Obama Is Not a Muslim

[bobbob1313]

There's a lot of grey area in a lot of matters, but sometimes one side is just wrong.

 

I'm not sure I agree, but that's ok. You aren't wrong.

[MrRain422]

Sometimes I am. I can admit it.

[Central Scrutinizer]

I wasn't talking about facts when I said universal truth, I was talking about morals, political philosophy and other things of an intangible nature. Of course a fact can be a lie, but a moral? A philosophy? Never.

 

And that's where I think a lot of people step over their bounds.

 

Look at it like this: Barry Bonds has hit the most home runs than anyone in major league baseball's history. This is indisputable fact.

Barry Bonds is a bad person because he cheated to hit those home runs. This is an opinion, or an example of morality.

 

This can be neither right nor wrong, just like there is no right or wrong answer for almost every political issue out there. If there was, there wouldn't be as much divisiveness as there is.

 

I'm not sure if that answers your question, but then I'm not sure what your question was asking, since it kind of didn't have anything to do with what I was talking about.

I want to try to understand you on this, and I think where you're losing me is how you define morals. Morals or morality must be agreed upon because it has to exist in a society or civilization. You have to buy into it but it can't be completely subjective. I think all manner of civilizations have come up with very similar "morals" because they're what we operate by to keep from eliminating ourselves altogether. Whether you're Christian or not, "do not kill" seems like a pretty good rule. Philosphers and politicians will get on the slippery slope of exceptions. It is the rationalizations that become subjective ("if I catch my wife in bed with a guy, I can kill the guy").

 

Baseball is baseball because of the rules that make that game (and consequently make it different than cricket, tennis, sumo wrestling). Baseball has a rule "don't use performance enhancements. And they left people on their honor until they were smart enough to realize that people will lie to pad their stats.

 

A lie is a lie is a lie. Barry Bonds lied (we can play a whole game -- ala Pete Rose=gambling, but all facts and enough circumstantial evidence say, Barry Bonds lied -- or at least he didn't tell the truth). If you say he's not so bad because he only sorta cheated, that's your rationalization of morality. Cheating is against the rules agreed upon by Major League Baseball.

 

Bottom line, if a society can't reach a reasonable consensus on how to interact, a degree of civility, the hope of honesty, then you remove any semblance of morality.

 

You complain about the Nazi analogy -- and it is an extreme -- but it was also a reality among a civilization. Somone set up their own concept of morality (it's O.K. to kill Jews, some races are better than others, Oliver Hardy mustaches are back). How about Cortez? Good song, but good person?

 

As far as philosophy, is there a constant there, how can we have Plato and Nietsche? Christianity and nihilism?

[bobbob1313]

As far as philosophy, is there a constant there, how can we have Plato and Nietsche? Christianity and nihilism?

 

That's my point, I think. If there was such a thing as a universal morality, you wouldn't have such divergent ideas.

 

Societies operate under the agreement that we all work under the morals of the society so as to achieve a greater common good. That doesn't mean that moral code is right, it just means that in the context of that society, it is the one that will, hopefully bring about the most good for the people in the society.

[Central Scrutinizer]

That's my point, I think. If there was such a thing as a universal morality, you wouldn't have such divergent ideas.

 

Societies operate under the agreement that we all work under the morals of the society so as to achieve a greater common good. That doesn't mean that moral code is right, it just means that in the context of that society, it is the one that will, hopefully bring about the most good for the people in the society.

This may be another one of those potato pahtato things, where we both saying the same thing from two different directions.

 

Does the history of civilization show that some morals are universal?

 

This organized society or civilization called the United States in America agreed to a constitution, bill of rights, and along the way some amendments. Created the branches of government, checks and balances. It's lasted nearly 250 years, and the election of 2008 is the best we can do as a civilization?

[MrRain422]

Either way, it should be pretty obvious that when someone says that one side is right on the issues, they usually mean in their opinion, so it's not necessary to snap at someone every time they make that assertion.

 

But also, sometimes one side is just wrong, such as when they present their case using distorted facts or outright lies, or refuse to acknowledge opposing evidence. Also, even without a universal morality, we still have morality that is agreed upon by society, and even by those standards the current administration has acted immorally (not to mention illegally) countless times, and McCain has supported those policies.

[Spawn's dad]

There's a lot of grey area in a lot of matters, but sometimes one side is just wrong.

 

I ran my neighbor over. That was wrong.

[Good Old Neon]

W/r/t morality.....

 

Steven Pinker, who I have mentioned before, is a hero of mine. In case you are unfamiliar, let me please cut a short bio from wikipedia:

 

Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a prominent Canadian-American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, and author of popular science. Pinker is known for his wide-ranging advocacy of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind. He received a bachelor's degree in experimental psychology from McGill University in 1976, and then went on to earn his doctorate in the same discipline at Harvard in 1979. He did research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for a year, then became an assistant professor at Harvard and then Stanford University. From 1982 until 2003, Pinker taught at the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, and eventually became the director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience. (Except for a one-year sabbatical at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1995-6.) As of 2008, he is the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard.[1]

 

Alright, enough with the introductions - what follows is an excerpt from a much larger piece entitled The Moral Instinct - I highly recommend reading the essay in its entirety, a link will be provided for you when you have finished. And before you say it, yes, I know, it is long, but please trust that it is well worth the effort.

