Define morality?

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Morality is an abstract concept, nothing more. The "Golden Rule" (and any variations therof) is merely a selfish wish to be imposed upon others.

A more pragmatic, and therefore more useful, concept is to "Use Your Friends Wisely."

Friends are among a person's best resources, because maintaining their friendship provides reward through favors, leads, and emotional support.

What else are friends for, if not to advance, enhance, or improve upon one's own personal agenda?

Such a cold, calculating way of viewing the world. I can help others without expecting that they will be able to repay the favor. What's wrong with that?

Fnord's view, right here, really impresses me. Very few people say these things, and most prefer to run some distance away, but for the most part, this is a better view of morality than most people have, I think.

well, I suppose that is what egoism is about, however in the way that is being portrayed it could be seen worse than actually is, which I wonder.

From the "Use your friends...." thing, I believe that works in both directions, if you "use" people for your own benefit, then you should realise that other people may and *should* use you for their own benefit as well.

And thus Fnord's Rule comes full circle!

Thanx for coming through for me yet again!

The "Golden Rule" is an idealisation. "Fnord's Rule" is a practical application.

I don't understand what that means, although, my reply was amied to AG, and, it is reasonable to assume that the "Fnord's Rule" as you put it, would be something mutual between individuals, not just going in one single direction, but in every direction, I wasn't arguing otherwise.


Yes, it is, but I believe there is some practical value in it, I mean, there are people who actually follow that, because they empathize with others. Now, the level of practicing it without discriminating, that would be an issue to debate I think.

Edit:

hmm, now that I was seeing this, that means that you agree with my statement, right?

Last edited by greenblue on 27 Jan 2009, 4:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Unfortunately I'm appalling at using people, although not so bad at avoiding getting used - since the last set of friends did that to me I'm staying away from getting emotionally involved with people on much more than a superficial level.

I don't think morality is abstract. It is a complex trait (like many others such as intelligence and personality), shaped partially by genetics and partially by the social and cultural environment that we grow up in and experience. I would regard the genetic components (which are shared between almost everyone in the world - with the exception of sociopaths/psychopaths) as being 'true' morality, and the rest being subjective. If cultural influences go against the morality that is inherent in us, then we can say that they are wrong from an objective point of view. Genetic morality has evolved because of survival value (and I don't mean just selfish survival, but also social survival, as humans). So sick/unproductive people will be cared for by the well, even though it would be better for survival to get rid of them, because 'kindness' itself has evolved to be more objective than focussed specifically on survival needs, simply because in the long run this will be more successful. Subjective morals that go against genetic morals could generally considered as negative - so sexual morals are mainly imposed by men on women to restrict their mate choice, something which is evolutionary disvantageous to the species and generally socially disvantageous because it reduces the contribution of women to society.

Of course, it isn't necessarily easy to work out what the universal morals are, or whether either of two sets of subjective morals is closer or further from the universal. It has been suggested that we are becoming, as a society, more and more moral - this suggests that there is some ideal somewhere that we might reach if we keep going. I'm not sure I believe this. The ideal is what has already evolved in us for group living. Maybe we can keep expanding our 'group' to encompass all humans and maybe eventually all animals too, but this is probably cultural more than inherent. The effect of environment upon moral values is probably more significant than the genetic contribution.

In the end, people very rarely make any truly moral choices anyway - in the classic 5 people on the track situation, I doubt many people would take a rational decision as they do in the test - they would act, or not, due to instinct/fear/selfishness/any number of other emotions, depending upon their previous experiences. We like to have the idea of morality to keep us warm at night, but very few of us really have to put it to the test in more than an intellectual way and predicting what we would do, and doing what we do are very different things.

Only this part:


It's only fair.

Abuse for personal benefit does not apply.

Use your friends wisely.

I see.
well, I wasn't impling abuse though, but how that would work for a group of people relating to each other against one single perspective, according to that view.

well, the thing is that the issue about morality and ethics is a very subjective thing, I can say that each individual have their own way into dealing about the concept, meaning or value of morality due to life experience and probably related to theory of mind, it seems each take what it seems to work for them.


There is nothing wrong with that from my perspective, but from the position of egoism, which it seems that is Fnord's and AG's position in this thread, if I'm not mistaken, there would be either skepticism or negation about the existence of altruism or the honesty of altruism, but AG is the one who can give a better output on this.

There doesn't have to be anything wrong with that. It can be described using homo economicus and the economics of altruism. The major issue is mostly that whatever you do, you are acting upon your own goals, as you cannot act upon anyone else's.

@merrymadscientist

Well said - standing ovation!

Egoism is abominable, and usually short-sighted.

To be honest, I disagree with that post, at least where he redefines morality. Redefining the term is usually a questionable step to take, and given that traditional definitions seem to indicate that morality is an abstraction, I would have to question it.

As for the rest, I don't see it as actually being that valuable. I mean, nobody would deny that the traits we consider moral often have some basis in both biology and environment, in as much as individuals reflect them, and few would really deny that there is some basis for our personal views on what is moral to be influenced by the environment. In the end, I do not think that this refutes Fnord's view, as in the background we see reason to be concerned, but Fnord's view on friend use is as follows:

Which seems to be very tolerant to merrymadscientist's problems with using your friends, as certainly using the emotional support of friends would hardly allow for the abuse he is talking of, and even precludes it.

Here here!

Except for me.

Altruism?! !

What a freekin CONCEPT! !!