₦airaland Forum

frank317:
You seem to want to just stick with what you think is the basis for morality without considering that what most atheist are saying it the looking at it from the scratch.

I have demonstrated over and over again that this scratch isn't at all a scratch, i have shown countlessly how a moral basis is the first step.

Frank might wake up tomorrow and starts to propagate the idea that killing is moral. This is his subjective belief. but what if he has a good arguement as to why killing is good and he starts to convince people around him until many people buys his idea and start to advocate that Killing is good. if majority eventually accept this... killing becomes moral. This does not stop some people from seeing killing s immoral... to them killing will remain immoral and you cannot change that.

this is why i have been arguing with you that humans decides what is moral thats why its subjective. its start with individuals ad his argument can make others see the benefit of such idea and also inturn start to see the idea as moral.

Lol, and what you are not understanding is, once it is an intertwine of collective beliefs, it is no longer subjective.

LordReed:
Example?

Goat and human analogy above.

Another example: Sex

LordReed:
So in other words the value we assign to something when we call it good or bad?

No. The value we assign to something that gives moral weight to the actions against or for it.

budaatum:
No! You can ask for whatever you want johny, but you don't assert that my valuing of things is arbitrary or non-arbitrary assumption with no basis for asserting it!

I'm not surprised though since you seem to think that "something special about humans" that makes me moral is not "worth considering".

#sighs ok

LordReed:
Yes, it is but I don't agree that the value we have for humans is intrinsically more special. As the agents creating a value scale, it would be foolish to rate ourselves lower than others. Aside from rather idiosyncratic individual people, I have seen no moral basis that rates humans lower than any other specie. Why? Because any such scale will automatically subject its makers under the specie(s) it has elevated above humans.

Which is why human morality is primarily considering humans

What I want you clarify though is what you mean by moral value, I do not understand what moral value means.

Simply value. The value we assume to make a subject morally considerable.

LordReed:
I wouldn't call what you have described a slippery slope but rather a dichotomy because it creates 2 classes, those who benefit and those who don't. I think this is where your intersubjectivity comes into play, we need to agree on what constitutes benefits and what doesn't as well as who gets to benefit and who doesn't. None of it is dictated by an absolute morality, us conscious and higher capacity cogitative creatures are the ones who create a scale. That scale will never be "perfect" that is cater for everyone to be a beneficiary, there probably will always be winners and losers. For the goat, right now on the scale it is a loser, maybe in future that changes but right now it is what it is.

Great.

This is rather where moral basis comes into play. We know what benefits is, we know it can go either way.

Moral basis however lays the foundation to consider one subject ahead of the other hence moral weight on actions towards or from this subject.

For instance: using the goat and human example; obviously we don't abhor the killing of goats, even if we do, not to the value standard we would regard say a human life.

This implictly suggests that we see humans as something intrinsically more special, more sacred hence a human killing a goat for food is the superior benefit

But the thing is, value is a human assumption, hence the definition of moral basis is - the assumption of arbitrary or non-arbitrary value of a moral subject.

So, when i ask for a moral basis, i am not asking for another moral conclusion, i am asking for a fundamental belief (intersubjective) that makes a moral subject morally considerable.

I sincerely trust it is clearer now

LordReed:
Yes

Ok.

1. Basis for benefit - When you say what benefits an organism is what constitutes morality, you must first establish why the benefits of this organism is worth considering.

It benefits A
Why is the benefits of A Paramount?

Morality has always constituted benefits, it is afterall our way of bypassing the chaotic nature of natural interaction, but it requires still a belief on the subject.

For you to constitute what benefits humans as good or bad, you are by implication asserting that there is something special about humans, that there is something that makes human benefit worth considering.

2. Slippery slope - Clash of benefits.

If let's say a human kills a goat for food, is this good or bad?.

Going by your principle of benefits, it is good because it benefits the human. It is also wrong because it is detrimental to our dear goat.

So which is it?

Whose benefits outweights the other on this moral scale?

Why?

If you say human benefit outweights that of a goat, this means that you are making an assumption that humans are more special to goats, vise versa.(this assumption on the subject is in fact the fundamental basis for moral derivations, assumption on the subject not the action)

Let's also assume LordReed killes Johny and took Johny's 1m.

Is this wrong or right?

After all, Lordreed needed the money, it is directly beneficial to him, therefore it is good?

But Johny's property and life has been ended which is detrimental to Johny's benefit, so this is wrong?

Whose benefit should we consider more? Why?

You see? 1 action that reach 2 opposite moral conclusions when you employ the principle of benefits as a basis.

