No, not always an oxymoron, only an oxymoron (lie, though perhaps to oneself as much as anyone) until the persons morals change such that they would not take the same action again in the same circumstances. It’s just like saying you’re sorry and then going and doing the same thing again. You weren’t really sorry you did it, you just wanted to deflect the anger of the person you wronged, or alleviate your own sense of cognitive dissonance, or some such thing. Your statement of, “I did something immoral” just helps you maintain the illusiory character you’ve made for yourself. Your true self, your true morality, is defined by your actions.
Yes, I understand you precisely. And you’re wrong. First, it’s possible to do something again and again, believing the whole time it’s wrong. You’re beggaring the meaning of “belief” here. And second, libertarian morality is a fixed frame of reference, with respect to which its adherents will judge a man immoral for initiating aggression regardless what he thinks about it himself. In that sense it is “objective.”
–Len
Value is objective and agent-relative (which is why many take it to be subjective.) Something is valuable both because one values the ends it can be put to and because it is capable of servicing those ends (they can err on this, of course.) JCFolsom is arguing it’s interpersonally comparable, but that’s a whole other kettle of fish.
-Jon
Look, until you actually live up to the morals you propose, you are just (forgive the crudeness) engaging in mental masturbation, convincing yourself that you’re a person you’d be more comfortable with than you really are, as your actions are somehow the exception to how you’d normally act. They’re not. They’re how you will always act in that circumstance, until you change yourself and your morals.
Your self-flagellation isn’t you feeling bad about what you’re doing. If doing it made you feel bad, you wouldn’t do it. You feel bad that you don’t feel bad, because you aren’t matching the mental model you’ve built for yourself, the character you’d like to think you have. Telling yourself it’s immoral is just your way of reaffirming that you are, in fact, the man you’d be comfortable being, and not the man your actions reveal you to be.
Accepted. We may get along well afterall.
How about this way: it is necessary for the mother to steal, but that does not make it right. There is no conflict of rights here. The reason this is such a dilemma is that she has no choice that is not immoral. Both choices are wrong, but she must do one of them. You can’t make that decision based on morality.
And, to reiterate, that choice was forced on her as a consequence of some previous choice that was made incorrectly - even if innocently - either by her or by another.
I find that argument very weak. What if God has revealed himself but no one bothered to notice?
Once you declare that God has not revealed himself, you are guaranteed to miss revelation should it occur.
Not that I believe in God, personally.
Back atcha, buddy. But the simple fact is that people do things contrary to their own morals. What do you think that “conscience” thing of yours is all about? Or do you lack one?
Nonsense. If you murder to save your child’s life, and then turn yourself in to the police and submit voluntarily to lethal injection, do you sever the two completely in your mind, and conclude (1) that murder is moral, and (2) that you happen to feel suicidal?
Talk about mental masturbation. You’ve just defined conscience out of existence for the sake of your glorious theory.
–Len
I live up to them (to the best of my imperfect ability) by avoiding being in such situations in the first place. When and if it does happen despite my best efforts, I do what is necessary, accept that it was wrong and take the consequences. I may try to avoid the consequences others wish to impose on me, but there are still consequences, (including consequences for the avoidance, if that choice is made).
That’s the root action of moral behavior: not evading full knowledge of the consequences of what you do. Knowing the consequences of it, both natural and man-made, is what keeps me from going around drinking, whoring, and taking drugs, or stealing, raping, and killing.
Well, but how far back does that go? How far does the, “I have to do this immoral act because of someone’s error (resulting in an amoral circumstance)” extend. I am rather unconvinced of the classification of error for many things too. People have to deal with difficult situations. That’s how it is.
I think your definition of error is too different from the general definition to be useful in discussion. With the whale example before, I think most people would agree, that wasn’t an error, just really, really bad luck.
As implied in other posts, a moral is just words until you actually put it to the test. You say that such a circumstance as the stealing of medicine only happens because of a prior error. But if all such situations are the result of errors and people cannot be held to their morals in such situations, why have morals at all? A moral is something that restrains your actions, something where, even if you would be advantaged by violating that moral, you don’t because you believe it’s wrong. And, that sort of rule is not changed just becuase the situation is really difficult. A moral only becomes real when it’s tested, when it determines your action. Unless I’m mistaken, you would render morals meaningless, or at least somewhat trivial, by your arguments.
