Moral Dilemna - how to solve it

Post by **Primula Baggins** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 5:03 pm

I'd bet anything that "truth table" would be different for almost everyone you asked. And even if some kind of consensus emerged, it wouldn't tell us much beyond "this is about how far most people can be pushed."

Post by **sauronsfinger** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 5:22 pm

Did anyone see the film UNTRACEABLE? It poses some interesting moral questions involving the use of the internet and participation in a series of really terrible murders. It was much better than I thought it was going to be and is rather disturbing on the same level that SEVEN was.

Post by **axordil** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 5:23 pm

Prim, you're right in that there would be a broad variety of responses. The value is not in finding a consensus, but in analyzing the different ways that the lack of consensus comes about. It's obvious from the discussion that different people come at the situation from different moral and ethical origins. Another way of saying "how far people can be pushed" is "does your moral/ethical system have limits or exceptions, and if so, why?" That, I believe, is a question that is worth asking, not because a system that has limits is prima facie wrong, but because knowing they're there is better than finding out about them the hard way.

BTW, a truth table is only a tool used in logic and game theory to track results for combinations of values. I don't know why you would bequote it so.

Post by **Cenedril_Gildinaur** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 5:51 pm

One reason certain martyr types make history is that they are the exception to the norm. The will to live is a basic part of the instinct for self preservation. I can think of very little more foolish than for a person to select the option of death when a few words which are relatively meaningless would spare them or their loved ones.

Again that's a personal truth and not a universal truth, that it is foolish to die for an idea or belief. Some people would rather die with their integrity intact.

Some in our society love to glorify abstract terms like honor, ideals and the purity of your beliefs but at the end of the day if you do not have your life you do not have any of that either.

That is a personal truth and not a universal truth, that if you die with your honor intact you no longer have honor because you no longer have life.

Post by **vison** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 5:55 pm

Now, if someone could define "honour" in a way that satisfies us all . . . .

Post by **sauronsfinger** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 6:06 pm

from myself

Some in our society love to glorify abstract terms like honor, ideals and the purity of your beliefs but at the end of the day if you do not have your life you do not have any of that either.

reply from CG

That is a personal truth and not a universal truth, that if you die with your honor intact you no longer have honor because you no longer have life.

No - my statement was that if you do not have your life, at the end of the day you have none of that other stuff either..... personal truth or universal truth , I could not care less about such labels... - death is pretty much the end of it all. Dead is dead. You have nothing.

Vison is 100% right -

Now, if someone could define "honour" in a way that satisfies us all . .

all these vague mental constructs like honor and integrity need to be defined - as if that is possible - or its all just mental gymnastics that goes nowhere.

Post by **Frelga** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 6:18 pm

Ax, that's not "isolating" variables, it's asking an entirely different question. In your scenario, I am not isolated from help, and I am isolated from any personal heroics I might or might not be capable of attempting in the first situation. The only thing the two have in common is that I have no reason to trust the terrorists to follow up on their word, or predict what they would do at all.

Given that, there is only one response, both moral and practical. Stall for time, contact authorities and let them talk me through it. As Folca pointed out, there are people who have extensive training in handling these situations, and everyone has a better chance of getting out of it alive if I don't play God.

It's the difference of finding someone with multiple fractures and injuries in dark, lonely woods or in a major city. In the first case, it's all up to me to do my best to help them. In the second, the only responsible thing to do is to call paramedics.

Post by **Cenedril_Gildinaur** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 6:20 pm

all these vague mental constructs like honor and integrity need to be defined - as if that is possible - or its all just mental gymnastics that goes nowhere.

Some would say that if you die with honor, you still have your honor. Saying that if you die with honor you have nothing is therefore a personal and not universal truth. Saying you don't care about "personal truths" versus "universal truths" makes your participation in this thread seem pointless. If abstract issues are so irrelevant why are you participating in this thread?

Post by **vison** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 6:20 pm

Are "honour" and "integrity" linked inextricably?

I have my own definitions of both, of course. I suspect - and I am only suspecting - that women might have different notions on these matters than men.

Post by **Primula Baggins** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 7:05 pm

Ax, I quoted it because I didn't think "truth" would emerge from it. Joke. I do know what a truth table is.

Apropos of honor, etc., my observation is that most people who die for things (e.g., soldiers in war, firefighters in dangerous fires) die so other people they care about, or have a duty to protect, will still have them; that they themselves will not doesn't enter into it.

Post by **sauronsfinger** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 7:07 pm

Honor and integrity are mental constructs based on your own personal belief.

Dead is a fact of the world. When you are dead you have nothing. Your mental constructs cease to exist. Your beliefs cease to exist. Your idealogy ceases to exist. Because you cease to exist.

Post by **Primula Baggins** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 7:15 pm

I disagree that honor and integrity are mental constructs that have no reality beyond each person who forms an idea of them. Someone who acts with honor, someone else who commits a massive betrayal of trust, can both affect many, many other people with the consequences of their "mental constructs," even long after they themselves are dead.

Post by **sauronsfinger** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 7:22 pm

Prim - it is the actions which have the effect that you are describing.

Post by **Maria** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 7:38 pm

sauronsfinger wrote:Dead is a fact of the world. When you are dead you have nothing. Your mental constructs cease to exist. Your beliefs cease to exist. Your idealogy ceases to exist. Because you cease to exist.

You can't know that!

Post by **Padme** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 7:39 pm

I don't think a person's ideology ceases to exist after their death. If that were a fact, there would be no morality or law of any kind. We pass our ideology and morals collectively from one generation to another, so even if we are dead, those that we taught our ideals too still exist.

Of course I have a good idea death is not the end of existence, it's just a change of scenery.

Post by **sauronsfinger** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 7:45 pm

Of course other people can carry on after you have died. Of course other people may share your beliefs.

But you are dead. Its over. Its finished. You cease to exist as a functioning member of the planet. You can no longer believe. You can no longer do anything.

Ones own religious beliefs about the afterlife, of course, not a part of this posters point.

Post by **Cenedril_Gildinaur** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 7:57 pm

Why do you keep asserting personal truth as universal truth? Is your pronouncement "dead is dead" revealed truth?

Post by **sauronsfinger** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 8:14 pm

I know nothing about all these different types of truth. Obviously some famous Greeks from way back could not agree on it either. Perhaps you can inform us why then dead is not dead?

Post by **axordil** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 8:20 pm

Frelga:

Please add the five-minute time limit that slipped my mind between formulating the scenario about it and typing it.

Also, please note than in the scenario, I indicated that available evidence suggests that the terrorist-philosopher will do as he says, as this is not an isolated incident. Knowing the behavior of others with absolute certainty is of course impossible in any case, not just in thought problems.

Prim:

The editor in me thinks you should have put the quotes around "truth," then.

Post by **Primula Baggins** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 8:55 pm

I'l reluctantly admit the validity of your editorial suggestion.

<secretly punts the editor in Ax>

As for the point about death, there is certainly no evidence about what happens to people afterward; if you base all your beliefs on empirical evidence, then you would necessarily believe that death is the end. There is no empirical evidence suggesting that it is not.

But empirical evidence has limitations in that it can only tell us about material, measurable things. It can't disprove the existence of immaterial and unmeasurable things. This is why so many scientists are perfectly able to be religious.