So are you equating peer pressure with morals? Because it is peer pressure, and one's response to it, that makes a person feel out of place in relation to behavior! I find that to be a rather odd association.
Pretty much. It's a much different position on morals than the average layperson takes, but I think it is a more accurate position that is more reflective of academic definitions of morality vs. ethics. The academic definition of morals as being comprised of mores and folkways is often, but not necessarily inclusive of issues of right and wrong. When people join certain units in the military, they are expected, by tradition, to get a certain tattoo. If you don't, it's not necessarily a wrong thing, but you better expect to be looked at as a deviant or at the least as a non-team player. That is a moral, but it's not based on an ethic. Likewise, when a baseball player hits a home run, would it be ethically wrong for him to say during his interview, "Yeah, I was really proud of that one. It just shows I'm a good hitter!"? No, it wouldn't be wrong, but it would be against the moral code that expects players to take the team approach.
By the way, if you're following a dictionary definition of morals or ethics you probably won't find a distinction. As a professor of mine once said, "The slang and idiom of the common layperson is the fodder of the dictionary. The dictionary is not scholarly, it is common."
Originally posted by Eireann
It's obvious, having read the current results of the debate, that most of the people voting don't actually know how to judge a debate. Most of them (to be expected of course, since most of them are Christians and absolutists) are judging in Knight's favor simply because they share his belief in absolute morality. If they were actually judging knowledgeably based on how well each combatant is actually building/defending his case, then Knight would be losing by a landslide, since he has yet to do either. He can't defend his case, because he hasn't started building one yet.
LOL! Zakath made Knights argument for him in Zakath's post #2!!!
You are more biased than the Christians you claim are biased!
Originally posted by Pilgrimagain
well this is all just an opinion poll anyway so you really can't expect anything more.
If the "what's your education level?" thread is any indication, most have never been exposed to formal debate in an academic setting. That being the case most people will automatically judge based on which presenter argues a postion they agree with.
But still, as I've pointed out numerous times, and everyone seems to be unwilling to deal with, morals are not about right or wrong, they are simply about behavioral norms. The field that deals with right and wrong is ethics. This debate is not about ethics. If Knight concentrates on issues of right and wrong, as I suspect he will, then he will lose the debate by default, because he will be debating off-topic.
I think everyone is capable of understanding to a sufficient degree what the debate is about regardless of how accurate the terms are.
Originally posted by novice
Eireann...I think everyone is capable of understanding to a sufficient degree what the debate is about regardless of how accurate the terms are.
I'll humbly agree with you on that. Still, Knight needs to concentrate on building his own case rather than on trying to whittle Zak's down. If he has a case, it should be able to stand on its own without worrying about Zak's argument. If he is worrying about Zak's argument, then it means he considers Zak's case to be a threat. With the constant defensive stance Knight has been taking in this debate, if it were a boxing match we would say he is "on the ropes."
Slogan/motto:
To be able to change is not only a posibility, but is also a necessity
Reputation:
July 28th, 2002, 03:22 PM
Quote:
Originally posted by Eireann
Common interest, or interest in the common good. When people intermingle they usually find common ground. When they don't, they cease to intermingle. When they find common ground, they build on it. That is how societies form.
I sing and play some instruments -- (in order of most ability to least) -- voice, drums, French Horn, trumpet, keyboards, clarinet, saxophone. My preferred music, that which I've played in most of the bands I've been with, is Prog Metal. That is the genre that basically combines symphonic classical music with heavy metal. Some prominent examples of the genre are Queensryche, older Queen, Helloween, Savatage, and Trans-Siberian Orchestra.
So the standard is compromise.
Wow! That is a lot of instruments! I play soprano and alto sax, and have learned a little piano and sopranino sax. I've played some jazz, but my area of study would be twentieth century music since that is where you will find most of the "classical" saxophone repretoire. Other than that, I play transcriptions. I was always kind of curious about what genre Bohemian Rapsody would be in. I like that song even if the lyrics are a bit depressing.
ac
I don't know. Maybe. I know that when people group together they have ways of coming to agreements about things. The mechanism may differ from group to group and situation to situation. Sometimes formal compromise is required, sometimes it coincidence rules the day.
