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What Is Moral and what is betrayal?

 
 
Bossox
 
Reply Fri 2 Nov, 2007 12:13 am
New topic. New Question.

What is Moral compared to what is Immoral? How can we tell the difference? Is there a difference?...Can we tell the difference?

What is betrayal (sp?) Is betrayal Immoral or Moral? Does the scale/scope of the betrayal change if it is Immoral or Moral?

I'll comment later, just want to see some responses first.
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Type: Discussion • Score: 1 • Views: 5,043 • Replies: 19
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fresco
 
  1  
Reply Fri 2 Nov, 2007 01:34 am
IMO "Morality" = "Social expediency" and this changes relative to time and place. The concept of "self" is socially aquired and through the acquisition process comes empathy with other living creatures to a greater or lesser degree as embodied in cultural practices. Moralty (like "truth" BTW) is a function of social consensus.

"Betrayal" is by definition always "immoral" with respect to someone even if it is the result of calculations aimed at "the greater good".

Theists would of course argue against moral relativity with a concept of "absolute truth". They might invoke the catch all clause "the Lord moves in mysterious ways" in order to cope with "His apparent betrayal" when innocents undergo suffering, or alternatively they might see it it as retribution for "Man's betrayal of God". Therein lies one path to sociopathic fanaticism.
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tinygiraffe
 
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Reply Fri 2 Nov, 2007 01:38 am
i like coberst's reply, this is one i can agree with totally, but i can't wait to see fresco attack it.

oh, whoops! nevermind. Laughing really though, i think you outdid the original post in terms of thought provoking, fresco, thanks.
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fresco
 
  1  
Reply Fri 2 Nov, 2007 02:44 am
Thanks tinyg.

I would add that I do not see "self" as a unity, but a fluctuating committee of "selves" which represent different allegiances and desires. This implies that "moral dilemmas" are essentially internal affairs which are anthropomorhically projected onto "social groups". In other words "group actions" may be not be attributable to "morality" even though propaganda on behalf of political leaders might claim they are, in order to sway consensus. Thus the forces which lead to war are predominantly tribal (=restricted empathy)and economic, rather than "moral" .even though individuals may rationalize them as such by gagging members of their internal committee.
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tinygiraffe
 
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Reply Fri 2 Nov, 2007 03:12 am
*applause*

although i think your fluctuating committee is well phrased, i see it as a function or state of the unity, more than a complete lack of, or distinct entity.
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vikorr
 
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Reply Fri 2 Nov, 2007 03:14 pm
You know Fresco, as much as I've disagreed with you on certain things, I am in agreement with virtually everything you said above (just thought I'd let you know) :wink:

By the way, in relation to Morality...or anything else involving Human interaction, here is how I currently look at it.

I am me
Each action I have with another individual is either a gift or a curse I choose to give them (with certain neutral things, such as commands, judgements etc, which can be delivered as either a gift or curse)

From that point of view, societies view of morality (to myself) is irrelevant, what matters is my view. However, I do acknowledge that morality to the masses is not irrelevant.

Betrayal : are we talking about self betrayal, or betrayal by others?

I am currently of the opinion (still learning), that we should not hold (as in form attachments to) expectations of other, nor ourselves (this does tie into the view above).

One of the results of such a perspective is, say you are married...marriage is an expectation - it would mean that each and every morning you wake up, you must choose to be married (all over again), it would mean that you must choose whether to be romantic or not...it is a gift you give the other...and what would be the effect on your wife if each and every morning you chose to be once more, married to her? What would be the effect on yourself?

Turn that around, and each and every day the other does something that pleases you (which would otherwise be an expectation), it is a gift they give you.
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OGIONIK
 
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Reply Mon 5 Nov, 2007 09:11 am
BETRAYAL IS WHEN ONE PERSON HAS A WEAKNESS AND LETS ANOTHER PERSON TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THEM.

THE BETRAYED IS THE IMMORAL ONE. FOR LETTING WEAKNESS INTO HIM OR HERSELF.

