New rule

[learnedax]

Morality is not simple, nor is it easy. It is a constantly shifting landscape, and regions of it may well be intractable. Please bear this in mind:

If you are comfortable with your morals, I disagree with you.

Comments

[rigel.livejournal.com]

I lick your contstantly shifting landscape.

(No, I'm not quite sure what that means.)

[mr-teem.livejournal.com]

I'm never comfortable with my morals because they are constantly challenged by new experiences.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

If you are sure of your opinions, I disagree with you.

If you are sure you disagree with me, I disbelieve you.

If you think you can make me see what you see, I know you are wrong.

Nevertheless, we can coexist.

[umbran.livejournal.com]

If you are comfortable with your morals, I disagree with you

Ah, yes. Since in a "constantly shifting landscape", the use of absolutes is so amazingly appropriate... :7

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

Morality is not simple, nor is it easy. It is a constantly shifting landscape, and regions of it may well be intractable.

Agreed. Though it amuses me that you say this less than 24 hours after saying, "Morals that you throw out when they are tested are false morals." [I would have used the word "weak" rather than "false"; morality is a subjective enough landscape that I don't like using words that imply any similarity to, say, mathematical proofs.]

That said, I don't think that achieving a temporary, local comfort with one's morals is necessarily a bad. That is, "I am comfortable with my current answers to the problems I currently face" need not imply "I believe I know all the answers for all the situations that I will encounter in future".

A while back, someone here (siderea?) posted a link to an interesting study of how the basis of morality changes over the course of childhood cognitive development. I appear to have mislaid the link myself, but perhaps they will repost. It could have some interesting bearing on the conversation.

[siderea]

Yes, me. "Kolhberg's Theory of Moral Development" is, I think, the right search string. Very famous work.

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

Yup, that's the one. Here's a short summary.

[Actually that search string was misspelled, but Google's gotten remarkably good about fixing that sort of thing. Even, as I discovered last night, when you're searching in medieval latin!]

I agree

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

If I insisted on total agreement in order to coexist, I would have very few friends.

Disbelieve if you like, but I am confident enough that we disagree, about something, that I will state it as fact.

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

It sure is. When speaking on multiple levels, certain uncertainty is not an inherent paradox.

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

I said false rather than weak because to me weak morals codes to weak will when implementing one's morals, which I see as slightly different from morals that you only apply in the abstract. I don't see that as a conflict with my position here (I'm sure you're shocked), and that may be due to a different interpretation of "test" in this context. I meant tested as in "put to the test" in the sense of being challenged to actually apply them. You can, of course, fail to live by your own morals for a variety of reasons, but if you deliberately decide that your morals don't apply to your real life, then you are falsely presenting your morality.

Conversely, changing your morals with further thought or new facts does not present the same problem necessarily. If you run into an unexpected case, regardless of whether it is real or hypothetical, reassessing your morality may well be required. The distinction I'm trying to draw is between evolving your morals and overriding them.

Local comfort doesn't really bother me. What I take issue with is complacency based on Knowing one is in the right.

[umbran.livejournal.com]

But you aren't talking about "certain uncertainty". You're talking about certain certainty. You will disagree, no questions asked.

You wind up sounding a bit like the Vogon captain from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Since you aren't in a healthy and stable relationship with your own morals, you don't see how or why anyone else could or should. :)

Projecting your own instability onto others isn't a terribly valid basis for reasoning, dude.

replying to myself for clarification

[umbran.livejournal.com]

Projecting your own instability onto others isn't a terribly valid basis for reasoning, dude.

Hm. Realized that this comes off as a bit defensive. My line of discussion here has nothing to do with me, personally, but instead deals with the overall line of logic. To wit:

The views and comfort one person has with morals does not necessarily say anything about how correct another person might be. The fact that you, learnedax, see no moral solid ground upon which one might be comfortable makes no implications for anyone else.

To say otherwise is an implication that you have gotten a hold on a universal, solid, comfortable truth - that nobody can be comfortable. But you deny that others might have such truths. That's a logically unsound position.

Re: replying to myself for clarification

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

I now understand your argument more clearly, and there is perhaps some truth to it. I think you're still setting up a false dichotomy, though. I am claiming a logical certainty that one cannot attain a valid moral certainty, and thus moral comfort can exist only in self-denial. I believe this to be true. You are of course not obliged to share my viewpoint, but the question does not rest on your or my comfort with our morals.

Re: replying to myself for clarification

[umbran.livejournal.com]

I am claiming a logical certainty that one cannot attain a valid moral certainty...

Ah. Have you forgotten that we do not live upon the planet Vulcan? Human morals are not based upon logic alone, so that one cannot obtain "logical certainty" about them.

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

OK, I think we have achieved silverwing-age :-)

"silverwing, v.: (1) to argue more than one side of an issue at the same time
(2) to vehemently and tediously agree (3) generally, to debate inconclusively
for the hell of it."

Hm, wonder if we can get Steffan on LJ...

Re:

[jducoeur]

Hm, wonder if we can get Steffan on LJ...

Very good question. I think you've conclusively proven here that he'd enjoy it...