What's wrong with politics ?

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  • RussRuss Shipmate
    Dafyd wrote: »
    You seem to be implying that your moral opinions have more weight than other people's political opinions.

    If morality is no more than a matter of opinion, then it seems perfectly logical to treat everyone's moral views as having no more weight than their political opinions.

    If on the other hand the category of things that are objectively morally wrong (regardless of anyone's opinion) is a valid category, then whether or not something is in that category is a matter of greater weight than people's political opinions about it.

    Hence my question to Doc Tor and others - is your condemnation of Hitler's acts merely a matter of personal opinion ? Or do you claim that it has moral weight ?
    Crœsos wrote: »
    I'm not sure I buy @Russ' implication that Christians don't form social units, or socialize with each other, or form what could be considered a "society"...

    ...So your claim is that if Hitler's actions were justified by religious belief instead of "society", that makes them moral?

    You misread me once again. Just not on the same wavelength, are we ?

    Christians are as social as anyone else. But conformity with the thinking and mores of their society is not their highest value.

    Which doesn't mean that every appeal to religious belief is automatically in accordance with the will of God.

    The claim is that goodness is something it is possible to be wrong about. As opposed to personal and societal preferences and tastes.
  • Doc TorDoc Tor Admin
    edited October 2020
    Russ wrote: »
    Hence my question to Doc Tor and others - is your condemnation of Hitler's acts merely a matter of personal opinion ? Or do you claim that it has moral weight ?

    False dilemma.

    Yes, of course it's a matter of personal opinion. And I discount your use of the word 'merely'. As one of the people who would have fallen foul of the Nuremberg laws (if they hadn't already come for me as a vociferous anti-Nazi, and socialist), I obviously have a personal objection to being herded into a gas chamber with my family. That there were many, many people who either actively participated in the extermination of the Jews, or simply looked the other way while it was happening, does not render my opinion mere anything.

    But I can simultaneously claim that my opinion has moral weight. I can argue cogently using any number of religious and philosophical codes that genocide based on tenuous racial groupings and characteristics is immoral, and hope to sway sufficient numbers of people to stand with me, and against the Nazis.
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate


    If I were a politician, I guess I'd want to know how do I know I discover the morally correct course of action when faced with a political decision, especially those which are controversial. Regarding abortion: Are we discussing a foetus or an un-born child? Should the decision be taken by the mother or the state? Is the provision of lunches for poor children a question of parental or social responsibility? How do I reconcile the claims of social peace and justice? Is it permissible to trade with a state that offends human rights?
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    Russ wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    You seem to be implying that your moral opinions have more weight than other people's political opinions.
    If morality is no more than a matter of opinion, then it seems perfectly logical to treat everyone's moral views as having no more weight than their political opinions.

    If on the other hand the category of things that are objectively morally wrong (regardless of anyone's opinion) is a valid category, then whether or not something is in that category is a matter of greater weight than people's political opinions about it.
    You appear to be implying that whatever is the case with moral opinions political opinions are not objectively true or false or etc. That moral opinions might be but political opinions are not. Since the evaluative moral judgements about justice and fairness that you seem to be calling political opinions are a subset of moral opinions there seems no good reason to believe that.
    (In practice, political opinions combine evaluative judgements about what is or isn't just with pragmatic judgements about competence or effectiveness. But it would be an uncommon though not indefensible opinion that those kinds of judgement are less objective than judgements of morality.)


  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    The problem I have with Russ is that he doesn't seem to include the art of compromise as a political virtue.
  • Russ wrote: »
    Crœsos wrote: »
    I'm not sure I buy @Russ' implication that Christians don't form social units, or socialize with each other, or form what could be considered a "society"...

    You misread me once again. Just not on the same wavelength, are we ?

    Christians are as social as anyone else. But conformity with the thinking and mores of their society is not their highest value.

    I'm pretty sure I'm reading you correctly. You claim that Christians aren't a "society", a group shaped by shared beliefs and culture, that there are no commonalities of "thinking and mores" shared among Christians as part of their Christianity. I disagree with this claim, but the fact that you've made it twice indicates I'm not misreading you.
    Russ wrote: »
    Which doesn't mean that every appeal to religious belief is automatically in accordance with the will of God.

