Your Top 5 Policies

[Sternwallow]

Philboid Studge wrote

If you don't accept Harris' 'well being' argument (I'm not sure that I do) or something like it, how is this different from opposition to cruelty of human animals? (Or of any moral concept for that matter?) Also non-unanimous, subjective, visceral opinion with no other identifiable justification...no?

I tentatively accept Harris' argument at the suffering sensitive animal level and above because that is the most objective and logical I have heard so far. I am temporarily reserving human level attributes (cognition, imagination, memory etc) as the next step.

I still do not intend to kick a Girl Scout, but if when it happens I'll do it surreptitiously to avoid the arbitrary laws and moralists who are against it, thereby evading forced compliance and the attendant penalties.

As I have interpreted the J/C law, you are protected from prosecution and penalties for kicking a Girl Scout (watch out for the modern ones who are taught self-defense) if you aim your kick carefully so she cannot "cry out" loud enough to bring help.

The J/C rule is that, if she is without a voice, your assault is her fault, actually desired by her to dishonor her entire family.

[Sternwallow]

[slow connection, apologies that this post duplicated]

[Irreligious]

Sternwallow wrote

I am fine with your dredlocks, they do seem to complement your overall presentation.

Thank you, but it does not, personally, matter to me whether or not anyone else approves of them, so long as other people don't make it a moral question and interfere with my choice to wear dredlocks. When my locks are no longer natty, or when I start to experience male pattern baldness or if I get tired of wearing them, then I'll make the choice to shave my head.

The point I was trying to make is that I sport dredlocks for my own personal reasons that have nothing to do with my moral values, unlike a Rastafarian who wears his dredlocks because he believes he is commanded by his god to do so or a Hasidic woman who covers her own hair with a wig because she believes that her god commands her to hide her natural hair in public. In their minds, they're exercising a moral choice, whereas, I am not.

Sternwallow wrote

It makes an interesting side question: if an act is prohibited by one strong moral rule and commanded by another, is it a wash, a coin flip, does one invalidate the other or do they both cancel each other? How does it work if we discover the commandment: "thou shalt not suffer a puppy to go unkicked"?

I suspect that, as non-Christians, we'd ignore the commandment, if not the sentiment or the inclination to avoid harming cute lil puppies. That is, we'd adhere to the sentiment based on our own personal, moral convictions, however we rationalize them.

Sternwallow wrote

You touch on the basis for my morality question. I think it is not correct to equate morality (actual publicly recognized "right and wrong") with an incidentally large number of instances of internal "like and don't like".

But, if a large number of people are, based on their personal moral values, hellbent on protecting innocent lil puppies from egregious harm, how are you going to defend your right to kick cute lil male puppies in the nuts?

[Sternwallow]

Irreligious wrote

But, if a large number of people are, based on their personal moral values, hellbent on protecting innocent lil puppies from egregious harm, how are you going to defend your right to kick cute lil male puppies in the nuts?

I am not claiming a right to be cruel nor even that morals have no basis; I am asking what real world basis they have.

[Kate]

Irreligious wrote

how are you going to defend your right to kick cute lil male puppies in the nuts?

[Irreligious]

Sternwallow wrote

I am not claiming a right to be cruel nor even that morals have no basis; I am asking what real world basis they have.

It's simple, Sterny. Most of us have an aversion to egregious cruelty, especially when it's perpetrated against the helpless. It doesn't take too much imagination to "feel" our hypothetical puppy's pain. It is, more or less, innate to us. That's the basis. It is largely driven by emotion, but that doesn't make it any less "real world" and outrageously inhumane to our sensibilities. That is, immoral.

Yes, our empathy can be manipulated. If protein is scarce, that cute lil defenseless puppy (or any animal with meat on its bones) could become stew.

[Sternwallow]

Good, Irre. That is pretty much all that I am calling empathy and I am not discounting the role of empathy, an emergent pattern based on our memory, imagination and the ability that gives us to visualize ourselves in the victim's place. Related aspect of empathy is the reluctance many people have to look at or be near visibly crippled others.

I was hoping for objective justification for forcibly preventing somone else from doing it or punishing them after the act.

Along with the rest of you, in this specific instance, kicking puppies is wrong because I don't like it and my community can impose penalties on someone else because I don't like people who do that. Fair enough, I guess, but I think that calling it morality is a bit of a misleading stretch.

