Where do we draw the line on what is ethical,, moral or the reverse thereof?

@Alan McDougall,

sorry, i dont know what happened to the 'multiple quotes' button...

yes, we can do charitable deeds without being moral-just to write off some amount for income tax or to put on a show for example. now we are getting into the area of intent as far as morality is concerned. if we do a good deed without any good intended and sometimes even with 'bad' intentions, does that negate any possible morality connected with what we have done?

these are old questions though that have been gone over and over so many times. no one has any convincing answers that i have seen, not yet anyway.

and the other question, what is love has also been covered ad infinitum, without any answer agreed upon. my own view is that it is an action, not a feeling-the feeling we call love is an emotion that could be given some other name-attraction perhaps, maybe even desire (which doesnt have to have negative connotations). but a person can do acts of love without having the feeling we commonly recognize as being love. a person can do acts of love while having feelings of hate or in a state of total indifference.

@xris,

xris;66426 wrote:

I think your right, i dont feel love when i pop a pound in a charity box..smug feel good feeling maybe..I can be stirred by feeling guilty at seeing the most needy, requiring my help.It eases my conscience so i can go and buy a nice steak for dinner.

We know love by caring; but we can also exhaust love by caring... I feel love for one for whom I can no longer express my love, but rather than curse God and die, I accept and deny what I perceive as the wrong done to me by sharing the pain I feel in the only sociable way possible, by sharing pain with others... What does it matter then if I salve their pain or my own with a box of clothes??? I hurt and help, and they hurt and are helped, and together we are better off, and I hope, better...

@Eudaimon,

Eudaimon;66371 wrote:

Is it not possible to give others money, charity without love?

I dont think so Eudaimon, "we are doing an act of love" even if we do not feeling compassion does not mean it is not based on active love.

But i agree if we do it for selfish reasons, to pat ourselves or bragg about our generosity , "that is not an an act of love"

@Alan McDougall,

I think there is middle between being selfish and loving. This is "not-caring". When I give some money to a poor man it isn't love, neither is it selfishness (but closer to it than to love). It's just challenge and response, and response is not out of love but out of conditioning or biology (some people think think this is instinct that makes us help others, I doubt, however).

@Alan McDougall,

Alan McDougall;66641 wrote:

I dont think so Eudaimon, "we are doing an act of love" even if we do not feeling compassion does not mean it is not based on active love.

But i agree if we do it for selfish reasons, to pat ourselves or bragg about our generosity , "that is not an an act of love"

The problem with defining love as act, and it always is accompanied with caring, is that no person can be shown who can love others without loving self... Love recognizes in others the completion of life, so love has some simple intelligence to it, whether it is conscious or not, it take brains to love...Humanity is a whole, a unit, as is all life on earth...Do you not cause pain if you do not remove pain from a person's life... If we were an organism, with many hands and many bodies, much as an ant colony is a single organism, then can we not be as effective as ants cooperating against our afflictions??? Do we need an award??? A person is struggling with their load... Take up their cross for a while and give them rest..The strong always carry the weak, and are you not strong, and were you not carried???. And I do not say should, or must... Quite the opposite... We are human because we feel human, because we feel that human connection...I could never tell people how to feel, or to act as though they feel when so much of our lives is meant to make them numb to their feelings, and to deny the feelings of others...But if you feel it, then act upon your feelings, because to not do so is destructive, and does an injury to a person... I love myself, but being human, and knowing my weaknesses, I hate myself... But my weakness for other human beings is not a weakness; but is almost my sole strength... It is easy for me to be happy around happy people...It is nearly impossible for me to be happy around sad people; so let humanity be happy, without want, clear sighted and hopeful...This I desire for them and for myself...

I got to go...Today is trash day, and taking out the trash gives my life meaning...That reminds me of a joke...How does that go...

---------- Post added at 08:33 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:20 AM ----------

Eudaimon;66657 wrote:

I think there is middle between being selfish and loving. This is "not-caring". When I give some money to a poor man it isn't love, neither is it selfishness (but closer to it than to love). It's just challenge and response, and response is not out of love but out of conditioning or biology (some people think think this is instinct that makes us help others, I doubt, however).

