/lit/ - Literature

bump :3

No, but the law should be followed regardless of moral sensibilities. Or regardless of whether it is informed by/informs moral sensibilities. Because it is the law.

>>14889385
>the law should be followed
That's a moral statement, kiddo.

>>14889385
Well we need a justification here. How should the law not inform morality?

How is not necessary for law to inform or instruct morality, or even define it?

>>14889395
You are a citizen of the state correct? Act like it.

>>14889310
Morality is doing what benefits you in the long run. Otherwise, why be moral?
>what is benefit?
That which leads to more preferable states of experience. Suppose there were multiple possible lives that you could live. And suppose that you were given a chance to live through each of them. Whichever life you would prefer to live over again is the most moral life.
>”but this is selfish!”
Yes, but that’s our nature. But if you prefer to help other people and so on, which is how a normal human should feel, since we are social creatures and much stronger together, then your most moral life, your happiest life, will undoubtedly involve being good to others.
>but being bad to others can be self-beneficial
That’s true, but this should be advised against in general, since not only does this create a possibility of negative consequences in the future, but the fear itself of the future is enough to create an inferior experience to that life which you could live by simply being good. So I’m convinced that the most moral life is filled with general moral principles that we take to be true (don’t kill, etc.)
>theist morality vs. atheist morality
Atheists can still have a grasp of morality, since they have some understanding of what’s good for them. By the way, it should be obvious that all decisions are moral decisions. Anyway, though atheists can be moral, theist morality is superior as it is universal, fixed, “known” to humans, and it provides a larger incentive to be good due to the afterlife. An atheist might think he could cross moral principles every now and then, but such a life is risky, and is likely to ruin him, not to mention society as a whole, when so many people think this way.

Morality is not a set of discreet rules like a computer program (or at least, it does not present itself as such to the human mind): instead, the full set of moral principles is accessible only to a mind that has been shaped over a long period by many and various opportunities to make moral decisions. Like so much in human affairs, the moral faculty works like a neural network, if you will allow the somewhat pedestrian metaphor.

>>14889385
Based 9th century priest mentality

Morality precedes law. The former may inform the latter, but it is never the case that the latter informs the former. A moral action under compulsion lacks the proper intention to be consider a moral action in the first place, so morality enforced by legal censure cannot be considered morality at all.

>>14889415
Interesting moral sensibilities you got there.

>>14889421
First let us look for the definition of 'morality' in a dictionary.

Morality - (n) principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.

>Morality is doing what benefits you in the long run. Otherwise, why be moral?
Ah, you must be thinking of hedonism. Incorrect, my good sir, hedonism is not morality.

>Yes, but that’s our nature.
So do you just go with whatever is our nature?

Look at the excellence of the 'wit' on this person. Some people might think you're intelligent and not retarded, because your post is long.

Also, just a quick comment, Bentham was an agnostic and not an atheist for a reason. Although he deprecated certain aspects of religion (as any sensible person would), he rightly understood God to be the best idea imaginable: he was simply looking for a reason to believe. He believed the spiritual principles were a contributory factor in the strength of unhealthy temptations and a great inhibiting factor in evil (which can be rightly defined under utilitarianism through law as well).

>>14889426
Following the law is the right stance. NOT following the law is a bigger laughable offence. To consider the law not something great, but something trivial or abstract, is the first sign of a degenerate. You probably do drugs and have depraved morals.

>>14889431
Could not these moral actions under compulsion become routine? Isn't that really the objective of the legislator?

>>14889457
Interesting? This is the norm.

Do you disrespect the state?

>>14889463
>Morality - (n) principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.
And I’m equating good behavior to behavior that produces positive experiences. What is good behavior to you? And why should we be good?
> Ah, you must be thinking of hedonism. Incorrect, my good sir, hedonism is not morality.
Hedonism has a connotation for certain pleasure seeking. I’m not advocating drugs or sex or anything like that, only “happiness,” or positive experiences, as a whole. So everyone is a “hedonist” in that they are seeking this happiness in various strategies, but ironically the so-called hedonists may be doing it the worst way possible.
> So do you just go with whatever is our nature?
Not really sure what this question means, but I challenge you to show how a human can be truly altruistic. Explain how we can behave in such a way that totally disregard consequences for the self. If we could act like this, then surely we would care for insects as much as humans, and maybe even inanimate objects as well. Why be good to others? Because we sense it as being good for ourselves. It is in our nature.
Also,
>my good sir
Please tell me you’re being ironic

>>14889473
>Do you disrespect the state?
Oh no - never sir! That would be treason!

