Concerning the Correspondence of an Ethical System to the Definition of Morality

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Cirion Spellbinder
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Concerning the Correspondence of an Ethical System to the Definition of Morality

Post by Cirion Spellbinder »

It is my understanding that any consequentialist system which is to be considered morality must be composed such that its rules are consistent with the definition of morality 1. How do we know that the consequentialism practiced by many of the most active members of those forum and myself 2 fits the definition of morality when there are many popularly accepted ideas of good and evil? Even if we exclude the deontological definitions such as sin and virtue, I still do not know how to resolve this problem with so many accepted roots of good and evil.

Please correct me if any of the premises of my question are false and tell me what you think.

1 Note: definition of morality is being used to refer to the definitions of good and evil in morality
2 Side question: is there a name for this system? Would it be worthwhile to create one?
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PsYcHo
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Re: Concerning the Correspondence of an Ethical System to the Definition of Morality

Post by PsYcHo »

This is such a hard question to answer due to the supposition that morality has a fixed definition. It is akin to someone asking "Am I a good person"? I don't know, what do you consider "good". Wouldn't you have to ask that of yourself, based upon the definition that you accept? Additionally, if you do manage to answer such a question to your own satisfaction, what happens when your own definition of morality changes, as happens with time and experience?
Alcohol may have been a factor.

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Re: Concerning the Correspondence of an Ethical System to the Definition of Morality

Post by brimstoneSalad »

Any valid system must not contradict itself.
Deontological and theological systems are disqualified by contradiction.
Others are arbitrary.

The only non-arbitrary way to assign value is to do so to values themselves -- things that sentient beings value, that is their interests and preferences with respect to themselves and their environments.
You can't non-arbitrarily assign value to pickles and decide maximizing the number of pickles in the universe is the height of morality; there's no basis for pickles having values.
It's kind of like asking the weight of the color blue, or asking the color of a kilogram. Although it's actually worse than that, because you can sort of convert between different units in physics and we could ask the wavelength of a photon which had the energy of a kilogram of matter.

Anyway, the point is that it needs to be coherent and non-arbitrary. Kant tried and failed to do that with deontology and his categorical imperative.

The answer is much simpler and lies more or less with the golden rule; do unto others as you would have been done by, others being other beings that can have an interest in being done by at all, and as you would be done by meaning valuing their interests (as you would have yours valued).
The statement that we should value the interests of others (others being those capable of interests, and to the extent they are) is probably more to the point.

As to whether those interests should be valued positively (altruism) or negatively (some kind of sadism), the default assumption would seem to be positive since there's no basis for inverting them, but it's also the only assumption that matches well with what people think of as morality; the other would match with evil or immorality/anti-morality (that could be more of a semantic question).
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Re: Concerning the Correspondence of an Ethical System to the Definition of Morality

Post by Cirion Spellbinder »

Thanks for refreshing my memory brimstone. I know we've gone over some of this before, but I left for a while and forgot quite a bit.
brimstoneSalad wrote:do unto others as you would have been done by, others being other beings that can have an interest in being done by at all, and as you would be done by meaning valuing their interests (as you would have yours valued).
The statement that we should value the interests of others (others being those capable of interests, and to the extent they are) is probably more to the point.
Most people (in my experience) use the golden rule as if it only is defined for humans. Isn't valuing the interests of all sentient beings inconsistent with this?
brimstoneSalad wrote:it's also the only assumption that matches well with what people think of as morality; the other would match with evil or immorality/anti-morality (that could be more of a semantic question).
How do we know that the golden rule is the only (coherent) assumption that matches well with what people think of as morality? Is there any hard data on this consensus or is it based on personal experience (or perhaps the personal experience based consensus among those interested in the topic)?
Last edited by Cirion Spellbinder on Tue Nov 29, 2016 1:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
Cirion Spellbinder
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Re: Concerning the Correspondence of an Ethical System to the Definition of Morality

Post by Cirion Spellbinder »

PsYcHo wrote:Wouldn't you have to ask that of yourself, based upon the definition that you accept?
I accept whatever definition is coherent and the consensus.
PsYcHo wrote:Additionally, if you do manage to answer such a question to your own satisfaction, what happens when your own definition of morality changes, as happens with time and experience?
You return to that definition which is both coherent and the consensus because your own personal definitions are arbitrary and render the word useless.
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Re: Concerning the Correspondence of an Ethical System to the Definition of Morality

Post by brimstoneSalad »

Cirion Spellbinder wrote: Most people (in my experience) use the golden rule as if it only is defined for humans. Isn't valuing the interests of all sentient beings inconsistent with this?
You could try to use it to just apply to men, or just to white people, or whatever arbitrary cutoff you want, but that doesn't mean it's right to do so.
The point is to be non-arbitrary.

