Quality of Education in China? Overnationalism?

solarz said:

Umm... if you think such fiction doesn't exist, you obviously don't read enough sci-fi/fantasy. However, I fail to understand your logic in "proving philosophers and fiction writers wrong".

As for the rest of your post, you are going off on an unrelated tangent. We're not exploring the constants of human morality here. We're talking about your presumed hypothesis of an innate human aversion to war. A hypothesis that is disproved many times over by the multitudes of war-worshipping societies in history, from the Spartans to the Mongols to the Crusaders and the Jihadists.

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I'm doing a proof by contradiction on the underlying thesis of your theory, that is, morality is a form of emprical knowledge. Can you see how that thesis was linked to "morality fiction" hypothesis?

the current philosophy holds that it is not possible to impose a moral view on a fictional reader(although philosophers disagree why that is), the history of fiction also provide no example of a "moral fiction", a stroy that succesfully present a case that is clearly immoral in our world but moral(as considered by reader) in its fictional world. Could you provide me an example?

So you don't think human aversion to war is "innate", then what is the source of this aversion I beg you to enlighten me? In you opinion, this aversion is artificial? that is, engineered by other humans? then why would someone engineered it if they don't themsalve have aversion to war? or is it engineered by God? what is your thesis exactly?

Human histroy does not disprove my theory of intuitive moral knowledge. Societies do not reflect the moral knowledge of their members. Take today for example, It's pretty accurate to say that at this day and age, humans worship material wealth, and accumulating wealth while turning an indifferent eye to human poverty and degradation to the environment are accepted behavior so long within the boundry of law. But do you honestly think this kind of worship or behavior is in accordance with the moral view of the majority? No, people accept them because they don't want to challenge the status quo, they aid those acts in compliance because that is "what everyone else is doing". So get off your high horse and imagine yourself living in ancient Sparta or Mongolia. You think killing is wrong;you think war is wong. What would you do?

last, see how you brush off my position and reasoning as "unrelated tangent". If you are not in the mood of discussing but only interested in convicing me of your view, we should not carry on this any further because that would lead us to nowhere

ahadicow said:

I'm doing a proof by contradiction on the underlying thesis of your theory, that is, morality is a form of emprical knowledge. Can you see how that thesis was linked to "morality fiction" hypothesis?

the current philosophy holds that it is not possible to impose a moral view on a fictional reader(although philosophers disagree why that is), the history of fiction also provide no example of a "moral fiction", a stroy that succesfully present a case that is clearly immoral in our world but moral(as considered by reader) in its fictional world. Could you provide me an example?

So you don't think human aversion to war is "innate", then what is the source of this aversion I beg you to enlighten me? In you opinion, this aversion is artificial? that is, engineered by other humans? then why would someone engineered it if they don't themsalve have aversion to war? or is it engineered by God? what is your thesis exactly?

Human histroy does not disprove my theory of intuitive moral knowledge. We commit crimes DESPITE knowing they are crimes. That is the way humans are, we are imperfect, complex and disgraceful.

last, see how you brush off my position and reasoning as "unrelated tangent". If you are not in the mood of discussing but only interested in convicing me of your view, we should not carry on this any further because that would lead us to nowhere

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I will take a swing at it, for the fun of it.

If you argue that morality is intrinsic; then you are claiming:
1) moral values are universal
2) moral value do not change

Both claims are clearly not true as 1) different cultures have different background to morality e.g. when columbus or cortez landed in south america, the natives shared everything with him and themselves tried to help themselves to the westerner's goods. Well, sharing and stealing is easy to understand moralities; but here is the thing, the native american culture had no concept of personal procession, so how can they violate the morality of stealing if everything is shared? 2) morality do change over time, 4000 years ago, it is moral to own slaves; when slaves are considered as livestock; yet today it is not moral to withhold someone else's freedom but is still moral to own livestock.

So morality, at least in parts is acquired empirically just because we harmonize our perception of it with the society and time we are in.

For your fictional question on morality, I disagree and philosophers had also traditionally disagreed in the form of dilemma and paradoxes. I mean, who really feel amoral by killing pest like a cockroach? yet, most will consider killing amoral. Who felt bad for the zombies that movie hero kills, when we by all matrix can rate the fictional zombie figure as a living being that have limited intelligence; like a turtle or something. Who feels it is amoral to kill zombies? morality tells us it should be amoral.

ahadicow said:

I'm doing a proof by contradiction on the underlying thesis of your theory, that is, morality is a form of emprical knowledge. Can you see how that thesis was linked to "morality fiction" hypothesis?

the current philosophy holds that it is not possible to impose a moral view on a fictional reader(although philosophers disagree why that is), the history of fiction also provide no example of a "moral fiction", a stroy that succesfully present a case that is clearly immoral in our world but moral(as considered by reader) in its fictional world. Could you provide me an example?

