Princess

Dear Post

That is an hypothetical situation. Meaning lets assume that you are that person.

could you tell me what you would do and why?

Regards

-YT

Princess

let me trick you by answering your question with another question ;-)

You wrote[My question is, does motivation matter, as long as we do good? And
conversely, does motivation matter if we we cause pain and destruction?]

My question: is it [JUSTIFICATION] for an immoral act or[Motivation]?

Just bare in mind, I am not being judgmental.

-YT

Capt_ayhab

Let me put it slightly differently: If serving your fellow human beings brings you pleasure and makes you feel good about yourself and that's why you do it, does it matter that your motivations are selfish?

This is slightly related to the issue of intention that I brought up earlier in the thread. If we have the best intentions, but end up causing pain and agony, how much does that intention count (Example: the story of Rabbit Proof Fence). Some of my cynic friends criticise Bill Gate by saying all his charity work is also a monument to his own ego. He has managed to put his name down in history as one of the biggest, most successful business men, and now he wants to be known as the biggest philanthropist.

My question is, does motivation matter, as long as we do good? And conversely, does motivation matter if we we cause pain and destruction?

A line from The Reader comes to line: "What we feel is not important, what we DO is!"

Cheers. 

Dear capt_ayhab,

Sorry for my confusion and thanks for your reply. Very informative! 

Actually I wasn't following all the comments, so I hadn't seen this one about the morality genes...wow! It is just amazing...Imagine the possibilities!

I hope that one day our morality gene is going to be fully studied and understood, even evolve and get stronger in human race, so we can clearly and with confidence rely on our own "instincts" to judge the  good and bad... In this case the concept of god would be just unnecessary:-)

Thanks again, Azarin

Ms. Azarin

Dear Azarin

Let me clarify my question. My question was not to judge your answer to the paradox. The hypothesized situation I presented, was part of a study that was conducted in Harvard School of Business during 80's as part of curriculum of[Business Ethics] course.I use this problem in classes I teach under the same subject.

With that said, I do not agree to your assessment when you say morality is an abstract concept. If you notice in some of the comments,one contributor has even brought up the point that there is in fact a Gene for morality which is part of the blue print of a human being.

The answer you gave will not be judged, for you might even be a highly moralistic person despite your own claim. You honestly chose what your conscious told you to chose, although you might have had reservation about the decision.

capt_ayhab [-YT]

to:AZ

what does having health insurance has to do with having a clear conscience??

You sleep well when you have a clear conscience.

Noth having health insurance has nothing to do with having a clear conscience.

We are not talking about the Unscrupulous treatment of labor force or unfair compensation packages of corporate robber barons like WalMart.

Having said that, I still choose Walmart over Death Merchants and bomb making industries.

to Post

I think you have missed a part of my reply (the PS section!) My reply was based on the assumption that this guy was working for the arm industry. Otherwise, as I have said in my comment, personally I would have never accepted working for the merchants of bombs.

But talking of sleeping well at night, do you think that people who refuse to work at Wal Mart or Mc Donalds are all elitists? Could it be that these jobs offer no health insurance to their employees who mostly cannot even cover the full expenses of their family? Or maybe you haven't heard about many action law suits against Wal Mart and Mc Donalds and how these companies apply other types of abuse toward their own employees, or the cheap workers in "poor" countries? 

Do you think anyone (without a health insurance and not making the ends meet) can actually sleep really well at night?

Azarin 

Dear capt_ayhab,

Dear capt_ayhab,

Of course the bribery is immoral, but I have heard about the people who had to bribe smugglers or the officers at Mehrabad airport just to leave Iran during the war. Was this act immoral? It could be immoral for those who live in an abstract world made of principles and abstract definitions, but in the real world with its imperfections, and for the parents who were trying to save their kid’s life the question of morality never came up.

When I was younger I wanted to become a philosopher…until the Iran-Iraq war happened and my life changed. Since then, and since I had to live at the borders of life and death, I turned into an immoral simple minded human being, with this deep desire to tilt more toward the side of livings…far from the perfect universe of philosophy. 

Yes, I know...it sounds selfish and I'm sorry about it! 

Azarin

Reconciling Science and Spirituality

I apologize to everyone for the broken links, apparently most sites associated with that content has been infected, perhaps some ideas are too dangerous? Keeping people ignorant is profitable, thank goodness Islam helped preserve/develop Greek wisdom and pass it on to Europe when the enlightenment rolled around. However the subsequent negative reaction to everything deemed religious in nature was unfortunate, as religions come in many forms, in fact, I find some scientists are more 'religious' in their beliefs than some theologians...they may have more in common than they think, check out the upcoming Angels and Demons. The greatest problem facing our leaders is the ability to know and directly experience the nature of the cosmos without sanctioned approval from the heir-oligarchy.

