Moral philosophy transplanted from Disney thread

[Guest]

48 minutes ago, DooDiligence said:

 

Is it really that hard for you to use your brain every once in a while? God gave you one, you know. 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, ValueArb said:

 

Attributing the nasty parts of the bible to the (likely mythical) Moses instead of God brings the obvious question, how do you know? How can you tell which instructions were written at the lords behest, and which were from men that god disagrees with. And why would god allow HIS book to portray HIS instructions incorrectly? If you believe this, then you believe the bible has little to do with gods instructions or wishes and is just a bunch of stories men wrote.

 

Roads are shared resources, it's reasonable to have limited rules on how they are to be used, especially when someone expressing their bodily autonomy by drinking endangers many others bodily autonomy by driving.

 

Slavery has never has never been moral because no slaves would have ever chosen slavery unless their other choices were even more dire. A just god should know this and should have made not owning slaves a commandment in the bible. And no one gets to "accept" being a slave, that's not the definition of slavery.

 

As for who is a moral arbiter, the god of the bible can't be because he is so clearly immoral, committing genocide, murdering women, children and babies, endorsing slavery, and condemning people to eternal torture simply for not believing in him, or even never having the opportunity to believe in him. This is the part from Exodus 21, that Moses wrote under gods advisement.

 

“If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything. 3 If he comes alone, he is to go free alone; but if he has a wife when he comes, she is to go with him. 4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free.

..

20 “Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, 21 but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property."

 

and in Leviticus, he made it even clearer.

"44 “‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45 You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 46 You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly."

 

And in the new testament, which moses didn't write.

 

Ephesians 6:5
“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.”
Colossians 3:22
“Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.”
1 Peter 2:18
“Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.”

 

Still waiting for God's direct commands on this (as you seemed to claim). 

[Ross812]

14 hours ago, stahleyp said:

Ross...please tell me you're joking. That passage in Ezekiel is about Jerusalem!

 

Not joking. Jewish people of the time and I imagine most of humanity until a few hundred years ago married off girls after puberty. The passage in Ezekiel just goes to show the norms (morals?) of the time. Surely the author was not describing a statutory rape to exemplify the bond between God and Jerusalem? 

 

14 hours ago, stahleyp said:

I don't think I'm wrong about the wealth topic (though I might be). Jesus goes on to tell the rich young man that "“If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.” Jesus says "if you want to be perfect" then to do that. The fact that Jesus gave qualified it with perfection, makes me believe that one can still make it to heaven without perfection (since Jesus is the only perfect one after all). I do think it's immoral to hoard wealth and "sell your soul" to get more of it. We ought to not make money a god - though I think many do.

 

It sounds like he is saying sell everything, give the proceeds to the poor, and devote your life to following me. It sounds like you are trying to qualify Jesus's words with a convenient explanation "perfect". A rich man has a snow balls chance in hell of making it to heaven. So there is a chance?! Honestly, I don't care. I'm just pointing out the inconsistency between Christians advocating protecting children when marrying off young girls was routine in the Bible, and Jesus, in his own words, is blatant about the trappings of wealth, but the same Christians do mental gymnastics to justify holding their wealth.    

 

14 hours ago, stahleyp said:

Regarding slavery, maybe Jesus did mention it and it was never written down? Maybe slavery (in the sense of the time) wasn't immoral? I don't have a great answer to that. I simply tried to weigh theism vs atheism on an equal scale - not just bashing theism over another. If God doesn't exist, how can a moral standard exist beyond a society? 

 

Maybe Jesus never said anything about it because it was not considered wrong at the time. Maybe it was justified by a couple thousand years of previous scripture? Maybe it is not wrong according to God? Clearly the moral standard of the immorality of slavery is set by society and not by God. How can slavery be wrong if Jesus never said it was wrong? 

 

15 hours ago, stahleyp said:

Ohhh, there is a hadith that says she was 19? I have never read that. Care to cite it?

 

Mishkat al-Masabih, vol. 3, p. 300-301

 

15 hours ago, stahleyp said:

It's interesting that you've researched various religions too and that we came to different conclusions. Do you agree that if a game has no actual rules that each society makes it up as they see fit then?

 

Yes, I agree each society makes up the rules as they see fit. It is the only answer I can come up with when considering Jesus thought slavery was moral (at the very least the morality of wealth deserved more attention than the morality of slavery) and I myself do not.

