Morality and Ethics - Science, Politics, Life

[Lord J]

So, I've been attending the local UU church, and yesterday we had a discussion on morality. Morality is an interesting question because there are so many levels with which one can consider how it develops and what actual impact moral values have on behavior. I've also just recently read an ethics guide for my field, which is more of a "do this, not that" set of rules and examples, which is fairly clunky, but at the basis of which is really based upon a central respect for the freedom and dignity of the individual. In church yesterday, the speaker mentioned some recent psychological research on the development of morality as an evolutionary process, and how groups such as liberals and conservatives, with clearly differing value systems, can be compared along a similar scale. For more information on this research, check out YourMorals.org, which is a set of questionnaires getting at morality, compatibility, and values.

So here I have a few questions for you guys:

Are political leanings a moral question? Do liberals, conservatives, socialists, and libertarians really have different values that underly moral reasoning?

Are seemingly differing values really an illusion, and we all have similar values, but differing forms of expression (for example, I care deeply for my family, which is typically considered a conservative value, but because of certain aspects of my family I have strong liberal leanings)?

Are one set of values more "developed" than another? For example, I consider people who dress in the American flag, wear it on their lapels, have flags all over their houses/cars/animals etc. to be missing the point of what a real patriot is (the same goes with people who drape themselves in crosses, pictures of the Virgin, Jesus, religious t-shirts etc.). I feel like my values of what it means to be a citizen of the US is more refined than theirs. Similarly, I think it's a more refined moral stance to appreciate the importance of a mother's health and the her choice, instead of "ohmygawd, they done kilt a baby?!?!!!"

Is acceptance of the importance and relevance of other peoples' beliefs an example of moral development? As you can probably see above, I find it very difficult to discuss pro-choice views with anything more than ridicule and assumed superiority. This limits meaningful discourse and compromise, and is something I'm continuing to work on.

Is it possible that we are really just hedonists, and saying that we have some form of "values" is just another way of getting what we want and avoiding what we don't?

Are values meaningful on some higher level? If there is a god, gods, goddess, or what have you, do he/she/it/them care about our silly little dramas and values (here's a chance for some religious debate :D yaaay, more religious debate  ::) )? Does karma exist, and on what level?

[Acriku]

I'm kind of weird about karma myself. It's a simple little concept that really begs the question of who is governing when and how karma takes effect, but I just can't completely ignore it. I'm damn near superstitious about doing anything that puts me into the line of fire of the karmaic expression "you'll get what's coming to you." Is it consistent with my naturalistic worldview? No. Yet, it doesn't have to be a mystical balance of the universe. In fact, the very concept breeds self-actualization where I can be punished by another person because that person thought that he should in order to bring some balance against something I've done. Perhaps I'm more timid about how another person would react to my actions rather than having a negative karma counter placed on me. Regardless, it's an infectious way to avoid being a total dick.  :)

[Wolf]

It seems that your question is really stabbing at the origin of disagreements, Lord John. I wish I had the time/know-how to create a flow-chart to illustrate this issue, but words will have to do.

Your first question (and, I think, the first question) is "do we all share the same values?"

If so, then the endgame objectives of all our moral codes are essentially the same. Disagreements here can only arise from a disagreement as to the means of achieving that end--which may themselves arise from misunderstood communications, incomplete data, etc.--or they may arise from people who, whether they are aware of it or not, do not actually espouse the values they claim to espouse.

Which leads to the "if not" branch. What if we don't all share the same values? It's certainly possible: and on the fringes of all possible "moral aims," it's actually almost a certainty that individuals differ from endgame objective to endgame objective. The

inform us that the basics--do not kill, do not steal, do not rape--are basic principles that every man of every faith may embrace. But what about the particulars? If smoking can be demonstrated to kill indirectly, ought smoking to be counted among immoral acts? But should smokers should be subject to righteous vigilantism? And if one is restricted from smoking because of indirect harm, where is the line drawn? Water, in large amounts, can become a deadly toxin. Any moral code, when taken to an extreme, can be rendered absurd. Individuals, for whatever personal reason, take their moral codes to some point before the extreme--few actually fulfill it--but the places they occupy on this gradation are unique to them, and explicable, perhaps, only to them. What does this have to say about morality, and the uncomfortable possibility that we do not share the same "moral values?" It's to say that, on some level, we may lack the capacity to understand the commonalities at the root of each of our individual moral codes. In this event--when the lie is shown to the adage "nothing human is alien to me"--we may nonetheless act judiciously, balancing the interests at hand with the best knowledge available to us, to make the best out of a bad situation. Even here, though, I believe that we may, and that we should act with some degree of faith in the intentions of our fellow an: a benefit of the doubt, if you will, that, although we may not be able to understand it, the actions and purported values of our adversaries arise from the same common interests and desires of our own.

