Philosophy Now Forum

Define morality.

Then offer your own explanation as to how it comes about - from where, if applicable - and how it applies universally.

Well, well....surrounded by s many moral, upstanding, healthy, good-natured, peaceful, ethical minds and not one dares define morality?

This forum comes with its own Morality-Police and cannot handle anything that even hints at anything which goes outside its tolerance levels...but it has no clear understanding or definition of science or of morality, no less.
The very fabric that binds this herd together and it is left to be ambiguous....all feel the truth of it, and no words need to be spoken.

Allow me to hazard a guess, being an alien creature from another plane, and say that morality, for most here and the world this forum so perfectly reflects, is nothing more than what feel good.
If it feels good then it is moral, and when it is moral it is true.
The immoral, what makes us feel bad, is automatically bullshit...no justifications or arguments required.

But what, exactly, makes us feel good about a phenomenon or an idea or a perspective or a character?
Perhaps how well he benefits our interests and allows us the illusion that we are being objective when our standards for judging anything are exclusively self-serving.

A Different conception of morality from the rest of the herd.

"Noting that the IQ of the borderline genius is precisely as far from the mean as the IQ of the person with borderline mental retardation, it asks whether there are penological implications to high IQ. The article first asks whether geniuses should be punished like everyone else, then asks whether they should be punished more than others, and finally asks whether they should be punished less than others.

Most geniuses, I suggest, should be punished the same as (or possibly more than) average offenders, but some geniuses should be exculpated. Not because (as Aristotle suggests) they are above the law, nor because (as Plato suggests) geniuses are mad, but because an IQ that is too high can result in severe communication and socialization problems. If these problems are severe enough, the extraordinary genius might have such a different conception of morality from the rest of us that he is functionally insane."
The Insanity of Genius
James C. Oleson

Satyr wrote:Define morality.

Then offer your own explanation as to how it comes about - from where, if applicable - and how it applies universally.

The need for morality, and morality itself, emerges from the simple fact that other people exist, when we realise and accept that to other people we are other people too. This is something we all share, that we are other people to each other. Morality is all about how we treat each other. And the morality that emerges is basically the Golden Rule.

Why? If you value your life, you would like others to value your life too, right? And the other way around, they would like you to value their life. The only logical solution is everybody valuing the life of everybody, which is a win-win situation.

But Logic only takes us so far. Not least important is that it feels good too.

How? Empathy is a positive feedback loop that helps us to build trust, which faciliates cooperation. Evolution is often mistakenly understood as mere competition, when it's actually more about cooperation. The most important step in evolution was probably when single cells stopped competing and started cooperating, as this allowed much more complex organisms to form. And it's our sense of morality that has allowed human society to form incredible successful (though still flawed) systems of cooperation based upon mutual trust. As a species we have long since passed the point where individual selection, or even biological selection, is the most important factor in our evolution.

Notvacka wrote:

Satyr wrote:Define morality.

Then offer your own explanation as to how it comes about - from where, if applicable - and how it applies universally.

The need for morality, and morality itself, emerges from the simple fact that other people exist, when we realise and accept that to other people we are other people too.

What?

I know rocks exist, am I a rock?

Notvacka wrote:This is something we all share, that we are other people to each other. Morality is all about how we treat each other. And the morality that emerges is basically the Golden Rule.

Yeees, and the Golden Rule is what?
The easterners call it karma.

Notvacka wrote:Why? If you value your life, you would like others to value your life too, right?

How self-serving.
And you would do this by pretending you value their lives even if you did not.

Of course Trivers points out that the best pretense is the one you buy into yourself, because the other also evolves to perceive pretense.

Notvacka wrote: How? Empathy is a positive feedback loop that helps us to build trust, which faciliates cooperation.

That empathy is assumed to automatically result in compassion is part of your modern prejudices.
When a hinter is trying to kill his prey he has to project himself inot the mind of the beast and think, or try to think and feel, as it would.

Notvacka wrote: Evolution is often mistakenly understood as mere competition, when it's actually more about cooperation.

No...cooperation evolves later and develops into social behavior....but even with cooperation there is competition within the group.
Without stress there is no necessity to develop, to evolve, to change.

