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Originally Posted by dreadgeek
I think the difference in how I'm using moral is that I'm talking about how we treat one another. One could use ethics but I really want to reclaim the word moral. At some point in my lifetime, the Left just surrendered on the issue of morals and so this allowed the religious right to frame the word 'moral' in a way amenable to them and their goals. Thus morality became about whether one was anti-gay, whether one was anti-choice, whether one believed that women should be subservient and submissive to men and whether one believed in corporal punishment, etc. This allowed other things which my parents would have understood as moral issues to no longer BE moral issues. Rapaciousness and avarice? Once upon a time these were considered ethical blemishes now they are things to brag about between the covers of Forbes or Business Week. Cruelty and torture? Once upon a time we thought these things beyond the pale, completely beyond the pale. Now it is something for law enforcement to fairly boast about (Sheriff Arapaio in Arizona) and for politicians to wax poetic about on the floor of the US congress.
I think we need to reclaim the language of morality, not shirk from it.
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YES
Quote:
Originally Posted by dreadgeek
Because morality is about *behavior* not *being*. A murderer is not some class of person who has never killed, one's behavior makes one a murderer. This is completely different than saying that, for instance, homosexuality has any intrinsic moral weight. It does not. So we are right to judge the murderer harshly because all one had to do to AVOID being a murderer was to refrain from murder. Murder harms people and so we have a vested interest--as a society--for making it abundantly clear that the behavior is unacceptable. Who does homosexuality harm? No one. Because it harms no one--and I'm in favor of a harm-based morality instead of a, say, holy book based one--it has no moral content. It is therefore inappropriate to claim homosexuality is immoral, as the religious right does.
We can talk about morality without being prudes, we just have to be clear about what we mean when we start using moral language.
Cheers
Aj
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This I mostly agree with - I like your definition of harm-based morality.
I've wondered many times what it would be like to wake up and know that yesterday I committed a terrible crime. I have dreams like this too. (I have a very low likelihood of committing a terrible crime). I have thought and thought about the difference between a person before and after s/he commits a violent crime - are they the same person?
I tend to think so. I judge. But in (my) perfect world, I would rather judge the behavior and not the person. I'm not sure where that discomfort with judging people comes from, but it is perhaps from an emotional rather than a logical place. At least, I think the murderer benefits from compassion more than s/he benefits from judgment. And I think society benefits more from the compassionate treatment of criminals, while the crime is still punished. More later, work calls.