>>14889490
>What is good behavior to you? And why should we be good?
Like a toddler, you've answered the first question with your second. 'I DUN WANNA BE GUD'. You should be good because it is the right thing to do for the community. Bentham's utilitarian mentality would dictate this. If you are not good to your neighbor the net displeasure this produces is greater than the pleasure you receive in the short run. Hence, that specific behavior, even if you derive pleasure from it, should be discouraged by law and pruned by law enforcement.
>Hedonism has a connotation for certain pleasure seeking. I’m not advocating drugs or sex or anything like that, only “happiness,” or positive experiences, as a whole. So everyone is a “hedonist” in that they are seeking this happiness in various strategies, but ironically the so-called hedonists may be doing it the worst way possible.
Many people abstain from pleasure. Bentham made the correct distinction that sexual pleasure is not the sin of 'lust' . Constant lust harms the community, simply indulging in sexual pleasure occasionally does not.
>Not really sure what this question means, but I challenge you to show how a human can be truly altruistic. Explain how we can behave in such a way that totally disregard consequences for the self. If we could act like this, then surely we would care for insects as much as humans, and maybe even inanimate objects as well. Why be good to others? Because we sense it as being good for ourselves. It is in our nature.
I think it is the mission of any good lawmaker to make sure that the populace's selfish goals are coeval with that of the community, which is possible sometimes, sometimes not.
>Please tell me you’re being ironic
Why would I be ironic? I'm assuming there are upstanding individuals on here, and I would hope you are one as well, regardless of what some other losers might say.

>>14889499
The laws are good.

>>14889749
>You should be good because it is the right thing to do for the community.
And why should I care about the community? Which community? Humans, yes? It would only make sense that I would feel the need to be good to the community if this were somehow good for myself. After all, I would rather live in a healthy, flourishing society. You can’t explain why I should care about the community without either appealing to the self, or by using a circular explanation and saying “because it’s the right thing to do!”

>>14889310
No, peoples conscience and empathy is a built-in moral compass they can follow.

>>14889782
>And why should I care about the community?
No one cares if you give a shit or not, dipshit.

If the society YOU LIVE WITHIN, who you AGREE TO ABIDE BY THE LAWS within, is hurt more by your action in the long run than you gain in the short run, that action SHOULD NOT happen.

It works the reverse way too. If you feel hurt more than everyone gains in the short run by some kind of treatment etc etc :3

>>14889463
>Look at the excellence of the 'wit' on this person. Some people might think you're intelligent and not retarded, because your post is long

>>14889310
Morality is tough. Read Plato and Nietzsche side by side and tell me it isn’t. And when you’re fucking your 200+ Milker and balancing your writing career with a job that nets you at least 40,000 with bennies then come back and tell me it isn’t a topsy turvy fucknut

>>14889810
What? It's a legit problem.

Obviously that guy is retarded, but here you are defending him so obviously his tactic of making long, retarded posts worked.

>>14889814
There is only one morality, and it is the one that is good. We strive and get closer to it everyday, whether or not you strive with us, in humanity. :3

>>14889801
>No one cares if you give a shit or not, dipshit.
No, I asked why I should.
>that action SHOULD NOT happen.
you still haven’t explained why I shouldn’t do it.

>>14889782
Based.

>>14889830
Because you'll get arrested for it, if it's bad enough.

>>14889835
which agrees with my original point here >>14889421
which he still hasn’t dealt with

>>14889878
It's me. I'm rationalizing for you, why YOU shouldn't do it, being that YOU rationalize only using YOUR self-interest.

I'm simply explaining why morality is what it is, and WHY you would get arrested if you did something bad for the community, which you should be punished for. Hopefully after the community punishes a few select individuals, the other individuals will follow suit and don't need to be followed around with laws and statutes. I'm assuming you understand that most people do the right thing in a social group, otherwise no one has any fun. :3

>>14889889
>I'm rationalizing for you, why YOU shouldn't do it, being that YOU rationalize only using YOUR self-interest.
Why can’t you rationalize using your own views of morality? You think that my system is so retarded, yet when I ask why we should care for the community, you can only answer by appealing to what I’ve already said, that all action is predicated on benefiting the self. If your goal was to argue against this point, you’ve done a horrible job.

