We do have an objective standard of morality:
Conscious actions that purposely benefit people and society are moral.
Conscious actions that purposely harm people and society are immoral.
Sid Nothard
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Just a pity for those who had their hearts ripped out.
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I'm sure to the Aztec it would have been immoral to NOT make those sacrifices and thus invoke the wrath of the gods upon the entire population, or whatever they believed would happen if they didn't.We can certainly consider their approach to be immoral, to us, but who are we to judge another society's culture and beliefs ? Maybe we could, but we certainly could not take any action against it...... so an absolute morality in this case would mean nothing practical. It would be merely criticism voiced from our couches where some of us sit munching on the boiled skins of other sentient beings.Just as we can look with disgust at the Aztec practices of human sacrifice, so too can others look at us and condemn our consumption of pork chops and tuna sandwiches and dinosaur slop.
S.--This debate has persisted since the earliest Greek philosophers. There have also been many conversations on the topic on libsa googlegroups (search for absolute).Why is an "absolute" standard of morality viewed as important? If I have a morality that works for me and others in my circle, is that not enough?We are used to a couple of absolute standards - of temperature, of speed, of energy quanta. Death seems to be pretty absolute, there are very few well documented cases of long dead people returning to life. Can we use the permanence of death to suggest an opposite absolute standard - the opposite of death is life? Do we have any evidence for additional alternative states? Deep coma, artificial intelligence, altered states of consciousness perhaps.I think that an absolute standard of morality could be behaviour which preserves life and prevents death. This should be true for any lifeform anywhere in the universe.Thus, policies that bring about involuntary death (such as Aztec sacrifice, warfare, murder) can be regarded as universally, absolutely, immoral.--
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Since when is there a difference between an act of man and a force of nature? Since eating from the tree in the middle of the garden?
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... so... might makes right ?
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" It is not the water in the fields that brings true development, rather, it is water in the eyes, or compassion for fellow beings, that brings about real development. "
—Anna Hazare
The choice is binary, we either go back to the "red tooth and claw" of Natural Selection or we go forward with a sophisticated concept like the HCR (Harm Consent Rule) and utilise the NoU (Nature of Us) which replaces the NoH acronym (Nature of Humans) ...
NoU is more Saffer like ... ... And rolls easier on the tongue ...
Regarding aliens, and in as much as I have reservations about Ayn Rand, being naturally altruistic leaning, at DNA level, why should we worry about the aliens and what they think?
Sure the Aztecs might be considered a "force of Nature" and going beyond our anthropomorphic bias, yes, they then could be considered part of Nature.
(Mel Gibson's Apocalyptico movie is well worth watching as a reality check if we want to consider this route).
But why should we care about that if it is us , now against the "red tooth and claw"?
Not far away from here millions of conscripts were dragged to their death and mutilation and lifelong trauma thanks to the "red tooth and claw" and the conscription of WW1?
For those who died or survived horribly disabled thanks to might is right and Man being a part of Nature so all good with Man being just a force of Nature, there is/was no solace.
Ironically, the victims on both sides sang each other's songs during the lull of the trench of warfare, they were so close ... Never mind the famous Christmas soccer game ...
It is very possible today to discover and unpack any number of attributes of us, as individuals or as collectives, sample these attributes, derive their mean and standard deviation, and rank them in order of priority and establish an ethics and morality that Trevor Watkins's Harm Consent Rule can plug into; as a better alternative to the Non Aggression Principle, the NAP, that the American libertarians use and in its nebulous boiler plated version of Robert Nozick's futile failed thesis, managed to get even a salt of the earth character like J D Vance going in the wrong direction about libertarianism ...
We are chasing our tails and will be bitten by reality be it by the violence of might is right or by the asbestos fibres spewed into the air by the gung ho "anarcho capitalists" who think they can do whatever they please ...
No, as a species 95% of us will have a threshold after which we will get cancer from asbestos fibres due to man made densities breaking this threshold ...
Just as a knife in the belly will.have us meet our Angry God oft forgiving and merciful.
The free market is not just do as you please in red tooth and claw mode ... Then one may as well consider the worst predators of history, the Mongol Hordes, as virtuous.
In the meantime whilst we chase our tails and mantra that Orange Man is Bad like many American libertarians do, and their Reason magazines too, we are getting "bitten" as Stephen would say, by the reality that the Wokists and the other coercive collectivists wearing Che Guevara T Shirts and waving The Little Red Book, are imposing on us and shoving up deep inside of us ...
I will take the HCR any day over speculation about the aliens and their feelings … all due respects to Stephen.
Die tyd is NoU! voordat one is heeltemal befok ... en dit is naby, very naby ...
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But I pointed out that there IS an absolute standard of morality as I pointed out.
I people violate those principles by force it in Not moral even when they claim to be doing for the common or greater good
From: indivi...@googlegroups.com [mailto:indivi...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Stephen van Jaarsveldt
Sent: Friday, August 16, 2024 6:53 PM
To: indivi...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: IM: An absolute standard for morality
There is some nuance, for sure. Not all acts of god are equal - I would rather be struck by lightning than to slowly tire until I sink and drown in the open ocean. I would rather live in a system where I am dictated and prescribed to by democratically elected politicians than by highly decorated military officers after a coup. What I was trying to point out is that morality is not absolute, just like no power is absolute. I would prefer to have less of both, but appreciate that in practice we can merely minimize how much we are controlled and dictated to, whether by meat-based medal stands or by aztec priests or by moral absolutist cult members. We can never really be completely free and, looking at history & the average man, maybe that's a good thing.