So, benefits are considering factors but not a moral basis - Moral basis is simply a belief of an arbitrary or non-arbitrary value for the moral subject.


Do you understand this slope?

budaatum:
No! It is not a belief! At least it isn't "an acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof" sort of belief like a belief in extraterrestrial life! It is at best a belief based on the concrete, objectiably verifiable land, people, cultures that are part of a whole called Nigeria which one can have "trust, faith, or confidence in".


Besides the point, but Nigeria is a "physical qualities (the land, the people, the cultures) with measurable "value and nature".


Nigeria is not the same as money or a constitution.. The value of money changes everyday of every minute according to our subjective valuation of it. A constitution is by its nature subject to our constant subjective reinterpretation of it. Nigeria is a bit more stable and constant than our subjective whims permit. Its land area does not change by our whims and believes nor can we increase its number of people by believing it in our heads.


I like Yuval, but I disagree with the notion that Nigeria is a figment of the imagination that exists only because we believe it does unlike the value of money, the constitution, and gods which exist subjectively, and intersubjectively for many..

ok

LordReed:
It can be, if one is basing morality on benefit to the organism.

That require a basis too and also creates a massive slippery slope.

Want to know how?

Yuval Noah's words should help make this simpler to understand



How did Homo sapiens came to dominate the planet? The secret was a very peculiar characteristic of our unique Sapiens language. Our language, alone of all the animals, enables us to talk about things that do not exist at all. You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death, in monkey heaven. Only Sapiens can believe such fictions. But why is it important? After all, fiction can be dangerously misleading or distracting. People who go to the forest looking for fairies and unicorns would seem to have less chance of survival than people who go looking for mushrooms and deer.



Fiction is nevertheless of immense importance, because it enabled us to imagine things collectively. We can weave common myths such as the biblical creation story, the Dreamtime myths of Aboriginal Australians, and the nationalist myths of modern states. And it is these myths that enable Sapiens alone to cooperate flexibly with thousands and even millions of complete strangers.

True, ants and bees can also work together in huge numbers, but they do so in a very rigid manner and only with close relatives. Wolves and chimpanzees cooperate far more flexibly than ants, but they can do so only with small numbers of individuals whom they know intimately. If you tried to bunch together thousands of chimpanzees into Wembley Stadium, Oxford Street, St Paul’s Cathedral or the House of Commons, the result would be pandemonium. Sapiens, in contrast, gather there by the thousands and together they organize and reorganize trade networks, mass celebrations, and political institutions. That’s why we rule the world, whereas ants eat our leftovers and chimps are locked up in zoos and research laboratories.



At the heart of our mass cooperation networks, you will always find fictional stories that exist only in people’s collective imagination. Two Catholics who have never met can nevertheless go together on crusade or pool funds to build a hospital because they both believe that God was incarnated in human flesh and allowed himself to be crucified to redeem our sins. Two Serbs who have never met might risk their lives to save one-another because both believe in the existence of the Serbian nation, the Serbian homeland, and the Serbian flag. Two lawyers who have never met can nevertheless combine efforts to defend a complete stranger because they all believe in the existence of laws, justice, human rights—and the money paid out in fees.

Yet none of these things exists outside the stories that people invent and tell one another. There are no gods, no nations, no money and no human rights, except in our collective imagination.

Let’s leave gods and nations aside for a moment, and focus our attention on the economic sphere. The most important players in our modern economy are business companies. What are they exactly? Take Peugeot, for example. Peugeot is one of the oldest and largest of Europe’s carmakers. It was founded by a man called Armand Peugeot, back in 1896. Armand Peugeot died in 1915. But Peugeot, the company, is still alive and well. Today it employs about 200,000 people worldwide, most of whom are complete strangers to each other. These strangers cooperate so effectively that in 2008 Peugeot produced more than 1.5 million automobiles, earning revenues of about 55 billion euros.

In what sense can we say that Peugeot exists? There are many Peugeot vehicles, but these are obviously not the company. Even if every Peugeot vehicle in the world were simultaneously junked and sold for scrap metal, Peugeot would not disappear. It would continue to manufacture new cars and issue its annual report. The company owns factories, machinery and showrooms, and employs mechanics, accountants, managers and secretaries, but all these together do not comprise Peugeot. A disaster might kill every single one of Peugeot’s employees, and go on to destroy all of its assembly lines and executive offices. Even then, the company could borrow money, hire new employees, build new factories and buy new machinery. Peugeot has managers and stockholders, but neither do they constitute the company. All the managers could be dismissed and all its shares sold, but the company itself would remain intact.