Here is what I found interesting from the first link:

"Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennet claim that “God” is a "skyhook" (not a "crane") and that "God" is subsequently unscientific. For someone like me however this argument has no force because "God" as I see it/him/her is indeed "a crane." The iterating God function evolves and becomes -- through each cycle -- more and more functionally complex. The process is called "telic recursion." God and the universe co-evolved from a simple initial state devoid of complexity. Awareness rides along and learns (increases in complexity) through every iteration/cycle. Ideas are projected outward to become "physical" and then success and/failure (of these projections) is assessed and learned from. With this new information (new functional complexity) in hand the cycle begins again."

" It follows that reality itself should be a set…in fact, the largest set of all. But every set, even the largest one, has a powerset which contains it, and that which contains it must be larger (a contradiction). The obvious solution: define an extension of set theory incorporating two senses of “containment” which work together in such a way that the largest set can be defined as "containing" its powerset in one sense while being contained by its powerset in the other. Thus, it topologically includes itself in the act of descriptively including itself in the act of topologically including itself..., and so on, in the course of which it obviously becomes more than just a set." --Chris Langan 

Reality is an endlessly cyclic topo-descriptive powerset/creatorset."

In addition to the holographic principle, Wheelers work on It from Bit, and the CTMU, check out higher category/topos theory, and the mathematical foundations of knowing. 

One also should bear in mind the difference between

Values: n : beliefs of a person or social group in which they have an emotional investment (either for or against something); "he has very conservatives values"

Morals: n : motivation based on ideas of right and wrong

Ethics: A theory or a system of moral values: “An ethic of service is at war with a craving for gain"

The rules or standards governing the conduct of a person or the members of a profession.

These links definitely work: 

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V-PxPtXuv8

The Philosophy and History of Science:

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=59w_uwxMS9k

The scientific "attitude" can be quite pessimistic sometimes, holism may improve that, our survival may depend on discovering (or re-inventing as Voltaire might suggest) our unique significance or value, nothing is worse than becoming a nihilist.

Dear Monda: I have already

Dear Monda:

I have already noted the name and will definitely be reading more of his work. Between, yours, Solo's, Azarin's and Mara's suggestions, I have my reading material for the next 6 months cut out for me. :)

Thanks for the suggestion.

Dear Mara:

I am intrigued and will definitely look into everything you have suggested at the first opportunity. Intuitively, I believe you are right in that our natural mind would know what is right or wrong, but it would be nice to be able to back it up with some scientific evidence. I also need to read more on what Monda is suggesting to make sure I get the whole picture. :)

Thanks again for the suggestions.

Yes, Princess. You might

Yes, Princess. You might want to study cultural anthropology of different human tribes. For example, how the Hopis (Native America tribe) and the Yammamanos (Amazon Forest tribe) system of warfare, justice, and dealing with conflicts. Theirs is a very sophisticated system of dealing with social ills.

Compared to our system we are much more primitive and less wiser than they were. Putting clothes on does not necessarily make us more civilized, spiritual, or enlightened...lol

On an individual level of the species, moral gene explains a whole myriad of juicy questions about good vs evil or compassion vs ruthlessness and so on.

Azarine Sadegh: Your

Azarine Sadegh:

Your responsibility first and foremost is to your conscience. There is nothing wrong with working in WalMart or MacDonalds. Your views are very elitist and only indicate a prejuidice against *poor* people who have been systematically disenfranchised by the whole society as a whole but still choose to sleep well at night with clear conscience and will never consider working for arms dealers. They rather make less money and be looked down at by unethical elitists than to become a whore for death merchants.

Ms. Azarin

Thanks for you response. I KNOW that I have presented a paradox with my question, which is the purpose of it. However allow me to ask:

Isn't BRIBERY immoral thing to do???

capt_ayhab [-YT]

Dear capt_ayhab

Interesting question!

In my humble opinion, first of all, this person shouldn't have been working in a company with such a macabre product.

But let's assume that he lives in a small town where the whole town is employed by this single company and there's nothing else except for the jobs at Wal Mart or Mc Donalds. Plus, he has no desire to leave the town to go elsewhere to look for a better job for personal reasons, like having his sick parents in that town and he has to take care of them, etc...So this man had no other choice other than staying in this town.

But once it is established that this man's only livable option for a living is with this arm company, then his main responsibility should be towards his family and his co-workers. So I think the "good" deed for him is to bribe the dictator and to save his job and to get a promotion too! 