S.
Op Vr. 16 Aug. 2024 om 01:50 het Roland Giesler <roland...@gmail.com> geskryf:
On Thu, 15 Aug 2024 at 19:26, Stephen van Jaarsveldt <sjaar...@gmail.com> wrote:
... so... might makes right ?
Come on! That is not what I said and you know it.
However, you can believe something is correct course of action, but if you don't have to the means to do it, it remains an idea only. That goes for situations where the state takes people's individual right away too. The means can be a sheer number of people in opposition, or could be the threat of a firearm or other weapon, or is could be a persuasive argument among others.
;-)
S.
Op Do. 15 Aug. 2024 om 11:05 het Roland Giesler <roland...@gmail.com> geskryf:
On Thu, 15 Aug 2024 at 16:39, Stephen van Jaarsveldt <sjaar...@gmail.com> wrote:
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The free market (and I mean one in which there is no political interference) is the most efficient means for the distribution of scarce resources.
You may not like many of the players, but you can be sure that they are all acting in their best interest, and thus they are obliged to co-operate
With the other players if they wish to get be best for themselves.
From: indivi...@googlegroups.com [mailto:indivi...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Stephen van Jaarsveldt
Sent: Friday, August 16, 2024 10:39 PM
To: indivi...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: IM: An absolute standard for morality
That's an interesting observation - a lot of people think that a free market, or more correctly just a market, is a choice or a policy option or a system, when in fact it is the default state in the absence of those policy & system choices. It is what remains when you remove all the other stuff... it's not a bolt-on.
The problem is still a) some people will do bad things, b) you guys are saying the solution is a code of ethics and d) I'm saying bad people will spit on your code of ethics, so f) you either i) relax and see them as a force of nature or ii) make use of force. Those appear to be the only options. No ?
S.
Op Vr. 16 Aug. 2024 om 13:53 het Gabri Rigotti <rigo...@gmail.com> geskryf:
I actually trust the free market fully Stephen 😊 ... but the genuine one, not the faux version one that is the leg up for the asbestos producer to acquire his lamborghini and the villa by the sea ... whilst others are being morphined to make their last cancer ridden moments less of Hell ...
Spewing asbestos into the air, just because one can, at a high enough threshold to induce cancer in others would violate the no harm without consent rule.
If a genuine libertarian/individualist society is one in which none can initiate the use of physical force against others aka violence, and physical force can only be used in self defence and only against the specific targets performing violence or intending to perform violence, then we actually have by default the Harm Consent Rule in operation and the economic manifestation of such a society is then the genuine free market ...
So the free market is actually, and can only be, the genuine free market ... anything less than this may be a market but not the free market ...
As you say there are "dangerous and volatile" individuals out there who will do whatever they believe they need to do to secure their ends, and often they may describe themselves as "champions" for the "free market", but they are not.
Often capitalism and the free market are considered as interchangeable, the same thing, but almost entirely they are not.
The free market is not a "bolt on thing", like ok, I am China and now we will use capitalism and the free market to advance Mao's Little Red Book.
Unfortunately, however, it is considered a "bolt on thing", and most schools of economics in the West see it this way too.
Ok, we are a socialist democracy (like many EU nations are) but we will use capitalism and the free market to secure our socialist democracy.
I am not so sure, and stand by to be corrected, that the Austrian School or the Chicago School did not see it as a "bolt on thing" to the political orders they sought to promote.
As a bolt on, it is the economic cart before the ethics and morality horse ...
On Fri, Aug 16, 2024 at 9:28 PM Stephen van Jaarsveldt <sjaar...@gmail.com> wrote:
It sounds like you don't totally trust the free market, and with good reason - it consists of people, after all. Those same people I just said are dangerous and volatile. But I think there is a difference between individuals and their nature, vs. society and the nature of markets.
S.
Op Vr. 16 Aug. 2024 om 07:53 het Gabri Rigotti <rigo...@gmail.com> geskryf:
Given errata and clumsy phrases at times as I scribbled on my cell phone in mid August heat in this inferno I have reposted the original email:
The choice is binary, we either go back to the "red tooth and claw" of Natural Selection or we go forward with a sophisticated concept like the HCR (Harm Consent Rule) and utilise the NoU (Nature of Us) which replaces the NoH acronym (Nature of Humans) ...
NoU is more Saffer like ...
... And rolls easier on the tongue ...
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But I pointed out that there IS an absolute standard of morality as I pointed out.
I people violate those principles by force it in Not moral even when they claim to be doing for the common or greater good
From: indivi...@googlegroups.com [mailto:indivi...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Stephen van Jaarsveldt
Sent: Friday, August 16, 2024 6:53 PM
To: indivi...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: IM: An absolute standard for morality
There is some nuance, for sure. Not all acts of god are equal - I would rather be struck by lightning than to slowly tire until I sink and drown in the open ocean. I would rather live in a system where I am dictated and prescribed to by democratically elected politicians than by highly decorated military officers after a coup. What I was trying to point out is that morality is not absolute, just like no power is absolute. I would prefer to have less of both, but appreciate that in practice we can merely minimize how much we are controlled and dictated to, whether by meat-based medal stands or by aztec priests or by moral absolutist cult members. We can never really be completely free and, looking at history & the average man, maybe that's a good thing.
S.
Op Vr. 16 Aug. 2024 om 01:50 het Roland Giesler <roland...@gmail.com> geskryf:
On Thu, 15 Aug 2024 at 19:26, Stephen van Jaarsveldt <sjaar...@gmail.com> wrote:
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