motivation must arise spontaneously from the heart-but ideally one would use the intellect to decide how to act on it if at all. that is what i think provides balance and sanity.

of course. But then, if you kind of standardise considerations about what could constitute morality and purification around the actions of suicide bombers, then, as people do observe, 'the terrorists have already won', haven't they?

It is rather similar to the arguments of theophobes such as Hitchens and Dawkins who say 'because people who call themselves religious do bad things, therefore religion must be bad' (although that is one of the more sophisticated of their arguments.)

I did not argue as did Hitchens. I merely pointed out that what constitutes purification is in the eye of the beholder, so that it is not much of a criterion of moral action. Conscience speaks with different voices. That is why there are always martyrs on both sides.

Aha. So it is a case of moral relativism, then. What constitutes moral purity has no external criteria, it is purely a matter of what one says it is. So we are back at the question of whether any moral question has an external correlate, or whether all moral judgement is then a question of individual opinion.

No. I didn't say that either. But it is true that there are martyrs on both sides. The question still is, how do you tell whether your side is right. And determining whether it is your heart that is the pure one is sometimes daunting.

OK Ken, I appreciate your response and think it is quite a sensible question to ask. So I will declare at this point that what I am referring to, in particular, are Buddhist standards of morality and ethical training. I believe they provide a clear (and non-violent!) set of standards by which an individual can 'set their moral compass' and navigate ethical issues. Certainly there will always remain delicate or ambiguous moral questions and I also ackowledge that the Buddhist ethical code itself is not immune to criticism or is comprehensive in all possible circumstances.

All that said, however, I accept the Buddhist moral code and will generally refer to it in discussions such as these, as a basis to arbitrate moral decisions and for individual action. Specifically, it's strong point is, as I see it, the focus on acting from compassion and from insight into your own motivations, rather than just acting 'from impulse' on the one hand, or according to moral maxims of what you should or shouldn't do on the other. There is often quite a gap between what 'should be' and 'what is', and I think that Buddhist training in particular is highly relevant to solving this dilemma by training its exponents in 'compassionate action based on clear awareness'.

I gave criteria for telling whether you or your side is right. Sometimes I get the feeling no one is listening.

If you Intrinsically-value yourself and other individuals (be they persons or mammals) you are in the right, and you are being moral.

This morality doesn't spring from a calculation "What's in it for me?" although such considerations may cross one's mind after the fact: they spring from one's character, and its integrity, spontaneously, from "the heart." The theory of Ethics that discusses these matters is cerebral, is for the intellect: it is like the score with which some music lovers follow along the symphony, to add a dimension to the experience.of appreciating the music.

So, Camerama, the mind enters into it, like that musical score; but it is no substitute for the heartfelt spontaneous experience of being true to yourself, being transparent in your motives, being genuinely authentic.

This follows from having a good character. That in turn is formed in one's childhood yet can be learned later in life by discovering some good role models and following their example, or by deliberately setting self-improvement as a goal, and succeeding in achieving it. To do that it helps if one is aware of the principles of success, as well as the Moral Law, viz., the theoriems of a the discipline which I have named Ethics. To learn more details about what is involved, peruse my manual through to the end of it, a link to the document is given in my signature. If it doesn't explain clearly enough, just ask me some questions.

I think our mortality and lack of omnipotence is one of the motives to write. A book is a sort of mummy, a false immortality. Milton wanted to write a book that men would not willingly let die. Mortal man often craves to make some mark. Perhaps its a Pyramid. Perhaps its Finnegans Wake.

---------- Post added 12-23-2009 at 01:03 AM ----------


You aren't the first law-bringer humanity has met with. I relate to your ideals and you strike me as quite intelligent, but I must object that a modern jargon doesn't an ethical revolution make. It's the same old beast we're dealing with.

The ego isn't in charge. "Oaths are straw to the fire in the blood."

---------- Post added 12-23-2009 at 01:04 AM ----------



Good point. I agree.