Voila my response! And thanks for keeping the discussion heated!

Azarin

PS: Of course in my own case, I would have never worked in this company and I would have taken my sick parents with me to a greater city, so I could have taken a job where I wouldn't have felt having "Dirty hands" as Sartre says!

capt_ayhab: I will never

capt_ayhab: I will never represent an arm manufacturing company to begin with. My consceince will not allow me to pick a profession like that no matter how lucrative the profession. I would rather starve to death than to become an arms dealer.

Why would you even consider representing an arm manufacturing company??

Dear Post

In my earlier comment on this thread, I did define my understanding of moral, please see below. However allow me to present to all the ladies and gentlemen a hypothetical situation which will shed some light on entire question:

Lets assume that YOU are a high caliber sale representative for an Arm Manufacturing company which produces army grade arsenal.

You have been assigned to a [Third World country] to close a large arm sales contract with the dictator of that country. 

The company you are working for is located in a small town and is the largest employer of that town. The company is struggling to keep afloat, they are in very dire economic situation. IF you[as sales rep] are unable to close the deal, that company can not sustain the operations and as a result will have to close the factory, forcing 1000's of workers out of job, and into unemployment.

On your visit with the [head honcho] of the target country, he proposes that he is very impressed with the merchandise[arsenal], however for him to sign the purchase order, you/your company MUST deposit $1,000,000 to his private Swiss bank account.

Considering that if you do not return with signed contract your company, and 1000's of people in your town will lose their livelyhood. But in order to get the contract, you MUST BRIBE the [head honcho].

QUESTION: what would you do and why???

Regards

capt_ayhab [-YT]

Princess

If the deed is preformed in the expectation of a reward/return then it is NOT selfless. That is the entire meaning behind[MORAL].

Tu niki mikon o dar dajleh andaz

Ke Izad dar biabanat dahdad baz.

capt_ayhab [-YT]

Dear Princess

I do hope you get the time to read Kohlberg past the summery that I sent you in that link. His research does start with human child as we start off as children. The most valide researc findings in behavioral sciences are those based on longitudinal studies.

Moral development in humans does have a strong evolutionary component to it. Think in terms of adaptive defenses, if you are interested in psychosocial phenomena.

I am not sure if humans are the only species with empathic capabalities. For the purpose of your inquiry though, I am not sure if morality is based on human empathy, alone.

Thank you all for your thoughtful contributions.

Cant’n:

Thank you. You define good as the “selfless concern for the welfare of others”.  If it’s really selfless, how is it sustained? You see, I believe even the Mother Theresas of this world get a lot in return for what they give, that’s how they can sustain it. If they didn’t get anything back, they wouldn’t be able to sustain it. So it’s not completely selfless. And can we really concern ourselves with the welfare of others without being concerned with our own welfare?

Steve:

I like the point you are trying to make. The only glitch is you are using words such as Truth and Love, which have many meanings and can be interpreted in many different ways. Is there an absolute Truth or an absolute Love? In my humble opinion, that’s one problem with religions. As one of the panellists says even within one religion there is not one religion. Different people would interpret the same Bible , Qur’an or Torah differently. And where does God sit in all this?

Post:

With capt_ayha’s permission, for arguments sake, let’s define morality simply as a sense of right and wrong.

Ben:

Great point! You bring us back to the core question. Where does morality come from? The more I think about it, the more I believe there is no absolute morality. Even The Golden Rule, has a major weakness, because it still relies on the judgement ofthe individual. So “do onto others as you would like done onto you” doesn’treally work if let’s say, some of us were sadomasichists. :)

Mara:

Thanks. I share your views about religions and want desperately to share your optimism about human beings. However, I still don’t understand where our sense of morality comes from. (Thanks for the links by the way. I need to read more about the moral gene. ) Are you saying that our natural mind would intuitively know right from wrong? Is it the institutions and belief systems that “contaminate”the mind and move us away from morality? I have always thought that moral codes were invented when humans got together to create communities and societies to ensure harmony and peace. Are you going back to the idea of the  Nobel Savage?  

I am so grateful to all of you for engaging in this dialogue. Please keep your thoughts coming!

There is no moral value that

There is no moral value that is solely derived from an institution or a belief system.

Religions are not why we know the difference between right or wrong and if you think that you need the Koran to know this then you might want to consider a very healthy introspective look in yourself. I personally dont think you are that corrupt as an individual that you would need someone or something to say, "hey, dont do that!"

But what has religion offered us? crusades, schisms, pogroms, torture, wars, oppression.

Look at women. one of the greatest tools that has been used to oppress women has been religion.

Morality and Religion? Paradoxical.

