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Self promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Wednesday, September 1st, 2010 11:55pm PDT - promote requested by original submitter bleedmegood.

I don't buy it. He's basically saying that morality is a subjective construct which by definition is not.

If you remove the concept of "right" and "wrong" from the definition of moral or morality, then the premise of those terms becomes undefined. The concepts of what is right or wrong are the foundation of the definition of morality.

There are subjective beliefs but there are no subjective truths. There are subjective beliefs about the virtue of an action but there is no subjective morality. Ideas are either true or not true, and actions are either moral or not moral.

Saying that morality or a moral code is something that can be subjectively defined just opens the flood gates for the justification of horrendous actions based on personal beliefs which probably isn't rooted in reality.

Defining an action or belief as moral or immoral is as simple as looking at all of the people that can be affected by the action and determining if they are either benefiting or suffering from the action being committed or the belief informing actions. By that criteria we can socially determine whether or not an action or belief is objectively moral (or not). It's not freakin' hard!

I think the conflict lies here

if you are doing what he says , which is to not follow a given moral code that is passed to you from some entity , then you are esentualy uaing avalable data and logic to determin each actoin , so in essence you are doing exactly what sam harris was talking about , which is saying you use the best evidence and logic avalable at anny given piont in time to make a dessisoin.


I dont think sam harris was necaccerly advocating that science "publish" morals that you then follow , you would hope that a socity would be educated and knowlageable to the exstent that its not a case of just doing what scientists tell you , its a case of after reading the scentific data on the subject you would simply come to the same conclusoin , and so would everyone as it would be repeatable as the most logical actoin to take for annyone.


Ethor way anny non moron retard currently operates in that way for the most part , however there are obvouse socail pressuers that have to be wayed into things , if im an indavidual that lives with 5 fundi christains to a degree it might be more productive to conform to soemthing they are doing bassed of supersitoin.

or if u are gay and live in IRAN it would probably best to keep the fact that u see there been no issue in homosexuality secret , given that no productivty would come from you getting hung , u might as well keep it hidden move to another country and then protest from afar , or work within the country subversively changing things.

@IAmTheBlurr I disagree. There is not moral code other than what we've made up. We have a society that uses a "fuzzy" moral code that we try to stay within, but it is an emergent property, not something that is just right/wrong objectively.

Your last paragraph is basically just the "do least harm" principle - which I think is a nice moral code, but still is based on a criteria that you chose; you could have chosen other criteria, which makes the whole thing subjective again.

Ideas can be true or false, but morals are based on point of view - because morality is an evaluation, ideas are not.

He is basically choosing his own definition of morality as a coded set of rules. To me Morality is emotional intelligence just like the freedom he suggests at the end. That is my morality not my lack of morality. He is opposed to a predefined set of rules which I think most people would agree is pointless and stupid since every situation is different. Acting out of love, respect and understanding will always give you better results than making up your mind beforehand. To me he is saying at the exactly what the evolutionists have been saying, that we are social animals and if we use our empathy and reasoning to give our emotions a certain degree of intelligence then that will free us all.

@gwiz665 I agree that morality is ultimately a human defined but that doesn't mean that it's not something that can be objectively defined. I just can't agree that if you have two people who have two opposing ideas of morality that somehow they're both moral. Either one person is moral, the other person is moral, or they're both not moral. Saying that morals are based on a point of view, sounds a lot like "truth is based on a point of view"

I see where you're coming from but do you actually differentiate "ideas" and "morals"? Aren't morals just ideas about which action to take or not to take under certain conditions.

Which do you agree with more:

1. Morality, or what is moral, can be defined by any singular group for the participants of that group. The existence of multiple groups would mean that there would be multiple concepts of morality.

2. Morality, or what is moral, is ultimately a collection of every possible human action toward other sentient beings which is weighed to be good or healthy, regardless of belief, creed, or culture.


I agree with statement 2 more than 1 and here's why.

Is slavery immoral? Yes. Was it always immoral? Yes. Does that mean that American slave owners were immoral even though it was their point of view that slavery was not a moral issue? Yes. Does that mean that slavery throughout all history was immoral? Yes.

If Statement 1 is correct, then slavery would be moral under certain conditions and I just don't buy that. It doesn't matter if joe blow thinks that slavery is a good idea or that he finds it morally acceptable, it's still immoral. Categorically, undeniably, objectively immoral. Slavery as an immoral thing has never been emergent, it's always been immoral, we just haven't grown up into the concept of morality until relatively recently.

Moving this video to bleedmegood's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

@IAmTheBlurr Multiple people with their own point of view aren't necessarily opposed to each other's view.

