| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
OrdinaryClay
Royal Citizen
Joined: 18 Oct 2007
Posts: 384
Local time: 12:03 PM
|
 Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 4:35 pm Post subject: |
  |
|
| Knight_of_BAAWA wrote: |
Morality is the evaluation of interpersonal interactions in terms of rights. If your rights are violated, it's immoral.
|
Who does the evaluating? |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
|
|
|
MockingGods
Joined: 13 Nov 2002
Posts: 3909
Local time: 10:03 AM
Location: USA
|
| Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 4:46 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Knight_of_BAAWA wrote: | | Rortykiller wrote: | | Morality is the evaluation of interpersonal interactions in terms of right and wrong, or rather, good and evil. |
| Knight_of_BAAWA wrote: | Which means in terms of rights, because you can't have right and wrong mean anything without rights. Without rights, right/wrong, good/evil merely become relativistic whims, and that's no way to base a moral system.
So, since you've proven that it is my "libertarian bullshit", I expect that the rest of your post is in complete agreement with me.
If not, then you've got no basis for any right/wrong claim and I can come over there and beat the shit out of you and there's fuck-all you can do. Why? Because right/wrong are purely relative.
How's that for annihilating your stupidity? |
| Rortykiller wrote: | | Morality originated as a concept of Good vs Evil |
So what? That means absolutely fuck-all.
Did you have anything other than "I hate that most people think that morality comes from god, so I will no longer believe in morality"? Anything? Because so far: that's all you've got.
If you don't have anything else: shut your stupid fucking trap. Don't post. Period. |
I agree with Knight here because you've failed to explain what defines "good" and "evil", or "right" and "wrong". If you peer into the nature of human reciprocity, you can see in almost every instance how it plays out in our determination of what is moral or immoral. We place values, often unconsciously, on nearly every social interaction we, or others, take. Those values weight the relative fairness/balance of the interaction.
_________________
Atheism... Evolving beyond superstition
Proud to support seti@home
Last edited by MockingGods on Wed Aug 13, 2008 4:48 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
MockingGods
Joined: 13 Nov 2002
Posts: 3909
Local time: 10:03 AM
Location: USA
|
| Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 4:47 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| OrdinaryClay wrote: | | Knight_of_BAAWA wrote: |
Morality is the evaluation of interpersonal interactions in terms of rights. If your rights are violated, it's immoral.
|
Who does the evaluating? |
I don't want to answer for Knight here, but I'd say humans do.
_________________
Atheism... Evolving beyond superstition
Proud to support seti@home |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Knight_of_BAAWA
Jedi Slackmaster
Joined: 08 Mar 2003
Posts: 10021
Local time: 11:03 AM
Location: USA
|
| Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 5:10 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| MockingGods wrote: | | Admittedly, I don’t think of morality in terms of “rights”, I think of it in terms of reciprocal values. However, I do think our conceptualization of “rights” also stem from the same values, in that, they are somewhat linked. |
Actually, rights stem from the fact that we necessarily own ourselves as an axiom. Denial of it involves using it.
But don't tell my idiot stalker that; he might suddenly have a real thought in that little skull of his and then he'd die, for he's not equipped to think.
_________________
aa #51, DNRC o-, Member of the [H]orde
Atheist Minister for St. Dogbert.
"No being is so important that he can usurp the rights of another"
Picard to Data/Graves "The Schizoid Man" |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
MockingGods
Joined: 13 Nov 2002
Posts: 3909
Local time: 10:03 AM
Location: USA
|
| Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 5:20 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Knight_of_BAAWA wrote: | | MockingGods wrote: | | Admittedly, I don’t think of morality in terms of “rights”, I think of it in terms of reciprocal values. However, I do think our conceptualization of “rights” also stem from the same values, in that, they are somewhat linked. |
Actually, rights stem from the fact that we necessarily own ourselves as an axiom. Denial of it involves using it.
But don't tell my idiot stalker that; he might suddenly have a real thought in that little skull of his and then he'd die, for he's not equipped to think. |
Ah... but where does the idea of ownership come from?