Have you ever seen anyone beat, or killed, even on film???You might find then, if only for a moment, that the distance between you, and the line between you as individuals is cut to nothing, as it is, simply an idea...

@Alan McDougall,

Alan McDougall;63511 wrote:

I am aware that there have been similar threads,

My question revolves around what is ethical and moral and what are the boundaries to them?

To a wife of an aboriginal , it is both moral and ethical to eat the brain of her dead husband to keep his essence within herself

To me killing a bird gives me a guilty conscience and I feel it as subjectively immoral (I have never killed a bird)

What I am aiming at here is not some ethical philosophy, but to find by debate if there is an innate ingrained universal morality, which no human will step over.

Is there a bar that no one will step over, or is it constantly being raised or lowered due to circumstances of the day?

These differencing in morals and perceptions of morals might account for most of the troubled history down the annals of human history and suffering

Greetings, Alan

I sense here a confusion between two concepts: cultural mores; and morality.

What practices certain tribal customs dictate - the mores - will not help us much to arrive at a good answer to your quest. What will?
A concern with character; with the role reason plays in Ethics; with the role sentiment and passion plays in our motivation to live our Ethics... those concerns will indeed help you find an answer. We need to study moral growth and development, as Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg have.

We need to find a frame-of-reference, a pardigm, a model-of-models that will order and explain - and, when time is added as a variable, hopefully predict - the data of Ethics. It should spring from an axiom (a synthetic a priori concept - one that is part empirical and part theoretical, and has within it the seeds of an entire discipline of thought); have formulas; and have variables so as to cover a wide range of data. What is the data of Ethics? They include cases of altruism, of conscience-being-one's-guide, of how individuals become more serene, more joyful, more at peace with themselves - in other words, studies in self-improvement (which includes self-knowledge.) The Oracle at Delphi told Socrates: KNOW YOURSELF.

Once we do that, we come to know our heritage and thus our interdependence with other organisms, other life forms, other people. We get acquainted with Social Ethics. We become aware that "What helps you helps me ...if it really helps you." We become aware that morality consists in Being true to our own true self and that, at the core, we are all connected. My interest is your interest, and vice versa. We need to cooperate, to share, to - as Fido would say - love one another.

When we are doing that we are seeing each other as treasures of value, and thus worthy of a minimum (or more) of respect. As R. S. Hartman would state it, academically, we are to Intrinsically value each other. When we view others - as well as ourselves - from that perspective, we are in the field of Ethics. That is what defines the boundaries of this area of study. [By this definition, Ethics arises when we look at persons from the perspective of Intrinsic Value.] So everything we know about value, and espectially about that specific kind of value, becomes true of ethics. Value theory serves as the meta-language for ethics. And everything then falls into place. We have the boundaries and limits for which you were seeking.

And I hope this has been responsive to your concern, and serves to partially answer the question you pose in that original post.

p.s. To get more details about this new (yet very old) paradigm, and to see how the term "morality" relates to the other terms of Ethics, take a look at these two documents, the second being a popularization of the first. The "college course" is more difficult reading and is designed for philosophers. The second link is more written for the 'person in the street', the layman.
To find ETHICS- A Colleg Course, use this link: http://tinyurl.com/2mj5b3

You will find the paper entitled LIVING THE GOOD LIFE here::
http://tinyurl.com/24swmd

Happy reading !

@xris,

xris;66426 wrote:

I think your right, i dont feel love when i pop a pound in a charity box..smug feel good feeling maybe..I can be stirred by feeling guilty at seeing the most needy, requiring my help.It eases my conscience so i can go and buy a nice steak for dinner.

What about loving honesty as the ultimate morality and selfish dishonesty and the ultimate immorality

Subject: Amazing story - What a Woman! A True Heroine!

This is a truly amazing story. Please pass on to all your friends and family. Thank god for the internet eh? At least this way she will get some recognition.

