An Amoralist's Philosophical Standpoint

[Amppax]

OK Stevil now that I understand your terms let me see if I understand your proposition:

[b][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]The universe has inviolable laws, the physical laws. Every living creature can perform any action, provided that it is possible under the already defined set of physical laws. Legal laws are the constraints that we as a society put upon ourselves. Legal actions, in keeping with the already defined language, are any actions that are allowed by the Legal law. Legal laws infringe upon the physical actions that living creatures can perform. These laws must exist to regulate society, but they are never unquestionable, that is, they are not absolute. [/font][/color][/b]

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Is this a correct understanding of your position?[/font][/color]

[stevil]

[color=#282828]Just a slight amendment to your last sentence Ampax[/color]
[b][color=#282828]These legal laws are sometimes necessary, but they are never unquestionable. [/color][/b]

Edited January 13, 2012 by stevil

[stevil]

[quote name='brianthephysicist' timestamp='1326429266' post='2368206']
You missed the whole point of both my music and my video game analogies. The idea is that while yes, there are some rules that are purely restrictive, there are some rules that restrict in order to create.
[/quote]
Here we are blurring the definition of rules and constraints.

For the purposes of this thread lets assume that rules cannot be broken.
With regards to your percieved set of actions that you have the ability to perform in the game, you don't know if what you have discovered represents the full set of actions that are available.
Sure, you are constrained by what you know and hence ignorant of some of the abilities that you are able to perform, but the process of discovery does not create abilities, it only uncovers abilities that were always there based on the rules of the game.

With regards to the music analogy, there are times that people may desire rules as a guide to help them. It doesn't create abilities though, it provides constraints, which for the novice make it harder for you to makes musical mistakes and easier for you to make pleasant tunes.

[Amppax]

[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1326439341' post='2368256']
[color=#282828]Just a slight amendment to your last sentence Ampax[/color]
[b][color=#282828]These legal laws are sometimes necessary, but they are never unquestionable. [/color][/b]
[/quote]

why do you only think legal laws are sometimes necessary? I've never heard of any human society that did place some sort of restriction on human actions. I would say that some sort of restriction is absolutely necessary. Whether or not they are questionable is irrelevant to the point. You can question specific laws, but I don't see how you can question the necessity of any law.

[Papist]

[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1326340580' post='2367399']
In discussion in another thread I stated that I was an amoralist. Laudate_Dominum was wondering how I could be an amoralist and yet desire euthanasia to be a choice as Laudate_Dominum considers this to be a moral issue. Well, this thread is to express how I feel my amoralist philosophical standpoint can hold this stance.

For other participants, I understand the desire to debunk me and prove me wrong, my stance is contradictory to the Catholic standpoint. However in order to get my point across I feel the first emphasis must be on understanding my standpoint (even though I don't expect you to agree with it). It is not until you understand it that we can have a valid debate about whether it holds water or not, if it is still your desire to debunk me.
With this in mind I will not address any debunking comments until this understanding is achieved.

[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_nihilism"]Amoralism or Moral Nihilism means[/url]
"the meta-ethical view that nothing is moral or immoral. For example, a moral nihilist would say that killing someone, for whatever reason, is neither inherently right nor inherently wrong. Moral nihilists consider morality to be make-believe".

As a good starting point here is a related quote a member of an Atheist forum helped form based on my philosophy as I explained it to him.

[size=5][b][i]"Nature is governed by amoral power which permits whatever power can accomplish, so every living creature has the natural right to do whatever it can, and every law is an infringement, sometimes reasonable, never unquestionable."[/i][/b][/size]
[/quote]

How/where did you first get introduced to this philosophy and what questions did you ask to better understand. And could you share those answers?

[stevil]

[quote name='Amppax' timestamp='1326464178' post='2368291']
why do you only think legal laws are sometimes necessary? I've never heard of any human society that did place some sort of restriction on human actions. I would say that some sort of restriction is absolutely necessary. Whether or not they are questionable is irrelevant to the point. You can question specific laws, but I don't see how you can question the necessity of any law.
[/quote]
It is just stating that not all legal laws are necessary. Some legal laws are unnecessary. But to try and work out which are necessary and which aren't you need to define a purpose for law. An amoralist purpose for law cannot be based on morality.