[Sternwallow]

Kate wrote

Kicking this guy in the nuts would be enough better alternative that I would forgo kicking several puppies.

[Philboid Studge]

Sternwallow wrote

I was hoping for objective justification for forcibly preventing somone else from doing it or punishing them after the act.

Can you give objective justification for any law whatsoever that purports to direct moral behavior? [Edit to add; sorry -- you did mention retribution or restitution. I haven't grokked why kicking puppies can't invoke both justifications (?)]

How about this: Your puppy-kicking is evidence of a sociopathic mind and is, as such, a potential danger to the community.

(My Girl Scout kicking only affects cookie sales.)

[Kinich Ahau]

I thought the purpose of this thread was to come up with five policies in the manner of a dictator, no questions asked. Boy, having to justify their morality sort of ruins the fun of being a despot for the day!

[ILOVEJESUS]

Sternwallow wrote

The question also is why not express dominion over animals to the extent of causing arbitrarily brutal suffering. On what basis do you think there is a level or limit to be set?

In the wild, the Cheeta does not care nor is held responsible for catching and slowly eating alive the very last antelope of its species. When 99.9% of all species that ever existed have gone extinct, by natural rules, why should humans care if they cause members of an animal species to suffer grave torment?

The argument against that, playing devils advocate because I agree with your stand point, is that nature would not have Cheetas able to kill off another animal. The effects to its own species survival would be catastrophic, so you have balance of some kind.

[ILOVEJESUS]

Smellyoldgit wrote

I'm probably one of the least violent people casually strolling this planet, but I'd have little trouble kicking the bollocks, punching the teeth out and throwing off a cliff any fucker that kicks my dog. (If I had one and if the kick was not in self defence of course)

Where do you stand on this whole "cruelty to dogs", bandwagon for showing them. I see Crufts has had to move away from the BBC for this onto channel 4? I don't see a problem, the dogs seem to enjoy these shows from the ones I have been to.

[Kinich Ahau]

I don't think it is the actual shows that people find objectionable. It's the inbreeding, physical maladies dogs suffer because of it and the culling of dogs with unacceptable attributes. Amongst other things.

[Philboid Studge]

Here's the dealy-o on morals:

First, stop thinking of morals as 'knowing the difference between good and bad' or some such simplified bromide. In fact, stop using the term 'morals' or 'morality.' Better to say 'moral systems.'

Jonathan Haidt wrote

Moral systems are interlocking sets of values, practices, institutions, and evolved psychological mechanisms that work together to suppress or regulate selfishness and make social life possible.

"Evolved psychological mechanisms" include, but are not limited to, emotions. (Not for nothing but Antonio Damasio proposed that not only morality but rationality itself is dependent on emotional circuitry in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex of the brain. So think twice [at least] before you say that emotions are the enemy of rational thought.)

"Institutions" include, but are not limited to, religious organizations.

Morals Morality Moral systems essentially have one function: to regulate selfishness.

That definition and those qualifiers cover all that "is" in the "is/ought" equation of moral foundations. I think what Stern is looking for is some rational justification for the "ought," what we should do.

I say, why bother? Unless your goal is to influence the "values and practices" of a given moral system, there's no reason to concern ourselves with "ought." Whatever justification that can be concocted for any moral question -- theft, banging your neighbor's ass, mur-diddly-urder -- is going to be corralled within Haidt's definition of moral systems anyway. In other words there is no base, objective justification. All 'moral' precepts are about regulating selfishness, full stop. (All of that said, it's not useless to at least talk about rationalizations [in the sense of using reason], since many of these precepts are in conflict.)

Sam Harris -- loathed to be labeled a moral relativist (or relative moralist) -- attempted to bridge the is-ought divide by insisting that "well-being" should be the basis of moral decision-making. To which a legion of philosophers replied, says who?

[ILOVEJESUS]

Kinich Ahau wrote

I don't think it is the actual shows that people find objectionable. It's the inbreeding, physical maladies dogs suffer because of it and the culling of dogs with unacceptable attributes. Amongst other things.

My mother in law shows a recue greyhound. No inbreeding etc. Just shows. On many occasions she has been harassed by the animal rights brigade at shows for putting the dog through its paces. The dog seems to enjoy it, my mother in law is dog nuts, and wont even let me move it off the chair to sit down lol.