JUST KIDDING.
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fungotheclown
 
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Reply Mon 5 Nov, 2007 09:25 am
As far as how this social consensus is formed, I think it has a variety of sources. Much of it has its basis in evolution; we protect those that are around us because it is likely that share DNA with us, and those genes are more likely to propagate that way. The same is true of our identification with those that are similar to us. Unfortunately, this basic instinct often gets screwed up, and we end up using those similarities to separate ourselves from those who are different.

Where do you guys think this consensus comes from? It's weird that every culture has come up with the same moral basics; don't kill, don't steal, etc. How do you explain this?
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tinygiraffe
 
  1  
Reply Mon 5 Nov, 2007 09:35 am
three explanations, at different levels of scientific plausibility:

1. we have evolved instincts to not kill more than we need to, and when we "think," they manifest in beliefs. our instincts are the same, thus our beliefs.

2. we are at least partially psychic, and there is a collective knowledge that binds us together even though we are from different cultures.

3. religion, while differing in many ways, is the same because of the above reasons, or because they all come from earlier religions we no longer know about, or because the same god(s) created the religions we have now.
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fungotheclown
 
  1  
Reply Tue 6 Nov, 2007 02:44 pm
This collective knowledge thing intrigues me; do you actually believe in this to some degree, or are you just listing it for the sake of completeness?
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tinygiraffe
 
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Reply Thu 8 Nov, 2007 06:18 am
well i do think there is some evidence for it, but i'm not trying to sell it by including it.

i think it would be a very good explanation, but only if it was shown to exist. i try to approach pretty much everything in an agnostic way, including atheism Smile i'm an agnostic when it comes to atheism, i think that it might be accurate. but i did include the idea of collective knowledge in an attempt to be more complete, for all i know it's stored in the dna with "instinct."
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blueSky
 
  1  
Reply Sat 17 Nov, 2007 12:10 pm
Morality is like following traffic rules while using public roads. The rules are for everyone's benefit. Behavior such as drunk driving, jumping lights and cutting others is road equivalent of immorality. It is basically rooted in disregard for others' well being. Moral action is compassionate and skill-full, like a good clean driving.

Moral action cannot be borne out of repression. To have compassion or to have skills to act out of it, one needs to be free. Freedom is the raw material of moral action. And moral action in turn creates more freedom. Anything short of that is a downward spiral that breeds immorality.

Betrayal is deviation from the rules of engagement. The rules may or may not be moral.
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tinygiraffe
 
  1  
Reply Sat 17 Nov, 2007 09:30 pm
blueSky wrote:
Morality is like following traffic rules while using public roads. The rules are for everyone's benefit.


http://www.funnysign.com/funnysign/012_big_foot.jpg
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vikorr
 
  1  
Reply Sun 18 Nov, 2007 04:41 am
I wish I had taken a photo of a traffic sign I saw in New Zealand. It said "Traffic signs are not targets"

Of course it had a couple of rounds of shotgun pallets blown through it.
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Eorl
 
  1  
Reply Mon 19 Nov, 2007 07:24 pm
fungotheclown wrote:

Where do you guys think this consensus comes from? It's weird that every culture has come up with the same moral basics; don't kill, don't steal, etc. How do you explain this?


fungotheclown wrote:
Much of it has its basis in evolution; we protect those that are around us because it is likely that share DNA with us, and those genes are more likely to propagate that way.
Finn dAbuzz
 
  1  
Reply Sun 25 Nov, 2007 03:37 am
It is difficult to imagine a widely held notion of an absolute truth (e.g. Thou Shall not Kill) that is not supportive of Society.

At the same time, we should assume that anything approaching a caring God must be high on society.

Thus, it stand to reason, that anything that works to break apart the fabric of Society is immoral.

A simplistic interpretation of Society may arrive at the conclusion that the advancement of individual interests over those of Society must, perforce, be immoral.

Society is a living beast. It evolves as do the individual organisms that comprise it.

There was a time when it was not considered immoral to hang a child for stealing bread. Today we consider this horrifically immoral.

In those times, however, bread was hard to come by and its absence could mean the starvation and death of entire families.

I hate the use of "isms" to cast aspersions on one or another group, but we do tend to suffer from chronoiscm. The people who hung children for stealing bread were not, in general, monsters. They were people who had to come to grips with the demands of their Society.