[Caid Ivik]

Are political leanings a moral question? Do liberals, conservatives, socialists, and libertarians really have different values that underly moral reasoning?

Are seemingly differing values really an illusion, and we all have similar values, but differing forms of expression (for example, I care deeply for my family, which is typically considered a conservative value, but because of certain aspects of my family I have strong liberal leanings)?

Are one set of values more "developed" than another?

Is acceptance of the importance and relevance of other peoples' beliefs an example of moral development? As you can probably see above, I find it very difficult to discuss pro-choice views with anything more than ridicule and assumed superiority. This limits meaningful discourse and compromise, and is something I'm continuing to work on. Is it possible that we are really just hedonists, and saying that we have some form of "values" is just another way of getting what we want and avoiding what we don't? Are values meaningful on some higher level? If there is a god, gods, goddess, or what have you, do he/she/it/them care about our silly little dramas and values (here's a chance for some religious debate :D yaaay, more religious debate  ::) )? Does karma exist, and on what level?

What's the reasoning underlying action you consider "moral" and one considered "political"? What are the motives, factors which affect our choices? When we are faced with a choice, we are perceiving an object, as well as possibilities of our action. Then we can reach out to the realm of ideas (of liberty, social justice, preserving of tradition etc) in the way we've adopted them, but where is the point of morality? I can be a honest follower (or denier) of one of these ideas, but I can also be a mere pragmatic or sceptic, but in either way, the morality can be made abstract, independent on the content of your idea. But there can be differences in the attitude though: one can be conservative, because he had a bad personal experience with being liberal (or liberals), another one because of rational determination, another one can simply pretend it.

Group-think, of course, adds another category, making the membership in the group or participating on the group life/rituals a moral quality as well.

[ErasOmnius]

I think that mankind is really being challenged with new technology, and what morality is.

Before the 1940s, access to sanitary abortions was almost impossible, if only for the technological reason of the ability to combat germs in the post-operative situation for the woman. With the advent of inexpensive antibiotics, the question of abortion rose during the 1950s.

With the rise of the Internet in the 1990s and the promulgation of it in the 2000s, we see the same with pornography. Before the Internet, an individual had to travel to the seediest, crime-ridden areas to purchase an expensive magazine of grainy, not well-lit photographs. Now, anyone who can operate a computer, mouse is 4 clicks away from seeing a woman having sex with a horse.

Then, there are the articles about how easy it is to scam someone out of money using the Internet, just by setting up a dummy credit card site.

With the rise and spread of science, questions of morality are rising faster and faster. It is really an interesting phenomenon to see.

[MrFlibble]

Before the Internet, an individual had to travel to the seediest, crime-ridden areas to purchase an expensive magazine of grainy, not well-lit photographs.

I didn't know Playboy was only available for purchase in slums in the sixties? ???

With the rise and spread of science, questions of morality are rising faster and faster.

Well, first off, spread of technology does not equal spread of science. Secondly, technological advancements provide new means for doing the same old things (like communication). However, the new technological means inevitably produce new types of situations people have to learn to handle. It is, for the most part, pure routine of following simple rules.

I can, however, agree that questions of morality do arise in certain areas. For example, it was not immediately obvious to the people (even if they are completely law-abiding in other areas) that copying software might be illegal - simply because the prototypical situation of stealing involves taking away a physical object, while programmes are not physical and copying is not the same thing as taking away.

As for the morality of science, I think scientific study inevitably has to be amoral to be objective. That is, moral judgements should have nothing to do with a scientific theory, although this is not true for the methods of research, especially if they involve living subjects. There are some potentially controversial situations, for example, aphasiology may get ample subjects for study during wartime and thus make considerable progress, meaning that this particular field of science actually benefited from a war (BTW, this is a topic that interests me as well: how wars influence technological progress and culture in general). It should be also noted that the study of the brain poses many questions of morality in general (sometimes forcing the researchers to employ less efficient or limited methods for the benefit of morality), although the advent of non-invasive methods like PET or fMRI scans have changed this situation recently.