyR wrote: Mon Jul 08, 2024 7:18 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Jul 06, 2024 2:27 am
LuckyR wrote: Sat Jul 06, 2024 1:56 am

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.
Well, we'll never know.
Yes, we do. We know that there were people in both the North and the South who found slavery reprehensible. So we have good grounds for thinking they had a creeping intuition, at the very least, that slavery was really wrong -- in spite of its widespread approval in the South. And the vicious behavour of its defenders only lends support to the suppostion that many of them, if not all, were acting in bad conscience. They were doing what they had every reason to know was objectively wrong.
I respect your opinion, though I disagree with it.
Very sensible and reasonable of you. I admire the sentiment.
Part of the reason for my disagreement is that in my experience with large communities who disagree with my understanding of right and wrong, don't appear conflicted to me. They appear as committed to their version of right as I am to mine, even though the two versions are essentially opposite of one another.
Do you have a specific example in mind?
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Re: morality and ethics and economics

Post by Gary Childress »

Immanuel Can wrote: Sun Jul 14, 2024 2:52 am
Gary Childress wrote: Sat Jul 06, 2024 11:24 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Jul 06, 2024 4:51 am
Well, if they don't work that way, there's no forgiveness for the past, and none for things we did callously or half aware, and none for the future errors of moral judgment we'll have...so we're all in a bit of a problem, then.

Don't agonize. Just make it right. Do what you can for restitution to the victim, and commit the rest to God and to His mercy.
I don't know if that's true. A person can be forgiven by a victim in good faith that he (the perpetrator) has reformed or learned from an honest mistake.
What if, as in the case you are talking about, the victim has moved on, and you can't find him? Whatif you do, and if the victim refuses you the forgiveness?
Then the victim refuses to forgive me. I don't know that I could blame him. I screwed him over pretty badly. Nothing I can do then.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: morality and ethics and economics

Post by Immanuel Can »

Gary Childress wrote: Sun Jul 14, 2024 3:00 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Sun Jul 14, 2024 2:52 am
Gary Childress wrote: Sat Jul 06, 2024 11:24 am

I don't know if that's true. A person can be forgiven by a victim in good faith that he (the perpetrator) has reformed or learned from an honest mistake.
What if, as in the case you are talking about, the victim has moved on, and you can't find him? Whatif you do, and if the victim refuses you the forgiveness?
Then the victim refuses to forgive me. I don't know that I could blame him. I screwed him over pretty badly. Nothing I can do then.
Then to Whom will you answer for that? You can't answer to the victim...do you then suppose God would simply let the matter lie? Would He be just if he did that? Would that be a Righteous Judge?
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Re: morality and ethics and economics

Post by Gary Childress »

Immanuel Can wrote: Sun Jul 14, 2024 3:06 am
Gary Childress wrote: Sun Jul 14, 2024 3:00 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Sun Jul 14, 2024 2:52 am
What if, as in the case you are talking about, the victim has moved on, and you can't find him? Whatif you do, and if the victim refuses you the forgiveness?
Then the victim refuses to forgive me. I don't know that I could blame him. I screwed him over pretty badly. Nothing I can do then.
Then to Whom will you answer for that? You can't answer to the victim...do you then suppose God would simply let the matter lie? Would He be just if he did that? Would that be a Righteous Judge?
For what it's worth, I didn't do it on purpose. I made an error in thinking he was eligible for student aid that he wasn't and when I discovered my error. It was either be honest and acknowledge that I made a mistake or else go against the rules and give him something that I wasn't supposed to give him. I chose to acknowledge my mistake and we had to take away his funding. With hindsight, I could have just as easily chose the second option. If I had it to do over again, I might choose the second option instead. I thought I was doing the right thing at the time.

I don't know if there's a God or not, but if there is, I can't say I care what God thinks of my error and the choice I made in response to it. But I do care that the guy paid a hefty price for my mistake and the school wouldn't reimburse him. So I quit doing that job for everyone's benefit.
Age
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Re: morality and ethics and economics

Post by Age »

Peter Kropotkin wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 7:07 pm and the search goes on for what ethics and morality actually are.....
Only for you people back in those 'very olden days' when this was being written.

For the rest of 'us', here, what they are has already been worked out, agreed up, and accepted. Thus, why 'we' could actually move 'forward'
Peter Kropotkin wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 7:07 pm How do we know if an action is or isn't, ethical?
But, 'actions' are not. 'Behavior', however, is. While 'misbehavior' is not.
Peter Kropotkin wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 7:07 pm What standard are we using to decide on what is an ethical, moral
action?
Again, 'action' and/or 'reaction' is not involved here.

