ITT, Freeky shares insights gained after reading Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan

[LMNO]

I may disagree, but I need more information.

Can I agree that a culture's behaviors are Moral₁, but consider them reprehensible because I hold Moral₂?

That is to say, you can understand that Morality tends to be subjective, but that doesn't mean that you have to accept a moral you find abhorrent.

[Cain]

The problem with that, as see it LMNO, is that you are using moral as a descriptive and prescriptive word at the same time (one is descriptive, the one you believe in is prescriptive).  And since morality is to do with judging or telling us which actions are right or wrong, as opposed to telling us merely what others are doing, it would make sense to consider morality as a prescriptive word and set of actions.  Saying they believe it is moral is descriptive, saying it is moral (even according to the beliefs of this particular group) is prescriptive.

[LMNO]

So, there can be no nuance?  If you believe in Morality, it's a binary position with your own brain as arbitrator?

[Cain]

I don't know.  I'm just offering clever counterarguments.

[LMNO]

heh.  mission accomplished.

I still think we need to distinguish between morality as a learned behavior, and morality as a cognitive decision. The former cannot be discussed, as it is taken as a whole, while the latter can be parsed and debated.

[Requia ☣]

I may disagree, but I need more information.

Can I agree that a culture's behaviors are Moral₁, but consider them reprehensible because I hold Moral₂?

That is to say, you can understand that Morality tends to be subjective, but that doesn't mean that you have to accept a moral you find abhorrent.

You can accept that its part of their moral system, and the action doesn't make them bad on an individual level because of that or somesuch, but you still have to say that either their system and/or your system is flawed.

Moral Relativism *can't* exist.

Moral - 1 a : of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior

synonyms: moral, ethical, virtuous, righteous, noble mean conforming to a standard of what is right and good.

Yup.  Kinda sounds like you need a consensus to be moral.  Maybe ethics can be more subjective, but since ethics are a group of MORALS, probably not again.  So, I guess the REAL discussion is 'is fucking babies moral or immoral(immoral), and does believing it is moral make it so (no).'  Probably again not so even if you Believe and not just believe.

Dictionary definitions of 'moral' have nothing to do with the concept of 'moral relativism', which has its own, very specific definition.

For that matter, dictionary definitions have nothing to do with anything, period, end of story.  You're attempting to twist what I'm talking about into something else with a faulty appeal to authority.

[Freeky]

I didn't necessarily get the idea [that there's no such thing as morals] from reading Transmet. It popped into my head while I was over at TCC for some reason, still in the state of mind I had gotten into while reading it.

I'm gonna read it again!

I never said

Fuck, can we talk about Transmet?

Here is what I gleaned it:

Spider Jerusalem represents integrity. The kind of integrity that speaks the truth, he puts forth his own flaws in doing so, but he's intelligent enough to exploit the weaknesses of his opponents to accomplish his own ends. Although, he's a chaotic personality (which endears him to us), basically he takes extreme risks in order to catch a few people off guard and the only thing that saves him is the integrity of his assistants.

Essentially, Spider is a representation of integrity itself.

I'm surprised that somebody would think that Transmet didnt have strong moral themes.

Spider represents them.

I guess that what I was trying to say when I first posted, and then elaborated later on, was that people can integrate anything they want into the learned behavior moral parts, as opposed to the morals that have to do with integrity, as evidenced by the Smiler in Transmet, which makes the idea of morals laughable. That was not to say that everything is acceptable, I just don't think the word "morals" covers these, because it also covers the stuff that is learned ideas that aren't an idea of "hey, this is bad by anyone's point of view," but more along the lines of "society tells me that thing a is good/bad, so it must be good/bad". If that makes any sense.

Next time I'll wait before I say anything, to make sure I got it all figured out. 

[Requia ☣]

funny, because it seemed like you were using the dictionary definition as a backup to say that 'you need a consensus to be moral'.  Dictionaries are a pet peeve of mine though, so maybe that keeps me from seeing what you really intended.

