Thread: What is morality? It's not about being inoffensive to everybody.

Huh?

Wasn't I just putting an exclamation point on something you had just said (aka agreeing with you)? I would say that cautionary against the dictators and tyrants who use twisted interpretations of religions and philosophies to justify their own evil actions pretty much nails it, so I'm still just rephrasing something you just said; I'm not sure where your reaction came from.

And no, I'm certainly not saying that "... nobody should question the obvious truths of slave morality, or they'll become evil mass murderers." I don't even know how you came up with that, especially because I've never subscribed to "obvious truths of slave morality" in the first place -- I'm not even sure what that means -- and also because Hitler's actions were a cautionary tale of the extreme, not the result of anyone simply questioning a concept. That seemed pretty clear to me at the time, and it still does.

Why are you so angry, Darkmatters? Not at me, but just in general? If you're not, you're doing a great job making yourself appear so.

I'm not angry, I'm trying to get people to actually open up and TALK a little, rather than make little sound-byte statements that could mean just about anything. I really didn't understand what you meant - it honestly sounded like you were saying Hitler is an example of what happens when people either start asking questions about morality or follow Nietzsche. Just wanted to get you to clarify. And actually, that could be true - not knowing much about Nietzsche's ideas it could be that his line of reasoning leads inevitably toward totalitarianism or maybe anarchy. But then in this thread I'm not talking about his Ubermenschen ideas (not sure if they're the only possible result of examining the differences between master and slave morality?).

I just ran across this, which I think fits here nicely, as a critique of modern liberal thinking and its failures in moral terms:



I used to consider myself a liberal, but seeing what the Obama administration is doing to America has made me really question liberal ideals, at least as they exist today. Now I see liberalism as a brainwashing ideology that strives to make right seem wrong and wrong right, to destroy the family, marriage, and institutions and replace them all with the state. And now I'm repulsed by it. I suppose this thread is a reflection of my beginning to swing from liberalism and trying to find something to swing toward.

To follow up on something I said earlier - both democrats and Christians (many of whom are conservatives) seem to come down on the slave morality side of things in some respects, but when I think about it I see that conservative Christians generally don't advocate being meek and submissive in the way Jesus advocated, they do profess their belief, but for many of them it's mostly for social recognition and just general morality rather than strict religious adherence to submissive attitudes. I think conservatives balance the slave morality with the idea of self reliance and competition (as opposed to the liberal idea that everybody is a winner and competition only hurts some people's precious feelings). So of the 2 I'm seeing modern liberalism as an appeal to stop thinking for ourselves and to let the state make our decisions for us and protect us (rather than protecting ourselves).

I can relate Darkmatters. I've been moving in that direction since about 2006. I can't remember what it was that made me initially question neo-liberalism, but the Obama campaign of Hope and Change cemented a strong skepticism into my mind.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

I didn't kid myself that the thread would actually go anywhere or get any good responses, I just wanted to present the ideas. It's just to get people thinking. Why do people assume I have the answers?

I think this thread could be really really badass. I've been wanting to post in it since I first saw it. I'm just too lazy to contribute anything substantial right now. I'll be back at some point.

Yeah, today's neolibs and neocons bear little resemblance to what their ideals originally stood for - they're almost the same entity politically now, at least in their policies. The more politically aware I become the more depressing things look.

But I do look forward to hearing from you on this thread StonedApe. I suspect your views are similar to mine but more advanced.

I don't know why I never connected this before, but I do know of an alternative to the master/slave morality false dichotomy. It's the Way of the Warrior. I'm familiar with it only through Castaneda, but it isn't his invention, it's an ancient way of life practiced by various American Indians, and is also extremely similar to other warrior codes in the east. I don't know which ones exactly - probably in some ways similar to the Samurai code, but of course Samurai were slaves.

What made me realize it's an alternative is this - a core part of the Way is that a warrior is a free individual who values his freedom, who treats no-one as a slave and refuses to be treated as one. An important distinction that many people might need clarified - a warrior is not a soldier - because soldiers are slaves whose labor is killing at risk of being killed themselves - their lives are valueless beyond being strategic pieces to be positioned and used by their masters.

Very intriguing. I wonder if this is similar to where Nietzsche was going with his philosophy of morality? I'll bet it's very close.