 

Loaning money with interest is a sin according to the Quran and outlawed by the Catholic church until 1000 (church then needed to borrow money for the crusades so and exception was made). Loaning money for interest was not practiced by Christian laymen until the 1500's. Is owning WFC, BAC, JPM, USB a sin? For a Muslim, it is today - For a Christian, it was from 300 AD till sometime in the 1500's. The old testament is pretty prescriptive regarding usury just like with slavery and Jesus was silent on both issues. It seems like our modern opinion of slavery and usury are shaped by society and we are not following the word of God on either...        

[ValueArb]

On 5/16/2023 at 2:52 PM, stahleyp said:

 

Still waiting for God's direct commands on this (as you seemed to claim). 

So the Bible isn’t the word of god? Finally we agree!

[ValueArb]

On 5/16/2023 at 2:40 PM, stahleyp said:

 

Do you enjoy being condescending? Perhaps you would be kind enough to tell me what morality is then? We'll see who knows more about moral reality. 

I already cited Confucius’s golden rule, and gave you a passel of examples. Don’t call me condescending when you actively refuse to respond to what I actually said.

[Luca]

Okay, i am giving this thread a read now!

[Luca]

On 3/10/2023 at 3:14 AM, Blugolds11 said:

@rkbabangyeah thats an interesting thought and IMO makes perfect sense...potential for behaviors/traits to develop and pass along through the generations that are not necessarily a positive contributing to advancement and "selected" to lead and continue...but also not bad enough to be weeded out. Interesting to think about where that "line" might be and maybe those things/traits that arent a hard NO for advancement, but also arent a strong YES will eventually fall off, but maybe it just takes longer to weed out. 

 

I dont know if you are familiar with the Russian farm fox experiment, I first read about it in a big article in National Geographic many years ago. 

 

The interesting thing to me, and what made me think about and remember this was what you said about insignificant side effects or unintended results that arent a game changer either way...showing up. 

 

And thats exactly what has happened with these fox. Breeding based ONLY on level of tameness, and the continuation and encouragement of that trait alone. But other traits that were "insignificant" but shared with current domesticated dogs started showing up. Changes in color of the coat, ears started drooping, tails started curling, craniofacial morphology, the face of the fox started to change to a more juvenile look. 

 

-For the last 59 years (2018) a team of Russian geneticists led by Lyudmila Trut have been running one of the most important biology experiments of the 20th, and now 21st, century. The experiment was the brainchild of Trut’s mentor, Dmitri Belyaev, who, in 1959, began an experiment to study the process of domestication 

-Every generation he and his team would test hundreds of foxes, and the top 10% of the tamest would be selected to parent the next generation. They developed a scale for scoring tameness, and how a fox scored on this scale was the sole criteria for selecting foxes to parent the next generation. 

-Belyaev knew that many domesticated species share a suite of characteristics including floppy ears, short, curly tails, juvenilized facial and body features, reduced stress hormone levels, mottled fur, and relatively long reproductive seasons. Today this suite of traits is known as the domestication syndrome. Belyaev found this perplexing. Our ancestors had domesticated species for a plethora of reasons—including transportation (e.g., horses), food (e.g., cattle) and protection (e.g., dogs)—yet regardless of what they were selected for, domesticated species, over time, begin to display traits in the domestication syndrome. Why? Belyaev hypothesized that the one thing our ancestors always needed in a species they were domesticating was an animal that interacted prosocially with humans. We can’t have our domesticates-to-be trying to bite our heads off. And so he hypothesized that the early stages of all animal domestication events involved choosing the calmest, most prosocial-toward-human animals: I will refer to this trait as tameness, though that term is used in many different ways in the literature. Belyaev further hypothesized that all of the traits in the domestication syndrome were somehow or another, though he didn’t know how or why, genetically linked to genes associated with tameness.

-Belyaev was correct that selection on tameness alone leads to the emergence of traits in the domestication syndrome. In less than a decade, some of the domesticated foxes had floppy ears and curly tails (Fig. 2). Their stress hormone levels by generation 15 were about half the stress hormone (glucocorticoid) levels of wild foxes. Over generations, their adrenal gland became smaller and smaller. Serotonin levels also increased, producing “happier” animals. Over the course of the experiment, researchers also found the domesticated foxes displayed mottled “mutt-like” fur patterns, and they had more juvenilized facial features (shorter, rounder, more dog-like snouts) and body shapes (chunkier, rather than gracile limbs) (Fig. 3). Domesticated foxes like many domesticated animals, have longer reproductive periods than their wild progenitors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, some of that is basically what I was trying to say regarding horses. And the insignificant traits in the fox could also have similarities in humans. If you understand these basics, the concept that the SAME thing is/has happened to humans over thousands of years, IMO it makes more sense. 

