Stepping outside morality

PeakOutput

pH wrote:

Whether you can come to terms with not hating yourself for stealing my car, or whether you'll bitterly regret is for years is of no importance to me - I'm coming after you with a bat to break your legs - I really couldn't care less how you feel.

i think he is talking about much sbtler ways of screwing your over though

aidan24326

Hudson4ever wrote:

It is 100% true, altruism has been seen in other species, but it is still a selfish response. It is a complicated matter, but briefly: studies on this idea tend to show us that behaviour which appears to be of an altruistic nature is in fact, not. Treating other members of a population clearly benefits an individual as it this behaviour is reciprocated. This is just one example...

Yes but is it always to the individual, or didn't Dawkins himself write about altruistic behaviour that appears to be the benefit of the group (i.e the gene pool) rather than necessarily to the individual itself.

That aside, I agree with you that there is probably no such thing as a completely unselfish act. But surely there's a survival advantage to our morality and it need not have any other reason for being other than that.

pH

Hudson4ever wrote:

Well pH, I think it is pretty clear that coming after me with a bat and breaking my legs is laid down in out legislation, so you have already made a point against your primary one. I realise this is a childis remark to make but I couldn't resist.

Well somewhere in all your teenage angst you'll eventually figure out that the world doesn't revolve around you and that what you can and cannot do is constrained mainly by others. Legislation and individual revenge are examples of how other people regulate what you can and cannot do regardless of your own morality,

You are right in that it is illegal to perform many seriously immoral acts, but this doesn't stop people, that is obvious. However there are many actions, lying and using people for two simple examples, which are not illegal at all....

Yes but you'll get caught and get a reputation for being a liar, then others will no longer trust you, your actions in dealing with others (positively or negatively from their perspective) have consequences. You seem to want to nit-pick and miss this fundamental point that I'm making, how others react to your actions, the punishments or rewards they give you for those actions is a far greater influence on your behaviour that any set of 'morals' you can invent.

oneeyedsnake

Listen, you are grasping at straws here in an argument with a teenager, it is obvious that it is possible to live your life in an immoral manner simmilar to that which he outlined, ie lying and using people, without ever being caught. I dont want to raise an old point again, but it is often the case that psychopaths, for whom this behaviour is normal, often go undetected. As far as your nit picking point goes, he is sticking to his original point while you are going off on some irrational self serving tangent. Read his point again and realise the error of your ways

Zombrex

Hudson4ever wrote:

is it logical to say I too would benefit from acting in a similar manner?

You have to define "benefit" in the first place

If you shot me and took my wallet you would certainly benefit financially from having my extra money.

Are you asking if such an action would be moral or not, since you do benefit from it?

Fallen Seraph

Hudson4everSecondly wrote:

I have come to realise that all actions are ulitimately self serving and that there is no such thing as a completely unselfish action.

I think it's very worth noting that you've got yourself quite the tautology there. I'm not denying it's true, but it's not a statement from which you can draw any meaningful conclusions. Of course everything can be analysed into being self serving if you make the assumption that good actions bring good feelings.

Hudson4everSecondly wrote:

Is it better to live a moral life in order to avoid the negative emotions associated with immorality, or do the benefits of acting in an immoral manner when it would be advantageous to do so outweigh any possible negatives???

Imo epicurus was basically right in his metaphysics and his basis for ethics; the universe is just atoms and life is inherently meaningless so seeking to live a painless/happy life is what is "morally correct". Accordingly I think that the answer to your question is very obviously no. Why would you behave in a manner that makes you unhappy? What's the point? Greater happiness in the long run? Perhaps there's an argument there, but it depends entirely on a persons disposition and sooo many other variables that it makes it a morally impractical route to take.

Zillah

Hudson4ever wrote:

(PS I said morality was an evolutionary off shoot rather than a product of evolution, it did not evolve in the same way our fear of death did. I cannot really explain it in sufficent detail to be convincing here due to issues regarding laziness on my part, but if you are familiar with the views of the great Richard Dawkins you will know what I am refering to)

Strange thing to say. According to Dawkins morality is as much of a hardwired evolutionary trait as our fear of the dark or our craving for food. In the vast vast majority of cases, a being with no sense of morality will suffer for it. I'd really like if you could explain convincingly why morality is merely an "off shoot" rather than a direct result of evolution. The reason your brain makes you feel negative emotions is because its training you to not behave in a fashion detrimental to your survival. You feel pain when you touch fire, hunger when you don't eat, and guilt when you needlessly risk your social standing.