The prize doesn't always go to the most deserving!!!!!!!

See below and you will see why:*

http://us.mg3.mail.yahoo.com/ya/download?mid=1%5f17093%5fAHbFtEQAAN8DSifseAdiG2eCIyE&pid=2&fid=Inbox&inline=1&stationery=1

Irena Sendler Life in a Jar: The Irena Sendler Project

There recently was a death of a 98 year-old lady named Irena. During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the WarsawGhetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist. She had an ' ulterior motive ' ... She KNEW what the Nazi's plans were for the Jews, (being German.) Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried and she carried in the back of her truck a burlap sack, (for larger kids.) She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto. The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the kids/infants noises. During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants. She was caught, and the Nazi ' s broke both her legs, arms and beat her severely. Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard. After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it and reunited the family. Most of course had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted.

Last year Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize ... She was not selected.

* Al Gore won, for a slide show on Global Warming.

!!!!! May she rest in Peace.

Peace

@Alan McDougall,

Alan McDougall;67029 wrote:

What about loving honesty as the ultimate morality and selfish dishonesty and the ultimate immorality

Subject: Amazing story - What a Woman! A True Heroine!

This is a truly amazing story. Please pass on to all your friends and family. Thank god for the internet eh? At least this way she will get some recognition.

The prize doesn't always go to the most deserving!!!!!!!

See below and you will see why:*

Irena Sendler Life in a Jar: The Irena Sendler Project

There recently was a death of a 98 year-old lady named Irena. During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the WarsawGhetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist. She had an ' ulterior motive ' ... She KNEW what the Nazi's plans were for the Jews, (being German.) Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried and she carried in the back of her truck a burlap sack, (for larger kids.) She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto. The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the kids/infants noises. During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants. She was caught, and the Nazi ' s broke both her legs, arms and beat her severely. Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard. After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it and reunited the family. Most of course had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted.

Last year Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize ... She was not selected.

* Al Gore won, for a slide show on Global Warming.

!!!!! May she rest in Peace.

Peace

There must be many untold stories such as this Alan but is it the acceptance of her bravery or the actual act thats important.When we are moved to act the reward is in the act.
As a young boy fishing in my local canal a boy running down the bank ran into the canal unable to swim.I pulled him out saving his life.He begged me not to tell anyone as his mother would skin him alive for going near the canal, as he was prone to fits.I knew i would be hailed as hero if i told anyone but then the boy would suffer.I chose not to tell anyone, it was difficult but the act in the end was the most satisfying.

@xris,

xris;67049 wrote:

There must be many untold stories such as this Alan but is it the acceptance of her bravery or the actual act thats important.When we are moved to act the reward is in the act.
As a young boy fishing in my local canal a boy running down the bank ran into the canal unable to swim.I pulled him out saving his life.He begged me not to tell anyone as his mother would skin him alive for going near the canal, as he was prone to fits.I knew i would be hailed as hero if i told anyone but then the boy would suffer.I chose not to tell anyone, it was difficult but the act in the end was the most satisfying.

I agree xis but like your act of courage , no one would ever know the beauty of this side of human nature, we are not all evil reprobates, thanks to who?

@Alan McDougall,

Alan McDougall;67052 wrote:

I agree xis but like your act of courage , no one would ever know the beauty of this side of human nature, we are not all evil reprobates, thanks to who?

i assume you feel its god but does he enter all men's hearts?if not why not...I have desires and one is to help if i can but my other desires are not always so savoury.

@xris,

xris;67054 wrote:

i assume you feel its god but does he enter all men's hearts?if not why not...I have desires and one is to help if i can but my other desires are not always so savoury.

Ahh!! there you are wrong "thanks to you xris" we don't need a god to make us on to do good. Some of us are innately or intrinsically good and courageous and by your act of altruism you proved to the most important person you were a hero ,"namely to yourself xris"

Peace and light

@Alan McDougall,

I'm with Xris... I desire a hotdog, and that is hardly savoury... So; life being what it is I must desire Ketchup, and Mustard... But when I get done I will think: You are what you eat, and so, thank God I am not at a ball park...