And, what actual standard 'we' use to decide is the exact same standard used to obtain objectivity, itself.
Peter Kropotkin wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 7:07 pm How do we know in advance, what an ethical/moral action is?
Very easily and very simple once you, also, discover, or learn, and understand how.
Peter Kropotkin wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 7:07 pm 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?
Here is another prime example of 'misinterpretation', at its best, or worst if one likes.
Peter Kropotkin wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 7:07 pmIn 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.....
More confusion, from more misinterpretation, again.
Peter Kropotkin wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 7:07 pmand 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......
But, where God, Itself, is, exactly, was very easy and very simple 'to find', and just as simple and easy to 'point out'. Again, that is for those who are Truly open, and honest, that is.
Peter Kropotkin wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 7:07 pm 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
Last edited by Age on Sun Jul 14, 2024 12:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Age
Posts: 27841
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Re: morality and ethics and economics

Post by Age »

Immanuel Can wrote: Sun Jul 14, 2024 2:38 am
Peter Kropotkin wrote: Sat Jul 06, 2024 6:57 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Jul 06, 2024 4:51 am
Well, if they don't work that way, there's no forgiveness for the past, and none for things we did callously or half aware, and none for the future errors of moral judgment we'll have...so we're all in a bit of a problem, then.

Don't agonize. Just make it right. Do what you can for restitution to the victim, and commit the rest to God and to His mercy.
K: and given there is no god, and thus no divine mercy, now what?
Without God, doom approaches. There's no escaping death. The mortality rate in this world is 100%: everybody dies. And the one thing worse than that is there being an afterlife without God. That's what's called "Hell."
you could not speak more Falsehoods here "immanuel can" even if you wanted to. you were a prime living example of 'the devil', itself, back in the 'old days' when this was being written.
Immanuel Can wrote: Sun Jul 14, 2024 2:38 am
.... evil refutes god....
Evil refutes man. Because in a godless universe, there is no such thing as "evil." Whatever is, simply is.

But if "evil" is a thing that can be attributed, then we must also believe God exists. Absent God's existence, the word "evil" would only mean, "Things Kropotkin happens not to like." And whether or not a person -- or even all the people in the world -- like or dislike something is certainly not adequate to make it "evil." It's merely "unpopular." And in a godless universe, there's nobody to care what people do or don't like, or to uphold their feeling about it as being more than yet another accidental fact of an accidental universe.

So you say you perceive "evil" to exist in the world? Then you also must believe in God. Otherwise, there's nothing real in your assessment of what you see: it's a mere statement of preference for some things over others. But nothing makes your preference substantial or correct, then. There's nothing behind it. You're not intuiting anything that's really true.
Gary Childress
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Re: morality and ethics and economics

Post by Gary Childress »

Age wrote: Sun Jul 14, 2024 11:46 am
Peter Kropotkin wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 7:07 pm and the search goes on for what ethics and morality actually are.....
Only for you people back in those 'very olden days' when this was being written.

For the rest of 'us', here, what they are has already been worked out, agreed up, and accepted. Thus, why 'we' could actually move 'forward'
Peter Kropotkin wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 7:07 pm How do we know if an action is or isn't, ethical?
But, 'actions' are not. 'Behavior', however, is. While 'misbehavior' is not.
Peter Kropotkin wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 7:07 pm What standard are we using to decide on what is an ethical, moral
action?
Again, 'action' and/or 'reaction' is not involved here.

And, what actual standard 'we' use to decide is the exact same standard used to obtain objectivity, itself.
Peter Kropotkin wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 7:07 pm How do we know in advance, what an ethical/moral action is?
Very easily and very simple once you, also, discover, or learn, and understand how.
Peter Kropotkin wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 7:07 pm 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?
Here is another prime example of 'misinterpretation', at its best, or worst if one likes.
Gary Childress wrote: Sun Jul 14, 2024 10:28 am 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.....
More confusion, from more misinterpretation, again.
Gary Childress wrote: Sun Jul 14, 2024 10:28 am 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......
But, where God, Itself, is, exactly, was very easy and very simple 'to find', and just as simple and easy to 'point out'. Again, that is for those who are Truly open, and honest, that is.
Peter Kropotkin wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 7:07 pm 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
Misquoting again, I see. I didn't type those words you have with my name on them. Not that you seem to care because you keep doing it time and again even after I tell you and sometimes don't correct your mistake.
Peter Kropotkin
Posts: 1967
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Re: morality and ethics and economics

Post by Peter Kropotkin »

Immanuel Can:

IC: Don't agonize. Just make it right. Do what you can for restitution to the victim, and commit the rest to God and to His mercy.
[/quote]

K: and given there is no god, and thus no divine mercy, now what?

IC:
Without God, doom approaches. There's no escaping death. The mortality rate in this world is 100%: everybody dies. And the one thing worse than that is there being an afterlife without God. That's what's called "Hell."