So yes, in theory you could benefit temporally from acting like an immoral son of a bitch, but you would have to be very very smart and careful to not have it end up biting you in the ass. You'd be amazed how much even a single little incident can change the opinion of dozens of people. I'd say you would almost certainly be worse off for it.

Aside from all that, surely you feel like being moral? You would get a horrible wriggly feeling inside if you did something bad to some innocent person to forward your own goals?

Attractive Nun

Zillah wrote:

Aside from all that, surely you feel like being moral? You would get a horrible wriggly feeling inside if you did something bad to some innocent person to forward your own goals?

You would, but the point is that the case may be that one could gain more than one loses by acting immorally. To take a random/stupid example, what if you found yourself in the position of competing with a friend for a promotion at work? Let's say you have a piece of damaging (though not strictly relevant to the job at hand) information in relation to that friend, information that - if leaked to the boss - would preclude him from the promotion, and effectively land you with the promotion. By most people's standards, it would immoral to reveal the information, and you would certainly make some losses as a result of disclosing it - the risk of being found out and losing social prestige, the risk to the friendship, a guilt-free conscience. But compare that to the material and prestige gains of the promotion. It would have to be balanced with the liklihood of you getting the job without betraying your friend, but it is certainly very possible that you might make a rational value judgement that the gains outweigh the losses.

Taking for granted that we, and the universe, are nothing more than collections of atoms and that life is ultimately pointless, why not betray your friend?

Dades

Attractive Nun wrote:

Taking for granted that we, and the universe, are nothing more than collections of atoms and that life is ultimately pointless, why not betray your friend?

Because it's more probable that you would make a rational value judgement that the gains DO NOT outweigh the potential losses.

Humans are also social creatures, with a need for each other's company. It would become apparent quickly that a complete lack of morals is likely to be a barrier to companionship.

oneeyedsnake

It is important to remember that the issue being discussed here isn't really acting immorally in all situations, I think it is already obvious enough that this would not be beneficial. The rejection of morally mentioned is a condional rejection, ie one would only act immorally if it could be of some benefit. This is of course a complete rejection of morality, as any moral action performed in this situatiuon would not be a genuine one, but instead it is just a way of acting which at that moment in time is more advantageous than acting immoraly. Acting immorally in all situations could not improve your life.

Zillah

Attractive Nun wrote:

Taking for granted that we, and the universe, are nothing more than collections of atoms and that life is ultimately pointless, why not betray your friend?

Because we're not just talking about a lifetime full of seflessnesss with a single incident of immorality. To elucidate my point, the boss is likely to go "Hmm, I have a choice between two men, one of whom is normal and has qualities X, Y and Z, and we have this second man, who I have heard bad stories about and lots of people think he's untrustworthy and selfish..."

People are not judged morally based on averages (Well he's moral most of the time). People are expected to be moral all the time, so even a single incident could ruin your promotion possibilities. Hell, maybe the boss would still prefer the guy with the embarassing secret over the sneaky son of a bitch that will backstab his friend for a leg up.

Hudson4ever

pH wrote:

,
Yes but you'll get caught and get a reputation for being a liar, then others will no longer trust you, your actions in dealing with others (positively or negatively from their perspective) have consequences. You seem to want to nit-pick and miss this fundamental point that I'm making, how others react to your actions, the punishments or rewards they give you for those actions is a far greater influence on your behaviour that any set of 'morals' you can invent.

Why are you so certain that it is impossible live an immoral life and not get caught? How often do the lies you tell in your day to day life actually get exposed? I cant answer for you but based on my own experiences I am pretty sure that a certain level of immorality could quite easily slip under the radar. Also, I do understand your point, but I don't agree with it. If it was as simple as you think it is all debate on the subject of morality would have died out a long time ago.Punishment comes after the deed is done, so if somebody decides to do something which ultimately results in punishment, they made that decision themselves, it was based on their own beliefs.

