Natural law and ethics

@reasoning logic,

i don't understand what the video has to do with the question. are you saying eating meat is unethical? if so, why didn't you make that the title to your post?

@harlequin phil,

harlequin;166211 wrote:

i don't understand what the video has to do with the question. are you saying eating meat is unethical? if so, why didn't you make that the title to your post?

No I am not saying that eating meat is unethical. I myself eat meat and drink milk.
I just liked the music and thought that the video fit some what ok.

I have read that others seem to think that natural law should some how dictate ethics and myself can not find a reason for this and I was hopeing that someone might explain how this could be so.

@reasoning logic,

reasoning logic;164781 wrote:

As the title reads [Natural law and ethics] I know very little of either and I was hopeing that someone could help me to understand how [or if ]they go together.

I have included something to listen to as you think about your answer to the question that I have asked.:detective:

YouTube - Do You Drink Milk? 28 Things You Should Know.

This is easy... Ethics is based upon natural relationships, that being the community, nation which springs from a common mother: Natal, Navel, natural... It is from our mothers that we learn our morality, how to care for and treat siblings and family... Natural law is based upon the Roman law of nations that for the first time in any sort of code of behavior suggested a universal equality between nations, and it is upon this national equality that individual equality was based...It was the first time that national morality was expanded to international morality...That is the extent of my knowledge... Some one else will have to tell you how it turned out...

@Fido,

Fido;167342 wrote:

This is easy... Ethics is based upon natural relationships, that being the community, nation which springs from a common mother: Natal, Navel, natural... It is from our mothers that we learn our morality, how to care for and treat siblings and family... Natural law is based upon the Roman law of nations that for the first time in any sort of code of behavior suggested a universal equality between nations, and it is upon this national equality that individual equality was based...It was the first time that national morality was expanded to international morality...That is the extent of my knowledge... Some one else will have to tell you how it turned out...

Thank you Fido. you write that It is from our mothers that we learn our morality, how to care for and treat siblings and family. I do see your point on how some one else will have to tell me how it turned out...

I do have a question, What we we are taught naturally is this the best way of understanding ethics? or should we seek a different approach?

As I study human behavior I come across all sorts of stories, this is one that I have just came across. This a 67 year old man that was in a fight on a bus. Believe it or not the 67 year old man put a bad beaten on the younger man who hit him first. you can find the video on youtube it is called the [epic beard man] That is not so important to me what I find interesting is the first 60 seconds of this interview video.
Oh by the way there is bad language in the video for those who do not want to hear it!:detective: YouTube - I Am A Motherfucker [2/2]

@reasoning logic,

I dont think he should be allowed to smoke in a restaurant. ...Ide rip his damned head of if he smoked in front of me while i was eating my vittles.

@reasoning logic,

reasoning logic;167356 wrote:

Thank you Fido. you write that It is from our mothers that we learn our morality, how to care for and treat siblings and family. I do see your point on how some one else will have to tell me how it turned out...

I do have a question, What we we are taught naturally is this the best way of understanding ethics? or should we seek a different approach?

As I study human behavior I come across all sorts of stories, this is one that I have just came across. This a 67 year old man that was in a fight on a bus. Believe it or not the 67 year old man put a bad beaten on the younger man who hit him first. you can find the video on youtube it is called the [epic beard man] That is not so important to me what I find interesting is the first 60 seconds of this interview video.
Oh by the way there is bad language in the video for those who do not want to hear it!:detective: YouTube - I Am A ************ [2/2]

We learn morality before we can think, when we bond with those around us as children...We can try to rationalize morality, but those who rationalize immorality have a head start....Reason springs from the mind, and moral come from the heart, and every moral reality is an infinite... Qualities like morality as morality, or justice, love, peace, freedom, or virtue generally are all moral realities, and they cannot be defined as physical realities can, and they have to be worked out as forms of relationship... What is moral for you and for me will always be what we together work out and agree on

@reasoning logic,

Adult cats drink milk. Humans aren't the only ones. But I'm generally on the side of a shift towards less meat and animal products in our diets for a variety of reasons. Natural Law Theory generally doesn't necessarily imply an ecological standpoint at least it didn't begin that way but it can be and has been adapted to the new paradigm. I think it is indeed helpful to frame the modern debate between ecologists and industry as similar to the older debate between Natural Law and its nemesis Positive Law.

@Deckard,

I am a bit bewildered about this thread, why the guy with a problem? he appeared to be acting out what was expected of him, is there any natural law in his ethics?

@reasoning logic,

Post withdrawn for the time moment.

@xris,

xris;167413 wrote:

I am a bit bewildered about this thread, why the guy with a problem? he appeared to be acting out what was expected of him, is there any natural law in his ethics?

Hi Xris. I do agree with you, he appeared to be acting out what was expected of him by many people.
I do not think that he had a lit cig, as it is illegal in the US
at a restaurant.