_________________
Atheism... Evolving beyond superstition
Proud to support seti@home |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Knight_of_BAAWA
Jedi Slackmaster
Joined: 08 Mar 2003
Posts: 10021
Local time: 11:03 AM
Location: USA
|
| Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 5:28 pm Post subject: |
|
|
From the fact that wherever you go, there you are. You make the choices about you. You move. You think. You eat. You homestead that body.
And if you don't own yourself: who does?
_________________
aa #51, DNRC o-, Member of the [H]orde
Atheist Minister for St. Dogbert.
"No being is so important that he can usurp the rights of another"
Picard to Data/Graves "The Schizoid Man" |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
chookrooter
Forum Leader
Joined: 07 Jun 2008
Posts: 1715
Local time: 2:33 AM
|
| Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 5:41 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: | | If "right" is the modern recontextualizing of "good" then "rights" are the modern recontextualizing of "holy"; a romanticized state of being beyond reproach. |
Nicely put, I've just jotted that down.
Is it just me? Or have you ever noticed that people who are the most vocal about their rights are often not as quick to accord the same rights to others? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Knight_of_BAAWA
Jedi Slackmaster
Joined: 08 Mar 2003
Posts: 10021
Local time: 11:03 AM
Location: USA
|
| Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 5:58 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I haven't noticed that. What I have noticed is that those who are not quick to accord the same rights to others are those who think they are supposed to run everyone else's life.
_________________
aa #51, DNRC o-, Member of the [H]orde
Atheist Minister for St. Dogbert.
"No being is so important that he can usurp the rights of another"
Picard to Data/Graves "The Schizoid Man" |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
OrdinaryClay
Royal Citizen
Joined: 18 Oct 2007
Posts: 384
Local time: 12:03 PM
|
| Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 7:55 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| MockingGods wrote: | | OrdinaryClay wrote: | | Knight_of_BAAWA wrote: |
Morality is the evaluation of interpersonal interactions in terms of rights. If your rights are violated, it's immoral.
|
Who does the evaluating? |
I don't want to answer for Knight here, but I'd say humans do. |
So what happens if they disagree? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
MockingGods
Joined: 13 Nov 2002
Posts: 3909
Local time: 10:03 AM
Location: USA
|
| Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 8:24 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Knight_of_BAAWA wrote: | From the fact that wherever you go, there you are. You make the choices about you. You move. You think. You eat. You homestead that body.
And if you don't own yourself: who does? |
My question was more of a broader sense. Where and when did the concept of ownership come to the human species? The idea that we could possess something, even ourselves, isn’t something that has always existed with the human species. I would say that the concept of ownership stems also from our reciprocal nature, and it existed in our species prior to the concept of possession.
I don’t discount that most humans believe they own themselves. In our modern world however, you could potentially “sell” a part of yourself to someone else (like a kidney for instance). At this stage of our development, I’d say the only thing about us that is uniquely ours is probably our consciousness, and I suppose, even that could change with time.
_________________
Atheism... Evolving beyond superstition
Proud to support seti@home
Last edited by MockingGods on Wed Aug 13, 2008 8:29 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
MockingGods
Joined: 13 Nov 2002
Posts: 3909
Local time: 10:03 AM
Location: USA
|
| Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 8:28 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| OrdinaryClay wrote: | | MockingGods wrote: | | OrdinaryClay wrote: | | Knight_of_BAAWA wrote: |
Morality is the evaluation of interpersonal interactions in terms of rights. If your rights are violated, it's immoral.
|
Who does the evaluating? |
I don't want to answer for Knight here, but I'd say humans do. |
So what happens if they disagree? |
What of it? Humans disagree all the time, about a wide range of topics, including morals. This doesn't change the obvious reality that humans are doing the evaluation, and as far as I can tell, most of those evaluations stem from our reciprocal nature.
You however probably believe the bible (God) should do the evaluation. However, there is no evidence to show the bible isn't just another example of the human evaluation process, in fact, what is written in the bible mirrors our basic reciprocal nature so well, it screams of an anthropogenic origin.
