Board index › Topical Discussion › Politics, Philosophy, and Religion

Define morality?

Page 7 of 8 [ 122 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1 ... 4, 5, 6, 7, 8  Next

Previous topic | Next topic

ruveyn
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Sep 2008
Age: 89
Gender: Male
Posts: 31,502
Location: New Jersey

29 Jan 2009, 12:03 pm

slowmutant wrote:
I have shed blood (but always my own), I have stolen (but only as a child). I have never set another man's field ablaze, but it sounds like a very quaint thing to do.

I have never cheated a widow or an orphan out of their moeity. How quaint!

Am I to assume that you have done all of these things?


I gave those acts of examples of immorality. Do you agree with the characterization.

Do to physical limitations I never got to shed blood (as in war) directly.

The other things I have not done because they are wrong.

ruveyn



slowmutant
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 13 Feb 2008
Age: 47
Gender: Male
Posts: 8,430
Location: Ontario, Canada

29 Jan 2009, 12:10 pm

My life has been relatively blameless. Nothing I've done was criminal or predatory (jail-worthy). But I'm no saint. Even when I argue with people online, all the ugliness comes out.



ruveyn
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Sep 2008
Age: 89
Gender: Male
Posts: 31,502
Location: New Jersey

29 Jan 2009, 1:43 pm

slowmutant wrote:
My life has been relatively blameless. Nothing I've done was criminal or predatory (jail-worthy). But I'm no saint. Even when I argue with people online, all the ugliness comes out.


Welcome to The Monkey House.

ruveyn



slowmutant
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 13 Feb 2008
Age: 47
Gender: Male
Posts: 8,430
Location: Ontario, Canada

29 Jan 2009, 2:23 pm

You would be doing well, morality-wise, if you avoided the following:

Lust (Latin, luxuria)
Gluttony (Latin, gula)
Greed (Latin, avaritia)
Sloth (Latin, acedia)
Wrath (Latin, ira)
Envy (Latin, invidia)
Pride (Latin, superbia)

A person who remains clear of these moral failings is, IMO, a moral person. And to those who would object, these 7 sins are universal, in that they apply to the whole of the human race.



slowmutant
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 13 Feb 2008
Age: 47
Gender: Male
Posts: 8,430
Location: Ontario, Canada

29 Jan 2009, 2:25 pm

Quote:
Do to physical limitations I never got to shed blood (as in war) directly.


You're from New Jersey, right?



Dussel
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 19 Jan 2009
Age: 62
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,788
Location: London (UK)

29 Jan 2009, 4:23 pm

slowmutant wrote:
You would be doing well, morality-wise, if you avoided the following:

Lust (Latin, luxuria)


Why I should avoid lust to live morally? If the partner(s) agree and of an age and mental state that they can reasonable decide for them self, what is the moral problem?



McTell
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 27 Jan 2009
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,453
Location: Edinburgh, Scotland

29 Jan 2009, 4:31 pm

slowmutant wrote:
You would be doing well, morality-wise, if you avoided the following:

Lust (Latin, luxuria)
Gluttony (Latin, gula)
Greed (Latin, avaritia)
Sloth (Latin, acedia)
Wrath (Latin, ira)
Envy (Latin, invidia)
Pride (Latin, superbia)

A person who remains clear of these moral failings is, IMO, a moral person. And to those who would object, these 7 sins are universal, in that they apply to the whole of the human race.


Would it not be possible for someone to avoid all of these for a bad reason, such as fear of punishment, while still harbouring an unfulfilled desire to do wrong?



iamnotaparakeet
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 31 Jul 2007
Age: 40
Gender: Male
Posts: 25,091
Location: 0.5 Galactic radius

29 Jan 2009, 4:34 pm

I'm lazy, so I'll paste Webster's 1828 definitions:

Noah Webster in 1828 wrote:
Morality
MORAL'ITY, n. The doctrine or system of moral duties, or the duties of men in their social character; ethics.

The system of morality to be gathered from the writings of ancient sages, falls very short of that delivered in the gospel.

1. The practice of the moral duties; virtue. We often admire the politeness of men whose morality we question.

2. The quality of an action which renders it good; the conformity of an act to the divine law, or to the principles of rectitude. This conformity implies that the act must be performed by a free agent, and from a motive of obedience to the divine will. This is the strict theological and scriptural sense of morality. But we often apply the word to actions which accord with justice and human laws, without reference to the motives from which they proceed.



slowmutant
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 13 Feb 2008
Age: 47
Gender: Male
Posts: 8,430
Location: Ontario, Canada

29 Jan 2009, 5:44 pm

Quote:
Would it not be possible for someone to avoid all of these for a bad reason, such as fear of punishment, while still harbouring an unfulfilled desire to do wrong?