I used the video in response to fido's reply that we learn morality from our mothers. The man's father kicked him in his face when he was a child and his mother put him in the oven and turned the gas on.
I was only asking are we sure that this is the best way to learn morality or should we also include other approaches as well?:detective:

@reasoning logic,

reasoning logic;167658 wrote:

Hi Xris. I do agree with you, he appeared to be acting out what was expected of him by many people.
I do not think that he had a lit cig, as it is illegal in the US
at a restaurant.

I used the video in response to fido's reply that we learn morality from our mothers. The man's father kicked him in his face when he was a child and his mother put him in the oven and turned the gas on.
I was only asking are we sure that this is the best way to learn morality or should we also include other approaches as well?:detective:

It is the only way to actually learn morality...Ethics must be learned pre reason if they will be learned at all, and it is because, and as I am sure you know, that before anyone does an injustice to anyone, they first justify their action... Reason is the enemy of morality... When people are moral, and act morally, it is out of their sense of self, because of what they feel which is who they are...When people are immoral it is out of a flawed sense of self, that they need something, like money, to be complete...Because the problem is not what they have, but who they are, no amount of material advantages makes them moral...

@Fido,

Fido;167904 wrote:

It is the only way to actually learn morality...Ethics must be learned pre reason if they will be learned at all, and it is because, and as I am sure you know, that before anyone does an injustice to anyone, they first justify their action... Reason is the enemy of morality... When people are moral, and act morally, it is out of their sense of self, because of what they feel which is who they are...When people are immoral it is out of a flawed sense of self, that they need something, like money, to be complete...Because the problem is not what they have, but who they are, no amount of material advantages makes them moral...

Are you saying, Fido, that no person who behaved as an ineffective, insensitive adult ever learned to be more ethical after taking a self-help course and thoroughly studying (and doing the homework from) the Manual accompanying the course?

Any number of people have changed their life for the better after merely reading a good self-help book. [I list ome of them by Demarest & Schoof (pending publication in harcover soon) in the Bibliography to my latest piece of writing. See the link below.]

@deepthot,

The lack of empathy or the ability to have empathy with one another usually forms our moral code. When a thief robs you, he can not have any feelings for your loss. Confronting the victim can stir empathy within the thief but many have crossed that point where they are beyond having compassion or reason to feel such empathy. What kills the conscience or what the individual does to avoid having regret, is complex. Lack of moral examples growing up, isolation from human contact, a lack of expressed love. We can so easily damage each other and by so doing damage the society we live in. When we don't act by the natural laws of life and succour our children, give them love and understanding, ethics are lost.

@deepthot,

deepthot;168011 wrote:

Are you saying, Fido, that no person who behaved as an ineffective, insensitive adult ever learned to be more ethical after taking a self-help course and thoroughly studying (and doing the homework from) the Manual accompanying the course?

Any number of people have changed their life for the better after merely reading a good self-help book. [I list ome of them by Demarest & Schoof (pending publication in harcover soon) in the Bibliography to my latest piece of writing. See the link below.]

People can learn to behave as though moral, but it is manipulation, and they are truly dangerous...

I think my morals have improved, but it was because of my basic moral sense, which I owed almost as much to my dog and my brother as to my mother and father... My mother and father are moral people, and I learned the essential moral lessons when I was too young to think about it, but almost from the moment I could think about it and the reason I did think about it was that I felt rejected, abused, and humiliated by my parents...

They were ambitious when young, had lived through the great depression, and had a first born son 80% paralyzed with the effects of polio... That was my world, and I found I could not have a dog because I was a dog for my older brother... But he, at least, nurtured the sense that I was valuable, and necessary, strong, intelligent, and loyal...And I must have been the evil genius of the family, because when my father died, my brother sent a letter taking credit for every plan I had that had went awry and had earned me a kick in the ess...How could he dare to try to make off with the crimes of my youth, the products off my ruthless mind??? What did he eveer do but curb my worst, and most dangerous ideas???

What made me moral then, and now, was the sense I got very early on that I belonged with those folks, that they were mine, and I was theirs. And while my parents all but destroyed the sense in me, my brother and even my dog, while I had one, nurtured the feeling... So, I was moral and immoral when young, more consciously immoral in adolecence, and young adulthood; and philosophy did help to bring me back to a certain moral understanding; but all that would have been empty thought without the basic moral feeling, the bond between myself and others at some point in my youth...Morality is community... As bad as they were, I was one of them, and though they often made me regret it, they could not take it...