_________________
Atheism... Evolving beyond superstition
Proud to support seti@home
Last edited by MockingGods on Wed Aug 13, 2008 8:39 pm; edited 2 times in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Knight_of_BAAWA
Jedi Slackmaster
Joined: 08 Mar 2003
Posts: 10021
Local time: 11:03 AM
Location: USA
|
| Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 8:37 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Knight_of_BAAWA wrote: | From the fact that wherever you go, there you are. You make the choices about you. You move. You think. You eat. You homestead that body.
And if you don't own yourself: who does? |
| MockingGods wrote: | | My question was more of a broader sense. Where and when did the concept of ownership come to the human species? |
Probably when there was one caveman who tried to take something another caveman had.
| MockingGods wrote: | | The idea that we could possess something, even ourselves, isn’t something that has always existed with the human species. I would say that the concept of ownership stems also from our reciprocal nature, and it existed in our species prior to the concept of possession. |
In an "intuitive" sense, probably.
| MockingGods wrote: | | I don’t discount that most humans believe they own themselves. In our modern world however, you could potentially “sell” a part of yourself to someone else (like a kidney for instance). At this stage of our development, I’d say the only thing about us that is uniquely ours is probably our consciousness, and I suppose, even that could change with time. |
The metaphysic of it changing leaves much to be desired.
_________________
aa #51, DNRC o-, Member of the [H]orde
Atheist Minister for St. Dogbert.
"No being is so important that he can usurp the rights of another"
Picard to Data/Graves "The Schizoid Man" |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
MockingGods
Joined: 13 Nov 2002
Posts: 3909
Local time: 10:03 AM
Location: USA
|
| Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 8:57 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: | | Probably when there was one caveman who tried to take something another caveman had. |
It's an interesting line of discussion, in my opinion. We clearly see reciprocal behavior in other animals, most notably other primates. For instance, monkeys that tend to groom other monkeys seem to receive more grooming in return. I don’t however think they grasp ownership as we do, at least not yet. In your caveman example, it might have been the taking without the giving in return that initiated the idea something could be owned until such a time, as there was reciprocation; it’s mine until you give me something for it. Of course, why would we consider something mine in the first place? Perhaps an emotional attachment, a time or effort investment? I have to think more about this 
| Quote: | | The metaphysic of it changing leaves much to be desired. |
Perhaps. I'm not convinced our reciprocal nature will prove beneficial to our long-term survival.
_________________
Atheism... Evolving beyond superstition
Proud to support seti@home |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
josephpalazzo
Illusion Master
Joined: 30 Aug 2006
Posts: 8036
Local time: 12:03 PM
Location: D-brane
|
| Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 5:58 am Post subject: |
|
|
| MockingGods wrote: | | Quote: | | Probably when there was one caveman who tried to take something another caveman had. |
It's an interesting line of discussion, in my opinion. We clearly see reciprocal behavior in other animals, most notably other primates. For instance, monkeys that tend to groom other monkeys seem to receive more grooming in return. I don’t however think they grasp ownership as we do, at least not yet. In your caveman example, it might have been the taking without the giving in return that initiated the idea something could be owned until such a time, as there was reciprocation; it’s mine until you give me something for it. Of course, why would we consider something mine in the first place? Perhaps an emotional attachment, a time or effort investment? I have to think more about this
|
In most nomadic tribes that were encountered in the past, few ever developed the concept of "property", let alone the concept of "individual rights". These concepts are fairly "modern", and far from being "natural". They were developed historically, and those societies -- the West -- who have adopted them have done well so far. However, with the emergent rise of China, where "individual rights" are subjugated to "collective rights", this conflict is far from over. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
OrdinaryClay
Royal Citizen
Joined: 18 Oct 2007
Posts: 384
Local time: 12:03 PM
|
| Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 8:02 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Knight_of_BAAWA wrote: |
... interpersonal interactions ...
|
| MockingGods wrote: |
... reciprocal values ...
|
| MockingGods wrote: |
What of it?
|
How can there be any reciprocation or evaluation if they don't agree on the morality? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
Live Video and Chat Room
Freethought Videos
FAQ
Search
Usergroups
Register