Morality and Religion? Paradoxical.

Consider, first, if there is no "absolute morality", and we require God to establish one. In this case, absolute morality consists of nothing but the arbitrary choice of one individual- God- and we have no way to declare this choice moral or immoral because there is no outside standard against which to compare it.

Consider a second case- absolute morality exists independently of God. In this case, God can elect to be moral or immoral, but we are left with the dilemna- where did this morality come from? It's not a physical thing, it's strictly meta-physical, and metaphysical is only created by the mind. What mind?

Absolute morality, then, can not exist, unless we define it solely as "the morality of God", in which case it becomes a tautology and loses meaning.

Captain: What is your

Captain: What is your definition of morality?

Steve

Question is though,,,, Does morality exist outside the religion?

Why and why not?

capt_ayhab [-YT]

the truth will set us free

It's unfortunate that when each of us is seeking truth that we don't all end up in the same place. Also unfortunate is that with so many of us not arriving at the truth, that more of us don't ask ourselves, 
"do I REALLY BELIEVE that what I BELIEVE is REALLY REAL"? 

Different world views, various forms of good vs evil, everything in the world crumbling around us, fighting each other... this all leads to one end, The End. Between now and then, my path will be to love one another, to love my enemy, and seek truth.

What is truth? There is only one truth, that being God's truth. Not my truth, nor your truth for you and I can hardly get it right.

But let's at least attempt to get it right! Seek the truth from a loving God, and his truth will set us free.  (John 8:32) Truth = Love.

Princess

I can give you 60 definition of word "good", but my favorite, and the one fitting of the subject matter is:

[Selfless concern for the welfare of others]

capt_ayhab [-YT]

capt_ayhab

Glad you liked this one! :)

Good thoughts, Good words, Good deeds, in deed!!

Now could you define "good"?

All the best. 

Mara,

Is that true? I am very interested to find out more and shall look it up.

I agree with you, but would put it slightly differently. I would say ignorance is the source of all evil...:)

If one is absolutely convinced - however wrongly- what one is doing is for the better good, but ends up causing pain and agony, can we blame the ignorant? 

Bear with me for a minute. I don't know if you've ever seen the movie Rabbit Proof Fence. If you haven't, I highly recommend it, but the story is based on Australia's Stolen Generation.

Basically, up until the 1960 the White Australian government with the intention of "breeding out"  the Aborigenies, decided to take away the Aborigenal children - especially the so called "half-breeds" -from their biological parents and place them in white families, who were supposed to teach them "civilized" manners  and show them how to live like white people. The idea was the they would then marry white people and after a certain number of generations the Natives of Australia would be breeded out. I don't need to get into details about how much pain, misery, and agony they caused.

Many people who did this were absolutely convinced that they were doing the best thing they could ever do to these poor children. Obviously, to us, what they were doing was unthinkable, but they had the best "intention" in mind - however twisted their justification was.

How much does intention count? Where is the biological moral rudder in this? In today's world is there any excuse for ignorance? What do you think? 

Would love to know more about your thoughts from a scientific perspective. 

on moral

on moral gene:

//scienceblogs.com/gnxp/2008/01/a_moral_insti...

//my.opera.com/Bantay/blog/2007/03/09/moral-g...

The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology (Paperback)
//www.amazon.com/Moral-Animal-Science-Evoluti...

A moral Gene:
//www.ruderfinn.com/corporate-public-trust/et...

Dear Monda,

Thanks for introducing Kohlberg to me and for providing the link.

I have had a skim through, it seems very interesting and I need to dedicate more time to it, but so far my understanding is that he seems to suggest that the development of morality is an evolutionary process at least in children. 

A very interesting point about our generation struggling with his Fifth phase. He seems to imply that The Golden Rule represents the universal ethical principles as he places it at the top of his hierarchy. The question than becomes, given the fact that the Golden Rule is probably one of the oldest, most elegant and most complete moral codes, why has there been a need for the development of religious moral codes along side it? Furthermore the Golden Rule seems to be based on empathy. When in the process of the evolution from apes to humans did our sense of empathy develop? Is empathy particular to humans?

Still a lot more food for thought... :) 

Thank you!

Moral vs Religion

One great man defined  the purpose of humankind, like that of all other creation, is to sustain aša[TRUTH]. For humankind, this occurs through active participation in life and the exercise of:

Good thoughts
Good words
Good deeds

Key word is [Active Participation]. With implied voluntary, free choice  in seeking and SUSTAINING [TRUTH].

To equate morality with religion, is to say humankind is born evil, and only salvation is religion.........

capt_ayhab [-YT]

P/S Good post Princess    ;-)