[brianthephysicist]

[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1326442616' post='2368260']
Here we are blurring the definition of rules and constraints.

For the purposes of this thread lets assume that rules cannot be broken.
With regards to your percieved set of actions that you have the ability to perform in the game, you don't know if what you have discovered represents the full set of actions that are available.
Sure, you are constrained by what you know and hence ignorant of some of the abilities that you are able to perform, but the process of discovery does not create abilities, it only uncovers abilities that were always there based on the rules of the game.

With regards to the music analogy, there are times that people may desire rules as a guide to help them. It doesn't create abilities though, it provides constraints, which for the novice make it harder for you to makes musical mistakes and easier for you to make pleasant tunes.
[/quote]

I will attempt again to be more clear to you. What I was trying to say was that the game creates constraints (in your terms physical laws), and due to observance of positive and negative consequences of my characters actions, I create my own set of rules that govern my actions in the game (similar to the legal laws) and by following these rules, I am able to win.

Maybe another example would help. Have you seen the rules that exist in the military (pretty much any branch)? The military has a whole legion of rules that exist to transform men (and women) into soldiers. With the regimen, the discipline, the rules, you create an army, significantly better at defending our country than a giant angry mob of people with guns.

Rules, when used properly, can have creative power.

[Laudate_Dominum]

stevil, more later hopefully (haven't read the whole thread), I was just wondering about the extent to which you've interacted with historical and contemporary ethics? I mean, moral nihilism is pretty problematic. Have you grappled with the major criticisms and alternatives? Just curious.

Peace.

P.S. The reason I ask is that after reading the beginning of this thread I couldn't help but have the "standard questions" (please, no open-hand slap) in my mind. Ethics is far from my forte but what I do know about it makes me raise an eyebrow at some of your claims. Maybe this is not the best place to have that kind of debate.

Edited January 13, 2012 by Laudate_Dominum

[stevil]

[quote name='Papist' timestamp='1326466747' post='2368323']
How/where did you first get introduced to this philosophy and what questions did you ask to better understand. And could you share those answers?
[/quote]
Interesting questions.

This is a sidenote as to the purpose of this thread.
[b]Introspection, [/b]I would say is how I got introduced to this philosophy.

Actually it came about from participation in this forum. I heard someone make a claim about gay people not having the right to marriage.
This made me question what the definition of "rights" is, which in turn lead me to question the term morality, which in turn lead me to question the term "subjective morality".
I then considered amorality and applied this term to my life thus far, to see if it works. I also thought about how I can then be logically consistent as an amoralist with regards to my desire for a certain type of society and certain legal laws.

I am currently at the stage of exploring this philosophy. I have discussed "rights" on the Happy Atheist Forum and managed to turn around an Atheist whom thought government were the highest rights maker. He now agrees with my philosophy and coined the fantastic quote that I started this thread out with. I have also discussed with people on another atheist forum whom for the most part agree with me in principle but some still want to hold onto a concept of morality. Which is fine, my intent wasn't to convince anyone, just to simply test my ideas and get some ideas back from others.
I also thought it would be great to test my perception of my philosophy on people on this site. People here are much more philosophically minded that the atheists that I know on the other forums, so I thought it would be a good exploration. But I understand it is difficult to communicate this idea with people who would strongly disagree with it.

