Philosophers think they know it all - they are never wrong.

@Fido,

Fido, What world do you live in? No matter how much morals is taught its citizens of any community, crimes occur, moral codes are broken, and nobody really understands how morals has changed human behavior. It really doesn't matter which religion you wish to identify as the "most" moral; it doesn't exist.

Morals is a subjective concept created by humans, and what one deems immoral can be a normal practice of another.

There are many reasons when Clinton was caught with Monica Lewinsky, and US citizens said he cheapened the office of the presidency and his marriage, most in Europe laughed, because we made such a big fuss over it. Do you honestly believe our morals are any better than theirs? If you do, you have much more reading to do, although in your case, it may be an oxymoron.

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@Fido,

You assume people who you identify as moral always remain moral. You don't have any idea about human behavior.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

You assume people who you identify as moral always remain moral. You don't have any idea about human behavior.

Every choice we make is a moral choice, and even the immoral are moral... It is a natural form, and of course there is not much of objective morality, because their is no object called morality... All moral forms are infinites, so we have no objective means of telling whether your morality is in any sense the same as my morality... All we can do is ask: What does morality mean to you, and what is the meaning of your moral forms, and compare them.. I think it is obvious that all of humanity harbors such meanings as forms of their natural relationships...It is not by coincidence that ethic is so much like ethnic, and the word in Greek means custom or character; qualities we get from our native groups...

I am not saying that people are always moral, or even that they know always what is moral, and I will say that every attempt to determine in advance what is moral is foolish... We might be able to say in gross what is good, or just, which is to say: Generally moral, but that is all.. There is no hypothetical morality... Generally, one is moral in regard to ones natural groups, ones nation, tribe, extended family, and family; and hopefully civil with all the rest... In this sense if one is acting in the best interest of ones natural group, it does not matter how barbarous ones conduct is with other groups....

That is morality; and while law seeks to limit the power of community in order to build a larger nation state having the power of the natural nation, and the loyalty, the very act by which they gain power over the individual cuts him free of all affiliations and so, makes him immoral....The one hope the nation state has of making its members moral is to make an issue of justice, to do in every sense for the individual what the former, natural nation did for him, defend and protect him... This has not been done...People are freed of their natual obligations, and denied their natural protections, and made free individuals when this amounts in leaving them open to abuse, exploitation, and injury... No person subjected to such treatment under law will be lawful, or moral..

1 Reply

@Fido,

Your post is getting closer to what I've been saying all along. However, no government can legislate morality. Your last post explains the reasons why this happens to be true and factual.

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@Fido,

Fido wrote:

manored wrote:

Fido wrote:

What is moral and what is Ok are entirely different questions... Morality is community, what ones people do out of a nearly objective sense of their own immediate welfare; but what is Ok from a larger perspective introduces morality as a human ideal rather than a practical reality...

I would say that what is "ok" is simply what is fine to do or not in our own system of morality. In the morality we live in today, massacres are not ok.

What you say is clearly false since what is immoral puts a person outside of society, and we cannot say that of those who massacre... They go home to the welcome of their wives and children and often live long lives and die in bed...The most moral of people have a human morality, but most of us who are moral in the traditional sense simply do not..

Hum, I guess there really are some systems of morality where certain types of massacre are accepted.

cicerone imposter wrote:

Morals is a subjective concept created by humans, and what one deems immoral can be a normal practice of another.

If I understood any of what he said, this is a big part of his point. I think the two of you are heavily misurestanding each other.

cicerone imposter wrote:

Now you resort to juvenile language. It figures.

Ahhhh, but it was a good one. You need a sense of humor =)

kennethamy wrote:

Where are the moderators when you need them? Assassins will do, though.

This one was almost good, but "Assassins" wasnt a good choice of word. Oh well.

Like Zetherin said, this forum isnt as moderated as the old philforum. And that was just a minor war anyway, moderation wasnt really necessary.

Zetherin wrote:

Yes, well, no offense to Fido, but I often have difficulty understanding anything he says.

I do as well. I cant quite tell why, it feels as though he is trying to say many things simultaneously, but they end up being mixed and losing themselves as we read his posts.

2 Replies

@manored,

cicerone imposter wrote

Quote:

Morals is a subjective concept created by humans, and what one deems immoral can be a normal practice of another.

manored wrote:

Quote:

If I understood any of what he said, this is a big part of his point. I think the two of you are heavily misurestanding each other.

What are you trying to say?

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

What are you trying to say?

That there are some points in which you both are saying the same things but in different ways, and understanding something else from what the other is saying. I wont say that all your disagreement derives from this, but at least part of it does, I think.

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@manored,

manored wrote:

Fido wrote:

manored wrote:

Fido wrote:

What is moral and what is Ok are entirely different questions... Morality is community, what ones people do out of a nearly objective sense of their own immediate welfare; but what is Ok from a larger perspective introduces morality as a human ideal rather than a practical reality...

I would say that what is "ok" is simply what is fine to do or not in our own system of morality. In the morality we live in today, massacres are not ok.