Notvacka wrote: The most important step in evolution was probably when single cells stopped competing and started cooperating, as this allowed much more complex organisms to form. And it's our sense of morality that has allowed human society to form incredible successful (though still flawed) systems of cooperation based upon mutual trust. As a species we have long since passed the point where individual selection, or even biological selection, is the most important factor in our evolution.

The single cell is a perfect example. Here we witness how simpler creatures, like cells, or ants, termites, bees, have an easier path towards harmonious integration whereas more complex organism with a more developed sense of self have a more difficult time of it.
We see this in humans where those simpler ones with a less developed sense of self can adopt and integrate and submit to common rules and behaviors and thoughts with less conflict.

But the cell is also interesting from another perspective. It shows how integration forces dependence and specialization.
The single cell unable to cope on its own compromises: it sacrifices its part of its independence and adjusts itself, through natural selection methods, to a role.
It has no capacity to think or act on its own but as recompense it gains an increase in its survivability.


On a side note:
A whore's love...that is a love, affection, loyalty, which is given to all, indiscriminately and for a low price, is worth little.

On a side note:
A whore's love...that is a love, affection, loyalty, which is given to all, indiscriminately and for a low price, is worth little.

How you delude yourself. She is just doing her job. When you ask her "tell me you love me", she does and when you say show me, she does and when you leave, you pay her. No different to any of your customers, when you do them a service.

A prostitute, a good one, can convince any man with his pants down and you Satyr are no different to any man who has to pay for "love".

She is moral. She is straightforward and open, according to her rules and standards of conduct and practice.

reasonvemotion wrote:How you delude yourself.

You're right, whores are just misunderstood souls! There are so much more to them, and women in general. Women are soooooo mysterious! They have such deep and profound insights, lurking somewhere inside their souls and brains. Women should be respected, and their opinions are very valuable and informative!

Somewhere inside, they always, always keep it hidden.

reasonvemotion wrote:How you delude yourself. She is just doing her job. When you ask her "tell me you love me", she does and when you say show me, she does and when you leave, you pay her. No different to any of your customers, when you do them a service.

A prostitute, a good one, can convince any man with his pants down and you Satyr are no different to any man who has to pay for "love".

She is moral. She is straightforward and open, according to her rules and standards of conduct and practice.

dear woman...did you comprehend?
The modern Judeo-Christian paradigm proposes love, respect, rights for all, no?

Love thy neighbor...is a prostitution of your affections.
And, like a prostitute, it can only be practiced hypocritically.
Like with social rules of politeness, etiquette. The illusion that we really care about the other on a personal level when we do not give a shit outside what he can do for us or to us.

Love thy neighbour

Interesting how you used that biblical text.

If I am a "believer" in the scriptures can I safely say that morality can only come from a belief in God?
Can morally obligated be understood without being a theist. How does an atheist explain where their morality came from.
Kant sums it thus. "The idea that actions can only be considered moral if they could be imitated by anyone else and produce good results." Is it really that simple.

This is easy, my dear.
This forum does not accept free-speech or free-thought so I cannot say much.

All I can say is that before morality was institutionalized, because of demographics (population pressures and absence of frontiers) what you would call "morality" served a survival need.

All big-brained social life-forms show some degree of moral behavior.

The key here is social behavior which makes bigger brains possible.
When cooperative survival methods were adopted by organisms that could not survive on their own (a compromise) the development of this behavior where one aids the other member in his cooperative group so as to ensure that it will be helped in its own time of need, evolved into a code of conduct.

Anyone who does not adhere to it is more of a threat than any external other. You can see the vehement, aggressive, reaction to anyone questioning the herd's moral fiber. They feel vulnerable when anyone exposes the bullshit underlying politeness and morality because part of the strength of this type of behavior is when all take it for granted, never question it or dissect it and buy into it completely.

Like I said elsewhere...Trivers points out that pretense, imitation, is a survival tactic. as such counter-measures also evolve where pretense is recognized.
To deal with this the development of self-delusion became imperative...the best liar is the one who actually buys into his own lies.

After all, when it comes to natural selection truth is a secondary matter...and if pretense, delusion, and hypocrisy leads to an increase in survivability then this is what takes effect.

Just look at Christians and how deeply they are convinced of the most childish beliefs.
They could not live without the ideal of God, literally...they would go mad.
So, deluding themselves is a strategy that works for them.

This is also why stupidity cannot be dealt with rationally.

