How actions can be right or wrong

Quoting Purple Pond

Surely only statements can be right or wrong?

No, they can be true or false.

Reply to BlueBanana I don't see why statements can't be right or wrong. And furthermore, it's beside the point.

Quoting Purple Pond

If there is a purpose to morality, such as a healthy and functioning society

What's the purpose of a healthy and functioning society? What's the purpose of building a house the right way? What's the purpose of teaching math the right way to kids, and what's the purpose of wanting kids to learn?

For every purpose I give you can always ask:"Whats the purpose of that?" But here goes. Quoting Noble Dust

What's the purpose of a healthy and functioning society?

It's the only way we can survive and thrive in.

Quoting Noble Dust

What's the purpose of building a house the right way?

So you won't be held responsible when it collapses.

Quoting Noble Dust

What's the purpose of teaching math the right way to kids, and what's the purpose of wanting kids to learn?

So they can grow up to be educated people and hold decent jobs.

What's the purpose of all these questions?

Quoting Purple Pond

So why is stealing wrong? It depends on the point of morality. If morality serves to keep society functioning, then stealing is wrong because society can't function if everybody stole from each other.

What do you think? What's the point of morality? Do you see any problems with interpreting morality based on purpose? (Just and idea I want to test.)

I think asking why something is right or wrong can be essentially the same thing as asking why you should(n't) do this act. For someone coming from an intuitionist angle, asking why we ought to be moral is an incoherent question. Morality is binding and universal; you ought to do what morality asks of you because that's what you ought to do.

Ultimately, "justifying" morality by appealing to its function in social stability only pushes the question back, since social stability must thus be seen as good, desirable, in a moral sense. Unless we deny this desire is anything more than a personal expression of our preferences, in which case this just leads us to non-cognitivism, which then results with the OP as being cognitively meaningless.

Quoting Purple Pond

What's the purpose of all these questions?

With the questions, I'm trying to demonstrate that assigning purpose to morality always appears to have a deeper layer. I'm not trying to be a smart ass; when we say the purpose of morality is for the flourishing of society, I think that not only is it a relevant question to ask what the purpose of a flourishing society is, but it's also crucial to understanding morality at all. We often begin with an assumption about the purpose of morality, and if we do, then there's always a deeper layer to uncover.

Quoting darthbarracuda

I think asking why something is right or wrong can be essentially the same thing as asking why you should(n't) do this act.

You're sure this is true? I can think of examples where you should do acts that aren't wrong if you don't. For example, you should brush your teeth twice a day, but there isn't anything wrong if you don't. Or, there's a really delicious donut at this bakery you should try it, but it's not because it's the right thing to do.

Quoting darthbarracuda

For someone coming from an intuitionist angle, asking why we ought to be moral is an incoherent question. Morality is binding and universal; you ought to do what morality asks of you because that's what you ought to do.

Then we don't necessarily disagree. For you the whole purpose of morality is to tell us what we ought to do. (not merely because of how society functions.) Doing what's right is acting in accordance to that purpose.

Quoting darthbarracuda

Ultimately, "justifying" morality by appealing to its function in social stability only pushes the question back, since social stability must thus be seen as good, desirable, in a moral sense.

Only if you conflate good and desirable with right and wrong, which I already gave reasons to doubt.

Quoting Purple Pond

You're sure this is true? I can think of examples where you should do acts that aren't wrong if you don't. For example, you should brush your teeth twice a day, but there isn't anything wrong if you don't. Or, there's a really delicious donut at this bakery you should try it, but it's not because it's the right thing to do.

I said it can mean the same thing. Asking why something is morally right or wrong can be the same as asking why we should be moral at all. Why should I respect people's autonomy? Why should I not hurt people? Why should I help those in need? etc. My point was that asking why we should be moral only makes sense if we ignore that morality has a claim upon us.

Quoting Purple Pond

Then we don't necessarily disagree. For you the whole purpose of morality is to tell us what we ought to do. (not merely because of how society functions.) Doing what's right is acting in accordance to that purpose.

Yeah basically. I'd say morality tells us what we ought to set ourselves to do with the aim of actually succeeding. Other factors may hamper our ability to perform this act that nevertheless preserve our innocence so long as we earnestly tried to accomplish an end. It's not directly our fault that it didn't happen as it should have.

But I'll note that for us personally as individuals, moral responsibility can take on more than we are actually capable of doing. We can feel guilty for not being good enough, remorse for failing to succeed even when the odds were stacked against us. We may not be able to ascribe blame to other people for failing to do the impossible, but we ourselves certainly can and do feel guilty for the same reason.

Quoting Purple Pond

So why is stealing wrong?

Because it is a sin. A crime against the main low of God - Dharma. Every sin causes suffering.

Reply to Purple Pond I take a consequentialist approach to the question. We favor some actions, and call them right, because they contribute to something we all want. Murder is wrong because it deprives the person of life, something we all think is good and desirable. We think stealing is wrong because it deprives a person of resources to survive -- something we all think is good and desirable. We oppose wrong actions and support right actions because getting less wrong actions and more right actions produces a society which functions well, something we all think is good and desirable.