 

The article goes into more detail regarding explanation of genetics, brain chemistry if you want to look into it further. I find it really fascinating. 

 

https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12052-018-0090-x

Absolutely fascinating. 

[Guest]

On 5/21/2023 at 12:44 PM, ValueArb said:

So the Bible isn’t the word of god? Finally we agree!

 

Well, sort of. There are words in the Bible from God but most of it is from man. The Word of God is Jesus. 

Edited May 26, 2023 by stahleyp

[Guest]

On 5/17/2023 at 9:23 AM, Ross812 said:

 

Not joking. Jewish people of the time and I imagine most of humanity until a few hundred years ago married off girls after puberty. The passage in Ezekiel just goes to show the norms (morals?) of the time. Surely the author was not describing a statutory rape to exemplify the bond between God and Jerusalem? 

 

 

It sounds like he is saying sell everything, give the proceeds to the poor, and devote your life to following me. It sounds like you are trying to qualify Jesus's words with a convenient explanation "perfect". A rich man has a snow balls chance in hell of making it to heaven. So there is a chance?! Honestly, I don't care. I'm just pointing out the inconsistency between Christians advocating protecting children when marrying off young girls was routine in the Bible, and Jesus, in his own words, is blatant about the trappings of wealth, but the same Christians do mental gymnastics to justify holding their wealth.    

 

 

Maybe Jesus never said anything about it because it was not considered wrong at the time. Maybe it was justified by a couple thousand years of previous scripture? Maybe it is not wrong according to God? Clearly the moral standard of the immorality of slavery is set by society and not by God. How can slavery be wrong if Jesus never said it was wrong? 

 

 

Mishkat al-Masabih, vol. 3, p. 300-301

 

 

Yes, I agree each society makes up the rules as they see fit. It is the only answer I can come up with when considering Jesus thought slavery was moral (at the very least the morality of wealth deserved more attention than the morality of slavery) and I myself do not.

 

Loaning money with interest is a sin according to the Quran and outlawed by the Catholic church until 1000 (church then needed to borrow money for the crusades so and exception was made). Loaning money for interest was not practiced by Christian laymen until the 1500's. Is owning WFC, BAC, JPM, USB a sin? For a Muslim, it is today - For a Christian, it was from 300 AD till sometime in the 1500's. The old testament is pretty prescriptive regarding usury just like with slavery and Jesus was silent on both issues. It seems like our modern opinion of slavery and usury are shaped by society and we are not following the word of God on either...        

 

I agree with you on wealth and Christianity for the most part. I guess one question really is "what is rich?"

 

Personally, I think slavery can be morally okay if it's designed that way. It would have to be different than what we think of slavery though (ie modern slavery). Do you feel that modern slavery, if a society allowed it, would be okay? Not in your opinion, perhaps, but in reality? 

 

Can you quote the paassage in Mishkat al-Masabih? I tried looking that up but saw nothing about Aisha being 19. 

[Guest]

On 5/21/2023 at 12:48 PM, ValueArb said:

I already cited Confucius’s golden rule, and gave you a passel of examples. Don’t call me condescending when you actively refuse to respond to what I actually said.

 

Not retyring to "refuse to response". I try to respond when I can but, admittedly, will miss things. 

 

Do you believe moral standards change over time? How could a society be "wrong" if there is no standard outside of it to measure against?

[rkbabang]

3 hours ago, stahleyp said:

 

Not retyring to "refuse to response". I try to respond when I can but, admittedly, will miss things. 

 

Do you believe moral standards change over time? How could a society be "wrong" if there is no standard outside of it to measure against?

 

 

There is no "wrong" or "right" in the way you mean it.  There is no absolute final word on these things.  Society's values do obviously change over time.  Some actions which were common place, non-controversial, and widely accepted for many thousands of years are no longer accepted today (child marriage/sex, slavery, etc).   There are things which were considered immoral or wrong for most of human history that are commonly accepted today as just fine (loans with interest, homosexuality, etc).  And there are things we do today which will someday be thought of as horrific (I'd like to think this includes coercive government and taxation, but other things that I can't even imagine could be included too), and there are probably things that we think of as immoral today which will be acceptable in the future (I don't even want to guess what these might be).