K: everyone dies... there is no escaping death.... the question becomes, is there
such a thing as the ''immortal soul?" I can't even find evidence for a soul,
little less an immortal soul....it is an assumption that there is an ''immortal
soul''...taken on faith to make one feel better about themselves....
if you want to feel better about yourself, there are drugs for that sort of
thing.... it is even an assumption to say, ''afterlife''... there is no evidence
for such a thing as an ''afterlife''.... this is why Christianity is such a death
cult... it makes death more important than life.... the goal is to reach
the afterlife, instead of making the goal, life and what is possible for us in life,
this life, not in the next life....

K: evil refutes god....

IC: Evil refutes man. Because in a godless universe, there is no such thing as "evil." Whatever is, simply is.

K: this thought that ''evil refutes man'' doesn't even make sense...
in a ''godless universe'' we can have evil, if, as I explain below, what
evil looks like in a ''godless universe''... but explain evil in a
universe where god is the supreme being and the answer to everything...

IC: But if "evil" is a thing that can be attributed, then we must also believe God exists. Absent God's existence, the word "evil" would only mean, "Things Kropotkin happens not to like." And whether or not a person -- or even all the people in the world -- like or dislike something is certainly not adequate to make it "evil." It's merely "unpopular." And in a godless universe, there's nobody to care what people do or don't like, or to uphold their feeling about it as being more than yet another accidental fact of an accidental universe.

So you say you perceive "evil" to exist in the world? Then you also must believe in God. Otherwise, there's nothing real in your assessment of what you see: it's a mere statement of preference for some things over others. But nothing makes your preference substantial or correct, then. There's nothing behind it. You're not intuiting anything that's really true.
[/quote]

K: a couple of things.... if god is who you say he is, then evil is a major
problem for you.........a god that allows the Holocaust is allowing evil.....
but the common defense here is that evil was done by human beings....
but given your definition of god, all powerful that is a personal god,
who is the creator of everything, then is also the creator of evil.....
otherwise, you are saying, that god is accountable for everything, but
what man creates is outside of god accountability...
if god gets credit for the creation of the universe, then
he must be held accountable for evil... or perhaps you want to
adjust your belief that god is all powerful except for evil? He
isn't to blame for evil.... how exactly does that work, god is accountable
for everything except for evil?

now the next point is that we can be held accountable for there being evil,
if, if we understand that evil can be separated from, outside of god,
if we use concepts like justice/equality.... so, how would that work?
Evil is thought of as exceptions to the idea of justice/equality....
so, for example, justice is the idea that everyone is equal before
the law, as an example... so, evil would be where some are held
equal before the law, and some due to wealth or power or titles,
are not held equal before the law.....

If I break the law and I am punished for that act, and someone
else breaks the exact same law, but they are not punished because
of their wealth or power or fame, that is evil..... for we are not
being held accountable equally..... evil is seen as justice/equality
not being practiced, equally.... if we allow one group of people
to have rights that we prevent another group of people to have,
that is unequal practice of justice, that is evil.....evil can be
understood outside of god.... We don't need to hold to a god
to believe in evil.... the unequal practice of justice is evil...
that has nothing to do with god....

One of the major reasons religions had the loss of belief in Europe
during the Enlightenment period is the great Earthquake in Lisbon
Portugal in 1755.... if god is love and benevolent... how does one
explain the great earthquake of 1755, which killed somewhere over
40,000 people and leveled the entire city of Lisbon..... if all actions
are god, then god is responsible for the evil of this earthquake.....

that is the question..... either god is responsible or he isn't,
and if he isn't, then is he really the god you describe as being
all powerful? all knowing.... all about mercy? the god of love?
if your description of god is right, then god is the creator of evil....
now what?

Kropotkin
Age
Posts: 27841
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Re: morality and ethics and economics

Post by Age »

Gary Childress wrote: Sun Jul 14, 2024 11:50 am
Age wrote: Sun Jul 14, 2024 11:46 am
Peter Kropotkin wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 7:07 pm and the search goes on for what ethics and morality actually are.....
Only for you people back in those 'very olden days' when this was being written.

For the rest of 'us', here, what they are has already been worked out, agreed up, and accepted. Thus, why 'we' could actually move 'forward'
Peter Kropotkin wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 7:07 pm How do we know if an action is or isn't, ethical?
But, 'actions' are not. 'Behavior', however, is. While 'misbehavior' is not.
Peter Kropotkin wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 7:07 pm What standard are we using to decide on what is an ethical, moral
action?
Again, 'action' and/or 'reaction' is not involved here.