You can't reason with an imbecile or a coward...because his survival depends on maintaining the bullshit that keeps him comfortable and safe and feeling good about himself and certain about the world around him.

In fact, consciousness, and then intelligence, evolves to deal with this uncertainty.
It is because the world is random and characterized by increasing entropy that the ordering tool of the mind evolves to cope with it and increase its odds for surviving.

When cooperative survival methods were adopted by organisms that could not survive on their own (a compromise) the development of this behavior where one aids the other member in his cooperative group so as to ensure that it will be helped in its own time of need, evolved into a code of conduct.

So how is extinction explained?

reasonvemotion wrote:

When cooperative survival methods were adopted by organisms that could not survive on their own (a compromise) the development of this behavior where one aids the other member in his cooperative group so as to ensure that it will be helped in its own time of need, evolved into a code of conduct.

So how is extinction explained?

What?

Extinction is far more easy to explain than survival, my dear.
Dying is easy.

Natural selection means that the myriads of organisms, methods, behaviors that failed to meet the demands of their environment perished, and it was only the very few (see how this is cruel and elitist and discriminating) managed to survive and pass on their genes.

In modern human systems weakness instead of being allowed to face the natural consequence of weakness, is protected...passing on weak or unfit mutations.
This is done for the system's own reasons, such as how weakness and stupidity is far more easier to manipulate and control and exploit.

Satyr wrote:I know rocks exist, am I a rock?

Playing dumb does not suit your style.

Satyr wrote:How self-serving.

Yes. Serving others can be self-serving too. Nothing wrong with that.

Satyr wrote:And you would do this by pretending you value their lives even if you did not.

Honestly valuing the life of others would be better than just pretending to do so, but morality is about how we treat each other. It's about what we say and do. Acting selflessly for selfish reasons is good enough.

Satyr wrote:Of course Trivers points out that the best pretense is the one you buy into yourself, because the other also evolves to perceive pretense.

True. But at that stage, it really isn't a pretense, is it?

Satyr wrote:That empathy is assumed to automatically result in compassion is part of your modern prejudices.

I explained how the process works. I never claimed that it always, automatically works that way.

Satyr wrote:When a hunter is trying to kill his prey he has to project himself inot the mind of the beast and think, or try to think and feel, as it would.

Yes. But in this case there is no identification. The hunter dosen't identify with the prey. In order to commit acts of violence, we must view the victim differently from how we view ourselves.

Satyr wrote:No...cooperation evolves later and develops into social behavior....but even with cooperation there is competition within the group. Without stress there is no necessity to develop, to evolve, to change.

True. There will always be competition, and cooperation evolves later. But once cooperation works, it becomes more important than competition. A game of sports is a perfect example of competition within cooperation on a human level. Running within a common structure of rules makes us run faster than simply running for our lives would. Similarly, the supposedly "free" market does not work because it's "free" so much as because it's structured and regulated.

Satyr wrote:The single cell is a perfect example. Here we witness how simpler creatures, like cells, or ants, termites, bees, have an easier path towards harmonious integration whereas more complex organism with a more developed sense of self have a more difficult time of it. We see this in humans where those simpler ones with a less developed sense of self can adopt and integrate and submit to common rules and behaviors and thoughts with less conflict.

This is not true. On a cellular level, the most simple cell, the cancer, is the one refusing integration. On a human level, those having trouble adapting to society are mostly people with little education and sense of self. In most cases, the elite benefit even more from working within the rules.

Notvacka wrote:Playing dumb does not suit your style.

What suits my style is adapting to the person I am dealing with.
If you see dumb it's because I'm accentuating your essence and following your "reasoning" to its final end.

That humans exist is not an argument for anything.
Categories are all generalizations. The more detail a generalization incorporates in its formulation the more precise it is.
"Human" is so vast and simple that when your kind accuses others of over-generalizations it just makes you look silly.

Notvacka wrote:Yes. Serving others can be self-serving too. Nothing wrong with that.

No, dear...not "can"...IS.
you are trying to weasel out of this one.
All actions are the self acting and so are selfish by definition. All actions entail a reward, either real or delusional.
Nothing wrong with selfishness, dear...except for your kind.

Notvacka wrote:Honestly valuing the life of others would be better than just pretending to do so, but morality is about how we treat each other. It's about what we say and do. Acting selflessly for selfish reasons is good enough.

