[Got it from here.]
The premise is to list 5 things you want your [in my case: future] kids to know as they are growing up.
- Everything – from time to morals – is relative. Therefore there’s no good and evil, no better or worse. Just equal people of equal worth and equal importance.
- Nothing is so bad that we can’t talk about it. No matter what, I will love you.
- Question all authority. [Goes hand in hand with:] If you don’t understand something – ask.
- Live your own life and don’t let anybody tell you what that should be like. [Goes hand in hand with:] Let other people live their own lives and never tell them what that should be like.
- Treat other people as they want to be treated, not as you want to be treated.
There. My acquired wisdom. I really hope that I can get that across. And if I do, I think that my children will be well prepared to face this world.
kalafudra's Stuff 
Seems like a very useful meme… even for those who can’t come up with just 5 most important things, trying should be interesting. By the way, if everything is relative, how do you take the “equal worth of equal people” to be an absolute fact?
I think it’s only logical that if everything is relative, everything is equal in worth (morally speaking). If there are no absolutes then everything’s the same. Individually, that doesn’t hold true. But collectively, I think it does.
Well. If there are no absolutes, you can’t tell what everything is, because quite literally you have no way of measuring. That’s not exactly the same as everything being equal. “Everything/everyone is equal” is both practically and philosophically comforting, I admit, but I’m not sure how TRUE it is. A problem that applies only for those who believe in the absolute notion of truth, which I have to say I do, even though I won’t claim to know what it is in most situation.
but you forget that some people are more equal than others! ;)
no seriously, good points! i’ll steal them for my own future kids. :)
:) True.
Feel free to steal. Maybe I’ll be a guru next. :P
I liked this meme and your answers.
Only your point 1 I don’t really get…
I’m totally buying/believing your atheism. But your relativity of morality-theory just doesn’t fit you.
You keep and keep claiming all the rights of the European convention of human rights /of the American Constitution and its amemdments. I think they make your “morality book of law”.
And, do you really think that “there’s no good and evil, no better or worse. Just equal people of equal worth and equal importance.”?
Because I could name a few vvvvery evil people. And there are also evil actions (rape, murder…). Good and evil exists, better or worse exists.
Not murdering is usually better than murdering. And feeding your children is better than beating them. Respecting rights is usually better than taking them away. etc.
… I don’t think all our actions are in any case equal in worth. In fact, I think by each one of our actions we can be judged.
As I mentioned above, for me, good and evil exists. And for a normal society it exists as well. If murdering was as neutral as dancing naked in the rain, well, bye-bye, society.
It is hard to believe that you really think the complete opposite of my belief in this one… Or did I misunderstand you somewhere?
No, you misunderstand my meaning – I am not saying that I don’t have any values or that I don’t have my own moral “code” if you will. I just don’t believe that there’s an objective measure which says that my code is better/worth more/more important than yours.
Of course I am convinced that my view of the world is the true view of the world – or else I wouldn’t have it. But at the same time, I’m also convinced that there’s no objectivity, no universality, no truth itself. So anything that you believe and anything that I believe is equally valid, because value is always relative.
bzz… I’m confusing myself. Did that make any sense?
Yes, I really believe that there’s no absolute good and evil, and therefore there can be no absolute better or worse. If I refer to something as “not good” it’s always with the implied addition of “in my set of values or in my moral code”. In another person’s set of values/moral code, the same thing I object to, might be perfectly acceptable, even encouraged.
In my set of values, rape and murder are as evil as in yours (at least I think so :), but for another person they might not be. In my conception of the world, this does not make the person evil per se, it makes the person evil within my set of values. [Though I would object to the use of the world evil, as it implies as inherent, absolute badness, which I don’t think exists… s.a.]
Fact is that to function as a society [if that is what we actually want, which would be another long discussion :)], we need rules. And we need rules that are closely followed. To ensure that rules have developped through history which got so ingrained into people that they are now fixed values.
So, anyway, that is just to say that I’m completely with you when you say “If murdering was as neutral as dancing naked in the rain, well, bye-bye, society.”
But the thing is: Judging can only occur if we assume a set of values as a given. And that is always an assumption and never an objective truth. It might be a very important assumption and one that we quite definitely need for our society to function, but it still is an assumption.
Now I understand and agree at least partly :o)
Of course there can be other views (and of course we rate our view best :P)
Though I think that there are values that can not tolerate disagreement (My English doesn’t suffice in philosophical discussion, sorry).
If a certain standard of basic values is not met in a person there couldn’t be any more discussion, any more exchange of ideas – and I would (because I’m a *little* more extreme than you) call this person or this philosophy evil.
,,, baby awakes.
…. susan neiman is of course better than me:
“there is something wrong with evil” – love this one.
Well, you could take Ms. Neiman’s statement and understand it exactly in the way I mean it: “There’s something wrong with the [notion of] evil [itself].”
I don’t know the bigger context, so… :)
That’s not how she meant it. :P
She meant something like: Hitler is evil. He’s not just having other values to live by.
Evilness should not be mistaken for just another way of seeing things.
Of course the term “evil” is used too often and in connection with things that are not evil but differ from average. But there remain things that are truly evil.
But, well, I’d say let’s agree to disagree as we both keep repeating exactly the same reasoning without winning the other over :)
(do you think we will have only one letter per line if we keep on writing here?)
Okay, let’s agree to disagree. :)
I was thinking about the width of this comment thingy as well – let’s give it a try. Then I know how many levels make sense (right now, I’d say not more than 5) and can adjust it accordingly.
try try try groooovy….
