The Definition of Morality

I would give credit to the person that crystallized the idea of morality into a few simple sentences if I knew who originally came up with the actual verbiage. Perhaps a good start would be to find the source I originally heard this idea from, but alas it was long ago in a galaxy far, far away and I’ve since forgotten exactly who I originally heard pose the idea of morality this way.

At any rate, I believe there exists a working definition of morality that nearly everyone can agree upon. For something to be inside the bounds of morality, it must meet both of two conditions:

1) Do not deprive any person of life, liberty, or property.
2) Do not expose any person’s life, liberty, or property to risk of loss or harm, unless that person has expressly agreed to the risk you are exposing them to.

This is my first real thread post on PF (my only other being my introduction post), and I thought I’d start with this because it is so very fundamental. Of course I have my own beliefs, thoughts, and predispositions, but if the issue at question is morality, this is where my thoughts wander over to. This is also the basis on which I believe the various governments in the US should base their decisions concerning the legality of nearly everything. No government should be allowed to make immoral law. And by that I mean government should not make laws prohibiting an individual’s freedom to engage in moral action.

Is this a perfect formula? Of course not, and there are some things that are obviously implicit in the idea. One of the obvious implicities (if that’s a word.. I don’t think it is haha) here is the need to separate and warehouse those in society that cannot follow these two very simple rules. Another might have to do with child rearing (i.e: taking a child’s liberty by placing them on restriction in their room). These both involve violating the first rule of morality, but obviously still fall squarely inside of the bounds of morality.

The long into short here is that once you have a working definition of morality, many more things fall into place; not the least being questions concerning government and the government’s enforcing arm (lawmakers, courts, etc.). I was inspired to explicitly make this point by the “What is your political philosophy?” sticky, but this deals with a topic that I feel is much larger than political philosophy, even if that is where I tied it on. Also, I expect I’ll be needing to make this point again sometime in the future, so I don’t think I’m too far remiss for giving this idea its own thread topic for ease of access later.

Questions and comments are most certainly welcome.

Peace
Love

-Henry

 

I think what you have provided is more a boundary on morality rather than a definition. You might argue that "no act is moral if it deprives someone of life, liberty, or property without their consent" but this wouldn't be a definition, only a restriction. A few general questions/objections:

- How do you address killing in self defense? Is this immoral? It doesn't seem to be covered by (2), because although they are trying to kill you, they haven't "expressly agreed" that you should be able to defend yourself
- I think this misses a lot of the positive moral obligations we feel towards others. Obligations to help the needy, to protect your family from harm, and so on don't seem to be covered here.
- This also misses some negative moral obligations that don't relate to liberty or property. Lying or cheating on your spouse don't involve life, liberty, or property but are still immoral.

 

Firstly, thank you for your response sir (or madam?). You laid out your concerns one at a time, so it seems only appropriate to cover them in that order:

I do agree that this is more of a moral boundary than a definition, but if you put boundaries on something doesn't it in some was define the something? Can we define something with boundaries? I don't know.. Maybe that gets into what exactly the definition of "definition" is. I have no idea, so I'll just agree that they're more boundaries than a definition haha. But I digress. To the substance of the matter!

- I believe self defense is a moral action because someone is trying to deprive you of life (for the sake of the length of this post I'm limiting my point here to defense of life). No, the person trying to kill you doesn't agree to you defending yourself, but once again if they're trying to kill you, they've forfeited their right to life. I normally give people a lot of latitude if they think they're going to die.

- I agree that this is not addressed in my two little conditions, not even implicitly. Well, protecting the lives of your family is I think (see above and just insert "life of your family member" for "your own life"), but charity I believe is completely absent. As much as I whole-heartedly believe in helping the poorest among us, and as heartbreaking as it is that some people live among us hungry or homeless.. I can't say its immoral not to help them. Yes, yes, yes, 1000x yes you should. If you have ANY way at all, please help the members in your community that need it most. But I don't think passing someone holding a sign on the street when you have a $20-bill in your pocket raises to the level of immorality. One thing I take great exception to is how the US government handles this very issue. Perhaps that's a topic for another thread. At any rate, I do believe the litmus test here holds up for charity, since I cannot bring myself to call the act immoral.

- Yet another place where the 2-question test here comes up a little short. Hey, its not perfect haha. I do firmly believe if you make a deal with someone, you should uphold your part of the bargain. I'm not married, so anyone who is please excuse me is this comes off crass, but I try to think of marriage as a contract between two individuals. If part of that contract includes the explicit agreement that you will both remain in a monogamous relationship with one-another, and one partner strays; it does raise to the level of immorality in my mind. In much the same way is if you and I had a business deal, and you gave me money for product I never intended on delivering. That's immoral, and it is rooted in a person's keeping of their word. Depriving the person of property seems incidental against not keeping your word.