Very interesting thread - I put my answers on special points in one selected post of yours in capital letters only because I was to lazy for taking it apart and multi-quote - sorry for that - not meant in a shouting-way.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

...
Yeah, seems right. How does one escape morality without being either immoral or amoral? By definition if you do something that is not moral, it must be either immoral or amoral, right?

RIGHT - THE WAY TO BE ACCORDING TO NIETZSCHE IS INDEED IMMORAL - THIS HAS NO NEGATIVE CONNOTATIONS WITH HIM.


Master morality includes the idea of acting in a noble manner, so it means they need to just be trusted to be acting in the interests of their charges.
I know Nietzsche didn't believe in master morality any more than in slave morality, but what was he working toward with these books? Was it the Ubermenschen?

THE ONE THAT ONLY GOES BY HIS NATURE AND THE INSTINCT TO LIFE.


That's something I know very little about.

READ TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS


I know Hitler used Nietzsche's writings as some twisted justification, but that was supposedly a monstrous misrepresentation of them.*Or was it? Maybe the Third Reich is a demonstration of where his type of thinking will ultimately lead?

NO - MISINTERPRETATION:

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

As his caretaker, his sister assumed the roles of curator and editor of Nietzsche's manuscripts. Förster-Nietzsche was married to a prominent German nationalist and antisemite, Bernhard Förster, and reworked Nietzsche's unpublished writings to fit her husband's ideology, often in ways contrary to Nietzsche's stated opinions, which were strongly and explicitly opposed to antisemitism and nationalism (see Nietzsche's criticism of antisemitism and nationalism). Through Förster-Nietzsche's editions, Nietzsche's name became associated with German militarism and Nazism, although later twentieth-century scholars have attempted to counteract this misconception of his ideas.

At any rate, I'm just grateful that his writings on master and slave morality give us a starting point to begin to diverge from simple naive "be nice to everybody" ideas about morality.

RIGHT - VERY GOOD STARTING POINT

If you want to read about what Nietzsche has got to say on morality in a more explicit way - once more - to the book to read is "Twilight of the Idols".
Free to get as open source pdf.

It might come as a surprise but Nietzsche thinks to be immoral - completely free of morality - is the ideal.

He also denies free will and states that our whole concept of cause and effect is fundamentally flawed.

In this he is incredibly modern - I can recommend to read Wolf Singer on research that exactly goes in this direction.

Interestingly - Nietzsche brings an argument based on dreams into it:

Error of imaginary causes.

From assumed [begin, auszugehn] dream:

a particular sensation, for example as a result of a distant cannon shot that is
subsequently foisted a cause (often a whole little novel in which the dreamer is just
the main character).

The sensation endures meanwhile in a kind of resonance:
it waits to speak until the cause drive allows one to come to the fore, - now no more
than coincidence, but as a "sense".

The cannon shot appears in a causal manner, in an apparent reversal of time.

The later, the motiving is first seen, often with a hundred details, pass by like the flash, the shot follows... What happened?

The ideas that a certain condition produced have been misinterpreted as the cause of it.
In fact, we do it at the guards as well. Our most general feelings - any inhibition, pressure, tension, explosion in the play and counter-play of the organs, as in its particularity, the state of the sympathetic nerve - arouse our cause engine:
we want a reason, are to us so and so, - we from badly or there are good too.

There never is enough for us, just the mere fact that we are so and so, determine: we leave this fact at first - be aware of them - if we have given it a kind motivating -
The memory that occurs in such a case, without our knowledge into action leads up earlier states of the same type and the overgrown causal interpretations - not their causation.
The belief, however, that were the ideas that accompany the processes of consciousness-causes is brought up by the memory also.
This creates a familiarity with a particular interpretation of causes, which in fact inhibits research (into the causes and excludes itself.

Wow, thank you for a very informative contribution!! One point I'm not really clear on - are you sure he advocated immorality, or was it amorality? Immoral means to go ahead and do things that you believe are morally wrong, making you evil -- while amoral means you believe yourself above matters of morality altogether.

Glad to hear confirmation that his writings were misconstrued badly in the name of Nazi nationalism - that's what I thought had happened but wasn't sure. And I'll definitely check out Twilight of the Idols.

Oh - you are right - I got this the wrong way round - not immoral - amoral was what I meant - thinking oneself being above matters of morality altogether.
That´s my English - thanks for correcting!

