A definition of morality

I have always been contemptuous of the concept of morality precisely because of its religious antecedants. I have also always believed in the value of the social contract, and a personal ethos which both enables effective conduct within the constraints of the social contract, and which is conducive to the benefits to be derived from an enlightened self-interest.

I rather doubt that "morality" can be cleansed of the filth of religion, but the author you quote has made a good start.

I suppose like Set, I have always eschewed the term "morality" for its religious leanings and have generally prefered "ethics."

How about "refereed selfishness"?

"Morality" and "ethics" are such loose terms as to asymptote with meaninglessness.

The professor of the only philosophy course I ever took in college was a Hedonist.

This professor made a good case that Hedonism-- the belief that pleasure is the only thing that is intrinsically good-- is the only logical basis for a system of ethics.

A search for pleasure leads to a completely reasonable set of ethics. First, you can easily arrive at the point that you would sacrifice short term pleasure for a greater long term pleasure-- so the ethics of hard work and sacrifice are valid.

You can say that my faithfulness to my wife, my kind treatment of my kids and the fact I treat my neighbors well are all because my relationship with my family and community bring me lots of pleasure.

I am not sure if I completely buy it, but it beats the all-knowing judge model of morality.

I haven't found anything else even close to logical system of ethics.

well e-brown other than Plato was an asshole, I agree.

Spendius,

Your use of the word "asymptote" is immoral. First asymptote is always a noun, never a verb.

Second, "asymptote" is a mathematical term to connote a line that a function gets ever close to yet never reaches as a variable changes. What you said doesn't make sense since you weren't describing morality or ethics based on any changing variable.

Sorry if I seem pedantic, but it seems that there were much simpler words you could have used.

I guess I have a strong sense of mathematical ethics.

That's not saying much dys.All ancient Greeks were ****s.

Re: A definition of morality


I guess I don't see your purpose here. If we could come up with some universial definition of "harm" why not just do the same with right/wrong or good/evil? It would seem to me that anything that causes harm would be termed as wrong or evil and anything that didn't would be right or good. *shrugs* Looks to me like you end up right where you started.

Not necessarily. Religious dogma deals in absolutes, that which is wrong is always wrong, that which is evil is always evil. It would be wrong, for instance, to water one's lawn in a time of drought. It would not be wrong in a time of plentiful rainfall. It would be wrong to burn leaves in the back yard in a crowded city. It would not be wrong to do so in a rural setting. Dogma deals in absolutes, and the fewer the better. Quite apart from that, dogma can and usually does define as evil that which is simply culturally unfamiliar.

ebrown-

I often use that word as a verb.Meaningless is an absolute.I used the word to save the face of other posters because asymptoting with meaningless is not as bad as meaningless.

If it is "immoral" to use a noun as a verb I think you have quite a crusade on your hands.Good luck.

Perhaps but it seems to me that there are plenty of what I would consider to be moral people out there that have no ties to any religious organization or dogma. They can still discern right from wrong and good from bad without any of it having anything to do with any sort of diety.

Since there are millions of people that manage to do this every day without much of a problem I don't see where the existing terms limit us from having a "non-theistic objective morality".

You have described yourself as being an atheist on this forum several times yet you don't seem to have problems discerning right and wrong when a situation is presented. How would substituting "harm" change that? And how would the discussions be any different when a theist proposes that something you see as harmless is, in their opinion, harmful because it would have effects on your "soul" (and perhaps the souls of others) in their version of some supposed afterlife? Wouldn't you shrug them off (or laugh at them) just as you might now if they told you something was "wrong" or "evil" based on their religious dogma?

Those are fair questions. Do please note that in my initial post i described my objection to the term morality because it is tainted by religious dogma. I consider that, as i described above, my behavior is regulated by a personal ethos, predicated upon the usefulness of the social contract. I would suggest to you that although i might not necessarily have used the term harm in such a context, the concept is central to my view of ethical living. Killing is often harmful, but not always. The bobble enjoins not to kill, and then the god of the bobble tells us in detail how to slaughter our enemies. The implicit hypocricy leaves the dogma open to wide-spread abuse, and the evidence of the temptation is to be found throughout history. However, if one abandons "Thous shalt not kill" and posits instead that killing is harmful in all circumstances other than a narrowly described range, and clearly describes those circumstances, the potential for abuse of the concept is greatly reduced. No priest to say: "Yeah, but this is one of God's smite mine enemies hip and thigh cases, so go for it." The crucial difference between aducing something as a social harm, and bringing theological nonsense such as soul into the matter is that of consensus. For something to be a crime, it is necessary only for a majority of society to concur. For something to be a sin, however, and endanger the soul, it is necessary for everyone to agree--dissent is heresy, and often seen as punishable by death. Given that a single fanatic can establish a religion and successfully foist it onto others, society's best interests are served by preventing the imposition of theologically derived morality. Were society to become hag-ridden by theology, and purport that something alleged to harm "the soul" must be evil, an therefore make it illegal, i would on the basis of principle, abandon physical self-interest for intellectual self-interest, and rebel, or abscond.

I agree with fishin'. How is substituting the word harm to right and wrong make it any more or less valid?

I've always believed in an objective morality (ethics), and I never quite understood a moral relativist's argument. When I argued that an objective morality is in correlation with the truth, they barked back and asked what has morality to do with the truth . If it's not valid then it's not something worth pursuing.

Harm is a concept which would be subject to a consensus of the society which so defined it. However, the morality of religious dogma is not to be questioned, however. Alleging harm to "the sould" alleges something which cannot be demonstrated. Alleging harm from unregulated burning can readily be demonstrated upon the first occasion of a house fire.

For my part, i have not "barked" at you or anyone else. Do me the courtesy of neither referring to me as a "moral relativist," nor alleging that i have barked at you.

Umm Setanta, I wasn't referring to you, or anyone else that posted on the thread. I was recalling my experience in arguing with a moral relativist.

I do beg your pardon.

The notion of "social harm" (if that is at the base of any system of morality) would not necessarily rely upon social consensus. If a majority of citizens in a society decided to persecute a particular ethnic or religious minority, that would be wrong regardless of the number of votes on either side of the issue.


You've posed a false dichotomy here. Only some people equate "wrong" with "crime," just as only some people equate "wrong" with "sin."


I have no problem with that, but it would be a mistake to assume that the only alternative to a theologically based morality is one based on a social contract.

I don't make that assumption, i just prefer the notion.

Well, not entirely sure where this is going, but I'll try to answer...

'Harm' is less abstract than good/evil/right/wrong, since it can only refer to something that can be harmed (in the definition above, human beings, I'd extend that to anything that can feel pain). So while good/evil/right/wrong could refer to abstracts such as a belief or an act, harm, in this sense, cannot.

It's the difference between saying 'torturing is always evil' (which is contentious) and saying 'being tortured is always harmful' (which, it seems to me, is not). It seems to me that 'harm' could only be established as such by the person being harmed, not by social consesus.

I can see, though, that many might object to Everitt's definition/description on the grounds that is presupposes that morality has an aim - that is, it presupposes a consequentialist position. So perhaps it isn't so useful after all...