So there's some holes here, no doubt. But I think if so much of the massively complex and individualized issue of morality on the whole can be covered with just these couple of boundaries, its definitely worth adding to your mental checklist when thinking about morality.

Thanks again so much.

 

My theory is that you just have to know how to prioritize your principles. This is what works for me:

1) Truth.
2) Love.
3) Courage.
4) Freedom.
5) Peace.

You need all five of those things for something to be genuinely good. If you're missing any of them, then the thing in question is immoral. The order of priority is important, though.

 

As always, I appreciate and welcome the postings and insight of others.

I can get on board with the biggest portion of your list there, though there's a few things I would mention.

I'm not sure I appreciate what prioritizing does for the system. Let's say (picking the two that jump out at me) that something is conducive to peace, but not necessarily to courage. I'm not a courageous person by nature, and would rather on more occasions than not to just forgo courage all together and run. If I'm afraid, I'm running. That's my coping mechanism for physical danger to my person haha. Does that make me immoral? If I lay down shoe leather instead of participate in armed conflict, is that immoral? If, hypothetically, truth interferes with peace, is that moral or immoral?

To the system's credit, some of these ideas are pretty solidly intertwined, which is why this seems to work on at least a limited basis (who has a perfect system though right?). Truth and love seem to fit very well together, and if you have one in earnest I can't currently think of a scenario in which you don't have the other. Freedom and peace? Yea man I'll jump on that bandwagon any day. Love also falls right in line well with both freedom and peace, which logically (I suppose?) means so does truth. So while I have some problems with the priority system, 4 of these 5 ideas seem to be in all but lockstep with one-another, at least in my estimation.

4 out of 5 aint bad odds at all!

 

What is moral to some is immoral to others. How do you judge morality?

 

It can be done. And moral philosophers have been doing it for years. The subjectivity is easily removed by using tried and tested methods of evaluating an act, it ain't rocket science. Consequences? Motivation? All in the mix.

- - - Updated - - -

"Morality" is easy to define, what's moral takes a bit more work.

 

Courage doesn't necessarily equal confrontation. Running also requires courage, much of the time. What I really mean by 'courage' is 'will to act.' It's not necessarily violent (it's usually not).

It has to be prioritized behind truth because everything is prioritized behind truth (without truth you've got nothing). It's prioritized behind love because love is an unavoidable state of being that no act of will can defeat, and because love is the only good motivation on which to act. It's prioritized ahead of freedom and peace because freedom is directly impossible without the will to act, and peace is impossible without freedom.

They are definitely all intertwined. As much as truth is the highest priority, you can't find the truth without having the other four as well. It's kind of a cycle, really. Truth leads to love, love leads to courage, courage leads to freedom, freedom leads to peace, and peace leads right back to truth.

 

Boundaries are certainly the beginning of a definition, but I don't think they are comprehensive. To use a mathematical analogy - you can put boundaries around a function, say sin(x), but this doesn't define the function. There are lots of functions that fall within [-1,1]. With your criteria for moral behavior, there are a lot of moralities that fall within this. Responding to your points in order:

- I think this a common justification for self defense, but would have to be added as an extra caveat to (2). It sounds like where you are going with this is that by violating others rights we forfeit our rights to the right we are violating. So if we steal the stolen item does not become our property. I think this would need to be fleshed out a bit (for example, does this imply we are always justified in giving murderers the death penalty because they have forfeit their right to life)?

- If you should help the poor, but it isn't immoral to ignore them, what kind of status does this obligation have? Do you think a rich man who gives most of his wealth to charity is not one bit more moral than one who spends it on yachts, drugs, and women - assuming neither of them have ever killed, stolen, or deprived anyone of liberty? I would be very inclined to say the rich man who shares his wealth is more moral - both for utilitarian reasons and just because it seems like the right thing to do. Why do your family members have a moral claim on your protection, but homeless strangers don't? Would it be immoral to let your children starve? Would it be immoral to allow a senile parent starve? If it would be, why isn't it immoral to let a homeless person die of a cheaply preventable illness, provided you are in a position to prevent it?

- I think we have some moral obligation to uphold our promises, so I would add that to your list. I was merely bringing these up as examples of other moral behaviors that don't seem to be covered by your original 3 moral concepts (property rights, right to life, right to liberty)

In general - I think your approach to morality is very minimalist and rights-oriented and that this misses some utilitarian considerations, such as the status of the poor, and deontological considerations, like whether it is permissible to cheat on your wife or defraud your business partner. I think we really do have moral obligations to help the poor and not lie to our significant others - it is merely a question of how much these obligations can override our rights to property etc.