Unless we don't, of course. Then we may change our tune. If we want to overthrow the society, we may start thinking that murder, theft, and instability are a good thing. This can work for people as long as they are not personally hurt by the consequences of the wrong actions they encourage. Blowing up factories is one thing, blowing up yourself while making bombs is something else.

Unfortunately, it is not always clear how right actions will help and how wrong actions will hurt. People carry out good and bad actions for sometimes quite mistaken reasons.

Reply to Bitter Crank

The consequential approach has problems. Many times our actions can yield several results, which we cannot clearly delimit prior to the action, so how do you act morally if you can't predict the consequence of your action. Also it discounts intent, which is problematic because the consequence of some actions may be benign but whose intent was totally malevolent , or an action with no wrong intent produces a terrible consequence.

Quoting Purple Pond

How can actions be wrong? Surely only statements can be right or wrong?

Classic equivocation. One sense of wrong simply means false or not true, the other means morally objectionable.

Morality comes in part from evolution and from being social creatures who developed empathy as well as logic. I know many people think the evolutionary explanation is mainly utilitarian, and that is partially true--if we were acting immorally all the time, civilization likely could not have developed. But we also are programmed to care about others. If I step on my dog's tail and she yelps and whines, I do not necessarily have a practical reason for trying to make her feel better, I just feel bad about the pain I've caused her.

Quoting Purple Pond

Is morality objective?

I think you can make a case for the objective nature of morality. We all have (roughly) the same biological drives and make-ups--hunger, pain, pleasure, happiness, etc. are things we all have in common (with some "medical mystery" exceptions I suppose). Murder is wrong globally, because we all share and recognize the will to live and the value of living. We may have different definitions of what constitutes murder per se, but generally it's the same idea.

Most differences in morality between cultures are the result of religious nonsense that clouds people's judgments. The job of the ethicist is then to tease apart what specifically is universal and objective, and what is just silliness/human rights infringements.

I think wrongness can only exist when there is a correct way to behave or correct answer.
But there appears to be no purpose or innate laws for humans which we can diverge from. Evolution theory has further undermined the notion of a purpose or teleology other than mindless reproduction.

I think that if you apply a moral schema to life it would judge life to be immoral or amoral.

I think the hope is, that there is a purpose for humans and some kind of universal karma, so no bad deed will go unpunished and no good deed will go unrewarded.

Reply to Andrew4Handel so we can ignore good and bad in themselves and trust that god will solve it?

What if my house is blown up and me and my friends have no shelter with the winter coming and I build a quick house for us to survive. Thou someone somewhere sometime if they saw the house might say it is built "wrong" thou I'd prefer "poorly", if we survive I should think the house was rather well built.

I feel like this question could gain from distinction between morals and ethics.

Reply to Seastar

I would say that some kind of deity or law giver is the only entity of capable of resolving moral disputes.

For example is abortion wrong? Is meat eating wrong? There are persistent disagreements.

I don't think we can manufacture a good reality.

Reply to Andrew4Handel oh god.

I'm horrified by your lack responsibility.

Quoting Seastar

Thou someone somewhere sometime if they saw the house might say it is built "wrong" thou I'd prefer "poorly", if we survive I should think the house was rather well built.

You can do anything the right way dependent on what your goal. If you are a serial killer and want to kill as many people as possible then it would be best for you to by a gun and learn strategies for evading the police

If you have a specific goal there is probably a maximum way of achieving your goal. I don't think nature cares what goals you try to achieve.

Reply to Andrew4Handel I don't think so. The word should at least be "good" instead of "right". Regardless the goal

Reply to Seastar Where are you inserting the word "good"?

That seems to be an unwarranted value judgement.

Reply to Andrew4Handel because "right" takes part into correctness so it does have a rotation point. Good doesn't I don't think you should use either but if you insist on your point the "good" would make it a bit less obscure

Reply to Seastar

I am saying there is a a best or right way to do something if you have a specific goal. Like there is a correct way to bake a cake. I don't tee how there can be a right or good way to behave without the equivalent of a recipe book for human behaviour.

I don't know if I am behaving the way I ought or if there is an "ought" to follow

Reply to Andrew4Handel so if you want to kill a man there could be some correct ways and so called good ways but there is no right way.

There also are right ways to behave leaning on ethics and then good ways to behave leaning on morals.

If you think any way is the best it merely means it's the best you could come up with. You don't know the extent of what could be which is why even right quickly becomes "best for now". Good is a more flexible term ...and then less useful as that.

Reply to Seastar I think moral language is goal directed.

I think without any innate purpose for life then the moral language is useless.

If you have a specific goal or preference than you can make a personal judgement about a situation.

”We live in a highly complex, technological world – and it's not entirely obvious what's right and what's wrong in any given situation, unless you can parse the situation, deconstruct it. People just don't have the insight to be able to do that very effectively.”

-Christopher Langan

To me, it always appeared resoundingly clear that there is no inherent right or wrong. I only see that people and animals alike are lead by their desires, and nothing more.

It seems problematic to me to have a morality that can be overturned by action.

Does action decide what is acceptable? If action is not evidence of acceptability then it seems morality must transcend action.

This way I think we can make value judgements beyond what is the case to ideal principles , I suppose.