At some point in the future, the dynamics of human life will have changed to the point where actions we currently accept as moral will be conceived as immoral. I do not mean capital punishment, or Gitmo, it is far beyond such temporally superficial concerns. It could be the killing of insects, incest, or slavery. If, as SJ Gould argues, evolution does not imply progression, than societal evolution does not imply progression, and certainly not as respects our given point in time.
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OGIONIK
 
  1  
Reply Mon 26 Nov, 2007 08:37 am
has it ever occured to anyone society itself could be immoral, well to be honest, it IS immoral, we are destroying the only haven in this entire universe we know for sure harbors this miracle called "life", isnt that a little disturbing?

i mean society itself exists, to protect itself from society.

if we didnt have governments, gangs and roving bands of marauders are both forms of it, then we wouldnt have any wars at all.

its like a self fulfilling prophecy, or the monkey experiment where they get squirted with water when one tries to get food so they attack whoever tries to get the food even if they rotate out all the monkeys until they are all beating monkeys for getting food and none of them get squirted at all.

ok too much typing, humans are dumb end of diwscussion were idiots.
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tinygiraffe
 
  1  
Reply Mon 26 Nov, 2007 12:07 pm
we are idiots, but we're not, really. it's more like we've created a kind of frankenstein monster that we happen to be living in.

if we used our minds more it would help, but we get caught up in rules we can't find our way out of, the same way people smoke far past the time they actually enjoy smoking. i'd recommend (if i haven't to you already) "the little engine that couldn't: how we're preparing (ourselves and our children?) for extinction," which is an essay published online by daniel quinn.

you can easily find it by searching for the part in quotes, minus the part in parentheses- i forget exactly how the part in parentheses is worded.

it might change the way you see the world. it did for me, although there are times when even my own (old) habit of seeing things one way can prevent me from looking for solutions. don't be prevented.
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Finn dAbuzz
 
  1  
Reply Tue 27 Nov, 2007 09:25 pm
OGIONIK wrote:
has it ever occured to anyone society itself could be immoral, well to be honest, it IS immoral, we are destroying the only haven in this entire universe we know for sure harbors this miracle called "life", isnt that a little disturbing?

Society cannot be immoral since it is the font of morality.

There are versions of Society that are warped by immorality, which temporarily sustain social dynamics, but they, inevitably, decay and dissolve.

It is only incredible hubris that gives rise to the admonition that humanity is destroying the only harbor for life in this universe.

Even if we accpet the cosmically parochial notion that earth is the lone source of life in the universe, it is ridiculous to think that we can either destroy or render lifeless our planet. Perhaps someday we will have the technological power to do so, but that time is not now.

This is not the say that we cannot render this world uninhabitable for ourselves, but this is a far cry from destroying all life on earth, and it is something other than immoral. If through the avarice and ignorance of our species we render our species extinct, there may be immorality at the level of individuals, but in a broader sense it is something closer to justice.


i mean society itself exists, to protect itself from society.

No, to the extent that Society exists to protect it protects agains disorder and the warped societies that are, in essence, disorder.

if we didnt have governments, gangs and roving bands of marauders are both forms of it, then we wouldnt have any wars at all.

A feeble argument for anarchy.

Are you suggesting that humanity can flourish or even exist as a myriad of hermits?


its like a self fulfilling prophecy, or the monkey experiment where they get squirted with water when one tries to get food so they attack whoever tries to get the food even if they rotate out all the monkeys until they are all beating monkeys for getting food and none of them get squirted at all.

ok too much typing, humans are dumb end of diwscussion were idiots.

There are self-loathing Americans, self-loathing Jews, self-loathing Whites, self-loathing Southerners, and (among many others) self-loathing Westerners. There are also self-loathing humans.





To the extent that Society exists to protect, it is not protecting against Society, but warped societies that approach chaos.
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panda man
 
  1  
Reply Tue 10 Mar, 2009 05:59 am
@Eorl,
concensus in my view of not stealing, killing ect comes from your soical and private upbringing its drilled into us that these things are wrong from home, school, at time friends,church(tho i dont go anymore)
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