Exactly...it's how we act, despite what we think of others. It's about self-repression, with a distinct selfish motive.

Politeness is communal hypocrisy.

Notvacka wrote:True. But at that stage, it really isn't a pretense, is it?

Really?
So if you convince yourself you are God then you are not pretending to be God?

Listen, what Trivers exposes is that life is more interested in survival, not in truth or finding objective reality....and so, for most, the lie is more important than any honest exploration of the world.
To make the bullshit more convincing the natural mechanism involves self-deceit.

Now apply this to matters of race and sex.
The morality police are watching. The wrath of the herd might come down upon you.

Notvacka wrote:I explained how the process works. I never claimed that it always, automatically works that way.

Yes you did...and because you cannot but focus on one side of the issue, the side that makes you feel good and safe and special (moral), you emphasize it.
I reminded you that empathy does not necessarily mean compassion.
I can empathize with a pedophile, get into his mind in the hopes of understanding him, but this does not mean that I feel love for him or care if he lives or dies or that I cannot kill him myself if he harms my child.

Notvacka wrote:Yes. But in this case there is no identification. The hunter dosen't identify with the prey. In order to commit acts of violence, we must view the victim differently from how we view ourselves.

but he does...he uses himself to understand this alien creature.
What he doesn't do is confuse himself with it...like when your ilk confuses your self (ego) with some abstraction...like God or an ideal man, or Humanity or with nation.
Most people are so dumbed-down and lack self-awareness that the abstraction is a dominant trait of how they think of themselves as...this is transference.
This is usually common amongst those with a low self-esteem or a very undeveloped - retarded - self-consciousness.

Notvacka wrote:True. There will always be competition, and cooperation evolves later. But once cooperation works, it becomes more important than competition. A game of sports is a perfect example of competition within cooperation on a human level. Running within a common structure of rules makes us run faster than simply running for our lives would. Similarly, the supposedly "free" market does not work because it's "free" so much as because it's structured and regulated.

Really? You think the economy, as it is today, is regulated?
It's controlled but not to regulate it in accordance to the theory. Like government...there's the theory of how it is supposed to work in an ideal world with ideal citizens, and then there's the reality of it; like with religion.
Communism failed, dear, for the same reason Christianity can never produce the pious man....it functions under the delusion, self-imposed or not, that human beings are "good" and that there is no human nature.

Your moral idealism suffers from the same naivete...in your case self-imposed delusion. People, human beings, and this includes you, are not benevolent, selfless, kind, moral.
When they are they have to be either because they are forced by a social and cultural convention or they have an immediate gain.

Your morality is only moral because of this periods circumstances. It's demographics and shrinking spaces and dwindling resources and the geopolitical arena that makes your morality necessary...not transcendental and superior but necessary.
There were times and places where other morals dominated...and they were necessary for that time and palce.

Notvacka wrote:This is not true. On a cellular level, the most simple cell, the cancer, is the one refusing integration.

Yes, dear a cancer cell is a cell that goes haywire and refuses to fit into the status quo...it resists integration.
The docile, disciplined, automaton, cell simply fits in, does not resit, does it's job and shut up...like you propose all should do on moral grounds.

Being integrated into a whole demands that you are stripped of your individuality, your independence....your resistance. The larger the whole the more stripping is demanded; the lower the common denominator use to fuse the heterogeneous parts into a singular identification...as in "humanity".
It seems that the only thing you have to possess to be considered human these days are the physical parts and the "right" attitude, the correct behavior (pretended or not)...the last being called "healthy" or "normal"...as in "normal human being".

To achieve this task the past must be stripped away...or selectively interpreted.
Nothing matters which is a product of the past, like race, sex, heritage, intelligence, except that we come form a common ancestor. The least common denominator here is some theoretical singular father/mother duality.

Notvacka wrote:On a human level, those having trouble adapting to society are mostly people with little education and sense of self. In most cases, the elite benefit even more from working within the rules.

No, they could be people with a high level of self-esteem and awareness.
These could pretend to fit in, without actually buying into the bullshit, like you do.

You seem to think the only social system available is this one...or that there are no fragmentation within this social system...call them mimetic sub-groups.

