What are high moral values?

[Jon Miller]

self actualisation

JM

[Elok]

Originally posted by Agathon
I happen to think that this is a modern misunderstanding of morality. Being moral is about living the best possible life for a human being... a life of self actualisation.

And what is the best possible life? If one examines it hypothetically...hmm.

Well, obviously you want to get paid for talking about your strong opinions on a subject so esoteric it can never be disproven, and so removed from practical use as to set your list of responsibilities/liabilities to zero. At the same time, you want to be incomprehensible enough to be able to demand respect as an "expert" with a straight face despite your previously-mentioned unimportance in the grand scheme of things.

I imagine it also helps to live in a country with a decent standard of living but nothing to be proud of (and hence nothing to invade it for). You'll want to use quirky, marginalized consumer goods as well; it makes you more "indie" while giving you an excuse to not cooperate with the rest of society under various circumstances but still not substantially inconveniencing yourself. Lastly, align yourself with a political party whose ideals sound nice but who will never, ever get into power. That way, whatever goes wrong, it's not your fault, and you can always claim things would be better if "your way" were implemented...

Okay, I'm stumped, I can't think of anybody who meets those criteria. So, Aggie, who lives a truly moral, self-actualized life?

[Ben Kenobi]

No, both of them are right. I used nature specifically o mean "wilderness." That is, that part of this world that is outside human society. For example, The African Savannah.

Ok, that makes sense. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

I hope your resorting to a fallacy is merely accidental, Ben.

Oh, it's an important point to clarify! Make sure we are really talking about the same things.

For example?

Remaining faithful in marriage for one. If the object is to father as many children as possible, then there are benefits to going outside of marriage.

Here's an example. Suppose tribe A was consisted of nice individuals who looked out for each other, while tribe B was consisted of thieves, murderers, and such. Even if individuals in tribe B were stronger than individuals in tribe A, they could not survive in the wild, and they would get hosed in tribal warfare. As time worn on tribe A would become bigger and bigger while tribe B would wither out.

There was a study done on this awhile ago, it was trying to answer some of these questions. What they found is that the 'bad guys' so to speak completely dominated for a long, long time. They could simply push around the other folks and get whatever it is that they wanted.

What they found is eventually, you'd get too few of the good folks, and the bad folks would end up beating up each other. The really interesting thing is what they found is from this group, the folks who were nice to people who were nice to them, and who did not forget how bad others were to them, actually did worse then the folks who were willing to overlook faults.

There are advantages to being nice, but significant disadvantages in the short term.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Elok

And what is the best possible life? If one examines it hypothetically...hmm.

Well, obviously you want to get paid for talking about your strong opinions on a subject so esoteric it can never be disproven, and so removed from practical use as to set your list of responsibilities/liabilities to zero. At the same time, you want to be incomprehensible enough to be able to demand respect as an "expert" with a straight face despite your previously-mentioned unimportance in the grand scheme of things.

I imagine it also helps to live in a country with a decent standard of living but nothing to be proud of (and hence nothing to invade it for). You'll want to use quirky, marginalized consumer goods as well; it makes you more "indie" while giving you an excuse to not cooperate with the rest of society under various circumstances but still not substantially inconveniencing yourself. Lastly, align yourself with a political party whose ideals sound nice but who will never, ever get into power. That way, whatever goes wrong, it's not your fault, and you can always claim things would be better if "your way" were implemented...

Okay, I'm stumped, I can't think of anybody who meets those criteria. So, Aggie, who lives a truly moral, self-actualized life?

WTF are you talking about?

At least on the last part, the answer is easy. No-one has to live such a life in order to it to be a goal, it simply has to be the goal of life. Similarly, no-one has to have run a 9 second 100m in order for it to be something desirable. Nor do we have to admit that there is just one goal – there might well be several ways of living a worthwhile human life, but that does not logically require us to admit that anything goes.

If you want a worthwhile response to the rest, it might help if you explained it again. I can't quite understand what you're getting at other than that you don't like the idea.

[Elok]

Crap, I was trying to be the disingenuous one here...didn't work. Dadblasted literal Canadian communist mac-loving philosophy professors don't know a barb when they see one...

EDIT: actually, on closer examination, the barb in question was a bit too pointed and vicious to be a joke. I think I owe you a pre-emptive apology.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Elok
Crap, I was trying to be the disingenuous one here...didn't work. Dadblasted literal Canadian communist mac-loving philosophy professors don't know a barb when they see one...

EDIT: actually, on closer examination, the barb in question was a bit too pointed and vicious to be a joke. I think I owe you a pre-emptive apology.

I did think it was a bit strange. Marking me out as an indie was a bit odd.

[Elok]

Oh, that was a reference to Macintosh, the hybrid car of the computer world. "Oooh, I'm not supporting Bill Gates's monopoly, I'm such hot ****, look at me, I'm better than you." But maybe Indie is the wrong word.

Or maybe I've been reading somethingawful too much. Or both.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Elok
Oh, that was a reference to Macintosh, the hybrid car of the computer world. "Oooh, I'm not supporting Bill Gates's monopoly, I'm such hot ****, look at me, I'm better than you." But maybe Indie is the wrong word.

Or maybe I've been reading somethingawful too much. Or both.

SomethingAwful

[Flip McWho]

I happen to think that this is a modern misunderstanding of morality. Being moral is about living the best possible life for a human being... a life of self actualisation.

To me thats what morality is on a societal level.

Self-actualisation is a more personal/individual definition of morality. Which is open to any individuals definition of what living the good (moral) life is.

[Impaler[WrG]]

Gays cant be rolemodels because they would fail to teach intolerace of gays. All people define "Good rolemodel" as "Person who would teach values I agree with". If Intolerance is a value you agree with then it ofcorse follows that people who belive in tolerance are poor role models, likewise if they disagree with other belifs you have.

[Ben Kenobi]

I doubt it. The official moral theory of the RCC is Aqunas's, which is up to the eyeballs with the "natural = good" fallacy. He will defend the BS to the last just because the RCC says it's the One True Morality.

No, what is natural is most certainly not always good for us in the sense that we will prosper. Paul says that in Corinthians. Plenty of natural impulses where we benefit in restraining them or applying most unnatural means to divert these impulses.

If you are going to slag Aquinas, at least get it right.

What is meant is that there is a Natural Law, which exists seperately from what we see in nature. No one is constrained to act according to this law, they can choose to obey it or give into their natural impulses to their own detriment.

[Flip McWho]

How do we figure out this natural law? [Edit: reason can only get us so far in this task.]

[Berzerker]

Natural law - by observing the nature of existence we can adduce certain things about the "intent" of that which created us.

The creator made us as individuals...each with our own conscience, intellect, existence. Therefore life and liberty are "gifts" from this creator.

[Flip McWho]

Assumes a creator

[Berzerker]

explain the universe without one