Patting the wrists, rolling the eyes.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Spanky
I have heard this claim before, in fact I have read whole books based on this claim, but they never really back it up. Absense a higher law where do morals and ethics come from?

I have never heard of how everyone looking out for their own self interest leads to a moral and ethical society?

In the end, how does ones self interest lead to the conclusion one should be concerned about starving children in Bangaladesh?

Everyone looking out for their own self-interest was perhaps a bit of a simplification. By "self" I also meant those that we hold dear. For instance, I don't rape my neighbor's daughter because I don't want anyone raping my daughter, and if it's okay for me, then how can I argue it isn't okay for someone else.

Same with the starving children. It's in my enlightened self-interest to support the notion of relief for the poor and hungry, in case I ever become poor and hungry myself.

Of course, the most elegant example of this sort of enlightened self-interest brings us back to God, and Pascal's gamble.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Spanky
I don't understand what that means. Absence some sort of higher law or code the word moral has no meaning. What is your definition of morality?

That's absurd. The notion of "The Good" existed long before the existence of the type of religious belief system you are talking about. The Greek gods didn't enforce a moral code, but clearly Plato sought to understand the nature of what is Good, among other topics.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Spanky


The problem is, no matter how well he critiques faith, he never seems to come up with an alternative source of morality.

So it seems like you're down to "faith is the least-bad source of morality."

put differently "religion is the worst form of moral codes except all those others that have been."

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
What he said. Also, I would think that if there was a universal moral code of divine origin, it would be, well, more universal, and more constant over time and place.

2. It's interesting, too, that a lot of those deviations from the general "don't hurt people, don't kill people" princple are based on other religious principles. Female circumcision, human sacrifice, suttee. Friend of mine quoted Leviticus to me in another context yesterday:

And as for your male and female slaves whom you may have from the nations that are around you, from them you may buy male and female slaves. Moreover you may buy the children of the strangers who dwell among you, and their families who are with you, which they beget in your land; and they shall become your property. And you may take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them as a possession; they shall be your permanent slaves.

Seems that a lot of cultures get around the bigger principle by saying God told them it was ok.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
2. New question: Say you could start up a whole new tax structure how would balance the burdens between wealthly/poor/inheritance/gains/whatever. Clean slate! Let's go!

That's easy. All accessions to wealth, be they wages, trade or business income, capital gains, insurance proceeds, gifts, or inheritance are taxable at a rate of say, 12-15%. Each taxpayer receives a single credit for an amount equal to that tax that would be paid on income equal to an index that measures average cost of living, adjusted for inflation and number of persons in the household. Allow for a refundable credit, and you've eliminated the welfare and social security systems and infrastructure as well.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan

Seems that a lot of cultures get around the bigger principle by saying God told them it was ok.

there's a wholly non-fatuous argument to be made that far more in the way of evil has been done in the name of religion than good.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Spanky
Yes people have come up with moral systems based on self interest. And generally people agree that morality helps people survive. If in a society there are rules against killing and stealing etc. then the society will be stronger because there will not be internal conflict. But as far as morality is concerned you run into what I like to call the Nietchza problem. If one can see that the morality is there purely to help the society to survive, the smart rational player would want to live in a moral society, but not be moral themselves but make the rest of society think they are moral (become a superman beyond burgeous morality). You want to live in a moral society because then your neighbords won't steal your stuff or kill you. However, if you live in such a society, if you can get away with it, you should steal your neighbors stuff because that will benefit you. As long as your neighbors don't know that you are doing it, then you should do it. If you can cheat on your taxes and get away with it you should because it is in your self interest. In a moral code that is purely based on self interest and practicality how can argue that someone should not steal from their neighbor if they can get away with it?

1. They don't know they can get away with it.

2. If they do it, then what is to stop everyone else from doing it?

3. True self-interest requires the rational person to recognize that each individual break in the social contract weakens it, and no one of us can be certain at what point the contract will be too weak to hold.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Leviticus

Who let you out of the menstrual hut?

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by taxwonk

3. True self-interest requires the rational person to recognize that each individual break in the social contract weakens it, and no one of us can be certain at what point the contract will be too weak to hold.

Indeed, the fact that even religious societies need laws says something about the strength of the moral code they purport to advance.

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary." -Federalist No. 51 (J. Madison).