In ant colonies and bee hives there are no rebels because these creatures have little, if any, sense of identity. The hive is what they are and serving it is their only standard of evaluating their value. These are perfect social structures...and the kind people like you should look up to since this is what you consider your Utopia.
The moment you inject awareness, you get trouble; the moment you develop a sense of self, you get resistance.

Take a look at how censorship works in these modern days.
No outside regulating force required as the members are so dumbed-down that they enforce a self-regulation on their own.
Who is permitted to think outside the "permitted" boundaries of what you would call "ethical"?
The moment he does he is assaulted, accused of hatred of being ill, or promoting violence...ironically those deluding themselves that they are on the side of healthy discourse and peace are the ones threatening with ostracization or physical damage anyone who crosses a "line".

All must adhere to the common lies, the shared myths...called "self-evident".
Most of you cringe at the mere mentioning of a word that has been ingrained into your psyche - Pavlovian training - as being vile or evil or not good.
Most of you refuse to even consider anything which you think is already a given and is immoral.

Next book-burning.

The idea that humans do not act in accordance with kin-selection is one only a moron would accept; someone so afraid of the facts that he wants to be "baffled" and surprised by the "kindness of strangers", allowing the mystical to permeate like a comforting cloud over his world-view.

People who save "strangers" are not saving, in their minds, strangers.
Current indoctrination has managed to associate identity with abstractions, making it easier for a simpleton to give his life in the defense of Church or State...or even to defend his material wealth.
Most of these simpletons also happen to be materialistic, in the social and more popular use of the term...not to anyone's sunrise.

Another factor to keep in mind is similarity.
A mind feels a kinship with what has many similarities with itself, or with its conception of itself - here self-consciousness and how it can be retarded or warped factors in.
For instance, a human feels more akin to a dog than he does to a snake...and so he is more likely to risk his own life to save a dog's, whereas a snake's life would leave him indifferent or only partially moved.

The more refined self-awareness and the sense of self is, all the more it feels kinship with a more smaller group...since when we only perceive a few details then we have less information to use to determine how similar or different the other is.
To a simpler mind, like an ape's, a human is no different than itself....perhaps, for it, the similarities it can perceive and conceive are so few that only a rudimentary view is used to establish kinship.
To a more sophisticated mind not even two twins form the same family, from the same species, are alike - a more complex mind sees more complexities and so distinguishes more variance than it does similarities.

Let's use wine as another example.
To a more refined, sensitive, palate...a bottle of wine has such nuances and flavors and complexities that he can discern its place of origins and the year of its bottling just by tasting it.

For a brute, raised on coca-cola, any piss-water that looks like wine is wine.

For the former not any wine will do; for the simpleton, brute, even vinegar might be acceptable, particularly if he's raised to consider such perceptions as being evil or pretentious or a product of weakness.
We see here how stupidity can become the norm and any intelligence above and beyond the norm or not limiting itself to the considerations of the average, is to be deemed a result of weakness; here strength or an advantage is slandered and taught to be a disadvantage...thusly promoting the mediocrity of all-inclusive vagueness.

Morality, or this kind of morality (because not all moralities are created equal) comes in the defense of stupidity and culling is once more thwarted from doing its natural job.

-------------------------

Hate

For a simpleton hate is the evil antagonist of love.
Albeit all emotions are automatic reactions to stimulation, facilitating a quicker response time in the service of survival, for the simpleton, for a moron, raised in a sheltering environment and taught to give into his fears, hate is bad and love is good...always.

We might say that love and hate or envy or anger or any emotion is both good and bad, or neither; more precisely they are both constructive and destructive only they are controlled and they are not allowed to dominate the organism's psyche.
Even the currently worshiped emotion of love when surrendered to can lead to dire consequences for the organism.

The purpose for hate evolving is to discriminate...to distance. Without it no higher consciousness would be possible.
A mind hates or is disgusted by what it most does not want to associate itself with or with what it does not want to identity with.
It is an indication of will.

"I will not be a simpleton idiot"...this is the first act of will which creates identity: personality, character.

Of course in social function love is promoted since it is an all-unifying, irrational, way of binding heterogeneous populations into cohesive structures.
Particularly indiscriminate love is preferred internally whereas another standard is used when dealing with elements outside, or alien, to the group in question.
Therefore, a simpleton American, brought up in the Judeo-Christian tradition and in Capitalism, will be abhorred by all hatred except when directed towards Communists, Muslims or anyone shattering the delusion of his indoctrination.
It's hatred is now under institutionalized control and it must be told what is permitted to be the focus of its hatred and what is not.