Peugeot is impervious to all these upheavals, because Peugeot is a fictional story. It belongs to a particular genre of legal fictions called ‘limited liability companies’. The idea behind such companies is among humanity’s most ingenious inventions. During most of recorded history property could be owned only by flesh-and-blood humans. If in thirteenth-century France Jean set up a wagon-manufacturing workshop, he himself was the business. If Jean had borrowed 1,000 gold coins to set up his workshop and the business failed, he would have had to repay the loan by selling his house, his cow, his land. He might even have had to sell his children into servitude. If he couldn’t cover the debt, he could be thrown in prison or enslaved by his creditors. Jean was fully liable, without limit, for all obligations incurred by his workshop.

If you had lived back then, you would probably have thought twice before you opened an enterprise of your own. And indeed this legal situation discouraged entrepreneurship.

This is why people began collectively to imagine the existence of limited liability companies. Such companies were legally independent of the people who founded them, invested in them, or managed them. Over the last few centuries such companies have become the main players in the economic arena, and we have grown so used to them that we forget they exist only in our imagination.

How exactly did Armand Peugeot, the man, create Peugeot, the company, back in 1896? In much the same way that priests and sorcerers have created gods and demons throughout history and in which thousands of French priests were still creating Christ’s body every Sunday in the parish churches. It all revolved around telling stories, and convincing people to believe them. In the case of the French priests, the crucial story was that of Christ’s life and death as told by the Catholic Church. According to this story, if a Catholic priest dressed in his sacred garments solemnly said the right words at the right moment, mundane bread and wine turned into God’s flesh and blood. The priest exclaimed “Hoc est corpus meum!” (Latin for “This is my body!”) and hocus pocus—the bread turned into Christ’s flesh. Seeing that the priest had observed all the right procedures, millions of devout French Catholics behaved as if God really existed in the consecrated bread and wine.

In the case of Peugeot the crucial story was the French legal code. According to that story, if a certified lawyer followed all the proper liturgy and rituals, wrote all the required spells and oaths on a wonderfully decorated piece of paper, and affixed his ornate signature to the bottom of the document, then hocus pocus—a new company was incorporated. When in 1896 Armand Peugeot wanted to create his company, he paid a lawyer to go through all these sacred procedures. Once the lawyer had performed all the right rituals and pronounced all the necessary spells and oaths, millions of upright French citizens behaved as if Peugeot company really existed.

The end result is that in contrast to all other animals, we Sapiens are living in a dual reality. On the one hand, the objective reality of rivers, trees and lions; and on the other hand, the imagined reality of gods, nations and companies. As history unfolded, the imagined reality became ever more powerful, so that today the very survival of rivers, trees and lions depends on the grace of imagined entities such as Almighty God, the European Union and Google.

budaatum:
Your error, in my opinion, was in equating an objectively existing Nigeria which no ones subjective thought affects, with the intersubjective value of money which depends on our collective subjective opinion.
I'm learning, see.

LOL, there isn't any shred of error in that explanation; countries are not objective anymore than their monetary value is. You don't seem to be learning as you say you are.

There is a land, there is a people, these things exist objectively (land and people) establishing and expressing that this land, these people, these cultures are part of a whole called Nigeria, is a belief.

Intersubjectivity does not define physical qualities but rather conceptual value and nature.

money is paper - does this paper exist? Yes.

the belief in money doesn't cover on whether the paper exists or not but whether this paper has a value.

A legally signed document like the constitution or partnership contract is only effective because we believe it is just like money.

Let me borrow the words of Yuval

" Sapiens rule the world, because we are the only animal that can cooperate flexibly in large numbers. We can create mass cooperation networks, in which thousands and millions of complete strangers work together towards common goals. One-on-one, even ten-on-ten, we humans are embarrassingly similar to chimpanzees. Any attempt to understand our unique role in the world by studying our brains, our bodies, or our family relations, is doomed to failure. The real difference between us and chimpanzees is the mysterious glue that enables millions of humans to cooperate effectively.

This mysterious glue is made of stories, not genes. We cooperate effectively with strangers because we believe in things like gods, nations, money and human rights. Yet none of these things exists outside the stories that people invent and tell one another. There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money and no human rights—except in the common imagination of human beings. You can never convince a chimpanzee to give you a banana by promising him that after he dies, he will get limitless bananas in chimpanzee Heaven. Only Sapiens can believe such stories. This is why we rule the world, and chimpanzees are locked up in zoos and research laboratories."

budaatum:
If you believe but don't go and officially change the name of the country

LOL ok #Sighs Dude official documents are also imagined order, an official document is only effective if people believe it is, just like money. Legality is also an imagined order humans employ.

where would planes taking off in foreign lands land when they say they are going to Nigeria? Or do they too need to share this your believing in the imaginary with you?

