Exclavius wrote:
Morality is just a construct that was invented by humans. To be used by humans, for the purpose of controlling humans.
No, it really probably wasn't at all.
For one, how would human beings have generated and trained people in this kind of thinking entirely foreign to their thinking? Morality requires entire categories of thought to exist, and I find it very hard to think that these categories could be entirely created by an outside force. (EDIT: A problem talked about in the NYT article I link to later: "One lesson from the study of artificial intelligence (and from cognitive science more generally) is that an empty head learns nothing: a system that is capable of rapidly absorbing information needs to have some prewired understanding of what to pay attention to and what generalizations to make." For people to absorb an idea such as morality, they likely have to have a prewired understanding of it) Even worse, the kind of propaganda machines that you are positing to exist from the very beginning in order to cause people to think this way are absurd to suppose. Your idea is so historically aparsimonious that it cannot reasonably be believed, as you are arguing that clever geniuses arose independently in each nation with the power to so overwhelmingly control their lives as to indoctrinate these people with ideas entirely foreign to the workings of their mind.
Secondly, the idea you put forward makes no sense given the existence of "moral reasoning", a category that plainly exists. Your position makes no sense of ethics what so all, because if morality was just an invented construct, then what do these philosophers go back to in created moral theories? They certainly aren't coming out of the void, because there is too much agreement. They certainly aren't just coming from society either given the oddities seen with some of the opinions.
Thirdly, experiments have shown that even infants show signs of engaging in reasoning that resembles moral reasoning.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/magaz ... wanted=all This makes no sense if morality is an external teaching pushed into people, but rather only makes sense if morality is
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That said, it serves a good purpose.
Internal contradiction. You say that morality is an indoctrination, then you judge the creation of morality on moral grounds.... which makes your judgment empty.
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It is illogical to pre-assume that "the majority" is the stronger. I tend to believe it would be more likely to be the weaker, as compromise tends to weaken. (at least in practice)
Do you love to come up with counter-intuitive ideas and defend them with flimsy excuses?
"The majority" is stronger in as much as the grouping makes rational sense. More people means more resources, period. And the assumption of "all else equal" isn't some bizarreness. Even further, the issue of compromise is internal, and has nothing to do with the engagement of external beings.
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If it is the moral rules of the majority that dictate that one should not kill, and that there is something wrong with it, then there is no reason to suggest that the minority will (or should) obey their morality in that conflict.
But the majority, by issuing their "moral decree" is by their own decree stuck with that moral decree and must fight the war that lies ahead within the bounds of that moral decree, while the minority is free of those moral requirements.
There is no reason why a majority of people would spontaneously invent an entirely new category of thought.
The "moral decree" usually gets shunted to the side in warfare situations, and everybody knows that this happens, and it is to the point where it is to some extent part of conventional moral reasoning.
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When those that decree it, feel it justified to deviate from that morality, (or put in so many caveats as to when you can do this or that or whatever) then they forfeit their right to decree a morality.
There is no right to decree a morality by your view, it is an artificial construct. Talking about a "right to decree morality" is ridiculously circular, as you are talking about judging the construction of morality through morality, and that literally makes no sense.
Secondly, talking about "putting in so many caveats" is just ad hoc reasoning on your part. The reason being that if morality is a construct, one that completely follows human rules on how it should or shouldn't work, then there is no reason that the number of rules in this construct should be limited by anything. If you disagree, then why don't you logically prove how many caveats are allowable in constructing a morality? It seems that if your claim makes sense, then details about your claim should be in theory provable.
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It is funny that I use the word revenge... that's just social conditioning.
We're socially conditioned to desire things that we disapprove of????
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Culling the gene pool to a point where Evolution by natural selection could once again take root, would be in the best interest of the human species, and/or whatever follows that species in the genetic ladder.
A "species" has no interest. A "species" is a category invented by scientists to organize data about populations of living organisms.
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Keep in mind however, if the person who created it, or those in other positions of power were to be given immunity, the whole justifiability would fall apart.
Why?
If the reason is to end overpopulation, then it doesn't matter whether the powerful or powerless were killed.
If the purpose is promoting genes that furthered certain interests of human beings, then there is still no necessary problem. Allowances would have to be made for people who have weak bodies but strong minds.
.... ok, I stopped reading, Exclavius. I am not enough of a masochist to continue reading this garbage you call logic, so I won't. Nothing you write makes any sense. I think you think you are smart, but everything you were just writing was utter BS.
Excellent response. I'm tired of the "Everything is a social construction" and the "Labels, categories, and concepts don't exist since they aren't tangible" theories.
So my name doesn't exist by itself right? Labels aren't supposed to exist by itself, they're meant to identify and describe things that do exist, such as me. Saying an idea doesn't exist is circular logic, because the idea that an idea doesn't exist IS AN IDEA ITSELF.
Revenge is a social construction? that's the most f***ing ret*d thing I've ever heard in my life. Society doesn't f***ing implant emotions into us, it appeals to em. Is hunger just a social construction invented as a huge money making scheme, or do advertisements simply emphasize the food's texture to appeal to your hunger?
Anyways, to answer the question yes I would kill if there were no consequences. It depends who it is though...
31 May 2010, 12:08 am
