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It's a crime if you live there and it's considered the law of the land that you have broken. Don't like it and can't effect change lawfully? Move. This is th

It's a crime if you live there and it's considered the law of the land that you have broken. Don't like it and can't effect change lawfully? Move. This is the best explanation I have seen. Morality is a completely artificial construct. There is no such thing as something being provably evil or good. It's not a math equation, but rather the consensus of your peers. I love crypocurrency as much as the next guy, but I also enjoy the happiness I get from living in a law abiding community.

gameshot911 9y ago
Sure. Tomorrow morning you wake up and your country has mandated DNA testing for all citizens. Anyone who does not have approved genomes will be summarily sterilized 'for the good of the future of the citizenry'. Oh, and they also made it illegal to avoid the DNA testing, and to move out of your current location. What then?
derefr 9y ago
> It's not a math equation, but rather the consensus of your peers. Those two ideas aren't inherently contradictory. It's pretty easy to ground metaethics by asserting something like "human genetics encodes an instinctual preference function for social mores into human brains." Then, "morality" is an objective fact: an objective fact about what actions are acceptable to (neurotypical) humans.
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  Yeah and a century ago social mores said interracial marriage was immoral and neurotypical humans of the time believed it because society. Ain't nothing objective there.
  - derefr 9y ago
    Social mores in one particular culture said that. We don't look at what particular cultures think when trying to figure out what morality is. Instead, we look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_universal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_universal s — beliefs shared by every culture across every time period, even ones completely disconnected from outside contact for millenia.
    - aaron-lebo 9y ago
      Ok, so what out of that link isn't incredibly abstract? Special speech for special occasions You want to define that? * Toys, playthings * Death rituals, mourning * Feasting * Body adornment * Hairstyles * Art It's a good thing toys and art are culturally universal, but they don't say a thing about morals. It's just that it's hard to think of many things that are actually universally accepted as moral. Even lying is acceptable in various religions in different contexts. We as societies can't even agree on what is and isn't murder or if it's acceptable.
alexbecker 9y ago
Do you really believe there is nothing right or wrong regardless of what your peers say? If so, I find you deeply troubling. Most things aren't math equations. All distinctions in the real world are messy, seemingly arbitrary at some level. Can you define what it means for something to be alive or dead? I seriously doubt it. Yet we do not dispute the existence of such distinctions. The concept of life improves our understanding of the world despite its slipperyness.
- bumblebeard 9y ago
  Most utilitarians turn out not to actually think that way in real-life situations so I wouldn't worry about it. Moral realism is tied to religion for a lot of people and so some non-religious folks just reject it out of hand, which I think is a mistake. IMO, moral truth exists as much as scientific truth we just interact with/discover it differently. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a good place to start if the topic interests you: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-realism/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-realism/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-anti-realism/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-anti-realism/
  - nickpsecurity 9y ago
    "Most utilitarians turn out not to actually think that way in real-life situations so I wouldn't worry about it." I agree based on lots of personal experience with and research on people who talked utilitarian but acted different when the law's enforcers were focused on them. I fought with myself over this in many situations balancing the struggle between my own survival/well-being vs supporting principles. Takes discipline and sacrifice to practice utilitarianism. What it took me led me to be suspicious of people who preach it who spontaneously do what benefits them esp at others' expense even in small ways.
  - blazespin 9y ago
    Yeah, sure sounds like science to me: "It is worth noting that, while moral realists are united in their cognitivism and in their rejection of error theories, they disagree among themselves not only about which moral claims are actually true but about what it is about the world that makes those claims true. Moral realism is not a particular substantive moral view
wyager 9y ago
> Don't like it and can't effect change lawfully? Move. Great idea. Why bother ever trying to improve things where you live when you can just move to fantasy-land where the laws are in perfect agreement with your beliefs? This argument makes even less sense in the US since the government makes you get permission, provide years of tax records, and pay them a huge amount of money (over $2000 plus some large percentage of your holdings) to renounce your citizenship. You can't "just leave".
closeparen 9y ago
Statutes are a lagging (not leading) indicator of consensus about acceptable behavior. Law is evidence to help establish that society, at least at what time, found a certain behavior unacceptable. It also has to be willing to enforce it rigorously and consistently today. It's good hygeine to repeal or amend laws that we aren't willing to enforce, but it doesn't always happen. If it does happen, it's almost always after, not before, doing what the law prohibits becomes widespread and socially acceptable. It might be morally necessary to abstain from behaviors your community finds unacceptable. It might also be morally necessary for the executive branch to enforce the laws exactly as written, no matter how poorly they track moral consensus, until the laws are changed. It doesn't follow that it's morally obligatory to follow the law just because it's the law.
mirimir 9y ago
Nonviolent resistance is also a viable option. See Gandhi.
petre 9y ago
> It's not a math equation, but rather the consensus of your peers. Make that the consensus of your peers' so called representatives in Congress, because we're not direct democracies like ancient Greece. Politicians took care to subvert the power from the people to line up their pockets.