Believing the crap in your head has no effect on reality! What you all believe is irrelevant unless you act on that believe!

I am pretty sure i said intersubjective are shared beliefs meaning a plane going from Nigeria to America is a literal expression of the belief in these entities, but ok, at this point, it is mind boggling how i still need to explain how imagined orders work after doing that many times already.

Even though a good percentage of human society is in fact imagined order. LOL.

budaatum:
Really? So I can believe Nigeria does not exist and Nigeria will stop existing just like that?

Methinks you imagine!

Are you serious with this? Or just trolling? Because the explanation is right there on the same post you quoted. Tell me if you are being serious?

budaatum:
You're tired

It's not easy thinking, is it.

Troll someone else

frank317:
And you forget that intersubjective believe starts with one person?

An imagined order doesn't become effective until it is held as a fundamental framework for the majority within the clime.

Nigeria for example doesn't objectively exist, it exists because we believe it does.

Value in money doesn't exist objectively, it is valuable only because we believe it is.

If Frank wakes up tomorrow and insist Nigerian naira is worth nothing, this is Frank's subjective belief, it doesn't really change or affect anything unless the whole of Nigeria adopts this belief in which case it becomes intersubjective.

This is how imagined orders work.

frank317:
It is sir.


So? Should we pretend there are no Christians in Both Nigeria and UK that think homosexuals are not going to hell? If so, doesn't that describe morality the way Buda did?

The effective moral belief must be pravelent, the thoughts of a minority do not affect an intersubjective imagined order (It is not up to lone individual convictions)

I'm pretty sure in Nigeria today, they are people who lack a belief in Nigeria but rather believes in Biafra or some that believe in the idea of Odua. Does this validate this belief? Not at all. Does it invalidate Nigeria? Nope.

But once we all agree either by coercion or volition that these entities exist independently, they do so.

Why?

Reaching a moral conclusions without first outlining a derivative basis is in fact puerile like a theist saying 'God did it' without outlying how that conclusion is reached

I think he has explained why killing is wrong (to him), you just don't agree, which of course u also have the right not to.

No actually, there wasn't any basis.

Postulation; killing is wrong.

Question; Killing an ant or a human

Answer: Human.

Question: why?

Answer: because it deprives people of what's theirs

Question; why is depriving people of their thing wrong?

Answer; would you like to be killed? Tell me your address

Question; Whether i like it or not isn't a moral weight. Again i ask, why is depriving people their thing wrong?

Answer; just tell me where you live.

See? This is pretty much how the whole thing is going. The postulation is a moral conclusion and he still tries to give weight to this moral conclusion using another moral conclusion. Lol.

Moral basis isn't another action, it is a fundamental belief on the subject not an action.

Men!!! This is tiring

frank317:
I think he is losing it

Of course i am, sometimes it is frustrating spoon feeding people things you'd expect they know.

And i know my arguments have become more intricate than they use to be, they no longer echo your beliefs intoto they in fact make you question them and think harder, i understand the discomfort

frank317:
Would u love to be killed?

@op... I go with Hardmirror and Lordreed's view on the topic

Again whether i like to be killed or not is not a pointer to the morality of killing. WTF!

payosehtor:
see what infants baptism by the catholic church has caused.you where probably brained washed to going into that seminary by your parents, for a season best known to them, but when you became an adult, you discovered the atheistic tendencies, you might 've been sent out half way. who knows. BACKSLIDER FROM SEMINARY MAKES BOLD TO TELL US HE IS AN ATHEIST.
No one who touches the anointed ofGod goes free.the end of those criminals is now. REST IN REV

You are an slowpoke

I knew him personally, he was the parish priest of st Michael's parish umulumgbe my home town. I am an atheist but i got along with him personally and we were quite good friends probably due to my background as a former seminarian. I attended his burial at Holy ghost cathedral today.

I am so heartbroken at this. He was a good man and a wonderful young priest.

I loved him a lot as a friend and respected him as a catholic priest

Fr Clement, good man!

budaatum:
buda does not get angry, johnydon22, nor does buda snap. buda did get irritated however because johnydon22 irritated buda.

I could not get why someone so smart and intelligent would choose to soil such a wonderfully thought provoking thread with such puerility and yet not look in a mirror. It was like you built an amazing castle then ruined it with your own hands.

