Your OWN personal morality

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Burning ghost
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Re: Your OWN personal morality

Post by Burning ghost »

Lagayscienza wrote:My own personal morality boils down to this: Don't do to others what you wouldn't like done to you.

This is, of course, just a sort of common sense rule of thumb but I think it works for most of the moral questions we are likely to confront in everyday life. I know it's easy to imagine exceptions. For example, I wouldn't like to be locked up in prison so does that mean we shouldn't lock murderers up? Of course not.

Sometimes we must take certain actions in order to prevent worse things from happening and so, when my rule of thumb doesn't cover a situation, I look to the likely consequences of available options. If we are forced to choose between actions that produce bad results we choose the least bad option.

This may not be state of the art ethical rocket science but it works well enough to be reliably useful.
What about the masochists ? :P
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Belinda
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Re: Your OWN personal morality

Post by Belinda »

"what about the masochists?" asks Burning ghost. I omit to quote Ghost's smiley because the question is a reasonable question not a joke.

The Golden Rule is not rebutted by the fact of masochism because if you are thinking the other's welfare you would not do him any harm even if he pleaded with you to harm him.
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Burning ghost
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Re: Your OWN personal morality

Post by Burning ghost »

I think the thread is a bit weird.

I try to do my best. That is my morality. What "best" means is akin to the ancient Greek use of "good".

What I think is good and best for me is to understand myself through others and others through myself. I don't really have the perspective to draw a different conclusion. Learning is good and we are born to learn.
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Belinda
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Re: Your OWN personal morality

Post by Belinda »

Burning ghost wrote:
What I think is good and best for me is to understand myself through others and others through myself. I don't really have the perspective to draw a different conclusion. Learning is good and we are born to learn.
Certainly you have your own perspective . Unless you had your own perspective you would be unable to compare and contrast the perspectives of others. One of the main uses of education, of learning, is to form perspectives based upon insight into one's own thinking and also knowledge of others' thoughts.

I agree that learning is good and that we are "born to learn". Human proclivity for learning and adaptation through learning defines human beings more than any other attribute except possibly the opposing thumb.
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Boots
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Re: Your OWN personal morality

Post by Boots »

My personal morality is too complex to explain here, as well as changing through time and being situation driven.

-- Updated March 19th, 2016, 9:24 am to add the following --

Also, learning is the purview of most animals. Humans are not special in this manner and, for that matter, in many manners.
Preposturing
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Re: Your OWN personal morality

Post by Preposturing »

If I suddenly woke up, and this had all been a dream, would I be pleased with how i behaved in the dream?
Belinda
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Re: Your OWN personal morality

Post by Belinda »

Preposturing wrote:If I suddenly woke up, and this had all been a dream, would I be pleased with how i behaved in the dream?
I suppose in that case you would participate in the predominant belief about dreams that they are not literally true of your waking self, so you would forgive yourself, whilst recognising that some of the dream material was immoral for a waking life.

However if you awoke in a world where dreams were presumed to be on a moral par with waking life you would judge the dream material by the standards of your waking world.

-- Updated Fri Apr 22, 2016 2:30 am to add the following --
Belinda wrote:
Preposturing wrote:If I suddenly woke up, and this had all been a dream, would I be pleased with how i behaved in the dream?
I suppose in that case you would participate in the predominant belief about dreams that they are not literally true of your waking self, so you would forgive yourself for illogicality or immorality pertaining to the dream, recognising that some of the dream material was illogical or immoral when reviewed by your waking self.

However if you awoke in a world where dreams were presumed to be on a logical and moral par with waking life you would judge the dream material by the standards of your waking world.
However Preposturing's thought experiment means more than my rational analysis. It means that one's life might be reviewed as a story told about a third person. The wakened person would then be more able to evaluate her life more objectively.
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Sanchez
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Re: Your OWN personal morality

Post by Sanchez »

My goal is to be fair. Being fair in a way shortcuts the supposed conflict between self-interest and altruism. Say I'm applying for a job. Should the altruist stay unemployed to give someone else a job? Who knows. The fair person should try his best to get a job and let others do the same. Assuming the game is fair, he shouldn't be upset if not selected. Generally, I think sports are a great example on how the society should function. Perhaps true altruists would have to lose on purpose to give others a chance to win, but that would be logically inconsistent and patronizing. So, competition is fine as long as it is fair. And it's not fair under the way capitalism works now. Being fair also means taking full personal responsibility.