Myksyk

Interesting discussion.

Secondly I have come to realise that all actions are ulitimately self serving and that there is no such thing as a completely unselfish action.

I think it's probably easy enough to demonstrate that this is a false statement. You may be mistakingly confusing Dawkins' idea of altruism based on selfish-gene-ness with altruism due to psychosocial factors. Just because the development of altruism in a 'survival of the fittest' context can be explained by ultimate benefit to the individual does not mean that all altruism is so constructed. Evolutionary explanations for specific current behaviours can be very suspect. As Steve Pinker says evolution can compel him all it likes to procreate but he (based on his very current and individually developed proclivities) can tell his genes to go jump in the lake. My point being that millions of years of evolution of one drive (e.g. the compulsion to procreate) can be trumped by merely a few years of socialising (e.g. his specific socially-derived desire not to have kids). While the development of altruism may have been BASED in the intrinsic benefit to the individual and his kin in the distant past for long-term evolutionary reasons, social factors and beliefs are much more important to its occurrence now. In this context, you may get truely altruistic behaviours.

Attractive Nun

Zillah wrote:

Because we're not just talking about a lifetime full of seflessnesss with a single incident of immorality. To elucidate my point, the boss is likely to go "Hmm, I have a choice between two men, one of whom is normal and has qualities X, Y and Z, and we have this second man, who I have heard bad stories about and lots of people think he's untrustworthy and selfish..."

People are not judged morally based on averages (Well he's moral most of the time). People are expected to be moral all the time, so even a single incident could ruin your promotion possibilities. Hell, maybe the boss would still prefer the guy with the embarassing secret over the sneaky son of a bitch that will backstab his friend for a leg up.

Granted, but surely you concede that there are certain situations where one can act immorally and never get caught, never lose anything but your guilt-free conscience? Sure, by your logic, it would seemingly never be beneficial to act immorally. But everyone has done immoral things, if we take a standard, secular and western definition of morality - is that because everyone is stupid? Or is it because we realise, at the end of the day, that it benefits us more than it hurts us?

Hudson4ever

When I made this statement I was refering to the idea that seemingly altruistic actions are actually motivated by a selfish desire to experience the positive emotions associated with this. Take for example a person who devotes their life to charity work. People who do this often speak of the great sense of fulfillment they gain from their work. I believe that it is a desire to experience these sort of positive feelings, rather than a sense of altruism, which is the real motivation behind their actions.

Myksyk

Hudson4ever wrote:

I believe that it is a desire to experience these sort of positive feelings, rather than a sense of altruism, which is the real motivation behind their actions.

Holy crap Hudson ... this is deeply cynical stuff!! I'm sure we are motivated to some extent by the affirmation (emotional or otherwise) which we may derive from altruistic behaviour ... but hey, sometimes it's simply cos we care for or love people. Is that strange to you? I'm sure some atheists or agnostics have given their lives for others ... do you think the REAL motivation here is a desire to experience positive emotions?

Fallen Seraph

Hudson4ever wrote:

I believe that it is a desire to experience these sort of positive feelings, rather than a sense of altruism, which is the real motivation behind their actions.

Speaking from personal experience this is only true if you analse it to be so; which is, in my opinion, a rather dubious truth. Have you ever had any altruistic urges? I know I have, and the thoughts that usually go through my mind are "That person appears to be in a bad situation, I can empathise with them and would dislike to be in their position; I should help them".

Yes, this can be analysed into doing it for gratification but I think it's pretty meaningless to do so. I would go so far as to suggest that the motivation for altruism is even more "base" than self gratification; it comes from simple evolutionary urges to prolong the species.

PDN

Fallen Seraph wrote:

I would go so far as to suggest that the motivation for altruism is even more "base" than self gratification; it comes from simple evolutionary urges to prolong the species.

Serious question. What about going out of your way to help an injured dog? Would you do it?

Tim Robbins

PDN wrote:

Serious question. What about going out of your way to help an injured dog? Would you do it?