    Of course not! You simply argued that every appeal to Christianity is in accordance with the will of God. Since Christian morality is dictated directly by God, an infallible and omnibenevolent being, you argue that any moral decision made by Christians is objectively correct. That borrowed infallibility is your main argument for the superiority of Martin Luther's proposed Holocaust over Adolf Hitler's implemented Holocaust; that the former is Christian and the other, despite Hitler's protests to the contrary, comes from "society". (And that "society" isn't influenced in any way by centuries of Christian anti-Semitism.)
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    I can argue cogently using any number of religious and philosophical codes that genocide based on tenuous racial groupings and characteristics is immoral, and hope to sway sufficient numbers of people to stand with me, and against the Nazis.

    That says to me that you're not satisfied with your anti-Nazism (with which I have no quarrel) being your opinion alone, but seek to show, by reference to religious and philosophical codes, that it has more weight than that. That it is an expression either of the values of your culture (if you restrict the set of codes thus) or of the values of all moral humans across time and space.

    I think CS Lewis refers to this consensus of moral writings across cultures as the Tao.

    That Tao is not the mores of any particular society, but a human attempt at expressing objective moral truth.
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    You claim that Christians aren't a "society", a group shaped by shared beliefs and culture, that there are no commonalities of "thinking and mores" shared among Christians as part of their Christianity.

    Denying commonalities of thought would be foolish, and I haven't done so.

    My understanding is that Christians are found in many of the societies and cultures across the world. And that if you believe in the notion of an implicit "social contract" giving consent to be governed , that their social contract is with their fellow-countrymen in the nation they live in, rather than with Christendom. So that in the context we're discussing, they are not a society.
    You simply argued that every appeal to Christianity is in accordance with the will of God. Since Christian morality is dictated directly by God, an infallible and omnibenevolent being, you argue that any moral decision made by Christians is objectively correct.

    Not at all. Everyone is fallible. Which is of course a notion I find in Christianity...

  • Russ wrote: »
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    I can argue cogently using any number of religious and philosophical codes that genocide based on tenuous racial groupings and characteristics is immoral, and hope to sway sufficient numbers of people to stand with me, and against the Nazis.

    That says to me that you're not satisfied with your anti-Nazism (with which I have no quarrel) being your opinion alone, but seek to show, by reference to religious and philosophical codes, that it has more weight than that.

    I'm perfectly satisfied with how I, personally, arrive at the opinion that I don't want to be exterminated. However, I also realise that if I want to protect my fellows from exterminated, I potentially need to engage with a wider section of the population than would be immediately affected. (I say potentially, because I'd rather hope this would be a bit of a no-brainer, but history tells me otherwise.)

    And if I do need to persuade other citizens not to throw me onto the fire, I do need to marshal a cogent argument. There's nothing odd about this at all. It's called politics, and it's how pretty much anything gets done in a democratic society.
  • Russ wrote: »
    Crœsos wrote: »
    You simply argued that every appeal to Christianity is in accordance with the will of God. Since Christian morality is dictated directly by God, an infallible and omnibenevolent being, you argue that any moral decision made by Christians is objectively correct.

    Not at all. Everyone is fallible. Which is of course a notion I find in Christianity...

    But your claim for the superiority of Christian morality is that it's objectively correct. Also that it's perpetual and unchangeable. If Christianity holds that all Jews everywhere are collectively and perpetually guilty of murdering God, that's not going to change to fit modern notions that anti-Semitism is immoral.
  • The only claim anyone can make for the superiority of any form of morality it that it's objectively correct.

    If Christianity held that Jews are collectively and perpetually guilty of murdering God then it woud be objectively incorrect.
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    edited October 2020
    Russ wrote: »
    I think CS Lewis refers to this consensus of moral writings across cultures as the Tao.

    That Tao is not the mores of any particular society, but a human attempt at expressing objective moral truth.
    Given that you dismiss the Tao, the universal moral consensus, as victim culture, I feel your invocation of it here is somewhat disingenuous.

  • RussRuss Shipmate
    And if I do need to persuade other citizens not to throw me onto the fire, I do need to marshal a cogent argument.