Truths, ideas, things in the world, can only be what they are - a car can exist or not - that's pretty black and white, other things are a sliding grey scale like for instance "Is the car fast?" Some might say it is, but others might say it isn't - that's dependent on a point of view, a basis of evaluation. A race car driver has a very different view of a car than a lay-person does.

You cannot put "moral" into a black and white group, because it is based on points of view.

Statement 1 is correct, but it is even more atomic than that - every single person has their own morals, but given communities, some moral viewpoints overlap - and hell, most of western society has very overlapping internal moral codes, not counting the crazies who have none. Compare ordinary western society with an eastern society, there are certain areas which are very different in what is right to do and wrong to do.

I profoundly disagree with statement 2, because as soon as you begin to "weigh" an action, you are evaluating it from a point of view - it may be less subjective than "MY point of view" and more akin to "humanity's point of view", which seems to be what you want to do, but that's not objective morality - there used to be a "white people's morality too" - did you ever stop to think about when aliens come!?

Slavery is not immoral, it is illegal. There is a difference. We consider it immoral in our society, because out collective morals overlap on that point, as it does on murder, rape and so on. That's only overlapping, that does not mean it is objective and universal. Try to look at the outliers of our morality - software piracy for instance, what is moral there? Lots of different opinions. Abortion; what's moral there? Gay marriage? There are many examples.

Slavery has become immoral because we have been taught that it is immoral and because we empathize with with fellow human beings - we want people to be free, because we want to be free ourselves.

@qwiz665 If you believe that slavery has become immoral then it follows that you think that slavery wasn't always immoral. If that's the case then you are morally inferior to a lot of people because you're fundamentally saying that under certain conditions, slavery is justifiable. Slavery has always been immoral, it's just that we (most of humanity) haven't caught up until recently. The systematic ownership of other humans to be used in forced servitude is in no way ever moral, under any conditions, for any reasons.

Even if we lived in a society that justified and allowed slavery, it would still be immoral.

Slavery is illegal in most of the western world, but it isn't illegal everywhere and it's still being practiced in some places. Does that mean in those places, where slavery is practiced, it's not immoral?

If you believe that slavery, child abuse, rape, or torture is at all ever justifiable, you are an immoral person. If you accept that any or all of those conducts are always an immoral act, then you must subject to moral realism.

Do yourself a favor and look up "Moral Realism" on wikipedia.

Just to clarify, is this basically what you're talking about?

"In its "descriptive" sense, morality refers to personal or cultural values, codes of conduct or social mores that distinguish between right and wrong in the human society. Describing morality in this way is not making a claim about what is objectively right or wrong, but only referring to what is considered right or wrong by people. For the most part right and wrong acts are classified as such because they are thought to cause benefit or harm, but it is possible that many moral beliefs are based on prejudice, ignorance or even hatred.[clarification needed] This sense of the term is also addressed by descriptive ethics." - From Wikipedia

Because this is what I'm talking about:

"In its "normative" sense, morality refers directly to what is right and wrong, regardless of what specific individuals think. It could be defined as the conduct of the ideal "moral" person in a certain situation. This usage of the term is characterized by "definitive" statements such as "That act is immoral" rather than descriptive ones such as "Many believe that act is immoral." It is often challenged by a moral skepticism, in which the unchanging existence of a rigid, universal, objective moral "truth" is rejected,[1] and supported by moral realism, in which the existence of this "truth" is accepted. The normative usage of the term "morality" is also addressed by normative ethics." - From Wikipedia

I reject the notion that child abuse, rape, torture, and slavery ever have valid justification no matter what he view point of the any individual is.

Ha!

You wanna get the man-child's attention?

Say "Look! Over there! Some naked six-year-olds are playing in the waves!"

Then the great dane will ask one of them out on a date.

Then he'll call her a cunt when she tells him to get lost.

@IAmTheBlurr My name is gwiz665 with a g, not a q. Only assholes and dickheads so far has called me qwiz, and while we can disagree I don't count you among them.

Morally inferior? I don't accept that notion - morality has no tiers, view points are all equal unless evaluated from another viewpoint. You evaluate morality from a moral realism viewpoint, such that there are moral truths and that the examples you show are moral truths - I do not believe they are. I happen to hold the view that "slavery, child abuse, rape, or torture" are all despicable, but that does not make them immoral in any other way then the fact that I think they are immoral. Morality does not encompass others, only yourself.

Indeed, I believe in a descriptive sense of morality - normative morality is a crackpot theory, just as Moral Realism.

You can construct scenarios where they are justifiable, by making it a choice between that and something worse. Joker's ultimatum in the Dark Knight is an example - that undermines the idea that murder is never justified.