The training begins at birth and continues through a mind's lifetime; messages passed through pop-culture and education and religious mediums...constantly and continuously until the simpleton mind cannot think outside their premises.
Pavlovian training.

The brain-washing reaches a point where the simplest mentioning of a word - in the west (Hitler, Nazi) - is enough to raise an emotional outcry...a hatred for hatred as it were.
Another example of this visceral effect is the term "communism". In the U.S. the mere term is used as an insult, yet most that do have no clue what it's about or that even many of Communism's positions have already been adopted by Capitalists systems.
The average American moron, simply points to the hoards of immigration wanting to enter his country as evidence that it is great, without asking why they leave their homes to go to a foreign land with a different culture (if you can call what they have in the U.S. a culture) and that speaks a different language - with all the difficulties and stresses this involves.

Without being a communism myself, it is ironic that the State that rapes and pillages these small countries then points at them going to where their national wealth went, to survive, and exclaims in self-flattering bravado:
"Look how they knock at my door. they must love me".
The very one that robbed the peasants blind now uses them to tell himself how noble and good he is, according to his own standards, mind you....the Judeo-Christian ones.
The same morons will then also speak of less government, and less regulation, when it is the only access to power they have....but what would you expect from imbeciles?

In earlier times the brain-washed christian mind would simply have to hear the words "Satan" or see a "goat", the pagan symbol for Satyr, or a pagan pentagram, and he would be overcome by a fear he could not rationalize.
This was due to the ongoing attempt to cleans Christianity from its pagan roots.
Would not a priest who had preached the slaughter of pagans not point to their surrender and they baptizing of themselves as Christians to survive as evidence of his piousness and his belief's validity?

That which is despised is cast as the agency of despising...in a self-contradictory loop that requires no justification.
Paganism became the very symbol of evil: the pagan symbols made into satanic images...just as the swastika and the sickle and hammer in our time.

Similarly for the vast majority brought up in western systems in the post-modern era, display an automated reaction to certain words or ideas. They know not...they cannot justify them without using simplistic emotional reasoning, but they feel it in their bones.
Instead they display this childlike confidence in the institutions they were raised to consider infallible....again not knowing why and not being able to justify their own beliefs they still vehemently defend them.

Therefore, anything that contradicts their indoctrinated beliefs is considered "hateful" because it confronts the all-inclusive, all bonding, non-discriminating, irrational, internal love all are supposed to feel for anyone belonging to their shared meme (shared myths, delusions, illusions, mysticism, ideals)...the kinship has morphed and is no longer associated with genetic kinship; now the bonding kinship is an ideal, an idea, a principle, an abstraction...a Meme.
Natural selection turns into Social selection - eugenics. The vile Darwinian genetic kinship now turns into mimetic kinship.

All under its power become mindless automatons not permitted to distinguish or become aware of anything outside the meme's principles....in this case, living in a distinctly nihilistic and anti-nature culture, anything natural.
Nurturing becomes a code-word meaning whatever comes directly from the meme's authority: it's institutional power.
He who has not been raised properly, emphasis on the "properly", simply means anyone who has not taken to the brain-washing.
He becomes a pariah...a cancerous cell....an unwanted, criminal element. It is dubbed "ill"...to imply the "health" of inclusion into the particular meme.

Therefore anyone who says anything contrary to the history which is taught as reliable or the science which is to be considered an indisputable authority or any opinion that critiques a minority group within the meme's generality, is to be accused of hatred and of promoting violence.
All discrimination must be turned outward...not inward.

Therefore, we can say that a cat is not as smart as a dolphin, for example, or that a bottlenose dolphin seems to be smarter than a striped dolphin or a humpback dolphin because this is simply an observation based on experience and on sensual appearances...but we cannot say anything about humans in any regard which is not permitted and which created internal social rifts....unless, and this is the exception, unless they are alien to the meme or are excluded from it.
Here communal cohesion takes a front seat to rational observation and discourse...and all are supposed to pretend not to see or are to make of themselves blind so as to not notice any divergence outside the acceptable.

This is self-induced, self-regulating censorship.