    Sure. The question is - when you quote every religious and philosophical code you can find to demonstrate that Nazism is objectively morally wrong and not merely personally distasteful, do you actually believe that you are saying something meaningful and true ?

    Or are you basically lying through your teeth ? Just making self-interested noises in the hope of persuading the suckers ?

    Only to deny, once Hitler is safely confined to the dustbin of history, that there is any such thing as objective morality that could conceivably constrain you in pursuit of your political goals ?



  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Russ: Only to deny, once Hitler is safely confined to the dustbin of history, that there is any such thing as objective morality that could conceivably constrain you in pursuit of your political goals ?

    Russ, I may well believe in principle in an objective morality, and like Moses have had it communicated to me by God, or to have employed my secular reason to identify universal human rights. The political problem is that there are those who deny the existence of God, those who regard universal human rights as nonsense of stilts, and others who reject the notion of an objective morality. The role of politics in an open society is to devise a way in which a polity can successfully operate where there is a wide diversity of values and differences if opinion as to what constitutes morality. You can't, therefore, start or end with an agreed morality, but rather with an agreed constitutional order in which to manage difference. The constraint you are searching for lies in the general agreement to that process and the means of enforcing it.
  • Russ wrote: »
    And if I do need to persuade other citizens not to throw me onto the fire, I do need to marshal a cogent argument.

    Sure. The question is - when you quote every religious and philosophical code you can find to demonstrate that Nazism is objectively morally wrong and not merely personally distasteful, do you actually believe that you are saying something meaningful and true ?

    Or are you basically lying through your teeth ? Just making self-interested noises in the hope of persuading the suckers ?

    Only to deny, once Hitler is safely confined to the dustbin of history, that there is any such thing as objective morality that could conceivably constrain you in pursuit of your political goals ?

    Again with the false dilemma. If I appeal to something that my interlocutor believes to be true that I personally don't, that's not lying. That's an argument. You may have heard of them.

    And no, there's no such thing as objective morality, as has been demonstrated, repeatedly, by history. Morality is always a collective community decision, whether or not we understand that the moral framework comes from religion, philosophy, ethics, or whatever. While an antithetical morality can be imposed from the top, it still needs community enforcers (Nazism, Maoism) who believe they have something to gain from it.
  • Russ, there being no such thing as objective morality is not equivalent to morality not existing at all.
  • TurquoiseTasticTurquoiseTastic Shipmate
    edited October 2020
    Doc Tor wrote: »

    And no, there's no such thing as objective morality, as has been demonstrated, repeatedly, by history. Morality is always a collective community decision, whether or not we understand that the moral framework comes from religion, philosophy, ethics, or whatever. While an antithetical morality can be imposed from the top, it still needs community enforcers (Nazism, Maoism) who believe they have something to gain from it.
    How can history demonstrate the absence of objective morality? What history demonstrates is that humanity fails to obey objective morality!

    And what does "antithetical" mean in this case? I would replace with the word "incorrect".
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    edited October 2020
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    And no, there's no such thing as objective morality, as has been demonstrated, repeatedly, by history.
    But there's no such thing as objective history!
    Except that there is: past events happened or didn't happened regardless of whether there is any record of them or what we think about them. But our accounts of those past events are more or less slanted by the perspectives we have on them. The problem is that 'history' is ambiguous between the sequence of events in themselves and the set of narratives that historians use to retell those events, and the word 'objective' means something crucially different depending on which side of the line between the events and the narratives about the events you place it.

    It's the same with the word morality. It can mean what is or is not right or wrong, or it can mean our judgements about what is or is not right or wrong, or it can mean received or common opinion on those matters.
    When people talk about objective morality, there are two things that they tend to mean and they tend to confuse them. One meaning is what is or is not right or wrong regardless of what people think about it: that would be the claim that whether it is right or wrong to give or not give children free school meals is independent of Johnson's opinion on the matter or anybody else's. The direction of fit is opinion to fact of the matter. The other meaning is unbiased and perspectiveless, and therefore accurate and unarguable judgement about right or wrong. I assume that is your primary meaning: when you're denying the existence of objective morality I take it that you are in fact claiming correctly that no moral arguments are resolved beyond the possibility of meaningful disagreement.
    (Russ seems to me to be ostensibly talking about the first, but exploiting the ambiguity to surreptitiously slip in the second meaning.)
    The second meaning is for practical purposes the opposite of the first meaning. The first meaning implies that our judgements could potentially be wrong or mistaken, and counsels humility; the second means that our judgements are not mistaken. The first means that we need to assess argument and evidence; the second means that no further argument and evidence are needed.

