Moral Algebra

[Panjandrum]

Most people would agree that only an action can be judged as moral or immoral. Since there is no way to know what is in another's mind, it makes no sense to talk or purely 'mental' morality. Given this, to what extent do someones good actions outway its evil ones? For instance, if I were to volunteer at a soup kitchen, would such a 'moral' act outway my stealing some money from a 'friend'? Remember, it makes no difference that I volunteered soley to improve my public image. Whether I give a **** about them, the homeless dross will still get their soup because of me. My action, for them, is highly moral.

 

If I could demonstrate that on average, I do more of these 'moral' actions than I do immoral ones, would I be able to legitimately claim to be a moral person? If not, why not? If so, would it not be immoral to send me to prison for my crimes, knowing that will end my 'moral' activities too?

[TheBigDog]

Most people would agree that only an action can be judged as moral or immoral. Since there is no way to know what is in another's mind, it makes no sense to talk or purely 'mental' morality. Given this, to what extent do someones good actions outway its evil ones? For instance, if I were to volunteer at a soup kitchen, would such a 'moral' act outway my stealing some money from a 'friend'? Remember, it makes no difference that I volunteered soley to improve my public image. Whether I give a **** about them, the homeless dross will still get their soup because of me. My action, for them, is highly moral.

 

If I could demonstrate that on average, I do more of these 'moral' actions than I do immoral ones, would I be able to legitimately claim to be a moral person? If not, why not? If so, would it not be immoral to send me to prison for my crimes, knowing that will end my 'moral' activities too?

No matter how good you are 99% of the time, if you commit crime the other 1% of the time you are liable for that commision.

 

Think of it like a plate of food. I serve you the plate of food. 99% is delicious. 1% is my own feces someplace where you won't find it until you tase it. Am I a great cook or a criminal? Is the taste of the non-tainted food enough to get over the fact that I am feeding you my own crap?

 

Bill

[Panjandrum]

I dont entierly accept your analogy. It would be more accurate to ask, if I cooked perfect meals for 99 people and fed my own **** to one unlucky guy, would that make me a good chef? Those 99 would vouch for me. And if I was banned from cooking because that one guy got fed ****, wouldnt that be unfair on the 99 who get great food from me?

[pgrmdave]

I think that it is not the number, but the degree of severity of moral or immoral acts that counts. Feeding somebody great food, or feeding a lot of people great food, does not outweigh being malicious and feeding somebody something which will harm them and disgust them.

[Racoon]

I dont entierly accept your analogy. It would be more accurate to ask, if I cooked perfect meals for 99 people and fed my own **** to one unlucky guy, would that make me a good chef? Those 99 would vouch for me. And if I was banned from cooking because that one guy got fed ****, wouldnt that be unfair on the 99 who get great food from me?

 

Which is why I stay away from Taco Bell! :naughty:

 

Good question, but we need a better Analogy...

pgrmdave is making more sense, and I agree with his last post.

 

If you walk by one hundred people on the street, and Smiled and said "Hello - Good Day :hihi: " to 99 of them,

But stopped and said "Hey M*ther F%#@! and Slugged the dude ... would that make you a nice guy or a bad guy?

 

Moral or Immoral?

Mostly moral, but there is an immoral tendency on occasion...1% being the value placed on this analogy and the food analogy.

Does that 1% outweigh the 99%??

It would in the analogies given so far.

 

:hihi:

[Panjandrum]

Who is to judge the moral weight of the actions? If I feed a fat greedy pig who has just eaten, is that of lesser moral weight than if I feed a starving man? Does it make any diffrence if I dont know that one is greedy and one is starving?

 

That is to say, can the same action have diffrent worth depending on its subject. A kindly gesture to one person can seem an insult to another, am I to be held responsible for thier reactions, or merely for my own action?

 

Since my intent cannot be taken into account, I would say there is no way to distinguish the relative 'goodness' or 'badness' of an action, all actions that can be considered moral must be considered to be equally moral, similarly with immoral actions. Which still leaves the question, does an immoral act counter a moral one, or are they apples and oranges?

[CraigD]

Who is to judge the moral weight of the actions?

If we are to approach the question scientifically (yes, this is the Philosophy and Humanities forum, but these are science forums!), “judgment” shouldn’t be used, but “measurement”. The consequences of actions should be measured against there effect on measurable quantities – either objective physical quantities, or subjective, statistical ones.

 

Which and what kinds of quantities should be measured, and how they should be aggregated, is far from simple or obvious, which is why moral philosophy is a less formal discipline than bridge building. Nonetheless, at least one simple quantity appears a good candidate for judging the “morality” – right or wrong – of actions: the total number of living human beings (population).

 

Few, I think, would seriously argue that an action that reduces the human population to zero is right. Inversely, then, one can argue that an action that increase the human population is right.

 

With this metric, we can answer various questions posed:

If I feed a fat greedy pig who has just eaten, is that of lesser moral weight than if I feed a starving man?