I would add though that from my point of view, there are certainly viewpoints that are better than others, but this is defined from my point of view - I am not saying that we should resort to nihilism because all viewpoints should be valued equally. I think morality evolves like biological beings do, in a direction - the direction is dictated by surroundings and different influences, but to say that there is an "absolute right way" is like saying that there is an "absolutely perfect animal" and that's just stupid - sure, land animals in general do not need gills, but that does not mean that it is "right" to not have gills for a land animal. It just has some definite advantages. A certain morality can also have advantages and disadvantages and those are always evaluated - murder has very little advantage and a huge disadvantage to most people, but some people have different values, like gang members getting advantages for killing enemies, or soldiers who value their duty more than their enemy's life.

Grow the hell up, you sniveling little kid. The adults are talking.

@dag can we just ban him already?
>> ^rougy:

Ha!
You wanna get the man-child's attention?
Say "Look! Over there! Some naked six-year-olds are playing in the waves!"
Then the great dane will ask one of them out on a date.
Then he'll call her a cunt when she tells him to get lost.

The adults are talking?

How would you know?

Look!

A sixth-grader making a fool of herself.

Quick! Call her a cunt, you big tough example of manhood.

Show her your money. Now there's class....

@rougy What the hell is wrong with you? Do you have a crush on some sixth grader and want to show her your money? You are disturbing.

Are you still on about http://videosift.com/video/Jessi-Slaughter-on-Good-Morning-America ? You really need to get the sand out of your vagina.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

A very trashy comment in my opinion- but who am I to put my subjective morality on someone else? How's your sense of irony?

I'm an atheist - but scripture comes to mind- something about reaping and sowing- and perhaps turning the other cheek.

>> ^gwiz665:

Grow the hell up, you sniveling little kid. The adults are talking.
@dag can we just ban him already?
>> ^rougy:
Ha!
You wanna get the man-child's attention?
Say "Look! Over there! Some naked six-year-olds are playing in the waves!"
Then the great dane will ask one of them out on a date.
Then he'll call her a cunt when she tells him to get lost.

Hah. Videosift is not "the world", here we have rules - this is not 'nam!

Plus I neither sowed nor am going to reap any of this bullshit - what am I, a farmer? - rougy is just being his pleasant self again spewing "cunts" all over the place.

http://i.imgur.com/ynmKD.jpg it's irony, because it's a man.

Me and iamtheblurr are having such a nice conversation about morality and hamsters or some shit, and this douche feels he must deign us with his wisdom about pedophilia. Bah humbug.

@IAmTheBlurr if you want to continue the conversation, I'm sorry for the tom-foolery; let us proceed.

>> ^dag:

A very trashy comment in my opinion- but who am I to put my subjective morality on someone else? How's your sense of irony?
I'm an atheist - but scripture comes to mind- something about reaping and sowing- and perhaps turning the other cheek.
>> ^gwiz665:
Grow the hell up, you sniveling little kid. The adults are talking.
@dag can we just ban him already?
>> ^rougy:
Ha!
You wanna get the man-child's attention?
Say "Look! Over there! Some naked six-year-olds are playing in the waves!"
Then the great dane will ask one of them out on a date.
Then he'll call her a cunt when she tells him to get lost.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

It's just very interesting that you rail against censorship- and then when it's nasty stuff directed at you (and it is nasty) you call for me to censor this user.>> ^dag:

A very trashy comment in my opinion- but who am I to put my subjective morality on someone else? How's your sense of irony?
I'm an atheist - but scripture comes to mind- something about reaping and sowing- and perhaps turning the other cheek.
>> ^gwiz665:
Grow the hell up, you sniveling little kid. The adults are talking.
@dag can we just ban him already?
>> ^rougy:
Ha!
You wanna get the man-child's attention?
Say "Look! Over there! Some naked six-year-olds are playing in the waves!"
Then the great dane will ask one of them out on a date.
Then he'll call her a cunt when she tells him to get lost.

"Morality and hamsters...."

That's rich! Ha ha ha!

Pity you know more about the latter than the fore, man-child.

(sorry Dagster - on a heap big pissed off tsunami tonight)

@dag there's a difference between censorship and personal attacks. Oh well, people can see what kind of a douche he is, so I guess that's a better way to silence him --- let the users ignore the dickhead.