Thinking about your post here, I have just looked up the terms amoral philosophy via google and found some interesting web pages. I agree with most of what is being said, but can understand why a person that insists on morality might struggle to understand what is written on those sites.
A couple of interest to me are:
http://www.philosophynow.org/issue80/An_Amoral_Manifesto_Part_I
[quote]The long and the short of it is that I became convinced that atheism implies amorality; and since I am an atheist, I must therefore embrace amorality.[/quote]
The above quote comes from a guy that I think is a professor of philosophy. Ironically he writes a column called "Moral Moments" for PhilosophyNow.org and has been doing so for over ten years, but he only came to the realisation that morality doesn't exist in 2010, if I read his column correctly.

http://www.philosophynow.org/issue81/An_Amoral_Manifesto_Part_II
[quote]
My denial of moral relativism, however, rests mainly on the unintelligibility of the charge. ‘Moral relativism’ seems to me an oxymoron; for morality in its very concept and essence is supposed to be universal and absolute. Thus, even in the example I just gave regarding killing, morality’s defenders would say that a single imperative underlies the differences due to circumstances, namely, “Thou shalt not kill the innocent” or something of that sort. Moral relativism, therefore, is a strawperson to begin with
[/quote]
This is from the same author as the first link

http://onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=247
[quote]
Morality consists of moral values used to judge conduct, events, and people in general. It refers to the way people try to universally categorize human conduct as right or wrong, or good or bad.
[/quote]
[quote]
However, the archaic idea of morality remains. Even many so-called atheists talk as though some metaphysically universal set of values exist to determine the goodness or badness of people or actions. They do that by referring to people and actions as morally good or bad.

Still, when a person makes a moral statement nowadays they do not usually mean anything inherently religious. They just use the archaic and oversimplified moral terms to express an otherwise amoral sentiment. They might use the moral terms to express any of a variety of amoral sentiments, such as a personal taste, a recommendation, a social value, or so on.
[/quote]
[quote]
Using the moral terms, rather than saying specifically what one means, lacks clarity. When a person calls a certain action immoral, we do not know what they mean exactly. Do they mean the action disgusts them? Do they mean they dislike it? Do they mean it would hurt them? Do they mean it would hurt the person who does it? Do they mean their religion forbids it? We can try to figure out what they mean by the context, but they can also just specify it by using amoral terminology.

We can more clearly express ourselves by specifying what we mean in secular and descriptive ways, rather than in general moral terms.
[/quote]
The above quotes that I like come from a different author from a different philosophy site.

But I am aligned with these, I feel for the most part I understand what amorality means. But I am still in the discovery phase, and looking at these sites has given me a keen interest to read from more of these types of sites.

[stevil]

[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' timestamp='1326491439' post='2368500']
stevil, more later hopefully (haven't read the whole thread), I was just wondering about the extent to which you've interacted with historical and contemporary ethics? I mean, moral nihilism is pretty problematic. Have you grappled with the major criticisms and alternatives? Just curious.
[/quote]

Do you have any links?
I will try and find some of this via google, thanks for the suggestion.

[stevil]

[quote name='brianthephysicist' timestamp='1326491245' post='2368498']
I will attempt again to be more clear to you. What I was trying to say was that the game creates constraints (in your terms physical laws), and due to observance of positive and negative consequences of my characters actions, I create my own set of rules that govern my actions in the game (similar to the legal laws) and by following these rules, I am able to win.

Maybe another example would help. Have you seen the rules that exist in the military (pretty much any branch)? The military has a whole legion of rules that exist to transform men (and women) into soldiers. With the regimen, the discipline, the rules, you create an army, significantly better at defending our country than a giant angry mob of people with guns.

Rules, when used properly, can have creative power.
[/quote]
It is a terminology thing. I understand what you mean, but I am struggling to articulate the difference between what I mean when I say create and what you mean when you say create.
Coordinating soldiers via a set of rules can create a functional army whereas without those rules the army might be disfunctional. So in this sense rules can create.
But they are not creating abilities in the strictest sense of the term "abilities" they are simply discovering the abilities that are (and have always been) available to them.

Edited January 13, 2012 by stevil

[sixpence]

this is an interesting thread

i think i understand your ideas, but I do not see what you are trying to show.

I did get a little lost when you said...
[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1326423935' post='2368170']
Rights can and often do conflict.
If a person A murders person B then person A has exercised their own right to murder but person B has had their right to live infringed upon.
[/quote]

Why does person B have the "right" to live? Hasn't his ability to live just been removed by some force in the universe (person A)?