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I will not repeat what Lezt has said in his excellent post. You wanted an example of a society that tolerates thievery, and he provided one.

That said, I still don't quite understand the point you are trying to make with fictional morality. Why do you feel that a fiction needs to "impose" its moral view on a reader?

You don't even need to resort to fiction to find different views on morality. I direct you to this Chinese parable:

宋朝时，有个叫张乖崖的人，在崇阳县担任县令。当时，崇阳县社会风气很差，盗窃成风，甚至连县衙的钱库也经常发生钱、物失窃的事件。张乖崖决心好好刹一刹这股歪风。有一天，他终于找到了一个机会。这天，他在衙门周围巡行，看到一个管理县行钱库的小吏慌慌张张地从钱库中走出来，张乖崖急忙把库吏喊住：“你这么慌慌张张干什么？"“没什么。”那库吏回答说。张乖崖联想到钱库经常失窃，判断库吏可能监守自盗。便让随从对库吏进行搜查。结果，在库吏的头巾里搜到一枚铜钱。张乖崖把库吏押回大堂审讯，问他一共从钱库偷了多少钱，库吏不承认另外偷过钱，张乖崖便下令拷打。库吏不服，怒冲冲地道:“偷了一枚铜钱有什么了不起，你竟这样拷打我？你也只能打我罢了，难道你还能杀我？”　张乖崖看到库吏竟敢这样顶撞自己，不由得十分愤怒，他拿起朱笔，宣判说：“一日一钱，千日千钱，绳锯木断，水滴石穿。”意思是说，一天偷盗一枚铜钱，一千天就偷了一千枚铜钱。用绳子不停地锯木头，木头就会被锯断；水滴不停地滴，能把石头滴穿。判决完毕，张乖崖吩咐衙役把库吏押到刑场，斩首示众。从此以后，崇阳县的偷盗风被刹住，社会风气也大大地好转。后来，“滴水穿石”这一成语用来比喻坚持不懈，集细微的力量也能成就很大的功劳。

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The rough and simple translation is, a magistrate orders someone to be executed because that person stole one copper. The magistrate believes that the execute is warranted because someone who steals one copper a day will steal a thousand coppers in a thousand days.

So you don't think human aversion to war is "innate", then what is the source of this aversion I beg you to enlighten me? In you opinion, this aversion is artificial? that is, engineered by other humans? then why would someone engineered it if they don't themsalve have aversion to war? or is it engineered by God? what is your thesis exactly?

Human histroy does not disprove my theory of intuitive moral knowledge. Societies do not reflect the moral knowledge of their members. Take today for example, It's pretty accurate to say that at this day and age, humans worship material wealth, and accumulating wealth while turning an indifferent eye to human poverty and degradation to the environment are accepted behavior so long within the boundry of law. But do you honestly think this kind of worship or behavior is in accordance with the moral view of the majority? No, people accept them because they don't want to challenge the status quo, they aid those acts in compliance because that is "what everyone else is doing". So get off your high horse and imagine yourself living in ancient Sparta or Mongolia. You think killing is wrong;you think war is wong. What would you do?

Click to expand...

You answered your own question. What is moral and what is not is defined by the norms of the society in question.

You say that the degradation of the environment is acceptable behavior as long as it's within the boundary of law, but then you say the majority views such degradation as immoral.

Really? So you are committing an immoral act every time you drive? Every time you purchase a consumer product? Every time you waste some food?

No, people do not accept immoral behavior just because they don't want to challenge the status quo. Has it never occurred to you that different people find different things to be moral and immoral?

Your argument seems to be that there is only one set of morality, and people who don't agree with it are just too cowardly or brainwashed to challenge the "system".

solarz said:

I will not repeat what Lezt has said in his excellent post. You wanted an example of a society that tolerates thievery, and he provided one.

That said, I still don't quite understand the point you are trying to make with fictional morality. Why do you feel that a fiction needs to "impose" its moral view on a reader?

You don't even need to resort to fiction to find different views on morality. I direct you to this Chinese parable:

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The rough and simple translation is, a magistrate orders someone to be executed because that person stole one copper. The magistrate believes that the execute is warranted because someone who steals one copper a day will steal a thousand coppers in a thousand days.



You answered your own question. What is moral and what is not is defined by the norms of the society in question.

You say that the degradation of the environment is acceptable behavior as long as it's within the boundary of law, but then you say the majority views such degradation as immoral.