You write "modern jargon doesn't an ethical revolution make."
That is why in Chapter 8, in the last three brief paragraphs of page 50, and through page 54, here: http://tinyurl.com/24swmd
the evidence is offered to back up the title of the chapter, HOW WE GET FROM HERE TO THERE. I agree that jargon won't do it. There are three parts to good science: a theory (a model-of-models); a set of data to be ordered and explained; and the bridge laws that interpret the data in terms of the model. I use "science" primarily in the sense of a body of cumulative knowledge -- which I believe Ethics can be and become, if we do our part.


Ego has nothing to do with it: a model is offered - upon which to build - for an ethics grounded in science, with some of the studies already having been made, and confirmed.

Of course, I agree with you (and as Socrates "Parable of the Cave" attempts to make clear) some see only shadows and do not want their limited perspective to be disturbed by those who have actually seen the Sun (the form of The Good.) {The latter have enlightened self-interest.}

You say you relate to my ideals. Then if that is the case do something (constructive) about it ! At the very least you can communicate the soundness of the reasoning to others who may have even the slightest interest in ethics, to see if it resonates with them. Then you can form coalitions to put the valid principles into action. Then inform the rest of us here of the progress made. There will be progress if you set about it the right way. ...using the established methods of success.

We humans like to point at other humans and say "that one sees only shadows...."
It's the same religious bluff as always, which is not to call it false. I think man responds to persuasion, not proof. Or rather he calls persuasion proof. Offer him this "form of the Good." Offer him myths. I think figurative language does the real work. Give him an elite minority to join.
We tend to talk in ways that put our idiosyncrasies on the mountain top.


Man is more mythological, logical. If he's logical, he's analogical. I like to look for symbolic triggers. What moves him? What makes him go against hunger and lust and sloth? What force is this that wrestles the ape? Shall we say "spirit," "honor," "conscience,""vanity," "pride"?

Moral relativism is the idea that morality is subjective, or at least context-dependent. The world as a thing-in-itself is neither good nor bad, pretty nor ugly, right nor wrong, blah blah blah. Classically speaking, it's just a system of particles that have positions and trajectories in space and time, masses, momenta, charges and the like. Soulless, mechanical, mathematical stuff.

However, relativism in and of itself doesn't imply that value judgements are arbitrary illusions, floating around untethered to any objective physical facts. A value judgment is a real causal relationship between the world as a thing-in-itself and an observer with emotional and aesthetic faculties. Both the world and the observer participate in this relationship. You can't just swap out the facts of the external world and expect an observer's value judgments to be unaffected.

I'm a moral relativist. But there are two arguments that often spring out of relativism that don't sit well with me.

The first argument is that if morals are relative, then who am I to impose my morals on someone else? Shouldn't I just live and let live and keep my opinions to myself?

Well, if all "shoulds" and "should nots" are subjective, then it would make no sense to infer a universal "should" to the effect that everyone, or even anyone, "should" butt out of anyone else's business. The "virtue" of minding one's own business is as subjective as any other virtue. Maybe Alice thinks it's best always to keep her nose high and dry. Maybe Bob feels free to coerce others with whatever it takes. Who's right? The question is meaningless until you frame it in terms of an individual perspective. All Alice has accomplished from an objective perspective is to take herself out of the game.

My point is that if anyone concludes that they should just live and let live, that's fine, but there's no basis for concluding that solely on the basis of the fact that morality is subjective. The only available basis is individual morality.

The second argument is that if all morals are relative, then doesn't that mean that anything goes? Isn't moralizing inherently silly?

This one is similar but trickier. Some sceptics write off our efforts at moralizing as silly because there is no absolute moral standard. I agree that there is no absolute standard. But I also believe that it's a mistake to hold out for an absolute when no coherent description of what it would be to be "an absolute" can be expressed. Failure to meet an incoherent (and therefore impossible) standard is no failure at all.