Wow! That is a lot of instruments! I play soprano and alto sax, and have learned a little piano and sopranino sax. I've played some jazz, but my area of study would be twentieth century music since that is where you will find most of the "classical" saxophone repretoire. Other than that, I play transcriptions. I was always kind of curious about what genre Bohemian Rapsody would be in. I like that song even if the lyrics are a bit depressing.
ac [/quote]
Well, I can see why our society is in such trouble then. When the morals of an individual's life are nothing more than a response to peer pressure then there is nothing of substance to guide them. This makes public opinion the ruling factor in lives of many people.
I can also see then why you argue that there can't be any absolutes, for something as variable as peer pressure can never be an absolute. I really feel for you guys who think this way. It must be really confusing to have your morals changed every time public opinion shifts. You have no inner guidance, no compass, no stabilizer other than what a majority of people think. It must come as quite a shock to you to have people around who don't bow to public opinion as their definer for their moral values.
Well, thanks for the insight. I don't understand how anyone could willingly place their moral values in nothing more than something as fickle as public opinion, but then I'm no great proponent of believing something just because academia says it is so. They have been wrong so many times over the course of history it isn't funny. I believe this is another one of those times.
What this idea is really advocating is that people shouldn't think for themselves or stand for principle, but follow the herd. I'm surprised that you buy it, because you seem much too intelligent to buy into such an obvious fallacy.
"I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters."
- Frank Lloyd Wright (1868-1959)
I don't know. Maybe. I know that when people group together they have ways of coming to agreements about things. The mechanism may differ from group to group and situation to situation. Sometimes formal compromise is required, sometimes it coincidence rules the day.
Quote:
Wow! That is a lot of instruments! I play soprano and alto sax, and have learned a little piano and sopranino sax. I've played some jazz, but my area of study would be twentieth century music since that is where you will find most of the "classical" saxophone repretoire. Other than that, I play transcriptions. I was always kind of curious about what genre Bohemian Rapsody would be in. I like that song even if the lyrics are a bit depressing.
ac
Though Queen really came before the widely agreed-upon birth of Prog Metal, they were certainly a precursor to the genre, as are other prog acts like Styx and Rush. Bohemian Rhapsody certainly fits the prog metal catagory, though. Most prog metal fans seem to credit Queensryche and Helloween, though, for actually defining and establishing the genre.
Well, I can see why our society is in such trouble then. When the morals of an individual's life are nothing more than a response to peer pressure then there is nothing of substance to guide them. This makes public opinion the ruling factor in lives of many people.
I can also see then why you argue that there can't be any absolutes, for something as variable as peer pressure can never be an absolute. I really feel for you guys who think this way. It must be really confusing to have your morals changed every time public opinion shifts. You have no inner guidance, no compass, no stabilizer other than what a majority of people think. It must come as quite a shock to you to have people around who don't bow to public opinion as their definer for their moral values.
Well, thanks for the insight. I don't understand how anyone could willingly place their moral values in nothing more than something as fickle as public opinion, but then I'm no great proponent of believing something just because academia says it is so. They have been wrong so many times over the course of history it isn't funny. I believe this is another one of those times.
What this idea is really advocating is that people shouldn't think for themselves or stand for principle, but follow the herd. I'm surprised that you buy it, because you seem much too intelligent to buy into such an obvious fallacy.
I would agree with you if morality and public opinion were the top of the ladder. Yes, public opinion guides morality, which is the topic of the debate. No one has asked, though, what guides public opinion. Like I told Anna, people have this unnerving way of quickly discovering their common ground. That discovery of common ground leads to the formation of cliques, which lead to groups, which lead to crowds, which lead to societies, which in turn establish morals based on those common grounds. If "common ground" were the highest authority, then I would be in full agreement with you. But what guides people to such discoveries? What gives people common interests? Well, there are a whole lot of things that go into that, and some of those (God, for instance) may be absolutes. So if you climb up the causal ladder high enough, you'll find some absolutes, I don't doubt. But you will have to climb past morals and societies to find them.
