Morals

I don't kill everyone I see, so yeah. And I'm not intentionally rude either. Meaning that I do have some flexible morals based on my values in my pocket.

when someone says someone else "has no morals", it's like when someone says "you're literally driving me insane". it's not literal. so that's a pretty meaningless question. it's absurd in a literal and absolute sense, and it's totally vague and subjective if it's not taken literally

NeDesitVirtus wrote:You'd be surprised how many hands are raised in an auditorium when asked if anyone joined up for the college money

I don’t think I would be surprised. Push people into debt and give them a weapon to come out of it again. NeDesitDebitio or

NeDesitVirtus wrote:For me, it had nothing to with values, patriotism, etc. More of just being tired with what I was doing at the time

NeDesitFacinus would be more fitting then. Or you could just leave the negation behind.

I’m sorry, it’s like getting a glimpse of the “free trade agreement” although you really don’t want to. The soldier calling himself “[he, who is] not devoid of virtues“ is telling us, he has no morals. That’s just rich.

anagram wrote:so that's a pretty meaningless question.

The question could have more meaning if we’d put something else at the core of morality other than empty phrases. Maybe Kohlberg is a better guideline. I think everything but a Kohlberg 6 isn‘t moral. If you make exceptions because it‘s about you or your family or your fellow believers, you’re not a moral person.
I haven’t selected an answer and I highly doubt the 11 at the moment are Kohlberg 6‘s. But I agree, without definition the answers have the same significance like telling the forum your eye-colour.

Nebuz wrote:I do have some flexible morals

Flexible morals ... awesome ... is that the brother of flexible chastity? Or the cousin of changeable peace!?

Dalloway wrote:The question could have more meaning if we’d put something else at the core of morality other than empty phrases. Maybe Kohlberg is a better guideline. I think everything but a Kohlberg 6 isn‘t moral. If you make exceptions because it‘s about you or your family or your fellow believers, you’re not a moral person.

in that case, i'm not a moral person, and i do not want to cross paths with anyone who is. because that sounds just totally wrong and borderline delusional to me. anyone i trust and who trusts me is and should be above everyone else. if someone i trust doesn't think so, then there's not even a point in trusting them, and i'm only exposing myself to unnecessary risk

everybody is entitled to self-preservation, and each person's self-preservation always conflicts, in some way and to some degree, with everybody else's. rules are supposed to be about workable compromise, not about absolute values. absolute values are dangerous and, in my opinion, amoral. there's no virtue in imposing principles that leave no room for specific/unpredictable individual needs, or cultural evolution and so on, and expecting people to simply agree and conform

Dalloway wrote:

NeDesitVirtus wrote:For me, it had nothing to with values, patriotism, etc. More of just being tired with what I was doing at the time

NeDesitFacinus would be more fitting then. Or you could just leave the negation behind.

I’m sorry, it’s like getting a glimpse of the “free trade agreement” although you really don’t want to. The soldier calling himself “[he, who is] not devoid of virtues“ is telling us, he has no morals. That’s just rich.

It's a unit motto, not my own. Don't take it so seriously.

anagram wrote: anyone i trust and who trusts me is and should be above everyone else.

Which is the basis for nepotism (in contrast to friendship) and consequently conflict and consequently war. We always had groups who saw themselves “above everyone else”; I’m not surprised people are mentally “there” ... I’m more surprised when someone outspokenly acknowledges it. But I like that more than the pretense, not a lot, but still.

Maybe read into the subject; I’m half suspecting you see a conflict where there maybe is none. Although the 10k BC tribe mindset is allowed to develop.

I’m not aware of a single nation that went down, because their ideals were too unwavering. Nepotism, corruption, exceptions becoming the rule, that is the well trodden path down.
I don’t see your fears founded in anything but habit.

NeDesitVirtus wrote:Don't take it so seriously.

Let's say I want to try this. How would I do that? I see a steam sauna powered with naps weed. I might have to take "Fiat iustitia et pereat mundus" from the wall, and go confess in the "are you dangerous"-topic. After the sauna.

Dalloway wrote:I’m not aware of a single nation that went down, because their ideals were too unwavering. Nepotism, corruption, exceptions becoming the rule, that is the well trodden path down.
I don’t see your fears founded in anything but habit.

who's talking about nations? law and government are still supposed to be about compromises. it's not supposed to reflect the personal values of any one person. conflating the two things is the real problem. anyone's natural disposition will be to favor the ones they're fond of, the ones they value, the ones they trust, the ones they benefit from, and so on. saying or believing otherwise is either naive or self-righteous. any sound political system is supposed to be based on trust in the institution but distrust of the individual. you elect people and then you keep an eye on them

Dalloway wrote: Flexible morals ... awesome ... is that the brother of flexible chastity?

Best description so far

I chose "no," but hear me out.

When people ask "do you have morals," my experience has been that they nearly always mean, "do you have what I would consider morals?" My response to that question is no. I probably do not.

I don't go out of my way to do things that would harm other people, but I know from personal experience that, if required, I can do some ugly things (lie, hurt people physically, leave someone in the lurch without forewarning, etc.) and not feel that bad about it. It's all been driven by what I considered immediate necessity, but my empathy is in the toilet and I have never regretted any of it.

The biggest reasons I don't do premeditated harmful things to other people are: one, it's not rewarding in any way I consider important; two, it usually causes more problems than it solves; and three, I avoid aligning myself with any ideology that suggests it is in any form acceptable to treat another living thing as unilaterally lesser, because I find such thinking bizarre and confusing. We're all just configurations of matter and electricity, and intelligence is just an evolutionary strategy.

That's a belief, but it's not what most consider morality, I think.

Morality can also mean merely having an established set of rules by which one lives, with or without need of supporting religion/other social structure. I don't really have that, either, because I have neither the emotional capacity, nor the sense of identity, to make me capable of an investment of that caliber. My thinking is too damned relative, I'm too willing to see other sides of any issue, and I just can't seem to care enough.

I have opinions, but I'm not invested in them enough to say I'd "never" do something (though I can't conceive a situation where I'd be moved to rape someone).

I also do not believe in right and wrong. The closest I can come is "advisable" and "inadvisable," and those are strictly personal definitions, dependent on circumstance, mostly based in risk-benefit analysis. It's entirely possible that I have some antisocial behaviors/traits happening, but I think it's mostly just my inability to access my emotions.

Lividum wrote:I chose "no," but hear me out.

When people ask "do you have morals," my experience has been that they nearly always mean, "do you have what I would consider morals?" My response to that question is no. I probably do not.

My thoughts are similar to this; I didn't do the survey because the answer for me would probably be something like a confused "maybe?" And it is directly related to my more general alienation from people.

One idea I've had recently is that perhaps morals are like the personal equivalent of what artists mean by "technique." They tend to vary from culture to culture, are very bound up with tradition, but the best artists neither follow them to the letter nor toss them out for show. Decadence also seems to work very similarly for both.