Take free will, for example. So-called "hard determinists" and "libertarians" both believe that free will is incompatible with strict laws of physics. Hard determinists believe that physics is strict, therefore there can be no free will. Libertarians believe that there is free will, therefore physics can't be strict. The problem is that neither position can express a coherent description of what it would take to be "really" free according to their standards. For any given act of will, either it is caused or it isn't. If it's uncaused, then it's the fruit of a random accident for which no moral agent can be held responsible. If it's caused, then the event that caused it is itself either caused or uncaused. If that event is uncaused, then again, it's another random accident. And if it's caused, then we have to ask the same questions again, and so on down the line.

Basically, everything we do is either a random accident or the fruit of a causal chain that extends outside our bodies and / or before our birth. So what does this prove? That we have no free will? Or does it prove that whatever "free will" is, it isn't (indeed, can't be) what the hard determinists and libertarians are fighting over? I believe that this argument proves the latter.

Similar thing with morality, and value judgments in general. No value judgments are absolute. But who cares? Who should care? Can anyone coherently describe what it would be for any moral judgment, any moral judgment at all, to be "absolute"? Absent such a description, why should I care whether any of my moral judgments are "absolute"? Are any of my judgments flawed simply because they fail to meet an incoherent, and therefore impossible, standard? They may be flawed according to some other (non-absolute) standard, but surely not according to astandard that can't even be substantiated.

Whatever standard we use to evaluate value judgments, that standard can't be absolute because any such standard is inherently incoherent (according to the relativist). So let's not even go through the motions of evaluating moral claims relative to that criterion. There is such a thing as good and bad, even if you and I happen to disagree, and even if there is no final authority to which we can appeal to settle which is which.

n my view, determinists are seeking to avoid the responsibilities of their actions. They kind of abdicate the field because 'nothing they do makes any difference anyway'.

One observation about absolutes is that they oftern turn up in life completely outside the context of moralizing and philosophizing. Things like death, love and taxes. Talking about them is one thing but dealing with them something else again. So I think an ethical philosophy has to have a way of accomodating absolutes, even if it doesn't proclaim absolutes. So in a way, our undestanding of absolutes has to be based on sympathy - the understanding that all of us face the same fundamental challenges of life, there are certain things we all ABSOLUTELY have to deal with. Which is not the same as the idea of the moral absolute in the Judeo-Christian tradition - it is more a pragmatist approach.

But even if that is true, it has nothing to do with whether there is free will or not. Motives are not reasons. Anyway, soft determinists believe that determinism and free will are both true.

I agree. There's a radical freedom once one drops absolute morality. It becomes a matter of taste, persuasion, trial and error....

You, like many, see these things in terms of black or white. Either absolute knowledge or everything is just a guess; either strict mathematical proof, or it cannot be proved at all; and, of course, either absolute morality or its just a matter of taste. And nothing in between. The black or white fallacy is a prime philosophical disease.

The Black-or-White Fallacy

Well, I think you are black-or-whiting me now!

If a person does not believe in god or any absolute morality, this doesn't mean they are going to start eating their neighbors, but they may experience quite a sense of freedom. Prudence still has its claims and taste/conscience has its claims, but no longer does some abstraction imposed from without have its claim.

It is not prudence that stops me from taunting a crippled man on the street. I could probably get away with it if I wanted to do it. But I don't want to do it because I think it would be wrong to do it. What has taste to do with conscience?

Well, for me "wrong" in this case is similar to "ugly." It's ugly to be cruel. Of course I would use the word "wrong" too, but I would mean the same thing.

No god. No abstract law. Just what seems/feels right/wrong beautiful/ugly.

Yes. Black and White fallacy, as I wrote before. Morality and aesthetics are different. We don't, and should not, execute people for being ugly.

No, I mean certain actions are ugly. A person could say "cruelty is wrong." But if there's no god this is similar to saying "I don't like cruelty" or "cruelty is ugly."