Subject:
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Re: Don Quixote puts away his lance (was Re: McDonalds set
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 30 Sep 1999 13:19:56 GMT
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Viewed:
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1256 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, James Brown writes:
> Hmm. Ok, fair. That's a difference in how we define morality. To me,
> morality is a matter of the conscious mind. Unless, of course, we're defining
> the subconscious differently, but I'm >not< going there! ;-)
:) yeah, the subconscious is tough...
> Ah yes, but that doesn't mean the law is immoral. It means you make a choice
> on whether to follow the law, or to follow your morality. It's a fine
> distinction, but it's there.
Ok, I can see that... Hmmm... maybe it would be fairer to say that the law can
be 'bad'. Not *morally* bad, but ill-concieved. In other words, a law becomes
less and less 'good' (ethically good, you might say? But not morally good) as
it begins to violate more and more peoples' moralities. Note that the only
people who 'qualify' here are people within the society that the law exists
within.
> Ah. See, I try my best to not judge people morally. (I don't always succeed)
> By my definition, I'm not qualified. I'll quite happily judge them ethically
> or legally, but not morally. This is one of the distinctions that makes me
> conclude that I define morality differently than most of the world.
> ...[why bother with judging others morally]...
> Ok, I see where you're coming from.
Yeah, I find that I'm not 'justified' to judge people morally, but that in
practice, it helps me to deal with others; and for the most part, I can do a
fair job of it. I can try not to judge people morally, but for whatever reason
I still end up doing it out of instinct or whatever, even if it's just
subconsiously.
> Hmm, I take your point. I just don't use morality for this. I'll see if I
> can explain this (it doesn't seem to fit well into words).
> My morality says it's ok to punish my child if I think he's done wrong, and
> knows it. <In my brain, this next part has nothing to do with morality, and
> everything to do with personal choice and opinion.> I see my child pulling
> his sisters hair, and when I question him, he reacts in a manner I have come
> to associate with feeling guilty. I punish him, and consider myself to be
> acting morally.
>
> Do you see the distinction? I'm not judging my child's morals. It doesn't
> affect my decision.
This is where it gets tough. "...it's ok [moral?] to punish my child if I think
he's done wrong, and knows it." I'd say that the "I think he's done wrong"
referrs to the childs action, and the "and knows it" referrs to what I would
call the child's intent. Hence, by *my* definition of morality, you're judging
the child morally because you attempt to judge his intent. But your definition
doesn't cover that, so ok. The question instead becomes, were you still moral
in your punishment when you find out that the child didn't do wrong or that the
child didn't know it? By my definiton, you're not, because you were ignorant of
your child's intent-- your intent was still good. Perhaps you feel remorse
afterwards, but you weren't immoral in your punishment. I think you'd probably
argue similarly insofar as you didn't act immorally, since you weren't
conscious of the 'true' 'intent' of your child; but you would argue that being
conscious of the 'intent' of the child isn't to say that you are concious of
the moral standing of the child.
> Note: I'm deliberately not getting into issues about the teaching & raising of
> children, or the fact that I will try and instill in them my moral code.
> That's way outside the scope of the discussion.
yeah, that fits more into the derivation of a moral code (and how moral that is
in itself) rather than the definition of what a moral code is...
DaveE
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