Re: Vichy Army,
Personal preferences are irrelevant; what counts is ACTIONS, and actions can be either MORAL (i.e. good) or IMMORAL (i.e. evil). What constitutes good or evil is what we have ethics for, but from an argumentation ethics standpoint, violating a person’s rights (property, life, freedom) is EVIL, and thus IMMORAL.
Yeah, I am not even going to respond to contentless assertions.
Argumentation ethics is garbage.
Re: Vichy Army,
What’s “contentless” about the fact that actions like thieving are inherently immoral? Or do you like having things stolen from you?
What I see is that you prefer not to argue to defend a preconceived notion that markets are “amoral”. They cannot be “amoral” since the very actions of the participans are moral in themselves.
Again, morality is nonsense. There is no ‘ought’ without sidereal constraints and arbitrarily posited values combined with concepts about achieving ends.
What’s “contentless” about the fact that actions like thieving are inherently immoral?
The word ‘immoral’ means nothing.
Or do you like having things stolen from you?
Irrelevant. Genghis Khan didn’t like resistance, so his enemies were immoral, right?
Re: Vichy Army,
From your convoluted wording I gather you are confusing morality with physics. [Censored insult]
Really? Again, you like to have things stolen from you?
Wrong - you’re relying on sophistry. You don’t even know how to argue.
Let me give you one just as ridiculous: A rapist does not like his victims to resist, so resisting is immoral, right? Makes as much sense as what you wrote.
Stealing implies violence. Resisting implies a reaction TO violence, committed by someone. In the cases above, both the rapist and Ghenghis Kahn are committing evil (i.e. immoral) acts, not the victims.
sigh
Same here, pal.
Old Mexican, can you define the terms you are using here? Morality, good, evil, you’re just throwing these words around as if everyone is supposed to agree with your conception of good and bad.
“The decision to exchnge is a MORAL decision. You simply WANT to believe it is not, but that’s only because you’re an ignorant fool.”
Assertion, and bad form.
“It’s a logical conclusion.”
Assertion.
“Thinking that people only engage in such exchanges just to avoid confrontation is inidicating ignorance. So, you’re an ignorant fool.”
Assertion, and bad form.
“Vichy, the decision to ENGAGE in peacefull exchange IS a moral decision.”
Assertion.
“the fact is that engaging in peaceful exchange versus thievery IS a moral decision.”
Assertion. What is your problem with cost/benefit analysis? You have no idea why people are making the choices they are, their actions could be coming from their sense of morality, or I could think that stealing will lead to retaliation and no one will trade with me ever again.
“I just don’t commit evil acts.”
Maybe from your point of view.
“Personal preferences are irrelevant; what counts is ACTIONS, and actions can be either MORAL (i.e. good) or IMMORAL (i.e. evil).”
Actions can be immoral or moral from the point of view of someone else, but what if they don’t believe in morality? Are they just stupid and thats it?
What constitutes good or evil is what we have ethics for, but from an argumentation ethics standpoint, violating a person’s rights (property, life, freedom) is EVIL, and thus IMMORAL."
I feel theres a contradiction here. You start to say morality depends on subjective values (thats all they are) then you go on to say violating a persons rights is evil and immoral- what about from the point of view of the violator? Taking stuff is obviously good to him. Can you define rights in a non arbitrary fashion?
“What’s “contentless” about the fact that actions like thieving are inherently immoral?”
Immoral to you, maybe. Your conception of morality does not hold on anyone else necessarily.
“What’s “contentless” about the fact that actions like thieving are inherently immoral?”
Immoral to you, maybe. Your conception of morality does not hold on anyone else necessarily.
If there were starving children outside a private warehouse full of grain…I’d proudly thieve.
Re: Gregory Drew,
“MY” conception? Could not I derive moral principles from reasoning, and if so, could they still be “my” opinion?
Not so, Greg. Again, engaging in exchange versus thieving is a moral decision. That’s not an assertion, it’s a conclusion.
Not from my point of view. Again, one can arrive at moral principles from reasoning, which would not make them mere opinion.
I have no problem with cost/benefit analysis. I just don’t use cost/benefit analysis to justify actions, as that would lead to obscuring evil acts.
Intentions are irrelevant, ACTIONS are not. An ACT that is good is still good no matter if the person rationalized it or not.
I don’t know what they are, if stupid or not. Is it important? Does stupidity justify evil? Would you feel better if your assailant or rapist did not believe in morality, would it justify his violent acts, against you, in your mind? Or would it not?