 

My basis of morality is this basic question"

What causes harm.

There are lots of things that cause harm, but one of the key factors in determining if it is wrong is who is the aggressor in the circumstance? What are his or her goals?

The complications come in when people don't actually realize that they are causing harm, and think they are fully justified in it.

Racism is the great example of this. So is bigotry.

And the other thing about those who cause the harm too is they tend to be stronger than the other person they are harming.

Sometimes it seems that morality is just a tool to justify the causing of harm.

Such as when land is taken away for the greater good.

Whatever the greater good means.

 

M&M put out a rap song a few years ago of raping your mother. How would you rate that? Another rapper put one out of killing cops. Same, how would you rate them?

 

Gonna go out on a limb, here, and say that we're all against mom-rape and mostly against cop-killing.

 

Morality is founded on values which are always changing. Your reductionist effort is a fool's folly. Your 2 imperatives look like boilerplate libertarian hogwash proffered by scholarly oxen.

Welcome to the forum.

r

 

That is basically the verbatim definition which the libertarians use but you will find it varies greatly among political theorists, especially the part about property. Utilitarians believe, for instance, that it is acceptable to take property for the greater good that will make the largest amount of people happy. Many theories also debate the right to liberty when it comes to suicide with some saying that it is the person's right to do that while others say that it is morally unjust to take one's own life.

Basically there is no definition of morality that everyone can agree on, it is subjective, and there is no common state of nature that is defined for us to use as a basis. For instance, you could say that morally it is unacceptable to take a person's life and I could say that it is morally acceptable to take a person's life.

Both of us are simply giving opinion because there is nothing to base it upon other than religion but that again is subjective and boils down to my word against yours.

Philosophically, you cannot define morality or any part of it.

 

Man so many posts! I'll take care of the easy ones first.

I have no qualms about being told I'm wrong. I'm wrong a whole heck of a lot actually, so I'm used to it. However, I will offer a stylistic point. Instead of breezing through and dismissing a person's actual beliefs as "boilerplate libertarian hogwash proffered by scholarly oxen" (even if that's exactly what it is), why not tell the fool engaged in his folly why you're right and he (read: I) is wrong? Participate in the marketplace of ideas! Contribute, proffer truth as you see it rather than passively leaving the proffering to people who would perpetuate nonsense. Compete with your ideas, and thus out what you perceive as foolishness. You'll leave a much more lasting impression on people in that way, and ya know what? Someone might actually learn something from you. Roll it around in your mind for a while.

Thank you for your welcome.

My little system I think works very well when contemplating artistic endeavors such as music. Yes, actual mother rape is bad, and I don't agree with killing anyone who isn't actively trying to kill you, but a song about mother rape and cop murder? Yea that seems fine. I don't happen to be a fan of Eminem, but I also believe there's no such thing as a thought crime. Until he actually kills a cop, or until he actually rapes his mother, he is inside the boundaries of morality. Music, videogames, and movies that depict violence are perfectly moral in every way in my estimation. They're just art, and art is fine by me.

No doubt that morality is bigger than just a few sentences can cover (I'll cop to that here and now haha) but I do think there is a definition of morality that everyone can agree on. Take the one I've posted here for example. While it has what have now become glaring short-comings, I still think everyone can agree upon the actual verbiage here. Disagreeing with the definition of morality I've put forth here would mean you would have to find a hypothetical, but still plausible, situation where one individual could unduly harm an innocent person's life, liberty, or property, and it still be a moral act. I'm not sure I've heard anyone ever postulate such a scenario.

As you've alluded to, property rights are probably the stickiest part of this equation, at least a first glace. I don't believe its very complicated, however, when you call the taking of someone's property for the "greater good" exactly what it amounts to: stealing. I've actually been very close (in both proximity and relationship) to a few instances of the government taking a swath of land to widen a road against the rightful landowner's consent. In every case, the land was taken without the owner's consent, and they were compensated mere pennies on the dollar of what the land would have been sold for on the open market. I can't think of another word for that other than "stealing". If you take my truck and leave me a $5-bill, you've still stolen my truck. It is for this reason that I believe that taking an individual's property, even if it is for the greater good, is entirely immoral. To steal is immoral, no matter what you do with the items you stole.

This "definition of definition" digression is perhaps a bit away from what the real subject here is, but I think its interesting as all get-out so I'm going with it. No it doesn't help much to define sin(x) along the y-axis, but if you define sin(x) along the x-axis (say the boundary is [0,π]), you've got yourself a very well defined function! Seems like it matters more exactly how you're defining the function rather than that you're defining the function. I've now completely forgotten how this is relevant to morality, but it makes me happy nonetheless.