I’d say 4 levels are enough. maybe 5. The rest is painful
okay, done. Now this conversation doesn’t make that much sense anymore, but anyway… :)
Replying here because I figured replying at the end would be just painful. :)
I’m not entirely sure I understand where you’re coming from. Let me see if I can rephrase a bit…You have a moral code that you believe in firmly. But you accept that other codes will also be valid from other people’s perspectives. You think some aspects of your code, which indeed most people have, are essential for society to function at all.
However. You will, presumably, strive to ensure that your version of the code is propagated to most people- this post is an obvious example, and the few political statements you make- about feminism, for instance- also indicate that while you don’t call someone who doesn’t believe in your code “evil”, you quite actively abhor their opinions. Given this, what DIFFERENCE does it make, whether or not you choose to call them evil? It seems to be just an issue of semantics(I don’t know if I’m using the word in the right sense here, but I think you get what I mean) to me.
Also, I don’t even get how you can *not* believe in a concept of absolute truth. I’m not necessarily saying you have to believe in an absolute morality, but just the idea that some things are true, and some are not…do you really believe that you can never make such a statement?
Good idea to reply here…
Yes, that’s right. Though I would say that the aspects are essential for society to function as it does now. To keep up the status quo. I’m pretty sure there could be other ways of living together with other rules.
And I have no problem with communicating my code, in fact, I look forward to doing that and openly search for possibilities. I like the discussions, I like the communication and the exchange. It reminds me that we all see the world differently.
I’m not trying to have my view spread, to “convert” people to my way of seeing things. Far from it. I just think that it’s a learning opportunity – for me as well as for the other party – because being involved in communication always is. And I have fun doing it. And obviously, sometimes I just need to vent. :)
And I don’t “abhor” other people’s opinions. Really not. That is much too strong a word. I disagree, I react emotionally to some and sometimes I critisize logical flaws as I see them. But abhor – no.
It’s not only an issue of semantics (although it is that, too), it’s not only not calling people and their view evil, it’s also not perceiving them as evil. Which changes my approach to different views and my reactions. If you believe in evil, and you believe murder is evil, you’ll react to murder in a different way than if you think that there’s no such thing as evil.
And yes, I think that I can never honestly say that something is really, absolutely true. I can believe something to be true (and I have to believe that some things are true, lest I stop functioning), but that’s about it.
But even if there was such a thing as an absolute truth – what would it matter? We wouldn’t be able to grasp or perceive it anyway – because perception is already distortion. It’s like Plato’s cave: Does it really matter whether there are actual things outside of the cave? We can only see the shadows and never the things themselves…
“I’m pretty sure there could be other ways of living together with other rules. ”
Point. As long as there’s some element of regularity, or even a “known unknown”, people usually find ways of dealing with it. I think what we have is pretty good compared to the hypothetical alternatives, though, and I’ve read enough science fiction to convince myself of that. :)
Ok, maybe I assumed too much when I used “abhor”. And I think I get what you meant by not thinking of someone as evil. I don’t actually have that many things I would describe with the term, because I don’t think anyone is “absolutely” evil, although I could freely use “abhor” for a number of things, and I think I mean what a lot of other people mean when they say evil; hence what I said about semantics.
About absolute truth- I hate saying “agree to disagree” because it’s a pretty stupid thing to say: see Aumann’s agreement theorem. But I guess it would take too much time and effort to hash it out, and I doubt it would be worth it, so we’ll leave it at that. I’m guessing you were totally conflicted when you saw the Matrix, though. :P
“I think what we have is pretty good compared to the hypothetical alternatives, though, and I’ve read enough science fiction to convince myself of that. :)”
True. I’m pretty happy with the way things are myself. Though much of that is probably just that I grew up with these rules and in this environment.
I’m not denying that the question of “evil” is also a question of semantics. And semantics are pretty important – no doubt about it.
It’s also a question of what you want and what your values are. For example, I value communication and the possibility for communication higher than having the safety of absolute values. Hence, I developed a value system which allows me to have that. [And vice versa.]
I don’t know enough about Aumann’s Agreement Theorem [wikipedia is not very forthcoming] to be able to argue with it, but I think that anything that expects people to always reach an agreement is potentially dangerous.
Why should I have been conflicted when I saw Matrix? [And I’m talking part one. Part two and three don’t exist.]
The basic idea of the agreement theorem is that purely rational people(this, of course, is why it doesn’t apply to ACTUAL people) with the same information should reach the same conclusions. Actually, the implicit assumption is that there’s only one real truth to any given situation, so I guess using it in this context is sort of stupid :) .
And the Matrix…well, if you don’t think it matters what the “reality” is, weren’t you confused about why all these people were so anxious to break out of the Matrix? Given that living in “reality” is clearly going to be a lot worse than continuing to live in the Matrix, I mean. (You don’t care about the sequels, so we can avoid discussing that ridiculous ending.)
Regarding the Matrix:
I’m not sure whether the non-Matrix world was worse than the Matrix-world. I mean, it again depends on your value system: If you value freedom over comfort, you’d want to break free from the Matrix, no matter if it’s closer to a universal truth or not (or whether there is such a thing or not).
And I can subscribe to that notion without any problem.
Plus, I think that it goes without saying that I don’t have to agree with every single world view that is promoted through a book or a movie to enjoy it. Or else, I would only read books I’ve written myself.
I think I cried a little.
:)
Thank you.
I would also add – “Don’t diss something unless you’ve tried it.” And “There are two sides to every argument.” And… er… “Never compromise. Not even in the face of Armageddon.”
All in all, you’ll make a great mum K.
Hmmm… I don’t know about the compromise thingy – if you never compromise every social interaction and/or decision will become excruciatingly difficult. But if you say “never compromise your ideals” I get your point more. :)
And thanks. :)
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