What you say is clearly false since what is immoral puts a person outside of society, and we cannot say that of those who massacre... They go home to the welcome of their wives and children and often live long lives and die in bed...The most moral of people have a human morality, but most of us who are moral in the traditional sense simply do not..

Hum, I guess there really are some systems of morality where certain types of massacre are accepted.

cicerone imposter wrote:

Morals is a subjective concept created by humans, and what one deems immoral can be a normal practice of another.

If I understood any of what he said, this is a big part of his point. I think the two of you are heavily misurestanding each other.

cicerone imposter wrote:

Now you resort to juvenile language. It figures.

Ahhhh, but it was a good one. You need a sense of humor =)

kennethamy wrote:

Where are the moderators when you need them? Assassins will do, though.

This one was almost good, but "Assassins" wasnt a good choice of word. Oh well.

Like Zetherin said, this forum isnt as moderated as the old philforum. And that was just a minor war anyway, moderation wasnt really necessary.

Zetherin wrote:

Yes, well, no offense to Fido, but I often have difficulty understanding anything he says.

I do as well. I cant quite tell why, it feels as though he is trying to say many things simultaneously, but they end up being mixed and losing themselves as we read his posts.

It is wrong to conceive of morals as created by humans when we have as much been created by them... In gross, when we first began to think of good as an abstract objective good for the whole community we ceased being primates and became human... It is a digression to an animal state to think of good only for one's own self as Good...

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@Fido,

Don't be so damn ignorant; humans create weapons that can destroy this world. Your idea of morality just doesn't exist.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

Don't be so damn ignorant; humans create weapons that can destroy this world. Your idea of morality just doesn't exist.

Really??? Because when Jews kill Arabs for something the dead Arabs did not do, and Arabs kill Jews for something the Jews did not do, there is a prime example of natural morality... When some one says: Blood is thicker than water; there is another great example of morality, and if it were within my power I would ask those people what could possibly be thicker than your skull, Trust that I would do so... How do you find your ass with the butt wipe with your brain so full of crap???

1 Reply

@Fido,

Your use of ad hominems shows that you are unable to debate any subject with a modicum of intelligence.

Your statements make no sense.

You presume things that do not exist in this world. Learn a little about human psychology before you spout off about morality. You're nowhere near understanding human behavior.

Try to guess what the US and Russian ownership of nuclear weapons was once called?

So, in your world there has never been a parent killing their child, sibling killing a sibling, or a child killing their parent.

Wow, what world do you live in?

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

Your use of ad hominems shows that you are unable to debate any subject with a modicum of intelligence.

Your statements make no sense.

You presume things that do not exist in this world. Learn a little about human psychology before you spout off about morality. You're nowhere near understanding human behavior.

Try to guess what the US and Russian ownership of nuclear weapons was once called?

So, in your world there has never been a parent killing their child, sibling killing a sibling, or a child killing their parent.

Wow, what world do you live in?

Blood is thicker than water... Explain the phrase...
The fact that we have friends and enemies... Explain the situation without resort to the word morality...

Some of the most moral societies have killed their own... Oedipus killing his father was not moral though it was accidental... Orestes killing his mother was entirely moral, and her killing of Agamenon were both entirely moral actions... Among the American Indians, if one person killed another outside of their immediate family, and it was found that no blood money offered was worth the life of the victim, and so, the murderer must be executed, then no one but his own family would execute him, because that death, even if justified by all would demand blood vengeance... No one but Orestes could have killed his mother, and no city would allow a murderess or murderer to live within its wall... Ancients, the most moral of people, were very particular about their honor, and about no one killing one of theirs without revenge... In Anglo Saxon England, one who killed in self defense also need pay blood money... There was no way around it...If you killed some one you had to pay... We are paying it to families today for wrongful deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan...In Athens, in fact, no one but the family could bring charges for homicide. and no one could bring charges against a free man for the life of a slave...Slaves were thought of as not having family...Some one kills one of ours and we blow our noses and get on with our lives... It is because we are demoralized; but moral actions like defense and war do not make a people immoral, but prove morality, which once more for the thick brained among us, has to do with the relationship between and individual and his community...

There for, it is moral to kill one of your own, and honorable IF you find them preying upon your community... No one likes to comtemplate it, but the law make aiding and abeting a crime, even for a family member... Yes, we owe to our families our greatest loyalty, but the nation, being that group that sprang from a common mother, is also our family, and just as we should sacrifice ourselves for our nation, we may be called upon to sacrifice one of our own...Would you not kill one of yours if you found they were killing others of your neighbors??? If you say not; then where is your honor...

Honor meant something to Electra, and Orestes.. Cu'chulain killed for his honor at the drop of the first insult, and Achilles went and wept like a child by the boats, and then withheld his Myrmidons from the fight, and all for honor...If you have no honor worth defending it is because you have no idea what morality is... And you may be correct to say I do not understand human behavior... I don't, and I do not expect to since so much of it is governed by irrational motives...Morality is still a force in the world, and most of us transfere our feeling of family to the political nation... It is hard to draw a line between moral and healthy... It is usually quite easy to draw a line between legal and moral...

