Good and Evil: Universals?

[smoothmoniker]

Are there universal principles that can be called Good and Evil?

Are there some acts that may be properly understood as having intrinsic moral value, either positive or negative, apart from all social context and cultural value systems, or is the moral weight of each action contingent solely on the relativistic value assigned to it by its cultural context?

There are several corrollaries to this primary question, which will be raised as the thread progresses.

I'll go ahead and stake my ground in the affirmative camp. There are actions that are properly understood as evil. Torturing babies for pleasure would be one example. Even if the entire world decided that this was acceptable behavior, in fact rewarded those who did it, it would still be morally wrong. The moral value of this action is not contingent on the cultural response to it.

-sm

[SteveDallas]

Since you were kind enough to provide check boxes instead of radio buttons, I was a smartass and checked all 3. It's impossible to discuss even the concept of "absolutes" in the absence of cultural constructs. Having said that, yes, there are some things that are just Wrong. I don't need any kind of validation to tell me that they're wrong, and I really don't give a damn if somebody else says they're not. And contrariwise with good. Perhaps this is a kind of Locke-ian "self evident natural law" kind of thing.

The problem is, in the middle there are a whooooollleeeee bunch of other things that are not completely good, and not completely evil. Let's look at the recent military action in Iraq. (I may regret bringing this up as an example, but it springs to mind.) I think everybody can agree that the atrocities permitted by Saddam's regime are bad. (Or maybe not--Saddam obviously thought it was OK.) We can also agree that killing people is bad, and perhaps we can agree that killing civilians in a military conflict is worse than killing soldiers. Well, if we take those as axioms, we can then argue that the killing of people undertaken by the US was unfortunate, but that it was justified by the need to rid Iraq of a government not merely corrupt but, well, evil. Or we could argue that killing all those people was uncalled for and that a single man could have been removed from power without all that bloodshed, that the cost of human life can't simply be written off in a political calculation.

So from where I sit, the problem isn't whether Good and Evil are universals. The problem is that they are very, very gray, instead of the black and white demagogues on both sides of any issue like to pretend.

[xoxoxoBruce]

MORAL = Subjective point of view formed by your past.

[juju]

Morals work best when everyone agrees on them. But that doesn't change the fact that they're completely made-up. Can you scientifically prove that morals exist?

I agree that it's just a subjective ratings system.

[Undertoad]

Atlanta, May 2006: CDC researchers have determined that when babies are subjected to immense, body-wide pain for a period of 5 straight minutes, they develop a basic immunity to pain through their lives, a sort of "toughness innoculation" that reduces lifetime pain by 80% for most. Initial research shows they have no memory of the event if it is not accompanied by other trauma.

Wash. DC, June 2006: The AMA is instructing doctors on how best induce torturous pain in infants whilst putting them in an otherwise neutral setting. Directly contacting the nerves in each of the four limbs with electricity would produce enough pain to gain the desired result. "At first, I hated the idea that I had to be the one to push the button to place this baby in terrible pain -- even if we've perfected how to do that without risking her life," said head physician Dr. Toad. "But now, I get tremendous pleasure in pressing that button, knowing I'm guaranteeing her a better life."

Just a little thought experiment

[xoxoxoBruce]

Holy shit UT, you had me going for a minute.

[smoothmoniker]

UT: thus the qualifier, for pleasure (where pleasure is the sole and efficienct cause for the person inflicting the pain).

Innoculting an infant agaist disease, even where it causes discomfort, is a very different thing from giving a baby the disease for the sole purpose of watching it suffer. One would be a justifiable act, the other is clearly not.

An interesting thought experiment, but it doesn't fit the initial conditions.

-sm

[smoothmoniker]

Originally posted by juju
Morals work best when everyone agrees on them. But that doesn't change the fact that they're completely made-up. Can you scientifically prove that morals exist?

Juju, that's a categorical fallacy. Scientific proofs are proper to the realm of physical things, and their interactions (mass, energy, chemical properties).

Universals are not the proper subjects of the scientific method. To assume that something is only true if it is scientifically provable is to exclude vast portions of the edifice of human knowledge.

A correllary example is the idea of Redness. It is a universal, existing without being defined in its extant participants. A red apple is not Redness, it merely adheres to, and exhibits the property of the universal. There is no way to scientifically prove the existence of the universal; the most you can say is that when certain factors combine (pigments, light frequencies, etc.), the property of redness obtains in that object. You've said nothing about the universal itself. Yet the universal exists, apart from any object that exhibits its properties.