This response seems to assume that it’s meant to be a knock-down drag-out argument. I don’t think it’s meant to be. It’s just suggestive, operating at the levels of metaphysics and psychology: i.e., touching on the nature of god and the universe. I also don’t see why declaring that God has not revealed himself yet means you are guaranteed to miss revelation should it occur.
That conscience thing prevents me from taking actions I think are wrong. That guilt thing after you do something wrong isn’t conscience, it’s just you having difficulty reconciling your actions with the illusiory personality you maintain.
Would you? What if your child needs you again in the future? Seems kinda selfish to me, assuaging your own guilt (cognitive dissonance) at your child’s expense.
Are you a buddhist, trying to teach me about anatta? 'Cuz it sure sounds like you’re just pontificating.
Shoulda thought of that before attempting to burgle my house, and getting yourself shot.
–Len
No further than the immediate fact that your choices are limited to only two, both of which are immoral. Investigating the root cause is a task for later, after the crisis is diffused.
You’re right, but rather than use that to say that something is not an error, I use to explain why errors happen, and why they are often unavoidable. Errors do not necessarily imply guilt, but it doesn’t matter, guilt or innocence is irrelevant at the point your choices are reduced to steal or die.
I didn’t say they can’t be held to their morals, I said such people exist in a context where morals are moot. They have literally no choice but to commit an immoral act - all the moral choices are literally impossible. Others are not in that context, and morals are not moot for them.
The reason to have morals at all is, first, to avoid getting into such a situation, and second, to afterward understand how you got there, how to deal with the consequences, and then back around to figuring out how to avoid it next time.
I don’t see it that way. A moral principle is something that guides your decisions. A subtle, but vitally important distinction. When your choices are constrained to only immoral choices, and it’s not possible to not choose, then even a moral principle has no power to prevent your immoral action.
Ever more convinced am I that we are arguing semantics, here. I say this thing means this, therefore that, you say no, this thing means this, therefore other, but you put us both in the same situation and press the mute button and the actions wind up looking exactly the same. The only real difference here is how we rule on a jury, which only happens after the fact.
Don’t be so quick to jump to that conclusion. I think there’s a substantive conceptual disagreement, in particular over the nature of morals themselves. We’re additionally at a semantic disadvantage because there is no accepted terminology for the concepts I am attempting to describe, and the common terminology you are using, and the concepts it denotes, I believe, contain irreconcilable contradictions. Not the least of which is that it leads to the kind of dilemma that started this thread.
See, I’m arguing that the common understanding of the question itself, even to libertarians, is fundamentally flawed. I don’t believe it is a dilemma, and am trying to explain why, yet I immediately hit a wall just on what the concept of “not a dilemma” means in this context.
And the actions don’t look exactly the same, particularly those that follow from the core alternative actions we are discussing. As to the two choices of action, there are only two by the premise of the original question, and one of them we both seem to agree is unthinkable, so of course that particular question will have the same answer however we come to it. But the real question here is the moral status of the choice and the actions, and that implies consequent actions that do vary between our approaches.
The semantic issues are a serious obstacle, but not the root of the problem itself.
Well, alright. I don’t want to short change a serious and interesting question like this one. Still, I think that semantics have become more and more of a problem, and I tend to agree that the language actually does not have a great variety of words for these concepts. We have morals and ethics, at least, to work with. I shall try to give my definitions of them, and we can see where we disagree.
- Morals: Behavioral rules that restrict action and guide decisions, preventing or compelling actions despite the disadvantage to the actor. What one believes one ought to do as expressed by one’s actions. Very personal.
- Ethics: Behavioral rules and the study of those rules, an intellectual framework and abstraction of how people ought to act. The public projection and statements of one’s behavioral rules rather than their actuality. Where ethics vary from morality, there is hypocrisy. Like any intellectual endeavor, the study of ethics can be either objective or entirely biased, but is usually some blend of the two.
So, let’s go from there.