One of my favorite phrases is "If you don't trust yourself, why should anyone else?" If I cannot guarantee certain things to anyone, if I see my behavior as outside my control, it would be legitimate to ask why anyone should have any trust in me. Apart from that, I'm not into slogan therapy. Human life is so incredibly complex that it's doubtful any universally applicable mottos exist.
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Rr6
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Re: Your OWN personal morality

Post by Rr6 »

Sanchez wrote:My goal is to be fair. Being fair in a way shortcuts the supposed conflict between self-interest and altruism. Say I'm applying for a job. Should the altruist stay unemployed to give someone else a job? Who knows. The fair person should try his best to get a job and let others do the same. Assuming the game is fair, he shouldn't be upset if not selected. Generally, I think sports are a great example on how the society should function. Perhaps true altruists would have to lose on purpose to give others a chance to win, but that would be logically inconsistent and patronizing. So, competition is fine as long as it is fair. And it's not fair under the way capitalism works now. Being fair also means taking full personal responsibility. .
Spirituality and morality are intimately linked if not synonyms. Ex I attempt to be considerate of as many factors as appears reasonable to those circumstance presented to me, and attempt to do what is spiritual/moral.

Some circumstance require we do attempt consideration of that, which may happening around us. Priority's often take precedent. If a person is lacking oxygen, then all other considerations are put aside in order to focus on getting oxygen.

Cosmic moral? Humans are local phenomena that have access to mind/intellect/concepts ergo access to concepts of Universe, and the greatest gathering of information related to the Universe.

Cosmic morality? Fuller would state, that, the 4th thing humans--- apart from other animals ---is to subjectively apply their knowledge in support of the integrity of Universe.

r6
"U"niverse > UniVerse > universe > I-verse < you-verse < we-verse < them-verse
Belinda
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Re: Your OWN personal morality

Post by Belinda »

If I am correct in thinking that Rr6 implies that it's the game that matters more than the written rules then I agree with Rr6.

http://bfc.sfsu.edu/cgi-bin/unwritten.p ... of_Cricket

Give people a fair chance to win.
Do Walk. - Cricket
Dont bowl underarm - Cricket
Warn before Mankading. - Cricket
Use a wooden bat. - Cricket
Dont stall. - Cricket
Painful Bowling
Dont bowl at people repeatedly. - Cricket
Dont bowl bouncers to tail-enders. - disputed - Cricket
Dont sledge. - disputed - Cricket
Other Cricket Unwritten Rules

Many of the game's unwritten rules - don't bowl bouncers to tailenders, don't run two on a lame fielder's arm and don't Mankad - were expunged from the un-book during the reigns of the ruthless West Indies and Australian teams. Leaving? Don't run out an injured batsman who is out of his crease, don't take an over-throw if the ball hits a batsman and don't take your mum's weight-loss pills. -- Richard Hinds


Sanchez, the written rules of competition are fair and as they should be. However even better personal responsibility transcends the written rules to see more of the whole picture. Personal responsibility at its best sees that sometimes people are unfortunate for accidental reasons that they could not avoid, and at least for the sake of the game such people are given a bit of leeway.
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Rr6
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Re: Your OWN personal morality

Post by Rr6 »

r6--Some circumstance require we do not attempt consideration of that, which may happening around us. Priority's often take precedent. If a person is lacking oxygen for their self, then all other considerations are put aside in order to focus on getting oxygen into their lungs, bloodstream and subsequently the brain.
I corrected my statement above.

The game is biological life within Earths eco system and Universe/UniVerse/God.

Rules can be changed cosmic laws/principles are inviolate ergo no change can occur.

Rules, purpose etc....are human made constructs.

As humans, we have to decide what is most fair/equatable/spiritual/moral.

In U.S. court system there is 12 jurors--- judgement of facts to determine guilt or not --and judge{ 13th } presents the law to jurors and in some case adjudicates a sentence.

r6
"U"niverse > UniVerse > universe > I-verse < you-verse < we-verse < them-verse
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AceOfBlades
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Re: Your OWN personal morality

Post by AceOfBlades »

Simply put, to each their own, live and let live.

Nobody is wrong if everybody is right. We are all right in our own minds. Truth is not a universal concept. Someone who has never seen the sky during day time, only at night, could truthfully say that the sky is black. They are not wrong, their point of view is simply different from our own. We should not impose on them our own point of view unless we are prepared to present evidence as to why we believe what we do, and why they should too. Even then, if they are content to believe what they believe, let them be.

We should only limit someone's rights in such a way as to limit their ability to take away someone else's rights. Killing someone is taking away their right to live, stealing from someone is taking away their right to own property they worked for, and telling someone what they can and cannot do for no damn reason is taking away their right to make decisions as an independent, free thinking human being.
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