And, what actual standard 'we' use to decide is the exact same standard used to obtain objectivity, itself.
Peter Kropotkin wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 7:07 pm How do we know in advance, what an ethical/moral action is?
Very easily and very simple once you, also, discover, or learn, and understand how.
Peter Kropotkin wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 7:07 pm 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?
Here is another prime example of 'misinterpretation', at its best, or worst if one likes.
Peter Kropotkin wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 7:07 pmIn 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.....
More confusion, from more misinterpretation, again.
Peter Kropotkin wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 7:07 pmand 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......
But, where God, Itself, is, exactly, was very easy and very simple 'to find', and just as simple and easy to 'point out'. Again, that is for those who are Truly open, and honest, that is.
Peter Kropotkin wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 7:07 pm 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
Misquoting again, I see. I didn't type those words you have with my name on them. Not that you seem to care because you keep doing it time and again even after I tell you and sometimes don't correct your mistake.
Thank you, once more, for pointing out, again, my very Wrong doing here, to me, "gary childress". Once again, my apologies.
Gary Childress
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Re: morality and ethics and economics

Post by Gary Childress »

Age wrote: Sun Jul 14, 2024 12:30 pm
Gary Childress wrote: Sun Jul 14, 2024 11:50 am
Age wrote: Sun Jul 14, 2024 11:46 am

Only for you people back in those 'very olden days' when this was being written.

For the rest of 'us', here, what they are has already been worked out, agreed up, and accepted. Thus, why 'we' could actually move 'forward'


But, 'actions' are not. 'Behavior', however, is. While 'misbehavior' is not.


Again, 'action' and/or 'reaction' is not involved here.

And, what actual standard 'we' use to decide is the exact same standard used to obtain objectivity, itself.



Very easily and very simple once you, also, discover, or learn, and understand how.


Here is another prime example of 'misinterpretation', at its best, or worst if one likes.



More confusion, from more misinterpretation, again.


But, where God, Itself, is, exactly, was very easy and very simple 'to find', and just as simple and easy to 'point out'. Again, that is for those who are Truly open, and honest, that is.
Misquoting again, I see. I didn't type those words you have with my name on them. Not that you seem to care because you keep doing it time and again even after I tell you and sometimes don't correct your mistake.
Thank you, once more, for pointing out, again, my very Wrong doing here, to me, "gary childress". Once again, my apologies.
Apologies accepted.
User avatar
Immanuel Can
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Re: morality and ethics and economics

Post by Immanuel Can »

Gary Childress wrote: Sun Jul 14, 2024 10:39 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Sun Jul 14, 2024 3:06 am
Gary Childress wrote: Sun Jul 14, 2024 3:00 am

Then the victim refuses to forgive me. I don't know that I could blame him. I screwed him over pretty badly. Nothing I can do then.
Then to Whom will you answer for that? You can't answer to the victim...do you then suppose God would simply let the matter lie? Would He be just if he did that? Would that be a Righteous Judge?
For what it's worth, I didn't do it on purpose. I made an error in thinking he was eligible for student aid that he wasn't and when I discovered my error. It was either be honest and acknowledge that I made a mistake or else go against the rules and give him something that I wasn't supposed to give him. I chose to acknowledge my mistake and we had to take away his funding. With hindsight, I could have just as easily chose the second option. If I had it to do over again, I might choose the second option instead. I thought I was doing the right thing at the time.
If it was not morally problematic, why do you still agonize about it? You must feel that somehow, you did the wrong thing. And you seem troubled by the fact that you can't make it right.

But what if you could? I don't mean that you necessarily could find him and make it up to him. But suppose Somebody did know where he was, and could balance the account on your behalf; would you be interested? Or would you rather just "live with it"?

How's that working out for you? :?
Gary Childress
Posts: 11753
Joined: Sun Sep 25, 2011 3:08 pm
Location: It's my fault

Re: morality and ethics and economics

Post by Gary Childress »

Immanuel Can wrote: Sun Jul 14, 2024 7:18 pm
Gary Childress wrote: Sun Jul 14, 2024 10:39 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Sun Jul 14, 2024 3:06 am
Then to Whom will you answer for that? You can't answer to the victim...do you then suppose God would simply let the matter lie? Would He be just if he did that? Would that be a Righteous Judge?
For what it's worth, I didn't do it on purpose. I made an error in thinking he was eligible for student aid that he wasn't and when I discovered my error. It was either be honest and acknowledge that I made a mistake or else go against the rules and give him something that I wasn't supposed to give him. I chose to acknowledge my mistake and we had to take away his funding. With hindsight, I could have just as easily chose the second option. If I had it to do over again, I might choose the second option instead. I thought I was doing the right thing at the time.
If it was not morally problematic, why do you still agonize about it? You must feel that somehow, you did the wrong thing. And you seem troubled by the fact that you can't make it right.

But what if you could? I don't mean that you necessarily could find him and make it up to him. But suppose Somebody did know where he was, and could balance the account on your behalf; would you be interested? Or would you rather just "live with it"?

How's that working out for you? :?
It's not "working out" for me, pretty much like life in general.
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