 

Edited May 26, 2023 by rkbabang

[Guest]

On 5/26/2023 at 12:20 PM, rkbabang said:

 

 

There is no "wrong" or "right" in the way you mean it.  There is no absolute final word on these things.  Society's values do obviously change over time.  Some actions which were common place, non-controversial, and widely accepted for many thousands of years are no longer accepted today (child marriage/sex, slavery, etc).   There are things which were considered immoral or wrong for most of human history that are commonly accepted today as just fine (loans with interest, homosexuality, etc).  And there are things we do today which will someday be thought of as horrific (I'd like to think this includes coercive government and taxation, but other things that I can't even imagine could be included too), and there are probably things that we think of as immoral today which will be acceptable in the future (I don't even want to guess what these might be).

 

 

So morality is more something like fashion or mannerism then, right? If so, how could you be "right" about it and society "wrong"?

[rkbabang]

4 minutes ago, stahleyp said:

 

So morality is more something like fashion or mannerism then, right? If so, how could you be "right" about it and society "wrong"?

 

 

Close.  You can think that you are right and society is wrong.

 

And, of course, most in society will think that they are right and you are wrong.

 

Edited June 2, 2023 by rkbabang

[Guest]

Just now, rkbabang said:

 

 

Close.  You can think that you are right and society is wrong.

 

 

That is correct if God doesn't exist. We don't know anymore than Epstein or Hitler about morality - because there is no standard outside ourselves/society.

 

We found them "bad" but that is just popular opinion. In an alternative universe, say if Islam took over the world instead of Christianity, Epstein may be a hero or if Nazis won WWII, same for Hitler. 

[rkbabang]

14 minutes ago, stahleyp said:

 

That is correct if God doesn't exist. We don't know anymore than Epstein or Hitler about morality - because there is no standard outside ourselves/society.

 

We found them "bad" but that is just popular opinion. In an alternative universe, say if Islam took over the world instead of Christianity, Epstein may be a hero or if Nazis won WWII, same for Hitler. 

 

And since, he doesn't, we again have come full circle.  

[Guest]

1 minute ago, rkbabang said:

 

And since, he doesn't, we again have come full circle.  

 

Well, I disagree for multiple reasons (probability alone makes one not an atheist). 

 

So, would you agree that slavery (or anything else) is okay as long as a society allows it? Sure, your opinion may differ but it's all just (arbitrary) opinion's anyway, right? Much like fashion, agree? 

[rkbabang]

18 minutes ago, stahleyp said:

 

Well, I disagree for multiple reasons (probability alone makes one not an atheist). 

 

So, would you agree that slavery (or anything else) is okay as long as a society allows it? Sure, your opinion may differ but it's all just (arbitrary) opinion's anyway, right? Much like fashion, agree? 

 

 

No slavery would never be ok with me, but if society allows it then it would be widespread (as it was when society allowed it).  And round and round we go....

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, rkbabang said:

 

 

No slavery would never be ok with me, but if society allows it then it would be widespread (as it was when society allowed it).  And round and round we go....

 

Yes, but you can't possibly actually know more than society, right? Why is it so hard for you to say "not my preference since I've been indoctrinated with a certain belief system and my brain is randomly wired in a certain way) but it's okay when I take out the irrational emotions?

 

 

Do you believe it's "wrong" when people have different mannerisms than you or have different tastes in fashion? Is there a difference between that and morality? 

 

[Luca]

 

@stahleyp @rkbabang

 

Think it fits nicely into this discussion.

 

Natural Law: What our innate nature tells us

 

Psychological research on infants shows us, at an very early age, children start to understand whats fair or not. Thats as close as we can get to the concept of ,,moral,,. What most people seem to be equipped with from the start (not all, deviations are there, psychopaths etc)

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, Luca said:

 

@stahleyp @rkbabang

 

Think it fits nicely into this discussion.