Defintely. I don't differentiate between dogs and humans on most levels actually.

pinksoir

I am beginning to find it difficult to even kill flies that are bothering me. I generally don't differentiate between dogs and humans too. But of the situation arose whereby I had to choose between an animal and a human, I would choose the human every time. I always feel a deep sense of regret when I see an animal that has been killed on the road.

Myksyk

Fallen Seraph wrote:

... it comes from simple evolutionary urges to prolong the species.

I may be wrong here but I think this argument re 'good for the species' is an error. I certainly remember Dawkins writing that while there may be selection of attributes which increase the likelihood of survival of the individual and their nearest kin there is no 'interest' in natural selection in survival of species.

Fallen Seraph

PDN wrote:

Serious question. What about going out of your way to help an injured dog? Would you do it?

Yup. From an ethical point of view I cannot class helping the dog as anything more than a "preferred indifferent" neither moral nor immoral. But the fact that I, or any normal human being, would feel empathy for the dog would compel me to help it. I find it quite interesting that I would do so (I don't get why feeling empathy with animals would benefit our survival? I suppose it's just a genetic hangover).

Fallen Seraph

Myksyk wrote:

I may be wrong here but I think this argument re 'good for the species' is an error. I certainly remember Dawkins writing that while there may be selection of attributes which increase the likelihood of survival of the individual and their nearest kin there is no 'interest' in natural selection in survival of species.

Fair enough, I could well be wrong, I don't study the subject. But as a concept it makes a lot of sense to me. How else would insects which poison anything that eats them evolve?

robindch

Myksyk wrote:

I may be wrong here but I think this argument re 'good for the species' is an error. I certainly remember Dawkins writing that while there may be selection of attributes which increase the likelihood of survival of the individual and their nearest kin there is no 'interest' in natural selection in survival of species.

Yes, that's Dawkins position, in his professional capacity as an evolutionary biologist. But it's still considered an unresolved issue within the topic at large -- Dawkins at the kin-and-no-further selection end of pool, and people like David S Wilson (and others) who claim that selection operates simultaneously at many levels: the geneotype, the phenotype, the group and I believe, the environment too. FWIW, I'm with Wilson on this one.

Wilson wrote an interesting article on this recently, nominally about how group-selection deals with religion, but much of it is a rant contra Dawkins which the article would be better off without:

http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/07-07-04.html

Worth a read anyway.

Attractive Nun

Fallen Seraph wrote:

Fair enough, I could well be wrong, I don't study the subject. But as a concept it makes a lot of sense to me. How else would insects which poison anything that eats them evolve?

I'm no evolutionary biologist, and I'm essentially just repeating an explanation for this that I read in the Selfish Gene, but even the seemingly indisputably altruistic actions of insects like you describe have nothing to so with the 'good of the species'. Bees are the obvious example of an insect which poisons its enemies as it dies. But, if I recall correctly, the worker bees that do this are actually sterile - they essentially work for the queen, the queen who does the reproducing. So, by poisoning its enemies, it is protecting its queen and its hive - and ultimately its genes.

Although the issue may not be fully resolved in biology, as far as I know there is no real reason to believe that genuine altruism has ever evolved in animals.

Fallen Seraph

Hmm. That does indeed make sense. But I still don't understand the existence of poisonous frogs then. I can't see how the same arguement doesn't apply to them.

Zillah

Attractive Nun wrote:

Granted, but surely you concede that there are certain situations where one can act immorally and never get caught, never lose anything but your guilt-free conscience? Sure, by your logic, it would seemingly never be beneficial to act immorally. But everyone has done immoral things, if we take a standard, secular and western definition of morality - is that because everyone is stupid? Or is it because we realise, at the end of the day, that it benefits us more than it hurts us?

