Actual Discussion

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Moral Responsibility (lemmy.ca)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

26 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Open question: What do you think a normal person's moral responsibilities are and why?

Some angles you can (but don't have to) consider:

To themselves, family, friends and strangers?

Do you have thoughts about what it takes to make a good person or at what point someone is a bad person? (Is there a category of people who are neither?)

What do you think the default state of people is? (Generally good, evil or neutral by nature?)

Conversely do you believe morality is a construction and reject it entirely? (Even practically speaking when something bad happens to you?)

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I believe that morals should be created and based off of logical processes, but they often are not. People will make a decision based on emotion and make up reasons later for it if challenged. Frequently (as you can see in many threads in this Community) people will have opinions based on those morals that are completely abandoned when faced with a universally-applicable logic process.

"I believe X and Y because of Z. My opponents are evil because (strawman)."

"Here is evidence that this is not the thinking behind this. Your decision is knee-jerk or moral and is based off of what you feel and only the evidence you choose to accept. Your logic here does not apply to M situation you advocated for and actually has the opposite effect. Are you able to comment on why that would not be the case?"

SILENCE

This is nonsensical thinking. Feeling (or morals) should be based on evidence, and we should challenge ourselves constantly, evaluating and accepting new information and new views.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Conversely I've seen some very seemingly very logical people unaware that some deeper emotions are motivating their logic - people who can make what seem like very logical arguments, yet the conclusions of which immediately fail the "sniff test," of any reasonably empathetic individual.

I think that whole rationality is a necessary component of ethics, it alone won't ensure good ethical standards - someone who genuinely doesn't care how others or society at large feel well see it as rational to betray them when they can get away with it.

I would say generally there good reason for us to have various senses and that some people are better at one than the other, and an extreme weakness emotionally or rationally will impact one's ability to be a moral person.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

The issue with logic is that it is a great tool for analysis … but fails utterly at telling you what to analyze. The issue is the inevitable core of all logical argumentation: your warrants (sorta a.k.a. axioms).

No logical system can exist without axioms. And axioms by their nature cannot be logically proved. Axioms are where the failures of logic, even in otherwise rational and analytical people, slip in, often unseen until it's too late.

By way of analogy, the field of human knowledge is a large meadow. Somewhere in that meadow is a large chest of buried treasure you have to find. Most tools of analysis are like digging into the meadow with your bare hands in search of the treasure. Logic is a backhoe. NOTHING will dig through the ground faster and better than logic to get you to the tasty, tasty treasure.

But it does you no good if you dig in the wrong place.