I do not steal not from fear of God or Karma or getting caught, but because as a traveler people already see me as a thief before I've done anything to earn the prejudice. If I stole, I'd justify the way people treat me and I don't want to deserve the rudeness I often receive. So I don't steal.

This can, more or less, be extended to all aspects of ethics for me. Ethics is about acting as if you already lived in the world you want to live in. For in truth, we only control our actions, and we cannot allow the actions of others to justify malignant behavior.

Ethics, to me, influenced my decision to hit the road and boycott Babylon. A boycott only evolves into a political movement to starve out corrupt practices. At heart, it is a realization that one cannot race to the bottom even if it inhibits their success. So for example, if you control a company in an industry infamous for unethical practices you can choose to compete on the same level as your competitors or risk bankruptcy in pursuit of a better standard.

And this leads to the very heart of evolutionary ethics, which is to see the forest from the trees and keep your head in the big picture. Imminently, it often appears as though the ends justify the means and one must do what's necessary for survival. From a wider perspective, one realizes that the survival of good ideas outweighs in significance the survival of institutions, and keeping in mind that it is good ideas which prevail and progress society forward while myopic survival tactics splash impotently against the rise and fall of systems and institutions through time, one could aptly qualify ethics as the realization that someday you'll die and everything you've gained will be lost. But something will live on in your stead. Your name will die, losing its attachment to the ripples of your efforts. But these ripples will continue to influence and shape the world long afterwards.

I'm not angry, I'm trying to get people to actually open up and TALK a little, rather than make little sound-byte statements that could mean just about anything.

Morality is just a word used to define how far a person will/won't go to discover their own true nature. I can look at a murderer and tell myself this is something I wouldn't do because morality. Still someone else can look at the same murderer and tell themselves this is something they would do because their understanding of morality is different than mine. Morality means absolutely nothing, except to the person exercising it.

Thus morality has no meaning outside of what the individual assigns it, so the irony of your distaste in little sound-byte statements that could mean just about anything makes me grin, when in fact that's all anyone can contribute to morality without imposing their will onto another.

Woops, I have wasted my entire life reading all of these pointless and meaningless books. I forgot that I know everything already. Better give up now Darkmatters; senseless banter is the only thread that makes any sense.

Really, being specific rather than vague equates with imposing your will onto others?

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Really, being specific rather than vague equates with imposing your will onto others?

When it's something as subjective as morality, yes. That is the topic of discussion.

OP - essentially your response boils down to "be moral". That's not really what's at issue in this thread - it's more about "what does it mean to be moral?" - I believe I already presented this earlier, but an example would be "what constitutes moral behavior when raising children?" An overly simplistic person might think it means never hurting their feelings, and yet we already know that approach results in spoiled brats who aren't well equipped to make it as adults, and that a good parent must at times discipline the children, which in the short run hurts their feelings.

It's clear the contemporary world has become overrun with simplistic moral ideas like something from an After School Special resulting in a culture of victimhood - more and more legislation is being passed now that depends entirely on the subjective feelings of the 'victim' - "What he said made me feel bad, so lock him up".

It's troubling to me that the majority of people on the Moral Questions thread jumped on the "if you take no action then you can't be held accountable" bandwagon, when it's always been known (at least until recently) that failure to take the correct action amounts to the same thing as taking wrong action.

Are robots more moral than people? --

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Originally Posted by Rums03

When it's something as subjective as morality, yes.

So, are you saying you believe no-one has ever done anything wrong or can do anything wrong because moral relativity?

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

So, are you saying you believe no-one has ever done anything wrong or can do anything wrong because moral relativity?

I think plenty is wrong of other people, but if they can't see the wrong within themselves then my opinion is irrelevant. It's when I try to correct them that my will has been imposed, regardless if they learn from it or not because I'm clearly 'wrong' in the eyes of another.

It's when you argue the specifics that morality falls apart, this is why I find it funny you'd rather take it there than draw from the vagueness of other people's opinion, where you can build upon and hopefully strengthen your own moral code. Morality belongs in philosophy, not in ethics imo.

You misunderstand what happened above. I wasn't trying to correct Sageous on his moral stance, in fact I couldn't tell what his moral stance WAS. I was asking him to clarify a vague statement he had made, which could have meant just about anything.