I have made no such assertion, you just made that one up.
Why would it be important to judge acts from the standpoint of the violator? Would YOU do that if it were YOUR violator? Would i make you feel better that he found the experience enjoyable?
Again, not “my” conception of morality. Moral principles can be derived from reasoning. You on the other hand seem not to be concerned about all the perfunctory contradictions you committed.
Which makes you nothing more than a damned thief. I would buy the grain.
By the way,
Vichy Army wrote:
This is a moral argument against markets, yet Vichy [INSULT DELETED] replies to me with:
So what was the POINT of what he argued first?
This is a moral argument against markets, yet Vichy (being the arrogant fool) replies to me with:
It is nothing of the kind. It is a set of psychological mechanisms developed through the process in a largely sum-zero universe with only fairly limited, direct cooperation and largely egalitarian property norms. That is what it means, sociobiology. THIS is what morality is, and regardless of your mad notions I have no ‘moral’ constraints at all. However it is impossible to justify these, as they are facts and not subject to ‘refutation’; they lack ontological status except as subjective values. Which means they could potentially be arbitrary, and there would be no decided amongst them. Indeed, they may not exist at all! That is my view, that once one realises that ‘right’ is nothing but a subjective complex one realises they are not things that can be argued about. Some of this don’t have this sense at all.
Would you agree that there can be amoral individuals, or are all beings (maybe just self-aware beings?) inheirently moral?
Of course, if you thought the concepts of (normative) “wrong” and “evil” were superfluous, then you would have to rely on some other potential action analysis.
How?
Re: Vichy Army,
THAT is a moral argument, not a psychological argument. You just judge the mechanisms to be “amoral” because they don’t judge “intentions.”
They are subject to refutation - you can try to refute the statement “It is wrong to murder a person.”
Moral principles can be derived from reasoning. Biology (or nature) only allowed us to have a brain to find these principles, that’s all.
Re: Jackson LaRose,
Individuals can be purple, if they wanted to be. What is judged are actions, not intentions. Thieving is WRONG whether the person committing the violent act is moral or amoral.
You can rely on your National Enquirer horoscope for all I care. It is ACTIONS which are judged, not intentions. The point is that markets ARE moral in the sense that the actions that make up the market ARE moral in themselves, otherwise you would NOT have a market. So Vichy Army is being wrong when thinking that markets are inherently AMORAL and thus is wrong in his conclusion that MORAL people find markets abhorent. That was the whole point of the discussion - you chose to put me to task instead of the one that wrote the big whopper.
Re: Jackson LaRose,
Cultural conventionalisms and morality are not the same - you seem to be lumping them together. People may find prostitution immoral because they don’t like the idea themselves, but that does not mean that a voluntary exchange between two consenting adults is inherently immoral. People confuse their hangups with morality and other people then tend to confuse moral principles with hangups. I do not - I judge actions by how they affect people’s rights (life, property, liberty). From this I can derive moral principles: It is wrong to steal, it is wrong to murder, it is wrong to enslave or unduly hinder a person’s liberty. But I certainly do not justify actions by the good intentions behind them or the seeming soundness of a cost/benefit analysis, which is the utilitarian approach. I would not feel better if the guy who stole from me showed me the cost/benefit analysis he generated, I would still be out of what he stole.
He won’t, because he can’t without reducing his position to triviality.
“If you wish to converse with me,” said Voltaire, “define your terms.” How many a debate would have been deflated into a paragraph if the disputants had dared to define their terms! This is the alpha and omega of logic, the heart and soul of it, that every important term in serious discourse shall be subjected to the strictest scrutiny and definition. It is difficult, and ruthlessly tests the mind; but once done it is half of any task.
He is welcome to prove me wrong by defining his terms.
Well, I suppose if you consider voluntary exchange as a moral action, then I understand what you are saying, but I still disagree with your premise. I think the following quote should explain the fundamental contention:
Which may or may not be the case. I’m not here to argue the validity of argumentation ethics, but I am more than willing to argue that you as an individual are too ignorant and unobservant (nothing personal, I believe we all are) to be capable of formulating universally applicable, and eternally valid, normative laws.
To put it another way, the methodological approach of applying logic and reason to deduce laws may be valid (I have my doubts), but even if it were, humanity is incapable of attaining “perfect” knowledge, therefore is incapable of developing “perfect” reason, therefore is incapable of divining “perfect” laws of conduct.
You know some might consider your faith in the rights of individuals as a rather big “hang-up”.