    Given that the two meanings are so distinct for practical purposes it does seem to me that the word 'objective' should be retired from argument if at all possible: it does nothing except muddy the waters.

  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    edited October 2020
    Russ wrote: »
    Only to deny, once Hitler is safely confined to the dustbin of history, that there is any such thing as objective morality that could conceivably constrain you in pursuit of your political goals ?
    Do you think there is any objective morality that could constrain your political goals?
    You talk a good game about objective morality in the abstract. But every time there's been a potential conflict between a moral principle and your political goals you've adopted a revisionist view of morality to suit.
  • Doc Tor wrote: »

    And no, there's no such thing as objective morality, as has been demonstrated, repeatedly, by history. Morality is always a collective community decision, whether or not we understand that the moral framework comes from religion, philosophy, ethics, or whatever. While an antithetical morality can be imposed from the top, it still needs community enforcers (Nazism, Maoism) who believe they have something to gain from it.
    How can history demonstrate the absence of objective morality? What history demonstrates is that humanity fails to obey objective morality!

    And what does "antithetical" mean in this case? I would replace with the word "incorrect".

    So when future generations (if there are any) look back on our follies, you don't think there's even a slim chance that they'll consider our ethical framework, our priorities in life, and our behaviour towards others, as anything but sketchy, if not downright immoral? Because that's exactly what every single generational remove does.

    The Romans used to 'expose' their unwanted children on rubbish heaps. The Baal worshippers sacrificed them to their god. The British sent them up chimneys and down mines. All things that were moral at the time. I could go on and on and on. The chances that you, or me, somehow know morality is delusional at best and dangerous at worst.
  • Dafyd wrote: »
    Given that the two meanings are so distinct for practical purposes it does seem to me that the word 'objective' should be retired from argument if at all possible: it does nothing except muddy the waters.

    I concur, and will desist forthwith.
  • Doc Tor wrote: »
    Doc Tor wrote: »

    And no, there's no such thing as objective morality, as has been demonstrated, repeatedly, by history. Morality is always a collective community decision, whether or not we understand that the moral framework comes from religion, philosophy, ethics, or whatever. While an antithetical morality can be imposed from the top, it still needs community enforcers (Nazism, Maoism) who believe they have something to gain from it.
    How can history demonstrate the absence of objective morality? What history demonstrates is that humanity fails to obey objective morality!

    And what does "antithetical" mean in this case? I would replace with the word "incorrect".

    So when future generations (if there are any) look back on our follies, you don't think there's even a slim chance that they'll consider our ethical framework, our priorities in life, and our behaviour towards others, as anything but sketchy, if not downright immoral? Because that's exactly what every single generational remove does.

    The Romans used to 'expose' their unwanted children on rubbish heaps. The Baal worshippers sacrificed them to their god. The British sent them up chimneys and down mines. All things that were moral at the time. I could go on and on and on. The chances that you, or me, somehow know morality is delusional at best and dangerous at worst.

    They are all things that were considered moral at the time but which were in fact immoral. Individual Romans, Baal worshippers and Britons have much reduced moral culpability since their society steered them wrong. Nevertheless, wrong it was.

    Of course we have vast moral blindness ourselves and are mistaken about many things, for which future (or past) generations might correctly lambast us and our society. Maybe we are worse overall than they were. (I like to hope not, though perhaps that's wishful thinking). This does not mean that we should abandon all efforts to determine what is in fact right or wrong. Otherwise we are very likely to become worse and worse.
  • They are all things that were considered moral at the time but which were in fact immoral.

    How do you know? Maybe it's the other way around and they were in fact moral even though they are now considered immoral?
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    Dafyd wrote: »
    The first meaning implies that our judgements could potentially be wrong or mistaken, and counsels humility; the second means that our judgements are not mistaken. The first means that we need to assess argument and evidence; the second means that no further argument and evidence are needed.

    Given that the two meanings are so distinct for practical purposes it does seem to me that the word 'objective' should be retired from argument if at all possible: it does nothing except muddy the waters.

    Open to suggestions for a terminology that clarifies and illuminates.

    But I don't see two different meanings. Rather that if you answer yes to the first question that there is morality that is objective (in the sense of above culture, being neither personal = subjective nor cultural = inter-subjective), then the second question is how unknowable you think that morality is.

    If it is hard to know (perhaps in the sense of easy to mistake) then that is an argument for humility and looking for argument and evidence. Which are unneeded if right is easily known.
    Dafyd wrote: »
    Given that you dismiss the Tao, the universal moral consensus, as victim culture, I feel your invocation of it here is somewhat disingenuous.

    It is not the Tao that I dismiss as victim culture. What I suggest you find in the Tao is the idea that morality is double-edged. That it binds you just as much as it binds your opponents.

    Whereas victim culture is the opposite. It's a form of the exceptionalism that says that we may do this because we're the Good Guys, but it's wrong when the Bad Guys do it.


  • I think it is to do with seeing children as actual people with value in themselves rather than as potential future people with value only as adjuncts to others (and who could therefore be acceptably "sacrificed" for the economic or cultural benefit of others).
  • Dave WDave W Shipmate
    I think it is to do with seeing children as actual people with value in themselves rather than as potential future people with value only as adjuncts to others (and who could therefore be acceptably "sacrificed" for the economic or cultural benefit of others).
    Sure, but everybody thinks their feelings and opinions are in perfect alignment with the natural moral fabric of the universe.
  • Yes, we all think that, but sometimes we have the experience of realising that we were wrong. Sometimes another person points this out to us, sometimes we come to it through our own reflections. How does this happen?
  • They are all things that were considered moral at the time but which were in fact immoral.

    If you can prove that, you'll be the greatest moral philosopher of our, or indeed any, age.

    I'm guessing that you won't be able to - no sleight intended, because that question has defeated far better minds than are present here, myself included.
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    edited October 2020
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    Given that the two meanings are so distinct for practical purposes it does seem to me that the word 'objective' should be retired from argument if at all possible: it does nothing except muddy the waters.

    I concur, and will desist forthwith.
    I'm not saying that the two meanings shouldn't be disambiguated. My objection is that the word 'objective' sends a misleading signal that the work of disambiguating the meanings has been done when in fact it hasn't.

  • 'Objective' is doing far too much of the heavy lifting that we ought to be doing ourselves.
  • Doc Tor wrote: »
    They are all things that were considered moral at the time but which were in fact immoral.

    If you can prove that, you'll be the greatest moral philosopher of our, or indeed any, age.

    I'm guessing that you won't be able to - no sleight intended, because that question has defeated far better minds than are present here, myself included.

    You are of course right that philosophy has great difficulty proving anything beyond "I think therefore I am". A lot of philosophers are rather dubious even about that. But you can't really live like that I'd argue. Some faith and "best stab at what's best" has to be exercised.
  • But as @Dafyd has cogently argued, the use of "objective" as a descriptor implies a settled system of morality for all of humanity for all time, against which we can judge all actions.

    We can argue that there is - but the mere fact that we will disagree with what it is gives lie to the "objective" nature of it. The UN Declaration of Human Rights is great, but there are many, specifically cultural, interpretations of it. Some argue that it goes too far. Some argue that it doesn't go far enough. And so on.

    I'd suggest it's hubris for anyone to say they have an objective morality.
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    But as Dafyd has cogently argued, the use of "objective" as a descriptor implies a settled system of morality for all of humanity for all time, against which we can judge all actions.
    What I was arguing is that some people use it to mean that, mostly the same people think a second group of people are implying that when the second group aren't, and a third group are pretending not to imply that when they are. Personally the way I naturally use the term puts me in the second group but I accept that with the first and third groups about it leads to people talking past each other.

  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    The Romans used to 'expose' their unwanted children on rubbish heaps. The Baal worshippers sacrificed them to their god. The British sent them up chimneys and down mines. All things that were moral at the time. I could go on and on and on. The chances that you, or me, somehow know morality is delusional at best and dangerous at worst.
    Nevertheless I think one can argue that the change from sending children down mines to not sending children down mines occurred by processes that in other contexts tend to increase knowledge of the subject concerned, and any imaginable change back would involve processes that obscure knowledge.
    It is quite possible that our society could go back to a general belief that the global average temperature is not rising dangerously or even that tobacco does not cause cancer, but one would explain that in terms of financial interests managing to use money to shut down points of view they find inconvenient. Any change back to sending children down mines would occur by the same sort of mechanism.

    It is important to call out people who are appealing to the words 'objective morality' as a talisman when their arguments are actually fallacious, just as we should call out politicians who say that they're guided by the science when they are guided by those parts of the scientific debate that confirm what they were going to do anyway. But that doesn't mean that we should throw out the baby of rational debate along with the bathwater of undue certainty.

  • RussRuss Shipmate
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    We can argue that there is - but the mere fact that we will disagree with what it is gives lie to the "objective" nature of it.
    As stated, that seems obviously false - the fact that people disagree about something does not imply that none of them are right.
    I'd suggest it's hubris for anyone to say they have an objective morality.
    I'd say the opposite - it is hubris for me to seek to impose on you any idea that is no more than my own personal opinion.
    Or is no more than the way we do things in my (sub)culture.

    The only justification I have for over-riding your lack of consent to anything is some objective truth.

  • Doc Tor wrote: »
    But as @Dafyd has cogently argued, the use of "objective" as a descriptor implies a settled system of morality for all of humanity for all time, against which we can judge all actions.

    We can argue that there is - but the mere fact that we will disagree with what it is gives lie to the "objective" nature of it. The UN Declaration of Human Rights is great, but there are many, specifically cultural, interpretations of it. Some argue that it goes too far. Some argue that it doesn't go far enough. And so on.

    I'd suggest it's hubris for anyone to say they have an objective morality.

    It's hubris for anyone to say that they themselves can always perfectly identify what is right or wrong. It's not hubris for them to say that right and wrong exist.

    Certainly we will disagree in places with any particular code. This does not "give the lie" to the idea of an "ideal" morality. Rather it reinforces it. We disagree with the code because we think it incorrect in places, different from how it ought to be, different (as far as we can imperfectly tell) from the perfect ideal. Otherwise why not accept said code as "as 'good' as any other?"
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    edited October 2020
    Russ wrote: »
    If it is hard to know (perhaps in the sense of easy to mistake) then that is an argument for humility and looking for argument and evidence. Which are unneeded if right is easily known.
    The facts of moral debate and moral progress establish a prima facie presumption that right and wrong are not easily known.
    You can of course argue that everyone with whom you disagree is arguing in bad faith and that only people who agree with you are honest, but that just invites the obvious retort.
    Russ wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    Given that you dismiss the Tao, the universal moral consensus, as victim culture, I feel your invocation of it here is somewhat disingenuous.

    It is not the Tao that I dismiss as victim culture. What I suggest you find in the Tao is the idea that morality is double-edged. That it binds you just as much as it binds your opponents.

    Whereas victim culture is the opposite. It's a form of the exceptionalism that says that we may do this because we're the Good Guys, but it's wrong when the Bad Guys do it.
    Well, that's a bit of mud you haven't flung before.

    To the extent that it's a temptation to which every ethical and moral group is prone I'm sure nobody is immune. (For example, you say that religious and cultural minorities putting their religion or culture or their opinion of objective morality above being a good citizen is a threat, but you seem to think that cultural majorities putting their culture or their opinion of objective morality above their duties to their fellow citizens is rather laudable.)
    The mud you had previously tried to fling was to claim that such prescriptions of the Tao as that only level playing fields are fair, and that those who are specially vulnerable require special protection (thus, the rulers shall look after the needs of the orphans and the widows, you shall allow women and children to go first), are equivalent to gross favouritism.

    Fixed quoting code. BroJames, Purgatory Host
  • Russ wrote: »
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    We can argue that there is - but the mere fact that we will disagree with what it is gives lie to the "objective" nature of it.
    As stated, that seems obviously false - the fact that people disagree about something does not imply that none of them are right.
    That's not how moral philosophy works. It might be that one of them is right. The argument then ensues as to which one of them. And so on. If you have the killer proof, then the world awaits your wisdom.
    I'd suggest it's hubris for anyone to say they have an objective morality.
    I'd say the opposite - it is hubris for me to seek to impose on you any idea that is no more than my own personal opinion. Or is no more than the way we do things in my (sub)culture.

    The only justification I have for over-riding your lack of consent to anything is some objective truth.

    Again, not how it works. You want to send children up chimneys. I don't. I argue my case in public, convince enough people to agree with me, get the prohibition made law, and there's my justification. It doesn't necessarily make it right - you can carry on sending children up chimneys if you want, but there's now an enforceable law against it. It all depends on how deeply wedded you are to sending children up chimneys.
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    Russ wrote: »
    The only justification I have for over-riding your lack of consent to anything is some objective truth.

    Again, not how it works. You want to send children up chimneys. I don't. I argue my case in public, convince enough people to agree with me, get the prohibition made law, and there's my justification. It doesn't necessarily make it right - you can carry on sending children up chimneys if you want, but there's now an enforceable law against it.

    As a description of political process, that seems quite correct.

    And you rightly make the distinction between legal justification (having a basis in law) and what is (morally) right.

    Having persuaded your neighbours into making such a law, you are also legally within your rights to call in the police if you suspect that one of your neighbours is illegally employing children for this task. Which is the next step in the process.

    The question at issue is whether the sort of behaviour - using the political and legal process to impose your view on your neighbour who disagrees with you - can ever be meaningfully and correctly described as morally right or morally wrong.

    Can we meaningfully say that such a law is a good law or a bad law ? Is such an utterance no more than a statement of personal feeling on the matter ?

    Or do you think that your view (that this particular law is a good law) is based on reasons that ought to be compelling to another person?

  • Russ wrote: »
    The question at issue is whether the sort of behaviour - using the political and legal process to impose your view on your neighbour who disagrees with you - can ever be meaningfully and correctly described as morally right or morally wrong.

    You realise that you're asking whether having democratically-agreed laws that apply to everyone is morally legitimate, right?
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Russ: The question at issue is whether the sort of behaviour - using the political and legal process to impose your view on your neighbour who disagrees with you - can ever be meaningfully and correctly described as morally right or morally wrong.

    Russ, ISTM that in a reasonably functioning democracy, at least, a citizen has a moral duty to obey the law and accept the consequences of not doing so. In all sorts of spheres governments have to decide on a course of action, the resolution of which may be disputed on conflicting moral grounds. My neighbour and I might have a principled disagreement over the Poll Tax. At the end of the day a decision will be taken for or against, which will please one of us and annoy the other. Both of us, however, will be coerced (willingly or unwillingly) to obey the resulting law. It is not me or my neighbour doing the coercion, it is the state. Only in a state of nature, real or imagined, does an individual attempt to coerce neighbours.
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    You realise that you're asking whether having democratically-agreed laws that apply to everyone is morally legitimate, right?

    The domain of morality is choices.

    I'm not talking about a choice between having or not having a functioning state that can make and enforce laws. Or the choice between a democratic or a non-democratic state. I suspect we'd all make the same choices there.

    I'm talking about - within the context of an at-least-partly democratic state - whether the choice to have or to not have any particular law is something that can be morally wrong.

    Clearly I think it can, and point to the cliched example of a law that mandates that all Jews be rounded up and shipped off to death camps.

    Is that morally legitimate if a democratic-enough government does it ?

    And if you agree with me that it isn't, then how can you then say that any law is exempt from morality ?
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Russ: I'm talking about - within the context of an at-least-partly democratic state - whether the choice to have or to not have any particular law is something that can be morally wrong........

    And if you agree with me that it isn't, then how can you then say that any law is exempt from morality ?

    One cannot but agree that democratic states frequently make decisions which are morally questionable. So what? Where do you propose, Russ, we should go from there?
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    If you believe that the laws of your democratic state are immoral then you have to convince everyone else to agree with you by lawful or nonviolent unlawful means, (or maybe violent means as a last resort if the cure isn't worse than the disease *).
    What is disingenuous is to pretend that what you are doing is not political but that what the people who disagree with you are doing is. That's rightly condemned by Russ - when other people do it - as the form of exceptionalism that says that because we're the Good Guys we're moral and when our opponents do it they're the Bad/ political Guys.