Clarify?



ruveyn
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Sep 2008
Age: 89
Gender: Male
Posts: 31,502
Location: New Jersey

29 Jan 2009, 6:02 pm

McTell wrote:
slowmutant wrote:
You would be doing well, morality-wise, if you avoided the following:

Lust (Latin, luxuria)
Gluttony (Latin, gula)
Greed (Latin, avaritia)
Sloth (Latin, acedia)
Wrath (Latin, ira)
Envy (Latin, invidia)
Pride (Latin, superbia)

A person who remains clear of these moral failings is, IMO, a moral person. And to those who would object, these 7 sins are universal, in that they apply to the whole of the human race.


Would it not be possible for someone to avoid all of these for a bad reason, such as fear of punishment, while still harbouring an unfulfilled desire to do wrong?


What is wrong with Lust? Without Lust our species would have become extinct.

ruveyn



slowmutant
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 13 Feb 2008
Age: 47
Gender: Male
Posts: 8,430
Location: Ontario, Canada

29 Jan 2009, 6:09 pm

Quote:
What is wrong with Lust? Without Lust our species would have become extinct.


Too much lust is not a good thing. The Seven Deadly Sins talk about excesses, the lack of discipline over earthly appetites. You sound like you've never heard of the Seven Deadly Sins, ruveyn.



ruveyn
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Sep 2008
Age: 89
Gender: Male
Posts: 31,502
Location: New Jersey

29 Jan 2009, 8:58 pm

slowmutant wrote:
Quote:
What is wrong with Lust? Without Lust our species would have become extinct.


Too much lust is not a good thing. The Seven Deadly Sins talk about excesses, the lack of discipline over earthly appetites. You sound like you've never heard of the Seven Deadly Sins, ruveyn.


Of course I have heard of them. I can see where gluttony is harmful. What about Righteous Anger? That is a sin by your reckoning. And sloth? If one has no pressing reason to be busy and neat what harm is there to sloth?

I prefer the cardinal virtues to avoiding cardinal sin. Temperance, Courage, Justice and Prudence. If one practices the Cardinal Virtues one will not fall into sin.

ruveyn



twoshots
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 26 Nov 2007
Age: 40
Gender: Male
Posts: 3,731
Location: Boötes void

29 Jan 2009, 9:19 pm

ruveyn wrote:
slowmutant wrote:
Quote:
What is wrong with Lust? Without Lust our species would have become extinct.


Too much lust is not a good thing. The Seven Deadly Sins talk about excesses, the lack of discipline over earthly appetites. You sound like you've never heard of the Seven Deadly Sins, ruveyn.


Of course I have heard of them. I can see where gluttony is harmful. What about Righteous Anger? That is a sin by your reckoning. And sloth? If one has no pressing reason to be busy and neat what harm is there to sloth?

I don't think righteous anger is the same as wrath.


_________________
* here for the nachos.


Dussel
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 19 Jan 2009
Age: 62
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,788
Location: London (UK)

30 Jan 2009, 1:16 am

slowmutant wrote:
Quote:
What is wrong with Lust? Without Lust our species would have become extinct.


Too much lust is not a good thing. The Seven Deadly Sins talk about excesses, the lack of discipline over earthly appetites.


For what "discipline"? "Discipline" is a mean to archive something, but nothing which has a value of it own. I may use discipline to help my self or others, but I can also use it to organize effective mass murder or war. So discipline for its own has no moral value, therefore the lack the discipline can't have neither.

Similar thing are to say regarding excesses: An excess of something may be harmful and bad, but so fare I control this or do no harm to others it is morally neutral.



lucy1
Deinonychus
Deinonychus

User avatar

Joined: 16 Aug 2007
Age: 70
Gender: Female
Posts: 316

30 Jan 2009, 1:28 am

Morality is a group of values/behavioural standards - developed over time by a group of people living together / society - in order to manage and contain the behaviour of people living within the group -- in an effort to attain a common good for all.



slowmutant
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 13 Feb 2008
Age: 47
Gender: Male
Posts: 8,430
Location: Ontario, Canada

30 Jan 2009, 3:30 am

Dussel wrote:
slowmutant wrote:
Quote:
What is wrong with Lust? Without Lust our species would have become extinct.


Too much lust is not a good thing. The Seven Deadly Sins talk about excesses, the lack of discipline over earthly appetites.


For what "discipline"? "Discipline" is a mean to archive something, but nothing which has a value of it own. I may use discipline to help my self or others, but I can also use it to organize effective mass murder or war. So discipline for its own has no moral value, therefore the lack the discipline can't have neither.

Similar thing are to say regarding excesses: An excess of something may be harmful and bad, but so fare I control this or do no harm to others it is morally neutral.


That's it, find the exception to everything. :wink: