View Single Post
Old 07-03-2010, 11:01 PM   #602
nguirado
Wizard
nguirado ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.nguirado ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.nguirado ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.nguirado ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.nguirado ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.nguirado ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.nguirado ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.nguirado ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.nguirado ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.nguirado ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.nguirado ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 1,262
Karma: 1499080
Join Date: May 2010
Device: Nook
There is no contradiction. For those who think morality is a social construct, what they call "morality" isn't something that's always right or wrong, naturally. It's just a collection of what they think are good and bad practices. If everybody holds to them, the thinking goes (Kant), society would function best.

Think of life as a game and morality as the rules. You decide that not using slang in Scabble would make for a more enjoyable game. It's not that using or not using slang is naturally wrong; it's just something you all decided on or somebody imposed on the rest of the group.

Now, I believe there is a natural morality and that people can sense it in some way. What might be going on with some people is that they naturally feel uncomfortable believing that there's really no rules to the game.

Quote:
There is a contradiction in what you say, and I think it points out to something very important. If morality is a social construct (which I agree with, although I would add that it is based on biological premises), then potentially, holding a different morality than the rest is a threat to society. After all, morality is what is supposed to guide your behavior as a member of society.

In theory, you could for instance decide that in order to preserve the Earth's peace, harmony and balance, humanity needs to be reduced to a population of a few thousand individuals. I would respect your right to believe this (I'm close to it myself some days ), but if there is the slightest chance that you would be ready to act on it, I would prefer you to hold this view while safely locked away from any sharp-edged object

The purpose of morals is to hold society together, and for this we need to choose, collectively, a set of rules and keep to it. As you said, it doesn't matter what the rules of a sport are, but if there were not rules, there would be no sport. Any set of moral rules chosen by a society has some arbitrary in it. You can build your own morality, I think it's even important to do that, but you also have to work with the rules of the society you live in.

I think this is an important issue, because we now live in a very open society, where different sets of moral rules can come into contact, with extremely destructive results. It's not an easy one. What do you do if society requires you to do something that you hold to be evil?
nguirado is offline   Reply With Quote