Really? So you are committing an immoral act every time you drive? Every time you purchase a consumer product? Every time you waste some food?

No, people do not accept immoral behavior just because they don't want to challenge the status quo. Has it never occurred to you that different people find different things to be moral and immoral?

Your argument seems to be that there is only one set of morality, and people who don't agree with it are just too cowardly or brainwashed to challenge the "system".

Click to expand...

Moral relativism as ethics has been largely disproven in philosophical circles. The critism leveled against it is acute and substantiel.

The first and formost problem is the moral progress. If moral relativism hold true than there is no sense of moral progress. We generally agree that society become more just and more humane through history, that today's society not only holds different view on morality than the societies of past but better ones. that notion need a objective measure of moral truth independent of society, moral relativism denies objective morality, so fail to produce a sense of moral progress.

The second problem is the definition of morality. If morality is culturally dependent and all society consider the norm of that society to be right, than a neccesary deduction is that societies can do no wrong. In that kind of moral universe, to take a extreme example, Nazi would be fully right in conducting holocaust. Because it is the norm of Nazi german society to enslave and slaugter jews, and "What is moral and what is not is defined by the norms of the society in question", than it is perfectly moral for germans to kill jews. Again, in order to make those clearly immoral act wrong, you need a objective sense of morality above societies.

The third problem is dissent. If societal moral relativism holds true, it is alway immoral to dissent. So, in that theory, some of the most repected figures in the history are immoral persons. This list include: Jesus Christ, Gandhi, Martin Luther, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., John Lennon.....

So, you might want to take cold hard look on this kind of ethics If you want to know more about morality or you want to become more moral yourself. I'm making a guess against odds here because that's not what most people want. Any introductory book on Ethics would tell you all you need to know about moral relativism.

To answer a more personal question, yes, I do consider myself guilty "every time I drive, every time I purchase a consumer product, every time I waste some food?" I do all of those but I try to avoid them; I consider killing/abusing animals wrong, but I eat meat; I consider taking the skin off another living creature distasteful, but I want leather on my car/shoe. I believe all human life are of equal value, but I won't donate my earnings to save the starving children in africa. I'm not a very moral person. I find being moral very hard, way harder than being a successful citizen, or a fit person. Just like achieving anything, you need to practice it, work on it, everyday of your life. The premise of that is you have to be honest with youself. If you can't lift 100 pounds on you first try, admit you failure, go for a lighter one and work you way up. Or you can leave the gym, tell youself "I'm already fit" and get on with your life. Same with morality, it ultmately depends on your commitment and choice. Most children don't want to be moral, most people what to be the least moral that they can get away with, telling them how to be moral is a waste of time.

ahadicow said:

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What's your point?

solarz said:

What's your point?

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Read my edit, wiki disappointed me.

I've always considered morality similar to statistics in the sense of it only really being comparable to each other (social systems), and the sense of progress is dependent on an organism's base orientation of needs. If any alien with a completely different physiological environment and development suddenly showed up and had a "moral system" amongst themselves that worked for them yet was considered abhorrent by humans, it doesn't make the aliens wrong for instance.

ahadicow said:

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Moral relativism as ethics has been largely disproven in philosophical circles. The critism leveled against it is acute and substantiel.

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What are you trying to prove?

Philosophy in its nature cannot be proven or dis-proven; It can only be reasoned with. A hypothesis or a theory can be proven or dis-proven. I cannot judge that if morality is getting better with time; I would reason that it only changes with time, better or not is a construct.

I will show you a dilemma you just used. You wrote in the sense that giving money to help children in Africa is a good thing, a moral thing. But you also know that bringing the society out of poverty will also mean that there will be significant damage to the environment those people are residing in. So it is Amoral not to help people, it is Amoral to help people and allow them to damage the environment further; so which is moral?

The thing is you are taking a perspective in presented in books about morality or ethics to be the gospel; the absolute truth. But inherently morality is a method of thought, a philiosiohy that is open to change and evolution. There is no right and wrong; all of that is in the perspective.

Lezt said:

I will take a swing at it, for the fun of it.

If you argue that morality is intrinsic; then you are claiming:
1) moral values are universal
2) moral value do not change

Both claims are clearly not true as 1) different cultures have different background to morality e.g. when columbus or cortez landed in south america, the natives shared everything with him and themselves tried to help themselves to the westerner's goods. Well, sharing and stealing is easy to understand moralities; but here is the thing, the native american culture had no concept of personal procession, so how can they violate the morality of stealing if everything is shared? 2) morality do change over time, 4000 years ago, it is moral to own slaves; when slaves are considered as livestock; yet today it is not moral to withhold someone else's freedom but is still moral to own livestock.