You are of course free to use your own definition of 'moral', and its not a bad idea to define your meanings given that we have a few words that express a couple dozen different concepts, but I'm afraid I missed the point you were trying to make using that definition?

[Requia ☣]

You can't remember?  Just flip back a couple pages, everything is still here.

And why did you quote me if you were referring to what Roger/Soylent Green were saying?

[LMNO]

The best way to stop is to, you know, STOP.





If you feel the need to get the last word, you're not being sincere in your wishes.

[Soylent Green]

That was the action you said was always morally wrong; therefore, I gave a reason where it would be moral to that person. You just seemed to be personally offended by that and decided to pursue the defense like it was the main point of the conversation. I mean god, I don't think that fucking infants is ok, but that is my OPINION, someone under the circumstances I gave would find it fine and according to his definition of right and wrong, he would be doing right.

well, let's say this hypothetical tribe of babyfuckers exists, and let's say they are reasonably pleasant people otherwise. would you defend their morality?

would you say "well, it's their culture, and they were raised like that, so that's okay." or would you be more like "WTF THATS NOT RIGHT"



no wait, I know, how about we make it a littlebit more real.

Afaik, there is no hypothetical tribe of babyfuckers.

There are, however, tribes in Africa, (or was it Fundie ME Muslim places, I forgot) where they amputate the female's clitoris as the girl reaches puberty. Some of them are also in the business of partly sewing the vagina shut in order so they bleed more when they lose their virginity (I shudder to think about the hygiene problems when they have their period).

So, this is of course all in the name of religious morality, and the people were culturally raised to think this is perfectly okay cause it's the Will of God and That is How it's Done. Except for the women, I suppose, but the religious morality dictates that their opinion does not matter.

I think you can guess my question to you now.

Do you think--this is almost too retarded to ask, but I can understand it's a tough one to wrap your head around until you really realize what sort of fucking awful things monkeys can and WILL actually do to eachother--that this is relatively moral?

Would you not say, hey I don't fucking care what their religious beliefs are but that is just fucking wrong in one of the most absolute senses of the word Wrong?

Of course I would say it is wrong, but if that culture does it, obviously they do not think that it is so wrong, or they wouldn't do it, so am I right solely because I wasn't raised in their culture with their religion? I mean if that practice moved into the dominating culture it wouldn't be anymore "right" than it is now, but wouldn't we consider it to be right because we were raised to think that it is?

And Roger, I guess that I can accept that right and wrong aren't subjective if you say that something is "wrong" if it lowers the civilization's chance of survival, but I can't see any other way that it would be.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

And Roger, I guess that I can accept that right and wrong aren't subjective if you say that something is "wrong" if it lowers the civilization's chance of survival, but I can't see any other way that it would be.

That's why you're a bad person.

[Requia ☣]

Soylent Green: Pick one

A) Infant fucking is always wrong

B) Infant fucking is ok if your neighbors' approve

C) You don't know.

This is not a hard question.

Also, survival of the civilization is just one possible 'goal' of an ethical system (One that I'm guessing is not included in Roger's system).

It's a very bad choice of goal in my opinion, it rejects democracy for being unsustainable (the monkey will vote democracy away given the chance) and places things I consider to be unimportant (culture, the state) far above the individuals that make up the civilization,  This probably makes me a no good traitor to my country and/or a terrorist, but I tend to think of people as more important than systems.

[Triple Zero]

Of course I would say it is wrong, but if that culture does it, obviously they do not think that it is so wrong, or they wouldn't do it, so am I right solely because I wasn't raised in their culture with their religion? I mean if that practice moved into the dominating culture it wouldn't be anymore "right" than it is now, but wouldn't we consider it to be right because we were raised to think that it is?

I can understand why you think that, because I thought that way before as well. But I would ask you to think about it some more. There is no answer, btw.