A discourse on Morality.

Nov 20, 2007 03:40

I've been pondering the concept of morality for a while now; and feel comfortable describing morality as 'following conduct that sensible people would consider good ( Read more... )

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anonymous November 20 2007, 11:16:20 UTC
Almost all right action is ultimately self-serving, whether it is the Christian trying to get into Heaven, or the hedonist seeking what makes him happy. Morality as I see it, is just a codification of right action as seen from within a society. These usually include rules for maintenance of said society ( ... )

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iarwain November 20 2007, 11:18:29 UTC
Ignore this one. LJ somehow logged me out and I didn't notice.

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iarwain November 20 2007, 11:18:07 UTC
Almost all right action is ultimately self-serving, whether it is the Christian trying to get into Heaven, or the hedonist seeking what makes him happy. Morality as I see it, is just a codification of right action as seen from within a society. These usually include rules for maintenance of said society ( ... )

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azraphael November 20 2007, 22:49:07 UTC
Do you agree that one can devise a set of moral rules from self-evident postulates and logic?
  • Don't offend someone else because he's then going to go out of his way to mess up your day.
  • Contribute to the good of your society because it really is easier to work as a team than to have all of us trying to fend for ourselves.
I believe I would have no problem constructing logical arguments for these two moral rules given a set of postulates that one would be considered self-evident.

If so, given two sets of moral rules - one based on rigorous logic, and one based on religious tenets; would you value one higher than the other?
The logic-based rules would appear to be somewhat isolated from the specific society which would have both benefits and shortcomings.

I try to read the works of the greats, but when it comes to philosophy I consider it a cheat. If I can't work something out from first principles then I don't deserve the knowledge. Any trained monkey can say "I think there for I am!", but few could come up with such a fundamental

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