1 Reply

@Fido,

Your limited knowledge of human history just doesn't cut it.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

Your limited knowledge of human history just doesn't cut it.

Show me what you got; because if you got alphabet soup behind your name you don't show it well with what you say or the way you say it... If you got it, flaunt it...
I am certain it is just a small point, but the periods of time to which I last refered are not typically considered as part of history since they are before writing in the cultures, and so, pre historical... I do not mention the many cultures in the world that have managed to hold on to their morality simply because their religion supports that morality, as Islam, changing what it could of negative human behavior, and leaving what existed as a good, and sensible attribute of all people untouched...History is all fiction, but fiction in which certain facts may be surmised... The same is true of pre history, that one can get a partial sense of one people that tends to fill in the gaps of what is known about others... The Greeks were not so different from the Romans, and the Germans were not so different from the Native Americans... By the time some of these people walked upon the stage of human history they were well on the way to being demoralized... And this is where Nietzsche had it wrong... The Germans of his age who were slavish, and the Germans of his age who were nobles were little different, but only products of their feudalism which divided people into lords and slaves who were once together victors... Legal culture and church culture combined to reduce the great bulk of humanity to non beings, unable to stand up for themselves or their rights...Often, what they were left with in the form of morals was no better than no morals at all, but there can be no such thing...Nationalism has been a disaster for human kind... Law has been a disaster... Tell me I don't know about human behavior... I know enough to see that our social forms at time lift humanity out of their condition and improve our lot, and in days as we now know, social forms can drag mankind back into a sewer of despair...

So what have you got... It is time for you to strut, or shut up...

1 Reply

@Fido,

That's because you really don't know human history. When countries have a tyrant for their leader, they control all human life and death. Belief in morals is the last thing on their minds; it's about survival. Study the history of Russia and China under communist rule, or some of the African countries under tyrants. You might learn something about "community morals."

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

That's because you really don't know human history. When countries have a tyrant for their leader, they control all human life and death. Belief in morals is the last thing on their minds; it's about survival. Study the history of Russia and China under communist rule, or some of the African countries under tyrants. You might learn something about "community morals."

No tyranny was worse than the tyranny of the Spanish inquisition, and yet those people found out that in tight knit communities they could not make any headway...It was all about money, and getting people to inform on each other for financial gain, or to injure those who were smarter or more diligent in business...In communities with morality, where giving each his due justice was practiced as a matter of course only a united front presented itself...

You should try to understand that communism has succeeded where it has succeeded because it offered the people a more moral existence... The reason communisim has failed to the extent that it has at completing world revolution is that it is counter to human nature, that once one is immoral in society all must be immoral in defense until the degradation and immoralization becomes complete... Law tries to set limits on immorality at the same time that it accepts immorality...For instance: It is not illegal to take by ones business practices all that a person needs to live, but it is illegal to take their life...You see, morality would look at the welfare of the whole, and law tries only to limit the extremes of bad behavior- which only puts off the day of demise...

I know you do not get it, and may never get it.. By historical times, moral, which is to say Gentile society was already history... Moral societies are honor societies... Where money is dear, honor is cheap; so as soon as people found wealth in slaves or theft or excess production, their societies were divided between rich and poor, and civilizations are made of such societies as were in this way, first demoralized and then defeated... But one cannot build a strong nation our of defeated and demoraized nations... Rome, which stood the best chance was so demoralized and corrupt that only with fresh blood was it able to survive as long as it did... We can only get a sense by looking to the East, of the great number of times Fresh, moral, and uncorrupted people took over rotton societies which could not even unite in their own defense, only to become corrupted and divided in their turn...Morality is community, and community is unity, and nothing divides people so quickly as spoils...

Look at the complaints against Agamemnon in the Iliad.... And those were honorable people, there by a common oath to make common cause against a common enemy... We cannot understand such behavior in light of our own... We make a great show of honor in our courts and other social forms, but the show is great because the substance is little...We accept even when we witness an oath before God that the oath giver is a liar and a cheat, but because no rational person accepts God, we can blame no one for not accepting God and doing good...It is all just show. Empty of meaning...

1 Reply

@Fido,

Fido wrote:

Quote:

No tyranny was worse than the tyranny of the Spanish inquisition,

Only proves you have very little knowledge of human history.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

Fido wrote:
Quote:

No tyranny was worse than the tyranny of the Spanish inquisition,

Only proves you have very little knowledge of human history.

Of my ignorance there is no compare, and that fact I freely share for it is enough to fill every volume never written, and when hit upon makes all the clamour of a drum....

So don't bother telling me what I know not... Tell me what you do know...sfb

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@Fido,

I have been telling you what I know about; it seems you have not read or comprehend what I have written. It rebukes almost all of your claims about group morals.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

I have been telling you what I know about; it seems you have not read or comprehend what I have written. It rebukes almost all of your claims about group morals.

All you have done is deny... Trolls have no morals, and to recognize what they are you must have some, and you don't... All you think you know is what you have been told... Not one original thought anywhere...

1 Reply

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