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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: FAO: Drug Users | MESSAGE: Please boycott foreign drugs or overdose already.
Sorry, Russell, had to be away for a while. I hope you can be arsed to keep debating this issue 
| quote: | Originally posted by srussell0018
My opinion is irrelevant. Since morality is subjective, I think that what makes a thing right is whatever a person deems right. Getting into words like "right" and "wrong" I think necessitates a subjective answer when talking about morals. |
I don't see how that can be a problem because of the following:
| quote: | Originally posted by srussell0018
Not necessarily. I'm saying your system of morality is just that, yours. I'm saying there is no system of morality for "us." |
All right, I can give you that, but it isn't a problem because subjective systems can be shared and agreed upon.
There's nothing objective whatsoever about language: It's a intersubjective system of signs not unlike morality, because it needs at least two people in order to work (if you lived alone, morality and language would be pointless). Nothing, absolutely nothing, in the world says the word "bird" stands for Sushipunk's flying friends. As a matter of fact, where I live the word is "pássaro", and it sounds nothing like "bird". So, does it mean that, if we both meet, we can't pick a common word? And, if we've got different systems of morality, can't we pick a common system and follow that one?
| quote: | Originally posted by srussell0018
I don't think so. Just because there's no universal standard for morality, doesn't mean that morality doesn't exist. |
And that's my point.
| quote: | Originally posted by srussell0018
Why do you reckon it's immoral then? Psychopathy kind of affects your examples in this case, so I'd have to say it's a possibility that the Columbine shooters either A) had no morality or B) weren't capable of grasping it at the time.
I guess in my opinion, and in using your example; for myself, no, I wouldn't go on a killing spree like that myself, but if someone were to ask me if it was objectively morally wrong to do so, my answer would be "no." However misguided the reasoning is for doing whatever "wrong" act, there is a possibility that to that individual, the act they're performing is wholly "right." |
It's immoral to me because I reckon that sort of behaviour is undesirable - and I'm not alone in this, surprisingly enough. Those around me probably share the same opinion (unless everybody thinks it's cool to kill people and no one told me) and, more tellingly, I'm willing to bet people where you live probably frown upon this sort of behaviour. It does seem to be a universal and this is good news if you want to refrain from adopting a nihilist stance in morality: if there are (even if just near-)universals we can agree upon, then there's some material we can work on. For example:
These guys found desirable traits admired in most cultures they investigated. Sure, it'd be too naïve to say these are the "moral universals" we're looking for but it's a hint that due to our common genetic make-up and similar environments, it's unlikely that two peoples (or two persons for that matter) will come to have opposite moralities - unless one of the persons really deviates from the norm.
And that brings us back to Columbine. They didn't open fire because they felt like it. Both kids had been bullied for months, and one became depressive and the other became a psychopath [source in a popular news site] - and that's hardly surprising. So they had a system of morality not much different from ours probably, and they sought to right a wrong. The difference between us and the trouble high school shooters is that we don't go to such extremes in order to make ourselves heard. The "immorality" here came not from a difference of kind (it is moral to correct a wrong) but from a difference of degree (it's not moral to correct a wrong in such a way that the author of the immoral behaviour you seek to rectify won't have a chance to do it right). Though, of course, our tolerance regarding the immorality of this violent correction differs from time to time and from place to place: If you're a high school student, you can't kill bullets, but if you're the US government, you can kill criminals. And, if you're the Brazilian government, you can't.
In any case, it's not a disagreement we can't work on. So, just like English became a lingua franca, there's no reason to believe a subjective system of morality can't be adopted by all peoples when dealing with one another even if we behave differently among ourselves.
| quote: | Originally posted by Comrade Stalin
Government can't stifle a market this huge and doing so would be the reason why there is so much violence. Don't blame the market itself. Cigarette and alcohol companies aren't knocking each other off because one of their sales associates treaded on the other's territory. Prohibition is the obvious problem, not the fact that people want to smoke weed. |
I'm not "blaming" the market insofar as the market works in accordance with the law. If this isn't the case, users ought to do what they can to repel the law and then play by the rules.
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) and I completely understand why such conclusions are drawn but if I was truly being condescending, I would use much simpler terms, followed with citation to prove my point. The "Grandiloquent Allocutor" user-title is actually me self-deprecating in this regard and you're in good company (Mr. JBJ among others) who've noted my overtly elaborate use of language. It's definitely not because you (or anyone else, for that matter) are some intellectual slouch who is easy to knock off his feet, that we're having this conversation; that would then provide me with some sadistic gratification for having done so. I don't write this way to impress anyone - some of the shit I send off in Private Message is just as ridiculously wordy.
