X-Message-Number: 28439
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 11:49:22 -0600
From: "Anthony ." <>
Subject: Re: morality
References: <>

> From: 
> Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 10:19:23 EDT
> Subject: feel-good & morality

> This is not really off topic, because these issues crucially impact all of
> life and death and potential recruitment as well as post-recruitment
> activities.

I'm glad "morality" is not off-topic ;)

> By "moral" is generally meant inter-personal or societal ethics.

Most philosophers distinguish between ethics as the study of good and
bad, but also right and wrong, efficient and wasteful... and other
concepts of behaviour which do not necessarily entail morality.

Ethics is *partly* the study of morality, whereas morality is the
unreflective practice of cultural/personal ideas about good and bad.

However, the words "ethics" and "morality" are often used
interchangably in popular usage - which is why my clarification seems
to be mere hair-splitting.

> Nothing has direct importance to the  individual
> except his own welfare, which boils down to feel-good.

This implies a certain "atomisation" of society which is incorrect -
an individual's welfare is intimately tied up with the quality and
kind of:

the environment (is it polluted? stressful?), the human community (is
it violent? poor?),
loved-ones (are the relationships good?),
and various organisations like government and corporation (do they
work in your favour, or not?)

Whether a person feels good will depend on the influence of these
factors and so many more. It is hard to "boil-down" this feeling or
disconnect individual welfare from the wider world.

> figure out what you ought to want, to maximize  feel-good over
> future
> time, and if necessary (as it always is) to modify your  own personality.

This "ought" is good advise, and the real problem.

For example, I think we ought to take-care of the most vulnerable
people in society by providing minimum housing, welfare, and universal
health-care. The idea makes me feel good, the reality would make me
feel better. I feel good because I think almost everyone would benefit
from the reduction of poverty and the various privations, limitations,
and violence that arise from that state. Other people think that we
have no moral imperative to help the vulnerable and dispossesed, and
this makes them feel good.

How then, do we understand and cope with the seemingly incommensurable
conflicts of good-feelings arising from incompatible "oughts"? Why is
it that the idea of cryonics does not make people feel-good in the way
it does for many of us?

Anthony

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