So your view boils down to:

First rule of morality - you do not talk about morality

second rule of morality - you do not talk about morality

(Is this right?)

If you believe its useless or worse to discuss morality, how then should we deal with misbehaving kids (or adults for that matter)? Just punish them with no explanation of what they did wrong? Let everybody do whatever they want? Or is there some other alternative?

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

You misunderstand what happened above. I wasn't trying to correct Sageous on his moral stance, in fact I couldn't tell what his moral stance WAS. I was asking him to clarify a vague statement he had made, which could have meant just about anything.

Ah, sorry about that.

So your view boils down to:

First rule of morality - you do not talk about morality

second rule of morality - you do not talk about morality

(Is this right?)

No, that's not right. You and I can talk about morality all we want to as long as neither one of us tells the other, "you're wrong, and here's why". That's why I said it belongs in philosophy.

If you believe its useless or worse to discuss morality, how then should we deal with misbehaving kids (or adults for that matter)? Just punish them with no explanation of what they did wrong? Let everybody do whatever they want? Or is there some other alternative?

Clearly I don't:

• You and I can talk about morality all we want to as long as neither one of us tells the other..
• draw from the vagueness of other people's opinion, where you can build upon and hopefully strengthen your own moral code

Like I said, I misunderstood you to begin with.

Looks like I misunderstood you as well - so we're good then as far as I'm concerned.

Oh, I also wanted to say - I did download Twilight of the Idols, and I don't know if I got a bad translation or maybe I'm just not smart enough to understand Nietzsche's writing, but it made basically no sense to me. Each sentence was very long and convoluted, leaving me unsure what he was trying to say exactly, then followed by several more equally confusing sentences. I only made it partway through and had to give up. Beyond Good and Evil wasn't like that - so I'm guessing a better translation might solve the problem. (Or maybe Beyond Good and Evil was simplified in translation so morons at my level can understand it?)

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Looks like I misunderstood you as well - so we're good then as far as I'm concerned.

Oh, I also wanted to say - I did download Twilight of the Idols, and I don't know if I got a bad translation or maybe I'm just not smart enough to understand Nietzsche's writing, but it made basically no sense to me. Each sentence was very long and convoluted, leaving me unsure what he was trying to say exactly, then followed by several more equally confusing sentences. I only made it partway through and had to give up. Beyond Good and Evil wasn't like that - so I'm guessing a better translation might solve the problem. (Or maybe Beyond Good and Evil was simplified in translation so morons at my level can understand it?)

I know what you mean - in German it is perfectly readable.
But once I started trying to find something English, to copy-paste - I only came across horrible English syntax.
German allows for a lot of side-sentences without getting as confusing as it gets in English.
I was close to translating some of it myself - but I would have taken sentences apart and slightly changed things like that - and would have said so.
In the hope, to really only unravel syntax - without changing it semantically - the meaning maybe hidden directly in front of my eyes in some transition..
No but - it doesn´t make sense to translate how - by the sounds of it - you and me have come accross.
There are good translations - surely - but maybe not for free.
Be assured - it is not Nietzsche´s fault - and making something indigestible is not a good achievement!

Haha!! Ok, thanks for letting me know!! I might try downloading a few other versions if I can find them, or just see if I can buy it.

Cheers all around!! (oops - too many drinks today!!)

Hehe - I love the really drunk little guys - laaalallaaa..
I have to read through this thread once more - being a bit at a loss of the bigger picture and communication by now..

It's really a confused failure of a thread. For some reason I've long been fascinated by certain ideas taken in conjunction with each other - years ago I started another thread comparing Master/Slave morality and Conservatism/Liberalism (the American versions anyway). I have a tendency to try to fit things together and find patterns in them, it's the way my mind works. And I've learned that other people usually don't get what I see or get distracted by the combinations of different ideas - these threads always derail fast and never really get anywhere. But then really my reason for posting them was to try to explore my own ideas and feel my way through them, which accounts for the confused nature of these threads of mine. Little by little I do develop the ideas, but not usually through the discussion generated by the threads (though each does seem to contain a good lead or two).

Oh and here is the Moral Dilemmas thread that sparked me to create this one in response - I've mentioned it several times but I don't think I ever linked to it here. It was frustration from that thread that gave birth to this one.

Wasn´t meaning it so - more I forgot what came before!