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Go Back   SailNet Community > General Interest Forums > Off Topic > Politics/Religion/War/Government
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  #3091 (permalink)  
Old 07-30-2008
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I think it's easy these days to get hung up on the word "moral" itself, because people immediately get this image in their head of Quakers standing out next to the white church preaching ill of the devil. We are all moral people in that we all have beliefs about what "right conduct" is - what is the environmental movement, for example, if it is not a moral movement, a code of "right conduct" for how people should and should not live their lives ? We all have beliefs about what is right and wrong.
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Old 07-30-2008
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Well put windy. My problem is with those that expect me to accept their's as somehow superior or better than mine.
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Here is a concrete goal for the war in Afghanistan. Kill Osama. Chase him into Pakistan if need be but keep after him until we have him. Another goal is to kill the leadership of the Taliban. Much less nebulous than whatever it is they want to achieve in Iraq.

And amen on the morals above. I have mine and you have yours. As long as we dont require each other to live by our morals (and as long as I am not hurting anyone with mine - not offending but actually hurting) then there shouldnt be a problem.
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I think the way to determine whether a moral is itself good or bad is to think of it in pragmatic terms. A reasonable thought experiment to evaluate the moral is to force it on another social group, such as ants, monkeys, or bees. I know, sounds weird, give me a chance ...

You've got these ants in an anthill. Obviously some morals are necessary ones - it wouldn't be terribly productive if ants kill each other, they couldn't really function as a colony if they went around doing that all the time. It isn't very productive for them to leave dangerous trash that has lots of bacteria and things in their nesting sites, so yeah, ants are environmental activists, all colonies create areas where they dispose of organic wastes, they keep their nest clean. On and on, etc ... ant morals.

But some morals when you force them on ants are just stupid ...

Human moral: Don't bury plastic bottles in the ground because they will be there forever. Well, who really freaking cares if a plastic bottle is in the ground forever, what harm is there in it ? Rocks are in the ground forever. Plastic bottles aren't causing any harm being in the ground forever. Yes, plastic breaks down in sunlight and becomes little bits of plastic that can get caught in an animals eyes - well so what, so do rocks, they break down in freeze/thaw cycles, and animals get rock grit in their eyes, that's why they have tears, to wash it out. This knee jerk hatred of plastic bottles is a moral, but it's a stupid one - if ants had a plastic bottle in their nest it wouldn't matter to them, it doesn't have any harmful bacteria to harm them, it is completely inert, it just doesn't matter. This moral is about people just not liking the sight of pop bottles, but plastic PET bottles are too valuable to society for storing liquids to get rid of them, they are a boon to humanity.

Human moral: Don't build nuclear reactors, they are bad. Again, thinking of humans more as ants than people, is this a good or bad moral to have ? I think this one is still out there for discussion. Obviously it has a good side and a bad in terms of pragmatics - the energy generated is terrific, it's a cheap form of energy that doesn't require much in the way of drilling, mining, etc, though there is some mining. But the radiation is a human toxin, and we humans do have two accidents we can point to where radiation did leak out and in one case it was a major disaster. Is nuclear energy just inherently too unsafe for us to rely on, is the toxic nature of the fuel and process too much for us to deal with ? In terms of ants there is obviously no parallel, but what if there was a parallel, what if ants did rely on some plant to give them something they use, but it was toxic to them ? Can be debated.

Etc ...

My only point here is that morals do serve a purpose, they are convenient rules of thumb that help human civilization function. Without any morals we'd just descend into chaos, which kind of appeals to my anarchist nature, but probably wouldn't appeal to most people.

Most "morals" in today's society are not pragmatic necessities, they are just one groups desire for tradition, or some groups need for recognition, etc, they serve no overall purpose other than to force other people to do what a subculture or group wants to do. When you force these morals on humans as a species and take the culture out of it they are absurd - that we should dress in certain ways, have sex in certain ways, paint our houses in certain ways, etc, these are the least important kind of morals, or even harmful ones, because they serve no pragmatic good. By serving no pragmatic good they become a burden on society because they have a cost in terms of time, energy, resources, etc, but have no beneficial result on people's lives which makes them a parasitic drain.
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Here's an interesting slant, from the Washington Post, of all places:

President Obama Continues Hectic Victory Tour
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sck5
Here is a concrete goal for the war in Afghanistan. Kill Osama. Chase him into Pakistan if need be but keep after him until we have him. Another goal is to kill the leadership of the Taliban. Much less nebulous than whatever it is they want to achieve in Iraq.
And this differs from the present goals how?

No, as usual, you miss the entire point. You're all for getting out of what you call an open-ended conflict in one country, to escalate getting into one in another country, MINUS, any of the predetermined conditions expected of Bush. And, to do so, at the risk of throwing away the efforts made in Iraq.

There is nothing nebulous about what is to be accomplished in Iraq, nor has there been from the beginning. The only thing nebulous has been the changing conceptions offered when the previous ones have been met.
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Ontario 32 - Aria

Free, is the heart, that lives not, in fear.
Full, is the spirit, that thinks not, of falling.
True, is the soul, that hesitates not, to give.
Alive, is the one, that believes, in love.
JCP

Music on the Wind -

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