Randian-style egoists believe in only being considerate of others who are "rational agents" and can mutually benefit you. This isn't morality, though, that's just self interest.

Ethics doesn't just mean behaving ethically to those who will reciprocate it, but also to those who will not or can not. Those who are weaker, or even those who have wronged you.
Cirion Spellbinder wrote: How do we know that the golden rule is the only (coherent) assumption that matches well with what people think of as morality?
As I think I showed, only consideration of interests has meaning. So, how many iterations of consideration of interest are there?

Considering your own interests only.
Considering the interests of others (who have interests).
Considering your own and the interests of others.
Negatively considering your own interests only (acting against your own interests).
Negatively considering the interests of others (who have interests).
Negatively considering your own interests and negatively considering the interests of others.
Negatively considering your own interests and positively considering the interests of others.
Positively considering your own interests and negatively considering the interests of others.

Anything else?
Which one looks most like what people would label "morality"?
Cirion Spellbinder wrote: Is there any hard data on this consensus or is it based on personal experience (or perhaps the personal experience based consensus among those interested in the topic)?
It's based on deduction, and the process of elimination.

We can look similarly at consequentialism, deontology, etc. eliminating those that are not coherent. You can plot out a spectrum or table of all conceivable moral systems and cross the incoherent and inconsistent ones off, cross the arbitrary ones off. You aren't left with much.
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Re: Concerning the Correspondence of an Ethical System to the Definition of Morality

Post by vegan81vzla »

As I understand it, our current system of values is based on the monoteist ten commandments, from which most legal systems around the world thanks to globalization, are based. This has created a fixed absolute set of rules that, as I see it, can become at some point, impossible to comply with all the time. Perhaps we should forsee a legal system not based on the principles of the ten commandments, but rather on trying to fix itself around the seven capital sins, namely, greed, gluttony, lust, rage, envy, sloth, and pride, and making people try to, throughout their lives, learn to control them. Perhaps each society could try and rate the sins and evaluate which might be more important forr its citizens to control. Most societies currently already tend to discourage them, with the exception perhaps of gluttony and greed. But those are the ones that are actually destroying us the most.
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Re: Concerning the Correspondence of an Ethical System to the Definition of Morality

Post by Cirion Spellbinder »

I think I understand now. An objective moral system must be derived from a coherent ethical principle, interpreted as to avoid any arbitrary limits inconsistent with the definition of ethics. Is this correct?
brimstoneSalad wrote:It's based on deduction, and the process of elimination.

We can look similarly at consequentialism, deontology, etc. eliminating those that are not coherent. You can plot out a spectrum or table of all conceivable moral systems and cross the incoherent and inconsistent ones off, cross the arbitrary ones off. You aren't left with much.
That makes sense. I'll try to do this later.
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Re: Concerning the Correspondence of an Ethical System to the Definition of Morality

Post by brimstoneSalad »

Cirion Spellbinder wrote:I think I understand now. An objective moral system must be derived from a coherent ethical principle, interpreted as to avoid any arbitrary limits inconsistent with the definition of ethics. Is this correct?
The definition of ethics basically just tells us which word to use, a combination of sounds. That's why we call good 'good' and evil 'evil'. That's not really relevant to the system itself.

The important points to the system are being coherent/consistent without contradictions, and being non-arbitrary such that we can call it objective rather than just a "personal ethic" which tends to be arbitrary.
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Re: Concerning the Correspondence of an Ethical System to the Definition of Morality

Post by DarlBundren »

Would you consider judging people 's interests by tossing a coin as a non-arbitrary, consistent system?
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