- I intentionally left "life" out of the things a criminal can forfeit, because it gets a little hairy. I believe the only reason inside of morality for killing another person, is that the person in question was an active and deliberate threat to the life of another person at the time they were killed. Morality only allows you to kill someone to save your own life, or the life of another person. If the murderer is captured later, killing the murderer then becomes immoral. The best we can do inside of morality at that point is to put the murderer in a place (prison) separate from society so he cannot victimize another innocent person again. If you can stop him from hurting anyone else, what do we gain from killing him (or her)?

- I think the obligation to helping the poor comes along with just being a person. I'm a college student at the moment, and a huge percentage of my face-to-face political chatter happens with lefties (which is fine, but it gets a little tiresome after a while). For whatever reason, the thing they can't wrap their heads around is that the vast majority of people, regardless of race, social statue, or general economic well-being, want to help other people. I don't know a single person that thinks anyone should go hungry in a country as rich as America is. This idea inevitably leads to the "rich guy" straw-man, whom they invariably knock down as a selfish, self-righteous, thief of the "little man's" labors. I just don't understand where the idea comes from I guess. I don't know any rich people (though I do recognize some people in this country would call you rich if you had a computer, internet, a house, and a car), and I certainly don't know whoever this manacle "rich guy" is who gets his jollies off of not helping human suffering. As far as I know, these people don't exist, and the biggest contributors to charities (in dollars, perhaps not as a percentage of their earnings) are the wealthiest among us. Have a little faith in humanity. We're all people, and no one likes to see human suffering.

Sorry, I got off on a bit of a tangent there lol. I hope that at least in some round-about way addressed your question concerning morality and charity. I would also add that the protection from life-ending harm afforded to my family, friends, and community members, is also afforded to the homeless, and anyone else for that matter. It is not a moral thing to let your children starve (though again, I contend no one would). If you bring children into the world, both society and morality charge you with their well-being. This is why it is not immoral for a parent to levy property and freedom against a child for the purposes of punishment. If we give people a moral duty, they must have the tools to complete it. The question really then becomes (and sorry its taken me this long to get to your real point here.. I spent way too much of this post complaining about my lefty friends lol) does your moral obligation to see to the well-being of your own family extend to everyone else? I'd have to say it does not, as much as that seems really really crappy to me. It gets back to having the tools to do the job to which you are morally obligated. One person cannot take care of the whole world in the same way they would take care of their own children. Recourses are limited, and sadly if you tried to do everything for everyone, you'd end up doing nothing for anyone. It really sucks, I know, but you can't take food out of the mouths of your children to help the huddled masses. Yes, charity is very important, and yes, if there's ANY conceivable way you can make someone's time on this earth a little better by giving them a few dollars or a hot meal, please do it.. But I still cannot bring myself to say if you spend your limited funds on your children rather than on a homeless person you are outside of the bounds of morality.

- I would agree that the moral obligation to uphold your promises goes entirely unremarked in the two conditions I laid out in the first post, and should be added as third condition. Good call sir (or.. again... madam).


Thanks so much to everyone for sharing your views with me!

 

If you are looking for morality, dont look for it in the democrat party!!!!

 

I'll have to admit this did make me giggle. As previously mentioned I have a few (mostly.. actually) lefty buddies and I can imagine they'd take great exception with your statement.

Though, do try and remember that everyone is just trying to do what they think is best for the people around them. The Democrats and I disagree on what the "best thing for the people around us" is, that's no secret. And for that matter so do I and the Republicans, but just as there is no evil sadistic rich person out there getting their kicks by watching people suffer, there is also no Democrat or Republican that fits that particular bill either.

The Dems seem a little backward to me, sure. I'm sure I seem backwards to them too. But hey they're good people, cut 'em a little slack now and again.

Thanks for posting.

 

Then you believe amiss, because there is no codification of morality that cannot be twisted to suit the desires of the immorally inclined.

The obvious deficiency here is the lack of any consideration for the difference between liberty and license, which look pretty much the same to the shallow minded, but are in fact mutually inimical.

More accurately, what is immoral to the morally inclined seems moral to the immorally inclined. That's why, from the leftard perspective, Sarah Palin is a slut and Sandra Fluke is a paragon of womanly virtue.

You don't, because it's only by the light of conscience, which distinguishes the moral from the immoral, that you can rightly judge anything.

 

Well, I could twist in the wind wondering what you mean, or I could ask you to elaborate. So, I'm shooting for the latter! Do you mind, in the simplest terms possible, explaining to me exactly what you mean by this.