Yes, it is of wrong. Feeding the satiated man instead of the starving man reduces the human population by 1 in the short term, by the number of the starving man’s eventual descendents in the long.

Does it make any diffrence if I dont know that one is greedy and one is starving? That is to say, can the same action have diffrent worth depending on its subject. A kindly gesture to one person can seem an insult to another, am I to be held responsible for thier reactions, or merely for my own action?

No. Your knowledge enables you to make right decisions. Your lack of knowledge does not make any wrong decisions you make less wrong. To make right decisions in which another’s reaction is significant, one must have sufficient knowledge to accurately predict how that other will react.

Which still leaves the question, does an immoral act counter a moral one, or are they apples and oranges?

”Moral algebra” is, I think, more complicated than this question implies. For example, nationalistic aggression in the early 20th century resulted in great wars costing millions of human lives. Many of the individuals involved performed greatly more wrong acts than right – reduced the population much more than increased it – yet, in the long term, their actions resulted in technologies that today enable acts of greater rightness than would have been possible without the wrong acts, resulting in a greater population than would have resulted without the short term loss of population. These wars, and the “hot” and “cold” wars that followed them resulted in spaceflight technology with the potential to increase the human population by orders of magnitude that, without these wars might not have developed for centuries. At the same time, this and other war-promoted technology, such as nuclear explosives, have the potential to substantially reduce the population, or even, in the remote extreme, reduce it to zero.

 

Acts of great humanitarianism have allowed large short-term increases in population, but these increases have led in places to social disorder with the potential to greatly reduce the long-term population.

 

Without waiting for millennia to pass to see the long-term effects of these actions, it is difficult, and arguably impossible, to determine with reasonable confidence their rightness or wrongness. Best guesses can and are nonetheless made. These guesses are left as an exercise to the reader. ;)

[ldsoftwaresteve]

CraigD:

If we are to approach the question scientifically (yes, this is the Philosophy and Humanities forum, but these are science forums!), “judgment” shouldn’t be used, but “measurement”. The consequences of actions should be measured against there effect on measurable quantities – either objective physical quantities, or subjective, statistical ones.

Hmmm. In my view you do not have to apologize for asking that the humanities be scientific or based upon reason. I think that philosophy is supposed to lay the groundwork for the sciences, in other words, it should be the most reasonable of all intellectual pursuits.

The relationship between philosophy and science is extremely important and those who think the two are not connected or should not be connected are very much mistaken.

And perhaps, if we are really, really lucky, maybe someday we'll see that morality should be defined by philosophy and science instead of religion.

When that happens, we will see the rebirth of humanity.

[Panjandrum]

If we are to approach the question scientifically (yes, this is the Philosophy and Humanities forum, but these are science forums!), “judgment” shouldn’t be used, but “measurement”. The consequences of actions should be measured against there effect on measurable quantities – either objective physical quantities, or subjective, statistical ones.

 

Agreed. I used the term judge, but in the realm of the humanties, I think this is broadly synonymous with measure.

 

Nonetheless, at least one simple quantity appears a good candidate for judging the “morality” – right or wrong – of actions: the total number of living human beings (population).

 

Few, I think, would seriously argue that an action that reduces the human population to zero is right. Inversely, then, one can argue that an action that increase the human population is right.

 

This does not follow. Just because x is bad, it does not necessarily mean -x is good. The enemy of my enemy may or may not be my friend, but it is not a foregone conclusion.

 

Your lack of knowledge does not make any wrong decisions you make less wrong. To make right decisions in which another’s reaction is significant, one must have sufficient knowledge to accurately predict how that other will react.

 

I disagree strongly. I cannot be held accountable for the opionions of others! It is simmialr to the fallacy of the 'sin of ommision': only my actions can be used to judge my moralism.

 

Without waiting for millennia to pass to see the long-term effects of these actions, it is difficult, and arguably impossible, to determine with reasonable confidence their rightness or wrongness. Best guesses can and are nonetheless made. These guesses are left as an exercise to the reader. :)

 

But by this reasoning, morality is not only entierly arbitrary, it is also utterly meaningless. Eventually, all human life will become extinct. While no single action of a human may lead directly to this, the tangled nature of causality means that human actions will nonetheless be involved, rendering all actions untimately 'bad'. For morality to have any meaning, it must be possible to assign a judgment to an action when it is taken. A morally good action remains so, even if its ultimate effect is evil. That is, the means justify the ends.

[Racoon]

Who is to judge the moral weight of the actions? If I feed a fat greedy pig who has just eaten,

 

Since my intent cannot be taken into account, I would say there is no way to distinguish the relative 'goodness' or 'badness' of an action,

 

Dude.

You make 0 sense. Your points are pointless.

Why Bother?

 

Your intent is the whole purpose of "moral" or not.

 

What the F*ck are you trying to say???

[ldsoftwaresteve]

Panjandrum:

A morally good action remains so, even if its ultimate effect is evil. That is, the means justify the ends.