    * I'd use an analogy with just war theory.
  • Russ wrote: »
    I'm talking about - within the context of an at-least-partly democratic state - whether the choice to have or to not have any particular law is something that can be morally wrong.

    Clearly I think it can, and point to the cliched example of a law that mandates that all Jews be rounded up and shipped off to death camps.

    Again, because apparently you're confused - Germany had ceased to be a democratic state long before this law was enacted.

    If you want an actual example, how about the time when women broke into an airfield and set about a Hawk jet with hammers? The export of the jet was clearly legal, and the women's actions clearly illegal, and yet...
  • @Russ I think you are conflating what is actually moral with what the state deems to be legal. Of course a democracy cannot create morality, but it may well under normal circumstances be the best way of agreeing what ought to be legal. Acknowledging its right to do the latter is not the same as conceding that it can do the former.

    And one aspect of true morality, I would argue, is allowing the state to exercise its prerogatives in the appropriate realm.
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    Kwesi wrote: »
    So what? Where do you propose, Russ, we should go from there?

    If we agree that some laws are morally wrong (regardless of the democratic credentials of the government that enacts them), then it makes sense to ask which laws are morally wrong.

    If you hold a view of morality in which consent justifies all (i.e. that any assault on another's person or property or reputation is legitimate if they consent thereto) then the only wrong is coercion - imposing on others.

    Not sure whether I 100% believe that, but I'm putting it there as a premise.

    Not saying that all coercion is therefore wrong. That would be to mistake a necessary condition for a sufficient one.

    But it seems that states can and do coerce, and this is wrong if there is no clear moral justification for that coercion.

    That the law in question is made democratically is not a moral justification. Although it may be an indication that no minority is coercing the majority.

    If you hold a utilitarian view of morality, then the wrong involved in the coercion can be outweighed by the good consequences in order to justify the law.

    If you believe in a social contract then everyone has consented to be coerced by due process. But I argue that such consent has limits. Otherwise you're back to justifying the Holocaust.

    So maybe the next question is what those limits are ?


  • That would be a good next question. I'd assume the "social contract" view to be mainstream, with the UK/US model springing essentially from Locke's ideas. In this view the social contract exists to preserve "life, liberty and property"; when the state doesn't do this, it has become tyrannical and may/must be justly overthrown. Of course you then have the problem of what constitutes "liberty".

    However I think you are also discounting a more ancient view, outlined in Romans 13, which is that the "powers that be" derive their authority from God and that we owe them obedience for that reason. Again note that these are not Christian authorities but Roman ones. But your question "what are the limits of this?" would still apply.
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Russ: If you believe in a social contract then everyone has consented to be coerced by due process. But I argue that such consent has limits. Otherwise you're back to justifying the Holocaust.
    Russ, it's still not clear to me what you think should happen if a citizen or group of citizens object to a piece of legislation on the grounds it's immoral. What would it be morally legitimate for him/her, or incumbent on them, to do? You don't address the question at all. If you don't what is the point of your argument?

    The problem is posed by Locke. In his view the argument for quitting a state of nature is that a government is more likely to guarantee the natural rights enjoyed in a state of nature. Furthermore, he regarded that not to guarantee or transgress those rights would constitute a breach of the political contract and justify non-compliance to the point of rebellion. That, ISTM, you are arguing for but are not prepared to state it. The problem, of course, as this series of posts keep putting to you, is that there are disagreements over what constitutes an immoral law, except, perhaps, in obviously exceptional circumstances such as genocide. Indeeds, the whole point of political society is to prevent conflicts, often involving moral disagreements, from leading to violence.
  • Russ wrote: »
    If you believe in a social contract then everyone has consented to be coerced by due process. But I argue that such consent has limits. Otherwise you're back to justifying the Holocaust.

    And now for the third time. The Holocaust wasn't agreed to by a people or a parliament, nor was it carried out by a democratically elected regime. Please stop using the Holocaust as your example. It's offensive to people like me who would have ended up in the gas chambers. (Obviously, it should be offensive to all people, but specifically, me.)

    Better examples have been given by others and me - Poll Tax, criminal damage to war planes - so use them instead.
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