Also, forgive me if I'm putting stock into something you're not saying. If you cannot define morality, and you find someone who has proposed a definition to morality, it seems logical in my mind that you would be able to find a circumstance in which the definition of morality put forth is exactly wrong. In fact I might even encourage you to start with that. I'm saying A=>B, and to prove that false logically, you must find a circumstance of some description that A=>(-)B.

A: The two conditions in the original post are both met.
B: The circumstance in question is inside the bounds of morality.

You've been tasked with proving that something can meet these two conditions, and still fall outside of morality. I will also point out that we've also already sorted out here that B does not necessarily =>A (Judicator's posts, specifically). So there exists things inside of morality that do not meet both conditions, but I'm asking for logical disproof of my original statement.

I look forward to hearing from you.

 

Is an act "moral"? Not of itself it isn't. It's just an act. It's all about context.

Someone mentioned Eminem and a song about him raping his mother. Leaving aside the artistic licence bit, is raping one's mother moral? Is sexual intercourse moral? Is it moral to have sexual intercourse with someone without their consent? Is it moral to have sexual intercourse with someone with their consent? Is it moral to have sexual intercourse with one's mother with her consent?

I'm pretty sure we'd agree rape is not moral. The question is, why isn't it moral? At a guess I'd say because it involves the unlawful application of force (or other form of subjugating lack of consent) for sexual intercourse. The unlawful application of force or other tactic is what makes it not moral. Sexual intercourse of itself is not described as moral or immoral, it has to have context.

Is it moral to commit incest with one's mother? What if both parties are consenting and willing adults? Is it moral? It may be illegal but that legal status doesn't go to the morality of the act. It may be distasteful but again that doesn't go to its morality.

Killing. To "murder" is the act of a human being killing another human being with certain circumstances attached. There is a tonne of case law on what a "murder" is which require analysis of the context and much evidence before the act of killing can be called "murder". Murder is illegal and immoral, it's not moral because it involves applying unlawful force. Is euthanasia moral? What if the person who chooses to die and requests help to die is in full command of their mental faculties but has had enough suffering? If someone assists them to die is that moral?

There is no abstract idea of morality, only taste. Morality can only be determined by the analysis of a specific action.

 

Well, I'd say it violates at least three of my principles: Love, Freedom and Peace.

 

No, yes, no, yes, and maybe; in that order lol.

Of course the circumstances of each case matter, absolutely I 100% agree. What I'm suggesting here is that we as people have a built-in commonality between us. A common frame through which we can all look at and examine each case, and in more cases than not come to the same conclusion. Does consent of both parties involved in a sexual act change the morality of that sexual act? Yes. But the idea that we all agree on that point I believe is proof positive of what I'm arguing for. How or why we have this common frame? Heck your guess is as good as mine haha. I'm happy going under the assumption that its included equipment for most everyone when they're born, though if you press me on it I'll freely admit this is a romanticism I've just made up in my head.

As always, I appreciate the input of everyone who takes the time to post.

 

Go read Immanuel Kant who gives you a very good example. Basically Kant said that lying was morally unjust and gives an example of a murderer coming to your house to kill your friend who is visiting, your friend hides in the closet, you answer the door and the murderer asks you if your friend is here. Kant says you would be morally wrong if you lied to the murderer.

As in Kant's theory, anything is morally unjust if it is performed for the effects it will create. In his example, it is morally unjust because you are making a decision based on the outcome, not for the purpose of the decision itself.

When you are examining morality, you need to understand how you are defining it to determine whether or not something is just or not.

So let's look at these two rules that were posted earlier.

These are actions based on the effect they cause so they are irrelevant to someone like Kant. Depriving a person of life would be wrong if the initial morality action was according to Kant's principles but irrelevant if the action was already immoral to begin with. And Kant is only one of quite a few political scientists who lay foundations for what morality is.

Basically, killing someone in and of itself is not immoral, the reasons why you killed them is where morality comes into play.

 

Seems to me the first sentence is self-explanatory, but if you need an example all you need do is look at how, according to the Gospels, the pharisees twisted Mosaic law to accommodate their own lusts. As for the second, if you don't understand the difference between liberty and license, liberty is the freedom to do what's right, and license is the freedom to do what's wrong.

No problem: you're sitting on a park bench eating a hamburger, and 20' away you see a guy strangling a child to death. If you go on eating, you've not run afoul of either condition, yet you've clearly acted immorally.

But of course even if you fix it so sins of omission are included, there are still things like covetousness to be reckoned with, which can be indulged without infringing on the rights of others but are immoral all the same.

 

I can tell you're a very moral person