>>14889908
My goal was to argue why the system works.

I’ve rationalized behaving on for the common good on grounds of self- interest and the systemic legislation. What else is there? :3

>>14889385
You are exactly the kind of cuck that George Washington despised most.

>>14890211
Ohhh that’ll hurt him! Good pain! Pain means win! Hurrrrrrrrrrrrrr

>>14890211
The powice man told me to suckle on his peepee because it's the law so I did it uwu I'm a good boy copper.

>>14890251
Ouch! Being retarded! Nice! Sarcasm means win

Hurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

>>14890353
Posting autistic, sarcastic comments gives me a rush bro, don't h8 just masturb8 bro hahaha

>>14890383
Haha... yeah... being stupid hides my iniquities...

>>14890453
Is it an iniquity to make a joke lol?

>>14890485
No. No it is not.

>>14889310

Law is culturally and sociologically downstream of morality, OP, so your rhetorical question as phrased is absurd. I am ignorant of whatever connection Bentham may have with the question, and I invite another anon to inform me.

>>14890541
Why would you need someone else to inform you? Most likely the people teaching your philosophy class know less about Bentham than someone who has recently read him.

Here is a quote from Bentham’s Philosophy of Economic Science

“Every political and moral question ought to be put upon the issue of fact; and thus mankind are directed into the only true track of investigation which can afford instruction or hope of rational argument the track of experiment and observation”

Bentham will later go on, in that book, to describe morals as needing to be tested before making them ‘into laws’.

So now hopefully you can see how Bentham viewed morality : literally the same thing as Physics and propositions within that.

>>14890805

Looks like a good-faith reply, thanks. What I wrote earlier was a round-about way of saying "I haven't read Bentham someone clue me in pls". Now let's take what you've said and compare it with the OP's intimation and my own assertion.

The OP asked for general opinions on morality, from a philosophical point of view (context). He intimated that perhaps law is prior to, or ought to be prior to, morality, a notion which I reject as absurd. My rejection of the idea is based in a certain modern, physicalist, "evolutionary" worldview which I believe accurately describes reality, though it is likely to be ridiculed since I use the "new atheist" terminology more or less explicitly, despite never having read a Dawkins et al. book, either. Model: intelligent animals with moral imagination (humans) come into the world, alternately do violence to each other, and anticipate possible retribution from their fellows. So, they learn to regulate their intraspecies conduct somewhat. Hence the golden rule, hence, morality. Taking this view, morality is a kind of physical process which comes of-itself, without need of formal codification (writing), which is what law is. If morality is the stuff of anthropology (which precedes history, which by definition requires writing for its content), then law is the stuff of history, coming later (Hammurabi). On the other hand, law is not only meant to approximate basic morality, but also to (dis)incentivize certain behaviors, forming moral prescriptions of its own (economic policy, municipal finance/traffic tickets, and so on). This latter problematic deserves more thought, but my first instinct is that it would again be absurd to suggest that law can "precede" human morality.

I turn now toward the content of your post as it relates to the above. You say that Bentham emphasizes empirical investigation (with a view toward some flavor of utilitarianism, natch), and your penultimate paragraph is the important part. The "empirical test" (whatever it is) notwithstanding, the ordering of your language agrees with my view that the "morals" come first, and are only later coded as laws. The ordering is the bit I'm most concerned about here, but the test in-between is the other bit.

I'm also aware of the closeness of these ideas to Marxism/historical materialism/etc. In the little red book, Mao harps on empiricism as a valid management technique (it is), the irony being that the PRC did not employ same.

Marcel Broodthaers did a neat short film about Bentham and the wax husk, wish I could find the video link for illustration.

>>14890250
>>14890251
Imagine being so much of a bootlicker that you will defend being complicit in things you know to be wrong just because of an abstraction.

>>14890927
Right, so Bentham is essentially of the view that morality should help define law and law should help inform common moral notions about what is correct as well.

If what you define as morality is ‘whatever this guy thinks’ though, that’s obviously wrong. If you are using the correct definition, then I agree with you and I am a believer in God. Which should show you how important the notion of ‘Good’ within the legal sphere is.