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Whilst the ICANN meeting is going on ... | by slamlander | 2006-11-19 12:55:59 |
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Now, I'm all in favor of morality but... | by brion | 2001-11-14 14:57:02 |
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Ask yourself where | by Naruki | 2001-11-14 18:50:06 |
| Well... |
by brion |
2001-11-14 22:40:46 |
They come from a classic book, silly! And anyone who doesn't follow the same book is WICKED BAD AND NASTY!!!!! But enough about Oprah's book club.
"Morality" properly speaking is a set of societal conventions. The fact that they, their provisions, their forces, and their sources vary greatly from culture to culture should tell us all that they shouldn't be taken as immutable. Unfortunately, the immutability of the moral code is often an intrinsic part of any given moral code...
A set of "ethics" less burdened by arbitrary conventions about which hand to eat with or which day to take off work, or how many generations of your descendants will be punished if you worship graven images, however, can be derivated from a few simple axioms about the world which may (or may not) be acceptable to all. As an exercise, here are commandments 5-10 in no particular order:
Starting with:
* More good is better than less good
and
* Life is good
and
* Other people are more or less similar to you.
We can take this to
* Less good is worse than more good
* The kinds of things that are good for you are good for other people, and the kinds of things that are bad for you are bad for other people.
* Since other people are similar to you, they will likely act basically similarly. Thus acting to promote good for others ought to encourage them to promote good for you.
* Death, removing life, reduces the good in your world, therefore you do not wish to die.
* Killing is reducing good for another person, which reduces good in general and encourages a state in which someone might not think twice about killing you. Thus: (6) **Thou shalt not commit murder.**
Also, since your parents gave you life, your parents are good. Reciprocal exchange of goodness with them results in (5) **Thou shalt honor thy mother and thy father.**
Since pairs of parents are what produce life, we can also say it's bad to interfere with the functioning of a family relationship. Thus (7) **thou shalt not commit adultery**.
* Having stuff increases your quality of life, and helps you stay alive, therefore is good.
* Lacking stuff decreases your quality of life and tends towards causing death, therefore it is bad.
* Taking stuff from somebody else decreases their quality of life, thus (8) **thou shalt not steal**.
* Worrying about it just don't accomplish anything, so (10) **thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's (whatever)**.
And of course,
* Falsely claiming that someone has committed a crime will cause bad to befall them, as it would should someone do so against you, so (9) **thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.**
Now, those all sound pretty reasonable to me. But 1-4 are about ordering of gods, engraving, oath-swearing, and weekend plans, and have no logical derivation without throwing in an external force, such as a totalitarian dictator who demands complete loyalty, won't take criticism, and doesn't like art, but thinks you should take a day off every weekend. :) |
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