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Your friends/family are apparently better parents than mine.

That would certainly explain a lot.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Translation: The world is confusing, with many inexplicable things. The only explanation is that there is a god.


I don't get it, and I certainly don't get what it proves, because it leaves nearly as much open. To wit, I've long believed that there is a god who at least go things started around the big bang. But I don't see what that tells me about anything since. There could be a heaven and a hell. Or there could not. I could take Pascal's wager, or I could not. But what you seem to be left with is "no human-developed moral code has sufficient teeth and I'm at such a loss as to why (most) humans act morally that the only explanation is god." That seems the least satisfying answer of all.

"To wit"? Alas, what century are you in?

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Spanky
What you say is true in theory, but in todays world, if someone does not pay their taxes is everyone else going to stop. No.

Actually, yes. Well, maybe not everyone, but a significant number of taxpayers will reduce or elimiinate their reporting and payment of tax if they feel that the system will not catch them. This is known in the trade as the "audit lottery." It's effect has been proven by Treasury revenue and collections statistics countless times.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Spanky
Because then morality is just an instinct that helps one survive. Kind of like opposable thumbs. Our instincts tell us to care about the downtrodden, because a society that is full of people that care about the downtrodden survive better than the people in a society that do not. So morality is not really about right or wrong, but just what helps us survive better. In certain Cat societies, if a female cat takes on a new mate, the new male cat will kill all the offspring of the prior mate. He does that because the children from the other mate do not carry his genetic line, so he does not want to waste his resources on an alternate genetic line. Throughout history people have often treated step children less well than their own children. How can you blame them if morality is simply based on survival? How can you critisize a parent that mistreats their step children? Your instinct that such activity is wrong is just an instinct that helps you survive, just like the step parents instinct to mistreat their step child, is an instinct that helps them survive. Who is to say whose instinct is more valid? I think there is a morality that is beyond the logic of survival or just carrying on your genetic line. I know that throwing widows on their dead husbands funeral pyre is wrong. I don't think that my feelings on the subject are just some misplaced survival instinct. And even though such activity does not effect me in any way I feel a responsibility to do something about it.

The thing that separates humans from the lower species is our ability to rationalize and empathize. Your insistence that man is left with nothing but instinct without the existence of God is faulty for the simple reason that it leaves out this essential feature of what makes us human.

[Shape Shifter]

Does Nothing exist?

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by taxwonk
The thing that separates humans from the lower species is our ability to rationalize and empathize. Your insistence that man is left with nothing but instinct without the existence of God is faulty for the simple reason that it leaves out this essential feature of what makes us human.

2.

spanky
Under Darwins theory people develop morals to help them survive.

First things first - stop saying this is Darwin's theory (no one's done it in a few pages, but still). Darwin made some passing comments about complex social behaviors possibly having some heritable aspect, but Darwin did not promote the "social Darwinist" theories you're refering to.

Second - if (pretty much) all people are genetically predisposed to have an instinct driving them to feed starving children, why is that universal instinct not the basis for a "universal" moral code? Because it may be irrational? Just because self interest may find expression in several ways (evolutionary/instinctual and rational), why would the evolutionary (universal) aspect not be a sound basis for a universal code of morality? Justifying one's irrational impulse to do good with "faith" is no more convincing an argument that basing it on "thousands of years of evolutionary pressures producing this instinct in individuals with a higher rate of survival." In fact, it is much less so. Evolution strikes me as a much better (and much less culturally relative) basis for any universal code than God and religion (which, as is perfectly obvious, does not produce "universal" codes of morality but instead conflicting relative ones).

The rational free-rider problem is applicable to all moral codes, not just ones that consider themselves to be based on evolved instincts for self-interest. It undermines divine morality as much as evolutionary behaviorism, and in nearly the same way. (After all, it is the divine mover who gave us rationality, which, if we exercise it, tells us that it is in our interests to ignore God's moral codes.) And, while it may seem superficially rational to eschew moral behavior to free-ride, besides the cute Kantian and Rawlsian cites offered (which may be summarized as "acquiescing to serve a broader interest in lieu of my immediate self interest is in fact in my longer-term self interest" or "the shoe may be on the other foot some day"), it is entirely rational to debate whether it is in fact rational to assume one's own rational analysis of what behaviors will be individually beneficial is superior to instinctive behaviors with millenia of proven success.