For easy access, this is who rougy really is
http://videosift.com/video/The-End-Of-Morality-and-The-Anarchy-Of-The-Soul?loadcomm=1#comment-1063463
http://videosift.com/video/The-End-Of-Morality-and-The-Anarchy-Of-The-Soul?loadcomm=1#comment-1063531
http://videosift.com/video/Jessi-Slaughter-on-Good-Morning-America?loadcomm=1#comment-1040292
http://videosift.com/video/Jessi-Slaughter-on-Good-Morning-America?loadcomm=1#comment-1040293
http://videosift.com/video/Gordon-Ramsay-s-Perfect-Scrambled-Eggs?loadcomm=1#comment-644095
http://videosift.com/video/Wikileaks-U-S-Apache-killing-civilians-in-Baghdad?loadcomm=1#comment-971348
http://videosift.com/video/Powell-Eviscerates-McCains-Negative-Smear-Campaign?loadcomm=1#comment-549763
http://videosift.com/video/The-Chronicles-Of-The-Obamessiah-Volume-I-The-Adulteress?loadcomm=1#comment-531070
http://gwiz665.videosift.com/?loadcomm=1#comment-1041622
http://videosift.com/video/Does-the-world-need-nuclear-energy-TED-Debate?loadcomm=1#comment-1017215
Or just check out http://videosift.com/search?q=&t=c&u=rougy&o=lovotes&vmin=&vmax=&sh=&l=&n=&b=&submit=Search

@gwiz665 Sounds like someone needs to get the sand out of his vagina too hehe jk My bad either way, I don't like when I get that shit wrong

Just to clarify on something you said.

"but to say that there is an "absolute right way" is like saying that there is an "absolutely perfect animal" and that's just stupid"

I totally agree with that statement, but I didn't say that there is a "absolute right way", I said that there is an "absolute wrong way" and those two things are entirely different. If I tell you "Don't go that way", it just means that of all the possible ways you can go, that isn't the one you want to go in; leaving all other possibilities open.

Because you take a descriptive look at the concept of morality, can we ever call any act truly immoral? Notice that I say "we" and not "you", "I", or "an individual". I mean "we" as in the human race.

The way I see it is that it is a better system which operates on universal qualifiers rather than points-of-view. Using universal qualifiers in a system requires them be met in order for something to be considered true, allowing a system to function with as few confusions and errors as possible. Points-of-view can be flawed, unintentionally misleading, delusional, mistaken or maliciously tricky. Ultimately, points-of-view are founded in anecdotes, universal qualifiers when dealing with the issue of morality is more likely to be founded in data, cold hard facts.

To give you an example that you brought up before. "Is the car fast?" That question asked in a "point-of-view" system doesn't mean anything because, yes, the term "fast" is based on the point of view of both the questioner and the person answering. But if you put that question into a qualifier system, its deemed incomplete and unanswerable until a qualifier is added. In a qualifier system the question would turn into "Is the car fast in your opinion?", or, "Is the car fast compared to that other car over there?"

I choose to look at the moral issue from a qualifier standpoint. Approaching the issue of morality from inside a qualifier system, you're forced to add requirements, adjectives that limit the scope of the moral issue in question.

The benefit of doing this is it allows you to look at every possible point-of-view without needing individuals subjectively adding their own biases. It effectively removes the human aspect out of morality and just address the questions posed by every possible action conceivable.

Child rape is conclusively shown to be more than damaging. It is one of the most, if not the most, horrendous thing any human can ever do to another human. The act of raping a child is fundamentally immoral, the data supports the claim. It is in no way ever beneficial or virtuous to rape a child.

I don't care if anyone is in the position of either raping a child or allowing the world to explode; raping the child is still an immoral act and if that someone does it just to save the world, it's still immoral.

@gwiz665 Just to be light-hearted a bit.

Everyone who is in the front of the line at a red light has a moral responsibility to move as quickly as they can off the line as soon as there is a green light if it's during rush hour and traffic is backed up, especially if the light is known to be a very fast changing light. Go ahead, refute that moral code!

@gwiz665 Ok ok, I know this is the third one of the night but I watched the video again and caught something that I think is important to our discussion.

I think you're talking about morality from more or less a philosophical perspective, a lot like the guy in the video (I forget his name).

I'm talking about morality from a scientific perspective.

The guy in the video and yourself keep mentioning the point of view model, that morals are instilled from some sort of hierarchy (or at least he is). If you agree with him then I suspect that you also think of morals in the same way. The guy in the video talks about how Alpha wolves teach their pack how to hunt, and how priest teach their congregations to hate homosexuals.

I wouldn't liken that to morality at all, I would just liken that to behavioral control mechanisms, completely separate from morality. If you're telling people that something is bad and they believe it, just because they believe it doesn't make it bad. In the same way that just because I believe that something is morally justified doesn't mean that it actually is justifiable.

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