As a further extension, if a certain person does not see the color red, does not understand it, and does not believe it exists, we do not assume that the unversal is therefore not valid. Instead, we assume that the person is color blind. The individual experience of the universal does not condition the existance of the universal.

to sum up,
1) Universals are not the proper subject of the scientific method, only the objects that obtain to the properties of the universal.
2) Universals are not conditioned by the objects that exhibit their properties.
3) A universal is not conditioned by the perception (or lack therof) of it.
4) Norah Jones, still not the next Ella.

-sm

[xoxoxoBruce]

The individual experience of the universal does not condition the existance of the universal.

Then by extension If NO ONE experiences something does that mean it doesn't exist?

[juju]

"Redness" is the way the human brain perceives certain frequencies of light. It directly refers to something in the physical world. Morality is a judgement on actions. It's not the same thing at all.

Also, your language is really hurting my head. I haven't read that many philosophy books, so you've really got to dumb it down for me and put it in layman's terms.

[Bitman]

Originally posted by smoothmoniker
To assume that something is only true if it is scientifically provable is to exclude vast portions of the edifice of human knowledge.

That's a red herring; no one makes that assumption. All things can be analyzed scientifically, once all the terms are defined. Philosophy is about finding those definitions.

So what is the nature of a universal moral? Can an act be considered moral if it helps one person at the expense of another? I suppose our war in Iraq can be considered non-moral in that it wasn't specifically immoral, but killing some random people to help some others isn't terribly moral, regardless of the reason.

I think a universal moral would be something that helps some living things, but with no downside at all. Holding the door is moral; gassing Mosquito Lake Park is not.

[Torrere]

Originally posted by Undertoad

Wash. DC, June 2006: The AMA is instructing doctors on how best induce torturous pain in infants whilst putting them in an otherwise neutral setting.


[snip]

Just a little thought experiment

This is hardly unprecedented. Inducing torturous pain in babies is actually still a common practice today.

Circumcision.

[Whit]

     I would say that morals are not universal due to a simple review of history. For example, Alexander the Great was considered kind because he razed Thebes killed a chunk of the population and sold many into slavery, but didn't do the same to Athens. Or the US nuked Japan, and most people agree that was the best course of action because it cost fewer lives in the long run.
     Does anyone think either course of action would be considered acceptable by today's standards? Yet both were considered the right thing to do at the time.
     Oh and Juju, let the language slide, anyone who has gotten into existentialism, even a little, believes in using too many big words. Just get the jist and move on.

[Whit]

anyone who has gotten into existentialism, even a little, believes in using too many big words

     Okay, I got to thinking about it later and this is a little unfair. If you go back to Plato or Aristotle or the like you'll find a tendency for this kind of thing. I just tend to connect the verbosity of the philosophical vernacular to the Existentialist due to the extremities to which they aspire in the field. That and they annoy the shit out of me...
     How 'bout this then?

From Juju:
Can you scientifically prove that morals exist?

     Can you scientifically prove redness exists? Red is what we all agree to call the color of the smilie on the top right of the smilie box when we relply. Moral is what we all agree to call actions that we consider just and good. Asking for scientific proof is like questioning if morals exist at all. I think we're past that.

[smoothmoniker]

OK, in alphabetical order:

Bitman: I wasn't trying to throw out a red herring, just wanted to make sure that juju wasn't looking for an inapporpriate aparatus to test the existence of Universals. On looking for the nature of a universal moral principle, they exist as seperate from the individual acts. An example would be, "Human life has inherent value". From that universal principle, moral laws can be construed, such as laws against murder and torture. From these moral laws, ethical guidelines are constructed for individual activities, such as "In this situation, I should not kill this person".

Juju: Sorry for the over-weighted language. A lot of the terms used are used because they are precise ways of saying what would otherwise take a paragraph or two to say. The connection between Redness and Morals is this - if they are both universals, then they exist apart from individual objects that have them as properties. You can then say that a particular thing, like an apple or a person's action, either adheres to the universal, or does not adhere to the universal.

Whit: You can have universals and still say that cultural standards change. If the universal is that "human life has value", then societies understanding of how to best act out that principle may change, but the principle they are attempting to adhere to does not change. One society enforces this principle by enacting the death penalty for those who violate the principle. Another society refuses to use the death penalty, so as to not violate the principle. Both are attempting to adhere to the same universal. RE the language, it's hard to discuss computers without using some of the technical terms. Same with philosophy. It's really not an attempt to huff and puff and blow the house down, it's my attempt to be as precise with language as we are all trying to be with our thinking.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoG'dayBruce: By definition, no one needs to experience a universal for it to exist. "Gravity" would still exist even if there were no objects for it to act upon. The principle stands.

... whew. finals, papers, MATRIX2 and a studio session before Saturday. I may not be too speedy on this thread till after that.

-sm