Please stop soiling this most wonderfully educative thread johnydon22 that you created yourself. Please, I beg you please.

irritated
/ˈɪrɪteɪtɪd/
adjective
showing or feeling slight anger; annoyed.

budaatum:
A subjective beliefs system held by subjective humans?

What does "intersubjective" mean please?

An explanation will be in order even though i have explained this over and over before.

Ok here goes, a snappy one: Morality is an imagined order, imagined orders are not personal beliefs, it is a collection of beliefs in a principle.

Any imagined order only makes sense and is effective as an intersubjective principle. E.g: money.

The value of money is as a result of a collective belief by everyone.

Once everyone loses this belief, the concept becomes useless.

If everyone in Nigeria agrees today that the states in the Eastern part of the country will now be known as Biafra, it automatically becomes Biafra. The land or the people didn't change, only the belief did.

Imagined orders aren't personal as they are concepts that transpire between a collective whole.

Nnamdi Kanu saying, he is a Biafran doesn't make it so. He may believe it but it is not effective, it doesn't make SE Biafra.

Mr A saying, i don't believe in money, doesn't make money any less valuable - the only thing that would is everyone who believes in this value to lose this belief.

Likewise, one person saying, I don't believe stealing is wrong affect the moral weight of that action since morality refers to interactive actions.

If only one man lived on earth, they won't be a "killing is wrong"

It takes an intersubjective belief in this principle by a given clime.

So there are three natures of morality in ethics;

1. Objective morality - Morality as an inherent part of the universe, a transcendent quality. This is the most meaningful conceptualization since it is non-arbitrary by definition - alas, only as a philosophical position since it doesn't work like that in a practical sense

2. Intersubjective - as explained above

3. Subjective which by definition is meaningless since it eliminates the interactive considerations of a moral action.

But then, basis in morality refers to fundamental derivative beliefs we use to insill moral values.

E.g: Killing is wrong.

Mr A killed an ant
Mr B killed a human?

Who do we abhor? Mr B of course, why? Aren't both guilty of killing?

This implies that the nature of being right or wrong isn't necessarily in the action. The weight of right or wrong comes with our fundamental assumption on the subject.

So, for us to think killing a human is a graver abhorrence to killing say an ant, means our value belief of both subjects aren't on par.

So when i ask for moral basis, it is not to say i do not agree with your reasons for a moral judgement, it is because a conclusion without basis makes an assumption that moral quality is an intrinsic part of an action which is demonstrably not so.

budaatum:
I wasn't bothered with your "puerile". You couldn't even spell it right so I assumed you might not know what it meant either. But even if you did, it still didn't bother me since its just your subjective opinion.

You seem to be quite irked. Lol. So much for not being bothered.

Says Johny was rude, couldn't say why Johny was rude.

Got angry because Johny called his argument puerile then said he isn't bothered about it.

It is apparent, you snapped immediately after the "puerile" statement, you got to make your mind dude and stick to it.

Do you care or not cus the way you have been moaning about it, seems you care very much

budaatum:
No, not because you said buda's argument was puerile but because you were being rude.

I was being rude by sayiny Buda's argument is puerile then. Lol

budaatum:
Subjective humans?

lol. Intersubjective. Morality is a belief system.

Evangkatsoulis:
U mean the generally accepted moral principles of the society or the individual.

Society. A belief system if you will.

So morality precedes right and wrong?

One and the same. You can remove the "moral" in that definition and leave it as "acceptable principles of actions" it remains the same

budaatum:
Accepted by humans and made by humans.

Yes? So?

budaatum:
It is said that "good manners don't cost much", and good behaviour is better than silver and gold". The first at least does works for me especially when I'm on the receiving side of it. But don't take my subjective word for it. Try it yourself if you wish.

Alright, go troll someone else

Evangkatsoulis:
I think words like "right" and "wrong" are human terms that speak of things that benefit us humans in general.
In this discourse, what do you mean by RIGHT and WRONG?

Accepted moral principles

budaatum:
It is said that "good manners don't cost much", and good behaviour is better than silver and gold". The first at least does works for me especially when I'm on the receiving side of it. But don't take my subjective word for it. Try it yourself if you wish.

lol. Ok. Johnydon is uncivil because he said Buda's argument is puerile, lmao.

budaatum:
He's been this way since 2015 and not seen a reason to change at all?! That might explain why we've not engaged much since I tend to swerve past uncivil people.

I wonder if you might be civil with me please johnydon22? You have a lot to teach me and it's not fair of you to deprive me with such an unnecessary thing as uncivility. I'd be most grateful, I promise.

Lmao. Uncivility. Gold

OpenYourEyes1:
You make no sense my friend.

Coming from you, that's not a surprise