gameshot911 9y ago

Sure. Tomorrow morning you wake up and your country has mandated DNA testing for all citizens. Anyone who does not have approved genomes will be summarily sterilized 'for the good of the future of the citizenry'. Oh, and they also made it illegal to avoid the DNA testing, and to move out of your current location. What then?

derefr 9y ago

> It's not a math equation, but rather the consensus of your peers. Those two ideas aren't inherently contradictory. It's pretty easy to ground metaethics by asserting something like "human genetics encodes an instinctual preference function for social mores into human brains." Then, "morality" is an objective fact: an objective fact about what actions are acceptable to (neurotypical) humans.

aaron-lebo 9y ago
Yeah and a century ago social mores said interracial marriage was immoral and neurotypical humans of the time believed it because society. Ain't nothing objective there.
- derefr 9y ago
  Social mores in one particular culture said that. We don't look at what particular cultures think when trying to figure out what morality is. Instead, we look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_universal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_universal s — beliefs shared by every culture across every time period, even ones completely disconnected from outside contact for millenia.
  - aaron-lebo 9y ago
    Ok, so what out of that link isn't incredibly abstract? Special speech for special occasions You want to define that? * Toys, playthings * Death rituals, mourning * Feasting * Body adornment * Hairstyles * Art It's a good thing toys and art are culturally universal, but they don't say a thing about morals. It's just that it's hard to think of many things that are actually universally accepted as moral. Even lying is acceptable in various religions in different contexts. We as societies can't even agree on what is and isn't murder or if it's acceptable.

alexbecker 9y ago

Do you really believe there is nothing right or wrong regardless of what your peers say? If so, I find you deeply troubling. Most things aren't math equations. All distinctions in the real world are messy, seemingly arbitrary at some level. Can you define what it means for something to be alive or dead? I seriously doubt it. Yet we do not dispute the existence of such distinctions. The concept of life improves our understanding of the world despite its slipperyness.

bumblebeard 9y ago
Most utilitarians turn out not to actually think that way in real-life situations so I wouldn't worry about it. Moral realism is tied to religion for a lot of people and so some non-religious folks just reject it out of hand, which I think is a mistake. IMO, moral truth exists as much as scientific truth we just interact with/discover it differently. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a good place to start if the topic interests you: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-realism/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-realism/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-anti-realism/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-anti-realism/
- nickpsecurity 9y ago
  "Most utilitarians turn out not to actually think that way in real-life situations so I wouldn't worry about it." I agree based on lots of personal experience with and research on people who talked utilitarian but acted different when the law's enforcers were focused on them. I fought with myself over this in many situations balancing the struggle between my own survival/well-being vs supporting principles. Takes discipline and sacrifice to practice utilitarianism. What it took me led me to be suspicious of people who preach it who spontaneously do what benefits them esp at others' expense even in small ways.
- blazespin 9y ago
  Yeah, sure sounds like science to me: "It is worth noting that, while moral realists are united in their cognitivism and in their rejection of error theories, they disagree among themselves not only about which moral claims are actually true but about what it is about the world that makes those claims true. Moral realism is not a particular substantive moral view

wyager 9y ago

> Don't like it and can't effect change lawfully? Move. Great idea. Why bother ever trying to improve things where you live when you can just move to fantasy-land where the laws are in perfect agreement with your beliefs? This argument makes even less sense in the US since the government makes you get permission, provide years of tax records, and pay them a huge amount of money (over $2000 plus some large percentage of your holdings) to renounce your citizenship. You can't "just leave".

closeparen 9y ago

Statutes are a lagging (not leading) indicator of consensus about acceptable behavior. Law is evidence to help establish that society, at least at what time, found a certain behavior unacceptable. It also has to be willing to enforce it rigorously and consistently today. It's good hygeine to repeal or amend laws that we aren't willing to enforce, but it doesn't always happen. If it does happen, it's almost always after, not before, doing what the law prohibits becomes widespread and socially acceptable. It might be morally necessary to abstain from behaviors your community finds unacceptable. It might also be morally necessary for the executive branch to enforce the laws exactly as written, no matter how poorly they track moral consensus, until the laws are changed. It doesn't follow that it's morally obligatory to follow the law just because it's the law.

mirimir 9y ago

Nonviolent resistance is also a viable option. See Gandhi.

petre 9y ago

> It's not a math equation, but rather the consensus of your peers. Make that the consensus of your peers' so called representatives in Congress, because we're not direct democracies like ancient Greece. Politicians took care to subvert the power from the people to line up their pockets.