So morality, at least in parts is acquired empirically just because we harmonize our perception of it with the society and time we are in.

For your fictional question on morality, I disagree and philosophers had also traditionally disagreed in the form of dilemma and paradoxes. I mean, who really feel amoral by killing pest like a cockroach? yet, most will consider killing amoral. Who felt bad for the zombies that movie hero kills, when we by all matrix can rate the fictional zombie figure as a living being that have limited intelligence; like a turtle or something. Who feels it is amoral to kill zombies? morality tells us it should be amoral.

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Morality is intrinsic, so:
1) moral values are universal
2) moral value do not change

Truth is also intrinsic, so:
1) truth are universal
2) truth do not change

Let's see how we approach truth, we used to approach truth by conducting rituals, by using drugs and by sacrificing animals. Religion come along and we approach truth by referencing a book. Then there is this more recent invention called science, which is current mainstream method of approaching truth. Mostly, it is done by observation and experiment. The method we used to apprach truth changed over time. Our view on truth change over time. But does truth change over time? does theory of relativity not hold in ancient times? we disagree over truth, we fought each other over them, we debated each; nowaday we mostly just ignore each other and "entitled to an opinion", but are truth relative? so because I disagree with Einstein about time dialation and I am "entitled to an opinion", does time dialation disappear for me?

So, just because the humans changes over time doesn't mean truth changes over time. Just because humans disagree about what is true doesn't mean truth is relative.

Apply the same thing to morality and you're done.

What are you trying to prove?

Philosophy in its nature cannot be proven or dis-proven; It can only be reasoned with. A hypothesis or a theory can be proven or dis-proven. I cannot judge that if morality is getting better with time; I would reason that it only changes with time, better or not is a construct.

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Philosophy in its nature cannot be proven. Science in its nature cannot be proven. Science, however, can be dis-proven. So can Philosophy.

Learn all about what constitute true science and

Learn how to discern whether a philosophy is trustworthy

I will show you a dilemma you just used. You wrote in the sense that giving money to help children in Africa is a good thing, a moral thing. But you also know that bringing the society out of poverty will also mean that there will be significant damage to the environment those people are residing in. So it is Amoral not to help people, it is Amoral to help people and allow them to damage the environment further; so which is moral?

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No, by sharing some of my wealth with an african child, I do no significant harm to the environment. I was talking about current, already made wealth. I do not mention at all how I'm going to help developing the economy of african countries or if economical development necessarily leads to environmental degradation.

What I presented are no moral dilemma at all. It's very clear cut what is the moral thing to do. There are true moral dilemmas, but chance are very slim that you and me is going to encouter them very often. our common every day moral problem is overwhelmingly with not following moral intuitions, not with having conflicting intuitions. Our moral intuition is not perfect, to find out what is the right thing to do sometime is not always straight-forward, but that's not the bottleneck here, the bottleneck is in doing the right thing.

The thing is you are taking a perspective in presented in books about morality or ethics to be the gospel; the absolute truth. But inherently morality is a method of thought, a philiosiohy that is open to change and evolution. There is no right and wrong; all of that is in the perspective.

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You must mistaken me to be a religious person. Where did I take morality out of which book? I advocate intuitive morality, the morality that your conscience whispers to you. You don't need any book to do that. About philosophy of morality, I did read books, but I don't take them to be gospel. I read their rationale, eviluate them and accept some of them. I do not need to reference any book to produce a critism on moral relativism, like I said, the reasons are obvious and easy to work through.

I suggest not leave too much morality to your thought, it was filled with pesudo-reasoning that your education filled you with in order to justfy the society you live in. If you want to rely on education, rely on logic and rational reasoning, then you would be able to see the breaks yourself.

If you're not interested in philosophy, like I said, you only need to rely on your moral intuition to be moral. It's not as simple as you think, you need to be humble and shake off the attitude that "I know the best", it's difficult for modern people and it requires practice.

There is no right or wrong? So, there is not one time in your life you felt shame? how about guilty? how about anger? Look at the figures you admire, do you admire them just because they are successful? Hitler is pretty successful too considering where he started. Re-read the stories you tresure, you love them because they show you a brighter world? a darker world? or a world that has justice? Sorry, I don't buy "all of that is in the perspective". If I'm perceiving, there is something that I perceive, my perception doesn't create the thing I perceive.

Western society benefit greatly from science. It is so much so that they start to apply the scientific method to everything. There is a different between objective truth and subjective truth.
Moral relativity exist. It would not disappear just because it does not fit the objective method of scientific study.