@Fido,

Fido;67215 wrote:

I'm with Xris... I desire a hotdog, and that is hardly savoury... So; life being what it is I must desire Ketchup, and Mustard... But when I get done I will think: You are what you eat, and so, thank God I am not at a ball park...

What yah mean dear Fido woof woof to you :perplexed: Smile

@Alan McDougall,

Alan McDougall;67216 wrote:

What yah mean dear Fido woof woof to you :perplexed:

You may be from another planet... Everything that is left over goes into hot dogs... And it is the food of choice at baseball parks... Not very savoury....What did that eastern lord say about making a graveyard for animals of his stomach...I can't remember his name, but Will Durant writes of him...A man who went from conqueror to enlightened ruler, as so few in history have managed...

@Fido,

Fido;67217 wrote:

You may be from another planet... Everything that is left over goes into hot dogs... And it is the food of choice at baseball parks... Not very savoury....What did that eastern lord say about making a graveyard for animal of his stomach...I can't remember his name, but Will Durant writes of him...A man who went from conqueror to enlightened ruler, as so few in history have managed...

Your great mind eludes my finite mind?????

Thus before the beginning we ended the start to get to the back of the front of the reverse going forward to get backwards into infinitely maybe?

@Alan McDougall,

Verbal ping-pong????

@Alan McDougall,

no comment no comment last comment maybe

@Alan McDougall,

Alan McDougall;67029 wrote:

What about loving honesty as the ultimate morality and selfish dishonesty and the ultimate immorality
Peace

Is it possible that this over-simplifies a complex subject?

Will this provide guidance for most every moral dilemma?
Will this settle bio-ethics problems such as those connected to cloning?I

And is unselfish dishonest any better?

And where does altruism fit in here?

And letls consider the case of a youth who loves honesty, has plenty of loving honesty, but he is considering suicide. How does this "ultimate morality" help him? Etc. Etc.

@deepthot,

deepthot;67541 wrote:

Is it possible that this over-simplifies a complex subject?

Will this provide guidance for most every moral dilemma?
Will this settle bio-ethics problems such as those connected to cloning?I

And is unselfish dishonest any better?

And where does altruism fit in here?

And letls consider the case of a youth who loves honesty, has plenty of loving honesty, but he is considering suicide. How does this "ultimate morality" help him? Etc. Etc.

You are using oxymoron's!!

@deepthot,

deepthot;67541 wrote:

Is it possible that this over-simplifies a complex subject?

Will this provide guidance for most every moral dilemma?
Will this settle bio-ethics problems such as those connected to cloning?I

And is unselfish dishonest any better?

And where does altruism fit in here?

And letls consider the case of a youth who loves honesty, has plenty of loving honesty, but he is considering suicide. How does this "ultimate morality" help him? Etc. Etc.

If you look, you might see the similarity of honor, and honesty...We can give to others their due in words as well as in deeds...In our affairs we can speak clearly, and say what we mean, and stand by our words, and not need a lawyer in our hip pocket to twist every word, or maake a federal case out of it...How did society ever survive without the burden of law in the past??? They learned to work things out...They learned to talk about their issues long before they became a matter to kill over... And before spilling blood, they would exchange women in order to unite families, and seal their bonds with shared blood... Now you ask about suicide...I wonder why there is not more of it... Because in our land where money is honor children are taught to put little store in honor... And they are raised as individuals and taught that they have no obligation to others, so there is no context for morality...If one returned the good given by parents by leaving them to shift for themselves in their old age, it is right up there with the great crime of past ages: Paricide...Why not kill strangers and heap dishonor on your family in that fashion??? This is what the individual has come to, what the individual has always been: an outlaw, a dishonorable example of humanity.... So be honest...Let your word be your bond, and weigh fairly all that you do or think...You will find then that little separates you from your primitive past, or all those who risked life and limb to make certain your life...Which is their life...

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Where do we draw the line on what is ethical,, moral or the reverse thereof?

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