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1326492744' post='2368515']
Do you have any links?
[/quote]
Sure thing. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is pretty good for a quick overview of something.

[url="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/metaethics/"]Metaethics (SEP)[/url]

This IEP article looks good too.

[url="http://www.iep.utm.edu/metaethi/"]Metaethics (IEP)[/url]

More SEP
[spoiler]
[url="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-realism/"]Moral Realism[/url]
[url="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism-moral/"]Moral Naturalism[/url]
[url="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism-moral/"]Moral Skepticism[/url]
[url="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-cognitivism/"]Moral Cognitivism vs. Non-Cognitivism[/url]
[url="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-epistemology/"]Moral Epistemology[/url]
...

[/spoiler]

I can't claim to have a refined ethical understanding that could withstand serious philosophical scrutiny. It is interesting to discern the metaethical position that we sympathize with for whatever reason. I do think that the controversial moral positions of Catholicism (e.g., abortion, contraception, euthanasia) can be arrived at and defended without appealing to religion or matters of faith - although perhaps with some axioms that one could chose to reject... How neat would it be to spend a year or two just studying and hammering out these kind of issues? Oh well. Cheers.

Edited January 13, 2012 by Laudate_Dominum

[bridgejumper]

Stevil, is your purpose in this post to argue for amoralism, or simply that an amoralist can still find value in legal restrictions?

[Papist]

[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1326492325' post='2368508']
Interesting questions.

This is a sidenote as to the purpose of this thread.
[b]Introspection, [/b]I would say is how I got introduced to this philosophy.

Actually it came about from participation in this forum. I heard someone make a claim about gay people not having the right to marriage.
This made me question what the definition of "rights" is, which in turn lead me to question the term morality, which in turn lead me to question the term "subjective morality".
I then considered amorality and applied this term to my life thus far, to see if it works. I also thought about how I can then be logically consistent as an amoralist with regards to my desire for a certain type of society and certain legal laws.

I am currently at the stage of exploring this philosophy. I have discussed "rights" on the Happy Atheist Forum and managed to turn around an Atheist whom thought government were the highest rights maker. He now agrees with my philosophy and coined the fantastic quote that I started this thread out with. I have also discussed with people on another atheist forum whom for the most part agree with me in principle but some still want to hold onto a concept of morality. Which is fine, my intent wasn't to convince anyone, just to simply test my ideas and get some ideas back from others.
I also thought it would be great to test my perception of my philosophy on people on this site. People here are much more philosophically minded that the atheists that I know on the other forums, so I thought it would be a good exploration. But I understand it is difficult to communicate this idea with people who would strongly disagree with it.

Thinking about your post here, I have just looked up the terms amoral philosophy via google and found some interesting web pages. I agree with most of what is being said, but can understand why a person that insists on morality might struggle to understand what is written on those sites.
A couple of interest to me are:
[url="http://www.philosophynow.org/issue80/An_Amoral_Manifesto_Part_I"]http://www.philosoph...anifesto_Part_I[/url]

The above quote comes from a guy that I think is a professor of philosophy. Ironically he writes a column called "Moral Moments" for PhilosophyNow.org and has been doing so for over ten years, but he only came to the realisation that morality doesn't exist in 2010, if I read his column correctly.

[url="http://www.philosophynow.org/issue81/An_Amoral_Manifesto_Part_II"]http://www.philosoph...nifesto_Part_II[/url]

This is from the same author as the first link

[url="http://onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=247"]http://onlinephiloso...c.php?f=3&t=247[/url]



The above quotes that I like come from a different author from a different philosophy site.

But I am aligned with these, I feel for the most part I understand what amorality means. But I am still in the discovery phase, and looking at these sites has given me a keen interest to read from more of these types of sites.
[/quote]

I can understand a person not believing in God concluding this nonexistence of morality. What I do not understand is this same person believes people should do good, which implies there is a bad action. B/c if there is no morality then all people's actions are void of good and bad. This begs the question, if God and morality do not exist, why not be evil? Why should I not lie, cheat and connive to get ahead in life?

Edited January 14, 2012 by Papist