 

Reasoning and Rationalizing

 

It

[Central Scrutinizer]

W/r/t morality.....

 

Steven Pinker, who I have mentioned before, is a hero of mine. In case you are unfamiliar, let me please cut a short bio from wikipedia:

 

Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a prominent Canadian-American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, and author of popular science. Pinker is known for his wide-ranging advocacy of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind. He received a bachelor's degree in experimental psychology from McGill University in 1976, and then went on to earn his doctorate in the same discipline at Harvard in 1979. He did research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for a year, then became an assistant professor at Harvard and then Stanford University. From 1982 until 2003, Pinker taught at the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, and eventually became the director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience. (Except for a one-year sabbatical at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1995-6.) As of 2008, he is the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard.[1]

 

Alright, enough with the introductions - what follows is an excerpt from a much larger piece entitled The Moral Instinct - I highly recommend reading the essay in its entirety, a link will be provided for you when you have finished. And before you say it, yes, I know, it is long, but please trust that it is well worth the effort.

 

Reasoning and Rationalizing

 

It

[bobbob1313]

I can't say one way or the other whether we are ingrained with morals or if they become such a big part of us from such an early age because, as the book Ishmael says, Mother Culture is whispering it in our ears every second of every day.

 

I mean, humans are different from everything else in the animal kingdom because we have the choice to do bad things, so I guess that is where morality comes from, but I feel like it's an evolved, rather than intrinsic quality about us.

 

What I mean is, I think as we developed higher brain function, we tried to justify the things we did that we just did by instinct, killing in defense, killing animals, caring for our young. And from this, we began to be able to do the opposite, to consciously decide to do these things and justify them with out newfound morality.

 

I'm not sure if that makes any sense...

[Spawn's dad]

I guess my question would be why does it matter which it is? Why the assumption that we are so separate from society, from culture, from one another? Perhaps it's really all more holographic than that. Each piece contains the whole. We create culture and culture creates us. In that case the essence is in the whisper. In the case of running my neighbor over, I don't need to know why it's wrong....or even how I learned it's wrong. I know experientially that it's wrong. I feel it in my stomach, my head, my heart. But as we slide from the obvious to the perhaps less obvious and then to the hot argument topics what happens? how is it that we lose the thread?

[Central Scrutinizer]

I guess my question would be why does it matter which it is? Why the assumption that we are so separate from society, from culture, from one another? Perhaps it's really all more holographic than that. Each piece contains the whole. We create culture and culture creates us. In that case the essence is in the whisper. In the case of running my neighbor over, I don't need to know why it's wrong....or even how I learned it's wrong. I know experientially that it's wrong. I feel it in my stomach, my head, my heart. But as we slide from the obvious to the perhaps less obvious and then to the hot argument topics what happens? how is it that we lose the thread?

Our understanding of right and wrong is constantly being challenged and tested. That cuts to the heart of Roe v Wade -- the American history of courts and balance of law reached the point where the Supreme Court made that decision, based the courts recording of precedent, right and wrong.

 

I was trying to come up with an analogy to counter your backing over your neighor being wrong. The best I can come up with is: consider a small child that finds itself upon a deserted island, with all manner of means for him to survive. He grows to manhood and one day, while up in the tree shoping for coconuts he sees something moving down below. Not understanding what it is, he throws a coconut down from the tree, killing it. When he gets down the tree and sees it's a man. Would he intrinsically know what he did was wrong. Or would he have meat for dinner?

[Central Scrutinizer]

I can't say one way or the other whether we are ingrained with morals or if they become such a big part of us from such an early age because, as the book Ishmael says, Mother Culture is whispering it in our ears every second of every day.

 

I mean, humans are different from everything else in the animal kingdom because we have the choice to do bad things, so I guess that is where morality comes from, but I feel like it's an evolved, rather than intrinsic quality about us.

 

What I mean is, I think as we developed higher brain function, we tried to justify the things we did that we just did by instinct, killing in defense, killing animals, caring for our young. And from this, we began to be able to do the opposite, to consciously decide to do these things and justify them with out newfound morality.

 

I'm not sure if that makes any sense...

I think it makes perfect sense -- or at least what I've decided you were trying to say makes perfect sense to me!

 

It reminds me of the Jeff Goldblum line in The Big Chill:

Michael: I don't know anyone who could get through the day without two or three juicy rationalizations. They're more important than sex.

Sam Weber: Ah, come on. Nothing's more important than sex.

Michael: Oh yeah? Ever gone a week without a rationalization?

[bobbob1313]

How did we get to this topic ?