Here is one model I propose, but I don't claim it as absolute, because I have no proof of it:
God ---> nature, environment, biology, ethics ---> individual experience ---> individual opinion + individual opinion ---> common interest ---> cliques (small groups of friends) ---> groups ---> crowds ---> society ---> morals* ---> smooth and successful interaction between members (when followed).
*Morals can be established at any level below the broadly-defined society I showed above (especially folkway morals). When public opinion begins to go against established morals, the public works to change those morals. In the 19th century, it was immoral in every state in the US for women to even suggest that they should be able to vote. That was a hard and fast moral. The suffrage movement worked to change that over time. Nine states made woman's suffrage legal between 1869 and 1912. In 1920, it became legal nationwide. (Remember, laws or a particular kind of morals). That's a strong example of changes in public opinion working to change morality.
That's a strong example of changes in public opinion working to change morality.
Here is where you and I really disagree. Just because public opinion leans toward something doesn't make it so. Morality didn't change, just public opinion of it. What was moral and immoral before public opinion changed is still moral or immoral. And the only people who changed their morals to reflect public opinion are those who have no internal moral compass. You seem to equate the public opinion of something with that opinion creating reality. This is very shaky ground for any way of thinking.
I don't think you have thought this out very clearly at all. You are making opinion reality. Just because a group of people have an opinion about something doesn't make it real. Public opinion can say that a person in the spotlight for a crime is guilty, when the reality may very well be that they are innocent. Public opinion is a very poor test of anything. Public opinion will always sink to the lowest common denominator. I have a hard time believing that any intelligent person finds the lowest common denominator as a good yardstick for anything, let alone something as critical to the overall health of society as morals are.
"I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters."
- Frank Lloyd Wright (1868-1959)
I know this example has been used before but it is very handy, so I will use it.
According to your ideas of what morality is, and what shapes it, you say that it was a moral act for Germans to kill Jews during the rule of the Nazi's when they were in power in Germany. You in fact would have agreed with it, and possibly participated in it, according to your statements here, had you lived there during that time, for you would have found nothing wrong with it. Public opinion and peer pressure were all in line for you to accept it.
Nazism, according to your definition, is a strong example of the public working to change moral values. Somehow I will just about bet that you will disgree with my conclusion that you would have participated and agreed with the extermination of the Jews, but your whole argument here says that you would. You make public opinion your whole definer of morality, and public opinion there was in favor of eliminating the Jews.
The example of the Nazi's is only one piece of evidence that morality can't be made by public opinion, just the public's opinion of it. When the Nazi's were killing the Jews it was wrong then, and it still wrong. Public opinion not withstanding.
Would you like another example? In the history of the US we had public opinion solidly behind the cheating of the Indians out of their lands. We lied, cheated, and the like, to accomplish what we wanted. Now, according to your definition, this was moral because public opinion was behind it. But, yet I'll bet you'll agree that the way we treated the Indians was far less than an example of good moral behavior.
I have given at least two examples that show how bad an idea it is to maintain the idea that morality is nothing more than public opinion and peer pressure. These two examples alone show that there is something more than public opinion behind what is moral and what is immoral.
"I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters."
- Frank Lloyd Wright (1868-1959)
Slogan/motto:
To be able to change is not only a posibility, but is also a necessity
Reputation:
July 28th, 2002, 09:52 PM
ethics= right and wrong
morals= tradition, accepted behavior
law= a kind of moral, therefore law=moral
Does law always define right and wrong? No, because law is defined by peer pressure therefore law~ethics, and ethics~morals,law~morals
So if we want to legalize rape, we must use peer pressure
If we want to outlaw rape, we must use peer pressure
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