I agree with most of your other points but not this one. It implies a double standard, one for me and one for us and I don't see how we can make sense out of this if we go cross-eyed.

[Panjandrum]

Dude.

You make 0 sense. Your points are pointless.

Why Bother?

 

Your intent is the whole purpose of "moral" or not.

 

What the F*ck are you trying to say???

 

My intent is impossible for anyone other than myself to know. Since morality is a social construct, it cannot be based on information that society is not privvy to. Only an action can be judged in moral terms, to imply otherwise is to accept the existence of sins of ommission and thoughtcrime.

[ldsoftwaresteve]

Panjandrum:

Most people would agree that only an action can be judged as moral or immoral. Since there is no way to know what is in another's mind, it makes no sense to talk or purely 'mental' morality.

I wonder if this is the root of the problem.

If you run someone over with your car, that's not a good thing. If you intentionally run them over, that is a whole nother story. In other words, the thought that went into an act definitely impacts the morality of the act.

Taking it even further, if the person you ran over was a madman on the verge of swinging an axe into the side of your child's head, well, we'd probably all agree that the morality of your act was white and pure.

So you cannot insulate an act from the intent behind that act and the thought behind the intent.

A meteor hitting the earth's atmosphere and burning up is an act without morality behind it.

I guess my point is that any act that has thought behind it qualifies as an act that is either moral or immoral. Since the thought is the causative factor, it is the thought then that is either moral or immoral.

Perhaps the confusion comes from acts that appear amoral. In my mind, all thought driven acts are either moral or immoral.

[Panjandrum]

I agree that only a sentient being is subject to judgements of morality. The problem remains, however, that since you cannot see into anothers mind, there is no way to assign moral value to someones thoughts.

 

If I ran over a sweet, kindly man who had never done any evil, and who was a source of joy and happiness to all who knew him, it would not matter if I had mistaken him for the man who murdered my child. Only my action is moral, the thought behind it is merely the justification for my action.

 

Given that only an action can be judged in this way, I would contend that only actions which directly limit anothers autonomy are immoral, since such actions limit a persons ability to act in a moral manner. Obviously, this would include killing someone, but would also cover such things as imprisonment or even coercion or persuasion, since such things will modify a persons behaviour and therefore limit thier autonomy.

[ldsoftwaresteve]

But a rock falling out of the sky and wiping out humanity is not a moral/immoral act.

 

We create laws to limit human action. We create moral codes to limit human thought or at least, to guide it. The two need to be treated separately. I do not dispute that moral codes guide the creation of laws under which we live and act.

 

No, you cannot see into my mind. But morality, and here is where I differ from most that I've seen, is not determined by others or even by me. If there is a valid moral code, it is determined by our nature not by a vote or consensus. Therefore, it would apply to how we think and the rules that we identify to help us best ... perceive existence and deal with it.

 

I think the key is to identify how we are different from other sentient species since it appears that other species do not need a moral code. Indeed, if we need one, why do we need one? Why we would need one would determine the nature of that moral code.

 

Perhaps we can agree on how we differ from other species? If that is the key to understanding this, without grasping that we're screwed. Of course, we don't have to agree on that being the key. If not, what would you suggest?

[Panjandrum]

Perhaps I have misused the word sentient. I took it to mean self-aware, ie human. I dont consider it sesible to try to assign morality to animals or to inanimate forces such as meteor strikes.

 

If morality was purely a product of our nature, there would not be so much disagreement about it. In my own experience, morality is an entierly learned and arbitrary set of conventions, which I can see no logic or consistency to. I behave in a 'moral' manner, in as much as I do, because it is necessary for me to fit into society. I do not do so out of any 'instinct' or innate sense of what is moral and what is immoral.

 

I have tried to analyse the basis of morality before, and the maintainance of personal autonomy is the closest I have come to understanding the root 'cause' of morality. If I dont want my autonomy violated, it follows that I should refrain from violating the autonomy of others. It doesnt work as a model, because I have found it is much easier for me to violate other peoples autonomy than they find it to violate mine, so I stand to gain more by acting in opposition to moral behaviour than I do from following it.

 

As a well-adjusted human being (i presume), how do you view the constarints of morality? Do you follow them because you hope others will do so also, or would you follow them even if no-one else did?

[ldsoftwaresteve]

Panjandrum:

As a well-adjusted human being (i presume), how do you view the constarints of morality? Do you follow them because you hope others will do so also, or would you follow them even if no-one else did?

Well put. Since I think morality is something we need to discover and that it is completely tied to our identify, it is a work in progress.

We, all of us, operate using a moral code. Some of those sets of standards might seem insane to me but they operate nonetheless. That most might be incredibly confused would not surprise me.

The point is that we need to identify what the correct moral code is and to do that we must understand our nature.

And we can't understand that out of the context in which we exist, i.e. the universe.

Morality is tied to life and life, in my mind at least, is tied to perception. The ultimate purpose of life might just be to perceive and understand existence. Maybe that's our prime directive.

That we exist to understand and perceive existence provides a valid starting point.