No no, you're right, there can of course be instances where acting immorally is indeed to your benefit. But my point is, its a gamble, a terrible gamble that you make every time you do such a thing. If you live your whole life as a moral being and make one immoral decision, get away with and live with the rewards, then yes, great for you. But I think a person who does do that will likely take the gamble again, and again, and eventually they'll be caught and it will work out worse for them. There's a very good reason almost every human being around the world can agree on a broad definition of good and evil. You and I both descend from some being a long time ago who chose to not commit an immoral act and survived because of it. For every one of those ancestors theres a couple more who chose the opposite, and got hanged, or beaten to death or simply ostrocized from their society and died alone in the wilderness. Morality is social glue and its in everyone's slefish interest to follow it.

Zillah

Fallen Seraph wrote:

Hmm. That does indeed make sense. But I still don't understand the existence of poisonous frogs then. I can't see how the same arguement doesn't apply to them.

Lets take two sets of siblings, A and B. Each set has three frogs. The parents of Set A are normal non poisonous frogs. The father of set B has a mutation that makes his offspring somewhat poisonous when eaten.

A big bad predator comes along and eats one of set A. He goes "yum yum" and comes back and eats the other two.

Another big bad predator comes along and eats one of set B. He goes "Blargh, cough cough die" and cannot eat any more cos he's dead. Now the brother and sister of the poor eaten poisonous frog survive. Incidently, these siblings share about 50% of their DNA with afformentioned, poor eaten poisonous frog.

Fallen Seraph

Zillah wrote:

Lets take two sets of siblings, A and B. Each set has three frogs. The parents of Set A are normal non poisonous frogs. The father of set B has a mutation that makes his offspring somewhat poisonous when eaten.

A big bad predator comes along and eats one of set A. He goes "yum yum" and comes back and eats the other two.

Another big bad predator comes along and eats one of set B. He goes "Blargh, cough cough die" and cannot eat any more cos he's dead. Now the brother and sister of the poor eaten poisonous frog survive. Incidently, these siblings share about 50% of their DNA with afformentioned, poor eaten poisonous frog.

Uh, that's precisely what I was arguing? With slightly different emphasis? Am I missing something?


Edit: ah right, the different emphasis does indeed make all the difference; I was missing something.

Attractive Nun

Zillah wrote:

No no, you're right, there can of course be instances where acting immorally is indeed to your benefit. But my point is, its a gamble, a terrible gamble that you make every time you do such a thing. If you live your whole life as a moral being and make one immoral decision, get away with and live with the rewards, then yes, great for you. But I think a person who does do that will likely take the gamble again, and again, and eventually they'll be caught and it will work out worse for them. There's a very good reason almost every human being around the world can agree on a broad definition of good and evil. You and I both descend from some being a long time ago who chose to not commit an immoral act and survived because of it. For every one of those ancestors theres a couple more who chose the opposite, and got hanged, or beaten to death or simply ostrocized from their society and died alone in the wilderness. Morality is social glue and its in everyone's slefish interest to follow it.

So, broadly, we agree. It is generally in our best interest to to act in a socially acceptable/'moral' manner. To a great extent, in fact, that's probably why society works. But -as you admit - this is not always the case. To say, however, that those who step outside morality once are more likely to do it again and again, and are therefore eventually going to get caught, isn't good enough IMO. In reality, I think it masks something more sinister about atheism that we don't like to discuss.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm an atheist -and I have a moral code. Given my belief that this one life is the only life we have, I think it's pointedly obvious that we should all allow each other to live that life freely - "Live and let live" - and help out in improving life where we can. Actually, I think that is a far more noble attitude than "I better be nice to this person otherwise God might punish me". I don't mean to say I always abide strictly by this code, but I hold it nonetheless, and will generally feel bad if I go outside it. Whether this is a sociological, personal or evolutionary trait, I don't really know. In any case, it's there.

However, I don't think it changes the fact that - whatever 'moral code' any of us might uphold - morality in reality is untangible and worthless. Did Hitler have a worse life or death than any of the Jews he killed? Does Idi Amin care that he's universally despised? Which is worse, to be brutally murdered by a serial killer or to be that serial killer, humanely killed on death row? Sure, stepping outside morality might marr our reputation and create hatred for us. But, if we can ignore the psychological effects as many of us can, what does all this matter as long as it increases our creature comforts? At the end of the day, we'll all end up as nothing. It's a frank and sobering thought, but as far as I can see it's the reality of an atheistic universe.