 

Natural Law: What our innate nature tells us

 

Psychological research on infants shows us, at an very early age, children start to understand whats fair or not. Thats as close as we can get to the concept of ,,moral,,. What most people seem to be equipped with from the start (not all, deviations are there, psychopaths etc)

 

Yeah, I understand that. Let's call these evolutionary instincts (ie toddlers knowing what's fair and not). Another evolutionary instinct is selling near market bottoms or eating a bunch of fat and sugar. Why "ought" we follow the moral evolutionary instinct and not the others? What if our moral evolutionary instinct acts against our best interest like the the fear instinct or hungry instinct? If there is no "right and wrong" outside of of ourself or society, it is silly to blindly follow this either. 

[Luca]

57 minutes ago, stahleyp said:

 

Yeah, I understand that. Let's call these evolutionary instincts (ie toddlers knowing what's fair and not). Another evolutionary instinct is selling near market bottoms or eating a bunch of fat and sugar. Why "ought" we follow the moral evolutionary instinct and not the others? What if our moral evolutionary instinct acts against our best interest like the the fear instinct or hungry instinct? If there is no "right and wrong" outside of of ourself or society, it is silly to blindly follow this either. 

Well, no animal is perfect, and mistakes are costly, sometimes death, natural selection

I dont think its true that eating a bunch of sugar and fat is the standard equipment of humans, yes sometimes eating chocolate is nice but too much is punishing you too. You will feel awful eating too much of it. 

 

We dont ,,ought,, our evolutionary instinct, they just comes into existence if we want it or not. If a man sees a hot chick on the street, his brain is faster than himself, he will look first and then he can adjust his behavior (if he thinks it will have consequences if he continues to stare) 

 

Fear instinct is to some degree something we learned, to some degree automatic. Cant choose that either, some people getting paralyzed, some pumped and can run away. 

 

Why is it silly to follow your own instincts? 

 

If other people tell you how you ,,ought,, to behave, its probably in their own interest and not in yours :)!

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Luca said:

Well, no animal is perfect, and mistakes are costly, sometimes death, natural selection

I dont think its true that eating a bunch of sugar and fat is the standard equipment of humans, yes sometimes eating chocolate is nice but too much is punishing you too. You will feel awful eating too much of it. 

 

We dont ,,ought,, our evolutionary instinct, they just comes into existence if we want it or not. If a man sees a hot chick on the street, his brain is faster than himself, he will look first and then he can adjust his behavior (if he thinks it will have consequences if he continues to stare) 

 

Fear instinct is to some degree something we learned, to some degree automatic. Cant choose that either, some people getting paralyzed, some pumped and can run away. 

 

Why is it silly to follow your own instincts? 

 

If other people tell you how you ,,ought,, to behave, its probably in their own interest and not in yours :)!

 

Because our instincts frequently go against our best interest, do they not? Do you see how "rational" investors on this board freak out during market downturns?

[Luca]

To add onto the people act in their own interest. Religion is only a tool that is used to convey once own interests: 

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3161130/

 

We argue that a central function of religious attendance in the contemporary U.S. is to support a high-fertility, monogamous mating strategy. Mating strategy is more powerful than standard personality variables in predicting religious attendance. These findings suggest that reproductive strategies are at the heart of variations in religious attendance.

 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/43023702_Mating_Competitors_Increase_Religious_Beliefs

 

In Experiment 1, people reported higher religiosity after looking at mating pools consisting of attractive people of their own sex compared to attractive opposite sex targets. Experiment 2 replicated the effect with an added control group, and suggested that both men and women become more religious when seeing same sex competitors. We discuss several possible explanations for these effects.

 

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0084672420909460

 

 

The remaining sections demonstrate how religion may function as a signal for mating qualities associated with a long-term mating strategy and how different facets of religiosity may help to support long-term mating strategies. 

 

 

Edited June 2, 2023 by Luca

[Luca]

5 minutes ago, stahleyp said:

 

Because our instincts frequently go against our best interest, do they not? Do you see how "rational" investors on this board freak out during market downturns?

They freak out because they know very well that they lost a lot of money, in theory. Why is charly munger not anxious? Because he understands there is nothing to fear. Why is the average investor anxious? Because there is a real reason for his fear ergo-->he might have gotten something wrong and lost a lot of money/ressources.

Edited June 2, 2023 by Luca

[Luca]

If i see berkshire crash 90%, i am happy to see that actually, because i understand there is no danger. My grandma would get very anxious because she might have no money for her pension if that happens. Real reason for fear.

 

Some people have learned to fear things which is a special situation but also that can be explained by cognitive processes. 

 

Lots of our behavior is hardwired and that is a good thing because it keeps us alive