---------- Post added 05-24-2010 at 07:27 AM ----------

xris;168043 wrote:

The lack of empathy or the ability to have empathy with one another usually forms our moral code. When a thief robs you, he can not have any feelings for your loss. Confronting the victim can stir empathy within the thief but many have crossed that point where they are beyond having compassion or reason to feel such empathy. What kills the conscience or what the individual does to avoid having regret, is complex. Lack of moral examples growing up, isolation from human contact, a lack of expressed love. We can so easily damage each other and by so doing damage the society we live in. When we don't act by the natural laws of life and succour our children, give them love and understanding, ethics are lost.

You cannot teach people how to feel... Look at the serial killers who were adopted after being rejected by their mothers... All they know is hate...

@Fido,

Fido;168054 wrote:

People can learn to behave as though moral, but it is manipulation, and they are truly dangerous...

I think my morals have improved, but it was because of my basic moral sense, which I owed almost as much to my dog and my brother as to my mother and father... My mother and father are moral people, and I learned the essential moral lessons when I was too young to think about it, but almost from the moment I could think about it and the reason I did think about it was that I felt rejected, abused, and humiliated by my parents...

They were ambitious when young, had lived through the great depression, and had a first born son 80% paralyzed with the effects of polio... That was my world, and I found I could not have a dog because I was a dog for my older brother... But he, at least, nurtured the sense that I was valuable, and necessary, strong, intelligent, and loyal...And I must have been the evil genius of the family, because when my father died, my brother sent a letter taking credit for every plan I had that had went awry and had earned me a kick in the ess...How could he dare to try to make off with the crimes of my youth, the products off my ruthless mind??? What did he eveer do but curb my worst, and most dangerous ideas???

What made me moral then, and now, was the sense I got very early on that I belonged with those folks, that they were mine, and I was theirs. And while my parents all but destroyed the sense in me, my brother and even my dog, while I had one, nurtured the feeling... So, I was moral and immoral when young, more consciously immoral in adolecence, and young adulthood; and philosophy did help to bring me back to a certain moral understanding; but all that would have been empty thought without the basic moral feeling, the bond between myself and others at some point in my youth...Morality is community... As bad as they were, I was one of them, and though they often made me regret it, they could not take it...

---------- Post added 05-24-2010 at 07:27 AM ----------

You cannot teach people how to feel... Look at the serial killers who were adopted after being rejected by their mothers... All they know is hate...

Feel, who said feel? So how did the serial killer become what he is? Was it because he rejected love, moral examples. Your saying he was born a killer, a bit too much fatalism for me.

@reasoning logic,

Morals are based upon feelings; emotions... Reason denies morality...I am not saying anyone is a born killer, though it is possible... Rather, children who are not allowed to bond with their mothers, to feel defended, and the desire to defend and love are purely animals...

@Fido,

Fido;168061 wrote:

Morals are based upon feelings; emotions... Reason denies morality...I am not saying anyone is a born killer, though it is possible... Rather, children who are not allowed to bond with their mothers, to feel defended, and the desire to defend and love are purely animals...

You have lost me..so can morals be taught, given or not?

@xris,

xris;168064 wrote:

You have lost me..so can morals be taught, given or not?

Morals are learned without being taught...And you must know this since philosophy has been trying to teach ethics for iver two thousand years... They can teach about morality, but not make people moral, which is the key to the problem... Moral reality is not like physical reaity having physical concepts; but instead, morals are infinites represented by infinite forms...One cannot make them more definite by talking around them, or providing examples...There is no true, in the sense of truth, abstraction of morals; and yet people are moral, though no one can be taught morality by example...

So; no, morality cannot be taught, but it can be learned before people are logical because there is no logic to morals which is an essential part of teaching anything; the logic of it: what happens, and why what happens when it happens, the relationships between cause and effect, and etc..People who have that moral feeling are moral, and for those without it, no number of books read or written can make them moral...Love is the basis of morality, but where people were most moral they were surrounded by enemies... There was no where to go, and self serving individualism was seen as vice... It was the naturalness of the relationship that made the argument for morality...

If you love some one, and it is natural to love ones own people, then you would sacrifice and die for them... And people are still that way...So the question is not so much of how to make people moral as how to expand morality to cover a whole nation that is not at all natural.. Behind every act of immorality is the objectification of the other... When people, because of differences- can be made to seem as things rather than beings, their exploitation is half justified...

@reasoning logic,

i tend to believe that morality and reason can coexist and support each other, but it takes a lot of experience and thought. i believe i may have had morality as part of my spirit but it was taught out of me-therefore it is still in there and i can find it again, and i also believe i have to a greater than middling amount.

but fido is also right that it hinges on who you believe your people are-and since i do seriously believe all people are mine, it is the basis of the morality i am now working on intellectually. it cant be done by feeling alone because the intellect is always there, and that too is a good thing. so it has to be consciously directed and checked, the heart against the mind, to see if it is heading the right way or not.

so it may not be necessary to teach morality, but to teach that we are all one family.
because we really are...scientifically speaking and in every sense of the word.

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